#Improving Gameplay Structure and Role Balance

40 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

rocky grotto
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The game offers a great atmosphere, but lacks structure in its combat. Here are several concrete improvement ideas.

  1. Engineer role
  • Reduce the number of engineers available
  • Make them less effective in direct combat than riflemen
    → Goal: better role specialization and avoid overly versatile classes
  1. Vehicles
  • Make vehicle spawn points clearer
  • Better explain how to use them
    → Currently not very readable for players
  1. Special classes

-Allow more players to access them through a rotation system:

  • role is lost upon death
  • queue system for players who want the role
    → Prevents players from keeping a role for the entire match and improves variety
  1. Death penalty

  • Increase the impact of death:

    • either longer respawn times
    • or a progressive system (e.g. 5s → up to 10s max)

  • Prevent two consecutive respawns on the same strategic point
    → Reduces excessive counter-pushes and gives more value to player-built spawn points

  1. Alternative win conditions

  • Add a secondary objective based on losses:

    • a team can lose by reaching a high number of deaths
      → Needs careful balancing to avoid overly defensive gameplay, but could work as an opportunistic objective

Overall goal:
Reinforce combat coherence, reduce chaos, and better align gameplay with the game’s immersive battlefield atmosphere.

🇪🇺

lost grove
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I disagree with the suggestions for role loss on death and the increased impact of death.

I would be immensely frustrated if I waited in a queue for a role I wanted to try, spawned in, and instantly got deleted by an artillery strike I didn't even know was happening. Wanna try again? Back into the queue!

In the same vein, I get instantly deleted by things outside my control upon spawning all the time. Having to wait more than four seconds to respawn after dying within two seconds to artillery or something else? That's another frustration generator.

This game feels like it's heavily designed around an immensely short player life expectancy, which is kind of one of the themes of the first world war. You'd have to change a lot about how this game plays for changes like that to actually work.

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I do agree there should be a smaller number of engineers, though. I feel like it'd lead to much more coherent construction of defenses, spawn points, and the like. Always sucks to run out of build points because your team has 30 engineers all trying to do their own thing.

Don't agree they should be less effective in combat though.

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Although maybe giving the teams more build points would be a better fix than limiting engineer slots? Idunno.

lethal harbor
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I think fewer engineers would make sense, there are far too many slots for it available. Or maybe splitting them into "senior" and "junior" engineers with the latter having a more restrictive personal budget, and only the former able to place spawnpoints - and only one each, instead of one being able to place all three.

rocky grotto
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I understand the frustration around longer respawns or losing a role on death, especially with how fast you can die in this game.

But the current system is also very frustrating in a different way: access to roles is basically “first come, first served”.

For example, I have a good PC and connection, and I was able to play the pilot role 5 times in a row in the same match just because I loaded faster. That means some players may never get access to certain roles at all.

I’m not saying my solution is perfect, but at least a rotation system would allow everyone to play those roles eventually. And since players die very quickly, roles would cycle often enough to stay accessible.

On engineers, we seem to agree there are too many. The issue for me is not just the number, but how complete the class is.

Right now, engineers:

  • can fight effectively
  • heal themselves
  • have effectively unlimited ammo (and grenades)
  • build and destroy efficiently
  • move just as well as riflemen
  • can place spawn points (which is extremely strong)

So there’s almost no downside to picking engineer over rifleman, even if you don’t build.

That’s a balance problem.

When I suggest making engineers less effective in combat, I don’t mean making them useless, but giving riflemen a clearer advantage in direct combat. For example:

  • slightly better weapons for riflemen (late-war rifles, etc.)
  • or small stamina differences (engineers carrying more equipment)

Right now, rifleman feels like the least attractive class. It struggles in close combat, and it’s hard to justify picking it over more versatile roles.

On build points, I don’t think increasing them is a good solution. The issue is already that construction is chaotic. Adding more resources would likely make it worse, not better.

Overall, I think the game needs clearer trade-offs between roles. If one class does everything well, it removes meaningful choice.

rocky grotto
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Some quick research and answers with GPT.

You’re asking whether, historically, there were more engineers than riflemen, or even a comparable proportion, in the French army during WWI.

No. The opposite is true: riflemen, and more broadly infantry, formed the bulk of the army, while engineers remained a specialized and significantly smaller force. In the French army of 1914, a typical army corps included two or three infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade, an artillery brigade, and only one engineer battalion. This already gives the general idea: engineers were support units, not the backbone of the front.

Even as the war evolved and the armies of 1918 became much more “technical,” with more specialists, infantry still remained the core of the force in terms of numbers. What increased was support, tactical complexity, and coordination between units, not a shift where engineers outnumbered riflemen.

