I’ve never really made a forum post before, as I’m not that kind of player usually. I’m making an exception though becuase I can see this game being long winded, and I want to be a part of the development. I don’t know if this is where I should be posting these suggestions, so I’m sorry if I’m doing it wrong. I also talk long winded as I like to specify, but I separate stuff so it’s readable. I also will mention that I’ve put around 100 hours into the game between the CBT for the PS5, not battle for Berlin as I’m not paying 50 USD to get access to something I’ve already played on PC back in the open alpha. To specify again, I am also primarily a PS5 player, how few we are (console shortage joke), so you can get a perspective from us here I suppose.
I accidentally posted this before it was done.
Suggestions that can be implemented before the beta ends (within a year):
Mode select.
I think it would be nice to specify what mode you play, wither that be assault, conquest, or Invasion. It’s more of a personal wish, as I dislike the length of conquest matches, and quite frankly Assault just doesn’t go well half the time. It would be appreciated by at least me and one of my friends to be able to select what mode you play, as we both enjoy Invasion and find it difficult to get into Invasion usually.
As a side note, I’ve heard people complain about D-Day and it’s balance, I think it’s perfectly fine where it is, and for the players reading this, this perspective is from the Amercan’s perspective. People usually assume that me saying that meant I was playing Germany, which I admit never have for Normandy.
Fix text chat.
On PS5 the text chat does not work, and im not sure voice does either, but people may have it disabled. You cannot say “no mic” as well, our controllers ARE mics, as poor quality as it may be. I’m aware that this is a suggestions area, not a bug fix, but I’d rather make one post today. Anyway, the chat allows you to open it, type whatever you please, but when you send it the chat box doesn’t appear. This may be a personal thing, maybe I missed it, but I think in that instance it should be more apparent.
Add full keyboard support for console.
Now, on PS5 we are able to plug a mouse and key into the console by USB and use it to play compatible games, War Thunder comes to mind. Enlisted allows you to use the mouse and key, which makes me happy, HOWEVER, there is NO way to customize keys for the mouse and key, like War Thunder allows. This also means we have NO idea what buttons do what. And I spend 5 hours mapping the keyboard becuase I went searching and found someone asking, so I said fine and did the work myself (fun fact, Reddit has a 10,000 character limit. I did not know this until then.). It would save myself and others the trouble if when a mouse and keyboard was detected as active and being used that the control scheme changes to MnK, allowing us to make custom binds and see the controls for MnK without having to search the internet. How else are you supposed to know that B activates breaks on Aircraft, or at least it does for me!
Destructible environments.
After sustaining enough damage, buildings should collapse as close to they would in real life as possible, or just make a default “destroyed building” format like Battlefield does, just so it doesn’t kill everyone’s frames every time an A-20 decides to rear it’s head at people.
Fuel Gauge fluctuation.
So I’ve recently found out the hard way there is a limited supply of fuel in aircraft. Perhaps specify this somewhere? The aircraft have a fuel gauge, add something so that the gauge slowly decreases, it doesn’t have to be on the HUD.
Country Specific Buildings.
The spawn points themselves already vary between nations, however its always a Flak and an MG 42. Perhaps add new variants like the differences between AT guns.
I’m getting a blank for any other ideas I had for short term implementations, so I’m going to move onto longterm. Keep in mind, not every SUGGESTION needs or should come, but I am making them as it might be interesting to see. This is a beta people, there’s a lot for what it is.
Longterm ideas:
April Fools idea.
As April Fools approached this year I had an idea as to what could be added for April Fools that would both be out of the ordinary and maybe test some new mechanics. For the Battle of Berlin, add a mode for April Fools that has super heavy tanks. As it is late War, the Maus has already been as developed as it can be. Add a super heavy tank battalion for Russia and Germany, adding the IS-7 and Maus to the game temporarily. Maybe add some type of flying Fortress and experimental weapons for each side as well, making the mode chaotic and potentially quite fun. This may not add up to War Thunder’s history of April Fools, but you have to start somewhere right? This is after all, the first April Fools event that could come.
Add a larger map/mode.
A lot of people have compared Enlisted to Battlefield, which I don’t think is a fair comparison but I will admit to the similarities. Adding a large, map wide control mode would spice things up from the narrow, linear gameplay currently in Enlisted. I’m thinking more like Hell Let Loose, for those wanting a parallel. Make the maps wider, and areas you can be in for defence further back. Maybe make the maps, for example, 1km in width and 2-3km total in length. Make a mode where you push Frontlines, back and forth, having 1-3 control points on a line until you reach an enemy HQ, at which point its a fierce battle to uproot the enemy from the sector and secure the front, pushing on metaphorically to the next map. Metaphorically becuase after uprooting the enemy (capturing their base), the match would end. Main HQ should have a single defence point in front of it, like a choke point. If the choke is lost, the team can no longer respawn maybe, that doesn’t sound to fair but logically you’ve exhausted your troops and lost all the way to HQ, why put more resources into it? Anyway, that can be changed, the general idea here is to make a large, long-winded battle where tickets don’t exist. Victory is determined by capturing the HQ, or holding the most ground after the time expires, likely being 1 hour tops. This type of mode can open up avenues for a lot of new troops, player counts (which would need to be at least 20v20 full squads for this to work, better if it was along the lines of 50+vs50+.), and also new building types and vehicles. This mode should also, considering there is more players and a larger map, raise the maximum vehicle count to say, 4 tanks 2 fighters and 2 attackers. Drive home the chaos of war, even if having 4 Aircraft constantly pounding the ground isn’t necessarily what happened. The variety of maps for this new mode should be limited, as they are very large and I know development would be a pain. Keeping it to no fewer than 2 and no more than 4 should be enough to keep players interested, especially with various objective locations, like D-Day uses.
