After playing for a month (with both premium XP and battlepass, over 150 hours of play time, here are my suggestions for changes to the game…
Maps and Match Type: Either let the players select which type of match they want to play (Conquest or Invasion/Assault) or cycle through them much more rapidly. Being stuck with the same map/match type for an hour is not fun, particularly if it’s not one that you enjoy. Invasions/Assaults can go for 35+ minutes, putting two or three back to back (often on the same map!) alienates any players that prefer Conquest, don’t have time for a long match, or are just tired of Invasion/Assault.
Automatic Respawn: Please, please, please don’t respawn me automatically. I managed to download and install your game, I can hit one button to spawn in again when I’m ready. Which will be after picking the proper soldier, spawn location, possibly confering with my squad-mates first, etc. I’ve been spawned in the wrong spot with the wrong soldier a ridiculous number of times and it is very frustrating. This is one of the biggest complaints from my friends as well.
Artillery: 30 seconds is far too short of a cooldown for the upgrade perk. One person on a team using artillery every 30 seconds can be annoying. Two or three people on both teams doing this for a whole match makes for a miserable experience. Constant suppression is not fun. Not being able to fight over the capture objectives and just hoping the artillery doesn’t kill you while you lay on the floor suppressed is not fun. Add in plane bombs and mortars and it’s not unusual to see that a significant number of players exited a battle that had these factors in play. I found myself exiting out of these types of battles more often lately as these “tactics” have become more common as more players level up.
Score Prioritization: The scoring factors that would promote some semblance of teamwork and defense of capture points need to be significantly increased. Currently, kills are the primary factor in a player’s score at the end of a match by a large margin. While the increased XP for winning is nice, the drive most players have to see their name high on the scoreboard generally overrides taking the actions that would be more likely to result in a win given the current scoring prioritization.
Lone Fighter: In my experience, people play Lone Fighter specifically to avoid playing with or against bots. Personally, I would wait in a queue for several minutes if it meant not playing with bots. Either making this mode by default no bots or giving an option to wait in queue for an all-human match would be fine with me.
Lone Fighter 2: When a player spawns on a squad-mate, do not have that player spawn INSIDE the squad-mate, blocking their view and disrupting their movement or position. This is disruptive to play in several ways and other games with this feature quite sensibly have the spawning squad-mate do so several feet behind or to the side.
Default Spawn Points: Most of these are a fair distance from the action, which is good and promotes use of rally points. Many of these are also out in the wide open or placed in direct line of fire from convenient points from which to kill anybody spawning. They are also static and predictable which makes them easy targets for plane bombs. Either change the positions of these exposed spawn points, create some sort of dynamic spawn system so that the spawn points are not as predictable, or give the default spawn points some sort of spawn protection similar to how rally points used to work. Most of them are far enough away from capture points or other key areas that this shouldn’t be an issue.
Spotting: I recommend spotting anything you aim down your weapon sights at. I’ve gone many whole matches while playing solo without a single spot from another player. That, or adopt a system similar to Planetside 2 where the first person to make a spot of an enemy gets a small amount of points if that enemy is killed while the spot is active. Anything to promote a semblance of teamwork and reduce the frustration of being on a team what has no inclination to do any spotting. This is particularly rough if you’re in a tank or plane.
Sandbags and Barbed Wire: In reality, sandbags are very good at absorbing explosions. In the game, one grenade destroys every sandbag wall in its blast radius. Which makes sandbags fairly useless to build given the number of grenades and detonation packs being thrown around. The same goes for barbed wire, which is unlikely to be damaged by a grenade-like explosion at all given its construction and form. At the least, let the tools at our disposal meant to be used for defense actually provide a worthwhile amount of defense. They don’t need to be indestructible, just several orders of magnitude tougher than they are currently.
Tracer Rounds and Kill Camera: I get it, you want to attract the more casual FPS crowd. But having both a kill camera and every round being a tracer seems like overkill and removes a lot of room for player learning and skill beyond having the quickest reflexes. I don’t know the best play here, greatly reducing the number of tracer rounds a weapon fires, removing the kill cam, or some other option. The kill cam already doesn’t function properly much of the time, so that would be my suggestion for removal. Toning down the tracer rounds as well would be a great bonus.
Jump+Spin+Shoot: The whole jumping, turning, and shooting people in midair combo is way too accurate. So accurate that I see multiple people doing this successfully in most matches. Often while jumping out of a second story window. It’s completely unrealistic, makes a mockery of all the other mechanics you have in the game to reduce accuracy, and is just pretty lame in general outside of an arena shooter. Maybe I’m seeing cheaters? I hope not, because that is A LOT of cheaters.
Detonation Packs and Tanks: I’m not a tank main, I only really started playing tanks to get some of my tankers ranked up and out of my reserve. But after playing in tanks for many hours now, I’m not sure there’s any point to using a tank in this game. A single detonation pack, or one shot from an AT infantryman depending on campaign and available AT weapons, is enough to end any tank. Almost every soldier on the battlefield has a det pack. This would relegate tanks to just being mobile artillery, sitting back near your spawn point. Except you’ll just get precision bombed by a plane anyway. Or they’ll drop a 500-pounder and no precision will be necessary. You’re much better off being another soldier on the field getting into cap zones and doing something that might help win the match instead of just beefing up your own score before the inevitable det pack or bomb hits you. Other tanks aren’t really much of a concern in most matches. They’re too busy watching out for det packs tossed by your allies.
Bot AI and Commands: I realize that you don’t want bots to be too smart or useful on their own. Even if that wasn’t the case, smarter bots take up more server resources. But at least give us a few more useful commands/formations so that the default action isn’t leaving them as far away from you as possible in order to keep them out of your way. If you don’t do that they either give away your position, get directly in your way by laying or standing in front of you constantly, or just get killed before you can make any real use of them anyway. For all intents and purposes they might as well not exist right now and are mostly useful for doing things that, I would argue, detract from the game play experience. Such as providing endless ammunition for mortars.
Movement and Mounting: The movement in the game isn’t horrible but still needs some rough edges smoothed out. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve gotten shot because I got stuck on top of a fence or wall (with full stamina) and couldn’t get off. It’s also very difficult to climb through many windows that are plenty large enough for a fully grown human. Using the weapon mounting functionality is usually pointless due to various issues with height, turning, or other weapon adjustments that render you unable to shoot properly or in the desired location.
LMGs: I love LMGs. I like being the heavy gunner dude. But I think LMGs are still too easy to fire standing up and from the hip in this game. Not by a lot, but by enough to make them a better choice than SMGs in close quarters because of the higher damage of the LMG. Just as well I guess, as using them out in the open is a death sentence with all the tracer rounds you’re firing.
I’ve probably forgotten a couple things, but the above is what I see as most of the design flaws or pain points that have caused my friends and I to stop playing Enlisted. Add the very real grind to unlock and obtain weapons, vehicles, and soldiers, and the annoyances and frustration just became overwhelming and not worth our time or, in some cases, money.