What features make the 5 classes what they are based on how the mercs are classified currently?

[signofzeta1]

Say what you will, my assumptions on what class is what is with the basis in reality. Yours isn’t. You assume that all assault mercs kill with disregard to how they do it, and you assume that all recon mercs can spot. You make this assumption without the basis in reality. Do you know what really happened? Phantom is a recon merc. You can’t change this fact.

It seems you are poor at gathering data and trying to come up with conclusions. Phantom is a recon merc, and this is fact. The parameters you define for a recon merc does not include Phantom, and you can’t change the fact that Phantom is a recon merc, which means your definition for a recon merc is wrong. Your definiton a recon merc isn’t the same as what Splash Damage thinks a recon merc is. This is why Phantom is a recon, and not some other class.

Another thing, yes similarities with Wolf ET may be there and they can be altered, but for the first 20 mercs, did they alter the class definitions? NO. Splash Damage made 4 mercs per class that all fall under one ET class description, and they could have made mercs that fall under 2 of the class descriptions, or one that doesn’t fall under any of the class descriptions. Phantom still falls under the covert ops class description because he can infiltrate. For the first 20 mercs, Splash Damage could have easily thrown the class definitions they have used in ET, ETQW, in Brink out the window, but they didn’t. Maybe they tried to throw the class definitons from Splash Damage’s older games out the window. Guess what, they are still the same. What we see in the game speaks for itself.

Oh, and yeah, you made a bunch of fallacies. Have you heard of affirming the consequent?

As I said, If a merc is assault, then it only kills enemies.
Phantom only kills enemies
Therefore Phantom is assault.

Affirming the consequent.

Maybe you haven’t noticed, not all mercs who only kill enemies are assault mercs.

You are using the fact that I didn’t know that redeye could spot to help you win your argument. Do you know what helps me win my argument? The fact that you create these parameters that define a class, but when reality kicks in, the parameters don’t fit the what is set in reality, and you try to alter reality just so your hypothesis is true. You are making assumptions without basis in reality, and then you and some others complain about it because your version of reality didn’t come true.

Here’s another thing. Not all recon mercs can spot.

Mercs who use brute strength and heavy firepower is classified under assault. Those who use trickery and deception is classified under recon That is based on how the mercs are divided as they are now, and not in some alternate universe where one merc should be a different class.

Recon mercs have abilities that pick off high value targets and harass enemies. If Phantom isn’t already doing this, he should be changed so he does this. Phantom needs to be a close range counterpart to Vasili’s sniper ability. All 4 recon mercs attack by being unseen. This is true statement.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;108949”]Say what you will, my assumptions on what class is what is with the basis in reality. Yours isn’t. You assume that all assault mercs kill with disregard to how they do it, and you assume that all recon mercs can spot. You make this assumption without the basis in reality. Do you know what really happened? Phantom is a recon merc. You can’t change this fact.

It seems you are poor at gathering data and trying to come up with conclusions. Phantom is a recon merc, and this is fact. The parameters you define for a recon merc does not include Phantom, and you can’t change the fact that Phantom is a recon merc, which means your definition for a recon merc is wrong.

Another thing, yes similarities with Wolf ET may be there and they can be altered, but for the first 20 mercs, did they alter the class definitions? NO. Splash Damage made 4 mercs per class that all fall under one ET class description, and they could have made mercs that fall under 2 of the class descriptions, or one that doesn’t fall under any of the class descriptions. Phantom still falls under the covert ops class description because he can infiltrate. For the first 20 mercs, Splash Damage could have easily thrown the class definitions they have used in ET, ETQW, in Brink out the window, but they didn’t. What we see in the game speaks for itself.[/quote]

If all you can do is throw around derogatory accusations and compare DB to Wolf, this isn’t your place to argue.

My classifications are just as, if not more, based on reality than yours. I gather evidence, similarities, and community opinion, and I have been doing so for much longer than you’ve been. Your only arguments for your classification system are just “because the devs made it that way” and “because that’s how it was in Wolf”.