So, applied to your reasoning about the game, your intuition is sound: if engineers are almost always more effective than riflemen, it’s not just questionable in terms of balance, it’s also inconsistent with the historical logic of a WWI army, where engineers were a specialized, scarce, and valuable resource, not the most efficient default class.

sullen zealot
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your point is invalid and i wish you nothing but pain and missery

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shame on you and your family name, please tear your own molars out with a rusty pair of pliers

sullen zealot
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wait wrong person

sullen zealot
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actually i kind of agree with most of you

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my personall idea is giving the roles seperate respawn times

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less specialists = longer waits for reinforcements

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meanwhile riflement were a dime a dozen, so they wouldnt be hard to reinforce, hence the shorter respawn times

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i also like the idea of a kill-count win, and on that note i think diferent classes should contribute a certain amount if kills

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like a riffleman is one, an armoured unit and engineer is three, an mg is 5, so on and so fourth

rocky grotto
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Following up on the previous discussion, I’d like to propose a more focused and practical solution regarding the engineer class.

The core issue, in my opinion, is not really a “meta”, but a structural imbalance:

Right now, engineer offers too much value compared to other classes. It combines combat, sustain, building, ammo, and spawn capabilities, while also being highly autonomous.

At the same time, other classes often depend on engineer, but engineer does not depend on anyone.

This creates a natural imbalance where a large portion of players gravitate toward engineer.

In practice, it feels like engineers can represent around ~60–65% of a team, which amplifies the problem even more.

Proposed solution: Engineer nerf + Medic introduction

Instead of splitting engineer into multiple complex roles, a simpler and more practical solution would be:

1) Reduce engineer role and availability

  • Reduce engineer slots from ~60–65% down to ~33% of the team

  • Engineer keeps:

    • construction (trenches, barbed wire, fortifications)
    • ammo box

  • Engineer loses:

    • heal box
    • spawn placement

→ This removes sustain and projection from the class, while keeping its identity as a battlefield shaper.

2) Introduce a Medic role (~15% of the team)

  • Can heal and revive players
  • Revives bring players back to full HP (instead of ~25 HP for others)
  • Can place a forward spawn (field hospital type)
  • Same weapon setup as engineer
  • Choice between shovel or wire cutters

→ This separates sustain and respawn from engineer, and creates a dedicated support role.

--- "Continuation"

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Balancing logic:

Currently, up to ~60–65% of players can provide sustain (heal boxes) and spawn points.

With this system:

  • Engineers are reduced to ~33%
  • Medics are limited to ~15%

→ This significantly reduces the overall amount of sustain and respawn sources on the battlefield.

As a result:

  • direct healing becomes more valuable
  • respawn placement becomes more meaningful
  • support roles become more important
  • engineer is no longer a “complete” class

Expected benefits:

→ clear trade-offs between roles
→ reduced class overlap
→ more meaningful class choice
→ improved teamplay structure
→ better readability of roles on the battlefield

Most importantly:

→ engineer becomes less dominant, and other classes regain value

This approach is intentionally simple, readable, and compatible with the current chaotic gameplay, without requiring strong coordination to work.

Curious to hear thoughts on this.

--- "End"

woeful socket
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Just my opinion but uh, in order of your points

  1. But engineers were just riflemen with build skills, and back then riflemen were just “man with gun who may or may not be educated”. Very blue collar. Making engineers worse than them wouldn’t make sense.

Making them lesser is the same issue, it’s a rifleman with a shovel, as it should be in a trench warfare game. The better teams are usually the ones who spend equal parts building and fortifying as they do fighting and strategizing.

  1. Not much to say on this aside from if you don’t know how to use a tank you probably shouldn’t be in it, and I feel like trucks and planes are equally self explanatory, but fleshing out the vehicles would be useful yeah.

  2. Having it set on official servers that after 1 match as a role, it’s locked for one match forcing you to play something else would be far more logical than leaving it up to the chaotic death spawn death loop that is this game

  3. I’d agree on any other game but on this game I feel like this really does simulate the body mill that was the Great War. Remember 15+ million death toll. That’s a lot for a bunch of dudes digging up dirt and making firing lines across from eachother. The rapid spawns and floods of players really helps create the chaos and frantic swarm of a ww1 battle.

  4. People already point farm for leader board clout regardless of winning. Adding secondary objectives would divert from the core gameplay for the same reason, assuming it gave points like being on a capture does, and now it would help the team win. There’d be gremlins purely farming secondaries trying to skew the game in their teams favor and get to the top of the scoreboard, who never once touch the main objectives or partake in the main fighting. And with the aforementioned engineer farming, mixed with afkers and back line coward officers spamming flares, it’d just add to the retraction problem. I honestly feel a shin condition based on territory control and kills is the most solid mechanic of the game that truly embraces ww1. I couldn’t disagree more with this point in particular.

analog pawn
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It's not his points it's chatGPT's

woeful socket
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oh

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pfft

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bye

rocky grotto
sullen zealot
coarse moat
coarse moat
sullen zealot
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how do we incorporate an AC-130 into a ww1 game

coarse moat
coarse moat
sullen zealot
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ngl

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that could be a cool gameplay mode

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with like

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and alternate reality ww1