Laser Grenade - Too Strong?

[Dr. eXpl0si0n]

I think the duration just needs to be changed.... sure you'll get killed by it if you jump on the flag with a laser gren on it, but the result is the same with a mirv isn't it? When I play I like to avoid mirvs best i can, just learn to do it with the laser grens too

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by Dr. eXpl0si0n

I think the duration just needs to be changed.... sure you'll get killed by it if you jump on the flag with a laser gren on it, but the result is the same with a mirv isn't it? When I play I like to avoid mirvs best i can, just learn to do it with the laser grens too

So basically turning on a flashlight with barely any battery life left? How about we just um. not have laser grenades

[oaties]

Originally Posted by Dr. eXpl0si0n

I think the duration just needs to be changed.... sure you'll get killed by it if you jump on the flag with a laser gren on it, but the result is the same with a mirv isn't it? When I play I like to avoid mirvs best i can, just learn to do it with the laser grens too

Yes, but the difference is, the mirv is one instant explosion followed by another explosion a few seconds later. All in all, a mirv has two opportunities to kill you within the 4-6 (dont quote me on the time) seconds that it is thrown.

The laser, however, lasts for 6-8 seconds and has the opportunity to instagib you during its entire duration.

[Dr. eXpl0si0n]

Originally Posted by oaties

Yes, but the difference is, the mirv is one instant explosion followed by another explosion a few seconds later. All in all, a mirv has two opportunities to kill you within the 4-6 (dont quote me on the time) seconds that it is thrown.

The laser, however, lasts for 6-8 seconds and has the opportunity to instagib you during its entire duration.

hence why i said the duration needs to change

[squeek.]

Unlocked this thread/deleted off-topic posts.

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by squeek.

Unlocked this thread/deleted off-topic posts.

Nice.

The way I see it, if the Grenade (laser, that is) damage finds its' median, you're thinking "Great, not too weak, not too strong." But wait. If I throw a normal frag in front of someone, the radius would then be practically equivilent to what the median of the Laser grenade would be, in both blast radius/ damage radius, and damage. The only difference is that the laser grenade would hang out for a bit and continue to tell enemies "whats up, bewm, damage." To me it just seems a little straight forward.

Just a thought here, but Squeek, have you or the other devs ever had the idea of creating a grenade that would nerf the enemy weapon temporarily? What about a grenade that solemnly focuses on removing enemy armor over time?

I'm putting this out to the public instead of a beta idea, because it deserves a fair chance to be opinionated, of course.

But to elaborate on both subjects (With an open mind even!):

1) The Weapon Nerf Grenade (Not the actual name): So the Super shotgun does 54 damage CQC. Use it point blank on a sentry gun + a grenade, and that usually drops the sentry gun. Let's say you smack someone with one of these weapon nerfs. It would drop their weapon damage down temporarily to say 20 damage for 10 seconds. This is very beneficial and can be used at the right time to save your defense from becoming overwhelmed with a ton of damage. To continue elaboration - Every class has something unique that doesn't or didn't exactly carry an HP damage function as a secondary grenade. Primarily the soldier is just a damage class. It doesn't really have a unique ability that sets him that far apart from the generic killer. By adding this feature wouldn't be a bad idea, because though it still gives the offense a chance to down something, the grenade would really lessen those chances for a period of time, and to add, the soldier usually is the front line in the defense, so it would make perfect sense for him to have this option every once in a while.

Now on to the second.

2)Corrosion Grenade - It's simple, yet some how I've never seen the idea brought up. A secondary grenade that damages enemy armor instead of health, over time. We'll use the medic again as an example. 100 armor (which is 60% of the actual HP representation (I think,)) and decent speed can usually get by the average front line defender. Surely damage will be done, and sometimes not always as much. Say... I don't know, knock the medic down to 80 armor, 70hp (keep the #'s basic) as he passes by. This can usually be enough for the medic to pull of some pretty decent damage. Now lets factor in the Corrosion Grenade -- The medic swoops by, takes the hit from the soldier, only this time he gets an acidic splash from a grenade that starts eating away at his armor. His hp will remain 70, but from that 80 armor, it starts ticking say every 1.6 seconds, just downing that armor by 4to 6 points for about 5-10 seconds. In-the-end, the result of the medics armor will be (at most, considering the examples above) 48ish down to 20ish depending on how the decision to flucuate the time and damage. If the enemy has no armor, then the corrosion should start eating away at the players actual health, so at least then it's not wasted, and still somewhat useful. As far as the damage over time ratio would be consider for opponents without armor, I haven't an idea. I'd leave that up to others to see what was more balanced.

