Assault/Soldier

(.Chris.) #41

Missed this post but yeah I loved that class for those reasons, solider2 after playing it last night felt partly like it was heading in that direction, can see some use for that with some tweaking, just not sure what is best to change yet having only played it for few rounds.

A Rocket launcher of sorts would be awesome to see, the one in Wolfenstein 09 was actually quite good, small blast radius, long reload time and had an arced projectile, you could hold back a couple of players with it and damage them if not kill them and have someone else finished them off, it suited the size of the maps and the team sizes which are similar to DB.

A general thing that is slightly worrying though, the game is in early alpha and has only been open up to us lot for a short time (3 weeks?), asking for a whole class to be removed is a bit drastic, I’ve seen a lot of removal requests rather than improvement suggestions. If we removed everything that wasn’t working too well we would’t have much left. :slight_smile:

(zenstar) #42

Give them the C4 too.
Engineers have 1 million toys and things to do at the moment. They can lose the C4 without feeling neglected and giving it to the soldiers will help them feel needed.

Maybe keep engineers for defusing or allow both soldiers and engineers to defuse (to keep the soldiers on the front lines).

(H0RSE) #43

[QUOTE=zenstar;413959]Give them the C4 too.
Engineers have 1 million toys and things to do at the moment. They can lose the C4 without feeling neglected and giving it to the soldiers will help them feel needed.

Maybe keep engineers for defusing or allow both soldiers and engineers to defuse (to keep the soldiers on the front lines).[/QUOTE]
Giving the C4 to the Soldier does make sense, since it works that way in other games, but I think the role that they are trying to portray for the Soldier is more of a frontline/support role - A class designed to to escort objective players or work as a frontline fighter, rather than having any sort of objective tools.

One of the the fairly recent changes in these types of games that I wasn’t a big fan of, was actually giving the soldier the explosives rather than the engineer. I liked how the Soldier’s “tools” were his firepower, and knowing how and when to use them could change the course of a match. RTCW and W:ET both had engines plant explosives, and those were the 2 I played the most.

Maybe it’s just me, but I always compare classes in shooters to classes in RPG’s. The Soldier is the typical fighter class - it is the most simple/straightforward class, yet can still be mastered. Fighter’s don’t heal or buff or have pets, or really have any sort of utility skills - They are weapon masters and frontline fighters. Maybe it’s this sort of mindset that has me thinking that Soldiers in shooters should follow the same sort of “simple” design philosophy, and leave the tools and gadgets to other classes.

(zenstar) #44

I’m torn between the two viewpoints to be honest.
If they don’t get the C4 and it remains an engy thing then fine. I just feel like everyone has a little something except the soldiers.
I get what you’re saying though: they have big guns.

But is that enough? /shrug. Guess that’s what the beta is for :slight_smile:

(INF3RN0) #45

C4 on engy is fine as long as the Soldier lives out it’s desired purpose at some point. I started this topic back in the pre-Brink forums that soldier should really focus on a main objective of killing mass amounts of people, and having a straightforward ‘kill class’ would help steer kill focused players away from the support oriented/objective classes.

(tokamak) #46

I’m more in favour having a sort of weak objective class over having each class have it’s own objective. Makes the roles more defined.

(Bananas) #47

I would rather engineer stay as the objective class. Never liked having different classes for different objectives. It just forces people to switch to classes they don’t want. Like in quake wars, on hack objectives you would end up with like 4-5 covies.

I think when concussion grenades and flash bangs get fixed/tweaked the soldier will be more useful. I’m not really a fan of raising soldier health much more though. I think that gives them too much of a 1v1 advantage. I don’t want to see soldiers always win when two equally skilled players fight.

(warbie) #48

That’s the difficulty. Why bring class without an objective along unless he’s a 1 v 1 monster? But then it borks the combat for other classes. The panzer soldier is the one exception I can think of - and even he wouldn’t be much use here as there’s little to encourage the grouping of players in DB’s current, rather chaotic form. A balancing nightmare - glad it’s not my job :wink:

(acQu) #49

May be that the soldier is a bit overpowered with a medic behind him constantly reviving :slight_smile: The model is also way too funny and nice for it to be removed (it is so funny the crap load he is carrying :D).

I am sure it will get an awesome load of additional weapons in the future and therefore will be a welcomed variation in gameplay. I basically welcome everything of variance and possibilities, but i am more of a casual player and think it will probably need a bit of balance work ? Probably, it is too complicated for me to think about this yet.

Although i like also the idea to only have 4 classes and distributing the weapons on them.

(tokamak) #50

Support, area control, crowd control and focussed assassination, those are the roles that need to work with the combative assault class in order to support the relatively weak objective class in fulfilling his task.

That’s how you add depth and narrative to this game. Because that still really lacks. W:ET and ETQW had tons of amazing tales about what players did. DB still doesn’t have this quality yet.

(Humate) #51

In ETQW Soldier was a big deal for indoor sections, having a Hyperblaster or Obliterator to try and clear several guys at once was very useful.

This. Although hyper was awesome at range too on outdoor sections.
You could bust through the front lines, or play at the back prone on a hill.

