Scout spam -- Is it time to NERF scouts against LRMs? It's getting ridiculous.

I agree completely and have been fairly vocal about it.  Vasari have it particularly rough in this setting considering their scouts and LF suck comparatively combat wise.  A scout nerf against LRF particularly the advent scout would do nicely.  Building labs when your enemy is doing this is a liability because you will be behind spam wise.

[_]-Greyfox

i think a better plan is to weaken scouts significantly, in both weapons and armour. Probably about the same or less than the vasari scout, that way they wont have the same effect.

But at this point i have to agree. Advent scouts and lfs are rushed by almost all good players, and there is no real counter to it. And advnet scouts are far too powerful compared to the others.

_|~Uber

this is so silly... we whine... they buff... and now we whine the exact opposite way...

you want to know what counters scout/lf spam? try turrets. ya... seriously... they do anti-medium damage... and scouts and lfs suck against them.

maybe not the answer you were looking for? try carriers filled with fighters and lrms... make sure you start with your fleet on the wrong side of the grav well.... have your fighters take out the scouts... and when their fleet reaches yours, jump your carriers awway one at a time (whichever one is be focused)... have a repair bay in that back grav well... of course. If your winning, great. if your not... run away... hopefully by that time you had built something evil in your back grav well... like a phase jump inhibitor... and maybe a 1/2 built starbase.

if he doesnt follow... great. you sucessfully defended... if he does (cause he is chasing your captial ship or something) seriously... he killed none of your stuff.. you killed at least some of his stuff... seriously... either you have him beat... or you were allready screwed cause he started with a 3 rock neutral next to his homeworld and you started with a magnetic storm... or some other map way to get mapfracked.

Make turrets a bit cheaper and weaken the Disciple Vessel. The main problem is that the Advent Scout/LF spam is too strong. Their Scouts are the cheapest and strongest, and their LFs are the cheapest and strongest. Countering a TEC Scout/LF spam is a lot easier with LF/LRF because the TEC Scout is very frail, but Advent Scouts just won't die. So either weaken the Advent scout or LF, and this hopefully shouldn't be as huge of a problem.

We just need to reduce the amount of damage they do to LRMs and perhaps make them as susceptible to damage from LRMs as they are from light frigates.  I think it would be bad to reduce their shields and armor because that would interfere with their ability to fulfill their role as scouts--to quickly travel through hostile gravity wells, obtain information, and survive in order to move on to the next gravity well.

I've seen fleets full of TEC scouts too; it's not just a problem with Advent.

The problem is that turrets don't move across phase lanes and it can take a while to build them and when the scout attacks come, it's often at a gravity well that you have just colonized.

Carriers are expensive in the early game and since you spent a lot of money building military labs and researching carriers, your opponent now has a fleet of 60 scouts and disciples for your three or four carriers.  The light frigates will eat the carriers.  LRMs will be consumed by the scout swarm.

You're going to need a lot of carriers for this.

You've just lost ground and given up that gravity well.  Vasari can counter it with starbases, I agree, but those are expensive and you could end up being holed up at your home terran with your starbase and carriers while the other guy happily takes the surrounding real estate.

You haven't successfully defended; you just lost that gravity well that you ran away from.

I know you guys don't agree with this, but the fact is in very early games, scouts+lf is a cheap fleet, but rather ineffective. 

The simple counter is if his fleet is around half and half (so 2 seekers per disciple), a light frig fleet will crush that. If it's leaning heavily towards seekers (say 3 seekers per disciple), light frig fleet mixed with carrier fleet will win. Or perhaps a fleet with a second cap that's out early (carrier cap would be best for fighters). If he's leaning the other way (say 1 seeker per disciple, that's the point where lrf counter works.

I realize this is a bugger to counter early because of how big the fleets can get so fast, but try a starbase or a couple caps on it. Targets that can absorb alot of damage will annihilate this spam.

