So read through most all this thread. A few contributing and constructive thoughts. Preface this with..
1. The class system of old needed to evolve in some way, lots of ways to do that without abandoning the core feature.
2. Specialists are not it... They were the wrong approach to take for said evolution. And there current implimentation does in fact promote selfish play (coupled with zero local comms..)
What do we do now? I dont believe EA will allow devs to completely abandon them but I dont think you have to. You can both fix the situation and also have it be an evolution of what should be core to the game. Very simply put a soft restriction on gadget slot. So Casper for example is considered a recon specialist so his gadget slot would be restricted to recon gadgets only along with any specialist tagged as "recon". Leave weapons and grenades class agnostic. Last thing that would need to be done is a rebalancing of specialists as some are way too self sufficient. So after these changes the game needs a proper command structure and comms. Which to give an actual working design from another 100 player game, Hell Let Loose, in game comms are split into 3 channels: Squad, command, and an open proximity chat channel. Need ammo? Simply throw it out on the open prox chat and boom anyone near you with ammo could answer. And then for 2042 command channel would just be for squad leaders to coordinate pushes with other squad leaders. This works great with nothing but random players in Hell Let Loose and I dont understand at all why devs thought it was great to just not have it..
@Stew360Do agree that old classes weren't perfect. But just making the class setup "do whatever you want" is a lazy design choice that isn't better than the old class system... just different with its own equal amount of pros and con. What it is currently is Call of Duty not Battlefield so its not evolving anything but simply abandoning one system for another. Specialists in no way equate to a class with a single unique gadget and trait but is quite literally what CoD specialists are in standard multiplayer. What I suggest is an evolution at least in the sense that rigid classes have access to all guns and each class has specialist which would essentially be subclasses. With a pre-made squad, no matter the class setup, coordinating roles is never hard. Having classes is what helps guide solo players into being useful (or supposed to) to the team instead of playing selfishly. Someone said it earlier in this thread but a solo player left to their own volitions with always swing for whatever is "meta" for getting kills.. how to guide solo players into being team oriented with their choices is the actual problem that needs to be solved. 128 players with completely open loadouts lets say half are pre-made squads (which is generous imo) means 64 players are just yolo yeet train with their setup currently. How do you solve that problem in relation to specialist system vs rigid classes? It would be nice if devs would release specialist pick rates because we only have anecdotal observation to say pick rates would prob have McKay and sundance dominating with Angel in at second. Sundance and McKay are far and away the two most selfish picks you could make for team comp.
