If what I'm reading is right, apparently being invisible for one shot makes a weapon overpowered. You complain half the time about the weapon, then you say "but ultimately it's because of hide." You don't give jack-shit about how potent the rifle is, you just want hide to be gone/nerfed.
The weapon is broken too. The problems are not really that interrelated. Scout rifle has no purpose. Hide teaches people to play like retards.
There are several problems even with the conceptual models of either; Empires is a big; open game. Hide forces people to go slow. Scout rifle sway forces prone, hide makes people want to stay prone.
Pickled, the scout rifle has been tried to be balanced into the game.. This is when scope sway and sticky stuns and fall off and the damage nerfs were added. This was also when prone was added to empires. 2.0 testing was a lot different then any tests we have now(people showed up and actually tested) and over and over the scout rifle was OP. To the point where every test krenzo was naming RC 22(SCOUT NERF AGIAN ADDITION). What slowly happened was scouts were given more tools to help team mates like stuns and sabbing but had to keep it a shitty long range gun. And at this time we just had damian do all the new gun skins and animations so getting rid of it really wasn't an option but now time has passed and I think it wouldn't be as big a blow if it were to go like the smg 3 did. Sure you will have people like slith bitching about it being gone but then time passes and the game moves on and improves.. Keeping it and trying to balance it again is taking a step backwards in my mind. As for just making it louder and adding a bigger tracer.. You gotta realize that in emp the sound only goes so far.. BC2 is coded so sound works with the size of the maps unlike emp. If you could slow the bullet down to the point where it could be dodged or traced back to its shooter(not just to its target) like the mowtar is, then it would fit in with the DM category. But since its a bullet it has to basically move faster than you can react to it. And good snipers know 1 shot 1 kill. I'd rather see it be like the carbine or .50 cal where it takes a couple shots for a kill but that wont stop people from thinking "oh shitty gun cause i shot him in hed". Or just fucking remove it and make this game even more unique.
Removing content is just plain stupid. (No offense to the devs!)Why take out new content in a game where new material isn't planned? The only example I can think that worked is the MK2's, which wasn't a retarded idea, it just had horrible implementation. That's what the scout rifle needs. Too weak to be a sniper, too powerful to be a semi-automatic rifle, too inaccurate to be a run-and-gun, or even stand up and fire. It needs to find a niche, somewhere it fits.
You conflict yourself multiple times in this paragraph. The only reason why "deathmatching at range" sucks right now is because the scout rifle is clearly too weak. Riflemen have always been able to do it better, yes. To me that is an argument to buff the scout. As far as sniping being fun, well, the only weapon I ever play with in CS is an AWP. Different gameplay? of course, but it's still a classic sniper rifle. I've said it was allegedly overpowered, I have no idea if it is, and I admit that. If it's not overpowered maybe we can go back to 60 damage with no falloff (apparently falloff was not yet enabled in 2.1x), I have no problems with that. As far as your arguments about hide, you're arguing with a strawman. I have no love for the current version of hide. I have proposed several changes to try to make hide less dependent upon camping. As I've said before, This is a symptom of the lazy attitude some people have about balance. We've seen a version where people declared it overpowered, and a version where people declared it useless. Nobody has ever even tried to come half way. It's not rocket science. The world is not black and white. There are many possible solutions for a given problem. Nobody is "wrong" if they find a good balance and people like it. There have been two versions of the scout rifle since 2.12. two attempts. How can you even pretend that that is a legitimate attempt to balance something? Please. I don't have time for this nonsense.
