- Medic System Left Unfinished
During the map merge period, DF even asked players for feedback and claimed they would buff and rework medics.
In the end, they just dropped the plan entirely. Old medic squads are still stuck at 4-man setup, and the planned upgrade to standard 6-man advanced squads was permanently shelved with zero follow-up.
Medics were originally supposed to be a core unit for team passive healing, but now they’ve become nothing more than a noob filler unit for early BR progression. A vital support role was completely wasted, with zero real iteration or improvement.
- Rocket Mechanic — Overhyped, Half-Baked, Then Abandoned
It was heavily promoted at first, advertised as tank-busting rocket strikes meant to reduce infantry reliance on airstrikes, letting them take out heavy armor without always calling planes or using their own tanks.
Players had plenty of reasonable ideas：use angled rocket fire to clear enemies hiding inside fortified buildings in Stalingrad, Berlin Central Station, or the Music Hall — targets regular cannons can’t penetrate. Each nation could’ve had unique rocket payloads to create proper faction-specific strike styles.
The final implementation was a letdown. Rocket vehicle fire rate is painfully slow, and its anti-infantry damage is even worse than the BM-38-24. Any half-competent player can easily dodge it. DF only lazily released premium messenger units for Germany and USSR, plus limited marathon rocket squads for all four nations — then abandoned the entire system forever.
So much wasted potential. Players suggested naval artillery support for Normandy and Pacific maps, plus rocket strafing runs from aircraft. Historically US ship-mounted rockets and Japanese large-caliber mortars could’ve all been expanded into alternative artillery options. Yet DF ignored all this and threw the whole branch away.
- APC & Motorcycle Vehicles — Ruined Balance, Poor Design
The introduction of APCs completely killed off motorcycle riders. Bikes were already weak for lone-wolf gameplay, and APCs rendered them obsolete overnight.
APCs can revive teammates inside and carry up to 7 players, outclassing motorcycles in every practical way.
Motorcycles are full of flaws：terrible traction, wobbling wildly over small bumps and nearly undrivable. Defense is paper-thin, barely usable only in low BR tiers and completely irrelevant at higher ranks. Later they lazily added machine-gun bikes and useless anti-tank rifle bikes just for filler content.
Map design contradicts vehicle logic. Many old maps are small with rough mountain roads that even regular tanks struggle to climb. The idea of using motorcycles for guerrilla tactics is totally unrealistic and poorly thought out.
- Flamethrowers & Rifle Grenades — Lazy Mass Nerfs Instead of Proper Limits
Flamethrowers
When they became overpowered, DF took the laziest route: instead of limiting the number of flamethrower squads per match like they do with tanks, they just slashed movement speed, ruining the class forever. Suppression effect is now worthless, and AI can easily rush and take flamethrowers down.
Worst of all — predatory business practice. Right before map merge, they discounted premium Tunisian flamethrower squads, only to nerf them hard half a month later. Plain false advertising and ripping off paying players.
They could’ve simply capped how many flamethrower squads can be active in one match, but they chose the lazy one-size-fits-all nerf instead.
Rifle Grenades & Impact Grenades
A full 9-man squad could all carry rifle grenades, effectively giving the team the equivalent of 27 instant-detonation explosives. It became brainless overpowered meta with no need for actual tactics.
Instead of setting reasonable limits — such as only 4 rifle grenade launchers per 9-man squad, or one impact grenade per player — DF nerfed everything harshly, killing all tactical variety in the process.
Current State
Urban assaults have devolved into mindless attrition fights. Flamethrowers, rifle grenades, and explosive gadgets are all dead and rarely used anymore.
- Incendiary Mechanics — Great Concept, Quickly Abandoned
Incendiary content first appeared in a marathon event: aircraft could drop fuel tanks to create fire zones. Yet the burning area was tiny (only around 6 square meters), dam
- Premium Squads & Mortar Units — Pointless Overpriced Mediocrity
The BR4 premium mortar squad is a joke — like selling ice cream in winter. BR4 is already a harsh meta, and almost no one would waste money on such an underwhelming unit.
Rifle grenade and mortar squads are fundamentally flawed. Proper mortar play needs spotter binoculars to mark targets for AI bombardment, yet DF never added this basic feature. The mechanic is overly complicated and rarely seen in actual matches.
The dev team acts arrogant, assuming players will buy any new premium content no matter how poorly designed it is, completely ignoring real battlefield balance.
Faction bias is obvious. Premium units for other nations at least have viable strength. USSR barely has anything good besides paratroopers and APCs. They even dare to sell poorly designed units like the SU-76, which is inferior to German Wespe analogs.
- Engineer Emplacements — Awkward Design, Refusing Simple Low-Profile Fixes
The current heavy machine gun emplacement system is clunky and impractical. It forces huge sandbag structures that take up massive space, making it impossible to set up in most windows or tight chokepoints.
Both community mods and DF’s own April Fool events already featured low-profile simple sandbag emplacements — compact, no bulky wooden barriers, perfect for window firing. Yet DF refuses to implement this proper layout. The forced bulky sandbag placement ruins gun depression angles, making emplacements useless in most cover positions.
Community mods already have perfect low-profile machine gun nests that fit naturally on stone walls and open ground. DF keeps hiding this proven design and never adds it to regular engineer build options.
Existing machine gun emplacements also had their bullet spread secretly nerfed, now spraying wildly like submachine guns. They offer no stable firing platform and get easily picked off by snipers, making emplacement warfare pointless.
- Overall Conclusion
DF has three critical recurring problems:
- Countless new mechanics and ideas are always developed halfway then abandoned — rocket strikes, incendiary support, air/naval fire support, vehicle balance expansions all left unfinished.
- Instead of balanced quantity limits for overpowered units and gadgets, they always resort to lazy blanket nerfs, destroying tactical variety and fun gameplay.
- They ignore valid player feedback and high-quality community mod designs, sticking to arrogant closed-door development. Maps, vehicles, classes, and field emplacements never get proper polish. Major storyline progress and gameplay innovation have completely stagnated, wasting long-term player goodwill.
