Scout's abilities: Chat listener and info warfare

There was a thread in the old fourms that had an interesting suggjestion which I will name: Scout info warfare. Info warfare is an idea revolving around the posibility of scouts being able to steal info from the other team, making the scout's journey into enemy teritory more team based and usefull.
Currently the most interesting aspect of a scout is the posibility to snipe and assasinate enemy targets, while doing little scouting. The idea is this: Give the scout the ability to, when sneaked into an enemy base, see where enemy tanks are by hacking into the radar or similar structures. Also, the ability to hear all enemy chat when sneaked close to an enemy. Details will be discused, so I leave the idea to the people.
Yay democracy!:D

 

I love this idea. If you could lower the amount of damage the RR does in general (still make it as accurate in long range though) and apply this idea (maybe make it an extra upgrade?), I'd be all for it.

 

you could achieve part of this idea and fulfill another seperate idea by showing the current research on a screen in the radar.

a team now knows what his commander is researching and a scout can steal info. its unlikely that anybody but a scout is going to make it into the enemy radar apart from late in game when info is not so important.

 

My original idea was to allow the scout to hear enemy voice and text chat from those nearby. Also, possibly have a laser mic (Those cool things in the movies) that allows him to point at targets and listen in on them, the comm vehicle, enemy infantry, a vehicle, anything he wants to listen to chat from. This would allow him to actually gather valuable info.

Possibly allow the scout both abilities, the laser mic (attached to his primary weapon or binoculars) and the ability to hear chat from people close to him.

For those of you who don't play scout as much, you could get enjoyment from this as well. Imagine sneaking up to a scout who is watching your base and saying goodbye to him over voicechat before shooting.

The stolen information from this would only be audible and visible to the scout himself. Any information the team receives would have to be routed through the scout. This prevents unwanted text spam from the enemy and gives the scout a reason to be active with his team and communicate. It also allows him to enjoy himself playing eavesdropper on the enemy team.

 

I love these ideas. I believe now we are gearing the scout more towards scouting. About the rifle though.........I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again. Take it away from the scout. Scouts do not carry big, bulky rifles. They carry lightweight, compact, silent weapons to do their jobs. A scout shouldn't have an upper hand against infantry, since the riflemen is supposed to excel at this, and as of now, the scout is racking up the kills faster than anyone. As I've said before, make the scout permanently faster than any other infantry unit, design some new weapons, and give them new abilities that give rank points. Stealing information is wonderful because it gives meaning to a scout's life instead of just wanting to get kills. If people say that it'll be boring if they can't kill, they couldn't be more wrong. It would be heart pounding to time your rush on the enemy radar perfectly, and even more gut wrenching to find out how to get out if you're spotted. If it ends up that scouts can hijack vehicles, the tension would be overwhelming. They'll be powerful with weapons in their own regards, without needing an infantry blasting boom stick, except a personal defense weapon meant for, well, personal defense, not assault. Maybe make it so if they die, no information gets to your team, so living is a very high priority. I think they should get a weapon like the HK mp7 PDW. It should be inaccurate, but powerful up close so that scouts are discouraged from staying on the front lines, and are motivated to recieve intel about enemy forces, like they are supposed to do. About the eavesdropping, maybe give a rank point for every X minutes listened, and a rank point every time he jacks in to the radar. I also want the scout to have the cameras and radars, not the engineers. These would be pre-built and ready to drop. More rank points could be rewarded for spotting enemies, and even more could be obtained by your teammates destroying buildings that you have spotted. In short, make scouts very ineffective at killing. If people don't want to be a scout because they can't kill, well they aren't very team oriented, and this is a team based game so every class matters. Make the scout a damn scout.

 

If these changes are put in, then maby the scout won't need the rifle to do his/her (I always wanted to play a female scout:D lol) job efectively. JN's commantary is interesting, and I do think that making the socut like this would be very team-oriented and... scouty. Honestly, how many times have you gone out to scout for getting information? Things like this would give us another interesting class (engie is interesting, but dosn't kill anything well. Direction I want to see scouts go) and varry gameplay. Honestly, whats more fun? sniping complainers or sneaking behind an enemy and finding all their little secrets, then murdering him with noone noticing?

 

This gets a thumbs up from me.

 

yeah, thumbs up from me too, it turns the scout from a sniper to a spy, and thats a great idea in my books

 

Jeez, yould think more than 10 people would see this

 

what about changing the arty call into an airstrike call as well?

 

i say no to all forms of hearing or seeing enemy chat

in pub play its truely useless, probly gonna be loads of spam and useless stuff like "enemies at nort east south!" "build blabla at" "get arty plz"
theres not gonna be any tactics discussed


in clan games they will have their own ventrilo server so both are useless

and third, its a waste of time

 

Pointing at the CV and hearing "Artie coming on line in 60 seconds" could be something very useful. "Or, enemy tanks coming up from the south."

If your team knows where they are expected,t hey can go the other way and flank. If they know artie is about to go online, they can focus their fire into enemy base on the radar or vehicle factory.

As for text spam, remember that the text would only go to the scout eavesdropper and he would have to relay the important info to his team.

 

so what are you gonna say? "they know you guys are coming from the south"
ofcourse they are gonna know you're coming, even if they are gonna say "a scout is hiding here and here" if its not you you're not gonna do jack shit about it or make a difference. If its you, its utterly useless "wow they know im here lol", try looking around.

