Scout's abilities: Chat listener and info warfare

I got an interesting idea from a post in the commander powers threadhttp://empires.cw-hosting.net/showthread.php?t=79&page=3

This actually gives me an interesting idea. I still think the scout should be the recon man, but perhaps something like this can be integrated into his abilities. Everyone can already spot any target. Whats say that the scouts binoculars, in addition to giving a target for artillery and spotting the target unit, also spotted all enemy units within an X foot radius. Whats everyone think?

 

The fact is though, a lot of communication goes on over both voice and chat. There is valuable information I wouldn't necessarily give out to the enemy if I could help it. Typically when I am commanding I will just give voice orders because chasing that tiny little unit takes too much effort when I can just tell him where to go. Unless, of course, there is an enemy unit on screen then an attack order really aids your team.

I hear people coordinating plans all the time and attacks. Just hearing something like "Ok, turret is up in center, go build it" could be useful information when your team is moving into the area.

The scout is honestly not much of a scout at the moment. He can spot for artillery but that is about it. Typically he doesn't do anything the other classes can't do and even if you manage to get some information on the movement of enemy tanks coming out of their base, you have no clue where they are going. If you could hear them working out their plan beforehand, you could tell your units to concentrate on an area and be waiting on them with either an ambush, turrets, or extra tanks rather than being spread out all over.

Imagine if your grenadiers hear that tanks are coming their way. They can group up and hide behind rocks and wait unitl the tanks arrive before making their move. They could lay down mines in anticipation of the attack, right now the scout can't tell you specifically where an enemy is going on a large map and by the time radar picks them up, it's often too late to set up your defenses.

Keep in mind that this wouldn't necessarily be the only thing the scouts had for espionage. We could also throw in other things as need be.

As for the building example, you would want to know what the enemy is doing so that you could choose which building to target first. Typically barracks or vehicle factory go first but if research is near completion, your team might want to focus all their fire on the radar.

Plus, the pure fun factor of tapping in to enemy communications and listening in on them would just be enjoyable.

 

Provided that the scout (and possibly teammates) gain points for killing things within that radius, I think it's good.
I always spot as much stuff as I can (sometimes hard when I have to spot with pinpoint accuracy), but friendly artillery have no real incentive to aim for your target instead of, say, those enemy engineers building mg turrets over there.

How about 1/2 point for the scout and 1/5 point for the killer whenever an enemy unit is killed within the spotting radius of a scout's artillery marker?

 

As long as you have to, say, be hiding close to an enemie to hear communications, or 'hack' into the radar, then it should be chalenging enough to not be unbalanced.

If this is in a new patch, we could try it to see if it adds to gameplay and teamwork. If it is too unbalancing (can you imaging someone who follows an enemie while cloaked for x minuets to find where tanks are going unbalancing? that would be hard...) then we could just scrape it, but I dont think that will happen. All we can do is hope it gets in...

 

yes there is some sensitive information sometime, its team chat afterall.
But before you think of a suggestion, stop thinking theoretically for a second, is this going to work competitivly?
For fun ok, but id advice you to play mgs or splinter cell because those conversations are actually worth listening too.

So im not denying there is sensitive information, im just saying, even if they would say "turret in center build it", you could now know that its unbuilt, but you havent put any pressure on center, who says you now can get that turret with ease?

See we are all humans, that information might not actually help people in anyway, they might rush for something because they think its an easy target and will end up going trough 10 mls.

And as I said before, eavedropping isnt actually going to give you real information, if someone would say "go build that turret", you dont have much use to it, because their might be going 2 arty's and 3 riflemen to it, you dont know that, one engineer in your team thinks "yippy free point" dies, causing 2 riflemen not having a engineer, getting pwned by 1 riflemen and an engineer that surprise attack them, causing the engineer to take over double refinery place with comm dropping turrets.
And is the scout gonna know this?

Team chat is team chat for a reason, and it should remain it for that reason, its a bad idea and you should stop defending it just because it sounds fun.

Your commander should keep an eye on everything, add a scout to it and you have your perfect information source. eave dropping is not going to give you anything more outside your line of sight, so ok you might no something about somewhere you aint at, but to me this informations is pretty useless, if you are not their, or you cant get their, something is lacking on your side, teamworkwise, strategywise, commanderwise, whatever wise, its just not gonna get solved with eave dropping.

And tbh I dont really see the fun of it either, I never really liked it in sp, waiting there listening to some shitty conversation till i get my objective at the end, and those conversation are made to listen to, i mean most of the time i get sick of the spamming on team chat only, just watch yout team chat for a few times, youll notice altho there might be some information you think you want to know, most of it is gonna be very boring, even if you get information you would like to know, when you die trying to do it you will feel so much more pissed off because you thought you had an edge on them

 

So? People might have said that, although the spotting binoculars seemed usefull and fun, it shoulden't be impemented because it most likely would't help anyone. It is not game-changing, but when used corectly it can make a difference. And i'm not defending it because it sounds fun, its because it sounds usefull. And it is. Imagine that someone says: ok, go build that ref at a3. You look at a3 and see only a ref. You kill the engie and get someone to come over and build a ref. Now, isn't that what a scout would do? Yes!

 

I think it sounds overly complicated, and it seems like it would clutter gameplay.

 

I agree with Falcon's earlier idea, about spotting with the binoculars. Scouts with their binoculars zoomed in should act like cameras, any enemies in their line of sight should appear on the minimap without having to use the 'enemy spotted' button at all.

As for the eavesdropping idea it sounds cool but I think in practice it might be a little pointless. I would like it better if scouts could conduct some sort of electronic warfare, like scrambling chat up or jamming the enemies own maps.

Also make scouts able to switch teams and hijack the enemy command vehicle then drive of a cliff. :D

 

I think this game is too fast-paced for the chatter to be useful to the enemy. As a scout, by the time you find out what your enemy is planning and convey it to your teammates, they'd already be knocking on your door.

Instead of listening to chat, I think one of the Scout's abilities should be revealing enemy's units in a particular area on the minimap for the entire team (including the commander), kind of like fog-of-war works in most RTS games. Perhaps spotting should not reveal just a single building, but a cone of view of the binoculars.

 

like a skill that when you press use (e) does a dystopia style tac scan or a starcraft style scanner sweep.

 

Considering the movement speed of units vs. a crouching hidden scout, I now think that the distance mic would be the best idea. As for any sort of clutter or complication, it is most likely attached to the binoculars. Point your binoculars and you listen in, it would be intuitive and wouldn't require anything extra.

 

overpowered.

detracts from gameplay by removing strategy.