Let’s Discuss the Meta Changes

Mess Room
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Greetings, commanders. In the last few days our community has been actively discussing huge changes that are coming to Enlisted. We’re keeping an eye out for your feedback that’s been both :+1: and :fearful:.

It’s really great that you care about our game, and if you criticize our plans, you clearly do it because you wish it well. In this thread I’d like to, let’s say, reset our discussion, and so I’d like you to pay attention to a simple request of mine.

I’d like to ask you “why?” Why do you like or dislike ideas that we’ve listed in our recent dev diary? Knowing your answers, we’ll be able to provide more detailed feedback for the dev team and, perhaps, solve some of the problems you’ll mention. Or, maybe, some of those issues will prove to be insignificant as we discuss them.

About the map pool

So far we see that you like the idea of incorporating research trees in Enlisted, as well as the new matchmaking rules that will create sessions based on the strength of your weapons, but uniting all the missions in a single pool that each new battle will draw from seems to be the point of contention.

I’d like to clarify some rules that definitely were misunderstood:

  • Will I meet a Tiger II on my BT-5?

No! Well, you won’t if two simple conditions are met: there are enough players in queue who have weapons and vehicles similar to yours (we don’t doubt this will be true if we merge the campaigns) and you don’t enjoy suffering so much that you’d equip late-war machine guns, rifles and SMGs and then take the most basic tank into the battle.

Meaning, in an updated Enlisted the battles will be more balanced than now!

  • Will I be sent to Normandy on my BT-5?

Also no. Even though the maps will be united in a single pool, they will remain tied to participants of the battles that took place there. Playing as the USSR, you won’t find yourselves in Normandy or Tunisia, but instead will fight under Moscow, in Stalingrad or Berlin. Against the German army, of course.

  • Will I be able to join a battle under Moscow on my Tiger?

Sometimes you will. You’ll join a balanced battle against your historical opponent, the USSR, who will have vehicles that are meant to fight against yours, such as IS-1. And also many soldiers with powerful anti-tank weaponry, that will be balanced against each other as well.

You’ll be fighting a historical opponent in one of the historical war theaters with weaponry that’s historically accurate. The only thing that may not be accurate is the ground beneath your feet.

We’re not saying it’s perfect. We were being completely honest with you in the dev blog: “We believe the advantages of the updated Enlisted outweigh the abandonment of complete accuracy.”

That said, there aren’t that many options. Any small rule added to the process of matchmaking can severely harm all the advantages of the new system and make the changes meaningless. Burdening the matchmaking with additional rules will basically return us back to the campaigns, just presented in a slightly different way. And the problems associated with spreading our player base across campaigns will return as well.

But how can this do any harm?

Let’s say you’ve got the most modern setup of the German army and queued up with a 1000 of other players.

The matchmaking has analyzed your setup and excluded 600 USSR/Allies players who have weaker weapons and vehicles and thus do not qualify as your opponents. In the updated Enlisted it’ll still have a pretty good selection of 400 players (100 as USSR and 300 as Allies) to create a few interesting sessions on one of dozens of historical battlefields (or even hundreds if we’re talking about missions and not maps): vs USSR in Moscow, Stalingrad, and Berlin; vs USA in Normandy, vs Allies in Tunisia.

But suppose you’ve added another rule: “Matchmaking can only send players to the map that’s historically accurate for their weapons and vehicles.” Then you’ll have to forget about Moscow, Stalingrad, and Tunisia, and will be left with just Normandy and Berlin — as long as you’re using your modern setup. That will make the updated Enlisted quite similar to the current one that’s limited by the constraints of the campaigns, but will also make it harder for the matchmaking system that’ll have to take into account both weapon power and maps.

That’s why during the first planning stage we decided to make that small sacrifice in favor of a game that’ll be well-balanced, diverse (hundreds of missions!) and always full of players.

Let’s discuss

My question is: “Why do you like or dislike the new direction that we propose for our huge project?” Try to give an answer for yourself first and foremost, evaluate the benefits and possible drawbacks.

