General Feedback and Balance Discussion

[Stealth Clobber]

Can we get some kind of indication on the K98 that we're out of rounds in the current clip? I had many cases of this that were no big deal, but I had one really bad instance last night where I had a once in a lifetime shot to take and *click*, no rounds! I don't count my rounds, but still there's not even any kind of indication that there are no rounds left until you pull the trigger, and it get's annoying in those instances where someone is 5 feet away and all of a sudden you have no rounds left.

[Pvt.LHeureux]

Oh, just have to code auto-reload in it I guess? Otherwise there is no weapon in the game that displays the number of rounds you have left.

[AfterDune]

Automatic weapons have this "click" you hear when you've reached the end of your magazine. No idea if the Enfield has that too, for example.

But for the K98, it only has 5 rounds, it's really not so hard .

Not going to make this weapon auto reload or stuff. The only thing we might do, if that exists in other rifles in PR, is add that "click" sound, but that's really the only thing. Count your ammo...

[Ts4EVER]

Ok finally had time to actually check out the mod (offline for now though). Was really neat to see good old st lo breakthrough on a different mod. However, there is some stuff that I find puzzling:

1: Detail texture tiling - especially noticable on the cobble stone texture. Just looks horrible, it's like 4 times too large.

2: Colormap - Was it not allowed to reuse the FH2 one? Cause the new one looks like it was painted per hand in the editor and the colours are way off.

3: Layout wse I find the new flags puzzling, they seem to go against the flow of the map and lie contrary to expected routes of advance. Also, why did you move the US mainbase to a street that does not lead directly to the first flag? That kind of stuff is like mapping 101.

4: Why would the Germans leave a fortified position like the hill flag unoccupied at the start?

5: I find it curious that the FH2 version of the map is actually more open terrain-wise, considering the focus on long range combat in PR. That seems counter intuitive.

[AfterDune]

1. Could you post of pic of what you mean? Not sure I understand..

2. I just repainted it with T-paint. Doesn't look that bad to me to be honest. Though FH2's colors are nicer.

3. The flags are quite the same, I just moved the US to the east as during testing it felt wrong and too easy for the US to get the first flag. But perhaps now (see point 4) it might be better for gameplay to move the US main back to its original position.

4. Hill and Fossard were under German control first, but during testing a couple of weeks ago (with 64 players) it didn't work out at all. The US had a very hard time to capture those flags, so I decided to make them neutral at start. And it still is very hard for them to cap them.

5. I went a little overboard with overgrowth, my bad. Right now it's not too bad, as there's not a lot of stuff to cover behind, but the amount of overgrowth might be decreased in the future - with added low walls and stuff to provide decent cover against bullets and stuff.

[Ts4EVER]

1. Could you post of pic of what you mean? Not sure I understand..

I mean the tiling of the detail textures. The resolution if you will. It looks way too low. It's especially noticable ont he cobblestone texture. At that resolution it looks like the stones are huge, which draws attention to the fact it is just a 2d texture.

2. I just repainted it with T-paint. Doesn't look that bad to me to be honest. Though FH2's colors are nicer.

Yeah the colours are the main problem. If you export the colourmap with bf2 mod toolkit you can fix it in 20 minutes of photoshop or gimp.

5. I went a little overboard with overgrowth, my bad. Right now it's not too bad, as there's not a lot of stuff to cover behind, but the amount of overgrowth might be decreased in the future - with added low walls and stuff to provide decent cover against bullets and stuff.

Or use more hedgerows to provide clear cover and line of sight breaks.

[sweedensniiperr]

In the big scheme of things these infantry weapons didn't matter anyway, especially on the western front

kinda hard to do in PR eh?

[Ts4EVER]

kinda hard to do in PR eh?

What do you mean?

[titsmcgee852]

Can we get some kind of indication on the K98 that we're out of rounds in the current clip? I had many cases of this that were no big deal, but I had one really bad instance last night where I had a once in a lifetime shot to take and *click*, no rounds! I don't count my rounds, but still there's not even any kind of indication that there are no rounds left until you pull the trigger, and it get's annoying in those instances where someone is 5 feet away and all of a sudden you have no rounds left.

Learn to count the rounds then

[Frontliner]

Regarding the MG42 "issue", the way I see it there are multiple options how you can go on about it:

a) If you wish to keep an Automatic Rifleman:

about the German lmg. The only comparable weapon was the FG42 + captured allied or chzech weapons like the MG26(t) or the Polish BAR. These were used in big numbers by the troops guarding the atlantic wall.

