Immediately penalizing deserters is not a good idea

Suggestions
1

There are certain matches that even sincere and committed players want to leave.
This is especially true in games where you’re inserted to replace a player who has already left.
In these situations, the enemy team has already secured strong positions, and you’re forced to start from the base spawn point and try to fight back. This puts you at a severe disadvantage, and no player wants to be placed into such an unfair match.

Or imagine a game where your teammates refuse to cooperate and play as a team. You’re left trying to win the match all by yourself. Being forced to play under such circumstances can cause enormous stress for any player.

Avoiding these kinds of situations should not be something that deserves punishment.

The real target of penalties should be players who habitually leave matches just to find the map or game mode they prefer. Most of the issues related to quitting come from this kind of behavior.

However, applying immediate penalties after a single quit—regardless of context—ends up punishing regular, honest players. This effectively forces them to endure unbalanced or toxic matches, which is both tiring and unfair.

To address habitual quitting without placing unnecessary pressure on normal players, I suggest a more measured system:

  • Track a player’s quit rate over a number of recent matches.
  • Apply penalties only when a player’s quit rate exceeds a reasonable threshold.
  • Gradually increase the penalty severity if the quit rate continues to rise over time.

This kind of system targets truly problematic players while protecting regular users from being unfairly punished.
On the other hand, applying a flat 20% penalty for every quit may have little to no effect on players who intentionally abuse the system.

If a player has played sincerely many times and only deserted a few times, it would be better not to impose penalties for that.

Please consider reevaluating the current quit penalty system with these points in mind. Thank you for your attention and continued development.

26 Likes
2

Yes, continuous and systematic abusement of desertion is what’s problematic.

It is not problematic to desert from time to time because of irl reasons or so.

Recently announced penalties are totally laughable, completely irrelevant to veteran players.

Why should anyone who already has completed all tech trees care about -20% to exp/silver income?

(Not to mention veteran players are exactly the ones who tends to desert more, as they know about all benefits systematic desertion can provide.)

So answer is NO.

Instead, they should be restricted from entering next match for period of X minutes. This is the only real penalty that would have the same effect on all players.

8 Likes
3

I agree with this opinion. Simply penalizing players for leaving a game is a rigid and superficial solution. Without allowing players to choose their preferred game modes or maps, or having a proper skill-based matchmaking system, such penalties are meaningless and only reduce the overall enjoyment of the game.

A better approach would be to gradually increase penalties for repeated leavers or to give bonuses to the remaining team when a player leaves. These methods address the root of the issue and offer a more effective way to discourage players from leaving games.

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I agree. Players who continue to put in effort despite the disadvantage caused by others leaving the match deserve some form of compensation, such as a score bonus or additional rewards.

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5

The newly added deserter punishment system is really unsatisfactory.
It doesn’t address the root causes of why players leave matches
(e.x., a system to ban certain maps or game modes, or rewards for the losing team),
and simply adding a punishment system for deserters will only increase the number of people who lose interest in the game.

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This is false argumention. Because similar punishments for desertion are the norm in similar games, the most notable of which is WT.
The overall health of the game outweighs the potential loss of interest in the game among systematic deserters.

The penalties for desertion must be something like this:

First desertion - not punished except for not getting the exp/silver reward for match + WR reduction, since desertion should be considered as personal no-win.

Next desertion within 30 min from the previous desertion should introduce a more severe penalty, e.g. not being allowed to enter the next game as long as match the player has deserted is ongoing.
And possibly introducing some economical penalties (but I think that’s more of PR gimmick than anything truly meaningful)

This is the only proper way how to deal with the systematic abuse of desertion.

7

The deserter penalty system I was referring to is the one introduced in the recent dev update — specifically, the 20% reward reduction for the next two matches after leaving a game.
So I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare my opinion with War Thunder’s deserter policy.

I do agree with the idea of introducing a structured deserter penalty system.
However, I believe there should also be additional benefits or incentives provided to regular players alongside such penalties — that’s why I wrote this message.

I’m not arguing against the implementation of a deserter penalty system itself.
I just don’t agree with the current version introduced in this update.

1 Like
8

I agree. The current penalties for deserters vary greatly depending on the player’s squad unlock progress and weapon research progress, and it seems unlikely that they will have a significant impact on reducing desertions.

Personally, I think that regardless of the penalties for deserters, there should be additional rewards for players who remain in the game after desertions have occurred,

or propose measures that allow players to opt out of game modes or maps that are likely to cause desertion due to factors such as fatigue from the game’s mechanics or the perception that rewards are relatively scarce. This could be an effective way to reduce desertion rates.

2 Likes
9

The best incentive is not to be punished. There’s no real need for further incentives.

Because this is about stopping systematic abusers of desertion - literally exploitation of system by bypassing MM.
It is not about trying to convince regular players to not desert.
Desertion is legitimate thing for when you need to quit for various reasons, mainly in real life ones. Otherwise there wouldn’t be quit button in esc menu.

But it is not normal to desert several times in period of 30 min.

So stop pretending like the game owns something to these systematic deserters.

Because that’s not the case.

They’re only ruining game’s environment in hunt for easy win matches.

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One of the main reasons players choose to leave a match is due to unbalanced maps or game modes.
In many cases, the benefits of staying in such a match are less than the benefits of leaving and quickly joining another one.

Simply implementing a deserter penalty system that forces players to play through unbalanced maps or game modes goes against the very purpose of gaming — which is to have fun.

To effectively prevent such desertions, I believe the solution is to provide additional incentives for players to stay and play through those unbalanced matches or modes.

