r/WW1GameSeries

For myself it be the Invasion of Darfur. I honestly want to play as a Sudanese soldier. Honestly, I want more inclusion of other nationalities that are less talked about, but still contributed.

Introduction

Hello everyone. I've been a fan of the series since right after Isonzo's launch, and I'm mostly happy with the state of Gallipoli (netcode issues notwithstanding). However, as a fairly average player and gun nut I've a fair few things to say about the weapons and loadouts, so I figured I'd put it all down in a longer form post.

Some caveats before we begin:

1. Ofc I don't have all the backroom knowledge the devs have, so I can't 100% say why X gun was added or why Z decision was made.
2. Similarly, while I would consider myself slightly more familiar with game development than most people, I am by no means an expert, and again don't know everything.
3. While I'll try to keep any suggestions within reason, not knowing all of the details means some of my ideas may not necessarily be feasible within the UI/code. Obviously I'm not going to ask for a total rework of every system, but please try and bear with me when I present some ideas.

Section 1: Attachment system (mainly bayonets)

Gallipoli has a system for weapon attachments, designed to change the way guns feel based and incentivize players to use certain guns based on how they play. This primarily comes into play based on whether or not a bayonet is equipped onto your rifle since that's the most common attachment and thus the one I'll focus on.

With how the current loadouts and kits are, I feel that this system comes off half-baked at best. Having to decide on having a bayonet vs better weapon handling and lower weight makes sense, except that by having options pre-selected you end up quite limited in choices since you don't have much direct control over what combination of weapon/attachment you'd like.

Below I've presented all of the handgun, rifle, and carbine stats that I could gather. Feel free to reference this chart later.

A general overview of stats, divided by subcategory. To clarify, the penalties with bayonet are the handling, then weight stats, while the values in the notes are the penalties themselves. The SMLE Mk. III* is guesswork as there is no non-bayonet version.

Scenario: I'm choosing which rifle to use, and I'm deciding on if I want a bayonet for CQC or not in order to have better handling. I can safely ignore the M1905, I.C.1, and Winchester since they never had bayonets, and I can also ignore specialty rifles (the G98 and any SMLE with an optic or rifle grenades), leaving us with 12 options: 7 for the British side and 5 for the Turks. More than enough already for me to find 1-2 options for each side, which covers all of the subclasses that have rifles. Couple problems here:

1. Five of these rifles (P14, CLLE, M1874/12, M1893, and the Snider) never come with a bayonet, while two (Mk. III* and M1903) always come with it. Half of the options decide for you if you pick them.
2. To state the obvious, individual guns have different stats which factor into your choice (along with feel/preference, which is subjective). This is relevant because of the third point.
3. Attachment spread is fixed. Within a subclass, a rifle with a bayonet always has that bayonet, one that doesn't never will. The stat penalty/lack thereof is irrelevant because you can't actually make that trade-off, therefore there's no reason to factor it in when picking a rifle.

This leaves the player in a slightly awkward position. You might be forced to pick between rifle A which has the stats/function you want and rifle B which has the attachment you want. Or you might not mind the difference in which case you pick purely based on attachment and will always ignore the other gun. Or for certain subclasses you just don't get that choice at all because there's 1 rifle, it has no bayonet, and you want that subclass's abilities.

1. At launch, the M1903 was the only Ottoman rifle with a bayonet. Want to use anything else and still be able to stab? Tough luck.
2. With the Muntar update, the P14 never has a bayonet. Want to use the new gun and still be able to stab? Tough luck.
3. Currently, the HMG carrier has the CLLM, CLLE, and Martini with bayonet. Don't like the Martini, or you wanted a repeating rifle and a bayonet? Tough luck.

I know I'm probably not explaining this as best as I can, and for the record I'm not arguing against fixed loadouts at all (class/subclass choice matters just as much as weapon choice) but my point is that the attachment system is at best irrelevant and at worst a hindrance because there's no real engagement with it: you're totally dependent on the loadouts, which I'm going to touch on soon.

