A Specialist system could work, but Gadget should define your "Teamwork Role"

First up, in an ideal world, different Factions would have different looks for their models. I agree with that. This post has nothing to do with the appearance, design, or the fact there are individual characters.

What Are the Classic Roles?

Before I talk about specialists, I need to get straight what Roles the classic classes restricted and facilitated, rather than simply what gear they had access to.

For 14 years and 11 Battlefield, there have been 4 core classes on Battlefield, and their identities have been:

Medic Class

• Revives and Healing for your team.

Resupply Class

• Ammo Box. Resupply bullets and Gadgets.

Anti-Armour Class

• Rockets. Counter the Armour threats.

Recon Class

• Sniper Rifles.

Traditionally, Recon has been treated kinda expendably, and the good utility it could bring was often overshadowed by an identity focused on Sniping.

In my opinion, Revives/Health, Gun/Gadget Resupply, Anti-Armour, are the big 3 (core) Battlefield roles.

Since these are the core roles in Battlefield, I think it's important to be careful about creating overlap between these roles. Specialist can spec into focusing on new and different roles, that’s fine, I like the idea, but I’m uncomfortable allowing a player to fully fulfil more than 1 of the big 3 at a time.

How I think a “specialist” type system could work really well.

The Gadget option should be reserved for the generic team utility tools, often defining your Role within your Team/Squad.

These are the necessary Team Utility (THE CORE ROLES)

• Medical Crate (Team Healer)
• Ammo Crate (Team Resupplies)
• Recoilless M5 (Anti-ground vehicles)
• FXM-33 AA Missile (Anti-Air vehicles)

These items assist your team and have utility but are more niche. (OFF_CORE ROLES)

• Insertion Beacon (Infiltrator: Spawn your squad)
• SOFLAM, (Spotter: Assist Anti-vehicle)
• Repair tool. (Mechanic: Assist Vehicles)

These items should be removed from the gadget slot. They Cannot/Should Not define your Role.

• IBA Armor Plate.
• C5 Explosive.
• Med Pen.
• Anti-Tank Mine.

With something like this, every single player will be deploying with a Teamwork orientated role, while still being flexible.

Something even previous battlefields didn’t do. A BF4 “Support” might not have the Ammo Crate and a “Medic” might not be able to heal.

The Specialist Gadget and passive can essentially add a twist/function to how you go about your Role.

A gadget like the Med Pen offers NO team support value whatsoever.

These are not gadgets to build roles around. C5 and even the Mines are not things players should build their roles around.

Fewer Gadget options will keep players focused on the core roles and support functions, bloating it will hurt players ability to operate as a team.

Your gadget is now essentially defining your Team/Squad Role, like the class system used to. Instead of being forced to pick a class, you can turn any Specialist into the largest part of a "Medic" or "support", like you can now. The difference is, you do have to pick a role. Currently you don't have to.

Specialists abilities overlapping Gadget Roles.

Specialist abilities that fulfil Gadget Roles are dangerous.

Angel has access to infinite bullets, body armour and a recharging Loadout Crate that can resupply Gadgets.

He is a walking Ammo box, (if less convenient) while also having access to picking any other role for his gadget slot.

I think it is inherently harmful to create Specialists that can play multiple roles at the same time to a high degree.  

Gadgets/Grenades Thoughts:

IBA PLATES & MED PEN

It needs to be removed from the gadget options. They are not a ROLE. If you really want to keep this, it needs to be in the grenade slot.

C-5 Explosive.

This was shown in a grenade slot in early trailers, it probably was too abusable. Whatever was wrong with it, fix it. Because it either needs to be a Grenade option or a Specialist Gadget. It is not a Team Utility and shouldn’t be in the gadget slot.

Anti-Tank Mine.

I think they should become Anti-Tank EMP Mine. It will do little/no damage but will STUN/Perhaps even highlight the vehicle and give the attackers a great opportunity to ambush it and do some damage.

The Anti-Tank Mine is in a tough spot, it can’t compete with the M5 for Anti-vehicle flexibility, so it really should be a Grenade option, but with so many players it’s probably not a great idea to have these things return with the same functionality as past Battlefield.

So, instead of competing with the M5 it will be a combo tool, assisting the M5 user in destroying the vehicle. It also needs to have a certain amount of object permanence. It shouldn’t disappear after being placed when you die, but it should be limited, probably between 2-4 placed at a time, considering the player count.

Spawn beacon

This item suffers from difficulty placing it on uneven terrain, much like other placed items.

Proximity Sensor

This should be removed from the grenade slot and:

A Specialist’s ability should replace it, they become a mobile Proximity Sensor for a duration. Limiting it’s spam and creating positional risk to it’s benefit.

It becomes a gear item, requiring greater sacrifice to equip it.

While, I have fond memories of Motion sensor from BFBC and BFBC2, this is a gadget that doesn’t scale well with player count.

I do worry that as a gadget it would drag too many people away from more necessary team utility, and potentially still be spammed. Replacing it with a Specialist ability is the better solution in my opinion, but change my mind if you disagree.

Specialist gadget Cooldowns or Resupply?

All the specialist’s gadgets are on cooldown rather than needing to be resupplied.

I can guess why. Teamwork is lacking, if you had to resupply your specialist gadget you just frankly wouldn’t have it most of the time unless you run ammo bags, diminishing the amount of time you feel like picking one matters, but still, this is an important question. I’m not prepared to weigh in on this one, it’s a question that can only be answered by playtesting.

Opinions on the current specialists:

Sundance

Grenade Belt

This makes Sundance by far the best Specialist for dealing with vehicles, the gadget can:

Deal good damage to armour.

