-Similar Previous suggestions have been archived and do not include a poll-
The movement dispersion penalty, or ‘Moving Spread Increase’ in the enlisted weapons stat-sheet, is the dispersion increase when firing on the move. With the exception of the RD-44, Vickers Berthier, and the Fedorov MG/Type Hei auto MG, all machine guns in the game have this penalty. Light machine guns like the BAR 1918a2 have an extra 13 points to the dispersion when shooting while ADS and moving, while guns like the MG 42 100 have an extra 18 dispersion when ADS and moving. For the MG 42 100, the gun has 41 dispersion fully upgraded, and becomes 59 when ADS while moving.
Keep in mind this penalty applies to a gun which already has a poor dispersion stats compared to its peers, on top of an unwieldy recoil stat.
Machine guns across all BR’s struggle against the meta contender: at low tiers it’s SMG’s, which consistently beat machine guns in short to medium range with their superior recoil handling (the SMG user can consistently drill shots into the opponent while on the move), and at higher BR’s, Battle rifles have superior recoil handling, dispersion, as well as one shot downing potential.
With the practical exception of the Type 100 MG, the Fedorov MG and Type Hei Auto MG, all machine guns do less than 13.5 damage per shot: this is insufficient for downing an opponent with vitality in one shot to the body.
So, for a weapon class which:
i)
Is restricted to only three fighters at most in a tech tree squad,
Has inferior recoil characteristics,
has inferior dispersion values,
has a movement speed reduction,
requires two shots to kill an opponent with vitality,
is further penalized by reduced accuracy while moving. Around half of your shots miss the target completely when you are shooting, which lessens the impact of MG ammo capacity.
God forbid you are fighting a decent player in a 1v1 duel with a machine gun, and they are using a battle rifle: the machine gun while almost always lose due to it’s bullet deviation.
Additionally, to expect players to always go prone when using the MG’s is unrealistic given the fast pace of enlisted battles. Not to mention, such a penalty is unrealistic by a physics/realism account, since no other firearm class share this penalty.
Thus, I am suggesting that this penalty be reduced.
Originally, I had in mind that this penalty should be eliminated from all machine guns in the game; by no means will machine guns become unfairly meta over the other options - since they still have poor recoil value and high dispersion - as well as being limited to only 3 machine gunners. (Also, even with such change implemented, the RD-44 will not lose its crown of first among MG’s: it has exceptional recoil handling, and minimal sprint speed reduction. In its current state, people feel obligated to use the RD 44 instead of the Maxim Tokarev just to not miss out on this benefit. )
However, it has been mentioned to me that such a proposal will likely not pass. Instead, some have suggested that a 30% reduction on the penalty is reasonable. So, the Breda Mod 30, originally having a ‘Moving Spread Increase’ of 14, will now have 9.8 or 10.
For a gun like the MG 42 100, its value becomes 12.6, or 13. So when moving, the MG 42 100 will have a dispersion of 54.
To me, this is also unsatisfying, and I originally had in mind a 50% reduction on the penalty across all MG’s in the game.
I absolutely prefer removing this penalty on all MG’s though, since machine guns are already restrained enough by i). It is dubious if Mg’s will even become competitive by eliminating the penalty/mechanic completely, given the aforementioned i). However, improving the accuracy on the move is the first step towards resolving this imbalance.
I will split up the vote options across BR 2,3 and BR 4,5 machine guns, since the higher BR MG’s tend to have higher movement dispersion penalty.
What reduction % do you want to see applied to:
BR 2-3 machine guns -ex: Bren, BAR, KE7
- No change
- 30%
- 50%
- 100% (remove it)
BR 4-5 machine guns -ex: MG42, Maxim Tokarev, Type 100 MG, MG 34-patronentrommel
- No change
- 30%
- 50%
- 100% (remove it)