There’s quite a lot of balance discussion on here, usually based on opinion and weapon/vehicle stats. But the actual KILLS tracked on Battlefieldtracker sometimes tell a different story. I’ll throw up some links and say what they indicate to ME. And you can say what they mean to YOU:
Heavy tank reigns SUPREME! Nothing in the first balance patch made any of the other tanks more tempting to use. The poor landship only shifted from 1% of kills to 2%…
The 4 major class primary weapon types are way closer in performance than so many “Balance Sucks” posts would lead you to believe. The only one really lagging behind initially was LMGs, but the balance patch in December seems to have had the intended effect.
“But the game is just a nade spam fest…” No, 8% of deaths are from nades, just a little more than pistols.
“But melee is too EZ in this game…” No, melee accounts for 3% of all deaths. Would you rather it just be a novelty like in all the other BF games?
The little balance tweeks in December did absolutely nothing to make anything besides the A-10 Hunter seem useful. This is even more lopsided than the Vehicle chart.
Medic guns:
Lookin’ nice and varied. Most guns have “clear winner” variants. But the base gun models all have at least one variant that is used a lot.
The 1906, which only has one variant, has about 2% of all kills. Pretty pitiful. And the two 5-round mag Autolodings are even lower. It seems that no matter what stats DICE sticks on these guns, a 5-round mag, 3-hit kill gun just isn’t tempting to use.
Seems to be about 1/3 BAR (all variants), 1/3 MG15 (all variants) and 1/3 everything else. This is really surprising to me, since I’ve personally had a ton of fun with all the LMGs since the balance patch and done very well with all of them (except Huot).
The Martini indeed needed some sort of nerf, as it was going out of control. SMLE is now the most used, but the Martini is still surprisingly #2. [Edit: Though if you combine all variants of the rifles the Martini drops to second-worst, right above 1903).
The 1903 Experimental is the only Scout gun that is kinda unique (aside from the Martini) yet it sits at 0.5% of all kills. It would be nice to see this gun become usable someday.
I understand these data are all based on “preferences” of how people play, but people tend to play to win and choose the best tools for the job.
funny you should say you’ve done well with all the LMGs except the huot,although I was a bit underwhelmed with the huot at first, but lately I’ve taken quite a liking to it and doing somewhat ok,on TDM it’s actually my “starting lineup” gun. however if I’m struggling I will resort back to my BAR storm or mg15 storm, and I do wish they would put in an optical version like the one in the campaign mode.
i’ve been talking about the heavy tank for awhile and noone believes me. the thing needs a little tweek. the ricocheting on it needs to be toned down a bit, but it should still keep its armor.
So more grenade kills then pistols, somethings wrong their.
And these stats are from the whole game cycle meaning their not as good representation of what is going on NOW. Just cause the Martini from example is 2nd used doesn’t means its being used right now cause I rarely see at all these days with its inconsistent damage.
Quality stuff m8, thanks for the refreshing logical info. Agree with everything you have here, aside from the grenade spam While most of the time statistics can’t lie, in the case of grenades I have to say kills may not represent the actual spam still occurring.
Lets say for example someone has 500 kills with gas grenades…yet they have thrown 30,000 of them, this effects the play ability of the game IMO. I understand grenades are part of a tactic/strategy or just to land a kill on that guy who took cover but I feel like spam is real, and has been real in other titles just as well which was really relevant in those CQ maps. I didn’t come here to create a please buff/nerf post within so I apologize lol I just wanted to share my opinion on that.
Don’t think the heavy tank needs a nerf, the other armor needs some love. Landship could use a bit of a speed upgrade, the thing moves at crawlpace compared to any other armor, very hard to stay alive with it by maneuvering around. Also the large surface area and non armor on top ( unlike the heavy) make it very easy targets 4 planes and mortars.
Artillery truck could use a bit of a reload upgrade, the main cannon reloads very slow compared to the heavy. The light tank is fine as it is.
I’m fine with it being hard to kill, as in, it should take a lot to bring it down from 100% health to 0%. I just think it’s too easy to rack up kills from a safe distance and too fast to repair damage.
If they made the main gun less accurate then the Heavy would have to get in closer for the kills. And this would make it less likely to back completely out of the fray to repair damage.
iF they had to nerf the heavy, I’d say get rid of the ricochet, or make it fire only first person view. Don’t think it needs an armor tweak, it’s a heavy after all. Unless they got repairmonkeys I kill m all the time
You can see that half of nade deaths are from the frag and 22% are from gas. Considering that gas isn’t really supposed to kill, but just do a little damage while someone puts his mask on, that means there’s a lot of gas floating around out there! Incendiary nades are damage-over-time too, and should be competitive with gas, but are only used half as much.
