Seismic Nades + Ammo Box = OP?

I pulled off the same feat today. I joined a game with the immediate intent of just throwing these grenades at their buildings. Amongst all the chaos, they had to address our tanks and approaching infantry while I stood behind their walls and tossed enough seismic grenades to clear their refinery, vehicle factory, radar, and barracks. I can't help but feel extremely cheap now, and again, I was the only one using the grenades. Eh.

You only get so many when you spawn, and given this limit, they should only contribute to the eventual destruction of a building. It's the ammo pack giving you an infinite supply of them that becomes a problem. The game is no longer about working together as a team to take on enemy buildings and bases, but rather single man armies huddling behind walls throwing out an infinite stream of grenades that quickly demolish buildings. I don't want to boast, but when I can join a game and dictate it in our direction by myself simply by spamming seismic grenades, then I think there's a problem.

I don't think buildings need a health boost. Either the ammunition box needs to give grenades on a fixed rate (something like one grenade every ten seconds) or the grenades need to work so that they only bring a building down to a percentage of its maximum health, so they become a support tool as opposed to a blatant building-killing grenade. Once the building is at x percentage of its health, these grenades should become useless. Another thing that needs to be addressed is the throw distance. Considering the huge benefits of these grenades, I think you should have to get pretty close to the building you want to destroy to do so. The throw distance needs to be heavily decreased or the grenade needs to only be lightly tossed (as the secondary fire does now) for primary fire. I shouldn't be able to throw these grenades off a cliff, across a clearing, and still have them land in front of one of their buildings.

 

Look its not OP if the enemy aren't doing anything about it. someone who shoots the engineer and the engineer doesn't die from 1000 shots is OP, but an undefended engineer that is not getting shot it is NOT OP.

 

The enemy always gets in a position where they have bigger fish to fry. This allows me the luxury of spamming seismic grenades. This leads to a situation where they can't win either way, and I just don't think a single person throwing a grenade over a wall should be as destructive as the advancing tanks on his team. He should be supporting them, but actually equally engaging the enemy? That's kinda lame. In the cases of simply picking off buildings, by the time the enemy reaches me (because I can throw these grenades seemingly across the map) their buildings are on fire or in the process of crumbling. All I have to do is drop a wall and a machine-gun turret for temporary protection if I see it fit, but I have never had to do this. I think these grenades need to be reworked so they aren't as powerful, or the ammunition box needs to get be reworked so it doesn't encourage spam, or the grenade needs a new effect. Maybe something like disabling the enemy from repairing a building temporarily? Bringing it down to a percentage of its health? I don't know. I think it's painfully obvious that something is wrong when I, a single person, can destroy an entire enemy base before they can get around to killing me.

 

I don't understand your argument of duration ("why wont you believe us who lived with years of nadespam that its not as OP as you might think?"). That sounds like tolerance to me. I can tolerant being punched in the face over and over, and eventually become used to it, but that doesn't mean getting punched in the face is alright. lol? I can totally understand your next argument. If the enemy breaks through your forward defense, then they should be able to have a field day with your unprotected bases further back. I would say this is acceptable for the entire team breaking through the forward defense or a mass of tanks bypassing this defense, but do you know how easy it is to bypass defenses as a single individual player? Not everyone can keep tabs on single individual Engineers with the power to wreck entire bases in a few minutes with some seismic grenades. If your team advances with tanks, they are obvious due to their power. If I prone past the enemy and then start nuking their base, my power (and trust me, it's pretty powerful) was never really advertised for the enemy to counter me. It has nothing to do with the enemy failing to do their job. They just have other things to worry about that could equally destroy their base. They are way too pressured, and I just don't think a single Engineer should warrant the attention you suggest.

 

Actually, he's saying he's spent time playing the game and associated it with every field and weighed whether or not nadespam is balanced based on that.

