I don't think unlocking the HMG or scout rifle is a bad idea at all to be honest. They're less useful lategame when vehicles are out, but still have their niche.
Making them require skill points doesn't fix anything anyway. It's just another nerf to the scout and another reason the HMG is a stupid idea. It's like brushing the two weapons under the carpet. You have to accept they're there and you have to balance them with the same god damn accessibility of the other weapons, otherwise nothing will ever get fixed. Imagine if in StarCrafts early days they just scrapped units which seemed overpowered, or changed their research. The original game wasn't amazingly balanced but over time Blizzard worked on it and got it to work perfectly between 3 unique factions. I'm fairly sure it's possible to do the same for 2 basically identical teams.
not when half of the discussion on the boards is hearsay from people who hardly play the game. it's apparent that a lot of people on the boards think in terms of black and white, with nerfs, buffs, OP weapons, etc. People neglect to see how games pan out and that shifting how combat flows isn't necessarily a nerf. I don't know if trickster is for simply making the weapons unlock after 10 points, but with my idea, the weapons would be available from the start, but you would not be able to select any other skills with them. Either way, it's a shift in game flow. Some weapons aren't appropriate with full use at the game start anyway. Imagine if APCs had 50cal from the beginning of the game. Mildly moving the HMG and scout rifle further from the start (they would still be available e ___e) would keep matches from breaking in early game.
Empires tier list: PEOPLE WHO ARE REALLY GOOD INFANTRYMEN AND TOTALLY KNOW HOW THE GAME WORKS, GUYS: Empty (he's been playing all week!) PEOPLE WHO DONT KNOW THEIR SHIT: JPL BSID *the like 5-6 bsid guys who actually play, not the other 200 CW *the 3 cw guys who dont suck EPIC basically dude the flow of infantry combat in empires is extremely complex, and you're a joke. If all of the players who have put hour after hour every week for years into this game disagree with you maybe you are the one who doesnt have a good handle on empires' infantry balance?
I almost irrefutably have more hours in recent versions of empires. I admit you are way more qualified to talk about the good old days and earlier versions than me, but you really dont have a complete understanding of infantry combat as it exists at present in empires, and what you think routinely goes against what the bestp layers think.
What evidence do you have to support your claim you have more hours. I have played a fuckton of empires and you're just a green who thinks he's special because he's ounin's protege. You're not.
look at me my dick is huge i've played lots of empires your arguments are invalid Oh, and I still agree with empty. OuNin's idea is a ridiculous, arbitrary cop out that seems entirely out of place for infantry in empires. Not to mention, HMG's are considerably less of a threat outside of conquest maps (which can all eat a dick by the way, fuck shitty conquest maps I want to play empires) and restricting them as such is a fairly dumb idea, especially considering they are best countered in classic maps by the carbine, NFHR and.... scout rifles. Oh, and OuNin? You've made your point, you don't need to repeat it ad infinitum until people can't be bothered to disagree with you anymore.
With my suggestion, you can still use them. You just won't see them as often or as immediately in the early part of the game. On the whole, they're only as out of place for infantry as much as pacing dictates you getting more powerful weapons at best effectiveness later (like a two slot missile or cannon on non light chassis). As much as I like joining midgame and dicking around the the scout rifle, that'll be less common with this (since I like getting Enhanced Senses with the scout rifle) I'll probably play engineer or scout with an SMG. The weapons are still as powerful as they are later in the game and they still occupy their niches. So you can still hunt DANGEROUS GAME or take down whole brigades, but that's when spawns are more readily available. You essentially move the less mobile player builds, the belly laying classes, from the beginning of the match.
Or we could just balance the damn rifle properly (pick one of various decent suggestions in this thread) and keep it in line with the rest of empires infantry gameplay.
