sorry for this double post but Incase anyone wants to talk down, people played gren cause if you were GREAT you had a chance at killing somebody. Now days you can kill a spec on your map with rifle2's, its rediculous and every vet knows it. Please bring some skill into playing riflemen again (2.0-2.12)
I don't think rifleman is overpowered besides dig-in bug. But I do think Gren is a little underpowered.
.... Rifleman = anti-infantry. Don't ever forget that it SHOULD best grenadiers at anti-infantry. I see no issue if dig-in is fixed.
Its not besting grens its dominating them. Its a difference when a gren gets a huge jump on them and uses all his ammo and then the rifleman turns around and kills you so fast that it should be considered a 1 hit kill. Not to mention all the times you get behind cover and then die thanks to lag. It's because they kill so fucking fast. And its not just the dig-in bug. They got the armor buff too which seems to help them survive more hits. Nerfing the rifles or buffing the mowtar wouldn't make the rifleman unable to best grens. But if the gren gets the first shots on him he should die.
Give the gren an SMG. Specifically give the gren SMG2, so that he is better in close quarters anti-inf but the rifleman is still the preferred anti-infantry unit. I'd actually swap the SMGs, have SMG1 be the inaccurate but quite powerful SMG and have SMG2 be the more accurate, more useful, but less powerful close-in SMG, becuase I really feel as though the weapons should increase in usefulness as they gain numbers, and I like the sound and model for the SMG2 more than I do the SMG1 so I'd like to actually get to use it more often. Basically, make SMG2 like a weaker assault rifle, and make SMG1 into a better machine pistol. At the moment neither SMG can be fired in prolonged bursts very well and both have the annoying single shot sniper ability. Make them gain inaccuracy slower but stop them being super accurate to begin with, more like machineguns basically. SMGs can remain the weaker weapons, especailly the inaccurate one, but the inaccurate SMG can have some use in close range and can be given to the grenadier without overpowering it against infantry, but it would alleviate the grenadiers inability to kill riflemen, because I agree that no class should survive being taken completely by surprise by another class from close range, it's silly, especially when empires rewards flanking and getting behind your enemy so incredibly much with the other classes.
SMG's are lame and boring. This mod needs to focus on what makes it unqiue and fun. The mowtar is one of the main things that keeps people playing and is IMO and many others the most fun thing in the game. Even with it completely useless and nerfed we still use it. The gren doesn't need an SMG. He has the Pistol 2 for close combat but the mowtar is ideal for flushing out rifleman and nade spammers and people building turrets at range. I dunno why you guys suggest all this off the wall stuff and hate the mowtar so much. If people want normal rifle and smg combat they will play a game that does it better.
Yes the mortar is quite fun, I use it myself if I'm not required to actually play properly, but regardless of how much fun it might make the grenadier a one shot mortar is a bad idea. It's fun to one shot people yes, but it isn't fun to be hit by a mortar shell you didn't see coming and die in one shot. I oppose it for the same reason I suggest making the current ARs be the best long-range weapons and replacing/reassigning the carbine/hr, because being one shotted at range isn't fun and the ARs are nicely balanced against the general ranges empires combat occurs at, and should occur at. Being killed without the opportunity to fight back is not fun, and I remember the things that aren't fun more than I do the things that are, so even if I get one shots with the mortar, I'll be more annoyed when it happens to me than I am happy when I do it myself. The only people who stand to benefit from the change are the people who play nothing but grenadier, and as there are four classes all of which should be made useful, that's annoying three quarters of the game's population for the sake of the other quarter, it doesn't make sense. I don't object to the mortar being useful or the grenadier being a valid combat class, I object to that specific approach, it's the same thing as 50 cal machineguns and 1 shot scout rifles and squad arty and all the other things people complain about and don't like.
Ok so it's fun. That's what games should be based around. Krenzo stressed that idea many times. You can call it a one hit kill weapon but the rifles kill faster than the mowtar does but just because its a burst of bullets its not a 1 hit kill and doesn't get the same treatment. That's bull shit. You can't see or dodge rifleman bullets like you can mowtar shells and it sure as hell isn't fun to get killed by a rifleman you didn't see coming and die in less time than one shot from a mowtar. All that means is they have the upper hand.. If a gren kills you from behind in one shot then he was in the better postion. Of course its not fun to die.. But that's part of the game. Don't take away someones fun because he had the upper hand only cause its not fun for you to die.. And its already been stated if you pick a health skill you won't get 1 hit killed.. But if you pick a health skill as a gren rifleman still kill you in less than time it takes for a mowtar to kill someone.
