Scavenge (on PS3)

(AmishWarMachine) #1

I’ve been levelling up a heavy soldier lately, my first real go at the class, and scavenge has left me scratching my head lately. I post this, as I am wondering if anyone else is as well, or if it’s just me.

  1. Scavenge “targetting” seems really finicky. When I walk up to a body in an attempt to scavenge from it, lately it’s seemed like I have to hunt for the “sweet spot” to successfully scavenge. When I walk up to a body, the body will highlight with the white interact silhouette, but I have to spin around the body usually because the [ ] prompt doesn’t make itself immediately available. I end up wasting precious seconds dancing with the dead, it gets frustrating.

Is anyone else having this problem, or is it just me? I know lag can cause issues like this, but I’m on cable getting 11mbps/8mbps…

  1. Scavenge timer, the time it takes to complete a scavenge… can this be reduced? I totally get that SD wants scavenge to be a conscious effort by the player, and not a passive action (i.e. just passing over the body ala CoD), but at 1.5-2 seconds (or whatever the exact value is) it just seems extreme. In certain situations, it’s not worth it, because for that length of time, my ass is hanging in the breeze.

I will say, that it’s certainly conceivable my frustrations with the scavenge targetting and the scavenge “timer” (forgive me for using the wrong nomenclature) are not mutually exclusive. The combination of the two, for me, for whatever reason, means I typically have to spend between 5-7 seconds per scavenge between the targetting and timer.

A LOT can happen in 5-7 seconds (i.e. an empty room of bodies filling up with a half dozen of the enemy team, bent on revenge).

Any insight, players, SD, or otherwise, would be appreciated.

(nephandys) #2

As far as the technical difficulties of selecting a corpse, these are similar problems to those encountered by medics (reviving) and ops (comms hack and disguise). These are problems many people (most?) encounter and that I think should be fixed as much and as soon as possible.

On the other hand while I think it would be nice to have the scavenge timer be a bit faster I like that many times the decision to scavenge feels like a tactical one. Like do I take the time to scavenge and have more supplies while losing any situational awareness or do I hunker down and wait for regen?

Tactical decisions are one’s I like to make, however technical issues interfering at the time of my decision reduce my effectiveness as well as that of my decision.

(wolfnemesis75) #3

Scavenge is great for a heavy to hunker down, like defending a place like terminal. It must be used tactically. Only problem I’ve encountered is if I try to Scavenge from a body that’s ready to disappear. I like the idea of scavenge because it brings me back to my D&D roots. Pillage (Scavenge) the body!

(AmishWarMachine) #4

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;348321]Scavenge is great for a heavy to hunker down, like defending a place like terminal. It must be used tactically.[/QUOTE]Totally get this, and agree with it, I do. With staying on the move being so important, and time so precious, I like that in order to gain an advantage (extra pip) you have to choose to expose yourself while you complete the scavenge. Risk vs. Reward.

I just wonder if the Risk-Reward is balanced. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not demanding some drastic change, just trying to open a dialog as to whether the scavenge timer could be decreased by a modicum amount without imbalancing it.

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;348321]Only problem I’ve encountered is if I try to Scavenge from a body that’s ready to disappear.[/QUOTE]I have the targetting problem with bodies that I just curb-stomped. I can’t seem to find any consistent way to approach bodies for the scavenge indicator to pop up. It’s very frustrating, again, because staying on the move is so important.

Of course, targetting in general is kinda borked, I can’t count the number of times I’ve targetted one thing/player to interact with, only to interact with something/one behind me. (Example: Looking right at a teammate to heal them, getting the [ ] indicator TO heal them, and instead interacting with the CP behind me.

And I have a really hard time believing it’s lag-based, considering I’m playing on cable.

/shrug

(wolfnemesis75) #5

[QUOTE=AmishWarMachine;348338]Totally get this, and agree with it, I do. With staying on the move being so important, and time so precious, I like that in order to gain an advantage (extra pip) you have to choose to expose yourself while you complete the scavenge. Risk vs. Reward.

I just wonder if the Risk-Reward is balanced. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not demanding some drastic change, just trying to open a dialog as to whether the scavenge timer could be decreased by a modicum amount without imbalancing it.

I have the targetting problem with bodies that I just curb-stomped. I can’t seem to find any consistent way to approach bodies for the scavenge indicator to pop up. It’s very frustrating, again, because staying on the move is so important.

