Logi Bro wrote:Let me preface this thread by saying that I am by no means advocating restricting people to "pure" roles, which I will explain later, I am just proposing possible new additions that people could use of their own choice to be the most effective at their role.
With that out of the way, what is a pure role? Well, take for example a Sentinel. He carries two weapons and a grenade. Regardless of what you put in those 3 slots, all of them would be dedicated to killing or hurting. I would call this a pure combat role. There are no secondary abilities, no equipment slots for triage, or EWAR, or anything of the sort. All the Sentinel cares about is killing and hurting.
For another example, a Minmatar Assault, equipped with a combat rifle, submachine gun, locus grenade, and REs. All of that dedicated, once again, to killing. Therefore, I would consider it a pure combat suit.
Now consider a scout. Excluding the Minja, the scout's primary role is EWAR. It has passive bonuses that contribute to it, is the only class to effectively use the cloak, and has a couple of equipment slots. However, it also has a primary and secondary weapon slot, plus a grenade slot. Regardless of what modules you use and what equipment you equip, a scout can never be pure EWAR. It will be primarily EWAR, for sure, but also a secondary combat role.
What I'd like to propose is the possibility of being able to be pure in every role. New additions of equipment and unique things to put into the weapon slots to be the best EWAR, triage, AV, or whatever you can be.
What if we had a Tag Rifle as a light weapon, which would do no damage, but fire tags that, regardless of scan profile, would mark enemies on the TACNET for a certain duration of time until the tag's capacitor ran out? This would be an EWAR selection for the light weapon slot.
What if we had a sidearm that functioned similar to the flaylock, but instead of rockets would fire flux-like projectiles that would scramble the TACNET of all enemies caught in the radius for a short duration of time? This would be an EWAR selection for the sidearm slot.
What if we had a grenade that, when thrown, would show a red dot on the enemy's TACNET, making them think they are up against bigger odds than they actually are? A EWAR selection for the grenade slot.
What about a piece of deployable equipment that had a radius of profile dampening, all team-mates and friendly equipment within the radius would be dampened. Another EWAR selection for the equipment slots.
Put all of those things mentioned together on one suit and you could have what I would define as a pure EWAR role. Like I mentioned before, I am by no means saying that all scouts should HAVE to do this, only that they should have the option.
Now consider the logi. A support role that is forced to carry a weapon and possibly a grenade. Get ready for more, "what ifs."
What if there were a variant of the mass driver that fired smoke grenades instead of explosives, providing cover for your team-mates to advance? A support selection for the light weapon slot.
What if there were another variant of the flaylock pistol that fired electronics that would boost a team-mate's shield stats for a duration of time, shorter delays, increased regen, that kind of stuff? Support sidearm.
What if there were a grenade that would deploy a spherical shield where it was thrown, giving cover from bullets where ever you want? Support grenade.
For AV:
What if there were a sidearm that fired "leeches" into vehicles to reduce their natural shield/armor regen? AV sidearm.
What if we had stasis webifiers? Another AV grenade.
Obviously, of what I have mentioned I have gone into very little detail, and there is the possibility of imbalance, but I am spit-balling these ideas off the top of my head, just so we can have people specialized to be the best they can be at one particular thing. It would have little effect to lone wolves, but in team-play these kind of specialized units would be very useful.