HE grenades are broken

For general discussion about XCOM: Long War
Post Reply
RKade8583
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2016 7:29 pm

HE grenades are broken

Post by RKade8583 »

My buddy and I are both playing Long War 1.0 and we can both confirm that HE grenades don't do any damage. Is this by design or a bug?

And by "no damage," we mean "no damage when thrown on top of two sectoids right next to each other and a drone on the other corner of a car." 3 armor damage (one apiece) and no car explosion. To say I was pissed is an understatement.

He has stories too and if you want to hear them, I'll have him type it all out.
dericwadleigh
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:29 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by dericwadleigh »

I would be his friend.

Now, what my problems with it are that it does not do more damage than the AP grenade or even destroy any cover, making it utterly pointless. There have been numerous times where I will throw them at walls, barricades or the like and they don't even damage let alone destroy. I have dropped them on top of sectoids before and seen them do no damage at all. Even on a good roll, a HE grenade will only deal two points.

So to correct this, I have had to make edits to the ini, which I don't like doing because it feels like I'm cheating. I'm not playing the game the way its intended. But whatever the case I changed the environmental damage from 99 -> 200. I figure if a rocket launcher does, i think, 350, 200 seems fine. No change to damage, I understand an AP grenade should do more damage, but if a HE grenade doesn't at least destroy more stuff, then its utterly worthless next to the AP and I don't like that.

So the long and short of it is that I suggest doubling the environmental damage if HE grenades in order to make them useful and not completely fucking worthless.

Thanks for your time.
CrypticC62
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2015 1:57 am

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by CrypticC62 »

Are these HE grenades being thrown by an Engineer with the Sapper perk? Or by a regular bro?
RKade8583
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2016 7:29 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by RKade8583 »

Bro? They're rookies but it's an HE grenade. It doesn't matter if it's a ten year old hucking it, the composition of the grenade doesn't change. The fact of the matter is that my buddy and I are getting ZERO damage and ZERO environmental damage and we both feel that's bunk. I mean it makes no sense.

Why not make HE grenades exclusive to engineers (and others) instead of spawning rookies with them?

Now that I'm less upset, I'll TL;DR this. HE grenades are supposed to destroy cover and they don't unless you have sapper. We think this should be fixed to an extent. As we're just guessing, we tweaked the ini but we think one of the devs should give the numbers a once-over and either change them or explain their rationale for zero damage and zero environment damage when thrown by anyone who doesn't have the sapper perk.
NinjaJediSmurf
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 10:40 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by NinjaJediSmurf »

I don't know if you're new to LW, but a couple of points.

Most things in LW get more powerful with research. This is the same with grenades. The alien grenades foundry project in EW just gives you unlimited alien grenades. In LW it gives your HE grenades +300% environmental damage. It also gives AP grenades +1 damage. So your engineers with sapper will do crazy cover destruction with upgraded HE grenades. If you want to do cover destruction with other soldiers, then alien grenades work better. Cover is not destroyed as easily in LW because grenade damage is greater at the centre of the blast radius, and the cover is simply more durable. Still, a rookie with an HE grenade should be able to destroy a lot of cover like building walls and furniture. You may need a couple of grenades to destroy UFO cover and more to destroy a car.
Andor
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2016 12:48 am

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by Andor »

I've been playing Long War for a good while now and if I saw multiple HE grenades doing 0 damage to sectiods when dropped into the same square I would bug report it too. Just because they improve does not mean a starting grenades should have the explosive power of chucking a bottle of pepsi with a mentos in it.
RKade8583
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2016 7:29 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by RKade8583 »

Apt comparison. That's about what it felt like which is why we bumped the environmental damage (and we think the LW team should as well.) No damage to aliens is one thing but for them to be completely useless is something else.
User avatar
Schweineschnute
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:10 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by Schweineschnute »

I don't really understand the damage calculation for grenades. The AP grenade deals high damage against targets but none against cover and even the slightest cover shields from damage. But the HE grenade is really underpowered in comparison - it deals less damage against targets and is frequently completely blocked by armour, even with unarmoured sectoids but the scenerey damage is only really worthwhile with a sapper and research and also suffers from the same limitations as a AP grenade (it will destroy low cover but cause no damage to the target behind that low cover).