And then leave your opinion. We’ll be sure to read it.

This thread is not an announcement. Here I just want to tell you about the possible future of the game, clarify the upsides of the updated Enlisted and try to figure out if the downsides are that big of a deal.

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“Hey can anyone kill that hill camping tank ?”
“Sorry bro, I only main and leveled PPSh.”

“Hey can anyone push the point with me ?”
“Sorry bro, I only main and leveled planes.”

"Hey can someone kill that plane that’s bombing us ?
“Sorry bro, I only main and leveled tanks.”

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This is an awesome breakdown and explanation about the system. Clean and clear about how things work and why certain solutions can’t work the way we might want them to

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Relevant now. When there is no balance in weapons.

Will be less relevant in the new Enlisted, when guys with weapons against this tank on a hill and a suitable aircraft get into battle.

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I am moreover concerned on the “weight” or “power” scale of a weapon or vehicle being the only force that effects how a player is matchmaked. How would it effect a team of four people all with different loadouts? In what way would it work so that the matchmaking would be fair if half of such team was early game gear and the other half end game gear?

In what way would this be addressed and why would these ideas to fix them be bad or good?

  • Treat the host as MM priority where the other members bring whatever?
  • Balance the weight of each person and use the host’s weight as a stronger factor?
  • Give pre-set squads that allow/disallow things that are in different MM cue factors?

I like the idea and direction of this sort of system, but many contingencies need to be in place for a cooperative experience.

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I like the direction things are going, this would mean more filled and balanced matches. I will actually run into resistance in the battles I join. I don’t mind that historical accuracy takes a hit in certain aspects if it means we get all the benefits that we are expected to get. So long as custom matches are finally given some love too

I also like the tech tree, and enjoyed it even in war thunder. Just for the love of god don’t introduce repair maintenance, it is what made me stop playing war thunder. The thing that is hyping me up about this new system is the scalability. You can more easily adjust and add content as needed with this new system. Im still curious about how the new economy changes are going to go through though.

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Because there will be people who question the questioners, who think that the developers are perfect, that the developers will solve all minor differences and questions perfectly, that the developers will make everyone like them
As it happened here

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I’m sorry, I don’t understand you very well. Half? No. The whole team will be selected approximately the same as you. You all will have the best weapons if you personally went into battle with the best weapons. Or you will be sent into battle with teams with weak weapons if you yourself have weak weapons.

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Okay, let’s discuss them.

I wholeheartedly dislike the new direction in terms of killing off historical battles because it is the only reason I got interested in this game at all.
I had thousands of hours in other FPS games, but I switched to Enlisted when I learned that finally there is a game where one can enjoy the atmosphere of an early war engagement, where little crappy tanks like T-26 and Pz III are actually scary, where unique weapons never before seen in video games are deadly - like PPD or MP-38.
Once you destroy this feeling of Moscow, I will have no reason to play this game.

I was lured by the very WW2 looking screenshots and videos, and I bought some historical premium packs like BA-11 and Pz 38t just to show my appreciation and vote with my wallet.

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And this is the direction I was supporting both financially and with my play time.

This is what makes Enlisted unique for me. Without map-gear-vehicles authenticity it’s just another FPS game.

I have been quite unhappy with the direction Enlisted has been going towards: paper weapons or weapons that only saw prototype stage being added time after time (e.g. RPD, AS), iconic WW2 vehicles locked behind paywalls (e.g. StuG, Jagdpanther, Churchill), weapons and vehicles that didn’t exist at the time of the battle being added to progression (e.g. MKB and Pz IV F2 in Moscow).

And I was hoping that with a big overhaul we would remove/limit these anachronisms and bring Enlisted more in line with history (while also maintaining game balance).

Instead, I am now told, on the contrary, Enlisted is bound to become just like every other “WW2” game - a mixed bag of vaguely war-time equipment, on vaguely war-time maps.

