Project Reality Forums

The following posts are my comprehensive view of kits and balance. To state it plainly; players should not be forced into cookie-cutter roles and cookie-cutter squads. Players must be able to adapt and change according to the engagement and personal skill, and our goal of realistic numbers between rifle infantry, medics and heavy weapons must be acheived through good game design and balanced play, not forcing players into USMC field manual definitions. As the battle evolves both players and real-world soldiers ADAPT, and adaptation is what wins wars, not textbook marching orders.

I am absolutely against forcing players into kits or squads as a hard-coded element. Here's why.

1. Appeal. New players who join their first PRMM game will spawn as a solo rifleman no matter what kit they'd prefer to use. When they join a squad, they will again be forced into a kit, either rifle or specialty. The result of all this pushing around is a negative game experience at the first spawn. Pile on their first SAW-butchering or getting picked off by a half-mile sniper and we may well lose a new player.

2. Creative Gameplay. Forcing players into pre-assigned squads or combat roles removes a large amount of playing space for organized teams. Pre-assigned Rifle or Heavy Weapons squads codifies the tactics and team builds and removes the clan leader's ability to create new tactics or squad layouts. Remember Ender's Game? Where all the armies in Battle School had ten-man platoons against ten-man platoons and battles became textbook affairs? Ender learned to play the game to win, broke into five-man platoons and began to dominate a rigid opponent. The pre-determined standard operating proceedures are just that; standard proceedure. When faced with non-standard situations, soldiers adapt to win their battles. The Germans went into Stalingrad as a rifle-dominated army and immediately scavenged submachine guns from the enemy as they adjusted their tactics. The Panzer tactics they exercised in Poland were adapted to new kinds of battle in the East. The clear divisional order was replaced by the Kampfgruppe. Soldiers adapt, and we must allow that to happen. This is REALITY we are striving for, after all. Which is more real; officers shifting their men and weapons according to mission needs, or magical forces always giving a rifleman two grenades, three clips, and a rifle; squads always having four riflemen, one AT and two SAWs?

3. Balance. On a map-by-map basis, pre-assigned squads and kit limits will start to create balance issues. Maps featuring a lot of armored vehicles will be dominated by them, as only one or two AT troopers will exist per 8-man squad. Similarly, maps or server types which forbid heavy vehicles will render the AT kit completely useless, but still forced on players. Urban maps which strongly favor automatic weapons will be tilted towards the MEC or China, as all of their rifles are full-auto capable while American weapons are not. Without squads forcing kits, US squads would increase their automatic weapon counts to compensate for this; now it is impossible. Likewise, the MEC and Chinese would be at a serious disadvantage in wide, open maps because of their less accurate weapons. A smart Chinese officer would see to it his forces had plenty of designated marksmen, now it is impossible. Players and teams need to be able to adapt their kit loadouts and squad sizes to the requirements of missions and maps to ensure our varied weapons remain balanced. Unless you'd like to spend hours and hours playtesting for optimal mixes on every map ever created and played, of course.

4. REALISM. When the shit hits the fan, fighting men adapt to win. In the Second World War, soldiers on all armies replaced their bolt-action rifles with scavenged semi-automatics and submachine guns. In the boulder-strewn hills of Korea, soldiers requested more and more grenades from their supply lines. In the dense jungles of Vietnam, automatic weapons were prized for immediate firepower at close quarters and special forces troops often went out on missions with AK-47's instead of M-16's.

Realism is being able to adjust and change according to the mission, not being forced into eight-man squads with X automatic rifles and X AT weapons by magical, irresistable regulations. Restrictions on kits in or out of squads should only be through GAMEPLAY BALANCE, with a powerful weapon made vulnerable by weaknesses in other areas which must be complimented by other kits. Kit A kills infantry at long range easily, but is slow-moving, and is vulnerable to close attack. Kit B has AT rockets and a CQB weapon, but can't match Kit A's range and firepower. A squad full of Kit A dominates the fields but dies to tanks, a squad full of Kit B annihilates tanks but dies to Kit A's, and the tactics which develop between mixes of kits and vehicles is were the game lies. When kits, squads and vehicles naturally assume real-world patterns, we have REALISM. When the balance must be forced by unbreakable rules to exist, WE HAVE A BROKEN GAME.

Read this in its entirety, PLEASE. Consider, evaluate, and speculate. Do not dismiss a suggestion you do not like halfway into this suite of suggestions because they all tie together. Evaluate the parts against the whole. Another note, Special Forces/Sniper are very up in the air and not the true focus of this little dissemination. They are the only kits I would agree with being given a hard numeric limit. The rest should be limited according to gameplay necessity.