Yes, we can change the fact that Phantom is a Recon because “Recon” is just a title with no existing definition except the ones most accurate generated by the community and their experience, evidence, and expertise. Just in case you haven’t realised yet, the fact that I classify mercs based on their abilities and similarities inbetween is the general acceptance because a large majority of the experienced player base knows that ALL Fire Supports will have ammo abilities, ALL Medics have healing abilities, ALL Engineers have tech abilities and fast disarm, and same goes with Recon and Assault. Your “just because {insert previous SD title here}” classification system is the outlier. I’m actually getting support and I’m supporting the people who support my arguments, and seeing as this regular classification strategy is accepted throughout the forums, you should probably be coming to the conclusion that your system is wrong, even if our system is just as incorrect.

Don’t expect your experience in Wolf to spoonfeed you in DB.

[signofzeta1]

Still doesn’t change the fact that Phantom is stuck with Aimee, Redeye and Vasili.

You gather community OPINION, not fact. The fact of the matter is, Phantom is recon.

I could easily say that there are only 3 roles. Support, Combat, and Objective.

[gg2ez]

Still doesn’t change the fact that Phantom is stuck with Aimee, Redeye and Vasili.

*Still hasn’t.

Just because it doesn’t, ain’t gonna mean it won’t. Things change and the community drives the change.

[signofzeta1]

So you are saying that you have to complain to the devs just to see your version of reality happen. Ok.

Here is something you haven’t considered. We know that Phantom can kill, but he sucks at it compared to an Assault merc. An Assault merc’s job is to kill a lot of enemies fast. A Recon’s role, the killing aspect of a recon, is to kill in such a way that the recon merc becomes a distraction to the enemy. Vasili’s sniper achieves this effect, and Phantom needs to change so he is good at killing one enemy, but not multiple enemies. His job is to kill one person, retreat, and come back and kill the next person. His job is also to get into the minds of the enemy by making them want to find you and kill you, and thus distracting the enemy from focusing on the objective. A phantom needs to be made so that it is meant to be a pest, not a killing machine. If here was a merc that had a holoduke ability, that merc would be recon.

Your idea that:

Medics heal
Engineers do objectives
Fire support give ammo
Recons spot
Assault does none of the above

Doesn’t work because it would make the majority of the mercs assault. It would be stupid to limit all Fire Support mercs to giving ammo, or limit all recons to being a spotter. You are basically labelling the assault class as the “other” or “unorganized” class. If a merc doesn’t heal, revive, do objectives, give ammo, or spot, what does it do? Kill. What is the job of a merc with only a pistol and nothing else? Kill, albeit ineffectively, but since he can’t do anything else, he can only kill.

As I said it limits future mercs, and a lot of future mercs would be categorized under assault, because it can’t do 4 tasks that you label as required for a certain class. Your classification for assault is too broad, and the classification for the other 4 classes is too narrow. What happens if there is a class that gives a speed boost to allies? What class is this one? How about a class that slows down the EV? How about a class with a jetpack?

How about this:

Assault focus on killing enemies EFFECTIVELY.
Medics interact with teammates and give them a positive boost in something.
Engineers do objectives and have some sort of defensive or trap ability.
Fire Support helps teammates kill enemies, and they suppress an area.
Recon is the stealth class, and do what stealth class do. Provide intel, annoy opponents. They give opponents something negative, like slowing them down, or I don’t know, draining their health slowly.

Of course each merc in each class won’t be doing everything as described, because the description is supposed to be broad. For the current recon, Vasili and Redeye serves as the intel providers. Vasili and Phantom serves as the pest, or at least I hope Phantom is changed so it fills this role.

Here is even more generic class description.