Regardless, I think these wouldn't be a bad alternative to the laser grenade, which has been a little less pleasing for most since it's release. I mean honestly, if you wanted, that laser grenade could be used to corrode armor, so at least then, the actual model wouldn't go to waste. That wouldn't be a bad idea either ;P.

Anyway, feedback welcome. Good or bad I respect your opinions. Though I'd debate those opinions with more opinions :>

Squeek, Elmo, Chic, Beta peoples, Pruple Neon - - You're inputs are necessary. DO ET o: !

[Ragdoll]

What about an actual thrown sticky grenade? Adheres to whatever it touches, detonates 5 seconds later. Same damage and radius as a frag.

[FDA_Approved]

Originally Posted by Ragdoll

What about an actual thrown sticky grenade? Adheres to whatever it touches, detonates 5 seconds later. Same damage and radius as a frag.

I would just always run to the enemy sentry or demo or something. It's kind of silly to stick a grenade on something that's zooming past you and towards the heart of your defence.

I also extremely dislike the idea for the weapon nerf grenade. Corrosion grenade isn't a bad idea but I really hate DoTs in an fps.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by eomoyaff

Just a thought here, but Squeek, have you or the other devs ever had the idea of creating a grenade that would nerf the enemy weapon temporarily? What about a grenade that solemnly focuses on removing enemy armor over time?

1) They both have the exact problem that the vert grenade had (see my dev journal), in that they are really only useful at the start of a fight, but you can't use them at the start of a fight without priming them before you know anyone is coming (and wasting the nade if no one ends up showing up).

2) They don't fit with the soldier. Removing a player's armor doesn't really help the soldier; it will still depend heavily on whether or not you hit them with rockets/shotguns. Lowering a players damage would make more sense on an offensive class, and it'd help with problem 1 above.

[XPelargos]

As I've said before, the goal should be to REMOVE what is unnecessary, not add more things and try to make them necessary.

Spy doesn't have a 2nd grenade, scout doesn't have a second grenade, sniper doesn't have a 2nd grenade, and I think they're fine classes. (Well except for the goddamn fucking sniper OMG rage so hard!!!!1111) *ahem*.

But look at Quake 3 and Quake 3 Team Arena expansion. The nailgun and minegun were added because, "Well, gotta expand, right?" and they don't add any depth to the game at all. They were unnecessary and caused more "troll" deaths than anything else.

Reduce, reduce, reduce, not expand, expand, expand.

[Crazycarl]

Originally Posted by squeek.

1) They both have the exact problem that the vert grenade had (see my dev journal), in that they are really only useful at the start of a fight, but you can't use them at the start of a fight without priming them before you know anyone is coming (and wasting the nade if no one ends up showing up).

Is there any particular reason why all grenades have to have the same 4-second fuse?

I'm also wondering--why not give each class one grenade type? Most secondaries are redundant in that they do damage to a target. You could also combine grenades. For example, an incendiary grenade that's more powerful, but less spammy than the current one.

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by squeek.

1) They both have the exact problem that the vert grenade had (see my dev journal), in that they are really only useful at the start of a fight, but you can't use them at the start of a fight without priming them before you know anyone is coming (and wasting the nade if no one ends up showing up).

2) They don't fit with the soldier. Removing a player's armor doesn't really help the soldier; it will still depend heavily on whether or not you hit them with rockets/shotguns. Lowering a players damage would make more sense on an offensive class, and it'd help with problem 1 above.

They don't fit with the soldier?? And the laser grenade does? lol.... Come on.
Then instagibing it made it twice as better, let me tell ya!

Again, you could use the same machanics as the laser grenade if need to be to give off either effect incase an enemy gets by the soldier. Not sure how that's a hard concept to acquire. We waste grenades all the time anyway. Then we die, and we get that grenade back in not even 2 seconds.

The way I see, you've already invented something that's failed twice now. And based off what you're saying, the HW's slowfield could be said the exact same way. Though it can slightly more useful when thrown on a flag, most of the time it's wasted, and not seen again until the HW dies, and not to mention easily avoidable most of the time.

