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Fewer SMGs please!

Bennanteno

Grizzled Veteran
Oct 7, 2007
165
1
I have played RO for about a year now, and it has been great fun. I never joined the forums because I had Hotmail for my email. But now i have to say that there are TOO MANY SMGS! The ammount of these spam weapons is ridiculous, even with the increased player limit. It is stupid to see 8 assault trooper slots where there used to be 2, and it is ruining the tactical realism that made RO fun. So Developers, I'm BEGGING you, take away all the extra smgs!
 
You guys forget that they had a lot of them in street fighting like Stalingrad for example during the latter part of the battle. Soviet forces also had dedicated groups armed with only PPH's.
Latter parts of the war saw more of these weapons being produced.

Anyway if you don't like SMGs then why not just go rifleman? You're not required to storm a building, just leave that to the assault class while you hang back and provide cover.
 
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People do need to take into account that the game does not accurately represent supply crap nor any squad standards, so even if we would use the argument "Rifles were more common" (which is true though) does not still fix the sad fact our current class system would reguire more or less annoying or even "imbalancing" overhaul. Sure it might be easy to drop few SMGs out and it might also fix the problem in general, but I wonder when the next more or less annoyed realism buff will still turn out and like "omg we still have too many\too few smgs!!!11"

First of all, if we use these Soviet SMG units as an example that means SMG unit. Squad with 12 persons... everyone armed with PPShs and nades, possibly molotov or RPG40 or two and such. Maybe one or two LMGs per company or if you're lucky maybe one LMG more. Still our major Ze Ruzzian imba papaska- company means SMG company. No rifles, snipers, any fancy engineer mixes or such - pure ****ing SMG fest with one or two LMG. Fun? I'm sure of it, depends how masocist or how weird sense of humour you have.

And also, let's take into account that E.G. Germans did supply more SMGs to people who were going to face urban enviroment or other similiar tough-nut-to-crack stuff. That means that even basic rifleman might have been armed with oh-so-godly MP40, which was confiscated after the city was taken and such and they gave his oh-even-more-godly Mauser back. I believe Soviets might have had similiar system, in urban combat I'd rather prefer SMG over rifle. Sure you might pop that head accurately at hundred yards (and if you are an 'accurate' shooter or just lucky) but by the time you reload you already get thousands of times more bullets back than you just fired. Too bad we can't just simulate any kind of suppression crap or morale logically ingame, or not without making it "Ok now you are suppressed your vision is blurred and your accuracy is decreased -30% and now your movements are slowed down -15% and... oh and your vision tilts inaccurately because you feel liek "wtf Im gonna die".

So if we follow standards (which might be more useful to keep things organised) SMG could be reduced a bit due historical reasons. For gameplay reasons it might do a fancy trick or two.

But also for historical reasons it is not exactly farby in urban enviroments (and there are plenty of them in RO) to have more SMGs than in general (random "plausible" situations ftw). But using as "well they had SMG units with mininukes and such" is not exactly best solution; maybe they did have their
 
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I think we've been hearing these complaints for a while now, and it doesn't show any sign of changing. The SMGs honestly aren't that bad. It's a pain to be killed by a guy wielding one, but usually I just figure he got the drop on me and I shouldn't have expected to "pwnz0r" him in close combat with my bolt action rifle anyway.

Essentially, I see a lot of these complaints as people wanting the game to play more the way they like it to play -- meaning they want people slowly advancing, firing from cover, etc. Not everyone's going to play like that. Even if you got rid of SMGs altogether, and had rifle-only servers/maps, you'd STILL see people ramboing around. I see it on Kaukasus and that map's just about rifles-only. Even with a boltie, rambos will be rambos. It's just how they play the game. Granted, tehy can be more effective with an SMG or semi-auto, but honestly they're just gonna play that way no matter what.
 
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You could also try being an SMG soldier for a few games and take a look at it from the other side of the fence, maybe they are having just as much trouble as you guys are and there really isn't an issue at all.

