At the end of the day there is a balance to be struck between the infantry game being “fun enough” vs authentic enough from a historical perspective. That’s challenging enough to implement as it is, and there are plenty of titles out there irrespective of the historical context that try to do this to a better or worse degree.
When you include vehicles into this dynamic there are some balancing aspects to consider and not just from the vehicle vs infantry perspective, but more from the broader battlespace perspective.
The map is key to this - an infantry game can take place on much smaller maps than what’s required for vehicles - amplify further when you add planes. Gaijin has a good track record from WT, at least in implementing air-ground combat, I won’t drag balancing into it as its not relevant.
The first step in balancing the current game is getting the size of the map and the degree of cover on it right, and pleasantly enough Rhzev looks to be that map.
If the rest of the maps undergo a similar level of clean up where the battle space looks ready for the upcoming fight rather than trying to over emphasise something that happened before and leave players channeled in their experience then I think the game will be ok. Its actually better for immersion not to have too many wrecks etc, because the troops fighting on the map may have different BR equipment that what the map maker originally made the map for (given the break up of the campaign model) so someone should scrub all the maps and get rid of all the vehicle wrecks etc. Once the game starts there will be plenty player made ones anyway.
And at least initially there will be plenty of maneouvre space to fight the battle with vehicles, where ideally the vehicles can cull each other rather than be channeled and die from infantry det pack spam…
While your post has merit, it’s not really pertinent to the point I was making (and I think is an easier change than “cleaning up all the maps” or making new ones from scratch - however much that may be a very good idea for them to do!
And I agree - the difference a map makes can’t be understated. I’ve played in like 300 games so far (I know, I’m a newb) and the randomness factor is actually pretty good. I still see new maps and I have no way of knowing if they’re tweaking maps on the fly or they just have some algorithm that is randomizing start locations and objective points or what.
The variety is great - yet, the random factor means some maps are way, way out of balance between attacker and defender (and I’m not sure if there can be any worse offender than Normandy - I get that it’s historical, but it’s also “not fun” to play the attacker, and “fun” should be a primary objective of any game).
Normandy suffers because it channels the attacker’s break though assets into 3-4 predictable lanes. Whilst the infantry can pick their way through the various obstacles the vehicles that will allow them to break though are channeled into fire lanes against arguably “superior” tanks in the scenario of attack and defence. Whilst the tank assymetry is acceptable as historically authentic the exaggeration of the newly established Alpine Normandy region is not. Whilst there were cliffs around Pointe Du Hoc, the remainer of the landing zones were quite flat and there are no silly mountain ranges that your armour vehicles have to scale in order to effectively support the assaulting troops. Equally those same alpine perches allow the defenders to prop their best tanks in superior engagement positions and simply engage at will, until they’re bombed out of their position by a capable allied attacker.
I think there are enough capable players in Enlisted to capture the points and fight for objectives, esp now that they have mobile spawn points to reinforce any engineer built ones. So there are sufficient assets to maintain momentum. The creeping grey zone is a controversial issue, but at the end of the day its a reasonable tool to ensure the battle keeps moving forward and whilst it artificially reduces the potential see saw that you would see if there were no restrictions, it also stops the camping of spawn points by players who want to abuse the devs good will in providing sizeable maps to conduct some maneouvre warfare, and simply bypass the objectives to establish spawn camping positions. The lack of comms in the game and the multitude of playstyles (ie some players cannot abide to protect the flanks, or supporting assets they just rush / run and gun as any individual focused game) effectively makes the greyzone implementation as the easiest compromise to keep things moving forward.
However, additional restrictions on maneouvre should be avoided, players just have to accept that in some games they will not have enough players with adequate situational awareness or the lack of appropriate troops to support an attack on an objective in the effective manner they may be used to. Its just a random feature of these MM based games, you never know what you get.
I’ve decided that there is no point in raging about the “skill” of players per se, I just assume that everyone in the game with me may be new or dealing with a freshly unlocked squad, and try to use the available comms in game to indicate my intent wherever possible. Sometimes it works, othertimes the other players just keep doing what they want and the game proceeds to an often predictable conclusion.
This is bad design
The attacker will lose the opportunity to blitz
They will face enemies who have too much time to build up their defenses because of system protection
This is extremely unfair to the attacker
Do you want to encounter this kind of thing on an offense with only 2 or 3 thinking teammates?
This will only increase jail time and desertion
The defender should prepare to defend in advance
Instead of relying on mechanisms to protect strongholds.
Losing strongholds quickly only means that most of the defenders have extremely poor skills and thinking ability.
This is also the biggest reason why I hate confrontation
You perform all support and strike against high-value targets and slaughter enemies within the countdown stronghold until it is overwhelmed
But your teammates cannot fight normally and are always slaughtered and eventually lose their base.
Then all your efforts will be in vain
I can’t experience anything positive in this back-and-forth attack.
Interesting, since almost every game outside of battle royales have time for a team to set up a defense, if defense is the object for that team. Setting a 60 second limit is hardly game breaking, since these days in most matches I’m in where my side is defending, it has such a bad reputation, that more people tend to abandon defense missions completely.
Nonsense. Or, rather, do you mean the Maginot line? I do believe that is the very definition of a strong defense against an actual blitzkrieg, and you know how that turned out.
If anything, it gives the attackers time to pull out binoculars and see what they can do, and take a few seconds to form an attack (which flank, when/where to bomb, etc).
Wouldn’t you WANT a more tactical/strategic game?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’ve had maps where the attackers are at the point within five seconds of my spawning. That’s insane. It also doesn’t allow time to prepare, obviously.
No it doesn’t. Typically it means a wildly imbalanced match. Not everyone’s an idiot.
I don’t want to experience the strategy and tactics you talk about on the offensive side with only 2 or 3 normal people.
I like to keep the enemy outside the stronghold to ensure that friendly AI and players can enter the stronghold and evaluate whether to use running or parachuting to attack the next stronghold.
But in most cases, only I or a very small number of people stick to the stronghold.
Because most teammates are hiding behind and using manual rifles to sneak attack the AI or walking on the road where enemies are ambushing them.
If the enemy can enter the stronghold in large numbers within 15 seconds, it means that your teammates’ skills are not enough to defend against ground invasion.
This goes back to the issue of teammate classification
certainly
The outcome of the game will not change just because of a monkey
But it’s a different story when the number of monkeys exceeds 5 and is full of spiritual victors
Compared with the balance that cannot exist in the first place
Why not add a ranked mode to separate casual and serious players?