Explosive Nerf

[Steelpoint]

I've discovered that the recent patch made a unannounced change to how explosives deal damage. Apparently explosives were severely weakened in the new patch, a direct hit with a HE rocket, for example, barely deals half damage to most Aliens, and even runners are surviving point black hits from explosions.

I'm putting up this thread to figure out exactly what is going on with explosives, considering right now Grenades can't even crit a lowly Runner let alone deal any damage to anything above T1, and Rockets seem to be dealing little damage against even low level aliens.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

Hmmm interesting.

[Steelpoint]

Considering the new addition of the Crusher this is also a more severe nerf, considering they all but ignore Explosives.

[K0NFL1QT]

One of the staff told us there was an adjustment to explosives, but it was only lowering HE rocket radius by one tile. I don't know how much damage it's supposed to do or how much it does to the tiles around the point of impact though. Knowing its damage is poor I generally only use HE just for the AoE knockdown and AP for single target damage.

[Surrealistik]

If explosives were systemically nerfed it wouldn't surprise me. It's like the devs are balancing around the shuttlecamp 'strategy' rather than trying to fix it...

Thereby encouraging more shuttle camping because pretty soon that will be the _only_ way to kill the aliens.

[Steelpoint]

I created this thread to figure out not only what has, if anything, been changed with explosives recently but also to brainstorm how we want explosives to function in the game.

I'm not going to jump to conclusions and assume that any nerf has been solely directed towards the issue of shuttle combat, because that being true would show a marked lack of foresight.

If explosives such as Rockets are too common, for example, a better balancing act would not be in reducing their power (considering the launchers rarity of there usually being only one or two for over fifty marines) but in making getting more rockets more expensive, so you could look at buffing the explosive ammo crate to 75 or so points, thus making each individual rocket more valuable instead of making the rockets weaker.

Again, I want to figure out what the developers are doing, or not doing. One of the biggest annoyance with closed source development is that it takes far longer to figure out what changes have occurred with the game.

[K0NFL1QT]

Shuttle bombing is already pretty much the only reliable way to win. You get a lot of aliens trapped in a small space with a few small and known exits. As long as Command are paying attention and communicating, or somehow getting intel from the ground, they can usually tell when the shuttle is being operated by the Aliens. Then it's only a matter of getting marines armed and surrounding the shuttle, and when there's an opening you fill it with rockets and grenades. It must be frustrating as hell to be on the receiving end of this, but it's so cathartic to pull off.

The complete inability to fortify the hangar means surrounding and bombing an infected shuttle is the best and most viable way to repel a Sulaco invasion. The marines seem to be getting good at it, so long as they have the population. Again, problem is that Marines no longer have any defense against Aliens so bombing the shit out of them is one of the few ways Marines can come back/get ahead.

Heck, I've seen the shuttle bomb strategy fail hard now that there's usually several Crushers around to tank the explosives and push out into Marine ranks, so those days could be behind us. Hopefully Marines either get something that can deal with the Crusher waves, or a new strategy evolves that isn't just 'rush forward with a group and get facehugged surround it'.

[flaksim]

Marines do feel rather weak compared to the aliens lately, especially since it becomes pitifully easy to down a large group of them, and waltz past their defences.
With an explosive nerf, the last viable way to take out the aliens is taken away aswell.

There are several balancing issues with marines vs aliens, like the sniper rifle being shit for example, and crushers and other T3 aliens not having a hard cap, creating huge waves of unstoppable aliens as the round progresses.

((Not to mention a crusher being immune to an orbital bombardment is ridiculous, I mean seriously, it shrugs off the main cannon of a spaceship? The kinetic force alone would vaporize anything.))

[UNDUS]

I personally like explosives being low-damage. There's essentially no way to avoid the explosives if they're used correctly (mines hidden amongst tons of junk, grenades cooked such that they explode instantly when thrown, etc.) so it always feels like 'well, what was I supposed to do there' when you get instakilled by them. A weapon with no counterplay. At least as low-damage stunning tools the marines have to follow up with some small arms fire to finish the kill.

While we're talking about explosives, I think the grenade launcher needs some sort of buff that makes it better than hand-cooking grenades.

[Artyom]

Low damage my ass.

Some dick just launched a rocket at me when I tried to grab his friend and run, almost killing his friend and knocking me unconscious. So the marines shoot me when I'm down.

[UnknownMurder]

What is a suggestion doing in General Discussion?

[K0NFL1QT]

It's not a suggestion, it's a discussion. A suggestion requires a problem and a stated solution, this thread acknowledges a problem and invites a discussion on the current state of explosives in the Marine meta. A suggestion might come out of it if we can nail down the problem and the direction that CM is being moved in, because just saying 'give more radius and damage' is not going to happen when those things are being specifically targeted for reduction.

[Dreviore]

I noticed grenades do almost nothing to aliens now though.

Hell they do next to nothing to marines as well.

[Dyne]

C4 was put on my marine character today, and she lived.
Feels like all explosves need a bit of a buff.
Took three grenades from a grenade launcher to kill a runner recently.

