» Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:17 am Praise out of the way, I'd like to talk about Operatives.
When I was watching the Tutorial Videos, The Operative was the class that stuck out for me, the hacking, the blending into enemy troops for surprise attacks and infiltration, the aiding of other players through Comm Hacks and putting big visual aids on enemies and Mines, I was personally in Heaven, so for my first 10 games or so after the challenges, I put most of my points into the Operative abilites..... and slowly lost interest.
You see, the other 3 classes are just more able to keep up in playing offence and defence, the Medic is so insane that a good player with 2 wingmen can easily hold an objective forever OR take one with ease, the Engineer can set up choke points and with well placed turrets and mines as well can do the same, The Soldier with a heavy variety of grenades and infinite ammo is a class everyone can play and keep the team alive by making the other team dead! The Operative? Oh he can mark enemy targets, enemies you can already see 80% of the time, he can play dress up, take the long route to flank round to where the enemy would deploy then take out maybe 1 guy before being murdered ala first scene in Robocop, he can indicate mines on the mini-map, Mines that are the size of tractor wheels and bleep and lastly he can hack enemy turrets, turrets post-hack that are now facing the wrong direction....
Sure sticky bombs in the hands of grenade experts work wonders for causing panic in a player and Controlling a Turret yourself is going to be more effective (if you don't mind sitting still whilst doing it) and Comms Hack is useful, but all in all an Operative, Objective wise, just doesn't give enough to be a valued team member in actually WINNING a match.
Hacking is another pain, out of all the Class objectives, His is the hardest by far. Soldiers simply have to plant a bomb and start killing as before, Engineers don't have to worry about anyone cancelling their progress and as such can take their time if need be, Reviving a Hostage? It's what the Medic has been doing all match anyway. The Operative on the other hand has to first plant the hackbox, fair enough, has to wait a good minute to complete the hack again fine, but since your hackbox can be removed by an Engineer at double the pace your hacking is AND the fact that you have to stand there as a liability without any way to defend yourself without first putting the smartphone away, dealing with threats AND having to run back to the Hackbox to start it all over again. It's a Pain!
Okay, so enough hatred, the Operative has got the goods, they just need to be refined to match his peers, so in no particular order:
1./ Operative's Class Objective: It needs tweaking, only slightly, first be able to get your smartphone hacking again without having to run up to the hackbox, you're an Operative! Hiding should be emphasized surely? Running back out into the Open where everyone is headed seems like a real stupid thing to do when the hackbox IS ALREADY THERE!
2./ Make yourself a hidden threat, the new DLC with the Camera/Bomb, perfect, more of that, I think being able to have other members of your team ultilize your disguises would be great, balance it by say only being able to give one teammate a disguise at a time, give it a decent effect time that runs out even if they aren't spotted (25 seconds say) and only with someone the Operative has already 'scanned'. If the Medic and Engineer give all the buffs at the beginning of each respawn, wouldn't it be great to have the Operative and Soldier handing out ammo and espionage after that?
3./ Might be overpowered, but how about a Rank Five ability to make AN ENEMY look like one of your team mates? This would make the Operative a much stealthier character, picture the scene, you've killed a straggler and disguised as him, you then make your way over to an enemy, and say the same speed as a buff you turn that enemy into a random teammate (that your teammates will still know is the enemy). Sounds like an Operative thing to do right? The ability will last, 30 seconds I say is fair, and them using their gun doesn't take it off. I'm on the fence with how this would work without testing but tell me your thoughts on this one.
4./ Firewalling? It's dreadful, it doesn't hold back an enemy long enough to make it worthwhile and to have it do more would be unbalanced. I say remove it and replace it with a Virus. When the Enemy takes a command post with an Operative Virus on it, it will do the reverse effect on their supplies/health. Pretty much it's a reverse Upgrade and would actually defend the command post! To counter this enemy Operatives could see this virus and remove it before attempting to capture it, or if the Virus is already in effect, remove the Virus bringing the Command post back to normal (an engineers upgrade wouldn't work until this is done). A teammate on your side could recapture it with no penalty, although it would make it more of a tactical descision as an uncaptured one would be hurting the enemy....
These changes in my Mind would cement the Operative as good a class as the rest of them, Messing with the enemy behind their own lines, making sure the enemy fear any attempt at capturing a command post, have the enemy kill their own team for you and leave their ranks in confusion. Creating a sense of teamwork and all important tactical choices.
Tell me your thoughts, what sounds good, what sounds like a terrible idea, or your own thoughts on how to improve this class because it IS a good class but it can be a Great one!
turret hacking is also pretty neat but ive never managed to use the remotem turret effectively, but that is mainly due to me starting a 3rd character now he is at 20. once the DLC comes out i will have 3 level 20s to work on with the new abilities 