Assault: Aggressive and guns blazing

Medic: Selfless and supportive

Engineer: Strategic and defensive

Fire Support: Strategic and supportive

Recon: Stealthy

This way, a new merc, that can’t heal, do objectives, give ammo, or spot can doesn’t necessarily have to be an assault merc. By the way, I got this from the ETQW manual. I bet that you are going to say that his is dirty bomb and this isn’t ETQW. News Flash, the 20 mercs now still fit the descriptions above, and the only way this doesn’t work is if Splash Damage calls an aggressive merc a medic. The class descriptions are as broad as you can get, and you can’t make a merc that doesn’t fall into any of these categories.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;108957”]So you are saying that you have to complain to the devs just to see your version of reality happen. Ok.

Here is something you haven’t considered. We know that Phantom can kill, but he sucks at it compared to an Assault merc. An Assault merc’s job is to kill a lot of enemies fast. A Recon’s role, the killing aspect of a recon, is to kill in such a way that the recon merc becomes a distraction to the enemy. Vasili’s sniper achieves this effect, and Phantom needs to change so he is good at killing one enemy, but not multiple enemies. His job is to kill one person, retreat, and come back and kill the next person. His job is also to get into the minds of the enemy by making them want to find you and kill you, and thus distracting the enemy from focusing on the objective. A phantom needs to be made so that it is meant to be a pest, not a killing machine. If here was a merc that had a holoduke ability, that merc would be recon.[/quote]

Nope. The version of reality is already apparent, it’s just that a design element was placed under the incorrect title.

I’ve considered it all, 5 times over. It’s just that your definition of assault (heavy weapons, brain dead, wipe out multiple enemies at once) doesn’t match up with mine (eliminate enemies with no secondary purpose). Recon mercs can eliminate enemies too - but they have secondary objectives.

Why do you keep bringing up new merc ideas? It’s an officially and communally unsupported argument. You’ve said:

1. Don’t pull roles and abilities out of nowhere.
2. We don’t know how SD classifies their mercs.

But you’ve just gone ahead and made a new merc (1), and have classified (2).

Wanna explain? Give me more information about your arguments so that I don’t have to keep asking these questions.

[signofzeta1]

Phantom being recon is incorrect title only because you say it is only so your parameters that make a merc a certain class fits. As I said, you try to alter reality just so you can get your assumptions to fit.

We don’t know how SD classifies mercs, but we do know how SD sorts the mercs into each class. You are saying that a design element is placed incorrectly without realizing that maybe your class definitions might be wrong? You are simply rejecting reality and substituting it with your own. We know that Phantom is a recon merc, and with that in mind, come up with a class description that fits all recon mercs. I already made one. Stealth. That’s it. It is a broad term that current fits all 4 recon mercs.

I don’t pull roles out of nowhere. I look at what currently exists, and make a conclusion based off of it. The reason why I say you, and many others, pull roles out of nowhere is because you don’t base it from the fact that Phantom is a recon merc, and make conclusions on what should have been, and not from what actually is.

Eliminating enemies with no secondary purpose is too generic of a role. Maybe the classes aren’t separated by role, but maybe they are also separated by playstyle. I already listed 5 broad aspects for each class. Likewise, healing, spotting, and give ammo is too specific of a role. It means that all fire support mercs must have a give ammo ability, not some other support ability, like buff weapons, or medics having increase teammate movement speed, or recons poison enemies. There are limitless possibilities, and your way of classifying the classes means that the majority of them would be assault, while only a select few would be the other classes.

Assault: Aggressive
Medic: Selfless and Supportive
Engineer: Strategic and Defensive
Fire Support: Strategic and Supportive
Recon: Stealthy

As for roles, there is only 3. One that gives you blue XP, one that gives you red XP, and one that gives you yellow XP.

Reality should’ve could’ve been different doesn’t cut it around here. Make your assumptions based on the current reality, not some alternate universe, or your own idea of the perfect universe.

It is obvious that Splash Damage’s idea of class definitions isn’t the same as yours. I can only speculate on what I think Splash Damage’s class definitions are by looking at how each merc is classified as they are. If Splash Damage and your class definitions are the same, Phantom would have been an assault merc. He isn’t though, so to say that you are right, you pretend that Splash Damage is wrong, without regard to how they define classes might be different from yours. Right now, Splash Damage says Phantom can only kill, and he is a recon merc, which says that not all mercs who can only kill are assault mercs, and not all recon mercs must have a spotting ability.

