My take on Enlisted so far (12/24/2020)

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I’ve been following Enlisted since about 2016, and I have been looking forward to the game ever since. I really liked the idea of finally getting a historically authentic world war 2 game and on that gorgeous looking dagor engine was a big plus. What I’ve seen so far is mixed. This is my opinion.

I’ll Start with the good:

  • Weapon models and textures look great
  • Animations are mostly good, some of the SMGs and MGs might need a little more oomph though.
  • Maps look gorgeous and all have their own distinct feel (So far)
  • Vehicles are pretty fun but challenging and offer multi crew support
  • I’m 50/50 on the physics based movement system. I think the collision could be cleaned up in spots, but overall it’s decent.
  • Performance is and has been stellar for a game in closed beta on my mid range system.
  • Progression is reasonably good, though maybe a tad slow. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to make people grind through some of the same guns with different skins in each campaign. There should be some carry over between campaign progression.

Then there’s the bad:

  • The game modes or “missions” right now are piss boring. Domination and Push from battlefield? Come on guys we know you can do better. You know you don’t have to just copy paste the uninspired war thunder game modes right? Think outside the box, I know you can. The game is meant to be authentic so create some authentic and interesting objectives and modes.
  • No game mode selector. Again, bad War thunder ideas seem to rub off here. I don’t want to be forced to queue for domination when I want to play frontlines.
  • No tiered matchmaking. I don’t know if you guys have plans for this in the future, or whether there is a system already in place (I have not noticed one myself), but you can’t pit maxed out premium squads against level 1 newcomers. Either ditch the perks and straight weapon upgrades, or introduce tiers for them, those are really your only two choices if you want this to work.
  • Mortar teams. Looked cool, stupid in practice. First they were OP as hell, now they might as well be a child’s toy. This isn’t a hard fix. Create binoculars item and allow them to tell distance and angle, take a look at a game like Foxhole for reference.
  • Organization tools. You don’t need anything too fancy here, just some tools like maybe drawing a basic arrow on the map, or maybe having a little 20 second pre game planning session would really help regulate the flow of the match a bit better. Also give people XP for following order and/or completing things that were assigned to them (à la battlefield). Would really help stem the “meatgrinder” problem plaguing a lot of matches right now. I’d love to see this taken to the next level like in Squad, but I don’t expect it. A Commander mode like in battlefield 4 or Squad would be a neat addition as well.

Here’s my controversial opinion on the game as a whole:

  • Take out the bots. This one is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. I don’t like em; what can I say. Maybe there’s a better way to implement these robots like giving the player more control over their movements, or allowing the player to individually order them around. Maybe some sort of dragging system like in an RTS, where you can draw the formation you want and then the bots will line themselves up in that order. I just don’t really see it working right now, and since the bots don’t push the soldier count above anything other modern shooters already offer, you’re not even pushing technological boundaries. If you are going to keep them, then dedicate an entire month or two to just working on them as they are no where near ready for release.
  • Full maps, transport vehicles, and tactics. I won’t hide my intentions, I want this game to be a tad more realistic. As much as there are many Joe Schmos out there who want to come home from work after a long day pushing papers and hop on their Call of Duty meat grinder shooter for 20 minutes, those are not the group of people that keep a game like this alive. Call of Duty and Battlefield can do it because they have staying power and top of mind consumer awareness. Enlisted does not. The game in my opinion, needs to demand a little bit more thought from it’s players than run in, shoot gun, die, press Y, shoot, die, hold point, die. Players simply don’t care about the bots. They don’t cares about the excellent armor penetration systems. They don’t care about your gorgeously detailed worlds and models. I speak to many a gaming community, and that’s what I have heard. It’s the gameplay that matters most, and if you want to sink your teeth into some thick money whales your going to have to give’ them a reason to stick around long term, and I’ll tell you this right now: domination and push from battlefield with linear single objective gameplay ain’t it chief. Expand the maps, make troop transport a thing, limit the amount of certain squad types you can have on the map (I.E. Tanks, Planes, Mortars), give defenders a minute to set up and dig themselves in, Spawn attackers far away from the objective and force them to use transport vehicles (creating conditions for my previous point), Maybe supplies system like in squad post scriptum? I feel like the game can ride the line between being realistic and casual, but overall I just think that I as a player need something more engaging to keep me here long term.