This isn't a fucking e-penis discussion thread, 'kay? No one cares if you have more hours or not, because it's easy to determine how much of this game you perceive through post quality. So we just post along, weed the idiots through the people who know what they're talking about, and then start discussing. To me, however, it looks like there are people who, no matter what, will always be against the scout rifle being useful. There are people who want it better, but can't give two shits (EG: Shitty 5-second-made suggestions). Lastly, there are those that think that it's a good weapon and needs to be raised above the levels of a broken weapon. Now the original suggestion is over the scope sway. So let's think about this. The SR, in my experience, usually takes 3-4 hits to kill a guy at decent range (think, sitting at the top of someone's base at emp_coast (the ramp, looking down into their base) ). Unless the victim is a prone HMG-er, he'll usually run after the first shot or two. This is another one of the reasons the scout rifle is harder to use to kill; it takes a long (longer than other guns) time to successfully pull off two shots. If you're decent, you can just no-scope, but that's another story. And sure, what if you're in an open area? Well true, that's fine, and you should be able to kill him, and most times, you do. This specific situation is applicable to anywhere that a corner, walls, buildings, debris, what have you, exist; a common thing in the large maps of Empires. Removing scope sway would only help more towards standing and crouching. But one of the biggest benefits is to allow focused headshots. It's annoying as shi* to have to aim for a half hour for the scope sway to die down enough that the crosshair doesn't move off of the small head. One of the best things that could happen to this rifle is for it to be semi-auto, another suggestion. Though the exact implementation would need fine-tuning, the ability to pull off a head-shot body-shot, which has a chance of being fatal, in a matter of a second would be wonderful. Should the scout have a high recoil? To be honest, I shouldn't think so. More a wait time between shots, say, 3/4's of a second. That combined with a recoil (not the look-to-the-skies kind, just enough you have to readjust your aim), should allow for a decent weapon. When you think about it, the NFHR is just an all-around nerfed scout rifle, except in terms of firing rate. It has a little less damage, little (or a lot, I haven't checked) more falloff, and it has a worse scope (well, ironsights). Use this gun in terms of seeing how a semi-accurate scout rifle would function. As for the, "hurp, you can't see scouts," debate. Well DUH. He's a scout. He has an ability that let's him become slightly invisible. "Hey guys, I can't find the class that's supposed to be hard-to-spot as well as slightly faster!" Yeah. Then you read that the scout is an invisible sniper, but what people don't take into account is that once you fire one shot, you're SOL. THEN people don't take into account that any weapon, besides pistols (and possibly SMG1's), will reach and damage the scout. You want to know how easy it is to aim when you're under fire? Fking impossible. You lose whatever steadiness your scope had, you get pushed from the bullet, it ain't fun. And the worse part is, any rifle can reach you. "Herp derp I'm a gren!?" Shoot rockets. Unles the dude's an idiot, he'll move, which will give you enough time to reload another rocket and move for cover.
Ability to use a decent level of grammar and a relatively wide vocabulary does not in any way link to how much you know about this game. Take the difference between you and Mayama. Mayama can't type for shit, but he knows his stuff. You can make decent looking posts, but you still know jack shit. The fact of the matter is, that it's difficult to balance either way. That's nothing to do with my opinion on it, but it's the truth. A long ranged rifle in a game which has both prone, and low visibility, is always going to be shit for everyone. It's shit in every BF game, it's shit in mw2. It just doesn't work. The closest to getting it work, is Bad Company 2. It has no prone, very good positional sound and you can often just tell where the bullet came from, if it didn't kill you. But even in that, it's still as annoying as shit. The person with the sniper rifle doesn't accomplish anything. He is not grabbing refineries. He is not helping his team push. He is being fucking useless. In a game where the key to win is to be as mobile as possible, it ruins it for his team, and it's just gay for the enemy too. It can not, and will not work, until a major overhaul of the scout, or wherever the scout rifle is sent to. It's not the power, or the accuracy of the gun that is the problem. It's what it's built upon. The ridiculous sway in 2.25 is a bug that both MOOtant and myself tryed to fix before release, after he tried to make it not unscope you after firing. This is the solution, not making it have no sway at all. So you're suggesting a high damage, semi-auto weapon with no next to no kick? Why not just call it a laser. Scout hide is fucking retarded too. It encourages camping in every sense of the word. Guess what camping is? Bad. It doesn't matter what happens with it, it's a retarded gameplay element. Something like the spy has in tf2, or the thermoptic camo in Neotokyo. Both of them encourage fast movement to get from A to B without being spotted, which would undoubtedly be vastly superior to the current hide we have.
