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

[INF3RN0]

I would think this would force a selfish medic to use more of his own packs to heal himself rather than others, since he needs more to heal himself.

Yep yep yep.

[RasteRayzeR]

The fixed amount is troubles only … the medics still have to be nerfed and if we remove the delayed healing of medpacks we just go back to the original problem … imo

[Kendle]

I’m going to take one last stab at this thread and it’s likely to be a long boring read, so skip to the next post if you’re short on time. I’m bemused as to how I’ve failed to make my point understood. Normally I’d assume the other person is an idiot, but I know that’s not the case here. So here goes …

Why a Medic should be able to self-heal.

1. Principle

Every class gets 2 abilities, all of them designed to further the cause of their team. Some of them get to use their ability on specific other players, some are general abilities that help the team. As every player is a member of the team, helping the team also means helping oneself, even if it’s not directly. For example, when a Soldier blows a wall with his C4 he doesn’t do it so the rest of his team can advance to the next stage while he remains behind making mosaics out of the rubble, he does it for his own benefit as well as the teams.

When a Medic gives himself a med pack he’s effectively giving a team-mate a Med pack, because he’s a member of the team, as worthy of receiving the service his class provides as any other team-mate. Saying a Engie can’t heal himself so why should a Medic is the nonsense argument here. A Medic can’t defuse C4, or plant it, or hand out ammo, or stop an EV. There are lots of things each class can’t do, but of the things they can do, they themselves are members of their own team, and should be as able to receive the help their abilities provide as any other member of their team.

This to me is simple basic principle and I’d want to hear an argument as to why it should be abandoned rather than have to justify it in the first place.

2. Accessibility

I’ve taken SD to task on making their games too accessible, but to be honest I was mis-using the term. I meant, with Brink certainly, they made the game too easy for bad players to be good at, i.e. lowered the skill ceiling. Accessibility really means the game should be easier to understand, it should make sense. A Med pack on the ground giving health, and an Ammo pack giving bullets, makes sense. “Some” Med packs (namely the ones the Medic dropped himself) not giving health, while others do, doesn’t make sense. Try explaining that to a new player, try explaining it to someone who’s never played a game in this genre before, try explaining it to a BF3 Medic looking for a new game. Try explaining it to anyone who doesn’t have a pre-existing prejudice against rambo Meds.

3. Holding out for a Hero

This is an actual scenario from DB that happened to me, quite early in the Alpha, before the Med packs changed. London Bridge, I’m on the attacking team, the EV is almost home, I’m the last man alive and I’m a Medic. I rush through the tunnel towards the EV’s final resting place, I take damage, I pack myself and continue rushing, I take more damage but I manage, just, to move the EV the final few feet and win the game for my team.

Objective games are all about the objective, and achieving it at the last second, or just failing to, are those heart thumping moments in time we all live for. And sometimes, you need a hero to step up to the plate. We’d all like to be that person, and sometimes we are. For me it’s admittedly very rare, but it has happened, and if I have to give myself a pack to stay alive and be the hero on the day, why shouldn’t I, and more to the point, how is the game improved by not allowing that to happen?

And what about all those other, more mundane, occasions, where the Med leaps into the fray with his newly packed prowess to revive his team in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, to turn the tide, to break the defence at that crucial moment, to get the data cores out etc. Often the Medic must put himself in harms way, if he could only do that with low health, or after another Medic has given him a pack, he’s not fulfilling his role to the best of his ability. The team is punished because you’ve arbitrarily decided the Medic can only best fulfil his role if another Medic enables him to (unlike every other class that doesn’t require another of its kind to best fulfil its role).

4. Other game’s do it

I keep bringing up RTCW, and you’d be forgiven for thinking I do it due to a reluctance to change. I don’t mind, you don’t know me, if you did you’d know that’s not true (just go read some of the threads in the public forum where I argue against doing things the RTCW way).

The reason I keep saying RTCW stomps all over DB when it comes to class interaction is because it does, simple as that. I wish it didn’t, I hoped it wouldn’t, I love the fact DB has lots of guns, I love the fact it’s at Alpha stage and I’m here to give an opinion, I paid £90 to be here, twice as much as I’d expect to pay for a finished retail game. I’m not here to “make DB into RTCW”, but if an older game does something well (really well in this case), I’m going to mention it and ask why it should be changed.