Thanks for reading through my entire crap post. I’m interested in reading what people say in the comments as well as what the future holds for this game.

Update 12/26/2020:

  • Increased party size or server browser

This one is really straightforward and I don’t really think there’s a whole lot of debate. I want to move my clan to main this game, I also have larger groups of friends that want to play together. This isn’t a battle royale, and I know you guys ported the party system from CR, but it really needs to be changed for release. I know someone will probably make the argument about how some people will cry and whine about fighting a team that is actually organized and has a lot of OP weapons, response to this is make it an opt in thing or create a new game mode if enough people are worried about that aspect. In addition on that point, refer back to tiered matchmaking section, would also most likely help with this problem.

Update 01/04/2021:

  • Starting Animations

Let me preface this by saying the game has much bigger problems than what I’m about to discuss in this paragraph, but I figured it was worth adding to my thread. Most modern triple AAA shooters have been implementing these cool intro animations where your characters either get orders, or come in on vehicles, e.t.c. Take a look at something like BF5, Titanfall 2, Call of Duty MW & Cold War for reference. They seem like such a trivial thing, but they really do take any multiplayer game to the next level by giving your soldier a bit of context for what they are fighting for. +Bonus points of there are varied voice lines to listen to. I think this was especially necessary for Normandy, where having such an iconic battle start and end so abruptly and unceremoniously felt a little weird.

  • Defending team setup time (Invasion)

I really think this will be a game changer and is very necessary. Enlisted has such an intuitive building system, yet people rarely even use it because of how fast paced it is. If the defenders even just had a minute to set up, it would be super helpful both for realism, and for game play. This game is meant to be asymmetrical right? Defenders almost always have an advantage, especially on the beaches of Normandy where they were extremely dug in.

  • More animations overall

Again, not crazy important, but it takes a shooter to the next level of immersion when you have awesome animations to boot. I would love to see shell loading animations for the tanks, at the very least for artillery. I want to see my commander use hand signs and yell out commands when I order my troops around. It’s so incredibly immersive to have these features and I think it would really take the game to the next level in terms of fidelity.

I’ve Created a seperate AI thread to outline my opinions on that here: You have the wrong approach for bots Darkflow

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One simple question:
What would Enlisted offer compared to literally every other WW2 FPS title if it wasn’t for the AI squadmates?

For visuals, you have AAA titles.
For historical accuracy, you got post scriptum etc

It can not compete with those titles and should not compete with those titles. It needs to stick to its unique niche.

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Correct that it’ll ruffle feathers, because that’s what makes this game unique.

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No, just no. Enlisted is built on bots and squads

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Read the whole post before you start seeing red mon ami. If they can’t make em work, then they shouldn’t be in the game in my opinion. The bots have been f’d since the first open alpha and are completely useless as of right now. Unless they completely rework them, they should focus on finding something else to differentiate themselves.

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Ignore my entire criticism and focus on 4 words; typical. At least I got your attention right?

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I agree, not to take out the bots just give a user more control or little bit smarter ai. It is a really great game. Thanks for your post

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Blockquote

No. Bots aare funny sometimes they will help you :szeroki uśmiech:

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hello and merry christmas!

it’s always nice to see some feedbacks and share some opinions ^^

indeed! aside from the gewher 30/40… i don’t know about you all… but looks like a fake wood.
but that’s not a big point.

sorry, what do you mean by omph ?

Yeah, aside from spawncapming, those maps are really well made.

in terms of visability? or slow performance due to crew?. just curious ^^

well… i’m amazed that someone enjoy somehow this system… i don’t know if you tried any car in the normandy campaign but… eh. i don’t know. looks clumsy to me.

truee… hard to see some good well optimized game for many range of pc.

Good?
i would like to hear why do you find it good or how.

well, yes, but actually no. ( sorry for the bad meme ). becouse, this cannot work for everything, and it would create unbalance for those that tries a new campaign finding weapones carried over.
this might work for like, vehicles? where let’s say you have a company of halftruck, where in reality, halftrucks has been used preatty much on every fronts. but the factor that you already transfer a unit to another campaign, it would be unfair due to the crew already experienced that owns perks.

or that’s what i think. feel free to have any thoughts about it.