A lot of people have requested the gas nade count go down to 1 per person, and I would be fine with that.
I also think that the frag has too wide of an explosion radius and too short of a fuse, which might be why so few people use impact grenades. DICE could make fuse/radius/drop-off rate worse and measure their success by seeing if the impact nade starts getting used more.
Whatever changes DICE make in the future, their success could be measured by impacts being similarly used to frags, and incendiaries similarly used to gas.
i disagree. its a heavy tank afterall so it should maintain its firepower and armor. the problem is that grenades and at guns bouncing off the tank even when you aim well and land the hits. the heavy tanks only weakness is in tight spots when it can be attacked from unguarded positions and when it has less maneuverability. most players skilled with the heavy tank will usually park in open spots and negate its weakness so in effect its really hard to take it out. shooting AT guns from 25+m when the tank shelling you and the tank squad raining bullets on you its really hard to take it out when you have shots ricocheting off it.
Yes, I often switch to Assault to fight a tank, and ricochets are annoying. But I don’t think they happen as often as people claim they do.
I think the bigger problem is that AT rockets are the ONLY thing infantry can use to engage a tank at long range. They don’t do much damage. They’re hard to land a hit with (slow projectile speed and lots of bullet drop). And you don’t get much ammo.
Meanwhile, the tank has a really accurate gun to snipe people with at long range.
A while ago I made the suggestion that rockets get some sort of long-range “sweet spot” like Scout rifles, where they do more damage or at least have a chance to disable vehicles. If a tank insists on acting like a sniper then infantry should at least get a tool to engage him in his sniper duel (but not get any stronger at fighting tanks close-range, which is already fine).
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I understand gas grenades ultimate intention is not of that to kill but rather be a strategic grenade, forcing those to either avoid the area, blitz through and take damage or equip a mask. I’m at fault for “spamming” these puppies myself, having like 2000 kills or something lol but my point is that I have seen small maps such as Argonne CQ/Ops turn into grenade spam wars with gas being a heavy presence, when you think about it, it really forces a lot of players to play with certain weapons or how they may not like. I don’t want it taken away its a perfectly viable grenade to use but some solutions as you mentioned and many others would probably “balance” out things a bit better than the current state. I think that the resupply time could be changed on all grenades as well for further balancing purpose. You mentioned a few other points I can agree with relating to the frags.
AT guns are already powerful. In fact, they are very powerful against anything else besides the heavy tank. it can even disable the landship if you know where to shoot. it should have no problem killing other vehicles solo. but the point of the heavy tank is that 1 assault player should not be able to take it out. while having 1 assault shooting AT gun may not have much of an effect, having 2-3 assault shooting it can have a devastating effect, which is appropriate considering it is a heavy tank and holds more than an entire squad.
my problem is that the heavy tank can deflect so many shots that it can roll away in shape. a skilled heavy tank player will know when to disengage, repair, and come back to battle. someone who doesnt know how to play the heavy tank will push their luck until it runs out. and unlike the other vehicles its very difficult to disable the heavy tanks tracks. with other vehicles it can still have 80 hp left and will have its tracks disabled.
The Martini Henry isn’t in second when you consider each variant as the same rifle since they are the same rifle.
Here are the totals in order from most used to least used:
SMLE - 37.5%
Gewehr M.95 - 17.2%
Russian 1895 - 14.4%
Gewehr 98 - 11.8%
Martini-Henry - 11.4%
M1903 - 7.6%
So the Martini Henry is actually the second lowest used rifle in the game. I don’t get why you combined the SMGs for your comparison, but didn’t combine the rifles. Especially when each variant of the rifles (besides the Russian Trench and M1903 Experimental) perform exactly the same as each other except for the ADS time. The only one that sees less usage than the Martini Henry now is the M1903 which is the longest range sweetspot rifle in the game (100-150 meters).
The really high usage of the SMLE makes it pretty apparent that most Martini-Henry users jumped ship to the SMLE. The only ones still using the Martini-Henry just enjoy punishing themselves.
While most of the time statistics can’t lie, in the case of grenades I have to say kills may not represent the actual spam still occurring.