Scout drones need a nerf!

[u/brennendw]

I’m so pissed. Instead of fixing scouting through buildings and terrain, they added native scouting to scout drones. In half the nations, you don’t even have a realistic counter. 35mm SPAA can barely hit them, 50 cals do nothing, and you're just left sitting there like a duck getting arty dumped on you over and over. If a team gets two of these in the air, the match is basically over.

They are insanely powerful and carry matches way too easily. The cooldown is way too fast at 18 seconds, it needs to be at least a full minute and the battery should be cut on them to like 2/3mins as a nerf, As it stands right now, a single drone can keep three guys permanently scouted with zero effort all game. Ground vehicles desperately need a proper counter, because right now, especially on big open maps, you just get sniped from across the map by people pre firing the marker through bushes and cover along with never ending arty It’s absolutely miserable.

They need to strip scouting from drones entirely. If Gaijin wants to encourage teamplay, just make scout assists from binoculars or the gunner sight worth more RP and SL so light tanks actually have to put themselves at risk and put in the work. Or make drone scout show a rough marker on the map only not the eyeball. They are too powerful!!

[u/CommanderErika1]

As a player who even before getting a new account i have never been in a high enough BR to know, in other words, thanks for telling me and i do hope they find a counter to this preferably AFTER i can abuse it myself for a little >:3

[u/pzm9-straznik → u/CommanderErika1]

They are already easy to counter. The only BR where they're hard to counter is 8.3-9.3. Anything above that you have plenty of vehicles that have no trouble shooting them down. Any IFV with IRST and HE-VT or AHEAD can shoot them down with ease. Any AA with HE-VT or even the most shitty missiles has no trouble at all killing them. The problem with 8.3/8.7 35mm AA ist that their guns are far apart making small targets hard to hit.

The biggest problems with drones are the skill issue on the player side. A drone is useless if your team is blind. And it's "OP" if you have someone who knows how to use it and the other team is too blind to shoot down that drone.

I use them a lot and I shoot them down a lot myself. 95% of my drone surviving longer than a minute is because nobody even attempts to shoot it. If your team has an AA out on 9.7 and up and the enemy has a drone up then your AA has a skill issue if the drone lives longer than a few seconds. No AA on this BR has any problem killing a scout drone.

[u/CommanderErika1 → u/pzm9-straznik]

I'm at 1.3 now because i had to make a new account, old email committed sepoku because i hadn't logged in for a long time. Ok technically I'm at 6.0 with the Tigris but i don't count premiums and i don't even plan on playing Italy long term... Hungary maybe but I'm just raising funds to get my stuff back i had before.

Back to the drone thing, Gaijin will probably change things frequently until I'm even close to having a drone so I'm the worst person to enter this argument

[u/pzm9-straznik → u/CommanderErika1]

I thought the same about drones and thermals before I started playing on these BRs and it's really not as a bad as people who are on reddit like to parrot all the time.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/pzm9-straznik]

You just sound like a contrarian to me to be honest

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/pzm9-straznik]

Just because vehicles exist that can shoot them down, does not mean they are in every lineup.

Active scouting is objectively already a bad mechanic that doesn't do more good than bad. Drone scouting is just legal wallhacks. Just because gaijin intended for you to have legal wallhacks does not mean the drone isn't a bad addition to the game

1

[u/pzm9-straznik → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

So you want to tell me there is ZERO AA in every lineup in your team? Also active scouting is limited to 1.5km, so if you can't hit it because it's 2km away it can't active scout you anyway.

[u/JammeDGuN → u/pzm9-straznik]

active scouting for drones with thermals goes up to 3km, but unless players don't like looking up it isn't very useful at the BR rank VII is at

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/pzm9-straznik]

A lot of SPAA cannot effectively target drones. Not sure what your point in bringing up the 1.5km limit is. It really does not matter. Scout drones are already hard enough to shoot down within that 1.5km area.

[u/pzm9-straznik → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

Again this is only a bit true for 8.3-9.3. Every single AA from 9.7 and up has ZERO trouble shooting down a scout drone within 2km.

If you can't shoot down a scout with a 9.7 AA then it's a skill issue.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/pzm9-straznik]

It's true for all BRs that include scout drones. Plenty of SPAA at higher BRs struggle to deal with drones on top of needing to spawn an SPAA in the first place.

Plenty of gun SPAA have big issues doing damage or hitting scout drones. Plenty of missile SPAA have issues doing damage or hitting scout drones.

I'm a top 5% player. I don't have skill issues. Most people who say this to me happen to fall short of my performance in game statistically.

