I see a lot of posts giving ideas how to make the scout more of a team player and useful class for people. I think a consolidated thread would be a nice place to start, so we can get a feel for what people want to see happen to the scout. Personally, I think the scout should be less a sniper but more of a team fit special ops. To submit to this thread include if its a weapon, ability, item, or special function Thoughts, Ideas? I.E. Weapon or Item Light Assault Rifle - More damage than an Smg but less than a rifle - Lower ammo capacity - High accuracy - Same weapon model for assault rifles but with less damage maybe more accuracy, with a higher drop off. PDS - Portable Device scanner, used like a small camera and radar in one. - Only displays information to your squad. - "Just set it and forget it" Squad Ammo Boxes - Scout has access to ammo boxes - He is unable to refill his nades - He is only able to drop within range of teammates Ability Effective Sabotage -The Sabotage ability will now decay buildings at a faster rate and repairing the buildings takes longer. -Sabotage done to a building will produce less smoke. -If done to enemy radar, your commander will see enemy research -The building will lose 75% health as opposed to 50% -Like TF2, sabotaging a building cannot be repaired until the sabotage is removed. To counter this, sabotage has a cooldown timer. (If you just spam sabotage then this helps no one, if you complain of the cooldown you arent working with a team to take out the building. Radar Stealth - Scouts would not be found by cameras or radar dishes. Enemy commanders can not target the scout with this skill. Enhanced senses still will be able to find the scout. Enhaced Senses -Increase the range of this skill greatly. -Camera like targeting for the scout (if not already in) Special Function Squad Captain (Energizer Bunny on 'Roids) - A skill or a passive ability - Terrible name for it but it sums up what the scout should have - An ability to enhance friendly players and teamates through different means ------If close to a particular class bonuses are added to the teammate and the scout: ------------ Engineer- Decreased cost to revive and heal by 1/2 ------------ Riflemen - Increased reload times for both players (or accuracy) ------------ Grenadier- Upgraded damage for weapon (except mortar), same applies to scout ------------ Scout - Stamina and Speed are upgraded for both parties - If a scout is the squad leader or near the squad leader - Increased aura for points and passive squad ability - More squad members in a closer area result in better upgrades -i.e squad leader has a health regen of 1 hp/sec as a engineer this goes up to a max of 3-4hp/sec Passive Squad Leader Ability 1) Increased Speed and Stamina Regen 2) Increased rate of fire and/or reload times Hide 1) Hide is now an innate skill. It is not needed to be selected. FU Lone Wolf - While not inside a vehicle or near teamates the scouts damage is reduced by some number 20%-50%. If the scout is in a vehicle or near teamates his damage will be "normal". If he is with a group and his members get killed, the scout has like 60 or so seconds before his damage is diminished. Pros: It prevents the lone wolf (aka Helping NO ONE) Cons: Nubs and non-team players will QQ Fixes Crosshair - Fix the crosshair so its not so ghetto while trying to aim while hidden. Sniper Rifle -Forget to upload the weapon script and model for next release.
repost from rant thread... okay, well lets have a look at the ways the forum has come up with for improving the scout over the last year (as much as my memory remembers). firstly, the problems with the scout: the scout as an anti base tool is seriously ineffective. it takes the scout a lot longer than most classes to get in position to do damage (he will usually crouch his way in, sneaking past turrets, instead of destroying them, and he must get right into the base instead of near the outskirts). His damage is also insignificant unless tied to an ally doing damage at the same time, but in these situations, two damaging allys is usually usually better than one scout and one ally, and in any situation where the scout is seperated from the ally, he would be better equiped to damage a base if he was an engineer or grenadier than if he was a scout. Solution: sabotage does 3/4 damage instead of 1/2. This would mean that the scout does damage a lot faster than other classes, though would lack the ability to finish the building off. But as a tool to take down a base quickly with allys, he would be seriously effective. Rambo scouts would not be benefitted by this enormously. Problem: sabotaging turrets requires sneaking up to them (slow and risky) and does not finish the turret off, while a gren or engy can kill most turrets quickly and on their own. Solutions presented: -scout invisible to MG turrets OR same but only with "radar stealth" skill -scout can press a button to go invisible, while using stamina, so he can run. -sabotage does 3/4 damage instead of 1/2 Problem: scouts which only snipe. Even given a wealth of toys to play with to make them useful to the team, some players will choose only to snipe instead of using them, because that's what they find fun. However, as this fun is possibly having a negative impact on the team, it's not good. -scout has limited ammo and picks up ammo from enemies. This would force a scout to push forward instead of camp. -remove points for snipe kills? (-not a great solution really) -more solutions to this problem need to be found. Problem: scouts not a team player. scout currently only serving limited (i.e highly situationally dependant) anti infantry as well as anti emplacement support while working in a squad. Solutions presented: -scout has limited ability to heal allies e.g, heals an allie 50% in exchange for 100% of stamina or heal pack as option in grenade slot -scout hides people crouched next to him as well as himself Problem: scouts unable to scout. the majority of the scouting functions the scout currently has can be done just as well or better (remembering commander targets) Solutions presented: -scout binoculars can spot (for long period of time) enemy vehicles and players -any enemies which appear in scouts FOV for a short distance, and any seen through binoculars appear instantly on minimap for as long as they are in FOV. -scout binoculars increase sight range of scout, i.e, through binoculars the scout will see enemies before they would be showing up without zooming. -additional level of zoom for scout binocs -scout binoculars targets show a position in the air where the crosshair of a players artilliary or mortar should be positioned to hit the target - massive coding required. -scout gets the camra/radar from the engineer, as they are scouting tools -scout runs at 110% and/or has 50% more stamina- (so can go ahead of a team (esp during early stages of game) to scout ahead.) -scout can see [some portion of e.g current (?)] enemy research by sabotaging radar/CV -remove mass commander targets. Miscellaneous suggestions to make the scout more useful: scout has larger/unlimited supply of his stickies. scout should remain stealthed when throwing grenades
I think the Scout should have one class specific combat skill like a Rifleman, and the option to take the Assault Carbine, instead of SMG2. I wouldn't create a brand new weapon for the scout. I think the solution to the sniper rifle is to tone down its scope power and create a class skill that upgrades the rifle---makes a big cloud of smoke when sniping, but tons more damage (think 50 cal sniper rifle). That way there'd be two flavors of sniper rifle. And also tone down the 'fall off' damage so the unmoded sniper rifle can take someone down in two hits (without a lucky headshot).
