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Scoundrel progression feels bad.

Okay, let me preface this post by saying this is mostly just my opinion. While there are some facts in terms of numbers (DPS while bashing, squishyness, etc), those can be tweaked fairly easily without any major overhauls.

Scoundrel progression feels bad. I'm not sure how many of you opted for the lesson packages, but playing a Scoundrel without them doesn't feel fun. Numbers aside, I don't feel any more effective at level 15 than I did at level 4. I have played a few of the other classes in the game, and I get a sense of clear progression from them. BEAST in particular feels great early game, even without a lesson package.

To start, the whole cover mechanic feels like a complete waste of time. I get the idea of a Han Solo character hiding around corners and blasting bad guys. But mechanically it just doesn't work in game. The website says "When you're behind cover, you get partially protected from ranged attacks, and completely protected from melee attacks until someone just jumps behind the cover you're behind and punches you in the face." Why didn't you go with that version for the actual mechanics? Why do things get bonus melee damage against me instead? 

Reloading sucks. I know Scoundrels get some cool reloading abilities eventually, but the mechanic feels detrimental until you get those cool abilities. There's nothing more terrible than ending a fight with one or two bullets left and not being able to reload outside of combat. Why is this a thing at all? Surely a Scoundrel should be able to reload their gun whenever they want to outside of combat. Mag is particularly bad. It hits for about 1/3 as much damage as a Crackshot, and doesn't really do anything else. Sure, it's a mild damage upgrade over Quickload, but it's so minor it feels insulting. Not to mention it's immediately made obsolete with Fling fairly early on in the IED tree.

This also brings up the issue of ability bloat and obsolescence. As I level up Gunslinging, I'm awarded with minor upgrades that make previous abilities completely pointless to use. Why is Regular a skill? It does nothing but turn off skills you get deeper into the tree. Why couldn't its functionality be baked into said other skills as an on/off toggle? Same issue with Ammoselect. Why do Scoundrels need two essentially useless skills lodged into their primary offensive tree which can just as easily be toggled into ammo skills baseline? The BEAST skill Nozzle is a good example of how to do this the right way.

It leaves me feeling like I'm not rewarded at all until I get super deep into each tree. Impairing ammo seems relatively worthless in both PvE and PvP as the afflictions it inflicts aren't very good. It doesn't seem to open up any instant kill mechanics that I'm aware of, and is rendered useless by more potent affliction ammo deeper into the tree. I was super exited to finally get Rapidfire, but in practice it's not as great as it seems on paper. The second hit of Rapidfire always hits for considerably less damage. At almost twice the balance cost, it probably just breaks even damage wise compared to spamming Crackshot. It's probably more useful when better reload skills are factored in, and it's certainly better for afflictions in PvP, but it's not much of a boost for bashing when compared to Nozzle. Also I've noticed my weapon durability being completely thrashed when using Rapidfire in my bashing sessions, could be a coincidence but I feel like it's bugged.

In the end, I hope that the design choices for Scoundrel aren't final. I'm sure the class plays fine with more lessons, I just wish it wasn't such a slog to get there in direct comparison to other classes.

Comments

  • Try Nanoseer.
  • I'm Nanoseer now but was Scoundrel for a bit. Pretty sure you can Quickload out of combat. And Fling is only 60 into Improvisation iirc. Once I had Rapidfire I tore through shit.
    I'm gone.
  • Everything is likely to need altering. It's open beta, not final release!
  • As a level 71 Scoundrel, most of these comments are not really accurate; there are a number of abilities that have altered my attack progression over time and I do feel much stronger now.

