Open letter about RSP to Mr. Battlefield – Lars Gustavsson

Dear Mr. Gustavsson,
I’m writing this concerned about the future of the Battlefield series. I’m part of a true Battlefield fan community and am one of those players who has been playing Battlefield for decades. I felt the urge to speak up after reading about the latest communication regarding the Rental Server Program (RSP) in Battlefield V (BFV).

Battlefield V has been a controversial game. In public there has been discussion about the sales figures and how the sales didn’t meet the expectations. That has led into speculation of the motivation and dedication EA and/or DICE have to further develop the game that has been a financial disappointment.

I fully understand how business operates and the importance of profit in any business. If the profit margin on Battlefield V sales has been lower than expected it doesn’t necessarily mean that Battlefield V is a bad game. When a game releases, buyers have little experience about the game itself. Buying decision is based on community reactions and past experiences. I dare to claim, that the disappointing sales figures of BFV are impacted by decisions made on Battlefield 1 (BF1).

As I understand, BF1 was a big financial success. It was the successor for the highly appreciated Battlefield 4 (BF4). I think the success of BF1 was based on the success of BF4. DICE made some bold moves on BF1 and changed many core gameplay mechanics. It’s good to try something new and try to push the game franchise forward, but with big changes there is a risk of big failures.

Unfortunately, many of the new mechanics were not well received by the players. I played BF1 from the early release to the BFV release, but I watched many of my friends to drop out of the game. During the life span of BF1 most of my BF4 era friends quit playing BF1 altogether. Luckily, I made some new friends, so I could continue to play the game in a team, like I feel the game is intended to be played.

When BFV was announced many faithful Battlefield players hesitated buying the game. BF1 had been a disappointment, and there was a lot uncertainty about the new Battlefield V.

We have lately learned from Dan Mitriones’ reddit post that DICE is evaluating whether it will bring the Rental Server Program to the game at all. It is good that the topic is finally brought to the gaming community’s attention, but I think the approach Dan and DICE are taking is somewhat wrong.

I’m running a competitive Battlefield community. We play competitive Battlefield tournaments in the Battlefield Community League (BCL). BCL has over 7,000 registered accounts. We are competing in different game modes on different platforms and continents. I understand these players are just a fraction of the whole buying audience, but these are the players who keep on playing after the initial hype is over. They don’t just play the game, they are the ones posting videos, discussing in social media, streaming, and keeping the hype and visibility on your game for years.

It’s difficult to calculate exact ROI for the investment of developing the RSP platform, since the rental fees of the servers alone probably don’t cover the cost. But I would ask you to look at the bigger picture.

RSP has been in Battlefield for a very long time – it’s part of the Battlefield culture. While playing in a squad of friends on public servers is fun, I would say any Battlefield game reaches its true potential when teams play against each other in a clan war. We are constantly getting new players into competitive Battlefield, and most of them are thrilled at how intense and exciting competitive gaming can be. In many cases the enthusiasm is back on the game that was already almost forgotten.

If the Rental Server Program is not coming to Battlefield V it will be the final blow to the competitive scene. Even though Battlefield games haven’t ever had proper support for competitive gaming, the community has built it into the games through rented servers. If RSP is killed for BFV it will terminate the competitive scene totally.

If the competitive community dies it will not only turn thousands of players away from Battlefield V, but it would most likely have an impact on the next Battlefield sales figures. I’ve played Battlefield games for a long time, and it’s painful for me to watch my favorite game go down due to hasty decisions. I’m not saying that Battlefield will live or die depending on RSP, but the decisions made on Battlefield 1 started this downhill trend of Battlefield, and the decisions made now on Battlefield V will set the direction for the future of the whole franchise.

Jamppu_fi
Battlefield Community League

BCL NEWS W44/18

Hello my fellow Battlefielders! Long time has passed since the last update. What can I say – life happened!

We are all waiting for the next iteration of Battlefield and it’s just around the corner. On 20th Nov it should be finally available after a delay. What will we get and what is missing?

We know that the Battle Royale game mode is not in the launch, it will come later on. Unfortunately we already know that the Rental Server Program (RSP) is not in the launch either. There is no ETA for RSP, but we can only hope it’s coming rather sooner than later. The competitive gaming is more or less dependant on the RSP.