5. OK, but you still haven’t said why the Medic should heal himself, other classes can’t

True, but no other class needs another to enable its role. They might need other classes to help them carry out their role, but not to enable it. For example, the Engineer doesn’t need a Soldier to give him a pair of pliers before he can defuse the C4, the Soldier doesn’t need a F/Ops to give him a C4 charge before he can plant it. This would be one class enabling another, but it doesn’t happen, in DB or in any game prior to it. Why should the Medic, who needs health to carry out his duties, require another Medic to provide him with it?

6. In conclusion

Medics need health to fulfil their role. They often operate under fire with de-fibs out (i.e. not returning fire). Health enables them to do that. The argument that health enables them to rambo is a mis-guided one. Health doesn’t make the rambo, bullets do. You can’t wipe out an army by hitting them over the head with Med packs. Self-healing enables the Medic to fulfil his role, giving him lots of bullets is what enables him to abuse it. Removing self-heal isn’t addressing the root cause of the problem. Removing bullets is.

I can only hope this offers a fuller explanation of what I’ve been trying to say all along. If it doesn’t I think I’ll have to give up on humanity and go lie in a darkened room for a while.

[Maca]

If medic can’t self heal does it no longer serve its purpose? You keep saying that you would always need 2 medics for it to work

I am not going to participate in this conversation otherwise, but I feel compelled to explain this.
Let’s imagine a medic, who can not heal himself, he has no health regeneration, and can only be healed by another medic.
Now, imagine yourself as being that kind of medic. I don’t know if you’ve noticed with all the health regeneration and all, but you get hit very often in this game. If the medic has no way of healing himself he will be forced to suicide very often, becuase there is no point in playing with the little health he has. Especially because medic often gets hit when he is rushing to others to give them health or revive.
Now you say, that this is the same with every other class. This is true, but only if you think about this from individual stand point. As individuals medic is now in the same footing as others, he has to look for another medic to get healed.
But if you look at this from a group stand point, medic is now isolated. Imagine an attacking (or defending, doesn’t matter) group of say four people, there is one fops, one medic and two assaults. Everyone on this group can get healed except medic. And as the group advances, the medic is bound to get hit, it is a fact. Especially because the other team might concentrate him. He is the only one in that group who can not heal, and will instantly become crippled, and most likely forced to suicide or die.
Do you not see the problem here? You might say that just have there be another medic, but this proves excactly the point Kendle was trying to make, that any given group needs two medics, because a single medic can do his job only for a measly moment. You could say that have him leave his group for a while to find another medic, but why use mechanics like this in a game that has classes in it so that a single group can function without any backpedaling. Also rather than find another medic it would probably be faster to just suicide.
And don’t you dare use an argument like ‘people die in this game quickly anyways’, no they don’t if they are working well as a group.
Think back to the times you’ve played this game, you spawn, people scatter, people die, people regroup, people respawn. Imagine yourself in those situations as this type of medic. You can not help or stay with your group, if you are the only medic in said group. Mechanic like this just isolates the medic from his group. Yes on an individual level he is the same as others, but we’re playing a group game, and unless a group has TWO medics, they are ****ed. Because a single medic couldn’t do his job.

[Tast1c]

i guess you already concluded the med pack discussion.

medic self heal: true - needs a kind of explanation here, so ppl can understand -> “medic has painkiller device which allows him to endure more damage over long term”

[warbie]

And what about all those other, more mundane, occasions, where the Med leaps into the fray with his newly packed prowess to revive his team in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, to turn the tide, to break the defence at that crucial moment, to get the data cores out etc. Often the Medic must put himself in harms way, if he could only do that with low health, or after another Medic has given him a pack, he’s not fulfilling his role to the best of his ability. The team is punished because you’ve arbitrarily decided the Medic can only best fulfil his role if another Medic enables him to (unlike every other class that doesn’t require another of its kind to best fulfil its role).)

Good post, man. As a long term RTCW medic, this bit particularly rings true. Without the ability to self heal, a medic won’t be able to help his team roll through bottlenecks nearly as effectively. This is when being a medic is most exciting and challenging. When you have to make those split second choices - do I sacrifice myself for the engie, do I let this guy die, do I heal myself or the soldier, what’s the best thing to do for the team? And sometimes, quite often in attack, the best thing for the team is to heal yourself quickly so you can continue to support the push. Taking away this option would dumb the game down, slow it down, and make it less aggressive.

