Vitality Insta-Kill & Downed Position. How To Counter Vitality? Unfair?

Mess Room
1

I am still learning the ropes on mechanics of Enlisted, so I am gonna lay down what I know about vitality perk, health bar of soldiers and damage to down or kill.

Based on other posts, like Is it worth upgrading the damage on weapons? and What is minimum damage to kill in head/tors/hand?, I came to conclusion that for bolt-action rifles there are two scenarios:

  1. without perk “35% vitality”, you need 15 hit-power to insta-kill or 10 to down the enemy

the weapon Insta kill when the damage is superior to the number of total hp pool (15) of the enemy soldier
Base hp pool (10) + downed hp pool (5)

  1. with perk, you need 20.25 hit-power to insta-kill or 13.51 to down the enemy

However, vitality perk exists, which grants +35% health to both health pools, making it so you need a gun that does 20.25 damage to oneshot those 100% of the time, or 13.51 damage to down them in one shot.

Question is, what is the most common engagement range on the battlefield? Below 100m? If so, does this means that there is no need to upgrade bolt-action rifles to level 5, since even fully upgraded aren’t guaranteed to even down the enemy soldier with vitality perk below 100m? Feels very expensive to upgrade weapons to level 5 and then watch enemy player shrug it off.

Enlisted Screenshot 2022.03.08 - 09.43.37.43
Enlisted Screenshot 2022.03.08 - 09.43.37.431669×803 713 KB

This feels unfair. For newbies, as me, bolt-action rifles give us a chance against veteran with semi-auto guns, etc. People have said on other posts something like,

Bolt actions were historically replaced once semi autos and select fire rifles were done with the teething stage out side of the sniper role. I mean its sucks they arent AS good but thats sort of how it is

I feel like this is missing the point entirely. Enlisted is not a realistic simulator, it is a game where we should have balance i.e. all options (guns) should be viable, not be replaced and forgotten (i.e. power-creep).

TL;DR

What is the point of fully upgraded bolt-action rifle if I can’t certainly even down the enemy soldier with vitality perk since I need more that 13.51 hit-power?

Bolt-action rifles are clunky and hard to master, but when it does hit you - YOU GO DOWN and not bunny-hop away!

3 Likes
2

Keo teased that they have “good news for bolt action rifles users”. Also he teased some experiment with weapon ballance in the new campaign.
So I’d say: be patient and “follow the news”. We will see what they come up with.

3 Likes
3

Oh, that is exciting. Did not know about that. Thanks for the information.

1 Like
4

The game has always had difficulties with balance vs historical accuracy. It can never decide exactly which one it wants to be.

2 Likes
5

And in quite a few examples it achieves neither :upside_down_face:

2 Likes
6

Yes exactly. Historical accuracy so they slow semi auto rof uhhh? Then it’s balance bolt actions with more power uhhh but its the same caliber? I just wish it was consistent or they wouldnt try to throw the historical accuracy defense

3 Likes
7

Some BA are weakned (starter BA)
Some BA are buffed (ex. carcano M91)
not taking into account the bullets they use as the semi-automatics that use the same bullets as the BAs but do less damage,
in my opinion i prefer a balance like this

8

10 to down and 20 to instant kill without vitality perk. down hp poor is 10 not 5

9

A, literally never seen anyone eat a bolt action because even the kar98k with 14 damage is still more than it takes to down someone with vitality by 0.5 points and with upgrades it literally has 0 chance to live unless you’re at 200+m.
B, even if they did survive they’re so either so far away that they can’t hurt you or you can just shoot them a second time, vitality is great when fighting smg users or semi autos but you’re not living through a bolt action, especially the 15 or more base damage ones.

10

The damage boost to bolt actions is invaluable:

You can down people at higher ranges. If you’re bolt action crack, you’ll engage people from farther ahead than the regular guy, and will be annoyed if your bullet lost too much power to down someone.

It’s especially true for “carbines” lovers, like myself who enjoy rifles deemed “weak” by others, such as mannlicher and “small” (forgot mod number) carcanos.

There’s also the much overlooked accuracy boost at last star lvl. Makes any bolty pixel accurate.

2 Likes
11

@Edrobax - Shoot in the head! :wink:

1 Like
12

I just hope said “exciting news for BA” does actually translate into a BA buff, rather than in some bs Nerf to everything else like RNG dispersion.

4 Likes
13

Then ppl would ask a BA nerf or limit…

14

There are no pragmatic reasons to use bolt-action rifles to begin with. Not when you can arm even the most basic riflement with either semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons. Which is nonsensical and harms both gameplay (kills variety) and authenticity.

As for fully upgrading them, it isn’t entirely pointless. Full bot squads and newer players don’t have that +HP perk, fighting those will become a bit easier. Still, it’s pretty bad. I hope they’ll do a full pass on progression sooner than later. It needs comprehensive changes, almost all aspects of it from campaigns to soldier perks to weapon upgrades.

1 Like
15

I would agree because vitality allows people to just EAT flamethrowers, makes them immune to grenades unless they land on their pinky toe and cheats you out of kills on slow firing SMGs like the M3 BUT…

Vitality is a 16 point upgrade. You’d need at minimum a level 4 soldier just to get this perk, and it removes any future vitality related perk choices, like 200% restoration, stamina regeneration or max stamina. If an Enfield still dropped my unit in one shot, i’d feel cheated and wouldn’t take the perk because all it would give me is a down over a kill in CQC (you’re dead anyway) and one extra hit from SMGs (again, 99% of the time you’re dead anyway).

I propose lowering it to 30% or even 25% that way upgraded bolt actions still down these units within 300m, but the perk remains tanky enough to value it being a 16 point perk you invest so heavily into getting. I’d also be fine if they dropped it to 15% and reduced the cost to 10 points.

1 Like
16

The entire system of perks is fundamentally bad. It’s an illusion of choice for newbies. In reality there’s always going to be the best combination everyone must use to be relevant. There has to be a better way.

Tweaking stats and changing the list of “best” perks not a real solution. That only further obfuscates the problem without making it any less serious.

1 Like
17

I don’t think I agree with that but I’d be interested in hearing more. I think there are a number of viable options that are primarily eclipsed by the +vitality perk.

I’d like to see more perks, especially class or weapon specific perks that complement diffeplay styles. I really want to see the end of the random perk slot machine, but I wouldn’t say the system is fundamentally broken.

What do you think needs to be done?

18

Oh, I’m sure my opinions aren’t particularly intersting or important…

The main problem with perks is that while it is true that +vitality is eclipsing lots of other options at the moment, it won’t be any better to have something else take the dominant role. Which is the inevitable outcome of rebalancing or addition of new perks.

The only other alternative is to make them all so pointless and worthless that choosing either of them is basically the same as not having them. Either way it’s fake choice and fake variety, all in a casino-like form that artificially makes progression longer. Maybe this isn’t a real problem for some, maybe I’m just too tired of both fake things and casino aesthetics.

As for what I think should be implemented instead… Well… My opinion on this is even more irrelevant, but since you asked… If there absolutely has to be another layer to soldier progression, I think it would be better to just expand the primary stats and allow the player to slightly increase them. Either through use or by assigning experience points manually. The rest should be dictated by equipment.

1 Like