Grenadier Zombies

Game Talk The Bunker
1

Spawns thrice in the latest experimental
Selects summer because fuck spring

k so this should be alright

First zombie found is grenade zombie
Grenade’d to death x3

…I really don’t think this is balanced.

That or I really don’t appreciate being shoehorned into having to play in spring conditions. If I wanted to deal with the cold I’d start in winter.

2

There is a simple solution… in the options menu is the monster difficulty… increasing the difficulty to 2 will delay the upgrading until winter.

3

For now set difficulty to a higher number (it really should be inverted…), later we’ll fix zed scaling always starting from spring.

4

Run from grenade zombies early. Their explosives are fast, but you can still outrun pretty much all of their explosions (flash bangs might still catch you with the edge). Treat them as you would a zombie brute or a master. You run into an elite grenadier? Treat it as you would a tankbot or a hulk.

This would also be something, yeah.

5

There’s a difficulty setting? That is news to me.

6

The grenadiers are more dangerous than hulks and shocker brutes. I died from explosion caused by killing him with melee. Don’t melee them, ranged is mandatory with these guys. They are also very frustrating and annoying to fight against, so I hope they will get tweaked further. I feel like they should not explode on death.

7

I got one-shotted by killing one from range (about ten squares). The grenadehacks did no damage to me through armor, this one must have been packing a mininuke or something.

8

Wait, what? There’s grenade-throwing zombies now?

9

They spawn manhacks filled with c4, weaker explosives, tear gas, flashbangs and even the odd mininuke.

10

Possible changes:

[ul][li]Limit them to military locations (including wrecks)[/li]
[li]Introduce a weaker zed that only later evolves into grenadier[/li]
[li]Tone down the death explosion (it is just too deadly without a heavy armor). Maybe buff it against heavy armor?[/li]
[li]Prevent 'nadiers from rezing (it’s rather silly that they don’t get shredded)[/li]
[li]Slow down the hacks so that they aren’t guaranteed kills against slower survivors. Make them not-stumble to compensate? Maybe even make them surround the player.[/li]
[li]Nerf the number of hacks so that the zombie can’t just keep up an unending stream of those (it’s like 60 nades per zed)[/li]
[li]Make the hacks not drop a corpse when they explode[/li][/ul]

11

Note, there’s a big difference between elite grenadiers and normal grenadiers. Normal grenadiers are designed to be about the same level as a necromancer, master, or brute. Dangerous and not something you want to try to deal with as a new survivor. Elites are designed to be somewhere around the hulk/tank level. Extremely dangerous, don’t confront them unless you are prepared.

And some replies:

Elites already do this. Normal ones will spawn in normal places, but they “weigh” the same amount as a brute. The idea was that they can show up anywhere a normal soldier zed shows up in.

