Classes and a lack of use for their role.

I think it's arguable that Versatility is an element in any class or weapon's power. For example sniper rifles are powerful, but not overpowered because they aren't versatile. But if you took away that lack of versatility, it would be overpowered. Same with HA. If the HA is as powerful as every other class but doesn't have the limitations of the other classes it is overpowered in the same way. Balance should be achieved by trading versatility for power and power for versatility, the HA is OP because it has both power and versatility.

That is quite an interesting point. I guess all that's left for us to do is ask what each class role is supposed to provide. If 'combat-superiority' is the answer for HA then I think we're good. Indeed rest classes (excluding Infi's Element of Surprise) don't follow the same pattern

Well, if 'combat-superiority' is what the HA is supposed to provide you could just as well say that it is supposed to be OP.
Since this is a game about constant warfare combat-superiority might be highest in demand....

That's funny. I'm not a BR 10 medic anymore, more like a BR 88 medic. When I run up to someone to heal them and they pop their med kit my thoughts are more along the lines of, "You idiot. You just wasted a consumable when I would have done it for free."

Maxes: Go in to the room first and kill vehicles and air.
Heavy Assault: Go in to the room first after maxes
Medic: Heal and revive
Engineer: provide ammo and repair maxes
Light Assault: Distract the enemy
Infiltrator Sniper: Annoy the enemy
Infiltrator: Provide radar intel.

That's how I see it. I don't bother with vehicles I think all AV infantry weapons are annoying to use and pretty ineffective except AV maxes and AV mines.

I wish there was more difference between the classes but there isn't. Took my quite a while to get over the fact my Engineer was only good for max repair and dropping ammo boxes. So I've made my Engineer the explosives master with mines and 4 sticky grenades and primarily see his role as room defence. The Spitfire turret helps with this.

The problem is not the classes. It's the game itself: all in Planetside 2 makes players focus on killing other players. Which absolutely makes sense in a FPS, but in PS2 killing comes before base capture, before bases defense, before assist, before support.
A good example is the Engineer: if I'm in the middle of a fight why should I repair your Max? I have more fun and get better xp at firing enemies than hiding behind your back.
Of course that's not the case in a well organized platoon, but casual players and random squads just try to get the highest K/D possible. The leader usually puts down a WP, and the other move trying to kill the red dots. PS2 lacks tools to promote teamplay besides having squad logistic system by default on Sunderers and Galaxies and developers have never acknowledge this as a flaw.
Assist seems to be considered a secondary statistic. K/D ratio still seems to be considered the most important stats when it's about player's individual skill. Directives focus is on farming, rather than being on completing objectives. MIssions, which had a huge potential to change this trend, have been postponed and maybe even cancelled from the Roadmap (probably they're not going to happen soon, maybe they'll never be).

IMO heavy assaults role wasn't properly designed to start off with. They ended up rolling too many battlefield-roles into the same class. HA currently holds the mantle for assault, supression/holds, anti-vehicle, anti-max, and anti-infantry in general. To boot they can take nearly twice as much punishment as their softer counterparts - which just further cements them as the obvious choice for dealing with nearly any situation. It's very hard to argue that HA isn't the "anti-everything" class - and that's the basic flaw in the design.

The one and only downside to the HA is that he doesn't bring any team-tools to the fight (and tools like revival ammo and sensors ARE pretty important granted), so essentially all the other clases end up being there to buff the HAs in a cynical sense. No wonder then when you see fights with 80% HAs among the soft-infantry - because that's a pretty optimal mix considering that you don't need more than a few people providing support roles to "buff" the effectiveness of a lot of grunts.

A lot of people also play "solo" or at least uncoordinated, and that just further adds to the proliferation of the "selfish" class.

It's a lot of the same issues that the MAX'es design suffer from - as MAXes in many ways can just be regarded as a souped-up HA in terms of what roles it fills in gameplay.

TLDR; I think that having one class that is individually strong at the cost of no team-abilities is a fundamental mistake in this sort of game.

I think if I were designing this class system from scratch I'd make the current HA into some sort of "support" type class. Give them the C4 instead of the medic, allow them choice between carbines and LMGs (possibly with a slight nerf to LMGs across the board), and then give them multiple class-tool options on a timer or energy meter like extra grenade-options with supportive focus - like the current concs, smoke, flashbangs, AVs. They'd also carry the ammo, while the engineers took over the heavy-weapons/AV-role.

I think the result would be a much more even spread of classes where everyone can contribute to combat yet have teamplay skills too - and playing optimally would require doing both well. Frontliners would to be a mix of both medics and support, with some engineers undoubtedly mixed in due to the heavy-weapons + turrets. Meanwhile infils and LAs would battle around the fringes while supporting the team with their gadgets.

Oh, and while we're at it - take away the LAs C4 and give them a powerful tool with team-potential. Giving a class that lives on rooftops access to C4 was bound to lead to poor gameplay dynamics.