[INF3RN0]

Do you not see the problem here? You might say that just have there be another medic, but this proves excactly the point Kendle was trying to make, that any given group needs two medics, because a single medic can do his job only for a measly moment. You could say that have him leave his group for a while to find another medic, but why use mechanics like this in a game that has classes in it so that a single group can function without any backpedaling. Also rather than find another medic it would probably be faster to just suicide.

I’ve understood this point the whole time. Sure the medic would be able to perform his job easier if he could heal himself as well, that’s inarguable. But is that really fair when the same exact thing applies to every class? If the medic’s role is just to sit there and heal/revive, then yea he should be able to heal himself too. What your saying is that because he can’t self heal, he’s now unable to perform his support duties well enough. That is true to an extent, but only if the medic tries to perform those duties without ever thinking.

Why does the medic need to always be alive? Should the medic’s support role be completely unobstructed even when taking damage? Without self heal a medic trying to support his teammate would avoid that damage by playing defensively anyway, but if he put himself into a bad position he would die. Why should just the medic be allowed to get out of those kinds of situations when no other class can? If healing were to be completely removed from the game all together would it be dysfunctional too? Definitely not. Healing just swings the favor of a situation, but doesn’t necessarily need to be a constant variable. Medic only provides the potential to make a difference with healing, though it’s only part of the bigger scheme of things, and self healing would just allow it to happen more consistently.

Another thing I might bring up is the revive ability. Technically a medic would require another medic to revive them too, so maybe a self-revive for medic would make them more efficient at supporting the team too and further reduce any risk or punishment in performing a support role or needing 2 medics? That was a joke don’t worry, but the overall point is that the medic’s abilities should involve the same risk as any other class and don’t necessarily need to be made to work all the time. Maybe if self heal for medic were to exist it could involve a self-bandage animation that lasts for a few seconds and works separately from the team packs.

I also think that mines need to be armed, turrets built, artillery to have a call down time, conc nades a detonate time, etc. for the same reason. The more we equalize the risk factor of class abilities, the more practice and thinking is required to perform the class well. A good medic wouldn’t be just one that mindlessly shells out medpacks all game and runs in head on for revives, but instead would make smart decisions about their positioning and decision making when it came to performing its support abilities. We have two skill curves, gun play and class play. I’d like to reward smart class players instead of just having class roles be an automated part of the game that involves no thinking or risk.

[Maca]

Without self heal a medic trying to support his teammate would avoid that damage by playing defensively anyway, but if he put himself into a bad position he would die. Why should just the medic be allowed to get out of those kinds of situations when no other class can?

As I said, you are looking this from an individual perspective, when you need to consider the whole group. Stop thinking about how a class performs alone, but how it affects the whole dynamic of the group.
If medic could only be healed by another medic, do you know what that question I quoted from you would become? “Why is medic the only class that can’t get out of a bad situation?” That’s what it will be.
It’s simple statistics, 8v8, people get further divided into groups, one group has one medic or less. So you will very very rarely have a single group that has two or more medics, so statistically the medic will always be the one that can’t get out of bad situation. Because statistically he is the one that gets healed the least. A medic will always be closer to another class of his team than another medic. Simple as. In a team smaller than eight this just becomes overwhelming, a medic can almost never get heals.
You keep saying that taking away self heal puts medic in the same position as other classes, when in fact it drops him below them. There are five classes, the maximum amount of players in a team is eight, so if you are a medic, you have much much much smaller chance of getting healed than any other class, because everyone else in your viscinity gets healed but you, and the other medic of the team is supporting another group, so you don’t get healed ever. Think about it from the perspective of the whole group, imagine watching an echo map that shows the healths of the players. Everyone else is green but the medics are red, because they have to heal their own groups, so they don’t hang around each other.
Everyone else gets healed except the medic, how is that not unfair?

