Support Personnel: Give 'em some lovin'

[Veteran]

I know PlanetSide is a shooter, which of course means guns and killing and hurting and such, but without support personnel to repair your terminals, hack them and keep the generator and spawn afloat, you'll be hurting people with your Suppressor and respawning in sanctuary. Based on that, I'd say support personnel are just as important as grunts, and I think they need to take 'game balance' and skew it a little more in favor of people who are willing to do something that might not be as thrilling as ventilating their enemies for the good of the entire army. As usual, I have suggestions to illuminate this idea:

1: Hackers. When they're not reading up on Better REKS and HAX magazine, they are hacking bases, terminals and vehicles. I'd make any hacked vehicle require no certification to drive and enemy equipment terminals provide enemy MAXs and weapons. Just think how exciting the game would become with such simple changes. I've heard it suggested that this would cause imbalance or abusability, but I challenge anyone to provide a compelling argument to support this.

2: Engineer. These guys keep the generator and spawn tubes running and make sure your tank doesn't die. I'd halve the time it takes to repair a vehicle and MAX armor. What kind of reward involves two units standing like clay targets for 30 seconds while repairing a MAX, or almost a minute for a tank or AMS? It's too long, and chances are the MAX/vehicle will wind up dead in 30 seconds from a Decimator anyhow. People only live so long, why make them wait forever to send a freshly repaired unit back into the fray?

3: Medic. WHOLE LOTTA LOVE FOR THESE GUYS. Sorry for the caps, but if any support class has been shafted, it's the Medic. I'd implement stim packs as well as allow the Medical Applicator to instantly activate implants (even on the user) and let it heal stamina. Some people say medics are fine the way they are, but I just can't agree. Five cert points to be able to ressurect someone? In practice it's just frustration. Even if the guy doesn't spam release when he dies, just how long is it going to take for you to get to him? Then you have to sit there like a clay duck rezzing him, risking your own life, and then he's alive with no armor and minimal stamina. Consider also the time that guys spend waiting to be rezzed, only to say 'screw it' 30 seconds later and hit release. That's almost a whole minute wasted because of the false expectation of being rezzed. Adv. Medic is only viable for people using voicechat, I'd say.

4: Infiltrators. Every base should show security breaches on the world map when hackers are hacking doors/terminals, etc. _except_ when an infiltrator is involved. This would be so easy to implement and would make infiltrators very desirable for sapping bases to break the facility link benefits. Call me a heretic, but I also say make them totally invisible when moving to nullify the <*****> exploit, which is never going to be fixed by its base nature. There are so many ways to detect stealthers, so an exploit that a five-year-old could think up shouldn't be allowed to ruin it. Stealthers also show up like lightbulbs through rifle scopes. Also, add a second pistol slot that can only carry a REK and you have a class that is both balanced and dignified.

5: Troop transport drivers. These guys are willing to give up 3 certs to haul your sorry ass around and what happens? The HART becomes the only vehicle anyone needs. A big part of PlanetSide's appeal (and marketing strategy) is vehicles. ANYTHING that makes them more useful/necessary should be considered. I'd suggest making the HART only drop you around friendly SOIs and giving vehicles better resistance to light arms. As it is, you can shoot a Deliverer to death with an assault rifle in under a minute. That's just wrong. Add a big flat metal landing zone for Galaxies and soon Lodestars, and the vehicle driver will finally be vindicated for his sacrifice.

That's about it. Heavy Assault guys, tankers and Reaver pilots have been yucking it up since launch. I really think it's time to show some love to the behind-the-scenes guys. If anyone thinks PlanetSide is just about killing the enemy, they are missing the thing that keeps a lot of other players interested.

I get the idea that SOE understands the plight of support personnel and will be helping them out soon. If not, I really think they've missed an important avenue of improvement for the game. Time will tell.