Scouting is a mechanic given mainly to light tanks to buff the a little bit and give them more impact the battle in situations when they would normally be incapable to do sth.
This makes sense for light tanks such as the EBR, XM-800, Luchs, BMP-2 etc. because they sometimes just cannot fight certain enemies with their armament.
Where I see the problem with scouting though is when it comes to light tanks that have the same armament as medium tanks. I do not see why they should need a scouting feature, all they are are faster medium tanks with a bit less of armor.
In some BRs like 9.0 - 10.0 these light tanks often times are even better than their medium counterparts, that have the same armament but worse mobility with no effective armor.
In order to illustrate which vehicles I mean it concretely, I took the time and marked all the light vehicles in the American, Soviet and German tech trees with tree colors:
red: bellow average armament → should have scouting
yellow: in between → should rather have scouting features too, probably depends on the vehicle’s performance in game
green: average or above average armament → should rather be considered as a battle tank than a support vehicle → shouldn’t have scouting
It gives them a advantage over other tanks. You can track enemy tanks with the marker and being the one scouted you will have a major disadvantage since the enemies will have an eye on you.
Being scouted makes life a whole lot harder, especially when ambushing for example.
Honestly, the TAM series should be reclassified as medium tanks and lose scouting. They are simply Leopard 1, but better due to front engine.
I don’t agree with the rest of the vehicles you pointed out though, most of them have paper thin armor or some other flaw that means they can’t stand in the line of battle as well as the mediums/heavies at their tier can.
i mean that one would be fair, TAM literaly means sth with medium classified tank.
That being said tam 2c is 10.3 and has the same armor and is light class in its br step
I don’t think it really upsets balance but I understand what you mean. I’d only REALLY take it away from “light tanks” that are just modern tank destroyers like m1128 though. I would not take it away from something like object 906 which is definitely a light tank, just with a decent gun.
Taking scouting away from light tanks just because they have good guns would ruin their purpose and make them less useful. Light tanks aren’t tank destroyers and aren’t meant to just sit back and deal damage. They’re built for flanking! not Brawling. Scouting balances their weaker armor by letting them help their team in other ways, like marking enemies and earning assists.
Also! Teammates often ignore simple map pings, but the flashing enemy symbols from scouting get their attention! If some light tanks feel too strong at certain BRs, that’s a problem with matchmaking, not the scouting feature.
Scouting is one of the most impactful and possibly the only meaningful teamwork ability in the game.
Matches where players actually adopt a forward position in matches and tag most of the enemy team are amazing.
I think it’s especially important now that we’re adding so many light tanks that don’t have comparable firepower to mediums/mbts
I don’t see what positive impact would come from fewer vehicles being able to scout. If anything I think more vehicles should have the option of scouting albeit with severely nerfed properties.
I.e medium tanks having limited range scouting and can only spot one vehicle at a time with a long cool down.
