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MKB/MG34 balance...be careful what you wish for.

Johnny Utah

Grizzled Veteran
Oct 12, 2011
213
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I completely agree with everyone's comments regarding historical accuracy of Mkb's and the enraging annoyance of hip-firing MG34s running around the Allied spawn or storming headlong into CQB to lay waste to everyone in a room.

However, (and I can only speak to my experience in RO2) lessening the numbers of MKBs and removing ability to hip-fire MG will dramatically weaken the Germans. To date, I've never played a single full round as Axis and currently have a win:loss match ratio that fluxes around 4:1 after ~350 matches (not bragging, just an example to prove a point!). Perhaps it's the servers I play on, yet it's much more rare for the Germans to win a full match than the Allies. (Yet, I've heard people claim the opposite, which is interesting!!)

Keep in mind that IF TWI makes these modifications, I feel like the Germans will never stand a chance...THUS, other modifications will have to be made to compensate (perhaps reinforcement #s again) and it could become a slippery slope.

Even as it goes right now, I get excited when a German team really gives us a tough set of matches -- 3 out of 4 times, Allies just roll them.

Point being, in a GAME you can never reach the level of realism some of you strive for...and, as we often see, sometimes the correction can be worse than the original problem. Yet, I'm not saying it's not tweak-able and that they shouldn't strive to improve upon it.
 
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I don't think anyone is saying remove hip firing entirely, more just make it like it was in RO1. In RO1 for example you had to push the right mouse button to raise the gun, and when you did raise the gun to hip fire the gunner slowed to a slow walk. It gave LMG gunners a self defense mechanism but it reduced their offensive ability by making them slow when ready to shoot, and taking additional time to bring up the gun to aim. In RO2 currently they can jog and fire on the move while side strafing.

The LMGs could also probably use a bit more recoil when hip shooting, they should be a bit worse than the SMGs but I would rather they were not RO1 ridiculous recoil. Right now I am pretty confident hip shooting the DP28 and nailing guys 10-20 meters away.
 
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The win/loss ratio is certainly not as drastic as 4:1. German teams can be just as competent if not more so (and seemed to be winning more often just two weeks ago) if they work well as a team.

Just the other day, I saw a brilliant German team overrun the Soviets on Spartanovka.

As far as team versus team goes, teamwork typically plays a far greater role than weapons do.
 
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Johnny Utah said:
However, (and I can only speak to my experience in RO2) lessening the numbers of MKBs and removing ability to hip-fire MG will dramatically weaken the Germans.
You make it sound like the Germans are relaying on these two weapons to carry the day... I find it inaccurate to say so. The most important - as usual - is the commander and his squad leaders. They direct the artillery fire and provide smoke cover for riflemen and assaults. Machinegunners provide covering fire deployed from behind. I really don't see how lessening the numbers of MKBs and removing ability to hip-fire MG will dramatically weaken the Germans. They'll still have MP40 and deployed superior - in comparison - MG.
 
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We would see are far more balanced game if each weapon actually behaved as they should

Atm we have SMGs overpenetrating, assault rifles doing too little damage and deployed MGs featuring excessive muzzle climb whilst at the same time being too easy to run around hip firing with.

There are lots of weird things in this game regarding weapon realism. Its actually quite frustrating. Trying to artificially balance weapons is pretty much always a bad move. Any of the automatic rifles are total nonsense, for example. You've got the same bullet with a similar barrel length your going to be doing about the same damage. And what is up with the recoil on the Russian SMG's? Thats not realistic or correct at all.

Your totally correct -- just make the guns work as close to real life as possible and it'll all balance out just fine.
 
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The damage on the Mkb-42 should be upped a little bit to realistic levels. As it stands, taking almost as many intermediate rifle rounds to put someone down as it does pistol rounds is just.. odd and perplexing.

If that's done, then it should nicely even out with the lessened numbers of Mkb-42s on the battlefield.

As far as hip-firing goes, it does hurt the Germans slightly, but on most maps I don't think it'll make too much of a difference. The only maps I can think of where I personally resort to hip-fire often is Apartments and Station.
 
