Attn Developers: Please expain limited use grenades. Will we lose our Orange Grenades

[Indra Echo]

The main focus of DLC should be in adding new content and not changing current mechanics. If the devs cannot see that by now then that will be that. I've been a true supporter and find the game fun, but have no doubt that even I cannot weather the storm of complaining over new lag and failed arkfalls and sieges to come.

This may be more specific to xboxes but I sincerely do not believe the reply here indicates a real need to change this and to add to complexity. Nor is there any specific need for something to regen our HP in game. That's what reviving is for after all. That is unless the idea is to deal with lag by hoping for vacant servers, then people will be on their own and need a way to bump their HP-but they won't do any major arkfalls or sieges anymore either.

[PseudoCool]

Hi folks!

One quick clarification, grenade stacks which reach zero will remain in your inventory. You can go to most vendors and refill those stacks for a fee.

Now, for a peek behind the curtain!

When we changed the grenades to being consumable, we did so to address a variety of issues.

Grenade Identity

The variety of the grenades in game lacked identity. Due to the four axis variability of each grenade mod, many of the rarer mods were not an actual improvement over the lower rarity mods. The only axis which provided significant benefit to our players was damage. (And duration for flashbang, pyro, and bio grenades.) This created a deeply negative experience for players when looting higher-tier grenades, and generally cluttered and already cumbersome inventory. By focusing on grenade identity, we are able to guarantee that each type of grenade is distinct and each rarity an improvement.

Risk-reward

Grenades had a serious risk-reward imbalance in a variety of common situations. With a fast-fire grenade thrown from a third-person perspective, misses were common and the long cooldown on grenades made this incredibly punishing. As such, grenades become something which lacked real strategic choice. Even with all the cooldown reduction synergies and bonuses, grenades could not be relied upon as a problem solving tool. Ideally, players should be able to make significant strategic decisions prior to a fight to enable themselves to play in the style they most enjoy. The original execution of grenades did not feed this dynamic.

Economic Issues

Ark hunters are the elite scavengers and warriors of the New Frontier. They are equal parts treasure hunter, bounty hunter, and monster hunter, and an infinite supply of high explosives really stretched this fiction and prevented a players from making significant economic decisions. An intended mechanic which never played out was that players should be making a significant decision between selling their loot and scrapping it. However, there was no viable economic sink for scrip, and this removed a significant choice from players. The answer was always to break down loot for salvage to get ark keys.

This robbed players of choice and the ability to own their decisions.

The consumables (grenades, spikes, and stims) provide an economic pressure with significant gameplay implications. They allow players to convert scrip into significant short-term power increases. Now the scrip vs salvage decision has teeth.

Now, for clarification on some issues. “Grenade ammo” is not a thing. When a person picks up an uncommon frag grenade loot, they will get a stack of 3 uncommon frag grenades added to their inventory. If they pick up an Orange bio grenade drop, they will get three orange bio grenades added. “Smart Loot” ensures that players will primarily see drops of things they already have of the same rarity they have or lower. Essentially, players who don’t want to spend money to refill grenade stacks will rely on the luck of the drops to refill the grenades that they have in their inventory.

Three pages before the end.. and a DEV answered the question of the OP! Awesomesauce should ensue!

Thanks Trick, even though this issue didn't bug me nearly as much as it did some, it's nice to see a Dev come on and explain the change and the reasons for it. Now THAT is good company communication with the playerbase. Bring on the scrip grenades! Yeah baby!

[digetey dank]

The main focus of DLC should be in adding new content and not changing current mechanics. If the devs cannot see that by now then that will be that. I've been a true supporter and find the game fun, but have no doubt that even I cannot weather the storm of complaining over new lag and failed arkfalls and sieges to come.

This may be more specific to xboxes but I sincerely do not believe the reply here indicates a real need to change this and to add to complexity. Nor is there any specific need for something to regen our HP in game. That's what reviving is for after all. That is unless the idea is to deal with lag by hoping for vacant servers, then people will be on their own and need a way to bump their HP-but they won't do any major arkfalls or sieges anymore either.

well said sir!

[GS Wraith]

One quick clarification, grenade stacks which reach zero will remain in your inventory. You can go to most vendors and refill those stacks for a fee.

Now, for clarification on some issues. “Grenade ammo” is not a thing. When a person picks up an uncommon frag grenade loot, they will get a stack of 3 uncommon frag grenades added to their inventory. If they pick up an Orange bio grenade drop, they will get three orange bio grenades added. “Smart Loot” ensures that players will primarily see drops of things they already have of the same rarity they have or lower. Essentially, players who don’t want to spend money to refill grenade stacks will rely on the luck of the drops to refill the grenades that they have in their inventory.