-Stigma

There are several ways to distribute weapon types between classes, or design class roles, and hey, maybe SoE got it wrong!. But eh.. some of the suggestions here.. no thanks!

IF there was a "prone" option for infantry, or infantry could "stabilize" their weapon over the boxes and windows etc, we'd get a different game, where LMG's could actually be buffed in RoF, but would have disastrous hipfire, and be (some of them at least) less accurate ADS moving. LMG's would fulfill a role somewhat similar to what currently the AI turret is, but with less protection, more dps. They could also be buffed in muzzle velocity to be truly fearfull "LMG's"

LMG's would then have to make a railslot choice between
laser sight
forward grip
-bipod (fast deploy, greatly lessens horizontal recoil when deployed & increased accuracy)
-tripod (slighly slower to deploy; heavier-> worse hipfire; like bipod+ lessens vertical recoil, slightly better accuracy).

However, that goes against the current highly mobile playstyle.
Likewise, in the current system, you are mobile to use AV weaponry.. so "turret-LMG" doesn't really combine well with the current AV RL'ers.

Now: EMP grenade is already slated to drain HA overshield, so that is a buff; I don't want HA to receive a delayed overshield or anything of the sort.

I would say, if anything, that it is the healing implant that reduces the medics job as healer.


IMO:
-Flash should be more vulnerable to small arms; especially with the wraith cloak equipped.


-Something I've been thinking about:
if you look in my post history, you should see that I've proposed/supported LA tools like
-adrenaline injection: temporary boost to movement speed, reload speed, .. (the opposite of the "heavy" shield, which slows down)
-ledge shooter: aim at wall, shoot, bam; instant ledge to play peek-a-boo from.

infiltrator:
emp grenade draining overshield,

medic:
anti-heal deployable, for medic: deploy, and enemy rezzing takes longer, enemy healing goes slower.
I think medic should have some tool options (including the "deploy a shield" thing), instead of C4



Recently I've been thinking:
What if we make infiltrator and LA one class?
How would it work:
-LA loses C4 access (sorry.. no cloaking C4)
-LA-infiltrator becomes a bit unique: you can pick two suit slots, two abilities (one jetpack, one cloak), or one of each.
This buffs infiltrators: access to carbines;
LA can be a jetpack dude with a sniper rifle, with or without cloak
LA-dude can bring a tool, like a recon detect device,
AP mines on rooftops etc; (AP mines should do more dmg vs maxes; and/or maxes should trigger AV mines)
-infiltrator gets the extra 100 shield, meaning no "oneshot" with a commisioner to the head.
LA can bring scout rifles, which are supposed to be long range weapons, vs carbines, hipfire machines.

-Note well: a jetpack infiltrator has no suit slot, so no nanoweave armor, advanced shield capacitor, nada.
One issue I could see is that taking cloak may exclude you from equipping a shotgun. (decloak, bodyshot, dead.. )

I realize the death of the C4 fairy won't go down to well..
and I don't think SoE (DayBreak Studio? DBS?) will do it.. but eh, it's an option I'd consider.

So you are just saying that one should not be able to preach defences or really do anything about anything
1st Heavy Assault has the name Heavy and assault aka; Heavly assaulting unit that is meant to attack and defend facilities with considerable amount.
2nd LAs are just easy to shoot off as they don't have any way to defence themselves outside of just counter-attacking.
3rd Keep in mind that a well coordinated squad that has "support" role can steamroll over a heavy squad just like that

When I use turrets, I can go toe-to-toe with MAX's. In the right spot you can take of 50% of a MAX's health easily, and during lucky streaks I managed to get 2 MAX's and some infantry before we were overrun.

Why classes and their tools and thus tactics lack in use and utility is rather simple in my mind: everything is the same. Capturing a base is ALWAYS about cramming bodies on points. Sure tactics can get you the point at times. Even the base on rare occasions. But in the end the cookiecutter that works FAR more often then any super-awesome spec-ops tactics is zerging the point. The point is always close quarters, always in, or around a building. Rarely in a clearly defensible position.
That is why HA's are so good. That is why MAXes work wonders. Because that is where they shine, those close-medium range fights that CPs are.

Cap mechanics should be changed to promote fights over longer ranges. You can make a base as large as you want, but it always will boil down to how many people you can shove at the CP. Tactical units need less people but you still need people on the point. And no mater how good you, or your team is, at some point you will fail against the zerg.
Once you break apart the ranges at which fights can happen, you can start balancing classes around those fights. HA is a more close-to-med range figher. But loses out to a Combat Medic or Infiltrator over range. Not always, but there should be a "this is what it's best for" mentality for a class. And currently the ranges in the game and compressed into a jumbled mess where a shotgun without slugs can kill you at ranges where assault rifles start to lose their effectiveness.

Additionally I think healing needs a rework. Reviving is easier and faster then healing and that is wrong on so many levels. A medic's job should be to keep people alive, not bring them back from the dead. Medical and restoration kits are also wonky. Restoration kit should be the ONLY thing available. Medical kit is OP compared to a medic. Every consumable you have should be second-rate to a class specific ability.

