The maxim thread

Honestly I wonder if going in the opposite direction might be better/easier than trying to fix the unfixable Deathloop. Introducting the deathloop to the Vickers and MG34/42 and 50 cal, and increasing their survivability to compensate (i.e, making them all fivemen). I suppose you can't really introduce a deathloop to these guns for the same reason you can't take it away from the Maxim or DShK though.

i dont think its possible tbh... although the 50 cal suffers from a less severe version of the deathloop due to faster animation...

it really isnt... however what can be changed is to treat any machinegun with the deathloop as 1 man smaller... i think the maxim should be 5 man then given the full MG42 treatment...

Right but it can't be "given the mg42 treatment" without having its model/animations replaced with the MG34/43/vickers. Dunno if there's any way to combine the Vickers tripod with the Maxim gun, or something similar, and then use Vickers animations. It obviously wouldn't look right, though.

I don't know if that's the case. I did the tests again this morning with Grenadiers and got the same result. Does anyone actually have any evidence of the current maxim actually taking 4.3 seconds to suppress in practice? I'd like to see some thorough documentation on this.

I am not big on the number crunching cant say it takes 4,3 seconds, ime at vet 0 it has trouble suppressing for example volks pgrens intime to stop them from throwing their nades. I think only ukf has to worry about this as well.
Yellow cover in the later game effects maxims a lot as well. Where other mg's suffer less from this cuz their base suppression is just lots better.

Needing vet and a vet ability to do the job other do from the get go is just bad. Esp when the other mg,s are cheaper/cost the same. 160 hp extra is no argumant for it to cost as much as the mg42.

Either make sustained fire vet0 and vet 1 reduce the cost of the ability. Or make the maxim cost as it preforms currently at 240mp at best.

Another option could be to give the gunner green cover always after the mg is setup (for all mgs) irrespective of where one sets it up (road exception if implementable). Could be tested, I guess.

If we have learn anything out of the the AT gun shield + crew behaviour, is that it doesn't work consistently at all.

Do we agree that deathloop is a bug in a first place and it should have been fixed ages ago? Start from that.

It's not a bug if it's working as intended. In initial design, there was no reason to give the Maxim or 120mm (IIRC) the same benefits as other support weapons of been able to teleport once the model carrying the weapon dies, because it had other boons to compensate for.

You can't just copy paste animations stances and behaviours between different units. It's also one of the reason we don't have female partisans in the game anymore after the release of WFA.

There's also a certain confusion regarding what people refer to as deathloop and the causes.

Deathloop on retreat vs deathloop because it fails to suppress. And the reasons can vary between the maxim performance, cover proliferation during the mid late game or enemy burst/focus lethality.

Well 50cal has same problem, but in lesser extend, I dont think honestly its a deliberate feature, but even if it was, it was made for old maxim which is long gone.

Honeslty some of pro-modders should comment on this in one final statement. Because coh2 mod tools is a mess, and a lot of people think something is possible\impossible to fix, me included. Because it might possible to fix, or think of a gimmic to fix it.

You can't just copy paste animations stances and behaviours between different units. It's also one of the reason we don't have female partisans in the game anymore after the release of WFA.

Really? I'd be interested to hear what WFA changed exactly that precluded female partisans, was there some animation system change, or was some functionality/animation removed? Genuinely quite interested in a history lesson, if you can find the time.

Also: Regarding MGs; I think, really, in the same way that AT guns arent supposed to directly slug it out with tanks, MGs weren't really intended to directly "fight" infantry. They significantly outrange them for a reason, after all. I guess this doesn't really work in practice, though. I wonder if MG teams will change in functionality at all for CoH3(if that ever arrives) or if they'll just do away with deathloops entirely (or at least standardise them)

Also: GachiGasm: The agreement seems to be that the only way to really fix deathloop issues would be to give Soviets/USF an MG42/34/vickers model with different stats. That isn't going to happen. It'd be great if someone found a hacky workaround that slipped others' minds (Or Lelic would just let the balance team fuck around with the animations/underlying code just this once), but it's all seeming unlikely. Limiting harm is seemingly the most that can be done.