    I do wish the damage reduction on bullet types from the recent adjustment was reverted and combusting ammo was just given muscular damage as an addition to its standard damage to make it worthwhile.  Regular ammo is still a bit of an enigma given it probably should not be the strongest or it wouldn't give you a reason to progress down the tree.
  • Yeah, I am a level 20 Scoundrel and have only bought 20 credits that I converted into lessons. I just got repidfire and to me it feels like I do a lot more with it. I do think that maybe impairment ammo shouldn't do less damage, however I do think that combusting ammo really should do a tad more damage then regular ammo and maybe add a little bit of muscular damage to it. I only have up to rapidfire in gunslinging, kneecap in Guile and fling in improvisation. That's a total of 561 lessons in class skills and I only put 5 in Skirmishing and 5 in Exploration. So I only spent a total of 571 lessons into my skills and only bought 120 lessons. I might not be good in a PvP instance, but PvE has greatly improved for me as I leveled up.
    (Scatterhome): Cal says, "We're called Scatterhome after what everybody does at the end of the night when it's time for someone to pay the bar tab."
    (Scatterhome): You say, "Which by my calculations, it's your turn to pay."
    (Scatterhome): Brantar says, "That's what my calculations have come to."
    (Scatterhome): Paavo says, "My math adds up to that, yeah."
    (Scatterhome): Cal says, "Bastards."
  • saturnine said:
    I'm Nanoseer now but was Scoundrel for a bit. Pretty sure you can Quickload out of combat. And Fling is only 60 into Improvisation iirc. Once I had Rapidfire I tore through shit.
    You can't Quickload while you still have bullets in your gun. My point was that ending a fight with one bullet left felt pretty "meh" given that there's no way to get them back outside of combat.

    I talked about both Fling and Rapidfire. Fling is great, it just made Mag completely redundant to the point where I wish Scoundrels had something else in Mag's place. Rapidfire also feels great, but I think it tore through my weapon durability faster than should be happening.

    Fling and Rapidfire are the BEST parts of Scoundrel progression, my issue wasn't with them. It was with everything else.
  • Once you get Ambush you'll love ending a fight with one bullet. At least I did when I was Scoundrel. The burst from that followed by Fling>Rapidfire is sexy.
    I'm gone.
  • Endler said:
    Mag is particularly bad. It hits for about 1/3 as much damage as a Crackshot, and doesn't really do anything else. Sure, it's a mild damage upgrade over Quickload
    The quoted makes me think you don't really know how damage works. It isn't a "mild damage upgrade", it's an immense damage upgrade, solely because quickload does no damage. So anything more than 0 is awesome. On the rest of your points, it's understandable that there are some skills that are made obsolete, but on the other hand would you really want to juggle 28 gunslinging, 25 guile, and 26 improvisation abilities once you're tri-trans? That's 79 separate abilities, if they were all useful, that you'd have to remember at any given time. Instead you upgrade some as you progress through lessons, and in the end have a lot less to remember. 
    Eukelade gives you a peck on the cheek.
  • edited December 2018
    There are quite a few that need review, like the ones that are repeated in exploration or skirmishing.  The go to skills for leveling are

    • Stim
    • Eject
    • Ambush
    • Rapid Fire
    • Crackshot
    • Fling (Ripper + Shrapnel)
    • Kneecap
    • Airstrike
    • And to a much lesser extent: Unload. (Easily interrupted).

    Typical rotation is to lead with ambush if I can, rapidfire if I can't. I'll use fling whenever I can and eject on cooldown, but only if a mob is > 40% HP. Similarly I won't rapid fire if the mob has < 15% HP and instead use crackshot. Kneecap gets used when the mob will die from it instead of a ripper fling (some 5-10% HP).

    It depends on how much damage you're doing with rippers, but the preferred ammo is either weakening or combusting.
    I prefer having an empty magazine because ripper + shrapnel in one balance does more than rapidfire in many cases, and you get a reload out of it, as such I'd rather have the opposite of you, the ability to empty the magazine after a fight instead of reload it.

