Mortar: Damage and Flight Time (move to Suggestions)

About this Riflemen always winning agains grens...
When a gren steps out of cover and takes aim to fires his round. he only need to be on target for a split second before ducking behind cover again. The rifle dosent get that lxury. Sure his attacks are instant, but there not instant kill and he must remain on target for a longer period of time.

In a mid to long range fight a skilled gren has the advantage over an equily skilled riflemen.

Grapehead, I have fought you and your deadly accurate mortar ingame and I'd say your statements are crap. You own riflemen with the mortar. Iven if I get under cover seeing your round on it's way I still take splash damage. I want you to be a pinch more vulnerable. I want you to stay still .5 seconds longer then you do. That would balence the fight a bit more.

Honestly tho people dont want to lose the current mortar because its fun. But it's got to go. So we need to make the other weapons fun too to make up for it.

I like this idea but I belive it is only onestep to the solution.

 

You cant die from a single mortar shell if you jump away from it.
When a gren jumps around a corner, jump away from him instead
if attacking. The problem is that most people refuse to move, they
croch and aim at you instead of evading the shell.
A mortar shell doesnt kill you if you jump cause the splash is so small.

The playstyle of the grenadier is so completly different that its like
comparing different chess figures and cry that one is overpowered in
specific situations.

How to survive a grenadier attack:

1. NEVER EVER PRONE, NEVER, IN NO SITUATION
2. IF YOU SEE SOMEONE 3 METERS AWAY OR CLOSER WITH A MORTAR START TO JUMP AWAY
3. AIM
4. MOVE, NEVER STAND STILL, A MOVING TARGET IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT
5. STOP FIGHTING AGAINST GRENADIERS LIKE YOU DO AGAINST RIFLEMAN, USE YOUR BRAIN
6. AVOID COVER, A GREN CAN AIM AT THE COVER AND THE SPLASH WILL HIT YOU.

 

It's aight everyone has opinions on it. Once I used a rifle and had a kdr of like 35 and 2 and it wasn't fun. Point and click. It's like one of those ads where you hit the duck to win a prize. I think the mowtar needs to be effective against turrets and people. I don't care if you nerf it at close range or against tanks. Just don't take out the main counter to MG turrets.

 

I never had a problem to fight dubee if I had a rifleman rifle... seriously.
Most time when he killed me I had to avoid his shells AND the bullets
of another enemy. I dont want to make dubee down I just say that this
is totaly wrong. Even if I dont move at mid range and crouch I would kill
him with any rifleman rifle bevor the shell hits me. I mean wtf you need 3
headshots with every gun at mid range to kill someone. Thats clicking
mouse 1, 3 times, takes less than a second.

EDIT: You take splash damage if you fight a grenadier?
Do you cry to if you fight an engineer as rifleman and he
hits you like 1-2 times bevor he dies?

 

Long range rifleman weapons are the best long range weapons in the game, I must concur that 'equally skilled' players will result in a rifleman win.

Of course in theory the mortar is a better weapon, the problem is the skill required to use it that well is practically non existant. Riflemen can perform much better with much less effort, making them the better class for anti-infantry.

 

Stop talking in 1 v 1 scenarios.

The fact is to kill things the Rifleman needs to crouch and look at his target. On small maps all a decent Grenadier needs to do is duck out for a split second and choose any of a number of targets that are standing still to one hit kill at range.

 

Grape, the only reason I was suggesting a buff at the longer range (the radius, in particular) was because you had just nerfed it at short range. If you don't think it needs a long-range buff, that's just fine, although I can really see at least a small radius buff. It would need testing.

Once again, you shouldn't be using it at short range in the first place, and thus most of the avoidance tactics shouldn't be getting used in the first place.

And Mayama, you're making yourself look like an idiot.

 

I just post how the game works, if you cant avoid close quarter mortar shells its your own fault.

Theirs not a single reason why you shoudnt use it at short range in a game,
remember you can make a game like you want it to be theirs no limit.
Its more like "uh I personaly dont like how it works, remove it please".

 

Small maps are where I think the source of the OP arguments come from. Maybe they can remove grens from district? Would stop the flag mines and mowtar spam. Kind of a bold suggestion but I wouldn't mind it.

Most of my arguments are with classic maps in mind. IMO grens are pretty balanced on wide open commander maps, I think only the rpg needs a buff and maybe something to improve mines yet change how the diffusal currently works. But with the suggestion this thread is about would be great for classic maps but hellish on say district or urbanchaos. I wish you could limit the amount of people who use the class like on DOD:S because the mowtar is very similar to the RPG in that game.

