Improvement: C4 Explosive Redesign - Placement(AV) vs Throwing(AI)

Zekeen · 2012-05-20, 01:17 AM

Recently, I have become a bit alarmed by the fact that light infantry are able to use C4 type explosives in PS2. In Totalbiscuits video, you see him land behind a tank, and after a brief trouble with the buttons, lays down some explosive and blows it to kingdom come.

Now, what alarms me is the idea of such a speedy aerial infantry unit able to just drop death from above so much. The problem for me beyond this, however, is that C4 SHOULD be that powerful, it is an anti tank satchel charge after all. So here is the dilemma, overpowered weapon that is necessary and useful and JUST PLAIN FUN! So what should we do?! Well, I have devised a solution that would make it more difficult to blast away tanks, and more challenging, and thus fun too.

Have the C4 type explosive deal less AV damage, as it's a dissipating explosion, but allow it to deal much MORE massive vehicular damage by being able to STICK it to the vehicle.

What this mean is, when you just toss it, it's not all that much vehicular damage. It's still useful and powerful, but to a tank, you won't beable to kill it with just your own personal load of C4. In order to kill it with your limited C4 supply, you are able to stick the bomb directly onto the vehicle, dealing a very very heavy damage amount to the vehicle that was sticked. In a way it limits your ability, and enhances it. You won't be able to just toss 2 or 3 bombs out and blow up someone's expensive tank, but you can sneak behind and set the charges on it to detonate at your leisure, taking out the vehicle and anyone standing nearby.

The bomb should take a few second to place, 2-5 seconds. This make it more fair to the tank drivers, so that some rushing jetpacker or cloaker, can't just stick and flee/hide so bad. This also prevents the sticking on mobile vehicles, after all, it takes a short moment to set up.

Now, I bet some of you bomb runners feel this undermines your ability to kill with the bombs, but here's where the fun begins.

Once you've stickied a tank, which would actually blow it up with less charges than the original setup, the tank can then go off to find his friends. Find his, soft fleshy, infantry support friends, so you can blow them ALL up together.

Now, a few small things to review it.

The C4 type bombs deal less vehicular damage when thrown, and less MAX damage too, but deals more damage to MAXes than vehicles.

The bombs still do the same infantry damage.

Once a bomb is sticked to a vehicle (or MAX), it does even MORE damage to them than the bomb would have normally. 1-2 stuck bombs for a basic tank.

Stuck bombs still deal basic damage to infantry, so a stuck vehicle could become a mobile bomb.

Sticking takes 2-5 seconds, and thus can't be used on fast moving vehicles (You can move with it to keep it in the spot you're sticking it if the vehicle is slow).

ADDITIONALLY - Allow the explosive to be placed in a directed charge position. This redirects the blast to a forward effect, and can be placed on the ground to fire up at vehicles for enhanced damage. - This prevents random toss blasting tanks, but still allows a remote detonated anti vehicular mine-style explosive.

For those who feel this is a bit extreme, I understand, but the game is much different than Battlefield 3 and the like. Unlike in those games, where you just hop in a vehicle and go, the vehicle getting blown up has been PURCHASED. To be able to deal with it so easily and cheaply (as in cheap shot, not cost), would cause a LOT of anguish for players. They don't wanna watch their tank just blow up from one infantryman running forward and tossing 2 or 3 charges under them. It'd be more balanced with 2-3 grenades blowing up a tank, but that';s illogical. Thus, I devised this idea to help find a way to balance the C4 bombs and add to the fun rather than take away.

Ask yourself - would you rather be overpowered (and vice versa when YOU are in that tank), or able to turn a un-observant enemy into a mobile bomb?

Toppopia · 2012-05-20, 02:31 AM

You say that TotalBiscuit flew at the tank casually and easily destroyed it? In a battle of even 100 people you will have someone beside the tank helping fight and enemies far away when he was playing, i never saw anymore then 10 people the entire time, so if there was 50 people fighting someone would have seen him and killed him quickly. So this problem will hopefully not exit if there are massive battles happening.

Zulthus · 2012-05-20, 02:37 AM

Originally Posted by Toppopia

You say that TotalBiscuit flew at the tank casually and easily destroyed it? In a battle of even 100 people you will have someone beside the tank helping fight and enemies far away when he was playing, i never saw anymore then 10 people the entire time, so if there was 50 people fighting someone would have seen him and killed him quickly. So this problem will hopefully not exit if there are massive battles happening.

Please, there will be 10 engineers behind each tank all with their repair torch out.

Toppopia · 2012-05-20, 02:44 AM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Please, there will be 10 engineers behind each tank all with their repair torch out.

But 10 engineers can't save a tank that is hit by 3 lots of C4, because the tank still blows up. This C4 idea sounds close to my Anti-tank grenade idea, basically give everyone a weaker version of a rocket launcher but it to be throwable so that everyone can deal some damage to tanks, maybe not enough to kill but enough to scare/force them to retreat. Because anti-tank grenades would work good for a small insertion team that by bad luck came across a tank but since they had no engineer they were useless, but with grenades, they could damage or kill if they co-ordinated properly.

Purple · 2012-05-20, 03:01 AM

This idea is approved by Purple.

you seemed to have fixed the issue i have with C4 for the moment.

Zekeen · 2012-05-20, 03:17 AM

Originally Posted by Toppopia

You say that TotalBiscuit flew at the tank casually and easily destroyed it? In a battle of even 100 people you will have someone beside the tank helping fight and enemies far away when he was playing, i never saw anymore then 10 people the entire time, so if there was 50 people fighting someone would have seen him and killed him quickly. So this problem will hopefully not exit if there are massive battles happening.

