Is Soldier the new engineer?

(INF3RN0) #21

I was told that soldier has 10% damage reduction. It takes 4 headshots to kill vs 3 on any other class so I figured it was true. I think that soldier needs to die in the same number of headshots as any other class and the damage reduction can be kept for body shots.

(Smooth) #22

Ah okay.

The current Assault characters actually have 110hp compared to the other classes, it’s not a damage reduction but the end result is similar.

They’re the guys who should be kicking-off a fight and breaking through the front lines. They’re intended to be a little tougher, bigger and slower.

(tokamak) #23

I don’t agree with the slower part then. I don’t mind if a few specialisations happen to be slow but there needs to be room for this class to perform breach attacks.

I also think that instant flashbang throws, like in COD would be more functional than weapon-banked grenades. Can have both but a hotkey (Q) really makes all the difference in this case.

(zenstar) #24

They can still perform breaches but the team needs to back them up. Which means waiting in cover for the assault to arrive. Once the assault is there they still go in first for the breach.

If the team is just running in at their top speed without slowing down to group up properly then the lack of teamwork is what’s killing them, not a slightly slower soldier.

He shouldn’t be much slower and with the smaller maps it impacts even less, but he shouldn’t be able to chase down a medic whos running away.

IMO ofc.

(tokamak) #25

Yeah I don’t like that at all. This is a perfect opportunity to push automatic teamplay into the game by making players naturally assume the right order of attack if they would run at full speed. Covert ops and Assault need to be the fastest, medic and field ops follow and The engineer should be the slowest.

(zenstar) #26

I disagree with that order of speed.
Covops is the sniper so they need to hang back. Their speed doesn’t matter too much for positioning (but they should probably be speedy for balance).
Medic needs to be the fastest as he needs to keep up with everyone else and run between people, and should have the lowest power.
Field ops and engineer should be base speed. They are the middle ground.

Assault has power. Power must come at a price:
Either they have less health in which case they cannot breach anything
or they have less power in which case why use them over covops or fieldops
or they have less speed in which case people need to play as a team.

Speed will only “force” teamplay on the initial charge. After that the timing of deaths and spawns and medics is so random that speed doesn’t make a difference unless the entire team groups up again. If they’re grouping up then they’re playing as a team and you don’t need to “force” it with speed. If they’re not grouping up by then then they’ll never get back into a force that relies on their running speed to approach a fight in the correct order (if there even is a correct order).

(tokamak) #27

Pushing the cov into a sniper role is extremely one-sided. In the ET games this was only one of the many tasks that class had. For all the other roles, mainly involving sabotage, speed is way more important.

What I think is being ignored here is that both the assault and the covops don’t have an explicit role in this game. Medic heals, engineer does objectives and field ops keeps everyone filled. These are explicit roles. The assault and cov both have the task of killing the opponent which is also covered by the other classes and therefore implicit.

So these roles need to be fleshed out. That’s why I think the assault needs to be really -really- good at combat. And like I already stated before in other threads on the same subject, the assault needs excel at controlling the fight. Making sure that his teams gets to engage the enemy on the best terms possible. That’s different than lethality. However, in order to have such control, speed is required, at least half of the time when this class is on offense.

Likewise, the cov needs more explicit tasks as well. More control over command posts and the like. This class really needs to be able to sweep the rug from under the enemy.

(stealth6) #28

I actually like the idea of making the soldier run the fastest if he’s supposed to lead the offensive.

(tokamak) #29

We really need to keep in mind that there’s very little else that class can do. I personally really want each class to be very distinct, preferably even more distinct than in the ET games.

(Valdez) #30

Not sure about you guys, but I thought the soldier class in rtcw/et was 10x better/cooler than the one in DB. People loved the panzer.

(Humate) #31

^^ I’d imagine there will be a rocket launcher, with one of the soldier characters.

(Kinjal) #32

Stun and flash grenades is the only weapon in DB that makes you lose control under your character. In ET and ETQW you can be instantly killed by a panzer or tank but you never lose control over the game. I’ve played just a few games so my opinion may change in future but as a new comer it’s a first thing that I don’t like in weapon balance.

(Rex) #33

Yes, the soldier is definitely the new engineer in the meaning of being overpowered.
Back then you saw everyone playing engi and now all the better players switched to soldier. Even all the others switched, sometimes you hardly see anyone doing objectives.
Yesterday we had a game where one side had all other classes and the other side were full of soldiers. The side with no soldiers got completely raped and their K/D was horrible in comparison to the soldier players.
Also the flash bang grenades in combination with the slowing down effect are too powerful.

(DarkangelUK) #34

I’m gonna be completely honest as I think it’s testing affecting, but when I join and see that setup of stacked soldiers on one side then I just leave… I have no interest in being part of something we know is broken, yet is still abused under the guise of ‘testing’.

(Humate) #35

[QUOTE=Rex;418030]Yes, the soldier is definitely the new engineer in the meaning of being overpowered.
Back then you saw everyone playing engi and now all the better players switched to soldier. Even all the others switched, sometimes you hardly see anyone doing objectives.
Yesterday we had a game where one side had all other classes and the other side were full of soldiers. The side with no soldiers got completely raped and their K/D was horrible in comparison to the soldier players.
Also the flash bang grenades in combination with the slowing down effect are too powerful.[/QUOTE]

The main things that favour the soldier atm:
Map design, and there arent many decent snipers in the alpha.
I would also add that there arent many that are opting for fops which also is pretty decent against the soldier.

The other thing which you pointed out, most of the decent players are choosing that class.
They could go medic, and the k/ds would be pretty similar imo.

(amazinglarry) #36

[QUOTE=Humate;418075]The other thing which you pointed out, most of the decent players are choosing that class.
They could go medic, and the k/ds would be pretty similar imo.[/QUOTE]

Med can heal themselves sure, which is a good perk to have… but the way concussion nades work right now it definitely facilitates a better kdr, which could be argued is the point.

I mentioned in IRC I could see bringing the concussion nade down to a 1 throw rechargeable, instead of the 2 they currently have. It’d cut down on the spam a little bit but still offer some crowd/player control.

(SockDog) #37

This. I joined a game yesterday and left after 5 minutes. I was the only objective class on my team, everyone else went FOps and Soldier. Game turned immediately into TDM, there wasn’t even any significant fighting around or on the way to the objective. I wouldn’t say I rage quit, I just felt disappointed that right now DB is not fun to play because it’s not even really being played.

(Humate) #38

[QUOTE=amazinglarry;418084]Med can heal themselves sure, which is a good perk to have… but the way concussion nades work right now it definitely facilitates a better kdr, which could be argued is the point.

I mentioned in IRC I could see bringing the concussion nade down to a 1 throw rechargeable, instead of the 2 they currently have. It’d cut down on the spam a little bit but still offer some crowd/player control.[/QUOTE]

I agree with you on concussive. :slight_smile:
I would even reduce the area of effect.

But I also think that the idea of the class being OP (which it is) might be a bit exaggerated.

(.Chris.) #39

It’s always kind of been like this and would say it was even worse when it used to be all engineers because the engineers could do objectives but they never actually did. I know some of them are testing out things but a fair few aren’t and simply trying to get good at the game rather than testing the game. As for me in past SD games I’ve played mainly objective whore and soldier so I’ve always played these two classes in DB, whilst dipping into other classes to try stuff with.

(SockDog) #40

I guess my main gripe is that this is impacting not only what can be tested but I also wonder if it’s resulting in some testers just not bothering (I know I’ve played less over the holidays as a result of the games being so off kilter).