When the next Battlefield releases in November I’m sure everyone will want to grind the maps, weapons etc. but at some point everyone will be eager to do some scrims. Will there be a workaround for missing features like RSP and Platoons or will we continue competing on BF1 until BFV is ready…

Leagues

Even thou one might say that the Battlefield 1 is at the end of it’s life cycle we are still competing on it. One league just ended while another one just started. What will be the last league on BF1 remains to be seen. It will of course also depend on the schedule of competitive features in Battlefield V

T5 DOM PS4 EU Season 5

It just might have been the last BF1 DOM season in BCL. We had a handful of teams still attending and we had a good run. It was only on one division, but we managed to get 4 groups fighting for the championships. It all boiled down to knockouts where two teams managed to fight their way to the final.

Two old rivalries ApeX and RuN met again in the final. I casted the final partially, but an unfortunate event of power surge ended the stream prematurely. I tried to get is back up, but several parts of my setup were screwed and I didn’t manage to get it back up and running. Here are the first two rounds I managed to cast.

Results

# Map RuN ApeX Diff
1 Amiens 46 100 54
2 Amiens 58 100 42
3 Suez 51 100 49
4 Suez 57 100 43
SUM 212 400 188

Sorry for spoiling the result, but the outcome was a clear victory to ApeX. So the Season 5 champion in ApeX e-Sports

PC Incursions Season 1

Incursions arrived with high expectations for it to be THE competitive game mode. It newer managed to get out of an alpha/demo version and it still has only 3 maps. Many teams played it for a while but in the end running those three maps with three game modes became to repetitive and many teams dropped out of the whole Incursions scene.

BCL newer managed to have an Incursions league and that needed to be fixed. We are running the very first Incursions league. It’s on PC platform and it’s kinda mini league with only four teams participating.

Two matches have already been played and it seems like Incursions is still alive to certain degree. At least the matches have been exciting. Battle Epic casted the latest match from yesterday, where Legion Gaming faced TEAMdelta.

The future of BCL

It’s been a quiet period on competitive Battlefield and many solid teams have retired from BF1. BCL is still very much alive and kicking. Us in BCL are also eager to get the comp scene going on the new Battlefield V and we will come back stronger than ever for the new Battlefield.

We have a whole new BCL 2.0 in development and hopefully we will see all the new stuff by the first BFV leagues. I’m sure many teams will come back to Battlefield  after the BFV launch and we will have all the leagues, divisions, game modes, continents and platforms active again in no time. While waiting try out some awesome games. I’ve seen lot’s of my Battlefield friends playing Fifa, RDR2 and some have tried other FPS games like R6S or even CoD BO4!

Keep those fingers busy, we will be on BFV in no time.

Get ready for the FINAL Battlefield 1 competition before BFV!

With Battlefield V just over 5 weeks away, Battlefield Community League looks to supply a FINAL STAND -type of competition for the EU PC platform.

Some questions you may have:

Why run a league this late in to the game?

Even though Battlefield V is just around the corner, facts are that there will be no RSP program at launch, meaning no competitive play for a while longer. Therefore we look to give teams an opportunity to compete once more, before it’s time to bite in to BFV competitive.

Why Incursions?

Battlefield 1 Incursions has a private match system that does not require any team to pay for a game server. As well as already being an experience with a fixed ruleset, meaning no need for BCL to design a custom one.

How much time do we need to commit to this?

The format of this league will be:

  • Group stage (best of 2) & grand final (best of 3)
  • 1 group of all teams
  • You play each team once, in a 1 match/week format
  • The top 2 teams will play a grand final to decide the champion of the FINAL BATTLE, the last Battlefield 1 competition before Battlefield V
  • The goal is to finish the league before the official launch of Battlefield V (November 20th)

Can matches be rescheduled?

Yes! The match dates/times will be fixed, but you can together with your opponent decide a new match date. Please keep the matches within a 7-day reschedule-period though.

What are the dates?

Registration opens: October 10th

Registration closes: October 19th

League start: October 22nd

League ends: ~November 20th

Will any matches be streamed?