Introduce a weaker zed that only later evolves into grenadier
I'm actually against this one completely. It doesn't make sense for zombies that "evolve" to suddenly gain access to different equipment. (For what it's worth I'm against normal zeds becoming soldier or fireman zeds too).
Tone down the death explosion (it is just too deadly without a heavy armor). Maybe buff it against heavy armor?
Could probably drop it to 1 or 2 grenades instead of 3, but the explosion is literally randomly selected from what ammo they have left to ensure that if someone wanted to make their own variety they could.
Prevent 'nadiers from rezing (it's rather silly that they don't get shredded)
It should drop the corpse first and then explode it (which last I knew did tons of damage to the corpse), but if they are rezzing then yeah, +1 from me here.
Slow down the hacks so that they aren't guaranteed kills against slower survivors. Make them not-stumble to compensate? Maybe even make them surround the player.
As I mentioned before, the hacks actually purposely try to miss you right now. In my testing (even with the mininuke hack!) if you try to run away at a half-decent stamina the explosion won't even hit you for every single hack (with the exception of the flash bang, which occasionally catches you with the corner). The key is that you have to start running the instant you hear the beep, don't wait if you want to get away through speed. The hacks actually make their countdowns start farther away the slower you are. You could be at 25 speed and assuming you start running the instant you hear the beep they will still miss. Correspondingly you could be at 200 speed and if you start running when you hear the beep then they will miss. I tested it over a rather wide variety of speeds and explosive ranges, and it held pretty constant in all of those scenarios. Listen for the beep, then run if you don't feel you can take the explosion or take the hack down before it goes off.
Nerf the number of hacks so that the zombie can't just keep up an unending stream of those (it's like 60 nades per zed)
It's a lot less then that for normal grenadiers. Normal grenadiers have 18 hacks total; 10 normal grenades, 3 flash bangs, 3 tear gas, and 2 C-4's (which they have to be at least part of the way out of ammo to use). Elite grenadiers are designed to be like tankbots or hulks, so yeah, they have access to 20 grenades, 10 flash bangs, 10 tear gas, 10 C-4 (which they have to be at least partway out of ammo to use), a 1 mininuke, which will not be used until they are at least halfway out of ammo, and will normally not be used until they are almost completely out (which means that you sat there for almost 15 minutes in-game letting them throw stuff at you).
Make the hacks not drop a corpse when they explode
Probably an easy change to do.
12

Elites already do this. Normal ones will spawn in normal places, but they “weigh” the same amount as a brute. The idea was that they can show up anywhere a normal soldier zed shows up in.[/quote]
I had one spawn in town though it might have been a wander spawn. Seen Bio-operators and suchs spawn before grenadiers even existed (no special zombies mod in use).

13

Well, in the open and early on, regular grenadiers are way more dangerous than 3 hulks at once. Not exaggerating the slightest bit here.
You can lose a hulk by “clogging” it in a car, but a hack will catch up with you unless you specifically kite it. And then the next one will come in just a turn or two.

I'm actually against this one completely. It doesn't make sense for zombies that "evolve" to suddenly gain access to different equipment. (For what it's worth I'm against normal zeds becoming soldier or fireman zeds too).

Could have way higher special attack timeout. The current one just sends a stream.

You could be at 25 speed and assuming you start running the instant you hear the beep they will still miss.
Does it include movement speed too or only the global speed?
Normal grenadiers have 18 hacks total; 10 normal grenades, 3 flash bangs, 3 tear gas, and 2 C-4's
That's still a ton. Compare with shockers, spitters and hulks who tend to die before they can use their ability 3 times.
14

Hmmm, I was under the impression that Bio-ops currently only spawned in military locations. If they spawned elsewhere then that could possibly lead to elite grenadiers spawning there as well (since I pretty much skimmed throughout he code for Bio-ops spawns and then gave them a chance to be grenadiers (with a further small chance to be an elite), and yeah, was not intended.

Well, in the open and early on, regular grenadiers are way more dangerous than 3 hulks at once. Not exaggerating the slightest bit here.[/quote]
Unless you, you know, run. Run in, trigger some grenades, run away. Repeat a handful of times and they are out of ammo. These are not something that you can just blindly deal with here. They were designed to require at least some strategy to deal with, and once they are out of ammo you can deal with them exactly the same as a normal zed with slightly higher armor.

[quote]

I'm actually against this one completely. It doesn't make sense for zombies that "evolve" to suddenly gain access to different equipment. (For what it's worth I'm against normal zeds becoming soldier or fireman zeds too).
Could have way higher special attack timeout. The current one just sends a stream. [/quote Fair enough.
You could be at 25 speed and assuming you start running the instant you hear the beep they will still miss.
Does it include movement speed too or only the global speed?

Global speed, actually, with a factor for running and a fudge factor thrown in. It scales based on the ratio of target speed against hack speed, assuming flat ground. A player with something that lets them move across flat ground faster will actually find it easier to get away then normal. You decide to crawl across broken glass or something and yeah, it’s going to catch you because it’s flying and you aren’t. But across flat ground you should be able to get away basically every time, or at absolute worst only catch the very edge of the blast.

