Opinions about double weapon racks

This is for opinions about the option for USF and UKF to upgrade with 2 weapons from base.

I was noticing that the discussion was getting derailed for the 5-man squad thread into this.

I made a log of all of the major posts made related to weapon upgrades from the other thread:
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Spoiler for all points made in thread so far:
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Here's something I wrote up for another thread, because I'm too lazy to write it up again.

For squad weapons I think the real fault lies in the lack of diversity you get in them. It's pretty much lmgs or bust for every faction. If you are playing USF and you pick a commander with lmgs, are you ever going to tech bars and use both? No, you are going to kit all your troops with identical lmgs and all your units become the same. That's the big problem, units become too similar and all share the same role. With different weapon options given to mainline infantry it is much less beneficial to keep them all together at the same optimal range, it forces you to spread out to be effective.

If there are more options that are balanced for each faction, like g43s vs lmg 42s on grens, the tactics required become much deeper. They would need to add alternatives to the brens and the bars/m1919s, and make it possible and necessary to use them all. They also need to be possible regardless of commander.

What I would like to see is g43s made non doctrinal on grens, (weaker) thompsons added in a weapon rack to USF, non doctrinal m1919s, and once weapons are teched they all become available. These would need to be balanced around each other to favor short, medium, and long range respectively much more. Brits also need something besides brens as an optoin as well, but I see the USF tweaks as the simplest without adding new stuff to the game. If these get balanced well you will see much more diverse infantry combat, even though they are all technically the same units. Their roles should vary much more between squads.

Think about the PE, where it was viable to get g43s, stgs, or schrecks, and one wasn't clearly superior to the others, and you would use them in conjunction. Hopefully without the other crappy PE blobbing mechanics this time.

Abridged version using USF as an example:


- Add a new (weaker) thompson weapon rack
- There are now 4 types, AT(bazookas) Short range(thompsons) Mid range(bars) Long range(m1919s)
- Readjust the weapon balance so the entire squad becomes only effective at that specific range, and mediocre at others.
- Weapon racks no longer give out single weapons, they fully upgrade the squad (double the price, get 2 weapons instead of one)
- Remove the doctrinal requirement for the m1919, allow the weapon upgrade to unlock all 4 weapon types
- Adjust the doctrinal lmg ability to do something else

What this does is promote diversity in the weapon usage. There are good reasons to have different squads to have different weapon upgrades, and with good balance no upgrade would be better than the other. This will break up the monotony of rifle builds, where in the late game every squad becomes the same and identically kitted out. When was the last time you ever saw somebody use both bars and m1919s at the same time? This would also drastically reduce the efficiency of blobbing, as your units will have more variance in range they are effective at.

I would like to see these changes applied in different ways to the other factions too, but I think USF is the one that needs it most due to their limited infantry options.

Also I don't see this as a way to balance the game per se, but as to improve gameplay.

Bars are fine. They still require rifles to get closer to really be effective, so HMGs and heavy cover still works against them. And USF having a slight infantry advantage is pretty necessary for USF late game to really work sometimes.

USF LMGs on the otherhand are a problem. It makes rifles better at the range the germans are generally better at. They end up easily capable of just a moving right through german infantry and even Hmgs.

I'm not too sure about brit LMGs. There usually arent as many IS running around as you would see on rifles on USF. Usually there are 2-3 at most, and they are useless against armor and A-moving is discouraged by the cover machanic. I usually find that there are much better things to spend muni on then mass LMGs.

some how i see everywhere Kartitof

some how i see everywhere Kartitof

The problem is between the chair and keyboard, you forum scrub - learn to use the display name, not only the avatar. The number of Katitof avatars is fine.

For the weapon racks - if you can mix and match, doesn't that take away a lot of the point of the racks, versus just having upgrades? USF being able to take zooks and BARs in the same squad makes them more unique.

The problem is between the chair and keyboard, you forum scrub - learn to use the display name, not only the avatar. The number of Katitof avatars is fine.

For the weapon racks - if you can mix and match, doesn't that take away a lot of the point of the racks, versus just having upgrades? USF being able to take zooks and BARs in the same squad makes them more unique.

zook are not touched and rack can give weapon to other squad other than rifle only lmg capped to 1

Double LMG upgrading via muni needs to be removed; the DPS/model just gets to a point where it's so high that all but vet3 infantry (and even then, that might not help) becomes completely useless.

A long, long time ago, double LMG-grens were a thing; they were insane. That much firepower, combined with being behind green cover, made a single squad basically unbeatable. Cons (iirc this was just after release, so no USF/UKF) just couldn't get close enough to do anything. Your only hope was support weapons or vehicles, but then you get into the problem of requiring insane investments to beat T0 mainline infantry. Obviously, that double upgrade was removed (as was the subsequent LMG/G43 combo) because it was just too powerful.