I understand your reasoning morcam and agree but I don't see the devs doing that. Short range use(like a shotgun) is lame and pretty cheap. I just hope that instead of changing how its used they just make it more situational or less powerful. Even though I don't think Its OP on 90% of the maps played. But as the offical posterboy/spokesman for all grens I would say a nerf to damage/radius would be better then having to deploy it.It's important to hit the engineers repairing turrets or else you will just give them more repair points shooting rpgs or chucking nades at it.

If I were a dev I would implement this threads suggestion and have RPG and mowtar shells share the same ammo so you would kind of have to choose between roles as more anti-tank or anti-inf. I would say same amount of splash but have top flight damage be 150. So a shell straight downward would do like i dunno. 10/20 hp damage? Something around that. And I guess remove or limit the amount of grens on infantry maps.

 

The splash of the mortar was already nerfed to hell.

EDIT: and I seriously dont get why people bitch about
the mortar when the shooty, autopistol and melee upgrade
kill as fast and efficient in close quarter fighting as the mortar.
I never saw a thread to nerf that stuff
Its alot easier to avoit mortar shells in close combat than a shotty.

 

Yeah I'm just saying that I would rather have it stay a mobile weapon and do no damage at all then have it be deployed and more powerful.

 

I think these are the things people object to, partially. I know that some of the main reasons I would like to see the mortar changed are:

1. I feel that jumping around like a spaz while people are shooting at you is goofy, stupid, and unintuitive, and shouldn't be a gameplay mechanic.

2. Proning is part of the game and should be useful, since it means that you've anticipated the enemy and ambushed them instead of charging in madly like a maniac. It shouldn't be all there is, but it should be important, and there shouldn't be any weapon that just says "PRONE = DEAD".

3. Cover should be the most important part of infantry combat, rather than the least, since it keeps things interesting by letting people utilize terrain and changes gameplay based on where you are. Using cover intelligently should be a core part of infantry gameplay, since it is the primary advantage that they have over tanks. There should not be any weapons that completely negate cover, and even weapons that partially negate cover should have severe weaknesses and limitations -- a player who uses cover intelligently should always be able to beat someone who doesn't.


Seriously, you complain about infantry vs. tanks, then your advice for fighting grenadiers is "ABANDON THE COVER THAT PROTECTS YOU FROM TANKS AND JUMP AROUND SO THE TANKS CAN KILL YOU." That is a horrible way for the game to play. Infantry should be good at taking advantage of cover; games that don't use cover quickly get boring because then your location just doesn't matter.

Sure, I can avoid grens if I ignore cover and play the game like an insane hopping rush-fest. But that isn't any fun. I'd like to have a bit more strategic gameplay for infantry, where grens and riflemen can set up ambushes from cover to take out unsuspecting tanks or rival infantry; or where people can set up a quick ad-hoc fortification on part of the map to slow down the enemy for a little while. Right now none of that works, because instead of using strategy and flanking you or whatever, the enemy can just LOL MOWTAR!

Which is bad. I don't object to the Mortar, but I object to the idea that cover and proning should be bad things -- I see them as core gameplay elements, especially for the rifleman. Therefore, the mortar shouldn't really give you too much of an advantage over infantry that use cover intelligently or who have secured a location against you and gone prone.

Yes, yes, I know you think that letting people go prone will make the game too defensive. But I actually think the opposite is true. At the moment, if you want to play defensively, you have to wall off an entire area -- people do that, because a degree of defensive play is a valid part of empires. But it is dull right now, partially because of the way the mortar works -- you can't actually use your fortifications to get an advantage or to push the enemy back, because if you try to advance under cover or by moving from cover to cover, you'll just attract lots of splash damage.

 

I never saw anyone that can use the mortar cry about it or
talking about nerfing it. Its always the newbie faction that
dont know how to fight grens that screams for a nerf.
Those people dont understand that you need to shot the shell
almost exactly at the position of the victim to kill him instantly.
That you have to be mobile to be of any use as grenadier.
Those people always play rifleman and always start to cry if
something stops their killwhoring.
I never see one of them post that the hmg, carbine or autopistol
is overpowered. No one of them posted that the shotty was to good
in 2.22. Its because they can killwhore with that stuff. They dont want
to balance, its all about killwhoring and fapping to pictures of their
scoreboard screenshots.
The shotty, autopistol and melee upgrade are totaly overpowered.
No one crys, why? cause its easy to use and they can killwhore and
feel superior.

Quote from a psychological analysis about gameplay:
"If people in multiplayer games get killed by players that use weapons
that they cant use with the same efficiency they usually feel cheated.
People tend to blame everything else bevor they blame their own lack of skill."

...and that is what the whole mortar discussion is all about, and im getting sick of it

EDIT: @Aquillion are you aware that every suggestion that
you ever posted about the mortar would force infantry out of cover,
even more than now?

