The Cold Hard Truth About Fraggers Nade...

[Ashog]

video blocked lol

[Szakalot]

OK, so it’s been a while since I played ET but I just watched a good video that was a refresher on how that game was played in matches and what you could do with explosives. So every time I think of a Fragger nade I’ll think of this video and kind of laugh. Because as much as I’d still like to see Fragger’s nades toned down the power (despite being slower) of almost every explosive in ET was quite a bit more potent.

It looks potent in a fragmovie? What a surprise!

a) nades fly slower and a nade double kill would be pretty rare in comp, not to mention triple kills
b) arty is on cooldown and fires at slow intervals
c) airstrike can be more easily spotted than DB airstrike

Overall its much HARDER to explode people upin W:ET, which obviously you won’t see on very high level fragmovie. In DB its just too easy to blow them enemies, even if they know what they are doing.

[LiNkzr]

I haven’t noticed nades being that crazy as they were before, no more free peeks with nade cooked, people are a bit more careful which results that you can actually try to play the game and then react when fragger sees you. I think this is the scenario i run in most. Fragger peeks with weapon, shoots, I shoot him, he goes back behind corner to probably heal and/or cook a nade, I run the **** out.

I wish this game had more meaningful side objectives, more forward spawns you could fight for etc etc. The game itself plays out fine, but I think maps need improvements, maybe even bigger??? idk anymore

[Amerika]

[QUOTE=Szakalot;526988]It looks potent in a fragmovie? What a surprise!

a) nades fly slower and a nade double kill would be pretty rare in comp, not to mention triple kills
b) arty is on cooldown and fires at slow intervals
c) airstrike can be more easily spotted than DB airstrike

Overall its much HARDER to explode people upin W:ET, which obviously you won’t see on very high level fragmovie. In DB its just too easy to blow them enemies, even if they know what they are doing.[/QUOTE]

Obviously a movie like this will show the big ones but I played W:ET quite a bit. I know the amount of kills you got with a single nade or a nade leading into gun shots and it was pretty common in competition to do something like that multiple times a game even against good teams. In DB you aren’t constantly being herded down narrow corridors so the chance of one nade killing 3-4 people in DB is pretty unlikely in a competitive setup where it was common in ET. Or did you forget that? Or not play ET?

[ragnak]

Obviously a movie like this will show the big ones but I played W:ET quite a bit. I know the amount of kills you got with a single nade or a nade leading into gun shots and it was pretty common in competition to do something like that multiple times a game even against good teams. In DB you aren’t constantly being herded down narrow corridors so the chance of one nade killing 3-4 people in DB is pretty unlikely in a competitive setup where it was common in ET. Or did you forget that? Or not play ET?

4 nade kills in et were common ? It wasnt even common at pub servers, let alone comp play where i seen it probably less than 20 times in the few years. Lets even forget that everyone had a nade in ET and 3-4 nade kills still happened less then in DB where its only one merc that have them.

[mccrorie]

I don’t see the connection between this and ET tbh. Everyone in ET has access to grenades.

[Amerika]

4 nade kills in et were common ? It wasnt even common at pub servers, let alone comp play where i seen it probably less than 20 times in the few years. Lets even forget that everyone had a nade in ET and 3-4 nade kills still happened less then in DB where its only one merc that have them.

Full team wipes due to nades/crossfire/panzer were pretty common due to a lot of the choke points was a lot of times how you turned the tide in that game. I might even still have a bunch of old demos laying around to show how common it was. And I am not talking about 1 nade killing 3-4 people. I’m talking about 1-2 nades killing 1-2 people and hurting 1-2 more causing scrambles where you can wipe the other side. Which was shown in the video and pretty common in competitive play due to the way choke points were setup on some maps.

I had kind of forgotten about it until I watched that video and it reminded me of a lot of my own matches that were won due to nade setups we used.

[Szakalot]

different game, point being those nades were counterable and DB’s nades are not.

[yakcyll]

different game, point being those nades were counterable and DB’s nades are not.

How were they counterable again? With your own nades?

