Remove/Nerf Custom Grenades

[UNDUS]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Custom grenades can be made which:

- explode in a 5x5 radius

- instakill t3s

- function as landmines (prox sensor)

- are essentially infinite in number

We are getting rounds where literally 90% of xeno kills are from these things. The entire game's balance should not revolve around whether or not research makes a few dozen overpowered grenades.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Less 'automatic victory conditions' for the team that already has the 75% winrate.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Either reduce the amount of chems which custom grenade can hold or just remove them completely. Disable prox/igniter assemblies for grenades so that marines don't have a infinite number of landmines from the get-go.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): See above

Other thoughts: Let's see how long it takes for some of the career marines (dyne, sisserith) to start spamming this thread with poor defenses like 'Just don't get exploded by them, it's easy!'

[Siserith Vassada]

they never instakill 3's except the ones that are designed to be weak... it seems to be that anytihng one side can do to win. the other complains for the nerf bat. also... it's your own fucking faults for running a freaking giant grenades with ten second and proxy timers. they are limited because they use a shiton of chems. research can only make two at the beginning before deployment and then one about every ten minutes.

[UNDUS]

Hey it only took about 45 seconds. Let's address this categorically. I should note that Sisserith is an individual who immediately runs to research every round and asks the same person to make him a few dozen chemical grenades. I wonder why he might not want them adjusted or removed? Anyway.

they never instakill 3's except the ones that are designed to be weak

Are ravagers designed to be weak? I witnessed three ravagers die instantly to these grenades last round. Maybe you meant that every alien is 'designed to be weak', which is not far from the truth right now.

also... it's your own fucking faults for running a freaking giant grenades with ten second and proxy timers.

Yes, you're right. The aliens should just leave an area alone, forever, if a grenade is placed there. A permanent area denial agent that cannot be counterplayed is totally balanced and good.

they are limited because they use a shiton of chems. research can only make two at the beginning before deployment and then one about every ten minutes.

Considering we just finished a round where you had 24 of them 1 hour and 22 minutes in, I think you may not be telling us the truth! Could it be the case that you're omitting the important detail that there is more than one chemical dispenser on the Sulaco, so you're not actually limited to using the one in research to make these retarded things?

[kurugi]

I've never seen them "instakill" even a t1. Maybe a boiler, but that's his fault. This is literally the only combat related thing researcher can do.
-1

[Derpislav]

they are limited because they use a shiton of chems. research can only make two at the beginning before deployment and then one about every ten minutes.

This. If you think it's possible to mass-produce them, you've obviously never player researcher. And unless you make yourself an autoloathe (...surprisingly many researches don't even know how) you're limited to 6 grenades with plain old timers. Even a robust researcher like myself can barely fill a belt with large grenades before aliens board Sulaco and break into his lab.


People were warned and jobbanned for spamming ripleys, using emitters, using chloral, using pneumatic cannons, using (...) - basically everything that's not a gun. That's an issue in itself, but if that's the approach we take, then let's just warn people abusing grenades instead of straight up removing them, okay? Researchers are already limited to only making grenades, and only explosive ones*.

*Smoke isn't disallowed, but simply doesn't work on xenos. A rare case where something was coded out instead of getting the "you use - you bant" sticker.

[Dyne]

Seen them kill runners occasionally, stun/crit t2s. Also seen them blow up five marines.
Pretty hard to make, so unless researchers get other things to do (something alien corpses related, finally?) -1 from me.

[UNDUS]

This. If you think it's possible to mass-produce them, you've obviously never player researcher. And unless you make yourself an autoloathe (...surprisingly many researches don't even know how) you're limited to 6 grenades with plain old timers. Even a robust researcher like myself can barely fill a belt with large grenades before aliens board Sulaco and break into his lab.


People were warned and jobbanned for spamming ripleys, using emitters, using chloral, using pneumatic cannons, using (...) - basically everything that's not a gun. That's an issue in itself, but if that's the approach we take, then let's just warn people abusing grenades instead of straight up removing them, okay? Researchers are already limited to only making grenades, and only explosive ones*.

*Smoke isn't disallowed, but simply doesn't work on xenos. A rare case where something was coded out instead of getting the "you use - you bant" sticker.

We just had a round where he had several dozen in just below an hour and thirty minutes. This was plenty to kill the entire alien population including all of the T3s.

I don't care if the fix to this is code or administrative action: something needs to be done about it. It's a shitty gimmick that auto-wins rounds for the marines whenever it's done, just like mass ripleys did. And he does it every single round, or dies trying.

[Nero3217]

Can we take out smoke bombs then since they don't do anything to xenos at all? They're as useless as flashbangs.

[kurugi]

We just had a round where he had several dozen in just below an hour and thirty minutes. This was plenty to kill the entire alien population including all of the T3s.

I don't care if the fix to this is code or administrative action: something needs to be done about it. It's a shitty gimmick that auto-wins rounds for the marines whenever it's done, just like mass ripleys did. And he does it every single round, or dies trying.

You mean like the aliens 2 rounds ago turning the entire colony into a hive before the marines even got down? The one where they won in an hour and 14 minutes with 33 xenos still alive?

[KeyWii]

Hell, I hardly ever see custom grenades being used myself, and when I do, they're doing more damage to the Marines throwing them than to the Xenos.

[UNDUS]

You mean like the aliens 2 rounds ago turning the entire colony into a hive before the marines even got down? The one where they won in an hour and 14 minutes with 33 xenos still alive?

Sounds like you should make a thread about this rather than trying to derail this one with childish 'I know you are but what am I!' garbage.

[Nubs]

These things are Stunningly powerful:

I definitely counted more than 6 of them, whatever they were.