Yes! We will try to stream the matches we can on this channel:

https://www.twitch.tv/battleepic_live

How can we sign up? (Team leaders)

  1. Make sure your players have an account on https://battlefieldcommunityleague.com/
  2. Make sure you add your players to your clan, or have them apply to it
  3. Head over to https://www.battlefieldcommunityleague.co.uk/tournaments/pc and make sure you are signed in
  4. Here you should see the “INCURSIONS FINAL BATTLE”-league, lick on “Join League”
  5. Join the BCL discord server (https://discordapp.com/invite/c2V46Fh)
  6. Done! An admin will accept your clan ASAP.

I don’t have a team or enough players for my team, can I still play?

Yes! Head over to the #recruitment channel in the BCL Discord server and post in there (https://discordapp.com/invite/c2V46Fh)

We are looking forward to seeing you on the Battlefield! Best of luck to all teams.

Who will win the FINAL BATTLE?

How to play Incursions

The new exiting competitive game mode Incursions is finally out on all platforms as a “FIRST LOOK” preview. It’s intense 5v5 war in three different game modes. BCL will soon start League on Incursions too, but while waiting you should familiarise yourself to the details of this new kind of war.

Get the game

First step to get into the game, you would need to download the game. It’s not part of the Battlefield 1 and it’s not available on store by default, you would need to activate Incursions in the game menu to get the DL.

  1. Start up your Battlefield 1 base game
  2. Go to the “More” tab on the main menu Select “Battlefield 1 Incursions” Follow the on-screen instructions
  3. “Battlefield 1 Incursions” will become available in your games collection Download and install the separate game client for “Battlefield 1 Incursions” via the PlayStation Store/Xbox Marketplace
  4. Launch “Battlefield 1 Incursions” from your console’s home screen

It’s not plug’n’play

If you are a lone wolf playing the game is quite easy, just pick your game mode and start to rock and roll. But we here in BCL are used to play competitive, with our team – that’s when it gets tricky.

In incursions there is this idea that PSN party joins the game in it’s entirety, but for some unknown reason Dice allows only party of 3 to apply for a game. If you have more than 3 in party you cant join any of the public games.

Public games

If you want to join a public game (ranked or casual) just make sure there aren’t more than 3 in your party, when you are trying to join. All members of your party must be in the Incursions game and when the leader of the party selects the match making you will all join the same game.

I don’t know what Dice was thinking when they made this limitation of max. 3 in a party. It must be some kind of random protection to avoid competition teams totally own random teams. I can only hope this is different when the final game releases.

Private Matches

This is what we want. In Incursions anyone can set up a private game. You need 10 players to kick off a private game. One of the players is the game organiser (GO). This is how it’s done

  1. GO selects the private match option in the main menu
  2. You can select some parameters here – like server continent and game mode.
  3. Make sure all participants are out of any party on the console (joining seems to fail more often if any of the players are in a party)
  4. GO needs to have all players (own and enemy) in he’s friend list to be able to invite all players to the game
  5. When players accept the invite they became visible in the game. It’s GO’s responsibility to put players in corresponding teams
  6. When all 10 players are set to teams GO must select start game
  7. If everything went well, all the players joins the game and you start picking up your kits. At this point you can use either the games own VOIP or join a party for better quality communication channel.

If any of the players fails to join the private match on phase 5. the server will disconnect and you would need to start all over.

Stranger Kits

The kits one can use in any of the Incursions game modes are quite limited. They are often mixtures of the main game classes and you can select only from a few choices. Most of the kits have some variation in the load out, but just some. Usually it’s two weapons to choose from.

In a match of incursions there can be only one Squad leader, one vehicle operator and one of the each available kit. Here is the outline of available kits

Squad Leader

Name Primary Secondary Gadgets Grenade
Raid Leader Ribeyrolles 1918 Factory
12g Automatic Extended
Mle 1903
Bull Dog Revolver
Medical Crate
Spawn Beacon
Impact Grenade
Smoke Grenade
Control Leader Autoloading 8 .35 Factory
SMLE MKIII Marksman
Gasser M1870
Mle 1903
Flare Gun, Spot
Crossbow Launcher, SMK
Incendiary Grenade
Light Anti-Tank Grenade

Vehicle Operator

Name Primary Secondary Gadgets Grenade
Battle Mechanic M1911 Extended
C96 Carbine
Howdah Pistol
Mle 1903
Bandage Pouch
Repair Tool
Smoke Grenade
Light Anti-Tank Grenade
DemolitionDriver C96 Carbine
Pieper M1893
Bull Dog Revolver
Mle 1903
Ammo Crate
Dynamite
Frag Grenade
Smoke Grenade

