I feel if a class is available, it should have its basic use be equally as useful as all the other classes on an average battlefield... or at least some balance near this should be the goal. this does not mean all classes need to be equally as good in the same situation, but on a run of the mill battlefield i feel each class should be able to carry its weight equally in both potency of an individual as the quantity needed in usefulness towards winning the game. Previous line is a difficult way of saying i think its desirable that classes are balanced around the concept that a run of the mill game needs ON AVERAGE an equal amount of all classes for a 'perfectly all rounded' balanced team. This does not mean that there cant still be situations like early game where having half of your team be engineers is good or during being apc rushed having half of your team be gren is a smart tactic or during a enemy cv rush stunning that bitch with scout armies blablabla... but ON AVERAGE during NORMAL PLAY each class should also carry its weight equally. With that driven in your skulls a couple times over, hopefully you can answer this poll. do you tend to -strongly agree -tend to agree -neutral -tend to disagree -strongly disagree on this point: or do you think i am asking the wrong question: -just rebalance already since i know its a useless class in most situations, but preserve the glory. -Scout should be a wildcard class only usefull in very specific moments and tactics I feel it is a good idea to have a closer look at improving AVERAGE scout usefulness with relations to NORMAL run of the mill play.
The only way to make scout be useful in more a general sense would simply be giving them some calc stuff, like healing or dropping cameras, something. Otherwise with the skill set it's something I wouldn't want a ton of, only 2-3 in a game really. It's just a shame that it has the scout rifle and hide, it forces people who pick the class to be kinda useless. I mean there's another way to make scout more relevant, empty kinda did work on it and might not be a bad idea to look a bit closet at it. I'm talking to be a close range alternative to rifleman. I think simply increasing the scouts base speed, not just stamina which is already fastest regening, by like 20% or something would make it a really neat alternative play style to rifle. It already has a 20% resist to bullets compared to rifle's 30%, none of it's weapons beyond scout rifle(which I think it shouldn't have) are effective at range. It's stickies don't kill vehicles but can stun long enough for fellow grens or tanks to make the kill. Honestly scout is more team supportive in some ways then rifle, but it just has a bunch of things that it either shouldn't or encourage the wrong playstyle. About the actual poll and idea you're presenting, I'm indifferent. A lot of games we just as many rifles as scouts, as in not many compared to team size. Games can be won solely on grens and engies, a class that can kill everything and a class that is essential to every part of the game. If you really want a team makeup of 25% of each class it's either through a nerf of these 2 class(lol that's not happening) or simply splitting up some of engineer's ability's to other classes like what mr x was saying in that other thread, so rifle and scout have more use beyond "I can kill infantry really well and that's all", and "I can help make game turning events happen but only for a couple of seconds."
I would, but your mid option is also disagree, there's no neutral or "don't care". I'm ok with how it is, wouldn't mind if it changed. I tend to roll with any change really, except if it was obviously dumb like bugged plasma we had for a week or so.
i also miss a "having a closer look probably wont hurt" option. as for if its neccessary or not im also undecided about it.
To make the Scout useful, you need to focus on why it sucks - it doesn't really have a great role to play, and the idea of the class, i.e a fast moving, spotting recon unit who can do clutch things like sticky nades, isn't really focused on that style of play enough. But first the devs need to decide how many scouts they want in an ideal game of 20v20. Is it 0 who changes to 1 for a last minute sticky stun? Is it 1 per squad, so squads become Eng-Eng-Rif-Gren-Sco? If it's the latter, a few things need to happen. You need to give the Sniper Rifle to the rifleman so that shit stops immediately, improve Scout's access to SMGs (not just #2, come on guys), make it run faster, allow binoculars to place tracking infantry/maaaaybe vehicle targets for the squad it's attached to, redesign sticky stuns so they can be thrown further but do not immobilize completely - a splash area which slows tanks (and possibly infantry - consider a merger with the percussion grenade) by a percentage amount and adds heat, and then for the final and likely most controversial idea, give them a 5th slot which allows them to place 1 camera or radar and remove it from the engineer. Obviously it would be dropped 100% working and Scouts could not repair it, with maybe a 2 minute cooldown. If you implement all these things, you will see a Scout in every squad guaranteed. Not some xX360_noscope_pro_1999Xx, but a real support class which helps the squad in the same way the engineer helps the squad and the commander. Games will become squads of Eng-Eng-Rif-Gren-Sco and the gameplay will change dramatically. However, if people want everything to stay the same there is absolutely no problem, it's the way the game is balanced. To change the scout you not only need a change in design direction but also willpower to implement the changes. Currently squads early game are Eng-Eng-Eng-Gren-Rif changing midgame to Eng-Eng-Gren-Gren-Rif and the lategame Eng-Eng-Gren-Gren-Gren, and I don't see that changing anytime soon without a major reconsider of what role people want Scout to play in Empires.