After all, we already see a difference in rewards between the winning and losing teams, right?
So why not apply a similar principle here?

3 Likes
11

We don’t need any incentives. They never have the same effect for all players the same way. For some they are more beneficiary, for some practically meaningless.

For example one “incentive” is even encouraging desertion. And it’s of course 50% bonus to exps/silver income for victory (aka 50% for losing the match).
We need to get rid of it.
As it is totally toxic concept.

People should be rewarded based on their personal performance, not rewarded because the RNG put them into a better team.

Lmao.

The real imbalance comes from the individual skill of the players, not the maps or equipment.
It’s the nature of online games that matches (teams) are unbalanced, unless you’re playing a game that is highly competitive and has a skill based ranked system => skill based MM in some way.

Enlisted is definitely not something like that. It’s always been a game focused on casual players, literally released with a highly asymmetrical balance.

So this attempt to somehow justify not to punish systematic desertion just doesn’t apply. Then don’t play Enlisted if you’re after a 1:1 balanced experience.

12

Nonsense, this is to protect the interests of other players from deserters. Even if deserters are punished, it cannot change the situation where other players find it harder to win. They need compensation.
Otherwise, why should I stay? Let’s just be deserters together.

1 Like
13

How is that nonsense?

Why should I care about any economic incentives when I have already researched all the TTs and am in no hurry for exp/silver?

That’s why many veterans who systematically desert are pushing this incentive nonsense.

Because they’ll just ignore them and continue to happily desert like they have been up until now.

It’s all just one big dishonesty that solves nothing at all.

Real penalties for desertion are needed. Incentives won’t solve anything. Especially in relation to veteran players.

The game needs to make impossible to systematically desert. That’s the only real solution. Everything else is just PR solution.

14

I’ve said it before, this kind of compensation will encourage people to stay.

As an old player like me, I only care about winning or losing. I need more help from my teammates instead of running away with a few deserters. For new players, they need silver coins and experience, and now they are unwilling to take the risk of failure to continue the game, so if they are rewarded, they will be willing to stay.

In addition, deserters make it harder for other players to win, so why can’t they receive more rewards?
Your game difficulty has increased, so your reward should also increase. It’s a simple principle.

1 Like
15

To be honest, when someone says things like “We don’t need incentives” or “We should only care about individual performance,” I have to ask—who exactly is “we”? Was there some vote I missed? Because that’s clearly just your personal opinion, and pretending to speak on behalf of everyone actually weakens your argument.

Also, it makes me wonder if you’ve really played the game in the same way as others. The so-called 50% bonus to XP/silver for winning, for example, is limited in practice. In reality, it often discourages players from trying in matches where they know they’re likely to lose, since they’ll get little to no return for their effort. For many players, it feels like a system that forces them to stay in clearly unbalanced matches, rather than one that meaningfully prevents desertion.

But more importantly, your argument fails to address the actual causes behind desertion. Let’s break this down:

The fact that Enlisted is a casual game doesn’t justify unfair punishment
I know Enlisted isn’t a ranked competitive game. But that doesn’t mean I should be forced to endure severely imbalanced matches. Saying “it’s casual, so deal with it” is like selling a broken product and then saying “well, it’s cheap.”

If the real issue is individual skill differences, then fix the matchmaker
If the maps or equipment aren’t the problem and it’s all down to skill, then why not improve the matchmaking system? Why should I be punished for being matched into weak teams? Even casual games benefit from fair and logical matchmaking and rewards.

Asymmetrical design is not the same as unfair experience
Claiming “the game was always asymmetrical” doesn’t excuse one-sided games where one team gets steamrolled repeatedly. That’s not intentional asymmetry—it’s poor balancing. And I don’t think any player should be expected to endure that without fair compensation.

I’m not justifying desertion—I’m pointing out what causes it
I’m not defending desertion out of malice. What I’m saying is: “I’m working hard, but I’m getting nothing out of it.” That’s not excuse-making—that’s feedback. Ignoring that is the same as ignoring reality.

“If you don’t like it, don’t play” is the most toxic take
Finally, telling me “don’t play Enlisted if you don’t like it” is incredibly counterproductive. That attitude is a fast track to a dying playerbase. I’m giving feedback because I want the game to improve. Shutting me down like that helps no one.

3 Likes
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Irrelevant to the point of discussion.

But I will correct it to “I think we need” or “I think the game needs”., literally just a figure of speech.

I myself do not like when someone is speaking for others.

There is very few severely unbalanced matches as long as people doesn’t start deserting once the first objective is taken (which is the case for majority of systematic deserters)
Systematic desertion is literally fueling the imbalance.

Yes, making it impossible to systematically desert matches in the first few minutes would greatly improve MM.

As systematic desertion is nothing more than bypassing MM => effectively undermining its whole existence and any future improvement of it.

Making impossible to systematically desert is where we should start, not where we should end.

Every further improvement should be built and based around it.

17

I remember my suggestion was to provide rewards to players who stayed behind based on a percentage. If you didn’t do anything, you would still receive almost nothing, and the rewards clearly didn’t include veteran players who were willing to become deserters.

On the other hand, even veteran players care about profits, as they still need silver coins after box gambling.

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I already have everything I want from the box. All vehicles, all squads.

So obviously not all veteran players. And there are definitely some other that would be completely unneffected by ecomic incentives.

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I have also obtained everything, but I still want more swords.That’s why many veteran players will always need silver coins.

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And even if it’s just getting all the squads, it still requires a considerable amount of silver coins, and there are still very few players who can do it. They run away just because they’re cowardly, but other brave players shouldn’t get an unpleasant game because of cowards.