BF:HL Thoughts on Mechanic

Battlefield Hardline General Discussion
1

Dear Visceral

I hope you’re listening. I understand that BF:HL breaks the conventions of the Battlefield franchise. Personally I don’t care because BF4 has all the Conventions everyone expects out of a Battlefield game and people seem to hate it.

So with that said, lets talk about the Mechanic. He seems a bit worthless if he follows the normal Battlefield conventions. The way he’s traditionally made his unique style of points is by destroying vehicles and by repairing vehicles.

Well there really isn’t an incentive to repair your cars in BF:HL, seeing as the vehicles blow up quickly with conventional bullets. So why can’t his repair tool do things on a level that they’ve done in BF2 and go a step further.

The mechanic/engineer class could repair bridges. Sometimes these bridges were strategically placed and meant the difference of winning or losing. So an engineer having the ability to repair those bridges became key, and he got points for doing it.

So why not have that and go a step further. Picture a map like Siege of Shanghai. The tanks are blowing up the building in the middle of the map. Then, suddenly, engineers pop out of the woodwork and start repairing the pillars.

Picture this, the first round, the teams blow up all the buildings. So the second round in BF:HL still has nothing but rubble. (Most people don’t know BF:HL wont have a socond loading screen for two round game modes. So the level doesn’t get restored or reloaded in the half-time). Why not let the engineer, not repair buildings that have already blown up, but various bits of cover so that things might work out a bit.

I hope you’re listening, and I hope that this gets implemented. I’ve recieved quite a bit of positive feedback about this idea. So… may I make a request that this be put into the game? If not on launch, then in an update?

Battle recorder
2

Mechanic: Useless becuase everyone can destroy vehicles now

3

But he got an Grenade Launcher and can Sabotage the vehicles.
Dont get me wrong, but i thing this is enough. The Grenade Launcher is dealing a huge damage to vehicles. I think it is just perfect

4

The Mechanic has evolved and adapted over the course of the project. He’s pretty darn viable now, and valuable, as he gets a lot of important gadgets to help himself and his team out. The repair tool has lost its prominence, but that’s ok because the Mechanic’s SMGs are deadly in close quarters.

We investigated the repair tool repairing damaged buildings etc. but it is not possible at this time, the amount of work was quite large. Maybe for the future, who knows. :slight_smile: I don’t think we’d go so far as restoring entire skyscrapers or anything but I can see some cool scenarios where this might work. For example, I wanted to let cops construct “road blocks”, but we decided against prototyping it due to the work and risk.

5

I agree. Aftes a tank blows up, you can’t repair it, so when a building falls down, why would you be able to. :slight_smile:

Thank you for the response.

6

Regarding Roadblocks; Thats what CTE is for, so if you ever want to experiment a bit, you can.

7

Well based on what I’ve heard the mechanic is getting the defensive perk and the spawn beacon.

Mix that with a grenade launcher and something like a Mpx, sounds like a good deal to me.

8

Most people don’t know BF:HL wont have a socond loading screen for two round game modes

====================================================================
I think it is 6 rounds in rescue mode.

9

Speaking of repairing buildings and creating a “better mechanic”, how about a gadget that holds up walls even when C4 is placed? Someone as in Rainbow Six: Siege, where they put up breaching boards.

10

I’m sure they still have plenty of ideas they’ll refine after launch. Thad said on twitter, today, that right now he and Visceral are all focusing on making the game stable for release and not so much looking for more additions into the game at this point because it adds the potential for more glitches.

which is cool, I’m all for that. But it’s a little frustrating that the majority of your class specific points, as the mechanic, are going to be through that spawn beacon.

Traditionally speaking, the spawn beacon really doesn’t give you as many points as repairing vehicles.

The MPX IS a good gun, please keep in mind though that BF3 guns don’t work like they do on BF4, and keeping the ability to blow up vehicles is great, but EVERY class can do that in HL.

Though there’s still a strategic need for the engineer/mechanic, it seems like he’s less of a mechanic than he is the explosives expert.

But I’m still curious how it’ll all work out when I actually play it.

Thad also told me that they got rid of the magnifier… one of my favorite attachments… but the upside is a canted red dot sight. (Something I happened to have mentioned in the forums a long time ago. something cool).

Again, there are things about this game that gives me pause but I can’t judge it until I get the chance to play it at length. And the more differences the better. I don’t expect this to be a BF4 carbon copy.

I knew about that. It sounds exciting and frustrating at the same time. If there are maps like Golmud Railway then those maps wont play well for multiple round game modes… by the first quarter of the second round you’ll wind up with a map with nothing but rubble.

See… that there… you could potentially be running 4 rounds with nothing but rubble

you mean explosive resistant walls with a gadget?

11

RE: destruction, you can’t level the map in BFHL - it doesn’t really fit the setting, but it’s also not possible currently with how dense our urban spaces are. Something like Zavod or Golmud has a lot more terrain and a few specific destructible assets that are repeated - this is possible to level. A city, nope, not currently. Also, flat levels aren’t all that great for gameplay as implied.

Rescue currently works as best of 11 rounds, but there’s a halftime where the sides swap and we DO reload the map to reset the destruction. We want both sides to have the same advantages and opportunities for better balance.

12

11 rounds? Good. I didn’t get why BF4 has 6 rounds for Defuse lol.. It can tie as 3-3

13

:} Thanks Thad! That helps!

14

That’s good design it sounds like. I recently suggested that instead of nerfing the assault into the ground the BF series should have a CQC class that is capable of actually competing. If you recall in BF3 SMGs had very good hipfire, in BF4 they are awful (to put it politely). Have you tightened up hipfire on weapons which would rely on it, especially with a laser on?

Also are you going to keep the unique AR balance where the AKM is hard hitting but heavily recoiling whereas the AR-15 recoils less but has better accuracy? I enjoyed that in the beta and thought it was unique especially after how awfully similar ARs were in BF4.

15

Yes to all. SMGs are more powerful in CQ than ARs, and the best with unaimed rapid fire (carbines not as good, ARs even less). The current balance has more variety and differentiation between the ARs where we could - our philosophy is that each gun is a tool, and each tool has a specific job it is best at.

16

Cool! That gets me a bit excited. In BF4 the Carbines are pretty much the exact same thing as an Assault riffle.

17

At this point in the games development are you guys taking suggestions for weapons we would like to see in the future of the game?
Future as in when DLC starts to get planned. (We all know there will be some kind of DLC)

18

That’s why I like the Pdw’s in BF 4.

I’m usually up in peoples faces.

19

Road blocks or deployable stop sticks etc is actually an awesome idea!

20

We’re always open to suggestions. I’ve been meaning to start a stickied thread or two to collect these, someone remind me again next week :slight_smile: