Technically 102 but I don’t know if the 2 times I quit Stalingrad high BR count here or not.
You could follow the diary here.
I am aware 100 games is far from record breaking but 100 looks like a good number 
So, here are the good, the bad, and the impact grenades of the New Enlisted.
I. The good.
1. Playing against real players on every map.
Having separate queues for 12 factions on 3 regional servers was never a viable option, even giants of the gaming scene can’t afford that.
It was obvious and I was one of those who were saying that even when we just had Moscow, Normandy and Berlin.
Most campaigns pre-merge were one sided swings going from one extreme (Soviet start in Berlin) to the other (latest German domination).
The Merge mostly fixed that problem.
Matches feel more alive now and if still often imbalanced, at least not shooting ranges against bots.
2. Playing low BR is viable and fun again.
One of my fondest memories of Enlisted was its first months of OBT where people were using Mosins and K98s, MP-40 was a weapon to br feared and BT-7 could dominate a capture point.
Then, as the progression system was designed in a way that you always unlock something better, there was no reason to use the old stuff.
Even my first ever MTX in games, BA-11 and Pz 38t purchased during the first ever sale, became obsolete pretty fast with T-28, T-50, etc.
Now, after a couple of years of basically being forced to play the best gear I have unlocked in every campaign to not be cannon fodder, it feels awesome to go back to basics, use full bolt action rifles, primitive 20-round smgs and clumsy but cute early war tanks.
3. Progression has become better (in a way).
Before the merge there were items locked behind hours, days or weeks of unenjoyable gameplay, such as IS-2 tanks in Berlin.
But now you can enjoy low BR bolt actions while working towards unlocking IS-2.
There were also items located so far up the tree behind dozens of levels of stuff you don’t want like mortars or planes.
And now some if those items are located more conveniently in the research tree and I was able to get them instantly, like the German motorcycle, without struggling through useless levels and pain of Tunisia axis.
4. Variety of maps and enemies.
I, for one, feel really happy to be able to take my low BR Soviet lineup to both Snowy USSR (ex Moscow) and Stalingrad randomly.
Or German BR3 being able to play literally anywhere from Eastern Front to North Africa and Western Front.
In fact, my preferred way of playing has become BR2 for all factions and “Join any team” for full randomness.
(BR3 would be even a bigger map pool but no thanks, I can not tolerate all the inaccuracies and time travelling equipment)
5. Flexibility to add new content that doesn’t need to be better than everything before.
One of the major problems for me in the campaign system was the constant push for new levels, new weapons and vehicles, and all of them needed to be better and desirable to gain an advantage over those who didn’t do the grind yet.
It was that very unfortunate mentality that brought us flimsy WW1 Fedorov Avtomat in the form of proto-AK and it had to be countered by blatantly time travelling MKB-42. It was the reason why STG-44 just had to have an equivalent on the Soviet side and we got the never-used-in-WW3 AS-44 for everyone.
Now we can see the addition of proper iconic low/mid BR content like we saw with Lagg, Trucks and APCs already. Really nice.
Maps like Ardennes also don’t require a whole new campaign with unlocking MP-40 for the 10th time.
And now we have the potential to clash different factions together like USSR and Japan on BR1-2 to recreate Khalkhin Gol battles of 1939, for example.
7. Incremental improvement to historical accuracy/immersion
Thanks to the Merge, while playing low BR we actually got rid of some obnoxious offenders: now we can play Snowy USSR (ex Moscow) and Stalingrad maps without Fedorov and MKB spam, and Normandy without FG, STG and Tiger.
II. The bad.
Unfortunately, every day is not Sunday.
The Merge has brought quite a few negatives.
1. Damage to historical accuracy/immersion
Without a doubt, the biggest drawback of the Merge for me is the damage done to the WW2 side of Enlisted.
Despite what some hotheads might claim, Enlisted was conceived as a history based WW2 game, not without some flaws and inaccuracies, sure, but PPD-34 was in Moscow, MP-3008 was in Berlin, and T-34-85 was in Berlin and nowhere else.
Now, with the Merge we have encountered some obvious issues that definitely need to be addressed:
a) Stalingrad and BR4-5.
I can’t imagine whose idea it was, or why would a battle from late 42 - early 43 qualify as late war, but for some random reason we have Tiger 2s and STGs in Stalingrad, city painstakingly recreated house bu house, poster by poster, toy by toy.
This definitely needs to be fixed. Right now high BR Stalingrad match is an insta quit for me.
Hopefully with the addition of another BR 3-5 map for the USSR, Stalingrad can be left alone to BR 1-3.
b) Lack of links between vehicles and maps.
Water based Seagull plane in North African desert, British Crusader tank in the jungle of the Pacific, amphibious LVT crawling over Tunisian sand, etc. - this is what we have in the new Enlisted.
This definitely needs to be addressed.
c) Equipment balance based on performance without historical timeline.
While I i understand and agree that any online game needs to be balanced to be fun, one can not help but notice glaring problems we have in the New Enlisted such as Volkssturm weapons being relatively weak and appearing in early war maps, Pz IV J being the latest version but appearing in early war as well, vehicles like Puma and weapons like Panzerfaust time travelling to Stalingrad.
d) Berlin is now ruined.
One of the most iconic battles in history, a map again painstakingly recreated building by building, does not see any PPS or MP-40 or unique Volkssturm weapons designed exactly for that campaign, since it’s high BR now, all it sees is the fake fest of AS, RD, MT, AF, none of which was ever used either in Berlin or by the most part - never in WW2.
Berlin can also host BR3 currently but then the vehicles like vehicles like KV-1 or T-34-76 look way out of place there, as they mostly stopped being used around 1943.
