Heavy machine gun is worthless

[Roy]

So i like using machineguns, especially the stalwart.

The heavy machine gun doesn't shine in ANY situation, it's ridiculously bad in every scenario.

• Small enemies? kill about 5~10 max before your mag is empty and you won't get the chance to reload until the next wave
  
• Medium/heavy enemies? HA! Bots with chainsaws just ignore your shots and heavy bugs don't give much of a damn either
  
• Heavy elites? Yeah nice if you get behind a hulk, but not better than any other weapon with enough penetration to take it down

Seriously i took the thing with an ammo pack but it's still absolutely worthless, the magazine is empty within seconds even on the lowest firerate and the fire"power" doesn't compensate whatsoever.
This is a meme weapon.

[Bleepie]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Erei:

The game suffer massively by his shear lack of proper tooltip. You literally don't have the stat for stratagem weapon anywhere. And pen is only described as "light-medium" for non stratagem weapon.

I believe it was Arrowhead's CEO (really need to figure out how to spell his name) who said that weapons have over 50 stats, yet players are judging them on the 5 shown in the game. Apparently, they deliberately give us limited information to keep us from min/maxing, and instead using guns we like. Some of that may be my inference - I don't recall all the details.

Thing is, that doesn't work. Over the last 20 years, I've seen numerous developers try this approach (including Arrowhead 10 years ago), and the results have never been good. Players eventually either datamaine or brute-force their way to the stats and min/max anyway, creating a divide between those with knowledge and those without.

Show players the stats. If the stats are so complex that players wouldn't know what to do with them, that should tell you that your system is more complicated than it needs to be.

nah, don't show us. the mystery is part of the fun

[dyra55]

Originally posted by Erei:

IIRC it's medium pen, which is the same than the base LMG (not stalwart, that one is light pen).

From my experience HMG's is on a level higher than MG-43, it can penetrate things as good if not better than AMR like front armour of Scout Striders which MG-43 can't

[Roy]

Originally posted by JuX:

They are not useless, just use them for their intended role.

It appears you do not even know their capabilities. The new machine for example can frontally take out a hulk. You can make this process incredibly easy with stun grenades and crouch perk armor.

I had all that except for the stun grenades.
So basically you're saying if you have all of the following, it will be useful;

• Stun grenades (4 max)
  
• Recoil reducing armor
  
• Ammo pack (you didn't mention it but it goes without saying)
  
• Lucky aim and noone shooting you as you carefully aim at the smallest weakspot with the most inaccurate weapon ingame

You're not wrong, it might work, but it's still worthless against the chainsaw bots and most of the other enemies, while other weapons will keep you mobile, leave more slots opem and take on more enemies.

Like i said, i like machine guns, i know their limitations but this thing is just not good at anything imo.

[Erei]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Erei:

The game suffer massively by his shear lack of proper tooltip. You literally don't have the stat for stratagem weapon anywhere. And pen is only described as "light-medium" for non stratagem weapon.

I believe it was Arrowhead's CEO (really need to figure out how to spell his name) who said that weapons have over 50 stats, yet players are judging them on the 5 shown in the game. Apparently, they deliberately give us limited information to keep us from min/maxing, and instead using guns we like. Some of that may be my inference - I don't recall all the details.

Thing is, that doesn't work. Over the last 20 years, I've seen numerous developers try this approach (including Arrowhead 10 years ago), and the results have never been good. Players eventually either datamaine or brute-force their way to the stats and min/max anyway, creating a divide between those with knowledge and those without.

Show players the stats. If the stats are so complex that players wouldn't know what to do with them, that should tell you that your system is more complicated than it needs to be.

I mean, they could show ANY stats for stratagem weapon. You literally have nothing right now.
And no, a "medium pen" is not helping when you get a 10scaling.

They had an encyclopedia for HD1, could have one back in HD2. Put all the stats in it. For tooltip make the most important : penetration, ROF, damage, ammo count. Maybe add recoil.
Same for enemies, whats the armor value of a specific mob ?