To be honest, I think giving the soldier a 2ndary that doesn't suck, requires it to have a function that supports the team by means of messing with his enemies goals.

If these idea's were placed on here for you to just out right reject them, then fuck the laser grenades. Remove them, because it practically serves the same use otherwise. Just being realistic is all, don't take offense, as that's not intended to offend. Thanks

[squeek.]

I guess I misunderstood this part:

Anyway, feedback welcome. Good or bad I respect your opinions. Though I'd debate those opinions with more opinions :>

The laser grenade supports the soldier's role because it encourages the enemy to move in a more predictable fashion, meaning that they are easier to hit with rockets. You're right about the slowfield, but that's precisely why it has a duration instead of an instant effect. Plus, that's really a problem with the fuse length of grenades in general, and is a much larger issue that I don't think would be worth tackling.

But, more importantly, you haven't debated my opinions. The way I see it, the entire point of discussing the design of something is to work to improve it (remove the problems and emphasize the good). I've pointed out some problems I see with your suggestions. I'm not rejecting them. I'm giving you some feedback that you asked me for. Either convince me that your ideas don't have the problems I think they do or change the ideas so they no longer have those problems. Game design is an iterative process.

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I guess I misunderstood this part:


The laser grenade supports the soldier's role because it encourages the enemy to move in a more predictable fashion, meaning that they are easier to hit with rockets. You're right about the slowfield, but that's precisely why it has a duration instead of an instant effect. Plus, that's really a problem with the fuse length of grenades in general, and is a much larger issue that I don't think would be worth tackling.

But, more importantly, you haven't debated my opinions. The way I see it, the entire point of discussing the design of something is to work to improve it (remove the problems and emphasize the good). I've pointed out some problems I see with your suggestions. I'm not rejecting them. I'm giving you some feedback that you asked me for. Either convince me that your ideas don't have the problems I think they do or change the ideas so they no longer have those problems. Game design is an iterative process.

Or you can just wait for the laser grenade to die, and continue on, or take any of the other 3 directions you can take in any map to easily avoid the laser. The only time they really come in handy is in small halls and choke points. They are much more avoidable in larger maps (which ff has quite of a few of.)

My question now is, why do you think the two idea's I posted above will NOT work? If you can prove to me that they aren't good ideas, after really considering all possibilites, then perhaps the idea's are all worthless. But that's the same kind of thinking and arguement I could also place when talking about the Slow Field and The Laser Grenade. They are both next to worthless when it comes to a frag grenade, which just straight up kills multitudes of enemies by far more then the other 2 will. My idea's above were elaborated enough (in detail even) to perhaps give you an idea of how this would benefit TEAM PLAY, rather then a tool used to help a soldier hit his target better.

This reply is in regards to squeek only. Thanks.

[squeek.]

They won't work because of this:

Originally Posted by squeek.

1) They both have the exact problem that the vert grenade had (see my dev journal), in that they are really only useful at the start of a fight, but you can't use them at the start of a fight without priming them before you know anyone is coming (and wasting the nade if no one ends up showing up).

A defender priming a grenade without knowing a player is coming leads to damage dealt due to blind luck (if a player ends up showing up). Getting hit with one of these grenades leads to frustration, which is not something we want to create more of.

So, we want to discourage priming a grenade before knowing anyone is coming or make it so that pre-priming does not lead to frustration. Therefore, front-line defenders need grenades that fit either of the following (there may be more options that I'm not aware of):

• Useful at any time during a fight
• Have an extended active duration

Either of the above solve the problem to a degree. For example, frag grenades are useful at any time during a fight, so it makes it more ambiguous whether or not it's good to prime one before you see a player. A grenade with a duration solves it by lessening the importance of when it's primed and by giving the opposing player knowledge that the grenade is there (so they have a chance to react accordingly).

P.S. I do not know what you mean by TEAM PLAY and I don't see where you detailed how your ideas would benefit it.

[XPelargos]

Originally Posted by squeek.

The way I see it, the entire point of discussing the design of something is to work to improve it (remove the problems and emphasize the good).

"Design of Something" is a vague term.

