I have spent quite a bit of time on the Enlisted Tests so far (around 24 hours) and have reached campaign level 7 for Russia and almost 3 for Germany. I have thoughts on quite a number of things.
- Planes
Planes as is are currently weak. While they have lots of potential when on coms with teammates using discord, its very hard to know where any enemies are unless theyre capturing a point. Since most points are inside, bombing them is impossible. As a result, bombing comes down purely to knowing that most people prefer to attack a point over defend them, and to target the roads that lead to these points from a spawn or recently captured point. Having only played the IL-2, I cant vouch for the stuka, but from what I can tell people unlock planes, play them for a few matches, and then swap back to tanks because they are much more viable. One good thing was that bombs couldnt hurt friendlies. I’m glad about this because with the blue arrows over teammates heads, people would grief and kill friendlies with bombs. Planes are a high risk high reward playstyle, yet currently they feel much weaker than tanks. Out of the roughly ten matches I’ve flown (roughly half of the matches spent in planes) I only had two matches where the enemy team used aa on me.
Suggestions: Have a guaranteed kill blast area, but outside of that a “fragmentation area” where a player has a chance of getting hit for a random number of damage. Give bombs the possibility to penetrate building roofs and explodes inside the room they penetrate through (kleaving players in other rooms of the building untouched).
- Tanks
Tanks are perfectly balanced as is. They are reliable and can rack up tons of kills, but one smart player can easily ambush an enemy tank and take them out. Even if not equipped with anti tank grenades, the tank can be blinded by a well placed molotov. Requiring the crew to leave the vehicle to put out fires and repair also is a great balancing mechanic.
Suggestions: Keep as is
- Bolt-Action Rifles
These are currently perfectly balanced as well. They represent the rifle version of high risk high reward. Guaranteeing a one hit down so long as you dont shoot hands or feet makes these perfect for peeking corners against large groups.
Suggestions: Keep as is
- Semi-automatic Rifles
Currently these rifles are rather weak in game. While the AI tend to do better with them, in the hands of players they are rather lacking. Currently the SVT and G41 do 8.5 and 9 damage per hit compared to bolt actions 15 and the same as the MP40 which has less recoil and fires fully automatic. A damage buff would definitely help with the viability of the rifles, and wouldnt require players to rely upon the SVT’s hip rapid fire glitch where firing rapidly without ADS allows a player to fire 20-30 rounds without reloading instead of the 10 in the clip.
Suggestions: Increase damage to 11-12 damage per shot, as well as an increased reload time for the SVT since such a damage increase would make damage output too much.
- Sub-machine guns
Current submachine guns are really nice to play with. The ppds are low damage but high fire rate and recoil while the german MPs are low fire rate moderate damage and recoil. I feel that the germans have a slightly better smg since you can full auto fire into groups controllably at head level for easy kills. However, I am yet to equip the tier 3 versions. I feel the tier 3 ppds with the increased damaged and decreased recoil would be very strong.
Suggestions: Keep as is but small changes would be likely to balance
- Upgrades
Whether it be the soldier perk upgrades, the campaign unlocks, or the squad unlocks, there’s a lot to cover. When it comes to campaign unlocks, I feel it takes just a bit too long to unlock things. A slight increase in XP would make unlocks feel like a lot less of a grind. I’ve probably gotten well over 5000 kills playing as the Soviets and only am halfway through level 7 of the campaign. I expect there to be at least 25 levels as shown, and with each level after 11 costing 180,000 XP (I only have 160,000 XP so far) means that it would take too long to grind unlocks. The squad unlocks meanwhile are relatively quick to get, however having to unlock weapon slots and the ability to use weapons for each class seems like filler on the tree.
Suggestions: Increase Campaign XP progress by 10%, Remove weapon slot unlocks from the classes, leave soldier XP as is.
- Logistics
I feel that logistics are a unique concept for a shooter. However, I feel like we don’t get enough guns from weapon deliveries. This can be easily fixed though. An increase in guns given out along with a decrease in parts given out per disassembled gun would allow players to feel like they’re getting more from each delivery.
Suggestions: Increase guns given out per delivery and decrease gun disassembly parts given so it takes the same amount of time to level up guns.
