Community Question: Create a Class

(Ashog) #101

Demolitions man (demoman) class as in TeamFortress definitely. That is the class that is really needed for defending the objectives and choke points. The key feature would be his ability to lay pipetraps (easily visible grenades/pineapples that can be all exploded at once by a click of a button). Ideally he would carry also a normal grenade launcher with explode-on-player-impact pineapples that also need to be able to bounce off non-player/deployable/vehicle obstacles.
Demoman could be given HE charges instead of soldiers to explode things and objectives.

Also a Pyromaniac class would be nice. Flamethrowers were nice in RTCW and most players like them and even regard them as a must-have in such a game. Alternatively, a soldier can be given the ability to carry flamethrower as in RTCW.

(Fooooo) #102

Classes from et / etqw were fine to me.

I can’t really think of any defined roles that are totally different from what the 4 already cover.

It also depends on the type of game too I guess. Future , past or present ?

So going with that, I would maybe try to add another of each of the 4 classes in et-qw. (sticking with the qw GDF side for ease)

Medic and … (cant think of anything, that nurse suggestion, the one with the gun, not minigames :P, could work i guess)

Field ops (more support role than etqw airstrike man) and Anti-field ops (for lack of better name) - basically would disrupt radar, give false signatures, stuff like that…countermeasure stuff…

Soldier and Sniper - This one is fairly obvious.

Covert ops (No sniper weaps, give them more disguise stuff) and Recon - Recon would be similar to covert ops, but no disguises, and can spot targets or guide in stuff etc etc…

Other then that I guess in a present or future time setting game you could do some sort of Tech class.

It would hack stuff, use shields and short duration cloaking devices, teleporters , shock / electrical weapons , anything you can think of that would be “techie” or made by some smart / crazy inventor.

(YouAreGood) #103

I just felt need to sum up:
(note: it will not be objective at all; actually I should not name it “sum”)

  1. Soldier:
  • Flame Thrower :)))
  • Old style machine gun.
  • Mortar.
    +… Let’s just say ET-Soldier.
    I was more like a “soldier” than what we have in ETQW…
  1. Nurse!
  • Harder to hit.
  • MP instead of rifle, therefore a bit less damage to enemies.
  1. Engineer:
  • Land mines
  • Dynamite
  • Water pump repaired!
  1. Field-Ops:
  • Indoors abilities, more than dropping ammo.

  1. CvOps:
    +Sniper Rifle (ET-style), I know many ppl don’t like the idea, yet it was wickedly fun to snipe back then :)) in old ET. HeadShot might kill on long distance, while body and limbs - say 1,5 times more than standard AR’s hit.

  2. Commander? Well, it does not have to be a class thing at all. And it probably would be bad solution compared to class-indifferent seat in some MCP or whatever… Anyway - I’m totally against this whole idea.

(.Chris.) #104

Medics should be able to hold their own, higher HP perhaps would help with the following suggestion, I think a sole medic shouldn’t have such an advantage in combat that they currently have, removing self healing is an option worth exploring, I’m all for aggressive tactics, though feel should try and remove this egoistic behavior you find a fair bit with medics playing their own game, they maybe getting the frags which is great but there comes a time when you actually need medics to be medics but because there of gallivanting somewhere else other than the objective you’re pretty stuffed if you die. This happens with other classes too mind, ET:QW had the situation all too often where at an indoor objective you would find half your team uninterested in going indoors and chose to play outside sniping, vehicle whoring, xp farming and such, though all that is slightly different and can be aatributed in part to our good friend the ranked server and persistent stats and medals.

Erm anyway, removing self healing could make them think twice about going solo and instead pairing up with another medic who can support each other and then start thinking about pushing out, it may make them more inclined to stick with the rest of the group and support them more when needed. They would still be able to hold their own in firefights though they wouldn’t be able to dominate single handedly as much as they do now.

What I would like to happen is that players start thinking as a team more, these once lone ranger medics would initially help clear out an area with the rest of the team as acting alone may only get you a couple of kills at a time, when the area is secure they would push out with other guys in support and leave the objective classes to their business, grossly over simplified example but hope you get the gist. Wishful thinking I know, the tricky thing also though is to not remove the opportunity for individual brilliance whilst still promoting teamwork.