You can't just say "oh, it was overpowered, then it was underpowered, so I can find middle ground". All you can do is change the weapon damage, via whatever means (falloff etc). The scout rifle is always 100% accurate in scoped view. And given those parameters, there's very little you can do. I use the awp all the time in CS:S. A few things about it: There is no prone. It has a very distinguishable sound. There is no hide. All combat takes place at a much shorter range than empires. There are smoke grenades which actually work. It's a completely different situation. Yet again, it's all about the framework. Without modifying that, it won't work. But by all means, you can waste your time trying to do that, but it's only going to end up pissing people off due to it being overpowered, or useless. Hide will ALWAYS affect that rifle, no matter how you balance it. Once hide is fixed, then we can consider trying to fixing the scout rifle. But until then, you won't get anywhere. Try it by all means, but modifying damage, falloff, clip size and stamina use isn't going to get you anywhere.
Discussing the scout and it's flaws is great and all but what I'm wondering is, how will we ever reach consensus in this question? Threads like these tend to be fruitless even if they're interesting and bring up valid points, is there no better way to approach the "scout issue"? Perhaps we could make an entire sub-forum dedicated to the scout where everyone can present their solution so the devs can sift through suggestions easier and faster?
Yes, I can say that, pretty easily. I can't possibly fathom that I would need more than the values I currently have to work with to balance basically anything. Yes, and what does this tell us? a carbon copy of the AWP wouldn't work in empires, correct? Thank you for the brilliant observation. Another false dichotomy. The onus is on you to establish that this is black and white, not me to establish that it is not. More often than not things are not a dichotomy, especially when there is strong evidence to the contrary. In this case, the evidence is that there are millions of combinations of values between a 60 damage scout rifle with no falloff and a 50 damage scout rifle with substantial falloff, what is your evidence? We shall see.
Here's a suggestion for hide; Can be activated once every 20 seconds. For 5 seconds, you're nearly 100% invisible, and have unlimited stamina. You can't fire, and you "fade out" of invisibility, leaving you vulnerable for, say, 3/4's of a second. Cons; No more constant hide. Basesabbing becomes harder. Pros; you can break up stalemates if done right. No more bitching about scout rifle-hiding. It's new. <Some Forumer> Herp it's retarded. <Me> Think of something yourself then.
You forget about testing? It's not as simple as it just being tried in two versions. We had 35 RC's in 1.8 testing alone. We found out that by nerfing or buffing it a little bit at a time, over time to get what was balanced with the gameplay it had to do little damage.. Not 1 hit kills, obviously we know no one will bitch about it being a 1-hit kill at close range, but if you want it to be a weapon that will kill 1 hit head shot at a range farther then rifles(like a range where a rifleman stops being a lazer)it will be OP. Now if you make it weaker, its the same shit weapon people don't use.
as the scout moves faster, the speed at which his particles move approaches the speed of light, thus allowing him to become completely invisible at the speed of light. or scout becomes more transparent the longer he sprints, to simulate him being a fucking ninja, akin to him using flash step or some shit. in the latter, it's probably easier to test and implement than some dumb forced timed cloak and it ties the scout property to a familiar feature. this weird shit lets scouts move in for the kill or shoot then scoot without much detection. scout would be very visible shooting while not moving. afterwards, he can dart off with little trace. additionally, he can run up to turrets (provided that he doesn't run out of stamina, and sabotage them, instead of crawling towards them). the current build encourages steady caution. this build encourages bravado and thinking on your feet. maybe scout should be able to throw grenades with mouse1 and remain cloaked. this would encourage bumrushing turret a turret while throwing concussions at distant turrets, allowing large friendly movement. one could perhaps tie general movement with a slight cloak which throws off turrets, but one would have to keep moving, becoming easy pickings for human gunmen.
Basically, the TF2 spy. And honestly, that's the best option. I never even thought about base sabbing, and you're right, it'll fix 90% of the faggotry with that too. Siro already did some work by changing the scout to use a refraction shader, and it barely took him any time at all. It has to be done at some point. Anyway, Dubee is absolutely right. Let Pickled waste his time with it though anyway. But one thing: Making a weapon harder to use is not balance, it just increases the disparity between skilled players and less skilled players. In other words, making it only one-hit with a head shot doesn't remove the faggotry. It's still annoying as shit and you still can't see the scout if he's hidden.
