Yeah, throw my hat in the "it's not that buggy" ring for Battlefield 1. Unquestionably there are bugs, and they're annoying, at worst very frustrating in their disruption of moment-to-moment play (netcode, bipod, etc). But I dunno...I can personally see past these issues for underlining game formula that still works and is a ton of fun. Which is where Battlefield V sits for me; flaws, warts, and all, I fucking love it when it comes together and adore the direction DICE took with the series. I don't buy into the unforgivably buggy, half-finished, broken game narrative that some push, though I also don't want to detract from that perspective. If ya feel that way, so be it.
Battlefield 4 was a game I also adored but undoubtedly shipped in a worst state, in my opinion. Unlike Battlefield V half the maps were literally unplayable. As in, had broken audio (total silence) or would straight up crash. Not like...buggy, unstable, or in need of refinement. Broken. Factually broken. That is, to me, a far worst state to launch in.
Battlefield 3 is continually cited as a series high. And hey, I can see why. I think DICE did a lot of good with that game. But the peer-to-peer networking backbone will always sour my memory of that game. For all the shit we give modern Battlefield, including V, for their netcode bullshit and the time it takes to iron stuff out, from memory Battlefield 3 stayed that way forever. It worked in the same way Battlefield V works, only worse, as the die-while-around-corner issue was prevalent for its entire lifespan. That's the price you pay when you make a game of this scale and flush dedicated servers down the drain.
Meanwhile Battlefront 1 was a really good, if content lite game that launched fine but was a bit mangled post-launch via imbalanced season pass item updates. Battlefront 2 is an ass of a game in my opinion due to the mess of microtransactions and the distancing from Battlefront 1's game systems (it's boring as hell now), but it works and has a lot of content as-is. And DICE has at least offered a decent bulk of post launch content.
Battlefield 1 was probably their strongest, most polished launch. But even so that had issues too. There was seriously like a 2 months patch only mid last year where all Australian servers were perpetually fucked and aggressively ping spiking and crashing and EA never really clarified why or addressed it quick enough.
For me the issue isn't DICE persay, but how long EA give them to cook up a project. Battlefield games are nothing to scoff at. Their ambitious in scope, probably very difficult to balance and easy to break. There are a huge quantity of game systems running all at once. Battlefield V is this just as many others, and had a pretty damn quick turn around time.
Put the game in the oven for another 12 months and we'd have seen something a bit different, I'm sure.