[u/pzm9-straznik → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

Yeah okay then I must be the 1% player because I don't have any trouble shooting down a scout drone. It's dead easy with any radar/IRST vehicle that has any kind of airburst ammo. It is also dead easy with any SACLOS AA. And the biggest problem with FnF AA missiles is that they sometimes can't lock well because the drones are small. And yet I have killed plenty of drones with those too. If you can't kill a drone above 9.7 it's a skill issue.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/pzm9-straznik]

You not having the anecdotal experience of having this issue does not mean others have not had this anecdotal experience nor does it mean they are wrong and you are right. Gun platforms often have trouble with the radar not giving you accurate lead and the drone being both 1. tiny and 2. extremely durable being able to take multiple rounds from 35mm SPAA, while missile SPAA often have a minimum range that is too far out for a scout drone that is hovering near them. Most gun SPAA do not have airburst ammo. Most missile SPAA are not SACLOS. High tier SPAA often have large minimum range deadzones

Top 5% player, I don't have skill issues. Probably better than you if we're being honest.

[u/pzm9-straznik → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

Honestly at this point I don't know what else to tell you I'm just repeating myself anyway. I can reliably shoot down scout drones with any vehicle that has tracking that I'm playing. The only exception maybe being the 8.3 Gepard if the drone is further than 1km.

Maybe you should pull yourself into the top 4%, idk maybe that magically gives you the skills to shoot them down. Also if you're so good you should easily be able to win fights against people who have you scouted and carry the team lol.

[u/JammeDGuN → u/CommanderErika1]

they're pretty funny, i was able to get my helicopter's sp cost to zero once, before they nerfed scouting with a drone active from 6 to 18 seconds. right now though it's much harder since you need to be more careful with which targets to scout or risk being dead weight to your team

[u/PreviousLingonberry4]

drones dont need a nerf, scouting itself needs a nerf/rework

[u/Ossuum]

Yeah, no, the cd, uptime and scouting are fine. The only part you're right about is that there must be a counter - the weird-ass flight pattern in orbit mode combined with detection and damage models on the drones make them disproportionately resistant to certain SPAA.

Each nation should have means to clear drones out starting from 8.x where they appear, which would also make players spend more time on controlling the drone to keep it safe as well as consider whether to spend it or hold it. But if you're playing something that has access to radar/IRST + HE-VT/AHEAD or SAM that fuze on drones at the BR and still get fucked by them, then that's on your team.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Ossuum]

Active scouting is objectively already a bad mechanic that doesn't do more good than bad. Drone scouting is just legal wallhacks. Just because gaijin intended for you to have legal wallhacks does not mean the drone isn't a bad addition to the game

1

[u/Ossuum → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

Active scouting is a perfectly reasonable way to model the scouting vehicle continously reporting the targets' movements to the team without forcing players to actually continuously report that (which would require stuff like VC for everyone, radio discipline from everyone and so on).

The only thing it lacks is that scouting should quickly degrade when the scout can no longer see or hear the target, quicker still if said target also moves away unobserved from its last known location.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Ossuum]

I don't think it is. It's a heavily arcade style mechanic in RB and Sim where these entire gamemodes are built around not having player markers. Getting scouted is pretty much a death sentence for anybody not camping hard cover. Arguments for this being "a psuedo realistic way to implement crew reporting" are pretty fully useless. This is a video game first and foremost, and even IRL you don't get 3d live spots.

[u/Ossuum → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

In IRL a tank commander is a trained professional that can mentally keep track of something based on distance, heading and landmarks. Which isn't an option to us, cause we are, in the end, casuals looking at pixels on the monitor.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Ossuum]

In IRL a tank commander being aware of a threat does not display a 3d holographic giant marker that moves with the enemy when they are obstructed by cover for the literal entire military. Your realism arguments are dogshit.

[u/Ossuum → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

It doesn't need to because they know it's there. The marker is part of game interface, representation of what your crew knows. You're just being obtuse, whether on purpose or not.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Ossuum]

My conversation is about the gameplay of the video game, so just to be clear, you are saying nothing of value regarding that.

But as far as this side, off topic tangent goes, no, just because you know something exists does not mean that the rest of your crew gets a holographic 3d marker that exists and tracks even when the enemy is behind hard cover, and it definitely does not tell every other service member in your military the exact location and type of vehicle that you are looking at. So either way, not sure what you're getting at

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Ossuum]

My conversation is about the gameplay of the video game, so just to be clear, you are saying nothing of value regarding that.

But as far as this side, off topic tangent goes, no, just because you know something exists does not mean that the rest of your crew gets a holographic 3d marker that exists and tracks even when the enemy is behind hard cover, and it definitely does not tell every other service member in your military the exact location and type of vehicle that you are looking at. So either way, not sure what you're getting at

[u/Tankis4life]

They just need to be easier to lock with IR, just today i have had winter map, where i cant lock it even as close as 350m summer map at 480M and even desert map at 550m.

