Battlefield 6's Relaxed Playlist Ignites Heated Discussions Regarding Bots, XP Rewards, and Queue Times

Over the weekend, the game developers introduced a fresh playlist titled Relaxed Breakthrough. In essence, this option resembles the standard Breakthrough setup but features several notable adjustments:

  • Each team has only 8 real players, with the rest filled by 32 bots.
  • Activities done by real players grant full XP, while AI activities offer reduced XP.
  • Only two maps are available: Siege of Cairo and Empire State.
  • Elements like Player tags, accolades, and career stat updates are disabled.

So essentially, the playlist lives up to its title: it's a casual version of Breakthrough. At face value, one could assume there's nothing wrong, as it provides additional choices for gamers seeking different ways to have fun with the game. But, gaming history have taught us anything, it is that you can't please everyone. In other words, a lot of Battlefield 6 fans are upset.

Player Reactions: Anger to Praise

"People want real players. Don't repeat the errors of your rivals," states a response to the mode reveal. "Absolutely shocking idea," comments another. Meanwhile, in community forums, one user remarks, "It's unclear where we are headed with this game," and someone else details everything they believe to be problematic in Battlefield 6: "Resolve glitches, address drone issues, correct rocket mechanics, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, improve hit detection. We don't need this bot mode."

On the other hand, amid the criticism, some gamers explaining how much they're enjoying the recent addition. "It's enjoyable to practice, human participants prevent it from being a complete grind but it's quite laid-back," reads one Reddit comment. "This subreddit doesn't understand that there are players who actually go outside and don't play this game 24/7. Allow them to find a middle ground," adds a different comment. One reply on Twitter explains that as they're "a battledad with limited time, this is great for me," and someone else applauds the mode for "not being overcompetitive."

Constructive Criticisms and Player Input

Despite the support, players have constructive reasons to criticize Casual Breakthrough. Some users have highlighted that it will make wait times even longer for different playlists because of the large amount of options currently available. On a similar note, some areas already encounter mostly bots in the current modes. It also seems somewhat counterintuitive that the mode does not begin without a required amount of real players, despite it primarily centers on combat against bots.

Finally, one of the biggest grievances is that a previous feature was promised to offer full XP, even against bots, but that got canned when they tried to eliminate bot farms from the mode. So this new playlist feels like the player base meeting them halfway, as per forum feedback. A different user describes this mode as the devs "making a mistake so hard, I had so much fun in the initial release, why did they feel the need to change it?"

Future Prospects: Will Changes Be Made?

If the development team has proven anything so far with the latest installment, it is that they're paying attention and responding to feedback. Assignments being too difficult got fixed very quickly, as did the required Redsec challenges. Chances are that, if their data indicates this recent mode is underperforming to their standards, they will not hesitate to change it again.

Deborah Garcia
Deborah Garcia

Lena is a digital marketing strategist with over 10 years of experience in SEO and content marketing, passionate about helping startups scale.