Grenade launchers

Originengel

Are there any plans to give a negative aspect to GLs besides shooting yourself = damage. Because as it stands I have been seeing a lot of GL spam going on, mostly targetting of their own team with explosive fire, negating Skulks/Fades, and to some extents Onos from getting near a marine push. Effectively making them invulnerable.

If there isn't, might I suggest an armor negation penalty for GLs, whereby firing a Grenade Launcher causes the armor of the effected Marine/Exo to go to 0 eventually, and causing at most half to 25% damage to affected targets. This would allow them to be used in a group, but not spammed and make the Alien side feel like going near the "Marine Deathball."

Ansom

I'm meh when it comes to the Grenade Launcher. What do the Aliens have that require sieging? It seems only good to counter Onos, yet I'm sure they could come up with a replacement that does just that without just obliterating lower Alien lifeforms. Second, it's always used mindlessly. Spam the grenades at your feet and then sprint away or empty the magazine toward your buddies. The Gorge has to have <i>some</i> line of sight to land Bile Bomb. This is a joke.

Rationalgaze

Should have been a straight firing rpg or something. Forces line of sight and demotes detonation time entirely.

Would fix spam at feet and also line of sight requirements.

_Necro_

Shooting grenades at the feet of fellow marines to make them essentially invul, has been moaned at even before release.
GL-Spam is cheap and frustrating for the aliens. It takes no skill to spam your fellow marines so you can't get near them as skulk.

For me, the best solution was to <b>make grenades fizzle in blue light if a fellow marine is in the explosion radius</b>. It is obvious and intuitive and fits lore-wise with the explanation of lack of friendly fire.

Ansom

<!--quoteo(post=2015170:date=Nov 8 2012, 01:33 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Nov 8 2012, 01:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015170"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Shooting grenades at the feet of fellow marines to make them essentially invul, has been moaned at even before release.
GL-Spam is cheap and frustrating for the aliens. It takes no skill to spam your fellow marines so you can't get near them as skulk.

For me, the best solution was to <b>make grenades fizzle in blue light if a fellow marine is in the explosion radius</b>. It is obvious and intuitive and fits lore-wise with the explanation of lack of friendly fire.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I had that in mind, but let's say you go to hit an alien with a grenade only for someone to walk into the radius and neutralize it, preventing the kill? Also, that would make Onos invincible to Grenade Launcher fire. They're always going to be near a buddy of yours trying to kill them, so if you and everyone else drops grenades on the Onos, they would all just fizz out.

Onii-chan

That solution might be ok, but the fizzle range should be pretty small, otherwise we'll see a lot of griefing and all sorts of nonsense.

GLs are only a big issues in marine endgame turtling for the most part.

_Necro_

Mhh... ok you are right with that. Reducing the AOE against life forms only, would make this less vulnerable to griefing and also reduce the overall spam.

I think the GL should be a weapon against buildings. But also viable against big life forms. You just have to hit them directly. Skill-less spam should not be rewarded.

Daemonlaud

GL needs friendly fire. It's ok lore-wise, since you can't nanite-away a chemical explosion, even if you can physical bullets.

It would fix things. You can't clean an entire base of attackers by spamming grenades without cost. You need to shoot the onos on the way in, not just when he's already on you. And so forth.

PureHostility

Leave direct impact damage as it is, so it can be used against onos or if lucky and you direct hit a skulk you can kill it fast.

Though, if grenade hits world geometry first, any damage it deals to lifeforms should be drastically lowered, by like 50 or more %.
There is nothing more annoying than chasing this lone GL, just to step on his nades that he left next to his boots.

Maybe even increase self damage by 200% ?
Just prevent it from being a kind of a viable solo weapon., which is a nightmare with team covering it ...nades under whole rine assault...God, why would you let it.

I don't see any flamethrowers running around alone, beside rookies who think that FT are great at dealing huge amount of damage.

VeNeM

gl is fine, leave it alone

Daemonlaud

<!--quoteo(post=2015349:date=Nov 8 2012, 07:57 AM:name=VeNeM)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (VeNeM @ Nov 8 2012, 07:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015349"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->gl is fine, leave it alone<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not, really.

It may be balanced, but it's low skill cap stuff that rewards bad decisions and poor play.
Oh, you didn't know they were coming, you missed every shot, and now they're in melee range? No sweat, just spam.

