This weapon is just useless and outclassed by other weapons easily no matter how you look at it; it’s not even fitting a situational support role as some people try to justify it’s existence in current stance. Calling it underpowered would be an understatement.
_Currently it's so unrealistic that it even hurts, but it's unrealistic in negative way, and it seems the developers went completely lazy and just took the exact same coding and scripting from first Rising Storm flamethrower; yet everything about RS1 flamethrower is better than RS2 one, from cosmetic look to actual gameplay.
_First of all, flamethrower, especially M2A1-7 and M9-7 have range of about 55-65 meters, yet in game it have only at maximum of 29 meters (done testing); the sticky napalm would burn the surface at least for 5 minutes which prevents enemies to enter the bunkers, tunnels or trenches, let the toxic smoke would make enemies choke to death, yet in this game it burns for merely 7 seconds at best (that one I could of skip at least for balance reasons, since even teammates wouldn't be able to enter the bunker then, but still), and recoil for this thing for some reason is just insanely unrealistically high, while flamethrower in real life is the easiest to maintain and control recoil weapon out of all weapons (except maybe a melee and fixated machineguns) that were used during vietnam. I can’t see any reasoning behind it while both AK47 (type-56 and AKM regardless) and M16 have almost non-existent recoil which let me fire full-auto non-stop in iron sight and empty whole clip without losing accuracy almost at all (not something that is possible IRL, because firing AK47 full-auto is like holding jackhammer against your shoulder and at best you would completely lose insight of where you’re shooting, and at worst just drop the weapon, which is why it’s ineffective to fire AK47 non-stop but rather in burst of 3-7 bullets at best.
_For the second, flamethrower directly used in tunnels if it lead to bunker, and the fact that the fire sucks up all available air in a bunker, and it just suffocates anyone in a bunker is a main reason why flamethrower is so perfect for tunnels, the flamethrower operators just had to run away once they done the burning. Yet this weapon cannot be used in tunnels for some bull**** reason, even if you know for sure that tunnel (or bunker where this tunnel leads to) is filled with enemies. It could make sense to limit the use of the rifles since their weight and high recoil would make them ineffective in such closed area where you has to be crouched, but flamethrower, especially at hands of professional who knows what he’s doing, especially if you stand INSIDE tunnel RIGHT next to bunker filled with enemies, is indeed must be used in such situations.
_The flamethrower operator became much slower than in it’s ancestor’s game. Makes sense, since unlike RS1 where he had a light (small) version of M2-2 flamethrower, in RS2 the flamethrower operator have a bigger version of rather M9-7 flamethrower, which as result he also become more obvious and bigger target. Unfortunately, it wasn’t even compensated in form of more fuel. The bigger versions of both M2-2, M2A1-7 and M9-7 flamethrowers had more fuel and bigger pressure tank, so having extra 25%-50% more fuel which would extend whole firing time to 10 seconds instead of 7 won’t hurt neither gameplay nor realism, especially logic and common sense considering that fuel tank in RS1 was significantly smaller. The ammunition is a serious trouble for flamethrower operator, since even if you play situationally and try to keep bunker clean out of enemies, you will run out of ammo rather quick before preventing new enemies enter the very same bunker again, and yet ammo boxes compared to RS1 seems to be less common and placed way too far away, which kinda kills any efficiency of engineer with flamethrower. I know that flamethrowers become empty very quick, but for them to have 10 seconds of fire non-stop for the bigger versions of FT is a normal thing IRL. And maybe to make it fair, the flamethrower operator would take about 5 seconds till he could equip new flamethrower from ammo boxes, since it would take some time to take off old flamethrower and put on new flamethrower
_And most important, this weapon was designed to destroy small wooden buildings, small wooden bunkers and quick-done trenches, yet not a single destructibility, even scripted one, was added in the game, which is really lame and unrealistic. Yes, I know, coding something like that would be very hard, especially for unreal engine, but adding something like sticky napalm which would prevent enemies enter same bunker with machinegun over and over every 5 seconds would be useful. A bit unsure about this one part, but it feels like the flames have a hard time entering\penetrating the bunker’s small hole window even at close range as well, unlike in RS1.
_But the main issue is the range, especially considering most RS2 maps are just too damn open compared to RS1. I know that in real life M9-7 doesn’t really shoot much further than M2-2 flamethrower, but even M2-2 and M2A1-7 flamethrower’s common range of efficiency is 60 meters and sometimes they can go up even further. With range of maximum 29 meters, I can’t even reach bunker with machinegun like I could in RS1. Most maps are too huge and too open and yet don’t have much cover to begin with. On maps like CuChi and Hamburger Hill, the area between certain points are just way too open and too big, which makes you completely ineffective, as the flames won’t reach the house\bunker’s window which would burn and neutralize the enemy, and while you could of reach IRL, attempting such actions in RS2 would just make you be a very easy defenseless target. Unfortunately, it seems most people doesn’t care about FT operator since pretty much most of players have full-automatic rifles, so they do not throw smoke nades even if you ask for one 2-3 minutes straight, forcing you rely on weak inaccurate pistol most of time. Picking up engineer with flamethrower makes you lose remote controlled explosive, frag grenades, a real strong phosphorus grenade and a badass shotgun, leaving you with just the last-resort pistol. I can live that flamethrower operator doesn’t get pretty shotgun (trenchgun) like in RS1, but it would be fair if he gets at least a single smoke nade just to not be useless in many situations, since smoke grenade is something that he needs the most for survival.