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Its just as much a matter of balancing the maps... A map like Grain Elevator is hugely in favour of the allies... i always pick axis on this map simply because i feel like im cheating playing allies...
Maps like Spartanovka and Apartments are also in favour of the allies. (these 3 maps are very popular) If you played on a team with alot of good teamwork and communication the last 2 mentioned maps are fairly balanced... but thats rare..
 
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The damage on the Mkb-42 should be upped a little bit to realistic levels. As it stands, taking almost as many intermediate rifle rounds to put someone down as it does pistol rounds is just.. odd and perplexing.

Hiya Serrow--I mentioned this in our last discussion, but the Mkb does have more stopping power than pistol-caliber bullets. Whether or not it has enough stopping power is debatable, but the overwhelming majority of the time one shot is enough, and two is almost always guaranteed to kill.

Here are the results of a test of shooting 99 unfortunate German bots with the Mkb.
51 killed in one non-lethal torso hit (no nut, limb, or heart shots)
22 killed via slow death immediately after one non-lethal torso hit
20 killed after two non-lethal torso hits
3 killed via slow death after two hits
2 killed after three hits
2 killed via slow death after three hits.
No results for kills after four or more hits.

Here are the results of 97 successful trials on Russian bots (PPSh). All bots were killed using very carefully delivered single shots, confirming that only one bullet hit at a time via the wound decals, throwing out any questionable tests.
15 1-shot
9 1-shot slow
42 2-shot
25 2-shot slow
5 3-shot
1 3-shot slow
No results for kills after four or more hits

NOTE: all shots were delivered at close range, under 15m. Since damage is reduced over longer ranges, it may well be that stopping power between the two is more similar at greater distances. Successful testing of this, of course, is more difficult to accomplish.

Test, test, test. Listen servers with bots are your friends. Well, the bots might not agree. ;)
 
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Nikita, not to knock on your test but it really doesn't tell us much.

Actual base damage figures do tell us something though, and IIRC these are the figures used:

7.62x25mm & 9x19mm = 50 dmg
7.92 Kurz = 70 dmg
7.92x57 & 7.62x54 = 120 dmg

These should be the base damage figures used for each round ingame atm. Then ofcourse there are the damage multipliers when hitting vital areas, such as the heart, head and spine, and then the slow death triggering areas.

Anyway I've tested it a few times and it seems that each soldier has 100 health with the following damage multipliers:

Head = 2.0x
Chest = 1.0x
Arm or Leg = 0.5x
Stomach = ~0.8x (couldn't get an accurate clue for this one)

But basically this means you can get hit once in the chest by a Mkb42, patch up, and then move on, which clearly isn't realistic in any sense of the word. In reality if you take a 7.92 Kurz (a high velocity assault rifle round) to the chest, you are going to be incapacitated almost instantly 99% of the time and most certainly be out of the fight, and the majority of the time soon to be dead as-well.

By comparison the survival rate when taking a pistol round to the chest is much higher and not that uncommon, seeing as the much lower speed of a pistol bullet dictates that it must hit something vital to be fatal as it simply doesn't generate the devastating schockwaves that a high velocity rifle bullet does.

Therefore it would be more realistic to increase the damage done by the 7.92 Kurz to 100, ensuring one shot kills to the chest with this round whilst still leaving the possibility of needing more hits in areas such as the stomach, where the fullpower rifle rounds still only would need one shot to kill.

Actually I made this little list to show how the game should model the damage of each type of round to obtain the highest amount of realism:

Hits to instantly kill:

Full powered rifles & MGs
Head: 1 hit
Chest: 1 hit
Stomach: 1 hit or 100% chance of slow death
Spine: 1 hit
Heart: 1 hit
Leg: 2 hits
Arm: 2 hits
Main arteries: 1 hit = 100% chance of slow death

Assault rifles
Head: 1 hit
Chest: 1 hit
Stomach: 2 hits (1 hit = 50% chance of slow death)
Spine: 1 hit
Heart: 1 hit
Leg: 2 hits
Arm: 2 hits
Main arteries: 1 hit = 100% chance of slow death

SMGs & Pistols
Head: 1 hit
Chest: 2 hits
Stomach: 3 hits (2 hits = 50% chance of slow death)
Spine: 1 hit
Heart: 1 hit
Leg: 3 hits
Arm: 3 hits
Main arteries: 1 hit = 100% chance of slow death
 
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All very interesting points, thanks. Especially about balancing maps...lots of variables there, indeed.

