If anything, Bodrick may have the best idea. 20-25. The reason you don't see scouts going to get information is not because of their rifle though, it is because they have no useful information to gather. "The enemy has a vehicle factory" (Yeah we know that") "They're putting up a turret on the south side" (Yeah, we figured they would do that.) "The enemy is moving tanks out of base" (Umm, we knew they would do that too, but where are they going?) I still try to give information anyway but I typically just waste my time. Nobody really uses what I call out except for when we have long range artillery. Typically, artillery fires from within visual range because that's all it can do without long range. However, I have been in many situations where I knew I was going to be spotted and had to shoot and run. Any time I screwed up my range guessing and shot someone once, they mowed me down with a hail of bullets. The only opportunities I usually had were to shoot the one guy who saw me and then run before his buddies came and hide somewhere safe. There is no real fault in the weapon, it is in the role of the scout itself and the tools at hand to do his job. If they are going into the field alone, they do need to be able to defend themselves. Other classes often can pair up or join a group (as they always should be) but the scout must often go it alone to get information ahead of the team and to remain stealthy. He should not be a cheap kill on someone's scoreboard just because he can't fight back
I think this all leads up to what we can all agree on. The scout class needs an overhaul, and to be given a real "scouting" role. But still, I don't think it's excusable to let the Empires AWP remain ingame. >;/
I agree, the scouts sniper rifle needs to change. Not only because it's so easy to kill with it, but also because it's boring to use. I suggest the following: 1. Add real scope 2. Add (a lot of) sway (base it on the the Day of Defeat: Source code, Valve might help) 3. Increase damage (don't scream, see 4 and 5) 4. Decrease rate of fire 5. Decrease max ammo to 15-20 6. Give it a louder sound effect (harder to be sneaky, gives more feel to it and makes that silence skill more useful) What I could think of right now.
Currently i think the only weapon that can counter the BR assault rifle on the NF team is the scout rifle. What is needed in general , i feel , is an overall class / weapons balance.
I'm not sure about much more of a scope, sway, or possibly damage increases. Possibly increase damage at long range. The louder sound effect is a good idea. 20-25 rounds I think might be a good number. It provides a nice defense but if you go offensive you'll run out of shots pretty fast. The only issue though is that the gun takes too many shots if your fighting someone at range so something might need to be done with that if it can without changing hte one hit kill radius. We should really look into proper scouting though before we go changing things around too much. Add some differnet methods of scouting and then see how things go. That may solve the complaints people currently have. Before we risk overhauling everything at once, let's add things on and see how it works. If something else is needed we can add something else, if something doesn't work, we can take it away. The only real problem with the scout at the moment is that their information gathering abilities are more or less useless until long range artillery comes into the picture.
That's what I've been trying to say. Give them more abilities and take away the rifle. For Namron's ideas, ummmmm no. If you have been reading these forums at all we don't want an AWP, or any type of super long range rifle. Maybe let scouts plug in a device to the enemy's radar so enemy units are permanently on your minimap. Let scouts hijack vehicles so they can make a quick getaway if they're under fire. Make them faster than every other infantry unit. Give them cameras and radars. Maybe even let them set traps like spike strips. Going out on a limb, let them use holograms shaped like a player used for diversions. I'm spitting out ideas here at random, but all I want is to see the scout using an actual scout weapon.
