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Remove the M18 smoke signal grenade

Raven1986

Grizzled Veteran
May 24, 2014
1,067
9
The M18 smoke signal grenade is a useless piece of ****. Once it caused the commander and me major teamkills. The commander said, he will provide fire support, I said I will smoke the place. Pulling out and throwing the M18 in the belief it was smoke cover. Da ****, it remarked my cordinates for the arty strike.
There is no need for this piece of garbage. Now when I'm SL the first thing I do is switch to it to drop the scum nade to the ground.
As an SL I want my normal smoke grenade. With the US constantly attacking they need more smoke. So if there is anything the SL needs it's a smoke grenade. Not a signal **** box.
 
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I disagree. If you made a mistake because you didn't know what it was that isn't the equipment's fault. Let the SL keep the signal smoke, as a regular SL I find it's VERY useful on maps like An Lao and Hill 937. While playing last night though me, the other SL's on mic's and the TL had a brief conversation about how the SL should get both signal and regular smoke grenades. It just makes sense for them both to be the SL's responsibility as opposed to leaving it up to point men and radio men.
 
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So you don't use it and think it's terrible now because you misunderstood what it did once? The signal grenades are only useful for niche situations, but in those situations they can be very useful.

If you want a smoke grenade as an SL go Radioman, Pointman, or Grenadier. As it stand a 32 player US team usually has more smoke available to them overall between those 3 roles than a 32 player team in RO2/RS ever did.

And honestly I'd rather be a Grunt squad leader and have everyone with smoke spawn on me. That way if they die they just spawn right up near the objective where they can immediately throw more smoke.
 
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I agree it's basically useless except for a very few situations. For example if you happen to have overhead cover and you want artillery called behind something you don't want to run on top of. E.G. the C point on Hill 937. Otherwise I think it's a piece of equipment that isn't useful enough to justify replacing the standard smoke grenade. In situations where you don't have overhead cover, or at least a trench, using a grenade will likely result in artillery being called too close as the poster above mentioned. If I had to guess this smoke grenade was added to replace the old smoke grenade, which is now relegated to point-men and radiomen. You can also have a disproportionate amount of smoke grenades in one squad, or none at all now that it's in classes that aren't "one per squad". Giving it to SLs ensures that each squad will have one smoke grenade and thus an even distribution.

I'd also argue putting a smoke grenade in the hands of a squad leader will mean they're more likely to use it simply because someone interested in being an SL is probably more aware of teamwork, unit cohesion, etc. If I had to guess the point-man was added to the game to be a fast moving scout/support class but it's somewhat lackluster and ends up to me feeling kind of pointless or not fully realized. I haven't thought of a way to make it better, so I won't complain about it too much without offering solutions.

Maybe this issue I've experienced with people simply not throwing smoke grenades will fizzle out as the game ages and people become more accustomed to it or stop playing it. Regardless, the smoke grenade given to squad leaders now doesn't really add anything to the game in my opinion.
 
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I mean user error shouldn't warrant the removal of the artillery smoke markers lol.

Now you know what they do. So you won't do it again.

I Find them extremely useful for getting marks over cover in places you wouldn't be able to mark with line of sight.

This is just another example of RO traditionalists failing to adapt.
 
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There are 2 issues here 1) should squad leaders have access to normal smokes and 2) is m18 good or bad. You seem to have an issue mostly with 1. So the question is basically should Tripwire recreate the squad leader class with normal smoke grenades. I think probably yes. It's a question of keeping the pointman unique, keeping smoke spam under control, and other things. Keeping in mind the 2 radioman slots will often be enough for the players who want this.

The actual M18 is ok as far as it goes. It's a pretty hard item to understand and is only useful in niche situations, but when it is useful you are definitely glad to have it. The confusingness to usefulness ratio is bad (why would I ever use this instead or just spotting? Oh, line of sight edge cases...) but it adds a little bit of asymmetric flavor and can do some coolish stuff so whatever.

I do think it makes sense to bring back the squad leader class however. Mostly because it would be a cleaner form of squad leader opt-in. And secondly because in practice squad organized smoke tactics aren't happening much right now.
 
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I would also have to disagree with OP, there have been multiple situations in which I have found the signal smoke to be useful, and giving more normal smokes to the team just encourages even sloppier team play. People who have smoke grenades are not using them/not using them effectively. The pointman and radioactive classes are often the last classes to be picked in the initial rush to get one of the specialized classes and so it is actually really easy to smoke grenades as a squad leader. Additionally, maybe just learn how to communicate with your team and to role kick people who are not song their smoke grenades effectively
 
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