OK so this is another scout suggestion thread, with some of my thoughts combined with ideas that have been suggested here already. I think this proposed configuration is different enough to warrant it's own thread. There is little point in posting idea's individually, as it is obvious the class needs an entire revamp and should be presented as a complete package. The main points that need to be addressed: Teamwork and usefulness and fun. Primary weapon: Choice of SMG's. Sniper rifle removed. This is not for discussion in this thread. Secondary weapon: Pistol. Third slot: Grenade launcher that fires with an arc over short-medium distance similar to mortar. Choice of ammunition: 1) Tag ammo that acts as a camera. This can be fired into an area to act as a camera/radar for a short amount of time to give your team information on enemy positions. Would be most useful if commander mass-targetting is removed, and is proposed partly as a replacement for this. Can also be attached to tanks (and maybe infantry) so that it acts as a moving camera to give your team intel on enemy positions. If attahced to an enemy vehicle it will report the vehicles tech to the player who launched it as well as the commander. If attached to an enemy radar building it will report the current tech tree as well. If discovered this can be destroyed with a single round. 2) Smoke ammo. Smoke works best when it is blocking the view of the enemy, not you and your team, so this would work better than current hand-thrown smoke, and is less spammable. Fire it at your enemy to block their view so your squad can move into an area and pin down the enemy more effectively. 3) EMP ammo. These work the same as the sticky stuns but obviously with greater range as they can be launched. They can now also be launched at turrets to stun them with a concussive effect (as a replacement to the annoying concussion grenade). Fourth slot: C4 charges that are remotely detonated. *These damage buildings by affecting the foundations, and act as a replacement for sabotage. *They can destroy a turret or small group of turrets if they are close enough together, and half the health of any building they are used on. *If you use more than one on a building it still only knocks it to half health. If you use one on a building and then use another on the same building, or two players use the charge on a building, it halfs the health again to a quarter. *These charges are most effective against walls, as with one hit they can destroy 2-3 sections of connected walls and also a second layer of walls if it is close enough to the charge. *These charges have minimal effect against infantry and vehicles. Class specific skills: * Enhanced senses skill: Changed to effectively make you work as a mobile camera, displaying information for you AND your team mates. * Vehicle speed skill: Remains unchanged because it's so much fun. * Defusal skill: I propose this be taken from the grenadier, but changed so that instead of letting you simply drive/walk over mines without detonating them, it shows the mines up with glyph icons on screen and also on your minimap, for you and perhaps any nearby teammates. They still detonate if you touch them. * Radar stealth: works as normal except you can still be detected if your vehicle is tagged with the Tag ammo mentioned above. Squad aura ability: * (need a name) instead of giving a stamina increase, I propose that players within your squad aura are not displayed on enemy radar when standing still, but show up as normal if they move. Squad leader skills: * Squad hide: works as normal. * Decoy squad: Spawns a "ghost" squad of players at the target location, static but in crouching or prone position. These ghost players appear on the enemy radar but are only semi-visible (think half hidden) and disappear after a given amount of time, or when shot. Notes: * Binoculars have been removed, their "spotted" spam replaced with the launchable Tag grenade, which is more teamplay friendly, more fun to use and less encouragement to lone-wolf/sit around drinking tea. * Hide skill has been removed. It does not fit into the criteria of teamplay, as it only serves to encourage lonewolfing, and actively discourages you from staying near to your teammates. Hiding is now only available as a squad power. * Sabotage effects have been removed. I feel that if you can damage a building signifcantly without killing it, you won't bother unless you know your teammates are there to finish it off. The sabotage effects are rarely very effective in practice, and act as an "excuse" for scouts to lonewolf, because it makes them feel useful and purposeful when they are really just wasting their time and being annoying, unless acting with teammates. Which they never do. * Camouflage expertise (or the art of hiding slightly faster) has been removed as you can no longer receive Hide skill. * Battlefiled intelligence has been removed as it is superseded by new abilities, and hardly, if ever, used. * Weapon silencer has been removed, again it is only useful for players who are actively trying to stay away from their team mates. Conclusion: WIth these suggestions I have mainly been trying to get away from the current scout, which however way you look at it is effective mostly as a lone-wolfing class. He still has his ability to sneakily do large amounts of damage to enemy structures at close range with a C4 charge - but has no way of finishing off a building or doing any real lasting damage to an enemy base on his own with the proposed sabotage effect removal. If the charge detonation is fairly obvious to the enemy, you will soon realise that sneaking to an enemy base and laying loud obvious charges that can't actually kill anything bigger than a turret wis not the way to go, and you can only accomplish anything with team mates to back you up. These suggestions are also geared towards making a class that is a good addition to a squad, and also a natural squad leader. He can now actually SCOUT ahead - not by running off on his team mates, but by firing a Tag round into enemy territory to recon the area. He can tag enemy tanks with a camera, or stun them from a distance to give his team mates room to kill it or maneuvre. He can quickly breach walls to let a tank rush through, and then C4 charge the enemy base while they are distracted. He can smoke an area from distance before his team mates launch an attack on a confused and scrambling enemy. Spawn a decoy squad in an area and move in with the enemy facing the wrong way. The idea is abilities that are somewhat useless on their own, but crushing when used in a well coordinated squad. The class has to be fun not just becuase you have skills or weapons that are great to use, but because it is fun to help your team mates and destroy the enemy while you do it. People are scared that the class will no longer be fun because they are not soloing on a hill picking people off every 5 minutes (I MUST be helping my team if I kill someone every so often), or hiding under a box in the enemy base for three days undetected (I bet they are SO pissed off because they can't find me!!) The other point is intel gathering. I don't mean enemy positions and building placement, that's allreay been covered - I mean being able to detect enemy technology, which is something that I feel is something Empires is sorely lacking. I feel this would add a lot more tactics to the game, as it would be important to steal enemy intel and more important know how to counter it. Anywho that's a lot more rambling than I intended, But it is my feeling that this is how class number four has to go - be a teamplayer, discourage lonewolfing, be at least vaguely useful to your team even if there are a lot of you, and somehow make it fun at the same time.