Currently the weapon racks present the exact same problem: insane DPS on single squads, with the added bonus of firing while moving for BARs. Combine that with 'Vet 3 turbo mode' rifle squads, and you've got the exact same problem as the old double LMG-grens vs. cons.

Suggested solution: Make the weapon racks only give one weapon, just like everyone else. If you find another weapon in the field, then great, you've got your double-upgraded unit again; but that will be fairly rare compared to the current double-upgrades.

To compensate, I would buff the weapons in question by (at most) 30%; that way a single upgrade-squad will have around 65% of the DPS of a current double-upgraded squad.

some how i see everywhere Kartitof

lol

First of all, i am sorry for my English.
In my opinion - unlinked upgrades is a bad idea. And for USA, and for UKF. It is bad, because every infantry unit should be balanced with every combination of upgrades, and his veterancy too.
Much easier too make only linked upgrades for every unit (like 2x DP upgrade for Guards, 4x Thompsons for Rangers, 2x STG-44 for Volks and etc.). This rule worked in original CoH (No racks and no trucks with weapon).
Second - every weapon upgrade (LMG, AT, Flamethrower) should be balanced as half-upgrade. It take only 1 weapon slot. That mean, that unit supposed to have 2 weapon upgrades at max. Something like upgrade system for Wehrmacht from vCoH (When units buy 2 upgrades with only 1 weapon in each, but don't become super killing mashine).

- Add a new (weaker) thompson weapon rack

+1

You guys are way too optimistic. We are at the end of the development cycle. There is no way they are adding more racks or making any kind of large changes at this point.

Here's something I wrote up for another thread, because I'm too lazy to write it up again.






Abridged version using USF as an example:


- Add a new (weaker) thompson weapon rack
- There are now 4 types, AT(bazookas) Short range(thompsons) Mid range(bars) Long range(m1919s)
- Readjust the weapon balance so the entire squad becomes only effective at that specific range, and mediocre at others.
- Weapon racks no longer give out single weapons, they fully upgrade the squad (double the price, get 2 weapons instead of one)
- Remove the doctrinal requirement for the m1919, allow the weapon upgrade to unlock all 4 weapon types
- Adjust the doctrinal lmg ability to do something else

What this does is promote diversity in the weapon usage. There are good reasons to have different squads to have different weapon upgrades, and with good balance no upgrade would be better than the other. This will break up the monotony of rifle builds, where in the late game every squad becomes the same and identically kitted out. When was the last time you ever saw somebody use both bars and m1919s at the same time? This would also drastically reduce the efficiency of blobbing, as your units will have more variance in range they are effective at.

I would like to see these changes applied in different ways to the other factions too, but I think USF is the one that needs it most due to their limited infantry options.

Also I don't see this as a way to balance the game per se, but as to improve gameplay.

that suggestion is too complicated and unnecessary. Just limit the m1919a6 and bren to one per squad.

You guys are way too optimistic. We are at the end of the development cycle. There is no way they are adding more racks or making any kind of large changes at this point.

Not my fault relic faction design was shit from the start. I can still fantasize about a better game

To be fair they added the USF mortar.

To be fair they added the USF mortar.

Yeah but they did that before they fired 90% of the coh2 devs

Yeah but they did that before they fired 90% of the coh2 devs

Well logically, they moved them to be DoW3 devs.

....Also I don't see this as a way to balance the game per se, but as to improve gameplay.

Maybe it would be better placed in the gameplay section then.

Considering the intention and where this post originates from it looks to me the suggestion would rather worsen the situation than improve it:

https://www.coh2.org/topic/56326/grenadier-4-man-squad-a-thing-of-the-past

Maybe it would be better placed in the gameplay section then.

Considering the intention and where this post originates from it looks to me the suggestion would rather worsen the situation than improve it:

https://www.coh2.org/topic/56326/grenadier-4-man-squad-a-thing-of-the-past

Has nothing to do with 4 man grens. I'm talking about a weapon rack rework, this is a weapon rack rework thread.

Has nothing to do with 4 man grens. I'm talking about a weapon rack rework, this is a weapon rack rework thread.

Yet still the post is about balance for a reason, not gameplay improvements.

Yet still the post is about balance for a reason, not gameplay improvements.

People are suggesting changes to weapon racks, what don't you understand? I'm not making another thread about the same topic.

Yet still the post is about balance for a reason, not gameplay improvements.

This is a tough one. Talking about a specific and complicated does pull away from the pure idea of how to re-balance when many other simpler things could be done to reach the same end. On the other hand, it does make sense to talk about solutions that would be interesting to put in the game as long as they solve the initial problem. I think it would be cool if you made a mod for your idea so we could test out what it would be like, since it looks like you put some though into your solution. Otherwise I think it would be pretty hard to judge how it would play out in game.