Assault Rifle discussion

Discussion in 'Game Play' started by Empty, Feb 16, 2015.

  1. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    dont get me started on how pistols are so retardedly retarded (but its not emptys, nor any other scripter in the recent years fault) it always had absurd accuracy over absurd ranges while still inflicting damage.

    pistols simply shouldnt hit further then something around 80m and/or deal exactly 0 damage.

    in case someone says "but thats so super confusing for those poor noobs", i say watch less bad movies. also not really related but if, what none of us hopes, shit goes sideways in the future dont be frustrated if car doors wont protect you from pistols. if its .50cal, well you better find something really massive. water is good, 1m protects you from almost everything, its just a bit unhandy and heavy :\
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2015
  2. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    My idea still best idea
     
  3. 101010

    101010 Member

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    Well shit..I mean that would require something like squads. Where you would have a mix of classes working together.
     
  4. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    I'm going to be straight forward on this. It seems like everyone is missing the core problem and looking at this from entirely the wrong way. The common discussion point seems to be "How do we balance the scout with the rest of the game?" But I feel that that line of thought is too narrow and misses a more important question:

    Why does Empires need the scout?

    To me, the idea of changing the scout to assault wasn't so much as trying to divide Empires combat between short and long range, but it was trying to fit the scout into a new niche to justify its existence. Instead of having a reason to keep the scout, it seems most of these discussions are about finding a reason to have the scout, something that makes it contribute to the game.

    Historically, the scout has been justified by essentially putting all these nifty skills together due to not really having any other place to put them. For example, the scout is commonly seen as a class that's supposed to be super sneaky, but at the same time, sticky stuns and vehicle speed don't fit into that view.

    Plus, this mis-mash of skills makes it harder to move the scout into other niches. If we wanted to say "Okay, scout is going to be an anti-building class", the natural order would be to give them seismics. But it's clear as day that hide + ammo + seismics + sabotage would be quite simply one of the most annoying things in the game. You end up in a scenario where trying to move the scout into a niche is less of a placing and more of a forcing.

    In my honest opinion, hide has no actual place in the game. Neither does weapon silencer. Them being in the game feels like an answer to the question "How do we make the scout special" rather than "What can the scout do to improve the game." Radar stealth and vehicle speed, those actually add something real to the game.

    So really, when you split the range combat into short and long and say, "Okay, now we have a place for the scout," you're not fixing the problem, you're trying to bandage the symptoms. You're trying to make a place for the scout instead of trying to find a place for the scout. Until the question "Why does Empires need the scout" or even more generally, "Why does Empires need a fourth class" can be answered, I feel that the scout will always be an outlier in the game.
     
  5. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    for me all this scunt thing changed is that i now play rifleman in case i want to be a useless fuck. i never took hide for sniping though, waste of a skill ...

    ... actually i grew even more useless since i eventually sabbed a ref or two.

    (also - even though i still think it should be gone for good - i only just now realized that i missed the sniperrifle when it was gone)
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2015
  6. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    I think I just forget sometimes that you guys as the current devs are a lot more open to restructuring and new ideas. Because we've been saying them for years on end, we tend not to repeat it when it's mentioned again, but I guess it's a new discussion.

    The scout hasn't really been needed in the game for any real time. There was a point where a scout could actually sneak through a siege and create a second chance for defenders but that time was not long lasting. Right now, we always have res so there's not really any sieges. I'm not sure what changed, but we just don't often have those times, so scouts aren't really needed that way. And if you want to break through somewhere you'll just buy a cheap jeep and go, so that idea is kind of lost.

    To be honest, the rifleman would be a great class with the scout skills. But having said that...I think if you're actually open to new ideas, there's space to make both the 3rd and 4th class good. It just might take some more creative thought.
     
  7. 101010

    101010 Member

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    I am very ok with combing Assault(scout) with Rifleman.
    As long as he keeps the vehicle speed. But I do like the name Assault better.

    Can we also do away vehicle heat preventing movement and with sticky stuns ?
    I remember a certain Dev saying they wanted to do away with vehicle heat preventing movement but wouldn't due to that making sticky stuns useless..???
    //Weird that that was his only reason.

    As for scout hide and sabotage -They have always been a horrible part of Empires.
     
  8. Empty

    Empty Member

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    Due to engineers importance, everyone on low pop needs to be playing engineer. This is nothing to do with weapon balance, it's 100% to do with how the core gameplay around buildings and the engineer tool works, you're shifting the blame to a completely unrelated party.