Just one of those blasted things killed four aliens at once, and nearly critted a t3:





Do the marines really need any more advantages?

[UNDUS]

That one actually did crit a T3 even though he was on the outer perimeter of the blast range, but he was dragged onto weeds before he could bleed out. I saw two other ravagers die instantly, not even go crit, to these grenades.

[Siserith Vassada]

70% of the time. these will blow up next to marines killing them, i use explosives more effectively than most. who usually overuse/waste them or kill teammates with them. if you know that those flashy cylinders that blow up in a huge boom do that... then you should have the initiative to run away from them especially if these were used throughout the round instead of charging right at them. i've also been hit by these grenades myself. when i was a ravager it took about 3/5'ts of my heath but i was able to kill the marine that threw it and retreat to the safety of weeds. and the only reason that those four died. was because two aliens next to them did not drag them onto weeds... also note. that those are runners. runners are weaker that the rest of the aliens. most of the time i ended up having to chase down and finish off the aliens i blew up with a m4.

[Bachri]

I basically just now made an account in order to point out how quick everyone jumped in to defend these grenades. Like really, I'm pretty sure this thread is the fastest-growing one that I've ever seen, and half of it is people trying to -1 a valid suggestion.

*Edit*
I should probably rephrase that. What I mean is half of the people here seem to be completely downplaying the suggestion with comments such as "I've never seen it."

Because if you never see it, obviously it never happens, is what I meant.

[UNDUS]

The two people defending them are:

Siserith, the person who just killed several dozen aliens with these grenades (and will probably do it again next round)

Dyne, the marine player who obsessively spams any topic that involves marines being nerfed with poor counter-arguments. He even did this to the threads about spit having the bugged 90% missrate.

The majority of posts in the suggestions forum are this weird kind of team politics stuff, where players, especially marine players, just can't handle the opposing team ever getting anything. I think it's probably because people intrinsically sympathize more with the human/military team more and want them to win, so they take the battle OOC and campaign for endless buffs as well.

[Dyne]

Yes, get personal, it really helps Suggestion threads. ;-)

[Siserith Vassada]

both sides want the other side nerfed and weakened. both sides want themselves buffed.

[UNDUS]

The difference is that only one of the sides has a 75-90% winrate.

[kurugi]

The difference is that only one of the sides has a 75-90% winrate.

63.8% actually. And that was measured right after marines got their shiny new turret. There's also boilers now.

[UNDUS]

63.8% actually. And that was measured right after marines got their shiny new turret. There's also boilers now.

Yes, measured right before boilers were added, making everyone choose spit castes in order to evolve into them - and also right before, coincidentally, the spit castes had their spit nerfed to only hit ~50% of the time at POINT BLANK range and 0% of the time past 5 tiles.

I should also note that boilers being added is a hindrance to alien victory-rate even if you disregard the problems with spit, because boilers are shit, bombardment is blocked by teammates, and they are generally just giant liabilities.

The winrate would be more like 95% if it had been measured in the past week. But anyway, this should be discussed somewhere else - we're discussing custom grenades and how they are not remotely balanced.

[Dyne]

both sides want the other side nerfed and weakened. both sides want themselves buffed

I still want SADAR two-handed, for the record. Firing delay is not enough. My immersions suffer.
But that offtopic a bit.

Back on grenades:
1. Done by research. (they dont have much to do otherwise)
2. Need resources and time.
3. Motivate aliens to be smart and finish it earlier.
Good in my book as marine, though dont use them myself.

As alien:
1. Low in numbers.
2. Carried by marines, usually with relatively long timer.
3. Run or spit or throw hugger=profit and big holes in marines ranks and defensive structures, kiss all those sentries and barricades bye-bye.

So far seen such grenades only two times when alive, both as alien player. It killed a runner by me and stunned/critted my Carrier, was saved;
other time I spit at marine and it blew a group of five.
Thats the reason for my -1.

[Derpislav]

Okay, since my first post was just filled with rage at the suggestion of removing yet another thing to do from the researcher (why not just remove research from the map, then?), second try.

I've never seen marines using grenades effectively, but I believe you - apparently a few chosen ones have recently learned which part of the grenade is the pin and are now using this knowledge to great effect.
Something has to be done, but please. If you make Sulaco-made grenades not viable, just remove research, then. It takes 15 minutes to almost max out research, higher levels are simply not needed because you will never get the materials needed for the protoloathe. Then you're stuck making laser scalpels and stun guns forever, with an occasional cooling system circuit board for engineering. And you can try to make medicine, but generally the CMO will be very unhappy at you stealing his doctor's jerbs.


By the way, proximity sensors only detect people on "run". Switch your intent to "stalk", steal the grenades, drag them on board of the shuttle for maximum lmaos.

[UNDUS]

If you make Sulaco-made grenades not viable, just remove research, then.

Research even in its current form just isn't a complete enough set of tasks to warrant its own job. It should be added to medical or engineering, probably.

[kurugi]

Yes, measured right before boilers were added, making everyone choose spit castes in order to evolve into them - and also right before, coincidentally, the spit castes had their spit nerfed to only hit ~50% of the time at POINT BLANK range and 0% of the time past 5 tiles.

I should also note that boilers being added is a hindrance to alien victory-rate even if you disregard the problems with spit, because boilers are shit, bombardment is blocked by teammates, and they are generally just giant liabilities.

The winrate would be more like 95% if it had been measured in the past week. But anyway, this should be discussed somewhere else - we're discussing custom grenades and how they are not remotely balanced.

So you're saying aliens are shit and the queen should be yelling at people to not evolve into shit aliens.