Why I think Thunder is not a very good merc concept

(CCP115) #1

I did not play with Thunder prior to this release, so I don’t know what he was like back in Alpha or Closed Beta, or if he was even back in Closed Beta.
But I got some major complaints from the small amount of time I’ve played against Thunder.

Ok, it’s pretty obvious. Crowd Control sucks, it’s for MOBAs and RTS, let alone an FPS. It is indeed possible to bring CC to an FPS, but usually it’s met with poor response.

Loadout considered a movement slowing mechanic, but the devs said no as it was not fun to play against, and went against the core values of Loadout, something along the lines of a fast paced game.
TF2 has the Sandman stun, which is also obnoxious. But it is VERY hard to land, and currently the only CC in the whole TF2 game (at least of the top of my head.)

SO theoretically, the conc grenade could be a functional and fun mechanic. But SD went overboard. No, I’m not saying the conc grenade is OP, but it’s close, too close.

A blinding white flash? That’s acceptable. It does last a tad too long to be honest. Standing in what I hope to be a corner for 3 seconds is not fun at all. Also apparently it’s bugged in some way, I’m not too sure about that but maybe if that gets addressed then my opinion will change.

A ringing noise and some screen distortion? Cool enough I guess, not a huge gameplay changer, though the screen distortion has botched up my aim more than once.

Reducing move speed? Ok this is touchy feely. A game about speed, and franticness (?) and you add a slowing mechanic? Barely ok.

Reducing mouse sensitivity? Ok, this is where the line gets drawn. This absolutely made me confused when it first occurred. This is the deal sealer, this ensures the enemy gets a free kill out of a stunned enemy. At least with some silhouettes and a whiter screen you can fight back, but this?

I get it, Thunder has to compete with Fragger, the king of assault (subjective), but Thunder’s grenades are incredibly strong right now. His HP pool is also incredible, just insane. Weapons are also pretty good, if you don’t use the MK I suppose.

Please SD, if you have to balance Thunder by giving him OP nades, maybe it’s time to consider a rework? Even just removing mouse sens would be ok.

(gg2ez) #2

Ironic because we both just played a match where we got buttraped by the same Thunder player :tongue:

(Telzen) #3

If you are close enough to the nade for it to stun you like that a Fraggers nade would have killed you anyway.

(CCP115) #4

I only just realised that you have to be very close to the nade for it to reduce sensitivity. This makes it slightly better actually.

I’m still against the idea of all this crowd control in one tool.

(LifeupOmega) #5

The sensitivity issue is beyond frustrating. You may as well just remove all control instead of making me slowly drag my mouse up to you, I wonder if there’s a way to change my sens on the fly to counter that.

There’s a reason the Sandman got heavily nerfed after its release. :v

(watsyurdeal) #6

Personally I am more for just the blinding effect, the impairment of movement is overkill.

(triteCherry) #7

Hawken had a half a second stun lock bug on one of it’s weapons for a time, it was the most annoying experience in the entire game and is still remembered by the games veterans when a suggestion about impairing movement as a game play element arises, which is immediately dismissed.

Slowing my movement to a crawl and adding a heavy temporary turn rate cap is way more annoying then dying outright.

(JJMAJR) #8

The concussion grenades could be used as a tool against the more tanky classes. High health means little if you can’t see well enough to use it.

I guess that’s how I’d balance a flash-grenade wielding merc. Stunning is a direct, up in your face tool to use when brute force isn’t advisable.

(Szakalot) #9

slowing people down is imo ok, there has to be a big punishment to getting both flashed + eating the nade.

Touching mouse sensitivity is no fun though

(bizarreRectangle) #10

Maybe increase the amount of sensitivity you have, I don’t think it’ll be good to remove it entirely. Besides bugs conc grenade is pretty good.

(Szakalot) #11

whats wrong with removing it entirely? Imo multiple problems exist when touching mouse sensitivity:

  • its really frustrating and unfun
  • it encourages macros that rapidly toggle sensitivity to counter
  • its hard on your arm when you try to move mouse as fast as possible

I think concussion grenade should use more of those sound&visual disorienting effects, but mouse sensitivity should go!

(CCP115) #12

And of course, if we look at CS:GO, it just makes you deaf and puts a white flash on. Also you only need to look 90 degrees perpendicular to the blast to receive least flashiness.

Sounds weak right? Yet it’s still one of the core mechanics (I think) of CS:GO. Please keep Thunder, but just tweak him.

(advancedRing) #13

[quote=“CCP115;116668”]And of course, if we look at CS:GO, it just makes you deaf and puts a white flash on. Also you only need to look 90 degrees perpendicular to the blast to receive least flashiness.

