What's the point of Automatic Rifle Infantry class?

[Mercy2Thousands]

He isn't special in any way it seems; why would anyone choose that class over Assault or any other class that has the exact same gun as him and more utility?
It'd be cool if they made him reload and ads faster than other units or something.

[PlazaLord]

Soviet classes are rather similar in weapons due to the mass production of the PPSH.

The american AR has the BAR, only shared by the MG lv 3 loadout. (Which has more mags but no grenades)
The soviet AR has the STG, argued by many as the best weapon in the game. (Assault has this weapon at level 9, but very few would have that)

Other loadouts for the AR give more options, but generally the starting loadouts for automatic riflemen are their main options, unlike classes like assault. This means it's a good entry into fire support roles for newer players.

These weapons can be controlled easier, allowing for suppression to support your squad and can OHK up to 70?(This is off the top of my head) meters. Takes two shots past that, but as they are easy to control it is rather easy to land the second hit if the enemy doesn't have cover.

It's important to note that often times I'll take a semi-auto rifle over these weapons, as they OHK up to 200 meters. Bolt rifles do as well, but they are bolt rifles.

[Valentine Michael Smith]

once you unlock the level 9 assault it's kind of pointless at least for the german side

[Gibber1sh]

I kinda feel that way about all the infantry classes except Officer and AT.

As officer you get solid Semi autos (Garand, Gewehr and SVT), your own spawn point and Bino's. But you are weak against tanks, hence the need for AT.

It might be a stealth S-Tier strat to just have two man teams (Officer and AT).

To clarify the other roles:

• The sub or full machine gun roles are okay on static point defense but it's usually better to be mobile.
  
• Engineer are limited to building a set number of structures so once they have their blueprints down you don't need them.
  
• Supports are only needed for supply drops and good players just swap in drop and then swap off.
  
• The medics weapons are so weak, its not worth the trade off to have them.

Note: There are two load-outs with a good semi-auto and explosive ammo: Russian L3 Supports and German L6 Riffle-men - so it may make sense to go to a 3 man team including these.

[POPO Sandh]

wish the mg bar had a bipod dont see the point in usiing the bar otherwise as mg

[Feldhobel]

Originally posted by POPO (Sandh Palne wala):

wish the mg bar had a bipod dont see the point in usiing the bar otherwise as mg

this was not yet invented at the time in which HLL plays.

[JohnnyBanana]

Originally posted by Feldhobel:

Originally posted by POPO (Sandh Palne wala):

wish the mg bar had a bipod dont see the point in usiing the bar otherwise as mg

this was not yet invented at the time in which HLL plays.

The 1918a2 BAR most certainly had a bi pod during ww2, it was a God awful bi pod, but it was in use.

[POPO Sandh]

i think assualt class should only get smgs and rifles and the automatic rifle man should only have the bigg guns like the stg, bar, fg and ppsh with the drum.

Automatic rifleman is fine on the american side cause beside the mg class its the only class with the bar however they should remove the tommy gun in the veteren loadout and just add the bar there aswell.

On German side the assualt class has the stg in the raider loadout and i think the stg should be removed from there and be replace by some other smg or rifle and the automatic class has the mp40 in the sec loadout which should be replaced by the stg.
i know the first loadouut already has the stg but the sec one has smoke grenades which makes a difference between the first and sec loadout same for the american loadout aswell

idk about the soviet side but you can shuffle around the ppsh with stick to be in assault and ppsh with drum to be with automatic.

this is the only way i can think of adding a difference between the classes Assault with small guns but loads of stuff to throw and Automatic rifleman with big guns.

[Ratt]

I normally just play support. Same gun and you have supplies - more benefits IMO

[aoxo]

This is mainly an issue with the loadout system, but also in part with the way units are formed in this game and its actual role probably doesn't translate very well.

For one thing, in WW2 a typical US rifle squad would not have had a machine gun. That was the role of - you guessed it - the BAR. History buffs don't crucify me here, but machine guns would have been designated to the entire company, not per unit/squad. The BAR then would have been a heavy automatic rifle at the squad level. In addition, a typical rifle squad also would not have had a Thompson as (I believe) they were used for more specialised functions where extra firepower was needed or a rifle was too long to use.

