Full disclosure, I hated thieves/assassins/rangers. They were without fail the most annoying aspect of CF, and I'd say if anything they need to be greatly nerfed, not made stronger.

AS to the count command, I think it serves a purpose. If I have seen a thief assassin vis, I assume they are still around anyway, I don't need a count command for that. And until you see the person on who you don't know who that person you can't see is on the count command anyway.

There are just WAY too many advantages to hide/sneak and camo, and count is barely a counter to them. What would be a bad thing in my opinion is people not having any method at all to know what is out there generally, so that players guild/cabal sit or whatever even more so until they know for sure whether they can go out without some thief or assassin sitting there.

Because otherwise I agree with another poster, CF will become ranger/assassin/thief/transmuter/duergar fields even more so than it already was when I was playing.

Stealth classes do very little to make CF an interesting environment. They don't make CF feel dangerous or exciting, they make it boring since what they really do is stifle people from going out and doing almost anything.

Answer this question honestly. Without count, do you truly believe people would play non-stealth classes in a less conservative manner than they already do, or that they would be more inclined to play non-stealth classes? To me, I believe the answer is almost certainly no.

You want to remove count, fine, but in the name of balance take away from the stealth classes too. Make movement while hidden/camo have lag on it such that the thief/assassin can't actually keep up with you if you stay moving. (I'm not sure if creep has lag) Or give every player twitchy, but tone it down slightly. Make playing a thief/assassin/ranger take a bit more skill, instead of relying on stealth to do all the work for them.

Encouraging people to play more stealth classes is just bad. Because while it's fun maybe to play the stealthy hunter, who wants to play their prey?