Hell, it feels like the flames itself do not instakill anymore, as I’ve light one vietcong enemy and I saw him firing his machinegun while being light on fire, I had to fire him again just to be sure he finally burns to death without killing me, but this one bit could be just a result of lag.
_Currently it has up to no use at all and just leaves you to be a very obvious, easy, low-threat target. In a game where most weapons are full-automatic, where you can fire a whoping machinegun in iron sight without experiencing recoil almost at all, and anything kills you in 1 hit in stomach even from a freaking SMG, the flamethrower just becomes literally absolutely obsolete and worthless.
_Besides being put in environment unfavorable to flamethrower operator compared to RS1, i.e. bigger, open maps without much cover, and enemies with more advanced, upgraded and overall superior weapons, the weapon itself including the operator wielding it got various nerfs compared to RS1. The flamethrower operator is MUCH slower, possibly slower than any other class in the game. With implementation more sticky napalm that sticks all the time to surface you shoot, the flamethrower now kills the clumsy flamethrower operator very easy and fast if he fire at tight environment carelessly without watching flames hitting walls and floor. The flamethrower operator no longer has the choice to have semi-automatic carbine rifle, or the awesome shotgun, only forced to stick to weakling pistol as his the only self-defense tool in many situations where flamethrower is simple ineffective at all and is useless. Yet I’m okay with all these changes. I can be okay with all this and accept it as something inevitable, but just give it a good compensation for all that! In RS1 the flamethrower operator was need to be fast in order to be effective due his low range and inability to destroy even small trench bunker of wooden fences while remaining the most obvious target in game, yet in RS2 he gets all the unfair penalties and doesn’t even get anything in exchange for them, leaving him to be ineffective even in situations where he used to be good at.
_But hell, even recoil was changed, yet it changed to be not anywhere realistic! Flamethrower is very easy to maintain and control recoil weapon, you wouldn’t ever feel like your handle is out of control, *ever*. Yet in this game it’s just literally insane, firing it from hip makes your aim go up in a matter of second, which makes firing any other full-auto rifle much easier than flamethrower at this point. I know that after wave 7 once it become public beta it’s recoil lowered a lot, but it’s still insanely high and realistic. I rather have all of the full-auto weapons recoil increased, since both ak47 and m16 aren’t meant to be fired full-auto from iron sight longer than 1-2 second (which is about 7 rounds maximum). Yet it’s not something I really complain about, since in iron sight it’s at least bearable (yet still way too high of a recoil), but I’m just saying it’s insane and not anywhere realistic at all.
_Oh and don’t load me with bull**** about how RS1’s flamethrower is “op”, thus developers are scared to make him anywhere useful without lots of badies complain about it being “2stronk”. Some RS2 players still believe that flamethrower in RS1 still “widely considering to be ‘OP’ “, even if they view it to be weak themselves. Correction, it *was* "widely considered to be ‘OP’ " mostly by noobs that didn't even reach level 40 and these players that migrated from other games. Nowadays, even among RS1 veterans, many would say that flamethrower is not even effective in it's rare occasions where it's meant to be useful, and each day more and more players view it as underpowered due it’s short range, even irrelevant when compared to knee-mortar. Often it's just used to stop banzai charges since more and more players discovered how to abuse ancient japanese Magic of protection aura.
Rising Storm was possibly the first game with somewhat reasonably the highest range of flamethrower in video game history (yet still short compared to real flamethrower) that actually kill enemies, instead of merely “set them on fire for DOT damage”, nor “airblast”, nor “stun”, nor “push back and slow down”, nor even extinguish like in some video games. It was possibly the most realistic flamethrower in video game history as well; as the flamethrower did exactly what it would do in real life – kill enemies, and that’s what the game developers designed this weapon to do. I do believe that what we witness is mass cognitive dissonance which grows in hate bandwagon, because most people get used that flamethrower is usually an semi-useful extremely very situational support weapon that is hardly any threat at all, yet in RS1 game it was actually a threatening weapon, thus hate and false accusations about flamethrower and it’s operator were born.