The point being, in a typical rifle squad, the BAR was the ONLY automatic weapon. In HLL we can have multiple roles all using submachine guns - the officer, support, engineer, assault can all use automatic weapons, this throws off the effectiveness of the Automatic rifleman role considerably.

Also to consider is that unlike the US forces where machine guns were assigned to the company, German infantry squads had dedicated machine guns. The STG44... well it's in the name, it didn't see action until late in the war so already having one per unit is overkill, but the point here as well is that a german unit mostly had the 98k with the machine gun providing most of the fire power. The officer probably had the MP40.

If HLL could have asymmetric units where machine guns were separate units for the US, but integrated into German units, we'd see a very different use for the AR. I'd also argue on some level that the Thompson, STG and MP40 to some degree, should see a lot more use.

I think a lot of this could be resolved with a total overhaul/balance pass of the loadout system, but I doubt that would ever happen.

[bjack]

Originally posted by aoxo:

This is mainly an issue with the loadout system, but also in part with the way units are formed in this game and its actual role probably doesn't translate very well.

I think a lot of this could be resolved with a total overhaul/balance pass of the loadout system, but I doubt that would ever happen.

Agree.

This game has more automatic guns than RS2 VIETNAM when playing campaign mode (which is it's best mode). It's quite different when coming over to this game from the Red Orchestra lineage.

[Roy]

Originally posted by Gibber1sh:

I kinda feel that way about all the infantry classes except Officer and AT.

As officer you get solid Semi autos (Garand, Gewehr and SVT), your own spawn point and Bino's. But you are weak against tanks, hence the need for AT.

It might be a stealth S-Tier strat to just have two man teams (Officer and AT).

To clarify the other roles:

• The sub or full machine gun roles are okay on static point defense but it's usually better to be mobile.
  
• Engineer are limited to building a set number of structures so once they have their blueprints down you don't need them.
  
• Supports are only needed for supply drops and good players just swap in drop and then swap off.
  
• The medics weapons are so weak, its not worth the trade off to have them.

Note: There are two load-outs with a good semi-auto and explosive ammo: Russian L3 Supports and German L6 Riffle-men - so it may make sense to go to a 3 man team including these.

I don't entirely agree with you on all roles blending together as being a bit obselete.
The main reason for roles being seperate is people having specialisations to do like build nodes/fortifications as engineer or keep your team/AT supplied as support.
If everyone could swap out any of these in more all-round roles there would be too much AT, too many players wasting supplies on building at the same time, too many supply boxes laying around, too many accurate semi/automatic weapons around etc.

I largely agree on engineers being pretty useless after dumping their nodes somewhere, but they CAN be super useful on fortifying a point throughout the match.
(I made a big barricade wall on one of our last points since it was a huge open field with a barn on Foy and our team managed to not only hold off the enemy team there but also push them back 2 objectives because they had such an upper hand there with cover).

Machinegunners are best on defense but can REALLY help on offense too, even if just to lay down supressive fire.
If done correctly your squad can advance much easier without getting insta-sniped, sometimes even without smoke grenades.


Medic just needs a buff imo, there's barely a reason to play them since you can usually just respawn nearby and there's no ticket loss or penalty for dying.
Their weapons are BB guns and they're often not as fun to play sadly.

[NitoAndTheFunkyBunch]

Originally posted by PopaSquat9921:

He isn't special in any way it seems; why would anyone choose that class over Assault or any other class that has the exact same gun as him and more utility?
It'd be cool if they made him reload and ads faster than other units or something.

Its a redundant holdover from an old version of HLL. When the game launched there was one loadout per class, so the automan existed to give Bars and Stgs to players. Fundamentally the role was the same as assault: aggressive dps.
The class has no specific basis in history beyond that. The "automatic rifleman" with a BAR was the machinegunner in most american squads in the war, and the stg was used as an officers rifle or an infantry rifle.
Now its just 2nd assault, smgs are common, and the concept has translated horribly to other nations that didnt have automatic rifles. It should probably be replaced by a grenadier class