Options to slow down the "run & gun"

I have tried to get some folks involved in Enlisted recently, they’re all vets of various other historical FPS, and the consistent issue they bring up, is how “hyper dynamic” Enlisted gameplay comes across.

These are some comments from our discussion in no particular order. They are all WT vets and understand the Tier/BR/map rotation non-sense that’s now in Enlisted. We accept it and so the suggestions are more about how to improve other aspects of the game.

They don’t seem to have time to build, give order to troops etc… now that’s understandable since begining players will still be messing with their k/b set up and trying to understand the implemented game functions.

N.B. a separate tutorial should be made for command and control of soldiers and how then to modify the aggression or non-aggression or dispersion of squads. All those concepts should be explained properly in accordance with what the devs have coded, not what they actually mean because we now know that there is a translation issue from Russian to English and some of the concepts diverge. So its best the devs explain what they have implemented.

The easiest way to slow soldiers down is to implement terrain effects vs infantry, taking into consideration what the soldier is carrying. This is critical for elevations !!!
I can’t stress enough that soldiers outrunning vehicles irrespective of terrain is just stupid, particularly in winter / mud conditions.

The second more important aspect is to re-develop/improve the position changes and crawling aspect of the game. The AI when taken under fire needs to allow the soldiers to go prone. I get that the devs have created a stat for the speed of change - make it useful. This will also create the idea of suppression, where soldiers taken under direct fire will go prone, seek cover where feasible - ie within some sensible range, and return fire. This also has an impact in how you design the maps, which can now be more sensible, flatter and less cluttered, because the soldiers stay lower to the ground.

The soldiers should crawl around more when closer to the line of contact, unless ordered by the player to charge. This should be developed further as part of the AI C2, there is something like this being worked on for the Japanese Banzai charge, but in reality it should work the same for all nations. The difference here being the AI “morale” score based on troop quality or fanaticism, where a charge can withstand incoming fire and not go to ground. This can be nicely programmed behind the scenes and the players merely have to issue orders.

I think the game is heading in the right direction, but there is a lot of work to be done.

The wrong automatic weapons are dominating the battlefield atm, no one fears MGs they all fear SMGs. These need more work and SMG squads need to have cooldowns between use. They should be applied tactically to a final push on objective etc, not spammed throughout the game.

In order to allow people to use more squads. Some consideration should be given to splitting up the available slots between types of troops or equipment - so for example some slots for assault troops like Rifle, assault, flamethrower, radio squads, and some slots for support squads like MG, Eng, Mor, Sniper squads. Similarly vehicle slots could have a light, med, heavy sub category, so that you can use the appropriate vehicle in the appropriate phase of the game or just go for broke when desperation calls for it.

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If you’re talking about limiting the number of squads
I guess you haven’t seen the results of the last time we limited the number of squads.
The whole forum exploded

Free players only have 3 infantry and 1 vehicle
How do you want to limit them?
2 assault regiments and 1 medical regiment plus a KV1 that can hold 5 soldiers with PPD?
Or 2 fully automatic rifle regiments and 1 STG sniper regiment plus a King Tiger filled with Kant driver guns and modified weapons?

Why not give space for more vehicles?
This is a privilege for paying players
Otherwise, we want those free users to have the same experience?
So why should I spend money?

Why can’t machine guns dominate the battlefield?
You don’t want to see a bunch of lunatics going around killing everyone with full-power automatic weapons.
Have you ever seen the previous MG machine guns and the US military’s Level 3 machine guns?
The former was so strong that he was chopped down several times
The latter is a bunch of fucking full power automatic rifles

I don’t mind those lunatics with bayonets running faster on the grass than cars on non-main roads

I don’t think this would necessarily make people fear MGs, but instead, make the assaulters and SMG users more valuable. Couldn’t no dispersion, BA damage, MORE recoil (their recoil is nothing compared to what it should be), and larger maps create fear against an MG setup in a well-concealed position?

These are suggestions form “new” players who are aware of the limitations as both the begginers, but because we can sit around a room and I can show them the end game, they can reason and discuss beyond the “what about me” perspective.

The limitation of squads was suggested because of the immediate observation that a player like me with 10 slots has an immense tactical advantage over a “typical” F2P player. Having said that I don’t know a single veteran FPS who, once they understand the fundamentals will not throw some cash (IAW the game design mind you) at buying some extra deployment slots above and beyond any premium squads. All of my friends realised this within minutes of the demo, where we compared by CBT account to a new starter one.

Why should you spend money ? Well because the game costs money to develop, and since its F2P, someone has to monetise it somewhere.
I’m not saying DF aren’t gouging on things like customisation and some in-game accelerators for progression / permium vehicles, but there in lies the player choice.

