So I've been playing around with smoke grenades on my LA, with a full grenade bandolier and thus far I've been disappointed. I feel like smoke grenades are weak compared to normal frags or flashbangs. The few situations where I've gotten some visible use from them could have just as easily been replaced with flashbangs. Attempts to use them to mask my position, whether I was standing in or outside of the smoke, have been completely unsuccessful due to Q-spotting. Then there's the issue with smoke not coming out at all if the grenade is thrown too far away. I've also heard that by setting the particle or render effects to low then smoke does not appear at all, though I have not confirmed. After bug fixes, I suggest giving the smoke grenades an additional effect of cancelling Q-spot markers within a small area, for about 3/4s of the duration of the smoke. It would also be nice to see the smoke come out more quickly, possibly instantaneously after the fuse timer ends. Making them sticky is an interesting change that someone suggested before, personally I dunno but it sounds neat so I'll list it as well. Any thoughts?
The problem with smoke grenades was always inconsistency and unreliability, including lots of factors outside your control. You throw a frag and it's gonna explode and deal damage. I didn't say to who. You throw a smoke grenade and it: will or will not produce a cloud of smoke depending on how far you throw it will or will not create a cloud of smoke on enemy screen based on whether they used UserOptions.ini to disable all particles (this actually hurts them more than you, because muzzle flashes, tracers and bullets are also particles) if smoke is created it will have a variable thickness and see-through-ability based on enemy graphic settings And even if smoke grenade manages to create a good, thick, pitch black cloud of smoke, it has limited applications. You can't hide in it very well: you may be spotted through smoke and unless you run Counter Intelligence you won't even know it enemy might be running HS/NV scope - though granted, ever since a nerf long ago few people use it a lot of vehicles run thermal vision, though You can't shoot through it very well: even if you run HS/NV scope and flash / normal suppressor, tracers will still give away your position. And more over, it has the same effect on your allies as it has on enemies. With so many things in enemy hands, hoping to extract any use from smokes is like shooting MCG into a doorway and waiting for free kills to come to you. Even if smoke would be working consistently, you still need a dedicated loadout for it, and coordinated squad, but if you're using that level of tactics, who's to say enemy won't counter you with HS/NV and thermals? Smoke Grenades are beyond saving with simple tweaks like Fuse Timer or making them sticky. There's been quite a few good posts on what could be done with Smokes: make them stop shield regeneration and/or deal a tiny amount of damage over time make enemies more visible (perhaps by force flashing their shields). would be cool if this effect worked through walls, like in CoD: AW make it more transparent for allies and less for enemies remove "spotted" condition from any allied units inside smoke, similarly to how cloaking does it Do this all at once, fix outstanding bugs and issues with visibility on different settings and maybe Smoke Grenade will be a useful non-lethal grenade like EMPs are.
I as a light assault use it to conceal my movement for short distance whether for flanking or escape. And use it as a decoy, I throw it on door way fly around the building and use the other entrance. Most of the time you can see them aiming at the smoke and not you. As a medic combination with shield regen I use it to influence my zerg movement. I shoot enemy with smoke(not in between you and enemy), move to cover near enemy position and placed shield regen so you'll attract zergs like a moth thinking it is a safe cover. Be mindful that shield regen also attract enemy grenades. Also I use smoke so my recent revives wont get killed again right way.
