Your point "Now, there are a few points I'd like to go over starting with, for lack of a better way of describing it, a complete lack and any kind of character identity. The whole 'be an elite soldier of the 41st millennium.' feels rather shallow and falls short does it not ? You aren't an elite anything anymore but rather just some random soldier at any given time, a jack of all trades, playing as what ever class will give you an advantage at that point in time just because it is convenient to do so. " falls down entirely with the next sentence I right.

Stop complaining!

No seriously now, you can't have attachment to your character in a game where death is inevitable. How are you going yo build up lore around your own character if that character dies atleast once every half hour in hot zones etc?

From a practical point of view, being locked into one class in this sort of game is ridiculous. Especially for players new to the game who don't know WH:40k lore. I've never seen a class lock done well in a shooter.

If you want to, lock your character to a class, how will other people playing how they want affect your experience?

EDIT: Also, while I do agree the idea would be cool as balls, the ability to not just switch class kills flowing gameplay. There will come a point where one faction has mainly a certain class online, and this presents weakness as less variety. The other factions would then steamroll this faction and a lot of players would quit out rather than fling their tacs at tanks over and over, for example. Also Be would have to give us more char slots and re-think store items.

they'd have to add a "only purchasble on X class tag" and be accussed of unfairness when you have to buy cosmetic armour on each different character, rather than just once.

First off, why would you want to run over poor old Djemo?

Second, i am getting the gist of your concern a bit more. Basically by playing by your (and my since i feel similarly) rules we are effectively gimping/nerfing ourselves by deciding to stay in character and have the lack of versatility the other allies/enemies have by using the class swap.

By sticking to our guns we are effectively (but of our own accord) finding ourselves in situations where one would easily adapt with a class swap whilst we would either have to leave or be very resourceful with what we currently possess.
However you are correct in this having a snowballs chance in hell of changing, and even if we are arguably nerfed we are so by our own choice, and noones really forcing us to be.
So yeah, i guess the system itself is something i cannot see people outright leaving the game for (like you hinted towards doing) cause yet again, you can still play your own way with needing to simply think more about where you are, where you spawn and where to position yourself to maximize your single-class nature.

And then even looking at most CSM/SM classes, you arent really denied a role swap within your class. You want to be only a CSM Tactical? You have a Bolter/Stalker B/Plasmagun/Meltagun/Flamer (hopefully), so you arent really gimped all that much honestly since you have a plethora of gear for every situation even if you are only playing a single class.

I keep coming across contributors to this thread who seem to want to specialise in a certain class and believe that SM should stick to one class as they are Specialists.

I say to that, have you never heard this:
"The ultimate Specialist is someone who doesn't Specialise."

So for every SM who specialises in being an Assault or a Devastator there is a SM who doesn't specialise but does have experience of these roles and can turn their hand to either one when the need arises.
Plus there is a lot of Veterans and Elites in the background who are this type of specialist.


In THQ's SM I befriended a guy who preferred to play as a Devastator in Multiplayer, mainly because he was very good at it in contrast to the other two classes. I was more flexible, choosing a class I felt appropriate to the arena and classes the opposition selected.
There were matches where I backed him up as a Tactical, ones where I selected a Devastator so we could create deadly crossfire, and some where I was an assault claiming CP's whilst he defended one.

He was a Dedicated Specialist whilst I played as a Flexible Specialist.

I believe that is why EC has these slots, so you have the choice of playing as a Dedicated Specialist, or the way I do.
Plus if you are dedicated to your specialisation you could have each slot as your class choice whilst having a different loadout for each.

Also, my understanding is that you will gain 'experience' with the class as you play (i.e. unlocks, etc). So if you go about swapping to different classes a lot, you will progress all of them slowly. If you stick with the one, you will progress it much more quickly. So people who choose to specialize (especially if they do so in a regular group of like minded individuals) will have more in their bag of tricks than people who prefer to swap out all the time (at least for a while). You will also most likely be better at using said class as you are thoroughly practiced in it's arts.

I see what you're saying BassiveMollocks, at the very least I've tried to convey my issues about this without just saying "I don't like this!" with my arms crossed and a big ol'pouty face going on. Now I'm not much of a wordsmith, I struggle with most my posts to try and avoid sounding like an illiterate psychopath so I might not exactly be able to put what I'm thinking down on paper exactly as I see it, things might be getting lost in the crossover.

Dying is inevitable in a game like this obviously, no amount of changes related to this topic is going to change that one way or or the other. I guess what I was trying to say was that I wouldn't want to die needlessly ? As it is, if there is something, a tank for example, and I have no means to deal with it I can yolo over to it shooting it with a bolter, have it kill me, respawn as a Havoc kill it and carry on until I see something else and do the same thing, rinse and repeat. There's no reason not to just throw lives away in that fashion where if I am stuck as one class, a Tactical for instance, no amount of bolter fire will slow it down, so instead of just dying, spawning as a Tactical again and dying I would move on, find something I can deal with, nothing is gained from dying needlessly, that's the level of "attachment" I was getting at.

