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Terran Scout Improvements


AlanEnB

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Jenquai Explorer has Drone Energy Amplifier (DEA).

Progen Sentinel has Drone Shield Amplifier (DSA).

 

Thus, it will be logical to give Terran Scout a similar class device that drops from the Controller raid, maybe let's called it Drone Hull Amplifier (DHA).

 

L9 Drone Hull Amplifier (DHA)

Terran Only

Explorer Only

Not manufacturable

 

Bonus/Buffs:

Maximize Hull (Activated)

Increase hull capacity by 8% for 2420 seconds when activated.

 

Hull Damage Control (Self-activated)

Increase your hulls effectiveness at sustaining damage by 175% for 2420 seconds when activted.

 

Avoidance Control (Self-activated)

Reduce mobs aggression by 175% and increase chance to avoid killing blows by 75% when hull is below 50% for 2420 seconds when activated.

 

Equipment Damage Control - Engine (Equip)

Increase your engine's effectiveness at sustaining damage by 75% when equipped.

 

Energy: 1812

Range: 2500

 

 

Note: All statistics and bonus/buffs are just a guide and will be changed accordingly by developers to balance the gameplay.

 

Just an idea to help Terran Scouts survive longer during raids and make them more raid-friendly.

Whenever a Terran Scout hull patch during raids, they almost always gain aggo from mobs instantly.

Hopefully this can helps Terran Scouts better since they lack of powerdown or cloak to survive during raids.

 

Cheers.

 

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Edited by AlanEnB
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Jenquai Explorer has Drone Energy Amplifier (DEA).

Progen Sentinel has Drone Shield Amplifier (DSA).

 

Thus, it will be logical to give Terran Scout a similar class device that drops from the Controller raid, maybe let's called it Drone Hull Amplifier (DHA).

 

L9 Drone Hull Amplifier (DHA)

Terran Only

Explorer Only

Not manufacturable

 

Bonus/Buffs:

Maximize Hull (Activated)

Increase hull capacity by 8% for 2420 seconds when activated.

 

Hull Damage Control (Self-activated)

Increase your hulls effectiveness at sustaining damage by 175% for 2420 seconds when activted.

 

Avoidance Control (Self-activated)

Reduce mobs aggression by 175% and increase chance to avoid killing blows by 75% when hull is below 50% for 2420 seconds when activated.

 

Equipment Damage Control - Engine (Equip)

Increase your engine's effectiveness at sustaining damage by 75% when equipped.

 

Energy: 1812

Range: 2500

 

 

Note: All statistics and bonus/buffs are just a guide and will be changed accordingly by developers to balance the gameplay.

 

Just an idea to help Terran Scouts survive longer during raids and make them more raid-friendly.

Whenever a Terran Scout hull patch during raids, they almost always gain aggo from mobs instantly.

Hopefully this can helps Terran Scouts better since they lack of powerdown or cloak to survive during raids.

 

Cheers.

 

Alan_small_sig.png?1428898814
AlanPW_small_sig.png?1428898863
AlanJD_small_sig.png?1428898891
Allan_small_sig.png?1428898942
Allen_small_sig.png?1428898979

 

Agreed.  I pushed for similar help to the TS a long time ago but there are not enough programming resources to address it yet.  The TS is a very good support toon but you had better have all PM gear or be able to stomach the quality loss on your loot only gear because they get torn apart in the raids.  They are the only class with lvl 8 shields and no cloak.

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I like the TS the way it is. They have insta-warp/hull patch and jump start. What I'd like to see is the PP get some loving. it is still missing 2 skills. The JT/JS mission 1 skill

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Hi Alan,

 

Something of this very nature was mentioned to the team some time back now. I tried to locate the week that I posted regarding it, but it would appear the new advocate removed all that from the forums.

 

I would ask Cimbad if he can locate the information for you to give you the direct answer from the team.

 

I only vaguely remember bringing this topic to their attention but I can't remember what they said about it.

 

Fly Safe

 

-Alurra

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I love my TS and agree they need a little loving, I often get frustrated with my TS in combat as he really needs something to help.

I believe when Alurra addressed the devs ( I could be wrong) to look into giving the scout some more love they replied  the Scout had recieved some of their precious time already and had been given much needed love in giving them the abilty to make thier own ammo etc and wanted to give some time to the other classes. Theres no harm in asking though and like your idea.

