The Caldari scout, the other scout suit I use

Same as the gal scouts critism, the bonus to range. I'm up in the air about this one, I don't have a bonus thought out about it fully, but an idea of mine would be a 20% reduction of the penalties from both energizers and extenders, leaving them both with no penalties at cal scout level 5.

I stated this is not a fully thought out idea and will have to crunch some numbers on this in time.


I like to think of scout suits as skirmishers, hit and run suits, counter to heavies. So keep this in mind when reading my posts. Would love to hear the communities thoughts on these ideas-

The increase to Biotics is actually an idea I had also been tossing around for quite some time. Would this also include melee damage mods? I think overall this is a good choice for the Minmatar and would work well to offset their lack of eHP. The speed they would be capable of would be terrifying, but I think the low HP would properly balance this.

Barring my comments on the Amarr/Caldari Scouts, one suggestion I heard which I found to be pretty interesting is to remove the range bonuses to Gal/Cal scouts and make the Amarr Scout have the big scan radius instead of the Gallente? If the more direct-combat approach makes the Amarr Scout too strong, how would you feel about instead giving them the range bonus like I mentioned in the Gal/Cal sections?

@ Dalmont

With respect, we're having a hard time parsing your feedback. Would you mind posting in your native tongue? We'll get a Brother Scout to translate to English for us.

Thanks!

Contrasting that, the Minmatar Scout already has a specialized role on the battlefield that crosses Assassination with Fast-Hacking, adding on a biotics bonus might seem like a good idea at first but I think we're missing a golden opportunity to fine-tune it to what it's already capable of without having to resort to adding another bonus to further split it's specialization.

Feel free to convince me of otherwise if you disagree with what I've said here.

Assassination? You can't do it when Cal Scouts light you up from 50m away.

Fast hacking is the ONLY useful aspect of the Minmatar Scout in PC. That's it.

Anything else is something that a Gal Scout with a Shotgun can do better.

It needs attention. The MAIN problem with the Amarr and Min scouts is the absolute scanning superiority of the Cal Scout.

REMOVE SHARED SQUAD VISION

First it was "remove team vision" now squad vision? What else? Remove scans and passive scans because they scan you? I don't care if someone scans me, because scanning is half way through; you still need to kill target.

How Scanning works:

Gal Logi's are made to Scan Proto Damped suits and higher, but suffer from loss of scan duration. They can't keep scans up for a period of time. This makes them adept at scanning objectives to sense Spec Ops, but not to keep them lit up, just to tell you that they are there.

Gal Logi Focused is made to scan scouts. Once again, suffers from not being able to keep them lit up.

Cal Scouts are made to hunt Spec Ops suits. One of these guys is made to ruin their day. However, they don't share their scans. They are simply made to HUNT them, not to turn a squad into hunters.

Scouts are made to scan non-proto damped suits for extended periods of time. Some do it actively, some passively. Passive has the ability to scan 360 all the time, but lacks range. Active scans have a longer range, but have limited scan time and angle.

REMOVE SHARED SQUAD VISION

I would love looking at passive being not shared, a module that allows passive sharing, and a much wider radius with precision falloff.

But it's not christmas.

Type 1) Things within the realm of possibility
Type 2) Things outside the real of possibility
Type 3) All things

We've problems to solve; let's not waste time.
Might we all agree to limit this debate to Type 1 items?

We must have in attention the "team play aspect", it is not solo scout battles. This means where some scouts of some race can't push what can other, other frames of their race can replenish that fault considering it is versatile teams.

Imagine next:

Gall example:

Scout role expansion: 25%
Assault: 40%
Heavy: 15%
Vehicles: 20%

Now what you wish is to move scout role to higher or lower degrees which can't be made not managing other frames as well as lowering gall scout role expansion due to its possibility of taking role from assault frame, a bit. You reduce lets say a 100% balance to 97% of overall race competition (since you reduced scout role in total) against other races. It means other races will prevail in "bits" against Gall and you can't do that without balanced decision to cut here and to add there.

Of course some races have 105% or 110% as 96% due to lack of content which creates lack of balance which this game has since ever. You have the rail rifle effect in here, mass drive effect and others related to racial damage taken and received by weapons.

Considering previously written, I must say that we can't assume any changes watching at overall effect. It will have no gaming experience just because someone is not satisfied. We can consider all these proposals and decide whether we apply some of changes or not; so altogether races will have 100% competitiveness against each other but particularly frames of one race could have advantage against frames of another races.

By such we can have versatility of balance where globally, races are balanced. However particular small fights depend not only on frames but on skills and gaming experience of player. In this situation frames' advantage can be handy. Now depending on how much of each frame you brought to battlefield will have higher or lower output taking in consideration that not only frames but also racial differences can be applied in battles...

You got it. No changes just because someone is suffering. Remember it is not I want to play as scout and be the best player. You have players with other races and frames that join battle and they replenish what you can't accomplish.

Probability of dropping same guys with weapons and equipments of same race is almost null, so you can't expect victory out of almost unpredictable matchmaking and considering that all proportionally drops in same frames. In this case PC is more controllable and predictable.


This is team game and it means no one-man-army and it means no suit will have advantage over whole race just because, otherwise people make this game more unbalanced and then ask why it is unbalanced.

1. So what must be don is all races are 100% competitive against other races however frames particularly are less competitive against some frames and good against other.

2. In this 100% situation if you want to push or nerf something, you need to move other related to frame parts as well in one particular race(sharing effect - if you receive, someone of your race will lose). We can make frames all with same effectiveness giving yet 100% in total for the race which will solve problem with battles of one prevailing frame used.

