Problems with concussion grenade and solutions

(bizarreRectangle) #1

Yes yes, this is yet another thunder thread. I wanted to share my thoughts but the other threads were already cluttered up with different topics and arguments. It would simply get buried. So I figured I should just make my separate thread. In this thread I wanted to talk about what I think is wrong with the concussion grenades and what splash damage can do to fix it.

Here are the patch notes:
-Removed ‘cooking’ from Concussion Grenades
-Reduced fuse time to 1.6s (from 2.0s)
-Reduced throw-cancel cooldown cost to 4s (from 8s)
-Increased movement stun radius to 368u (from 240u)
-Looking away from Concussion Grenades now dramatically reduces the duration of the blinding effect
-Team-mates now receive a much shorter blinding-effect when Friendly Fire is Off
-The duration of the blinding effect now correctly scales down over distance
-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
-Dynamic objects like secondary objective doors now correctly block effects (we dont care about this)

The concussion grenades felt fine to me (except the bugs) before the patch. I didn’t think this hotfix was completely necessary. When I first read these I thought they seemed reasonable, they buffed movement stun radius by roughly 50%. However now it “correctly scales down over distance” and plus, it “gradually recovers over time” which scales the effects down even more. I think these changes really drag down this buff.

In-game it seemed people were stunned for so short of a time before they start moving properly again. This is my theory as to what happened to the concussion blast and why it’s not so effective now. Correct me if I’m wrong about this or I didn’t get it exactly right.

Let’s say movement stun lasts for 3 seconds. For maybe 1 second you will be stunned. But you’ll start moving faster after that because it recovers over time. Plus it stuns for less if you’re not in the center of the blast. So for 2 seconds you are simply recovering. Just an example.

What I’m trying to say is, the movement stun time remained the same. But it was occupied by recovery time where you get faster. So the time when you were vulnerable was decreased.

That and they got rid of mouse sensitivity which makes it even easier to fight back on the receiving side. I think they should revert the movement changes except the increased radius. Or bring back mouse sensitivity and change movement stun to pre-hotfix.

Bottom line is, movement stun is miniscule and they need to buff it to stun longer or better.

Flash seems to work fine for me and I don’t have many complaints, people seemed to be decently blinded even after they recovered from the movement stun (which is still a short amount of time).

Looking away wasn’t such a bad change itself. Imo it was made worse by the fact that they decided to get rid of cooking. For no reason whatsoever they simply got rid of cooking. And they think decreasing fuse time by 0.4 seconds was going to compensate for that. Not being able to cook just means it’ll give the victims time to look away and get no flash. On the other hand pineapple seller is blowing up his fruit in mid-air and one-shotting everyone. Bring cooking back, and teach thunder how to count to 3.

Throw cancel, team flash and dynamic object changes were great.

(Robtastic) #2

I agree with you mate.
Remove cooking was total ridiculous.
I think the nade should:

  • stun as you said for an amount of time
  • make the enemys full blinded (even minimap and crosshairs blinded and stuff)
  • BE COOKABLE

For giving it maybe they could reduce something, like decrease the emp time for example.

And it must not stun, but only if thunder gets more movement speed instead of.
My thoughts…

(SaulWolfden) #3

The grenades don’t have to be cookable, they just need to go off on contact with something just as Stoker’s molotovs do if they aren’t going to be cookable. There is really zero reason they couldn’t have been made that way in the hotfix since they got rid of the one thing people majorly complained about, the mouse sensitivity reduction.

(bizarreRectangle) #4

If they simply fixed bugs, got rid of mouse sen and made radius of movements stun bigger, that would’ve been a good change. Like I said I think they should just revert movement changes in hotfix except increased radius. I don’t think they need to nerf emp, they already got rid of mouse sen.

I’m not sure about going off on contact with someone. They operate most like a frag grenade and I think it should stay that way.

(Phantombrotherhood) #5

The mouse sensitivity thing was literally the only reward you got for landing a good conc nade, and people whined because that’s the only advantage a MK.46 Thunder had, so rather than adapt, they pissed and moaned

(Mr-Penguin) #6

The main reason for every knee-jerk nerf/buff SD has ever made.

As for my own opinion, if your’re stunned by the conc, you really shouldn’t be able to jump. I usually see people just jumping around to avoid gunfire while they’re blinded.

(Reddeadcap) #7

Wait wait wait… they removed the mouse sensitivity decreasing effect from the concussion grenades?

Wasn’t that one of the main purposes it had, now it’s just a blinding emp?

(Ctrix) #8

[quote=“Redcap;119238”]Wait wait wait… they removed the mouse sensitivity decreasing effect from the concussion grenades?

Wasn’t that one of the main purposes it had, now it’s just a blinding emp?[/quote]

You got that exactly right.