Sounds weak right? Yet it’s still one of the core mechanics (I think) of CS:GO. Please keep Thunder, but just tweak him.[/quote]

Can’t really compare to Dirty Bomb to CS:GO simply because players in CS:GO can’t double jump or sprint, don’t have any special abilities, and have guns that have predictable recoils to memorize. In CS:GO, it’s incredibly important to have sight since a player can memorize the recoil of a gun if they want to. In Dirty Bomb, if you just keep firing after a flashbang’s whiteness hits, you can still track a players by following the health bar above their head. Due to this, I reckon, is why mouse sensitivity is very slowed down.
Another point to make is the incredible speed of this game; bhopping and sprinting gets one very far across the map, even doing long jumps covers a great distance. That said, there aren’t many situations where Thunder’s flash bang really shines, since if you’re moving so fast anyway and got flashed bad enough to get the mouse sensitivity decrease, chances are the Thunder overcooked his grenade and flashed himself even harder.
I get that it’s not fun and annoying to play against, but it still beats outright dying to Fragger’s grenade or Stoker’s Molotov.

As a side note, I think the mouse sensitivity up close could use a tweaking, since I played a match where three players literally stopped dead in their tracks after getting hit by a conc grenade up close. To maintain how effective Thunder’s conc grenade is though, they’ve got to make it so that you can’t see a person’s health bar over their head while you’re concussed.

(JJMAJR) #14

Honestly, I find Thunder to be an Assault merc meant to hard counter other assault mercs as well as buildings, snipers, and meat shields. It’s not that he has the problem of being too weak, it’s just that he has glitches that need to be fixed.

The purpose of Thunder is to make high health meaningless. Reducing the amount of damage that a Rhino can do to him could only be done if he can reduce mouse sensitivity so that he can get out of his death cone.

(RyePanda) #15

[quote=“Szakalot;116392”]whats wrong with removing it entirely? Imo multiple problems exist when touching mouse sensitivity:

  • its really frustrating and unfun
  • it encourages macros that rapidly toggle sensitivity to counter
  • its hard on your arm when you try to move mouse as fast as possible

I think concussion grenade should use more of those sound&visual disorienting effects, but mouse sensitivity should go![/quote]

Actually I think it puts a turn speed limit on, so no matter the sensitivity, you are slowed.

(CCP115) #16

[quote=“advancedRing;116884”]
Can’t really compare to Dirty Bomb to CS:GO simply because players in CS:GO can’t double jump or sprint, don’t have any special abilities, and have guns that have predictable recoils to memorize. In CS:GO, it’s incredibly important to have sight since a player can memorize the recoil of a gun if they want to. In Dirty Bomb, if you just keep firing after a flashbang’s whiteness hits, you can still track a players by following the health bar above their head. Due to this, I reckon, is why mouse sensitivity is very slowed down.
Another point to make is the incredible speed of this game; bhopping and sprinting gets one very far across the map, even doing long jumps covers a great distance. That said, there aren’t many situations where Thunder’s flash bang really shines, since if you’re moving so fast anyway and got flashed bad enough to get the mouse sensitivity decrease, chances are the Thunder overcooked his grenade and flashed himself even harder.
I get that it’s not fun and annoying to play against, but it still beats outright dying to Fragger’s grenade or Stoker’s Molotov.

As a side note, I think the mouse sensitivity up close could use a tweaking, since I played a match where three players literally stopped dead in their tracks after getting hit by a conc grenade up close. To maintain how effective Thunder’s conc grenade is though, they’ve got to make it so that you can’t see a person’s health bar over their head while you’re concussed. [/quote]

We can compare their flashbangs.

Dirty Bomb is a game about mobility, so reducing movespeed AND mouse sens? Destroyed all the mobility.

(Jesus) #17

[quote=“LifeupOmega;116081”]The sensitivity issue is beyond frustrating. You may as well just remove all control instead of making me slowly drag my mouse up to you, I wonder if there’s a way to change my sens on the fly to counter that.

There’s a reason the Sandman got heavily nerfed after its release. :v [/quote]

DPS changing mouses with different lvl, i used mine when sniping in battlefield it was good allowing me to have low sensitivity to aim very precisely from far way and then go back to a higher sensibility by pressing one button in case i would encounter some ennemies when i need to run to another point. I didnt had much of a use in db yet except with vassili but now its a bit more useful with thunder coming out

(Phantombrotherhood) #18

[quote=“CCP115;116899”][quote=“advancedRing;116884”]

Dirty Bomb is a game about mobility, so reducing movespeed AND mouse sens? Destroyed all the mobility.[/quote]

That reduced movespeed and Mouse sens was literally the only reward for landing a well placed conc