My primary suggestion, if it's possible: make attachments part of the selection process. Curate the specialty guns (optically-sighted rifles) so that they can have their own perks, then spread the rest of the guns throughout the subclass loadouts with regards only to the gun's function/base stats. When the player picks a subclass and rifle, they can decide to attach/detach the bayonet as desired. The player can choose to either curate/setup a subclass loadout as they desire, and casuals who may not care about the fine details are either unaffected or more open to understanding the different stats and what they do, thus better engaging them with the system.

• For the rifle grenades, either make it so only rifleman can choose that attachment option, or make rifles with launchers one of the curated options, maybe even with unique perks related to launching rifle grenades.
• From a non-dev's PoV, adding bayonets for the CLLE, M1893, and M1874/12 wouldn't be difficult relatively speaking since they can use the same bayo models as the CLLM/MLE, M1903, and M1874 respectively. The Snider and P14 would need new models, but the 3D guys are talented AF and I'm sure they'd be able to find good references.
• Yes, I'm well aware that some of this section is a long-winded way of repeating the "more bayonets" suggestion. I do apologize if you've been hearing that a lot, but I'm in the camp that every rifle capable of having one should have the option for one (like in prior games).

Section 2: Loadout decisions (the four gun limit)

For those who may not have noticed, the Muntar update also resulted in a shakeup of the loadouts, with some stuff being switched around, added, and/or removed. Now I'm 50/50 on the results, but switching up weapon loadouts isn't necessarily a bad thing, however I'd like to discuss some concerns I have with the state of loadouts.

Firstly, the actual loadouts themselves. I've went and listed down the old and new loadouts as best as I could. As you can see most classes got some sort of shakeup, usually with 1-2 guns swapped or removed and only a few being untouched.

The British-left is the current loadouts, right is what they were at launch. Fair warning, there's no way to look at old loadouts in-game and I'm going off an old overview I saved a while ago so apologies if I missed something.

The Ottoman loadouts, left is current right is old.

The big thing you'll notice-every single class is still only at four weapons max. In previous games, new guns were tacked onto existing loadouts, but here the devs opted to stick to this limit. My question is why? A loadout shakeup is fine by itself, and if it's a one-time or very occasional thing then that's great. But if this is something we can expect more often, say every time a new weapon is added, I can't see any discernable reason to keep the loadout cap, while I can see several problems that have or will arise.

1. Pulling a gun from a subclass will suck for someone no matter what, but doing this repeatedly is going to invite frustration from players who main that subclass because they have to constantly adjust their selections/playstyle. Same for players who just like a certain combo.
2. If we're always sticking to the 4-gun limit when making changes, then the more guns get added, the harder it gets to select/master certain weapons because they'd have to be usable less often in order to open spots for the new stuff.
3. The loadouts are made in ways that should complement that subclass in a way that's balanced. Repeated shakeups risk fragmenting that synergy: either a gun that doesn't jive with a subclass or one that would make that class broken might get swapped in (I feel this has already happened on a small scale). This also applies thematically to a degree.

Now I will admit that the shakeup concerns are mostly theoretical because this is the first time it's happened, but I still want to bring it up. I'm 100% worried about the 4-gun limit now because that by itself is going to invite problems even if we didn't shake things up.

To any devs/staff watching, I'd like to say this: if the limit is a code/UI problem, understandable and I hope it gets worked out whenever possible. If it's a self-imposed limit, I'd like to ask why this decision was made and what the plan is to alleviate any potential issues down the line.

Section 3**: General balance suggestions**

Originally this was part of the loadout discussion, but I decided to make it a standalone section after reviewing my takes. I wanted to list a number of balancing concerns I have in regards-some of these will sound niche, I admit, and I'm also going to list some individual weapons, so please bear with me.

