RUNNING WITH RIFLES :: View topic - Balancing grenades (Yes more)

Grenades are very often the only way to kill an entrenched machinegunner, as shooting him over the wall/crate/whatever-he-is-behind is nigh impossible, and closing in to lob a grenade over the cover would be suicide.

The problem is that standing behind any sort of cover you can shoot over makes you almost invulnerable. In practice, shooting X mags against anyone standing behind a crate will most likely leave them unharmed, making the point of any supression fire moot. The current map also isn't much suited to tactical maneuvres as often there's practically no cover for the attacking team on all sides of the base except one.

I haven't noticed that standing behind a wall makes you invulnerable, especially crates are not that good covers even if you crouch as your head peeks above the crate and also it doesn't take much for the enemy to move and shoot you on the side. I feel I'm getting killed quite often if I just stay standing behind a wall, thus I'm mostly crouching and taking just a few quick bursts standing and back to crouch to stay alive.

The grenade bounce physics are pretty bad. Throwing a grenade into a trench with a steep height slope can actually bounce the grenade out of the trench, which isn't intentional

Also, throwing a grenade when crouching and facing a sandbag wall, makes the grenade bounce from the wall upwards making the grenade fly a lot farther than without the bounce, which is again not intentional.

The grenade throw distance seems pretty ok to me. Mostly when I throw a grenade, I find it doesn't fly that far that I was hoping for, the exception being the bug with getting strange bounces. Also, if you throw a grenade downhill, of course it flies longer.

As for the original post, the grenade boxes will get something at some point that makes them limited. Probably the grenade box will just become a grenade spawn point, so that there's a certain amount of grenades on top of the box at max and it takes some specific interval for a new grenade to pop up there.

Maybe make the grenade entity heavier so it can't bounce as high?

And also, maybe crates are random spawns around the map? And when one crate gets depleted, it turns to a regular crate, and another grenade box is spawned around the map somewhere?

And to keep it fair, a grenade box spawns on whichever side's territory that doesn't have as many grenade boxes.

Example: Green has 6 boxes, grey has 4. The next crate will spawn in Grey territory.

And when a base is capped, and a box is in that land area, it will be added to the captors box count, and deplete the losers box count.

One option would be to get rid of those grenade boxes altogether. To compensate, grenades could then be found inside the usual crates by breaking them.

Author:	Mystery [ Fri Aug 19, 2011 3:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Balancing grenades (Yes more)
As far as individual grenades go they work fine, they are pretty well balanced in fact although in preparation for online play i can see grenade boxes being abused fairly easily by standing besides one and spamming grenades. Perhaps something like a 30 second lockout per each container or even between them all.

Author:	Jason9mm [ Sat Aug 20, 2011 9:43 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
Standing at a grenade box should expose the player to an easy grenade kill as well, so that might not be a big issue after all. However, I'd seriously consider shortening the maximum throw length. A lot. I think grenades are currently a hugely powerful (in essence overpowered) weapon, as they have the huge advantage of taking out enemies behind cover and they don't have that much of a disadvantage of shorter range (especially as they bounce very far). Also, in pretty much every multiplayer game with grenades, they are the first thing people try to exploit (by spamming), and I think with the way they currently are, that would pay off handsomely. It would also be interesting to see how the nature of the game changes if grenades were a short distance option only. Another thing to consider is that maybe throwing, at least far, would be less accurate. I've made enough long distance precision kills with 'nades to come to see them as personal GPS-guided JDAMs

Author:	Commander Keen [ Sat Aug 20, 2011 10:50 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
Grenades are very often the only way to kill an entrenched machinegunner, as shooting him over the wall/crate/whatever-he-is-behind is nigh impossible, and closing in to lob a grenade over the cover would be suicide. I think the real problem is, as Mystery said, in the grenade box, as it essentially transfers your soldier into an automatic grenade launcher.

Author:	Jason9mm [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 9:14 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
Commander Keen wrote: Grenades are very often the only way to kill an entrenched machinegunner, as shooting him over the wall/crate/whatever-he-is-behind is nigh impossible, and closing in to lob a grenade over the cover would be suicide. ... and this means the machinegunner is playing to his strentghs, as he should. Basically, he's doing a good job. And this forces, as it should, the enemy team to do something to recapture the advantage; flank the machinegunner, do a pincer move from two directions at once, get some suppression fire going to help the brave grenade guy get close. I really don't think the hand grenade should be a long distance instakiller cruise missile, as that negates even the best play (for example when a machinegunner knows what his weapon is good for and knows how to maximize his potential by picking a great firing position).