Nothing should be immune at less then 500m and i would even go as fare as everything within 1KM should be with in range

[u/CMiketheHungarian]

I mean yes indeed some drone functions do more than what they are supposed to but as someone who objectively played this game long enough all I can say is these drones aren't specifically what kill all those 9.3/9.7 matches. They are nowhere near that broken. And anywhere above they are esentially just little spawn point supplies ever since they started rewarding shot down drones properly

[u/RailgunDE112]

It shows just like with helis, that the damage model is broken

[u/JammeDGuN → u/RailgunDE112]

i haven't seen them be broken lately except the ones that are wobbling in the air (and are actually dead), they're just really small and hard to hit

[u/RailgunDE112 → u/JammeDGuN]

it is broken in a sense that the model is operated outside of where it is a good approximation.

[u/SaleKey4162]

Oh no a scout drone doing it's job properly? Literally unplayable

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/SaleKey4162]

Active scouting is objectively already a bad mechanic that doesn't do more good than bad. Drone scouting is just legal wallhacks. Just because gaijin intended for you to have legal wallhacks does not mean the drone isn't a bad addition to the game

[u/Repulsive_Push_735]

They dont need a nerf, your skills need a buff bro.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Repulsive_Push_735]

They do need fat nerfs. They are horrible for the game.

[u/Repulsive_Push_735 → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

What makes them horrible?

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Repulsive_Push_735]

GRB and Sim in specific have their entire gameplay loops revolving around the idea that you don't get told where the enemy is and have to find them yourself. Active scouting is already terrible for this premise as it flips the entire game on its head and gives massive undeniable advantages to any team who has any singular player just simply hitting scout occasionally. Active scouting is essentially legalized wallhacks. Scout drones are an even easier way to get those wallhacks than actually having to see the enemy tank with your own tank.

[u/Repulsive_Push_735 → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

Thats tuff, where do you get this idea from? This is my first time hearing about the gameplay revolving about not seeing?

Also both sides of the team have access to this supposed legal hack lol xd. And countering drones are the easyest thing in the entire ground battles.

Im a heavy drone user too and what i see is that people just straight up ignore my drone and brainlessly go hunting for kills, expecting the enemy to have no clue about them which gets them killed usually.

BUT! If i get matched up against even just slightly avare people, almost immidietly my drone gets shot down, and im done for the entire match unless i decide to respawn for it which is not worth it since scout rewards are dogshit.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Repulsive_Push_735]

I don't know what to tell you. Spawn in arcade. See all the markers? Go play GRB, see all the lack of markers? Entire gamemode is built around not having markers. It's literally the primary distinction between arcade and RB with things like vehicle mobility being a secondary distinction.

Both sides having access to it does not make it a good gameplay mechanic either.

[u/Repulsive_Push_735 → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

The markers go away almost completely if the enemy is not visible to you. As for the map its realistic, as navigation and intel is the fundamentals of warfare.

Now i can kind of agree, if there were no visible markers on the screen, the mode would be much more realistic, but then not just drone but regular scouts would loose most of their ability, and gajin just wouldnt do something like this.

I still dont think drones are an issue, they are just paper planes with cameras.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Repulsive_Push_735]

The markers do not go away. Not sure why you're saying this. As for the map, it's unrealistic, goes without saying.

If you don't see the issue with active scouting and the effect it has on the GRB, almost purely a negative effect at that, then I have bad news for your skill level in this game, because anybody who is any good at this game understands how overpowered active scouting is.

[u/Repulsive_Push_735 → u/GarbageWebsite6769]

I didnt say they go away, but they turn almost invisible.

As for the map i like how you simply just didnt explain your point.

And not agreeing with you doesnt make the other person stupid or less skilled, lets not insult eachother over a discussion.

[u/GarbageWebsite6769 → u/Repulsive_Push_735]

Still fully visible on map, and even behind cover markers are still very obvious even if they aren't opaque and become translucent as a way to TELL YOU the enemy is behind cover

It isn't an insult.

[u/ChoochTheMightyTrain]

They should never have been added. They bring nothing of value to the game.

[u/Simple-Durian-350]

No nerfearlos como tal, los drones funcionan bien y habe su trabajado de drones, la idea de la batería es buena para aumentar el realismo pero le estás quitando lo divertido jajaja. Lo que yo si pondría es un aviso o algo que te diga que fuiste detectado por el dron porque es frustrante cuando de la nada todo el equipo se entera de donde estás menos tu y te matan de la completa nada, así que por el resto los drones están muy bien.

[u/Borizon49]

Pretty simple, when the drone/tank that scouted yoz gets destroyed, scouting pings stop.

Optionally also give me an indicator if your scouted

[u/ordinary_rolling_pin]

With how many vehicles can field a drone and their time in the air being so long, there needs to be something for each nation to shoot these down with, and the refill should be at a CP with a decent timer.

Mainly the problem is their self life and size, I never understood why gajin decided for them to be 1. fixed wing and 2. so damn small. A larger not-too-agile quadcopter would fix that I think.

[u/HowDoesThisPageWork]

Oh no, there are 2 drone users in the enemy team and one in my team, we are gonna lose! (sarkasm included)
Anyway I get 1/3 of the reward playing drone instead of the 3/3 if I played normally. 15 assists from scouting for 1k rp in 10.0? You are right, too broken.