Just another LMG suggestion.

The LMG still seems to grossly overperform in its damageoutput. For instance, in this replay, Penals seem to melt to LMG'd Grens. The Penals should have the dmg-output to stand up to the Grensquad, but it sure doesn't seem like it.

A simple nerf may not be the best idea, and the LMG usefulness also depends quite a bit on the AI not engaging the "Geil Hansi Dansi" German elektro-folkdance.



The drawback is, of course, mirrored abilities. I don't like this.

The benefits, however, clearly outshines this drawback IMHO.
- This ability can keep the overall cost-efficiency of the Grensquad (durability*dmg-output), the ability simply acts as yellow cover. Combined with Vet2, this should be pretty potent.
- The LMG will stop dancing! This gives the player full control of when to stop fooling around and start spewing those 1200rpm.
- For added pleasure, this is incredibly more authentic. Having trained for a year with one of these bad boys, I can tell you, you do not fire them from the hip unless utterly flanked and suprised and want to scare your opponents by the noise alone - you go prone.

At the same time, it would be a good idea to disable the rifle grenade for upgraded Grens, it might be a bit too much combined with Hit The Dirt.

Anyways, I'm sure some of you will have opinions on this. Cheers!

Edit: Penals were simply used as an example, please do not make this thread about Penals, there are plenty to be had of those in other threads.

Penals actually out DPS lmg Grens at long range. LMGs are best at close range. They nerfed its long range DPS last patch.

That said, penals suck ass.

Yeah, the penals are the problem. Not the LMG.

what I would do is make penals extremely effective at range, so that they clearly beat lmg grens but still lose to them close up.
that would also be interesting cause you could throw a satchel if they try to get close or switch them to close range unit when upgrading to flamers

if they would make it so that when the units holding the lmg dies the gun drops! so that the germen player pick it back up or when unlucky the rus player pick it up that is risk vs reward. right now it magicly teleports to another member of the squad wile my flamer drops of get exploded or my guards at rifel drops so yea

Please DO NOT make this another OffTopic Penal-discussion (there are plenty of those to be had in other threads), they were simply used as an example.

LMG is fine.

What is off, is immediate early game Tier build/cost time that ends up squeezing the Penals out of the game.

Imo, ideally, they should be hitting the field as Ost starts grinding LMGs out of Muni.
This would require the naturalisation of Ost/Sov T0-T1 split however, per my earlier proposal.

There is no way, no how, that Cons can ever be made to completely counter LMG Grens, nor should they, except in micro situations involving good positioning, and against which is offset, specifically, the LMGs internal setup timer.

As other have indicated, its not LMG that is the problem, nor Penal stats.
My perspecrive, is that it is that it is that immediate, every game start, 120MP deficit for Sov on building T1, as compared to Ost T1. If you go early T1 for Penals, you are left "hanging", due to the MP cost offset that Ost can laterally address with a)cheaper T1 b) his first 60 munis.

Penals are, clearly, meant to be the Sov answer to LMG Gren spam. That they xurrently arenot, is a result of the T0T1 artificial split.

I appreciate the sentiment that the LMG shouldnt jiggle as it currently does. This is certainky true.
For that, I advocate a hardcoded VISIBLE setup bar for the LMG, same as on HMG.
As far as I know, on setup units, the rest of the units behavior is not affected by it.
HtD would be utterly OP on Grens withLMG, and would "steal" one of Sovs doctrine choices.

if they would make it so that when the units holding the lmg dies the gun drops! so that the germen player pick it back up or when unlucky the rus player pick it up that is risk vs reward. right now it magicly teleports to another member of the squad wile my flamer drops of get exploded or my guards at rifel drops so yea

I totally agree.

Why the heck LMG just simply "flies" over the air in the hands of next model?
If the gunner is killed, the weapon MUST drop on the ground and be ready to picked up.

I totally agree.

