The Grenadier shouldn't have an RPG AND a Mortar

If they are so close to each other that the splash of a rpg kills both
the probably made gaylove and so didnt pay attention to their surounding.

 

The mortar is a high yield weapon, but it has a high skill curve.

Balance is innate.

 

Requiring skill =! balance.

 

Honestly, I'm still of the opinion that the grenadier does not need (and should not have) access to any significant anti-infantry weapons at all... enough to not be completely helpless, maybe, but there shouldn't be very many circumstances at all where a grenadier's abilities would be more valuable against infantry than a rifleman's. I think forcing grenadiers to choose between anti-infantry and anti-tank options would be a good start, but honestly, I don't see the need for it; I think they made that choice when they chose between 'grenadier' and 'rifleman'.

The way I see it, the game is ultimately about res, which means destroying buildings and tanks (those tend to be the deciding factor, not killing infantry). To keep riflemen and infantry combat relevant, several things are needed...

There needs to be things in the game (situations that might actually occur) that are vulnerable to infantry assault. This is vital; one big problem right now is that there are way too many powerful anti-infantry explosions thrown around. It should be possible to throw some well-timed infantry at the enemy and have their comm shout "DAMMIT! I wasn't expecting infantry! Get some anti-infantry support to D3, fast!" This should work the same way you often need to send anti-tank support to a specific place now.

But that never happens, because nearly everything is strong against infantry. This should not be the case... and grenadiers are the prime culprit. They're the most commonly-used class after engineers, and they're strong against everything (engineers aren't really strong against everything -- they can throw down a turret, but without that, in many situations they're generally weaker against both tanks and infantry than rifleman and grenadiers are.)

I feel that grenadiers should operate best with anti-infantry cover from riflemen or from engineer turrets, just like engineers and riflemen should operate best with long-range anti-tank support from grenadiers. Most class-based team games have a lot more interdependence between classes than we do; most RTSes have a lot more interdependence between units than we do. In both cases, I think they're the better for it. Teamwork and strategy in Empires both suffer from the fact that Grenadiers rarely need another class to help to deal with other infantry.

I'm not saying that they should be totally helpless against infantry (they can have a weapon useful in limited situations, like the close-range and strictly low ammo of the Rifleman's stickies), but they should definitely work best when some other class is there to help them with infantry.



And I agree with Private Sandbag: The current mortar is too much like a grenade launcher. It shouldn't be useful (perhaps not even usable) at close range at all; we already have decent close-range classes and capabilities, and plenty of ways to kill infantry. The current game is much much too deadly for infantry, overall... The mortar should not really be an anti-infantry weapon, except perhaps tactically against opponents who are gathered at long range in one place that you shell from a distance (to discourage turtling / camping / whatever.)

It also should be much more effective against tanks than it is right now, particularly at long range; the RPG should be, too (the gren's anti-tank capabilities still aren't what they could be.)

 

Which games do you play? The grenadier is the less used class in public games,
engineer/rifleman are the most used classes in public games. I can make some screenshots .

A class that is only good against tanks is, well, boring as hell.
Its against the fun factor of the game to make a class helpless
against something in one situation, thats why the rifleman has
stickys and thats why the grenadier can kill infantry with the mortar.

That the anti tank ability need reworking... well on pub games
more people choose rifleman, not grenadier, to kill tanks.

Model a grenade launcher and make it act like the mortar does now.

 

I believe it's '!=' =]

 

Let's leak this pic to make ye all happy!

And the mortar is useful, but only if you can handle it. Set up a rifleman in close range vs a Grenaider. It's not much that little mortar guy can do.

 

Im sorry but im drunk again and i only read the first tewo senteances but like

yeah brotha
hulk mania runnin on the streets

and like yeah.. grens maybe the least played class from newbies but the fact is that every game has one weapon that requires a huge learning curve so like i forgot my train of throught now so uh

umm keep on keepin on

 

This has been talked about a million times in hundreds of threads yet people still feel they must state there opinions that it needs a change even though its been shot down all those times.. People should just start a "keep the sniper and nerf the mowtar" thread.

It seems like the majority of you are upset that the mowtar isn't realistic. I'm glad you guys aren't devs. Go back to 1.7 and play with it when it could shoot farther and had a faster reload.. It was actually like an awp back then.

