I'm sure its been explained somewhere before but I would like to know why the justification for Maxim being bad.
Same cost as MG42 but requires a tech building.
I am primary a team games player and I understand the balancing for Maxim is made around 1v1s. Am I correct in thinking that conscripts trading/value wise in 1v1s, the Maxim had to be toned down for it to be 'balanced'? If this is the case, unforunately conscripts are bad in team games which makes both Maxim and Cons being equally as bad in team games. A faction that has been ruined by the latest patches.
In team games, OST easy access to T1 Maxim, while Soviets have to build a T1 building for Maxim makes it so bad. Going Maxim first means you will always lose to MG42 first from Ost because they will have resource advantage and time advantage (because you teched to get Maxim). Not including that both have the same cost while Maxim has a smaller arc and can't suppress in one burst like the MG42 can. One is clearly better than the other and I don't see how the supporting units make up for this loss in power.
I know we're not getting any more patches but I feel like balance team really dropped the ball on this one. Soviets have really bad early game compared to OST and OKW. I remember Maxim costing 240mp before and having a faster setup time instead of what we have now.
That's literally 1 unit being subpar out of a roster of 90+% viable units though. Unfortunately there's no way for any competitive game to cater to different skill brackets AND game modes with different player counts. As it stands Soviets are the best faction in 1v1, but they're bad in 4v4. Cons are the best mainline when it comes to high-level play, but worst when it comes to lower skill brackets. The only solution is compromise.
Regarding the maxim, Dshka doctrines would not be appealing if maxim didn't suck. And Soviets would be too strong if they had a viable 6-man, merge-able hmg that wasn't CP2 and doctrinal.
Mostly the hmg formation changes reduced key weaknesses of mg34 and mg42, which were squad clumping and gunner death loop. But they kept their former suppression stats, so they're both really good right now.