Honestly, they are. To assert my point, I will compare the Engineer to other classes. - Engineers more or less match Scout firepower. The exception is the Scout Rifle, but according to the developers, that will be removed. Scout can hide and sneak up to enemy bases and sabotage them, which is a whole lot safer, sneaker, and faster than what the Engineer can do, but less terminal. When it comes to building demolition, though, the Scout has nothing. Plus Engineers have cameras, which fulfill the advantage of a) being a lot more efficient b) useful in the role of spotting. - In a head-on fight, Riflemen will eat Engineers alive. However, that's pretty much it. Riflemen are actually the specialist class in the game. They only really shine in maps where there are limited vehicle access. Stickies can be formidable weapon against vehicles, but it requires luck, skill, confined spaces, stupidity, distractions or a combination of all five. Not at all capable of doing anything useful against structures. - Grenadiers have a utility for destroying vehicles that surpasses the Engineer (unless the latter has a missile turret set up, or said vehicle is idle). But this is counterbalanced by the fact that the Engineer has better capabilities against infantry. I don't have any serious considerations against this, but Grenadiers are piss shit bad at destroying vehicles later game, since aforementioned vehicles can sustain several rockets as well as outrun Grenadiers handily. Take a look below. And then vehicles are more often than not piloted by Engineers, mainly because a) sometimes the commander can't be arsed to build repair pads b) goodwill and teamwork is something you simply can't rely on, and c) its just plain convenient. Being able to repair your own vehicle is infinitely more useful than any of the other buffs that the other classes can provide to vehicles. At the beginning, people choose Engineer, so that they can set up everything as soon as possible and farm points in the process. Mid-Late game, Engineers are chosen to clear obstacles, blow up buildings, and man vehicles. Sometimes other classes are chosen, but they are a minority compared to Engineers. So let me sum it up. Engineers are more dominant than any other class simply because they are far more useful overall. They are more useful in vehicles than other classes. They are premier building destroyers, and are far more useful early game than any other class due to their capacity for building structures and gaining exp from doing so. Most importantly, as far as armament goes, they are relatively well armed, which makes going to the front-line very easy with them. A few suggestions: I'll add to this as I think of things.
Well it doesn't promote balanced gameplay for one. In addition, Engineers are incredibly self-sufficient compared to other classes.
engi's are not good solving problems against infantry, or vehicles. dont give me any business about a turret, turrets are not killing devices (they're repulsion devices), and they're definitely not a practical defence against enemy infantry. every class can easily destroy a turret. engies have no anti vehicle device. see my infantry paragraph for info on why a turret is not valid anti armor. engies are only good against buildings where no other class other than gren is. sure scouts can do 50% in a matter of a few seconds but they can't deliver the finishing blow of the seismic nade. tl&dr, engineers are balanced just fine as they are.
I never said that. I in fact said, that they do. "More often than not". Roll it around in your mouth a bit and you will understand the meaning of that phrase.
Again, my point is that people overuse engineers because they are so self-sufficient compared to other classes. Engineers are better suited to piloting vehicles, Engineers are better suited to building things. In the early game phase, Engineers to build things, and farm points. Late game, engineers, because they can replenish and repair their own vehicles. They're their own ammunition supply. Though you have a point about the turret, at least in individual cases, multiple turrets in well-placed areas can be very annoying, and even deadly.
the main problem is the fact that the scout, rifleman, and to a lesser degree, the grenadier classes suck also, yes, repairing your own vehicle is nice, but you can't do that while you're being shot at.
Engineers are Overused Fail. That's not the same thing dude, what you're saying is what's been said for a long time in numerous threads, that the engineer is overpowered. This will not be (as) true in the next version of Empires, simply because infantry weapons have/are being rebalanced. Btw, you should know that the reason that they are so pimped, is so people will actually use the class, because easily, very easily people could just ignore being engies if they were only useful for building, and then the game would completely fail. You would only have a vet server, no other servers, because no one wants to be one of only 2 or 3 people on a team of 20 building everything.
to you alciester, turrets are the easiest things to kill in the game. drop 3 nf walls, give a gren/engi/rifleman an ammo box and any # of turrets can be slaughtered easily. of course the classes can do this by themself but require an engineer support class. engineers arent necessarily suited to piloting vehicles, however, they are suited to whoring vehicles. my point here is just that the engineer class is fine as it is.
I can see where you are comming from. Engies are the main backbone of an army and a little overused. But without any of the other classes a team is useless. Grens are very important. I do agree about the part of the riflemen, he is very underused and needs to be given more of a role in the game. I know he can cut down hordes of engies at a time (i know ive done it :D) but thats about it, there is a small something missing. For one thing the armour is USLESS, yes it takes 10% dmg off but thats nothing. The armour is far too weak at the moment, i think it should take at least 20% dmg, the riflemen is something that should be feared not forgoten.
I have to say that i personaly play like 99% of the time as grenadier/rifleman. But back in the days I started to play the mod I only played engineer. The awesomness about the engi class is that it gives new players a chance to do something usefull and be satisfied without killing hordes of enemys. Thats the major difference between empires and other team-deathmatch mods. You can suck at aiming/predicting where the mortar shell lands and still be a important part of the team.