Soldier

Name Primary Secondary Gadgets Grenade
Mortar Support MG15 n.A. Suppressive
Madsen MG Storm
Repetierpistole M1912
No. 3 Revolver
Ammo Pouch
Mortar — HE
Mini Grenade
Light Anti-Tank Grenade
AT Assault MP 18 Experimental
M1907 SL Sweeper
BTaschenpistole M1914
Mars Automatic
Anti-Tank Grenade
Limpet Charge
Frag Grenade
Smoke Grenade
Shock Assault BAR M1918 Trench
12g Automatic Backbored
Bull Dog Revolver
Mle 1903
Crossbow Launcher — HE
Anti-Tank Mine
Stick Grenade
Incendiary Grenade
Trench Surgeon Autoloading 8 .25 Extended
Mondragón Storm
P08
C93
Bandage Pouch
Medical Syringe
Smoke Grenade
Light Anti-Tank Grenade
Proximity Recon MP 18 Trench
Russian 1895 Trench
Frommer Stop
Bodeo 1889
Helmet Decoy
Anti-Tank Mine
Impact Grenade
Light Anti-Tank Grenade
Combat Sniper Gewehr M.95 Marksman
Russian 1895 Sniper
Gasser M1870
Mars Automatic
K Bullets
Mortar — AIR
Mini Grenade
Impact Grenade

T5 New Seasons are Starting

While we are getting new champions from the Season 3 we are starting the next season. The registration is now open for

  • T5 Season 4 PS4 EU
  • T5 Season 3 PS4 US
  • T5 Season 3 PC EU
  • T5 Season 1 XB1 EU

You can find the registration from the main menu of the BCL website on the top menu under the ”Leagues” and selecting your platform. To apply to a league you must be logged in to the site.

After registration to a league I would also suggest you to post a name of your representative for the Domination Council to the #registration channel on the BCL Discord. Use the following format:
[TEAM TAG] #dom-council representative @discordnick

Each attending team is entitled to 1 position on the council. The council makes all the important decisions regarding the season setup and rules. It’s important to have a good coverage of the teams to participate on these decision – after all this is a community league 😉

On the next seasons we are still setting the teams in Divisions, where applicable. The promotions and demotions from previous season applies. New teams divisions are decided on case by case basis. We might require a new team to scrim a match or two against teams of our choice  to help us decide the correct division.

Divisions in next season

We have had the first season with Divisions in BCL and the first Divisional semifinals are ongoing in T5. So what happens with divisions in the future.

Promotions and demotions

We have decided to fine tune the divisions and how teams are moving from division to division between the seasons. Both promotions and demotions are decided by following guidelines

  • In divisions below the 1st: The two finalist teams both are promoted to upper division
  • In divisions above the last: Last team from the group will be demoted to previous division

This means that if there are several groups there will be several teams moving between divisions.

T5 Domination on Season 4 EU PS4

In the current season 3 of T5 the promotions in D2 & D3 will be for the teams fighting in the finals.

Promotions

  • Div 2 -> Div 1
    • ::YaHooLiGaN’s! [Ya]
    • Team Hazard [HzD]
  • Div 3 -> Div 2
    • Dutchies [DtcH]
    • Killerclowns [KC]

Demotions

  • Div 1 -> Div 2
    • Psycho- Intelligen [Psi]
    • Band of Brothers [101]
  • Div 2 -> Div 3
    • Starsi Panowie [SPOL]
    • Clan Perros Viejos [CPV]

Team Presentation: [Red] OctapuzZ – Retrospective View

Hello community. This article starts hopefully a long series of league team presentations. If you want your team presented in this space – please contact Jamppu_Fi on Discord.

First up is BCL Season 2 T5 winner OctapuzZ Gaming. The team has recently quit BF1, but I’m sure we will see the team again in the future releases of Battlefield. 

Enjoy,
Jamppu_Fi


OctapuzZ Gaming was created in March 2017. Although we are very young, 8Pz is one of the most capable Battlefield 1 clans on the PS4 at least for the domination 5vs5 game mode. It is all about teamplay, good players, organisation and a good atmosphere.