(I didn't mean to indicate that the Germans rely, per se, on hip-firing MG34 and MKBs to carry the day, simply that if those capabilities are down-graded I would imagine other compensations would be required and wanted to hear people's thoughts.)
 
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Hiya Serrow--I mentioned this in our last discussion, but the Mkb does have more stopping power than pistol-caliber bullets. Whether or not it has enough stopping power is debatable, but the overwhelming majority of the time one shot is enough, and two is almost always guaranteed to kill.

Indeed, and I do appreciate you taking the time to conduct your experiment!

But I think you got our point when you mentioned the point that it may be insufficient to realistically portray the cartridge's stopping power. I would go into greater detail, but Unus' post honestly sums up any logical argument I could make, and presents it better too.

So instead, have a :IS2:.
 
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Nikita, not to knock on your test but it really doesn't tell us much.

Actual base damage figures do tell us something though, and IIRC these are the figures used:

7.62x25mm & 9x19mm = 50 dmg
7.92 Kurz = 70 dmg
7.92x57 & 7.62x54 = 120 dmg

These should be the base damage figures used for each round ingame atm. Then ofcourse there are the damage multipliers when hitting vital areas, such as the heart, head and spine, and then the slow death triggering areas.

Anyway I've tested it a few times and it seems that each soldier has 100 health with the following damage multipliers:

Head = 2.0x
Chest = 1.0x
Arm or Leg = 0.5x
Stomach = ~0.8x (couldn't get an accurate clue for this one)

Therefore it would be more realistic to increase the damage done by the 7.92 Kurz to 100, ensuring one shot kills to the chest with this round whilst still leaving the possibility of needing more hits in areas such as the stomach, where the fullpower rifle rounds still only would need one shot to kill.

Actually I made this little list to show how the game should model the damage of each type of round to obtain the highest amount of realism:

Hits to instantly kill:

Full powered rifles & MGs
Head: 1 hit
Chest: 1 hit
Stomach: 1 hit or 100% chance of slow death
Spine: 1 hit
Heart: 1 hit
Leg: 2 hits
Arm: 2 hits
Main arteries: 1 hit = 100% chance of slow death

Assault rifles
Head: 1 hit
Chest: 1 hit
Stomach: 2 hits (1 hit = 50% chance of slow death)
Spine: 1 hit
Heart: 1 hit
Leg: 2 hits
Arm: 2 hits
Main arteries: 1 hit = 100% chance of slow death

SMGs & Pistols
Head: 1 hit
Chest: 2 hits
Stomach: 3 hits (2 hits = 50% chance of slow death)
Spine: 1 hit
Heart: 1 hit
Leg: 3 hits
Arm: 3 hits
Main arteries: 1 hit = 100% chance of slow death

Ah--this explains a lot of odd things I found, namely the fact that soldiers in-game can take a rediculous amount of damage to the legs and survive. I was fooling around yesterday and discovered that you could unleash a full blast of PPSh rounds into a friendly's feet before he died. We definitely need more realistic limb damage at some point...

Odd though--I was intentionally aiming away from critical areas like the heart and discounting those kills, and I was still obtaining first-hit kills to the chest from both the back and the front... I even got a few first-round kills with the PPSh, which should only do half-damage.
 
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Actual base damage figures do tell us something though, and IIRC these are the figures used:
[snip lots of interesting findings]
Is there any way to tell if arms act as bullet shields? Lost count of the number of times I've drilled a target's centre of body mass from his side and heard the hit cues yet apparently do near enough bugger all to him. I haven't had chance to test this in-game yet, wondered if others had.
 
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