Normal grenadiers have 18 hacks total; 10 normal grenades, 3 flash bangs, 3 tear gas, and 2 C-4's
That's still a ton. Compare with shockers, spitters and hulks who tend to die before they can use their ability 3 times.
Or compare with the way that masters and necros should be (or at least are supposed to be), where they are something that stands in the background and throws specials out until you either close with it to deal with it or leave. It's not a blind-rage filled zombie, and therefore isn't going to charge in at you like a madman for you to kill it (at least not till it runs out of ammo). If a shocker was smart enough to stay back it would have the exact same thing. The AI is intended to stay back and to either force you to run or to deal with it. It's purposeful. Treat it respectfully, and it shouldn't be a problem, I certainly killed many of them in my basic testing runs.
15

Just because you can still kill it doesn’t mean it should be so much stronger than anything we have right now.

Shockers do not stay back and shock. Hulks do not stay back and throw rocks. Masters do not gather a horde to upgrade. Necros stay back and die before they can rez a single body.

I’m all for stronger monsters, but against difficulty spikes.

You said you balanced it for a brute role, but it’s more of an “oh crap a hulk just around a corner and I have nowhere to run” thing. By early midgame you can kill a hulk in a horde of other zeds, but you still have to take the grenadier 1v1. And that’s just the regular grenadier, not the elite.

The regular grenadier may not be chicken walker tier, but it is certainly above hulk in most cases.

16

It’s ridiculous how dangerous these things are. Not only are they bomb factories, I got blown to smitherines due to a combination of their nukehacks being impossible to whack out of the air (i assume they explode on death of course, that’d be just my luck), but it also killed me completely through full SWAT armor and facegear. First grenade hack.

At least a hulk has to run up to you to slaughter you instantly, these things are just the old tank bot except it doesn’t have to be remotely close to you. And who the blazes runs around in a civilian-populated regular town rigged head to toe in automated suicide drones? This is a demolition specialist that has been zombified. These things should be FAR away from the general populace. In military outposts and heavily locked down roadways alongside chicken walkers.

I don’t even know what an elite grenadier is but I’m almost positive it shouldn’t exist. You have to be bulletproof and fully environment proof in order to even function against the regular zombie grenadiers, and that’s pretty much as powerful as you can get sans full blown power armor.

This is easily the most broken monster introduced to the game. All of my deaths in the experimental versions have been from these things. If they look at you, you die. And they’re bloody everywhere.

Put these by tankbots in the darkest corners of the earth or please get rid of them. ESPECIALLY the elite. The regular can be fixed; the elite probably should not be anywhere at all.

17

Hey, so we really need to have some sort of Super Hard Endgame World on the other side of those portals. Among other things, it’ll give people who think nuclear drone-launching zombies are a good idea a place to put their super-hard monsters without wrecking the game for everyone else.

18

Well…in their defense it’s only one mininuke drone. Although idk what you’re supposed to do if they throw it at you and you can’t kill it. I guess you just…die, I guess.

It’s not a bad design, it’s just implemented poorly. The regular grenadier could stand to be put as the elite with how it’s been implemented. So many explosives…it’s just insane. And they come so quickly.

So yeah, basically. They need a nerf. Badly. And the elite just sounds awful. I don’t know if it’s even possible to survive a mininuke in any armor. Can you do it in any of the power armors?

19

It’s a good idea to have some sort of zed you can’t just ignore or effortlessly get rid of 3 days into the game. For example, hulks - once your survivor is semi-competent, those are just too weak to be scared of. Even shocker brutes aren’t scary ~5 days in.
Grenadiers happen way too early, though.

Sent a PR with a quick fix: restricting the grenadiers to military-only areas. I’m not sure if this includes anything besides wrecks.

20

So is this in the latest experimental or is that going to get posted soon?