@ Pseudo

What makes the GA and CA more competitive than MN is that the former can beat 21dB Scans with 1 less damp. That's pretty much it. If the three needed the same number of damps to beat 21dB, they'd be very close to balanced. If the AM had a half decent bonus and needed the same, he'd be right there with them. The more I think about it, the more I think the key the Racial Parity will be found by (A) eliminating of the profile bonus or (B) duplicating of the profile bonus (i.e. class efficacy to damps).

@ Varoth

If we were somehow able to lock-down the inner ring (fix at 5m to 7m), I'd have no qualms whatsoever with restoring Range Amps to a useful state. If we did it now, however, CQC combatants would be made far less viable.

"Scout bonuses should therefore improve Scoutliness: Running, hiding, (passive) scanning, jumping, hacking, assassinating. Anything that doesn't pertain to that shouldn't be a bonus ..."

In the spirit above, here's our best version yet ...

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Proposal v5.1: Google Doc

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Class Bonuses
* Fitting Reduction to Cloak (no change)
* Efficacy Bonus to Profile Dampeners (+8%)

Racial Bonuses
CA - Base Scan Range (+10%), Cloakblind Effect (-10%)
GA - Base Scan Range (+5%), Precision Enhancer Efficacy (+10%)
AM - Base Stamina (+10%), Biotic Efficacy (+5%)
MN - No Change

Other Items
* Remove cloak active damp bonus

Assumptions
* Scout class performance declines over Echo
* PC Usage: GA Scout > CA Scout > MN/AM Scout

Goals
* Counteract performance decline
* Achieve racial parity
* Equalize PC usage rates

Pseudo's Goals
G£ô - Bring racial balance to the scout class
G£ô - Do this without infringing on the role of other classes
G£ô - Bring all scouts in line with the minscout or calscout (?)
G£ô - Address galscout supremacy without drastically altering the suit

Pseudo's Parameters
G£ô - Do not significantly alter or discard the niches of the galscout, calscout or minscout
G£ô - Do not alter non-dropsuit things unless necessary or for the best
G£ô - Do not implement bonuses which are not specifically focused on doing scout things
G£ô - Do not implement bonuses which only affect one weapon or equipment
G£ô - Do not implement bonuses which directly improve combat effectiveness
G£ô - No more than two bonuses per racial dropsuit (Rattati's Rule)

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Thoughts?

* Please provide specific numbers when commenting on GalScout Precision.

EWAR Table
Proposal Google Doc

Pretty nice. CA scout seems pretty powerful to me.

Scout balancing.

EWAR Table
Proposal Google Doc

Looking at the numbers for dampening, overall I like it. The only problem I have is you are going to find it very difficult to convince the wider community to, not only buff Gallente and Caldari scout profiles at the low end, but buff all scouts to the same level of dampening. I doubt that the fact that undampened Gal and Cal scouts will be easier to detect, will be enough to get people on board with letting all scouts avoid 15db scans with only 2 dampeners. Personally, I'd be fine with it. I've always said, scanners are not for scanning scouts.

Ideally we would have the Gallente scout situation we have now. Where one damp gets you bellow 21db scans, but you need three to get bellow 15db. Playing with the numbers I can't get this to work as an efficiency bonus, sadly. The beauty of efficiancy bonuses are they force some dampening to be used.

Agreed. We'll only pitch the proposal if declining Scout efficiency/performance permits room to do so.


Duvolle Focused Scanner: 20dB ---> 18dB
Voila!

Looking at the numbers for dampening, overall I like it. The only problem I have is you are going to find it very difficult to convince the wider community to, not only buff Gallente and Caldari scout profiles at the low end, but buff all scouts to the same level of dampening. I doubt that the fact that undampened Gal and Cal scouts will be easier to detect, will be enough to get people on board with letting all scouts avoid 15db scans with only 2 dampeners.

Personally, I'd be fine with it. I've always said, scanners are not for scanning scouts.

Ideally we would have the Gallente scout situation we have now. Where one damp gets you bellow 21db scans, but you need three to get bellow 15db. Playing with the numbers I can't get this to work as an efficiency bonus, sadly. The beauty of efficiancy bonuses are they force some dampening to be used.

For any that might care, here is my fav min scout fit.

Adv Min Scout
H: 2x Complex PE, 1xC blue
L: 2x Complex Kincat
E: N11 DU, NI
PW: Ish NK
SW: BP

Extra problem:
This is all fine as a general scout buff in the face of diminishing use / effectiveness. But what can we do about Amarr scouts if scouts in general don't need a buff? I would love it if Amarr scouts could just have their bonus switched for biotics, sounds great to me. However, I don't use Amarr scouts. How would the people who have specced into the suit feel? Maybe people are attached to their precision bonus.

The thing with range amps are, they are a whole module that people have spent skill points in, that are on apex suits, that can be used to add variety other than jsut armour tanking, that are not being used at all since they have been renderred useless. That isn't a good situation.

I think we need to continue the active dampener idea. short super dampener with slow regen. something that could allow a min scout to not be seen from inner ring passive scans to allow enough time to get a SINGLE kill and escape. If it is the inner ring getting them killed then give them something to beat it just not a full time option.
activating it would break you out of a scan so you could use it after being scanned to escape the scan (I thought cloak used to break scan)

Very conservative with hp. Much respect.

"Scout bonuses should therefore improve Scoutliness: Running, hiding, (passive) scanning, jumping, hacking, assassinating. Anything that doesn't pertain to that shouldn't be a bonus ..."

In the spirit above, here's our best version yet ...

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Proposal v5.1: Google Doc

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I like it! First impressions are that this is good, very elegant design. However I can imagine the galscouts being mad that their bonus is to a module they can only fit two of at max. It might be worth taking to Features and Ideas to get some input from a broader range of galscouts in order to decide what to do with them.

It takes a min scout ...

Serious question. How is that the NK MinScout -- with all of its perceived strengths...

That is the key to your question. The innate bonuses a min scout has in its suit are just that. For example, yes, they are a touch faster. But that small speed advantage barely has any effect on any gameplay mechanics. Maybe that has changed with the back pedal adjustment? But for the longest amount of time it was meaningless. Then consider it cripples their fit to make it faster. And they can't even be the fastest.

All of the innate bonuses fall apart because none of them are good enough. And the other suits can max these perceived strengths out more than a MN scout. They are good at killing tanked suits with knives after they are fully skilled out. Which is a thing with a minja suit- you have to really have maxed out skills for it to be effective. The gal scout BPO is an ideal no skill suit that affords a lot of value right away. Try doing that with a minja suit.

Serious question. How is that the NK MinScout -- with all of its perceived strengths and easily overcome weaknesses -- is used less than the SG GalScout and SG CalScout in competitive play?

with min scout they only want but do not want to trade off any of even their minor advantages.

Stop saying this. I've been trying to trade off knife bonus since forever.

It does amaze me how strongly minscouts want to cling to their knives when it's potentially preventing the suit from being viable.