Special Forces

Carbine; full/semi-auto, very accurate weapon.
Silenced Pistol
Grenadesx2
C4x4
Unarmored
Parachute
As it stands, the Special Forces kit is the jack-of-all-trades kit equiped to defeat anything from tanks to infantry in CQB, and equal / almost equal to riflemen at range. As a result, this is the most commonly played kit for Vanilla twitch-kiddies. SF is up for serious review, and I will avoid discussing it entirely.

Suggestion
Should SF be shifted to a faction, this slot should be replaced by Rifleman. Otherwise carbine accuracy must be tweaked and C4 load reduced or removed if SF remains in normal matches.

Sniper
Sniper Rifle
Silenced Pistol
Grenades
Claymore AP Mines
Unarmored
The sniper is unmatched at single-target, long range combat and his close-quarters abilities are even better than the anti-tank kit because he carries hand grenades and his pistol is silenced. Furthermore his claymore mines are powerful in defense.

Suggestion
In the interest of balance, I beleive his grenades and claymore mines be removed, forcing sniper players to focus purely on the long-range kill and focus on stealth or teammates, not claymore mines, for self-preservation. Kit limitations on the true Sniper class would be prudent.

Designated Marksman, a possible replacement for Sniper, would be an unarmored soldier with a low-zoom scoped semi-automatic and possibly hand grenades.


Assault
Assault Rifle with 6 magazines.
40mm Grenade Launcher with 5 rounds
Smoke Grenades
Armored
The Assault kit is supposed to be our stock combat kit, however, it is anything but. The Grenade Launcher has been dubbed the "noob toob" because of the common practice to use it like a Quake rocket launcher instead of the long-range, dangerous weapon it is meant to be. A lack of long-range sights complicates this.

Suggestion
GRENADE LAUNCHER IRON SIGHTS. Without a doubt, this is the single most pressing matter for the kit. If the grenade launcher were made a powerful tool in skilled hands, it would serve as a natural counter to camping, particularly machine gunners.
Grenade arming delay. This ends the practice of noob toobing, forever, no questions.
Reduce ammunition load, 6x30, 180 rounds of ammo, is pretty steep and 3x40mm shells total will reduce the possible spam and make teamwork a vital element for the 40mm system.
Rename Rifle Grenadier.
Reduce magazine count.

Medic
Assault Rifle with 3 magazines
Hand grenades
Medic packs
Shock Paddles
Unarmored
Thanks to self-healing, revives and a powerful weapon, the medic kit could be renamed "Half Your Team" and be accurate. Medics carry 90 rounds of ammunition, 2 hand grenades, and limitless capacity to instantly heal troops with thrown packs and zap them back from the dead. The class has only one weakness; a finite supply of ammo which runs out after twenty rezzes. A Chinese or MEC medic is a Special Forces soldier who turned in his pistol and C4 for an even better gun and a Ph.D. A U.S. medic simply has burst instead of auto. Anyone see the problem?

Suggestions
Remove dropped medic packs. This forces a medic to hold the healing pack close to wounded troops instead of running up and down a defensive position, dumping aid packs into foxholes. Healing will now be a slow process, and self-healing far less useful.
Replace Hand Grenades with Smoke Grenades. This drastically reduces the medic's combat potential, particularly in close quarters. Smoke grenades help him protect his squad and allow him to dash behind the smoke to a downed man. This also adds more smoke grenades and the tactics involved to the game.
DEFIB/REZ CHANGES

Rezzing has to be changed, there is no way around it. Although removing grenades reduces the medic's combat power, and removing dropped packs prevent instant healing, the medic can still wait for players to die and then zap them for teamwork points and full health. Well-inteded suggestions that the defib be limited to only a few shots a minute are not only contrary to reality but very damaging to the idea of only one medic in a squad and will be a nightmare if the first rez attempt misses or is bugged. Two or three medics will be almost mandatory to keep players rezzed back at any useful rate. The following changes should reduce the effectiveness of spam-rezzing, increase the time needed to revive and encourage players to stay alive for pack healing without rendering medics near-useless in their critical role of reviving teammates.