Why the heck LMG just simply "flies" over the air in the hands of next model?
If the gunner is killed, the weapon MUST drop on the ground and be ready to picked up.

Its the same for all units. If there are models left to carry it, the weapon is transferred to them.
PPSH and G43 are an exception, presumably because they are Commander based.
These are never dropped.

Arguably its unfair, that then Commander bssed weapons like PTSR and DP on Guard, are dropped.
But since Shreks also drop, and there is a CHANCE that LMG also drops from the last model, your argument is quashed.

LMGs DO drop.

The exception being Flamers, where the weapon litraloy explodes, and is no longer useable by anyone.

The system is consistent. There is no cause for concern on that point.

Regarding the LMG specifically, in my observation, the model that gets it, has to setup it again.
Meaning if you spexifically kill the LMG carrier, the inheriting model has to setup again.

There is no way, no how, that Cons can ever be made to completely counter LMG Grens, nor should they, except in micro situations involving good positioning, and against which is offset, specifically, the LMGs internal setup timer.

Yes there is, make ppsh non-doctrinal. You just removed most of the LMG problems by giving the counterpart a weapon upgrade that lets them have a fighting chance at the range that is the most important and doesn't let LMG grens gain free vet while MP draining the soviets early game.

As other have indicated, its not LMG that is the problem, nor Penal stats.
My perspecrive, is that it is that it is that immediate, every game start, 120MP deficit for Sov on building T1, as compared to Ost T1. If you go early T1 for Penals, you are left "hanging", due to the MP cost offset that Ost can laterally address with a)cheaper T1 b) his first 60 munis.

Penals are, clearly, meant to be the Sov answer to LMG Gren spam. That they xurrently arenot, is a result of the T0T1 artificial split.

Yes, we get it, you have a hard-on for penals, despite never actually playing as soviets nor using them. But claiming that their stats aren't a problem just shows how badly you understand the game. With their current stats they have no chance whatsoever at competing with LMG grens in terms of manpower efficiency early game. They vet slower, they die faster per model, they have less focused fire, they have less utility, they take longer to build. Being slightly cheaper to reinforce by merging and not requiring munitions to get high DPS numbers do not help you out early game, especially as soviets have no munition upgrades to get as it is.

Even if you could build them straight out of T0, you'd still lose to gren spam except maybe on maps with super cut-offs like Langres where you could just rush penals to the cutoff and sit there without having to fear facing several LMGs or a flameht. On any larger map without clear cutoffs the german player would just avoid fighting the penals 1vs1 while outcapping the soviet with his cheaper squads until he got LMGs (or a flameht or even a scout car+lmgs if that's his fancy) at which point the grens win easily manpower wise.

As a side note, if you wanted to claim that penals were obviously meant as the grenadier counter (ie. penals should be made every single game), why on earth does T2 even exist? Is it meant as a punishment for soviet players who don't have a large enough fuel advantage to be able to rely on vehicles for AT?

You totally dont get it Cruzz.

Its a perpetual puzzle to me, how someone with such a good balance of experience between both factions as well as a win ratio and games played ratio far beyind my own, cant seem to grasp how severly that would damage the game.

Penals are, and should be, the Sov answer to LMGs. There is no way to ignore the unit, and simply buff Cons (with their nativr Oorah, Merge and upgradeable AT and Molotov) to take this role from Penals. I seem to lack the words to explain it, but Cons will NEVER be the solution, nor should they be. You are categorically ba4king up the wrong tree.

PS: Im quite certain Gren+LMG buildtime almost exactly matches Penal buildtime, in total. Cant confirm till I get home and time it.
PPS: Penals beat LMG at range now, as corroborated by Link0 in another thread.

I dont agree with giving any more units HTD.