As the thread title says, how would you define the classes based on how the mercs are currently classified. Your class definitions have no basis in reality.

If you were doing a scientific experiment, and the results don’t fit your hypothesis, are you going to change the hypothesis, or are you going to complain how the world is all wrong?

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;108977”]Phantom being recon is incorrect title only because you say it is only so your parameters that make a merc a certain class fits. As I said, you try to alter reality just so you can get your assumptions to fit.

We don’t know how SD classifies mercs, but we do know how SD sorts the mercs into each class. You are saying that a design element is placed incorrectly without realizing that maybe your class definitions might be wrong? You are simply rejecting reality and substituting it with your own. We know that Phantom is a recon merc, and with that in mind, come up with a class description that fits all recon mercs. I already made one. Stealth. That’s it. It is a broad term that current fits all 4 recon mercs.

I don’t pull roles out of nowhere. I look at what currently exists, and make a conclusion based off of it. The reason why I say you, and many others, pull roles out of nowhere is because you don’t base it from the fact that Phantom is a recon merc, and make conclusions on what should have been, and not from what actually is.

Eliminating enemies with no secondary purpose is too generic of a role. Maybe the classes aren’t separated by role, but maybe they are also separated by playstyle. I already listed 5 broad aspects for each class. Likewise, healing, spotting, and give ammo is too specific of a role. It means that all fire support mercs must have a give ammo ability, not some other support ability, like buff weapons, or medics having increase teammate movement speed, or recons poison enemies. There are limitless possibilities, and your way of classifying the classes means that the majority of them would be assault, while only a select few would be the other classes.

Assault: Aggressive
Medic: Selfless and Supportive
Engineer: Strategic and Defensive
Fire Support: Strategic and Supportive
Recon: Stealthy

As for roles, there is only 3. One that gives you blue XP, one that gives you red XP, and one that gives you yellow XP.

Reality should’ve could’ve been different doesn’t cut it around here. Make your assumptions based on the current reality, not some alternate universe, or your own idea of the perfect universe.

It is obvious that Splash Damage’s idea of class definitions isn’t the same as yours. I can only speculate on what I think Splash Damage’s class definitions are by looking at how each merc is classified as they are. If Splash Damage and your class definitions are the same, Phantom would have been an assault merc. He isn’t though, so to say that you are right, you pretend that Splash Damage is wrong, without regard to how they define classes might be different from yours. Right now, Splash Damage says Phantom can only kill, and he is a recon merc, which says that not all mercs who can only kill are assault mercs, and not all recon mercs must have a spotting ability.

As the thread title says, how would you define the classes based on how the mercs are currently classified. Your class definitions have no basis in reality.[/quote]

So your only argument against me is: If Splash Damage said so, it’s gotta be correct. I can live with that.

You don’t get to tell anyone what doesn’t “cut it” around here, because as this is a forum, the community’s opinion goes - and that’s the purpose of the community, so SD can get a clear cut understanding of what the majority and minority of the playbase wants from DB.

On another note - How is your speculation any more accurate than a system that compiles evidence and regulative patterns? I actually compare the most prevalent mechanic in the game, abilities. Your system is based on non-material concepts like aggression, defense, stealth, and supportiveness. These are all just playstyles and you can apply them to any class. Your system is just as disconnected with existence as you think mine is.

How is the fact that Phantom is currently a Recon merc render my system incorrect? All other mercs fit neatly into their classes with their abilities, ALL of them - the only anomaly is Phantom. From a statistic viewpoint, my system and viewpoint is greater than one that itself off universally applicable concepts.

Your system wins intrinsically, my system wins statistically, especially since SD hasn’t released any official statement on what makes classes themselves. That’s all there is to it. gg no re

Edit: If I was doing a scientific experiment I wouldn’t spout BS about how mercs are locked to unshakeable playstyles.

[signofzeta1]

They didn’t release statement on how they define the classes, hence this is the hypothesis, and from that we can formulate a theory.