1. Defibulator charges and batteries. As it stands, the defibulator is "realistic" in that it doesn't always work the first time and needs a second or two to recharge, but unrealistic in that it never runs out of juice. The solution lies in limited rez attempts. A defibulator battery will operate like an ordinary magazine, each battery being good for a small number charges and thus revive ATTEMPTS. At between four to eight zaps per battery and only two batteries on a medic, the medic has to reload his defibulator for five to ten seconds, creating a serious pause in spam-rezzing and creating a dependancy on the ammunition resupply class. A medic can no longer zap, zap, zap entire squads back from the dead over and over. He must now practice triage; reviving his squad leader and ammo bearers first, reloading, and then attempting to heal the rest of a downed squad. Squad mates who do not respond to the first or second zap, or who cannot be easily reached, may well be passed over. A real level of skill in reviving in the best order will make good medics stand out from the crowd.
2. Rez Effects. When you get zapped by a defibulator, you do not pop up and start seeing straight, much less moving and shooting at full health. Rezzing should restore the player to life at the very limit of "bleed" health (above or below, depending on play testing. I'd start at "below"). This forces the player to cover, since only one bullet could kill him. But jumping up and running away will be difficult for a recently zapped man. The "Shellshock" effect should be applied at the highest possible setting, causing the recently rezzed to be at a serious disadvantage if he attempts to fight or run. A good low crawl back to cover should be the only action a shell-shocked, still-bleeding soldier would consider, and exactly what the Project Peality mod should strive for.
3. After rezzing, the squad will not be truely combat effective until the medic breaks out the pack and starts wrapping people up to non-bleeding health at least ("Stabilizing" right after a rez would only take a half second to put the player back above bleed level but longer if the medic left for more rezzes). This increases the down-time of a critically wounded soldier.

While it will take a lot of work, these changes to rezzing will keep the medic a valuable part of the squad who must spend more time healing instead of shooting and is still capable of keeping a squad alive if he is the only medic in it, unlike suggestions of severely limiting the shock paddles to a few charges a minute.

Engineer
Shotgun with slugs and buckshot shells
Hand grenades
AT Mines
Wrench
Unarmored
At present, the engineer seems very close to what he should be. Most players use heavy vehicles full-time are engineers to keep their armor rolling, and the engineer able to establish a small minefield for defense. The shotgun is a self-defense weapon only and allows him to defend himself from enemy infantry, or attack in extreme CQB.

Suggestions
Reduce the repair rate of the wrench. With slowed vehicle respawns, a fast repair is no longer needed to make it a useful feature. This will also settle the problem of unkillable transport helicopters.
Limited Wrenches? "Break" a wrench or run out of magical repair power after fixing an entire tank and scale from that. Limiting the number of "backup wrenches" ensures tankers and helos eventually have to seek a ammo-bearing teammate, removing them from the battle after a time.
Remove repair-from-vehicle. Two tanks with two engineers can sit next to one another and slug away, and any vehicle with a little armor can make a blown bridge little more than a two-second pause before driving on. Repairing must require bailing out and manually using the wrench or else these little exploits and gross breaches of realism will never end.
Give Engineers Claymores. Anti-personel defensive mines make the engineer more effective and realistic.
Give Engineers C4? Who better to do demolitions with special forces gone?

Support
Machine gun
Grenades
Ammo Packs
Armor
The Support class is presently the tiny god of combat with no weaknesses short of tanks or snipers. MG spam is a painful reality since each gunner has unlimited ammunition, and grenade spam is equally terrible. The machine-gunner must be given weaknesses and forced to rely on another kit for ammunition.

Suggestions.
Remove ammo pack. Limited ammunition forces fire control and teamwork with the resupply class.
Remove grenades? While without ammo packs the class can no longer spam this weapon, the combat power of the machine gun is all the kit should focus on and the enemy closing into grenade range his primary fear.

RIFLEMAN CLASS (To replace special forces, or a new class to select entirely)
Assault rifle
3 or 4 magazines (same as grenadier)
Hand grenades
Ammo packs.
Armor
If all suggestions are taken, the Rifleman class will be the only soldier capable of both long-range fire and close-range grenades. He will be able to reload his team's machine guns, grenade launchers and give medics more battery packs. He will become the invaluable backbone of a squad, combining his rifle, grenades and body armor into light infantry more survivable than the medic with close-range explosives the Assault class doesn't have and ammunition demanded by the squads heavy weapons, AT launchers and LMGs. Not being able to drop ammunition packs will retard grenade-spamming.