    What I would like to see addressed are these:
    • Cover being relevant in PVE or vs Melee - Give mobs ability to give encroachment so you have to pop back in, and give a defense bonus while you have cover.
    • Haymaker - Raise the damage or have it do substantial subsystem damage and put it on a cooldown. Would encourage getting good knuckles, too
    • Dash - Right now you can just... move, in less than the 3s balance. Make it so you can dash out of combat but it still has the balance cost, or remove the balance cost and keep it as is.
    • Regular - Get rid of this and replace it with combusting
    • Overwatch - This is a duplicate skill in skirmishing, make it so if you're a scoundrel automatically start a balanceless unload, or gives you a free rapid fire.
    • Conceal - Be allowed to move while hidden. Everyone has access to Hide. Not like phase or blackwind mind you, just hidden movement. Make it so moving while in combat reveals you. (Hidden movement in combat would be bad) and have guards see through it.
    • Spin - Increase the cooldown reduction (make next shot take no balance) this ability greatly pales in comparison to fling.
    • Magtoss - Increase damage significantly or have it do something different (Have it reload but with less ammo? 4 bullets?)
    • Quickload - Decrease balance to 0s, make it so you can reload at will.  Having a full mag only benefits unload. (Arguably outgunned, but you can gritblast for group).
    • Jogging - Make it so you get winded if you get hit, but you don't lose the jogging defense

    Other than that just having the bugs fixed would be great. Like when you fling an IED with wiring but it hits you on the subsequent hits if they leave, things like that.  I realize that will come with time.

    Add your feedback specifically if you have some ideas, I think the more information we put out there as players the better the class will be with time!


    -- Message #21 from Tecton --
    21000 IEDs? This is my sad lha-ti face. :(.


  • Perfect said:
    There are quite a few that need review, like the ones that are repeated in exploration or skirmishing.  The go to skills for leveling are

    • Stim
    • Eject
    • Ambush
    • Rapid Fire
    • Crackshot
    • Fling (Ripper + Shrapnel)
    • Kneecap
    • Airstrike
    • And to a much lesser extent: Unload. (Easily interrupted).

    Yeah, I'm sure there's some good stuff deeper in the skill trees. My issue was that progression feels bad from 1-20 or so, since that's the soonest you can get both Rapidfire and Fling without buying packages. I probably should have mentioned "low level progression" in the thread title. I'm sure 20+ progression is pretty great in comparison.

    Perfect said:
    What I would like to see addressed are these:
    • Cover being relevant in PVE or vs Melee - Give mobs ability to give encroachment so you have to pop back in, and give a defense bonus while you have cover.
    • Haymaker - Raise the damage or have it do substantial subsystem damage and put it on a cooldown. Would encourage getting good knuckles, too
    • Dash - Right now you can just... move, in less than the 3s balance. Make it so you can dash out of combat but it still has the balance cost, or remove the balance cost and keep it as is.
    • Regular - Get rid of this and replace it with combusting
    • Overwatch - This is a duplicate skill in skirmishing, make it so if you're a scoundrel automatically start a balanceless unload, or gives you a free rapid fire.
    • Conceal - Be allowed to move while hidden. Everyone has access to Hide. Not like phase or blackwind mind you, just hidden movement. Make it so moving while in combat reveals you. (Hidden movement in combat would be bad) and have guards see through it.
    • Spin - Increase the cooldown reduction (make next shot take no balance) this ability greatly pales in comparison to fling.
    • Magtoss - Increase damage significantly or have it do something different (Have it reload but with less ammo? 4 bullets?)
    • Quickload - Decrease balance to 0s, make it so you can reload at will.  Having a full mag only benefits unload. (Arguably outgunned, but you can gritblast for group).
    • Jogging - Make it so you get winded if you get hit, but you don't lose the jogging defense

    Other than that just having the bugs fixed would be great. Like when you fling an IED with wiring but it hits you on the subsequent hits if they leave, things like that.  I realize that will come with time.

    Add your feedback specifically if you have some ideas, I think the more information we put out there as players the better the class will be with time!

    Some good ideas here. I agree with basically everything.

    Replacing Regular with Combusting would help with low level progression, and a small damage buff would go a long way. Just give Combusting and all the other ammo types an <off> syntax in case you ever want to switch back to regular bullets for some reason.  Also I'd like to reiterate that I think Ammoselect should be replaced with something cool, and just have it be a baseline for the status ammo skills.

    Magtoss with a lot more damage could be a nice no-status alternative to Fling.

    Quickload being instant and usable any time in combat is probably too good. I'd settle for just being able to reload whenever I wanted for 2 seconds of balance.

    I don't really have any of the other skills mentioned yet, so I'll leave those for others to comment on.
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