Here's the premise to why I think the Scout needs a rework 1) The Scout doesn't follow the current infantry balance philosophy; it's not superlatively good at its role. The Rifleman, murders infantry whole sale, the Grenadier, murders tanks (even heavy tanks now) wholesale, Engineers are everything support, even as medics they're absurdly fast. The Scout, doesn't kill effectively and efficiently at range, barely provides information for the team (Engineer on a regular basis does better), isn't more amazing close range than any of the other classes, has an ability that is hard to actually use in a timely manner (most sabotage is straight up sneak behind enemy lines by crawling). Also that said ability is rarely justifiable. 2) The Scout (and this goes for nearly every other mechanic in Empires) doesn't have very good counter-play Counter-play is a term coined by the League of Legends guys, and essentially its a philosophy that every mechanic has to be fun for both parties involved. For example, tank combat. While I personally think tank combat is boring, the fact that you have to rotate your tank and move around in response to the enemy is pretty satisfying. They shoot you, you move to expose another side. The counter-play on the Scout's rifle is non-existent. You get taxed half your health, or you simply die to a head shot, usually at range with very little indication of what you could have done. You're simply forced to respawn or run to heal or go in with no health. With that being said, here's the suggestion. 1) Change the Scout rifle from a "Sniper Rifle" to a "Designated Marksman Rifle." Lower the damage, increase the fire rate, and fudge with the magazine size. For initial numbers, I think 20-25 damage per shot, with a fire rate around half the speed of the Pistol 1, and a magazine size that is around 10 should be good. The aim is to have the gun be able to kill around 2.5 people per magazine, and ideally a time to kill that is about the time to kill of a SMG1 (I don't know what time that actually is). Similar distance drop off to the NF .50 cal rifle. 2) Flare grenade. Relatively large radius grenade that marks anyone hit as a target for a few seconds. This includes Scouts who are in hide, but the time you're revealed is lower. Maybe allow 4 grenades without ammo increase, and 6 with. Radius could be the size of the explosive grenade, maybe a bit larger? Would need to be tweaked. 3) Hide modified to function as a resource with an activation button. If you're touching a wall at all you recharge your Hide. If you aren't touching a wall and moving you have a few seconds (maybe 3?) to move around with hide activated. Once you'll need to touch a wall again. Whaddathink?
@PwnedYoAss I like the idea of a flare grenade... I don't know how much use it will be with commander targets, cameras and spotting already providing a fair amount of intel. I'm imagining some sort of camera-like effect for a shot duration. From my own player perspective: I find Scout tends to be a close range class... His skills and weapons seem to facilitate this. Sapping buildings, smg + shotgun, grenades suited for being close-up. The scout rifle doesn't really belong there? It promotes a long-range playstyle, that isn't really beneficial as it doesn't synergise with the main abilities. I feel the weapon is fine as it is. However the weapon also doesn't fit in with any other classes. As for scout hide? 'eh I sort of like it how it is. I don't know how you'd sneak up on turrets in the open if hide only happened near walls. I agree that we don't really know what scout is supposed to do... So perhaps we need to first determine scout's purpose? Currently it's "everything not covered by the other 3 classes".
Flare grenades would not require coordination and better to use mid-engagement. Commander targets and cameras are kind of preemptive and require a bit too much wind up time. Engineers building cameras need to be defended, and every time the line moves up you have to move the camera so that's not ideal. Commander targets require the commander to pick a single target, and often you don't have enough time to single out the target that the person is fighting for them, because that's just too much effort. They'd function like a camera target, and fade over time. Unsure if they'd pulse, kind of problematic if the duration is short and for nearly half of it you don't have the target. Also, this would allow for Scouts behind lines to figure out where people are if they're discovered without dragging the commander into the picture. As much as I agree with you it seems weird to pigeonhole the Scout class when everyone else had a secondary role. The Engineer, builds buildings, but most of the time they're healing or reviving. Rifleman is an infantry killer, but stickies will nearly kill anything they touch (including infantry). The Grenadier, while great at murdering tanks is mostly anti-emplacement, I almost want to say tank murdering is secondary given the frequency. It'd make more sense to allow the Scout to be reasonably effective at range as an option, and then with the SMG2 and Shotgun being the "purist" option, much like the stickies for Rifleman. That being said, the Scout rifle is overall useless in the current game. The reason it's okay is because its practically not there. Even if you kill someone, you've only killed one person in the time it took a Rifleman to pull off multiple kills at the same range. The Scout rifle's huge advantage is something I'd like to capitalize on; the scope. There is literally no class in the game that lets you zoom in to precisely fire a shot at someone. The Rifleman only manages to kill people at range because of damage and volume of fire. You can actually see things no other class can see at range. Albeit that's minimally useful most of the time it doesn't matter if you know what class they have, or what guns they're armed with but... still an advantage unique to the Scout. That being said the binoculars do the same shit but good god it's useless to be able to see someone then not be able to follow up. So! That's why I think you should make the thing into a DMR so you can actually consistently deal damage, and along with that it's nicer on the receiving end because you don't just DIE in one shot, or get your health halved randomly. Fuck, I totally forgot about Hide working regardless of the wall you're touching. Maybe allow for permanent cloak while crouched/prone, but have the resource bar drain while standing and only rechargeable if you're touching a wall. I'm thinking the class should actually revolve around information gathering, and disruption. Information gathering limited to stuff needed to push a front line, not stuff like research. At least that's the thought.
I wish I had written down all the stuff I came up with the last time this was discussed, I felt like I had a decent lineup of abilities for an offensive support class that relied heavily on debuffing enemies. I can't think of what those were anymore. The scoped rifle rework sounds good to me, though. It might encroach on BEAR's and NFHR's territory, however.
I've just had a thought... Scout is the only class that has 2 play-styles. Engineers, grenadiers and riflemen are all much better when in a squad. They benefit from having teammates around them. Scout is useful as part of a squad (passive intel, concs, sticky stuns, squad hide, squad speed, radar stealth + vehicle speed). But also, scout can be useful solo... A single scout sabotaging the enemy turrets alone is less likely to be detected. Sabotaging the MG turrets can greatly help advancing infantry units. The hide and silencer skills allow for stealth missions, often causing much disruption to the enemy... The main issue I see... Is that being away from your squad, doesn't generate squad points. So I propose a scout only skill called "lone wolf", which allows the scout's actions to earn squad points regardless of proximity to squad leader. EDIT: scouts are seen as wasteful, because they don't contribute to the squad like everyone else does due to being alone. Hence other classes are preferred.