I have to say that riflemans are really important. Take for example mvalley, if both teams manage to drop a rax north, riflemans decide which side wins. 2 good riflemans that mow down all enemys engineers will let you take north easily. I dont understand why people talk like the engineer has any chance against a rifleman.
A skilled Engineer can raise cover using walls quickly. Failing that, plopping a turret down between the Rifleman and himself also offers cover. The only way to deal with an Engineer in that situation is Rocket or Mortar fire, as well as sniping with the Scoped Rifle, but that's out of the question. Point is, at longer distances, the Engineer has a chance against the Rifleman.
Medics have been specifically rejected by the devs, so it's no use suggesting that. (And ultimately, such an infantry-focused class is inappropriate for Empires. We already have trouble fitting in riflemen and scouts.) You mentioned that those abilities failed to get used much in the grand scheme of things, but failed to realize that this is because -- as they're implemented -- they're not very useful in the grand scheme of things. They're hard to use, too. Nobody bothers to wait for a revive outside of infantry maps, because they have no way of telling who can revive them and have come to not expect it. Healing is impossible to use outside of extremely tight quarters, because nobody is ever going to stand still and let you get close enough to do it. Infantry tend to get widely dispersed anyway on comm maps -- one or two guys running to attack/hold/claim each key location is often a better strategy than focusing everyone on a key place (which is its own problem.) It's not that engineers don't like playing medic -- it's that the game as a whole is not very suitable for medics. That's an argument against adding a medic class, not for it. I think if you want to fix riflemen, the first thing to do is weaken the anti-infantry capabilities of the other classes -- sure, riflemen are better, but there's no real need for them when everyone can do decently. I suspect it won't happen (scouts are getting the shotgun already), but I do agree that replacing the engineer's SMG with a weak shotgun might be a good idea. Basically, make it so the only effective long-range (or even medium-range) infantry is the rifleman. Oh, and obviously nerf the mortar's capabilities in a straight-out fight, so it can only be used for support against infantry. SMGs are too "average"; they're all-around decent infantry weapons. Engineers shouldn't be all-around decent infantry fighters; that position should be reserved for the rifleman, and all other anti-infantry weapons should have significant costs or limitations of some sort. (Limited range for scout/engineer, setup time for turrets, increased deployment time + add minimum range restrictions for mortar, etc.) Make it so you need riflemen for a good infantry fight, rather than just having them be useful; when you see problems with infantry, people should shout "Go rifleman!" the same way that people shout "Go grenadier!" for problems with tanks right now. At the moment, that doesn't happen. Although really, the Engineer should not be overwhelmingly weak against the rifleman, not unless they run into each other by surprise in an area with no cover or something. The engineer should be weak against the grenadier and possibly the scout (who are the main anti-building classes, capable of hitting at the engineer's theoretical strengths.) The grenadier should be the class that is weak against the rifleman (and maybe the scout could be, too, although not to the same degree.) The rifleman's weak point is structures, though, so they're never going to be the best choice for taking out an entrenched engineer. Regarding some of the other suggestions... I believe the latest version has some nerfs for the engineer in store. But overall, the engineer is always an essential class, and should be fun to play under all circumstances; we never want a situation where someone says "Aww, I don't want to be the engineer, but our team needs one!" A team can survive without a scout, grenadier, or rifleman. It can't survive without engineers, and if engineers are not fun to play in all circumstances, then that will mean that a large part of the game will not fun to play. If it sometimes seems like engineers are a jack-of-all-trades, that's why. It's perfectly fine for all of the grenadiers to change to another class when there are no tanks around, or for all riflemen to change to another class when the enemy isn't using infantry too much. It is not fine for the whole team to say "I'm bored being an engineer, I'll switch to something else". Slowing construction time is, I believe, something that is in the next version? But I don't think it should be done just as a nerf to the engineer. There's various reasons to consider it, but changing that influences the whole game; if we're going to make it harder to build a forward rax, we have to consider the larger impact it would have, and not just what it means for engineers -- they're not the only ones who will be affected by that change.
And I thought Vess knew the basics of tank commanding. Engineer until heavies, or regen. Then it's all grens.
From my experience, the engineer is only important because he can build commander placed buildings. A mixed 50% rifleman 50% engineer start rush team will beat 100% engineer one. A mg turret will never keep a experienced rifleman player at bay. One rifleman is enough to clear for example the whole canyon in slaughter. Ive done it multible times. Under normal circumstances a engineer has like zero chance against a rifleman in empires. Even if a engineer ambush a rifleman the rifleman has enough time to turn around and kill him. All smgs need double the time of any rifleman weapon to kill someone. I mean seriously, in empires all a rifleman needs to do is point the crosshair at the enemy (even if hes only one pixel big) and hold mouse1. You dont even need to consider stuff like recoil or whatever.
From my experience, people use engineers for a lot of things. Base assault, vehicle driving, and overall territory acquisition. Even if the SMG isn't as good as any of the Riflemen Rifles, its still decent at any range except for long range. Again, at longer ranges, smart Engineers can raise cover using walls or turrets. Turrets soak up bullets. At medium to close range Engineers tend to be eaten alive true, but its not unheard of an Engineer to get the drop on a Rifleman.
