Oswald Rehnquist
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Posted - 2014.04.04 22:43:00 -
[1] - Quote
There are a lot of things to cover here from different people
TL/DR: A 1-3 second cloaking delay + Swapping Assault and Scout Regen Values would fix most issues.
Now for my other material
Part 1: Cloak Dampening Explanation and Bug Correction
First the dampening on the clock is ingenious and adds to good gameplay, creating submarine style tactics in Scout v Scout, which is very unique to dust and creates a special dynamic in scout v scout match ups, it is also a major balancing factor which balances scout line up between themselves. The biggest problem people have with scouts is their sheer offensive / defensive potential, and the first thing is the decloaking bug, which can be corrected by adding a 1-3 second firing delay to it, which will reduce the effect of the low skill tactics of Shotgun / Combat Rifle + Cloaks. Pre 1.8 active scanners made most medium frames secured in their false sense of security, cloaks just made it so scouts didn't get hit scanned on the way to a target.
Part 2: Old Scout Debate, Force Recon vs Light Assault
The biggest debate within the scout community has always been about where the scout should go and how it should be buffed. We are divided between our light assault community and our force recon community, for obvious reasons the slayer scout is more popular even prior to 1.8 (the rewards were greater and your personal Stats look better), but the recon subgroup still exists. In Eve, Cloaks take up space which are used for weapons, which directs Eve's cloaked units to more indirect combat role, particularly in the application of debuffs and status effects. Considering all "Recon" scouts have is hacking and uplink dropping, its not a very glorified or expansive role.
Part 3 Inter Frame Comparative Performance and Utility
Sentinels and Scouts are roughly the same tier and are balanced between themselves with very dramatically different playstyles. Logis whether you consider them mules or spammers they are equipment kings, a role which can not be mimic to the same degree, it is also a very necessary/relevant role to winning matches. Add to this that they gained more scanning abilities, can use cloaks effectively, so essentially are solidified as support with offensive potential.
Assaults on the other hand are clearly outshined by scouts which can directly mimic their abilities. Even assuming all racial and role bonuses are of great and relatively equal value the scout outshines the assault. That is entirely due to the fact that the slot layouts between the two are too similar and the scout has a better array of innate stats, thus the question is how to differentiate the two. To make my point Assaults literally only have 130 ehp over a scout and loses in every other trait.
Part 4 Potential Changes
A high regen stat on scouts encourages brick tanking, a high regen is very much wasted if you can't survive an alpha attack or any short burst fire, thus more ehp is often chosen. If we were to switch scout and assault regen values, you essentially reduce assault downtime and reduce the effectiveness of brick tanking scouts, forcing them to choose their encounters more. Assaults could also use more slots and cpu considering they don't have any unique traits about them (no heavy weapons, no cloaking specialty)
If we are allowed to screw over the light assault scout community, I'd say demote the light weapon slot to a sidearm slot  (currently loving my ScR/BP combo), which would fix quite a few issues, mainly having a suit in the game with the one of the best weapon options, best scanning options, bests cloak usage, and an equipment utility, AKA Cloaked Scanning Light Assault Units. You'd see a major exodus of both old and new scouts should this happen, especially with 1.8 increasing the gap between sidearms and light weapons.
So the question then turns to do we give assaults more relative power into the light assault role and siphon scouts into a more force recon role or do break up the scout into a light assault suit and a force recon suit.
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