2 big question here are how much that fee will be?, especially for rarities like oranges, and the fact that drops will be up to the rarity you have. I have bought many tier 4 boxes and they have the possibility to get up to the rarity of orange but 99% of the time I get bbbg or bbgg for combinations. This would mean I could have an orange stack filled with blue and green versions of the same type or I would have to pay a fortune to constantly replenish that supply vs buying a cheaper supply of greens.

It costs a lot of scrip to get a good orange grenade right now but in the future, that cost will continue indefinitely. My conclusion is that this will definitely kill the value of orange grenades. It was stated that dlc is a couple of months out so why not buy now and worry about later. My thought is that it is a lot of scrip for a temporary fix and to get it, I would be trading/selling other nice weapons that will not go away when the DLC comes out.

[Albion]

Can we now get an explanation about what's going to happen to the Grenadier synergy and other grenade recharge bonuses? Are these going to become worthless like the self-revive rolls?

PLEASE answer this! Trick, I appreciate you taking the time to explain this whole idea, but it sounds like a mess to me. And more importantly, Grenadier synergy and grenade bonuses are a big part of the weapons I have spent months (and lots of scrip) acquiring. If those all become worthless, that would be the last straw for me. Like other posters have suggested, there are other problems to fix first, rather than introducing a whole new game mechanic that would add more potential problems and take away yet another aspect of the game that is actually working well (and that players like). It seems sometimes like you guys are trying to sabotage this game on purpose so it will die. Really, that is what is seems like to a lot of us.

[Xaearth]

Hi folks!

One quick clarification, grenade stacks which reach zero will remain in your inventory. You can go to most vendors and refill those stacks for a fee.

Now, for a peek behind the curtain!

When we changed the grenades to being consumable, we did so to address a variety of issues.

Grenade Identity

The variety of the grenades in game lacked identity. Due to the four axis variability of each grenade mod, many of the rarer mods were not an actual improvement over the lower rarity mods. The only axis which provided significant benefit to our players was damage. (And duration for flashbang, pyro, and bio grenades.) This created a deeply negative experience for players when looting higher-tier grenades, and generally cluttered and already cumbersome inventory. By focusing on grenade identity, we are able to guarantee that each type of grenade is distinct and each rarity an improvement.

My inventory begs to differ with you. While I am a self-confessed pack rat and loot *****, my overflowing inventory space still manages to hold multiples of several grenade types. On top of that, I never look at damage to decide whether or not to replace one of my current grenades. It's always Det Time, Duration, Recharge, or Radius (cluster - which ironically enough I consistently sacrifice damage for the lower spread so I get more booms closer to my target).

Risk-reward

Grenades had a serious risk-reward imbalance in a variety of common situations. With a fast-fire grenade thrown from a third-person perspective, misses were common and the long cooldown on grenades made this incredibly punishing. As such, grenades become something which lacked real strategic choice. Even with all the cooldown reduction synergies and bonuses, grenades could not be relied upon as a problem solving tool. Ideally, players should be able to make significant strategic decisions prior to a fight to enable themselves to play in the style they most enjoy. The original execution of grenades did not feed this dynamic.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't miss that often. Sure there are times where I want to hit something and end up hitting something else, but whiffs are rare for me. Certainly my tendency to favor low Det Time over damage and cluster grenades as a whole might have something to do with it, but that goes right back to your first point.

Perhaps there will be more strategy with grenade stacks on a shorter cooldown, but, personally, I use my grenades for utility damage and to conserve ammo on enemies I can't reliably crit. To me, it seems you're just switching a system where ammo has to be conserved to one where grenades have to be conserved and ammo can be refilled on-demand via spike.

Economic Issues

Ark hunters are the elite scavengers and warriors of the New Frontier. They are equal parts treasure hunter, bounty hunter, and monster hunter, and an infinite supply of high explosives really stretched this fiction and prevented a players from making significant economic decisions. An intended mechanic which never played out was that players should be making a significant decision between selling their loot and scrapping it. However, there was no viable economic sink for scrip, and this removed a significant choice from players. The answer was always to break down loot for salvage to get ark keys.

This robbed players of choice and the ability to own their decisions.

The consumables (grenades, spikes, and stims) provide an economic pressure with significant gameplay implications. They allow players to convert scrip into significant short-term power increases. Now the scrip vs salvage decision has teeth.

Someone over there at Trion also thought increasing the price of vehicles was a good way to pull money out of the economy... except it only affected new players and collectors who hadn't completed their collection, a poor decision that, to this day has still not been addressed.

In short, my faith in your (Trion collectively) ability to create meaningful and balanced scrip sinks is nil.

