While I haven’t been playing long, I have been playing a lot. Since I’m still unlocking things across all tech trees, I usually just play “Any Army” as a way to get some bonus xp. Although it was enjoyable at first, I get to dreading any time I get a Pacific map - and especially Japanese. Even though this is a PVP game, I’m going to buck the trend and say that I don’t really feel that ‘balance’ is vital, especially when you need to create fantasy weapons or vehicles. Japanese tanks really shouldn’t be able to 1 v 1 American tanks, because they were created with extremely different purposes in mind. And that made me realize why Japan feels weird to play…
They’re being forced into fighting like a “western style” army.
Without getting too off topic, Cold War era games fall into this trap a lot. An Abrams is objectively better than a T-72, so when games have company vs company battles - everything always skews towards NATO. Soviet doctrine did not fight like that. NATO would have a company, the Soviets would bring brigades in echelon, they would ‘recon in force’ and exploit weak spots with the idea of encircling and overwhelming the defenders. Results are usually different when it’s 5 v 1 instead of 1 v 1.
Enlisted does not play to the strengths that the Japanese army traditionally had. There are no night attacks, no infiltration, no ruggedly dug out defensive positions, no close quarters ambushes in swamps and jungles. Their engineers have the exact same build options as every other army. They have weapons and equipment that was designed for a specific type of combat, but they play like a reskin of western armies. The maps are the same thing. The Tenaru River and Alligator Creek could just as easily be in Tunisia or Normandy with a pallete swap.
Rather than combing the archives for theoretical tanks that can 1 v 1 a T-28, I would suggest that the focus be on leaning into the fact that armies play a little differently from each other. Make maps that actually feel like sub-tropical areas rather that Europe with palm trees. Give the engineers the ability to make “spider holes”.
This isn’t really asking for buffs, debuffs, nerfs, or anything else, just a request to make the Pacific in general play differently. Because even though they were going on at the same time, WWII in the Pacific and WWII in Europe had very little in common in the way they were fought.
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Oh I would LOVE unique buildables for each faction. That’d be SO COOL
Best you’re gonna get with that is a shovel to be honest
Also I’d also like to abuse things like number advantages. 5 Sherman’s to every Tiger and whatnot. Sadly, games just don’t like doing that
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Just another example of someone not understanding the difference between a game and a historical simulator.
No, you just don’t understand difference between game design that has explicit rules in order to create a distinct gameplay and historical simulator which tries to recreate the closest possible experience to how it really was back then.
Games are games, they’re not simulator. So there’s no trap to fall to. As games obviously don’t have to respect irl rules and realities.
I can’t imagine that this would have any positive effect on the game.
Either it would be completely useless, as everyone would recognize it on sight. Or it could be exploited in some way that couldn’t be worked around. (like the hedgehog inside the building behind the door).
That’s why you don’t even bother to explain how something like this would improve gameplay in any meaningful way.
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If a game designer wants every faction to play as a copy and paste with the only difference being skins and =/- 0.2 to reload seed, that’s fine. I’ve played plenty of Gaijin games before. The issue is unless you delve into fantasy - which some people like and some people don’t - you’re never going to be able to balance factions. Germany and the USSR went for big mf’ing tanks, the Allies went for medium all arounders, and Japan didn’t really need tanks for most the war it fought outside of China. So you’ll never be able to have a 1 to 1 counter for a T28 or IS3 as Japan. If historical accuracy is not a concern… well, I’ve played plenty of Gaijin games before!
I would rather played a slightly gimped faction with things that made them unique than having every single faction play identical, apart from different sights on their guns.
Soviets and Germans already get Ampulomets that other factions don’t. So theoretically - Japanese Engineers get a “spider hole” construct which creates a series of covered individual foxholes for the squad. It can only be built on dirt. It provides cover and concealment, but limits the field of vision and fire to 45 degrees facing forward. They’re dangerous in defensive positions, but useless in the attack, so players have to balance “how important is this spot” vs “while camping here I can’t help others.” Finally the troops within get 30 seconds of extra time after a zone changes to pop out and cause as much damage as possible before they die. Banzai.
Would some people abuse it - yeah, but they also park tanks just inside the grey zone and snipe you all day. Would some people just sit and camp - yeah, but they do that already. Would it give Japan a little something different so that all the engineer squads aren’t just clones with different weapon sights - yeah.
But that’s just me.