The ability, even nerfed as it is now, still defies a core concept of COH style RTS games: use of the cover system. Running at a squad and then pressing HTD in an open field to magically get cover is not micro that should be reinforced. I'd love to see HTD replaced with buffs that allows conscripts to scale into the match

Gotta keep pointing this out, but the big strength of LMGs is that all its damage output goes to 1 man until he is dead. Then switches to the next for another kill.

Perhaps one way to balance LMGs is to make it so that it does sweeping fire and spreads the damage among a squad a little more, not completely, but enough so that Soviet infantry in the open or in cover can weather enough fire from it to fire back and apply some return damage before being driven off.

Gotta keep pointing this out, but the big strength of LMGs is that all its damage output goes to 1 man until he is dead. Then switches to the next for another kill.

Perhaps one way to balance LMGs is to make it so that it does sweeping fire and spreads the damage among a squad a little more, not completely, but enough so that Soviet infantry in the open or in cover can weather enough fire from it to fire back and apply some return damage before being driven off.

+1. It feels really silly that a machine gun is used like a sniper rifle.

I dont agree with giving any more units HTD.

The ability, even nerfed as it is now, still defies a core concept of COH style RTS games: use of the cover system. Running at a squad and then pressing HTD in an open field to magically get cover is not micro that should be reinforced. I'd love to see HTD replaced with buffs that allows conscripts to scale into the match

I agree with this. Not, I imagine, that anyone is interested in my opinion on the matter. The cover system is one of the things that defines COH and COH2 imho.

LMG is fine.
My perspecrive, is that it is that it is that immediate, every game start, 120MP deficit for Sov on building T1, as compared to Ost T1.

160 - the Ostheer starts with an extra 40 MP.

The LMG is not fine, as you can see in Turtles and DanielsDs posts.

160 - the Ostheer starts with an extra 40 MP.

The LMG is not fine, as you can see in Turtles and DanielsDs posts.

How much of a tone down and what kind, are you saying specifically?

Your suggestion is very vague.
How about some concrete figures or percentages?

I don't think the LMG needs a damage nerf, so much as it needs to spread the damage a bit more.

This way, multiple grens with LMGs aren't dropping an enemy man per firing LMG every 2 seconds. However, it shouldn't spread out too much. Instead it just needs to not drop most of a squad within the first few seconds of a fight so that there is a bit more time to react, and for a firefight to happen in the first place.

Then, with the damage a bit more spread, fights will still end quickly if the opponent isn't being careful, since the squad will still have taken a lot of damage.

I know that LMGs are supposed to apply a lot of damage, and also tend to kill men within a squad more quickly. I'm fine with that, and the LMG is supposed to offset the 4 men Gren squad. Only problem is that its timings are a bit extreme right now, leading to easy abuse.

I think a "spread" would probably actually be a net buff to LMG, especially vs unarmored infantry.

Lets say LMG split its dmg between two models evenly. Both of those models are now more vulnerable to a killing hit from the generalised DPS of the Gren Rifles, rather than just one model bearing the brunt.

Might reduce LMG efficacy vs a full undamaged unit, but reciprocally would make it more dangerous to a decimated or damaged unit. Shocks and Guard would stand to benefit the most, since theyd get an additional armor roll per burst, per target.

Not sure exactly how LMG behaves when swapping targets, but I think there is a small delay in bursts when its current target dies, meaning if it did more generalised and spread dmg to the unit, the bursts would be more "efficient" as it could potentially kill off two models, instead of one, in a burst.

This is just conjecture, but something to consider regarding that specific proposal.

Nope, it's not.

Because the full loss of a man is always worse than having 2 men that are at lower health. It gives more time in the long run to run away.

Generic rifle fire really isn't as strong as it should be anyway. Killing with rifles involves a bit too much on crits.

LMG may have a delay, but even with the delay, we've all seen how quickly an LMG cuts down whatever it targets, even from within cover.

The resulting loss of DPS from the target squad is what really settles the encounters. And you can run into multiple LMG squads with Conscripts and not lose half the squad before it even starts retreating.