This configuration, if carried out, will provide the realistic balance between riflemen and heavy/specialized weapons that we are striving for without forcing kit or squad limitiations. An entire squad of medics, for example, would fall prey to close attack with grenades or run out of charges for their shock paddles. An entire squad of Support would run out of ammunition or destroyed in close quarters by riflemen and grenadiers. An entire squad of Grenadiers would quickly run out of 40mm ammunition and die by bleeding to death. By making the Rifleman class the primary source of both hand grenades and ammo, squads simply could not survive for long without one or two riflemen. Indeed, any squad focusing on heavy weapons will require at least one rifleman for resupply and close-combat grenade use. We want a realistic balance between riflemen and heavy weapons. The answer is not in forcing players into an underpowered kit and limiting other kit numbers on a team or squad basis. The answer is in making riflemen both the crux of all teamwork abilities and a capable light infantry soldier by himself.

200th post; Thank you for your time, careful consideration and feedback. I hope these words and ideas are taken to heart by the development team and implemented into the Project Reality modification. This is my best answer to the question of kit balance, and I want this to be the best mod for Battlefield 2.

We appreciate your input on this subject. You made several very valid points Nikovk and we will certainly review and consider this large amount of material in our decision making process, while addressing these details. Thanks for your continued support! It's pubs such as yourself that help make us a more dynamic and creative community.

Thank you sir. I hope to see Road to Kyongan Ni a staple map of this mod in the very least, ideas from my class suggestions at best.

In regards to the infinite ammo pacs from support... get rid of them. I suggested it a long time ago. Basicaly we need a more structured re-arming/supply system.

Some ideas include...

-Soldiers dropping ammo ammo bags when they die instead of kits. FH had a way of limiting the amount of ammo you could get from an ammo box in original BF, so maybe only the type of ammo from that kit could be gotten from that ammo "bag."

-Supply vehicles, namely trucks or light vehicles such as an un-armed hummve that could be used to supply ammo.

-h4x, edit the files to give your self unlimmited ammo

What happens when the squad A is Full of medics and SAW gunners when there are no tanks and the squad just anhialates everyone? Do you expect the whole server or better yet the whole community to just play as medic and support, just because they found a way to use an inherant weekness in the game to destroy all. I call that glitching. then none of the other classes become used at all.

Its stupid when everyone and his mother runs around with a SAW. and its stupid to destroy 5 guys to have one medic revive one guy who is a medic who revives everyone you just killed, all the way back to full strength. We have to do something. Like nerf the hell out of the medic until the medic whores dwindle. Same with the SAW gunners. This whoring kills the game.

And I'm not saying Mandate kits, just limit them. When you pick your kit, if the support kit is filled, it should be dark and un-pickable. 2 AT guys in a squad is plenty to take out any armor.(not mandated, just available slots) and one SAW gunner and one medic is plenty per squad. They are supposed to add firepower, not make it up. If your squad is smart, one medic will be plenty. If you huddle up for warmth and all get smoked by one frag, there shouldn't be an army of medics on standby to revive all your dumb @$$es.

There comes a point where people aren't afraid to run out and get killed, cuz they know that three of there buddies are medics. So supression fire and other such real tactics arent used because noone fears the consiquences. If your attitude is that you can't play unless you play a certain kit, well... diversify or join another squad that has that job available. I also think that squads should be locked until the previous ones are at least half full.

So in closing: (Limit kits. yes.) (Force squads, no.)

If people cant do the right thing themselves, they need someone else to mandate it.



EDIT: Disregard this post. It was made before the second post of the thread was written. I have changed my mind since then.

As for supply. In my unit, we (the riflemen) carried extra SAW ammo and also AP/AT rockets. You dont give all the ammo to the guy that carries one of the heavier weapons.

If you give each riflemen a single ammo bag that is used only once, then you can keep troops in ammo quite well. The hummer idea is also really good.


EDIT: I just started reading your second post and find alot of good ideas. I'll check it all out. To see if I stand by my previous decision.

Its stupid when everyone and his mother runs around with a SAW. and its stupid to destroy 5 guys to have one medic revive one guy who is a medic who revives everyone you just killed, all the way back to full strength. We have to do something. Like nerf the hell out of the medic until the medic whores dwindle. Same with the SAW gunners. This whoring kills the game.

And I'm not saying Mandate kits, just limit them. When you pick your kit, if the support kit is filled, it should be dark and un-pickable. 2 AT guys in a squad is plenty to take out any armor.(not mandated, just available slots) and one SAW gunner and one medic is plenty per squad. They are supposed to add firepower, not make it up. If your squad is smart, one medic will be plenty. If you huddle up for warmth and all get smoked by one frag, there shouldn't be an army of medics on standby to revive all your dumb @$$es.

