Change the priority of Japanese tanks from machine gunner to loader

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1

The Japanese tanks in the game are at a disadvantage because if you take a hit that leaves you with only 3 crew members, they will be distributed among the gunner, driver, and machine gunner, which puts you at a serious disadvantage with an extremely slow reload. And for what?! It leaves you with a machine gunner who doesn’t fire autonomously and is limited to the tank’s frontal arc, when he could be more useful by reloading the weapon.

I see it very unlikely that they will give us an option within the game to change the crew, so:

Change the priority of the crew?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
2 Likes
2

This applies to all tanks with a working gunner.

2 Likes
3

It was already tweaked with the last major update so that if you have 4 crew (commander/gunner/driver/machine gunner) , the machine gunner moves to the loader slot
But afaik for 3 crew it isnt possible since the crew assigment system is already quite complex

3 Likes
4

Hull MG still has priority over Loader and even gunner in Panzer III N, if not more tanks.

3 Likes
5

If that’s not possible, I’d rather get rid of the machine gunner altogether. A loader is always more important than a machine gunner.

6

Same for me, I rarely, if ever use the hull machine gunner feature and as soon as your crew takes some casualties, it somewhat becomes a liability.

Also, I would like to point out that the seat priority in the M4A2 have been altered in the last major update : when having a crew with all the loading perks in the loader seat, he will prioritize the MG gunner seat somehow. The only way to cricumvent this issue for me is to have two crew members with all the reload perks.

7

read: devs dont want to take half an hour to rework the system.

3 Likes
8

So how many more undocumented changes were there in the update?
A change like this 100% news worthy and should have been in the patchnotes.

It really is annoying that we as a playerbase have to figure out what else was changed since the devs dont care to give a full changelog / try to sneak in other changes that way.

EDIT: BTW will the resource also be updated again?
It has been almost half a year since the last documented changes and alot has changed in that timeframe.

9

You sure? When I was driving the Panzer III N, my commander got killed by a bomb. But the machine gunner never took over the commander or loader’s role either.

How about adding a feature that lets machine gunners fire on their own when they aren’t being controlled by the commander? It’s really tiring having to switch controls back and forth when only three crew members are left alive.

10

It takes some time, its not instantly, but your tanker will get back in the loader seat

1 Like
11

No, that is not what I meant. What I want to discuss is the issue of the machine gunner having a higher priority than the loader.

I was really glad and utterly surprised to get your reply after watching your video. Even with a four-man crew, the setup still falls short of the KV and Panzer IV whose machine gunner logic has not been optimized yet. What players want most is for the AI to automatically take over the loader’s role while the machine gunner remains controllable.

Loaders usually die from incoming enemy tank fire. At such critical moments, the crew should prioritize rapid reloading to eliminate the biggest armored threat, instead of the machine gunner idling uselessly by the machine gun. The situation gets extremely tense in combat.

From your video, the priority setting seems decent, with loaders taking precedence over commanders. Regrettably, vision control is often crucial in battles. The combat gets chaotic once the commander loses control of the machine gunner. Most players cannot manage driving the tank and firing the hull machine gun at the same time.

German, Soviet and American tanks all carry abundant hull machine gun ammunition, and turret machine gun rounds are more than enough for combat, making frequent switching unnecessary. This leaves the idle machine gunner rather redundant.

There is another problematic issue I want to report. When the gunner and driver get killed at the same time, the AI will automatically switch to the driver’s position far faster than the player can react. Time and again after losing both crew members, I quickly press key 2 to switch to the gunner and fight back, yet the AI forces me into the driver’s seat instead. It is utterly ridiculous. I am about to get eliminated but stuck driving the tank when I desperately need to return fire.

Could you adjust the crew priority? Make the gunner the priority over the driver when both are downed. Additionally, please refrain from forcibly changing the player’s seat selection once they have pressed the corresponding key to switch positions. Would it be possible to implement this adjustment?

I am going to sleep now, and I will post a formal forum thread tonight.

2 Likes
12

This applies to every tank in the game, not only Japanese ones.

13

Yes, it applies to all tanks and in some cases the machine guner takes precedence even over the commander.