Conquest Small is finally back! Over the past week, we have been hard at work bringing it back to life, and we want to give a special shoutout to andy6170 for laying the groundwork and providing help to make this happen. Our first map, Siege of Cairo, is now available to everyone.
Below, we will cover various topics designed to show what we have done, explain our thought process, and kick-start the conversation ahead of Test Cup #1 (12v12 Conquest) this Sunday.
The topics covered are:
- Conquest Small (Past & Present)
- Team Switcher
- Maps & Vehicle Balance
- Siege of Cairo
- Weapons & Gadgets
- Surprise?
- Portal Codes & Links
- Known Issues
Conquest Small is a historical competitive game mode that showcases the unique competitive play that can be achieved in Battlefield games. The incredible synergy between infantry and vehicles isn’t seen in other competitive FPS games at this pace. Over the years, different communities have played it with various team sizes. In Battlefield 3, PC players played it 8v8 while console players played it 12v12. In Battlefield 4, PC players played it 8v8, Xbox players played it 12v12, and PlayStation players played it 16v16. It’s always been a competitive staple with similar formats coming back in Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V.
For Battlefield 6, our focus will be on 8v8 and 12v12. We believe that for a game like Battlefield 6, 12v12s will allow the mode to shine and make the vehicle-to-infantry balance easier to achieve, providing a great competitive Battlefield experience. However, we want to make sure teams have the opportunity to play both formats and pick the one they prefer, especially as different parts of the community will have different expectations based on their respective competitive experiences.
The key parts in all of this are the players and teams. As we build these modes, player feedback will be key to making the right design and balance decisions. Whether we are talking about weapon/gadget restrictions, vehicle balance, flag selection, spawns, respawn timers, ticket counts, and more, this is something for us to build and perfect together.
A key feature required for competitive matches to work is the ability to switch teams so that you can be placed on the correct one. In every home base, you will find our beautiful PC station that will allow you to switch teams. Simply head to the point and press interact to switch teams.
A small issue currently affects the scoring UI when using the team switcher. Please see “Known Issues” at the end of the article for more.
Battlefield 6 currently has eight maps we can work with in Portal for Conquest, divided into three size categories: small, medium, and large. We believe that we should aim for a good mix of vehicle-heavy, vehicle-light, and infantry-only maps so that every team can showcase its strengths.
Below is a sample idea to get the conversation going about what that balance could look like for 12v12s. Obviously, for 8v8s, it would have to be different, and the layout for the bigger maps may need to change. Remember that two new maps, Blackwell Fields and Eastwood, will arrive with Season 1 over the coming month. Please note that the list below doesn’t include transport Light Ground Transports (VECTOR & Glider 96), as we currently aim to have two as the default on every vehicle map.
Here’s a quick guide to abbreviations: Main Battle Tank (MBT), Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), Light Ground Transport (LGT), Mobile Anti-Air (MBAA), Attack Helicopter (ATK Heli), Transport Heli (THeli), Attack Jet (ATK Jet), Fighter Jet (FTR Jet).
Small:
- Empire State
- Infantry Only
Medium:
- Siege of Cairo
- 1 IFV
- Iberian Offensive
- 1 IFV
- Liberation Peak
- 1 ATK Jet – 1 ATK Heli – 1 MBT
- Manhattan Bridge
- 1 MBT or 1 MBT – 1 IFV
- New Sobek City
- 1 MBT
Large:
- Operation Firestorm
- 1 ATK Jet – 1 FTR Jet – 1 ATK Heli – 2 MBTs
- Mirak Valley
- 1 ATK Jet – 1 FTR Jet – 1 ATK Heli – 1 MBT – 1 IFV
As you can see, in our sample idea above, we have removed the Helicopters from both Manhattan Bridge and New Sobek City. We feel the extreme verticality ruins the maps and would make competitive play unpleasant. Most may not know, but on Manhattan Bridge, you can get on top of most buildings and shoot down from them onto flags or even place spawn beacons there.
We have already started working on the Manhattan Bridge map. We are currently using the Conquest ACE flags, and the combat area has been narrowed down so that B and D are out of bounds, creating a three-lane city map.
For Test Cup #1, we will have Siege of Cairo, Manhattan Bridge, and hopefully Operation Firestorm. Operation Firestorm will have the classic Conquest ABC flags like in Battlefield 3 Conquest Small. We will let you all know if we can create one more before then.
Don’t forget to join the conversation on our Discord so that we can build this all together!
The philosophy here is simple: let’s create three flag maps (some might need to be more), use the exact flag placements, and capture areas as regular Conquest when possible. We want to make the transition from pubs to competitive Conquest Small as seamless as possible for new players, while allowing players to learn certain flags and rotations while enjoying regular matchmaking. That will be possible on most maps, and we may have to change things around on a few.
For Siege of Cairo, we have used the ACE flags from Conquest to build Conquest Small. These are the same flags you already know, so there isn’t much to say; however, please suggest flag layouts for all the other maps to see what ideas everyone has.
We did go with 1 IFV per team on this map, giving it a bit of a Grand Bazaar vibe from Battlefield 3, but if most teams think it should be 1 MBT instead, it’s always an easy change to make. Below you will find some more details, including the map overview.
Mode Settings Overview:
- Flags: 3
- A: A Flag from Conquest
- B: C Flag from Conquest
- C: E Flag from Conquest
- Tickets: 400
- In BF3, the mode mostly used 250 tickets for 12v12; in BF4, it had 252 tickets for 8v8 and 300 tickets for 16v16. We want to start with 400 tickets and then adjust them up/down as needed based on player feedback. The ideal spot will likely be between 250 and 300, but we’ll wait for player feedback before making changes.
