Do you like the current med pack mechanic or want changes?

(ImageOmega) #1

Everyone loves polls! And, the forums have been a little slow lately, so this going to be poll #1 of 2 regarding the Medic health pack and revives.

I’ve seen this discussed highly in the other threads, but it gets lost in conversation. I think a poll would help highlight what exactly we want from health packs.

Currently, the mechanic is you drop a medpack and when you or your teammate pick it up they instantly start charging to 100% health. They can not pick up any more medpacks while under this “regen buff”. The downside is: if they get damaged while regenerating then the regeneration instantly stops. Also, the regeneration is quite fast as it takes 4-5 seconds to go from 1% to 100%.

Now, I called that a downside above because it is a con to having a regenerating healthpack to 100%. As far as gameplay, I think it is a plus. First of all, one med pack gets you all the way to 100% health even if you have 1% health. So, to balance that I think it is important that you are not able to heal through any damage received which is why I think this mechanic actually works well.

But, is there another way you’d like to see medpacks handled? Would you like to see a regeneration only add 50-75% of max health? Would you like an instant heal for a small amount followed by additional regeneration to 100%? Would you want the old medpacks back?

Discuss! Oh, and vote too…yeah do that.

(meat) #2

I like the current med pack mechanics. Helps to keep the rambo medics from dropping all their med packs for there own use. I think you should have your regeneration stop if you take damage, you are be shot at by the other team it would almost be like a temporary invincble buff if the regen didn’t stop.

(MrFunkyFunk) #3

I think the current system works rather well gameplay wise.

If you harass a medic or one of his team mate who just picked up a pack you still have a chance to stop them in their tracks, as opposed to the popular insta fixed amount health packs mechanic that can be abused.
Now maybe there could be some tweaking tests related to the regen speed and/or amount (if it’s less than 100% health regen then maybe a second pack could pick up where the previous left to get the player to 100%. Ie with random values: player has 20 hp left, picks up a pack that regens him to 85 hp, he picks a second and gets to 100hp).
I would tweak self regen too, limit it or remove it (altho a bit extreme).

I guess a lot of people are nostalgic and need to get used to it.

(Kendle) #4

I like the current mechanic, but I think it’s the wrong solution to the problem it’s trying to solve (rambo / selfish Medics). The solution to rambo Medics is to remove ammo drop. The current mechanic is supposed to stop rambo Meds packing during a fire-fight, but they can still drop a pack behind cover and pack up while under fire, they just have to hide for a few seconds before re-joining the action. I’ve been playing a lot of Medic lately and still feel just as self-sufficient, and don’t see any barrier to rambo’ing out if I wanted to (or had the skills!).

Plus, 1 pack = 100% health and the Med getting 4 packs per charge is a lot of health. Considering everyone has health regen anyway it means a clever team need never not go into combat with full health.

I’d prefer slower regen per pack, or less health dispensed per pack, or just fix the damn problem in the first place by not having more ammo than you can shake a stick at available to anyone who wants it all the time.

(.Fleury) #5

Like the current, but slower regeneration. To prevent samurai from shooting…, to bad to kill enemy…, run away…, hide for 2 seconds…, go back and kill… XD

(Breo) #6

I picked “other” because I think that medpacks + healtregen = overkill.

Replace medpacks to something else instead? Because we already have health regen.
It won’t make the medic useless because in a objective based shooter you still need the possibility to revive (objectclass) teammates.

(Humate) #7

Dont have an issue with it.
You can still rambo medic with that mechanic.
Perhaps not with the medics current weapon doe /cough

(Kl3ppy) #8

I voted for I like the current system but slow down the healing. Its fine like it is, but I could live with a slower regen by medpacks. I dont see a problem with the regen and medpack, both are fine and pretty good balanced.

(acQu) #9

Voted for other as well. See here for explanation: http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/35110-Quick-little-medic-thought-an-discussion?p=433595#post433595

Pre-throwing medpacks into tactical hotspots is not abuse. It is just a clever thing todo and should be encouraged. It is basically thinking ahead at small scale :slight_smile:

(ImageOmega) #10

I agree that it is a tactic. However, regardless of the mechanic (unless med packs expire right away) you will always see medics (worth their salt) throwing packs on the ground around them and their teammates when in a “hotspot”.

