Is Soldier Spam Underused?

[StarWarsGeek]

That removal of CC2 and making them super slow makes them noticeably different compared to before because it takes forever for me to catch up to the fights.

Especially when people are not playing ET, when one of my reasons for playing soldier is that I don't want to walk back to the battle I want to spawn in it.

CC1 still lets you run just as fast in melee to catch up to the fights, CC2 was more useful for extra survivability in the fight since you can strafe faster. Soldier is already really viable for lone wolfing IMO. Yeah it's even stronger when spammed with a few rally ETs/CMDRs, but it's still extremely strong on it's own if played smart. No other class lets you take two fatal blows and keep on playing. Since you don't have to worry about dying as soldier, you can be more willing to take tactically important risks than a one life class.

I think it would definitely be a good idea to make rally free though. ET/CMDR could press a class special button to toggle it off if they want to set up an ambush or something, just like soldiers can already press a button to spawn at the normal spawn point instead.

I had got the idea yesterday, a what if armor and ammo was cheaper on soldier. I think its 0-4-6? For Armor and ammo.
What if its 0-2-5?

So if you get max ammo and armor, you would have 6 points left to spend and based on a build you are using you could throw those 6 points into a weapon upgrade, a grenade, whatever you want that you can't afford.

I'd like this a lot. Right now, I feel like E-11 3, reinf 2, frag, cc, ammo 2 is simply the best build >90% of the time. A slight point reduction for ammo/armor would make giving up a frag for a conc in exchange for more extra armor or ammo a more appealing alternative. Maybe ammo doesn't need the point reduction, but armor surely does. 4 and 6 pts for 10 armor each is kind of a joke when soldier's main "survivability" comes from it's ability to die twice and still be alive. 20 armor might allow you to survive one additional shot at most. Two if you're extremely lucky.

 

[Diddy]

Soldiers are currently very bland to play because of how simplistic they are.
I play them most of the time and I admit they are extremely strong in the current meta, the added melee combat also makes all the more worthwhile.

However, they have very few interesting tools others than 3 lives and rally, which makes them very hard to enjoy without a team and a Commander willing to follow you (which is quite rare).
The fun-factor of the Soldier class essentially resides in mindless cooperation, which I wouldn't exactly call teamwork.

The harsh truth is that the game, while enjoyable, doesn't really promote any teamwork other than the occasional class spam and objective solving.
Perhaps the addition of more support classes or abilities would slow down the gameplay, but it would makes the game more cooperative and diverse as a whole.

Commanders and Elite Troopers are also simply much more alluring for many players.

 

[Damn Polak]

I had got the idea yesterday, a what if armor and ammo was cheaper on soldier. I think its 0-4-6? For Armor and ammo.
What if its 0-2-5?
So if you get max ammo and armor, you would have 6 points left to spend and based on a build you are using you could throw those 6 points into a weapon upgrade, a grenade, whatever you want that you can't afford.

nah man, you can live without lvl3 armor
in my builds i use ammo0 most of the time

and theres this idea in my mind:
what if they increased cost of CC2 instead of removing it? this way you have to choose EITHER cc2 OR a grenade

 

[Lessen]

soldiers can already press a button to spawn at the normal spawn point instead

shit, is this true? What button? I've seen at least twice (which is a lot given how rarely Rally is used) times where people complain about the existence of a Rallymander because they got spawned into a bad situation over and over, so if there's already a built-in function to ignore Rally then it needs better PR.

also I disagree strongly with the idea that soldier armies are necessarily a matter of "mindless cooperation." I think there's a bunch of fine tactical potential that just isn't explored, like, positioning, or any kind of multi-person movement that requires good timing between the people (cover fire, little flanks, optimal movement to deal with a sith running at you, and stuff)

 

[Alkatjo]

I'm generally a pretty likable guy so whenever I'm on a server and want something done right, I almost never fail to get 4-5+ people to join me in whatever cause. That being said the key to winning is not through the class but through the communication in which you have between you and your teammates. Discord and TS are good because they can house multiple people clearly and you'll have real time communication instead of trying to use the voice system in game. That being said 4 soldiers that communicate well will always have the advantage over 4 x's.

There's a demo i have somewhere that showcases this perfectly but i named it something dumb and im trying to find it, it showcases 4 guys doing the whole delta squad arc shenanigans and they cleared main all by themselves, pretty impressive considering the arc to sith ratio.

 

[StarWarsGeek]

shit, is this true? What button?

Class special 1.

 

[BigBossBigTeef]

nah man, you can live without lvl3 armor
in my builds i use ammo0 most of the time

Oh yeah armor is completely fucking useless when there is saber spam.
I always opt for concussive and suicide bomb myself when they get too close.

I am still going to bitch about soldiers not getting a survival knife though.
Its been apart of a soldiers kit ever since the profession was created.

I want a knife in my storm trooper kit. Gimme

 

[Lessen]

you have krav maga tho

or, like, kung fu, probably. Whatever the martial art is. Sweet-Kicks Mcgee's Sweet Kicks Style of Martial Kicks.

edit: i actually do stand by that justification though. Like, if we had high damage knives then sweet kicks would lose most of what viability they still have. Rather than going for knockdowns and chaingrabs (or just shooting after the knockdown), you'd go straight into ambush shanks. And if the knives DIDN'T have high damage then they'd be useless compared to knockdowns or blasters.

that being said, i like the idea of some kind of non-jedi/sith blade-wielding-badass as much as the next guy.

