Why did they nerf the servers' player capacity?

[theNoobCountry2]

so i noticed that the official servers (and some player made servers) had their player capacity reduced from 10 to 8, and now the servers just feel empty. i am unaware of the cause of this, if anyone can explain why i would appreciate.

[WiserTixx]

Please see this forum post

August 2025 Official Server Changes

As of 25th August we have introduced some changes towards the official servers that we provide. These changes include some features which we expect will be welcomed warmly such as AFK kicking. We opted for this over vote kick to prevent groups dominating servers preventing solo players from being able to join official servers that could be deemed to be under control of a group of friends. We have also introduced some new modded maps created by @Spealer . Some of us met with him at TooManyGames…

[rds_gamercreeper]

Late reply but maybe it was to give players with lower-spec computers the ability to play beammp official servers without getting very bad lag.

[trebor8820]

In short, it was to give EA players the ability to join full servers (as an added perk since they’re paying money for EA) but without causing the servers to become unplayable when the perk was utilized.