Precisely. Assuming six man squads...

One SAW gunner will only carry two boxes of ammunition, others may carry two or three.
For a Machine Gunner to be effective for any length of time, he will require a Rifleman.

One SAW, one Rifleman.

To heal and revive them, they will require a Medic.

One SAW, one Rifleman, one Medic.

To provide more long-range firepower, add a Grenadier.

One SAW, one Rifleman, one Medic, one Grenadier.

To selectively attack specific infantry and provide spotting, add a DM/Sniper.

One SAW, one Rifleman, one Medic, one Grenadier, one DM.

To provide defense against tanks and APCs, add a AT soldier.

One SAW, one Rifleman, one MEdic, one Grenadier, one DM, one AT.

No tanks? Close quarters? Ditch the DM and AT for another rifleman, medic, grenadier or SAW. Attacking buildings? Trade riflemen for SAW, DM, AT. Defending at long range against infantry? Two or even three SAWs or Grenadiers, riflemen and medic. Defending at long range against tanks and APCs? AT soldiers, riflemen, medic.

No more three support, three medic squads because there are no hand grenades or ammo bags.

In my unit, we (the riflemen) carried extra SAW ammo and also AP/AT rockets.

Realism.

I think that tossing ammo and medic bags should be removed entirely, although it is handy for getting ammo to a gunner on a rooftop, the instant-resupply effect is something to avoid. With the bag in hand, you're picking out what to give to him, not tossing exactly what he or anyone else wants.

I think its a great solution to the current problems with medics and heavy gunners.

Removeing the ammo/medic bag tossing sounds great.

In reality you cant just throw a medic bag and heal someone because they don't know how to use the medic bag do they.

I think the whole class system you have created fits perfectly. It encourages teamwork and keeps squads together because they will always be relying on each other.

(I hope we might see it in PRMM 0.3) )

I do like most of your ideas. And I guess I retract my vote for kit limitation. I completely agree that the rifleman should be the backbone of all squads. I guess giving them special abilities and reducing the power of other units is the way to go, not limiting kits.

I've seen the light, NikivK!!!

Oh yes, we do carry 6 mags of ammo, sometimes 7. (one extra in your rifle + 6 in your duece gear)

Spec ops: agreed. drop them all together. turn them into a faction for special maps.

Scout/sniper: agreed. Maybe give them smoke for a hasty withdrawl.

Assault/grenadier: agreed. must make long range sites and arm delay. I believe it's 30m arm distance or so. cant remember.

Medic: agreed. Revive just above "bleed" would be good I think.

Engineer: agreed. Engineer should have all those goodies. and limit the wrenching ability, and rely on team mates to survive as well in vehicles. good idea if balanced well.

Rifleman: mostly agreed. Giving them ammo packs is awsome and something I have wanted since playing BF2. But, I think they should be able to drop it. If they are sitting around "rearming" for 15 seconds, that's 15 seconds that you aren't fighting. I think there should be no "get ammo radius" anymore and the rifleman should only be able to drop one ammo pack at a time, with a slower reappear time. or just limit the overall number of bags to just a few. with the amount of riflemen, you shouldn't have too much problems with ammo unless you waste it alot.

That is a well thought out plan you have there. I hope it ends up something like this. Job well done my friend.

The thing about the extra mags, I'm all for it. In a serious firefight you can blow through ammo like crazy and only having 4 just doesn't cut it.

Very good ideas here.

I especially like the limited resurecting and taking the instant heal/rearm ability away.

I agree that the Support class should be changed to a AR class, and give the rearming task to the rifleman (they carry most of the stuff anyways ...), but I think that the Grenadier class should be more specific, it should be focused more on grenading marked targets, perhaps 6 40mm but only 2 mags (3 tops) of rifle ammunition.

I like the idea of having SF out of the picture and putting in a rifleman. SF should be their own army...like rangers or something.

DangChang wrote:I like the idea of having SF out of the picture and putting in a rifleman. SF should be their own army...like rangers or something.

Yep.

I strongly disagree with a lot in this post.
I feel that realism is the key, sure there will be limitations to code. But all ammo counts and rifle counts and kit ratios should be direct scales of real life. Squads should be forced to have:
1 grenadier
3 riflemen (similar to the ones you say replace SF but with m16's/ironsight m4)
1 medic (fully capable m16, no magic bags or defib just bandaging)
Reasoning: Defibs are for people that are unconscious - they do not bring the wounded back to fighting condition. If someone was shot by a bullet and down on the floor - shock paddles wouldnt bring em back to 100%, or any fighting percent really.
1 AT / 1 MGer (the AT can come in as the second person, the MG would come in after a grenadier squad leader and 2 regular riflemen/1 rifleman & 1 AT spawn.