Now, for clarification on some issues. “Grenade ammo” is not a thing. When a person picks up an uncommon frag grenade loot, they will get a stack of 3 uncommon frag grenades added to their inventory. If they pick up an Orange bio grenade drop, they will get three orange bio grenades added. “Smart Loot” ensures that players will primarily see drops of things they already have of the same rarity they have or lower. Essentially, players who don’t want to spend money to refill grenade stacks will rely on the luck of the drops to refill the grenades that they have in their inventory.

Now we get to the real scary part.

The percentage of your playerbase that actually has faith in your drop system is abysmally small. We get loot boost weekends and bit-store boosts and notice an increase to our Ammo drops and an abundance of whites and little else.

PS: Where's the Scavenger synergy sniper rifles?

You could probably count on one hand the number of people outside of Trion's employment that actually believe your development team has a handle on what is going on with the drop system currently on live, and you're telling us you're complicating that drop system even further with "Smart Loot" consumable drops?

[Slyfox2001]

Adding a forced marketplace for scrip usage-creating a way to call for drops of smart loot grenades (ok the grenades you want will be replenished). Imagine this, at arkfalls, 15 people using stims and stuff at once-trying to get that EGO boost at some and get more grenades and others running around since everything is invisible due to lag. And very few people actually able to take the time to shoot at the Monolith or anything else.

Again, it is a cumbersome mechanic that seems merely to address some phantom need for a way to use scrip instead of any real need in the game.

It likely also partly stems from the fact that some grenades are not working right. It will be harder to tell if you're often running after some random drop of grenade loot just to have a grenade than if you are constantly assessing the grenade you always equip and its effectiveness.

All of these convoluted reasons for doing this (which are not things I've ever heard anyone say) could easily be handled by changing the grenades themselves. Far less work I'd think too and resources that could be spent on stuff we'd like. Where in that list of suggestions on google did anyone state they hated the grenade they always equipped because it didn't fit into their strategy-and how would random loot drops fix that?

OMG! you totally get me! Trion is the bestest eva, like, for realz, but I don't see many people staying for, like, the non-awesomeness that this might, like, be... At least no lag!!!!

So, I wish I could, like, move words around like you, but, I can't... So, we would have to, like, pay for gernade ammoz? lol that's not fun! I shootz a gun and don't have to buy moar ammoz... IDK my BFFs... IDK... Love this game!

Translation: Totally agree with you here. However, I don't imagine the lag will be much of an issue when the time comes as there will probably only be a handful of people playing...

So, this essentially comes down to us having to pay for ammo, right? A gun is the vessel and the bullets are the expendable objects, right? So then a "grenade case" (or whatever you want to call it) is the vessel and "grenade loot" drops are the expendable objects? That we have to pay for (cases pending)? Crap on that.

[Indra Echo]

2 big question here are how much that fee will be, especially for rarities like oranges, and the fact that drops will be up to the rarity you have. I have bought many tier 4 boxes and they have the possibility to get up to the rarity of orange but 99% of the time I get bbbg or bbgg for combinations. This would mean I could have an orange stack filled with blue and green versions of the same time or I could have to pay a fortune to constantly replenish that supply vs buying a cheaper supply of greens. It costs a lot of scrip to get a good orange grenade right now bu in the future, that cost will ontinue indefinitely. My conclusion is that this will definitely kill the value of orange grenades. It was stated that dlc is a couple of months out so why not buy now nd worry about later. My thought is that it is a loof scrip fo a temporary fix and to get it, I would be tradin / selling other nice weapons that ill not o away withth DLC.

My thought is that this will become an untradeable commodity (maybe not) seeing as what you likely would have is a placeholder for grenade stacks and not the actual grenade. It just seems to be adding a cumbersome overlay to something that worked well in its simplicity. I can only think that they keep taking a page from other games in some of this. I've seen this same sort of thing done from one game to the next but not within a game.

I'm not a big fan of consumables anyway and of course since lag is already a huge factor in this game, anything that adds complexity, drops, and all that affects lag in a bad way. I don't need more ways to spend scrip-we recently got mods at vendors that help us spend that really well. And if that's a big reason, it's a silly one.

[Hiero Glyph]

At this point the general consensus is that we do not want game-changing mechanics, we want improvements for the existing game mechanics. With all of the current problems that Defiance has, adding or revamping systems will only lead to new, unforeseen problems. Remember the chat improvements you guys made; how'd that work out for everyone? Also, will this grenade ammo change fix the 0.0s detonation bug that causes a thrown grenade to blow up in the player's hand? Now that would be an improvement!

[Slyfox2001]

Also, will this grenade ammo change fix the 0.0s detonation bug that causes a thrown grenade to blow up in the player's hand? Now that would be an improvement!

Well, in Trion's defense, it is 0.0... shouldn't that blow up as soon as the pin (or whatever) is pulled?