For me this defeats the purpose of the game, and I have no interest in playing that (or proving something in custom games just to make a point that WW2 games should stay WW2).

Combining 5 separate German progression trees, for example, is a good change.

But each map should absolutely have limitations on equipment that can appear on it.

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I’m currently writing my second devblog. We do not plan any repairs and purchase of ammo.

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I mean what if I am using mosin bolt actions and all weak gear with another friend and the two squad members are using ppsh-41, akt-40, fedorov as examples, what sort of MM would we get if it was split in half on the balance of team members? low or high match making?

Just trying to see if it would brute force people to the HOST’s layout of weaponry before battle.

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Is the weighting factor based on the one which is the highest weighted weapon or on the sum of the factors for all weaponry in a regiment?
or It is still based on the number of slots, the level of the regiment, the level of each soldier, the star rating, and the weapons and all equipment carried by each soldier.
and of the players in the group, is it based on the weighting of each player or just the player with the highest factor

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I hope this also allows more joint Axis and Allies Nations fighting side by side such as having the British in Normandy and the Pacific and Italy in Moscow and Stalingrad along with other nations.

With that being said, if it is going down the Warthunder route, maybe consider adding an Arcade mode purely for Axis vs Allies and a realistic mode for those who still want the historical setting in a campaign/battle.

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This position is understandable to me, but at the same time it incredibly limits us. It becomes more and more difficult to introduce new content, new campaigns (very difficult!), to balance the game with the advent of more and more powerful weapons.

We would like to live in a world with infinite players, but even in our case, when the player base is large enough, we cannot split it indefinitely.

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Here’s my take on the update. I feel that it is both removing the charm of the game having no set campaigns you can switch between, and it will also absolutely ruin many maps and such that are specifically balanced by the equipment limited to that campaign, and will require significant overhaul in balance to account for all the new weaponry. The meta will also be blended into a universal, boring thing with brackets and likely smurfs at specific levels abusing the best equipment there. However the biggest issue I have is the fact that possible post war campaigns and content will now be content locked behind long grinds like war thunder instead of being able to just play the post war campaigns if they want, and it comes of as extremely scummy and a way to try and wring even more money out of people who want to experience post war content once it is likely released in the future. I had high hopes for this game having stuff like Korea, Vietnam, and other post war campaigns, but now it is all going to be something to have to grind through WW2 content to access due to sheer greed and it frankly disgusts me and it’s a big reason why I will never give another penny to Gaijin if the planned changes go through.

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This is not entirely true. All we sacrifice is the ground under our feet. As I wrote. In this case, the balance of combat - an important part of your enjoyment - will improve. Improve noticeably.

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Ah. Squad!
Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I will need to clarify.

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I predict will count by the highest player rating in the group

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The BR only follows the highest of your squads and equipment but not an average value? That means 12 stg44 + 6 Kar98k have the same BR as 18 STg44?

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Also concern regarding the “weight” of the weapons and combined tech trees:

e.g. USSR SMGs

PPD 34 → PPD 34/38 → PPD-40 → PPS-42 → PPS-43 → PPSh-41 stick → PPSh-41 drum

So lets say PPSh-41 is nearly god tier, BR 9. Does that mean every time I equip my Moscow Soviets with Madsen, Mosin, BT-7 and PPSh-41 I have an equal chance of being put in Berlin vs STGs and Panthers because PPSh-41 is so good? Sounds like bollocks.

Or where does MP 3008 fit in in the BRs? In Berlin it’s unlocked before MP-40 so it will probably be a lower BR, and since MP-40 is a Moscow weapon, anything lower will be Moscow too - so MP 3008 tome travelling to Moscow? Disgusting.

Introduce “play any campaign, any battle but with real players” matchmaking option for testing?
Then if it works make it the default option?
All players are in the same pool. No splitting.

This is the basis of a historical game.
Once history is removed, once we start defending Stalingrad with RPD and AS => it doesn’t matter how good the combat is. I’m gone.

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