Author:	Commander Keen [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 2:38 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
The problem is that standing behind any sort of cover you can shoot over makes you almost invulnerable. In practice, shooting X mags against anyone standing behind a crate will most likely leave them unharmed, making the point of any supression fire moot. The current map also isn't much suited to tactical maneuvres as often there's practically no cover for the attacking team on all sides of the base except one. Grenade range currently seems to be just a little over the top. Toning down the range a bit and increasing it's arc might work good, currently the grenade hits an obstacle it should really fly over. Making them fly over obstacles at the cost of range seems like a good tradeoff for me, and would better differentiate them from rifles. It might remove their WMD ability too. BTW, all those issues can be seen in this video: 1:18 -> supposedly too long range 1:50 - 2:13 -> too low flying grenades 5:14 - 6:12 -> cover invulnerability

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Author:	Jason9mm [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:25 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
Commander Keen wrote: The problem is that standing behind any sort of cover you can shoot over makes you almost invulnerable. In practice, shooting X mags against anyone standing behind a crate will most likely leave them unharmed, making the point of any supression fire moot. The current map also isn't much suited to tactical maneuvres as often there's practically no cover for the attacking team on all sides of the base except one. These points I can agree on, but I've been assuming all the time that each of those things will get some tuning too (and therefore I'm thinking about how the grenades might be best in the "final" form of the game). More spread to sustained fire might increase the likelihood of a lucky headshot to a covered target, suppression mechanics for the AI characters could (and maybe should) be introduced and good map design surely will come with time. I don't know if there's any tuning possibilities with cover hitbox (or "blockbox" rather), maybe it could be made so that most cover is 100% safe only for crouched characters, and standing up to fire exposes you to incoming fire quite a bit. And yes, making the grenade arc higher might be a very good idea. It would be easier to throw them over obstacles, they wouldn't bouce so far after hitting the ground for the first time (another aspect of shortening the total range), the grenade flight time would be slightly longer, which in turn would make the grenade explode sooner after landing. Currently, I think, there's just a bit too much time for the receivers of an exploding gift to gauge exactly where the grenade will end up and explode, thus making evasion quite easy.

Author:	pasik [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:08 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
I haven't noticed that standing behind a wall makes you invulnerable, especially crates are not that good covers even if you crouch as your head peeks above the crate and also it doesn't take much for the enemy to move and shoot you on the side. I feel I'm getting killed quite often if I just stay standing behind a wall, thus I'm mostly crouching and taking just a few quick bursts standing and back to crouch to stay alive. The grenade bounce physics are pretty bad. Throwing a grenade into a trench with a steep height slope can actually bounce the grenade out of the trench, which isn't intentional Also, throwing a grenade when crouching and facing a sandbag wall, makes the grenade bounce from the wall upwards making the grenade fly a lot farther than without the bounce, which is again not intentional. The grenade throw distance seems pretty ok to me. Mostly when I throw a grenade, I find it doesn't fly that far that I was hoping for, the exception being the bug with getting strange bounces. Also, if you throw a grenade downhill, of course it flies longer. As for the original post, the grenade boxes will get something at some point that makes them limited. Probably the grenade box will just become a grenade spawn point, so that there's a certain amount of grenades on top of the box at max and it takes some specific interval for a new grenade to pop up there.

Author:	Rendered [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
pasik wrote: I haven't noticed that standing behind a wall makes you invulnerable, especially crates are not that good covers even if you crouch as your head peeks above the crate and also it doesn't take much for the enemy to move and shoot you on the side. I feel I'm getting killed quite often if I just stay standing behind a wall, thus I'm mostly crouching and taking just a few quick bursts standing and back to crouch to stay alive. The grenade bounce physics are pretty bad. Throwing a grenade into a trench with a steep height slope can actually bounce the grenade out of the trench, which isn't intentional Also, throwing a grenade when crouching and facing a sandbag wall, makes the grenade bounce from the wall upwards making the grenade fly a lot farther than without the bounce, which is again not intentional. The grenade throw distance seems pretty ok to me. Mostly when I throw a grenade, I find it doesn't fly that far that I was hoping for, the exception being the bug with getting strange bounces. Also, if you throw a grenade downhill, of course it flies longer. As for the original post, the grenade boxes will get something at some point that makes them limited. Probably the grenade box will just become a grenade spawn point, so that there's a certain amount of grenades on top of the box at max and it takes some specific interval for a new grenade to pop up there. Maybe make the grenade entity heavier so it can't bounce as high? And also, maybe crates are random spawns around the map? And when one crate gets depleted, it turns to a regular crate, and another grenade box is spawned around the map somewhere? And to keep it fair, a grenade box spawns on whichever side's territory that doesn't have as many grenade boxes. Example: Green has 6 boxes, grey has 4. The next crate will spawn in Grey territory. And when a base is capped, and a box is in that land area, it will be added to the captors box count, and deplete the losers box count.

Author:	pasik [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
Rendered wrote: Maybe make the grenade entity heavier so it can't bounce as high? And also, maybe crates are random spawns around the map? And when one crate gets depleted, it turns to a regular crate, and another grenade box is spawned around the map somewhere? And to keep it fair, a grenade box spawns on whichever side's territory that doesn't have as many grenade boxes. Example: Green has 6 boxes, grey has 4. The next crate will spawn in Grey territory. And when a base is capped, and a box is in that land area, it will be added to the captors box count, and deplete the losers box count. There's more to it than just the weight of the grenade, the implementation for collision response from the terrain is incorrect. One option would be to get rid of those grenade boxes altogether. To compensate, grenades could then be found inside the usual crates by breaking them.

Author:	Cosme IV [ Sun Aug 21, 2011 5:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Balancing grenades (Yes more)
pasik wrote: One option would be to get rid of those grenade boxes altogether. To compensate, grenades could then be found inside the usual crates by breaking them. But if you would blow the crate with a grenade, wouldn't that make the grenade inside blow as well? Or maybe make a special explosives crate which you have to break to get some grenades, which unlike in certain other FPSs, would be avoided by soldiers most of the time. And would also explode at close contact with an explosion.

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