Battlefield 6 is only in its second week since launch, but it has already attracted millions of players. On Steam alone, the all-time peak surpassed 650,000 gamers, with nearly 400,000 playing at peak in the past 24 hours.
There has been much debate over the state of the game, but it seems that the majority of players are having a ton of fun while acknowledging that there are certainly some areas that need fixing.
Eager to oblige, developer DICE has already pushed several patches for the game, fixing bugs and making balancing changes along the way.
The latest fix, which seems to have dropped today, is perhaps the most affecting yet — the experience gained through many Portal matches has been seriously nerfed.
If you search through the custom server list, you'll likely notice that many show only a 150% match completion bonus rather than a completely enabled list.
Your win bonus, your match score, and your match accolades no longer count towards your player progression. Other progression metrics, including masteries (used to unlock camos and attachments), daily missions, assignments, and other challenges, are also now off the table when playing in some Portal servers.
DICE made these changes in response to the XP farming servers that quickly took over the Portal menu after the game officially launched. They're so numerous that players hoping to create a "legitimate" server to just play the game normally with friends are having issues receiving access due to the flood of bot farms.
Unfortunately, the Portal server nerf seems to affect more than just the Portal servers hosting bot farms, so even if you're hosting something without any farming mechanics, you might still see a massive stall in progression. It seems like the change is happening gradually, so we might not know the full extent until it's fully in place.
👉 Related: 5 issues I have with Battlefield 6 after Week One
The XP farming servers were, in turn, a response to the design of Battlefield 6's challenges. At launch, it quickly became clear that challenges were a massive grind, requiring feats not easily achieved in a standard game.
Want to unlock that final sniper rifle? Just lie down in an XP farm for a while and click the heads of mindless bots, rather than actually play the game.
DICE buffed its progression system in a recent patch that dropped late last week, noting at the same time its intentions to look at the XP farm issue. The challenge system remains untouched.
Haven't I seen this XP farm fiasco in another Battlefield game?
Battlefield 6's XP farm problem is one that DICE has faced before. Battlefield 2042, in which the Portal system debuted, had essentially the exact same issue at launch.
The solution? Nerf the XP awarded through Portal, effectively making it useless other than for unserious business. History repeats itself.
I'm not sure why DICE thought this time would be different, especially when it had to know that its challenges were arriving in an unbalanced state. This leaves Battlefield 6 with two problems.
First, its challenges remain unbalanced and, often, unappealing. The 30 kills with the adrenaline syringe — the first challenge for the Assault class — made me swear to never use the useless gadget ever again.
Second, players are now without a proper Portal, which DICE touted as the big answer to a lack of server browser in the main part of the game. As a Battlefield veteran, games don't really feel complete without the feature.
Frustration from players shouldn't come as a surprise. On Reddit, some gamers are asking why DICE decided to nerf custom servers rather than address the root of the problem.
Comment from r/Battlefield
Some are questioning why DICE refuses to offer the option to rent dedicated servers and host regular games outside of Portal, while others are already preparing flowers for Portal's funeral.
Comment from r/Battlefield
From a less heated viewpoint, I'm holding out hope that this is a temporary measure by DICE as it puts time into fixing challenge balance, aka the root cause of XP farm abuse.
Battlefield 2042's challenges received a rework after DICE received negative feedback, although its Portal section never really did recover from the damage done at launch.
With almost the exact same scenario playing out with Battlefield 6, DICE certainly has a lot of work ahead if it wants to keep Portal relevant and enticing.
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