• Registered: 2006-01-11
  • Posts: 7,234

Topic: Officer Kit Discussion

Moved Here for discussion.

8) In the kits section the Officer class seems to be the least used.  I find that odd as it's the most powerful kit in the game I thought, and one I use almost exclusively because of it.  Nothing better than running ahead of your team through a battlefield full of blaster fire, leaping over the enemy's bunkers and shooting them down Han Solo style.  I doubt we'd be able to capture the star-wars combat mystique better if we added jedi and lightsabers even.  But beyond how I try to play it, anyone have any insight as to why it seems to be so seldom touched?  I know it's less used as only SL's can take it out, though I'd think that they'd be taking it every spawn.

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  • Registered: 2006-01-11
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Re: Officer Kit Discussion

FSDev| Woodrow wrote:
8) In the kits section the Officer class seems to be the least used.  I find that odd as it's the most powerful kit in the game I thought, and one I use almost exclusively because of it.  Nothing better than running ahead of your team through a battlefield full of blaster fire, leaping over the enemy's bunkers and shooting them down Han Solo style.  I doubt we'd be able to capture the star-wars combat mystique better if we added jedi and lightsabers even.  But beyond how I try to play it, anyone have any insight as to why it seems to be so seldom touched?  I know it's less used as only SL's can take it out, though I'd think that they'd be taking it every spawn.

I know you touched on it, but it's automatically going to be used less than everything else as only one person out of every squad can use it and then it's usually only used if you have a decent amount of squad members.  The numbers for the kit sit fairly at about 2 or 3 people per team per round using it for a good majority of the round.

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  • Registered: 2006-01-11
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Re: Officer Kit Discussion

But beyond how I try to play it, anyone have any insight as to why it seems to be so seldom touched?

In my eyes, it's because FS is populated by run-and-gun types who aren't too heavily into teamwork. They pick the Officer, see that it only has a "lame" pistol (and face it, in most FPS games pistols aren't the Weapons of Doom they are in FS  ) and abandon it for something more "FUN" (pretend "fun" is in big, pink bolded letters).

In short, they want to run around and shoot things, and the Officer kit doesn't let them do that, at least not at first glance, instead excelling at teamwork enhancement - which the run-and-gun kids hate.



1) prox mines.  Remove them.

You know what? I actually don't disagree, now that you say so. I don't know how you guys initially designed gameplay, but my two reasons being
1. They kill far more team mates than enemies, since people a. don't notice them, or b. don't know that mines aren't something you should step on.
2. FS has by far enough defense measures already, and few attack tools (the PMG and smoke grenade come to mind, and the PSG can be used in an attack, of course, but that's pretty much it). Removing proxmines would balance that somewhat.

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  • From: Belgium,
  • Registered: 2006-10-01
  • Posts: 115

Re: Officer Kit Discussion

The officer kit is actuelly used quite alot imo, i mean if you have a six man squad, and you have 3 officers, meaning 3 stationary blasters, it becomes much harder for the other team to get trough that defense. I only use officer when i need too, for instance, at the city steppes in Bestine, If i'm squadleader i'll just spawn as officer, put up a respawn beacon, put up a stationary blaster, drop some bacta and ammo and use a area scan some times, in the meantime i'll try and kill some trooper and take his kit. But i see no use for being a officer all the time, since the best defense is offense. And the officer is purely defense.

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5 Reply by RabidJohn (edited by RabidJohn 2008-07-14 08:56:53)

  • Registered: 2007-10-02
  • Posts: 237

Re: Officer Kit Discussion

I play the Officer kit as and when appropriate; I regard it as being a vital part of a squad on most of the push-mode maps. That said, I often select either support or medic if I go down after placing a beacon, and I will only respawn as officer if I need to move a beacon. I'm led to understand it's not possible, but the only change I'd make to the officer class would be to make the Eweb/Mk II redeployable.

I'd take away support's prox mines and give the sniper just two of them, like the vanilla claymores. He's then got to find a support guy to get more, unlike the present situation where support can give himself as many PMs as he wants.