Also: GachiGasm: The agreement seems to be that the only way to really fix deathloop issues would be to give Soviets/USF an MG42/34/vickers model with different stats. That isn't going to happen. It'd be great if someone found a hacky workaround that slipped others' minds (Or Lelic would just let the balance team fuck around with the animations/underlying code just this once), but it's all seeming unlikely. Limiting harm is seemingly the most that can be done.

Maxim do have tripod animations already and model of it. Its used when maxim is placed in cover.

Maxim do have tripod animations already and model of it. Its used when maxim is placed in cover.

It's not the same animation as the MG34/42/vickers. It's not a case of it being a "tripod", it's a case of it neeeding to use exactly the same animation set as the 34/42/vickers. The maxim isn't able to do that.

Well 50cal has same problem, but in lesser extend, I dont think honestly its a deliberate feature, but even if it was, it was made for old maxim which is long gone.

Honeslty some of pro-modders should comment on this in one final statement. Because coh2 mod tools is a mess, and a lot of people think something is possible\impossible to fix, me included. Because it might possible to fix, or think of a gimmic to fix it.

50cal has a different timing which makes it "impossible" to spam and it also has really good stats which offset the possibility of any kind of deathloop from frontal assaults.

You could ask directly but (IIRC) Mirage, Sander, Smith, Janne, etc. have at some point or another tried to tackle the issue and was prompt with a negative response from part of Relic or themselves.

Really? I'd be interested to hear what WFA changed exactly that precluded female partisans, was there some animation system change, or was some functionality/animation removed? Genuinely quite interested in a history lesson, if you can find the time.

Also: Regarding MGs; I think, really, in the same way that AT guns arent supposed to directly slug it out with tanks, MGs weren't really intended to directly "fight" infantry. They significantly outrange them for a reason, after all. I guess this doesn't really work in practice, though. I wonder if MG teams will change in functionality at all for CoH3(if that ever arrives) or if they'll just do away with deathloops entirely (or at least standardise them)

Also: GachiGasm: The agreement seems to be that the only way to really fix deathloop issues would be to give Soviets/USF an MG42/34/vickers model with different stats. That isn't going to happen. It'd be great if someone found a hacky workaround that slipped others' minds (Or Lelic would just let the balance team fuck around with the animations/underlying code just this once), but it's all seeming unlikely. Limiting harm is seemingly the most that can be done.

I think it was a problem of not having the proper animations for either recrewing support weapons or pick up dropped weapons which defaulted in many T position or simil, models.

MG: the difference is lethality compared to AT guns vs Tanks relationship. After 5s a medium tank can almost be at 50% HP. Infantry behind cover can slug it out with MGs for quite a long time or render them ineffective if they have enough DPS.

It might be by design, but vetted units fair way too well against MG, because the crew doesn't get RA to offset the natural gain most infantry squads get at either vet 2 or vet 3.

I think it was a problem of not having the proper animations for either recrewing support weapons or pick up dropped weapons which defaulted in many T position or simil, models.

MG: the difference is lethality compared to AT guns vs Tanks relationship. After 5s a medium tank can almost be at 50% HP. Infantry behind cover can slug it out with MGs for quite a long time or render them ineffective if they have enough DPS.

It might be by design, but vetted units fair way too well against MG, because the crew doesn't get RA to offset the natural gain most infantry squads get at either vet 2 or vet 3.

And that was caused by WFA? Or was it a longstanding issue that Lelic only rectified with WFA?

Perhaps Weapons crews ought to GET some decent RA through vet, then? I doubt it'll help vs deathloops, but it might be nice for all MGs to remain very good against infantry. The counter to MGs is indirects (Rocket or otherwise) and vehicles. There's not much reason for infantry to be able to beat any of them.

From some cursory testing I did in cheatmod, it doesn't seem to work out quite like this in practice, though. I don't know if there's something else going on with the numbers, or if there was something wrong with my methodology of "Put conscript squad at max range of MG and switch MG to 'enemy'"

It generally took just over a second for the MG42 to suppress the squad, but the Maxim only took 2-2.5~ seconds every time i tested it. Suppressed within a single burst every time, with a reasonable amount of the burst to go.

The main thing noticable was that the maxim takes significantly longer to pin, suppression certainly didnt seem to take four and a half seconds, however.