(Szakalot) #9

leave my mouse sensitivity alone! there are many ways to make flash viable without it.

if flash exploded on impact it would be impossible to bounce the nade in.

agree though that the movement stun is overnerfed

(Eox) #10

About the cooking, it’s simple. Either they put it back, or they remove it from Fragger as well. I see NO reason why Fragger should be allowed to screw you up with an unavoidable divine punishment of 180 damage where your only hope is predicting when Fragger comes while Thunder allows plenty of time to people to react against the blinding/concussive effect. Fragger dominates the metagame since the start open beta and probably more than that : it’s simple, you find one on every team in competition. Why shouldn’t Thunder be a potent sidegrade to Fragger ?

(bizarreRectangle) #11

What @derpypenguinz19 said actually makes some sense and I never thought about it :lol: . Just spamming jump when blinded and avoiding fire is a bit unfair. It would be pretty cool if they made it where you can’t jump. I think this change would help and wouldn’t make it op or super annoying.

In my opinion slowing and blinding is enough, removing mouse sensitivity is not good or bad but it’s definitely not what the nades were all about.

If they were to bring cooking back (which would be the best option) thunder should learn to count to 3 with his fingers. Like his american brother.

(Reddeadcap) #12

@Eox I’m guessing the lack of cooking is to make playing as and against Thunder and Fragger different.

My only question is, Will Both Fragger and Thunder have their LMG’s swapped back?

Fragger having the Mk46 makes sense as he can quickly enter a room that he’s naded and finish off enemies who’ve both been downed/injured by his grenades.

Thunder on the other hand with a K-121 can blast away large chunks of enemie’s health while they’re stunned and bringing back the fact that the conc grenades stun enemies I really hope they bring back that mouse sensitivity effect, I’ve yet to get Thunder and fought many and don’t understand why it was removed.

(bontsa) #13

I think sensitivity reduction is kind of a wrong way to go, since it removes the feel of being able to fight back. Least when blinded and movement speed reduced you can shoot back where you anticipate enemy enclosing you, resulting in hilarious and rewarding moments despite being quite of a spam-a-hoy situation. But with correct level of blindness and movement reduction, Thunder can actually hurt enemies caught in his nade’s blast. After all, unlike Fraggers nade, Thunder and/or his companions have to quickly make a move on flashed enemies in order to gain anything, otherwise it is just wasted opportunity.

Cooking feels like a more complex matter though, despite being quite easy to grasp mechanic. Removing it gives more counterplay for the receiving end and requires more skill to be used the nade to it’s full extent. However I think more bouncyness and consistent walls are required too for taking the best out of the fuse time you have to “spend” before flash going off.

However counterplay could also be provided with, for example, having nade using characters shout a warning when they begin cooking. Easily done requiring not much of coding I believe, and it gives aware players chance to dodge this nade incoming yet still keeping it viable. Since it still makes enemies scatter around like bunnies => rather easy, least disoriented targets and not all stations and whatnot can be moved in this blink of an eye that early shout gives, resulting in some collateral damage. And it’s sort of “realistic” too, fitting the situation despite the game itself not aiming for realism, since why wouldn’t you warn your teammates that theres a nuke-ton of pineapple going to get unleashed in few moments?

(bizarreRectangle) #14

Good point. I’m not sure lines would help much in pubs though. People can’t even hear an airstrike or phantom decloaking and shouting “HUCHAAAA!”.

Counterplay for thunder shouldn’t be an issue as long as fragger still gets to cook his little angels of death. If they’re worried about grenade counterplay, they should look at fragger. Remove cooking for fragger as well, or bring it back for thunder.

(bontsa) #15

It would be change that does give a fair chance to anyone who is willing to be aware enough. I feel it’d be very simple yet solid change. You answered yourself already why public settings cannot be balanced completely. Imagine if developers made changes, where even most oblivious peeps in pubs would notice these incoming dangers? Exactly, we’d have “learn to count to 10 with Moomintroll” level of title on our hands. Can’t dumb down the game (and I did not by any means say you said so either).

I think Fragger has been with his cooking ability for so long that it’d result in quite an outcry if it was removed. And then again now we would have fragnades suffering from bouncyness issues and so forth. No matter what style of counterplay there’ll be against cooking, I think I’m fine with the mechanic itself as long as some type of counterplay is indeed introduced. Flashes however function bit differently since they don’t straight up damage opponent, so I don’t mind either if it lacks the cooking as long as they can still be used tactically. Aaand again, not saying fragnades can’t be used tactically now, quite opposite, it takes skill to master the cooking and knowing where to land them and so forth.

(Reddeadcap) #16

The removal of cooking isn’t that of a big deal, the grenades have a faster fuse to compensate and this really changes up the playstyle of Thunder and Fragger, both in fighting against and fighting as.
Personal gripe on that aspect is that they don’t give their grenade tossing lines when the pin is pulled.

@coolFortress
@Szakalot
So, looking into a lot of what people disliked and liked about Thunder’s concussion grenades, I have a couple of ideas and want to know what a couple of people’s thoughts on the matter is.