- Round Timer: 20 minutes
- In BF3, 12v12s had no time limit; in BF4, 8v8s had a 30-minute timer and 16v16s had a 21-minute timer. We want to streamline this so that a single map with two sides played doesn’t last more than 40 minutes. The idea is to avoid a Best of 3 (Bo3) lasting more than 2 hours.
- Home Spawns: 4 per team (random spawn order)
- Flag Spawns: 5 per team on each flag (random spawn order)
- Each team has five unique spawns.
- Capture Timer: 20s
- Neutralization Timer: 20s
- Max Capture Multiplier: x2
Map Overview:
Weapon-wise, we have only banned DMRs and Shotguns for now. We want to hear more from teams about weapons in general. Attachment-wise, things like the portable sun, aka the Flashlight, should be banned, but Portal doesn’t currently give us that option (like we could in BF2042) without custom logic for it. Even items like thermal scopes need to be looked at, but those are a bit harder to spot through kill-cams, while the portable sun should be an easy rule to integrate and verify. If there are other attachments that you feel need to be looked at, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Gadget-wise, the list is relatively long, as we believe that many items are unbalanced for 8v8 and 12v12 play, ruining the flow of the game. However, the current list is just an example of some things we believe should be banned (some things are still missing), but it’s just to get the conversation going again. In an ideal world, the fewer items we ban, the better and more accessible it becomes to new players, and we believe that this is the philosophy we should aim to have when creating these rulesets.
Having said that, there are many gadgets we’d like to see gone. Things like TUGs, MTN-55s (Throwable motion sensors), Claymores, Recon Drone (XFGM-60), or even the MBT-LAW are items that we believe shouldn’t be used in competitive play, or even the Maxguard 900 (shield). However, we do know that opinions may differ, and maybe some players also want to be able to use the Tarantula ALX (Assault Ladders) even if they can give you access to areas that you shouldn’t have access to.
For Test Cup #1, we will be “unbanning” a few items that are banned in the current Portal experience, so that you can test them out yourselves and provide feedback. The first version of the Conquest Small ruleset will be published over the coming days.
Yes, you read that right, Squad Conquest is back! While the development of Squad Rush remains active, we couldn’t bear to see the 4v4 community without a proper game mode to practice and play pick-up games.
So we figured we would bring back a community favorite mode, especially for Battlefield V fans, and also give the Battlefield 4 Domination superfans something similar to play. Our first map, Siege of Cairo, is available now! If there is continued interest, we will start working on more maps for the community to play.
To bring this to life, we had to create new flags and custom spawns and add some new items to balance them. Below are two examples from our new A flag: the blocks on the left and the bus on the right. These give defenders extra cover while giving attackers clear lines of sight if approached at the right angle(s).
Weapon-wise, like for 12v12s, the current experience only bans DMRs and Shotguns, leaving plenty of room to test other weapons and provide specific feedback. Gadget-wise, it’s a lot more restrictive, but your feedback will be instrumental in crafting the first draft of the ruleset. The ruleset page will be published later this week.
We look forward to perfecting these ideas with player testing and feedback.
Mode Settings Overview:
- Flags: 3
- A: Bus Stop – New Flag
- B: Courtyard – New Flag
- C: Trucks – E Flag from Conquest
- Tickets: 200
- In BFV, the mode had 160 tickets, while in BF4, Domination went to 150. We want to start with 200 tickets, and then adjust up/down as needed based on player feedback.
- Round Timer: 20 minutes
- In BFV, you had a 25-minute timer; in BF4, Domination had a 25-minute timer on console but no timer on PC. We want to streamline this so that a single map with two sides played doesn’t last more than 40 minutes. The idea is to avoid a Best of 3 (Bo3) lasting more than 2 hours.
- Home Spawns: 4 per team (random spawn order)
- Flag Spawns: 4 per team on each flag (random spawn order)
- Each team has four unique spawns, similar to most BFV Squad Conquest maps.
- Capture Timer: 20s
- Neutralization Timer: 20s
- Max Capture Multiplier: x2
- Friendly Fire: ON
- Vehicles: OFF
Map Overview:
Below are the portal experience codes and links for both Conquest Small and Squad Conquest. Over the coming weeks, we will also publish codes without any restrictions so that players can use them for public servers or to test different weapons and gadgets. Once the testing process is over, if established event organizers are interested in specific changes to our rulesets for one of their events, they can reach out to us directly through Discord.
- EsportBF Squad Conquest 4v4 Comp Variant – yp4sp
- EsportBF Conquest Small 12v12 Comp Variant – y3e5d
Below is a list of known issues that are being worked on and that you will likely encounter while playing:
- Conquest Scoring UI (Top Center) doesn’t always update correctly when switching teams. This happens mainly if the server is hosted locally.
- When using the Team Switcher to move from Team 1 to Team 2 (or vice versa), the scoring UI may continue showing your previous team’s score in blue instead of updating to reflect your new team.
- UI is sometimes bugged if players join the round while the match is already started.
- This will be fixed over the coming days and before Test Cup #1.
- The out-of-bounds (OOB) error message does not always show correctly when entering the enemy spawn.
- Sometimes, the warning message doesn’t appear when entering the enemy spawn; however, you still die after 10 seconds. This is only a visual glitch.
- The Glider 96, the NATO Light Ground Transport Vehicle, hasn’t been spawning correctly on Siege of Cairo. Thanks to a kind PAX donation, it has temporarily been replaced with the VECTOR.
- This means that both the PAX and NATO sides will be using the VECTOR to transport their troops.