(tokamak) #105

I don’t mind if people have a very rigid idea of what a class entails. That’s fine. But then you lose any rights to appeal to the whole ‘there’s no right way to play’. That argument is mine now, go look for some other principle to base this tunnel vision on.

What if someone wants to be a medic that doesn’t need to be able to hold his own in a fight? What if someone has such an incredible strategy that offers loads of value to the team while rarely getting into harms way? Then all the arguments for tuning to how the class is generally used would still apply to that person. That’s when that person says 'screw my combat vitality, I’m willing to forego all of that if that gives me more benefits that actually help my style of play. Let me be a fragile medic with a large arsenal of medical tools that allow me to support the team right behind the scenes.

It’s further class specialisation that actually caters to ‘there’s no right way to play’. There indeed isn’t. But by wanting homogeneous classes you ARE actually saying there’s one right way to play. Suddenly there’s all kinds of balance issues. A medic should have less offensive power to balance for this and that buff, a medic needs more hp because of this and that way people generally play. All these constraints apply across the board, even to people who play differently.

In WoW people don’t just say a certain class is overpowered, they say a certain talent spec is overpowered. There’s no need to completely nerf an entire class if the issue lies within a certain specialisation of that class. This means that people who don’t conform to a popular playing style don’t just get disproportionally hit by a nerf stick just because the large crowd has find a too effective playstyle that spoils the game.

Allowing for specialisations means that there’s no more general class that people can have opinions about. Discussions no longer involve weighing every single property, whether some people use it or not, against the other. Instead we would be discussing whether or not a certain playstyle is powerful or not powerful enough if it came to balance.

Many people here like to say ‘there’s no right way to play’ but what they really mean to say is ‘there’s no right way to play except for all those stupid ass ideas that don’t conform to my idea of what the class is meant for’ .

(.Chris.) #106

I never said there weren’t any wrong ways to play though. The medic class is a support role, there are multiple ways to support a team, improving your k/d ratio and the like isn’t supporting your team in my opinion and therefore ‘wrong’.

I was making a suggestion to try and steer people towards cooperating with the team more, this is a team based game after all, it was not a rigid set of rules for the medic class, whilst nudging medics towards sticking closer to the rest of the team individuals can still support their teammates however they see fit, a combat efficient medic will still charge in and rack up the frags, a skillfull reviver will be wizzing around dodging bullets trying to pick up dead teammates, others will be dropping supplies and so on, the most effective of each strategy will be those who’ve learned that particular style of play. Again you don’t need skill trees for this, give the class all the tools required and let to players use or not use those tools how they see fit for their style of play.

(tokamak) #107

And I think the amount of individuality should be up to the player. The game should facilitate any desire to further deepen out a unique playing style. That’s why there needs to be a battle-sense tree as well. That way players can be class almost only in name (and the bare minimum requirement to complete main objectives) and just be a fragger.

(DarkangelUK) #108

It’s already up to the player, you don’t need the game to tell you this. The players is free to further deepen out a unique play style, the game doesn’t restrict this.

(shibbyuk) #109

It’s quite difficult to think of new, distinct classes without just splitting up existing classes…

I do quite like the idea of a science officer, with abilities such as:

  • Research new technology
  • Sending out & controlling probes
  • Chemical warfare
  • Teleporting?
  • Attaching “frickin” laser beams to sharks
(Humate) #110

And thats where I disagree.

The point is that the whole thing collapses, the moment the medic is nerfed.
They become more of a priority target than they already are - because now they either cant heal themselves, or they are given a weaker weapon or they dont have the ammo to compete or they need someone else to handhold them in combat. And the players that get screwed arent the rambo medics… they will just switch to hyper. The players that get screwed are the ones that play medic in a traditional way.

The difference b/w a 40 kills per map rambo medic and an 80 kill a map rambo medic?
The 40 kill medic relies too much on using health to gain advantages during a fight. They try to extend the fight as long as possible so that whatever chip damage has been exchanged, they have the advantage.

The 80 kill medic frags them straight up, with superior aim and battlesense. They use the medpacks to replenish whatever dmg is taken for the next fight.

You might ask why such a massive discrepancy in kill totals?
The more you rely on extending a fight to pack up, the more enemies you attract and the more firepower comes your way. The balancer is built in for packwhores.

