Devs Are Taking This Game In The Wrong Direction

Mess Room
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So I wanted to get some time in with the most recent update. After all the changes I wanted to give it a chance. And with the Normandy event going on its the perfect time to get another gold weapons order. However, these new changes to explosives are so ridiculous I have 0 motivation to play the game. For those of you who have followed the changes, you can just skip the next section that covers the update to see my opinions on it if you want.

Back in CBT and early OBT when explosives were rare the game was an absolute blast. However, testers noticed that there were issues when it came to explosives in the game. They were capable of holding enemies off objectives permanently. Whether this be mortar spamming a point with infinite ammo, the ability to call in arty for 2/3 of the match (upon OBT launch), or large rockets and bombs to wipe whole teams constantly.
The majority of the community called for these things to be nerfed or changed to make them less spammable and focus on what this game is about (infantry combat). And with the release of the newest patch we were all initially happy based off of the patch notes. Darkflow promised artillery strike balancing by reducing the cooldown to 48 seconds (with perk), buffs to small caliber HE shells (which the community argued were useless), and an unannounced change to mortars that they couldn’t resupply anymore. Many in the community (and what appeared to be the majority) were extremely happy with these changes.
But then news started to trickle in… The mortars not being able to resupply was a bug and promptly fixed. The German CAS in Normandy, which many argued was “balanced” due to the fact they could only have one plane, was supposedly a “bug” and they were given a second plane slot. But the worst was that the buffs to HE shells actually applied to all explosives. Plane bombs would kill even more people. The mortars had an even larger radius too. But the worst was that this made the artillery one hit everything near its red circle.

This game is going more and more towards explosive spam. The game has went from mostly infantry combat with some kills by explosives to mostly explosive combat with some kills by infantry. I’m sure some people like this, but for me its annoying. Why am I playing a first person shooter just to get blown up for half the match? Theres nothing fun to getting blown up all day. Pretty much everything I was reading on the forum was that explosives needed various forms of nerfs or changes (outside of the aforementioned low caliber tank HE shells) with a smaller group saying they were fine. I can’t recall more than a handful of serious posts to increase explosives and none by long time testers. I’m sure some will disagree, but I truly do feel that these buffs are ruining the game.

*I should add on a separate note that I do like many of the smaller changes done this patch. Just that the explosive changes are a game killer.

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I really don’t get why the game is so oriented explosive when maps are so small.

Same for planes. i don’t get where is the fun and the challenge (except making easy kills with brain turned off). no skill needed.

Some reasons why i won’t put money in this game for now.

Infantry fights are fun. That’s why i play.

I hope dev team will respect their community better than WT.

It’s still on beta that’s why i still have hope.

Let’s wait and see

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Honestly, I think planes are the largest issue, simply because they are effectively playing a different game than those who are on the ground.

In warthunder, planes work in mixed battles with ground vehicles, as they have clear counters on the ground in the form of anti-air vehicles, and due to the more open maps, are able to be fired upon by many angles. In addition, due to their targets being, well, tanks, you need some precision with your weapons (generally speaking) to destroy them.

Whereas in Enlisted, not only do we lack any ground-based counter to aircraft, but vehicles have nerfed vertical guidance adjustment rates, so even if you wanted to, say, use your AA .50 cal against a plane, your MG elevates so slowly it’s basically useless. Furthermore you’re dealing with tight spaces, and the primary target, infantry, are far more easily affected by airborn munitions than tanks and the like are. The only AA option you have is with the Engineer emplacement, which has such a slow traverse rate and such limited ammunition, that it takes a very high level of skill to utilize, and most of the time, isn’t worth it.

There are ways to balance Artillery, mortars, etc. But I don’t know of a way to make planes work in Enlisted that would really be satisfactory, unless we removed bombs from planes entirely, or nerfed them into the ground, while also heavily buffing AA, adding pre-built AA emplacements to maps, etc.

For Artillery, I’d most recommend forcing Artillery into a Queue for each team, with only one Artillery barrage at a time being able to happen, in order of them being called, with a set pause delay between barrages. This means even if you’re trying to lock down a capture point, there’s say, a 15 second window to rush in, and you could always gamble in the meanwhile. Or perhaps limit it within grid squares on the map so you couldn’t just lay down artillery on a capture point and instead would be encouraged to use artillery on other enemy positions that aren’t already being dogpiled on by your artillery, perhaps, rather than it being a pure per-side limit.

For mortars, I’d remove resupply, increase ammo per soldier to 20 rounds, add an additional mortar operator to mortar squads, let other squads take a mortarman instead of a radio operator, and add counter-battery markers, so if someone fires a mortar, they light up on the map for anyone else carrying a mortar. This means mortars remain an effective tool that can be used, but a clearly limited one.

I’d decrease throwing range of Explosive packs by about a third, and otherwise leave them the same.

Tank-based HE is in a good spot right now, I think.

Those are my thoughts on explosives.

