But then someone put armor on a scout and suddenly... !

Armor can seem sort of crap until you go up against a squad with one of those laser guys, or a bunch of pulse nades, and suddenly shield tanking sort of looks like it does as much good as putting tape on the windows just before the tornado strikes...

There are a lot of tweaks and you start to see some rock paper scissors type strategy for attacks and counters going on but mainly players will stick with what is proven to be safe no matter what game developers throw at them. Give it time and the whole thing will hopefully evolve.

Looking at the evolution of dedicated PvP builds in Demon's Souls you see players creating new and interesting weapon and spell combinations over months and years of fighting each other. The best possible thing happened with that game when From released it: they made a few patches at the very beginning, and called it done. It was then up to the players to figure out what they could do with the game. What was and was not pointless.

I think the very sad thing that has happened in the beta (even though it is also what we as testers are expected to do, i.e. test and give feedback) is that something will be discovered that is good. And then many payers will adopt that something and use it to get kills. And then many players will cry in the forums for the devs to change that thing to make it not so good. And players are never given the chance or opportunity to discover counters or come up with any creative alternatives.

This is part of why DUST 514 has turned out to be a lot more generic than I had hoped it would be. Though I still hope that there is scope enough in what we have left for these natural evolutions in finding the most OP combination of weapons, skills, suits and modules, then finding a way to beat that unbeatable combination to yet take place. And I am positive there is a lot of undiscovered territory in DUSTGǪ Take the laser for example. When it first came out on the market it almost seemed like an lol weapon. There were a few players that saw the potential and even pointed out that it might be joining the ranks of the OP PLEASE NURF DIS NOW! But for the most part not many players took it seriously. Two months later? Nerf lazors. But we should really learn how to deal with things in game as much as turning to the forums as the best possible counter to that which kills us.

Otherwise it may turn out more like you've pictured it above. Why bother with half the stuff you can skill into?

If you're dying constantly as a Scout, you need to learn when (and how) to disengage.

Scouts CANNOT engage enemies head-on, but they can outpace and outmanoeuvre basically any other suit.

The only real problem is when you're looking at the higher-tier suits, and particularly some of the Logi suits which get all the speed of the Scout - and then some.

I blame the community.

For their incessant whining.