Phew, when I wrote this About Us for our website back in the glory days of the most casual but all loved competitive Battlefield 1, we just took our first steps into the great international, often cringe and trash, league & tournament world of the game. This post is for all great people we meet on our path in the course of time and for all who want to know more about how OctapuzZ, a team of competitive newbies, with an even more newbie like background, became one of the most capable teams out there in Battlefield One.

How It Started

One of the reasons why many, mostly German, players couldn’t understand why we became such a strong team, was, that me and most of the very first OctapuzZ players, came from an absolutely fun clan called Deaddevils. I started there as a showcase public hero and with time I managed to find interest in taking on responsibility for the team itself and planing future steps. I even wrote software solutions to keep track of players activity on our training games, connected to the crappy webpages calendar.

We were bad, however I was able to enforce an “e-Sports” team of our best players and started to get into early business, even though the focus was still on fun. To keep things short, I decided to create my very own team weeks later and with a lot of help from my team mates and later friends like Seven or Deluxe, we managed to transfer the best players from the old “e-sports” team to OctapuzZ Gaming. This is the point, were many people are still stuck at, concerning information about the composition of our roaster.

On our first website, you can still find some very prehistoric DDe matches (click image).

 

The First Successes

The new goal of OctapuzZ was to be able to play at the top and to have a chance to get defeat less badly by top tier teams. We still had one roaster with about nine players. However, to become the best you have to take into account the following rules and make hard decisions, such as excluding buddies from the team or rejecting friends:

  1. Removing bad players from roasters, when new more skilled players arrives
  2. Give new players a time of four weeks, in order to prove oneself, before adding them to the roaster
  3. Taking reliability seriously and remove unsuitable players, even if they are skilled
  4. Try to play with the same five to six players over and over again
  5. Take care of concentration and calm during matches
  6. Create tactics with your team for every map, even if it sounds ridiculous, in the end it creates easy handable standard situations
  7. Play against the bests (not from the beginning)

Getting back at 1., I already wrote about excluding and rejecting buddies and friends. For us, one of the first mates to remove from OctapuzZ was Seven, who helped me a lot with the old team which later resulting in a second team. However, it was also a joint decision, since he had less time to play and couldn’t hold or even rise his skill level. Also Korte, later captain of our second team, was rejected by me, although we played hours of Battlefield together over years and was, and thankfully still is, a good real life friend over seven years now.

Over the time, we managed to get a lot of very unknown new players, which was a result of still being very unschooled concerning the Battlefield scene and didn’t have any connections to the old so called legends out there. And even if we had, we still weren’t worth the talk, to be attractive for well known high-skilled players, but this wouldn’t last forever. Getting back to the above list, we got players like clockHQShakhthar, Red over the time and the kernel of OctapuzZ Team Red was born. A good point about the unawareness of the existing legends was, that we weren’t busy measuring ourselves with them, but just putting the full focus on our improving gameplay and finally, out of nowhere, we were capable of playing with the best out there and winning our first tournament ever, the NGT Fast Cup.

We are proud to announce our first victory in an international cup!
The CUP was organized by NextGenTournaments a well known organizer for competitive cups on PS4 and PC. One interesting thing about the cup was the so called looser bracket in addition to the main bracket…

read more: NGT Fast Cup.

After loosing 5:1 in rounds against GnatiX, now eMp, in the German Bundesliga easter cup, we managed to beat them two days in a row in a double final in NGT. Wow, what just happend? We jumped into spotlight and firstly got confronted with a mix of love from a new fanbase and also a lots of derision and trash from a lot of people, except from GantiX, also they weren’t obviously quite pleased with the result.

Overall High-point And Loss Of Interest

Look, its OctapuzZ, the randies out of nowhere, where everyone is cheating and now they think, they are the best in a randy game

– almost every good old player, we beat 🤷.

Now being on everybody’s lips, things changed a bit. We got confronted a lot with hate and trash, mostly by bored kids and some, which got just misinformed by players we didn’t took after their testing phase or to whom we turned our backs on. But we also found many friends like the Hooligan or Rage team (Hi Scream, Hi xSolistic) and players like Bonnie, [Zdiv]IJ, Danielsan or germanance are just some of our supporters in social media and friends. I won’t list anymore, since I will forget some for sure, safe call.