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Germans can use 2 planes on Moscow and Berlin, them having 1 Planes on Normandy makes 0 sense. It was a significant advantage the allies had over the Germans that causes some unbalance issues.

The Ju-188 bomber had no machinegun equipped meaning you cannot defend yourself from Air, you won’t even be able to resupply for another drop of bomb cuz you will get shot down. its not balanced at all

The A-20 Bomber (500lb bombs x2) on the other hand had Guns. And late game US planes are better than Germany due to Rockets, while Germany planes sucks late game. They are only good against planes, they lost their rockets/ bombs. and only had cannons, which is trash

The german players has been suffering for so long on Planes Bombings, its only natural for the allies to feel the same

And the planes on lv24 as you can see. German lost their bombs. US still keep the rockets

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Late game US planes get HVAR rockets that can decimate infantry too, on P-47D-28. German one doesn’t have bombs nor rockets

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I had both A-20 and Ju-188 already maxed

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German has 1 extra bomb in the expense of having no Guns, meaning you are a free kill on Air if none protects you.

But yes they need to fix the Artillery Bug. The damage is too high. Tanks needed a buff on HE shells, not artillery

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Okay so first things first the point was that German players would argue that it was “okay for the Bf110 to get rockets that can wipe out half an enemy team because the Americans get two planes” or the same argument for the 109 G-6. The original point was how the Germans have even more explosive spam on top of the bomb changes. A little bit of a segway but I’ll argue for why Germany has better air than America after this update.

American planes are significantly worse than German planes. The argument that the A20 is the best plane so all the rest of America can be trash is a ridiculous argument. Heres a list of planes by maneuverability with their payloads. You tell me which nation seems to be stronger when it comes to CAS, which is what wins games.

Most maneuverable:
P 51 (2x 100 lb bombs) - lethal radius roughly 10-15 meters
Bf 109 G-6 (1x 250 kg bomb) - lethal radius roughly 40-60 meters
Bf 109 G-10 (no payload)

Decent maneuverability:
P 38 G and J (6x M8 rockets) -lethal radius roughly 5 meters
Fw 190 (2x Wfr Rockets) - lethal radius roughly 25-30 meters

*Note the above are the “fighters” in game, meaning a player will typically bring the best “fighter”

Decent maneuverability but bomber:
A 20 (4x 500 lb bombs) - lethal radius around 40 meters

Poor maneuverability:
Bf 110 (4x Wfr Rockets and three explosive autocannons) - lethal radius of rockets roughly 25-30 meters and guns around 3-5 meters
P 47 (10x HVAR Rockets and 1x 500 lb bomb) - Rocket lethal radius around 30 meters and bomb blast lethal around 40 meters
Ju 188 (6x SC 250s) - lethal radius roughly 40-60 meters

*Note this is based off of personal experience and numbers may slightly differ. Fw 190 I have not unlocked so I can only assume its maneuverability is similar to the P38

Saying that the Ju 188 is weak because it cant shoot back is pretty ridiculous. Thats the trade off it has, no armament but the ability to carpet bomb and wipe the whole enemy team. And when one gets shot down another just immediately spawns in. And saying that the Germans have suffered in CAS is absolutely hilarious. Considering every single post about planes being OP with explosives was always about Bf110 and to a lesser degree Ju 188, Bf 109 G-6, and A 20. 3 German planes vs 1 American plane.

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All late German Planes lost their bombs and rockets, I strongly disagree with the Germans having better planes, as they lost the tools to kill Infantry, Germans have better CAS planes its historically accurate as in History. But the US is still better because you still have access to kill Infantry late game with superior rockets

I play both sides, late game US have more explosion than the German counterparts

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Anyway the Devs already confirmed it was Bug that Germans can only use 1 Plane. Have you played Germans? do you know how it feels while you can’t shoot back as the Ju-188? When the US can have 2 planes with guns to destroy you? Does that sound balance?

I’ll stopped here. What has been fixed is already fixed.

Germany have 2 Planes on Moscow and Berlin btw

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Have you read my post?

And to answer your question:

  1. Yes, and I could repeatedly fly mine around all match when germans only had one plane because American pilots hate their P51s and P38s which are useless for CAS. They typically run tanks instead.
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Explosive spam is really disgusting in this game. Berlin cbt have been really fun cause there isnt horrible spam, YET.

Explosives are too strong and dont have friendly fire or its effect is greatly reduced. Thats most stupid mechanic in game, people can just spam in cap points and only enemy players take damage and headshake.

Every explosive should have equal friendly fire and some penalty for team kills

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I still do well as Infantry on US btw, I got over 200 kills. The Bombs and stuff is annoying but im sure they will fix it, especially for the Artillery

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Nerfing cooldown for artillery was welcomed change, however, buff to its effectivity was unnecesary. Artillery was fine the way it was before in terms of effectiveness of the incoming shells.
Mortars… are of course pure cancer because they can be resupplied. I understand, that devs tried to find a middle ground between “no supply” and “unlimited supply” camps, but I do not believe that is going to work as well as it is expected. Just like with artillery, upgrade to mortar radius was not necessary, nor welcomed.

