Thoughts on what needs to change going forward

Seeing as this season has seen significant changes to both infantry and vehicle gameplay I wanted to speak on what needs work going forward and I wanted to hear what others think needs work (even if you don't read my wall of text). As you can see from the size of the post. It's a lot.

Disclaimer: This may or may not contain some hot takes. These are also in no particular order.

TLDR:

1. Louder, more precise foosteps from further away please.
2. Nerf 3D spotting into the ground.
3. Further buff player visibility.
4. Increase headshot damage and slightly nerf jump shooting.
5. Nerf muzzle velocity more and nerf 35 dmg guns.
6. Buff non-revolver pistols.
7. Sniper flinch please.
8. Rework mortars.
9. Give more rooftop access from the ground on maps like Sobek.
10. Reduce the amount of deep corners and 50/50 angles in some areas of several maps.
11. Buff Assault Class.
12. Nerf MBT health. Nerf vehicle health regen. Buff Stingers and Iglas. Buff bad angle rear shot damage and buff size of good side angle cone.
13. STOP DESPAWNING MY BULLETS.

Footsteps

jfc footsteps. There's a lot that needs work here. The audible range just needs to be larger. The directionality needs to be better. I still can't tell the difference, if there is any, between someone indoors/outdoors or above me/same elevation. Friendly sprinting is weirdly louder than enemy sprinting, significantly so. Walking was audible in quiet moments in previous battlefields but seems to be completely absent in bf6. Deafening effects need to be more clear about when they are affecting players and when they leave while also possibly needing to wear off more rapidly when applied.

3D Spotting

Needs to be nerfed. 3D spotting from shooting either needs to be completely removed or massively reduced. Right now the average range for it is 53m. I think 25m is the absolutely upper limit and even that may be too far. This is keeping us from using any barrel attachments other than supressors and flash hiders. Imagine what build diversity would unlock if we could actually use different barrels. The duration is also insane. In bf4 the duration was 7s, right now its 15s from pings and 12s from snipers just looking at you.

Suggested fix: Reduce shoot spotting range to 23m. Reduce 3d spotting duration to 7s from pings and 5s from sniper passive spotting.

Player Visibility

The added filter is helping a lot but there are still a few cases where player visibility is a problem.

1. Really, really dark areas with complex terrain blending them in. Hagental Base is the biggest culprit of this.
2. Player skins matching the map. I get that that's literally the point of camouflage but battlefield is far too fast paced and arcadey to make this a good idea. I think you'd need to have these camo's have more contrast either brighter or darker than the environment to help them stand out a bit more or have the shading of their camo changed to be slightly different from similar maps. I don't recall having such visibility issues with bf3 or 4.
3. Prone players in random corners or among dead bodies. Maybe have dead bodies lose the visibility filter and maybe further darken them relative to living players? Maybe have prone players be a little higher off the ground or have the animation have them lean a bit more upwards or have their knees higher in the air? Idk. This is a delicate problem to fix so I don't expect this to get solved anytime soon.
4. Dust kickup. My god sooo much dust gets kicked up from nearby shots it's absurd. It's too large in volume, lasts too long, and is too thick. People should not be getting fully obscured enough to reposition without being seen just because someone had the gall to sneeze near the enemy. It's also inconsistent with what is obscured. I've been shot through this dust fully obscuring the shooter sooo many times.

Jump Shooting

I've never been one to oppose skillful movement but I do think any movement has to be balanced against the viability of holding an angle and I think jump shooting is currently too easy for how hard it is to hit back. I think part of this is simply the current TTK. The main thing you lose when jumping around is precision and the main thing you gain is evasiveness. With headshots mattering as little as they do and the body TTK and limb multipliers being what they are it's far too advantagous compared to holding an angle. Note that I think part of this has been attachments like violet laser improving your jump shooting accuracy pushing it slightly over the edge.

Suggestion: Slightly increase bloom while jumping or sliding to bring the effective range if it down a touch. Improve headshot damage to previous battlefield values. Consider removing the limb multiplier for arms or at least making upper arms deal chest damage. Consider further increasing the body TTK by another shot.

For refence: bf4 was 2-3 headshots or 4-5 body shots with a 2.13x headshot multiplyer and 0.93x limb multipler that only applied to stumach and leg shots. Bf6 currently has a 1.4x headshot multipler requiring 3-4 headshots and a 0.84x limb multipler applying to everything except chests.