I think it's possible that BARRACKS (and probably only barracks) should be given a resist to nadespam. Over the years, the tool has been useful, and i've been on both sides of it...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The problem however, is you usually need two people to defend a barracks being hit by one engy with seismics - one to repair the building, one to kill the enemy. Usually if you go out to kill the enemy, they get the barracks, and if you stay, it's a war of attrition.

I have to add one thing...saboutage still do DoT? It's a lot more effective than nadespam these days.

 

MG Turret - Gren RPG snipe
Engy crouching/prone behind unbuilt wall - Gren Mortar

The fact that you were allowed time to throw down a wall, build a turret and place an ammo box close enough to their base shows that the other team is already distracted to its limit.

To a rifleman, an engy hiding behind a wall is actually a pretty easy target since he can't see who is coming towards him unless a comm is giving him fresh targets or he has a camera up. Even then, a rifleman vs an engy usually results in the engy's death.

In fact a lone engy behind a wall is very easy to kill. If you weren't detected when you were going towards a base, it's not being guarded enough. If you were seen but no one went to kill you, the other team deserves to lose that base.

 

personally i would like a way for a barracks to become limited somehow

atm its like a barracks is 100% succesful for each player, besides when a filled server all wants to spawn at the same barracks

i think it would be better if there was a reason to build more then 1 barracks if you want many players to spawn at a location other then "if it accidentally goes down"

 

i did not, i was rather indifferent to the rax cost increase

i did felt turned against it once it was in the game and tested, since it slows down games and makes comebacks harder

i dont mind bases having 3 barrackses,

 

Not OP, but pretty powerful. Whenever I start feeling the steady shaking of my screen due to seismic spam, I make killing the offending engineer my top priority.

Also, as you mentioned, you were primarily able to do this because the team was distracted. In effect, this was not a solo effort taking down the base, because you had your teammates providing a distraction. Without seismic nadespam, taking down bases would be a much more grueling task that emphasizes defensive gameplay more than the constant expansion/base switching which I find most fun about Empires.

 

You were probably playing a very bad game. Usually people put mg turrets around bases, which are pretty annoying imo and stop anyone but the scout from getting in. Scouts are more OP than nadespam but they were made for that and people have already evolved to defend against them.

 

If I recall, before to take down a barracks was 5 grenades and 101 Engineer Tool charge with Repair Upgrade. Though, everyone's right, it's easily counter-able.

 

Ammo boxes should dispense a finite number of grenades, with Armories and in-level ammo boxes regenerating one grenade every 15 seconds or so.

Grenade spam makes a number of urban maps practically unplayable if one engineer and a couple riflemen camp select spots and know where to throw their unlimited, faster-than-a-mortar-with-a-nastier-explosion explosives. People who want to lob a lot of ordinance should be playing Grenadiers. Riflemen should have to conserve/resupply their explosives.

A single engineer can take down a refinery in less than a minute without even dropping the ammo box. This means that if they spend all their grenades and decon the first ref, they can spawn the ammo box at the second ref, drop it and resupply, then drop a third in the same way as the first. Single infantry units have no business dropping strings of structures that quickly. I mean, Engies get out of TANKS to throw grenades at refs. That has to say something about how silly it is.

 

Again, engineers are easy to kill. If they're able to drop "strings of structures that quickly", the opposing team pretty much deserves it. That is, unless the engineer is driving a tank. For example, an engy on BE driving an AFV/APC would find it very convenient to switch to 2nd seat to spam nades and switch to other seats to hide from sudden gunfire.

I don't know about everyone else, but when I notice a ref has vanished and none of my team is there, I find it a good idea to go in that direction immediately.

The impression I'm getting from these "seismic nade spam is OP" posts is that lots of players have been playing in teams that don't communicate. An example of such a team is the sort that doesn't type a single word or say anything with the mic even when a few members have found a ninja rax next to their main.

So here's a tip if you haven't learnt about this yet: COMMUNICATE!

 

I need moar fist Ammoz.