The devs and testers are not able to do some realistic balance tests. You need a populated server with a normal mixture of good and bad players for testing. And then you have to play for a while to see the result.
Hence, change the scout rifle, see how it plays out. The circular argument we're having is fucking stupid.
In a 40+ main game it would be 10-20 scouts at least if you buffed the scout rifle. There would be little reason not to go scout on nearly every Empires map. The mod would turn into dueling snipers. If this is what you want, then go ahead but I prefer it as is. The scout rifle really needs to be removed so that newbs don't get confused and think its for sniping.
Empires is a game. I play games to have fun. Getting hardcountered by some dumbass rifleman spraying with his AR isn't my, or anyone else's, definition of fun. While I wouldn't mind rifleman having an upper hand against infantry due to their versatility (AR, semi-auto scoped rifle , HMG, lots of versatility there), I object to players being killed with little chance of retaliation. The game has, over recent versions, devolved into rifleman vs rifleman, with other classes becoming either useless (grenadier, scout) or serving merely to stick an engineer tool up the ass of a rifleman every so often and provide him with cover and ammo. This, I think all of you will agree, sucks. I'm not saying make every class good at everything, because that's just dumb and defeats the point of empires being a team game, but I am saying make infantry combat involve more than one class in shooting things. Oh, and for those worrying about the scout rifle, I essentially suggested a slightly more powerful NFHR with a scope. Invisible scouts shooting you in the head from half a mile away wouldn't be an issue, as the rifleman would have it. Falloff and difficult aiming at long distance targets would encourage you to move closer. I noticed duststorm is being mentioned a lot, I would personally consider balancing empires combat around it about as near sighted as balancing it around district. Getting shot from nowhere is a fact of life on duststorm.
I still disagree. For you infantry battle seems to be the main part of the game. And therefore you want more powerful anti infantry classes and weapons. But for me Empires is a game where tanks, buildings and resources are the main part. And there I don't need invisible scouts with powerful weapons, because they will be mostly useless. And nearly every map in Empires has large open areas.
I agree with Mayama. Also, I hate 99% of these changes personally. I don't see what swapping out the carbine/NFHR with the scout rifle will accomplish. People will just be forced to switch class more. It's not as if they can carry both at the same time. Things are fine as they are imo. Mortar buff needed maybe, more starting gren ammo, but besides that, it's fairly fine at the moment. Remember I replaced the Machine pistol with a burst pistol, far more useful. I wouldn't object to removing Damage and Accuracy upgrade though. In the scripts, I set every single weapon to a 0.9 accuracy modifier. Before, some weapons weren't affected, and other weapons had 0.7. 0.7 is like 30% more accurate.
On games like battlefield when you get shot you see where the damage comes from with that little HUD damage thing that pops up depending where you took damage from. Empires does not have that! Plus you add hide and this is a weapon that is only stopped by hiding or driving a tank. That or counter with more snipers which is stupid and pretty much how the rifles work now. Also yes accuracy and damage upgrades kinda break shit but then riflemen will have like what 2 specific skills? Make the mowtar bad ass so they need health upgrades instead :D
i dont want to force my creations onto anyone, but i suggest you try my weapon scripts to see how i "fixed" the scout rifle, also yes to accuracy removal (damage i dont really care)
extreme close is like 40% of combat (bursting in someones face) when he gets out of a tank, when an engineer is hiding behind a turret being built, when walls are there, when buildings are built, when a scout hides in sabotaged building, etc
Extreme far range combat shouldn't happen. It sucks. Extreme close range and most times you can fight back. Extreme far range and only other people with that weapon can do it.
I'm going to start scripting once 2.25 is out. There's no way I can make balanced scripts before then, especially since there are many effects to make, but I'm starting planning up. I've hand written about 2 pages of notes on the scout and engineer and their problems, and what I intend to do to fix them.
We will create, compare, take feedback, and improve our ideas and scripts. That way, if you dislike blizzerds, we can use mine, or visa versa.
