.50 cal Underpowered?

[waldov]

It could just be me but im seriously starting to think the .50 cal is majorly underpowered. I know balancing has always had a major priority in PRs development which im generally thankful for but the fact that the .50s feel more like M240s with M2HB skins over top is starting to get at me. 50cals fill a unique role in military firepower which i think may have been overlooked when they where designed for PR(and was definitely overlooked in BF2).
.50s fill the gap between GPMG/MMGs and light artillery like 23mms etc but ATM it doesn't actually offer any diversity to a teams available arsenal in PR.

I think its hitting power against light vehicles could almost be doubled or at least increased by 50% the .50s usefulness against vehicles currently requires a good 20-50 round burst to destroy a Logi which is pretty ridiculous if you think about what a 12.7mm bullet actually is.The same applys for helicopters which seem to shrug the 12.7mms off pretty harmlessly despite the fact a Huey or Kiowa would be lucky to take 10 hits without suffering severe damage. anyone whos been on the back of a technical firing up at the annoying Kiowas know what im talking about. really making the .50 cals closer to there real strength wont be to bad a thing to consider given that it will: Make .50s useful, make flying in insurgency maps a little more exciting, make having a .50 nearby actually comforting and add a truly unique weapon to all the teams.

That is just my thoughts but i want to see what other people think especially with actual in game experiences (not today you armchair generals). just a disclaimer this isnt a suggestion but a discussion about a current aspect of PR that people have there own views on and can discuss here for this reason it is in the general discussion section.


The reality of getting dealt to by a 12.7mm in a helicopter.

[ComradeHX]

I agree; give 12.7mm guns their bullet drop back and make damage bigger.

[Arab]

The original ammo count was reduced to balance things. Since at that time, they know from the Forgotten Hope 2 how to do fire-rates, they have to update that in 1.0.

I agree with it needing to be abit more powerful to take down vehicles more easily, and also people. 12.7 mm will pierce through more than body armor.

[titsmcgee852]

The 50 cal is a laser death machine in PR, I don't think they need to be more powerful in any way. It'd be great to see some bullet drop though. Vehicles are never hard to take out if you just aim for the engine block.

[Pronck]

Give them a small splash damage to represent the ricochet of the .50 cal bullet. I think the .50 cal should be feared, not only the M2 Browing variant, also the Dshka or whatever it is called. To compensate this, give bullet drop and less laser abilities. And maybe fix the pixel skipping on the insurgents .50 cal when zooming in. Just my POV.

[007.SirBond]

The only issue I have with the .50 Cal is that it doesn't penetrate a lot of surfaces that it should. For example a thin brick wall on Kokan, allows Taliban to duck down behind, aim with settled deviation then stand back up to headshot the .50 Cal gunner. .50 Cal should be penetrating a lot more surfaces than currently.

[Zemciugas]

I think they are fine, and helis should def not crash from 10 hits, sadly we don't have damage modeling or weak spots or something like that to simulate engine damage. You could shoot up the fuselage of a heli, but if you don't hit the vital parts like the engine or any controls it's still gonna fly unless you rip a big *** hole in it. Same for vehicles, if you don't hit the engine or any other vital parts it should run, like you see in pictures from astan or iraq where people are driving seemingly destroyed cars, but since the vitals are intact, it still runs in any shape or form.

It's easy as it is to kill helis and vehicles with the 50 cal. Try it yourself, just park up a techie on a hill in ramiel and wait for the blackhawks to fly in, a few bursts and they start smoking or crash almost instantly.

[MADsqirrel]

The 50. Cal is perfect as it is.
If it would deal more damage, flying choppers or driving light vehicles like jeeps, trucks and some light APCs would become to risky, especial on INS maps where there are tons of 50. Cals.

You also cant Compare PR to Real Life here because of BF 2 engine limetations. IRL you may be able to stop a truck by fireing 2 bullets into the engine but you could hit the truck with 100 bullets and it wont destroy it if youre aiming at the wrong spots.

Personaly I think the HMGs are way more effective against hueys as the missle AA so i cant really say its hard to kill them.

