A single block of C4 currently costs 100 infantry resources. A single grenade currently costs 45 infantry resources. During the beta these prices were 45 and 15, respectively. They were too low in the beta; I was making sure to spam my grenades, and I was dropping C4 to kill groups of infantry. Right now I'm starved for resources. It now feels like I'm pulling a C4 block--like I'm pulling a vehicle. I need to put two blocks of C4 on the rear of a Sunderer to almost destroy it. Meaning I need to have somebody else attacking the Sunderer with me or it's just going to get repaired. This is disregarding the huge investment of 500 cert points just to be able to carry a second block of C4. There is no way I'm going to buy that if it only means I won't be able to throw grenades anymore. Spending 700 certs on C4 allows you to severely damage a Sunderer if you: Spend 200 infantry resources. Find a route to the enemy Sunderer without being detected. (Assuming you know where it is.) Are able to actually get behind the Sunderer without being noticed by a single person nearby. Survive the nail-biting span of time it takes to deploy the C4. Now you can drop your C4, and if you want to gamble with your 200 resources you can attempt to run out of the blast radius before getting killed by that one guy who noticed you. So assuming you've invested 700 certs into C4 and want to drop 200 resources every time you want to put a Sunderer in the danger zone, you've pretty much forsaken the ability to throw grenades. I won't go into how much Light Assault gameplay revolves around using grenades. You're pretty much picking between killing groups of infantry to weaken the enemy line, or having a shot at destroying a spawn location. It's now never worth using C4 on a tank, because any tank that is in the position to get C4'd is being driven by a stupid person who was probably going to die soon anyway. There's also the high risk of being run over and losing 100-200 resources because the collision detection on vehicles is still horrendous. It's now never worth using C4 as an anti-infantry explosive, if not simply because of the cost vs reward but also because of the high risk involved in dying before you could detonate it, losing 100 resources. I think everyone will agree that a baseline MAX is a much more effective use of 100 resources. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The prices of C4 and grenades need to be adjusted to a middle ground. 45 and 15 was too low; 100 and 45 is too high. I suggest 60 for C4, and 30 for grenades. Just as these things should not be spammable, players should not be prevented from resupplying them even with careful use. This post and the points within are subjective. I feel like something is wrong. If enough people care about this problem I will take the time to do a real investigation with math to back it up--something that examines the use of infantry resources in relation to vehicle resources. The fundamental difference being that infantry resources are consumed, while vehicle resources are used. The more proficient somebody is with infantry resources, the more resource starved they will be. The more proficient somebody is with vehicle resources, the less resource starved they will be. I can keep 100% uptime in my Scythe because I'm a good enough pilot. If I wanted to spend all of my time flying a Scythe I could. I am resource starved as Light Assault because I'm too effective with explosives. There should not be an inverse punishment for skilled players when it comes to resources. I realize that fundamentally changing the way infantry resources are used would be too much, so I think the best solution is to decrease the cost of the consumables.
I don't know why you think they're too expensive? I can maintain 40/40 grenades and 40/40 medkits all the time. I never let my infantry resources cap out at 750, I always spend them, but make sure I have enough to buy a max if need be.
Considering you responded 3 minutes after this was posted I doubt you took time to read the entire post and consider what I said, especially the end where I talked about better players being punished for being more proficient at consuming infantry resources. I'm not sure why you would even mention medkits. They're an item which is only useful in remote areas where your life is precious and you're getting in small firefights, and there is no Combat Medic you can run to and no area to respawn. In a large base battle your resources are much better spent on other things. Recovering a portion of your health by yourself is virtually useless when you could just go find a medic or die and respawn. In regards to grenades, I assert that you're either being far too conservative in your grenade use, and limiting yourself to throwing grenades into groups of 10 or more people--or you're not very good at getting in positions that would warrant throwing a grenade. You can't be simply spamming grenades or you would be running out of them. And you can't be using them judiciously but frequently like me or you would be running out of them. Being selective in throwing your grenades does not mean you're throwing them infrequently. If you're a good enough player you can find yourself in situations that would warrant throwing a grenade all the time (into groups of 4 or more enemies). I do, and I'm strapped for resources. I posit you're not very good at playing Light Assault.
