He is going to move the sniper rifle to the rifleman class. Then scouts third weapon will be replaced with the shotgun. This is arguably a better solution to compared to removing it, because after failing to get any kills with the weapon they will feel compelled to switch to one of the automatic rifles. Unless the weapon will get a buff so people will no longer waste time trying to get 1 kill. Then it can be an effective weapon.
A-ha. I only remembered the post where he dryly says that the rifle is never going away. I already covered that scenario in the initial post:
Well, maybe we should attempt to examine the reasons why newbies feel compelled to use the sniper rifle instead of merely taking that as a patently obvious fact.
there is a group of players out there that enjoy being utterly useless snipers in each and every game that provides such class.
It has to do with being a nerd. My friend tried Empires and refused to play any other class than Scout with the rifle simply because he didn't want to socialise with others. How do you get around that problem?
So the supposed solution to people camping and sniping is to give the sr to the riflemen? Clearly the solution to the problem lies in giving snipers bullet resistance and grenades. ffs what have i just read
Empires can't deal with players like that. This is a team sport. We simply can't support lone wolves and it's too easy to go into lone wolf mode when you have a long rifle.
The problem with people using the scout rifle has always been hide. People want to sit there, super stealthy, and pick people off from miles away. Empires does not provide good natural terrain camo, it's not difficult to see where you're getting shot from, so hide makes a big difference. Take hide away and it'll make sniping a lot more difficult. Most of the time, the people using the scout rifle are just going to get mad and take a rifle instead. That's my hope either way. I don't want to make the weapon totally useless, but I do want to discourage the use of it.
When my team is shit I lonewolf as scout with SMG and slay refineries. Lonewolfing as an engineer to destroy uninhabited bases and refineries as well as harassing turret lines is an excellent tactic that everyone should learn and know when to apply. Gren is a lonewolf class too imo, his ability to annihilate enemies in 1v1 makes him excellent for harassing infantry and getting mines in enemy turf is DELICIOUS
*Security Approved* Lonewolfing is a part of teamwork. Besides in pubber game, teamworking, success or not, isn't really much funnier than lonewolfing around.
lonewolfing only is a problem when a majority of players decides to do it - aka a majority of players thinks they are the only one of importance - else its a good thing to have a few guys roaming around doing "other things". you can wander off as any class but rifleman and archieve game deciding tasks. but its redundant to discuss it as design element, there is nothing you could do about it codewise. the problem about being able to select hide with scout rifle is that it makes players do utterly stupid things like crawling across the whole map in the wrong expectation to magically win the game by scoring a headshot on a random enemy. also having a sniper rifle on commander maps (the other maps are closed quater enough) is a very, very, very, ..., very, very bad design decision as there is too fucking few cover between you and max draw distance. if the scout additionally is hidden you have close to null chance to spot where the random hit did come from. and due to this reasons the scout rifle is shit and this makes scunts even more useless - in empires you dont archieve anything by only killing players, plus, because it would be overpowered as useful weapon, the sniper rifle is barely capeable of doing its job well.
I definitely do my share of grunt work, sitting behind walls dispensing ammo and helping my team out, but there comes a time where the best option is lonewolf it up. Sometimes a 1man front in an unexpected place can do a shit ton more damage than a 5 man front anywhere.
Quick example from a match yesterday: sneak behind two arty tanks wrecking my team and blow them both up as gren. And yes, there are times when lone wolfing is useful (see above), but Empires is primarily a team game, and teamwork is what makes team games team games.
The Law of Empires Teamwork In the long run, if and only if your team practices more teamwork, your team will always win. This is consistent with all of your bitching. Your tiny examples mean nothing in the long term. Your pub examples are also worthless. Learn to rational thought.
We only won that round because we didn't listen to your bitching how they had superior teamwork we worked together in tanks and everyone supported each other. Points in case, abandoned tanks were driven back to their owners, engineers provided support with ammo and repairs, and JustGoFly knew how to recycle walls and place refineries (he still doesn't read chat though ). But we're steering away from the topic. We had a couple scouts ravaging the enemy defences with sabotage and smg2. Not hide and sniper rifles.
Um no, the team that can succesfully kill the enemy commander will win. That's one of empires' greatest flaws in my opinion, the command vehicle means everything. I really hate matches where a team is decimated and outplayed at every turn, then wins with an APC rush because the other team couldn't killspawn fast enough. I find those games unsatisfying as fuck, even if I'm on the team that APC rushed.
Emphasis added. It's more complicated than that. I feel embarrassed that I even have to mention this to a player so much my senior. The team that can coordinate between capturing&defending resources, attacking the com and defending their com will win. That's Empires.