- Other Weapons
Each weapon in game feels rather unique. Molotovs are great for keeping enemies at bay (except for the AI that love to run through the fire XD). Explosion Packs are great against infantry and tanks. Regular grenades are great for lobbing over houses. However, there is one other weapon that I feel is not useful. Currently, the flamethrower has no useful purpose in game. The flamethrower has a range of only a couple yards, and cant be used in confined spaces without setting yourself on fire. Even when you are close enough to hit someone they can easily just shoot you as they’re burning.
Suggestions: Boost flamethrower range drastically (maybe even out to 10 meters or so) and slightly reduce their spread.
- Maps
Currently there are a wide variety of modes in game. There are constantly new maps being tested. Currently the maps are either small or medium sized, and I hope one day for a mode that gives a larger map several kilometers wide and deep thats more objective based like the games description says. However, I also love the small fast paced action of the current maps, and hope both stay in game.
Suggestions: Have multiple map sizes and modes varying from current sizes to 3-4x3-4 sq km.
- Squads
Currently you can only use 3 infantry squads and 1 vehicle squad. I feel this restricts how much flexibility you can have in game. I liked the 5 squad layout used in the Berlin test a lot more.
Suggestions: Allow 5 squads in your queue. Up to 4 infantry squads and up to 2 vehicle squads.
- Academy
The new academy requiring troops to be maxed out in levels is a rather bad idea in my opinion. The whole point of the academy is to get rid of troops you dont want for those you do. Having to constantly regrind skills on your troops is rather annoying and removes any feeling of progression considering you have to use only bad troops so they get XP to upgrade.
Suggestions: Change the Academy back to how it was with the Berlin test (troops with any XP can be used).
Note. I will continue to add my thoughts as I unlock more things.
- Shotguns
Shotguns currently have no purpose in the game. The ability to one hit down someone is nice, but you have to reload after each shot. The range is short. And there’s no reason to use a shotgun over the bolt action rifles in game, even at close range.
Suggestions: Make the double barrel shotguns capable of being fired one barrel at a time with the same amount of damage. Possibly a slight range decrease to correspond with this as well so as not to make it too strong at mid range. Another possible solution is to not allow double barrel shotguns to ADS and have left click bound to left barrel and right click to right barrel.
- Experience Per Battle
Having now reached level 9, I’ve noticed that no matter how good of a match you have, the XP earned is relatively the same based off of one thing, match length. I find it ridiculous that I can play a 10 minute match with over 150 kills and only get 1700 XP, then play another 10 minute match and get 100 kills for 1600XP, and then play a 15 minute match with 70 kills and get 1000 XP more than either of the two. This is a ridiculous system made for player to grind constantly and doesn’t regard player skill.
Suggestions: Make the XP per battle system more similar to War Thunders. A system that rewards for good performance and battle length is key here. Also, if you are implementing Skill Based Match Making (SBMM) then please let the higher skilled players get more XP than the lower skilled players by a small amount (10% or so).
Pictures below to show XP Giveout
- Pistols
Having now used most of the pistols, I can conclude that pistols are balanced very well right now. The Nagant may do a ton of damage, but suffers from a low fire rate, long reload time, and high damage dropoff. The semi automatic pistols all do decent damage and feel viable to use against one or two guys, but not against a large group unlike primaries.
Suggestions: Leave as is.
- Infantry LMGs
So far I’ve only used the DP-27. However, I like where its at. It hits hard but isnt always a one hit kill. It also makes you slow and bulky and kicks like crazy. There is a noticeable decrease in recoil when crouched or prone. Also, I feel as if there is a bracing feature when the object is close to the ground/over a table/ out a window etc. I dont know if this is an actual feature or not but its nice. Although I would still like a deployable bipod feature.
Suggestions: Leave as is.
- Anti-Tank Rifles
I have really been enjoying the AT Rifles. Im assuming theyre sighted for 100m to counteract the insane bullet drop. So close targets you have to aim low to hit. Not being able to sprint while holding them also makes it not viable for people to just run around with them. Theyre great against anything you shoot at so long as you hit the target. After a few matches you get the hang of how much you need to adjust aim and you can take out enemy tanks quickly with little danger to yourself.
Suggestions: Leave as is