We do know that Phantom is a recon merc. You can say that he shouldn’t be one or some other reality happening, but when you form a theory, or conclusion, it must have basis in reality.

So the problem is, how does Splash Damage define classes.

The hypothesis is Assault has no support abilities, because any merc without support abilities is all about killing, Medic heals, Engineers do objectives, fire support gives ammo, recons spot.

Now we gather data. The data shows that Phantom is a recon merc, and he can only kill, and he has no support abilities. Your hypothesis says that he should be an assault merc, but he isn’t. Now you have to go back, and rethink your hypothesis. How is Phantom a recon and not an assault? So let’s make the definition of Assault more specific, and broaden the definition of recon. Assault all carry heavy weapons, at least the 4 we know of. Recons all have have a stealth strategy. So maybe the assault class is the aggressive guns blazing class, while the recon class is the stealth class. Then from that, we can formulate a theory that Assault is the aggressive guns blazing class, Medic is the heal and revive class, engineer does objectives and has a defensive ability, fire support gives ammo and has area denial, and recon relies on stealth. When Splash Damage releases a new merc that breaks this theory, we formulate a new hypothesis and make up a new theory that fits how Splash Damage classifies the mercs.

The way Splash Damage defines classes results in how the mercs are classified, and Phantom is classified as a recon, meaning that recon isn’t defined by spotting abilities.

Here’s something logical to think about. If Splash Damage says that Phantom can only kill, and let’s say your class definitions are correct. WHY is Phantom a Recon merc? It is more likely that Splash Damage defines the recon merc to be the stealth merc, while the assault merc to be the aggressive guns blazing merc, than Splash Damage going “oops”, and dropping Phantom in with the other Recons, instead of Assault. In short, you think that Splash Damage have no idea what they are doing. You can believe all you want and what it should be, but the mercs are classified the way they are because Splash Damage has their own class definitions.

Speaking of aggression, defensive, supportiveness, how is that any different from me playing as vasili and not throwing heartbeat sensors? Or playing as medic aggressively, meaning I take killing enemies as a bigger priority over healing teammates? You are basically saying that it is OK to play as medic, and not heal anyone, because if I am healing someone, I am being supportive and selfless. Or how about assault? They are supposed to be aggressive. So I am going to sit back, and let my teammates go into battle first, get killed before I enter battle? How about being aggressive with a fire support merc. Ok, I am going to chuck airstrikes without any regard to how I am going to maximize the kills, or place an artillery strike where ever I want without any regard to strategic advantage to your team.

Being supportive and selfless is a more broad generalization about a medic merc, so a medic doesn’t have to be restricted to healing.

Secondly, your way of classifying assault mercs is no different from saying that they can’t do the other class defined abilities, according to you. If you took away every single special ability from all mercs, all they could do is kill.

This means that if Splash Damage released 20 mercs per class, the fire support mercs must all give out ammo. Do you even realize how redundant that is? If they didn’t give them the ability to spot, give ammo, give health, or do objectives, then according to you, they are all assault mercs, and that makes the majority of mercs assault mercs. As I said, you have to generalize the non-assault mercs, and make the assault merc more specific.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;109008”]They didn’t release statement on how they define the classes, hence this is the hypothesis, and from that we can formulate a theory.

We do know that Phantom is a recon merc. You can say that he shouldn’t be one or some other reality happening, but when you form a theory, or conclusion, it must have basis in reality.

So the problem is, how does Splash Damage define classes.

The hypothesis is Assault has no support abilities, because any merc without support abilities is all about killing, Medic heals, Engineers do objectives, fire support gives ammo, recons spot.

