PresidentSlendy 🇸🇪 · @PresidentSlendy
7th May 2019 from TwitLonger
What "Private Games" COULD mean for competitive Battlefield
Hey there!
I was planning to make this into a video, but I realized I probably won't even reach that many people if I do, so here we are.
I want to especially reach out to the people that plan on organizing any form of competition for Battlefield 5.
First of all, as you all know, we will finally be able to exist, properly. However, we still have to wait for (I guess) EA Play on the 7-9th of June to get a final ETA (https://twitter.com/Braddock512/status/1125806408111251457?s=20)
Second of all, the reason I'm making this post, we have to consider what we can actually do with the tools that we're finally gonna receive.
A lot of people seem to forget that, with the 5v5 mode we're getting, we're also getting an opportunity that we haven't had before, at least not properly. That opportunity, is the ability for ANY Battlefield player that owns the game, to potentially become a competitive player.
We haven't had a competitive mode, in the BASE game, being pushed out to the entire Battlefield community as a CORE mode before, again, at least not properly (thinking of BF4 Defuse & Hardline Rescue).
Therefore, I believe it is important that we consider the amount of new "potential competitive players" that are soon going to find out all about this alien called "competitive Battlefield". I think I can (with confidence) say that surprisingly many players have no idea what competitive Battlefield is and what it truly feels like to experience. They will soon, for the first time, actually get to experience that, and here comes my point: let's make their transition in to competitive play as SMOOTH as possible.
What are the problems then that these players may see with competitive Battlefield?
Well, based on previous track record, I believe that the "this isn't Battlefield"-argument isn't something we as organizers can do something about, since some players will simply not be open-minded towards competitive play.
However, what we can consider, is the fact that players used to complain about competitive Battlefield being very confusing due to certain weapons "not being allowed" or not understanding "why are they not capping F" etc etc.
Basically, I think a lot is related to how much we change the game in order for competitive Battlefield to work. I'm definitely not saying we should stop changing the game and the rules we use for competitive Battlefield to work, but I'm saying we need to have consistency when doing it.
As an example, imagine you recently found out about competitive Battlefield, and you see these different upcoming competitions. You check them out and consider signing up with your mates, but these different organizers all have very different rulesets. That creates a lot of inconsistency in our so called "competitive scene".
Let's just say I'm personally all for a team playing in multiple competitions at once, that's honestly how I as a player would like to do it myself. However, without consistency between the different organizers (competitions), it's gonna become very confusing, ESPECIALLY for new players/teams.
So, I propose that once we make our rulesets and set our guidelines, we try and make sure there is consistency between our competitions. In Battlefield 1, pretty much every organizer had their own rulesets and restrictions. In my opinion, this honestly needs to stop if we actually want to allow for new players to easily transition in to competitive Battlefield.
Battlefield 1 Incursions actually had a "gamemode-based ruleset", which meant all organizers actually had the same set of rules, but what if that is not the case with the 5v5 mode? I mean after all, on the Community Broadcast, it says we'll have various "Core functionalities" to begin with, and these could be different across different competitions: https://gyazo.com/5b0e506a6abb8a1fdead8a62411d0149
Now, of course the 5v5 mode may still come with it's own restrictions, which would be great, but again, we may still have "core functionalities" for these "Private Games" that aren't specifically gamemode-based.
In my "perfect world", the following would happen:
1. EA Play announces the competitive mode + private matches
2. Interest from (at least some of) the Battlefield community is created
3. Organizers announce their competitions
4. New teams are formed and they together with "older" teams sign up for various competitions
5. Competitive Battlefield is actually being played across different regions/on different platforms and for the first time by a BIGGER part of the Battlefield community than before
6. We've proved to EA/DICE that competitive Battlefield is something the community actually wants (just like with "Private Games") and we give them a reason to actually implement competitive Battlefield as a CORE mode in future Battlefield games, from launch
I believe competitive Battlefield will always stay as a niche, a smaller part of the community, unless we can actually "transition" more players from the overall community in to participating (or viewing) competitive Battlefield.
We truly have to make it easy to get in to competitive play, and hence this was my advice on what the organizers can do to help ensure that.
Right now, the competitive players and the non-competitive players are split, and the latter barely even knows the former exists. Now that there is an opportunity to change that, let's actually use that opportunity! There are plenty of more things that of course needs doing, but this TwitLonger is already way too long :D
Thank you for reading and please leave your thoughts on my tweet, I'm happy to discuss!