Battlefield 6 is here and it's really rather good. PCG's Morgan Park called it "a salve for an FPS scene that takes itself too seriously" in his review-in-progress, with the wider context of where shooters are in 2025 making its back-to-basics approach incredibly refreshing. Hell, it even runs like a dream.
That's not to say the game's entirely without issues, of course, and one persistent grumble since launch has been about Conquest mode, which is arguably the series' 'main' mode and one you'll likely be spending a lot of time in. The problem is time itself: Conquest is a mode designed around each team having a set number of 'reinforcement tickets', which tick down as the match progresses—the first team to run out of tickets loses.
Battlefield 6 added a timer to Conquest, something that wasn't present in previous Battlefield games, and so players have run into a repeated issue where matches are finishing before either team has run out of tickets. You can easily see why this is a problem. The great thing about Conquest is comebacks and how a declining ticket count affects your team: players notice when the number's getting low, play more cautiously, and every kill starts to feel crucial. It is deeply annoying when you have two teams in that situation with low tickets, and then an arbitrary timer suddenly declares a winner.
DICE has now tweaked this but, weirdly enough, hasn't taken aim at the timer. Instead it seems to think the starting ticket count is the issue?
"We've reduced the starting ticket count across all Conquest maps so matches finish at a more natural pace," says DICE in a new update. "Previously, many rounds were hitting the time limit instead of ending when one team ran out of tickets. We'll keep monitoring feedback and data to make sure the flow of each match feels right."
The exact reductions on each map are:
- Siege of Cairo from 1000 to 900
- Empire State from 1000 to 900
- Iberian Offensive from 1000 to 900
- Liberation Peak From 1000 to 800
- Manhattan Bridge From 1000 to 800
- Operation Firestorm From 1000 to 700
- New Sobek City from 1000 to 900
- Mirak Valley from 1000 to 700
I'm not sure this is going to solve any of the issues players have with the Conquest timer in Battlefield 6, though in all fairness the proof will be in the pudding. Player reaction is generally along similar lines:
"Completely missed the mark on this," says Scienad. "This actually makes Conquest worse, not better. The BF community is used to long Conquest matches, and now you’ve cut them down to finish on a random timer. Remove the timer."
"The easier solution would just be to remove the time limits," says MoiDawg. "Close games are incredible and this artificial time limit ruins comebacks. Just let us play Conquest. I'm not joining a Conquest game thinking it'll be over in 20 minutes. Huge L."
One more. "Just delete or extend the time limit," says Klobrille. "What exactly are we doing here? People want long, epic matches when playing Conquest."
Let's not overdo things here. Battlefield 6 is a very good game indeed, Conquest is still amazing fun to play, and DICE may well have hit upon a solution that works. Don't be surprised to see further Conquest-fiddling though, and the question of whether the mode needs a timer at all is going to remain a big one. I find the absolutely mountainous grind more of an issue, but that may just be me.
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