The weakness of LF/Scouts is that neither target is really all that effective against medium armor, very heavy armor (ok, turrets /hc's aren't a great option, i get that), capital armor, and module armor. A starbase, a semi-cap spam (by that i mean two or three caps out early, seriously, carrier caps rape scouts), and light frigs all work well against this tactic

To nerf the amount taht scouts do to lrms, that would require nerfing the bonus that anti-light gets against light armor, which will directly affect fighters. You could buff the damage fighters do to compensate for the damage fighters do against light armor, but then this opens up having to balance the stronger fighters (lower anti-light multipliers against all other armors).

I wouldn't count on option 2. That could potentially harm vasari players with their neutal hunting.

You also can't nerf their health/shields, because then they will die too quickly to pirates as they're scouting.

The most realistic option is to lower the dps of the scout, but then the very early game lrf spam doesn't really have an adequate counter (mix in flak and the fighters go bye bye).

The pure scout spam is easily counterable. A starbase or a light frig spam screws the very early scout rush. Fighters are the best counter to scouts, but they come out in the early-mid stage of the game, so it's really hard to get them out in decent numbers early. The pure scout spam is laughable. Just don't build long range frigs. It's that simple.

End of the day I feel the current balance is fine. The light frig/scout tactic is the new trend because people find it to be the most successful, and it makes sense. People aren't used to using multiple caps/light frigs because of stigmas with their old status, but I swear to you the light frig/scout spam is counterable if you see it coming.

Personally I think the balance of scouts should fall around where the TEC scout is. I think the seeker is too tough, but that the Vasari scout is pathetically weak.

This doesn't strike me as something the devs would see as a problem. I now for a fact Blair has stated that he sees that scouts have an easy counter. I would like to add in that light frig/scout is a balanced early game fleet. It makes sense that you'd have to be clever to fight it off.

Whatever happens with balancing this I will accept. I don't see the current strategy of scouts as a problem because they have a counter like everything else in the game. If the devs change this, I'm sure it will have been for the best, but I really have a hard time seeing this as a game breaker.

I'm not seeing how a tier 0 rush is bad for the game.  It is, and should be, viable in most RTS' to spam a lot of early units and attack.  Early on you will have no choice but to make basic units yourself, but later on you have more options and the tier 0 units become obsolete in combat.  LRM spam was bad for the game because there was no counter higher up in the tech tree.  Illums + a few flak beat everything except more Illums.

The root of this problem is Visari tier 0 units need a damage buff to compete.  Other than that, I'm not seeing how the early game being dominated by basic units is bad.

I think the Advent scout is a problem, but the TEC scout is fine.

I do agree that turrets are too expensive for their current.  If they were reasonably cheap then we'd have the ability to hole up and fend off a scout swarm.  I've done it before as TEC (range upgrade makes them more dangerous), but it really burns a hole in your pocket.

*facepalm*

Deja Vu....just replace scouts with LRF.

What I find funny about this whole thread is that we have finally found something that can disrupt the LRF/Illum spamming issue that cannot repeat cannot really overpower the big guys (caps/starbases) amd now we say lets nerf them.

I say NO! to this issue (well maybe a slight knock on the Advent scout).

Scouts beat LRFs, LRFs beat Caps, Caps beat Scouts

Rock, Paper, Scissors

The other day I saw Howthe? Crush (and when I say crush, I mean it was a friggin massacre) 2 players who scout spammed. Howdidhedothat? Flak. Nothing else, just flak. He killed guy next to him who scout spammed seekers. Then he hopscotched over his ally who was dealing with a guy with 80+ TEC scouts, and killed him too. Nothing fancy just flak. THose flak even took half a missile barrage to the face, and STILL killed the guy. That kind of absolute domination over that particular strategy makes me think its not such a problem if you know what to do. So, figure out what to do?

agreed.  There's not an issue here.  Just a trend that won't go away.

You do realize the change last patch that made scouts so powerful was the buff to light frigates, which in sufficient quantity will counter flaks.  Massing scouts is just plain stupid if your enemy is not making LRF.  I usually bring along some precautionary scouts near the start of the game just in case, but if I don't see any LRF you can bet I won't keep making them.

Lol @ MP being, well, MP!  

/snarkmode

Diasagree with scout nerf.

Some thoughts:

I think some of these imbalances can be blamed on the player community.  Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't players ask for light frig/scout buffs?  And now that this has occurred, players are now asking for nerfs?  It is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" for the devs.