lol you guys are funny no war game is a war game unless there is sniper! yeah i agree for one thing Scout should not be alone to have sniper first there should be two type of sniper *the actual one with less ammo* and a AWP one with even more lower ammo *like 3 in gun 15 in total or something* thats would have lower rate of fire but big big dmg make the Riffleman able to use the more light one so they can hunt Scout too maybe make Scout gain point by doing is job? cause now only way scout to make point is snipe ppl and finaly if a scout take sniper rifle he should not be able to use the Hide ability as long as he got sniper in hand
Reducing ammo is not just a bad idea, it's a terrible and STUPID idea. No offense, but the solution to the 1.00-1.04 rifleman's awe-inspiring power was to give him almost no ammunition. That was a terrible solution, as it meant all you had to do was stick near an engineer and anything near you would die. Nerfing ammunition in any situation just frustrates the player and reduces their fun. Furthermore, if you incorporate the AWP like changes Namron suggests, only one thing will happen: everyone who wants infantry combat will choose the Scout class, and stop scouting only to fight on the front lines, near the ammo. Because if you make it awp-like, as you suggest, it will become unstoppable. I can maintain a 3-1 kill ratio with the RR on average right now, I shudder to think what I could do with the gun you proposed. Even if you make if more difficult to handle, once the player overcomes this difficulty, he will be invincible. This is not the solution. Yes, the game needs a ranged weapon class. But along with an overhaul to the scout class, we need a gun that fits it's role. Some possible ideas are a gun similar to the auto-sniper in CS, but far reduced in power; or something like what the gun was originally described as-- a long range version of the assault rifle--heavily modified.
Maybe simply removing its zoom in function is enough to take off some of its accuracy without drastically changing it? Don't need the rifle's scope to spot and scout, you already have binoculars for that.
The original plan was to have a burst assault carbine with a low power zoom, to be used as a last resort. I'm not exactly sure why it changed. Anyway, countering snipers with snipers is exactly what we don't want. We want to focus on team-oriented build up of forces and gradual advancement on the map. Having a guy sitting on a hill making sure it doesnt get captured is honourable, but as soon as people all start siting on hills there won't be much left but to wait for the arty shells to rain down.
Of course, even an engineer can kill you. And considering the engineers have the swiss army calculator, that seems kinda jipped. (If it's weaker than the SMG)
I really don't think scouts function as snipers, that's why they are good at close range but their damage falls off at distance, so they can't snipe. I played a bit of rifleman today for fun (Brenodi side) and found that the assault rifle is quite deadly. It chews through ammo fast but you can essentially make mistakes in aiming and just swee back to your target. To be honest, I think each weapon is well balanced though. The heavy mgs on the rifleman side could use a little boost though to make them better. If the dig in skill does not effect infantry bullets, it probably should.
If someone is sniping with a team on the front, it is fair game but hard to take out. If someone is sniping by him/herself, then if a team wants to kill the scout, the scout dies.
Oh yeah a two shot kill isn't unfair at all. By the time you get hit with the first one, you still can't find the scout, and then you're dead. I'm all for the original carbine plan. Make it weak, and what's wrong with being killed by an engineer? They need a more powerful weapon because they're supposed to be on the frontlines resupplying ammo and healing. The range on the smg should be a bit better than the carbine's, and the power about the same.
Actually, they only get a 2 shot kill at close-medium range, after that it often falls off to 4 or 5, sometimes more. As for being on the frontlines, scouts are intended to go to the front lines. Unlike the engineer however, they are not equipped with turrets, walls, and often must go out with no back up since they can not move as fast as other units while hidden. Also, any information gathering they would do is useless if your team is already ahead of you and knows the information. They must wander alone and survive where others can easily pick up squadmates to protect them, engineers to heal them and give ammo, grenadiers to take out vehicles, rifleman to hose down infantry and throw grenades, etc. Why reduce the class to cannon fodder? The riflemen currently have a large advantage in anti infantry and any competent rifleman can typically hose someone with lead before they can fight back, especially at close range. Engineer smgs are not useful at long range but at close range they are highly deadly. Grenadiers can even kill very effectively with their mortars and I have been mortar sniped quite a bit before I knew what was happening. The current iteration of the scout was forged from experience and suggestions since 1.0. In 1.0, to prevent long distance sniping, the scouts gun was too inaccurate to shoot long range and one was extremely weak. Nobody played the scout because firing