Adding new classes of vehicles and infantry.
With the addition of my previous suggestion, it would make sense for certain squads to become available. These squads may need to be limited to the mode, making mode select necessary or the mode itself having its own tab, separate from normal squad and lone wolf queueing. Anyway, the infantry could get, for the lack of a better term, “heavy engineers” that can build artillery pieces that work similar to mortars. Calibers can be the 105mm artillery. Calibers can also potentially be larger, perhaps with higher grade engineers. These cannons should be limited to 1 or 2 per squad. And maybe a server limit of 2-4. Making these guns inaccurate similarly to the mortar could balance them further. They also could just be predetermined placements, that’s alright too. Heavy engineers could also build Tank resupply points, as I find myself worried about running out of ammo in tanks a lot, I understand that this is a good balancing mechanic, but for long winded fights, it just doesn’t make sense. Of course, this need not be added, I just think it would add another level of teamwork. Limit these supply points to 1 per person of course, and they should run out, in similar fashion to the ammo crates, perhaps even make them reacting to bullets and explosions. Damaging nearby players and tanks if the shells detonate. These heavy engineers should also get more supplies, be able to build more of each building (1 or 2 more AT guns, 1 or 2 more AA guns, 2-4 more AI guns, 10 or more sandbags, 0-1 more spawn points, 10 or more barbed wires, 5 or more hedgehogs, 2-5 more ammunition crates) the way to stop people from making everying in one place would be a congestion mechanic, preventing more than a determined number of a certain building being built in one area, similar to how the spawn points cannot be built too close to one another.
When it comes to tanks, I think outside of more tanks of current types (Light tanks like the Puma and Stuart, medium tanks like the Pz3 and Sherman, and Heavy tanks like the Jumbo) would be needed, but that’s a given. What could be added is new classes of vehicles all together.
Halftracks like the M3 Halftrack and Sd. Kfz. 251 could be used to move a few squads or a squad (depending on the size of said squads) around with ease instead of the current civilian trucks and jeeps/kurbelwagen (I believe that’s what it was) that hold very few troops, and often only carry one squad at most. Artillery both of AI and AT variety can be towed by these vehicles too. And maybe these vehicles could be attached to special infantry squads, either taking up an infantry slot or vehicle slot (this could depend on either the developer’s idea of balancing this choice of squad or if the halftrack carries a weapon, like an AA or AT gun. Carrying such weapons, I can understand it being a vehicle slot, and people who would rather not use vehicles would likely appreciate the squad, as it gives a way to deal with vehicles from a range, and also have an infantry squad too.).
Next on the list of vehicles is a personal one. Ever since 2016 I’ve been telling friends about War Thunder, and I believe the same year I made a forum post that was taken down, twice, about adding artillery. Taken down becuase I either hadn’t played enough per week, real reason, or becuase it was in the wrong area. Now, almost every single mechanic is now in use by Enlisted, having the gun just give you a range, not some overhead view like World of Tanks does. I’d like artillery to make an appearance in the game, on larger maps, likely, as their range would be incredibly helpful. In similar fashion to the mortars, you rangefind your target and fire. I think, with a larger map, adding vehicles of this nature would be okay.
Bombers. Genuine, dedicated bombers, could be added with a larger map/mode. This could be limited to 1 or 2, I’m not entirely sure.
New fronts, New forces.
Add more fronts, making forces like France, Japan, Italy, China, ect possible to fight as. This is very much a down the line thing, but it could serve to extend the player’s options for who to fight as and where. Also, I think the Japanese offensive is underdeveloped. Add a campaign for Japan vs Russia, Japan vs China. I’m not sure what can be added, I’ll admit that, but I think if there is something to be added, this team can do it.
That wraps up potential developments that can happen within the reality of what we have now, basically implementations I can see happening in general.
Way down the line possible implementations:
These are things that could work down the line but shouldn’t be even considered at this point for current development.
New eras.
As with War Thunder, there may come a time where WW2 has been extensively covered. Fronts exhausted. Add new eras, but make it so you can hop into those eras differently than War Thunder. New content should NEVER be kept away from players for extended periods of time, like how a top tier jet being added will never be touched by players in tier 2 unless they worked for months on end grinding for it. After loading in from the main login screen, add a prompt to choose your Era, WW2/Cold War/Modern Day. Then from there players can select a campaign to play. This Era can be changed at any time, like campaigns.
I’m aware this won’t come for say, 4-6 years. Maybe even longer, but I’m giving an idea of what the road can take you to, and when we get there, a map of how it could be done. Honestly I’m not even sure this will ever come, but it would be great to see if and when it does. Enlisted has the potential to outshine a lot of games, especially with multi-era implementations. That, I would love to see.