DICE has revealed that the Medic and Assault classes will be merged in Battlefield 3's multiplayer mode, and it's eradicating the dedicated doctor and handing lifesaving duties to the Assault men.
"All the abilities such as medkits and defibrillators typically found on the Medic class are now incorporated into Assault," reveals DICE's Battleblog.
"It makes sense that the class on the frontline will be able to revive fallen team mates, right? Right! Remember, you can play it your way, so if you want to customize your Assault soldier more towards medic abilities or towards serious gunplay, it's totally up to you."
Keeping numbers up is the return of the Support class, which has the ability to use light machine guns and can lay down heavy fire.
"Support has always been about heavy infantry firepower from his LMG," says Alan Kertz, senior multiplayer designer at DICE. "It's a role that we've wanted to feel different than Assault's running and gunning."
DICE has also confirmed two new features coming to Battlefield 3; Bipods and Suppressive Fire.
Bipods provide a substantial increase in stability while laying down a base of fire and can be deployed anywhere by zooming in with your LMG when prone, or when standing/kneeling in front of suitable supports, such as a window sill.
Using a Bipod means a massive boost in accuracy and recoil reduction. "You'll be able to unload an entire clip of 200 bullets from your LMG with great accuracy without even letting go of the trigger," says the blog.
Suppressive Fire works like this; When you lay down fire near to an enemy, the barrage will show up as a graphical blur effect on his screen to cause stress and let him know it probably isn't safe to pop out of cover just yet.
It also affects his in-game firing accuracy, making him less of a threat. You'll get team play experience points for using the realistic tactics of Suppressive Fire.
"Supported shooting with Bipods and Suppressive Fire finally allows us to achieve an obvious difference between Assault and Support, since the heavy LMGs are not terribly mobile," explains Kertz. "When deployed with a Bipod, they become an incredibly powerful force. Suppressive Fire forces the enemy to keep their head down and lets the Support gunner pin his enemies in place so teammates can flank."
Finally the Recon class has been tweaked as well:
"Recon traditionally has been seen as just a sniper," Kertz said. "We wanted to change that perception, so we've built several completely new team-play oriented gadgets specifically for the Recon class so he can be a team player, even if he's sitting on the top of Wookie Mountain."