Also, I see no advantage or utility in going back to lrf/assailant/illum spam.  If I have to pick my preference, it's scouts.  I hated carrier spam the most, but I hate lrf spam second most.

You see the "game" we've been playing ever since the Sins came out, don't you?  It is a game of perpetual "buff this/nerf that!"  Hasn't it become apparent yet that the current approach to balancing the game will never work?  Hasn't it become apparent yet that the current approach to balancing the game is just BORING, because it's a perpetual loop?  I think it is time to approach all adjustments to the game more cautiously, deliberately, and scientifically.  If there is a balance issue, let us prove it scientifically, using test games between the best players (I have one thread on this now), and after the proof, let us suggest changes NOT ON THE FLY, OFF THE TOPS OF OUR HEADS (buff this/nerf that!), but only after a lot of deliberate discussion/debate, coupled with testing proposed changes on a MODDED game to see if such changes correct the problem (no doubt only to see a new problem rear its ugly head as an "unintended consequence").

There is a term used by those who study political science, foreign policy, etc.  It is called "unintended consequences."  You have to understand that with a game this complex with so many variables, adjusting one thing can have many other side effects and "unintended consequences" as we have seen time and time again.  We have to take a different approach, otherwise we will stay in the endless circle of "buff this/nerf that!".

This post should not be taken as a rant or bitch against any particular person, or anything anyone has said.  I'm really just putting a call to arms out there for the idea of a different approach (whatever it is) to balancing the game.  But until that happens, I prefer the current balance over going back to mindless lrf spams.

I agree wholeheartedly. Scouts are really weak and nerfing them will only make LRF spam come back. LFs are more then sufficient to crush scouts. Turrets and hangars should be cheaper imo. There will always people who spam so no matter how good the balance is, this will always exist. You can't stop people from doing what they want in a game. Its not as if pure scout spam or scout/LF spam is hard to deal with anyway. As RA said, go pure LFs. Just plain logic, really.

Karma we tried that.Prob is mp community wont accept a mod as the stantard.

The hillarious thing about this is, the minute you make them cheaper and people start using them more, people who play the game online will scream that all the defenses are slowing the game down too much.  I would bet everything I own on that.

I know the online types.  They max all the game speeds out, they play with the quick start option, and they will hate anything that they feel "bogs the game down" or slows it down in any capacity.  A lot of them hated the idea of starbases for this very reason.

No, I didn't mean we should make a modded game for the community to play on.  I meant we should test proposed changes on a modded game to see what effect the proposed changes would have.  The modded game would comprise the proposed balance changes.  The modded game would simply be a testing platform - nothing more.

Alternatively, I could code up a computer program to simulate this game's units fighting against each other.  To test a change in unit balance, all I'd have to do is change a few lines of code and then run the simulation, and report the results.  I think something like this is doable, and I certainly have the skills to do it.  But I wouldn't do it without another volunteer or so to help construct the mathematical models for shield mitigation, dps, blah blah.  I don't have that kind of time, and if there isn't much interest in doing this amongst the community out there, there would be no point anyway.

Whats the point then karma?The devs wont implement something just cause you say you tested it and its balanced and if you dont release it as a mod then there is no point.RA,Eadteas,and myself all tested balance and made changes and released our balanced versions of the game with little succes of it being accepted.

Not necessarily.  I believe if we showed genuine evidence of a design flaw and exactly how to fix it, they'd listen.  It's in their best interest afterall to keep their fan base happy.

It will just have to be an undisputable flaw AND how to fix it.

Well I never said the devs would do this or that, and I never said they should.  It just seems to me that a lot of people sit around discussing unit balance.  That's all the forums are packed with.  Well... I say put up or shut up.  Why sit around just blowing a lot of hot air?  If someone says "this needs buffing" or "that needs nerfing," what good does it do, unless someone is willing to prove it or back it up?

If you say it's already been done, I respect that.  Then, as you say, "what's the point?"  I agree, so I retract my proposal.  So all we are doing is wasting time, bandwidth, and blowing a lot of hot air.  I guess we all just like to talk to hear outselves talk?