scout update

[the cow says moo]

what ideas do you have for new weapons for the scout? keep in mind that Valve might be watching

 

[Reflex]

you do start way too many threads...i want better defensive gear and some better weapons

 

[DEATHMASTER]

replace bat with lawnmower, requires revving and runs out of gas fast. Kills pretty fast.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Cup'o'Coffee (Replace pistol)- Drinking it provides 20% faster speed, but 50% worse accuracy with weapons (effect lasts 15 seconds) + Plus running into walls when under the influence will cause damage to yourself. Standing still, then immediately moving will leave a sillourette of yourself in the spot that you moved from.

Dodge ball (Replace Shotgun)- Hit enemies in face to cause damage; can ricochet off surfaces and enemies. Any subsequent enemy it hits will cause 10% slower movement speed to that enemy.

Golden Bat (Replace standard bat)- Hitting the head will cause enemy to be stunned for 3 seconds, any subsequent hit to the head will cause critical damage.

 

[Jintor]

Scout needs a jetpack.

 

[-Psy-]

Scout is going to get some sort of change to help get past sentries otherwise people still won't play him.

 

[Holy Toaster]

Eh, if the scout get's an update to get past sentries that's going to be a poor decision imho. The sentry is one of the only scout's weaknesses if you take that away then that's just going to mess up the balance that TF2 has.

 

[Sledgehammer]

The sentry is scout's only real weakness. Though it's still a "scout can't win" battle.

 

[Eejit]

A good heavy can usually beat a good scout too, varying somewhat by terrain.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Valve stated the improvement to the scout would be to increase his usefulness in maps such as Goldrush & Dustbowl, as CTF is his main strength with his speed. So bare in mind, the update for the Scout will be to address these issues. Think logically what kind of things would the scout need to succeed better in these gritty, close quarter combat areas? He is small, little health, can only deal short range high damage, and speedy. Then you'll see how this is being approached through Valve's eyes.

 

[Eejit]

Triple jump!

 

[Lobster]

I would love to see the scout get somthing that gives him a specific tool, I mean hes a 'scout' so it would be cool if he had some way to inform the team of somthing in the battle, the locations of sentries for instance, pehaps he could laser paint a sentry so rockets fly towards it ... ok thats really dumb but you get the idea, I just think the scout needs a unique mechanic that makes people change to him.

They say they wanna give the scout more of a purpose in A/D maps like dustbowl and the payload maps, the scout has always been best for capping, but the problem is that by the time the objective is safe enough to cap for a scout, everyone else is there anyway, pehaps if the cap speed for scouts on those maps was even faster, I dunno.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

The speed he caps at the moment is very good, it's his main strength and anything quicker would make it impossible to react to defend the point, which isn't a good thing. I think his strength is an issue, getting to the point is difficult due to his low health. 2 stickies on there and it's back to spawn.

Making the Scout an actual 'scout' as you say Lobster could be really useful for other classes, although without a mini-map I'm finding it difficult to see how Valve could introduce something like that to hold that information. He certainly needs something better to defend himself while running, which reduces he speed slightly perhaps.

Also, maybe they'll bring back the ability for Scouts to automatically detect spies.

 

[cabbs]

Some of the early scout footage/screenies had him carrying an SMG of some sort. Simply having it as some kind of mid-range gun would break the scout vs anything except the sentry, right?

so, maybe it could have a Natascha-mechanic-style debuff on enemy fire rate, and a short range. Wont win the scout any more battles than the scatter gun, but will increase 1-on-1 survivability whilst sacrificing what small quick-kill ability the scout has. Probably maybe possibly. Just a thought.

 

[Spaz]

Some of the early scout footage/screenies had him carrying an SMG of some sort. Simply having it as some kind of mid-range gun would break the scout vs anything except the sentry, right?.

That was the same SMG as the sniper have I think. Or am I wrong?

 

[Holy Toaster]

I think it was then they swapped it out for a nailgun of sorts and then came the scattergun.

 

[Jintor]

Also, maybe they'll bring back the ability for Scouts to automatically detect spies.

Instant gut reaction: overpowered.

 

[nurizeko]

Instant gut reaction: overpowered.

Instant gut reaction: Agreed.

 

[delusional]

I've suggested this already, so here goes,

Critcycle

Replaces: Scouts bat.

A rideable tricycle that increases the scouts speed by 150%, and it crits whoever is hit by the bike. Downside: you can't strafe and your health is halved.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

I've suggested this already, so here goes,

Critcycle

Replaces: Scouts bat.