Paint vehicles with a target, and lock on “homing” track from a surprising distance.

As well as function as a Cluster and EMP grenade.

All the above on a quick recharge timer, (frankly, too fast) and Sundance can hold 2 charges.

Being the Anti-Armour Specialist does feel a little odd though, I guess I just wasn’t expecting the “light wingsuit” specialist to be the Anti-Armour Specialist of choice?

Personally, I feel like a multi-grenade gadget should completely replace the Specialists grenade options. (For that to work it would be better as a passive on a Specialist with a weak gadget.)

Sundance does overlap with Anti-Vehicle, one of the Big 3. The specialist gadget is Anti-Armour, and they can pair that with anything else. It isn’t extremely capable of effectively dealing with armour on its own but it recharges rather than resupplying. It does greatly encourage and synergises with the Anti-vehicle weapons, as your burst damage potential is significantly increased.

DICE does need to at least slow its cooldown and reduce its lock on range.

Wingsuit

This is a super fun ability. However, removing the ability to turn a small bump into a 200m boost should happen. (I think the Wingsuit should drop like a stone if you are close to the ground, to prevent this.)

That said, the wingsuit is really part of a larger wider conversation on pacing, as of right now BF2042 encourages flags to be almost constantly contested and fought over. If that is the desired pacing, then I guess the wingsuits fine.

DOZER

The shield isn’t OP, but there will be moments when it feels like complete *. I don’t think Dozer is going to be a popular character so at least that won’t be frequently. I can see the use, even effectiveness in a duo or more, but it’s not that useful on your own.

Just because it’s not OP, doesn’t mean it should exist. Some things are simply too annoying, or bad for the game to justify their inclusion, (Like Martyrdom in COD.)

MACKAY

His grapple hook should be restricted to angles of 60-90 degrees, only because I really hate he can grapple 30m horizontally. That said, I don’t think this specialist is OP, just kind of annoying.

IRISH

Irish is a solid specialist.

APS-36 Shootdown Sentinel needs to be a thrown Item, (similar to a Crate) NOT a placed item. Placed items are slower and have difficulty being positioned on uneven terrain. It’s beyond frustrating to have it refused to be placed when you need it ASAP.

BORIS

I’ve only positives.

CASPER

Casper is a decent Specialist.

Recon Drone

Casper’s drone is ok, put it in a position high up and you can easily get great situational awareness, but BF2042 is fast paced. Since his drone is only useful when you are piloting it, he’s gadget is to be more niche. I do think clicking one button and immediately opening it, rather then needing to interact with the laptop would make it a smoother gadget.

Movement Sensor.

It does what it’s meant to, it’s not OP, but you can argue that it shouldn’t exist.

RAO

Honestly, while I have seen some use from RAO, especially against aircraft, this Specialist is too niche, too ineffectual, for a game dominated by what you can do alone. It’s slow, gets you killed, and you can’t shoot while doing it. Rao will need major buffs if you ever want to see this Specialist get played.

My first recommendation? Make his hack-kill skill reveal targets with full highlight-outline, even behind walls. Exactly like how people thought PAIK was going to be.

PAIK

Not terrible, just kind of a bland Specialist. The gadget is also really inconsistent in function, often revealing things it probably shouldn't.

FALCK

Ahh Falck, our Medic Specialist, obviously she should equip the Medical Crate right? NO.

A support inclined Falck should run Ammo Crate. She can already heal with her STIM Pistol and she recharges STIM’s at a rate that basically can’t run out. Take the Ammo Crate. Ammo for everybody and healing for everybody!

This annoys me because it's very deep in Multi-Role.

I see 2 solution to this:

• Having her STIM Pistol need to resupply off the Medical Crate
• It has its cooldown significantly slowed.

Some problems with creating a resupply include.

• She doesn’t have an endlessly rechargeable gadget and might feel blackmailed into taking the med crate rather than feeling completely free to pick anything else.
• Encouraging one type of focused utility (both Specialist and selected gadget doing one role), might make her unappealing when you can just run a Medical Crate on any other Specialist and get a completely different second ability.

I suppose that’s the issue with creating a Specialist that comes with a gadget that fills a core role by default.

ANGEL

Ahh Angel, he is so clearly our classic support specialist. Should he run the Ammo Crate? No. For almost all the same Issues as Falk, and I feel the same way about him.

Armour and ammo supplies

With his gadget he can pass out Body armour and Bullets and he can fully resupply you with a Loadout crate. There is NO good reason to pick the Ammo crate as Angel. If you want to play Support ANGEL, take the Medical Crate, now you can give bullets and healing!

Once again, I have some solutions.

• He doesn’t pass out ammo. Simple.
• He can pass out an unlimited amount of body armour, but only a limited amount of ammo. He needs to resupply the ammo from an ammo crate.
• Both the Body Armour and the Ammo are limited, he will need to resupply his garget from an Ammo box.

Angel at least has less problems with being useful after something like this, the Armour he passes out is more noticeable and can’t be replaced with a Crate at all. So, he’d be affected, but still has a clear utility.

Loadout Crate.

Remove/change the Loadout Crate Drop (He can keep it just the same in Hazzard Zone)

The utility to replenish gadgets shouldn’t exist outside of the Ammo Crate. This specialist handing out body armour (and perhaps bullets) is enough in the classic modes. So, either:

• Simply remove it
• When you select a new loadout you will have zero new gadget and grenades supplied. If you switch to a loadout with the same gadget, you keep whatever amount you had, but if you change gadget you will have zero, and need to resupply off an actual Ammo crate.