I am wondering what did Battlefield 3 do differently with med packs? I can not remember specifically how they worked in BF3 besides you threw a medpack down and sat on it while it slowly healed you and your nearby teammates. Maybe it is the fact that the guns were way more lethal in BF3 that this was not an issue. Playing BF3, there was seldom a time I would be in an area for a few seconds without dropping a medpack (that I didn’t even have to pickup or manage). And, there were also revives in that game, yet everything balanced out. I really think how lethal weapons are is the key here…Hmmm…

(BMXer) #11

I like the tried and true mechanic that has proven to work for over a decade. I don’t like regen at all.

With the current regen from 1 pack mechanic, it takes away from medics working together. 2 medics throwing packs are no better than 1 atm.
It also encourages passive, +back, run and hide type of play. Forces players to chase and it makes managing regen and reload more important than aim and dodging.

(acQu) #12

Yes, but it will not work like it did before. Before it was throwing and get healed. So you could actively take part in the fight. Now if you want to get healed, you have to take yourself out of the fight for a certain amount of time. So it promotes a passive playstyle. The medic, of course, can still act the same, but it is the overall game around it which changes. This is i think not so nice.

The other argument was that the DB tendency is to heal much at once and then never again, which is due to analysis of lethality of the game. But this in turn makes it, so that you basically need to throw less and be more effective (in general). So the result is more shooting, more killing, more of the same. I think this is not so good, but seems it conforms very well with MMS.

So true. It basically is a reductionist mechanism. Why throw packs, when you can shoot :slight_smile:

(Ashog) #13

like current but slower regen

(Maca) #14

**** it, I don’t know. I spent way too long articulating different things about this subject, inventing actually new solutions to this thing.
Something similar to what acQu said, or medic getting heals from healing and reviving others, or medic healing and reviving people by throwing medpacks and healing himself by injecting himself with something, and that something heals him quicker the more medpacks he has given in that life, or… but then I realized that there’s only one thing I want to comment on really, because all these other things have too many loose ends to really say how it should be.

Scenario1: Get rid of auto-healthregen. Full stop.
Scenario2: Get rid of auto-healthregen, but implement health stands next to the ammo stands. This way there is way to heal without medic, but it isn’t passive like it is with auto-healthregen.
Scenario3: Keep auto-healthregen, but please make it the primary form of healing, and make the medic just a reviver. Because to me this auto-healthregen is somehow very distracting. It makes things complicated, makes things out of focus. Should medic be healer? How much should he heal? How do people play the game when they can wait for the auto-healthregen to kick in but it’s horrendously slow so he probably should’ve just gone and regrouped with his medic? Everything gets so complicated if you have auto-healthregen AND healing in the game.
I don’t know maybe it’s just me…

But the current regenmedpacks should definitely not be made slower. That’ll make them WAY too defensive.

(INF3RN0) #15

Small instant heal (say 20hp) followed by a slower interrupt-able heal to 70%. Instant heals don’t stack and have a c/d timer applied to them. IE you can only pickup an instant heal every X seconds. This offers a medic a 20hp heal in combat, and also allows them to pack teammates to a moderate extent mid-fight. The numbers are just some estimates of what I think would work well, but the concept is the more important part.

(rapid_shot) #16

I say small instant heal of around 25hp and 0 regen except for a slow medic one. I call myself a panzy when all I have to do is hide for a few seconds. To prevent rambo medic, you could put a 3 second wait period for medics to pick up their own health. If they are good enough to put it behind cover beforehand and pick it up mid firefight, all power to them.

(acQu) #17

I actually like the idea of class loadouts aka “why not have both” :slight_smile: In the simplest case you have one character with medpacks pre-patch and one other with medpacks post-patch. Both mechanics can co-exist ingame maybe ? Is the balance thought process, which generally results in reductionism, countering that possibility ?

Of course if you have both, then you need clear identifiers aka different (pickup) sounds, medpacks visuals, etc …

(Mao.) #18

Like i say i there is defferent caracter we can have both system.
Need abilitie to deploy case for health and amo.

(Violator) #19

Voted like current but slower regen. Also on the fence about the auto-regen, should probably only go up to 50% or 75% so you need a med to get back to 100.

(tokamak) #20

No self-heal. Medics can only heal themselves by healing or reviving others.