Basically, I'm not trying to undermine or dismiss you guys, and I'm sure there are a few places that could use a bit of tweaking. I'm just trying to shed a few stands of light from a different direction. :)

Isaak posted just as I was posting, but he raises a good point here.

Playing as an SMG user on some maps is a frickin' drag. Ever try playing Berezina as an SMG trooper? It's a nightmare until you're actually IN a trench. And that only lasts a few minutes, until you have to cover tons of open ground again with no ability to fire back.

That's something else to consider, by the way. Part of the perception that SMGers are all rambo players is due to HOW their weapons work. If I've got an SMG, you bet I'll be haulin' a$$ just to get into effective range. Now, to GET into range, I'll move from cover to cover, maybe fire suppressive bursts here and there, but I'm still racing to get to cover ASAP. And if I can get in close enough, I'll hip-shoot the enemy because that's what an SMG is good at and useful for.

So, there's rambos and there's rambos. Using an SMG to its full potential is just smart play. It's probably frustrating for Riflemen, but hey, shoot me before I get to you. If you can't get me in time, try tossing a nade in my path to make me deviate or slow down at least. That's what I do when I'm playing as a rifleman.
 
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I'd like to point out that there's a BIG difference between an SMGer and a Sprayer. A sprayer will toss both of his nades at invisible demons and run down the street firing at those before mentioned demons. His only real attack is that occasionally a random number generator will belch out numbers that gives him a kill.

An SMGer is the kind of person you run into a capzone and take a few bullets to the side of the face from some guy behind a desk. Most people forget that SMGs are moderately accurate if you actually sight them. SMGers help the team more, get more kills, and do it with some finesse.

Why do I bring this up? Simple. By reducing the number of SMGs, you just have more sprayers controlling them while the SMGers, who actually know how to use them, don't get any. Even worse, you'll see more sprayers pick up Semis/specialty roles just to not get stuck with a rifle. Do you want your MGer to be a 1337 d00d running down the street only using a pistol? Do you want all the semi autos to not know that it's a... rifle?

It's not a problem with the code but the people. People just complain about sprayers because they aren't actually doing anything just using luck to kill people... and occasionally the people who do use luck complain about the others hax0ring.
 
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Let me say again that i'm ok with smgs and the players who use them. What anoys me is that the large amount of smgs is cutting down on the usage of other classes. The number of smgs is NOT preportional to the increased number of players. 8 assault troopers would be fine if we had, say, 64 player servers, but as of now, 2 or 3 assault troopers is just fine. :) (give engineers carbines!)
 
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I spray/rambo/run & gun when I use the ppsh.

The insane recoil is way too unrealistic. Even if you try to aim and do controlled bursts, your gun ends up pointing at the sky after 3 shots and all you do is warn the enemy of your presence. It's easier and faster to spray from hip position and then ajust your aim by looking where the bullets hits.

As for the topic, I do agree that some maps seem to have too many smgs since the 50 players limit was added. When the 50 players limit was being tested, the class were not adjusted, so there was tons of riflemans. It was great.
 
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As for the topic, I do agree that some maps seem to have too many smgs since the 50 players limit was added. When the 50 players limit was being tested, the class were not adjusted, so there was tons of riflemans. It was great.

Indeed, that's why for a period of time I thought that 50 player servers would be a good idea, because it increased the number of riflemen and reduced the SMG:Rifle ratio. However, it almost seems that there are more SMGs / Special Classes than there are riflemen...
 
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On the Sprayer/SMGr debate, lemme just say that IRL if you ran into a room with three guys in it with rifles and you had an SMG, and they see you, i'm damn well gonna squeeze the trigger and spray, because lets look at it this way, if i went sights at 10ft range then i'm screwed.

