Back after a year away and played for 3 weeks

I once had someone shoot my Valk with a Godsaw secondary mode. I could tell because it has that distinctive impact sound.

He was so convinced that it was effective, he kept doing it. Maybe he had a ground only launcher lock-on. Maybe he was out of rockets. Who knows.

He plinked away at me for a good 30 second and barely got past the 5% mark. He was hiding behind a little half-wall, where he'd been shooting at vehicles for a good 15 minutes. He was just randomly in the middle of nowhere. I let him keep going because I'd never been hit with the Godsaw secondary before, and wanted to see what it was like. My gunner was running the wyvern and we were camping vehicles, but finally, the noise became annoying, so I told my engineer to hop in the back and keep constant repairs going (For what I was about to do).

I disappeared behind a hill, checked my SR, and sure enough, there he was still. I got a good angle, flew in low, arced above the half-wall at the last second, and got a headshot.

Haven't been shot with the godsaw secondary since then. This was maybe 3 weeks ago.

Call of Duty is an arena game.

Battlefield is NOT. And yes they had maps that were more FPS deathmatch and ones that had battles with vehicles and infantry units working together extremely well.

I don't understand, why would someone would leave the game because suddenly their are organized LARGE SCALE matches? When they're optional?

Again i didn't say turn it into an arena game. My intentions are to improve the appeal of the game, not to change its direction.

The OP has stated, that nothing has changed in this game and it's true. Go to a 60% vs 40% population area. The 60% will win 99.9% of the time. Why would i play such a predictable game?

So you instead go to a battle where YOU are the 60%.... well... prepare for a boring *** steam roll.
Yes you are giving tons of options for battle.... you'd think this game has something for everyone. Wrong.

Players want to feel like their presence on the battlefield matters. That's IMPOSSIBLE in a 96 vs 96 vs 96 match. It's chaos, and only chaos 99.9% of the time, with the end result being predictable 99.9% of the time.

What kind of games are especially popular right now? Small team-based games that are easy to get into, with a decent amount of depth, without a steep learning curve. Planetside 2 is anti-that. You want your game to survive? I do too!

Then go get more people for that fight.
You aren't restricted to that area, nor to weapons, nor to what you can bring to it.

A lot has changed. He just can't accept it.
And you, you simply want a small match between players using the open-world's terrain.

And ah yes. Go look at Titan fall.
Small Team based game, no learning curve really.
Planetside you can semi-dictate the number of allies or enemies, it ain't gonna be a fixed number.
That's the beauty of it; Players are the cause of the numbers on either side.

Per your definition of appeal.

Play Online PvP for a while. Depending on personality type, one may discover that balance is boring.