[QUOTE=BioSnark;408344]That last line is the issue. The point isn’t that it holds it’s own. The point is that it goes far beyond other classes in that ability, except for the soldier in firepower. That there is such a thing as a rambo medic is purely down to the fact that the class has limited or no team reliance (can replenish both ammo and health. Tech can respawn near combat with full everything.), as opposed to all other classes. Having a medic become team reliant would bring it in line with every other class, not destroy it.

My suggestions are to remove ammo regen from the class, more successfully implement ammo limitations, and impose a gameplay significant cooldown interval between when the class can pick up its own med kits.

The fact that I can duck away from any mid range firefight I’m not clearly winning to med and stroy up (or is that down?) and them beat my opponent over the head with my health bar indicates a game design flaw. The fact that I feel clever doing this indicates that I’m a sadistic asshole, but that’s another matter.

[/quote]

(stealth6) #111

I hate complicated tech trees and stuff. Brink was already too much for me.

I agree mostly with Chris and Darkangel. The only kind of specialization I do like is just very simple weapon limitations. For instance if you want to grab an LMG then you don’t get a medpack. Just a case of not making a single class a one man army.

KISS

(.Chris.) #112

Making the medic class more of a team player doesn’t change that, if someone decides to still go alone they can, they just may find things hard going till they have a teammate near by and hopefully learn to support others as result.

As things stand we have 5 classes, the Solider, Fops and Covops are generally underutilised, I personally think this is because the medic class is so combat effective, there’s no incentive to use anything else beyond the engineer for defensive items and the current objective class, again, generally speaking that is. Make the medic less combat effective, though not useless and make the other classes just as deadly in their own ways, hopefully folk will start using those other classes and come up with interesting ways to use them, without the game telling them to. At the moment I don’t think any class can be as consistently as deadly as what the medic can be no matter how you decide to play those other classes.

[QUOTE=Humate;408373]
The point is that the whole thing collapses, the moment the medic is nerfed.
They become more of a priority target than they already are - because now they either cant heal themselves, or they are given a weaker weapon or they dont have the ammo to compete or they need someone else to handhold them in combat. And the players that get screwed arent the rambo medics… they will just switch to hyper. The players that get screwed are the ones that play medic in a traditional way.

The difference b/w a 40 kills per map rambo medic and an 80 kill a map rambo medic?
The 40 kill medic relies too much on using health to gain advantages during a fight. They try to extend the fight as long as possible so that whatever chip damage has been exchanged, they have the advantage.

The 80 kill medic frags them straight up, with superior aim and battlesense. They use the medpacks to replenish whatever dmg is taken for the next fight. [/QUOTE]

It wouldn’t be nerfed though, how I hate that word.

They may not be able to heal themselves but another medic would, if they stick together they would be just as affective as before, again tone them down slightly, I’m not suggesting for one minute a medic shouldn’t be able to fight back, what I don’t particularly agree with is that in a team based game a medic can play a game for 20 mins without once considering helping his team or require help from his team. Rambo medics are generally killed by other rambo medics, the toned down combat effectiveness applies both ways, boohoo if they can now only get a kill streak of 4 instead of 8.

I don’t get what you’re trying to get at with the kill differences, a higher skilled aimer will always get higher kills than someone else of the same class. If they start using other classes instead though, great in my opinion, either way skilled players will still be able to be deadly if they learn the limitations and how to overcome them for any given class.

(tokamak) #113

Then why are we discussing what a medic should and should be? Why are we haggling over hp and combat potency?

If there’s only one kind of medic then it’s going to have to conform to everyone’s idea of what that medic needs to entail. This means chipping away at the more unusual roles of a medic because these simply cannot be contained within one class without making it ridiculously overpowered.

(tokamak) #114

It totally does change that. A very simple measure to tweak the team dependancy of a medic is his max hp. A high max hp means independancy and a low max hp means having to stick with your team and support them. I believe players should have a choice in this. If they want high individuality then fine, be a combat medic, but you’re going to work hard at actually kicking ass to fulfil your role because your abilities to be of any use otherwise are limited. If a player prefers a stronger supporting role then fine, have unlimited supply drops, full health instant revives and lazarus grenades, but you’re going to be fragile and walking off on your own simply will get you killed.