 

Seriously, Mayama? I'm the "newbie faction" now?

Like I said, it's not precisely that I think that the mortar is overpowered (although it is possibly too versatile.) My main problem with it is that I don't like the overall effect that it has on gameplay -- it shouldn't be so easy to negate cover, to kill someone who has gone prone, or to beat an entrenched enemy in general. It should be useful against infantry behind cover, sure; but you shouldn't be able to just run up to them and kill them as though their cover isn't there.

 

I didnt mean you with that, I mean the "OMG NERF THE MORTAR I CANT RIFLEWHORE FACTION"
I always liked that in empires riflemans forces infantry into cover and grenadiers out in the open.
That offers for some tactical possibilitys

 

See this is the thing about cover in empires. You need to make sure you don't have your back to a wall because people will bank shells off that and hit you with splash whether it be in a tank or with the mowtar. That's what he means by cover. But if you are behind an unbuilt wall you with nothing to bank a shot off of you are completley safe from both. Just that wall makes it damn near impossible to hit people with the mowtar. And if you have the engineer heal and give you ammo you get what you are wanting.

And of course like I said before every class jumps around to not get shot or to get to and from cover. It's a part of the game that changing the mowtar won't fix that. You need to be able to jump multiple times incase you don't get up or over something the first time. And were lucky the stamina even effects how many times you can jump. In other games people are constantly jumping around and diving prone when in fire fights. Yeah its gay but its something that's hard to find a solution for. I guess you should just have admins make a rule no bunny hopping.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon)

A mortar is a muzzle-loading indirect fire weapon that fires shells at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories.

Now sorry for bringing common sense into this, but the mortar in empires arcs for a reason. You think it is a shotgun/grenade launcher. It isn't. If you want a close range explosive weapon, go make a thread about it. That, however, isn't what this is for, and you're apparently the only one who thinks so. Also, melee actually requires you to touch them. Touching them and shooting them from close range are vastly different.

To the sane person, I was thinking in terms of small maps as well. I'm not so sure about the idea of completely restricting grens. Although that would certainly work, the mortar is still an anti-infantry weapon. I still like the idea of a slighty larger splash, albeit without any instakill except with being hit. Regardless, restricting grens is better than nothing.

EDIT: I have to ask. How can you complain in your own thread about "OH NO TROLLING" then come in here and troll this thread for four straight pages?

 

Stop trolling, no one cares what a mortar in the real world is.
Thier are like 100 threads about that.
Thank you for trying to remove stuff that makes empires interesting and unique
and convert it into one of those generic military shotters out their...
remember empires is more arcade than realistic.
That mod is like, 3 years old? Do you really think
no one mentioned that the empires mortar doesnt
behave like a mortar in reality, seriously...

EDIT: Sorry for overacting in my post but that discussion is so old and stuff

 

Well, yeah, that requires a change to something else to really fix. I don't think it would be that hard to solve if people really agree they want to do away with it, though.

I would add a multiplier to all damage that infantry take while in the air. x2 or x3, even -- if you want a "realistic" explanation, say that it's because they can't brace or defend themselves or whatever. But basically, that would mean that jumping around like a madman wouldn't increase your defense (or, at least, there would be a trade-off). People who really want to do leet acrobatic stunts could still attempt it as long as they're sure they're not going to get hit at all.

Also, if you take damage in the air, perhaps your stamina could be wiped out so you can't immediately jump again. That would limit bunnyhopping considerably.

Of course, playing with hitboxes is always dicy, but another option is to enlarge the hitbox of a player in the air a bit... although that might feel a bit off if it's done badly. This might particularly make sense for crouching while you're jumping, which is an especially silly way to exploit the rules for jumping (I've always disliked the entire concept of crouch-jumping, which is a bizarre and unintuitive secret trick that makes no logical sense whatsoever -- but removing that entirely would be difficult because there are things that players would whine about no longer being able to get up on top of. Still, when a player hits 'jump' and tries to get up on top of something, the game should interpret that as "use the best of my abilities to get up on top of that" -- requiring them to know that they have to hit crouch to raise their legs is just stupid.)

Other options would be to increase the delay between jumps, add a split-second slowness / stun after a jump, or to make the stamina cost of a second jump after a first jump much, much higher. Or it could be made harder / impossible to fire a weapon while jumping, or shortly after jumping... I think some of this was already done, but it could be steepened. One problem is that the current penalty for jumping, I think, hurts the tightness of your crosshairs / spray, but doesn't have any impact on weapons that don't use spray.

 

add a timer that makes you unable to shot after each jump?
like 2 seconds max. You would need of course a visual gui element that shows you that you cant shot your mortar.