Ofcourse they are gonna know where someone is inc, just not the whole team thats why they say it, things are not gonna change for you if you know, because you dont know what they are going to do with that communication, its only gonna help them.
its utterly useless man. Besides even if they are pulling up their whole team, is the attack of the tanks is shitty, they die, if they are good tanks they pwn no matter what.

They aint gonna say anything that might help those tanks
like "oops i forgot to build those 7 structures at e5 behind that rock"
or "haha i put 3 mines at bottom right of d2 hehehe suck on that BE"

they dont now and definitly not when they know a scout can eavedrop...

"arty in 60 seconds"

great you know a bit of their commanding strategies, and only in pub (pretty obvious why not in scrims)
woww dude! what now? what are you going to do now with that useless information? Obviously you cant do anything if your research scheme is shitty
you might go "wow guys arty in 60 seconds!"
your comm will go "no im researching armor nub.."
you "no they have arty in 60 seconds!"
someone in team buys a tank, drives out 10 metres and dies

i mean cmon dude its utterly useless i cant believe you dont see that

When a arty is on the field, spot it, now that is usefull, knowing they are gonna get arty soon is like knowing they have arty between 1 and 10 mins from now

AND even if this does help noobs a lot, the only thing that should help noobs is a hints/help popup, people actually are going to get better and get some real skills...

(notice how im holding back on more than half of my comments against this for the next replies to you palehorse , its just useless man, itd be even useless if you could steal someones name and talk in their team chat)

no offence, im not trying to take all the fun out for the sake of leet and pwn and skill, its just a very useless idea :/

 

This is a good idea, but a very complex one. It will need a fair amount of balancing. Furthermore, your team may not know that the enemy is planning a breakthrough on the left flank. Having a scout tell them that would certainly be helpful.

 

Can I just discredit dizzyone as a complainer or do I have to write a paragraph or two discrediting the uselessness of the abilities and explain how any and all inteligence is usefull?
I really don't want to waste my time

 

its funny how anyone actually thinks there is going to be any usefull information like "ok everyone go to the left now and take out this and that"

A good comm will give you waypoint and tell you "go here"
and if this is implemented every sane person will know not to say anything usefull

so just dream on because obviously you guys dont play that much

A scout telling you they are going to the left means -> he is hidden, and watching them with his binoculars
A scout telling you they have arty before they are anywhere near your units or buildings means -> scout is hidden and using his binoculars

and is suddenly everyone discussing and against something a complainer or whiner? very childlike aaaaaa50, but I dont think you have much credibility after whining about the forum 5 minutes after it was online without any constructive messages (i wont bother to quote you ), kethxggbai

Ofc there will be sometimes stuff like "go to -coord-" but the amount of fresh tactics are very low, especially by a commander, its pretty much a gimmick since youll probly have to be listning to them the whole game to hear a few coords drop. I can guess what they are going to do anyway, its called your eyes

and if i may reply to palehorse for a sec:

wait isnt that what you're supposed to do from the start? So if they dont have arty you will just skip the vehicle factory and go for their CV? But why dont you do that from the start if you can?

And lets not forget that there isnt actually anyone scouting, have you seen a scout just being in their base not shooting once? Be honest, how many have you seen truely scout? Saying stuff like "i will when we have eave dropping" is nonsense because scouting right now is better than some eavedropping.
I have seen only one real scout, back in 1.01 on emp_money, he was cloaked in their base almost the whole game and kept spotting the cv for the arty's, too bad I dont remember his name.
Besides lets not forget that no one actually listens, not to the comm, not to spots, youll have a hard time finding actually more than a handfull of people that actually listen to your spotted targets, i mean common this is for pub only, its not gonna do jack shit in scrims (and its one person less even in scrim, and thats too many for the better working tactics)

 

This would give a scout something to SCOUT.

 

lol, so you prefer being blind over being deaf?
because the scout has something to scout damnit, use your brain for once

eyesight over some shitty communication for christ sake, werent you in the last games? I told mutedonkey twice where the enemy was (like behind him, which killed him after being behind ihm for over 20 seconds), he ignored both times because he doesnt even watch his OWN team chat
that was definitly not the first time someone said to me "sry i dont read the teamchat.

A scout already is a scout, anything new implemented to the scout wont make him a better scout, im 90% sure of this.

what else is there to spot targets and tell your team what you SEE?
most people that go scout right now just like his sniper rifle and skills and do some spotting, they dont have the patience to sit somewhere and scout, heck I wouldnt even do it because like most people i dont trust my own team for doing anything with my spots

you cant just randomly add cool stuff from splinter cell and metal gear solid just cuz they are cool

 

I think being able to "listen in" on enemy chat would be kindof useless. IMO the scouts information warfare should be primarily tapping into buildings to get information.
Tap into the refinery: see enemy resources
Tap into radar: see enemy technologies and current research
Tap into barracks: show enemy classes on the tab screen (maybe, maybe not)
All of these should dissapear as soon as the scout stops tapping into the building.

I'm all for adding useful info warfare to the scout, but not if it would be confusing (like, for example, the ability to listen in on enemy chat), and I still think that the scout's primary role should be that of a sabeteur (but thats offtopic, so ignore it).

 

Give cameras/radars to scouts and make it so anyone spotted by one of them has their class shown. Something like that.