And the notion that medics can play defensively to avoid damage is just bull****. You can not avoid damage in this game. Only way for you to avoid damage in this game is by having no visual contact with the enemy, but do we want a game like that? Like, honestly, try playing like that. Try playing a medic and NEVER take your own health. You will not survive to help your mates.
You will get hit by couple of stray bullets, and before you play like this, you might not understand just how devastating TWO measly bullets are. When you realize that the damage just does not heal by itself (assuming there is no health-regen), just the smallest of damage becomes significant, and you have to CONSTANTLY leave your group to get healed by another medic. Just retarded

EDIT: Also, do you know why a medic should be allowed to self heal? BECAUSE he can’t revive himself. The same idea. A group of people, everyone of those people can get revived except the medic, that’s why he needs to have source of health, but if he can’t heal himself, he is infact the one who will get healed the least. That’s just too many negatives.

Also, I’m not arguing for med packs or syringes, I’m not arguing for or against instant or regen packs, I’m just talking about the notion that medics should not be able to get health from anything but other medics. And that notion is wrong.

[tokamak]

Kendle (and Maca), you’re making a very strong case for why the medic should have a mechanism that keeps him alive on his own. I think we all agree with that. I would rep if I could give it again.
But why this mechanism has to come from self-healing through his own med packs remains unclear. I can’t detect a single good reason why the self-heal and the team-heal should be the same thing.

I can however, see a very good reason why they should NOT be the same thing and that is that it forcefully ties the combat power and the healing power of the medic together as one factor. That means that if SD wants to reduce the power of the medic, they only have two options:

• They nerf the offensive capabilities of the medic. (which is a shame)
• They nerf healing as a whole. (Which is also a shame).

And here is why this issue affects DB’s entire gameplay development negatively. See if you can follow my analysis:

Right now we’re looking at a gimped class. A class that is severely limited in it’s potential healing role simply to stop people using it from selfish reasons. You may say ‘well that’s okay, other classes don’t have such prominent features either’. But that is exactly my qualm with it. Class-roles are marginalised in this game and self-heal is one of the core reasons why DB is the way it currently is.

Once you remove self-heal (and implement a more elegant substitute) you can amp the combat power and boost the healing (instant heals!). That way the medic class as a whole can grow better in it’s role. Once the medic class can be a bigger factor as an actual healer and supporter we can then start to look at increasing the other classes in their specific roles as well.

Now, the gunplay all remains. TTK remains the same and the amount of kills per minute will even increase but the shootouts themselves, the actual combat, will last longer. You will have two teams pinning each other down in one area while classes work their asses off to keep their team up. More killing and less respawning will happen.

It will make the matches more cohesive and everyone will be better able to follow what’s going on simply because players will respawn less and spent less time running from spawn to combat.

So there you have it. This is why self-heal is a huge obstruction to further development of the classes and eventually the entire gameplay as whole.

[warbie]

EDIT: Also, do you know why a medic should be allowed to self heal? BECAUSE he can’t revive himself.

Exactly. The medic needs to be alive to keep teammates alive.

What DB needs is everyone, developers and alpha testers alike, to play RTCW for a month.

[Maca]

Kendle (and Maca), you’re making a very strong case for why the medic should have a mechanism that keeps him alive on his own. I think we all agree with that.

INF3RN0 didn’t seem to, so that’s why I posted in this thread.
As for how should medic be able to heal by himself, I don’t know, I’m fine with self injector systems that have been mentioned in the past, I’m actually fine with the current packs, I’m fine with getting rid of health and making medic a reviver, if other mechanics are made to support it I’m fine with getting health from healing/reviving others, etc, so I have nothing to contribute on that discussion atm.
Just the notion that medics would get health only from others was something I couldn’t let go.

[warbie]

and self-heal is one of the core reasons why DB is the way it currently is.

The current state of the maps, the abundance of ammo, and the fact that every class has health regen, are the reasons why DB is as it is. The core interplay between classes is broken and the maps encourage tdm fragging. Self healing stands out now as an issue, as it did in the other games where this balance was also dented/broken (see ET, ET:QW, Brink), because the current state of things exaggerates it’s offensive usefulness. Or at least it did before the nerf hammer came down.

[tokamak]

Okay awesome. My main point is that team-heal and self-heal should be disconnected. I’m the biggest fan of regeneration or a healing bonus for each team-mate healed. The regeneration means that there’s a baseline in the amount of damage a medic can take.

This will bring very interesting as well as difficult dilemmas to being a medic. It means that you need to weigh between being risky and occasionally taking hits as someone who is part of the frontline but then accepting that you may not have the robustness of making emergency heals. You can also be careful and preserve yourself and then jump in when you’re needed most. And anything in between.