Now we gather data. The data shows that Phantom is a recon merc, and he can only kill, and he has no support abilities. Your hypothesis says that he should be an assault merc, but he isn’t. Now you have to go back, and rethink your hypothesis. How is Phantom a recon and not an assault? So let’s make the definition of Assault more specific, and broaden the definition of recon. Assault all carry heavy weapons, at least the 4 we know of. Recons all have have a stealth strategy. So maybe the assault class is the aggressive guns blazing class, while the recon class is the stealth class. Then from that, we can formulate a theory that Assault is the aggressive guns blazing class, Medic is the heal and revive class, engineer does objectives and has a defensive ability, fire support gives ammo and has area denial, and recon relies on stealth. When Splash Damage releases a new merc that breaks this theory, we formulate a new hypothesis and make up a new theory that fits how Splash Damage classifies the mercs.

The way Splash Damage defines classes results in how the mercs are classified, and Phantom is classified as a recon, meaning that recon isn’t defined by spotting abilities.

Here’s something logical to think about. If Splash Damage says that Phantom can only kill, and let’s say your class definitions are correct. WHY is Phantom a Recon merc? It is more likely that Splash Damage defines the recon merc to be the stealth merc, while the assault merc to be the aggressive guns blazing merc, than Splash Damage going “oops”, and dropping Phantom in with the other Recons, instead of Assault.[/quote]

Eh, who knows? The next “smooth stream” coming up might answer that question. I guess all we can do is wait and see.

[signofzeta1]

All I’m saying is that your way of defining classes would make for a lot of redundant mercs, meaning mercs that basically all do the same thing, and a lot of assault mercs. It isn’t like we need any more mercs who give ammo and deny an area, when we already have 4 who could do that. Your way, and even the wolf ET way, is too restrictive, but my way of saying Assault is aggressive, Medic is selfless and supportive, engineer is strategic and defensive, fire support is strategic and supportive, recon is stealthy, is a broad generalization of the class that we would see equal merc distribution. This also make it so that there isn’t a new class that only has one or 2 mercs in it because the class definition is to specific, that is, a class that specializes in increasing teammates’ speed.

If you play medic, and you aren’t selfless and supportive, it means you aren’t healing teammates and focusing on killing the enemy, or trying to be strategic, which you can’t. A merc who buffs teammates speed would fit as a medic.

If you play fire support, and you aren’t strategic and supportive, you aren’t giving ammo packs, and you are blindly using your other ability without regard to any strategic advantage. A teammate that buffs weapon damage fits here. Caltrops can also fit here as well as under the Engineers.

If you are playing a recon and not being stealthy, it just means you aren’t using their special abilities, meaning you are rushing with phantom without using his invisibility, or you are killing enemies with vasili using your machine pistol over your sniper rifle. Making a clone of yourself can fit here.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;109015”]All I’m saying is that your way of defining classes would make for a lot of redundant mercs, meaning mercs that basically all do the same thing, and a lot of assault mercs. It isn’t like we need any more mercs who give ammo and deny an area, when we already have 4 who could do that. Your way, and even the wolf ET way, is too restrictive, but my way of saying Assault is aggressive, Medic is selfless and supportive, engineer is strategic and defensive, fire support is strategic and supportive, recon is stealthy, is a broad generalization of the class that we would see equal merc distribution. This also make it so that there isn’t a new class that only has one or 2 mercs in it because the class definition is to specific, that is, a class that specializes in increasing teammates’ speed.

If you play medic, and you aren’t selfless and supportive, it means you aren’t healing teammates and focusing on killing the enemy, or trying to be strategic, which you can’t. A merc who buffs teammates speed would fit as a medic.

If you play fire support, and you aren’t strategic and supportive, you aren’t giving ammo packs, and you are blindly using your other ability without regard to any strategic advantage. A teammate that buffs weapon damage fits here. Caltrops can also fit here as well as under the Engineers.

If you are playing a recon and not being stealthy, it just means you aren’t using their special abilities, meaning you are rushing with phantom without using his invisibility, or you are killing enemies with vasili using your machine pistol over your sniper rifle. Making a clone of yourself can fit here.[/quote]

Yes, mercs do the same thing (kill) but some mercs do that same thing while being able to do other things, and those “other things” is how I and many others classify mercs. That’s what I’m saying.