A rideable tricycle that increases the scouts speed by 150%, and it crits whoever is hit by the bike. Downside: you can't strafe and your health is halved.

lmao, I'd love to see your face as you posted that. I can't tell if that is a joke or not, because my god...I'm going to remember that one for a long time

 

[the cow says moo]

There are four things to remember about the scout and the update. First, a good strategy to use with a scout is to start out at long-range with a pistol. As the enemy switches their weapon to a long-range weapon, switch your weapon to the bat for close-range and rush up to them. Finally, as the enemy switches to their close-range weapon, you finish them off by backing up a little and switching to your scattergun for a mid-range attack. So the updates should keep the long-range, mid-range, and short-range weapon basis. Second, the new update shouldn't be able to take out sentries, it should allow him to get past them or to run away from them. Not to mention the number of classes that can easily take out sentries now, such as the soldier, the demo-man, the pyro, etc. Third the update should help with some of the scout's weaknesses in the game, like how the Pyro's flare-gun helps him with long range, or how the Heavy's natasha helps to stop enemies from running faster than he does. Last, each new weapon should be balanced out to keep it fair.

The scout doesn't have very much health, so I'd like to see a weapon to replace the Scattergun that increases his health like the Pyro's backburner or would heal you every time you shoot an enemy, like the Medic's Blutsaugher. Of course, this weapon should slow him down, give less damage, or not be able to hit with critical hits to balance it. It would also need to be a close range weapon.

I'm not sure what to replace his pistol with, but it should be long range.

I only see two main threats to the scout: the sentry and the pyro. So I think he should have an ability that makes him a lot faster. His melee weapon should be a bat or something where every hit he gets charges up a speedbar (much like the Medic's Uberbar or the Spy's invisibility bar). This is similar to the other updates for the character's melee weapon, because it buffs something about the character, i.e. the ubersaw filling your uberbar, the axtinguisher's instant kill on burning victims, the boxing gloves with 100% critical hit chance after you've killed an enemy with them. When activated, he is unable to use weapons, but becomes about 150%-200% faster for about 10-15 seconds. If a pyro blasts him with fire before or after this ability is used, and the scout is moving, the fire will go out. If he is moving with this ability and passes by a sentry, its aim will be unable to catch up with him. Thus, he will be unable to take out a sentry, but could still run past it. The scout could not use this ability when he has the intelligence. Maybe if he runs past people close enough to them, they would be knocked back a little bit and maybe this ability would lower his health too. The new melee weapon should also be slower or give less damage than the normal bat.

I also want to see him be able to do wall jump like in the Meet the Scout video.

 

[Eejit]

Heavies are a bigger threat to scouts than pyros -.-


Anyway, scouts should definitely face a tradeoff. Perhaps increased damage primary or more health in exchange for not being able to double-jump?

 

[Qhartb]

Heavies are a bigger threat to scouts than pyros -.-


Anyway, scouts should definitely face a tradeoff. Perhaps increased damage primary or more health in exchange for not being able to double-jump?

It's weird to think of the scout without double-jump. It's not nonsensical, but it's come to be one of his defining aspects, in my mind at least. It'd be like spy without cloak.

edit: Also, scout's primary damage is already pretty devastating when used well.

 

[lefty]

Heavies are a bigger threat to scouts than pyros -.-


Anyway, scouts should definitely face a tradeoff. Perhaps increased damage primary or more health in exchange for not being able to double-jump?

Haha, no they're not. But heavies would become a much larger problem if scouts didn't have double jump, more health or not.

 

[Eejit]

They are if their mouse sensitivity isn't set low.

 

[lefty]

I wasn't saying heavies aren't dangerous, but nowhere near as bad as a pyro, that can fry a scout in less than a second if he gets the drop on one, which it's more likely to do than a heavy because it's faster.

 

[Eejit]

Pyros are far less effective than Heavies at stopping scouts from attacking someone else though. It doesn't matter how fast pryos are, they're still slower than scouts, and they're only better against them at very short range.

 

[ríomhaire]

That was the same SMG as the sniper have I think. Or am I wrong?

I think it's the same weapon, yeah.




Here're the ideas I posted on Steampowered just now.
Primary Weapons
Spite Gun
The Spite Gun has no crits under normal circumstances but swaps them for a slightly larger magazine; the Spite Gun can hold two more shells than the Scattergun. The Spite Gun also has a very high change of getting critical hits on the Scout's nemesis or on someone who the Scout is dominating.


Riot Gun
The Riot Gun has a slower rate of fire than the Scattergun but has the ability to drain ammunition of the currently-equiped gun of the enemy it hits. The ammuntion is not transfered to the Scout or dropped, it is simply destroyed.


Sawn-Off Shotgun
The Sawn-Off has a magazine capacity of only two shells but gets guaranteed critical hits when fired at an enemy from point blank range.




Secondary Weapons
Binoculars (Could also suit the Spy)
This removes some of the Scout's attack capabilities and gives him an action scouting role. If an enemy is observed through the binoculars for two seconds he is "tagged" for thirty seconds.

Anyone on the Scout's team, if they are close enough, will be able to see the outline of a tagged enemy through walls (like in L4D). The outline is team-coloured. Buildings and stickybombs can also be tagged.

Perhaps it should be possible to tag allies too?


Multiplier
The Multiplier's basic damage is weak, but the game counts how many times someone has been hit by it. The more times someone has been hit by the Multiplier's bullets, the more damage the next bullet does.

