Proposing Loadout changes compared to the Beta

[Frontliner]

Give it to the ALT Medic maybe?

- quick reminder that the point of this proposition was to keep the fully automatic spam low -

[obpmgmua]

My stance on the subject is a more balanced approach to things,

I have some ideas on how to balance stuff out.

1) No more pickup kits they are game breaking. Requestable is the way to go.

2) No more SMG for the grenadier. Rifle with cup launcher is fine.

3) BAR is bad but all is not lost. Merge the two versions of auto rifleman(extra ammo & nades) into one.

4) MG42 is too good. I know you history nuts are gonna freak out over this, but simply removing the pistol from the automatic rifleman version should balance it out. You want a pistol? Get the machine gunner kit. Also no frags give the MG42 smoke grenades.

4.5) Also I prefer MG34 over the MG42. It's slower and much better for suppressive fire. Keep that as machine gunner alt.

5) STG.44 and Thompson are too good and should be only given to Officers. Yes you're still gonna have 1/5th the server with OP weapons, but limiting them to NCOs will go a long way to help lessen their presence on the battlefield.

6) Pointman needs a rework. US should get M1897 and M1 Carbine while the Germans should get KAR98K and G43.

7) LAT is imbalanced. Give both Versions STD and ALT rifles while reserving the pistol for the HAT kit.

Restrict the MP40 and Grease Gun to the crewman.

[QuickLoad]

grease gun can also go to spotter kit

[agus92]

@Frontliner I like your points, there are far too many automatics indeed. If a rebalance is done with that criteria, I suggest leaving the BAR as it is, it's certainly worse than the German AR/MG, the Americans should have more semi-auto rifles (garand, M1), while the Germans shouldn't have too many G43 (Overlord faced garrisons), thus having a overall asymmetric balance.

@Quickload "grease gun can also go to spotter kit " makes no sense, a spotter should either have a marksman scope or a cheap rifle (M1 or Springfield and K98 ).

[robert357]

My thoughts. I'll use names from PR, because I don't remember names in PR:WW2.

Rifleman
- M1 Garand / Kar98

Officer
- Thomson / StG44 (alt MP40)

Breacher
- M1 Carbine (alt trench gun) / Kar98 (maybe G43 for alt)

Medic
- M1 Garand (alt M1 Carbine) / Kar98

Automatic Rifleman
- BAR / MG34 or maybe FG42

Anti-Tank
- M1 Carbine or only M1911 / Kar98 or Walter

Grenadier
- M1 Garand with grenade launcher (alt M1 Carbine with more granades) / G43 with grenade launcher (alt Kar98 with more granades)

Crewman
- Thomson / MP40

Sniper
- Springfield / Kar98

Spotter
- Grease Gun / MP40

Combat Engineer
- maybe give him automatic weapons? Grease Gun / MP40

Marksman
- Springfield or scoped M1 Garand / Kar98 or scoped G43

Machine gunner
- maybe Browning 30 cal / MG42

I didn't mention HAT, AA and AP kits because I don't know these kits are in PR:WW2 or have different purpose.

Don't forget this is still a game and it will be hard to make it historically accurate due the game limitations.

@Quickload "grease gun can also go to spotter kit " makes no sense, a spotter should either have a marksman scope or a cheap rifle (M1 or Springfield and K9 .

If I remember correctly Grease Gun is only in Breacher kit right now. Grease Gun for limited kit is reasonable choice.

[AfterDune]

Probably shouldn't give an SMG to Crewman. Everyone can request that kit, there are no limits. Unless you limit their mags a LOT, in which case you could really only use it for self defense, but not really offense.

[robert357]

So maybe new kit? Armor Officer for only squad leader with Thomson or MP40 and leave crewman with pistol?

[agus92]

@AfterDune "Probably shouldn't give an SMG to Crewman. Everyone can request that kit, there are no limits. Unless you limit their mags a LOT, in which case you could really only use it for self defense, but not really offense."

From #9 The Crew And Their Stations: The Human Part Of The Tank, How They Lived, Worked, And Fought | The Sherman Tank Site

"The US Army issued early Sherman tanks with a single Thompson M1928A1 .45 caliber submachine gun. The tank also had two boxes to hold a total to twelve hand grenades of various types. Two smoke and two thermite grenades were kept in a box on the left side turret wall, and there was another box under the gunner seat that held 2 smokes grenades, 4 M2 fragmentation grenades, and 2 M3 offensive grenades. [...] They had 600 rounds of .45 ACP [...]

Later versions of the Sherman were issued with a slightly different setup. The single M1928A1 Thompson was replaced with 5, M3 submachine guns. [...] and the same 600 rounds of .45 for the new SMGs. [...]

In all cases, each member of the Sherman crew would have been issued a M1911A1 pistol as a side arm, but that was their personal weapon, and not part of the tanks gear. "

According to this, I'd equip the American crewman with
- M3A1 with 4 mags (600/30/5)
- 1911 pistol
- 2 smokes or 1 smoke+1 frag (latter would be more accurate, but possibly harmful gameplay wise)

3 or even 2 mags would be better to avoid exploits though.

[agus92]

So maybe new kit? Armor Officer for only squad leader with Thomson or MP40 and leave crewman with pistol?

That would be ideal on paper, but you can't link it to the SL (more than 1 tank per armor sq), and if it's not restricted, everyone would grab it.

Although maybe it's possible to make it a global restricted kit like a spotter, so only 2 per team, but would require admining in order to control that the kits only go to armor sq.

[agus92]

The more I'm thinking about this, though, the more I'm inclining myself to give crewmans only a pistol for the sake of gameplay and simplicity.

[obpmgmua]

Probably shouldn't give an SMG to Crewman. Everyone can request that kit, there are no limits. Unless you limit their mags a LOT, in which case you could really only use it for self defense, but not really offense.