Doing the changes you guys suggest takes the fun away from the weapon and fucks up all the balancing beerdude has done for 2.2.

 

Nah. The issue is gameplay; the mortar is too effective against infantry, and results in grenadiers relying too much on individual player skill and not enough on team strategy.

I think there's a basic consensus to that effect; even most of the people who want to keep their precious mowtars basically say those two things (communism's "The game needs a 1337 skill weapon!" and mayama's "It's more fun for one class to be able to handle everything!")

I don't know what games you're playing, Mayama, but the class list on the ones I've played (at least, on non-infantry maps) is usually lots of engineers, some grenadiers, and a handful of riflemen/scouts. Infantry maps and close-quarters ones like Crossroads see more riflemen, but if you really see anywhere near as many riflemen as grenadiers on the other Classic maps then I don't know what game you're playing.

I am not suggesting that grenadiers should be helpless against infantry; having their pistol, say, is fine (and it's perfectly possible to win fights with the pistol.)

But I feel that they should be at a disadvantage against infantry unless they get the drop on them at close range (the same significant disadvantage that a rifleman is against a tank in the open), and they should have limited resources for fighting infantry (just like a rifleman can carry only a handful of stickies, even with ammo upgrade.) Of course, I would also be happy with weakening stickies against vehicles other than APCs, but that would require other balancing in the larger infantry issue to keep riflemen relevent. And I think most people agree that engineers need to be weakened a bit to make them dependent on other classes, too.

Even as it is, though, engineers certainly need anti-tank support to win against real tanks in most situations; and the rifleman's stickies are a situational weapon for close quarters, most useful when the tank is distracted by another threat.

This encourages the classes to work together; it encourages them to listen to their comm so they can get the cover and teamwork they need; and it discourages people from running off and trying to rambo the level on their own.

That's what makes the game exciting -- not running in and winning every fight on your own; you could do that as a Soldier in TF2 if you want that. Knowing that my grenadier has the weapons and tools to handle any situation, without help from the comm or the rest of the team, is in fact 'boring as hell'; what's exciting is knowing that I need to rely on my team and my comm to cover my weak points, and winning despite that by using a clever strategy that covers my weaknesses and exploits my opponent's.

Even when I'm a grenadier forced to fight infantry that I'm weak against, it can still be fun for me; when I manage to kill a rifleman or a group of infantry with my pistol, that is exciting, much more exciting than walking around knowing I have a weapon that is designed to handle all situations. It is not exciting or interesting for all infantry to be equal against each other in all situations; overcoming your weaknesses is much, much more exciting to me than using all-purpose rocket-launchers for everything.

 

I never said anything like that.

I said that in terms of gameplay, every class has to an extend, access
to tools to handle with every situation ingame. That what we have now.
Situaton in which you are totaly helpless lead to frustrated players and
that means less players. Its a game nobody wants to be frustrated
because of something they play cause of fun.

If you have an equal skilled rifleman and grenadier, rifleman will win almost
every fight.

I play on full servers american and european and its almost every time
full of rifleman and engineers. you have like 3 grens out of 20+ players.

Stop and thats to all of you. Stop making people believe the grenadier
is better in killing people than the rifleman.
Killing with the riflemans assault guns is point and klick.
Its like skeet shooting, it takes under a second to kill people with them.
All of them. You can kill about 8 kill people with one clip.
Dont tell me the grendier can kill as fast and effective like that.

 

It can't on its own, but it's not much slower, and it doesn't take into account surprising the enemy, or being able to send that highly damaging shot out in a fraction of a second and while on the move, a rifleman has to crouch, slow down, bring up his sights, and fire long enough to get a kill which is about a second and a half at anything other than short range, a grenadier can jump out, fire, and jump back again and get kills equally well at any range.

The mortar is simply too effective against infantry, the pistol is more than good enough to make an engineer or a scout stop and think, and there is no reason why grenadiers should not have to avoid direct confronation with riflemen. A rifleman with frags, scouts, and engineers all have to avoid tanks, why should a grenadier be able to take on most infantry with relative ease as well as being the one of the most effective anti-tank and building classes?

The grenadier can perform all combat tasks in empires quite easily, that is not true of any other class and I fail to see why it should remain true of the grenadier. I don't object to grenadiers being able to kill infantry, or them being able to kill structures or vehicles, I object to them being able to kill all of them at the same time. Make the grenadier choose between targets, find some way of removing the mortar's use in direct combat, or make a grenadier who uses it less effective against vehicles or buildings.

