I’ll be honest: I think matchmaking is just a better experience for how I like to play FPS games. I never got a sense of “community” from sticking with a given server; I would come to find something like it via Discord years later but not just from frequenting a given game server. My server browser experience was mostly that I’d join a game in a progress, as other people come and go from a game in progress, and I wondered what the point of the match was if the teams weren’t even the same at the end of the match as when they began. Most people’s default when running a server was to turn player numbers to max and, in Battlefield’s case, “tickets” needed to win as well, but just because the numbers are bigger doesn’t mean that it’s better pacing for a match, for instance. Matchmaking sets the defaults and ensures a pretty consistent experience from start to finish of each match.
This comment from the developer is true, too.
“Matchmaking servers spin up in seconds (get filled with players), and spin down after the game is over,” Sirland wrote in a thread on X last week. "That couple of seconds when servers lose a lot of players mid-game is the only time you can join, which makes it a tricky combination (and full of queuing to join issues).
My preference for the matchmaking experience is reflected across the audience they cater to, and it contributed to an industry focus on matchmaking and the end of server browsers.
But we still need real server browsers.
If we bought a game, we should be able to do what we want with it, including running those max player/max ticket servers that run 24/7 on one map. We should be able to do it without DICE/EA’s permission, on our own if we so choose, without salaried staff running master server operations, because one day the revenue this game brings in will not justify the costs to keep it going. We should be able to deal with cheaters by vote kicking them from the server rather than installing increasingly invasive mandatory anti cheat solutions that don’t even fully solve the problem anyway, because it’s unsolvable.
A server browser similar to Arma would have been a godsend as it allows people to set up unique rules, experiment with different game modes and play around the map itself. While BF isn’t a milsim sandbox game a server browser is what keeps older BF games alive especially on console and the removal of that does make you wonder if we’ll be playing BF6 a decade down the line.
The amount of time I’ve spent playing online games has fallen off a cliff after forced matchmaking, particularly SBMM. They’ve legitimately ruined my enjoyment of games.
I got into Overwatch for a bit, but the SBMM meant that at lower levels it was basically a coin flip if I would get a team that wanted to play as a team, or a bunch of kill whores who only cared about their K/D ratio. I don’t want to have to drop hundreds of hours int mastering the game just to have actual teamwork.
Vote with your wallet and don’t buy this. Many years ago we’ve got dedicated servers and free map builders. Nowadays we get matchmaking and 3 maps and additional 3 for 20 bucks.
I played the BETA, its good, I’m buying.
I loved the servers that were 24/7 metro, no drags etc. some of those were (and still are) my favorite. Or pistols only, no Glock 18. When you get rid of custom servers you get rid of that custom experience.
One doesn’t need to replace the other.:)
The big problem with matchmaking is that in the long run, it kills game. When people start to move on to a new thing, the population that stays because they’re attached to the game gets fucked over by matchmaking.
The less people they are, the worse it works. That’s when a server browser and the ability to run community server becomes crucial. It will keep a game alive for a decade after its last update.
STOP BUYING GARBAGE THEN
It would be nice if we had both options. Let people matchmake for the default experience and let those that prefer custom servers to use those instead. There are problems with using only community hosted servers, such as game rules and less ideal admins.
That being said, the longevity that community servers offer is likely the reason they have been scrapped by EA. They want everyone to move to the next title that comes out like what people do with CoD.
EDIT: Typos from mobile
