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.
They have a browser where you can run your own games. If you use official rules, you get full xp. I don’t get what people are complaining about.
As per the article, persistence, and a way to bypass DICE.
Speaking for myself, I miss multiplayer games before they had XP and progression.
They are persistent, they stay open as long as someone is in it. No one is kicked after the game.
Bypass dice isn’t a feature but a fantasy, never happening. I don’t really get what it would bring to the table either.
The ability to keep the video game. The ability to play it on a LAN. It’s not a fantasy; it’s history. We used to have this.
That’s more then a server browser. You are just being deceptive. You cherry picked the one quote in the article that makes it look like there is nothing in your post and your comments aren’t honest.
What you are talking about is a whole other debate entirely and simply not how the industry runs anymore when it comes to multiplayer shooters.
I want that stuff too but that’s not what server browser means. The finals and cod don’t have server browsers. Bf6 will have a server browser.
The ideas are bound together. Same with anti cheat. Same with preservation. Removing private servers caused all of these problems at the same time. The author of the article speaks for the group who want the community that I admitted never mattered to me, that Portal doesn’t provide, but other knock-on effects of the death of the server browser do matter to me.
There is a server browser. There are no servers hosted on private machines. I would like fully private servers too but there is still a server browser regardless.
You are conflating two different things.
They have explained what they are complaining about several times now, so get off your pedantic horse and either join the conversation that is happening or fuck off.
It bothers me because 90% of the people in the conversation think there will be only matchmaking and nothing else because of how OP framed it.
You want to talk about how you can’t have your own private server completely disconnected for EA, fine. But that doesn’t mean the game has no browser, jfc.
IMO it’s the opposite, what exists now is less than a server browser. I’d call it a custom games browser instead. Whichever one you pick will be on the official servers.
I agree it isn’t how the industry is now, but it isn’t going to improve if everyone just accepts it.
Yep. This is the correct answer but that’s not what this thread is about; it’s a nostalgic circle jerk mixed with a sprinkling of “back in my day”.
Don’t get me wrong here, I like the suggestions in this thread but literally one of the suggestions being upvoted is how the game is planned to handle servers (quick join is random and then there will be a list of community servers).
I’m fine with the official servers being random join, as long as I can pick and choose a community server. Which to state again, is apparently planned.
I’m still waiting for reviews on release to make sure they hold true to their marketing though. Can’t trust shit from large studios.