devourawr your arugment to give rifles the scoped rifle because it reduces the uselessness of scouts is inconsistent. a rifleman with scoped rifle is even more useless than a scout. there is nothing promoting a rifle to get closer to the enemy, as scout one could at least sabotage something. and if this wouldnt be bad enough, rifleman has a skill that says "stay prone it gets you damage resists" - as a scout you sooner or later realize that hide is a waste of a skill as sniper edit: actually all scout skills are a waste as sniper, while damage upgrade and dig in should be quite good skills. this really would be a decent pro-argument for rifleman snipers, as a class' skills should synergize with its armament and tools, if only it wouldnt promote "camping" at view distance - and its exactly that what makes them a nuisance for both teams.
What I read from this is "Devourawr your idea is retarded but actually makes a lot of sense". Riflemen don't want to get too close anyway unless they can get inside a rax - Scout wants to be up front where the action is. Page 1 contains my list of proposed buffs for Scout and page 2 where a concussions/sticky blended grenade could be introduced. I think the increased detection range is a good idea, but disagree with your damage resist. Don't get me wrong, I also want to see more Scouts. I just don't want them focused on doing nothing, sitting far away with a sniper and hard to kill because now they have more armour. Less engineers, in the current state of the game, is a massively bad thing for the early game, which is also when Scout is most relevant in terms of the Sniper Rifle and infantry bullet resist. Why? Because a Scout could never be as useful to his team that early in the game. Which is my point all along - either a class which is useless to his team is useless in general, or a class that is useless to his team is a must-have for each side, meaning allocating more players to sit around trying to kill their scouts first instead of actually progressing the game along.
insofar as you just move around which class is useless for teamplay. the fact that riflemans skills synergize with the scoped rifle doesnt make it better. the behavior you describe in your last paragraph only is sane sniper behavior - though a lot dont get the fire-reposition-fire-reposition part, but in generaly its best if you only move as close as absolutely neccessary - thats why you have a scope. its just what you get if you have snipers.
How come we didn't keep scout rifle out of game again? Playing empires is just too depressing with so many new players on.
The problem is, I am neutral about that annnnnd I think we got quite a few supporters on both sides(remove or don't remove).
inb4 hate... give the mortar to the scout and make it an anti emplacement class, used to break stalemates and strong defenses.
mortar probably is the most "unscoutish" weapon right after rpgs. there are only 2 issues with scouts. one is that hide hides too well if you touch enough triangles* and the other is that snipers create sniper gameplay. while sniper gameplay isnt bad per se, hitscan snipers really only work on maps with a lot of relatively small areas and lots of cover** (ie most FPS or in empires the map district). *show me the scout in this picture (yes there is one and no he is not a 100% invisible, now after you searched for minutes and used photoshop to edit levels and contrast, tell me how is one supposed to find a scout ingame without wasting minutes of time) i hope we dont wonder why people just stand behind the vf and repair over and over again. also here have a 2nd picture of the same scout (scrat) **reliable, "map geometry" cover. walls are unrealiable, temporary, and require 2 players unless you are engi yourself but then you are "busy" with walls and not fighting.
Make scout useful in his own right. Damn. Engineer is useful. Grenadier is useful. Riflemen is useful. Scout can do some of the things they can do but nothing to make him actually worth picking over them. He can't build shit. He can't kill infantry efficiently. He can't destroy vehicles and buildings as well as another grenadier or engineer could. He has one thing other classes don't - a way to immobilize the CV, and holy fucking shit wow batman, it's the only reason people pick him! What a fucking surprise. Juuuuust maaaaake Scoooout aaaable tooooo doooo somethiiiiing wooooorth piiiicking hiiiiium fooooor. Been saying it for 4 damn pages.
I agree, the only reason i would say to give the mortar to the scout is to have something useful go from a class that is amongst the most useful to the least useful. Scout needs a role that isn't hated by everyone in the game, and that teams can rely on being useful.
Outta curiosity, when we say give scout mortar are we also saying to remove it from gren? I'm hitting that point of I don't care what happens, well honestly I never did as long as it didn't make the game horribly unfun to play, but it's something to think about. I would just say if you did remove it from gren they should get an rpg buff so it can actually be anti tank class, because right now every class that isn't in a tank is shit against tanks.
Im 100% fine with ripping it away from the grenadier's cold dead clutches and buffing his RPG in one way or another. then give the scout the mortar to make him useful or some shit, i dunno. I admit i also stopped caring about those holy houses in empmod, im fueled with frustration these days.
No. The scout shouldn't have the mortar, at all. It keeps the gren from immediately dying vs riflemen/engineers, which is mandatory if you want to see them early game. Which you do. Rushing plain armour vehicles at the game start is not something we want to see. The scout needs to be a recon class, and a =GOOD= Recon class. Not good at doing what other classes can do but good at making sure his team and very crucially his squad can do their jobs properly.
Why do we need recon if the maps can literally be crossed on foot in 5 minutes and the enemy is always visible
This is kinda derailing, but it's actually easier to notice scout when you are moving, a single screenshot actually increases the difficulty.
Why do they need a mortar when the mortar is literally just the RPG placed on the ground and the sights folded inwards? The point is not just being able to see shit well. It's about being able to support your team and fuck with the enemy in the same way. Look at the squad and personal powers of the Scout to see what was once envisioned for him - a class that can hide his friends to the enemy and see the foe with clarity. From radars to enhanced sensors to vehicle stealth to squad hide to binoculars, scout could easily be a useful and relevant support class, AND with minimal developer input. I might as well just make a thread about this and put all my suggestions in one place.
SO you are defending refusing to debate a balance choice over a design choice someone made over 10 years ago? >It's about being able to support your team and fuck with the enemy in the same way how >Look at the squad and personal powers of the Scout to see what was once envisioned for him we are not here debating what the scout was supposed to be, we are discussing what we can make of the scout to make it useful... since whatever the devs originally wanted the scout to be is not working... >I might as well just make a thread about this and put all my suggestions in one place. Please do, i actually think some of your ideas are good, and i was just throwing out some ideas too.
Sorry, I wasn't intending to be as dismissive as I probably came across as. Giving the scout a mortar would definitely make him more useful and actually picked, my problem was that it would be at the expense of the usefulness of grenadier and I believe scout can walk his own path to relevance without shooting the other classes on the foot, but I should have elaborated that more rather than just saying no. Look for the thread tomorrow, I'll take an hour to put one together.
so except that you move a weapon around (which is totally random imo), what other changes would there be to scouts? will he still be invisible and able to sabotage?