The overall game balance is fractured atm, because the paradigm is set too high in favour of ppl throwing money at the game, and so that’s why you are almost at the situation where you have more premium squads in game than regular squads for any given role. Particularly, now that there is a “single squad” baseline, since we got rid of squads to maps as part of moving away from Campaigns.

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The issue is that MGs can’t suppress - which is their role.

So the idea would be to increase the belt sizes on MGs to historical levels - ie 250ish rounds, keep the dispersion and recoil factors as they are, but force AI changes when engaged with MGs - ie code in some go to ground rule for MG engagement.

Provide a visual suppression warning as is for the main player so that they know to hit Z / CTRL or whatever they have for prone/ crouch. Their squad should automatically go to ground and then move fwd following the active player on their guts or revert to crawling if cover permits. They can even be made to call out incoming MG fire as a warning to all active players in the vicinity etc… Lots of force preservation options here.

That’s where I’m heading with MGs. The actual players won’t fear them, because of game isms, but your soldiers morale can be coded in, it can be improved or in some cases such as fanatical Japanese troops even ignored for periods of time. This will need to go hand in glove with player C2 enhancements where the player can try to push their troops forward etc… Sets the conditions for the creation of leader slots - so you can now use those cool guys with the Order of the Red Star, Iron Cross or Medal of Honor to influence the performance of your squad.

The future of Enlisted lies in this direction, not more pew pews. That’s been done.

4 Likes

The best way to slow down the game without drastically changing how Enlisted works and without 6 months of coding AI to do everything you just said is to do 2 things
Increase capture time
And increase ticket count
Do these 2 things and those 15-20 minute matches will turn into 30-50 minute matches like we all want

I only buy the BP and a couple Preemie squads I think are cool but never use. I still have the basic 4 slots and I top the leaderboard every match

So you want to fundamentally change several aspects of the game to suit what you think Enlisted should be

I don’t want to waste more time occupying
This is very detrimental to most solo players
Because I have to endure the monkeys while constantly occupying the base.
More grinding of meat or waiting for people to die is very boring.

If there were more spaces there would be more tactics
For example, serial suicide planes, more assault regiments, more paratroopers

Umm that’s not what I mean by slowing the game down, that’s just prologing the same game experience which will merely burn players out.

I am not particularly enjoying the game as is, and there are new games coming in with the chaotic playstyle of Enlisted (eg Helldivers 2) which will ultimately drag ppl away from Enlisted.

The one cool and new thing Enlisted has going for it, is the squad game. This is where I think their development effort should focus, and ultimately with that focus the game will change. Perhaps into separate modes or whatever, but as is the game is not really differentiating itself effectively.

Lone wolf could be less run and gun, too bad df don’t want to implement it

Probably, but that’s not the Enlisted draw card.

It’s squads, so I think more AI dev into the squad game is where the game can shine.

Atm, based on a collective opinion of old games mind you, the game is stagnating. This is just an opinion and ultimately new content will be the drawcard for some players. That’s where DF will have to make their design decisions and reap what they sow.

My friends and I think Enlisted can shine if it focuses on its core product - its like that line from the McDonald’s move when the lawyer tells the owner that he’s in the wrong business - you’re not in the restaurant business, you’re in the realestate business…
Same for Enlisted, you’re not in the FPS business you’re in the RTS squad control business, that just happens to have an FPS facade.

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I disagree with this take in particular. The reason infantry is faster than vehicles uphill is that vehicles have very little traction and slide off of most elevations - this already feels absolutely atrocious on vehicles has gotten my APCs, motorbikes and tanks stuck countless times.

Infantry sliding off of elevations will only make movement feel even more toxic. So if there’s going to be changes to slow down movement, it’ll have to be different ones.

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ultimate and simple way to slow down run and gun is increase time it takes to ADS directly from sprinting.

it could be not much, if you couldn’t ADS instantly you would need to adjust your movement.

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I don’t think they have to get overly dramatic with it - ie sliding or some other weird thing. It should just perceptibly slow you down, like moving through bushes does. I think they have more lattitude with vehicle physics, which is fine.

They can keep it simple for the infantry. There is already a stamina bar in game, so use that when the weather and ground a fine, the stamina drain is x, when the weather is shitty and there is mud, or deeper sand then its 2x, when its “rasputitsa time” or heavy snow then stamina cost is x3.
Same modifiers apply to movement rates, and in a very simple way you have implemented a commensurate system with vehicle movement.

Having said that, as an infanteer you will always have upper hand because you can teleport around the map with mobile and engineer build spawn points, which unlike vehicle respawns do not have to start at the fringe of the map, and remove the penalty for travel writ large…

I genuinely think you and your guys should comb through my page and check out my suggestions. MANY of them point to exactly what you are talking about, from the MG suppression mechanics, to AI behavior, to structures and game mechanics that would help to slow the game down and rebalance the game to have an equal focus on strategic play.

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thanks I’ll do that

As in Squad leader (squad organization)?