Back in the early days of the game this exclusivity made sense, it was an important decision shaping the tactical loadout of your troops. But nowadays, it is a massive hindrance to base soldier types making them inferior to specialist soldier types.
Why would I bring a Rifleman when I could bring an AT Gunner or Radioman?
Why should the Rifleman be the weakest member of my squad?
They were the backbone of the army of a reason and their tactical options should reflect that. At lower BRs it is not an impactful change but at higher BRs once you get semi-auto rifles and rifle grenades, the tactical options open up significantly but you are left unable to actually capitalize on it with the rifleman’s versatility as we say below about the ‘choice’. Not having a secondary means you are forced to choose between Semi-Auto rifle or rifle grenade, and if you don’t take the semi-auto you are condemning yourself to being much less useful. And rifle grenades are the one thing actually unique to Riflemen yet you are left never really getting to use them.
What about Assaulters then? They don’t need a secondary.
Yet they have the ‘choice’, now for some nations this doesn’t matter as they have an SMG that does the job all round at all distances. Others don’t. This change evens the playing field, allowing players to equip a high ROF smg for close range and a more accurate one for distance. Or personally, I’d equip my Assaulters with an SMG primary and a shotgun as their secondary for the funsies. As for why Assaulters should also get this change? Well fighter pilots get to carry a secondary as they have no backpack choice because it’s taken by a parachute. Realistically though a pilot would usually have a pistol and only that, sometimes a primary but never both a primary and secondary, there was no room in the plane. Especially as an Assaulter would actually have the room and need for the extra gear. (Conversely or consequently this also means Tankers should get it too)
For Snipers then they get added flexibility being able to use a semi-auto for clearing large numbers but then use a bolt action secondary for picking off lone targets, but all around the change has minimal impact. So why not?
Then finally the one with the only real issue, Machine Gunners. Ammo is always needed and carrying two MGs doesn’t make sense, especially with the amount of weight that would be. The solution being simple, Machine guns become a primary only weapon (or mandatory secondary like other specialist classes) and the alternate weapon slot can equip something like a rifle or SMG. Giving them a decent backup when the big gun runs dry. And yes, I did say SMG, these guys are all about that full auto after all.
As it stands the ‘choice’ isn’t really a choice at all. You always take the backpack option. Because the extra grenades or medkits are useful at lower BRs and at BR V the extra ammo is a must because of how much you go through with the full auto weapons at that BR. Or you just take the Ammo pouch in all cases for classes that simply require it like Machine Gunners.
In Summary: The Backpack and Secondary Weapon Squad Upgrades should be changed to separate nodes to allow squads, that can, to pick up both.
The one that irritates me the most is the Radioman who is forced to carry a secondary weapon. He has no option of an ammo bag, and in reality, Radiomen generally didn’t carry a secondary rifle in battle, they carried additional ammo, batteries ect.
It doesn’t even make sense for a radioman to be carrying a 30+ pound radio and TWO rifles.
That’s more of a problem of the Radio being in the wrong slot. It, like the other specialist equipment, should fill the secondary weapon slot not the backpack slot.
Riflemen certainly aren’t very useful unless you equip them with two AT rifles or an automatic weapon with an ammo pouch.
AT soldiers should maybe carry SMGs; since bazookas and similar weapons were generally two-man systems, it would make sense for the operators to carry something lighter. While rifles were certainly the most common weapon, in some cases the AT gunner might have carried only a standard-issue pistol so the weapon wouldn’t get in the way.
Radio operators should have an inherent ammo buff like the guerrilla units do or the ability to equip extra gear, such as an ammo box or something else genuinely useful in combat; alternatively, their radio could simply occupy the secondary weapon slot, similar to how it works for engineers.
The game for rifleman was balanced around grenade launchers, but then it turned out ppl really really hate grenade launchers. The rifleman class is fine I think actually, having a base bland infantry is not a bad idea, it makes the specialist more special. Then rifleman squad itself need to be rework with more utility, some interesting mechanic or it just needs to be buffed to 12 man or something.
I love rifle grenades even after they’ve been nerfed to hell and wish I had more reason or opportunity to use them.
I get Riflemen are meant to be the “Default Infantry” but every troop type should bring something unique to the table either via specialisation or operational versatility.
Seems like the “popular option” would be removing ammo bags and making them a perk in the soldier upgrades. But that’d be way too much a swing in game balance as everyone would probably swap to grenade pouches.
Simple! remove secondary weapon in general for most classes, except guerilla. Done. And add small backpack small ammo and grenade pouches as standard for all classes. then we got large ammo belt for assaulter MGs, Big backpack for engineers, riflemen, large grenade pouch for AT Gunner…
This is what I see being the most sound idea
So remove a ton of options and further cement a hard meta? ew no.
That’d be terrible for the health of the game, taking away tactical options and turning your other ‘options’ into noob traps is like taking a bazooka to the face. It’s terrible for your health!
Except the radio is more like a backpack kind of thing. If you want to compare with other specialist, why not compare it with parachute use by pilot and paratrooper.
Specialist like flametropper and mortarman did fill the specialist equipment with secondary weapon slot, but they also don’t have the backpack slot.
So if you move the radio to the secondary weapon slot, the radioman might just lost the backpack slot.
