In “simple” FPS I agree (e.g quake style shooters etc). But in BF where there is tanks and planes and a hundred modes I like the incentive it gives me to vary my playing with unlocks for “fly a plane for an hour” etc. After a hundred hours or so you have most stuff and there isn’t much progression for many hundred hours after that.

I agree it shouldn’t be useless grind, it should be rewards for varying it up. Such as just trying something, or getting 5 kills with a gun. When you go out of your comfort zone, you are initially shit (naturally), so without the lure of an unlock “if I can just not suck for enough time to shoot down 3 planes” you stick with where you would have just gone back to the comfort zone otherwise.

Not something you need hundreds of hours of repetitive play to do. So perhaps “grind” is the wrong term for this type of progression. Getting to the end if the progression might be a grind if you want to do it deliberately. But I enjoyed the progressions of BF3 and 4 and I probably would have had less fun without it. I did the first 1000h because the first 100h had those rewards that compensated for me sucking as a player.

I don't know, I just get sick of the feeling that every game needs progression systems. Constant popups telling me I've accomplished something and here's your reward make me feel like all my accomplishments are meaningless and just exist to beef up an arbitrary number on a server somewhere. I really like FPSes, but I don't remember the last time I had fun playing a new one because the skinnerbox mentality takes so much away from the design.

I don't mind modern mechanics that don't have to do with telling me how great I am. Ironsights are great and even going back to Left 4 Dead 2 from 2009 felt like going decades backwards in design. Cover systems range from okay to really good. (Red Orchestra 2 being my favorite on that front) Regenerating health is... okay well I don't like regenerating health much because it encourages corridor based level design rather than the classic exploration you'd get from Doom or Jedi Knight 2 or whatever.

And I'm especially upset that the single "element" pulled in when a game has "RPG elements" is the leveling system. That's not what makes an RPG an RPG, that's just the system that best fits tabletop games.

I miss when I could hop into a game, and apart from skill, everyone is on the same level.