Hey Ramm-Jaeger what happened to hero status & MkB42H/AVT40 being rare weapons?

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Welcome back

 

[Divinity]

And what's up with the semi-auto madness? On Pavlovs house the German team can have up to 9 G41s (that's nearly 30% of the team). The Germans having one or maybe two G41s would still be considered generous by many. Commanders and SLs should have the K98k as a rifle option, not the G41.

 

[oscar.nein]

No, just checked cause I was certain this was wrong. It's 5 assault on combined arms and 6 on infantry maps (for Germans).

EDIT: After some checking your numbers seem to be for 32 players.

Actually, it was only Commissar's House that had 5 Assault classes for the Germans. This will be fixed.

 

[nebsif]

Actually, it was only Commissar's House that had 5 Assault classes for the Germans. This will be fixed.

Fixed as in 4 and 3 instead of 6 and 5?

edit: 3 for combined arms, 4 for inf maps..

 

[melipone]

Thanks for the post Ramm. On the STG's implementation in RO1 you have to consider the additional gameplay changes rather than just look at the number of units available in the war.

Increased accuracy and damage
Vastly reduced sway and recoil
Zoom
Suppression
Speed of iron sights, especially while sprinting (instantly stop and bullets shoot centre of the screen)

These elements marginalize the strength of the standard bolt action rifle. The semis and even the SMGs now fill the same role as the bolt and are yet 10x easier to use and more versatile

There are other gameplay elements, but thats how I see it atm. The realism side of it is the presumption of the rarity of Mkb's in stalingrad compared to STG44 later on in the war. The mp41 was simply a different stock so you didn't see everyone taking it. I don't know how rare the ppd was.

I would much rather play an RO game with hard gun control OR bolt action rifles as standard issue weapons. I would like to maintain the atmosphere of the period too

 

[Nezzer]

Given that Ostfront used STG44's in a similar amount (or more) I'm quite surprised at the outcry. There weren't any 100 page threads in Ostfront with tons of people in an uproar over having "too many assault rifles" in Danzig and similar maps.

Yeah, but few were the maps with the STG44, and its presence and number could be historically accurate. There could have been MKBs on Stalingrad, but their numbers were nowhere near STG's ones and having more than two MKBs on the map kill immersion for history buff like myself. Anyway it's good to hear the devs' feedback to our feedback again

 

[Witzig]

Actually, it was only Commissar's House that had 5 Assault classes for the Germans. This will be fixed.

Would it be a sensible thing to ask, if you could discuss internally about the removal of MkBs/AVTs from "early Stalingrad" Maps ?
To mirror the distribution of the Stg44 in Ostfront.


P.S.
I have come to favour the PPSh over the Mkb on most Maps. You can't go wrong with 71 Bullets in a Clip .

 

[oscar.nein]

Fixed as in 4 and 3 instead of 6 and 5?

Eh?

Fixed as is in now 3 instead of 5.

 

[Yoshiro]

Would it be a sensible thing to ask, if you could discuss internally about the removal of MkBs/AVTs from "early Stalingrad" Maps ?
To mirror the distribution of the Stg44 in Ostfront.


P.S.
I have come to favour the PPSh over the Mkb on most Maps. You can't go wrong with 71 Bullets in a Clip .

The PPSH with the drum mag is hands down my favorite and in my opinion best weapon in game

 

[Jorma]

Thank you for the post Ramm-Jaeger!

It should be quoted to the OP so people wouldn't have to spend hours searching for it in this giant thread.

 

[Forssen]

Eh?

Fixed as is in now 3 instead of 5.

He is talking about Yoshiro writing Germans have 4 assault classes on infantry maps when they actually have 6.

 

[Verluste]

Thanks for the post Ramm. On the STG's implementation in RO1 you have to consider the additional gameplay changes rather than just look at the number of units available in the war.

Increased accuracy and damage
Vastly reduced sway and recoil
Zoom
Suppression
Speed of iron sights, especially while sprinting (instantly stop and bullets shoot centre of the screen)

These elements marginalize the strength of the standard bolt action rifle. The semis and even the SMGs now fill the same role as the bolt and are yet 10x easier to use and more versatile

There are other gameplay elements, but thats how I see it atm. The realism side of it is the presumption of the rarity of Mkb's in stalingrad compared to STG44 later on in the war. The mp41 was simply a different stock so you didn't see everyone taking it. I don't know how rare the ppd was.