Fly safe

Pestilennce.

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The TS is already well balanced. adjust your play style. This is a support type class, yes support class are like Pawns on a chess board and intended to be sacrificed to keep the main group alive.  Learn it, love it and know it.

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The TS is already well balanced. adjust your play style. This is a support type class, yes support class are like Pawns on a chess board and intended to be sacrificed to keep the main group alive.  Learn it, love it and know it.

I disagree with this statement.  If there was a skill that gave good equipment damage control to keep the quality loss of the gear down, I would tend to agree with you.  I think the scout could use a skill that added some HDC because they don't have cloak, or equipment damage control to make the consequences of getting torn apart by mobs less, or damage avoidance (afterburn?).  Any of these three options would balance the TS out.

 

The scout is a great support class for the warriors and my favorite explore class but there is still some work to be done on it to balance it out.

 

The PP can also use some love.  I think that a skill that raises the critical targeting would help the PP a lot.  The Rogue Progen have rally.  Adding firing tactics to the PP skill set would give the desired result.  The other skill to possibly look at would be shield enhancements or maybe activated HDC.  The TT has the shield enhancement so I tend to lean towards an activated HDC skill.  I do not see the PP too often at the raids because they do pull massive aggro when healing.  They are almost as powerful as a warrior so beefing up their ability to take damage may be the best option.

 

Here is some food for thought.  The number of level 150+ dings required to maximize the skills of the different classes are not all the same.  The PP, JS and TS all require the fewest over-dings to maximize their abilities.  The PP is the lowest at 100.  The JS is at 103 and the TS is at 113.  The next lowest is the TE at 121.  The difference in skill points between the TS and the TE would be about a level 5 skill.  The difference in skill points between a PP or JS and a TE would be about one level 7 skill or two level 5 skills.  Now compare the point numbers between the other explore classes and see where the TS lines up.  They are missing a lot compared to the PS or JE. 

 

Here is the full list for the number of over-dings required to maximize all skills:

 

TS 113

TT 126

TE121

PW 143 (tied for highest)

PP 100

PS 142

JD 143  (tied for highest)

JS 103

JE 139

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The terran Scout was discussed at great length by the team.

 

Skills, strengths and weaknesses on paper and in game were scrutinised closely.

 

It was decided to leave the TS as it is for the time being especially as everyone is very busy with other work to complete.

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  • 3 years later...

How about we help lower level TE's ("Scouts") also, by putting in Build Reactor, Befriend of some type, and getting rid of over half of the ridiculous Build Components mission?  These were part of the original plan.  We can't just copy other classes in part to make TE PT and JT. They need their own niche.

 

Jenquai - explorers

Progen - warriors

Terrans - builders/traders

 

Imagine a 3x3 grid of class & race.  TE or "Scout" is a Builder/Trader first, explorer second. With the GETCo and Hyperia aspects of their story/lore, they're like a Elon Musk or philanthropist venture capitalist of the future. A builder, dreamer, environmentalist, inventor, tinker, hacker...  Each explorer needs to build reactors and to mine resources, refine resources.  Explorer classes also tend to be device heavy, so they will need high level devices, and build devices.  Every builder/trader needs negotiate and a few build skills.  Now we know TT can build everything (except reactors).  Is build comps specific to Terrans, or to Traders? Traders.  So a TE still might be allocated build ammo/weapons, build reactors, build devices, build shields.

 

They're Terrans... which are techy and into hacking, so I get the hacking, but not as high level as the TW. That's fine. But... remember GETCo - Good Earth Trading Company. Seek Knowledge, not war.  They need something environmental - not biorepression as much as a type of Befriend. They need some high level engines, a Terran thing, and some speed.  They need to be able to get through grav wells and environmental hazards.

 

In combat they get missiles and beams, leaning more towards missiles, cuz that's a Terran thing.  In combat, they don't need to be a lead or main DD or tank, they are medics and support.  The Jenqs are there to support psi shields and reactor regen and cloaking.  The Progen are there to DD, tank, give crit, take aggro.  The Terrans are there to hack, recharge shields, regen hull.  The PE may scare away enemies as defense/offense, but the TE (Scout) should take the opposite approach (GETCo tie-in, again). Regen hull, combat medic, very appropriate, and different than the shield regen of a TT.