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  • From: New Hampshire, USA
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Re: Officer Kit Discussion

Krowmaet wrote:

The officer kit is actuelly used quite alot imo, i mean if you have a six man squad, and you have 3 officers, meaning 3 stationary blasters, it becomes much harder for the other team to get trough that defense. I only use officer when i need too, for instance, at the city steppes in Bestine, If i'm squadleader i'll just spawn as officer, put up a respawn beacon, put up a stationary blaster, drop some bacta and ammo and use a area scan some times, in the meantime i'll try and kill some trooper and take his kit. But i see no use for being a officer all the time, since the best defense is offense. And the officer is purely defense.

Except that unless you kill 2 other officers from the team and take their kits, you can only have 1 officer per squad.

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7 Reply by Bandu (edited by Bandu 2008-07-14 11:08:39)

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Re: Officer Kit Discussion

Of course the Officer gets used less than other kits due to its nature of only being open to squad leaders. However, the fact that one of its strong points , the UAV Locater Box, is readily available to the Trooper class(the UAV Droid) pushes it towards redundancy. The Locater Box may have a larger radius, but it doesnt have the longevity of the Trooper's UAV Droid , aswell as the fact the UAV droid's radar follows you - whereas the Locater Box effect is stationary.

Personally, I love the Locater Box as it is, and I often play as an Officer, but even I find myself ordering my squad about as a trooper , using the UAV droid - knowing that many of my squad will be doing the same , giving us a large radar outlook. Not tomention that using the UAV droid is a drop and forget tool - meaning I can concentrate on killing, rather than risking death and switching to the Officers Locater Box.

. I think the UAV droid of the trooper class needs to either a.) go entirely, or , preferably, b.) made so it can only be used if you are in a larger squad. I'd also limit the amount of Trooper homing beacons to 2 (I believe it is 3 atm)

Another thing worth mentioning , in regards to redundancies of the Officer class, is the Spawn Beacon. Sure, it is an advantage, but the fact you can spawn directly on your squad leader, regardless of what class he is, hinders the Officer somewhat(since the trooper has more firepower ). This isnt as big a problem, in my eyes, as the UAV tho.

An important aspect also to consider is stats. Make Officer kits more enticing to Stat centred people by increasing the amount of stat points the Officer gets for its duties. Ideally, Id like to see the top ten leaderboard be made up of mostly Officers since these are the people who are leading the battles... this is what I envisioned when I proposed the Officer squad leader class in the 1st place. This is supposed to be a teamwork orientated game afterall, which , for the most part , it is.... but it is sometimes overshadowed by some redundancies, as mentioned.





As for the Support class and its Mines. I disagree that they should be removed. A couple of things could help.
1. Limit them to 2, with no rearm, other than thro the Officers Ammo supply, with only 2 on the field at 1 time.
2. Increase the time it takes to arm them - either have the player place them and then have to switch them on and/or have them take longer, from when dropped, to arm.
3. decrease their area of effect.
4. decrease their strength.
5. Allow people to crawl/crouch past or shoot them (tho taking quite a few shots)
6. Allow a class, the support, to disarm them with the fusion cutter.


Taking them away altogether is  abit OTT, imo. They are useful for defending positions and one of the main reasons why I choose the Support class in defensive positions. They should be pushed towards being a "thinking mans" tool - defining the area of danger to your position and positioning the mines prior to any battle 1st, before removing them because a few people run around and drop them at your feet.

One thing with the Support class that Id like to see is it being given the DEMP as part of its default loadout, probably as a set amount of uses. I never choose the DEMP over the MG15 because its pretty useless against infantry, and I want to have a chance at staying alive after I immobilize a vehicle. Thus , I never use it even if there are a few enemy vehicles in the area - I hardly see it being used by anyone else either.


In general, I think one of the things that hurts FS the most, and the Officer kit, is the sheer amount of UAV/Radar available. I think the emphasis of UAV/radar should be put onto the Officers , via the Locater Box (probably my favourite tool in FS)

.

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