Example Gren/Rofl Balance

Mort, the problem with your logic is that you don't look at the game as a complicated system, you view it as a simple cause->effect.

By your logic, simply buffing the RPG would make grenadiers better. By my logic, buffing the RPG would make it more important to kill grenadiers, who would be attacked by infantry more and MGs more. Because infantry are one of the fastest ways to kill buildings, this would mean that a base would become more vulnerable and die more quickly.

By making significantly more players switch to grenadier during a tank attack, the base would actually be more likely to die.

Finally, the mortar does 120 damage right now. Decreasing it any increasing blast radius would increase the chance that 2 shots kill a target, such as a rifleman. Right now it is so unlikely that it will kill in one hit that it should be discounted for normal gameplay. The remaining one-hit kills only exist to make grenadiers feel awesome about themselves. The best way then to make them capable at anti-infantry without being clearly overpowered is to buff Pistol2.

 

Adding to that, because of resistances, it does 84 damage to riflemen, 102 to grenadiers, and 108 to scouts and engineers.

 

I'm not sure if that's intended as an ad hominem or not, but I give you the benefit of the doubt.

So, what you're arguing here is that more Grens would be necessary because it would take less shots per Gren to kill a tank--what? If one Gren could kill one tank on his own, then we'd need less Grens, not more. Furthermore if more Grens on the field is BAD then why are we trying to get more people to play Grenadier the whole game?

Besides, it's hilarious to me to argue that making Grens the ultimate infantry killer is the solution to fixing an "imbalance" that doesn't exist. Riflemen are meant to kill infantry, and that explicitly includes Grens. Grens are meant to do multiple things, apparently, which means that they're not as good as Riflemen at shooting.

I didn't say word one about this, so I'm not sure why this is directed to me. But since you brought it up, I disagree that this fixes the specific imbalance vis-a-vis Riflemen. They have the Pistol2 as well, and even if they don't need it to kill Grens, it certainly won't hurt them to have a more powerful pistol. In fact, all of this talk of buffing Grens (and Riflemen, since their pistol is also getting buffed) will just lead to whining from Engineers and Scouts. Most especially the elitist trope that 'skill should provide one-hit kills.' Replace the word "mortar" with "sniper rifle" and you get the oft-repeated argument of Scouts:

"Hitting them in the face...which is really hard to do, with ______ should be a one-shot kill," otherwise "you're gonna die."

But we don't have AWPs, because it would be overpowered, and changes the focus of a Scouts role(s). The same applies to Grenadiers and their mortars.
And to repeat once more, every Gren weapon but the pistol and mortar kill in one shot already, and yet you still think buffing the pistol isn't enough?

 

84 damage is ridiculous.

If one gren could kill one tank on his own don't you think in bigger numbers it would be overpowered? Imagine trying to win a game with your super expensive tanks but they all get killed by groups of grens?

The mowtar is nothing like an awp, nothing like the scout rifle(the class itself has skills like hide and silencer that make it harder to counter). The range is way different. The angle of the shot, how slow it flies and things like the huge shell and trail of smoke which gives away the grens position.

I'm not trying to make the mowtar some new super crazy weapon. I'm trying to make it how it was when the game was fun. Probably before you even knew about this game. There was a lot more gren's on the field because it was the funnest class to play. Tanks were easier to kill because of that and then later they buffed rifles and tank armor with no improvment to the gren. And this is not about making the gren "the ultimate infantry killer" obviously rifleman will still be the best. Gren's will just be 2nd best. Not to mention that you have to get good at the weapon first before it even becomes effective.

 

Maybe, but that's exactly what several people promoted in the the other recent Gren thread. Silk, Mayama, Ounin, Sirex, Blizzerd, Pickled_heretic and so on and so forth. Even you argued that Grens should better at killing tanks than at killing infantry.

"Gren obviously [should be] better at tanks and rifleman better at inf killing."

Which is why I find both your and Pickled's arguments disingenuous.

I don't think you're trying *intentionally* to make a death laser, but that's what the end result will be. In your proposal:

Mortar does well over a hundred damage, (maybe slightly less once resistances are gone).
It has more than twice the splash area (unless you disagree with Robo)
Pistol2 does double(?) damage, with no decrease in clip size or accuracy.

How could anyone fail to viciously rape Engineers, Scouts, and even Riflemen. The splash alone guarantees tons of kills.

Maybe I wasn't around "back in the good old days," (are we talking 2.1, or even further back?) at any rate, I've only been playing since 2.21. However, plenty of other veterans disagree with you. To give just two quotes out of many:

"In 2.12 everything felt ok you had a decent chance to kill tanks as
grenadier but now its impossible. You have to give the grenadier a
real chance to kill tanks because nobody wants to play a class that
isnt able to kill/do stuff on its own." --Mayama

"It's not anything new, is it? [The RPG] will always need a buff...as far as I can remember grens haven't ever been overpowered against vehicles..at least, not by a change to the gren. Changes to armour mebbe." --Ikalx

Note that both are talking about Grens as if they are intended to kill tanks.

I also want more Grens on the field (and more Scouts, once they’re fixed), so really I’m on your side. I disagree with the means, not the ends. I would be fine with upping RPG speed and damage, maybe pistol damage, and as a final paean I could even get behind taking away stickies from Riflemen if it would help. I just don’t think the mortar is the problem.

