Maken Tosch
Planetary Response Organisation
Test Friends Please Ignore
1591
   |
Posted - 2012.10.04 17:37:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm going to make this post as constructive as possible and I'll try to be as unbiased as possible as well.
The following report is based on my experience playing the Codex Build as a scout with skill points dedicated towards signature radius skills, Melee skills, and Nova Knife skills. My skills are as follows:
Dropsuit Command Level 5
Profile Dampening Level 2
Nova Knife Operation Level 2
Hand-To-Hand Combat Level 2
Gallente Dropsuit (almost have enough SP to start this now)
Just to note, I delayed training the Gallente Dropsuit because I wanted to see how other things go while using mainly a militia scout dropsuit so that I can have a base to compare my progress on. This post and the one below it will be updated accordingly as I progress through the skill levels.
Before I continue, let me point out a few general issues that need to be addressed by CCP that appears to be affecting everyone at the moment and something else I have noticed that no one else seems to have reported on so far.
1. Orbital Bombardments - They are great and awesome to see. I love the special effects and the utter destruction they bring. However, they are only so good before they grow stale like week-old saltine crackers. I'm talking about the overabundance of these bombardments. In a single ambush match alone I saw and counted at least ten Orbital Bombardments. Since ambush matches seem to last between 10-15 minutes each, that's one bombardment almost every 1-2 minutes. That is a lot of OB. It's like the OBs are being given out to the squads like candy. Candy is nice, but I can only take too much before I go 'argh too much'. It appears that the OB is contributing too much to its next use in terms of war points gained from each OB kill.
Possible Solution - Either half the war points gained from each kill from an OB or take away war points from OBs entirely.
2. Character Collision - This can be beneficial or problematic depending on the situation. On one hand, it's problematic because if you have multiple players trying to quickly hack on objective or vehicle and get too close to each other, one of them may end up being bumped out of the way and interrupt their own team mate's hacking progress. On the other hand, this can be beneficial in close quarter combat such as ambush. If you are lucky and surprise someone, you can pin an enemy merc against a corner and keep him from moving away or settling from his collision glitch while you hack away at his armor with a nova Knife... which is exactly what I did. I can see this being exploited soon.
Possible Solution - Not sure what to do about this. I will leave this to CCP to decide because I'm not sure how fixing this could effect the current hit detection.
3. Ambush or Skirmish - Not sure why, or perhaps this has something to do with that "Igromir" event in Moscow CCP is doing right now, but I can't see to get into skirmish maps. Even if I could, it's by shear luck and I get kicked moments after. So far, only ambush maps are easy to get into without having to see that annoying code that implies the server is full. But even that can grow stale.
Possible Solution - I guess we'll have to wait and see until next week when the Igromir event finishes. I get the feeling this has something to do with it.
Finally, my points.
1. The Nova Knife - First off, I love the dual wielding mechanic and the sound effects and it makes my scout look awesome with it. However, at my current skill level it is very limited. Not only that, but my dropsuit is not complimenting it. Little by little it is improving as I train up the skill levels, but overall I have learned from experience that the Nova Knife is not meant to be the kind of weapon to confront an opponent with head on. This is primarily a ninja's weapon which means that you are not suppose to be charging out in the open with this thing. You will be mowed down like week-old lawn grass before you can fully charge the knives let alone get close. You are suppose to sneak in from behind, undetected and pounce with the element of surprise.
2. The Melee - This is something that I feel compliments the Nova Knife. If by any chance your knives fail to kill on the first strike because your opponent apparently has better dropsuit armor than you anticipated then the melee is a good way to finish off the kill. I have accomplished this several times so far. But the element of surprise is still key. I really don't see anything wrong with this feature. In fact, I even applaud its improvement in terms of response time because I no longer need to let go of the right stick in order to melee. I realize now that the melee now starts as soon as I press the stick. Because of this, I have experienced no delays in meleeing enemy mercs so long as I don't run out of stamina.
3. Signature Radius - It seems to me that the signature radius is not reducing for me. There are still enemy mercs out there who can spot me from a very far distance even as I sprint away from them while running behind cover. Because of this, I am losing the element of surprise pretty quickly. I don't know what's going on with this. Is my sprint action lighting me up like a Christmas tree? Is my Profile Dampening skill not high enough? Is it because I'm still using a militia scout suit instead of a standard scout suit? Is it because my opponents are fitted with scanners? Which is it? I guess I will have to train further to see.
Summary
So far, everything above is my experience as a scout trying to learn the hard way how to properly bring a knife to a gunfight. It's pretty ballsy to some of you, but it has to be done because I want to know how to take full advantage of the knife, profile, and melee in every situation.
(to be continued)
PS: Sorry for the wall of text. I hope no eyes were harmed during the reading of this post. |
Maken Tosch
Planetary Response Organisation
Test Friends Please Ignore
1591
|
Posted - 2012.10.04 17:37:00 -
[2] - Quote
Update 1
I finally managed to train up to Gallente Scout Level 1 and thus able to use the type-1 suit.
Here is my fit:
Standard Type-1 Scout
(M) Militia Sidearm Damage Modifier - for the nova knife
(H) Nova Knife - yes, this is my primary weapon
(S) Either Scrambler Pistol or SubMachine Gun
(L) Stamina Recovery Mod
(L) Stamina Recovery Mod
(E) ----don't know what to put here----
There is marked improvement in terms of distance I can run and the extra militia stamina mod I can fit (still haven't trained up vigor at all). The terrain helps out as well. If you run down from the ridges you can reach quite a distance before you even run out of stamina. If you do run out, the recovery rate will give you that extra push in case you run into trouble.
One thing I noticed about running down ridges and mountains is that even if you skip a bump or fall a little while sprinting you will continue to run without having to re-press L3. And if you skip a bump and are falling a bit, your stamina freezes until you hit the ground again. This is what enables long distance sprints.
In regards to the texture rendering, as some of you folks mentioned, the lighting is really the bane of this scout suit at the moment. In certain maps where the terrain is brightly lit and there is fog, the suit will contrast and thus the profile dampening skill becomes pointless. For this reason, I'm forced to stay inside large compounds where there is plenty of shade and lots of latters (which is really fun) so that I can more effectively pounce on people.
Has anyone played in any night-time maps yet? |