_Speaking about false made up accusations. There are many accusations and fallacies were made toward flamethrower by people that have no idea what they are talking about. Hell, there even was one thread last for almost year about it "penetrate concrete walls", even though many other people were point out that it's map bug and concrete building is not existent (still not fixed) and yet they still complain; there were another claim that there was some kind of bug that caused a bullet to "not count" if you fired at the FT operator as he was firing at you, as if the flame stopped the bullet - that was proven to be false only once someone did the testing, and I did testing too to see it myself, and yes it doesn’t block\stop the bullet nor make it “no count”; or that flamethrower operator get extra protection when firing weapon - also false; so that's not "dismissive" to call them noobs, unless they done actual testing. There is only one bug that actually proven to exist, and that one is actually a negative toward flamethrower and is kinda proves why flamethrower is ineffective\useless for combat. That bug is that it makes flame do 0 damage at all if you kill FT operator first. That means that even if you aim and fire at the enemy first, until the slow flame particles actually hit the enemy, they have enough time to react, aim and fire themselves, and since bullet velocity speed is MUCH greater than of flamethrower, it kills the FT operator first, and thus making flames be completely harmless, so "fire first" rule doesn't work on this weapon. This also mean that in 1vs1 combat, the enemy have advantage against FT operator regardless of a weapon (unless it's katana), rather than even match. This bug still remain in RS2 and needs to be fixed.
So what flamethrower and engineer wielding flamethrower really needs is:
_1) Much, MUCH longer range in order to be at least effective in situations and missions where flamethrower meant to be good at. At least about 60 meters, as this is exact range where flamethrower operators has to stand away at from enemies when they aim at bunkers or trenches\tunnels\building filled with stinky dirty enemies.
_2) More fuel. I mean, if the flamethrower operator uses bigger fuel tank than the lighter version of it, it definitely should have more fuel inside of it, after all it makes your character much slower than in RS1, so more fuel would make it more realistic as well. I think extra 25%-50% more fuel ammunition which expands whole firing time from 7 seconds to 10 seconds won’t be really gamebreaking, especially considering that flamethrower operator really needs it. To compensate it for the sake of realism, once you reach the ammo box and will stand at point blank to it, it would take you about 5 second to refill the ammo for flamethrower again.
_3) Longer duration of sticky napalm. The lack of destruction of environment, and simple fact that the game lacks even easily scripted damage of vegetation by flamethrower is sure lame and is very disappointing, but flamethrower should serve it’s main purpose - prevent enemy from entering the bunker. Increasing duration of sticky napalm wouldn’t exactly give same effect as completely destroying wooden buildings and trenches, or completely soak up all oxygen and replace it with toxic smokes from bunkers with machineguns which prevents enemy from entering these for another 5 hours, but sure will help at least slow down enemy and not rush in the same bunker with machinegun every 5 second over and over, having no fear of these sticky flames at all. So the sticky napalm wouldn’t just be used to kill yourself in tight environment, but would actually prevent enemy from entering building or bunker every god damn 5 sec and would actually use flamethrower for it’s main purpose just like IRL. Not that it would make it be unrealistic, considering that modified napalm during vietnam war has actually long time duration of burning.
_4) Making recoil of flamethrower exact same as it was in first Rising Storm, even though in both of these games it’s unrealistically high.
_5) Since picking flamethrower as engineer makes him lose pretty much everything else of higher value besides pistol, let him have at least a single smoke grenade for desperate times just to not be completely defenseless, simply so the flamethrower operator won’t be completely useless in various situations and many open areas of vietcong war maps. They would go perfectly well with flamethrower operator.
_6) bug fixes.
That’s all he needs in order to remain relevant in the game and not just completely worthless except for very rare situations for support purpose that most maps seems lack of anyway. It was very rare for me to see flamethrower operator players even in Hue city maps due it’s simply irrelevant and ineffective, and most engineers I see mostly prefer remote controlled explosives and shotgun rather than flamethrower, despite how unique and beautiful it looking. Speaking of which, I think that flamethrower operator needs it’s own class just like grenadier and RPG user, so engineers would remain engineers and flamethrower operator be it’s own class without partaking in replacement of usefulness of using remote controlled explosives for defense purpose. Maybe even let the flamethrower operator have both light and heavier version of flamethrowers as choice for different situations? Like choice between light M2-2 (yes, some of WWII flamethrowers were still used during vietcong) and heavy M9-7, the difference is that light flamethrower would have 7 seconds of fire and a little smaller range yet let the operator be as fast as he was in RS1, while heavy M9-7 flamethrower would fire for 10 seconds and have slightly longer range, yet would make him even bigger and more obvious target, and obviously more slow as well (as slow as he currently is).
_And for these who do not believe that flamethrower actually able to reach up to 55-65 meters, here is a documental video of M9E1-7 light flamethrower that used during vietnam war -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppXf9eD3PYA (notice, it’s a light version of M9-7 flamethrower, so it have less fuel and thus less maximum range).
P.S. Sorry for my english, I'm not native english speaker.
Tripwire, please show some love to flamethrower!
