feedback Balancing of EMP-Grenades (against mines)

[nudelsalat]

I think EMP-grenades are overpowered and I'd like to hear your opinion on my points.

1. Large radius, no "hidden" mines possible
EMP Grenades disarm mines in a very large radius, making it impossible to prevent enemy infantry from entering the building (which is the primary use-case of mines, right?).
Even "hidden" mines behind corners are disabled, due to the very large area affected.
This effectively makes mines useless against EMP-Grenade-Infantry or any group of infantry that contains at least one of these.

2. Barracks/Hand of Nod is much more important
Basic infantry can not simply disable the mines. So losing advanced infantry not only gives your team weak infantry-weaponry,
but also diminishes your chances of infiltrating the enemy base due to the lack of EMP-Grenades.
On the other hand, the enemy can rush your buildings, eliminating your remaining Advanced Engineers/Hotwires with ease, as they can freely walk in.

3. No Teamplay required
Unlike original Renegade, you do not need any kind of teamplay (an engineer and other high-level combat units) to successfully clear an enemy building.
A LCG/Sydney/... can do all the stuff alone. Throw an EMP-Grenade, rush the building, kill everybody. Often there are only a few engineers in the building, having absolutely no chance against a Sydney/LCG/etc.

4. No Sneaking required
No need to stay alert and being "unarmed" while disarming mines, like an engineer does - all you have to do is to throw the EMP-Grenade and hope that noone sees you... well okay, this actually doesnt matter, 1-2 hits of your PIC and he's gone.

5. You can't counter it
Compared to an engineer who has to disarm the mines one-by-one from close range, effectively unarmed, you can't counter a Sydney/... throwing an EMP-Grenade from some distance or behind some cover. When the grenade is on it's way, the mines are gone, no matter what you do. - And good luck at remining, when some Sydney is watching you.

6. You can buy a repair-kit capable of disarming mines
So, if you want to infiltrate with a combat-unit, buy the kit. Simple. Or ask a teammate to help you out.

My suggestion:
- Change EMP-Grenades to not affect mines anymore.

This will
- reduce the balancing-gap when one team has lost advanced infantry
- balance the efforts of mining and disarming
- make mines useful against the main threats to a building (all units carrying EMP-Grenades also do massive damage vs MCT and engineers)
- make the game far more tactical as "stupid" rushes won't work anymore
- leave infiltrators disarming mines effectively unarmed and make them better counterable
- greatly improve teamwork, as an engineer needs protection / the others need him/her to disarm the mines

Let's start the discussion

[Henk]

The anouncer says "building x" under attack when you EMP a structure.

Sydney and Raveshaw have a very low rate of fire, when you switch to Heavy Pistol and back to PIC/Railgun it takes even more time before you can fire again. You can't afford to miss a shot and you're quite vulnerable in the tight space of a structure.

You can repair the mines while they're being EMP'd, or if it's you own mines, quickly disarm and place new ones (preferably one by one). Sometimes there's even enough time to get remote C4 ready before they'll enter your structure.

Sydney/RaveSaw/LCG/Gunner can't "one-shot" a building like Hotwires and Techicians can, you even get warned as soon as the EMP hits.

[nudelsalat]

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The anouncer says "building x" under attack when you EMP a structure.

So clueless engineers who want to repair the building "under attack" get in and get killed by the infiltrator.

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Sydney and Raveshaw have a very low rate of fire, when you switch to Heavy Pistol and back to PIC/Railgun it takes even more time before you can fire again. You can't afford to miss a shot and you're quite vulnerable in the tight space of a structure.

Low rate of fire but massive damage and also high DPS. LCG has lower damage but very high rate of fire. When the building is under attack by vehicles, and engineers are repairing it -mostly standing still-, no problem to oneshot them.

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You can repair the mines while they're being EMP'd, or if it's you own mines, quickly disarm and place new ones (preferably one by one). Sometimes there's even enough time to get remote C4 ready before they'll enter your structure.