(warbie) #52

My concern is how that will be achieved. Already I feel a little cheap killing people as the assault class and currently there’s little reason to bring one along - not when a medic or engie will be that much more valuable. So what happens now, buff his health even more, give even bigger guns?

All these things we’re asking for - lower rate of fire, more freedom in movement, more open maps - are to level the playing field. So deaths feel deserved and kills feel earned. Part of the reason RTCW and ET worked so well in this regard was because, essentially, the classes were all the same. If in DB we end up with an uber combat rambo class that has a clear advantage over the others in 1 vs 1 - well, like I said, I already feel a little cheap killing with the assault class, and frustrated when they kill me.

(SinDonor) #53

[QUOTE=warbie;414056]My concern is how that will be achieved. Already I feel a little cheap killing people as the assault class and currently there’s little reason to bring one along - not when a medic or engie will be that much more valuable. So what happens now, buff his health even more, give even bigger guns?

All these things we’re asking for - lower rate of fire, more freedom in movement, more open maps - are to level the playing field. So deaths feel deserved and kills feel earned. Part of the reason RTCW and ET worked so well in this regard was because, essentially, the classes were all the same. If in DB we end up with an uber combat rambo class that has a clear advantage over the others in 1 vs 1 - well, like I said, I already feel a little cheap killing with the assault class, and frustrated when they kill me.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps it’s in SD’s plans to not highly reward players for kills only. Since the other classes are getting more XP (and maybe GC) for supporting their team, spamming health and ammo kits, completing objectives, etc, then maybe the Assaut’s extra kills he gets makes up for the XP he’s losing out on by not spamming kits, doing engie stuff, and uh, whatever the hell snipers do (those campy bastards).

(tokamak) #54

Xp should accurately reflect the value of the in-game action, if it doesn’t then xp becomes meaningless, like in Brink, that ruins any sense of achievement which in turn completely destroys anything an F2P has going for.

My concern is how that will be achieved. Already I feel a little cheap killing people as the assault class and currently there’s little reason to bring one along - not when a medic or engie will be that much more valuable. So what happens now, buff his health even more, give even bigger guns?

Well exactly those two solution are what would cheapen it more yeah. That’s why I believe we should step away from lethality and move more towards resilience and disruption, excuse the abstract words. Increasing weapon damage only make the class better at sitting in corners and gunning down people and increasing health only gives the player an edge on first encounters (which can be extended by a medic of course but its still lame).

You need to have something where the assault guy becomes interested in hitting as many people as possible. This is where movement slowing hits or hits that gave bigger pushes or incendiary weapons would work well. Then there’s value in shooting multiple people and then repeat if necessary.

That’s how my tank in WoT works as well. It has high explosive shells rather than armour piercing shells. Armour piercing shells do lots of damage to the hp of the tank but rarely hit the vital parts or crew members. High Explosive shells don’t pierce the armour but give such shockwaves that it destroys or damages the engine, the tracks, the gun, the radio or kills a few crewmembers. This way my tank is oriented towards disabling others rather than killing them, my job is to go around and maim as many tanks as possible and leave the rest for my team to clean them up.

The Warrior in WoW can be geared towards this as well. It’s good to switch targets often because you apply all kinds of debuffs on them, the more you can deal, the more control your team gets and the safer the support and damage classes are.

(H0RSE) #55

[QUOTE=warbie;414056]
All these things we’re asking for - lower rate of fire, more freedom in movement, more open maps - are to level the playing field. So deaths feel deserved and kills feel earned. Part of the reason RTCW and ET worked so well in this regard was because, essentially, the classes were all the same. If in DB we end up with an uber combat rambo class that has a clear advantage over the others in 1 vs 1 - well, like I said, I already feel a little cheap killing with the assault class, and frustrated when they kill me.[/QUOTE]

Sometimes the best way to “balance” a game is to “unbalance” it… Something that may seem OP, may turn out to work if you give it a chance. I fear that the overall mentality of the community here, of trying to balance every single aspect of the game perfectly, or to be more accurate, as they seem fit, could just wind up biting them in the ass. Seems like many of you are working to create the game YOU want, and not putting enough thought into what other players may find fun.

(tokamak) #56

I agree. You can balance things by moving both sides of the scale closer to each other, but you can also balance it by moving them further apart from each other.

That’s why Blizzard initially started with very extreme units in the testing of their expansion pack.

(stealth6) #57

Everybody has their own ideas and ideals. I think it’s good to just post everything you think and then let SD decide what they want.

(tokamak) #58

A discussion where different ideas are set out against each other is more useful than merely giving thoughts.

(SockDog) #59

From my post in the mines/turrets thread.

Perhaps it is better if the Soldier deploys mines and turrets while having minimal objective responsibilities. That would then give people a choice on whether they want to be an offensive/defensive obstacle or complete objectives as an engineer but be less relevant in fighting.

Right now the problem just seems to be that not only do turrets and mines need tweaking but also the person deploying them is one of the most valued classes.

(tokamak) #60

Well you need to keep in mind that the engineer needs to be relevant on defense as well. All classes need to be. Turrets are only truly valuable while on defense which is also when the engineer has no important other tasks.