[Dintin]

It's pretty laughable when, as a T1 Runner, I can waltz merrily into a landmine without really worrying at all about my health.

[Steelpoint]

From what I've seen in game direct hits from explosions don't seem to be even critting aliens, at least grenades and mines. Its hard to tell the effects of rockets due to either all the times I've seen a rocket used ended with Marines gunning down the stunned Aliens or the Aliens being inaccessible and dragged onto weeds to heal.

[Steelpoint]

At the very least I would like to know what, if any, changes were made very recently to explosives. There's no info on the changelog but something definitely is different.

[Steelpoint]

I finally had a chance to use the SADAR today and here are my thoughts.

The SADAR simply won't kill a Alien by itself, the only time's I've gotten a kill is when I immediately followed up a Rocket with SMG fire to finish off the stunned Aliens.

In fact if you renamed the SADAR to the STUN ROCKET that would be a accurate description.

I even fired a AP rocket at a wounded Crusher and a Ravager, directly, and it still got up to run away.

I still love the SADAR but it really is underperforming, and I must again stress this is a highly rare weapon with ammo in very limited supply, not some attachment every second Marine gets.

[FreddeX91]

I think explosives should be pretty powerful AND dangerous to everyone involved. I mean I rarely, if ever, see explosives except for the odd mine or grenade so I think they should pack quite a punch. At the same time I feel that the consequences for messing up with them should be pretty severe (you know, like in real life). Right now I don't feel like that is what is going on, because last night I was too close to a mine when it went off and all that happened was that I got knocked unconscious for like five seconds before I got up (completely unharmed) and spent the next five or so minutes being deaf.

[Steelpoint]

On that note I had a horrible mis fire earlier with the SADAR (HE) (I fired above the Dropship's cockpit but I mistook the half wall for no wall, thus the rocket hit the wall next to me) and I spent the next 10 minutes in semi-crit while I was facehugged.

In that situation I should have just died, no one in the history of ever has survived a near point blank explosion from a rocket launcher, triple so from a rocket designed to kill infantry. I can fully understand T3 Xeno's not being one-shot killed by even AP rockets (Old AP did around 60% or so damage according to a dev a while ago).

But I think making the SADAR a high risk, high reward, weapon would also help further balance out its power.

[UNDUS]

Some explosives facts for the current patch since I don't think people understand how they are right now. They were recently buffed.

1) SADAR HE puts a runner into crit even if it's a splash damage hit

2) Mines insta-crit runners

[Steelpoint]

I should reiterate that explosive damage was 'slightly' buffed in the last day, meaning now Runners actually do go into crit.

That does not detract from my point, the SADAR (and other explosives) are still too weak against Aliens. Aliens just shrug off Rockets, the SADAR is just a over glorified flashbang.

[Artouris]

To be honest i think explosives were just nerf'd too hard. Which removes a good effective all game weapon. Since rockets explode and have a area of effect, which is great with dealing with a annoying alien who just keeps faffing about out of reasonable shooting range (aka seeing the bullet and just moving to the side in the time it takes for the bullet to get there). Defensive use of explosives has also taken a hit with the likes of the Crusher. Which is able to waltz right past any land mines and is more so always leading the charge so it'll run over the land mines. I can understand the anger of feeling that you die in one hit from a explosive, but thats what it is. I would understand if we had it not kill you in one hit if you COULDNT SEE THEM. But you can, and aliens meta explosives anyway, so what if its under a tile or something? Just examine the tile and dont charge into it if it does a one hit kill.

I guess the major problem just stems from the fact that the risk/rewards of explosives is gone. Theres no reward for defensive placement of explosives lategame because crushers will waltz over them blowing them up. There's no good reward for risking a pretty much expensive ammo type because you can't guarntee a kill or hit with it because the alien has the chance to run away (this is grenades but SADAR too) or not die. Some stuff is not fair, and that's that. One Hitting Tier 1s or doing massive amounts of damage as explosives should be a thing. At least the aliens have a chance to fight that. Theres stuff marines can't fight because a good amount of the alien's tools literally take your ability to react in the game (spit, pounce, etc) and then aliens come and just flat out kill you or something else which is about the same thing since you have no control over what transpires.

TL;DR: Explosives Nerf hurts marines along with crusher added really hard. The risk/reward for using explosives is gone or pretty bad. And balance is alright but theres some things that aren't balanced nor should ever be.

[UNDUS]

>100 damage and a long stun or crit-KO is a lot IMO. Do you think SADAR HE should be 1hitting T1s, going past crit and straight into an instakill? I personally don't think that's fair and I play both sides.

I get the feeling specialists aren't meant to be solo machines that can noscope aliens to death with no teamwork required. They're supposed to be a component of a team, and if you're working with others it's easy to get them to put some bullets into a crit or stunned xeno.

As for lategame mines being messed up by crushers - mines had no counterplay besides throwing lots of aliens at them before, and it was stupid.

[Dyne]

Mines have one simple counter play. Find alternate routes.