I want to start by justifying putting it in here. the rest of the forum is, to put it lightly, filled with inexperienced players with no idea of how the gameplay works. Frankly i don't think we need them either to discuss this. That said, i'm sure the veterans here are some of the most closed minded and "fixed" on what empires gameplay should be like. I too am guilty of that from time to time. anyway WARNING WALL OF TEXT (sorry) currently as i look at the grenadier, i see a class which is quite average at killing tanks. if you're with a squad and a light tank comes your way, it's less than likely that you'll fight it off even if you do have a grenadier. BUT the grenadier class is balanced, and that's because he's actually pretty damn good at the moment at killing infantry. often the class is BETTER than a rifleman, in the right hands, at killing infantry. let's be clear about one thing. the grenadier does not have a mortar. the grenadier has a grenade launcher. here's a pic of one: anyone who knows or can hazard a guess as to how that works will know that it works exactly as the mortar in empires does. and what this grenade launcher does to the grenadier class is allow it to be a front line anti infantry unit. so what do i propose is to change the mortar, from a grenade launcher, to a mortar. to do this; -change the minimum pitch that it must be set at to fire to 45 degrees. This means that when using the mortar, users will have to use it as a real mortar and use a high fire arc. from wikipedia: "mortars were praised because of the shell's high angle of flight; a mortar round could be aimed to fall directly into trenches where artillery shells, due to their low angle of flight, could not possibly go." -incread pre-fire delay, so that when one fires it shows the player dropping the shell into the chamber and it imidiately firing, as a real mortar works. whats more, no extra animations would be needed because we can use the current reload animations. what this also does is remove the "snap shooting". -increase damage and splash radius... to around the power of an HE shell. given the high flight time, players which look up will be able to see the mortars coming down and be able to avoid. this increase in power would be in line with the weapon becoming more of a support weapon. with these changes, the mortar would still certainly be very useful, especially in trench combat or against groups of infantry. instead of aiming to hit the enemies right on, a mortar user can do pleanty of damage with a high arc. when confronted by an enemy unit, instead of being able to use the grenade launcher to potentially kill him instantly, he'll have to rely on his pistol, which means that he will certainly not be so much an anti infantry unit. but to counter the decrease in his infantry fighting, his mortar damage has increased so that vs structures he would now be about the same as grenade spam from an engineer. whats more, the rocket launcher's homing ability and damage could be improved, a problem which irritated many people and made fighting tanks all but impossible for any inexperienced players. Overall vs infantry: worse vs tanks and buildings: improved what this does is it moves the classes apart; now an effective squad does only need one grenadier to fight off tanks, but instead should take along a rifleman or other anti infantry to . instead of every class able to do everything in a medicor way, classes will be more effective BUT only if they support eachother. going off rambo will not be as effective because as soon as you encounter something you're not effective against you'll suffer, just as riflemen do now vs tanks, but this will encorage teamplay.
If you just want the class to do less against infantry, why not just change the mortars damage or radius?
Actually, I REALLY like this idea more then just changing damage or radius. I understand it's harder to do, but just giving my opinion on it. Only thing I wonder is how to aim it when you view will be off into the sky(45 degrees or higher). In bf 1942 you could view using the view the sniper had we he called for artillery. If that was somehow possible, I'd go crazy of joy right now :D Make spotting for artillery on the scout much better. Will give scouts more of a roll and more reason to use them now for people who wont use because of no sniper. My 2 Cents :]]]
I also like that idea alot. That would make "artillery feedback" useful even if you are not sitting in an artillery tank. It would also improve how classes interact. The grenadier would then depend on scout to give them targets AND riflemen to protect them AND engineers to bring them ammo; which means the grenadier would depend on all other classes, that is about the best we can achieve.
I never really understood Krenzo's stand on the mortar being anti-infantry, rather than anti-building...ofc, I don't know that much about mortars :p So what you want to do is buff RPG's vs tanks, and 'nerf' mortars vs infantry? This suggestion has been running a while...
It is. Damage done to buildings is usually just because of bad aiming at infantry, or to keep them from having rest in a city.
the mortar would still be effective against infantry, improved as a support weapon instead of taking them on head to head.
I don't think making the mortar a support weapon a great idea, best and easiest thing we could do is put the penalty before shooting back into place, the one some people bitched about during 1.x
Probably too many mech games back in the day on my part:p If you're thinking of putting a penalty on reloading, why not make it that you have to stay still to reload and takes a while to shoot, but the payoff you get is much greater - i.e. damage radius is greatly increased (tho I suppose damage should be reduced a mite to compensate).
lolz ^ yeah hey, remember fun? this slows the game down even more... and sounds kinda boring my 2 cents
@deadpool, grapehead; this is nothing to do with a nerf of the weapon. this is not balancing. this is changing the role of the class. yes, he WILL be weaker vs infantry. yes, you won't get that fun of killing infantry head on in one on ones as grenadier. but you will be able to get many many more kills on infantry in any situation where you can help your team from a support position; in that position the grenadier will definately be deadly, and i'm sure that'll be fun too. it won't slow down the game; vs tanks and buildings it'll certainly actually make the grenadier somewhat effective. there's no point in me arguing this any more; the people that think empires is perfect as it is and like their little section of it will always veto whatever changes are put forward. plus a dev disagrees, so it's finished. I'll be surprised if in 10 years empires gameplay is any different to how it is now.
No empires is not perfect as is.. But the mowtar is one of the things in emp that is near perfect in balance and fun aspects.. I see what your saying, I even suggested it a long time ago(woot HE mowtar shells) but I really like the distance it has right now.. I can see the people I kill and watch body's fly thru the air! And getting kills isn't what makes it fun it's the challenge and being able to succeed that makes it fun. Plus the splash damage is too small to fill the square that the arty skill shows.. If the gren is more of a support class he has no reason to use a lot of the general skills like speed/stamina/health.. And those are the ones I use the most but if I can just shoot from even farther away I won't need em. It's really fun running around the chaos..
The grenadier can't kill infantry head to head... even a scout or an engineer; it is always indirect shelling that kills infantry. If you decide to hump cover and nade spam; grenadiers flush infantry out. With the distance and cover seen in Empires maps this is never an issue; as either the gren has support covering him; or is of higher skill. The mortar IS a support weapon right now, and rarley a "One shot one kill" affair. Remeber that district is a "Fun Map" and to some extent so are Escort and Glycen, to drasticaly alter a class just for the sake of non-standard maps is beyond absurd to me.
