Remove the Scout Rifle or Empires Dies

Yeah, I don't get it either. Most empires maps are wide open and the scout can't do shit again vehicles. We just don't need the scout rifle.

 

If you want to hurt vehicles get a grenadier.

I personally found the scout rifle to be great for hampering the opponents construction. Got mortars and RPG's for you folks who get off on things that go boom, SMG's/AR's for those who like to spray, and sniper rifles for those who prefer not to reveal themselves with a bunch of tracers. It does what other guns do. It just has good potential under different circumstances.

 

And if you do want to hurt your own team get a scout.

 

Getting any class at the wrong time or playing them the wrong way will hurt your team. Like being a rifleman when the other team are using a lot of tanks, being an engineer and spamming walls that the enemies will just use against you/block your own vehicles, or being a grenadier when fighting off an infantry rush. If an enemy is heavily fortified, a skilled scout can really soften up their defenses, or slip past that massive lvl 3 turret farm and raise hell.

 

Look, I don't mean to sound condescending, but you clearly have not played this game very much. You have a semi-valid point about riflemen against the enemy team, but a good rifleman with ammo upgrade sticky bombs can arguably be more effective at ambushing and destroying late game tanks than grenadiers can.

Your point that grenadiers can't fight off an infantry rush is pretty moot, as many good grenadiers can easily kill good riflemen (and vice versa, depending on a variety of circumstances, such as terrain, positioning, etc.)

Your point that engineers could possibly hurt your own team is simply wrong. Yes, spamming walls could block your own team's tanks in, but more often than not, an engineer would have to actively grief with his wall placement to hinder his own team. Yes, the enemy could take cover behind your walls, but there are two counters to that--first, you don't let the enemy charge through open ground to reach your walls, and second, you can ask your commander to recycle those walls. However, a scout often is simply not a useful member of the team, unless someone like YouzY or OuNin plays him. You made a semi-valid point that the sniper rifle tracer is less revealing, but any half-decent player would still notice the tracer (or the absence of one if the scout is behind him) and manage to quickly zero in. And while a scout certainly can slip past enemy lines, an engineer or a grenadier would arguably be more suited to a demolition role. Yes, you could go prone and gradually slink past the enemy lines, but in doing that, the reward for doing so is often not worth it, if the enemy team has any vets at all, and furthermore, you're a possible soldier on the front line who isn't contributing to your team's efforts at all by gradually attempting to "infiltrate".

 

In smaller maps maybe, but in a lot of the larger open maps your better off with the grenadier(unless you can jump out of a jeep, stick, then jump back in. I for one can't, so I just mortar/rpg spam the tank).

You mean the skilled few who can pretty much take on an army with any class they play? A lot of grenadiers you can just sprint forward while occasionally dodging to the side and just spray. I'm more afraid of their mines than their shotty pistol/mortar.

When fighting on multiple fronts its almost impossible to get anything from him.

Unless your lying down and at a distance. Which you should be if your shooting at them with a sniper rifle.

The time it take to infiltrate depends on the player and the base. Don't need to be hidden all the time to make it through, hell you can just grab a jeep and roar on through then hide. Depends on how daring you are.

As for the contribution....I remember when I used to exclusively play as a scout. I would often have 3-4 people trying to smoke me out of the base. I had at least taken out one or two buildings before they even noticed me. If that isn't enough to satisfy your need for help, then you're just too picky.

Even on the front lines I get more kills as a scout than any other class I play. I find the hide, melee upgrade, and enhanced senses perks to be a very useful combination.

Not saying I match up to the vets, but the learning curve isn't THAT steep. Don't need to play for 5-6 years to know what works and what doesn't. SMG's/AR's spray, bombs go boom, tanks are spammed. Same shit. Different Game.

 

In a lot of the more open maps, a lone grenadier would still arguably not fare well against later game tanks. Sure, you could RPG snipe tanks on, say, Dustorm, but then the enemy tank could, you know, take advantage of its mobility and simply drive away.

Not so sure that your idea that everyone who plays grenadier is automatically part of the "skilled few" that can own with any class is so valid. For instance, I'm generally a moderately good grenadier, but I'm absolutely shit as a rifleman; I just kill infantry a lot more easily as a grenadier. And no, sprinting at a grenadier and strafing to the side occasionally is the second worst thing you can do when fighting them. Too easy to direct hit someone like that; you must not have been playing against good grenadiers (try that "tactic" on Hopfi or Neoony or Fishstick, etc. and have fun getting a mortar to the face). If you legitimately think that their mines are more dangerous than their mortar, then, yeah...

True, but you didn't address my objection that more often than not, you shouldn't allow the enemy to get all the way up to your walls in the first place. Saying that there is one, very small circumstance in which an engineer could potentially harm one's team means that there are circumstances involving wall placement whereby one should possibly not play engineer is a silly argument. And anyways, if the engineer is supporting a good team, the enemy team should either: a. Not be able to get up to your walls anyways charging through open ground b. Not be able to flank your team due to camera placement/targets c. If they do reach your walls, it's because they pushed up with walls of their own, in which case even if your walls weren't present, their engineers could simply build some of their own.

If you're prone and fighting from a distance, it is often better to simply go rifleman. In that case, the rifleman's job isn't solely to rack up kills; you should be doing things like stickying tanks, protecting your engineers, etc. Yes, prone sniping will net you a few kills, but the fact is that you're not truly a deterrent, in the sense that a few walls could stop you, and your raw damage output isn't enough to stop merely two revive engineers from closing the distance.