I would much rather play an RO game with hard gun control OR bolt action rifles as standard issue weapons. I would like to maintain the atmosphere of the period too

Yea that.
Plus the fact that TWI told us otherwise in the previews. Which Ramm never mentioned in his posts.
Its contra the RO1 feeling too. I'm afraid there will always be too many mkb.42's (instead of one or two, relevant to the map size, which would be RARE).

But thanks for answering TWI crew.

 

[Verluste]

2)
They changed their minds fairly late in development in the weeks running up to release on the system. As some of you have noticed we used to have an elite assault role as well as an elite rifleman role. The design team decided to remove this.

Please tell us WHY they decided that.

 

[melipone]

Also, the ability for server owners to lock down these weapons/roles was not finished for launch and is high on our list of things to get implemented in game. This way server admins can choose to not have these except in Hero roles (or not even have hero roles at all). We feel this will go a long way to address this.

This looks pretty promising. If servers can just set their own limits on everything without requiring mods and mutators that would great. Hopefully it will have decent customisability including class limits. Simply having more bolts - smg/semi ratio might improve gameplay imo. Only worry would be standardisation on the servers, maybe there could be a "standard" tweaked weapon loadout for servers

 

[Kashash]

Why can't we have the realistic mechanic aspects of the infantry for the realism mode? It wouldn't hurt anybody so it isn't even up to a debate, make the realism mode just as it intended to be (more than just few HUDs switched off) and everyone will be happy. Do you realise how beneficial would that be for you and how many angered customers you would've saved, and perhaps gain even more. Surely you must've noticed how much more significant anger among the players the RO2 has induced than RO1 with its design. It caused the loss of great number of players as you've probably heard, even the entire clans have rejected this game. You could greatly alleviate the customers feeling towards the game by just doing a few adjustments, not to the entire game, but just for the realism mode.

Particularly what's been asked for is stuff like the running speed which is far excessive and encourages a lot of unrealistic run and shoot type playing that doesn't portray much of an actual ww2 fighting. There should be at least some penalty when strafing or running through an uneven ground. Some of the other stuff been asked for is more sway after running, less of that ultra zoom, more bolts than smg and etc.

 

[Scarf Ace]

As Jared has said regarding the weapon loadouts, we changed our mind during the course of the development. The original way that we were planning to do it wasn't looking like it was going to fit in as well as we'd like. So we implemented it a different way. Given that Ostfront used STG44's in a similar amount (or more) I'm quite surprised at the outcry. There weren't any 100 page threads in Ostfront with tons of people in an uproar over having "too many assault rifles" in Danzig and similar maps. We designed RO2 with pretty close to the same realism measures that we did in RO1. We've always had some odd weapons in the game, and we've always done things where we abstracted functionality to make it fun to play. The question we always asked was "can this weapon have possibly been there". If the answer was yes, it was fair game to put it in there. Remember the PPD40 and the MP41? They were rare weapons, but were featured in almost every map. And yet there was almost never a mention of the PPD40, and just only a slight murmur over the use of the MP41.

The PPD40 behaved like a PPSh with a slightly lower rate of fire, the MP41 was also pretty damn close if not identical to the MP40 in performance. That's quite a difference compared to things like an MP-40 with double mags, a fully automatic SVT, a scoped prototype assault rifle or indeed a PPSh-41 with the drum mags and fire selector removed just for the sake of unlocking.
The rare guns in RO1 simply didn't feel out of place compared to all this wacky stuff. Not to mention the fact that bolt action rifles are now an endangered species, being rarer than MkBs on most servers.

Of course what is really funny is the cries of "RO2 is already dying", "look at the Steam stats, the player counts have dropped off". This is really funny for a few reasons. First off, it is the natural cycle of EVERY game to have a big peak around launch, and then the player counts taper off until they stabilize. Where was RO1 at this point after launch - about 1000-1200 players at peak. Where was Killing Floor at this point - less than 3,000 players at peak. So for RO2 to be at 3,000 players a few weeks after launch, with 10% less of a drop off than Killing Floor and 3x what RO1 had - I'd call that a good thing. KF actually dropped off down to 800-1000 a couple months after launch before the TWI free content cycle kicked in. After that the player counts climbed and never went back down to the same place after the updates. This summer KF was averaging peaks of 4000-5000 players. And of course right now EVERY game on Steam has taken a player count hit while everyone checks out the BF3 beta. So before everyone starts shouting "look RO2 is dying" you need to realize this is just part of the normal life cycle of the game.

Look, we didn't get the game we expected, and that means that our friends who's first RO game is HOS were sorely disappointed when they expected a solid, realistic shooter and instead they got wacky prototypes, no sway and a ridiculous and buggy unlock system. That's why the game's player numbers have dropped, and we who pitched RO2 to them look pretty silly in their eyes now.

