Delete Thunder from the game

(Ritobasu) #1

Really now? Yeah, let’s ignore our newest Assault’s most pressing issues and make him even worse.

Concussion grenades working inconsistently? People hosing you down with arms over their faces after you flashbang a room and entering immediately? No worries, SD to the rescue!

  • Removed ‘cooking’ from Concussion Grenades
  • Reduced fuse time to 1.6s (from 2.0s)
  • Looking away from Concussion Grenades now dramatically reduces the duration of the blinding effect
  • The severity of the movement stun effect now correctly scales down over distance
  • The movement stun effect now gradually recovers over time
  • Removed the mouse sensitivity reduction from the stun effect

No cooking with flashbangs allowed, because that’s a toxic game mechanic and allows no counterplay according to Shoe. Nevermind about Fragger airbursting a pineapple next to you and one shotting with almost no warning, we like him where he’s at right now in the competitive meta.

People seemingly not getting flashed even though they’re concussed? Take it easy, SD got your back! Now your enemies have a brief chance to look away and be even less affected!

Players whining about having their mouse sensitivity reduced because a Thunder landed the perfect CG on them? No no, we can’t have that! Let’s remove the mouse sensitivity reduction so people have an even better chance to escape or fight back!

Thunder users are saying his primaries are underwhelming and outclassed by Fragger’s? The Mk46 is an 85 round KEK 10 with more spread? Pssshh, it’s awesome! Just look it up on Youtube and see the rave reviews! You’re just not using it right, just flash the room with the new and improved Concussion Grenade!

Remove this sick joke of an Assault Merc until you properly decide the direction Thunder will be in (my suggestion is someone with non-lethal grenades but much more lethal primaries than a certain other Assault). Because right now, there’s ZERO incentive to use him over Pineapple Man. I really had high hopes that Thunder would at least provide variety if not upset the current meta, but he really has no place in Fragger Bomb™ now.

(doxjq) #2

I must admit, as annoying as Thunders grenade is he seems incredibly useless in combat. My initial impression before he was released was that he was supposed to counter Fragger for slaying power, but he is such a large target and being so slow he is very easy to take down. I’m often taking out Thunders by myself with my Proxy/Hochfir combo which is nothing special.

Admittedly I haven’t actually used Thunder myself, I have no intention of using him either, a little bit because of everything I said above but mostly because of his lack of perks. If he had weapons more effective at range I would consider it, but they’ve said they will not be changing the guns for any mercs apparently. His concussion grenade just doesn’t do enough, and sure it knocks out enemy deployables but I can’t really think of a single time in my 120 hours of gameplay where I’ve thought to myself “Man the enemy deployables are annoying, it’s why we’re losing”

I don’t know. Just doesn’t seem to be a well rounded character. I would love to see a more balanced design, similar to the merc “Frequency” I posted up in the merc suggestion thread, which was basically a lighter, less health, faster version of Thunder, who had the exact same ability as Thunder except it was split into two separate abilities. Being able to disable deployables was separate to the concussion grenade, it was a separate grenade that could be thrown to disable them.

(GottaBeGreg) #3

I think that the real problem is the total denial of the notion that Fragger is not balanced and that he doesnt need changing from SD. Dont get me wrong, Thunder is unfortunately even further into the useless / of very limited use bin now but the root of the problem is that he does not face up to Fragger, which he NEEDS TO. And perhaps the problem isnt Thunder, perhaps its the fact that he has to live up to incredibly high standards.

Humour me this. Envision Dirty Bomb without Fragger.

Congratulations, you just went to a better place than the current Dirty Bomb.

Fragger is basically the character that the devs just said, yeh they can just have some kills ya know? Give em the easiest to control gun in the game and mini nukes, along with a butt tonne of health. ITS BALANCE I TELL YOU, BALANCE.

Spoiler: NO, IT ISN’T!

And as such, Thunder can never become a really good merc unless you either drop Fragger down to size or you pop Thunder up about twenty levels of potential from where he currently is pushing him into the boundaries of balance also. My way of thinking says that 1 Frag grenade every spawn wave is ridiculous if you also only plan on giving one Flash every spawn wave, as the Frag is about, oh I dont know, two kills per nade better, considering the follow up from the Flash is hard enough on this lumbering beast at 385 speed.

So you know what? I think this OP is right. Take Thunder out, bring him back when he has a spot. Work some way to refund us our credits / money and admit that you fucked up, because this merc clearly does not belong in this Fragger ruled world.

(Dawnlazy) #4

He’s pretty much the most disappointing merc since Redeye yeah.

(doxjq) #5

I do agree with you, but I do get sick of people saying Fragger is OP. I don’t even use Fragger and he’s not that much of a problem to take out. Over time I’m learning there is no bad merc, but more that everyones play style just suits a different merc more so than others.

Heck everyone is arguing about Phantom being useless, but find a really good Phantom at the moment and he is still incredibly dangerous.

Even me. I’m an aim heavy player, probably about as aim heavy as you can get. Naturally you would think I would dominate with slaying power related characters (Fragger, Skyhammer, M4 welding characters etc) but my best merc seems to be Proxy. It’s just the blend of her speed and agility aswell as the accuracy and low recoil of the Hochfir, I seem to deal a ton of damage with her. More than any other character any way. Taking out bigger characters has never been a problem. If I come into close combat with a Fragger or a Rhino I quickly throw a mine in their direction and shoot it, and it’s basically an instant kill faster than they can shoot my upperbody 3-4 times.