Gun Balance

Muzzle velocity still needs to come down a bit more. It's close to where it should be. I personally like having higher muzzle velocity than previous battlefields but I think we've still swung too far in the opposite direction.

High rof 35 dmg guns are still dominant and have been dominant since launch and I'm tired of it, and 20 dmg high precision guns are still struggling due to be attrocious in short range compared to higher dmg guns.

Non-revolver pistols still suck horribly. It's baffling why their TTK is as bad as it is given how short range they are and how steep their damage falloff is. Odd amounts of visual and real recoil as well. Why do some 35 dmg rifles have less recoil than 9mm pistols? I don't see the danger in giving these guns better TTKs within their effective range especially since the m44 already does that and didn't break the game.

Sniper flinch. PLEASE GOD LET ME FLINCH SNIPERS.

Mortars. You know what the issue is with these. I don't understand why you aren't just making them like previous battlefield mortars which I don't recall ever being an issue.

Suggestion: Add flinch from headshots to snipers and dmr's. Increase headshot dmg to previous battlefield values. Reduce visual recoil for all pistols except the m44 and consider increasing TTK on some of them as well. reduce rof of 35 dmg guns to get the TTK closer to other weapons. Consider increasing recoil on most 35 dmg guns. Consider increasing rof of 20 dmg guns to get their body shot TTK closer to other weapons, though it's possible increased headshot dmg will be all the push these weapons need.

Map Balance

While the community conversation has been on the need for larger maps and with good reason I do think a few of the existing maps still need significant changes. I'm not an expert on map balance and i'm sure DICE has the metrics to find such issues better than I can so i'm gonna just speak on what i perceive as 'anti-fun' issues.

1. Sobek City has too many rooftops that are inaccessible from the ground or don't have enough access points to allow effective pushes or the access points take so long to actually access just to maybe lose the fight at the top anyways that it makes those rooftops miserable to fight against. I don't think it's actually too OP for game balance, maybe the roofs above the B point on Conquest is the exception to that, it just sucks to play against.
2. The multi floor, multi-room corner buildings around some control points on Manhattan Bridge are too large and labyrinthine with too many deep corners, and there's too many houses to clear around A and B on Eastwood Conquest. Again, probably not OP tbh but it's miserable clearing those spaces and dealing with competent rat players in these areas.
3. Snipers in the tops of platforms of the oil pipes or random roofs of the middle rig on Operation Firestorm are too annoying to deal with. Definitely not OP. They're usually ineffective tbh but that just makes it more annoying when you die to it and it sucks getting them off the main pipe platforms. Some of the random rooftops just need to be out of bounds zones so they can land there via parachute but have to move into the actually rig itself if they want to camp or place gadgets. Also why does the button that incinerates the rooftop of the main pipe not incinerate all the platforms or the ladders? Seems like an obvious solution. You could even have it activate from top to bottom so the platform players have time to bail to live. Gets them off the tower without just killing them cuz you pushed a button.
4. Maps need fewer deep corners/pockets across the board. I get the need to have them, and even the need to have more of them compared to previous battlefields but jfc the sheer volume of them is insane to me. Empire State comes to mind as the biggest culprit but it's FAR from exclusive to that map. It makes clearing the more egregious hallways/rooms a huge chore for little/no reward but a big punishment if you don't do it for the corner/pocket that someone is ratting. Again, not OP, just really unfun. I'm not saying 'hur dur deep corners bad', just that it should be toned down in the more cluttered parts of maps especially in the parts that get less player traffic.
5. Cairo Bazaar on breakthrough is not fun. Like I struggle to think of anything good about it. Not enough entries for attackers. Not enough good cover or room for defender to have a layered defense. Not enough lanes for people to spread out through and not create a meatgrinder. Not enough room to maneuver as the IFV. The IFV is either insanely OP or can't push up without instantly dying depending on how many engineers defense have, and these are just all the problems with the first point.
6. Contaminated breakthrough's first point is a bit too defender sided. There just needs to be more space and cover to attack from the right to push snipers off the hill near the C point tunnel.

Assault Class needs a small buff and recon drones need a nerf

Assault class is currently being carried entirely by the spawn beacon. If they didn't have that the class would be unplayable. Recon drone is stupidly strong in some situations.

Suggestions: Halve recon drone duration and limit the number of enemies it can 3D spot at once to 8. Consider reducing its health as well. Change Assault Rifle Proficiency's faster draw times to faster reload speed. Give more primary ammo when running a double weapon loadout. Give Assault smoke grenades. Reduce injector cooldown by a small amount and tone down the visual effects of using an injector (seriously I can't see shit when I pop this thing).

Inf vs Vehicle Balance still a shit show

The devs grossly underestimated how impactful the improved mobility and improved anti-infantry weaponry/splash dmg and improved turret aim speed would be to vehicle survivability resulting in the healing and engineer changes compounding with that to make them nigh unkillable stompers without an amount of engineers that is not common for most games attacking it who happen to be in the area and competent/not be pressured by infantry enough to get shots off without dying. The exception of course being rival vehicles. Vehicle vs Vehicle balance is in a good state imo.

Suggestions:

1. Bad angle rear hits should get +50% dmg just like a good angle side hit. I don't see why a rear hit should ever do front armor damage. This isn't even gonna change the ttk cuz the good angle rear modifier is still 50% higher. It just makes something dumb and annoying not exist.
2. Good angle side hit radius should be a little larger. Not a lot larger. A little. Right now there's definitely some hits that I really think should have given side hit damage but don't and it results in side hits feeling very inconsistent.
3. MBT health should be reduced from 1200 to 1100 and reduce AT4 dmg very, very slightly (this is just to prevent 2 rear hit kills). Javelins and NLAWs would be the same number of hits to kill as now but front/bad angle kills would require 1 less hit from AT4s and RPGs while still requiring a minimum of 5 hits and rear shots still requiring at least 3 hits. I think this strikes a healthier balance and still leaves MBTs significantly stronger than they were pre-season 3.
4. Stingers and Iglas need their lock-on range un-nerfed if they are going to keep the damage and missile speed nerf. It was hard enough getting 1 hit, getting 2 with what was changed just makes the AT4 a better option vs helicopters. When a versatile weapon is better at a specialized job than the weapon specialized for that job, there's a problem. Especially when that versatile weapon isn't even overpowered.
5. Buff SLAM mines and AV mines a bit. Reduce AV mine count back to 6. It's a pain in the ass placing 9 mines anyways.
6. Remove the damage from thermal smokes. Just why? Thermal smoke was never bad, just too infrequent and you buffed the cooldown. It doesn't need anything else and as is there's no reason to run anything else in that slot. Plus you don't actually need to fight infantry hugging you now cuz the s3 mobility buffs means you can just easily drive away. If needed I'd rather you just buff vehicle mobility more instead of this dumbass mechanic.
7. Vehicle out of combat regeneration needs a nerf. Suggested values:

pre-S3: 5%/0%/0%
fully heal time: 6.6s/can't/can't

current: 10%/10%/10%
fully heal time: 3.3s/6.6s/10s

my suggestion: 5%/3%/2%
fully heal time: 6.6s/17.6s/34.6s

This lets vehicles get back in the fight without an engineer without having to drive back to spawn as was the original goal and still gives more regen that they had pre-season 3 but now it would take longer making anti-vehicle damage more impactful, makes engineer repairing more impactful and gives them more time to find the vehicle and repair it, and reduces the amount of healing that can occur between hits creating more pressure (giving your team more breathing room from vehicle attacks without actually killing the vehicle) and improves anti-vehicle rockets without actually changing the number of hits needed for optimal ttk's, and gives attacking engineers more time to resupply rockets, and tempts vehicles to get in fights when they haven't fully healed instead of easily chilling back to 100%, and is still roughly 3x faster than just dying and respawning the vehicle.

Bullets and Grenades despawning

For those who didn't know, if you die before your bullet reaches the enemy within a certain range or shortly after your grenade is thrown, the game will just despawn the projectile to prevent you from trading. This SUCKS and frankly, i'd rather trade non-stop than deal with this. At least that would have partially been my fault with how I took the fights. This just invalidates player's actions and creates miserable experiences and perceived network issues. I don't see how this design choice is defensible, it strikes me as completely insane.

There's lots of other ways to reduce trading without invaliding what players do such as, literally just off the top of my head: increasing headshot damage, adding limb damage like you just did, further reducing limb damage multipliers, adding some amount of flinch, increasing mobility/adding more movement options making targets harder to hit, reducing and diversifying muzzle velocities, increasing recoil, increasing spread, slowing the body TTK, further diversifying TTK's across weapon types and archetypes.

Not that all of these are great ideas that i'd want but they ARE better than just deleting my actions!