Joindate elitism is wrong. your an ignorant person empty. Everyone's opinion matters *cough*Fascist*cough* Start acting like a fucking admin empty.. You aint helping this game get any better with shit like this and you sure as hell are helping make mr. die's bullshit more valid. ontopic: tricky's right
I didn't agree with a single thing you wrote in this paragraph. How do we know it's difficult to balance? We've had 2 versions of the scout rifle in recent history, one that was evidently clearly overpowered and the current version which was obliterated with a nerf. Nobody has ever bothered to even try to really balance it. Hey guess what, the current scout rifle can insta kill at close ranges! holy shit though, nobody is complaining? Obviously there's a magic distance where instant kills aren't obnoxious but are still useful (since we've been at both extremes) and the only issue is finding that range and since we have nothing but time I don't see how it would be difficult at all. The only real obstacle is people who demand its removal constantly and get tied up in a fit every time something is changed about it. Someone who is deathmatching isn't being useful? Um excuse me, are we playing the same game? I shouldn't even have to list examples of people who do nothing but deathmatch constantly in empires and are considered some of the best players. On top of all of this, it's none of anyone's business how anyone plays. Sometimes I feel like being useful, and sometimes I feel like clowning around and drawing penises with walls, fuck you if you think you can tell me how to play or how useful I should be.
dubee dont be unfair empty was just a lad when he wrote that. You can't judge the man for what he said when he was a kid!
So your justification for the scout rifle, is that people should be allowed to be able to grief their team by simply taking up a player slot that could be used better, if they want? Deathmatching at range does jackshit. You might slowly wittle away their tickets, but then they just respawn. Even the lone rifleman will get a higher kill-rate, is closer to the enemy, and forces them to take notice of him, rather than just ignoring. He's also usually part of a SQUAD which will, even if he doesn't say anything, use the distraction he's creating to attack better targets. This is somewhat unlike the camping scout rifle retard (even if it is an instant kill weapon), who will be engaged by 1 person in the same way until he dies. He doesn't move. I Defy you to name a single game in which a sniper rifle was actually fun. The closest I've seen is BC2, which has no prone, no hidden sniper (ghillie suits actually make them more of a target if anything), and visible tracers off the bullets. You generally don't die more than once to the same sniper if he sits in the same place. A "sniper" which sits in one spot for the majority of the game, hidden, is not only a boring for the enemy team (only counter is another person doing the same), but quite frankly shitty gameplay. Instant kill or pea-shooter, there is no way that a scout rifle where the use revolves around being as hidden as possible whilst waiting to shoot, will ever be fun gameplay. Camping sucks, and does not work in this game. It never has, and it never will. So as I've said before, keep the scout rifle if need be, but regardless of power, do the following: Remove hide in its current form (Change to something like the TF2 spy). Add visible tracers to the weapon bullets (far more than currently) to force the scout to keep moving. Make it a loud, distinguishable sound. If you do those things, it doesn't matter if it's 1 hit kill on the body even, because it turns him into more of a long range rifleman. He can be shot back at, but it requires the enemy team to coordinate. They know how to avoid him, but then it's skill based on whether they manage that, rather than the scout being invisible. Back in 2.12, the scout rifle did 60 damage. The NFHR also did 60 damage, but the scout rifle was the only weapon to have falloff (5000, 0.85 afaik, unless they were entered in before falloff was coded). It wasn't even overpowered, but the scout rifle and hide is. And how the hell do you know it was overpowered, you never even played 2.12. I knew a guy who pretty much solely played scout, with the scout rifle. But he literally never EVER used hide. He would take speed upgrade or health regen. He rarely proned as well, and he was one of the most deadly players to have on your team. By definition, he was a shitty scout. But he managed to cause as much havoc to the enemy team as a decent rifleman, but they always had a chance to shoot back. I got killed by him many times, and not once did I feel pissed off, because I would respawn, take another weapon and try to fight back. Sometimes I'd win, other times I wouldn't. But it was always fair. So yes, with the current framework, the scout rifle won't work in any form. You are wrong.
Or just remove hide when using the scoped rifle. I don't want to lose hide just because of this rifle. And of course hide should be changed that you are never 100% invisible. And when you mention TF2 I just must repeat that for me the scout should be more like the TF2 scout: Fast (initial speed upgrade) + Shotgun (Shotty/Pistol2 until shotgun models are done).