so, sooooo truee. it’s kinda sad to see always the same gamemodes over and over. but you have to watch their perspective. what people play the most? is it worthed to spend money and effort in something that not many people are gonna play? it’s a tricky topic i think…

it’s not out yet, because we still have to test many side of this game, and eventually, help to fix it!
i know that sometimes we don’t wanna play a certain gamemode. but it’s essential to make this game good. no?

i hear you man… the game has been somewhat murdered by this factor… and people agree and disagre… i don’t think that will be gone soon sadly. but otherwise this project need support. we’ll see.

glad that we came with the same idea!
indeed i made a post about it:

but even than… people complains about how easy is to use the mortar now days:

so i don’t know at this point…

i do see your point, and i would agree for half.
but on the other hand, just like battlefield, and now in enlisted; how many of those people will follow orders? give xp for follow orders it’s a good strategy. but it’s not garanteed that everyone will follow orders. after all, enlisted gives the player much opportunity to do what they want. without limits. so i think it’s best if it keeps that way. not to mention, you would have to create an indepth xp system for snipers covering a point, AA helping to shoot down planes, infantry supporting the tank, the tank supporting infantry. yada yada yada it’s full.

oh boy… hot topic. i don’t wanna end up like half of the comments under your post. but it’s the main core of the game. and i couldn’t care less of enlisted if it’s another type of game. i don’t know if you tried the lone fighter mode, but feel empty. and yes, bots are present. but the unique part of enlisted it’s having big seized maps to fight on. getting overruned by russian, americans or attack german positions it’s just feel unique and well made.

otherwise, yes, bots are clumsy. but every update i can see that bots are becoming better. and as the CBT road map stated, more formation for the bots, and more improvements are coming along the way.
so we’ll just have to wait ^^. but if you don’t like them, welp, no one is gonna force you. after all lone fighter it’s not that bad.

transport vehicles are present( in the normandy campaign ). full maps, not.
becouse i don’t think you are awared, but there aren’t many testers. in total, we are around 4000 testers? maybe 3000 ? so as you can tell, not many. and you can feel that too becouse in normal matches most of the time are filled with bots with strange names. so you can’t really bring a full scale for now. enlisted lacks of numbers. and you can’t blame the devs for that.
not to mention, they are not like an AAA studio. so money and personell are a thing.

this whole part, no offence. but it’s very debatable. because i go to work too. and when i came home tired i play enlisted too and i don’t deny that sometimes it gets repetitive. but i like it, because it’s somewhat realistic. i do care about realism. i do care about bullet penetration, and complex vehicle system. ( same it goes for stamina, weapons weight ). so again, it’s debatable. might not like to you like it does for me.

but that’s another story.

that’s it for me.
( jeez, that’s quite a long response. apologize :frowning: but if you made it through )
thanks for your feedback.
and cheers ^^

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1: No need to get toxic if someone doesn’t agree. Especially when you said you know it will ruffle feathers.
2: I have read your post, but most of it I don’t care enough about to comment on, or is too personally biased to comment on.
3: I simply want to know what you think will keep the game unique in the sea of WW2 FPS titles that are out there if not for the AI.
4: AI performance drastically increases at higher ranks. Giving them bolt actions does also help as they generally do not fire fully automatically.

As far as I see, they only need a few things:
1: increased aggro gain at short distances, aka making aggro gain rate range dependant
2: decreased/no aggro gain throug bushes (maybe 50% less gain to make them able to shoot through 1 bush)
3: Smart weapon selection depending on range
4: using automatic weapons in full auto at short distances

Currently bots shine against long range targets that don’t move much, being capable of even shooting through walls in rare cases.

The feeling of impact when firing a gun. When you shoot a bolt action it really feels like you fire a gun, but with SMGs they feel weaker.

Dagor is known for looks over functionality in its maps

It works well, but currently the movement (imo) is a bit too slow.

While I don’t particularly care about it, I highly doubt they will do crossover stuff as originally they were ment to be basically seperate games and Enlisted would only be a launcher

Imo these modes work quite well. Often, in ww2, battles would depend on capturing areas without major losses. I’m not sure what other modes would work, except maybe making most of the map one big capture point and having cap rate be really fast if one side has the advantage?

I think a lot of people just asume it will be added later and put up with it because of it.

They actually changed markers, they now provide range for mortar users, at least in Normandy. That actually works fine

But who would be assigned as “the leader”?

D-Day is probably the largest map ingame rn and you rarely hit the map borders

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everything else has been gone over a lot on the forum

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Yoo, thanks for taking the time to respond, I appreciate the feedback on my feedback.

