Among all the things I love about Halo, there have always been a few little grievances. One major one for me is the grenade-spamming. The trouble is, once an enemy throws a grenade at you, it’s too late to do anything about it. This results in two big problems…
Getting killed by grenades after every encounter. It is incredibly frustrating to have really cool and invigorating plays, barely survive battles, or scarcely manage to pull out a win in a 2v1, just to have someone from halfway across the map throw a grenade at you and ruin it. If you can’t absorb the damage, there’s nothing you can do, cause the grenades can be thrown so far, and their blast radius is so big, that once they throw it, you’re done. Your only hope is the enemy messing up their grenade throw, which doesn’t happen much.
Grenade-spamming on objectives and tight spaces. Any corner, such as the corner rooms in Bazaar or the middle hallway in Live Fire, is just a constant pool of grenades. If you stay in there for more than a brief moment, you’re going to get blown up, almost inevitably. Because of their shape, grenades can be easily placed in these areas from anywhere, so people will spawn and just immediately start throwing grenades where they think someone is. Even more problematic is when this happens to objectives.
I had hoped that Halo Infinite would make some of these issues better. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it is actually worse. Grenades are as easy to place precisely as ever, don’t seem to be much less powerful, and now, there’s no friendly fire to mitigate them. That’s the biggest issue; since friendly fire is off (which I personally don’t mind, but I feel it needs to be accounted for, and hasn’t been), explosives, especially grenades, are much stronger. You no longer have to worry about hurting your allies, so if you see an ally in a close battle, you just throw grenades at them. Even if your ally loses, you’re all but guaranteed to finish off the enemy.
I propose two solutions to this problem. I’d do both, personally ,but I’d be happy if 343 considered either:
A. Players either don;t start with grenades, or at most start with 1. Add more frag grenades to scavenge around the map, making grenades a powerful tool to obtain, but more limited, much like Battle Rifles or Commandos.
B. Explosives have friendly fire, even if everything else doesn’t. This would balance all the explosive weapons that, I feel, are now significantly too strong due to their lack of team damage.
Grenade spam is just part of Halo. Every player gets the choice - do I chuck all my grenades now in hopes of killing someone, or do I save them for when I might really need them? Either option has advantages and drawbacks.
The last thing we need is more contrived restrictions to limit player choice and force people to play a certain way.
I disagree with the spam as I think only about 10% of my deaths are from grenades but I strongly agree that friendly fire for grenades should be reenabled!
I definitely abuse the fact that I can 'nade a teammate as the retreat from an enemy without hurting my team mate. In any other halo that wouldn’t be possible.
Update: I’ve since checked halo tracker and found that only about 7% of my kills are from grenades (fiesta mode may have slightly skewed this # downward) and I enjoy using them. So if I assume I’m about average, then that 7% is close to what I feel like is 10% of my deaths fr grenades.
Look, I understand that the golden triangle is very prominent in this game: guns, nades and punches.
But something has to be done about spawn grenades in particular. These are supposed to be tactical utilities, not “throw them and pray you hit something every time you die and respawn” utilities.
I don’t mind grenades. As a matter of fact, grenades are very important. But they are very pervasive right now, and I think they need a little tuning.
Edit: Even if they don’t mess with grenades, it’ll probably just be a learning curve for me. Nothing I can’t adapt to.
Ranked does have friendly fire on for nades, though it wont show as betrayal and will be credited to the opponents weapon. (currently ranked platinum 1)
I disagree with grenades being a problem since they won’t one shot you in the first place, it’s a matter of how you position yourself when you meet that encounter. Being stuck in a cramped room with the objective and not expect them to throw nades in that area to force you out is something that shouldn’t be surprising.
Welcome to my life 12 years ago, and what largely made me fed up with PvP. Meta gameplay gets old fast, especially in Halo where the first reaction is to throw a grenade first in most situations. I just mostly stopped playing PvP for this reason, because arguing against it will incite the rage of thousands of people who can’t stand the idea of engaging enemies differently.
I feel like the grenades are ok. They are more in line with halo CE’s grenades though and I can imagine that a lot of people are not used to that. I feel like dodging them isn’t too bad of an issue. Comparing Infinite’s frags to halo 3’s doesn’t seem to provide much difference either. If you have people who really know how to use frags then they will get very annoying. I can agree there. I can see that even more so if they are used to playing halo 4 the most. Let’s all just be glad they aren’t like the ones from the early reach beta. The frag explosions there instantly killed.
I think it would give more freedom of choice if grenades were something you could pickup, just like equipment. Right now, it’s like if everyone just started with the Repulsor automatically.
I don’t think the argument “this thing that’s really frustrating is just part of the game” really means anything. It shouldn’t be part of the game, and it’s more of a problem now than ever.
Definitely agree with that. I don’t think the grenades themselves are the issue; it’s the fact that there’s no friendly fire, and that means people are much more inclined to grenade spam than normal.
It’s not “surprising” but it is frustrating. And I can’t play competitive because they have no radar, and I am hearing impaired. I can’t hear enemies almost at all, so no radar means I can’t play the game.
I don’t think the grenades themselves are a problem, but the fact that friendly fire being turned off makes them significantly stronger. I do it myself all the time now; I see an ally fighting an enemy, i just throw some grenades at them. That enemy is literally guaranteed to die, because if they back out to avoid my grenades, they don’t kill my ally, who then kills them. If they do kill my ally, they only get a trade because they can’t avoid the grenades and I kill them automatically. It’s not even really fun when doing it to other people and super frustrating when it happens to me.
Yeah exactly. I wouldn’t mind the spam so much if it caused friendly fire damage, cause then I wouldn’t get grenade spammed while in the middle of fighting someone else. Or at least, if I did, I the grenades would kill both of us, not just me.,
Exactly and in that case you’d still be awarded the kill (a sort of punishment for the careless/spammy toss) . I think grenades shouldn’t be touched - it’s all a friendly fire issue IMO.
So grenades work…, just like grenades…, forcing players to get out of cover and providing an area of affect.
Here’s a little Halo history that some may have forgotten; In Halo: ODST you were able to carry a total of 12 grenades. That’s right 12 grenades… But in today’s games like Destiny we have a grenade cool-down that’s measured in calendar years for a single grenade. No thanks!
Personally I think the frag grenades still bounce too much and I think they reduce the hit-box for the sticky grenades. But lets just leave things the way they are for the time being.
Yeah grenades are a bit too strong in Infinite right now. I understand they want the sandbox to be easier for players to pickup but nades are way too easy to use right now, they are both too bouncy and the radius is too large. Some degree of map knowledge should be required to get good nades.
FF is part of the issue but it isn’t the only issue. They made the nades a bit bouncier presumably to compensate for the speed of spartans but they over corrected. Between how bouncy they are and the increased explosive radius they are too strong and way too easy to use. It’s comically easy to land nades that kill players whether they try and run away, hold, or push you.
Yeah I very much agree with that. I also feel the lack of friendly fire contributes a lot, cause it reduces the caution players used to need to have to avoid hitting their teammates.