The mortar is too powerful because it is too versatile, you can kill anything with it just by shooting it a few times, and there is very little stopping you from doing that. If a rifleman can outflank someone and kill them before they have time to react, a grenadier can do much the same thing, albeit taking slightly longer, but a mortar shell and a couple of pistol rounds will kill anyone.

 

Mayama, get it into your head that the point of this thread is not to compare the Rifleman and Grenadier classes. So please, stop comparing the two.

I'll answer this last comparison post you've made:

Yes you are right, the rifleman is better and more effective at killing infantry. You can take down about 2-3 (maybe more if you get headshots) enemy personnel with a single clip. But as I've stated before; the Rifleman class is an anti-infantry class. Yes they have stickies which are highly effective against vehicles, but only at very close range. I won't go into this much because I believe they are balancing them for the next patch.

Now the Grenadier while not being able to kill more than 1 (usually) enemy personnel in a single shot, can still kill in one shot, and I think that's something that needs to be changed. An AoE mortar would be much preferred to basically a grenade launcher.

 

Chris, look through the thread most arguments for changing aka nerfing
the mortar is because people mean that it is "the best anti infantry weapon"
ingame. This is not true and thats why i post that over and over til they
cant ignore it anymore.

The mortar kills infantry like the sticky kills tanks.
Both are better in some situations but overall
on standart commander maps you can do more with
the rpg / assault rifle.

And cause i like to repeat myself:
Why i never see any thread about "removing/nerf"
stickys? They make more damage and are more
deadly than the rpg/mortar in close quarters.
Its the same situation a weapon of another class
is better in something that a specialized class
should do best at.

 

I seem to remember considerable discussion about stickies being nerfed or given to the grenadier or the grenadier being buffed to make him better than stickies or all of the above.

 

So it's ok that a rifleman can kill vehicles in one hit, but not ok that a grenadier can kill infantry in one hit?

 

IIRC the UMP45 fires slower than most weapons and has less bullets per magazine than normal weapons, so good luck killing infantry with it if they run around jumping and shooting at you, while you waste the few bullets you have in your magazine.

 

Mowtar shells travel slowly and have a big line of smoke fallowing them.. Every shot that's not point blank can be dodged plus every shot gives away your position. I can't even tell you how many times I've instantly died from a rifle with out even know where it came from or after I get behind cover because I lagged a little bit.

At first it was too hard for noobs to use mowtar and now its too easy? And you guys make it seem like a gren can just eat up any tanks with out any problems.. If they have a MG you don't really stand a chance. And if they have armor you need to use team work to kill them.

Rifles kill infantry the best
Gren's kill tanks the best
Engy's kill buildings the best
Scouts.. yeah

 

I already mentioned about stickies, but since you asked nicely, no. Neither are ok. But the fact is that riflemen have to expose themselves to sticky a tank. Grenadiers can pop out, shoot, and get back into cover in about 2 seconds if that.

They don't travel slowly at all. I don't see how having a 'big line of smoke fallowing them' can give them a disadvantage.

Note: he said NOT point blank.

Agreed. Rifles in empires have a stupidly high firing rate. Lag? well... the dev team have done a good job in 2.2 with dampening the lag issues, even though it is unavoidable to be honest.

 

I don't know how to respond to this because they DO travel slow. Can you not see them flying through the air? Slow enough to dodge(probably the slowest moving shell in the game). All you have to do is move forward a little bit or don't move at all and he will shoot where he thinks you were about to go. The trail of smoke shows you AND the rest of your team exactly where he is giving you the same advantage he had on you.

Yeah you have to get real close to them like the sticky's to get a definite hit and even then its not a 100% chance it will kill them just like the stickys. (more so later in the game) Also if your trying to shoot the mowtar and someone shoots you first you get pushed and it completely fucks up your aim.

Yeah well on my screen I leaped behind cover and then all of the sudden I'm back 5 feet dead from a riflemans lazer.

You guys need to stop trying to nerf things that kill you. I'm done with these nerf the mowtar threads because the same arguments go on and on and they never change anything. Also maybe you guys should wait till you try the new weapon scripts before you suggest changes.