Too long, don't have time to read ALL of it, but you are on a very nice track. This sounds quite good, except for the C4. The Scout really shouldn't become a demolitions class, as that is the primary function of the grenadier; Anti-vehicle and overall demolitions.
If you read that part fully, Jessiah, you would have noticed that the C4 is an alternative to sabotage, and encourages the scout to stick to his team.
/sigh Many people don't understand grenadiers. They have a minesweeper, pay attention to your minimap, mines show up there. Defusal DOES NOT GIVE YOU ACCESS TO MINE LOCATIONS That doesn't even make sense, honestly, defusal defuses bombs, it doesn't show where they are. /facepalm
The grenadier may as well have my little pony in that weapon slot. I think the grenadier having this recon ability is totally broken, it much better fits as a scouting tool, especially if the ability makes it show up for your team mates as well. It would mean team mates would be inclined to stay close to you to make use of this ability, and also make it useful for vehicles driving as a squad to have somebody with this ability, either as driver or passenger in a vehicle. Seriously, how many times when moving with a squad does a grenadier suddenly go "WAIT! Im picking up readings.. stay here!" and then run round the corner to slowly and carefully defuse a minefield before his team advances? And don't get hung up on the name, I understand my suggestion is not to give the class the ability to defuse anything, I just thought it might be useful for now to refer to it as that.
I just post what I realy dont like and why, thats not whining thats constructive criticism The Emp nades would be very anoying on chokepoint maps and they could make turrets to easy to kill. Killing walls with those C4 charges makes them obsolete.
Heres an idea: After a C4 charge is placed on a wall, it doesnt destroy it, but it does weaken the internal structure. The result is that medium and heavy class tanks can drive right through the wall by hitting it at a speed of about 30KMH
And a light cant do that with the same horsepower?! :confused: c4 is weak, wont be used after you only destroy a half building, it wont get you points or an advantage for your (attacking) team, they can already shot it when you have to rush forward, like the engys which can destroy it easily at the same time ... while you rushing back away from your own c4 ... who the hell will use THAT instead of the sabotaging which is already not much used?! So whithout hide and sab I would prefer an engy to destroy buildings, makes the scout useless (and yeah spotting is SO much fun, while you are under fire) :eek:
Kane: people that know what they are doing. A scout uses hide to sneak up to enemy walls unnoticed and plants the charges. He sneaks back to the attack force which is waiting out of sight. When they near the walls, the scout hits the detonator, and the tanks plough right through and take the enemy by surprise.
Or, there can be a group of scouts which plants C4 in various locations, when the main force is ready to attack, they provoke the enemy into attacking those location, and then hit the detonators. This will end up destroying many things in the process, and if done properly, walls won't be the only thing that get blasted.
Another thing you could try is planting lots of C4 at a ref point, but spread them out enough so it can affect nearby buildings, then let the enemy take it and weaken their buildings after they tried to hard just to put it up. This makes them waste their Res.
Jesiah, what hide you will use?! The squad power 1, wasting squadpoints or the 1 which shouldnt be there anymore, what you should know, too, if you had read the post properly, thx for the quick responding ...
Or you can get the scout hide ability... Have you ever played as a Scout? I'm sorry, but you seem rather clueless to me.
The only thing I have against this is the lack of a hide skill. I often stay near my teammates and use the hide skill to kill players rushing and effectively slow them down, or tell my team if there is a heavy or something rolling own the road. I also find that a scout, even by them self, can help a tam out by being a 'lonewolf'. For instance setting up a side base behind the enemies main base without being spotted. I have seen this done once to successfuklly nine mine a comm, and also to take an enemies old main base and use it to flank the comm. As for sabotage, the good thing about it is the ability to get rid of turrets, and also sabotaging an enemy barracks or vehicle factory is quite useful because it delays a team by forcing them to repair, or weakens them by forcing to respawn with half health or make a vehicle with half health and armor. however removing the scoped rifle I could care less, It can be fun but really serves no purpose. Effectively it seems kind of like an engineer that is less useful. You can throw tags and smoke which no one will honestly care enough about, I rarely see engi's place cameras and radars as is, let alone having the tag grenade launcher. Right track but I think you are trying to redesign a class when it really only needs a few changes. or maybe I am just a horrible horrible noob *cries* Also I totally forget about C4, so, kind of a Grenadier/Engineer cross.
