Maxim final buff suggestion!

First of all, as all my threads i invite people to open their minds just for a few seconds. Be kind, share your ideas and feel free to disagree.

Maxims are the black sheep of HMGs, they have been for quite a while. Even the new vet supression bonus feels odd. Deathloop is the worst downside of maxims and there are countless comparisons that end on countless posts wars. Lets not repeat those discussions here.

Maziani suggested IIRC that a solution to deathloop is simply to buff the RA of maxims only when they retreat, im not sure if that includes the tear apart animation of the team weapon too. Please credit him i just added his idea to add diversity.

My suggestion for maxims and also fix deathloop is simple enable maxims to build themselves a small trench, a fighting position, similar to the USF, with 360 degrees of aiming freedom, that self destructs after un-garrisoned. Its durability should be enough to endure small arms but not withstand HE shots.

If the player wants to retreat the maxim it should unpack first inside the trench(the added cover bonus should be enough for it) and then leave without any deathloop because the team weapon is already mobile.
This makes maxims more durable and effective against infantry but a little more vulnerable to AoE damage (because they are all bunched up) wich makes a fair trade and possibly a balanced mechanic.

Riflenades and lavanades are a big threat still but the garrisoned auto rotation should be able to stop a single squad from using it. The trench should break before the weapon team dies inside it, when the trench breaks the squad should be already mobile. No more deathloop, at least for this case.

Finally, my last resort solution is to change the vet ability into a toggle, one is "Fire at will" mode, wider arc (as it is currently) lower suppression, the other is "Focus fire" mode that shrinks the firing arc to half but doubles suppression. Frontal rushes should no longer be a threat and if paired up with the 360 degree trech it makes maxim a very good defensive tool.

Hopefully some ideas will make sense, share your toughs!

Maxims will always be hard to balance due to the death loop problem.

For the most part, Maxims are actually in a decent spot right now with the improved AOE suppression, but still isn’t great compared to the other HMGs.

What I would like to see is a revised vet 1 ability that gives the Maxim more versatility in exchange for its poor performance as a suppression platform. This fits the Soviet faction design as a versatile faction of combined arms that differs from the raw power of the Wehrmacht counterparts. The Zis vs PaK40 is a great example of this dynamic done right. The Pak is a better AT gun with an ability that makes it an even more deadly AT gun with the target weak point ability. The Zis on the other hand is a weaker AT gun but can barrage to support against infantry targets. The Pak is stronger against its specialized target, but is useless against different targets.

Applying this logic to the MG42 vs Maxim dynamic shows that the MG42 is better at suppression and killing light vehicles and infantry with its incendiary rounds. It’s a better HMG.

What I would suggest is a new vet 1 ability that is either a barrage type ability or strafing fire like ability.

Plunging Fire: this ability fires a series of bursts from the Maxim in a barrage that causes light damage to all targets in its AOE and suppression in the area. This way a Maxim can barrage any vehicle, tank or infantry unit and deal light damage to a stationary vehicle or tank (the idea that the top of the vehicle is less armored and thus the extra penetration granted by the ability would make sense). It wouldn’t do very much damage, but in the hands of a high skill player it could be used to break up an attack or disrupt repairing units. Of course it would also need a fairly long minimum range to avoid it being used up close.

Traversing Fire: this ability would fire one long burst in a sweep from side to side much like the Strafing Fire ability the UKF Centaur AA tank has, except the Maxim version would deal damage to any unit in the cone of fire of the Maxim regardless of distance away from the gun, but also deal much less damage than the centaur version. This ability would give the Maxim a way to stop a charging squad or blob and also deal damage in a way that is unique and can be activated regardless of line of sight. You could activate traversing fire to stop a unit charging through a smoke grenade for example. But in order to make it not op, this ability would also deal 100% damage to friendly units in the cone as well. This way Traversing fire fired into a VP covered by smoke couldn’t be used to suppress only the enemy unit and win the VP. It would damage and suppress everything. This could pair well with Conscript builds where losing models 1 for 1 in friendly fire instances is still a good trade vs expensive units like Obers or P Grens.

If any mg in the game could dig themselves in and fire 360° then it should be the vicker, since it is the only mg in the game can rotate 360° on it own tripod without having to pack up, irl, and dig in is the theme of UKF more than any other faction. I we discussed the idea of UKf's weapon teams can dig in in redesign emplacements thread. On top of that, 360° of acr will be OP, at best make it facing like in garrison. What i'm trying to say is dig in wont fit maxim.