3. Now having that balanced we can create teams of maximum percentage output of effectiveness against all races.

"Egoists make games unbalanced."-¬

Conceptual roles are fun to debate, but outside the scope of the proposal. Varying from a Merc to the next, so we deliberately omitted so that your eyes focused on the goals. Opinions on this tendency

Feel free to convince me of otherwise if you disagree with what I've said here.

o7 Pokey

Thanks for weighing in! On to those questions ...



Currently, yes. Alternatives include applying the bonus directly to KinCats or redirecting the bonus toward fitting reduction. We opted against the first to leave more options open to the user. We opted against the second as we believe Rattati intends to overhaul resource requirements.




Absolutely an option. We leaned in favor of the current alternative as (1) we felt ewar specializations should only be cut so many ways, (2) we thought the eve-minded Amarr RP guys (TA, Aero, Magnus, etc) would be happier with a bonus to "light armor" and (3) there's serious demand for a brick-tanked Scout, and we don't want Gallente meeting 100% of that demand. Not to say we're deadset on the current approach, but should he prove too strong we can easily fix by dialing back the bonus.

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* As an aside we tried to localize these changes such that they remain independent from the state of other frames. We fully expect Rattati to first fix Assaults.

1. Thoughts?

2. Also, have you guys had a discussion about how shared scans work? Do you think they're fair or not? Do they operate how they should?

3. I like the idea of shared scans though from my understanding the scans are more or less shared as long as you're withing like....200m of the scout doing the scanning? I could be wrong about that, but going under that assumption, how would you feel about passive scans only being shared if you are within the scan range of the scanning unit? For example if the scout who is scanning has a scan range of 50m, you have to be within 50m of that scout in order to receive the scan data.

1. Makes perfect sense and is certainly feasible; one of our own (Llast) is a proponent of a similar model:

CA Scout - Patrol Recon: Short Range / High Precision
AM Scout - Patrol Recon: High Range / Low Precision
GA Scout - Stealth Recon: No Scan Bonus
MN Scout - Assassin: No Scan Bonus

* Thanks to Black Jackal for upgrading our terminology :-)
** Llast, please feel free to correct me where I'm wrong.

Llast isn't the only one pushing for that, I've said similar.

My problem is the issue that in order to make the Cal threatening to the Gal it screws over the Min. But if we make Gal range and get rid of the ghost role, then there's nothing for Amarr short of HP bonuses.

Llast isn't the only one pushing for that, I've said similar.

My problem is the issue that in order to make the Cal threatening to the Gal it screws over the Min. But if we make Gal range and get rid of the ghost role, then there's nothing for Amarr short of HP bonuses.

Also, have you guys had a discussion about how shared scans work? Do you think they're fair or not? Do they operate how they should?

I like the idea of shared scans though from my understanding the scans are more or less shared as long as you're withing like....200m of the scout doing the scanning? I could be wrong about that, but going under that assumption, how would you feel about passive scans only being shared if you are within the scan range of the scanning unit? For example if the scout who is scanning has a scan range of 50m, you have to be within 50m of that scout in order to receive the scan data.

I also highly support this model. Whether it's a flat bonus to the stat per level or an efficacy bonus I don't mind, but this model would definitely sort out 3 of the 4 scouts and give each of them a unique role in battle.

I like how you think, Pokey. About those questions ...

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1. Makes perfect sense and is certainly feasible; one of our own (Llast) is a proponent of a similar model:

CA Scout - Patrol Recon: Short Range / High Precision
AM Scout - Patrol Recon: High Range / Low Precision
GA Scout - Stealth Recon: No Scan Bonus
MN Scout - Assassin: No Scan Bonus

* Thanks to Black Jackal for upgrading our terminology :-)
** Llast, please feel free to correct me where I'm wrong.

While I very much like Llast's model, my primary concern remains in that there is strong demand for a brick-tanked Scout. The demand has always existed, and it will continue to exist despite any change we make. I'd personally prefer to see that demand met by Amarr rather than Gallente, because (1) it fits our original vision for Amarr and (2) I suspect it'd be better balanced. That said, our proposal is a work-in-progress; we will revisit the Amarr Bonus in light of your input.

2. Yes, extensively (2A). We celebrated the removal of shared passives in Uprising 1.4 anticipating that it would make our lives less miserable (at that time, there weren't many Scouts). At some point following the removal of "omniscient installations", we came to suspect that passives were again being shared. There's since been no consensus on the subject; some like it, most dislike it (2B). If you're asking if the mechanics are reliable, I would say largely yes; if you're asking if there's a better way, I would say yes again (2C). A module or piece of equipment which enabled shared passives would be awesome. But it's not Christmas (and it won't be for another 6 months).

3. I'd personally prefer a gear-based solution, but both approaches (and others) have their merits. Though this is Legion-talk, and my focus is the present.

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Question for CPM Candidates:

There are numerous contradictory perspectives here among your peers. Given feedback thus far, which of your peers do you agree with most? And which least?

1. I'm curious if removing the stamina bonus and giving the Amarr the Ferro/Adaptive bonus as well as the scan range would make them too strong. (?)

2. & 3. A module to share scans would be pretty legit. What if you had to be within X meters to pick up on the shared scans and have that be a pretty small range, and then adding modules would increase that range at which scans are shared?

1. The very same thought crossed my mind; yes, I think it'd be too strong; certainly too strong for one iteration.
2. Seems you'd be better off running an active scanner; though I've not thoroughly thought this through :-) th (x5)

First it was "remove team vision" now squad vision? What else? Remove scans and passive scans because they scan you? I don't care if someone scans me, because scanning is half way through; you still need to kill target.