We'll do the same thing we always do, grab a good core group of players at the outset.
Then continue to build on that core group of players by supporting the game, adding free content, doing Steam promotions, etc. See it is a long cycle plan - not like the big publishers that spend a $100 million on marketing to get everyone to jump into the game at launch then burn them a year later with releasing next years version of the same game (or burn them every two months with $15 2 map DLC). Every game for us is a long term thing.

I'm not sure if you really have the first bit of that. I'm still thinking that the future size of the game's playerbase is uncertain at best. With BF3 around the corner it'll certainly take more to get those numbers up.

So in summary, I would like to ask you guys, especially you guys that have been around for a long time to try and be civil. We're never going to please EVERYONE, but polite, well thought out suggestions are a lot more likely to get our attention than flaming and dev bashing. If there are changes people want we'll look into them. But you're not going to get them "tommorow", so have some patience

Please at least give us something to look forward to involving a way to completely bypass the unlock system. Many (if not most) of us don't want that thing interfering with our gameplay experience.

Oh, and I forgot:
Thanks for replying, we certainly do appreciate it.

 

[Filo90]

I agree that high and precise speed of ironsight is making mkb etc pin in the neck.......I think making speed of ironsight slower will be better for everyone

 

[Divinity]

People are mad simply because they were expecting a realistic game.

You guys have chosen to set your game in a place and time where most soldiers carried a rudimentary bolt action rifle so please stay consistent.

 

[hockeywarrior]

Yeah, but few were the maps with the STG44, and its presence and number could be historically accurate. There could have been MKBs on Stalingrad, but their numbers were nowhere near STG's ones and having more than two MKBs on the map kill immersion for history buff like myself. Anyway it's good to hear the devs' feedback to our feedback again

Exactly. It's an important difference that the STG 44 was widely distributed (compared to the Mkb42 and AVT 40 ) at the end of the war, and thus I didn't have any issues with it appearing commonly in late-war maps from the game.

The issue is of course that these weapons were super super super super super super rare in real life (as debated a billion times), but are not very rare in-game. The same goes for many of the incredibly rare weapon upgrades, like the double-drum MG barrel for the MG34 which was pretty much only outfitted on the back of Stukas for AA protection.

Ultimately none of this is really the point. I can complain all day that the question of why the community wasn't informed about this decision prior to release, but that won't change the situation we're in.

Either 1) Make a realism mode that appeases the large minority of RO1 fans and history buffs, based on our feedback, or 2) Allow for the ability for people to make their own mods, mutators, kit loadouts and what not and release the most popular or widely used "RO1 mod" in a patch so that there is some level of standardization.

I say this last bit because its important that it's easy to get in a game with these kinds of settings. Whether or not TWI makes the kind of realism mode we seek, I think its important to at least observe and select a popular RO1-style mod from the community and release it in a patch like a mappack or any other mod. This way, all server admins could have it as an option, which would increase the chance that we could get in a game that plays the way we want.

Regardless, thanks for finally replying to this thread ... hopefully we hear more about future changes to come.

 

[Nikita]

As for Ostfront, on Danzig and Odessa, I personally considered the StG the most effective weapon on those maps. And they had a gameplay impact--as they should have. I also agree with Scarf Ace that the 'rare' weapons in Ostfront weren't a significant game-changer.

I do have to say however that I'm slightly more optimistic. Having tested out the Mkb and MP40/II in empty servers, they're quite exquisitely modeled and their mechanics are believable (though a tweak increasing recoil on the MP40/II wouldn't be amiss). The devs clearly put a lot of work and love into them, and I'm perfectly fine seeing them in the hands of one or two Germans a round.

What's annoying, though, is working hard, using a complicated ruse to kill a Mkb German on the far left on Spartanovka, then killing his friend, only to have him come back fifteen seconds later to blow you away without a care in the world. Every one of his shots displaces your aim and suppresses you, so you have to readjust to make the most of your one bullet while he can fire off ten, slowly tracking in for the kill shot.

If there was only one Mkb, my reaction upon meeting him would be "Oh ****!" My heart would beat faster and I'd focus on the challenge of taking on a superior weapon. As the game stands now, my current reaction is: "Another one!?!?" I let out a sigh, my shoulders sag, and I prime my grenade/check my PPSh/top off my bolt with grim resignation.

Everything is acceptable in moderation. In the case of the Mkb, I honestly think severe moderation is called for.