For decrease size when retreating, agree.
Strafing fire like GI john said above is also nice.

Snip

Uhh I think you mixed up the second question. Decreasing RA =/= a dead soldier, it’s the other way around.

Lowering maxim retreat RA could help wit( death loop though.


IDK if it’s possible but could a 100% RA reduction during first 2 seconds be implemented instead? That way retreating maxims can be killed the same on retreat path but don’t get deathlooped on initial retreat

RA reduction so it doesn’t make them immune to grenades

Plunging Fire: this ability fires a series of bursts from the Maxim in a barrage that causes light damage to all targets in its AOE and suppression in the area. This way a Maxim can barrage any vehicle, tank or infantry unit and deal light damage to a stationary vehicle or tank (the idea that the top of the vehicle is less armored and thus the extra penetration granted by the ability would make sense). It wouldn’t do very much damage, but in the hands of a high skill player it could be used to break up an attack or disrupt repairing units. Of course it would also need a fairly long minimum range to avoid it being used up close.

The German tripods could actually do this (this made it extremely complex and expensive to produce, Eg, German )

The maxim definitely couldn’t, besides, I like the centaur strafe ability better

I think in order to make Maxim good at the same time as avoiding the "Spam" of this unit is to do the following.

#the buff it needs

-To Increase Surpression to the way MG34 and somewhat inferior to see. Maxim already has the benefit of shooting for longer consistent periods (more than even MG34 does), would make up for a very strong MG suppressing platform.


#the nerf to avoid spamming

-Increase Set up time for un-deploying, set it as any regular MG. It is already 6 man durable (but I will get to the point of avoiding deathloop). Set up time is a factor for this favourable spam. That why I suggest nerfing it.

-Possibly even make it 5 man (if necessary) because the huge durability is another reason for the spam.


#avoid deathloop

-Buff RA when it un-deploys as mentioned and make it un-deploy/lift the MG quickly more like "twice as fast than it is now" in order to get a head start in retreating. Since it already has the downside of needing to pick it up after the model carrying it gets shot.


#trenches idea

-It sounds interesting but I think that is personally what either Engineers or Conscripts should have instead. Even then, it might even decline the incentive to make Maxim an even proper MG to have the ability to build cover while other dont. Personally, I would think it be best to focus on more vital elements such as its performance and viability. Having Defensive's would further hinder it from improving possibly, I imagine.

Lets see how this all goes.

The German tripods could actually do this (this made it extremely complex and expensive to produce, Eg, German )

The maxim definitely couldn’t, besides, I like the centaur strafe ability better

I think I like the Traversing Fire ability better myself, but pretty much any HMG on a tripod can do plunging fire. It’s a pretty basic fundamental principal of machine gun gunnery, but is also kind of a lost art in the modern day where GPMGs are more often utilized on pintle mounts on vehicles and helicopters, or on a bipod in infantry units.

The Plunging Fire ability would be very suited for the Vickers gun though. The British military continued to use the Vickers gun all the way into the 1960’s in this role as it could be an effective area denial weapon at long ranges. When it was replaced in this role it was replaced by a 60mm mortar. Sounds crazy, but it’s true and actually makes sense if you think about how plunging fire works.

Uhh I think you mixed up the second question. Decreasing RA =/= a dead soldier, it’s the other way around.

You are right, i was thinking a lot of things at the moment.
Hopefully a dev can help me and change the question for "Buff RA"

Lowering maxim retreat RA could help wit( death loop though.

IDK if it’s possible but could a 100% RA reduction during first 2 seconds be implemented instead? That way retreating maxims can be killed the same on retreat path but don’t get deathlooped on initial retreat

RA reduction so it doesn’t make them immune to grenades

I think 2 sc of 100% reduced RA is simply too much, its a guaranteed retreat. Even MG42 sometimes struggle to retreat (not as hard as maxims though). Simply doubling the packup speed and halving the RA should be more than enough IMO.

What about nerfing its cone to DsHk levels and then giving a cover bonus ala Tommies, except instead of cooldown and accuracy it gets more suppression and its .50 cal style arc back? (No arc changes in garrison)

Basically it would live suppression with lower cone out of cover, but better suppression with live cone in cover.

and reduce price to 240