I get it, clientside. But sometimes I'll be 30m away and still get one shot by C4, and other times the icon is right on top of me and nothing. I feel it's AI radius should be reduced or taken from LA anyway. Right now they just ambush jet over a fight, and boom, an easy bunch of kills whether it's 10 infantry or 10 maxxes, no escaping in rooms (and most fights are in a room and on point). It's effect on infantry really needs to be adjusted. Quick fix would be to reduce splash damage, and boost it against vehicles
Lets be real, what is needed is fuse delay or cost increase Tank mines dont detonate instantly when put on top of a vehicle. Grenade takes 3 second while its so much weaker than c4. AI proximity mine delay from being stepped on is almost as fast as throwing and detonating c4. Engi AV turret setup time is also slower than C4. Realistically C4 isn't used like that too I'm sure
I am tired of nerfs to be honest. They need to focus on new content, bug fixes and optimizations. The C4 was nerfed enough and cost as much Nanites as a tank or max. It’s a high explosive and should be.
It's funny how C4 already has gotten a fuse delay and has had it's AOE reduced several times already. Current inner blast radius is half a Sunderer from one edge to the other and maximum blast radius where you deal only 10 damage is a full Sunderer's length. In the time of the fuse delay you can just about cover that amount of ground already. As for ambush jets, I've never seen anyone use them in conjunction with C4 (or shotguns for that matter) where they wouldn't have been equally effective with other jumpjets, if not more so. I do have seen these jets be a detriment where it alerts people, allows them to get out of the way of the less maneuverable airborne ambush jetter or kill them. It is one of those things people say because they don't have the full picture. Like how they used to say Drifter jets were ultra-OP when used against tanks which was supposed to be why C4 fairies got so many kills, but in reality the standard jumpjet with barely 20m range if you start on a high position was the one that was used by most people and effective at killing tanks because the tanks simply didn't pay attention. And the very day that Ambusher jets were introduced suddenly it was a disaster that killed tanks. If you look here for example: https://voidwell.com/ps2/oracle?sta...s=432&startDate=2016-07-07&endDate=2020-02-23 You can see that there is a short increase of C4 uniques at 26th september of 2017 when they were introduced. Which isn't surprising considering new things almost always get a surge of users. But the amount of kills and vehicle KPU goes up just about linearily with the amount of unique users. You can even see a heavy drop in users, kills and vehicle KPU not a month later. In other words: Ambushers never improved the killingpower of C4 fairies compared to the other jumpjets. This is actually a bit weird, as the addition of a new method to attack should have increased the amount of times that an attack was successful. Yet the amount of times these jumpjets are in a position where they couldn't kill the target (say a vehicle that drove away while you were ambush-jetting towards it with no way to catch up quickly) must have happened about equally often.
Interesting numbers. From personal experience I would argue in OP's favor. Been killed countless times by a LA ambushering over really quick. Not saying C4 is OP, but that it definitely sees a pairing with Ambushers used to a good success. Admittedly very often this leads to the user dying, but they still get more kills to offset that from a good run. They're not so much used in AV, but anti-max and anti-infantry where people use the jets to quickly do a flyover of busy areas.
I don't know. Using C4 is important against vehicles and MAXes, but I fully understand the dislike of AI C4 fairies. It's mostly pointless and resource-heavy with too little gain, feels like certain people only do it out of spite. I have occasionally chucked a brick or two over a base wall from behind cover myself, knowing there were clusters of enemies below, but only when nothing else worked (like going down myself because they watch the wall). And while the radius isn't important against vehicles all that much, against MAXes it is.
I wouldn't mind another quarter second of fuse delay as it still too often gets used like a big grenade. It's bearable as it is though. I think it needs that radius to remain viable as an anti-max weapon.
yeah ... like HALF a SECOND delay. Great... that gives us all of 150 millisends to get clear when you do the Latency math that's putting most of the detonation timing on the Client of the player who dropped it. You don't even need to be a Light Assault to pull this cheesey bull **** off EVERY time if you're Lag switching too. I could do it as a Heavy WITH my shields up walking backwards before the server would disconnect me entirely!
So that LA just teleported towards you and instantly dropped the C4? Or did he appear with C4 in hand, blast towards you, dropped it and then detonated it? If you didnt see him comming that half second didnt matter in the first place. If you did see him comming you shouldnt be surprised that he's either shooting or throwing stuff right? I really hate those arguments that assume you can only react the moment your opponent pulls the trigger. What about the time it took to get there? The times you could spot them? Even if it is them running through a door and ambush-jetting towards you, you still had time! Time to shoot, time to move, time to react to something you should know is comming!
Oh you mean all that time he's hiding on a roof or behind a wall? Yeah SORRY I don't possess x-ray Vision! MY BAD. We are NOT talking about tank driving here, Durrr. I almost never get C4'd in a tank. The problem always has been, and always will be this **** happening to us as Infantry/MAXes. There is no such things as "WELL just don't stand anywhere near a roof/wall!" ...the game's world design doesn't work that way when I'm **trying** to be a Medic! Until this detonation is NO LONGER CLIENTSIDE or can't be used by Ambusher LA's or atleast has a Grenade Shader highlight around it, the real problems will never have been addressed by the Devs.
