Just a thought, but would it be a good idea to limit the number of grenades squads can take into battle and have them shared universally for said squad? This would namely allow for new players to have cheaper viable squad loadouts. That, and since we can’t loot the grenades off dead comrades, this will allow others the ability to use the unused ones.
I would say that a single squad should only have ~4 grenades at most, excluding smoke and possibly increasing this limit with grenadiers(if such a squad gets added?). Reason being that only a rich player would be able to afford a rifle squad of 9 to have the big g pouch and 4 grenades for each soldier; which I haven’t seen but I hear it is not fun to be matched against.
This suggestion would only really fix the newcomers issue of not having a viable grenade for each of their soldiers and could possibly allow for smoke grenades to see some usage.
The only result you’d reliably get with a team shared grenade pool, is some dudes wasting all of the team’s grenades in the first 5 minutes of every match.
The first two answers make it sound like grenades being shared by the TEAM. But The OP is about grenades being shared by the SQUAD. Big difference.
I’m still not in favour of it. It simplefies gameplay too much and the same time reduces tactical options. There are better ways to combat grenade spam.
I’m kind of in favor of it. Though, my thing is that the core issue of balance and counters come into play.
First I would like to note:
If they are using a 9-man rifleman squad (which I see very frequently) the GL rifles have 3 shots each, in addition, they are packing grenade pouches that carry 3 grenades each, so effectively its actually 6 grenades/ soldier. Grand total you are looking at 54 potential grenades, with 27 of which being GL shots.
That amount of ordinance is insane. While I do see some merit in your suggestion, I would actually like to propose a counter-suggestion (which I’ve posted in the past, but the OP may not have seen):
Introduce mine pouches.
Now before someone pops off and says that just ADDS to the problem, it most certainly does not.
Mines are not something that is frequently utilized. Serious Question: How often do you actually see mines being utilized in your games?
At the very least, nowhere NEAR as much as hand grenades are. Mines are only ever really utilized for defensive purposes. Now, with a mine pouch being added, you increase the potential for landmines actually being effective, as they are not just an area denial tool, but help to throw the enemy off balance by keeping them guessing where mines are planted, in addition to sometimes removing key assets from the field before they have a chance to do serious damage. These can include things like troops packing 3-6 grenades as we were talking about.
The mines themselves come at a steep cost, both in terms of logistics as well as difficulty of usage. With the new currency system they are going to implement, it may be a bit easier to get them in terms of logistics. The difficulty of use however is still present. Unlike grenades, they aren’t thrown at range. So in order to make them effective, the player has to move to that position and plant them ahead of time. That also means that the enemy has to walk pretty much right over the top to trigger it. Keep in mind, also unlike grenades, they aren’t useful when they are spammed in close proximity to each other. The player has to actually set a FIELD of mines for them to even have a fraction of the effectiveness of grenades. One mine per soldier doesn’t accomplish that.
To top it all off, if mine pouches were introduced, it would present a new option that players might use instead of grenade pouches. Though they would still only likely be used by select squads such as engineers, with grenades being the go to option for offense. At least with mine pouches it would help to level out the playing field a bit.
That is only under ideal circumstances, though. Bots die quickly and the bigger your squad, the more likely they are to wander into enemy fire. It would take extraordinary management skill or ideal cover to be able to use all these nades.
I was listing the extent of its potential, not trying to infer that all those troops will always be there for maximum effect.
That’s the thing though:
With the amount of grenade firepower that EACH of them carry, each one has extremely high potential. Every additional one that survives just increases that already high potential even further, and by a considerable margin.
Just as a quick comparison (and only one of the situations that make it extremely powerful), take a look at area denial in a medium sized choke point.
A pristine, 9-man squad with GL and grenade pouches.
VS
A pristine, 9-man squad with normal rifles and an AP mine each.
The grenade group will be able to heavily saturate the area with explosions for a considerable amount of time. The enemies will continue to be killed off in that zone with some of them making it through with moderate to high health damage. They are even able to target the same spot repeatedly if necessary.
Meanwhile, the group with mines (which currently maxes out at 9 with that size of squad btw), set up their mines. Spacing has to be taken into account, as they will chain-reaction otherwise. These mines, assuming all of them go off with an enemy nearby (and assuming they aren’t triggered by being damaged, as grenades can trip them if they go off close by or are shot), will only hit one or two soldiers each. Holding the enemy back for a significantly shorter time period, with less efficiency, and far less sustainability. The ONLY advantage that mines have is that you don’t have to sit there and watch the area, freeing you up a little bit to make sure other areas are covered too.