1. Rifles as a whole shoot slower than they did in Isonzo, and even with the pistol nerf rifles still lag behind for general utility. The lack of bayonets also makes them worse for close-range, which is another incentive to use pistols instead.
   1. I already mentioned the attachment issue above. As for other changes, give rifles a universal RoF increase, and consider adjusting the RoF between individual rifles to make them feel unique. As is all of the guns within a subcategory (Lees, Mausers, single shots) are nearly uniform.
2. Engineer being unlimited, with Saboteur in particular having access to both pistols and grenades is quite strong, and now Turkish Saboteur has the Winchester M1866. While pistols got nerfed and the M1866 itself isn't broken, I do find this to be just as strong a pairing as pre-nerf pistols or close to it.
   1. Remove the M1866 from Engineer and return its rifle. If you want a pseudo-assault class let Bomber have the M1866.
3. On that note, Bomber doesn't come across as more appealing than Saboteur for grenades in particular. Assault gives you more grenades, but you sacrifice a firearm altogether which is a tough sell. Bomber/Carrier gives you back your gun, but then you only get 3 grenades (two of one type, one of the other). Saboteur gives you two grenades and still has pistols, plus obstacles and the aforementioned Winchester.
   1. Give Bomber another perk, one that makes using it specifically for grenades more appealing. Also in addition to removing the Saboteur's Winchester, remove one of their grenade types-let Bomber be the one that can pick between every possible grenade.
   2. If it's not overkill, give Assault Bomber a slow gun (Colt SAA for the Turks and Webley Mk. V for the Brits), and also consider nerfing Saboteur's tourniquet to a bandage.
4. British HMG/Carrier had the CLLM with a bayonet, as well as a pistol. The shakeup removed the pistol, added the CLLE, and moved the bayonet from the CLLM to the Martini, so now British Carrier has two near-identical guns in the same subclass. This feels like a waste of a slot.
   1. Either replace one of the two rifles with an SMLE or put a bayonet on one of them so there's a tangible difference.
5. Ottoman Rifleman/Combat has the M1905 carbine...why? It doesn't fit the class theme and offers no real advantage over any of the long rifles.
   1. Remove the M1905 carbine. If desired, swap in the Snider instead. This particular problem will be easier to handle once more rifles get added (looking at you, M1887 and M1890).
   2. Side note, if bayonets were manually selectable, that better separates the two subclasses since Combat has no attachment penalty.
6. Ottoman Rifleman as a whole have access to hand grenades to make up for a perceived lack of capability...but the British Rifleman have rifle grenades which are either equal or better depending on how you view both weapon types.
   1. This one's tricky-from my limited understanding, the Ottoman empire did receive some rifle grenades from their German/Austrian allies. If true, consider giving these to the Turks. If not, I'm not 100% how to balance this fairly and it may just be one we leave alone.
7. The Beholla has worse range, stopping power, and especially fire rate than the FN M1903 (which is a great pistol). While the Beholla does technically have better handling and lower weight, the difference is minor, only around a half-point for both. Also, the FN having the faster RoF doesn't make sense, 9x20mmSR recoils more than .32 ACP.
   1. Swap the fire rates, reduce the FN's handling slightly, and buff the Beholla's handling and weight. The FN's better stopping power and range keep it martial, while the Beholla becomes more appealing in its own niche as a pocket pistol.
8. CLLM/CLLE: the two guns are nearly identical. While the SMLEs technically are, they also have more difference in their stats, especially since one has a faster RoF even if only by a point.
   1. I would take the stat strengths of each gun, buff them slightly so they were higher than the other to make the difference more apparent, then increase the RoF on the CLLE since it has less stopping power. This could also be done for the SMLEs, although again those are already more distinct.
9. Lewis LMG: This gun has really good hipfire, more than it should (especially because I find the Lewis to be much better than the Hotchkiss apart from the sights).
   1. Increase the weight and reduce the hipfire spread, but make the aimed spread slightly tighter to compensate. Incentivize it as a stationary gun, not a makeshift SMG.
10. Hotchkiss LMG: I generally don't like LMG hipfire to begin with but I get why it's here. In that case, the Hotchkiss should be the better gun at this. Also, the reloads are somewhat inaccurate: the game doesn't let you partial-reload, while the empty reload is longer because you always rack the charging handle.
11. Reduce the hipfire spread slightly. Not enough to make it as strong as the Lewis, but still the better choice for it, plus the lower capacity and inherently slower loading keeps hipfire in check.
12. Partial reloads should be possible. With the C96 for example it's not doable because it's not feasible, which makes sense. In reality with the Hotchkiss, you just push up the feed pawl lever, push the partial strip the rest of the way through, and fit a new strip in. This is already slower than an empty reload, and if you wanted to make it even longer for some reason I came across this Portative guide that says the doctrine was to safe the gun first.
13. For empty reloads, the feed piece automatically locks the gun open when empty, so charging the handle isn't needed-you just put in a new strip. If you wanted to make the reload slower, fine leave the charging in, but the lower capacity to the Lewis makes this unnecessary.
14. Snider: this gun was touted as having the highest stopping power in the game. In reality, it's half a point stronger than the Peabody M1874...while having a worse fire rate, sights, range, and weight, along with no bayonet (technically the lack of bayonet is the only reason the handling and weight are shown in-game as being better, since the M1874 always has one).
15. IRL a Peabody weighs the same as the Snider, specifically the depicted short rifle, but the Martini action is more dense. Thus the Snider should weigh less. Also, give it even more stopping power-it's supposed to be the strongest, let's go all the way.
16. On the subject of the Snider, it and both PEabody rifles all have a perk that give them less weapon kick. This is dubious on a single shot since kick is an issue for repeaters.

