The Latest Relaxed Playlist Sparks Heated Discussions Regarding AI Players, XP Rewards, and Wait Times
Recently, Battlefield Studios introduced a fresh game mode called Casual Breakthrough. In essence, this mode mirrors the standard Breakthrough format but features a few notable adjustments:
- Every squad includes only 8 real players, with the remaining filled by 32 bots.
- Actions performed by human gamers grant full XP, while bot actions offer reduced XP.
- Just a pair of maps can be played: Cairo Siege and Empire State map.
- Features like Dogtags, achievements, and career stat updates have been turned off.
So essentially, the playlist lives up to its name: it's a casual take of Breakthrough. At face value, one could assume there's nothing wrong, as it provides more options for players seeking different methods to have fun with the title. However, gaming history has shown one thing, it is that you can't please everyone. Which is to say, a lot of Battlefield 6 fans are upset.
Player Responses: Anger to Support
"People want real players. Don't repeat the mistakes of your rivals," reads a response to the official announcement. "Truly disappointing concept," says a different user. At the same time, in community forums, a player notes, "It's unclear where we are going with this title," while someone else details everything they believe to be broken in the game: "Resolve glitches, fix drone glitch, fix IVF rockets, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, improve hit detection. We don't need this AI-heavy playlist."
On the other hand, amid the criticism, some gamers sharing how much they're liking the new mode. "It's enjoyable to warm up, real players prevent it from being a complete grind but it's quite laid-back," says one Reddit comment. "The community fails to see that there are gamers who have lives and don't play this game all the time. Allow them to find a middle ground," states another. One reply on Twitter explains that as they're "a battledad with limited time, this is perfect for me," and someone else praises the mode for "avoiding intense competition."
Constructive Criticisms and Player Input
Despite the support, there are valid points to criticize the new mode. Some users have highlighted that it will make queue times even longer for other modes due to the sheer number of playlists in the game already. Similarly, some areas often face AI-filled matches in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears somewhat counterintuitive that the mode does not begin without a required amount of human gamers, despite it focuses mostly on combat against bots.
Lastly, a major grievances is that Battlefield Portal was meant to offer complete rewards, including AI matches, but that was removed when they tried to remove XP farming from the mode. Thus this new playlist seems like the community compromising halfway, according to forum feedback. A different user labels this addition as the developers "dropping the ball significantly, I experienced so much fun in the initial release, why did they feel the need to adjust it?"
Future Prospects: Adjustments Occur?
If Battlefield Studios has demonstrated something to date with Battlefield 6, it's that they're listening and acting on feedback. Assignments that were overly hard got fixed very quickly, just like the required Redsec challenges. It is likely that, should analytics shows this new playlist is underperforming to their expectations, they will not hesitate to change it again.