Hacking main objectives seem almost impossible to hack. Every bot ob the enemy team just camps the objective and my teams bots do absolutely nothing to help me, I need to kill onslaughts of enemies while trying to hack an objective, which seems to take more time than any other objective in the game, and an engineer can take down 5 minutes of work in 10 seconds when I die. This is my only problem with the game and it really just ruins some of the missions.

Its not a mather of hacking needing a fix, Its a mather of you going for the hack objective without team backup, Its stupid. And infact engineers are far more vunerable when doing objects then operatives are.

And yes I realise you are prob doing campaign, but if you just rush ahead of your team they will get picked off behind you, help them progress.

Personally I didn't change class once during singleplaye campaign, if you make sure route to objective is clear, the bots will do their job, that includes protecting you

Then why exactly is it that I can do any objective for the engineers in the game fine, but the second I hack with EVERY TEAMMATE next to me, I still die? Please explain to me what I am doing wrong. I get all the bots up there to cover me, I start hacking, they all die then I die (no cover me 1 v 6), they defuse the objective and the cycle goes on and on.

That's partially what I see as the problem too. Hacking easily takes the longest out of all objectives in the game, it's also sort of easiest to negate (although HE can be disarmed, but it's easier to guard) and it's negated completely. At least with Repair-objectives you can do "corpse running" if nothing else helps, meaning you get like 10% repaired for every death, you'll eventually get it. Or you'll escort the hostage when you just keep suicide reviving him long enough if nothing else. Hacking is pretty much the hardest thing to pull off. While engineers are indeed more prone to being shot as they can't move around as freely, having to defend yourself while hacking will cancel the hacking too.

Well when theyr bots you obviously shouldnt rely solely on them to protect you, don't be afraid to cancel the hack to keep them alive when enemies do attack..

And yes Hack objectives do take considerably longer then engineering ones, then again you have Alot more freedom while hacking, and if you continue to hack while enemy is engaging you better be damn sure your teammates don't need your fire power.

I'll humor the OP by saying that hacking is boring as [censored]. I think it would be cooler if hacking had a more hands-on approach rather than just hold X and sit there. I'd rather just press the X button, and be engaged in a little minigame where I have to press the face buttons to proceed with the hack (i.e AXYB for Xbox). It should require three simultaneous presses on those buttons occasionally as to restrict the operative from being able to aim, kind of like simulating how the operative tinkers with their I-phone while they're hacking. Make the total hacking time slightly lower to compensate for the vulnerability.

I dunno, but it's a pet peeve of mine just having to stare at a bar slowly rise in order to continue with my game.

I guess the only thing I can do is dream.

I'll never understand why engineers get the de-hack objective, and why they can de-hack so fast. Operatives should get the de-hack objective and it should takes just as long (if not longer) to remove the hack box. To those of you who say that it is balanced because engineers need to stand right at the hack box, whereas operatives can move around, you have obviously never hacked. You can maybe move in a ten foot radius and retain 1 bar, which means you might complete the objective in the next 50 years. I think the current 5-bar hacking speed should be the 3-bar speed, and that engineers operatives should de-hack at the 3-bar speed

Hacking is slow to complete, fast to reverse, and hard to defend.

I think they should tweak either the hack speed or the reverse-hack speed a little bit. Not by much, and only one needs changing, and that should balance it out.

That's the only thing I really think is unbalanced in the game, honestly.

Engineer dehack should at minimum go no faster than a point blank hack, probably more at the speed of a 3-4 bar hack.

Has anyone tested (or can they test in a private match) how big a difference the speed of hacking and reversing a hack is?

Get an Operative on a hack objective, and an Engineer, both standing on the objective doing their thing, and see how fast it goes down.

Havn't tested what's the "net gain", but the engineer does do it faster than the hacker does at some 3-4 bars of signal. It's rarely to be 5 bar hacking and engineer, cos then the engineer would see you Couple of times I've been hiding with 3 or 4 bars and engineer shows up and the progress still goes down at decent speed.

I think hacking is harder and you don't get the bonus of it being unable to be reversed after its been completed if its a primary objective as all primary objectives are irreversible. However if hacking is made easier then it needs to become reversible on side objectives.
Also if you are playing campaign right now (and it will probably stay this way) your bots are naturally worse then the enemy bots and will almost always fail when it's anywhere close to a 1:1 ratio of friend foe.

How Hacking could be fixed:

The placing of the Hackbox is the same, but the hacking is a bit different. If you get past the 50%, you break a firewall and the hacking goes faster.
Now, the Engineers can still remove the hackbox, however, the firewall will still be down and when the hackbox is replaced, Operatives can hack way faster than usual, untill a defending Operative places a firewall.

This would give Operatives more to do, objective wise and it would make sense, as Engineers probably don't have the hacking skills Operatives do.

And if they do, why the hell don't they hack?