But maybe the problem is just that the low end enemies like sectoids and thin men already sport armour able to withstand grenades. It can get a bit frustrating at times and doesn't really make sense, but Long War is all about higher difficulty to begin with.
User avatar
szmind
Long War EU Crew
Posts: 102
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:56 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by szmind »

I disagree with uselessness of HE grenades. Just learn its purpose and learn how to use it. These are not supposed to damage aliens, really. At the begining of campaign they do destroy cover but in the very center of blast radius (say withing 1 tile radius) and in fact they are supposed only for that purpose. If you need damage to aliens, go for AP grenades, cause HE grenades are for clearing cover. By "cover" I mean walls, furniture, light fences and that kind of stuff - not cars, big stone walls or UFO walls. After research, I prefer HE grenades over Alien Grenades for destroying cover - because of 40% larger radius (larger total blast radius means also larger "damage-effective" center of blast radius). But at the begining stick to the rule - one piece of cover = one grenade aimed at this cover.
jgbaxter
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2015 12:28 am

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by jgbaxter »

RKade8583 wrote:My buddy and I are both playing Long War 1.0 and we can both confirm that HE grenades don't do any damage. Is this by design or a bug?

And by "no damage," we mean "no damage when thrown on top of two sectoids right next to each other and a drone on the other corner of a car." 3 armor damage (one apiece) and no car explosion. To say I was pissed is an understatement.

He has stories too and if you want to hear them, I'll have him type it all out.

The grenade should have done significant damage.

Toss up if it'd kill with them being under good cover.
Andor
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2016 12:48 am

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by Andor »

szmind wrote:I disagree with uselessness of HE grenades. Just learn its purpose and learn how to use it. These are not supposed to damage aliens, really. At the begining of campaign they do destroy cover but in the very center of blast radius (say withing 1 tile radius) and in fact they are supposed only for that purpose. If you need damage to aliens, go for AP grenades, cause HE grenades are for clearing cover. By "cover" I mean walls, furniture, light fences and that kind of stuff - not cars, big stone walls or UFO walls. After research, I prefer HE grenades over Alien Grenades for destroying cover - because of 40% larger radius (larger total blast radius means also larger "damage-effective" center of blast radius). But at the begining stick to the rule - one piece of cover = one grenade aimed at this cover.
Take a step back for a moment from the concept of game purpose. Does it make sense that a high explosive grenade, capable of detonating a semi-truck or blasting apart a stone wall should do no appreciable harm to a naked halfling? Is it intuitive to a newcomer that something labeled as a high-explosive grenade might be incapable of causing as much harm as a pistol?

Game mechanics are one thing, but it also has to pass the sniff test. Grenades hurt. Grenades which not not hurt are called flash-bangs, they are already in the game under than name, and IRL they can still bloody kill you if they go off too close. Game devices which are analogues of real-world weapons need to bear at least a passing resemblance to their IRL inspirations. Flash bangs dazzle. Shotguns make things dead. And grenades are capable of hurting streaking toddlers and snakes in suits, not doing even 1 point at point blank range fails the sniff test.
User avatar
szmind
Long War EU Crew
Posts: 102
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:56 pm

Re: HE grenades are broken

Post by szmind »

And HE grenades do the damage. It's basically 1-5 points as stated in description. Just it might be reduced (even to 0) due to damage reduction resulting from cover ('toddlers' like sectoids or thinmen have no armor for DR). We can discuss whether the damage spread is realistic, but no doubt that cover may save "toddler's" ass from the grenade blast. I have no problem with that. Imagine that you see grenade bumping close to you, by instinct you fall to the ground behind cover to evade the blast. And I belive it may save you. Just there is no animation for this "duck-action".
Post Reply