This. +1. Maxed out stores of grenades, medkits and c4. Took me a few days, now I just maintain it. And I c4 every tank I can.
Have to many resources and not enough consumables to spend them on 10% cheaper infantry is by the best as it affects the most items...
This -10. Neither of you have contributing points to make, so why you bothered posting is beyond me. I agree Cosmir. Considering the time and risk of getting into position to use C4, 100 resources sounds like far to much. Especially if they fixed the bug where you could detonate C4 after dying and re-spawning.
I understand what you mean, but it is also dependent on what continent you are playing on, as well as how much territory your empire has. I'm currently rocking grenades (45 ea), landmines (75 ea), and just picked up C4 so I know your pain. It's taken some time to fill up grenades but once they're full they usually never drop below 30/40 at worse 20/40. Landmines on the other hand I usually use quite a bit and it tends to be harder to fill up in my game play. (I find them more useful than C4 in most cases) I think I might be around 30/40 landmines. Note that in most cases I use all my landmines I spawn with, if I use them at all. So if we're getting hit with tanks, that's 150 resources every spawn. Not to mention I've had cases where I've thrown grenades/mines at the point of my death (or even a little before, b/c there is lag between doing an action/animation and the game adding what you've done) and it subtracts the total, but because I died it doesn't put the object into the game. Like the current delay with ammo, if you throw a pack down and someone immediately runs into it's placement it gets negated, but you're stuck with the ammo cool down time. They need to fix that lovely feature for placement of objects into game and the subtraction from the total. There's also a bug with resource discount if you capped Indar, I noticed that buying a mine was suppose to be 68 resources ea but I could not purchase it if I had 73 resources, because it was still looking at the full price resource cost of 75. I don't know if they have fixed it yet. Current Indar owners can check. Regardless, it does come down to each individuals play style and managing what resources they have at the moment to the best of their ability. They also want us to decide should I purchase C4 or pull a max. While I would like to see a reduction in resource costs it is still too early to determine if they need one. While the devs have the #'s of our "tools" being purchased and used, there are still a lot of people just inching away with certs and haven't picked up the 200 certs yet. If anything most of them are being underutilized by our fellow troops. Until we have a good sample size we won't know if they need adjusting. Just suggest spend an hour or three not using anything, no maxes either, to build up all your stockpiles. Then wait till your resources fill up to 750 to start using them. Start refilling your stockpiles every other death so you can monitor and hopefully manage them easier.
Don't forget that some people are having a completely different experience with resource rates depending on if they are a subscriber or not.. that 25-50% boost could really make a huge difference here.
Funny, I believe grenades are too cheap. Large scale fights lately are all grenade spam, I'm dancing around feeling like an idiot trying to avoid the 2-3 grenades that are always in range about to go off. It's really irritating.
I'd disagree. I'd suggest they are too cheap. It should be a strategic decision to use the ordinance. Heavy Assault, MAX, Armor, and Aircraft can all destroy your Sunderer/enemy Armor. As a Light Assault that is certified we have the option in clutch moments to use C4. Every LA should not be able to blow up every enemy armor they come across all the time. I'd posit you use it too often. I personally like the feeling of reward I receive when I wisely use my valuable resources to great effect. Decreasing the cost decreases that reward.
IMO, resources are fine now. As others have pointed out, I'm having zero trouble maintaining 40 medkits, grenades and prox mines. I'm extremely liberal with my mine usage, and I've only got the 10% alpha boost. Part of the problem is you seem to think you should be able to solo a 400 resource vehicle, with a long respawn timer, using 200 resources, with no respawn timer. As an Sundy driver, I'd be pissed if a single infantry could easily solo my expensive and slow to re-acquire investment. If you find a bus and can't find backup, try using the right tools. Find the appropriate terminal and load up in either a tank, an AV Max or Heavy Assault.
It's unfortunate that subscribing offers a tangible in-game advantage such as resource boosts. Cert boosts are fine, since they just mean you don't have to play as much to keep up with the progression curve of the server. Cert gains depend on time investment and skill, while resource boosts are supposed to be global. Resource boosts are like "oh, subscribed players have 25% more damage on their guns." It's a philosophical issue that SOE needs to resolve, and I'm sure there are other threads about it on the forums. How are they supposed to balance the metagame when there are two classes of players participating in it?