If you take a jeep and roar in, why do you need to be a scout in the first place? Go engineer, and do a squad revive, if you can coordinate it. Go grenadier, and mine the shit out of the enemy base. Yes, if you go scout, it's great to coordinate a rush with your team, but if your goal is to simply Rambo up the enemy base, scout damage is too easily repaired, too quickly.

If it takes 3-4 people to kill a hidden scout, the enemy team is simply not very good. There is simply no other excuse. Furthermore, you say "I remember when I used to play scout exclusively", and you therefore haply are not aware of this, but scout sap damage has been reduced by 75%. So yes, sabotage damage no longer really takes out buildings anymore.
If you can play scout effectively and ninja an kill an important building in the enemy base, like the vf, a rax, or a radar, then good job. But if you kill something that's easily replaced, like a few turrets or an armory, then yeah, of course that doesn't count as actual "help" to your team.

If you get more kills on the front line as a scout than any other class, I don't even know what to say. That's pretty sad. -_-

The learning curve for this game certainly isn't that steep--it's easy to grasp the basics. But this game has a lot of nuance that pretty much all vets, myself included, have yet to grasp, but it is almost universally regarded that playing scout in about 75% of circumstances ends up being useless--100% if a "vet" isn't playing the class.

 

I'm still for the idea of scout being all up in the enemy CV's grill and one of the most effective classes in a coordinated attack. Sticky stuns, target sighting, squad hides, recon, radar stealth, vehicle speed. And the ability to take out half a building's health in five seconds flat? Hellz yeah!

Scouts shouldn't be half a mile away taking pot shots with a rifle, they shouldn't be crawling around on their gut smoking out refs and turrets every few minutes, and hide should rarely be a scouts first pick for a skill. They should be popping bitches in a barracks as they spawn and keeping it locked down for the rest of the team to push up, they should be sabbing radars and VF's while a gren or two is bombing the shit out of the enemy, they should be leading a hidden squad through the brush and wrecking shit behind enemy lines.

I fuckin' love the scout, I think it's one of the most versatile classes being able to fuck up infantry, buildings and vehicles while being able to double a squad's efficiency by cutting building health in half and making infantry/vehicles spawn with half health/armor. It's easily comparable to an engineer in how it can contribute towards a squad.

 

Pretty much this. Scouts are mainly a force multiplier; yes, you can get the enemy buildings to half health, but without coordination, that's easily repaired. Yes, you can sticky stun the enemy cv, but if you're by yourself, big deal. An effective scout should serve as the vanguard of any coordinated attack, and not sit back and give "sniper support", which is what so many people end up doing.

 

Cause it happens sometimes, you don't win every battle. That and the fact that not all walls are placed with the best judgement.

This I did not know, I just started playing at 2.4 because they re-enabled DX 8. I have a shit computer so I get very laggy with DX 9. Especially on maps with a lot of water.

Like you said: "I'm generally a moderately good grenadier, but I'm absolutely shit as a rifleman"

I often bait the enemy. Hide. Ambush. Or I circle around behind them using enhanced senses to avoid most people(cameras can kinda foil this plan but if you move fast it helps make up for it). I suck at using the AR mostly because I have my graphics down and I can't see shit at long range(which is why I like the scope on the SR). I use a pistol with the melee upgrade or the SMG2 when I'm in the mood to go all out.

I agree completely, and I am well aware that is what a lot of people do is just sit back and take pot shots. Though I still believe that the sniper rifle and the scout have enough of a purpose to be kept. I should also make it clear that I don't just sit back and snipe. You can mow down a person pretty easily with a pistol, so I often use the sniper for taking out the enemy before closing in. Since you can kill in one hit(headshot), you don't lose as much HP as you could in the usual firefight(for some reason people rely more on strafing than crouching and aiming than I remember).

I'll admit with the building sap nerfed, that does kinda hurt my case....a lot. Though the two perks that the scouts have are what I find to be the most useful in infantry combat.

 

Right, but the difference is that the engineer is usually helpful to his team, except for that very narrow example you have, whereas scouts are usually not useful to their team.

Well, to each his own, I guess. If you honestly play scout better than any other class, then by all means, go ahead. I would say that you can ambush with the grenadier and rifleman, but seeing as how you at least take enhanced senses, you're already smarter than 80% of "pub scouts". Again, a rifleman flanking would probably do more damage, but whatever floats your boat. I used to play Empires on a laptop with 800 by 600 resolution with a trackpad, so I know how shitty low settings can be.

I'm not exactly arguing for the removal of the scout or the sniper rifle; I'm just saying that in almost every situation I can think of, the rifles beat out the scout rifles by far. However, I have fun playing with the scout rifle occasionally, even though I know that I could be more useful playing with another class, and I wouldn't remove it for that very reason.

 

wtf? Is that a shotgun with a drum attachment or is that a Grenade launcher?

 

Oh Trickster, you're such a tease

 

Scout shotgun, I expect. They probably gave the NF shotty a drum mag and the BE shotty a box magazine (or maybe they got ambitious and did a proper internal mag?!).

But a nade launcher might also be interesting. Maybe Trickster & Friends want to limit nade spam. So they remove throwable nades and make the scout choose between a shotgun or a nade launcher. That would be an interesting direction.

 

...so they made a weapon that people can select to hold more nades and shoot them. Make them sticky proxy he-nades and we got a winner... demoman anyone?

Speaking of proxy explosives... I still wish we could stick mines on walls like we used to be able to do. One of the floor one on the ceiling in a hallway meant no passage unless you had defusal.

 

A grenade launcher would be the worst fucking thing possible.

 

But if you want to nade spawn, you must give up your primary. That's a huge loss in order to gain the ability to nade spam. I doubt they are going this, but it could be fair. It's not impossible.