Again, if they are balanced in the game currently, great, but it's still bad design.

Fappuchino

*On second thought. Yea, some form of light friendly fire needs to happen.

statikg

I appreciate that it doesn't take much skill to spam grenades in one spot, but the GL is a great tactical aspect of NS2. If you take that area control ability away from it, it doesnt have any value as somebody pointed out the other day it has pretty poor constant dps. So I would say that rather then aiming skill, the GL takes thinking skill in that you have to position yourself safely and know where and when to fire it.

And I actually think its not that hard to counter for skulks, just get the GL first, just like a welder. Its not like its hard to pick out who has the GL esp with alien vision picking up the grenades.

VeNeM

<!--quoteo(post=2015354:date=Nov 8 2012, 08:03 AM:name=Daemonlaud)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Daemonlaud @ Nov 8 2012, 08:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015354"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's not, really.

It may be balanced, but it's low skill cap stuff that rewards bad decisions and poor play.
Oh, you didn't know they were coming, you missed every shot, and now they're in melee range? No sweat, just spam.

Again, if they are balanced in the game currently, great, but it's still bad design.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


seriously?

its a gl. how much of a skill cap is needed. its point and make things explode. its high tier tech.

this "problem" wouldve been solved with ranged gas for lerk if it werent for knee jerkers

PsympleJester

I would like to see GL do less armour dmg and more health/building dmg.
Meaning it takes a while to get structure/player armour down but once it does it does catastrophic dmg
this would make it better at killing fleeing enemies (what it mostly does now, this encourages you to use other weapons in conjunction with it.) and also adds fluff as to why marines don't die. (they have armour)

It would also stop the gimpage of being killed by nade spam instantly on spawn/on the way to the fight that most people dislike.

Davil

I hate gl spam, but at the same time I don't see how to fix it without causing more problems. Make grenades do friendly fire and you pretty much eliminate it's usefulness since you aren't going to do any good by yourself with a gl. Make the grenades not work if they get close to friendlies, and then it becomes unreliable and pointless to use. Make it do half damage to players and it will still kill skulks in nearly one shot so people will still whine, instead of one explosion it takes 2, well generally there are 4 grenades so do the math.

The only solution I could see being really helpful without hurting it too much would be to make it do damage to exos again and also to friendly macs, buildings, and arcs.

Idleray

GLs are alot less effective than you think. They need to be combined with JPs to be truly effective, because they make their user extremely vulnerable defensively. If a bunch of GLers are sieging your hive, you need to not be approaching from the front but be finding a way to flank. This easily dispatches GLers and makes the marine team waste res.

Originengel

Honestly, i'd just like to see some sort of negative as is, because some areas are just so cramped that by the time there is a proper flank or response, the majority of aliens structures/units are dead via the spam. This is kind of the reason if I recall Team Fortress 2 gave up on Grenades, the spamfest it creates makes it 0 fun for the people enduring the spam.. As it stands the GL spam could use a little balance via the whole take 25-50%(10-20% if testing deems that more of a reasonable response, as all I feel it needs is a punishment for spamming it on teammates) of damage from the GL towards unit armor, so as to make it not kill your teammates but punish the use of it in your pack. (The Armor damage probably would end up also hampering defending your Exo with it, where a Flamethrower would come in more handy via burning the Aliens off your mech).

Zarku

I agree that something needs to be balanced with the GL. I like the idea of it doing increased damage to armor + structures (along with Friendly Fire). This would, essentially, be balancing itself by giving it a small buff while lessening the spam ability of it. (By doing damage to armor it could kill an Exo but not friendly players.) This would also encourage the use of Flamethrowers when the Marines get Exos on the field as they now become the aoe of choice to guard them. As it stands right now there is very little reason for marines to get a Flamethrower at all, when the GL is an obviously better weapon (in the majority of situations). I could even see increasing the direct damage it deals, to help marines deal with Onos rushes more, with the change that a direct hit does NOT trigger an aoe. Since the real issue is ground spam around groups, often by less skilled players, this would raise the skill level of the weapon while still making it a viable tactic: Do you want Grenades to deal with groups and Onos or do you want Exo/Flame. It creates a choice of tactics, each with a different counter from aliens. The more choices you have the better the game is.