a shot often caused you to miss and before you could reload, the person turned and often killed the scout, usually at close range as the bullet went off to a side. The experiences during this patch made me understand the need for the ability to make that one shot your going to get count up close. A weak rifle just makes the scout cheap kills. No class should be so weak that they can get the drop on the enemy and then just get hosed down by every other class, that just makes the class frustrating to play as it did in early versions. The current scout is built on the pain of previous versions that players experienced. A weak gun or an inaccurate gun will just amke everything frustrating. If you still can't find that scout before he gets his second shot off, the chances are you really need to work on spotting enemy units. The ones who usually die to scout bullets are those who stand in one place often and seem to have no idea whats around them. Play the role for a while and you will learn what the scout needs, what makes a scout target, and what will easily kill the scout (aware riflemen in particular). I have had so many experiences where I am sneaking along as best I can against a wall, some enemy infantry comes along and starts unloading shots into me. I usually aim in advance because every weapon at close range is essentially equivalent to one hit kill believe it or not, they just make a lot more noise when they do it (The pistol is an exception to this). The reason that the scout can kill like he does up close is because pretty much every other class can kill him more or less equally as fast. Granted, the rifleman excels at this task far more than the others but the engineer's abilities and the grenadiers mortar are hardly slouches when it comes to this job. The last thing we need is to drop into Half-Life: DM source or Quake style gameplay where you can walk around nearly with your eyes closed and open them to look around while being riddled with automatic weapons fire before seeing your opponent a second later and fighting back. Granted, I exaggerate the nature of those games a little bit (Not so much with Half-Life DM:Source) but you get my point. The scout should indeed get more spying abilities, but I feel that we should save any weapons changes until after all those come. The idea of overhauling the entire class all at once seems more of a knee-jerk reaction to a few games of escort with a good scout. If this were the case, I would call for wide spread nerfing of NF rifleman semi-autos as they seemed to be the only thing I was being killed by one game. However, the experiences of one map and one game are not a representative sample. Consider ideas like chat eavesdropping, radar listening, enemy building bugging, etc. Get those in, see how things play, and then if you are still not satisfied, come back and we can discuss further what may need to be done. I should also add that one reason scouts tend to fight as opposed to scout is that their abilities really do not suit them more to the role than any other class. Their binoculars are really their only scouting tool on hand. The skills and abilities given to them are suited and useful to the task but once they use these abilities to get to their scouting points, there is little to report and no tools to gather valuable information with apart from those handed to everyone else. Engineers can set up a sentry to guard themselves while they look out, riflemen can spray any infantry, grenadiers can go on the offensive and take out targets of opportunity and even rush in to leave mines at key locations. The scout only has what he has at the moment, taking anything away would just make the class frustrating again as it was in the early trial period. Edit: Also, do not forget that every other class can make a dent in vehicles and buildings or even destroy them entirely. The scout is left with no such capability no matter how many times he pounds away at something. If you pistol whip a tank to the bare armor, I applaud you. I apologize for being so wordy by the way, such is the curse of an English major.
First of all, scouts aren't supposed to kill, and if people don't want to play as scout if they can't kill, that's their team's loss. This is where our imaginations come in handy. I absolutely agree that we have to think of fun, useful ideas to give to the scout to make it appealing. Here are some things that I just thought of, right this second, and other things I've heard. Disabling enemy research, hijacking tanks, some sort of sabotage, holograms for distractions, surveillance tools(camera and radar), faster speed, one hit kill melee, stealing resources, disabling tanks(temporarily), setting traps, rock climbing???, night/infrared/xray?? vision for night maps(if they come.) There are some ideas I just thought up in my head. We've gotta make the scout fun without needing a long range infantry weapon.
Yep, Scouts ability to set Arty fire points could be better utalised. I do not know the Source engine well but is it possible to make trajectory lines for Motars and arty tanks? As it is now it just sets a target at the selected point, and that on its own is rather useless. If it could set a verticle point aswell, it could allow members of your squad to lob their projectiles better and more accurratley rather than spending ages trying to find the right verticle distance. just a thought. !
