[New Merc] Drone - Class: Recon - Role: Support

(sharpSubmarine) #1

Name: Drone (could be Watcher or Stalker too)

Sex: Male

Class: Recon

Role: Support, spotting

Health: 110

Speed: 410

Primary weapon types: Semi-auto rifles mid-long range rifles, burst ARs

Secondary weapon: Semi-auto pistols

Ability 1: Camera field

Ability 2: Tag

So, this guy is a stalker, enjoying following and creeping people around (as a civilian as well as on the battlefield).
He’s kind of a lunatic, a technology maniac. His apparel should reflect this by having all sorts of LCD screens, wifi and bluetooth receivers in various parts of his clothes (forearms, legs, etc.) and a light backpack with camera lenses and objectives dangling around.
I imagine him with a hoodie and baseball cap, one of those mini-headsets always in his ear.

His first ability, Camera field, is essentially a more balanced (IMO) UAV system: it basically consists of 4-5 static drones which float in the air in open areas which can be deployed only in a part of the map (so they don’t affect all the map). They show the enemy on the maps of the character and of all of his teammates, but only if the enemy is not under cover.
These drones won’t go away unless reclaimed by the Merc who called them or if shot down by the enemy team. They will not be too hard nor to easy to find, giving a fair challenge to destroy them.

The second ability, Tag, is as the name suggests a way to tag a particular enemy player by using a laser pointer device.
It will reveal the position of the enemy player to the team and it will give also only to Drone information about his equipment and augments. All this is possible only while the laser is pointed directly at the target.

As for the weapons, I’d personally like to give him a sort of modern version of the legendary M1 Garand with a reflex sight.

Last note: I’m new to the game, started playing 4 days ago, so I refrained from elaborating the cooldowns for the abilities. I ask for advice on this from more experienced players for this matter.

So, what do you guys think about it? :smiley:

(goodField) #2

With the energy of the game – I don’t think a Laser Designator for a player model works all that well. With the way the abilities in the game work, is that they’re temporary with fast Cooldowns*.

If I could put my two cents down. Maybe combine both of these abilities into a grenade?

Drone throws their grenade, it detonates on impact like a Concussion grenade and releases a cloud of drones who chase down and spot/mark/tag anyone who was in the detonation area for a short time. This way it makes the player using Drone have to think about who he’s going to target, and forces them to be engaged in the battle, than hunkered down in a corner of spawn flying his little UAV around – which does work in games like Battlefield, but only because the info the UAVer gives provides a better advantage to the other 31 players than just having 31 players and a sniper.

With game sizes between 10 and 16 (as opposed to 32 and 64), the focus on team efforts is much more noticable, and absent players are far more discernible (and far easier disposed of with a votekick). Also, having eyes in the sky over empty ground has no advantage thanks to the THICK RED OUTLINE on every enemy player. Far more useful things, are the wall-hacks we get from a character like Vasilli with his heartbeat monitor (I could write an essay on the myriad of uses for that item that go unthought of in the majority of gameplay) – which is what his fellow Recon Characters need to provide in order to make him not an instant choice.

(Also, the Modern version of the M1 Garand is the M14/M21/mk.14/M39-EBR so we got that already :stuck_out_tongue: That’ll come with RedEye, who throws smoke and has IR Goggles)

(sharpSubmarine) #3

Thank you for your suggestions. I think you’re right about the idea of a grenade as the main ability, it fits way better with the game which is (as I’m slowly learning :smiley: ) very fast paced.

The laser tag maybe could be reworked to be sort of shootable tracking device, which is harder to use than the grenade, but it could have a longer effect to the enemy shot at.
As for its cooldown, it could be managed sort of like Skyhammer’s airstrike: if it misses, it has its cooldown reduced.

(pruneEmbankment) #4

I like the idea of the character but the camera system would be a little hard to implement maybe something once the game is completely released. With the laser tagging like goodfield said would be hard with the speed of the game but maybe a combination of both the laser tagging and the cameras so you would throw it on a wall or on the ground and if someone walked into its radius they would light up like Vassili’s sensor grenade. I think a second sniper or recon class would be great since we have doubles of a lot of other classes, good idea keep up the good work.