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.
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.
Oh, I love skill-based matchmaking. Without it, if you’re having a good time, it means your opponent is almost surely having a bad time, rather than keeping the matches close. At low ranks, often times a single piece of knowledge can escalate your play to a higher level, which can make those low ranks feel kind of swing-y, but I don’t know that that’s a problem that can really be solved unless you remove the asymmetry. That said, I no longer wish to substitute matchmaking for the likes of a server browser.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Arguing against servers because you want match making is like arguing that you hate McDonalds serving Cheeseburgers because you want Chicken nuggets.
They shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, but the companies who want to monetize people perpetually see them as such.
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.
When it comes to video games you will always get outvoted by millions or children who don’t know any better and don’t care.
Oh no, whatever will I do with my time if I can’t play with literal children.
I played the BETA, its good, I’m buying.
Wolf ET mever stopped having a server browser… ;)
Still miss this game
You don’t have to. You can still play it!
I still have it downloaded but its 100% bots every time I try to play.
It’s very simple. If it doesn’t have a Server Browser, has MTX, has Gacha, has Rootkits, is Online Only/No LAN, or is made by any of the AAA studios, I don’t play it.
Server browsers and dedicated servers are subjects that make me want to start with the old man “back in myyy day” style comments.
I saw somebody mention CS, which is a good one, but for me the peak was in Quake 2 because of personal circumstances like getting into overclocking and then moving to a university network connection when modems were the norm at home.
Certain servers running certain mods were awesome late-night hangouts. I have a few really fun memories of all of us coordinating to do goofy stuff rather than play whatever the game at hand was. Then somebody new would join the server and start wrecking us until we caught their attention with the text chat and got them involved too, lol.
I know exactly why they didn’t make dedicated servers and why doing so would be a scramble. But we are going to need them regardless
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.
That’s perfectly acceptable justification to shut down gameservers and profit from people moving to the next version of the game. Gone are the days of private servers, especially with client and serverside mods, that kept people engaged with an older game for years. That’s not profitable.
How would a server browser help in that case?
Matchmaking puts people into a limited number of servers. Yeah, you get the problem of realizing that those folk have been playing Tribes 2 for over twenty years at this point but you also have people to play with on that one 24 player server. Versus twelve servers with 2 players and a bunch of bots (if the game has them) each.
I always would rather both options. But from a game health standpoint… hoppers tend to have clear advantages at most player counts.
I think the general idea is that if I want to spin up a server for my friend group that’s been gaming together for 20 years, we can buy the game and do just that. That’s opposed to the money I spent on the game being useless when they decide they want to stop paying for servers.
They will have community servers with its own browser. The servers will have full xp as long as the rules are close to the official ones.
Matchmaking wont be the only option.
Source?
Still, DICE insists the Portal browser will satisfy. It does have some qualities that simulate a classic server experience, like how you can earn full XP in Portal matches as long as the house rules closely resemble the vanilla ones.
From the article.
The community “servers” aren’t persistent though. They’ll only stay online as long as someone is online and using that instance. If that last person leaves the server shuts down - as far as we know, it still seems a like murky, but without being able to rent servers I can’t imagine them just leaving all of them online for free
So in 2042, if you had the premium battle pass, you could set up one persistent server. It was hosted by them but didn’t disappear without players. I don’t know how it will work for bf6.
I think the most important feature is that we have persistent lobbies that don’t disband after a game like matchmaking. That they “stay online” while nobody uses it is really not the important part imo.
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
unless they changed it, that’s how csgo works.
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.
Didn’t they try something similar in 2042 but on their own servers? edit: portal
Yeah, and it’s coming to 6 as well, now with a map editor.
Bring back community servers, so the developers can keep their official servers and people that want to play on community servers can do that do.
It’s a solved problem that publishers tells you is hard to do in the name of money.
Don’t look harder into it.
That’s exactly what they did. You have official matchmaking, then you have community servers people host. If you use official rules, you can still earn xp in the community servers.
They have a server browser, official matchmaking servers just don’t show up but they only last one game anyways.
Bit it doesn’t even work on linux, basically DOA for me.
supposedly doesn’t work on windows either if you play valorant or maybe other games with similar anticheats competing for the same system area no video game shoud have control over
ah so that post I saw the other day saying “begun the kernel wars have” makes senses. someone posted the fact they couldn’t play BF6 cause Valorant was installed.
yeah. I’ve been wondering when this would happen since spore. Took longer than I expected really.
I always liked going into older BF servers that weren’t so populated just to be able to get a lay of the land without being destroyed in three seconds.
Or to be able to use the vehicles and get used to them without as much threat.
Maybe I just want a mode that lets you free-roam maps…
Sounds like you just like sight-seeing tbh.
I do! I enjoy camera modes in games a lot, too. I like to look at the architecture in games because I think it’s fascinating.
For BF, though, I do think a little playground would be great. Since they have that map builder tool, I may end up just having to make one myself.
Especially for adjusting piloting controls. If you try to do that while playing a normal match you may not ever even get to fly a chopper to see if you made a good change, for example. I played the beta all day on Saturday and didn’t get a chance to fly anything during that time.
Having long played some old CS, there was so much sense of community from connecting to a personal server instance, regularly seeing the same people, familiarize with specific rules to that server, getting to know the admin etc. I’m sure you feel a sense of community from match making, but it can definitely exist outside of matchmaking IMO.
And I’m not advertising for one over the other. But I’d be very happy to see the persistence of accessing personal servers for a game.
I miss community servers terribly.
I want servers so I can avoid playing maps I don’t like… Looking at you Siege of Cairo.