There are a couple things to consider still, even though it seems fitting to use one of these:
The FG42 was only lightly produced(around 8k if memory serves me correctly) and already discontinued in 1944, but I guess it wouldn't harm to have those on maps where a Fallschirmj?gerdivision is present. But even then I would class it as some more of a german "Specialist Automatic Rifleman Kit" you have to request(and only 1 or 2 of those in play) due to rarity and the fact it wasn't designed to be an LMG. The same basically applies to the STG44; and although produced in much larger numbers, the Germans had 2 fronts at that time to worry about and ship their newly produced STG44s to.
The Polish BAR had around 24k units produced and would see service on the atlantic wall, but personally I would not recommend going for it, due to it being a copy of the American BAR, which can lead to confusion, but also because the MG26(t) is an overall better contender for the spot as I will explain down below.
Finally, MG26(t) was used largely(to my knowledge) as part of the Bunker defenses to supplement the MG42s and other captured weapons, however in contrast to other ARs it was already widespread in the Wehrmacht as well as designated for use even before WW2 started. I personally don't think it was used the way the BAR was, but if you want a German BAR counterpart that is both common and comparable in strength to it, it is the best choice.

TL;DR here
FG42/STG44: Too uncommon, would only see service in FJ Divs(former), it was supposed to increase individual soldier strength(replacing Kar98ks rather than other automatic firearms)
Polish BAR: Could lead to confusion when similarly sounding weapons attack one another, not as widespread as the MG26
MG26(t): widespread, adopted by the Wehrmacht even before WW2, was used in the AW, best choice if you want the Germans to have a BAR counterpart.

b) Be creative and make each faction more unique in their ways of combat:

I personally think the Germans shouldn't have an AR(except 1 or 2 specialist STG44 and FG42 wielder) but instead have a larger focus on supporting their MG42. What they did in WW2 is to have another 2 soldiers solely dedicated to supporting the MG. These would be called MG-2 or MG-3(MG-1 being the actual machine gunner)one for loading and holding the belt to decrease jamming, and one for spotting and changing the barrel. Since weapons can't jam and the weapons can only be reloaded by the user that leaves the spotter and seeing how only NCOs are given binocs, they are practically worth their weight in gold in PR:N. So my suggestion would be to have 4-6 MG42s in play as part of the HMG kit, and have the German Automatic Rifleman be removed altogether in favour of the MG-2 role, in which you will be given the Kar98k and a handful of magazines(like 4 or 5), an additional ammo box, another bandage and binoculars. This would lead to more diversity in the factions and thus lead to more strategies and gameplay.

[Ts4EVER]

I concur with b), except for the stg44 issue, but that would be a discussion for a different day.

[Pvt.LHeureux]

I personally think the Germans shouldn't have an AR(except 1 or 2 specialist STG44 and FG42 wielder) but instead have a larger focus on supporting their MG42. What they did in WW2 is to have another 2 soldiers solely dedicated to supporting the MG. These would be called MG-2 or MG-3(MG-1 being the actual machine gunner)one for loading and holding the belt to decrease jamming, and one for spotting and changing the barrel. Since weapons can't jam and the weapons can only be reloaded by the user that leaves the spotter and seeing how only NCOs are given binocs, they are practically worth their weight in gold in PR:N. So my suggestion would be to have 4-6 MG42s in play as part of the HMG kit, and have the German Automatic Rifleman be removed altogether in favour of the MG-2 role, in which you will be given the Kar98k and a handful of magazines(like 4 or 5), an additional ammo box, another bandage and binoculars. This would lead to more diversity in the factions and thus lead to more strategies and gameplay.

I really like this idea!!

[sweedensniiperr]

Yeah, so basically it should become a limited kit similar to the sniper kit?

[rodrigoma]

yeah like the upcoming machine-gunner kit in 1.0
and If we would leave the Ger specialist kit with the smg, and the current US kits as they are it would be fine in terms of balancing Imo

I for one would prefer to see Normandy mod with less smg's and focus more on rifles as in the actual war. Would love to be only one smg for the squad-leader and nothing more

[Pvt.LHeureux]

Yeah, remove the MG kit from the spawn menu, instead put a MG Support kit that would have 2 ammo boxes instead of one, binoculars and one more field dressing.

No frag grenades, no smoke grenades, less ammo for his gun to balance so people don't take the kit to go solo.

[Arc_Shielder]

Add more recoil/deviation to Thompson and MP-40 and it becomes a bit more balanced. No need to remove everything extra.

[Pvt.LHeureux]

Haha I agree that the SMGs got too less recoil, espacially the Mp40

[AfterDune]

Recoil and a bit of deviation will be added, but you'll still see the same amount of SMGs on the field as you see today.

[rodrigoma]

Recoil and a bit of deviation will be added, but you'll still see the same amount of SMGs on the field as you see today.

Too much caos! but we cant get it all unfortunately,

About Operation overlord, I have played today about 2 hours of a round as an arty officer , I found that the arty guns are very useful and we can be quite accurate with them currently, I had a lot of fun spotting targets in the beach with the officer kit while my gunners shot at them.
So, I have some recommendations:
- Increase the range of the guns a bit, so they can hit inland just a bit more and so they can shoot at point du hoc and the other western end . I was so frustrated by them not being able to hit that area, just by 10 m or so ;(
- make it easier to reload the cannons? have a crate in the middle of the ship, and a longer reload time maybe? Right now its kind of silly