Of course, targetting in general is kinda borked, I can’t count the number of times I’ve targetted one thing/player to interact with, only to interact with something/one behind me. (Example: Looking right at a teammate to heal them, getting the [ ] indicator TO heal them, and instead interacting with the CP behind me.

And I have a really hard time believing it’s lag-based, considering I’m playing on cable.

/shrug[/QUOTE]

I want to say targeting for the Scavenge is awkward, in that you have to look down and wait for the symbol to pop up. The X wheel. Similar to making sure you are facing the sweet spot like on the HE plant. If you look at the wrong angle or rush to do it, it makes it take longer. This is a case of, slowing yourself down and squaring your viewpoint over the target to be Scavenged. The risk is high to get shot when going for Scavenge, so there is a tendency to rush it. I will crouch down before I try to scavenge the body. This is one of those areas you get penalized if you are in a hurry, rushing to do it.

(nephandys) #6

[QUOTE=AmishWarMachine;348338]I have a really hard time believing it’s lag-based, considering I’m playing on cable.

/shrug[/QUOTE]
Yeah I don’t think that’s lag as pretty much everyone says they’re encountering these targeting problems in particular.

(AmishWarMachine) #7

What’s weird about this, is that I don’t have a fraction of the problems targetting when I’m trying to revive, comms hack, or disguise. It’s just with scavenging, for me, that targetting is so hit-and-miss, but mostly miss.

(NthLegion) #8

The time it takes to scavenge has made it not worth the ability point for me. I don’t want to spend that long standing still on offense, and I’m lucky to scavenge one corpse before the next respawn wave on defense. Those seconds are better spent positioning myself for defense or completing the objective on offense. Just not worth it for me.

(Glyph) #9

^This, not to mention half the time the body disappears while scavenging and you don’t get any supplies. If you are interacting with the body then you should be able to finish scavenging regardless of whether it disappears or not.

(thesuzukimethod) #10

I’ve found scavenge to be the wonkiest of the targeting, but agree with wolf - slowing down seems to help.

It’s use is definitely situational - helpful if you’re stuck defending a room against waves of enemies and dont have time to go re-take the command post (resort)…but dangerous out in the open.

(AmishWarMachine) #11

I guess I didn’t notice that I wasn’t getting a pip from those occasions. :frowning:

Certainly makes no sense as one can complete a comms hack of the opponent if they get gib’d/respawn, and you can complete a disguise if the body disappears.

BTW… what the heck is the origin of the term ‘gib’? Anyone?

(AmishWarMachine) #12

Shameless self bump.

Added question to SD… is this a netvar that can be tweaked on the fly to play around with to find the sweet spot?

(Ojama666) #13

Being on the PS3 I know what you mean, although not as bad as you describe, sometimes I struggle with it, but it’s usually ok :slight_smile:

(thesuzukimethod) #14

targeting actually seems improved - placebo can be a powerful drug though…, and i’ve found it more and more useful now that I have 3 different things to throw (molotovs, nades, napalm), but only on defending type objectives.

(Hot-Wire) #15

I don’t like how when you scavenge a target and it disappears on you… your scavenge stops and you don’t gain anything from it.

If anything it should be like the Operative’s Coms hack. Even if the guy bleeds out, you can continue and complete the coms hack.

(AmishWarMachine) #16

I had a thought the other night… that maybe the scavenge ability should be included in the “Standard Soldier Kit”.

Mostly it was born of the observation that the soldier, after the DLC, has no open slots for future abilities. This means, down the road, SD has two options… expand the UI to add another column of ability slots… or one of the current abilities will need to become no more to open up space.

Plus… Scavenge is so clunky (targetting + time it takes to complete) that as a stand-alone ability, it’s hardly worth it in most situation.

JMTC

(illmeister80) #17

THIS!!! it is so annoying to be like 90% done with a scavenge, and then the body just DISAPPEARS. WTF. if you start scavenging a body, it should remain there till you are done. it doesn’t make sense any other way.

(iezza) #18

true, your so close,and you see it go through the ground. SO CLOSE!

(AmishWarMachine) #19

The more I play my soldier, the more I wish the Scavenge time variable was reduced.

Just takes way too long for the gain.

(thesuzukimethod) #20

only time i find it to be useful is when defending an objective with spawn waves coming and no time to go take CP’s, and i want to pass out ammo and have nades to spare.