Erm I specifically mentioned NOT nerfing it against vehicles. Just the AI cheese. It's also why I'm talking about the AI radius, and not asking them to adjust (again) the fuse timer, etc. And you're crazy if you don't think ambusher jets give you a huge advantage for spamming C4.
You are in luck! C4 isnt clientside! It is handled like an AI or AV mine except the detonation trigger is in the player's hand. But since the server will only detonate the C4 and see if it hit something when it finally received the signal its server-side that governs your time to react to the C4. Funny how many times people ask for something without actually knowing what it'll achieve. Even funnier: ambusher jets are the worst for climbing a roof. And if you are throwing C4 off of roofs, what are the jets for? And if LA's have this much free reign to get into position to C4 you, what are your allied LA's doing? I also find it highly suspisious that you assume C4 is tossed around so much. C4 easily fails, I've tossed C4 into a crowded room without scoring kills. They are too costly to just randomly dump somewhere and if someone uses it to kill a single person they are out of nanites within minutes. So what are you doing to get targeted this much and this easily? Or are you simply exaggerating the truth because of bias and/just wanting to be rid of C4 because it doesnt suit you? X-ray vision might not exist (not for the LA up there either), but recon darts do. And if you are a Medic and your biggest concern is C4 then you should be using flak armor. But I actually did propose items that would be akin to X-ray vision to help out. That would be a better solution than nerfing C4 or removing it from a class that does not kill more people with it than with other jets.
That current radius has to exist for reliable vehicle damage, as only hitting the center point of vehicles works with explosions. Maybe an alternative solution is many projectiles which would impact a vehicle's hit box? Another solution is a new damage type which infantry is resistant to. But the other problem is stale mates that occur when points are stacked. With current base design there's just not much other way to breach aside from explosive spam, which I hate as much as the next guy.
I have probably some 10,000 C4 kills or so. Ambusher nerfs made it so you can't just zip to people and blow them up, and insta-reset your jumps reliably so no more of that. Drifters are still a thing that works. Deploy shield nerfed that playstyle of dropping on sundies pretty hard, but for infantry balls its still good. Honestly for 100 nanites its not something you can spam forever and if 10+ people want to stand in one spot without advancing then yes, drop explosives on them. Its a zerg culling weapon. C4 isn't suppose to be used to kill one guy ( unless hes hilariously over a tiny wall and you know it ) its use against infantry is that of killing mass players. Flak armor makes it a joke to die to C4 as it would take two bricks. Thing is, Flak armor isnt the meta in infantry combat because nanoweave is such a staple with its 20% armor. But you always see people complaining about things that there are counters for readily available in the game. I don't see the point to reducing the C4's explosive radius, for 100 nanites its roughly the same radius as a grenade and its a damn brick of explosives. Should it be useless versus infantry? Personally you need to be stationary, unaware, or too tightly packed to get killed by C4 in infantry battles. All cardinal sins of infantry combat. If you get flanked its because of being unaware, if you are in the open in a giant clump next to a building you deserve to be hit by a liberator, c4, hesh or any other "farming" tool designed to cull the herd in PS2. PS2's scale means that SOME weapons need to be designed to take out large groups. I'll give a good example. The duster. Completely useless in 1-12 fights, would be garbage in a game like Battlefield even with people in groups of 10, but the duster shines when you can make a pass on 25-40 people in one spot. Only in Planetside. C4 is another great anti-mass player tool that comes at an expense of nanites. Blast radius on vehicles shouldn't even matter as you should REALLY only use it when you've stuck the C4 due to clientside. Even then, people can drive faster than C4 explosions when flying.
I think the overall gripe is this: When you see it coming and can't do anything about it. If the LA was clever and didn't give you a chance? No complaints here. He deserves the kill. I wouldn't mind another quarter second delay on the C4 detonation. I think that would make the difference. it's not terrible as-is though.
That might actually be a reasonable move then. But most times I see that happening is 2 LAs (usually it's 2, single one is rare, sometimes 3 or more) dropping them on groups of 4. And that reeks of lazyness and spite.
I'm not sure how it is possible that you could both see it coming but not do anything about it. The only time that happens is if you are standing at a doorway and the C4 was thrown right around the corner (or a low wall or similar situation). But that is a good reason to avoid doorways and if anyone can be so certain that you'll be there when he throws C4 without you having a chance to see and intercept him before he reaches the door, I would say the fault is yours. Now I'm not saying that this is a perfectly balanced situation. There's plenty of room to improve the relationship between the C4 user and his victims to make it more entertaining for both. But as I've said before I'm against this overexaggerated nonsense where people basically suggest that C4 users teleport on top of you before dropping C4 never giving you any chance to do anything. The counter might be readily available, but it's not as useful compared to the basic armor. You'll be killed 20 times for not equipping Nanoweave for each time you'll be killed for not equipping flak armor. You can't fault people for not seeing it as much as an option. But this is a fair indication of how badly designe suit slots are. Why use Flak armor if Nanoweave will be better most of the time? These options need to be revamped, some outright removed. So that players have an actual choice in what suit slot they pick. Preferably these slots would change the way you play that class so we get a larger variety of playstyles and combat techniques.
Flak is recommended in situations when heavy grenade spam is to be anticipated and you need to survive behind the front line. Say, a medic in a point room in a large fight. So you can pick up the nanoweave-frontliners who die to grenades. C4 fairies are too rare to run it as a main suit simply bacause of them.