If there are 4 full footsquads in the game there should be a limit of 2 MG's and 2 AT's. If there are 6 there will be 3AT/3MG. But 4 full foot squads is realistic having the other 8 operating in vehicles/support.

Squads should not be able to adapt, because imagine these squads were deployed with their kits, they cant have one of their SAW gunners shot by an enemy APC and specifically request he be replaced by 5 AT'ers waiting at a flag to stop that APC. It forces the forced AT kit to be really strategic and function within in squad - staying alive as he is an important asset to take out enemy armor - JUST LIKE REAL LIFE.

Guns should be what they are like in real life with realistic ratios to other guns.

Squad composition and limitations should be locked.

NO shortcuts on realism should be made for the sake of new players (ie taking away realism for balance) as it would contradict the goal of the mod.

First, stop quoting me in your sig. Go back to Butters in a tinfoil hat giving his cocky little thumbs-up.

Secondly...

feel that realism is the key, sure there will be limitations to code. But all ammo counts and rifle counts and kit ratios should be direct scales of real life. Squads should be forced to have:
Why?
1 grenadier
3 riflemen (similar to the ones you say replace SF but with m16's/ironsight m4)
1 medic (fully capable m16, no magic bags or defib just bandaging)
Why?
Reasoning: Defibs are for people that are unconscious - they do not bring the wounded back to fighting condition. If someone was shot by a bullet and down on the floor - shock paddles wouldnt bring em back to 100%, or any fighting percent really.
Why?
1 AT / 1 MGer (the AT can come in as the second person, the MG would come in after a grenadier squad leader and 2 regular riflemen/1 rifleman & 1 AT spawn.
Why?
If there are 4 full footsquads in the game there should be a limit of 2 MG's and 2 AT's. If there are 6 there will be 3AT/3MG. But 4 full foot squads is realistic having the other 8 operating in vehicles/support.
Why?
Squads should not be able to adapt, because imagine these squads were deployed with their kits, they cant have one of their SAW gunners shot by an enemy APC and specifically request he be replaced by 5 AT'ers waiting at a flag to stop that APC. It forces the forced AT kit to be really strategic and function within in squad - staying alive as he is an important asset to take out enemy armor - JUST LIKE REAL LIFE.
Why?
Guns should be what they are like in real life with realistic ratios to other guns.
Why?
Squad composition and limitations should be locked.
Why?
NO shortcuts on realism should be made for the sake of new players (ie taking away realism for balance) as it would contradict the goal of the mod.

Why, exactly, should we do any of these things?

The more I hear it, the more I think most people wouldn't want to play. Can you imagine trying a new mod and being forced to your worst, or most hated class? and not being able to leave your squad or change kits? That would suck the royal sack.

I think forcing people and limiting would drive everyone away. So it really doesn't matter how real it is if noone plays it. And I would hate to be an AT kit, when there isn't much armor around or if your squad is tasked to assault an area where there isn't a real armor threat. It's like walkin around with your crank in your hand.

Like it is now. many people would argue that the AK family of rifles is inaccurate and sucks so we should make the MEC weapons suck, cuz its real. That's why I see 3 - 4 people say "F**k this ****, I'm outta here these MEC guns suck." And I always end up on the MEC side, cuz noone wants hugely inferior weapons. Imagine if those few people a day would get to play with decent weapons on both sides and the teams were even mostly, and would stick around to realize that this mod kicks arse. Think of how many people may be playing. If you impliment your "locked" squads this mod will never take off. You have to compromise. I think it will even itself out, without mandating it.

Side note:I've shot AK47s and they are extremely accurate in single shot. I can put a whole magazine into the size of a paper plate at 100m within 30 seconds (kneeling, easily). High recoil, but a good weapon. The VC used to snipe with them. Full auto is another story. We should be thinking that the MEC has all this oil money to train the troops to be able to shoot better than this. The weapon is capable of it.

"Reasoning: Defibs are for people that are unconscious - they do not bring the wounded back to fighting condition. If someone was shot by a bullet and down on the floor - shock paddles wouldnt bring em back to 100%, or any fighting percent really."

Defibrulators are there to regain a pulse in people whom are on the verges of death. It jolts the heart into beating again.

It most certainly is not for someone who is unconcious - that'd probably kill them.