I agree whole heatedly that this would be a big problem when you are missing a large portion of players to flesh out all the classes at any given time. I didn't say any of my ideas were perfect or anything, but I mean with something like that, again it would come down to the players to do something about that. You have the character slots, have a few in different classes, switch when one is needed, I know that takes away if you wanted to play something else and are pretty much forced to re-log with another to keep from getting steamrolled, again, my ideas are far from perfect.

Sorry Djemo, had to do it!

At least you can see where I'm coming from, and I should say now for the record this thread is in no way trying to change the Devs minds, they are set with the way it currently is, the way everyone so far wants it to be, and that's cool. Again I probably used a poor choice of words, I'm not advocating for people to quit, I'm not even saying I'm going to quit, it's just one of those things where this has been done before and chances are I'm going to lose interest and won't play as much. I just wanted to talk about this is all, see if I was the only one against this and so far I am, kinda surprised to be honest but then again everyone probably found out about this a long time ago and I'm the fool, late to the party with egg on his face!

You bring up another interesting point, granted it's for Tacticals and of course they will be very versatile, but if the classes have enough tools at their disposal to deal with so many threats, do we really need a class change option on top of that ? If you can simply change weapons or equipment to deal with something, maybe not as effectively but still pose a threat isn't that enough ? I understand it's not the same for all classes and that it's not just gear but features tied to them respectively as well but it's something to think about.

The Mad Magos... you've made it very hard to contradict anything you said, and I do believe that is probably a big part of the decision to go the way they have. It would make sense to build the game this way, based on the feedback from the people responding to this thread alone that much is clear, do I still think it will... cheapen the experience even if only slightly, I do but they can't make everyone happy right ?

Putrefaction, I am glad you're able to see the other point of view and be conciliatory whilst still disagreeing. (It's quite admirable in fact!)


But I would point this out: You only have four slots, with four load-outs. That usually means one main weapon, one or two grenade types, a couple of perks, one secondary weapon per load-out.
Devastators alone may have a choice of six or more Heavy Weapons with a choice of perks per weapon.

So swapping weapons and equipment between spawns isn't that easy, as you can only swap swiftly between the four pre-set load-outs of each slot. Which means you could easily find yourself in a combat situation with no suitable load-out you can quickly swap to and have the choice of making do with your favourite load-out or retreating to the Strike Cruiser to create a suitable build leaving your Sub-Faction in the lurch.

The current system is the best everyone can get. It works pretty well in Firefall, Warframe and Planetside 2 and it allows everyone to play the way they like it best. Some palyers will specialize on a single class and get very good with it, others will switch classes depending on the situation. Both are valid approaches. Its also the only way to implement stuff like heroes or veterans.

Having one class on a character is a classical RPG thing and does not realy fit in with a PvP focused game. I also never liked that classical approach as it simply forces players to create several characters and log around between them instead of focusing on one character that identifies them. And as a sidenote, i played Planetside for 2 years now and i choose to only play as Engineer, besides some rare occasions where something else was needed.

Every game I play I end up mastering each job. Whether it means I need to make a character of each class (WoW, Dead Island, Diablo) or I can just max out everything (Defiance, FFXI, XIV, Secret World)
If you WANT to play one job only, you absolutely may. It'd even be really cool to see a clan where players never switched roles.
But if a system allows in any way for me to have every job, I shall.
In the end it's really all your choice, OP.

Did not read the various walls of text...because I'm lazy.

That being said, when it comes to versatility, it's already kinda in the fluff. When your average-joe Space Marine is all growed up and no longer a scout, I think he gets tossed into an Assault Squad first. After he's gotten really good at bouncing around and chopping things up, he goes to a Devastator Squad. From there, after he's gotten good enough to blast the whiskers off of space cat-people at a km or two, he goes to become a Tactical Marine. From there, he can bounce between roles as the mission dictates. That would support the capability to swap roles on a semi-frequent basis as per what EC is pushing (assuming I read the right bits here and there.)

In defense of your goals however, I could see (and hopefully WILL see) some direct benefits to specialization. Say you play Devastator most of the time. Not only will you presumably get better as a player at that role but they allow you to put widgets into whatever advancement mechanic to specialize your character down that line. I do like the capability to switch but if I'm hardcore Assault Marine then I want to be "better" at it than when I'm slinging a Heavy Bolter or playing Tactical.

Your comments on customization and uniqueness of Character does point out a pretty big hole that I'm hoping the Devs are giving quite a bit of thought to. The "I'm just a soldier doing soldier things" role is all fine and dandy but after a while I want to have a REASON to play my character other than "assault that hill because that's what the map objective says and we need to capture it for the 4,582nd time."

the class swapping really comes to a head when you consider the Eldar,

a race of beings who specialise to an extreme and undergo a major lifestyle/psychology change to follow a different "path".......these beings do not just "change" their Aspect willy-nilly,

obviously for game balance purposes such a dynamic will be required in EC to allow a faction (who might have only 2 or 3 weapons per Aspect to choose from) anywhere near a fighting chance against the other factions in EC who are far more "general" in their arsenals when it come to classes,

it doesnt make it any less "immersion" breaking for the Eldar player though and probably (as a population) the dedicated Eldar players will constitute the greater percentage of players who stick to a class since it complies with the racial lore far more closely