Scout lost smg1 when it got bullet resists and was designed to be a very close combat type of class. It just wasn't given smg1 when the resists were lowered and and got scout rifle. I think it's fine if it doesn't get smg1, if you only give it close weapons it helps force people to use it where you need it, ie right next to enemy rax. But again, it has hide and scout rifle, so people do mostly useless things instead.
Well, I had this idea about making Scout an infantry tank. Can survive a single infantry mine and shit. But then we'll have to rename it to Assault. I learned this idea from other games : If you are going to be useless anyway, at least it'd be great if you can tank a lot of damage.
On the subject of renaming... How about a rename to "Saboteur". Since that's what it's current/intended team function is, right? To sabotage and disrupt the enemies plans: by stunning vehicles, sapping buildings, removing key individuals at range (sniping revive engies?), being able to move around undetected.
how about an actual recon class? give him the cameras and give him some beefy armour and close range weapons but also give him stuff like targets to his squad.
Since when does recon require or even need beefy armor. Giving the class higher speed, a lower profile or better camo would make more sense. Scouts are fine as they are. I only whish enhanced senses would inform not only the scout but also his team or at least squad.
I wish we can say Scouts are fine. Scouts have too specific abilities(sticky stun, sab..etc) that no one is ever going to discover by themselves. Except for those functions, scout is actually...not very useful. Engi is jack of all trades, Rifle rekts infantry and is good for CS players, Gren can take out buildings and you can just brainlessly drop mines everywhere. Scout? My point is that new players play scout a lot, tanking damage requires no skill, why don't we blend both things? If I make Scout a tank, it's not going to make them OP, too.
I dunno security "nubs play scout" is a pretty sucky reason to turn it into a tank. If you were going to give it lots of hp then surely it should be slow - maybe a demolition class or something. Scout needs sidegrades not upgrades. either leave it or totally reinvent it I reckon. Tank with a sniper rifle though - sounds fucky to me. I'd like to see it go full recon/sab. A 80% passive support, 20% offensive player - more like engineer but you would probably need code and models to really do that. all the worthwhile suggestions from the zillion other scout discussions to support that are probably beyond reach. Its not so bad now, but it is boring to play. Squad powers are meh for 95% of the time, its a lone wolf class except when you are needed for stickies... actually what am I saying - scout sucks. You could just take it out and it would make little difference.
id say make em fast with some armour and give em a calculator with the cameras taken from the engy. give em grenades that stun shit and give them a couple. basically model em after the assault class from ufo enemy unknown.
A tanky class is the wrong route for scoute, and even Empires in general. I won't repeat all the suggestions in my last post, but he needs to be focused more towards a recon/support class rather than... Whatever use a shithouse rifleman that requires twice as many bullets to kill would be.
We don't really need a recon class, creating the need for that isn't really the right way, too. But I have an idea about recon. We can double Scout's "auto-spot" radius and we cut the radius for other classes. Scout already has 35% resist against bullet, I might increase that to 40% and I might add 40% mine resist for Scout so it can survive one mine. Honestly, any non-OP buff for Scout is "why the fuck not?" to me. It's really not like Scout is "generally useful" now. I think people will end up playing engineer without camera and they will yell at their comm twice as much for targets. Radar for scout might be a decent trade-off here.