Special Function: Sabotage has the same effect on all buildings. Effect: Disables the primary function of the building until repaired or 60 secs elapse Turret - Disables Turret Barracks - Disables spawn VF - Disables vehicle creation Armory - Disables ammo/health Radar - Disables research Ref - Disables res gathering Building begins to smoke when the scout starts to sabotage rather than after the sabotage occurs.
Scout should keep both smgs plus the shotgun we have been promised. The shotty will be worthless if shotty pistol keeps its damage. However all scout weapons need MORE ammo, scout is the class that should be sabbin turrets and camping barracks rather than spending 30 secs crawling to a racks... sabbin a MG then dieing. I have given scout up since 2.12 because of the 60 round clip, I can camp a barracks for maybe 30 secs at most then Im FUCKED since im forced to melee
The main reason why the scout is so useless at the moment is that his unique ability of sabotaging is only usefull when he is in the enemy base far behind the lines. Since Empires (classical gamemode) has so big maps, the scout spends ten times sneaking to the enemy base than time is needed to discover and kill him. So the scout needs a way to get to the enemy base more quickly: Ability Personal Teleporter - allows the scout and only the scout to teleport to a location once per life - must be placed by the scout at the target location first - teleportation process takes five seconds while the scout is paralyzed to prevent teleporting out of firefights
that effectively disables any front... what about just letting him run quite fast... or give him a grappling hook or something so he can use terrain to sneak where others cant come edit: i read somewhere the idea for a brush making it so that only a scout can pass it this would be ideal (vent shafts, other classes cannot go trough going from "between flag A and B" to "in between flag B and C" for example, so when the front line is flag b, the scout can sneak juuuust past it without fancy gadgetree and it is still somewhat predictable
Hmmm... Change the damage of the current sniper to 90 per headshot and 50-60 per body shot? Headshots could still easily kill someone who had taken even a pistol shot, but it wouldn't suck as massively as it does now.
Remove Smg2. Add (new) Smg3. Possibly rename Assault Smg. Less recoil and less max recoil then smg2, more ammo.Use old NFsmg3 model, new model for BE or older smg 1 or 2 model. Hide: Becomes an innate skill for scouts, Add: Enhanced hide, which does.... something(faster hiding, more hidden, limited amounts of squad hide like running etc.) Weapon silencer:Add: Hides muzzle flash or Allows firing while hidden(muzzle flash still there) Enhanced senses: Increase range a little bit, Put marker of range on minimap. Add: Undetectable by turrets This
What if scout hide worked like this: You crouch to charge up the hide and then when you stand your hidden for as long as you were crouched. So they could stop and crouch for a minute then stand up and run for a minute then repeat. That way they could get around faster then crawling on there belly. Would make hide a main skill pick again.
That's kinda what the "limited amounts of squad hide like running" meant.... This is what i put in a different thread The 3rd one is basically what you said, although i think it should be more along the lines of max 10 seconds of run hiding and 15-20seconds of regular hideing to charge it
So why not change sabotage to be useful on the front line? That's why I suggested the sab effect changes. Being able to temporarily disable barracks spawn or VF vehicle production is devastatingly effective if accompanied by a team rush/push. However, the effect is useless if you sneak behind the enemy.
I couldn't really get out of your posts what you wanted to be changed. You propose a passive squad leader ability that makes sabotaging more destructive? That would make the scout more useful but is basically the same what we already have. Sabotaging a vf or a barracks right when your team is attacking the base IS very helpful, but it only happens when you have a scout waiting long boring minutes until the attack occurs, or you have a PUG or similar. And i think the scout should operate alone behind the front lines, that is what makes the class unique. @blizzerd Yes, my first thought was letting the scout move faster but then you would have to balance this in normal gun battles. Scout only tunnels would work too but had to be added to each and every map. I doubt that would ever happen.