    This is the reason pistols are effective at all ranges, we've had times when certain classes couldn't fight other classes at all. Around 2.2 or some shit smg falloff was so high that engineers couldn't deal any damage to riflemen beyond 20 meters and it was literally the worst thing that ever happened to the game.

    Obsessing over realism will only lead a game to it's demise, unless you're producing Arma you need to make concessions with reality. I chose to make the pistols the general purpose weapon good at all ranges because they're less powerful inherently, if I made all the primaries good at all ranges then they'd all feel samey and boring.

    So you don't like my changes? All you had to do was say so.
    I split it not just because scout was "useless" but also because rifleman was god. Rifleman was the ultimatum, a skilled rifleman can only be beaten by a better rifleman. I sought to change that so that a skilled rifleman could be outplayed by an engineer or scout and put into a situation where his weapons would fail him. If you can get close you can take the rifleman out of his comfort zone and beat him. The idea was to promote more interaction between classes rather than simply taking rifleman and praying you would have better reaction time.

    I kept the scout skills in because I saw no reason to remove them. They dont contribute to his gameplay but I have no love of them. I don't usually touch his class specific skills except for silencer.

    Combining assault and rifleman will result in us returning to square one where rifleman is this stupid anti-infantry class with no downsides that just kills everyone.

    Maybe I was wrong to try and add some depth to combat, maybe empires does need a class which just wins infantry every time, but to me that feels like a failure in design.

    Personally, I've been kicking ass with the new weapons, when I need a close range class assault is there to push forward and take down bases while mowing down infantry opposition, when I need a long range class rifleman lets me chew up squads from afar, when I need to support people the engineer is powerful enough to fight but focussed more on support with his tools and when I need to fight tanks I'm fucked because tank HP is too high but that's another problem.
     
  9. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    I used "you" in the generic sense, not referring to you in particular Empty.

    Let me put it this way. I like the changes, and I think that the changes made the game better, but at the same time I think they're not dealing with the root of the problem. So they're improvements to what was there before, but they're not what they should be.

    I'm also not claiming that I know what they should be or what the answer is, just that I feel that this isn't it.
     
  10. 101010

    101010 Member

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    @Empty
    You can combine them while preserving the split role of close vs distance combat. 1 class with the option of an SMG (for up close) or a rifle (for distance)

    Take away hide and sabotage and we have 3 solid classes that have distinctive roles that are simple for new people.
    Engineer - support
    Grenadier - anti buildings and vehicles
    Assault/Rifleman - anti infantry
     
  11. Z100000M

    Z100000M Vithered Weteran

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    Really, i dont know why scout needed a giant retool to begin with. As far as im concerned its fine to have a more niche class thats useful in some situations. I kept hearing people say scout sucked dick because x or y and i just cant shake the feeling that such people have never seen or themselves played a good scout. Sticky stuns and sabotage are borderline broken if you have someone backing you up. True, most people just used hide and camped all day, but its not scouts fault per se, its sr that was at fault. I agree that his skills are completely all over the place though.

    As far as topic itself goes, ARs were fun before, now they are not. Simple as that.
     
  12. Empty

    Empty Member

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    Scout without scout rifle is just an engineer without a calculator
     
  13. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    I firmly disagree.
     
  14. Empty

    Empty Member

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    Same weapons, with the addition of stunstickes and sabotage on it's own is not a strong enough reason to take scout. The only reason scout got taken was to either be a cunt and sab an entire base (just pissing off the enemy team and occasionally getting lucky and synchronizing it with a push) or to stun heavies/commanders.

    That is far too niche to justify it's existence. My stance is either give stuns to riflemen and cut scout or give scout a genuine role.
     
  15. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Hold on, I wasn't talking about weapon balance. Or at least what's happening in this thread. I shoulda quoted this.
    I was disagreeing with that idea. Though after thinking about it a lot of weapons would be shifted around so it would kinda affect weapon balance a tad, though maybe not as much as I think.

    I mean, if you actually read my first post I didn't think the weapons were bad. It's just different.

    I disagree about scouts, Having freak or spike lead a squad as scout is pretty good way to show how it's done. I do it too sometimes if there's actual squad work being done and the engy and gren slots are filled by competent people. Getting rid of a rax or any building in half the time is always a good thing.
     
  16. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    wrong
    WELCOME TO THE CLUB
     

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