Clarifications: MG was replaced with a fresh MG every test, as was the conscript squad, to avoid issues with lingering suppression, or the MG being mid-burst.


I'd urge others to do a more thorough examination, perhaps I made a mistake somewhere, but it really doesn't feel as though the Maxim takes the amount of time it's "meant to" to suppress.

I did some testing as well at 35 range. You are correct that the numbers don't seem to line up. The maxim took roughly 3 seconds to suppress a combat engineer (1.0 RA) while the MG42 took roughly 1 second. Both were shorter than the numbers would suggest. Either way though the maxim has at best 1/3 the capability of the MG42 at suppressing.

I also found some interesting results testing 7 man conscripts against grenadiers. I'll probably make a thread about it later.

I did some testing as well at 35 range. You are correct that the numbers don't seem to line up. The maxim took roughly 3 seconds to suppress a combat engineer (1.0 RA) while the MG42 took roughly 1 second. Both were shorter than the numbers would suggest. Either way though the maxim has at best 1/3 the capability of the MG42 at suppressing.

I also found some interesting results testing 7 man conscripts against grenadiers. I'll probably make a thread about it later.

Probably suppression from other entities lowers the time takes to suppress a squad and probably larges squad get suppressed faster.

Probably suppression from other entities lowers the time takes to suppress a squad and probably larges squad get suppressed faster.

I'll try testing it on 1 man obers.

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So this was my mistake. I was testing MG's at 35 range which is not their max range. Their max range is 45 and this was the range that the numbers I posted earlier applied to. At this range, the numbers do add up, the maxim does suppress in over 4 seconds and the Mg42 in just over 1 second.

The maxim's rate of fire does increase proportionally higher then the MG42 with a decrease in range, but even at close range it has barely half the suppression rate of the MG42 and at relevant distances 1/3 to 1/4.

I also checked the vickers, and it does indeed suppress in over a second and a half.




This in mind I have two possible suggestions.
The first is to simply increase the suppression value from 0.0065 to 0.01. This will change the long range suppression time from 4.27 seconds to 2.8 seconds- still 2.43x longer then the mg42 and 1.65x longer than the vickers.

The second is a bit of a larger change and its to increase the rate of fire at long range from 7.2 to 10, mid range to 13.4, then reduce the burst duration long from 4.5s to 3.2s, and at mid from 3.15s to 2.5s. This will change the suppression time at long range from 4.27s to 3.1s and at mid range from 2.56s to 2.29s. The suppression under this change wont be as strong as the first option but the dps at long and mid range should go up somewhat compensating for poor suppression with higher damage.

This in mind I have two possible suggestions.
The first is to simply increase the suppression value from 0.0065 to 0.01. ..

the change seem huge at first glance I suggest you test in mod.

the change seem huge at first glance I suggest you test in mod.

It really isnt considering the awful suppression of the maxim...

It really isnt considering the awful suppression of the maxim...

I like opinion backed up by facts.

The suggested value is around 154% increase and given the other changes maxim had it will probably end up being superior to what it was before it was nerfed.

I like opinion backed up by facts.

The suggested value is around 154% increase and given the other changes maxim had it will probably end up being superior to what it was before it was nerfed.

The fact here is that according to the suppression dynamic an mg42 and a vickers will suppress in under 2 seconds while a maxim takes 4...

This in mind I have two possible suggestions.
The first is to simply increase the suppression value from 0.0065 to 0.01. This will change the long range suppression time from 4.27 seconds to 2.8 seconds- still 2.43x longer then the mg42 and 1.65x longer than the vickers.

The second is a bit of a larger change and its to increase the rate of fire at long range from 7.2 to 10, mid range to 13.4, then reduce the burst duration long from 4.5s to 3.2s, and at mid from 3.15s to 2.5s. This will change the suppression time at long range from 4.27s to 3.1s and at mid range from 2.56s to 2.29s. The suppression under this change wont be as strong as the first option but the dps at long and mid range should go up somewhat compensating for poor suppression with higher damage.

Based

The fact here is that according to the suppression dynamic an mg42 and a vickers will suppress in under 2 seconds while a maxim takes 4...

And I am telling again that the suggested number will probably make the Maxim more powerful than it was before it was nerfed.