[Discussion Thread] Core Feedback - Specialists

Please don't close the thread! I haven't had my say yet!

I understand that people dislike specialists, and I myself am not the biggest fan of them. But that's a totally separate issue to classes.

I've been playing since 1942, So I've got some history with the class system. It's great in some senses, allowing players to get in and have some impact in a given role without much thought. But does the concept of "role" really make sense for Battlefield? The concept almost seems borrowed from MMOs, where you commit yourself into a given role (Tank, DPS, Healer). You pick your class and take on the responsibilities of that class. If you're a tank, you queue with DPS and Healers, and vice versa.

But Battlefield is a sandbox, where what's required of you can change in an instant. Your squad can roll up to a flag and before you capture it, boom! a tank appears! In the old class system, if you chose Medic/Assault, you'd have no way to handle it. If you chose Engineer, you could; but then you'd be limited to SMG's and couldn't revive or heal teammates.

This is just an example of a crappy lose-lose tradeoff you had to make in the older games. And there's plenty more. Lets say you want to do some sniping. Now you can't heal, revive, or give ammo, which means you have no real way to help the team.

Being siloed into a single role doesn't make sense when the battlefield is constantly changing

The freedom of being able to combine any main weapon, with any gadget, with any specialist is AMAZING. It's the class revolution this game has deserved for 20 years. Now you can revive fast AND shoot tanks. I've seen all kinds of creative setups, and it's fun to theorycraft and test new combinations. And you can still run the old classic class setups if you want! You can totally play Falck with a medkit, or Lis with a repair tool.

In fact, I wish there was more redundancy built into the system. It's great that you can pick the Medkit to heal allies, meaning if that's something you want, you don't need to play Falck specifically. I wish the "Engineer" classes had a similar passive that could repair tanks (Hold button while standing next to them) meaning they can repair tanks with a different gadget. And I wish picking the stimmy pen would grant the "Medic" passive, giving fast revives.

Players have always needed to make tradeoffs when picking their loadout. But in 2042, I get to make the tradeoffs I want. I never take a weapon I don't want, or a gadget I don't use. I hope every future game separates the loadouts in the same way.

The arguments I've seen against it seem to be mainly based off principle "This is how it's always been". Or some bring up some "overpowered combinations". I'm sorry, an Angel with a sniper rifle is not overpowered. Even the only banned combination I'm aware of (Lis with Recoilless/FXAA) would probably be totally fine. Just think about what that player is trading away to commit into that role.

If we do go back to the old system, you're going to see the same old stuff we've seen for 20 years.

My dear friends, the year is 2022. There are more than 2 genders. There are more than 4 classes.