Battlefield Community Innovates: Fan Suggests Game-Changing Conquest Variety for Future Titles

From Cramped Alleys to Grand Scale: Fan-Suggested Conquest Varieties Poised to Redefine Future Battlefield Titles

The Conquest game mode is the undisputed heart of the Battlefield franchise, the chaotic, large-scale sandbox that defines the series’ identity. However, in recent titles—particularly as evidenced by community discussions surrounding Battlefield 6’s (BF6) urban and infantry-focused maps—a sense of stagnation and constriction has permeated the experience. Veteran players are vocal about the loss of the “Grand Scale” and “All-Out Warfare” feeling that characterized classics like Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. This has spurred a wave of community innovation, where fans are not just complaining, but actively suggesting and even creating their own game-changing Conquest varieties using tools like Battlefield Portal. This drive from the player base is a clear signal to developers, DICE and EA, that the future of Battlefield’s signature mode lies not in a single, default setting, but in a strategic portfolio of Conquest variants that cater to diverse playstyles. This push for player-driven content validation and mode diversification is crucial for enhancing live-service longevity and reclaiming the franchise’s position as the gold standard for large-scale FPS games.

The core of the issue, and the focus of community proposals, is the feeling that modern Conquest maps are “cramped,” favoring infantry chokepoints over the series’ signature vehicle-infantry combined arms combat. The solutions proposed by the community are elegant, often utilizing existing game technology and asset reuse to deliver the variety and scale players crave. These suggestions highlight key trends in strategic game design and the power of the Portal ecosystem as a rapid prototyping tool for future titles.

Keywords Focus: Battlefield Conquest variety fan suggestions, Classic Conquest mode, Battlefield Portal innovation, large-scale FPS games, vehicle-infantry combined arms, live-service longevity, strategic game design, BF4 scale Conquest, community-driven game development.

The #1 Community Demand: “Classic Conquest” (BF4 Scale)

The most popular, recurring, and passionately advocated suggestion is the addition of a dedicated playlist or variant named “Classic Conquest”—a clear rejection of the current map philosophy favoring tight, urban engagement zones.

1. Reintroducing Scale and Map Diversity

The community envisions Classic Conquest as a return to the sprawling, 1-2km playable areas that defined BF3/BF4 maps like Operation Firestorm or Caspian Border. The key design tenets include:

• Increased Flag Count (6-8 Flags): Scaling up the number of capture points encourages squad splitting and demands constant vehicle use for rapid objective capture and defense. This fundamentally prevents the entire player population from converging on two flags in a central “meatgrinder” alley.
• The Breathable Map: As one fan eloquently stated about the fan-made Club House Conquest map in BF6’s Portal, the goal is to “feel like I could breathe in this game.” The playable area must be large enough to allow for tactical flanking maneuvers, long-range engagements, and genuine strategic movement without constantly running into enemies in narrow sightlines.
• Refined Levolution/Dynamic Elements: Classic Conquest should re-incorporate impactful dynamic environmental elements (like BF4’s Levolution) but refined for the modern engine. Examples include collapsing bridges that change vehicle paths or weather shifts (sandstorms, heavy fog) that affect visibility and jet combat, adding an element of adaptive tactics.

2. Secondary Objectives and Team Play Rewards

Beyond flag capture, Classic Conquest needs intermediate objectives to reward teamwork and resource control, adding layers to the simple capture-and-hold loop:

• Control Point Resources: Certain flags could function as Vehicle Spawn Points or control access to dedicated Supply Drops (granting unique gear or one-time tactical buffs). Losing a key flag would thus have a tangible, mechanical impact beyond just ticket bleed.
• Light Commander Role Nod: A simplified version of the Commander mode from BF2 could be implemented, giving a squad leader (or the top-scoring player) limited, high-level tools like UAV Spots or Artillery Requests on a lengthy cooldown. This streamlines the old system while rewarding effective leadership and coordination, a key component of the desired large-scale FPS games experience.

New Varied Conquest Modes: Beyond the Classic

While Classic Conquest focuses on scale, the community has also innovated with rule variations to address the problem of stale pacing and one-sided matches.

1. “Escalation” Mode (The Funnel Conquest)

This mode, which has been featured in some form in recent titles, is lauded by fans for maintaining the Conquest feeling while ensuring a dramatic, action-packed finish. It is often cited as a better-paced alternative to the standard mode.

• The Core Mechanic: Escalation (or a similar fan-made “Funnel Conquest”) starts with all flags active (like standard Conquest). However, as teams capture and hold points, certain, less-contested flags are periodically removed or disabled. This mechanic forces the large, dispersed action to gradually funnel into a small number of central, highly contested points as the match draws to a close.
• Strategic Impact: It transforms the mid-game from a slow “running in a big ring” pattern into a sequence of deliberate strategic choices, where teams must decide whether to hold dispersed flags for early ticket control or position themselves near the predicted final chokepoints. This guarantees a chaotic, high-stakes final fight, addressing the fan complaint that “mid way through conquest the game is already normally decided.”

2. “Infantry Conquest Large” (The Anti-Vehicle Solution)

A specific adaptation popular in Portal servers, Infantry Conquest Large (or “No-Vehicle Conquest”) is designed to satisfy players who want the strategic depth of Conquest but feel overwhelmed by the modern dominance of tanks, jets, and helicopters on large maps.

• The Core Mechanic: Utilizes the full, large-scale maps but completely restricts vehicle spawning.
• Strategic Impact: This drastically changes the flow, forcing players to rely entirely on squad movement, positioning, and teamwork for map traversal and objective capture. It creates a massive, purely infantry-focused arena for squad-based tactical combat, offering a high-skill ceiling alternative to the chaos of combined arms.

The Role of Battlefield Portal in Future Development

The existence of Battlefield Portal has fundamentally changed the relationship between the developer and the community. Portal has evolved from a simple sandbox to a powerful community-driven game development tool.

• Rapid Prototyping and Validation: Fan-made modes like Club House Conquest and Old School BF Conquest (with BF2-style rulesets) are currently serving as live, large-scale A/B tests for DICE. The immediate flock of players to these fan-made variations, despite sometimes slower XP rates, is undeniable proof of concept for the developers.
• Asset Reuse for Map Variety: The community has demonstrated that creating new map variants by reusing and repositioning control points on existing large maps (e.g., BF6’s Exposure map, where flags are moved to the high ground for Conquest 64 variants) can provide fresh gameplay without the immense cost and time required to build entirely new maps. This is an economically viable path to increasing mode diversification and live-service longevity.

Conclusion: The Necessity of Conquest Diversification

The passionate clamor from the Battlefield community for Conquest variety is more than just nostalgia; it is a clear demand for strategic complexity, greater scale, and diverse pacing. The Classic Conquest proposal addresses the loss of the series’ signature combined arms chaos, while modes like Escalation address the pacing issues of modern map design. The true genius lies in the community’s practical solutions, which leverage the Portal ecosystem to validate these ideas cheaply and rapidly.

For future Battlefield titles to succeed, developers must recognize that a single, one-size-fits-all Conquest mode is no longer sufficient. By adopting these fan-suggested variants, DICE can provide a richer, more satisfying portfolio of large-scale FPS experiences, securing the game’s identity and future success by giving the players exactly what they are already playing for in the community-run servers.