I'll be starting the balance with Trickster's tweaked 2.24d scripts, which you can find here: Link. Suggestions and opinions? I'm also thinking of swapping out the Scout Rifles with the Carbine and 50 Cal.
I would just remove Scout Rifle and move the pistol 2 from rifleman to scout. We don't need another class which is good at killing infantry. Beside of this scout should have more speed (like in most other games).
my suggestions would be make every weapon more powerful and increase inaccuracy of smg's well, that would be it poured down in 1 line of text
No to removing weapons, even the shitty ass scout rifle. Add carbine/50 sure, but removing content is generally a bad idea, especially "since it's not good". Let people not use it, it's not hurting anyone being in game (literally lol).
Keeping content in simply because it's content seems a bit silly. I'm not saying to completely scrap it - we could always use the model for a different weapon - but the Scout rifle has been a thorn in many a player's side for years now.
I was gonna make a thread like this earlier. :D Right, as far as I am concerned, all classes should be equally good at killing each other. Engie should have the advantage with his various toys, gren should be good at blowing people up, scout the sneaky bastard meleeing you in the ass, and rifleman the traditional, bullet hosing CSS whore killing machine. My reasoning for this is as follows; Nobody likes being hardcountered by a single class (rifleman) and most people will take the opportunity to play as that class whenever they can so they can killwhore as much as possible. This has led to, especially in recent versions, a deluge of rofflewhores, who slaughter pretty much everything, doing nothing but irritate non-riflemen players, while still not achieving anything particularly useful. While we can't entirely fix this without new art assets, we can at least juggle the classes a little in the short term so we can make combat a little more interesting and cater to a wider range of players. I completely agree with swapping the 50cal and carbine for the scout rifles, although I would suggest killing off the carbine and simply making it operate like the 50cal instead. The scout could lose the SMG1, and recieve an improved SMG2 instead that is devastating at close ranges, but has a sharp falloff and high base inaccuracy neccessitating getting close before you open fire. Enhanced senses, speed upgrade and perhaps melee upgrade should be innate for the scout, but his resistances to bullets would be lower to compensate. The rifleman would recieve the scout rifle, which I would suggest would remain largely unchanged as far as damage goes, with slightly increased falloff. However, the rifle would be edited so it could remain scoped while firing, combine this with a considerably increased rate of fire and a larger clip (I'm thinking 8-12 shots) and the rifle would fill a niche as a versatile semi-automatic support weapon perfectly capable of taking down players, but not instantaneously. The scope should move quite a lot when firing, encouraging players to time their shots if they want to hit anything. It would also expose the non-invisible rifleman, meaning retaliation would be considerably easier. The weapon would naturally encourage getting closer, as it would be easier to keep the scope on the target if it is bigger. When unscoped, the weapon should be very inaccurate, especially when moving. The engineer would lose the SMG2 (as the scout is now using it) and the SMG1 would remain largely unchanged, being a decent, jack of all trades weapon. As far as innate skills go, engineer would recieve the revive skill as innate, although it consumes the entirety of his calculator ammo, with the upgraded revive only consuming 1/3 or less. This in itself would make an engineer a boon to his team throughout the game, and help to prevent the long walks after getting shot in the head at the start of the game. The machine pistol needs to die. Resurrect the old deagle, make it highly damaging up close (capable of killing with a HS like the shotty) but with steep falloff making it less useful than pistol 1 at range. A slow rate of fire and small clip size would make it a reasonable counterpart to the shotgun pistol. Those are my thoughts for now, I'll tidy them up and add to them if need be later.
Okay, how about maybe remove it, but don't remove it a week before we release? Not that I blame you in any way, but we should have been discussing script changes months ago, not talking about removing weapons this close to release. Leaving it in for one more release won't kill anyone, especially since we're targeting more constant releases so we're talking about 2-4 months not 9-12. Plox?
I would pick the machine pistol over the shotty pistol any day of the week. I love it, but that's not to say I didn't also like the Deagle style it use to be. The scout rifle is just pissing off and confusing more new players every day. I think removing it ASAP would be wise. I have heard many complaints and questions about its effectiveness it in game for along time, plus it hurts your team when you have ineffective scouts laying around your main the whole round.
you should modify the scout rifle to be more like a real carbine, like a short-barreled rifle. Sort of in the vein of how the NF 50 cal is now, but quicker and weaker.
I totally disagree with this. Empires is not a stupid shooter. We have classes like scout and engineer who can be very important to win the round without shooting at enemies. And don't forget, that no other game with effective scout rifle has such open maps like duststorm. This just doesn't work. I can understand that you don't want to remove the scout rifle for this release. But please don't make it too effective.
This. Scouts are annoying, and I died by many pre 2.2 days due to some pretty good shots. However, I have only a 10 second spawn. So getting sniped is negated. If I'm a fucking idiot, I'll go back to the same exact spot out in the open and give myself a 3rd asshole. A main argument against scout rifles is that sniping gives scout a lone-wolf aspect. However, lone-wolf should not be confused with rambos. Rambos are one-man armies, where as a lone-wolf is a 1 man squad. You can still have people acting independently while working for the team. As it stands right now, the Heavy Rifle, and the carbine fill the sniper role, so why not make the scout rifle less shitty? Sure he'll get you out in the open, but if you're out in the open, you deserve to get shot. Why don't we just buff the damage for 1 version, and see how it goes? We already know the lowered damage makes the scout rifle shit.
The damage has been buffed before, too. This resulted in 16-player teams with 4 scouts, all of them simply sitting on a hill and trying to pick off enemies. The rest of the Scout skillset is left to gather dust in a virtual corner. I do feel that the scout should be more of a loner compared to his squadmates, splitting off from his squad to cloak and get around an enemy position and cause mayhem. But having a long-range sniper and only that is pretty useless to the team. At least if the damn sniper moved with his squad, he'd get some more (and easier) kills. However, there isn't much incentive for a Scout to move together with his team, so players will just sit on a hill staring through a scope for rounds on end, because the alternative doesn't give any extra advantages.
Empires was a smaller game then. Besides, have a scout CAN fill the role of a rifleman so having a few more isn't always bad. Well, no. Long range sniping disrupts head on infantry rushing. And makes them think twice before popping out from cover. That's why a lot of people got pissed. They tried legging it in the middle of isle, and the moment someone's head turns into pink dust, they scream "NERFS!". Once again, empires has evolved since moving from 32 man servers. 4 snipers in a 40+ man game would be awesome. I think a large problem with the scout's weapons is the lack of variety. Shitty close range, and shitty long range. What's even more fuck up is, using the SMG2 + accuracy upgrade does more damage at range. I mean, come on. I think we should at least test the scout with a buffed rifle in a large game and see what happens.
If you upgrade the sniper, please at least remove hide from him when he has his sniper up. Getting killed by a AWP is one thing, getting killed by a AWP with an invinsible guy hiding between 3 rocks on a mountain, that sucks.
I think that Scout rifle damage and falloff can be changed by server owners. So talk to them for a test. But I don't want to see it in the official version. Most of the players will be pissed, when they are killed from something invisible. And if I'm commander for me the best team has only one or two scouts which are sabotaging enemy refineries and bases. They are much more useful then players who are waiting forever on hills for some easy kills.
Lets leave all of the weapons up to the server owners, and not have the devs perform in house balancing altogether while we're at it.