Repair tool should be better

@rainkloudLet me give you an example of why the repair tool is useless versus other tools. Why would I opt for a repair tool when I can take a Stinger or Recoilless and help fight my opponent. It's so much easier to use a rocket launcher to gain an advantage than it is to support your team with a repair tool. This is the problem with making the repair tool take up an entire 'gadget slot'.

Being attacked by an enemy heli? Bail and use your stinger on the attacker while your pilot attacks them. Enemy tank shooting you? Bail, run up with C5 or use your RPG. So easy, why even bother repairing anymore.

Someone is using a repair tool? Just shoot an RPG near the vehicle, they will die. A tank shell kills anyone exposed near an enemy tank, unless on the direct opposite side, even then, they are exposed to other gunfire and are not making use of the spotting or gunner seat reducing the overall efficiency of the vehicle. Passengers too easily take damage in the transport Heli, only one stinger missile has to hit the Condor and both passengers not in a gunner seat, die. Whats the point of repairing transport Heli's if you're that vulnerable and can barely repair them anyway. You practically repair them only when the Auto repair kicks in.

You will notice, that the usefulness of the repair tool is reduced by many other factors and is not dependent on just the efficiency of the repair tool itself.

By reworking the repair tool so that the amount of damage it repairs over time increases as the player repairs, you effectively restore usefulness to the tool whilst also preventing it from being abused. You will not be able to repair a tank quick enough to ensure it wins in tank fight, why because the repair rate would not be in your favor to suddenly repair the damage taken by an enemy tank's shell. The cooldown mechanic is an awful mechanic considering once again, there's so many better gadgets to pick from to win a fight. The repair rate increase over time also addresses many of your concerns with buffing the repair tool.

Auto repair is so situational, if you were flying away and a pistol caliber bullet hits you, the entire repair time is extended.

As it stands right now, most players are going to rock RPG's over any other gadget. Why would any tank driver or passenger even bother with a repair tool if they can just use a RPG between tank shots.

I'd also like to point out that the repair tool's cool down, is dependent on the player having the tool equipped. So if you repaired a vehicle, you have to keep the repair tool in your hand for it to cool down, if you switch to your primary, the cool down will remain exactly where you left it when you switch back. This is arguably broken and not intuitive, why do repair tool users need to be nerfed this much in the face of how many more Rocket launcher users there will now be in the game. Gunners and spotters must now wait outside for however longer so that their repair tools can be ready when they need it again, is this really 'intuitive' game play that belongs in a Battlefield game where vehicular warfare is a key element.

I understand your concerns but I feel my suggestions address them entirely.

HI @FakeSympathy ,

Just to be clear:  The initial repair tool in BF4 could maybe work as you described.  But that was also found to be completely OP, as you know well we could be two repair engineers on aka the littlebird and our squad friend on the stick became near immortal to keep hammering away on everything down below us.

Fully loaded, you know we also had the trick to have our pilot friend start by dropping am ammo bag inside the littlebird before taking off, and then with engineer friends in the passenger seats, we could rage from start to end, even auto replenish with RPGs we also used against enemy tanks on the ground if we weren't busy to repair 24/7.

Such overpowered madness of course had to come to an end, so:

• Shooting RPGs while as passenger in a heli was disabled.
• The repair torch was nerfed, so we also had a cool down period on that in BF4.

And still, the littlebird was often a constant plague if the pilot had supporting repair engineers sitting in the seats behind him...

Not sure we want to see them back in BF2042, so while yes, the repair torch appeared slow in the beta, we need to be careful about how to boost it up as it can have drastic consequences other places in the gameplay...

@CyberDymeGonna be honest, the repair tool was bad in 2042 for far more reasons than just it having a way longer cool down than necessary.

BF4's main problem was Air to Surface and Surface to Air being so poorly balanced. With Soflams and Laser designators only working correctly half the time. Stingers were practically useless against skilled pilots. The problem wasn't people repairing tbh, it was poor balance in that game. There was no way to skillfully counter pilots, the way they could skillfully counter others.

Then on certain maps, the AA's have total map control like on Golmud Railway. The balance was just all over the place...

Why would I opt for a repair tool when I can take a Stinger or Recoilless and help fight my opponent?