Blinding is fundamentally broken, Not compared to before how a small yellow pixel in the distance could blind someone but the idea being that once blinded, you still have your hud visible, along with hit indicators and enemy health bars visible when getting a hit off someone.
Either there needs to be no input on the person blinded by the grenade or it should be removed, forcing players to try to see through the warbled vision effect caused by the grenade as seen when not directly looking at it when it goes off.

Secondly, This has to do with a personal gripe of mine but concussion grenades aren’t flashbangs. this isn’t anything new but the effect of it blinding in the first place is pretty off compared to one would associate with a concussion grenade, which would be more blurred vision and loss of control, one way or another.

People dislike the complete loss of mouse control as it means there is no way to fight back and I can understand that but here me out on two variations on the aspect that the person has no control over their guns and can’t really hold it steady or be accurate, but still can make a dent on Thunder and his team if they can counter the effects correctly.

First, based on how close one is to the blast their accuracy goes out the window, crossair’s blooming to what would be their lowest accuracy possible.
Second the gun sways around in a spiral pattern, forcing the person who’s stunned into countering the effects of the grenade.

[url=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKUz2KL3xTo”]Here’s an example of this effect from another game take a look on how the gun moves off center with the crossair but instead of the gun itself making the view of the player themselves twist and turn forcing players to fight against it along with their vision being blurred and disoriented heavily.

Lastly, The K-121 and the MK46 honestly should be swapped back to their original mercs more than just updating their portraits to showing Fragger with a K-121 and Thunder with the Mk46 as they obviously fit the roles of their original mercs.

Thunder, while High health is meant to keep his distance away from the enemy, just a little to take enemies out who’ve been hit by his grenade’s effect.

Fragger on the other hand has a bit more speed and mobility on hand and can shred through the health of those injured if not out right killed with his frag grenade and has enough ammo to fight off against those who still aren’t dead.

(bontsa) #17

We do agree on that blinding does not function right now as it should. HUD shouldn’t be visible, hitmarkers should remain unseen until you get lets say 75-100% of your sight back. Only thing I’d like to see staying is marker of where you’re getting shot at, since it technically comes from your ability to “feel” instead of visual ques and in this case we’re talking of vision and balance impairing effect. Wouldn’t mind if even such is removed when under flash effect, just a thought.

We are, probably, agreeing to disagree of the flash effect itself however. I feel it does fit the ability, since concussion / EMP effect alone sound like making the ability tad too weak if compared to raw power other Assault abilities offer. I like to think of Conc as a “distrubt enemies over larger area” type of thing and blinding fits that nicely.

Conc effect “swirl” is something I’m curious about though… I know it should not affect the balancing process much, but lets face that people will try to look for ways to nullify such effects in “not-so-fair” ways. For example, if any kind of aimpunch / aim disorientation is purely visual, one can simply put in Mumble crosshair or such in order to keep shooting as usual. This is one of the reasons why I definitely agree concussion needs something else than only the screen sway. For example that maximum bloom idea you threw was indeed nice to least try out.

Loss of mouse control is in my opinion no-no due it being just tad annoying without real advantage and still nullifieable by sensitivity switchers, but movement speed penalty would fit in nice. After all, concussed’s sense of balance is temporarily broken, who would sprint a 100 meter dash full-speed when tilting 45 degrees to right and left periodically? :stuck_out_tongue:

On switching Fraggers and Thunder’s weapons though…I think gunplay is one of the areas I won’t touch much during discussions, I’m horrible with math and go with the feel. I would like testing it out, just wondering could developers switch their default weapons without a community outcry over “blaaarghaghgahh I tried to get diz Cobult k-121 loadout and now iz uselezzzzzzzzz” stuff.

(Reddeadcap) #18

Funnily enough, They used to be each other’s default weapons, concept art and even the character selection image of them shows them holding the wrong weapon, it was mainly because the MK46 was actually pretty much OP compared to the K-121.
Since the K-121 has been around for so long compared to the MK46, It’s been heavily tweaked, making it a decent all around LMG, especially mid to mid-long range.

The MK46 on the other hand is a much closer range weapon, better suited for close-mid range and while both mercs are pretty tanky their original weapons believe it or not really did suit their grenades and playstyle.

Fragger tosses in a Frag, hopefully cooked to burst nearby, damages if not outright killing enemies, rushes in due to his highier mobility, shredding through the health of injured enemies with a bullet hose.

Thunder tosses a conc at a safer distance, with a larger area of effect, enemies and defenses are stunned and deactivate momentarily while he slowly pushes in, damaging and killing enemies from a safer distance than Fragger would be with a more accurate and harder hitting LMG.

(bontsa) #19

I do get where you were getting at @Redcap , I even gave good ol K-121 and it’s new sibling MK46 a run or 2 in couple of pub matches last evening. It does feel so that has been the original intention with said weapons.

I was mostly referring to consideration is it already too late to switch their respective LMG’s the other way round. I have no answer to that, but I would play the heck out of them if it was changed to give some test data. But on the other hand I can bear with MK46 as Thunder’s child as long as his ability and the weapon get same careful treatment as has been done with Fragger and his arsenal so far, getting stuff solid and with usability instead of gimmicky.