I believe it ïs all part of one problem, because it seems that ALL HE was buffed (inculding mortars and artillery).
Of course, then there are planes with higher payloads which is something that speaks for itself and needs no introduction. (However, I still believe that if F2P accounts had two vehicle slots, more contested sky would help with this problem a bit)

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I dont believe more planes would increase dogfights significantly. Suicide bombing definetly would

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I bought 2 months of premium and the battle pass, but i will stop supporting the game. I joined to play a shooter and yet 8 out of 10 deaths i get from bombs, artillery and mortar. The game needs money support because the devs are working hard on it, but as OP said, i don’t like the direction they are taking.

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I’d increase AA’s elevated angle turning speed (so it’s still hard to hunt infantry with it) and also would increase the plane resupply point distance relative to the amount of units the bombs killed. So on >50 killing spree refill point distance should already be 1.5-2x further away. Not very realistic though, maybe it should be relative to the number of refills, signaling the less and less available bombs. And it could be per-player, so if someone jumps into the plane at the end of the match first he don’t have to travel 6 km right off.

It would be an interesting experiment in which I’d like to participate. Current setup isn’t good, it’s a sadistic approach to force you to stay in a specific location and give the enemy the option to murder your squad at no cost.

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While that might be a somewhat worthwhile attempt to nerf things, I think that there would still need to be more done to make things effective. Like I said, prebuilt AA, SPAAG vehicles like the M16MGMC and Sd.Kfz.251/21 (for Normandy examples), increasing the maximum elevation of MG nests, there’s a lot that really should be done to make it so that air vehicles are actually interacted with by ground forces. I’m also not overly concerned with the traverse rate of the present AA guns, as they already lack the ammo to really utilize things effectively, and the present slow traverse rate is still more than enough to deal with infantry at medium and longer ranges. So I’m not sure that just simply boosting the traverse of the AA gun on the whole would be all that bad.

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In the early open beta I think it was possible to kill the pilot with rifle if he was flying low. Now the planes are really tough to shoot down with AA, there must be a middle value of their hitpoints between “flying tank” and paperplane.

I’m also OK with the big bombs’ increased blast radius, just they don’t look big and are too frequent, so infantry often can’t enjoy the game. Buildings don’t protect much which is also a trouble I think, unless they make them crumble let them protect the ones inside if not standing next to a window. Flame thrower’s wall penetration capabilities are also strange for me.

For the artillery: I like the direction of bigger efficiency/less headshake (if I die screenshake is gone :slight_smile: ), just the 1:30 cooldown is what they did not set but should. Also for bigger explosions they need bigger animations I think.
This is how it looks in another similar game, where you actually believe it was BIG (ok maybe it’s a bombing run, not artillery):

That’s not too intuitive. It could light up for everyone not in a building, tank or plane, the mortar has its sound that not just other mortarmen hear. Maybe not on first shot but on fifth. But the base idea is good.

I wished suggesting to reduce the mortar rate, but real videos are also 1 per 4-5 sec so it’s not extremely unrealistic at one shot every 3 sec.

Oh yes, mounted weapons should not be limited to 5° turning freedom as it happens frequently, you’re right.

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Mortars only getting 1 refil per ammo box is fine - it literally cuts their ammo to 10% of what it used to be - which means they are inflicting 1/10th the casualties… now a REALLY GOOD mortar squad, loaded with engineers, gets 10 kills.

Asking for more nerfing of them is ridiculous.

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What this game does best is make you appreciate how good other games have it. You play it and think, wow, World of Tanks has really nice matchmaking and playerbase transparency compared to this game. You play it more and think, wow, Battlefield is actually a good game. You play it some more and realize, wow, if I wished to shoot bots in the head 24/7, I could just boot AimLabs and have fun with that.

Then you stop and try to think what actually makes me want to play this game again. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s kind of a mess. The potential is there, but I do agree that the way the game develops over the last few months makes me think that it might takes years, if ever, for it to become anything more than what it is now, balance and features wise.

Artillery and bombs spam has to be nerfed drastically, it kills the flow of the game on the ground completely. Allowing 2 bombers is a joke. You have 10v10 SQUADS mode, and usually are lucky to have 4-5 actual players on each side per lobby. Of those average 4 players, 2 hop on the bombers, 1-2 hops in the tank, and you are left with 1-2 actual infantry players trying to play objectives on the ground while the fill-in bots sit around spawn points and hide in buildings and bushes until the game ends or the respawn counter hits 0.

If you doubt the amount of bots in SQUADS, just pay attention in spectator mode and watch half of your team run into objects and do nothing while you lose the game.

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I’m fairly certain this is now one of the most liked posts (by likes on the original post anyways) on the English speaking forum. Lets hope the devs choose to listen to us on this.