Main benefit of LMG rifles, comes from the fact of how LMGs work in the game. Considering that LMGs are focus fire models, you usually can just try to snipe few models via LMG on range and then push in.
Since LMGs are such powerhouses in CoH2, they have like 90% of squad DPS anyway.
I agree with most of what you said, I think several balance issues would be fixed by just removing the focus fire on LMG and give them damage spread that SMGs have. My issue is with the last statement, that only applies to Obersoldaten as the LMG is almost 70% of the damage when at range compared to Gren/Rifles where it is a more even 50% split.
EDIT: Airborne Guards are similar to Obers(75% of DPS) but there damage is spread across 3 LMGs so kind of hard to compare.
This would be my guess as well. Not sure about infantry models, but for tanks there is a set of coordinates that defines the origin of each shell with respect to the center of the tank. This is also the starting point for distance measurements, such as max range or the (n,m,f) distances used in the accuracy and pen calculations.
And since tanks seem to always aim at the center of each other, some tanks for which this gun origin point protudes a bit farther away from the center seem to have a tiny bit more range than others.
I guess something like this could also apply to infantry models and cause these tiny deviations in max range described by the OP
Maybe it is their formation which causes this? It happens fairly consistently in the church at the center of whiteball, if you are squad is north of the building and sturms are inside. One unit will fire even if your at the edge of vision/range and will not fire back.
I think the center of squad formation makes perfect sense since it also seems to apply to PTRS Penals. If a tank drives by at max range the PTRS will fire range 40 but if you tell the unit to attack it attempts to get to range 35 so the SVTs fire also. As a side note, never grab a flamethrower and upgrade it to PTRS. It will attempt to get into flamethrower range before doing anything.
Something I have noticed over a while was that Sturms would fire at a unit at max range if their was sight but the other unit would not return fire. I have seen this happen with Cons/penals/engi/Rifles. The damage is minimal so it doesn't really matter in the slightest. However from the OKW player's perspective it could reveal their unit that was waiting in hiding.
Say JLI cloaked with hold fire or even in a building to get some extra vision. I have seen it happen most in buildings say I have a good guess that they are hiding behind the building so try to stay max range from building. Sturm goes in, none of say my Cons fire but 1 or 2 Sturm Pios fire back despite it being slightly beyond max range. Say range 37. If I tell them to fire the cons will move up a tiny bit and shoot.
Was wondering if it was a bulletin or maybe they are just coded to have a tiny bit more range.
It is false in the sense that Garands are not a pure close range weapon in the sense of SMGs, yes.
In what it is true though is that Rifles should close in whenever possible against Volks, Grens and even Obers.
The 2nd statement is what I and other players have been saying. Vipper posted great information but I never claimed that Garands and the like were better or equal to SMGs and short range. All I said was that they are short range focused. Like Hannibal said you should be closing the distance whenever possible.
Also as a player, we should know how to best use each one within their characteristics such as his cons example and chasing with PF due to their great moving acc.
At this point I think Hannibal did a good job of expressing the data and I am agreement with his statement don't really see the point in continuing but it was a good jog down memory lane. Reading thru the notes about buffing Guards LMG to Gren LMG performance gave me shivers.
Isn't it more that Soviets and Ost are just way more complete, superior factions with more tools compared to all of the other choices? Instead of some Axis/Allies balance conspiracy? That's why you basically never see anything else at the top level.
It is crazy how we always say they are complete but they are literally played one way in tournaments. For soviets it is con spam with either guards or SVT drop. OST is gren spam with Jaeger command squad. Both get double AT into medium-P4 or T34 variant. Any deviation from that like a single PG squad(or any non Reg Guard elite) is seen as off meta and an interesting choice. If most of the units are unused are they really that complete or just certain units are overperforming and the ELITE players stick to them as they are playing for money and pride.
Watching 1v1 games has gotten extremely stale, I am glad when I see anything else as you can actually learn something/try something new.
I don't really know how the profiles looked like after implementation, but this is a selection of weapons how they look like now. It is slightly a mess, sorting them and coloring them is a bit of a hassle, but you can figure it out. The graph shows DPS normalized to maximum, in easier words it shows the damage drop as a fraction of the maximum damage it can do.
Vipper is right, there are some "archetypical" profiles. Weapons obviously differ a bit and some weapons are in between those archetypes, but they can help to quickly describe how a weapon is used best. Additional notes might be necessary depending on the weapon.
To stick with Vipper's list:
LMG - DPS increases at long ranges (Ober and Gren LMG basically have an identical profile)
Bolt action - maximum close with relatively linear and slow decrease with range, retaining 40-50% of DPS at far range
Carbines (semi automatic) - short plateau to about range 5, non-linear drop with higher range, retaining 25-30% at far
Assault rifles - I think this is basically the StG. short plateau to range 5, then linear drop to 10 % at far
Smg - plateau to range ~10, steep decrease. They basically lose most of their DPS until range 15-20 and do almost no damage at far
Pistol - not shown
There are some weapons that are somewhat in between or have larger variations to these archetypes. The Ranger Thompson for example looks like an SMG at first glance, but has some extended damage at mid ranges. The SVT for example has a short plateau like a carbine, but an almost linear drop off and retains DPS similar to bolt action rifles at far.