I'm not sure how any of those points follow from what I've written.

"So you are just saying that one should not be able to preach defences or really do anything about anything"

Are you implying that you need one class that is inherently better at fighting in order to breach a room? I fundamentally disagree. What you need to room-breach is the proper tools to displace and disorient the defenders. Besides, what help is a HA in breaching a room purely by virtue of its higher combat-value when the defenders have just as many HAs defending the room? ...

"1st Heavy Assault has the name Heavy and assault aka; Heavly assaulting unit that is meant to attack and defend facilities with considerable amount."

Deriving good game mechanics from what a class happens to be named is a red herring. Same goes for the "it's like this in reality" line of reasoning. Irrelevant in terms of good game-design. Defining one unit as the "best combat unit" in a game that is entirely about combat is nonsensical.

"2nd LAs are just easy to shoot off as they don't have any way to defence themselves outside of just counter-attacking."

I'm not sure what this is a response to... the comment about C4 on LA maybe? Hopefully the implication isn't that LA should have C4 because that's all they are good for - because if that's the case then it would just highlight a higher-order flaw of the class. Personally I think LAs fill a good niche as flanking and ambush specialists, but if they had considerably better tools for flanking and supporting flanking for their team rather than C4 then I think it would lead to much more dynamic and less frustrating play for the class. I don't think that lobbing C4 bricks over the side of roofs (next to spawn areas more often that not) should be focus for any class as it doesn't lend itself well to counterplay.

"3rd Keep in mind that a well coordinated squad that has "support" role can steamroll over a heavy squad just like that"

Well, one would like to think that a well rounded squad would be stronger than a mono-class one, but it just isn't the case a lot of the time, and I've participated in a fair amount of coordinated squad-play. If a squad is large enough it can pay off to have an infil with sensors (but you probably only need one for an entire squad if not more). Outside of holds where you don't have a nearby spawn medics are kind of optional, and the same goes for engineers (you can spawn nearly anywhere given basically unlimited squad-beacons too, with fresh lives and full ammo). I think its worth mentioning "MAX-crashing" is a mono-unit "strategy" that is only valid on the basis of the unit itself being OP (you don't see many engineer-crashes).

On the whole, I think my experience is that HAs are used as much in coordinated teamplay as they are in random pub-play. Ideally you may want 2-3 people playing important support roles, but pretty much everyone else can go HA and you will be close to an optimal mix.

-Stigma

I don't want to hunt you down or anything but...
Every class can be useful in the right situation. That's the whole OP's standpoint in the beginning, it's just that people don't really play to their strengths... because you can hardly use those strengths.

So the entire post explaining their usefulness and how you are so awesome with them is kind of absolete. The problem at hand isn't the usefulness in the right situation, it's the usefulness overall. The HA is useful in almost any engagement, whether you are going to attack tanks, infantry, defending a point, pushing in, breaking a MAX crash...
Engineers aren't as multifunctional. A Heavy can be used no matter how well your teamplay is and in all situations. Engineers require solid backup against flanking attacks when using turrets, their weapons are similar to LA's and their only advantage is their large explosive arsenal when solo'ing.
LA's are outperformed by other classes in tight situations in for instance point defense. Even when there are things you can hide on top off, they restrict the mobility once you are on them (staying on top means less strafe area, jumping off increases COF too much). Any assault where there isn't something to jumpjet to, another class has more to offer.
Infiltrators have their uses, but are in many of the ordinary fights less useful than a full-frontal attacker.

It won't work to make all classes equally useful in the average situation, but enhancing it to make all classes more viable isn't a bad idea.
Just think about this: all classes can get a utility or secondary tool against tanks or aircraft. From making the user invisible to vehicle scopes to aerial smoke screens, vehicle EMP's slowing hostiles movement or (chassis/turret) turn ratio's (no stacking), temporarily deactivating the ability to repair a vehicle, trackers that auto-spot vehicles from long range regardless of stealth once it's on (perhaps with the added possibility of an arrow pointing directly at the enemy similar to engagement radar) and more. These can be distributed among the classes so each has a role they can play in AV or AA.
Similarly classes should get more unique direct-combat abilities against infantry. Heavy already has a shield, but this shouldn't be eclipsed by the other classes ability as the shield is integral to the Heavies role. The LA could get disruption equipment, such as an instant-smoke screen on their position (burns jumpjet fuel), Engineers could get placeable shields to help themselves and others in direct combat etc.

Such changes would help make all classes fulfill roles in each combat scenario's. Rather than HA zergs you could show up at a random battle or combat scenario in almost any class and still help out. A multi-role team consisting out of equal parts of each class would be more effective than a team consisting for 50% out of HA's and the remaining 50% out of random classes. You usually need only two or three medics maximum even in larger platoons, one engineer with max ammo pack (can place 2, almost a Sunderer length of range) can supply large scale operations already etc.