Zek

I think a good start would be for grenades to be more visible. They should always glow yellow when within a short radius or something like that.

DanielD

I like the idea of GLs doing armor damage, but I fear that in public games this would just cause rage, and allow people to troll exos with grenades. It WOULD also make flamethrowers useful because you couldn't use GLs to defend exos.

I think the game needs a vote-kick option before we institute any sort of friendly fire.

Originengel

That's the best idea I have seen, combining armor damage 10-15%, possibly lower, possibly higher with testing, also the increased effectiveness/draw of the Flamethrower getting an extra use, because as it stands how often do you see someone spending all the resources for a Flamethrower?

ellnic

<!--quoteo(post=2015349:date=Nov 8 2012, 12:57 PM:name=VeNeM)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (VeNeM @ Nov 8 2012, 12:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2015349"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->gl is fine, leave it alone<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No point is saying it again so ill just quote you.

So yeah, what he said

kast

enable friendly fire.

minos_

I do sort of like how GL is now- they will almost always get four nades off for a lot of damage, but while reloading it's pretty easy for a skulk to get in and pick them off, since they tend to hang back from teammates. (Of course, the weapon drops and someone else picks it up then, but marines being able to reacquire dropped weapons is a whole 'nother balance issue.)

I'd much rather see indirect changes to GL. As it stands, whips are practically worthless at the only thing that would make them worth buying- I almost never see them reflect GL nades, and when they do they often fling them at other high-value targets. If whips actually bounced nades properly, that'd be a good start. It would also help if the grenades were more visible, so you could actually dodge the GL spamming nades as he jetpacks backwards instead of trying to dodge the nearly-invisible projectile and hoping to get lucky four times.

kk20

if the nade was to do FF then have the nade do less damage per FF incident. So its full damage for "no marines around" but if the nade was to hit 1 marine then maybe 75% damage to enemies, 2 marines 50% etc 4+ (i.e. serious floor spam) then no/negligible 10% ish damage

_Necro_

FF isn't possible. It is absolutely inconsistent with the rest of the weapons. You can't give FF only to the GL. Also it will lead to much hate. Someone may only by accident hurt team players and the rage will begin. Bringing FF into a game with no FF is a very bad idea.

<b>Just decrease the AOE radius against players. Keep the AOE against buildings.</b> Simple as that. The GL is an anti-structure-weapon. Sure, if you have skill, you can direct hit enemies. Than that should be rewarded with horrendous damage. But if you standing there like an idiot just spamming grenades into a corridor, you should get nothing.

<u>Reward Skill! Not cheap spamming.</u>

lwf

As it stands now the big disadvantage to the GL is how it's almost mind-numbingly boring to play with and incredibly annoying how they will came back at you when a teammate pops out in front of you. The physics of the grenades also feels weird, sort of floaty. They're not fun to play against either, much of it because of how difficult they are to see and avoid I think.

MaximumSquid

<u><b>Originengel:</b></u>

Marines get GL around the same time that aliens get Onos and it's instant Facepalm

If GL did good damage to Onos I think the game would be in better shape and you might see Fade and Lerk eggs dropped once in a while

Lt. Lizard

<!--quoteo(post=2016564:date=Nov 9 2012, 06:48 AM:name=kast)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kast @ Nov 9 2012, 06:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016564"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->enable friendly fire.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>Step 1:</b> The game is at the endgame and it looks like you are losing.

<b>Step 2:</b> You are pretty bored, don't care anymore about the match and want the game to end as soon as possible while most of your team-mates are still seriously trying to do stuff

<b>Step 3:</b> You realize that you are wielding grenade launcher and it does friendly damage to marines structures and players

<b>Step 4: </b>????????????

<b>Step 5: </b><strike>Profit!</strike> <b>RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE</b>

RabidWeasel

I'd be totally happy with stealing TF2 mechanics - requiring a direct hit for full damage and making floor nades do significantly reduced damage. TF2 had the exact same issue with grenade spam and the solution made the GL into a very powerful weapon which takes some skill to get full usage out of. If you want to use this anti-building weapon against lifeforms you should have to aim properly and not just bathe your teammates in explosions to make them invulnerable vs non-onos.

In spite of how unfun gl spam can be to play against atm it is probably balanced though so it might need to get buffed somewhere else to make it more viable.