A smaller variation would also be the Conscript mosin. This bolt action weapon has the most pronounced DPS loss past range 25 to force Conscripts into closer engagements.
I fully understand everything you and Vipper are saying. My issue is that according to vipper only SMG/Pistol count as short range weapons. I am saying that is to narrow minded. He is stating that Rifleman are not a short/mid favoring squad when they follow same damage as G43 which per Relics words a short/mid range upgrade. And your conscript example is what I am talking about, just because a weapon falls under an archetype doesn’t mean it has to follow the design 100% it can be changed as needed per balance needs. As such you cannot state only SMG are close range squad since Thompsons are also mid range.
I'm still confused as to where it states only SMG/Pistol are short range squads. Reading the paragraph underneath the graphs it literally states G43 are a short/midrange weapon. Since they perform exactly the same as Garands aside from better moving accuracy how are Rifleman not short/mid squad. Their peak performance is up close with a fairly sharp drop off past mid range.
The weapon profiles are also more of a guide. Thompsons hold onto most of their DPS compared to all other SMGs, they are still decent at mid range. PPSH are worse on per unit basis but due to their better moving accuracy make for better chase squads especially if fully manned compared to every other SMG. LMG MG42 has 1.2 armor penetration, why is that still needed after the change from armor to RA.
What I am saying is that they intended something 9 years ago and after several balance changes and faction introductions the weapons themselves follow the idea to a certain extent.
(Now for some strange reason certain weapons have not been full implemented to this system but that is another story)
Pistol and SMG are consider close range weapons.
Is their a particular post your talking about on there?
These changes were implemented 9 years ago at this point, over several iterations of balance patches.
And once more M1 is carbine rifle using a carbine profile weapon and not an SMG so IT IS NOT A CLOSE RANGE WEAPON and work just fine with both bar and LMG.
Why just SMG? Is it because they drop after 15 range?
The carbine/rifles in the game don't all follow the same profile. Certain units hold onto significantly more DPS as range increases compared to others. I used range of 25 also as that is on the safer side of mid range/start of long range along with non-vetted numbers since some vet calculations are wrong.
Couple thoughts and questions:
The different rifles all behave differently a blanket statement should not be used by weapon type.
If you compare G43 Grens to Rifles they follow the same damage spread but you don't consider it a close range unit despite the game calling G43 a close range upgrade.
PG are considered a close/mid range yet lose almost all damage at max range. Would you consider them a close range specialist?
Tommies are freaking beast at range.
Paths are considered long range squad but their dps is horrendous, if it weren't for crit ability they would be useless. When I first saw it I thought/think it is a mistake maybe it wasn't updated.
Why its broken? USF literally is on pair with any other faction if they invest into either nades or raks, with the total amount of resources spent. Hell, even if they invest into raks+nades, they will be like 15 fuel and 50 MP behind which is less then 15 seconds of income.
The only questionable part is that you have to retreat to the base in order to upgrade your inf, which is not a problem in 1v1\2v2 but its frustrating in 3v3\4v4. Without side grades, USF has second cheapest teching in the game, thats why side grades are mandatory. Getting USF sidegrades arent putting you in any resource disadvantage what so ever, against OKW\Ost.
The only single valid concern about USF is that they have to chose to have either MG or AT gun, both of which are kinda needed sometimes. Other then that airborn is just used for cheesing USF tech tree, abusing idiotic "snipe mechanic" and rushing scotts because of the saved resources, plain and simple. Abusing the fact that faction costs\tech were balanced with side tech in mind, and airborn is allowing you to just ignore it.
And, no offence, but arguments about "rifle performance", sidegrades and why not, which ppl bring here in defence of Airborn meta are utter bullshit.
USF literally has infantry company, which allow you to skip weapon rak in favor of nades\skip, makes rifleman be actually good on open maps and trade well with Axis inf at ranges, allow USF to have mines, allow USF to have proper cover, allow USF to have proper mortar and artillery. Covers almost every single point why usf is on "life support" and the weakest faction.
YET for some reason every one abuses Scottfinder meta, wonder why.
USF was balanced around having smoke on rifleman since Rifles were supposed to be the most versatile mainline in the game. Everything since then has been attempting to bandaid the removal of that along with shitty tech choices.
Mortar is literally a smoke machine, you ask it to bombard a building and there is a good chance that it will miss.
MG was originally designed to be aggressive with fast placement and pick up but bad arc, that was nerfed since it wasn't fair but bad arc was kept.
Pak howi was supposed to be mid/late game bleeder and the aoe was nerfed hard, now you need two and sight for them to pay off which is quite an investment.
Stuart has some of the worst AI performance but it is ok because it has high armor which is high enough against 222/Luchs but useless against snares/Puma/At gun. Its high armor serves no purpose, I would rather have the armor dropped and improve AI performance so that in can actually be used to bleed oponent.
LMG was nerfed to just one since they traded to well, despite the fact that at range most of the Rifleman don't contribute damage. Long range squads literally force Axis out of comfort zone so why wouldn't you pick Paths if they are the only viable option.
Relic Entertainment