Later in summer 2017 we were able to beat Gnatix again, this time in revenge for the easter cup, and managed to get the title as“German Masters” in the German Bundesliga Summer League. At this time Bulletz joined us, the first top tier player from another team, Revelation, and our main roaster reached the final strength. Staying at Revelation, as one of our main competitors in Battlefield, it was them we faced in the BCL EU Domination 5v5 Season II final. The tough fight was even streamed by Battle Epic and we managed to win our third gold in a row. It was a match which anyone would have expected, when both teams are facing each other and is still worth it to re-watch it here: OctapuzZ Gaming :: BCL GRAND FINAL :: vs. Rev

We in person

 

But where the good time lasts long, the bad time sneaks slowly around like a Model-10 bush-camper. The game is old, the new Call of Duty is about to launch with an build-in competitive experience, we beat the strongest known teams more than just once and our Win-Loose account is reaching near a 180:10 Win/Loose ratio. We managed to win some more tournaments and even got our first price money, but without the motivation of finding stronger teams than us and the rarely played scrims against teams, which where willing to play against us, we have lost our ambition to stay at Battlefield. With our second team, team blue, we barely missed top three in the BFNations frontlines clan tournament and the first players finally went inactive for Battlefield, resulting in eMp and Revelation got stronger than us again. We tried to fill the lack of players with PulzR and Iron, both members from our second team and even if both are strong infy players, you can’t expect the team to work with a replaced player like before, when there were month of team-orientated up to 14 scrims and matches per week. Especially not, when you barely find any scrims to practice.

So for now, besides some BFNation related matches, we went official inactive with a total (in December stopped updated) Win/Loose ratio of 200:15 :
OctapuzZ-Gaming.com:  No More Battlefield

What is Left

Literally everything! We are still the same mates and just playing other games now, which is resulting in something big in the next couple of weeks. Just because No-Slidefield is dying and Incursions might not be what we were’re thinking about a competitive experience, it doesn’t mean, we are out of sight! We will be using our gained level of awareness and experience to take the next step of providing a new team-experience for all interested team captains, which will fit to our philosophy from the very first quote of this post, giving them the ability to use our brand to get recognition and our help resulting in the need just to focus on their team and nothing else. Moreover, our still growing YouTube channel has some new videos in its release pipeline, with not only Battlefield or gameplay related stuff.

Stay tuned and take a look at our website from time to time, to get the newest information about whats coming next. Maybe we could call you an OctapuzZ player soon!

New banner, pointing out some future plans

Replacement team update

Teams leaving in the middle of the tournament is annoying and problematic. Leaving team leaves a hole in the match schedule and teams are getting less games to play. Playing is why we all are here in the end – right?

Now replacing a team mid-season is not exactly easy either. What to do with the past non-played fixtures, not to mention the ones already played.

The idea so far has been that the replacement team tries to arrange the matches that were newer played, but it seems like the teams in the league don’t want to let go the free 4 points they got from the game that newer happened. We have to do something about this.

We have decided that from the next season forward the points from a free win against a team that is inactive and leaving the league will change from 4-0 clean sweep to 2-2 draw, both teams earning 2 points. If the dropout team gets replaced, the automatic 2-2 draw matches can be played with the replacement team and both teams have a fighting change to gain full 4 points.

This will hopefully add the motivation to fight against the replacement teams and would even up the league for replacement teams if they can’t get all the fights in queue. A free win from a team who has confirmed a forfeit and is still continuing in the league it’s still 4-0 win for the team receiving the forfeit.

Welcome to BCL News

This is our new communication channel to keep you – community members – up to speed with all happening in BCL. We have a rolling news section (this section) with constant updates of anything going on right now. There are also some static sections for rules and some hints and tips to get started with BCL.You can easily share the info to your team and refer to rulesets linking directly to this news site.

All of you know that this kind of news site is as valuable as the content and update frequency on this space is. As it’s rewarding it’s time consuming to keep on posting on regular bases.  We would welcome any content providers to join our content creation team to fill this space up. Do you have talent on content creation, like  videos and/or written articles regarding the Battlefield franchise? If interested please contact @Jamppu_Fi#4051 on our Discord server.