[Humbugsen]

I think it would be great if the travelspeed of fraggers grenade could depend on when it will actually explode.
Long cooking = low travelspeed, Short cooking = faster travelspeed
So basically it would always take the same time for fraggers grenade to hit your face, no matter how far he is away.
This time should be just long enough to survive it if you see fragger throwing it.
It’s also pretty realistic because you wouldn’t throw a grenade at fullspeed when you want to hit somebody close to you

[ragnak]

-snip-

It was a team effort, not a single fragger throwing super sonic grenades AND most of the time you could predict the place where you will get hit with grenade unless it was close to spawn so people would suicide trying to kill someone with them. If you really want to compare fragger grenades to et you would need to compare it to rifle grenade and even then rifle grenade did offer more counter play.

ET was full of spam but at least it wasnt as easy to use at every single moment and ET had no fraggers that had better guns and health on top of grenade. Nader with grenades wouldnt piss me off as much, because she is weak at duels but sadly its on fragger that even without grenades is better at killing than anyone else.

How were they counterable again? With your own nades?

Just to copy part of my older post:

1. ET nades did fly slower
2. ET nades had to be cook longer
3. It was more risky in ET as it took longer to equip grenade AND it took longer to change back
4. Everyone had a grenade
5. It was easier to kill someone who is cooking a grenade because hp difference wasnt so big there
6. You could survive almost direct hit from it if you saw it coming (you dont even have time to react in db because they fly so fast)
7. ET had better sound so you could hear them easier
8. It was easier to spot them in ET
9. Grenades there wasnt on a merc that is better at duels then any other merc
10. Grenades in ET didnt had a cooldown so you could at least guess if they have a grenade or not ( as you needed field ops for that).
11. Grenades in ET didnt fly across half the map
12. ET had more open maps so there were places where you could feel pretty safe
13. Thats more of a guess but i have a feeling that grenades in ET had less aoe damage as it was kinda hard to kill 3 not to mention 4 people with 1 grenade, i can kill 3-4 people with 1 grenade constantly in DB.

Grenades were mostly used for spawn camping, with pretty good timing at that, fragger can just randomly start cooking his nade and its quite possible that he will kill 2 people with it, in et it was simply more risky to use grenades.

[Amerika]

I brought it up not because they are the same but because a lot of the same tactics were used in ET. It is a different game. Everyone moved at the same speed, health was universal, guns were mostly universal where in DB those things are different depending on the class/loadout. However, I think many people are glossing over just how spammy ET was and how often a nade changed the outcome of a match. Hell, even I forgot about it until recently.

I also stated many times that Fragger nades still need altering and have made my suggestions. So why some of you are being so angry as if I am trying to say they are fine really need to pay attention and read.

[yakcyll]

[QUOTE=ragnak;527332]
Just to copy part of my older post:

Grenades were mostly used for spawn camping, with pretty good timing at that, fragger can just randomly start cooking his nade and its quite possible that he will kill 2 people with it, in et it was simply more risky to use grenades.[/QUOTE]
Aight, I can’t argue with those points. The only counter in play right now is that only fragger has nades, but since grenades restock automatically and you can have multiple fraggers on your team, combined with small maps, they make Szakalot’s point valid, so I’m done.

[Ashog]

[QUOTE=ragnak;527332]It was a team effort, not a single fragger throwing super sonic grenades AND most of the time you could predict the place where you will get hit with grenade unless it was close to spawn so people would suicide trying to kill someone with them. If you really want to compare fragger grenades to et you would need to compare it to rifle grenade and even then rifle grenade did offer more counter play.

ET was full of spam but at least it wasnt as easy to use at every single moment and ET had no fraggers that had better guns and health on top of grenade. Nader with grenades wouldnt piss me off as much, because she is weak at duels but sadly its on fragger that even without grenades is better at killing than anyone else.[/quote]

Blablablabla. A lot of water and subjective rage, no connection to reality. All comes to this: mimimi, fragger haz a mighteh nade AND haz hi HP AND has mighty gun. So yeah, very logical, let’s nerf nade then, instead of HP and gun. I am tired of this. Over and over again.

Just to copy part of my older post:

1. ET nades did fly slower

true

2. ET nades had to be cook longer

True but not in RTCW. Afaik, RTCW priming time is same as DB. The grenades were still okay there, in RTCW, and noone complained.

3. It was more risky in ET as it took longer to equip grenade AND it took longer to change back

I seriously doubt that it was longer. Even if a fraction of a second longer, it doesn’t really play a big role.

