It's not a matter of believing you or not. I already know BF1 likes cores/threads. I upgraded from a 2500K to a 2600K and got much improved performance.
You say you have tested it on your own, what exactly have you tested? Have you run your 1600 next to a 8400 test bench to come to your conclusions? If not, then your claims about Ryzen IPC parity with CFL is just hot air, and quite frankly laughable as numerous reviews will point out that clearly isn't the case.
Just to be clear, I'm not disputing that the 1600 with its thread advantage will beat a 8400 in heavily threaded software. Not every application can take full advantage of 12 threads though, just keep that in mind.
About IPC like i said ryzen 1C/2T = 1C/2T kaby/coffee/skylake
https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/cinebench-r15-740x371.png
I am not lying.
You are right, that it doesn't matter if we talk about which one is best for OP. Just don't go with i3 8100, Z370 and 16Gb of DDR4.