But the MP40 and M3 need to be in.

How about this then. Give Officers two SMGs. Or give SMG back to the pointman. But give it 1+4 magazines. 1+6 is too much, 1+2 is too little. 1+4 is just right. Yeah it's gonna be a pain in the *** but you're gonna need that second SMG.

[robert357]

The more I'm thinking about this, though, the more I'm inclining myself to give crewmans only a pistol for the sake of gameplay and simplicity.

Well, true. Creating new kit for only one player is little stupid if I think about it. There is also a problem what restriction this kit should have, if we wanted them for more players. Only reasonable solution for it is give only two mags for SMG or just stay with pistols.

[Frontliner]

Lads, I know it's an insanely long post but it's going to be 25 minutes tops depending on your reading proficiency.

Forgive me if I'm coming off as a bit blunt, I appreciate you guys participating in this discussion, but seeing you talk about putting SMGs onto every kit I took it away from and then some misses the point of this proposal entirely.
I am not doing most of this because I just so happen to feel that way, but because WW2 is an era of a different mind-set with regards to what most deem suitable for the infantry, and it wasn't until the mid of the war(1942) until the higher echolons began to question what they have learned and even then it took another 2 years until the changes in equipment are significant enough to be portrayed for the Western Allies and the Wehrmacht in Mid and Western Europe. This is especially true concerning the availability of automatic firearms.

PR's kit system in this regard is both a nightmare and a blessing, on one hand it allows for easy distribution of different gear, on the other the fact that I can choose any number of different kits without any restrictions in place makes it difficult to maintain an acceptable level of the automatic gear I mentioned before.

Ts4EVER, who was kind enough to fill me in when I asked him to give me a quick rundown(again, thank you for taking your time), as well as correct my own misconceptions, posted factual numbers for all of us to see, and it is easy to see that the "correct" ratio of automatic firearms(outside of a few special exceptions) is nowhere near the ratio we had in the Beta. And that is one of the points I was trying to make, reality dictates quite the different composition of firearms.

The other point is that any and all automatic firearms are inherently advantaged over the Kar98k, Carbine and to a lesser extend the Garand as well. To me this ties in beautifully with the rarity of these weapon in actual combat - the more powerful a certain weapon is, the fewer you'll see of them. In the current Beta version however it was a spamfest of StG44s and MP40s on the German side, and especially the former is cutting through the allies like a hot knife through butter.

Let me put it this way:

1) we have an unrealistic availability of automatic weapons
2) these weapons have a noticeable advantage over everything that isn't(making combat unfair)
3) and especially the German side is favoured by the autos they have, creating a stark imbalance(and even more so when you add the fact that Omaha and Merville favour the Germans considerably)

So to me the solution is clear: By stripping down the availability of autos and by further limiting the hot knife that is the StG 44 I can address both the glaring balance issues that persisted in the Beta as well as making the combat portrayal closer to the actual thing.

[Ts4EVER]

I think generally the idea you need to get in your head is that where normal PR factions have assault rifles, WW2 factions probably had rifles.

[Rabbit]

Lads, I know it's an insanely long post but it's going to be 25 minutes tops depending on your reading proficiency.

Forgive me if I'm coming off as a bit blunt, I appreciate you guys participating in this discussion, but seeing you talk about putting SMGs onto every kit I took it away from and then some misses the point of this proposal entirely.

I mean I am not, but I still would like to see the assets used in prww2 someway or another and adding diversity among classes other than just what they have as equipment.

[Frontliner]

I mean I am not, but I still would like to see the assets used in prww2 someway or another and adding diversity among classes other than just what they have as equipment.

And that's stupid.

Modern armies don't give you a variety of 10 or so firearms for you to choose from, for most armies you'll be equipped with your standard issue rifle and on top of it a scope, a red dot, both or neither of that. The only classes that get a different firearm are the ones that require a different firearm to function in the first place. Why would WW2 be any different from that when it really wasn't? A Breacher works with a Kar98k the same way it does with an MP40, the only difference is that the first option is closer to reality and balanced gameplay unless we have a fundamentally different perception of either or both.

I mean, we can argue back and forth about your preference being more options to choose from, but at the end of the day it bastardises the theater. It's what DICE did to BF1 because kids nowadays can't handle firing only once every 5 seconds and making that one bullet count. And we most definately can't solve the Kar98k, G43, Garand and M1 Carbine being disadvantaged by pouring more automatics into the theater, I personally believe that, with a ratio of at most 50:50 (autos to non-autos)I am already being quite generous in the grand scheme of things.


But still, this is just a proposal. I won't be offended or anything like that if the WW2 Devs think it's... unsuitable or whatever.
But I know I'll be hoarding the StG 44 every time like it's my first-born.

[Strife]

+1
reducing the automatic weapons amount to a more realistic amount is a great idea

[FlyingR]

Are you saying that by using your weapon load out, kids will not play this game because not enough 1337 h4ckz0rz pro 360 automatic guns?!

[Frontliner]

I am saying that BF1 was deliberately designed the way it was done to make a compromise between reality and retaining its appeal for casual players. While I think all of the weapons they give you in the game existed, the ratio is nowhere near realistic levels and calling the game a "WW1 shooter" is asinine.

As far as PR is concerned, this game has a much different audience, with people being more readily able to hold fire when told to, more able to do menial tasks, more able to work together for the greater good. I believe the PR audience can handle a more realistic weapon loadout, and I believe they are also more interested in balanced gameplay.

[Ts4EVER]

BTW, I rummaged around in the forum a bit and noticed that there is a Reichswald map in the works. Anyone interested in some squad layouts for Commonwealth and late war German forces?