4. Everyone had a grenade

true, so let’s give the nade to everyone again. Can’t count how many times I asked SD to rethink this.

5. It was easier to kill someone who is cooking a grenade because hp difference wasnt so big there

true, so let’s nerf fragger HP then.

6. You could survive almost direct hit from it if you saw it coming (you dont even have time to react in db because they fly so fast)

Not true. Properly primed nade in ET was deadly. And you didn’t have time to react. If you could evade, then the nade wasn’t perfectly primed and aimed. Same is valid for DB.

7. ET had better sound so you could hear them easier

Partially true. The bouncing sound off the floor/walls was better, true, but then it doesn’t matter since properly primed nade explodes in the face, in most cases w/o a bounce. Unless you aimed for a tricky throw around the corner/window with a deliberate bounce.

8. It was easier to spot them in ET

Not true. DB nade has a red blinking indicator basically saying: I’m a nade! Run!
Spotting doesn’t help anyways if a nade is properly primed.

9. Grenades there wasnt on a merc that is better at duels then any other merc

You repeat yourself. Though true again - need to nerf fragger HP or weapon. Probably not both at the same time.

10. Grenades in ET didnt had a cooldown so you could at least guess if they have a grenade or not ( as you needed field ops for that).

Not true. On a random encounter, in ET it wasn’t possible to know if they had any nade left or not. You always had to expect a nade and keep distance to enemy flexible and be ready to sprint-dance.

11. Grenades in ET didnt fly across half the map

I don’t think there’s much difference if any in the throwing distance, tho in DB one can extend it using a crouch jump. The physics might be different though (speed and curve) which may create an illusion of a different throw distance. Feedback from SD on that would be interesting to hear.

12. ET had more open maps so there were places where you could feel pretty safe

Well, nades were used there mostly in close quarter combat or spawnraping so the situation is mostly same. Also, DB has some open maps too such as Dome or Trainyard and more to come, hopefully.

13. Thats more of a guess but i have a feeling that grenades in ET had less aoe damage as it was kinda hard to kill 3 not to mention 4 people with 1 grenade, i can kill 3-4 people with 1 grenade constantly in DB.
    I think actually AOE is same or even smaller in DB now (was bigger before). The thing that makes it feel like if it’s bigger is a different map design. The objective routes mostly bear major choke points in close quarters where many people tend to gather and deploy deployables. That leads to longer firefights and crowding in one spot (thanks God TTK now long) which creates a higher chance of multikills. More open maps could help with that. So medicate maps please, instead of 1 weapon, which is a symptom not a cause of a problem.

Grenades were mostly used for spawn camping, with pretty good timing at that, fragger can just randomly start cooking his nade and its quite possible that he will kill 2 people with it, in et it was simply more risky to use grenades.

Not really. This claim doesn’t make much sense to me in view of what is discussed above. Spawnraping is a map issue, not weapon issue. With more mercs with heavy weapons coming up, it will be more obvious that the blame is not on a fragger’s nade.

[Szakalot]

Blablablabla. A lot of water and subjective rage, no connection to reality. All comes to this: mimimi, fragger haz a mighteh nade AND haz hi HP AND has mighty gun. So yeah, very logical, let’s nerf nade then, instead of HP and gun. I am tired of this. Over and over again.

The HP and gun differences are quantitative! More HP or a better gun means that 2 mercs would still > Fragger (100 hp + 100 hp > Fragger’s HP) etc.

Grenades as they are a qualitative difference in how you play fragger. You can’t charge him, you can’t peek him, you can’t hide from him. Any situation is prone to getting your face naded.

True but not in RTCW. Afaik, RTCW priming time is same as DB. The grenades were still okay there, in RTCW, and noone complained.

really? I thought nades didn’t change much if at all from RTCW -> W:ET, and it def. was 5 seconds in ET.

I seriously doubt that it was longer. Even if a fraction of a second longer, it doesn’t really play a big role.

It was A LOT longer. If you got caught with a nade out in W:ET it was pretty much GG, unless that nade could be used to murder your assailant. Even throwing it immediately would very rarely give you enough time to fight back.

true, so let’s give the nade to everyone again. Can’t count how many times I asked SD to rethink this.

Really? come on, the game is super spammy already! we don’t need more spam.