I think every merc is reasonably well balanced at the moment tbh.

(Dawnlazy) #6

He will stop being OP in the day when having a Fragger + Sawbonez combo stops being obligatory in 100% of cases for high level comp games.

(GottaBeGreg) #7

Couldn’t have put it better myself Dawnrazor. Any obligatory merc in a comp team is wrong.

(triteCherry) #8

Honestly I would love to see a rating of all the mercs based on Fragger.

Like say Redeye would be 2.5 out of 5 Fraggers, Nader can be 4 out of 5 Fraggers, etc.

(uWotm8-AU) #9

Just give him the same grenades as Fragger, enough with this crappy concussion grenade.

He’d be a slightly tougher, slightly slower Fragger with different weapons.

People would use him that way.

Sure, not the most original merc, but at least worth using.

(bontsa) #10

[quote=“Ritobasu;21016”]
No cooking with flashbangs allowed, because that’s a toxic game mechanic and allows no counterplay according to Shoe.[/quote]

Have they honestly stated somewhere something like this? They think cooking was a bad idea to begin with and thats why they hold down giving it to more characters than Fragger who’s had it for ages?

But that thing is easily the most interesting one seeing there is no consistency in the maps to bounce stuff off walls, so we’re pretty much bound to have this as mandatory in order to land anything where we want.

The lack of counterplay is a reasonable concern, but I dont think removing the feature completely should be solution. Rather have the cooking characters shout a voiceline when cooking nade, that gives aware players time to react. Heckerino, this simple change could even open tons of other possibilities. Could be done to make augment like Sneaky (less footstep and other “appropriate noises” less audible) useful: cooking characters with this augment now dont shout said voiceline SO loudly, still saying it nevertheless.

(CCP115) #11

Removing cooking was overkill.

I can’t really comment on the looking away thing, but it makes sense.

Movement speed debuff is fine, rewards them for landing a direct nade.

But removing the mouse sens debuff was great, as it literally made it impossible to fight back. Why bother flashing and slowing if they can’t even aim back? You may as well kill them outright (Fragger).

Hell, even make nades knock enemies around like a TFC nade, anything, just buff Thunder and don’t touch mouse sens.

(Tanker_Ray) #12

I’m dying right now.

Thunder is just one total meat shield. Such free 160 Scores for everyone. Nice.

and still, some people will gonna say ‘Stop whining!’ without even facing the reality.

You can see those guys with paralogia in MK.46 LMG discussion.

Poor Thunder…

([WAR]Larknok1) #13

[quote=“CCP115;118314”]Removing cooking was overkill.

I can’t really comment on the looking away thing, but it makes sense.

Movement speed debuff is fine, rewards them for landing a direct nade.

But removing the mouse sens debuff was great, as it literally made it impossible to fight back. Why bother flashing and slowing if they can’t even aim back? You may as well kill them outright (Fragger).

Hell, even make nades knock enemies around like a TFC nade, anything, just buff Thunder and don’t touch mouse sens.[/quote]

Movement speed debuff is not noticeable. Go ahead. Play as Thunder and concuss yourself while facing away. Pay attention to how little it matters.

As for this: “removing the mouse sens debuff was great, as it literally made it impossible to fight back.”

Except, you know – the 60% of times that concusses did not result in kills for Thunder. But you’re right, we need to change Fragger’s frag and Nader’s Nades that let you take 0 damage if you aren’t looking at the Frag when it goes off. Of course, I’m being sarcastic.

If you, or anybody else thought that the concuss was overpowered pre-patch, you simply didn’t play Thunder, and gave into “OMG, THE NEW MERC CAN DO DAMAGE? OVERPOWERED!” hysteria.

(3N1GM4) #14

I never though thunder was OP… I always get giddy when I see the slow elephant coming at me lol. Free Kill! Slow as rhino, can’t dodge, low dps, and a giant head. Whats not to like about him lol.

They didn’t have to remove the mouse sensitivity completely. I believe it was a flat rate reduction to a set value, which is disproportionate to higher sensitivity levels. Someone who plays at say, 18 sensitivity that gets knocked down to 2 is going to complain a lot more than someone who plays at 6 and gets knocked down to 2. If sensitivity is a linear scale, a 30-50% reduction to the players set level would be fair I suppose.

(3N1GM4) #15

This should be added purely on the premise that it would alert your team mates you’re about to go full retard and blind the team.

(Sorotia) #16

Why is it all of these new mercs that I like are a let down (Well except Stoker, he is awesome!) Thunder sounded interesting and I already have Fragger…I was really wanting to try him but he seems to suck…same with Redeye…

(3N1GM4) #17

Redeye is great… after you master him

(GottaBeGreg) #18

Seconded with 3N1GM4. Redeye is an incredibly strong merc.

(GottaBeGreg) #19

I should correct my previous post. Redeye with a Grandeur is incredibly strong.

(bontsa) #20

Let’s keep the discussion in Thunder though, shall we :wink:

I can personally see great potential in conc nades, if done right. They can possibly disorient a great deal of players at once, even more than frag nade can usually rack up kills / damage per nade. If done correctly that is. Current implementantion is a mere joke of what could be. Maybe we’ll get some of the over-the-board changes switched back in the next Fine Tuning Update, we’ll just have to keep the discussion live for visibility and appropriate so it can be taken seriously and see wha future brings.