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Thanks for taking the time to respond, really appreciate exchanging ideas. I know I get a little passionate about this game.

This is sort of an X factor in games, but it essentially boils down to the feedback weapons give you when reloading, shooting, e.t.c. It kind of applies to all the guns, but the sound effects, and recoil animation I feel are a little bit lackluster right now. I think the bolt actions are the best in this respect right now.

Multi-crewing tanks is really fun to do in multiplayer shooters if available, and I think the damage models from war thunder work well with this. I also think losing crew members and then being temporarily at a disadvantage is very interesting and is a factor that sets Enlisted apart from other shooters in the genre. Overall I just really enjoy it personally.

Again, some people keep asking what sets Enlisted apart, I think this is one of those things. It’s just a little quirky I guess, maybe it reminds me of TABG or something, but it just feels interesting. I think it work 10 times better in third person, but I feel it’s a unique gameplay aspect that needs a little polishing. Other shooters tend to feel quite stiff, Enlisted does not.

I think that this is another element that really sets Enlisted apart. Most realistic military shooters opt to give you everything from the start. Enlisted really makes you feel like you are building a squad of personalized soldiers, and the possibilities really interest me. Like I said though, I think it could be sped up a tiny bit, or interspersed with cosmetics as I found myself getting a little bored after a while.

I actually sort of respectfully disagree on your point here. In the current system, people that main a single campaign will be at an advantage either way, even if they get to carry over some of their equipment. My suggestion is moreso focused on direct weapon overlap. Your Kar98ks, your mp40s; grinding for the same stuff over and over in each campaign is a great way to artificially inflate progression, but it’s pretty boring on the receiving end. Additonally, it makes the campaigns feel very disconnected from one another, as if they are completely different games. I think my suggestion on this still stands as reasonable coupled with the tiered matchmaking change. I do admit though that without tiered matchmaking this change could exasperate the premium and high level squad balancing issues.

Sorry, I’m not too active on this forum so I didn’t read your post before this. I really just came up with this suggestion from my background playing foxhole.

Mortar loading times just need to be increased dramatically, currently you simply fire them far to quickly. I suggest even making them a two person vehicle type system where one person loads, one person fire e.t.c.

Honestly, yeah, this would be tough to implement. I do however think that granting XP will incentivize players to complete objectives, A la battlefield or Heroes and Generals. Perhaps even punishing players for not following orders? Though on the other hand that might be too heavy handed. There’s definitely a debate to be had here; how far do you take this system, what limits do you put on a commanders ability to steer his troops in a specific direction? Either way, The game needs something more in the way of organization in my opinion, or the boring meat grinder gameplay will be all this game ever sees. Overall, if the bots stay, I think it would be interesting if Enlisted sort of steers towards being a hybrid RTS FPS.

Are the bots really becoming better? The devs keep saying that they are, and at least they shoot back now, but I still see them making the same mistakes from the open alpha tests. If they are going to stay, we need more control over each squadmate individually and as a unit. I really think the devs should take a page from an RTS like heroes and generals and model them after that. Lone fighter mode is an absolute joke. The reason it feels empty is because the soldier count is dropped to 60 without adjusting the map scale whatsoever. Squads has around 140 soldiers on the map. Oh yeah, and then there’s the fact that they openly try to trick players that they are not fighting bots and instead actual people. Lone fighters is virtually only bots but they use real player names to make it seem as though you are fighting real players. The reason lone fighter sucks is simply because the devs half assed it for the sake of ticking a roadmap box, plain and simple.

Definitely this is my opinion, but I’ve spoken to people on the Enlisted discord and this is the sort of thing I’ve heard: that a subset of the game’s backers want a simple easy game to play for 30 minutes then log off. I personally think this ends up hurting new games that try to cater to more casual players and end up not being able to do anything interesting because of it. Casual and fast paced is not what the game was marketed as. The unique selling point was the authentically create asymetrical maps, realism, and real scenarios. My personal theory about why there are people who now want this casual 30 minute meat grinder style of gameplay is because of Cuisine Royale (or CRSED FOAD or whatever) and the type of player that it started attracting. For god’s sake the game has weapon jamming and the most intricate vehicle damage model system of any shooter and you expect me to believe the original vision was call of duty with bots? I find it very hard to take, and I’m sorry for getting passionate about it, but it does sting a little to see such a stark contrast between what was advertised and what we have in the closed beta. As for me saying the average player doesn’t care about the bots, the penetration system, that’s purely what I’ve heard from my clan and the group of people I play with. Players are looking for something unique and fresh, and I don’t think the devs should put all of their uniqueness eggs into one AI basket if you catch my drift. Unless the playercount gets bumped up, or the Squad AI gets 10x better, the bots are just shitty stand ins for actual players as of right now.