We could think of "something" as the laser grenade
Or we could think of the "something" as the soldier class

If, as you state, the entire point is to work to improve said "something."

Therefore, the entire point is to improve the SOLDIER
The entire point is NOT to improve the secondary grenade

(Remove the problems) - Laser Grenade
(Emphasize the Good) - Rockets, baby. It's always been about the rockets. Nobody EVER played the soldier for his nail grenade. It was just a neat little extra toy you could spam every once in awhile. But what makes the soldier satisfying is the RPG and Dat Shotgun. Frag grenades feel right for a soldier, and 4 frags is fine.

See how when we change our focus from one level to another, we get a better perspective on the class as a whole.

Most SOLDIER players don't enjoy the grenade. Are there any career soldiers here who absolutely fell in love with the grenade?

Ergo, inasmuch as neither offense nor defense enjoy the tool, let us abandon it or at the very least move it to a different class.

"Quod Era Demonstratum"

Furthermore, the Soldier is the 2nd strongest healthwise. The laser grenade just doesn't feel like his style. It's something an engineer or spy would have, don't you think?

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by squeek.

They won't work because of this:

A defender priming a grenade without knowing a player is coming leads to damage dealt due to blind luck (if a player ends up showing up). Getting hit with one of these grenades leads to frustration, which is not something we want to create more of.

So, we want to discourage priming a grenade before knowing anyone is coming or make it so that pre-priming does not lead to frustration. Therefore, front-line defenders need grenades that fit either of the following (there may be more options that I'm not aware of):

• Useful at any time during a fight
• Have an extended active duration

Either of the above solve the problem to a degree. For example, frag grenades are useful at any time during a fight, so it makes it more ambiguous whether or not it's good to prime one before you see a player. A grenade with a duration solves it by lessening the importance of when it's primed and by giving the opposing player knowledge that the grenade is there (so they have a chance to react accordingly).

P.S. I do not know what you mean by TEAM PLAY and I don't see where you detailed how your ideas would benefit it.

If you read back up, both the ideas, being the weapon debuff, and the armor reduction, both support the team by lessening their chances of performing a primary objective. If an enemy is hit with a corrision grenade, it eats their armor -- armor is slowly being reduced to make kills an easier asset for a period of time, by either the front-line and the actual flag/objective defenders.

The weapon debuff whether hit with before or after decreases the weapons damage, thus if an enemy passes the front-line, his weapon will be weaker when destroying Sentry Guns and Demo's or w/e, for a period of time, thus helps your team by allowing their chances of survival to last longer. A medic passes you, and ends up killing the demo -- well that sucks. The medic passes you, but gets hit with this grenade -- Oh wow, the Demo lives because the medic's damage wasn't enough to secure the kill. It's not a hard concept.

BOTH of these grenades could be used as the laser grenade model. That way it can just make your argument invalid about pre-timing grenades and getting them off of luck. No one said that these grenades couldn't be used as the same type of function as the laser. It's still better then just taking damage out right in my opinion. Even if it's not damage being taken by a laser, I'd still want to avoid hitting it because I wouldn't want my weapons to do shit damage, or lose a good chunk of my armor over time. I know that as a medic, that would make shit harder on me.

I didn't think it was that hard to grasp. I've stated twice now that you could apply either of these effects into the laser grenade to replace the hp damage function. I believe these 2 idealistic grenades would be deemed useless if they worked the same way as a frag grenade.

Thanks though for keeping up with this squeek. Read ya soon.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by XPelargos

"Design of Something" is a vague term.

We could think of "something" as the laser grenade
Or we could think of the "something" as the soldier class

If, as you state, the entire point is to work to improve said "something."

Therefore, the entire point is to improve the SOLDIER
The entire point is NOT to improve the secondary grenade

(Remove the problems) - Laser Grenade
(Emphasize the Good) - Rockets, baby. It's always been about the rockets. Nobody EVER played the soldier for his nail grenade. It was just a neat little extra toy you could spam every once in awhile. But what makes the soldier satisfying is the RPG and Dat Shotgun. Frag grenades feel right for a soldier, and 4 frags is fine.

See how when we change our focus from one level to another, we get a better perspective on the class as a whole.

Most SOLDIER players don't enjoy the grenade. Are there any career soldiers here who absolutely fell in love with the grenade?

