The general history of weapon and squad balance

Mess Room
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I have been playing Enlisted now for quite some time, things have changed alot - things still change all the time and looking back… yes the game has improved alot, many balance issues got addressed.

However I would like to do some “time travelling” with you folks and check out the history of weapon balance.

I think it is time to look at the mistakes and achievements of the past - to learn from it and see what could possibly change to make the game better.

I invite you all to share you opinions on the past - was there something that you miss? Was there something that you hated?

I’ll start by going back to my first matches in Enlisted - I started playing back during “closed beta testing” of the Moscow campaign… and let me tell you the game was different.

Enlisteds initial core balance was build around a strong “asymmetrical balance” concept:

-Germans had better MGs
-Soviets had better SMGs

That being said, unlike today, MGs and SMGs had practically the same accuracy, because dispersion hasn’t been a thing yet - so MGs were actually even more accurate than today’s select fire rifles.

MGs were increadibly powerful and practically hyper assault rifles - everybody agrees that the nerfs were justified and needed.

However, here comes the detail that people don’t think about - SMGs were also much much stronger back in the days, because the damage drop off was much much smaller thus the effective range was easily 100 meters for most SMGs.

Practically speaking, everything was much stronger even semi autos were super powerful, because of no dispersion AND because of them having practically no fire rate cap - you could “almost” shoot as fast as you could press left mouse button.

Now now now, did I say everything much stronger? Well, Mortars and artillery? Much stronger though - we shouldn’t forget - there was friendly fire.
Same with bombs from planes.
Tanks? Coax MGs dealt the same damage as their infantry versions - US 50. cals killed in one shot.
AI would snipe you across the entire map through bushes.

Yes everything was much stronger - with one exception: bolt action rifles were terrible.

They didn’t kill in one shot against vitality, and quite frankly I dare to say that this was the most important change the game has made so far.

Now back talking about “meta”

Germany was using MG34s, Soviets used PPDs, while the rest and regular troopers left in MG and Assault squads used SVT and G41.
That was the true and only meta.

I remember I had 3 fully equipped MG squads and that was literally the only squad I have been using and that for good reason. Why would you pick a MP40 over an assault rifle with 50 round mags?

Same goes for Soviets, their DPs were not terrible, but MG34 and PPD were simply better weapons.
So what the meta actually did, was making 90% of the other options obsolete - which became especially apparent when the big semi auto rifle nerf happened - even before all the other nerfs.

I want to remind you all that the semi auto nerf was the first big mistake ever made, and to this day we are fighting with it.

Now this being said, putting the early Moscow times aside, something happened, something big, something so controversial that even today we here in the forums are still talking about the memes.

Normandy happened - and the legendary “wastedwoodsman” stood up against the introduction of the FG42. Today we simply accept that regular trooper untis have full auto battle rifles, but back in the day, as Germany being the only faction having them - this caused a massive shitstorm.

Anyways, thats my little summary for now, ups and downs happened all the time, but now for you guys, what do you remember?

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I play since September 2022.

First thing which I remember, is that AA cannons were commonly used against the infantry:

Second - that tank penetration values were different from War Thunder (all tanks have less penetration), which makes some tanks hard (T-34, KV-1) or even impossible to kill (Jagdpanther).

Third - bots were even dumber than they are now, very often they were blocking building of a rally point or other structure:

Other changes - addition of new maps / vehicles / APCs / paratroopers but nothing really in therm of a balance.

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I’d say one of the major things was plane bomb nerf / overhaul.
They had much bigger blast range than now and could kill you through walls with ease. Normandy was basically unplayable with it’s strong planes.
Also no plane spawn delay at the beginning of a match. Game started, both sides spawned planes and bombed spawnpoints, getting 30-50 kills in the first minute of the match. Truly awful experience.

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True, BA rifles were essentially useless. Which was a shame as they are very fun imo.
Now after buff, with skill and luck they can be competitive even at BR5. But they are still not as strong as other options imo.

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It made me appreciate the Bf110 G-2 and the P-38 as a beginner. I had fun in Enlisted when I was playing with those two planes in Normandy, but the fun was no longer there.

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In the Tunisia Campaign, the first engineers were put at level 9, but the first radiomen were at level 3 or 4. So unless you had gotten to the 9th unlock, you could not build rallies. This resulted in players relying heavily on smoke screens from the radiomen they unlock to move into an objective and capture it.

It encouraged players to be creative and develop new strategies, which I enjoyed. It also made players with an engineer squad extremely valuable on your team, like an elite division entering a battlefield. But then Darkflow lowered the engineer squad so beginners could have faster access, and Tunisia turned into the rest of the campaigns.

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Not really. People just didnt play Tunisia then or practically begged devs to fix it.
In entire Tunisia time, only one dude ever used it during my playtime and that was @Conscript_Joe.

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Dang, that is disappointing.

Great minds think alike it seems.

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When that first weeks of open beta hit and more players started unlocking radio squads.

Red circles, red circles everywhere.

Also pre-panther normandy where Jumbo rolling out felt like playing King Tiger now, oh how tides changed

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Its funny - bought the Panzer III M and Stug III G - because they were immortal to Jumbos back in the day, while they themselves could penetrate Jumbos at their MG port.

Truly terrible gameplay back then… you know, thinking about it, I often claim that Panther and Tiger should switch place in their BRs because Tiger vs Jumbo is rather fair game - yet I somewhat hope this never happens… I hated this stupid “nobody can kill each other” game play.

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Before the merge DarkFlow tried a mechanic where the soldier use up their stamina while ADS a MG in the Stalingrad campaign, I’m glad they removed that as the gun start to wobble when your stamina is depleted.

If I remember correctly MG had a different recoil pattern in as well, there were more horizontal recoil for MG in Stalingrad in comparison to the same gun from other campaigns, also the recoil pattern for MG in Stalingrad kick downward instead of upward.

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Almost forgot about that mechanic - to be fair I didn’t really like Stalingrad all that much, mostly because of completely broken KV1 and T34 STZ - Panzer IV had no post pen damage back then - that being said, nowadays I appreciate it more, those close quaters tractor factory battles can get pretty intense.

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I remeber my cbt times

“Hey, why the madsen have same skin as dp”

“Great, my ppk41 and ppd34 box its the best squad ever”

“Wow, 70kmh, panzer 3 E its the best tank of the game”

Conquest on monastery

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I’ve been wondering recently, since I haven’t been around during alpha times… any super veteran here to share some insights?

From what I heard there was some super closed alpha testing back in the days, i have seen footage of STGs and Berlin waay before it got introduced, so I always assumed that Berlin as a concept was actually older than Moscow.