[signofzeta1]

Which means that if we have 100 mercs, the majority would be assault or there would be a lot of non-assault mercs who all do the same thing, or we would be seeing 25 to 50 classes with 2 to 4 mercs each rather than seeing 5 classes each with 20 mercs.

Now let’s think about it this way. Mercs who kill in order to get rid of the enemy are assault. Mercs who kill in order to distract the enemy is recon. Even as it is, Phantom, if done right, can’t kill a lot of enemies, but he is very distracting and annoying.

However Splash Damage classifies the mercs, it makes it so that when future mercs are released, it makes for an even split between all 5 classes, rather than introducing too many classes each with a few mercs in them, or an uneven split where we see too many of one class, or a class with too many mercs doing the same thing.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;109021”]Which means that if we have 100 mercs, the majority would be assault or there would be a lot of non-assault mercs who all do the same thing, or we would be seeing 25 to 50 classes with 2 to 4 mercs each rather than seeing 5 classes each with 20 mercs.

Now let’s think about it this way. Mercs who kill in order to get rid of the enemy are assault. Mercs who kill in order to distract the enemy is recon. Even as it is, Phantom, if done right, can’t kill a lot of enemies, but he is very distracting and annoying.

However Splash Damage classifies the mercs, it makes it so that when future mercs are released, it makes for an even split between all 5 classes, rather than introducing too many classes each with a few mercs in them, or an uneven split where we see too many of one class, or a class with too many mercs doing the same thing.[/quote]

So you’re still saying Phantom should be a kill once, die, repeat merc? That doesn’t sound nearly as helpful as this:

Video provided by @Amerika

Point is, you’re subjecting Phantom to a bad strategy and playstyle based on your opinion of how mercs are classified and if it leads to bad strategies, why is it reliable?

I get where you’re coming from with the excess of Assault mercs if DB goes by my classification system, and the solution is simple - make Recon mercs with spotting abilities.

Yeah, I’m tired and no longer interested - seeing as the only points we can each come up with are continuously refuted by eachother without any official back up - I’m just gonna leave my points, rebuttals, and expansion here.

gg no re.

[signofzeta1]

Do you even understand the point of “distracting the enemy”? The most of an ability a merc has is 3. I think Phoenix’s self revive is a separate ability, so he has 3 abilities. You obviously don’t get the fact that if you give all recon mercs spotting abilities, you are basically making them use up one of the ability slots.

The way you solve excess assault mercs by having all recons spot leads to merc class redundancy. It is already happening now with the fire support merc and medic merc. Each of them pretty much does the same effect but differently. Now imagine, how is it possible to make 20 medic mercs, and each have them different? There is only so many ways you can heal and revive. You basically have a wide variety of assault merc, and pretty much no variety in medic, engineer, fire support and recon merc. Then there are abilities that are supportive, but don’t fit under the heal, spot, and give ammo. Are you now going to make new classes for them? Now we will be seeing around 10 to 50 classes each with 1 or 2 unique mercs.

The problem is that your definition of recon is spotting, and that’s all there is to it. It is too specific. Recon can sabotage, or they can distract. They can deceive. There are so many abilities a merc can have and they can only have at most 3 of them, and if we have a merc that converts enemy deployables into friendly ones, and makes a clone of himself to distract the enemy, would he be some brand new class just because he can’t spot? So you are just going to shoehorn spotting in just so he can be a recon merc?

[gg2ez]

[quote=“signofzeta;109042”]Do you even understand the point of “distracting the enemy”? The most of an ability a merc has is 3. I think Phoenix’s self revive is a separate ability, so he has 3 abilities. You obviously don’t get the fact that if you give all recon mercs spotting abilities, you are basically making them use up one of the ability slots.

