[Malorn]

Nearly everyone in PS had Engineering because they had to in order to fix their own armor. They could suck down medkits to heal, but they needed a BANK for the armor.

All the shield system does is take away the need for every soldier to have an armor repair tool with them. Do you really want to run around a corner and rep yourself during and after every engagement?

For the Engineers out there, do you really want your job to be Armor-Rep-Bitch for your squads? With so many people taking damage, that's all you would do. I know I would never play engineer if that was the case.

The Shield system is great. It replaces armor and essentially has the same effect as every person having their own armor repair tool. It streamlines the process and allows engineers to focus on combat & repping MAX & vehicles with a fair chance of getting to do some other combat and utility as well.

The old PS system was a good start and neat, but the PS2 system is clearly a step in the right direction to streamline things and make the class system manageable. They could give everyone an armor repair tool instead of shields but that would be tedious and slow down the pacing of the game.

When Smed said they took everything that sucked out of Planetside, this was one of those things. It's a clear improvement.