Spoiler: tangential af

also, i really like the vibroblades and vibroswords from KOTOR. In MB2, though, there's precisely one guy with a vibrosword, and it's the Elite Republic Soldier from the mb2_enclave FA. That may have been for intentional balance reasons, but it would've been more realistic to KOTOR for EVERY republic soldier and sith trooper on that map to have a Vibrosword (but be unable to block shots. 0 FP.) There's another FA on my mental list, I guess. A big battle between republic soldiers and sith troopers, with guns and vibroblades and grenades and stealth tools and everything else that's from KOTOR. And/or an FA of the Legends Force Wars, featuring a bunch of old-style jedi/sith with vibroblades.

 

[StarWarsGeek]

also, i really like the vibroblades and vibroswords from KOTOR. In MB2, though, there's precisely one guy with a vibrosword, and it's the Elite Republic Soldier from the mb2_enclave FA. That may have been for intentional balance reasons, but it would've been more realistic to KOTOR for EVERY republic soldier and sith trooper on that map to have a Vibrosword (but be unable to block shots. 0 FP.) There's another FA on my mental list, I guess. A big battle between republic soldiers and sith troopers, with guns and vibroblades and grenades and stealth tools and everything else that's from KOTOR.

Very tangential indeed, but if I ever get back into mapping again (unlikely) and actually get good at making things that don't look awful (very unlikely), I'd love to make an Endar Spire map. Would play kind of like Tantive, but with larger hallways and lots of those classic KOTOR style boxes/containers for cover. Part of the reason I'd like to do it is because the FA would be really fun to make. Just a ton of soldiers with vibroswords, some grenadiers, Carth, and a small handful of jedi/sith.

 

[BigBossBigTeef]

Very tangential indeed, but if I ever get back into mapping again (unlikely) and actually get good at making things that don't look awful (very unlikely), I'd love to make an Endar Spire map. Would play kind of like Tantive, but with larger hallways and lots of those classic KOTOR style boxes/containers for cover. Part of the reason I'd like to do it is because the FA would be really fun to make. Just a ton of soldiers with vibroswords, some grenadiers, Carth, and a small handful of jedi/sith.

No jedi please, when FA servers are active its very small player counts.
Just do pure soldier on soldier in the trench fighting action.

I want to run out of ammo fighting somebody and then resort to throwing my helmet at them.

 

[Lessen]

I don't think the regular limits of FA customization allow this, but, it would be hilarious to have a vibrosword and be able to throw it like a lightsaber, BUT you can't call it back (and you can switch weapons after throwing it) and you can only get it back by going over and picking it up.

But it would deal like 150 damage instead of 25.

fling it!

and yeah, I think a big Republic Trooper vs Sith Trooper fight where almost every soldier has the exact same equipment, but the equipment is so diverse as to allow for multiple approaches, would be fun. By which I mean, rather than having a "grenadier," just have everyone have nades (of all three types), guns, and swords.

although some extra step would have to be taken after that to keep it from being mostly just grenade hell. Not sure what the setting would be. I would like it to be varied so there's a big main place with a hail of gunfire and grenades and lots of cover and varied elevation, but also multiple side routes and tighter areas where swords are more useful.

and, also, everyone should have pretty low ammo so that running out of ammo and being forced to switch to sword happens a lot.

and if possible, frags should have secondary fire disabled, to give swords a little more of a chance. I know there's "smoke bombs" in some FAs where primary fire is enabled, so i'd just want the inverse of that.

and also: have a couple guns lying around the map in different locations to pick up and use. If that's possible. Pretty sure it is. I actually have another very unique map concept based around fighting over a particular powerful gun, but I don't think it's possible with current FA rules (can you make it so a particular gun ALWAYS drops when the holder is killed? As in: the one single gun is fought over, picked up, dropped, etc.)

does this count as off-topic when I started the thread?

 

[Alkatjo]

I still stand by the idea that both rebel and imperial troopers/et's have some sort of vibroblade weapon you skill in.

 

[Lessen]

That just made me picture Thrawn with a Vibroblade, which is tempting enough to almost make me want to get behind this line of thought, but I think it's unnecessary to the point of being unjustifiable.

 

[Bombad General]

Rally is already the most op skill in the game, especially with the Assemble buff a few versions ago, so I'm not sure it should be free. The secret to having fun in Open is immediately switching to an ET the second someone decent chooses Sold and follow them wherever they go. It amazes me that noobs will spam Jedi/Sith when they could have so much more playing time with ET/Sold. I will play Sold all day long if I can find a Rally point, and will play them a lot even if I don't.

 

[FRANK LAMPART]

I think there should be a small group of soldiers rallying to an et/commander on every team, every map. They are deadly when they stick together.

Also, the ability to repsawn three times in different areas of the map, or to a commander, to outflank enemy teams is a big game changer.

 

[Lessen]

I think there should be a small group of soldiers rallying to an et/commander on every team, every map. They are deadly when they stick together.

Yeah, agreed, that was kind of my intended initial point.

 

[Onysfx]

Couple years ago, I managed to get the team to soldier spam. We owned those rebels.

 

[Diddy]

I think there should be a small group of soldiers rallying to an et/commander on every team, every map. They are deadly when they stick together.

Also, the ability to repsawn three times in different areas of the map, or to a commander, to outflank enemy teams is a big game changer.

The only way to make that happen, and the easiest, is to make Rally a free skill for Commanders.

 

[Rosh+]

Couple years ago, I managed to get the team to soldier spam. We owned those rebels.View attachment 1540

I'll post a video detailing my adventures with class spam whenever I happen to feel like it.

 

[A Potato]

We should do a droid spam