The impracticality of a lot of these skill do support trickster's argument. While they're all lovely romantic ideas which sound cool and make the scout out to be an awesome ninja gadget whiz, most of them are completely useless. Now you can add in not-very-useful ideas, I've suggested a tool which can do things like ping the minimap for enemies or detect/defuse mines, but you can't build the entire class around them, the class needs to be a solid combatant at its core and all the bells and whistles need to directly support it, and any icing on the cake can just be tacked on the end as a purely situational thing which can be useful sometimes, and as it's always available you might use it when you need it. I don't think it has to be removed, I mean there's room to make it a combat class, it already kinda works, the enhanced senses alone get me kills because I can outwit enemies by knowing where they are. Taking things like that and making them easier to use, and giving them some solid weapons which compliment that would make the scout a fine class on infantry maps, and a good compliment to the rifleman on open maps.
If skills and abilities aren't working, maybe we should go back to pure concepts like Mashav suggests. What do we want the 4th class to do? Personally, I feel there should be a 4th class in...having only 3 classes tends to remove a lot of the tactical element, purely because you can identify the enemy class in less than 5 seconds, and then counter. A 4th class can be used as a tie-breaker, and random element, and I feel it's crucial to the depth of the game, although I know some of you won't agree. But what that 4th class should be is debatable...we still have a lot of things it could be, we just need to identify the core of the class, rather than "rinky-dinky tie-breaking 4th class".
I like the idea of disabling comm wallhack-targets and making scout a walking camera instead. I like the idea of giving someone a shotgun (it doesn't have to be scout though). Don Mengel is trying to complete backlog for a new scout. This is a very hard task that I wouldn't take. I respect Mengel for his courage here and for his models that are absolutley awesome. Empires is being coded in a funny way: there is a group of coders. If they agree on doing something, they do it. Thus, it is unlikely that the scout overwhelming changes will be implemented unless multiple coders agree on it. Small and good changes, however, will probably be implemented faster.
'Small and good changes' are no use when the balance of the game as a whole is pretty much fundamentally broken and in need of a drastic rethink. It would be nice if the devs had a clear cut leader who could actually give some direction to development. Empires hasn't progressed for nearly two years, and if this doesn't change, the game is as good as dead.
I fear there has been a misunderstanding. I never started all this to promote my ideas and get backing, I could have worked behind the scenes with the other Devs if all I wanted was my version of the scout in. I first posted my own idea to use as a starting point and then changed it based on the feed back I got. I then closed and opened a new thread so that I could get an accurate vote. This is very much to be a discussion and flow of new ideas. As for those who feel I do not play enough and therefore can not make good suggestions I must sincerely apologize. I was not aware that Empires had changed drastically in the past two weeks, or since May for that matter. I had no idea that the Scout had drastically changed in much longer than that. I didn't know that, rather than using what limited free time I have to model that I needed to put in a certain number of hours of game time each week in order to be qualified to make suggestions for the mod that I had been a part of since the days of battlefield 1942. If someone would tell me please, what the quota of daily play time is I will happily meet it so that I can again work on Empires. I do like the idea about posting different scout features and letting those get votes. I'll try and set that up today.
I think we all knew that, but even when you brought it out into the open you were still choosing what got in and what didn't, so even though it wasn't entirely yours it was still "your" idea. The problem with that is you chose your idea as a starting point. If the base structure of your idea is something that is disagreeable then there's not much flexibility. Also if all you do is try and staple on promising ideas from the ideas that come up, you get a "Frankenstien" class, with a mishmash of abilities. Although this would be preferable to this current layout, I still think there's some major issues with that system. The 2 most notable are the previously mentioned "Frankenstien" problem and the inability(or incredible difficulty) to create synergistic bonds between multiple facets of the completed class. Don't take me the wrong way, I do appreciate what you're attempting to do, its just I think you're somewhat defeating the purpose of your own endeavor.
Yes, there are quite a few other people's ideas being thrown in this thread and in the vote. Yes, because that wouldn't cause the slighest bit of backlash. Your nf rax is proof enough that you don't understand basic gameplay.
I would suggest regular play for about four to six hours at least every week, for about six weeks at least. Long enough to become disillusioned and cynical basically, then you can start thinking of things that would be helpful.
Need more doodle poll! I hope this was in jest, because the idea that one of the original players/devs doesn't know much about the mod is silly. While the current scout balance is better than before, its still quite broken. Too many new players try to use it as a sniper and sabotage can be OP on open maps (i.e. scout in a jeep = sabbing all your refs). The only teamwork aspect of the current scout is using sticky stuns to trap a CV when rushing. My only criticism of your current suggestion is that I think each class should have one primary role at which is excels. Making a scout that can be assault or support class just confuses new players on the proper way to play it. Pick one of those and give it enough skills/weapons/abilities that it beats every other class at that role. For example, if the comm or your squad leader says we need more anti-infantry support in one area, it should be immediately clear which class would be best suited for that role.
Just because you designed something doesn't mean you know everything about it, for example trickster knows a lot more about playing king than I do because he plays it a lot more than I do, and he has pointed out strategies and tendencies to me that I didn't know about, even though I built the thing. Unless you play the game constantly you won't know how other people are playing it and what you need to change.
It's probably better for outlining concepts, but aggregating the most likely candidates for scout abilities can only be a good thing (imo) Is that why my suggestions fail so often? :confused:
As I can't remember anything you've suggested, I don't know, but the sooner people start thinking of this as a game, and all the players as exploititive, unimaginative, well-designed idiots, the sooner people will start making useful suggestions.
