We all see it, attackers and defenders alike. The green bar that indicates a generators health when it is being repaired. I personally don't see why it is there. In particular for attackers when it isn't owned by them. What will removal of this green bar do? 1. Stealth repairing becomes possible - increases various styles of play and gives defending a greater chance, given at the point of repairing generators it can be already too late or overwhelming 2. Lazy defending is no longer a viable tactic - the attackers cannot see when an engineer is repairing something half a hex away, visual defense will need to be maintained Food for thought. Community thoughts?
Is that true? I had never actually noticed that all players, including the attackers, could see the green bar. As for the defenders, the green bar is there to indicate whether or not the generator is being repaired by someone at the very moment. This makes it possible to not have to dispatch every Engineer not guarding a sunderer to deal with one issue, if they see that some other Engineer is already dealing with it. Additionally, when the bar stops moving for too long (accounting for cooldown of the ACE), they know there was an ambush and now someone and maybe a better-armed escort needs to get there to deal with it.
They sure can. I killed quite a few Engineers that managed to sneak past and started repairing a generator because I could see the green bar filling up. The health bar for the generator should only be visible to an attacker when he is standing right next to the generator, so that he could tell how much repairing it would take an enemy Engineer to get it back up and running, but for anything past a few meters (and directly looking at the thing) the bar should only be visible to the defending players.
I believe I've used the health bar once or twice, but the defenders had practically abandoned at that point.
Yes it is actually there. I don't mind if it is, or isn't there for defenders. Because it is theirs. But the attackers should not see it. Additionally, a third point I thought of: 3. Use of the Recon tool may increase to highlight movement on a generator, instead of the greenbar.
I would vote for complete removal of the bar as it might make people pay more attenshion to the minimap. As i find most of the time when a gen is down people just dont want to go repair it.
I've had some fairly interesting fights with low numbers on both sides at amp stations that were basically cat and mouse games around the generators where the ability to see when a generator was being repaired played in heavily. A sort of... "I can see you but you know that I know that you know I can". That said, it's not like defending bases is too easy at the moment, this would be a fair change. I like Rodinvac's idea of being able to see health when close to it but not otherwise, not that the exact health of a destroyed generator (as in, destroyed and subsequently partially repaired) matters much. It would also add some more "hold" to "take and hold", which'd be welcome, particularly since it gives more opportunities for using static defences like turrets and mines during assaults.
