Allright, let's look at the most important skills: SUPER IMPORTANT: Revive-E Repair-E Defusal-G Dig in-R Hide-S IMPORTANT: LVL3-E ARTFBCK-G GOOD: Enhanced-S Vehicle Speed-S Cooling-E IncArmor-G ArmorDet-G Heal-E Shit nobody takes (except you... and maybe you): IncVhlDmg-R IncInfDmg-R Vehicle Radar Evasion-S (god, who takes this shit?) Silencer (only good on very specific conditions)-S Super Important skills are usually the first chosen by each class (unless general skills chosen) Important skills are usually taken on the 2nd upgrade Good skills are just taken because they could be useful during battle And shit nobody takes... is shit. SI p I:2 p G:1 p Shit:0 points Engi-10pts Gren-7pts Scout-5pts Rifleman-3pts You might disagree, I tried to be reasonable. Anyway, Engineer has the best skills hands down, in addition to walls and double turrets (at r40) the class evolves better than others. I propose that Engineers lose the ability to build a camera (why are they surveillance oriented anyway? they have a turret already). Instead, Enhanced senses should relay the battlefield information to teammates, not the scout only. A small nerf for engineer, a buff for scout. Engineers already have too much of the gameplay on them. Rifleman. This is the class that is supposed to "take a hit and get on with it". We want this class to be able to run through the fire and ice and dominate infantry. And he does that. Sort of. Problem arises when tanks come into play, and stickies aren't much help at a distance, and rifleman becomes useless. A good skill to have for rifleman would be "Increased Vehicle Rate of Fire". As title suggests, the reloading as well as changing cycle of cannons and missiles should be sped up by 20%. This would actually make useful rifleman drivers. Back to scouts. Radar stealth should hide you from ALL surveillance structures, not just the vehicle that you are riding in. This skill would be on a dilemma with hide. (hide)Be slow and very hard to detect? (stealth)Or do it fast and risk being killed? With engineer without cameras, scouts will be more useful when taking enhanced senses. Along with hide/stealth, it will be a walking radar much more functional than some rotating piece of shit placed in the middle of the rocks that you can't even see. Riflemen will be better adapted to vehicles, and will be more preferred during rushes when every shot counts.
1. Scout is its own issue that we do need to deal with. 2. The engi does need to have some amount of power skew towards it, because they essentially make empires happen. They are a bit too powerful now, but they do need to have some form of skew. Cameras/radar fit on engi just because they're buildables. This won't even nerf engi's to a noticeable degree at all. I'm much more in favor of seismic throw range nerf (sticky siesmics) and separating build/repar/decon and heal into repair/heal and Build/Decon. 3. For gren and Rifle skills, I've said swap Vehicle damage and Vehicle armour, Buff armour to 20% and change Vehicle damage to "15% of the damage you inflict to vehicles is dealt to their hull". On your point system I think that would give Rifle and gren up to 8(+2 and -1 to arty feedback) and 5 respectively. The main problem with equal skills, is that the rifleman only has 3. In order to help the balance, the rifle needs at least 1 more skill. Infantry damage could also deal with a buff. 1 thing that is a bit of a drastic measure, would be to move accuracy to a rifle class specific skill. Also, alot of what makes the rifle good is innate, making his skills not as important. 4. We really do need to deal with the scout...
Buff rifleman? Sure why not, make him able to duel vehicles also. Not that I'm playing most of the time as roffler already... If removing camera, I'd like to see 'Enchanced senses' turned into a general skill that works similar to the camera, so people who are rushing should consider investing a skill point into it. Actually that way you could remove the annoying comm attack orders as well which are half of the time a nuisance.
Armor Detection is WAY more important than arty feedback. There are more tanks(not to mention how useful it is on foot) that people use armor detection with than compared to the one tank with arty feedback. And even then Arty feedback is only important with ranged. I can see and use arty effectively with out it just like you would a mowtar by just watching where the shells land.
Let's ignore the fact that mines will kill you, you won't be able to repair or give ammo to yourself and have no ways of defence/offence after you leave your vehicle against enemy vehicles. We want all classes to be able to use vehicles.
Gren has 3 skills useful for regular tanks at all times, and 1 skill useful for arty tanks. Engi has 1 plus repair. Scout and rifleman are going to either need more skills or big buffs to the skills they have to be able to compete.
I have made suggestion threads already with buff suggestions for both the scout and the rifleman. http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=9034 and http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=9500
The problem with rifleman is that except dig-in, every combat skill he needs is common skill: increased health, accuracy, regen, ammo, etc... So should we make these specific to rifleman ? (by the way, rifleman is not meant to duel vehicles and excells in infantry fight, he is fair the way he is) About the usefulness of defusing: I never defuse mine, cause it's awfully long and dangerous. I always send someone to blow on the mine then revive him... stupid but efficient I think you put defusing into SI only because landmines are overpowered (invincimines wtf?!) As hide is a must have for scouts, why not just replacing googles by hide and putting (better, fast left-click spotting) googles as a skill ? Or... remaking hide. Hide should not be Hide + (turret) stealth. Give stealth to scout, hide as a skill. (and better googles).
I'd like to see the vehicle damage skill buffed and transferred to the grenadier and vehicle speed transferred to the engineer. We need to make a decision on whether we want all classes to have vehicle buffs or make the engineer and the gren vehicular experts and the scout and the riflemen infantry experts. I'd also like to see armor detect removed and made an integrated grenadier skill with the plus that if you hold e on an enemy tank it tells you what armor it's using similar to scout sabotage.