What happens if the opponent is already killed by something else or is out of range? What happens if you have more RPG's than necessary? What happens if the RPG's are CM'd? What happens when you run out of RPG ammo (repair tool has infinite "ammo") The repair tool will still be useful in these situations as healing faster and sooner is virtually always a strong benefit. Another likely yet unconfirmed bonus is potentially being able to repair broken parts that result in systemic affects - we don't know exactly how this will play out though so stay tuned.

Someone is using a repair tool? Just shoot an RPG near the vehicle, they will die.

RPG's don't penetrate through armored vehicles.

Passengers too easily take damage in the transport Heli, only one stinger missile has to hit the Condor and both passengers not in a gunner seat, die

In BF4, to the best of my knowledge, AA missiles did not damage passengers - it only affected the vehicle itself. If you are saying this has changed in 2042 then it might just have been a beta thing that will get changed in release.

Whats the point of repairing transport Heli's if you're that vulnerable and can barely repair them anyway. 

- Transport helis can already sponge a lot of damage - They should not be able be repaired via tool mid flight. That should require landing and exit from the vehicle. The advantage of the tool is the same as it is with all other vehicles: You are repairing faster and sooner than you would if you waited for auto repair to kick in. Regarding the Transport heli specifically, its role changes depending on the map. With jets and attack/scout heli on the map the Transport heli is pretty limited to getting a squad from point A to point B quickly - anything else is not really feasible. On maps with less vehicle traffic the Transport Heli can go offensive and be used more aggressively.

By reworking the repair tool so that the amount of damage it repairs over time increases as the player repairs, you effectively restore usefulness to the tool whilst also preventing it from being abused. 

- I'm not sure how you arrived at that. True it would prevent someone near death from being able to sponge, but if the vehicle gets about the damage threshold of the enemy weapon then the faster rate kicks in and now you've engaged in damage negation which is a big no no and why the repair tool is set how it is. Healing and Damage dealing should be largely separate affairs with few exceptions.

As it stands right now, most players are going to rock RPG's over any other gadget. 

Maybe but maybe not. As of this writing we don't know the full gadget spectrum. Repeating this:

"It's a niche gadget that is great for drivers or passengers, but it is not nor should it be expected to be the dominant choice among gadgets. We have to remember that there will likely be around 10 options for gadgets so assuming even distribution of gadgets among players that would be about 6 per 64 man team. So yes you're likely not going to see a ton of them in the wild, but that does not mean that they are under-powered."

Why would any tank driver or passenger even bother with a repair tool if they can just use a RPG between tank shots?

Exit animations make hopping out of vehicles perilous. I understand that exit animations have been cut or reduced from some vehicles which I think is an exceedingly poor choice, but we know that in the Portal options you can toggle those back on. In any event if you manage to get the shot off you've still got the entry animation which leaves them vulnerable. And again the same issues I mentioned in my first paragraph hold true here. Being able to quickly get back to 100% health allows you to keep your vehicle engaged longer than it would otherwise which translates into more flag caps and more kills and better survivability.

the repair tool's cool down, is dependent on the player having the tool equipped. 

I don't recall that being the case but I will take your word for it. That may be a technical limitation to prevent circumventing the cooldown by entering/exiting vehicles or switching weapons. If not, then it should indeed continue cooldown even when not equipped. While it may not be intuitive it is important for balance which I will touch on next (And it's still a lot more intuitive than pumping 30 shells into a tank and seeing it survive):

While we do indeed need to balance among gadgets (and I have been an ENORMOUS proponent of making sure there are no useless gadgets/weapons/upgrades in the game) we also need to look at balance from multiple perspectives similar to how you look at different time frames when doing day trading. The repair tool is unique among gadgets in that unlike everything else, it restores health rather than depletes it (unless you are using it against an enemy). One of the core tenants of semi realistic shooters like this is that restoring health (negating damage) should be at least the same or harder in terms of effort/difficulty as inflicting damage. If we make the repair tool too strong as you are suggesting then we violate this rule and it has a number of negative affects on the gameplay environment:

1) Provides too large a stacking advantage for teamwork such that even players using superior tactics are rendered ineffective next to a blob of players. Teamwork should be valued and rewarded but there are limits. I can't rob a bank with a friend, get caught and say "Well your honor we recognize we did a bad thing but we used a lot of teamwork so if you could just let us be on our way that would be splendid!" - I can't walk into a car dealership with my wife and $20k and ask the dealer to give me a $40k car for $20k because my wife and I earned the money as a team. There are limits

2) It deprives infantry of a cooldown period from constant vehicle attacks. One of the drivers for the supply station healing in BFV was that vehicles could be too dominant and shrug off damage too quickly. With Supply stations not being reimplemented in 2042 we need to ensure that vehicles exercise some cooldown time so they don't become overly dominant (especially give all the extra gadgets that passengers have access to this time around).

3) Results in Negation. Negation is a nasty concept that extends into IRL but we'll stick to its affects in game. Negation occurs, for example, when a player inflicts less than 100 damage and then has that damage quickly negated by virtue of some type of healing. In other words, the penalty of sustaining 90 damage are not commensurate with the effort/value achieved by the attacking player in affecting that damage. Another example was the revive trains in BF1 where you wiped out 5 enemies only to be killed by a medic who undoes all your efforts with some quick syringe jabs (hence the introduction of revive animations to put an end to that nonsense)

Ultimately, I believe your argument falls apart because you've not demonstrated any empathy for the players on the other side of your proposed balance changes. Battlefield is a game of dependencies and a seemingly simple change can have massive ripple affects. I will end by saying that it may become the case that after testing (which we should not be able to perform thanks to Portal) that some vehicles need to have their repair rates adjusted but I believe we need to let the game be released and see how it plays out before making any hasty changes.

@rainkloud"True it would prevent someone near death from being able to sponge, but if the vehicle gets about the damage threshold of the enemy weapon then the faster rate kicks in and now you've engaged in damage negation"

I feel that you dismiss my proposal to buff the repair tool too soon. The repair rate increase over time could also be reset when the vehicle you are repairing takes damage.

I played the Beta for over 25 Hours, I tried to use tanks but they were so broken and with so many RPGs on the Battlefield, they were horrendously under powered. I thought the repair tool would offer some salvation but it's just a waste of a gadget slot. The recoilless could almost 1 shot a tank at times. If you used the repair tool in the Beta like I did, then you wouldn't need to take my word for it.

I understand your frustration with vehicles becoming damage sponges, this is not what I want either. But you need to remember, the repair tool is itself meant to be situational, maybe you won't need it an entire game, maybe you'll use it far more than anticipated. Where as other gadgets will almost always get used.

Portal is a different scenario due to the customizable nature of it. I am speaking about "All out Warfare". I don't believe my suggestions would make the repair tool too strong, I think they give the repair tool the needed buff to make them viable in contrast to the other far more useful gadgets that offer far greater pay offs.

If you've played BF V you would notice that if you were repairing a vehicle and a tank shell hit anywhere near the vehicle you were repairing, unless you were on the direct opposite side, you would either take damage or die. It was the same in the Beta. I believe the term is splash damage?

You should also remember that the repair tool is fundamentally about damage negation, in 2042 it is now also a sacrifice a player makes in favor of it taking a gadget slot. In no situation would it be useful to stop fighting and retreat to repair when the enemy tank is still functional, with modular damage, retreating may not even be a option due to 'track' damage. This only promotes a kind of campy vehicle warfare, trading shots from the safety of cover far away from objectives as we saw frequently in BF4 which again, do we really want this sort of campy play style in Battlefield?

I guarantee you, as it stands now, tanks will barely contest objectives that are swarming with infantry, there's no point when they will die too quickly.

What you need to understand is that it is possible to buff something whilst still keeping the game balanced as I have shown in this post.

@S3SSioN_SoL  The issue with BF2042 is, that the role of the Engineer Specialists (Boris & Irish) differs very much from the Engineer roles in previous titles.

Boris and Irish are both CQB Anti-Infantry specialists, while BF4, and BFV had an Anti-Vehicle / Mechanic roles.

Maybe if the repair tool can be used to repair Irish's Shields and Boris' Turret, they may be a valid option as secondary gadget. But I agree, this isn't primarily to repair squad vehicles.