It sounds like you never played a MMOFPS before.... which is to say Planetside or WW2 Online. Battles aren't just 100 people at a spot, it's spread out, and infantry used to have to WALK to the nearest tank they were gonna blow up. We got JETPACKS now. I've seen runners in games taking out vehicles before anyone can even see them. They can run right for you and you can't do a thing, throw in a jetpack and it'd be even worse.

Your buddy isn't going to cover you, he's too busy returning fire with that squad on the wall. Most infantry don't support tanks, tanks support them. And besides that, there's nothing much you can complain about with this redesign. It changes it very little and merely alters how it does the same thing it would normally. You can blow up tanks with less charges, you can wait till enemy infantry is near it, and you can set up tank traps. So I really don't see how someone can complain too much on the redesign unless they REALLY like throwing underhand.

Toppopia · 2012-05-20, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by Zekeen

It sounds like you never played a MMOFPS before.... which is to say Planetside or WW2 Online. Battles aren't just 100 people at a spot, it's spread out, and infantry used to have to WALK to the nearest tank they were gonna blow up. We got JETPACKS now. I've seen runners in games taking out vehicles before anyone can even see them. They can run right for you and you can't do a thing, throw in a jetpack and it'd be even worse.

Your buddy isn't going to cover you, he's too busy returning fire with that squad on the wall. Most infantry don't support tanks, tanks support them. And besides that, there's nothing much you can complain about with this redesign. It changes it very little and merely alters how it does the same thing it would normally. You can blow up tanks with less charges, you can wait till enemy infantry is near it, and you can set up tank traps. So I really don't see how someone can complain too much on the redesign unless they REALLY like throwing underhand.

I did hate in BF3 throwing C4 at my feet even if i was sprinting and jumping while throwing. But do we know what classes get C4? Because if only infiltrators get C4 then other classes need some kind of anti-tank weapons to at least annoy them enough to leave you alone. So thats where anti-tank grenades would come in. But if all classes can get C4 then anti-tank grenades are useless because you can use C4 which is almost the same thing.

Zekeen · 2012-05-20, 04:41 AM

Originally Posted by Toppopia

I did hate in BF3 throwing C4 at my feet even if i was sprinting and jumping while throwing. But do we know what classes get C4? Because if only infiltrators get C4 then other classes need some kind of anti-tank weapons to at least annoy them enough to leave you alone. So thats where anti-tank grenades would come in. But if all classes can get C4 then anti-tank grenades are useless because you can use C4 which is almost the same thing.

In TotalBiscuits video, he was light assault when he tossed them, which is why I created this idea to balance even that out. I also support that anti tank grenade, always been a fan of them. I also didn't want to see so much C4, it's a specialty explosive, used for tactical situations. Didn't wanna see it be so overpowered nothing else is used. Really, I'd prefer they didn't include C4 like this, I'd prefer it to be a very weak charge you remote detonate to create traps on doorways. But, work with what ya have, not with what ya don't, right?

Toppopia · 2012-05-20, 04:49 AM

This idea sounds like the sticky bomb idea that i found while looking up my anti-tank grenade, basically lots of explosives covered in some sticky material and hoped it stayed long enough to explode on the tank. But this idea uses C4 as a more ambushing/defensive tool which is a good way to go, while anti-tank grenades could be more offensive because of longer through distance but lower damage.

Raka Maru · 2012-05-20, 04:55 AM

Please don't start nerfing C4 already.

If I can get close to a tank and boomer it, I deserve the kill. If a guy is running to me and I didn't shoot him with my big tank cannon, it's my fault. The guy wasn't paying attention and wasn't covered. These are the guys that will get boomed.

Things will play differently when there are more players. What we saw was solo stationary tank getting owned rightly by C4.

Zekeen · 2012-05-21, 12:07 AM

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

Please don't start nerfing C4 already.

If I can get close to a tank and boomer it, I deserve the kill. If a guy is running to me and I didn't shoot him with my big tank cannon, it's my fault. The guy wasn't paying attention and wasn't covered. These are the guys that will get boomed.

Things will play differently when there are more players. What we saw was solo stationary tank getting owned rightly by C4.

Well, I guess one alternative is just to nerf the toss rate of C4. No one has the right to toss out 50 at once and blast the tank within half a second. It also looked like the radius wasn't very big. One other thing would be to have a larger infantry damaging radius than the vehicle damaging radius (cause people are fleshy things). That gives a risk to the C4 operator. Not that he won't go suicidal, but it'd make em think.

Harasus · 2012-05-21, 05:45 PM

Interesting discussion. Having some warmup time for the C4, maybe? 5-10 seconds or so before you can detonate it. I do not really like the "stickied C4 takes more damage" idea. If you throw a C4 perfectly under the tank it should do massive damage too (Unless they got that anti-mine armor)!

Raka Maru · 2012-05-21, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by Harasus

Interesting discussion. Having some warmup time for the C4, maybe? 5-10 seconds or so before you can detonate it. I do not really like the "stickied C4 takes more damage" idea. If you throw a C4 perfectly under the tank it should do massive damage too (Unless they got that anti-mine armor)!

This is a good side grade idea for both.

Tank: anti-mine armour
C4: shape charge sticky

Satexios · 2012-05-23, 08:36 AM

I rather have anti-tank mines than C4 explosives.

Talek Krell · 2012-05-24, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by Satexios

I rather have anti-tank mines than C4 explosives.

I'm relatively sure we get both. Although maybe not simultaneously.

I approve of the idea. Partly just because I love sticking explosives to things, but I think it also makes a good balance adjustment.
On that note, whatever happened to being able to stick C4 to stuff? I thought they'd said we'd have that but biscuit was right next to that Magrider and just tossed them onto the ground.