By game mechanics designed to limit good players do you mean TTK changes? Just curious because I felt previous BF TTKs weren't bad
Maybe they wanted a scapegoat for why players are leaving
Yes, there are a couple examples put the two biggest are attrition and the ttk changes. Other things like the dumbing down of vehicles compared to other BFs, the additions of super crutch weapons designed to just beat every other gun in a 1v1 (type2a and model 37) and animations that hamper aggressive play styles were much smaller and less easy to notice if someone had not played for a long period of time.
Attrition is designed to hurt players who won a gunfight in their next gunfight. This overwhelmingly hurt good players who did not play medic. Therefore literally every good solo player would main medic class and squads were required to run atleast 1 and against other good players 2. I’ve lost a ton of gunfights in 5 because I’m stuck at 30 hp because some players in past fights would Slowly lower my hp. (And trust me you can’t rely on random teammates in bf to do anything such as give you health)
The TTK changes were definitely designed to hurt good players. Funnily enough it actually made 1v1 much more favored to the better player than the original ttk. But it made 1vX incredibly difficult because of the time required to kill each person was so high that there was no way in hell you’d be able to kill a squad like before. This promoted huge zergs as the meta so everyone just ran around in a blob since trying to fight separate from the Zerg would just get you killed. Considering that a vast majority of players who play off the Zerg are typically your better players, essentially the main play style on most maps for good players got hard nerfed. Another aspect on gunplay that lowered the skill gap was spread to recoil. Basically the recoil on most guns was completely random. It would kick left right up down and diagonal. So basically you had to hope your gun would work with you and if it decides to kick super hard left for no reason then that’s unlucky you’ll never be able to control it. On some guns it’s so bad it’s basically fucking bloom.
As to why they changed the ttk I’m not certain but I’m pretty sure it was a gamble trying to get more casual players to return or buy the game as both occurred around Christmas time. I’ll also note that the post launch maps in bf5 were pretty fucking awful overall. Al Sundan, panzerstorm and the wake island remake are some of the most horrendous maps ever made in bf history.