Ergo, inasmuch as neither offense nor defense enjoy the tool, let us abandon it or at the very least move it to a different class.

"Quod Era Demonstratum"

Furthermore, the Soldier is the 2nd strongest healthwise. The laser grenade just doesn't feel like his style. It's something an engineer or spy would have, don't you think?

I meant for it to be able to apply to anything. Discussing the design of the soldier would indeed hopefully be working to improve the design of the soldier. But, the design of the soldier is a pretty broad concept, and it is useful to isolate certain things in that discussion. It's not entirely accurate to say "the design of the soldier is flawed because of the laser grenade, so we should remove the laser grenade to improve the soldier." You then need to ask, "Why is the laser grenade a problem?" which then leads to a discussion about the design of the laser grenade in relation to the soldier. Here is what I think about the laser grenade (leaving out reasons why its better than the nail grenade):

• Good: It is an interactive mechanic; it encourages the opposing player to alter his decisions/movement, which then forces a reaction from the soldier, etc.
• Good: It emphasizes the good parts about the soldier class (as you say, rockets); the more predictable movement of someone dodging the grenade meshes very well with how the RPG works
• Very bad: The exact center is too easy to take advantage of when defending a single point (flag), and overwhelmingly encourages all players to throw them on the flag no matter what (even if the laser gren did very little damage, it'd still effectively remove 100% of the depth in deciding where to place the gren, as you maximize damage dealt when you place it on the flag no matter what)

Luckily, the very bad part is pretty easy to remove without throwing the entire thing out. Therefore, in the next patch, there will be a gap in the center of the grenade that does no damage (the lasers will start a little bit away from the gren model itself).

Originally Posted by eomoyaff

I didn't think it was that hard to grasp. I've stated twice now that you could apply either of these effects into the laser grenade to replace the hp damage function. I believe these 2 idealistic grenades would be deemed useless if they worked the same way as a frag grenade.

Then I misunderstood completely.

I do like the idea of armor damage as an alternative to regular damage. I also like the idea of affecting the weapon power instead of damage (though I have no idea how it'd feel in practice).

I'm not sure armor-stripping would fit well with the laser grenade, specifically, though. The laser grenade is based around incremental effects. That is, each time a player touches the laser it is detrimental, making it so they want to continually avoid the lasers. With armor-stripping, that'd mean that once a player is out of armor, they can effectively just ignore the laser gren (unless the gren does health damage when armor is gone, but that's really just a nerf to the grenade, not an alternative to regular damage [it's like giving the opposing player 100% damage absorption armor]).

Weapon degradation I think is much more intriguing, though I wonder if friendly-fire with it would become an issue.

[FDA_Approved]

Originally Posted by XPelargos

Rockets, baby. It's always been about the rockets. Nobody EVER played the soldier for his nail grenade.

Most SOLDIER players don't enjoy the grenade. Are there any career soldiers here who absolutely fell in love with the grenade?

^


Squeek I think you're getting to deep into it. The laser grenade is gay. Besides that it's only usefull if you spam it. The laser grenade is never more usefull to prime at the start of a fight as apposed to before a fight. Because the whole point of the enemy interacting with it, is for them to come across it positioned somewhere during their run. If you're not priming it untill you encounter the offense then you're already past the point of interaction. Because they will already be past you or dm'd enough the the laser becomes just a nother prime and damage tool that lasts longer than others.

These weeks of playing pickups with lasers disabled have been just wonderful. And what the fuck have we lost out on? Nothing! Soldiers didn't take some big nerf, we're just FINE! It's so wonderful to worry about one less piece of spam.

Like others have stated the best way to perfection isn't adding adding adding, it's knowing when to cut shit out. The soldier honest to god doesn't need a secondary.

It'd be nice if he had a little something something for when playing O solly against a sg nest, but oh well.

[CaptainAhab]

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

when playing O solly against a sg nest

This...

...is when I freaking love the laser grenade.

The rest of the time. Not really. Playing soldiers in pickups feels totally natural without the laser grenade.

I wish I could weigh in more on this, but I honestly feel that taking it out isn't really that bad of an idea at all. Though I see what the philosophy behind it is.

I'll be awaiting the next patch to see what has happened to it.

P.S. Keep up the thoughtful discussion. One of the better dev-to-community discussions I've seen in a long while for any game.