Not true. Properly primed nade in ET was deadly. And you didn’t have time to react. If you could evade, then the nade wasn’t perfectly primed and aimed. Same is valid for DB.

You CAN’T evade nades in DB. Never did I feel like I made a proper dodge of a nade, it was more about where the fragger threw it. Properly primed nade was deadly, but only in extremely close quarters. Even then, the slower fly speed would let people circle-strafe-jump out of danger, at least sometimes.
My first post in this thread is on how cooking time differs between DB and ET.

One way to asses nade speed is by considering the cooking time - seconds to explosion - you need to throw a nade so that it explodes in the enemy's face.
In W:ET & QW nade cooking was 5 seconds long:
- very very long distance 2-2.5 seconds
- mid range 3-3.5 seconds
- close range 4 seconds
- point blank: 4.5 seconds

In QW it was much simpler, even though engaging distance could be considerably longer due to throwing distance:
- longest range at 2.5-3 seconds
- mid range at 3.5 - 4 seconds
- close range at 4.5, point blank even closer.

In Dirty Bomb cooking time is one second shorter (4 seconds) so just remove 1 sec from the previous calculation:
- longest range at 1-1.5 sec (i'm talking long-jump throw range)
- long range at 2 sec
- everything else at 3 seconds
- point blank at 3.5 if you really want it

Partially true. The bouncing sound off the floor/walls was better, true, but then it doesn’t matter since properly primed nade explodes in the face, in most cases w/o a bounce. Unless you aimed for a tricky throw around the corner/window with a deliberate bounce.

Nades made a sound. Nade thrower made a ‘hoomph’ groan. Nade itself would have a trail of smoke behind it, and the speed was slow enough to see it coming before it exploded in your face.

Not true. DB nade has a red blinking indicator basically saying: I’m a nade! Run!
Spotting doesn’t help anyways if a nade is properly primed.

the indicator only works if the nade thrower is a newbie who just threw it by pressing ‘q’. Nade will sit there, and blink nicely. Any proper player - the nade will explode in your face before you even saw it coming.

I don’t think there’s much difference if any in the throwing distance, tho in DB one can extend it using a crouch jump. The physics might be different though (speed and curve) which may create an illusion of a different throw distance. Feedback from SD on that would be interesting to hear.

Throwing distance is less relevant compared to flyspeed which is the primary factor determining nade’s efficiency at longer ranges. In W:ET you’d have to let the nade fly 2-3 seconds if you wanted it to explode at long distance. In DB it doesnt matter, any long distance nade can be cooked for 3 seconds and it will explode where you want it anyways.

Well, nades were used there mostly in close quarter combat or spawnraping so the situation is mostly same. Also, DB has some open maps too such as Dome or Trainyard and more to come, hopefully.

ehh no? Nades in DB are used in any type of engagements, and I can’t really imagine a situation where I’d be like ‘oh ****, the nade won’t help me here’

[ragnak]

Blablablabla. A lot of water and subjective rage, no connection to reality. All comes to this: mimimi, fragger haz a mighteh nade AND haz hi HP AND has mighty gun. So yeah, very logical, let’s nerf nade then, instead of HP and gun. I am tired of this. Over and over again.

Right, my post is filled with subjective rage but yours offers a ton of arguments…8D. At the very least grenades fly too fast and because of that too far, period. We could have an argument about that if maps werent full of cockblocks but they are and i dont see SD changing every single map. Give fragger smg and cut his hp to 130 then we can have overpowered nades (not that i would be happy about it but at least there would be trade off).

[QUOTE=Ashog;527347]True but not in RTCW. Afaik, RTCW priming time is same as DB. The grenades were still okay there, in RTCW, and noone complained.[/QUOTE] Didnt play RTCW so i wont comment on that, but im pretty sure that grenades there didnt fly this fast.

I seriously doubt that it was longer. Even if a fraction of a second longer, it doesn’t really play a big role.

Watch some old videos, getting back to weapon from grenade took A LOT longer than in DB. Long enough that if someone didnt kill me with his grenade i could kill him before he could equip his weapon.

true, so let’s give the nade to everyone again. Can’t count how many times I asked SD to rethink this.

Why ask for something that you know wont happen ? Its SD that we talk about here.

true, so let’s nerf fragger HP then.

Grenades aside i do think that he need hp nerf.