This means that the longer the Scout concentrates on one target the more damage he will do to it and it would be extremely effective for multiple Scouts working together to take out one traget.

The buff wears off over time. The longer it has been since the enemy was hit with the Multiplier the faster the buff wears off, the same way the rate at which the Medic heals increases the longer one has been out of combat.


Mail Bomb
The Mail Bomb looks like an ordinary envolope and behaves like the Sapper, in that the Scout has an infinite amount of them and can plant them as fast as the player can click. But the Mail Bomb is planted on humans, not buildings. When it is planted on an enemy the enemy is immediatly informed and a countdown timer appears on his HUD.

There are five seconds until the bomb explodes. In that time, one can remove the bomb by being healed by a medkit, Medic, equipment locker or dispensor. The Medic's auto-regeneration and the Sandvich will not remove it.

When it explodes the Mail Bomb does damage equal to half of health of the class was planted on (eg, on a Heavy it always does 150 damage). The bomb does no splash damage unless it kills the enemy it was planted on.




Melee Weapons
Corked Bat
No crits under normal circumstances, but can be used to reflect enemy missiles (how original). On the other hand, reflected projectiles have a chance of being returned as critical shots.

Or just give the normal bat the ability to reflect projectiles.


Electrobat
The Electrobat has a slower rate of fire than the regular bat but does moderate amounts of splash damage. It also disables any buildings that are (directly) struck by it for two seconds.

 

[CLIKKY]

The biggest threat to a scout is by far a good sniper (or the sentry gun) one fully charged shot and he is down and double jumping just makes it easier to hit the only way around this is for the scout to try avoidance tactics which slows how past he gets from one point to another alot. the scout is alos vunlrable to demomen who with one shot of their pipe bomb launcher leave the scout in pieces. perhaps an ability that could be introduced would be for te scout to be able to do more melee damge if the charged or jumped at an enemy making the scout more hit and run another weopen i would like for the scout to have is reflecting bullets so when the scout is running away he doesnt sacrifice speed by turning around to hit the enemy.

 

[Sheepo]

Also, maybe they'll bring back the ability for Scouts to automatically detect spies.

Unless this includes seeing cloaked spies, I probably wouldn't mind. It's honestly not hard at all to tell who's a spy when you're looking for them and they're simply running around disguised. Scouts kill me second most to pyros as spy because they're already suited for the job. You can't knife fight them, they'll simply back up or weave around you with their more powerful and faster bat. And it's pretty difficult to shoot them if they're after you becuase they're smart and fast enough to dodge if they're already chasing you.

Now maybe I'm wrong. The mindset for a scout could be: Hmm, there goes some on who is almost certainly a spy, but he's not going to kill me, and I've got bigger things to worry about. But if they know for a fact, and see them as an enemy spy maybe they will be even more prone to chase after you.

Incoherent rant over.

 

[the cow says moo]

Originally posted by Eejit
Pyros are far less effective than Heavies at stopping scouts from attacking someone else though. It doesn't matter how fast pryos are, they're still slower than scouts, and they're only better against them at very short range.

Yes, but as a scout, pyros are very hard to get around in close quarters. If the pyro is able to flame a scout and there is no water nearby, the scout is either dead or nearly dead. Valve stated they wanted to improve him in Goldrush and Dustbowl, which have a lot of close quarter areas. In maps like Lumberyard, where there is no water, being able to put out a fire on yourself would be invaluable to scouts.

Originally Posted by Clikky
another weopen i would like for the scout to have is reflecting bullets so when the scout is running away he doesnt sacrifice speed by turning around to hit the enemy.

Anything with a shield for a scout, in my opinion, would be a bad idea

 

[ríomhaire]

One of the more interesting suggestions I've seen is to have the Scout capture at trebble speed when doing the pistol taunt.

 

[the cow says moo]

If that is the taunt where he jogs in place, I was actually thinking that too. It would be like the Pyro's instant kill flame burst attack.

 

[ríomhaire]

Yeah that's the jog in place one. The Heavy's fist taunt is insta-kill too.

 

[Sheepo]

Hmmm, I really like that idea. Either way, if they give him a taunt kill it is obviously the bonk one.

 

[ríomhaire]

I don't think the BONK taunt should insta-kill. And if it does it should make enemies shoot straight down into the ground with a lot of force.

 

[Sheepo]

Well, I would much prefer the faster cap taunt but Valve seems to like the kill taunts and bonk would be the obvious choice.

 

[the cow says moo]

Originally Posted by riomhaire
The Heavy's fist taunt is insta-kill too.

I actually didn't know that. Thanks for telling me.:thumbs:

 

[CLIKKY]

Originally Posted by the cow says moo
Anything with a shield for a scout, in my opinion, would be a bad idea

I ment bouncy bullets but I do agree with you there

 

[Nibwoddle]

Well, I would much prefer the faster cap taunt but Valve seems to like the kill taunts and bonk would be the obvious choice.

Speaking of which, what'd be the Demoman's taunt kill? It would be rather hilarious to have someone die after the Demoman thrusts his crotch.