Engineer's C4 being 'equippable'

(amazinglarry) #1

I had mentioned previously (somewhere) that it was a little weird to have the Engineer be able to equip their C4 charge but not be able to plant it anywhere they want to.

Right now, the only indication one can even successfully plant the C4 is literally when the popup to ‘Press F to Plant’ (or whatever it is). So… you just press F. No need to switch to your weapon bank for it. I mean, you can… but it just seems to be an extra step that you don’t need.

So here’s my feedback. Either remove the freaking thing from the weapon bank, or make it available to plant anywhere. The reason for this is when I’m reaching halfway across my keyboard to select a Mine or a Turret, sometimes I hit the weaponbank for the C4, and it has gotten me killed more than a few times, since I’ve now equipped an item I can’t even use offensively or defensively. Sometimes, that extra second or two to switch back to the intended weapon or to your default is all it takes to lose a firefight.

Now obviously that’s just plain old user error… Maybe I should rebind my mines/turrets to a different key, or maybe I should learn to press the right one in the first place… either way, if the item can’t be used in the traditional sense, then it shouldn’t even be an option.

(murka) #2

Here’s a few thoughts.

First, it might make miss-planting too common if you could plant anywhere tho I’m sure most people will figure the plant box out in a week or so.
In previous games, placing the dynamite/HE/plasma in a tactical spot often got huge kills. I’d like to see this again.
What about mouse1 only plants if it’s a valid objective plant and mouse2 will plant always? I think this is the best of all worlds and should have no downsides.
Oh and one last thing. I really hate the plant animation thing. It would be much better if a click dropped the bomb and then you had to arm it. This gives the attackers a chance to double or triple up for quick plants and removes the frustration of getting nothing done when planting is at 99%.

(warbie) #3

Being able to plant with mouse 1 rather than the use key would be a plus. I’d also like the option to plant anywhere too.

(Senethro) #4

The game is too fast for any prediction of what will be happening in 30 seconds, so any random planting kills would be pure luck/lead to TKs. Only allow planting C4 on objective please.

(.Chris.) #5

Yeah, with so many routes available and not knowing spawn times and such it would be blind luck, also they are incredibly hard to spot at the moment. Another thing they appear to have a really large blast radius, I’m not sure if this is tied to the objective size or the actual explosive charge but last night I got killed when one of the EV barriers was blown whilst I was some distance away, that would lead too all sorts of trouble if could plant it anywhere, mass tks come to mind.

I did enjoy using the HE charge in ET:QW though :slight_smile:

(warbie) #6

It’s more to get rid of context sensitive planting. It doesn’t feel right having to wait for a ‘you can plant now’ message to appear - it’s clunky and slow. Reduce the splash damage if needs be, or have a sound/visual cue that make it obvious when it’s about to detonate, or both. Randomly planted dynamite was never a problem in the previous games.

(shirosae) #7

Counterpoint: Pre-selection of tools is a little faster if you’re trying to get the plant quickly. Admittedly it’s less of a boon with DB’s fire rates/damage than it was in ETQW and would have been in Brink.

I do kinda miss planting charges anywhere, though. I suppose with radars not existing, no vehicles, and the only deployables being turrets and the EV behaving more like W:ET tanks than ETQW MCP it’s not as useful, though.

(zenstar) #8

What about this as an idea:

Mouse 1 to plant on objectives.
Mouse 2 to plant a radio detonated bomb anywhere.

With a radio det C4 planted you can’t plant any more C4 (ie: no objective plants or tunnels of traps) and when you select C4 from the weapon bank you get a radio detonator switch. Firing that will detonate the plant and return you to normal C4.

You’d need to tweak the blast radius and damage to make sure it wasn’t OP but still a viable trap. The only problem I can see with this is it makes choke points even more dangerous as they’d be riddled with traps (thinking the demoman from tf2 here and how i’d protect capture points with remote detonation mines).

But that options gives you the best of both worlds: plant anywhere and plant on target with the added benefit of not being purely luck based to get kills.

Just musing.

(stealth6) #9

Another suggestion:
C4 should be placeable anywhere, but if you try to arm it too far from an objective you just pick it up and your chargebar is restored. Enemies can also pick up your C4 if it isn’t armed yet without the defusing delay, if they do your chargebar isn’t restored.

This would make planting less rigid and add a new dynamic that the attackers have to clear the area first or run the risk of a defender strolling by and picking up your C4 before you can finish arming it.

(.Chris.) #10

[QUOTE=zenstar;413926]What about this as an idea:

Mouse 1 to plant on objectives.
Mouse 2 to plant a radio detonated bomb anywhere.

With a radio det C4 planted you can’t plant any more C4 (ie: no objective plants or tunnels of traps) and when you select C4 from the weapon bank you get a radio detonator switch. Firing that will detonate the plant and return you to normal C4.

You’d need to tweak the blast radius and damage to make sure it wasn’t OP but still a viable trap. The only problem I can see with this is it makes choke points even more dangerous as they’d be riddled with traps (thinking the demoman from tf2 here and how i’d protect capture points with remote detonation mines).

But that options gives you the best of both worlds: plant anywhere and plant on target with the added benefit of not being purely luck based to get kills.

Just musing.[/QUOTE]

If give the solider C4 and use a similar idea that would be something of interest yeah, Engineers already have mines and turrets, they don’t need more traps but the Solider needs something.

(Mustang) #11

To be clear what I’m for is being able to plant anywhere on/near objective (get rid of context sensitive planting as warbie mentioned).

I presumed that “plant anywhere” would be the easiest way to achieve this.

If there’s another way, e.g. plant anywhere when within 3 meters of the objective, then that would be fine also.

(DarkangelUK) #12

I guess part of the problem is that there’s nothing to stop several engi’s laying C4 along the EV’s path. Since it’s pre-defined there’s a good change of disabling it and getting kills beyond just randomly planting along flank routes and hoping for the best. A large cool down would stop too much C4 spam and would also make the attacking engineer think before he plants in case he gets to the objective and still needs to wait for C4 to be available again. Given the choice though I’d go with Mustang’s idea and have it active within a certain radius of the objective and allow the ability to plant anywhere within that area.

(Apples) #13

My problem with C4 so far :

  • Gief it to assault
  • Make a distinguishable “beep” that announce when its going to blow
  • Make it plantable everywhere in the map
  • Make a bigger cooldown as in these small maps it will be a spam fest if it can be planted everywhere.
(murka) #14

I would be a good idea to give it to soldier like in etqw as that class seems slightly useless at the moment.
If we assume spawntimes are going to be 20-30sec(current maps definitely could use less spam and more coordinated attack/defense) would random c4 placement really be such a bad idea? They can be defused by engineers but the problem right now is that they are hard to spot so maybe a bigger model, beeping sound and flashing lights could cure that and not to mention fixing placement inside geometry.
Of course the ticker on c4 should be enough to give the defenders a chance. A 30sec ticker with 20-30 sec spawntimes might be a tad short and give barely a chance to defuse it.

(zenstar) #15

yeah.
I like the idea of a soldier being able to have it and for him being able to use it as a trap. But it’d need to be something he keeps an eye on (radio detonation) and not just another mine (drop and go).
Long recharge bar to prevent spam is a good idea mentioned above.

Soldier needs a little more luvvin’ imo.

(amazinglarry) #16

So you mean like in Gold Rush (er, I mean London Bridge)? There was never a problem in ET with a million engineers laying a path of dynamite, killing the tank nonstop. It just didn’t happen. I’m sure it was probably attempted but you figure the tank is disabled, and then that effectively renders the other dynamite useless.

And the mentioning of a random plant being useless because of the speed of the maps, or the spawn timers? Why not let players who want to try to use it decide that? I’m sure there are enough resourceful players out there that it would fit their playstyle.

ET and QW both had plant-anywhere and it never broke the game, or caused public outrage for TK’s etc.

I basically just want the damn thing removed from my weaponbank if I’m not going to be able to plant anywhere I want (although shirosae mentioned you can plant a fraction of a second faster at objectives if it’s pre-equipped).

(shirosae) #17

I bring it up because we complained about it loads during Brink development, where everything was on the unibutton. Having to run up to objectives and then activate your tool was annoying. In Dirty Bomb it’s not so bad because you have individual selection for everything, and because DB is just a good bit quicker across the board. I think it’s still worth having it on the weapons bank, even if just for offering up both options, and to keep everything preselectable across the board.

I’m not really against letting C4 be planted everywhere, I’m just not sure how useful it’d be in DB as is. I do kinda think that bombs should be quickly planted and then armed (so people can double up etc), and then preselection would be a bit more valuable.

(Mustang) #18

This would be great!

(mortis) #19

+1

/chars