Article 2: Specialists



Welcome to the second installment of the Combat Arms Improvement Project! I am very proud of all the support this has been receiving. It is good to see the community shares similar opinions on the map balance in CA. I do plan to cover more maps in the future so if you feel I left a particular map could be designed better, let me know in the thread for article one. If you missed article one, then just look for the thread here on the Suggestions forum or head over to the CA Wiki to read the full article there. Before I start this week’s article, I would like to give a special shout-out to Crystalhaze for featuring my articles on his upcoming website – The Weekly Haze. Thanks for all the support and I look forward to seeing more community involvement in all these recent events and suggestions.



Specialists are easily some of the most controversial content in the game. If you do not know what specialists are, or specs as many call them, then you should be glad. Specialists are a new breed of soldiers. They come fully trained with high armor and speed bonuses and their own powerful arsenal of weapons. You can tell them apart from other mercenaries by their skin tight black uniforms (save Hawke). Why do some players hate them so much? Many of the specialist weapons offer advantages other characters do not have at all.





Out of the entire specialist arsenal, the Satellite Scanner is surely the most controversial. Even though the duration of the scan lasts a mere 10 seconds, it gives players the power to do the one thing we always criticized; the power to cham. Chamming is the ability to see the enemy through walls; an ability that only hackers were able to have. It does not matter how much GP or NX you paid for a scanner, this item is impossible to balance. The only way to fix the satellite scanner is to simply remove it from the game completely. This should not be a difficult decision as Nexon Europe removed it from their game a while ago, and Nexon America decided not to. It is possible that it was left for the sole purpose of money, but if you are trying to create a game that is going to be fun and last, those are not the types of decisions you want to make.



I believe there is no chance Nexon will remove specialists from the game. Instead, we should be given in-game methods for controlling the usage of specs in any room. The only method players can use now to keep rooms spec free is to include it in the room title or to kick them using an Elite Moderator. This can result in a lot of unintended rage kicking because a portion of the player base does not see anything wrong with specialists. Including No Specs in the room title does little to deter them as well. I have hosted several rooms with that in the title and yet specs continue to join as if it does not exist.

The best way to fix this is to give all room moderators the ability to choose no spec game options, though this should be split into two different options for the following reason. Many players simply hate spec weapons and they believe the specialists characters themselves are alright to use for their speed or protection. To satisfy this crowd, a No Spec Weapons option will be added. For those who dislike specialists altogether, a No Specialists option should be added. No spec game options will be available in all game modes including Quarantine Regen and Fireteam. This should be a more balanced fix for all players who dislike specs as well as for those who enjoy using them.

If you have not already checked it out, I strongly suggest you read and support this thread: [COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN NO SPECIALIST MODE - OFFICIAL PETITION / DISCUSSION ]. Neurotoxican did a great job creating an official petition for the community. I initially signed when it was under 40 total supporters, but it has grown to amass over 160 supporters! The more players we have behind it the better chance we have to make some good changes.



Before the New Blood content update, specialists were a prize to be obtained by only higher level players. If you could not afford NX, then the average GP player did not usually have a spec. While the base specialists could be unlocked at the 2nd Lieutenant rank, some of the better weapons were not unlocked till much later. Post New Blood, the rank at which you unlock Codename Viper and Scorpion was lowered to Staff Sergeant I. On top of this insane drop in rank, the cost of specialists and all of their weapons was also lowered. Not only are low level players able to use this equipment now but even more can afford to. I believe the price drop was a smart move. The cost of specialists before the update was very high. Only those who played constantly were able to make enough GP back to keep using the specs. The issue now is correcting the rank at which specialists can be used.

Specialists are an elite class of soldiers that should not be available to any Staff Sergeant. Coupled with the newly increased experience and GP rates, obtaining the rank of SSG I is not a difficult task. The rank requirements of specialists should be restored to officers only. What is interesting to note once more is that Nexon Europe did not make the same changes as us. After seeing the CANA update, CAEU left the spec rank requirement untouched. Leaving the rank that high was a smart decision because with the increased rewards from all game modes, more players would have been able to use them anyways.



When you purchase a specialist, you are only able to equip one regular weapon and one spec weapon. This is how specs were originally balanced. After a certain update, Nexon added two types of Specialist 2 Slot Licenses. One license allows you to equip an additional standard weapon and the other allows you to equip a secondary specialist weapon. Other than the small price for buying these licenses, there is no downside to using them. To balance this, each license should come with a -3 speed drawback. This seems like a fair reduction because it is equivalent to the speed reduction from the best standard backpack you can buy for NX (the 3 Slot Terrain Backpack).

Of course, I will give credit where credit is due. I would like to give another quick shout out to LMS2009 and canoob18 for suggesting this great idea. *thumbs up*



One of the largest issues facing Combat Arms as a whole is lag. Although I am not sure what the cause of the lag is precisely, I know that when I join rooms with excessive amounts of place-able weapons, the lag increases. The current number of place-able specialist weapons is five. These include the Auto-Turret, Caltrops, Claymore, First Aid Kit, and M93 Hornet. Similarly to mines, when the player dies, their placed weapons do not disappear (except claymores). After several minutes of playing, the number of objects on the map can begin to become troublesome. Not necessarily because they are overpowered, though in large numbers it can become unfair, but because large quantities of placed items can cause a lot of lag.

The best way to alleviate this problem is to limit the number of objects a specialist can have placed at one time. Auto-Turrets have already been limited to one due to being overpowered in numbers. Caltrops are not commonly used and claymores are easily activated, so I do not see a problem with leaving these alone for now. The main source of lag from the specialist arsenal is from the first aid kits. Players stack these all over maps and even when destroyed they cause a spurt of lag. Since players tend to rely of first aid kits in Fireteam, the limit should be different for Fireteam matches only. In any other room, each spec should be limited to 4 first aid kits at a time. If a fifth one if placed, then the earliest one placed is destroyed. For specialists in Fireteam, the limit can be tripled to 12 first aid kits.

Another point that is worth noting is that when many spec weapons such as first aid kits, turrets, or caltrops are destroyed; they cause even more lag. Now I am not completely sure why this is the case, but it is possible that the cause of this lag is due to their ‘death’ animations. If this is truly the case, which I have yet to see any other explanation, then I believe Nexon can minimize the particle effects created by these objects to help reduce lag.



Despite all the controversy specialists have brought since their release, they have added a lot of strategic variety in modes like Quarantine Regen and Fireteam. Specialists offer useful tools for the entire team as well as the individual. Hopefully, with some new room restrictions, the amount of spec hatred we see can be reduced to help improve the community as a whole.


 * Remove the Satellite Scanner from the game


 * Add two new game options to limit unwanted specs


 * Raise rank requirement for all spec items back to officer ranks


 * Include a speed decrease for both specialist backpacks
 * Limit First Aid Kits per spec in normal rooms to 4 and to 12 in Fireteam for lag control
 * Reduce the lag caused when place-able items are destroyed

That about wraps it up for this week’s article. I hope you enjoyed it! If you liked what you have read this week as well as last week then be sure to keep checking back every Thursday for the latest article. I can guarantee you will see plenty of in-depth discussions on a huge variety of interesting topics. As always, feedback and ideas are welcomed so please share them.

The teaser for next week’s article is: That’s steeper than Mt. Everest.

Thanks for reading!