Ode to handgrenade

(jazevec) #21

deadlights:

At no point in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory you were required to use a grenade. Sometimes if a covert op spotted mines you could blow them up, but they were generally possible to avoid and it was counterproductive to destroy them. The other team would replace them and you’d no longer know which exact spot to avoid.

By contrast, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars has lots of situations where you literally can’t continue without a grenade. Try to pass an anti-personnel turret without grenades. Or do you prefer going back to base for a vehicle ? It’s even worse with mines, because blowing them up with vehicles is often out of question. In such situations you either use your grenades, or you can do nothing.

W:ET - you can choose how and when you use your grenades
ET:QW - you are forced to use grenades at certain points.

Icarus is bad example. You can only kill one with a grenade if the dude is predictable.

Scrambler/EMP is something I would never consider weak. It was hands down the most reliable way to bring down a ground vehicle. Hit one with scrambler, and it’s usually out of action for 30 seconds, which is perhaps even longer than respawn time in case of some vehicles. One particularly evil trick I used to do was to zap all GDF vehicles on Valley as MCP was being deployed. And teleport back to GDF forward spawn, switch to sniper rifle. Watching GDF trying to conquer forward spawn on foot as you pick them off from far away is priceless. Sometimes I would keep them from forward spawn for minutes this way.
By the way, covert op also has the best anti-aircraft weapon. Sniper rifle destroys tormentor in 5 or 7 (don’t remember) hits, and it’s really hard to miss. Rockets might work if you’re close, fire them in pairs, or pilot is newbie. Sniper rifle just works.

(deadlights) #22

I would make the arguement that ETQW had the better system then. The fact that obsticles hold you up is the whole point of good defense and is also the whole point of team work. In QW one man could not kill a turrent unless he was a rocket soldier, or a tank or something… An infantry was doomed to fight an APT alone. GOOD. That was the whole point of it. It made for a better team game. When a turret goes up people have to scramble to work together to get rid of it at times.

In my opinion that is something that is better in QW than in Wolf. I mean they are both different games and play very differently… And BIRNK will too… but I don’t think it is fair to compare them because for their own way of playing, both of them were successful imo.

And who ever says you are forced to do anything in a videogame? If something is in my way and I can’t get by it, I usually respawn with the tools needed or I go another way…

And I meant weak for damage on infantry, I did not make that clear.

(tokamak) #23

Actually, you don’t even really need to ‘balance’ grenades themselves as much as long as you give them plenty of important opportunities where they’re needed. As said, in W:ET you used grenades to get easy kills, in ETQW you needed nades to get trough vital points on a map. You really needed a very good reason to use a grenade on an enemy player in QW, using it for just a cheap kill would a a huge waste.

This way players will think twice about the way they’ll use grenades.

(darthmob) #24

[QUOTE=tokamak;198740]Actually, you don’t even really need to ‘balance’ grenades themselves as much as long as you give them plenty of important opportunities where they’re needed. As said, in W:ET you used grenades to get easy kills, in ETQW you needed nades to get trough vital points on a map. You really needed a very good reason to use a grenade on an enemy player in QW, using it for just a cheap kill would a a huge waste.[/QUOTE]Those are not cheap or easy kills! It’s not CoD where you throw the grenade in the direction of the enemy and hope for a hit. For being successful with grenades against human enemies you need timing, prediction, luck and skill (basically the 4 things that make a great skill-based game).

There is no challenge in throwing grenades at inaminate and not moving objects. It’s not like you think “F yeah I showed that damn turret who’s the man!”. It’s boring, it slows down the pace of the game (standing there for 5+ seconds throwing 3 grenades at a turret -_-’) and most of all it’s no fun.

I miss those times when you would strafejump down to the first barrier on goldrush and throw that perfectly timed grenade into the face of the defenders on the balcony. There are countless other ways for challenging and rewarding nade kills but that one was the first that came to my mind.

(Bezzy) #25

[QUOTE=darthmob;198742]Those are not cheap or easy kills! It’s not CoD where you throw the grenade in the direction of the enemy and hope for a hit. For being successful with grenades against human enemies you need timing, prediction, luck and skill (basically the 4 things that make a great skill-based game).

There is no challenge in throwing grenades at inanimate and not moving objects. It’s not like you think “F yeah I showed that damn turret who’s the man!”. It’s boring, it slows down the pace of the game (standing there for 5+ seconds throwing 3 grenades at a turret -_-’) and most of all it’s no fun.

I miss those times when you would strafejump down to the first barrier on goldrush and throw that perfectly timed grenade into the face of the defenders on the balcony. There are countless other ways for challenging and rewarding nade kills but that one was the first that came to my mind.[/QUOTE]

Grenades, even the basic ones, are very versatile in Brink. Can’t talk much about it now, but they link really well with other strategies.

(Locki) #26

Out of interest, assuming you can cook grenades for perfect timing, do you guys prefer it when a grenade takes in to account your sideways velocity (when strafing) in its trajectory (so it takes a diagonal path, however minor, allowing you to curl grenades around walls etc), or do you prefer the more unrealistic style of a grenade leaving your body and travelling a perpendicular line along the ground from the point of origin, making direct aim at static targets easier?

(DarkangelUK) #27

I’d say im more used to the unrealistic method, and can’t say i’ve had experience with the scenario where nades are affected by moving velocity. Tbh it’s something id need to try before making an informed decision.

I did mess around with Q3 where rockets were affected by velocity, and it had very bizarre results due to the engine.

(Loffy) #28

I use nades often, and always try go get that perfect timing. (Aah, when it explodes in the face of the opponent - pure joy.) I would prefer if the game took sideways movement into account when calculating the arch.
:stroggbanana:

(Bezzy) #29

I like being able to let your forward/backward velocity affect the distance (so that a running start can give you a bigger lob, and running backwards lets you practically set mines on the floor to take on pursuers), but I don’t like the lateral effect, personally - my aim is my aim, and my movement is my movement, and crossing the streams needs to be done very cautiously. It’s pretty easy to do a dot product of your view direction and velocity to figure out how much forward bonus you get, without letting lateral affect it. Best of both worlds IMO.

(jazevec) #30

[QUOTE=Locki;198749]Out of interest, assuming you can cook grenades for perfect timing, do you guys prefer it when a grenade takes in to account your sideways velocity
(…)
[/QUOTE]

I don’t think I’ve had experience with both mechanics. ET:QW may have transferred some velocity from player to grenades (I don’ think it did), but I was generally standing still when throwing at a turret or mines. So, hard to say. I’d have to try it, but I could adapt either way.

All of this is irrelevant if grenades are the main way of destroying turrets and mines. I’ll find myself playing the janitor, not grenadier, again.

Speaking of turrets, I wonder if they’re more ET:QW style (quite limited placing, and offense can barely use them) or Team Fortress style where you can place a turret anywhere, it’s just your problem to keep it alive ? I would’ve preferred Team Fortress style, because it would likely mean they could be used for offense and fortifying forward positions, not just command posts or whatever the developers came up with.

(Domipheus) #31

I’d agree with this. I always find myself running and throwing a gren to get distance.

(acidrain) #32

Yeah I really like forward/backward movement adding to the velocity of the nade. Lateral movement is something I’d have to try out to know for sure but I think I probably wouldn’t like it.

Pro: Ability to curve a nade around a corner
Con: Much more difficult to aim in regular combat

Without testing it myself I’d say the pro is more of an interesting corner case whereas the con affects gameplay a lot more.

(jazevec) #33

One little thing…

Can grenades in Brink be rolled ?

Of all FPS games I’ve played, only one has grenades that actually roll if fired at certain angles.* Sauerbraten ( http://sauerbraten.org ). It’s hardly a vital thing, but it looks so nice :-).

In alll other games they bounce awkwardly, Quake style.

  • Sauerbraten has a couple of other interesting things going for it, such as intriguing engine which allows huge floating castle, with modest hardware requirements and no fog limiting your view distance. You see, it’s successor of Cube engine, and uses cube octree…
(tokamak) #34

The con off less accuracy is an excellent way of balancing it out better, giving both a moving throw as well as a stationary throw their own benefits.

(Zhou Yu) #35

I’d generally tend to expect my velocity to have a noticeable effect on my grenade’s path, certainly forwards and backwards. Sideways I’m a little more cautious with, but it would be interesting to fiddle with.

(shirosae) #36

Came here to post this, pretty much. I wouldn’t mind vertical motion also, so I could quarter-circle up a ramp for some extra distance.

That said, I wouldn’t mind if I could curve a grenade throw slightly by torquing to the side just as I release (maybe as an alt-fire so it doesn’t get in the way?). How would you do that? Take the initial torque vector, then do a cross product with the grenade’s momentum vector to get the inwards acceleration and calculate a flight path to send to all the clients?

(Floris) #37

Didn’t Half Life had something like that? It was irritating as hell, maybe because it was just done too extreme and I wasn’t used to it.

[QUOTE=jazevec;198770]One little thing…

Can grenades in Brink be rolled ?[/QUOTE]

I think it would be effective in Brink because you apparently have pathways the enemies can slide under, imagine seeing a guy running for the slide and rolling a grenade between his legs :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #38

rolling is very physics intensive though.

I did like the difference between throwing and dropping a grenade as GDF. Very nice touch.

(mortis) #39

Just as a word of caution when it comes to velocity affecting grenades…in ETQW players were able to run at superhuman speeds. Seriously. In an arcade shooter, this is fine for shooting with bullets. I have a feeling that Brink runs in the same twitchy shooter spirit. If ETQW style physics are used, a sprinting player might be running 30+ mph before hurling his grenade. it might lead to silly grenade throw distances. In real life, I’ve mostly seen grenades deployed at close to moderate ranges, not hurled like javelins at distant foes. Even in an arcade shooter, i like a bit of realistic limits.

TBH - I liked the ETQW and WET grenade throwing “feel”. If Brink dwells on tight ‘urban’ maps, all the grenades are going to be used at essentially point-blank distances (around a corner, tossed in a roof, thrown into an MG nest). I used to drop grenades while running away from foes all the time…

(mortis) #40

[QUOTE=tokamak;198780]rolling is very physics intensive though.

I did like the difference between throwing and dropping a grenade as GDF. Very nice touch.[/QUOTE]

indeed, the right click drop in place was quite useful!