Revive could use a bit of tweaking to make it both more and less powerful. The situation now: 1 - engineers hardly ever get revive as the first upgrade, that would be advanced repair. 2 - Because revive is so rare, fallen soldiers click furiously as the spawn counter nears '0' in order to get back in the fight quickly (or they have their spawn selection open to pick a new spawnpoint. 3 - Because soldiers don't wait beyond a few seconds engineers don't bother getting revive as their first upgrade, since they often can't get to the soldier in time and can do more good with advanced repair. 4 - goto 1; 4.1 - If the engie DOES get to the fallen soldier its usually takes that soldier by surprise, leading to another quick death as he lies there blinking his eyes like an idiot or frantically trying to close the spawn or class select windows. Both die if the engie gets caught by the still very much present prone-stuck-bug, seriously guys fix that, use a lame noclip solution if you have to. More powerful: A clear indicator for the "unconscious" soldier that an engie with revive is nearby, like big letters indicating the name and distance of said engie. This way folks wont insta-spawn after 8 seconds, because they can see they will be revived and the engie doesn't have to run into a hail of bullets to prevent the soldier from spawning away. (optionally an indicator, like a green target box, for the engineer as well.) The OTHER situation now: 1 - Two engineers with revive run through a hail of enemy fire. 2 - One engineer gets 'killed'. 3 - The other revives his fallen comrade 4- goto 1; Less powerful: This is not so big a problem in your average map since it's fairly rare to have one engineer with revive let alone two, but if you DO have two engineers with revive, like in say "district", you get a near comical display of engineers reviving each other ad infinitum and soaking up ludicrous amounts of bullets and grenades (nerf HE grenspam btw). The change is fairly obvious, no more full health revives. Down to 50% health would help, but ideally as low as 25%, so the soldier at least has to go back into cover to get some health instead of just shooting back at the guy that just killed him that has to reload now and is thus screwed if he isn't behind cover. The New situation: 1 - Revive becomes a more popular upgrade for engineers. 2 - Fallen soldiers see they have a revive coming and patiently wait instead of spawning. 3 - The engineer can wait for the proper time to revive, like while the enemy is reloading, because he knows the soldier won't hurry to spawn. 4 - Revive leapfrog won't be so nailbitingly ludicrous and downright frustrating, especially in maps where tickets matter and you don't have vehicles If you're wondering why revive needs this little nerf, have everyone on the team go revive engie and attack the enemy base head on. Fun times.
well as engineer i always take revive as my first skill, this is something that i learned to do since is started to play. at first i was like "oh rivive is neat, but in the end ppl spawn anyway so its useless and i rather take build upgrade". thats for the first months i played empires. after playing in a clan with people that know that i as engineer will have revive im so used to take revive that i even take rev as first skill in pub games. revive is a very valuable skill, the only downside (which isnt really a downside) is that you are bound to teamwork as you need people nearby or your skill is completly useless. with the general view of the game on pub servers, i agree that revive is useless. people give a shit about teamwork about 80% of the time, the rest is teamwork that is "happening", it seems that its all about who has the higher score at the end. besides that, i like your suggestion :D
when reviving i always thought about "what if when you revive as engineer you get a few seconds to pull the reived player into safety so to speak as in, you revive someone, a counter of 5 seconds starts counting down on the revived player and the engy reviver's screen, and the dead player being revived sees trough the engineers eyes/gets locked spectator view on engineer (so he can scout his surroundings and he isn't surprised suddenly when re spawning) when counter ends, the player re spawns prone next to wherever the engy is if still alive (preferably into safety, he is "dragged" to safety by the engy, and then revived) this would nerf revive in a way, so i never suggested it in a real suggestion thread, but its kinda fun to play with the thought
An indicator showing where people with revive are would be really helpful. Most games use the minimap to show medics and if you see some nearby you wait for the revive. Make the revive cost engineer energy seems like a more plausible fix. Maybe 25 or 50 builder energy?