*edit* p.s. I missed one of Dubee's posts. Sorry about that. I have since read it, and I know understand that Dubee is not for increasing splash damage, my mistake. Now I just need Robotek to explain what that "525" number by splash means in game terms.

 

I believe he mostly disagrees with the mortar aspect of my proposal entirely. I don't believe there is anyone that believes a large blast area combined with high damage is a reasonable course for the mortar. As I said earlier, the compromise would be something like a 112 damage mortar shot with 525 splash Against a .1 resistance rifleman.

I think the real problem here is that a large number of people want the grenadier to be better against tanks, but more importantly they want it to have a chance against infantry. I'd argue that it has one now, but they see the ability to kill a rifleman with a single shot as the defining feature that determines if an extremely skilled grenadier can beat an OK rifleman. People want to be able to feel that they are awesome by doing these things.

I come from the other stance, that you should be able to field a small number of grenadier during normal play. Because they are able to play when tanks aren't out, there isn't a flood of unskilled players trying to switch to them when the tanks begin shelling. Having that constant layer of grenadiers (even if it is small) in an army should (in theory) grant it the ability to fight off the occasional tank. The difference is functionally how stable the anti-tank abilities of the group are. If they fluctuate wildly, then it will cause problems for gameplay overall. The best way to prevent that is to ensure that all classes have some limited purpose during (nearly) all phases of normal gameplay. That way there is no weird rush to switch to them, they are able to gradually transition.

 

I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, which is why I said "implies" rather than "says." Maybe I misrepresented you, but you did say that you agree with Dubee, and since you didn't bother to elaborate I assumed that meant you also thought the mortar needs to be fixed.

 

Correct, only that the mortar is (well, was) more than often used up close for instant 1 hit kills against any class. I don't mind a skilled user pulling off a rather hard shot from a long distance or on a moving target, but up close it should be different. What is your opinion on the suggestion for having the mortar do more damage the further it has travelled (with the max damage being reached in like a fourth of its max reach or something, that would be up for testing and discussion) ?

 

If you're standing still up close against a gren you deserve to be 1 hit KO'd. If you're moving and he still instagibs you (you make it sound easy to do, it isn't), well, that's life. there's always another ticket. Shit happens, even the best of us die.

also, no to your suggestion.

 

I'm thinking more around 1.7.. Before sticky nades.. When the mowtar reload times were shorter and the range of flight was longer.. Back when the grass was greener and a shell to the face could kill.... *wavy flash back moment*

But yeah those quotes about the RPG were after the huge armor buff that was added. And after the rifles were buffed like I also mentioned earlier. Before those changes more gren's were on the field cause they had a chance. More grens and less powerful rifleman/tank armor means it felt balanced. No change to accommodate the gren? I feel nerfed.

I think that's mainly a problem on smaller maps. But I think that can work. It looks good on paper to me but yeah tests will need to happen.

I remember when Krenzo added the feature of the shell not exploding with in the first second or something of flight so you could shoot out of a tank with out killing yourself. When that was added I tried to do that close range kill to some prone guy and the shell just skipped off the ground. So you can't just shoot down and kill someone with out it skipping or doing more damage to your self than the target. You have to jump on top of something for it to be effective. Like the med tank on district. Or a unbuilt wall, but even then rifleman now can kill you before you land on top of the wall or tank to shoot them.

 

Back when the mortar seemed overpowered at close to close-medium ranges, I think I remember the suggestion somewhere that the mortar should have a minimum firing angle. The minimum firing angle meant that players could only fire at targets that were not close. I don't think this was ever implemented, but I don't really remember it that much and I can't seem to find it in search.

 

Well the suggestion I brought up does the same, but without it feeling kinda arbitrary. I'm afraid that some people will be annoyed at the mortar's inability to fire a bit downwards (think Escort as NF).

 

Currently, the mortar is kind of pointless to use sometimes, to be honest I believe the damage should stay the same until to about medium range, and from there on out it'll scale up depending on the range. This makes it so that grenadiers could actually take out targets hiding behind walls, instead of merely damaging them. Also, the idea that communism brought up about the mortar doing more damage to players in prone positions would work also.

 

Don't know if this was already mentioned in this thread, but what about the idea that the mortar does double (or more) damage against walls, turrets and buildings?
Especially for walls it would be useful, because now they can only the destroyed be engineers or nukes in acceptable time.

 

+1
<Filler>

Really, against walls I think the mortar would have to do more than double damage, but that's all tweakable.

 

If I'm reading the building resistances right, a mortar will take out 18% of a wall's health. I'm doubtful that's true, but it would be a good target. Maybe. Twenty seconds per wall or pair of walls...

I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but until I test it, I can't argue with it.

Curiously, mines are completely ineffective against walls. (Mines also do no damage to refineries, again according to the scripts.)

 

It was mentioned, but mostly by dubee saying its exactly what he doesn't want.

The below are actually some rudimentary scripts I wanted to test, I just never got around to doing anything with them.

 

The current mortar feels like the best ranged weapon against walls already. When I play grenadier, it's easy to clear sections of walls away with the mortar to allow tanks to pass through. You just have to aim directly for the wall and hit properly, which most people don't do.