Okay, didn't know you can repair the mines of other players. In the heat of the battle, I think it's very unlikely for people to check if mines need repair, when the building is under siege and needs every available engineer at the MCT.
To break siege the enemy can still place a beacon which is explicitly announced and causes the teams's attention (compared to infantry simply rushing in a mined building and killing the engineers).

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Sydney/RaveSaw/LCG/Gunner can't "one-shot" a building like Hotwires and Techicians can, you even get warned as soon as the EMP hits.

They can't one-shot a building, but they deal immense damage to the MCT. Trying to kill the infiltrator as engineer mostly fails and your only chance to protect the building is to buy a high-level combat unit, kill the infiltrator, buy an Advanced Engineer/Hotwire, and try to defuse the C4 before your building blows up due to the damage already dealt.

I understand your arguments to defend the status-quo, but what are the pro arguments for having EMP-grenades clearing minefields?
I find it very annoying to remine every 3 minutes and EMPing mines offers no real benefit for a balanced and good game.
The purpose of mines is to keep normal infantry out of your buildings but with EMPing it doesn't work that well.

PS: How can I turn off the WYSIWYG-mode of the editor?

[boxes]

EMP grenades are anti-minefields. In original renegade, one big issue on the defensive end was laying down 1000 mines at a chokepoint, resulting in you having to repair a teammate walking into them (doesn't work as well anymore because mines do like 10x the damage) or you having to disarm one by one for a long time praying that nobody sees or hears you. Reason why defense is nerfed is because you don't win games by defending, you win games by attacking. And if attacking is impossible because of a certain defensive mechanic (minefields), games drag on unnecessarily. 

Also they serve as an alternative form of infiltration other than repair guns, sacrificing discreetness for faster overall disarm rates. Even then it's really easy to deny it, just repair the mines if you're inside the building; mine repair rate is way faster than disarm. Nothing wrong with allowing other classes than engineers to infiltrate buildings and do damage

[Henk]

one-shot had quotation marks. It's not one shot, but the time in between the 2 timed C4's is very short.

Also keep in mind that you can refill (there's a delay sure, but the first refill you do doesn't have that delay). So remote C4's are a very good countermeasure for a Sydney or Raveshaw inside of your building. 

I don't get how you'd be a clueless engineer, the EMP effect is pretty noticable. And the EMP does 0 damage, but it does say "under attack", so that could give it away.

[Guest Gliven]

i found that the (building under attack) sound only works when you physically hit the building with the emp, if you throw the emp beside the building it doesnt trigger the warning. I wouldn't mind the emp having a bigger radius for tanks only.

I also think the rocket solider should get an emp. that way you still have someone other than an engineer to disable mines when your bar/hon is dead. plus it gives you more tank defense with the cheaper emp.

[Madkill40]

5 hours ago, Gliven said:

i found that the (building under attack) sound only works when you physically hit the building with the emp, if you throw the emp beside the building it doesnt trigger the warning. I wouldn't mind the emp having a bigger radius for tanks only.

I also think the rocket solider should get an emp. that way you still have someone other than an engineer to disable mines when your bar/hon is dead. plus it gives you more tank defense with the cheaper emp.

But for the Rocket Soldier they get one. Just one. No recharge. Want another? Go back to base and refill.

[dtdesign]

On 14.4.2017 at 3:59 PM, Gliven said:

 

i found that the (building under attack) sound only works when you physically hit the building with the emp, if you throw the emp beside the building it doesnt trigger the warning. I wouldn't mind the emp having a bigger radius for tanks only.

 

Even easier than that: If there is more than one building alive, switch to your side-arm and shoot another building once. Now you can soak the original target building with emp grenades, the only notification that is ever going to be played is the one from the secondary building.

On topic: EMPs are quite fine how they work right now, they may be a bit more powerful on some maps (Lakeside bar/hon, Under Airstrip), but in general are well within the boundaries. If you need to nerf something, then one should focus on tech/hotwire being able to one-shot a building. Again, nobody cares what happens on PUG, public is what matters for this game.

[Shadow277]

EMPs shouldn't disable mines because it would make it difficult to prevent them.

This would force infantry to buy the repair gun and give the team time to react to this.