Rifles shouldn't kill people instantly, I stated that the current ARs should be the most powerful ranged weapons, and ARs can't kill you instantly except at close range, which is precisely why I want them to be the baseline weapon. There is nothing to stop the grenadier being able to kill someone if he has the mortar and a close range SMG, he can fire a mortar shell and then SMG the person to death, or just use the SMG, but it is not possible to make the mortar good at close range but weak at long range like it is a rifle, at least not without it seeming really silly because why would an explosion be less powerful the further away it is? I released a set of particle effects that make it very easy to see bullet based weapons firing at you so I suggest you use them, they improve the game considerably. Taking away people's fun because they have the upper hand is precisely what you seem to want to do with the mortar, the difference is that keeping the mortar as it is preserves the fun in a large portion of the game at the expense of a small portion, while buffing it does the exact opposite.
So If some lone wolf rifleman wanders around my base and sneak up on him blast him in the back on the head with a mowtar shell he should be able to live turn around and blast me before I can pull out my pistol? I dunno what your thinking I'm suggesting. I just want to be able to kill someone when I clearly have the jump on him. If I see him first and unload every clip of every weapon I have on him and then he turns around and kills me instantly at close range with a BE CAR which is a LONG RANGE weapon then that's ok? The mowtar needs a small damage buff or rifles need to be toned down.
I'm not sure a mowtar is an appropriate weapon for sneaking up on people. Why not pull out your pistol first, and make it strong enough so if you have someone from behind at close range, you can almost certainly kill them with it? I don't think a mowtar should be an all-purpose weapon capable of everything; no other infantry weapon is capable of that, after all. Weapons need holes in their capabilities and weak points that the enemy can exploit to keep things interesting. Sometimes, your pistol ought to be a superior choice to your mortar. It shouldn't just be something you switch to when out of ammo; that would be dull. Players should be encouraged to use all their weapons, and to switch between them based on the situation... not just to focus on one weapon exclusively.
I'm not talking about sneaking up on someone, I'm talking about coming out of a spawn or coming around a corner and finding an enemy with his back to you. Pulling the pistol out first or second doesn't matter because I'm able to shoot off both of them before getting killed. I agree the mowtar shouldn't be an all purpose weapon, I don't understand why they nerfed it against people and buffed against buildings when tanks, scouts and engineers already do that. It's hitting moving targets and predicting movement that makes the mowtar fun to use. Anyone can hit the side of a NF barracks with a mortar. That's boring and the other 2 classes specialize in killing buildings. The rifleman and gren SHOULD specialize in killing infantry and tanks. That's not the point though, any weapon should win if you hit them in the back of the head with it.
Scouts shouldn't be anti-building. They should be infiltrate, send info back, sab defenses. Rifle = kills infantry w/ gun. A bit lame and simplistic since he's the only one targetted to do that. Some anti-vehicle. Gren = kills vehicles and entrenched locations. Entrenched potentially means infantry as well, but any static front will do (turret farm!).
If you make the mortar kill people from behind at close range you also have to make it kill people from in front at long range, and that is the problem... The mortar doesn't have inaccuracy, it doesn't have damage falloff, and the addition of either would make no sense or make the gun even more stupid. Therefore the mortar cannot be made to do the thing you want, the only option is for the grenadier to get another weapon which can do that, thus adding the functionality to the class but not fucking up the mortar.
back on the rifleman topic, imo it would really help to have more realistic kickback instead of just randomized spray if you shot more than one bullet.
in my eyes all weapons need to have randomized accuracy that is a set amount like the smg1 in hl2 besides the rifleman rifles, those should give the "counter strike" accuracy gain/loss
But with distance you add in the factor of being able to dodge them which effects accuracy. Hell sometimes you will miss someone by 50 feet because they ran the opposite way you thought they would. And fall off comes with splash, the more distance the easier it is to move a foot to the left and take little damage. Sure its harder to dodge them on smaller maps like district but this game needs to be balanced around classic maps. I just want the mowtar to have the same effect on rifleman as it does every other class. They seem to be immune to the shells even with out the dig-in bug.