What you CANNOT do however, is contain both of these roles in a singular class. If a medic is both combat vital as well as very proefficient in his support then the class will be simply overpowered. That’s when you start to discuss which properties need to be diminished to restore the balance again and THAT is when people start to have their own ideas and impose their own views on how a class should be played, and that’s what you’re doing right now.

Causing divergence within the class itself however, completely avoids that problem. Rather than making the medic a lame compromise of all the possible playstyles, you’re letting players chose which buffs and which weaknesses they prefer. And of course, there’s always the option for a balanced compromise.

(DarkangelUK) #115

[QUOTE=tokamak;408380]Then why are we discussing what a medic should and should be? Why are we haggling over hp and combat potency?

If there’s only one kind of medic then it’s going to have to conform to everyone’s idea of what that medic needs to entail. This means chipping away at the more unusual roles of a medic because these simply cannot be contained within one class without making it ridiculously overpowered.[/QUOTE]

Are we? I thought we were discussing how a player can hone their skills in a specific area through a skill tree, you just seem to be combining the separate discussion of the rambo medic for some reason.

(BioSnark) #116

edit:@medic balance discussion:
Alternatively, the medic role could be remixed a bit to give other classes a less inferior class role.

[ul]
[li]The first half of the current health bar is “body armor” and is repaired by engineers when damage is taken. Perhaps this is more effective against light weapons and partially bypassed or weaker against explosives and heavy caliber infantry weapons so as to be differentiated. Soldiers and fops could have more armor than other classes.[/li][li]As I have already suggested, forward spawning is done by fops.[/li][/ul]

(.Chris.) #117

[QUOTE=tokamak;408380]Then why are we discussing what a medic should and should be? Why are we haggling over hp and combat potency?

If there’s only one kind of medic then it’s going to have to conform to everyone’s idea of what that medic needs to entail. This means chipping away at the more unusual roles of a medic because these simply cannot be contained within one class without making it ridiculously overpowered.[/QUOTE]

Because there’s two conversations happening at same time. What the medic class should or shouldn’t be able to do and whether skills trees are good idea or not.

I’m suggesting a medic should be mainly a support role rather than a one man army role, I may be restricting the overall options for what a medic can achieve in suggesting that but how the player supports his team is still open to a variety of playstyles, a medic can still shoot first revive later, revive first and shoot later, escort objective classes, making/clearing spawn hosts and so on, he can neglect what he’s uninterested in and focus what he is, different players will play how they feel is best and more importantly be able to adapt to changing circumstances if the situation calls for it. Either way, balancing the class doesn’t take away people’s ability to use that class how they see fit and specialise in a certain playstyle.

At end of day though, if the medic remains unchanged it’s not a deal breaker for me, it just would have been nice to limit the amount of ego strokers who flock to the medic class, hate not getting revived when half my team are medics but no one is actually a medic.

Edit: Can people stop posting when I’m typing :slight_smile:

(Dthy) #118

Haha Austin Powers reference? :smiley:

(tokamak) #119

Yes I admit this is getting rather confusing. Still, a skill tree would make the entire discussion entirely redundant. Rather than discussing what a class should or shouldn’t we would be discussing what the three most characteristic archetypes of each class are and what the best way to distinguish them would be.

That’s why I personally think that the current discussion on the nature of each class (the medic specifically) isn’t very interesting. Everyone is going to try and impose their view on something and it will only lead to a compromise.

Oh and you made a few other points in your thread which I will address later on. Back to my research paper again (which actually has quite a few parallels to this discussion now I think of it).

(DarkangelUK) #120

How would that resolve the issue? I personally assume that, as a medic, my role on the team would be support based… so healing, reviving etc. Your skill tree idea allows me to negate that function and gear my attributes towards attacking; become a killing machine as it were… isn’t that what some are against here? Taking the medic, have his medic abilities take a back seat bar selfish reasons then concentrating on killing? The current method allows the medic, should he so decide, to switch to the medic role and start healing and reviving… your method means he’s stuck on the rails and can’t assist in the necessary way should the situation require it… even if he wants to, because skill trees don’t allow for on the fly adjustments in play style… which the majority agree is a bad idea.