If you really want to buff the HMGs you should reduce the overheat rate. Normally you would change youre barrel after you fired a certain amount of shots or when you have a few seconds time so overheating rarely happens and even if it happens you would just change youre barrel.

But more damage NO!

[mat552]

Kiowa would be lucky to take 10 hits without suffering severe damage.

If we're going to get realistic damage on the .50s, then the Hellfire the Kiowa mounts needs to be bumped to realistic status too. 8kms of range, target sharing from data links, splash damage similar to a mortar round, and the ability to fire four in the span of four seconds at different targets without needing to guide them to their target at all.

[Gracler]

50 cal is fine in BF2 PR... its easy to kill with as it should be. I would like that HMG nests had some more frontal cover so it would require a head-shot to take out/hurt the gunner and not like now where your more exposed. People should be afraid of attacking a HMG nest strait on.

50 cal is king against helicopters when you get your aim right. Much better than AA.

[Hulabi]

I think the .50 cal damage against vehicles is fine atm.

What it needs tho, is minor splash damage against infantry. You should feel confident when a .50 is covering your advance, currently i do not.

[Pvt.LHeureux]

I think the .50 cal damage against vehicles is fine atm.

What it needs tho, is minor splash damage against infantry. You should feel confident when a .50 is covering your advance, currently i do not.

So true.

Giving splash damage to .50 would make wonders, simulate ricochets and surface penetrations, like shooting the frame of a window to kill the people just ducking behind it

[dajini]

I think the .50 cal damage against vehicles is fine atm.

What it needs tho, is minor splash damage against infantry. You should feel confident when a .50 is covering your advance, currently i do not.

Yes yes yes yes yes. It's pretty silly how you can hide behind a window and be completely impervious to an entire belt of .50 cal fired into the wall you're behind, when in real life a couple .50 cal shots would go straight through the wall and kill you.

It would also add more realism in that the .50 cal would become more of the "area suppression" weapon that it is in real life, rather than the mounted automatic sniper rifle that it is in game. It would be nice to hose down an area of enemies and at least wound some dudes... you shouldn't have to resort to aiming for the couple pixels of individual guys running around. That's just lame.

[Mongolian_dude]

Splash sure would make them more relevant as mounted weapons on fast moving vehicles, like FAVs and Air Trans. Currently the soldier firing a LAT 500m at you is more likely to hit your chopper than you are to injure him, so I would think splash would be the right incentive to change his mind.


...mongol...

[waldov]

Splash is a really good idea for improving the value of the .50 cal but more firepower against vehicles is still in desperate need.

A little while ago i played Gaza in the Namar and saw a pickup truck speed off down the road. I gave it a good 10 round burst of the .50 seemingly to no effect. 2 minutes later 6 or so guys from my team stumble across an artillery IED the guys in the pickup had planted, BOOM. Moral of the story? The .50 cal in PR is dreadfully hopeless against even purely unarmored vehicles.

Balancing in games can basically fall into 3 categorizes: Worthwhile, Hard but much needed or COD ridiculousness ATM i think the .50s in PR slide to far into the latter of those options. It would be nice to think underpowered .50s fit into the Hard but much needed category but to be honest it doesn't. All sides equally use .50s so no one can complain about one side getting an unfair advantage and its not beyond the BF2 engine to make .50s the powerful awe inspiring weapons they are. So why not make the 12.7mm weapons like the weapons they are IRL? .50cals dominating the game is obviously not going to happen, making them realistically powered isn't going to make Humvees and Techys invincible if any thing it will make them more vulnerable. so can someone explain to me what would be wrong with making .50 cals able to operate in PR as they do IRL? after all RPGs, M16s, IEDs, sniper rifles, grenades and numerous other weapons have there realistic strengths in PR and the game still works well.




just to show you that Humvees in PR have the same bullet resistance as a Strykers and civilian cars have the same bullet resistance as up armored Humvees. If you don't see something wrong with that then im seriously lost for words.

[ComradeHX]

Imo, splash for 12.7mm is not good.

But enlarged suppression is.

[Darman1138]

Are those .50 cal guns that accurate in real life? Or should they have some spread to them so that you don't get that "laser" effect?