 

Remember, too, original WW devs shifted a lot of class skills around because they DIDN'T put in the 3 missing classes in original live.  There's some skills the original 6 professions weren't treally supposed to have.  It's probably not a popular idea, now, but I don't think we should be afraid to play around with that and do some radical things in Sunrise now.

 

Edited by ghent96
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14 hours ago, ghent96 said:

How about we help lower level TE's also, by putting in Build Reactor, Befriend ....

 

TEs already have BioRepression, Build Weapons and Build Engines. They don't need Build Reactor or Befriend.

 

 

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aye, this is why I use the old alpha/beta rational naming convention that is not arbitrary and not ambiguous:

 

TE TW TT

PE PW PT

JE JW JT

 

...or, I use only the profession single names such as Scout, Enforcer, Trader, Sentinel, Warrior, Privateer, Explorer, Defender (seriously, wtf do we actually defend?) or Seeker. I never combine those with the race, because they stand alone. It's something I rejected when WW changed to new "profession" names instead of the former race-class names back in the original game, and something I still reject about the game today. I have to.

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What you're really suggesting is "rationalizing" the entire matrix of race/class and related skills.

 

For example:  in current RL, hacking isn't a strong warrior skill -- it would be some non-warrior nerd closeted away in the background.  That's more like the Terran Scout role rather than the front line fighter.  The Terran Enforcer 'should' have a different top drawer skill, something more suited to her/his long range combat role [extended scan range coupled with extended missile range?]

 

I wonder if the agreement with EA allows for that -- off hand, I'd suspect not.

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  • 2 weeks later...

They may have, because originally with 9 professions, the skill matrix or skill assignment was different. We may never know what was originally intended, because we only got some of their original design documents passed on to us. It's probably not fair at this point, though, to take away skills from some professions in order to rebalance and give to others. WW also intended to ...not force people to group up, per se... but encourage groups and make the game easier when in a group. Your idea about different skills for a TW is great, but WW originally probably wouldn't have given them the perfect combo of Scan + Missile + a "lockdown" skill to make kiting easier against a stationary target. They gave those skills to other professions to encourage grouping.  A JE, JW, JT or TE (Scout) will have Scan to help the TW see targets. A PW will use gravity well to slow down the target. A PE may scare the target the other way. A TW could get lucky with a hack and knock out the engines, too. Soloing a target will always be harder.

 

Scouts are going to need some sort of defensive or escape skill, since they won't be a profession that solo's many mobs at any point in their progression. PW and TW are "in it to win it"; no escape needed. JW, JE, JT have cloak and fold. PE have have Scare plus high shield and hull points. TT have befriend and shield recharge. About the only thing a Scout can do if they see red/flashy on the screen and that battle music starts, is to hit warp with high Navigate skill and hope they don't get interrupted. Other classes can do that, too, though, so there's still no unique defensive skill for Scouts. Their hull repair skill is too little, too late, in most combat. If you have to use it, you'd better trigger it as soon as your shields go down, otherwise you're dead before it spins up and completes. It's not really an escape mechanism.

 

The N7 team had/has no "agreement" directly with EA, afaik. The legalities of the EULA/ToS, that long thing we have to agree to the first time we load up, mean basically "we" the players cannot change the actual .exe file in any way. That's a very small part of the game, basically the graphics engine and network code. All the skills and items, and their descriptions, are in the database, just entries in a database table or spreadsheet. We can change all of that all we want, because "we" had to create it all from scratch in the first place and populate that database to give the game's .exe file something to use after it loads us up in-game and connects to a server.

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I was told by one of the DEVs that the emulator organization has a licensing agreement with EA and that some aspects of the game are immutable under that agreement.  Specifically which aspects I've not been told.

 

It is also reasonable to assume that some aspects of the game are simply very difficult to revise ... example:  an entirely new effect or skill would likely require coding effort to sort out its direct effects and interactions with other events/effects/skills.  I don't know if that coding would be limited to the central server or would require added efforts to revise the client .exe code as well [although I suspect both since that's the efficient way to reduce the volume of Internet traffic].

 

It might be that either or both of these sets of code are covered in the licensing agreement and that our emulator team is prohibited from changing them.

 

And, the licensing agreement might even prohibit the emulator team from disclosing the contents of the licensing agreement -- I can see an attorney for EA insisting on that as a precautionary intellectual property protection measure.

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