The unfortunate flip to the coin is that your 400 resource costing vehicle allows an indefinite number of players to spawn from it and is thus potentially infinitely more useful then a couple of 100 resource costing consumables. Good points on grenades. However C4 is still far to situational as well as risky and time consuming to place and effectively use for it to be a 100 resource costing item. It's not a land mine that can be dropped and forgotten, and it's not a vehicle or a mobile spawn point. It's a single use explosive device. Last time I checked, it takes 2 to kill a base turret (probably the only regular use I'd ever get from them). To me, 200 resources for a single base turret isn't worth it.
I use C4 strategically. I use C4 and grenades judiciously. I only use them when the yield is good enough. I run out of infantry resources from normal use of C4 and grenades. So what are you all saying, that I'm too good at playing Light Assault? I need to tone down my effectiveness? Here's a simple example of why there's a fundamental problem with infantry resources mediating explosives. I can spend all of my time flying a Scythe because I'm skilled enough to not get shot down faster than my resources refill. The better a player is, the more rewarded they are by the resource system. You only have to spend air resources when you did something wrong. I'm really good at playing Light Assault, and if I use explosives at every opportunity where I should I am penalized by the resource system. Infantry resources are consumed when explosives are used, and using them skillfully does not preserve the resource. You have to spend more resources as Light Assault for doing something right. But how do we reconcile this issue? Well, this is one of the rare cases where I would recommend applying a band-aid to a problem. Simply reducing the costs would be enough to provide a virtual solution. An ideal resource system would reward skilled and conserved play (like the vehicle resources do), not penalize it (like the infantry resource does). The only way I can think of to do this is to reward infantry resources for using explosives to kill or damage things. If they did this they could double the cost of explosives, so it costs 400 resources to (almost) kill a Sunderer. As long as you were refunded a large amount of resources for successfully doing so.
Not to mention for the same number of certs it takes to carry 2 C4 charges, you could get a new gun or apply some serious upgrades to your equipment in other fields that are far more cost effective then C4. Comparing them to the mines used by Engineers doesn't work either. These are not drop and forget items, they require an active finger on the trigger.
Oh look what I've done. I've made an argument based on the idea that other players aren't as good at a video game as they think they are. It's doomed.
No, I am saying it is working well. You should be limited by the availability of resources. You should not be able to use them as often as you're skill allows. It should be a tough choice to decide to use your consumables. I do agree that rewarding us based on successfully using our tools is a good idea, and refunding a portion of the infantry resources is acceptable to me. But it should never remove availability as a factor in our decision to use them. Posted from my phone, sorry about the format.
Grenades are not over priced. C4 is. 1 - the price itself is high 2 - Its really the key the LA class, grenades are great but they dont make or break one class 3 - In most applications you need to use 2 c4 charges at once
So you think if a skilled enough player can preserve their aircraft and never have to worry about resources or an acquire timer, it's a problem?
No, I do not see that as a problem. Though it wouldn't bother me if getting in any none-MAX vehicle cost greater than 1/2 the total maximum relevant resource points. I think what you and I have are a basic difference in ideas of how class roles are defined. I think roles are determined by you classes ability and basic gear. You can spend cert points that allow you to specialize, and adapt to particular scenarios. That adaptation can lead to an momentary expansion of your classes' role based on certification choices through the use of consumables. It's an important distinction to make because it maintains class identity and thereby teamwork. Just as an example, and a rough one. (At work, shhhh >.<) Your team is holding a base, an enemy sunder is located and needs destroyed. Airships, Tanks, MAX, and HA have default abilities which assign them as AV. You don't have any tanks or aircraft, you have two MAX but they are currently engaged with air/infantry. You have two heavies and so they go to take out the Sunder but get sniped because your infiltrator is standing in a corner somewhere instead of clearing enemy snipers. But! Cosmir is here! We can pull him out of the fray and get him to go hero that Sunder! Great teamwork encouraged, player is able to fill important role because of skill,cert choices, and infantry resource prioritization. But everytime something big needs blown up, and LA jetpack to it and drop c4 on it, you've blurred the lines of roll identification.