Not true. Properly primed nade in ET was deadly. And you didn’t have time to react. If you could evade, then the nade wasn’t prefectly primed and aimed. Same is valid for DB.

It was harder to hit someone with grenade in ET at open space, mostly because of slower fly speed and unless you get a direct hit you could survive by jumping backwards (or by rushing someone if close), it didnt always work but still.

Partially true. The bouncing sound off the floor/walls was better, true, but hten it doesn’t matter since properly primed nade explodes in the face, in most cases w/o a bounce. Unless you aimed for a tricky throw around the corner/window with a deliberate bounce.

But i could hear enemy better than in DB, sure it didnt help when someone was standing still or masking his footsteps but most of the time i did expect a grenade, thats not the case in DB.

[QUOTE=Ashog;527347]
Not true. DB nade has a red blinking indicator basically sayin: I’m a nade! Run!
Spotting doesn’t help anyways if a nade is properly primed. [/QUOTE]

At close range, i cant see them for **** at longer ranges + that red indicator can confuse you at times, i didnt had this problem in et because i could clearly hear the nade.

You repeat yourself. Though true again - need to nerf fragger HP or weapon. Probably not both at the same time.

I do not repeat myself. Having the most HP doesnt mean that merc is the best at duels, it just so happens that fragger have the most hp and the best guns in the game.

Not true. On a random encounter, in ET it wasn’t possible to know if they had any nade left or not. You always had to expect a nade and keep distance to enemy flexible and be ready to sprint-dance.

You couldnt be 100% sure most of the time BUT medics only had one grenade, if you saw him throw it you knew that he wont have a nade if you killed their field ops or if they dont have one, fragger have 2 and you can never tell when he will get another one. In ET you could make an educated guess if someone have a grenade or not (even by counting grenades that was thrown), no such luck in DB.

[QUOTE=Ashog;527347]
I don’t think there’s much difference if any in the throwing distance, tho in DB one can extend it using a crouch jump. The physics might be different though (speed and curve) which may create an illusion of a different throw distance. Feedback from SD on that would be interesting to hear.[/QUOTE]

In et drop curve was a lot harsher, so it was harder to aim them, they also didnt fly as far, you could even fail a grenade on something as small as wall at supply depot last phase, in db you can probably throw it twice as high and twice as far. Grenades in DB act more like ET rifle grenade then a normal grenade.

[QUOTE=Ashog;527347]
Well, nades were used there mostly in close quarter combat or spawnraping so the situation is mostly same. Also, DB has some open maps too such as Dome or Trainyard and more to come, hopefully.

I think actually AOE is same or even smaller in DB now (was bigger before). The thing that makes it feel like if it’s bigger is a different map design. The objective routes are mostly major choke points in close quarters where many people tend to gather and deploy deployables. That leads to longer firefights on one spot (thanks God TTK now long) which creates a higher chance of multikills. More open maps could help with that. So medicate maps please, instead of 1 weapon, which is a sympthom not a cause of a problem.[/QUOTE]

People are asking for better maps for how long now ? 1 year ? more ? If maps were more open then nades might be less of a problem but even then i find their fly speed simply too fast. In the end i dont expect better maps and grenades on current maps cant stay the way they are.

[QUOTE=Ashog;527347]
Not really. This claim doesn’t make much sense to me in view of what is discussed above. Spawnraping is a map issue, not weapon issue. With more mercs with heave weapons coming up, it will be more obvious that the blame is not on fragger’s nade.[/QUOTE]

All i was saying is that mostly grenades were used for spawn camping as most of the time they wouldnt produce decent result if thrown at foe that expect them because of all the factors i mentioned before. It was simply easier to avoid grenades in ET even if there were more of them.

[Szakalot]

Take a look at this:

Twitch

54:50 = supersonic nades are too supersonic for the fragger’s themselves to even time them properly, lul

[fubar]

[QUOTE=Ashog;527347]
True but not in RTCW. Afaik, RTCW priming time is same as DB. The grenades were still okay there, in RTCW, and noone complained.[/quote]
No. ET and RtCW are identical in timings, for… everything.

I seriously doubt that it was longer. Even if a fraction of a second longer, it doesn’t really play a big role.

it… Actually is. A weapon switch takes a lot longer, not to mention a very audible sound.

true, so let’s give the nade to everyone again. Can’t count how many times I asked SD to rethink this.

plz do.