The way you solve excess assault mercs by having all recons spot leads to merc class redundancy. It is already happening now with the fire support merc and medic merc. Each of them pretty much does the same effect but differently. Now imagine, how is it possible to make 20 medic mercs, and each have them different? There is only so many ways you can heal and revive. You basically have a wide variety of assault merc, and pretty much no variety in medic, engineer, fire support and recon merc. Then there are abilities that are supportive, but don’t fit under the heal, spot, and give ammo. Are you now going to make new classes for them? Now we will be seeing around 10 to 50 classes each with 1 or 2 unique mercs.[/quote]

I understand thoroughly, I just don’t agree. A large contributing factor to redundancy is sparsity - will we ever get enough mercs to do that, because it’ll take a lot, especially since we have this cool new thing called community suggestion. Redundancy isn’t happening in either the Fire Support or Medic class, they all have different abilities with the only exclusion being ammo distribution, which is fine.

Your second paragraph was a good argument but I don’t even know what you mean on the first paragraph. What does “distracting the enemy” have to do with 3 abilities, or the fact that Phoenix’ SR is a separate ability?

[Amerika]

SD has defined the classes. They can change them at will whenever they feel like. Phantom can spot but he has to use voicecoms to communicate it. So he still fits with recon. It also fits in with many other games that classify recon as either a ranged character or the super up close and personal character (BF series for example). You’re simply trying to make Phantom fit into your view of things which is a desire to classify him as Assault.

All that really needs to be done is get overwhelming community support on what changes Phantom needs to be playable at all levels. I honestly don’t care about classifications. I just want him to be fun, require intelligence to play at a high level, not be cheap and be useful to any team. Currently he’s severely lacking usefulness in a proper 5v5 league match setting. SD can make him a part of the “My Little Pony” class and I won’t care. As long as he’s useful and fun.

[ASTOUNDINGSHELL]

OK do you knwo the spy from tf2? he has low hp and a cloack, he is a SUPPORT and his job is killing wanna know why!? his job is to kill mayor targets, yeah some more skilled palyers go ahead and elminitae whole groups, but the Spys MOST improtant feature is been able to quickly kill important targets, Just like PHANTOM can flank and take down snipers and medics.
You know if you are SKilled enought

[gg2ez]

[quote=“astoundingShellfish;109198”]OK do you knwo the spy from tf2? he has low hp and a cloack, he is a SUPPORT and his job is killing wanna know why!? his job is to kill mayor targets, yeah some more skilled palyers go ahead and elminitae whole groups, but the Spys MOST improtant feature is been able to quickly kill important targets, Just like PHANTOM can flank and take down snipers and medics.
You know if you are SKilled enought[/quote]

Why are you playing Phantom as the Spy? The Spy is a melee oriented class, Phantom is not. As a player with ALOT of experience with Spy, getting team wipes with him is completely different to Phantom.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“Amerika;109168”]SD has defined the classes. They can change them at will whenever they feel like. Phantom can spot but he has to use voicecoms to communicate it. So he still fits with recon. It also fits in with many other games that classify recon as either a ranged character or the super up close and personal character (BF series for example). You’re simply trying to make Phantom fit into your view of things which is a desire to classify him as Assault.

All that really needs to be done is get overwhelming community support on what changes Phantom needs to be playable at all levels. I honestly don’t care about classifications. I just want him to be fun, require intelligence to play at a high level, not be cheap and be useful to any team. Currently he’s severely lacking usefulness in a proper 5v5 league match setting. SD can make him a part of the “My Little Pony” class and I won’t care. As long as he’s useful and fun.[/quote]

In what way has SD defined classes? The only thing they’ve done to do that is put mercs in those classes. Sure, SD can call Phantom whatever they want - but in practice, a merc that has no other purpose than killing is an Assault. Fire Supports have ammo, Medics have health, Engineers have quick arm/disarm, and the current majority of recon mercs have spotting. Every merc is capable of spotting through voicecomm, doesn’t make them recon.

Don’t get me wrong, I really want Phantom to be more similar to the other recon merc ability-wise, but his current role, as stated by SD themselves, to kill people only, gives him more similarities with Assaults than Recons. The fact that Phantom has to be sneaky about it doesn’t affect anything. If all we need is community support, I can stick to it.

SD can make him a part of the Goof Troop and I wouldn’t care, as long as he evident consistencies with mercs of that group - because I’m unhealthily bureaucratic.