Section 4: The LMG problem

I debated on whether or not to add this section, but since it factors into loadouts and balance I decided to include it. Before the launch of the game, there was a dev AMA about the game, in which someone stated the following (original comment):

• "While there was some very limited use of the Mg15 in some very late part of the war on some fronts. It would not reflect the reality of the majority of the conflict and would be totally out of place in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli."

Let me start with this disclaimer: I linked the original quote here as reference, and also this is another case where it's early and things could change later. Please do not harass or bother any of the devs over this, and when I give my take below understand that I'm purely doing so out of a concern of balance.

With all of that being said-I do not think this is a good reason to exclude the Bergmann, for the following reasons:

1. If being out of place is an issue, the Lewis gun is also too early for this time frame as they weren't around for half of the current maps. There's no reason to exclude one for anachronism when you've allowed another to appear despite also being anachronistic.
2. If we're using Isonzo as a comparison, the Austro-Hungarian army received about 600 Madsen LMGs between late 1915-early 1916, which is when all of the launch maps took place in. The Ottoman army received about 500 Bergmann LMGs total, starting in late 1916 and continuing throughout early-mid 1917. Again, it's inconsistent.
3. The Bergmann was indeed used in Mesopotamia. That campaign began in 1914 and ran the length of the war, Bergmanns absolutely were used in the later stages.
4. I am curious as to how the Bergmann is considered out of place, when the Arisaka, Lee-Enfield carbine, Snider, Martinis, etc etc are all acceptable to add despite them all being rearline/home use guns only. I'm not against most of these guns being included for the sake of gameplay (the Arisaka is a stretch), but it's weird that the Bergmann is excluded when it would technically be more accurate for frontline use.
5. In terms of game balance, not having the LMG is a notable deficiency for the Ottomans. Defensively, the LMG works as a less effective but more fluid HMG in a way, and the Turks are more often going to be on defense. Offensively it's an excellent tool for suppression and covering fire, again being a diet HMG in a very general sense. Ottomans just lack this capability, when in general the British tend to have way more to work with as-is (rifle grenades, spotters have optically-sighted rifles, British repeating rifles have double the capacity with no real tradeoffs, more bayonet options).
6. One of the squad perks is to give that faction an extra LMG slot. For Turks, this perk does nothing since there's no corresponding class (likely an oversight, but still noteworthy).
7. In addition to the missing class itself, the lack of an Ottoman LMG also makes me wonder how this is going to be handled for the Russians. The French have a good chance of receiving the Chauchat, but Russia is tricky-either two factions are down an LMG, or Russia gets the Madsen and the Ottomans being excluded is further highlighted since Russian LMGs were also not that common compared to British/French LMGs.