Not true. Properly primed nade in ET was deadly. And you didn’t have time to react. If you could evade, then the nade wasn’t perfectly primed and aimed. Same is valid for DB.

yes and no, very situational. Nade’s in ET had more impact damage, but less splash damage. If you didn’t… hit properly or near to perfectly, surviving a blast is very much possible.

Partially true. The bouncing sound off the floor/walls was better, true, but then it doesn’t matter since properly primed nade explodes in the face, in most cases w/o a bounce. Unless you aimed for a tricky throw around the corner/window with a deliberate bounce.

I like playing with the bounce mechanics a lot in DB, we had some in ET/RtCW but not nearly as… bouncy? Lots of fun tbh.

Not true. On a random encounter, in ET it wasn’t possible to know if they had any nade left or not. You always had to expect a nade and keep distance to enemy flexible and be ready to sprint-dance.

Not true. Depending on spawntime, class, player and previous encounter, I can very much call if my opponent has a nade or not.

I don’t think there’s much difference if any in the throwing distance, tho in DB one can extend it using a crouch jump. The physics might be different though (speed and curve) which may create an illusion of a different throw distance. Feedback from SD on that would be interesting to hear.

There’s a lot of difference, actually. DB nades not only fly a lot further but accelerate a lot faster as well. To throw a distance nade in ET or RtCW you’d have to play with the game’s gravity and curve it adequately. In DB, for most distance, you can practically just throw in a straight line. Bottom line though, DB nades travel at least 50% more distance than ET’s. Never cared to really test, but I can guarantee you that they do, in fact, travel further.

Well, nades were used there mostly in close quarter combat or spawnraping so the situation is mostly same.

Partially true. A lot of the nades, specifically those of an engineers are very often just used as a delay tactic, spamming a specific choke point to deny entrance/exit. Prime example would be RtCW’s village crypt defense: Eng with 8 nades sitting ontop of the ladder spamming for the entire duration of the allies spawn to deny access to this specific ladder. Others would be in ET, engis on east of supply last stage, or goldrush main on tank stage. Radar CP defense… etc, there are tons of spots nades are primarily used in as spam and delay tactics, if people die to those, that’s usually just a lucky benefit of your opponent getting impatient

Partially true. The bouncing sound off the floor/walls was better, true, but then it doesn’t matter since properly primed nade explodes in the face, in most cases w/o a bounce. Unless you aimed for a tricky throw around the corner/window with a deliberate bounce.

I can hear the actual THROWING of the grenade, as well as the aforementioned weapon switches… not to mention clear and loud footsteps.

[sunshinefats]

I’m just going to throw this out there…I still think the nades are fine as is, and no one has yet put forth an argument to convince me otherwise.
In my experience, I get killed by nades less than anything else in the game, and because of their travel speed, distance, etc. they’ve managed to help me(and my team) out of quite a few sticky situations. In addition, I really don’t see that many people playing fragger to begin with…often I’m the only one on my team. Honestly, I’m having trouble understanding what the big problem is when there are so many other things that need attention in this game. To be fair, I do stick to pubs though, and it may well be a different experience on the comp side, so I acknowledge that.

[INF3RN0]

[QUOTE=sunshinefats;527386]I’m just going to throw this out there…I still think the nades are fine as is, and no one has yet put forth an argument to convince me otherwise.
In my experience, I get killed by nades less than anything else in the game, and because of their travel speed, distance, etc. they’ve managed to help me(and my team) out of quite a few sticky situations. In addition, I really don’t see that many people playing fragger to begin with…often I’m the only one on my team. Honestly, I’m having trouble understanding what the big problem is when there are so many other things that need attention in this game. To be fair, I do stick to pubs though, and it may well be a different experience on the comp side, so I acknowledge that.[/QUOTE]

There are a lot of things that need attention, however grenades stick out from the rest simply because you cannot avoid/counter them in the same way as other things in a high level game. A pub with below average players is not going to give a very enlightening outlook on the situation simply because people fail to execute mechanics properly. If grenades were very hard to land then this wouldn’t be as problematic, but because the AoE is so large, they travel so fast, and they can be cooked for instant detonation… well you see the problem right?