[Daos]

heavy mg is total trash at everything just use the normal it is better in everyday except damage but considering you get 2x the ammo the normal mg has far better total damage and control to atuly hit the shots not to mention a sight that is lined up correctly.

so the only thing the heavy mg can do that the normal mg cannot is take out hulks from the front. great just the sights are off, no 3rd person aim and the recoil is way to high for the little more damage it can do so unless also the hulk is going to stand there let you go prone and head shot him a over and over or you will wast so much ammo trying to hit it.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by JuX:

They are not useless, just use them for their intended role.

What is the intended role for the HMG? Honest question. It doesn't have the volume of fire for crowd suppression, it doesn't have the accuracy for sniping weak points, it doesn't have the penetration to attack heavy armour. The only thing it does well is killing Medium Armour targets, which plenty of other guns can also do reasonably well without the HMG's significant downsides.

[Imp]

I actually like it. If you drop the RPM it can be easy to manage recoil and shred armour.

[Beldar]

Originally posted by Dealman:

It can kill Hulks with a few bullets if you hit them in the noggin, but easier said than done.

IMO they missed a huge opportunity to have it come with a backpack a teammate can use to belt-feed your HMG.

I agree completely. Heavy machine guns are squad weapons. There is already a mechanic for this with other weapons. It would be an awesome tactic to drop a shield and then create a machine gun nest. But then we have that heavy turret you can call down that is actually better.

[Swagna]

They should give it a crosshair as well

[Nothing.]

I'd give the HMG a try if they gave it closer to 150 rounds, and more than medium penetration (heavy is in the name after all!).

In exchange for those buffs, I'd like to see its ROF lowered to maybe a max of 600 RPM so that it's functionally the opposite of the other machine guns. Still should kick with high recoil and have long stationary reload times though, I wouldn't mind if it still lacked a third-person reticle either. My opinion is the HMG should basically be a "this gun will handle ANYTHiNG you can throw at it, but you better have ammo, and a stationary position because this is not easy to run-and-gun even at low RPM.. and you better be prepared for long reload times"

Slow-firing, but heavy-hitting, and potentially anti-heavy capabilities (requiring a lot of ammo though). That might give it more of a spot without stepping too much on the toes of the others, since you'd still have the Stalwart as a high ROF trash killer, and a more versatile medium-armor killer with the the other MG that could both be used on-the-move a lot easier.

[FALLENV3GAS]

Needs more ammo and slightly less recoil and then it would play into being a good weapon for heavy targets.

[Roy]

Originally posted by Beldar:

Originally posted by Dealman:

It can kill Hulks with a few bullets if you hit them in the noggin, but easier said than done.

IMO they missed a huge opportunity to have it come with a backpack a teammate can use to belt-feed your HMG.

I agree completely. Heavy machine guns are squad weapons. There is already a mechanic for this with other weapons. It would be an awesome tactic to drop a shield and then create a machine gun nest. But then we have that heavy turret you can call down that is actually better.

I like this idea, i've been wishing for the ability to deploy squad-based weapons for a while, specifically the ballistic shield.
I've seen leaks of barricade fortifications with an MG emplacement, but the ability to deploy the ballistic shield would be so cool and unique.

Imagine it expands to the sides slightly when deployed and a (H)MG user can "attach" to it for maximum recoil reduction and possibly the ability to be squad loaded.
Teamloading as of now is very half baked and not worth the effort so any way of expanding the system would be a welcome addition imo.

[GONDAL]

HMG is the best gun for wiping out spewers… you can kill 10+ in a single
mag in seconds

[Roy]

Originally posted by Azure:

HMG is the best gun for wiping out spewers… you can kill 10+ in a single
mag in seconds

I haven't tried that but that sounds like a decent tradeoff.
Do you shoot them in the head or in the squishy bit?

Also do you feel like it's quicker/better at that job than the grenade launcher/autocannon? I usually take either of those if i want to focus on spewers but am yet to test the HMG vs them.

[dyra55]

Originally posted by Azure:

HMG is the best gun for wiping out spewers… you can kill 10+ in a single
mag in seconds

To be fair MG-43 can do that as well just a bit slower