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The issue is that there is a clearly defined meta loadout for the current state of moscow. Im not saying it fits everyone’s playstyle, but for an average player, the premium squad, LMG squad and SMG squad setup provides the highest DPS and the ability to attack capture points with the least ammount of casualties because of said DPS. It feels like every player is forced to collect the equipment needed to compete and in the end the resulting loadouts of players will only vary slightly depending on their playstyle. They will all use the vitality perk, for example. Why would you ever skip on +35% health in a shooter game? And that perk requires months of grinding to obtain as well, so it really leaves a bad taste in the mouth for a lot of players.

Well the squads used in the diffrent campaigns do not overlap, so it doesn’t actually make sense as much as those squads wouldnt send their equipment to the other frontlines.

I have thought long and hard about matchmaking, but I really doubt there will be any system capable of properly quantifying a player’s strength. Whether you use soldier rank, campaign level, or squad levels, there will always be a way to abuse the hell out of it.

They definitely have improved since alpha.

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More accurately, the different campaigns take place at different times. What might be unlockable late in the Moscow campaign might be available from the getgo in Berlin, as there’s quite a time gap between them.
So it wouldn’t make sense for a level 3 SMG unlocked in Berlin to just freely carry over to Moscow when it’s level 12 in that campaign, for instance. As it would be state-of-the-art in Moscow but more standard in Berlin.

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I mean, we have no idea how campaign progression will work yet comparatively between campaigns as of yet. TBH that’s a little silly as well. If you want to go that far down the “Authenticity” rabbit hole then you’re really opening the floodgates and you might was well start asking why individual regiments don’t have their exact weapons as was historical, why infantry squads run around with multiple automatic weapons, and so on and so forth. Additionally, using a progression tree to create authenticity is another balancing and play to win problem I would rather not get into. Overall, I just really think this is a silly line of reasoning to pursue. Gameplay and quality of life is king.

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I don’t see how different campaigns having different weapon sets and tierings is a QoL issue.

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Not having shared progression would be fine if the progression wasn’t randomized

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Mp40 in normandy and mp40 in berlin is overlap isn’t it? Maybe a slightly different variant was used, but does it really justify players having to grind to it? Seems a little silly to me and more of a progression inflation. There’s a reason no other multiplayer ww2 shooter has ever done this.

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There’s a pretty simple band-aid for this right now, just add up the number of stars on weapons and/or perks in a squad then rank people based on that. Another band aid might be just to create certain squad level thresholds and if you go above that level threshold you don’t get matched with players in the lower tier. If you wanted to get more in depth in the long term, I’ll provide some suggestions since I have nothing better to do with my crap life:

  • Create a currency system out of stars, kind of like COD pick 13, pick 10 e.t.c.
  • Perks need to always have a tradeoff; The current “straight upgrades system” is a problem. Alternatively, you might be able to remedy the current system by maybe assigning more stars to perks that work better than others? Devs might need to compile data and see what is used most by players (don’t need a poll to see you vitality perk :angry:)
  • Rank different weapons with stars based on how well they perform in game. Like the perks, a little subjective, but using data this should be pretty straightforward to figuring out.
  • Rifles cost less, give people opportunity to get more perk; MGs cost more which gives you less room for perks e.t.c.
  • Upgrades follow the same train of thought with upgraded weapons being worth more points, thereby blocking you from getting more perks.
  • Vehicles are a bit of a tough one, but I would tentatively say that heavier tank destroyer class tanks would be assigned more stars, while lighter LUVs would be worth less but have better outfitted crews. I mean, you could even just take war thunders trees and port them over, ranking the vehicles based on that.

These are just a few ideas I spitballed quickly, what I’m trying to say is that it’s not impossible. Of course there’s always going to be abuse, but that’s what betas and alphas are for, working out the kinks. I hope and pray this game does not release for another few months because it is definitely not ready for the public.