I miss the classic old Berlin.
e) Not exactly the Merge’s fault but paratroopers in Berlin and Stalingrad just feel stupid.
f) USA and Britain mixed together as well as Germany and Italy without the chance to even take a full Italian lineup to Tunisia or a full American lineup to the Pacific.
2. Out of place cosmetics.
a) Vehicles only have one camo for all maps.
This one boggles my mind as it sounds like a very expected and simple thing to implement: Stug needs to be automatically white-washed in Snowy USSR, dark yellow in Tunisia and speckled-brown in Normandy/Berlin.
Same applies to planes, trucks, APCs and motorcycles.
b) Premium squads wear inappropriate clothing in wrong theaters.
Moroccan squad gets warm clothes for Ardennes, but keeps their robes for Normandy and Pacific.
SAS squad similarly keeps wearing shorts in Normandy.
Volkssturm squad keeps its civilian clothes on every map.
Why not just give them all standard military uniforms by default for “non-native” theaters?
What’s peculiar - premium squads seem to have worked like that in one of the tests, but then it was reverted?!
c) Tanks are still “bare”.
Not really a Merge related issue, but it’s bizarre that after 3-4 years in development tanks still don’t have any insignia/numbers/stars or crosses.
3. BRs and matchmaking.
a) BR brackets need to be revised.
Playing BR1 vs BR3 is neither fun, nor fair.
Having a full bolt action lineup and facing paratroopers, flamethrowers and impact grenades, especially when you can’t have any of that right now, e.g. as the Japanese, is not a pleasant experience.
BRs need to be ± 1.
And the matchmaker should afford longer queue times for better BR and team balance.
b) Normandy and Ardennes should not be hosting BR 1-2 matches.
That was the way they were launched, and it made sense.
Early war A13 or Crusader tanks vs Pz III C or Pz 38t really look weird in 1944-45 after Normandy invasion.
c) Stacks need to be matched with stacks as much as possible.
Simple as that. It’s not fun to be playing solo again a coordinated sweat stack.
d) BR1 needs some special love and incentive to play.
Obviously, every player will be BR1 for a while, but then for seasoned players there’s next to no incentive to play BR1 specifically.
You don’t get the Trucks, you don’t get MGs, you don’t get paratroopers (unless you unlocked the Soviet squad).
BR1 should play against other BR1 players as much as qs possible.
Or it needs to add increased XP gain to incentivize people to come back there.
e) Speaking of XP insentives, where is the promised “Join Any Team” booster?
If I sacrifice my privilege to select my faction, what am I getting in return?
There are several options:
- sizable XP boost;
- free allocation of XP earned to any other faction;
- hard lock BR matchmaking without being uptiered/downtiered.
4. Economy.
I am lucky to be a “veteran” player, having played since 2021, even though I missed out on the pre-merge preparation tricks to have multiple millions of silver, I am more or less comfortably sitting at 1 million.
However, the newly added requirement to not only research but also buy all the items preceding the one you’re trying to unlock, as well as now paid perk resets for soldiers and seemingly increased prices of weapon and vehicle upgrades, the economy looks very difficult for new players and inconvenient in terms of buying out the whole research tree evem for veterans.
III. The suggestions.
Here are my suggestions for the next updates before Steam launch which I believe are more than feasible and would greatly improve the experience.
- Revise the BR brackets to ±1 even at the cost of queueing times. Preferably separate prototypes like AS and RPD into BR6 which doesn’t mix with anything else.
- Remove BR4-5 from Stalingrad.
- Introduce historical “soft rule” that would e.g. take lineups with LVT and Seagull more often to the Pacific and lineups with Crusader and Hurricane Trop to Tunisia.
- Consider a way of removing late war weapons and vehicles (Pz IV J, Puma, MP-3008, VG 1-5, Kriegsmodell, etc. from early war battles.
- Introduce Join Any Team bonuses.
- Introduce adaptive camo and basic insignia for vehicles.
- Introduce standard military uniforms for premium squads out of their “native” theater.
- Limit Normandy and Ardennes back to BR3-5.
- Consider adding the French faction with BRs 1-2 only and Battle of France maps.
- Limit the Japanese faction at BR4.
- Remove the requirement to purchase all the preceding items to unlock something in the research tree, especially when one before and one after are already unlocked.
- Add new universal maps without exact battle dates e.g. for USSR, Germany and USA high BR (random German town);
- Fix soldiers customization and appearance. Instead of buying customization items per campaign, introduce a system like Germany Summer Early War, Germany Summer Late War, etc.
- Introduce “warehouse” mechanic where all your weapons, grenades, mines, etc. are stored and are only linked to soldiers.
- Slow down with adding prototype/failed weapons. Especially in main progression tree. Berlin is currently completely fake with 2 AS, Fedorov, RPD, Beltfed DP, AT – put that all to BR 6 fantasy land.
Give the players a possibility to play good old immersive Berlin with PPSh-41 vs STG-44 maximum. - Consider adding Operation Bagration maps as Stalingrad replacement for BR3-5 and Khalkhin Gol for BR1-2 Soviet and Japanese clashes.
Here is a proposed maps and factions spreadsheet:
Description:
a. Potential Khalkhin Gol can not have any KV-1 or T-34-76 so the absolute maximum BR it should see shall be BR2.
b. Stalingrad needs to be capped at BR3 (and preferably without time travelling Puma, Pz IV J and Panzerfaust).
c. Berlin should not see any KV-1 or T-34-76.
d. Normandy and Ardennes (Bulge) should start again from BR3.
e. Japan does not need any more fake prototype content to be dragged into BR5.
f. Potential France faction does not need to be any stronger than BR2, as it should never see mid/late-war long barrel 75mm Pz IV tanks (if Char B1 must be BR3, then don’t add Char B1).
Cheers and good luck with Steam launch!