Unfortunately, what i see is some ppl are trying to make those with an SMG run around with the things glued to our shoulders, lets face it people, an SMG is NOT a rifle and the inherent tactics are not gonna work the same so all i can say after playing both sides is that you're all just gonna have to deal with it.

As for sprayers, yeah, theyre gonna be there no matter what and cutting out SMGs all together wont help. As long as there are guns in videogames theres gonna be leet sprayers.

When it comes down to reducing the number of SMGs or semis, i cant really voice an opinion because i play bolt often but i never really had a problem with the "spamming" you all keep talking about.
 
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However, it almost seems that there are more SMGs / Special Classes than there are riflemen...
Usually there are unless the server is full, and even then there are still imbalances on many maps. I just missed the old days when the bolt was a team weapon, rather than a lone bastion of long range firepower in a sea of short range weapons. The extra smgs isn't the problem here, the declining number of bolts is. I used to play as the SMG guy when I could, but now I Choose the bolt as a sign of protest:rolleyes:

I guess a better thread title would have been "More Bolts Please" or maybe
"institute a 2 to 1 ratio of bolts to other classes":eek:
,
 
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Oh my this complaint never stops does it?

Honestly there are some people who won't be happy until we're all crawling around shooting at pixels with rifles from 500m away :rolleyes:

Fact, SMG's were common during WW2 getting more and more common as the war progressed. The proportion we have now is about right for a good middle of the road value and considering that the number varied so much unit to unit and army to army. In fact I would argue that the proportion of semi automatic rifles is what is really much too high, especially on the German side. There were never many G41's fielded and the G43 was only used mid-late in the war, whereas somewhere between 1.5 - 2 million SVT40's were produced and fielded throughout before production ceased.

Fact, there is nothing whatsoever unrealistic about hip shooting. The SMG was designed to provided light and mobile firepower at short range and to excel in clearing buildings. I would argue that it is in fact unrealistic to expect an SMG to even use his sights indoors at a range of mere meters. In the real world would you upon bursting into a room and suprising three enemies use your sights or just riddle them with bullets before they had a chance to lift a finger? Would you stop to take careful aim at a threat as you dashed to cover or just spray fire his way and haul arse to safety?

Another fact, the sad reality is that the way SMG's are modelled in the game promotes using them from the hip. What is the point of even trying to use them over the sights or precisely when things like recoil and inaccuracy are exaggerated to such an unrealitic extent that you're either shooting the sky or gyrating wildly from side to side around your target? Personally I am what murderous_eagle refers to as an SMG'er, when I use these guns I am clearing objectives and taking cap points, most of the time using the sights. But I still can recognise that the prevelance of players hip shooting is only people using them in the most efficient way given their modelling. Yet I bet London to a bloody brick if recoil were realistic on SMG's certain people would be crying their eyes out about 'super accurate bullet hoses'.

What this really boils down to is that there's a group of people that play the game with one hand down their pants and the other on the mouse thinking they're gods gift to RO and above reproach because they rifle solely. People who think the game should be played on and tailored to their terms exclusively. Their attitude has been around since the game was a mod and it is not about to go away. These people need to try using an SMG on a map that has any sort of range and only sparse cover, then they might realise that closing down the enemy, or being a 'rambo' is sometimes the only option. They also need to realise that if you're getting smashed by SMG'ers at close range when rifling then everything is as it should be, because that's what they're designed for.

There we go that's my rant for the month out of the way :D
 
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It strange why people always complain about hip shooting with SMGs. It is a very realistic tactics, good SMG-gunners were firing their weapons from the hip at close ranges ever since whole weapon type was invented during late WW1. Recoil is easier to manage and shooter with some hand-eye coordination doesn't have to use sights to know where the barrel is pointing. For example when I was in the army I found an old (it was post-WW2 but only for a decade or so) Finnish small arms field manual and there were multipage instructions for hip shooting for every SMG type used by Finnish Army (Suomi m/31, m/44 (Finnish copy of PPS), Sten (purchased from the UK after WW2) etc.).
 
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