Medical and Throwable equipment feedback

Seeing as armor is already getting worked on to allow players for replenishing individual plates over having to purchase a new set, I thought that some feedback on the state of other equipment and consumables is in order as I believe that functionality and balance leave a lot to be desired from the current system.

Throughout the game players are presented with 3 distinct choices of gear, that being medical, throwables & tactical equipment. I believe that tactical equipment deserves a feedback post of their own and as such I’ll only be covering the first two categories here, starting with:

-Med-kits

Are too abundant throughout the missions, often case being repeatedly used just to generate the cash bonus rather than for actual healing purposes. I’d suggest making them one use only or lowering the cash bonus received from healing other players. The mechanic where half used ones replenish after missions further contributes to devaluing this specific piece of medical gear and should be removed to better balance their healing cost.

-Revive-kits

With the recent change made to how much health a revived player is provided with, I’d say that their functionality is in a good spot with one exception being the fact that a single player can be revived multiple times throughout the mission. Given that missions usually take 5 to 15 minutes at most, I would strongly recommend capping the amount of revives per mission for individual players so that more strategic and tactical play is incentivized more over reckless play with no regard for tactics & self-preservation. Making risky high reward plays should be paired with equally risky high consequence punishments.

-Throwables

Are a bit of a mess right now, being either obsolete or bordering on overpowered in some specific uses and would require some case-by-case fine-tuning. I’d like to start off with a change that would affect nearly all throwables, which is adjusting individual price of grenades and removing the current buy one get multiple behavior combined with after mission replenishing mechanic. The current system just results in players buying or picking up throwables but never fully expending them as getting free extras after each game never warrants spending cash on getting more or strategically using a self-replenishing resource.

I’d suggest overhauling the system to allow for players to buy singular grenades that they can have multiple of with a carry limit, also disallow of filling two throwable slots with the same type of grenades as it’s making some options too potent.

As per the grenades themselves, I believe some functionality adjustments are in order for the following:

-Flash Grenades

Their core functionality of temporarily blinding the player and stunning enemies is on point, if a bit too strong in the case of the latter. I’d slightly lower the amount of time enemies remain affected by them to make using them require swifter actions from the players.

What really needs attention is criteria for when they affect the players. The current system where they activate off radius rather than line of sight makes them excessively punishing towards the players and especially those that instinctively look away. It just makes sense to make their effect go-off based on line of sight and duration based on distance, that way skill and quick reaction time will be better rewarded along with making flashes more intuitive.

-Smoke Grenades

Seem a little strong in right hands as they effectively make for mobile cover that players can shoot through that enemies can’t. Enemies also completely fail to locate the player standing within smokes which makes them excessively powerful as they tend to last quite a while. I’d suggest that enemies blindfire at the smokes with drastically reduced accuracy if a player is hiding within them. That way strategic and well-placed smokes remain a powerful tactical throwable whilst cowardly self-smoking is not completely obsolete but can be much riskier to pull off without punishment.

-HE/Frag Grenades

Why do we have 3 versions of those? Isn’t having regular, short-fused and impacts bit too excessive if they all boil down to burst area damage in the end? It’s not like their use drastically differs depending on situation in the current state of the game. They also all occupy different throwable slots and don’t stack with each other despite it making little to no sense.

What I would suggest is completely ridding the game of these pointless variants and only leaving one definitive version of the grenade and if the game flow of Rouge Point suggests anything, then making short-fused version makes the most sense.

But that’s boring and reductive, less options is less content and there’s much better solution to this problem.

Allow players to cook grenades before throwing them. Have a little finger countdown animation on the hand that pulls the pin and maybe little whisper countdown voice line of the operative when preforming this action. This would make for a fun gameplay mechanic and would simultaneously resolve the choice overabundance in this specific grenade category.

I believe that with those purposed changes, the game balance would be in a much better place. It would also make the game more fun for the players which is what everyone is here for to begin with.

I’d also like to purpose some consumable ideas of my own and endorse idea of another user which can be found at https://feedback.playroguepoint.com/p/throwable-idea-tear-gas-grenade

As per ideas of my own, I’d like to see medical equipment expanded upon with the addition of pain-pills or morphine shots that provide temporary health. Such consumable would provide opportunity window for riskier plays and make difficult situations less reliant on consuming as many Med-kits as possible.

I’d also like to see incendiary grenades for some much needed lethal and lasting area denial. They would help in defense scenarios and holding open positions. What I would really like to see as well is enemy use of them to disincentivize camping playstyles as corer hugging on some extraction spots just seems too powerful of a strategy that sees no proper counterplay from the mercs.