Here is a link to the Bavarian archives page where original communication about sending LMG 15s to Turkey can be found. I will admit that navigating the archives is a bit tricky-search for "AOK Süd 456" if you want to look online. I've also included a passage going over Ottoman use of the Bergmann, courtesy of AugFC.

Aug's writing a longer page about the Bergmann-this is the excerpt he gave me. I've opted to edit out the cropped images and combine the two for easier reading.

I will note that Turkey did not really have any other LMGs in major quantities: they did not purchase Madsens, I don't foresee the devs adding captured machine guns, and while there were Hotchkiss LMGs (and HMGs) leftover from when they bought Hotchkiss armored cars, the number was small enough that I don't think they're justified in being added, hence why the Bergmann in particular is the main focus.

Conclusion

Overall, I think Gallipoli has done excellent work, and a lot of it has been great-the suppression alone is some of the best I've seen in shooters, and I certainly think it's a step up from Isonzo in some ways. But in others I've got plenty to be worried about ATM, and I'm hoping the next few updates make some major changes to things as time goes on. Hopefully my critiques give folks some things to discuss, maybe even inspire more ideas in the future.

• Special thanks to AugFC-you've probably seen his work before, he's done some excellent research on a lot of cool and little-known guns. He was kind enough to let me reference a page he's working on about the Bergmann's use, and he was also the one who showed me the wartime transcript about the LMG 15.
• Also thanks to Yaba Nub Num from the WW1 Discord server. He made some prior weapon stat guides, which not only inspired me to make my own for this post but also proved a great reference for double checking my work (they also helped for some of the stats, like the M1874 w/o bayonet since that's no longer available in game).

Hi, maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I find the system where squad members can place garrisons terrible.

In almost every round I’ve played as an officer, I’ve run into the same problem: whenever I’ve worked my way up to the objective and built a solid, well-concealed garrison, it doesn’t take long for someone in my squad to decide to move it—either back to the starting line or to a much worse location. The fact that anyone in the squad can do this just makes things chaotic and frustrating.

So i have played 25 hrs by now and had maybe a handful of defender victories. Attackers are extremely favoured in this game. They can spam out spawn beacons everyhwere, while the defenders have ONE, and as soon as it´s destroyed, the whole frontline collapses back to the HQ and support obj. So next, attackers can easily move up close to the HQ, place their beacons at the entries, while defenders spawn 100-200m behind on fixed spawns that can be camped by heavy mg´s or mortar/ air strikes (Ctesiphon´s last obj is the best example for that).

So in essence, attackers can keep up the initivative way easier than the defenders simply by being able to place flexible spawns. Spawns that cannot even be destroyed by arty/ strikes.

And now the defenders can´t even build heavy mg´s (except the fixed ones) in the first 2 minutes.

There really needs be a rebalance for the defenders. Maybe let them build spawn beacons like the attackers, or make officers avaible as permament spawn points, or make spawn beacons be able to be destroyed by artillery.

I have noticed playing gallipoli that a lot of players don't really get that silhouetteing is a thing, which is fair cuz its not intuitive.

Basically this is kind of a PSA.

Don't try to snipe, or stand in front of, open sky or something in the background that will provide a high contrast between you and whatever is behind you.

It makes you trivially easy to look for and shoot, so try to avoid being places that do this too much. I will see many snipers sit on rooftops and such, but by doing so silhouetteing thsemselves against the sky behind.

Every time I look up, they have more tickets than they did before. Give them half back every time they move up and maybe let them lose once in a while. It builds character.

V Beach in particular feels terrible to play as a defending Ottoman heavy machine gunner. You're spending the first 2-3 minutes standing there watching the Brits land in their boats, then storm through the fort and beach trenches before you have a chance to actually play the game using your primary class feature.

Meanwhile attackers don't have this same restriction, giving a lopsided and unnecessary advantage. Ottomans already have to deal with not having LMGs, now they can't use their HMGs before being overrun in the opening stage of the map?

Any placeable beacons with no spawn option for the defenders? Else there are 0 options to load up on your nades as a bomber, maybe place some ammo caches around the objectives for the defending team?