Healing self through healing others brings a whole new element to the table. Here you’re rewarding the really active and risky medics. ‘Lemming’ medics so to speak. It makes the game less tactical but more frantical (and dare I say, fun). You still need to play intelligently but suddenly healing becomes as much fast-paced action as killing would be. A completely different take on the support role but highly satisfying.

Because there’s less risk in the second specialisation you may compensate the first specialisation with a higher amount of med-packs to distribute.

Both ways are very different from each other but very fun and both will contribute to longer fights in which more action and killing happens.

The current state of the maps, the abundance of ammo, and the fact that every class has health regen, are the reasons why DB is as it is. The core interplay between classes is broken and the maps encourage tdm fragging. Self healing stands out now as an issue, as it did in the other games where this balance was also dented/broken (see ET, ET:QW, Brink), because the current state of things exaggerates it’s offensive usefulness. Or at least it did before the nerf hammer came down.

I agree. However, because self-healing stands out so much, all other factors are being balanced around it and that results in many compromises that nobody is really happy with. Just doing away with it, even temporarily would clear a lot of air.

[Camercon]

1. Remove regeneration from the game, except from medics.

2. Medics can only regen to 50% their max health standard.

3. Med packs are instant heal, fixed amount.

4. If a person picks up a med pack, the medic who dropped it gets a boost to their static regen, allowing them to heal past 50%.

5. If the same person picks up more than 1 pack, the effect doesn’t stack. If different people pick up the pack, the effect is doubled/tripled etc.

6. Medics picking up other medic packs enable the regen effect.

Just something I’ve been thinking over.

EDIT: Missed #6.

[tokamak]

Welcome to the forums!

Lovely! I like what you’re doing here. May be the whole thing can be simplified further because there can be too many rules for a player to account for. But the idea is great.

I think that letting a medic only regen to 50% is a bit too harsh. It’s too much of a stick and not enough carrot. However, making them heal to say 80% but allowing them to regenerate over 100% up to say, 120% because they dish out a lot of medpacks then you get a nice support role going.

[ImageOmega]

What medics are you guys playing against that you are having such a hard time killing and it’s due to them healing themselves?

Objectives would be a lot less fun and fruitful if medics weren’t able to heal themselves. You’d have a tougher time holding a choke point and a tougher time pushing through defense because the medic would always be dead. He has no other survivability mechanism and that is huge when you are the focus of enemy fire (or should be). In TF2 the medic regens, can shoot to regen, and can become invincible…

Had a lot of fun on Camden Sunday night during our pug. I got around 31 kills as a medic. Does that mean I was ramboing? Nope. Stayed behind soldiers the entire time and I also picked up 36 revives and almost 9000 healing dished out. If I couldn’t have healed myself I would have expected half of those numbers and a lot less fun, but rather frustration.

[warbie]

It’s pretty hard to discuss this, tokamak, if you don’t touch on anything I mention - even if it’s to tell me to stop talking bollocks. It would save me a bunch of time.

Anyways - I’ll try and address some of what you’ve brought up.

Okay awesome. My main point is that team-heal and self-heal should be disconnected.

This may be where the crux of the disagreement you and Inferno have with some of us is. I don’t see the distinction or the benefit in making one - there’s just healing.

I’m the biggest fan of regeneration or a healing bonus for each team-mate healed. The regeneration means that there’s a baseline in the amount of damage a medic can take.

And that could work. It’s more situational and I suspect not as useful as self healing, but I’d like to see it in action. Perhaps for an aggressive medic variant, getting health each time he picks up a fallen team mate when pushing forward. A bottleneck specialist.

Healing self through healing others brings a whole new element to the table. Here you’re rewarding the really active and risky medics. ‘Lemming’ medics so to speak. It makes the game less tactical but more frantical (and dare I say, fun). You still need to play intelligently but suddenly healing becomes as much fast-paced action as killing would be. A completely different take on the support role but highly satisfying.

It also discourages risky medic work if the medic is the only person injured. From a gameplay point of view I find it less interesting too - for the points mentioned previously: choosing who to help (which includes the medic himself) and who to write off for the good of the team. This medic sounds quite whack a mole in his approach and, to me at least, reads better on paper than it does imagining it in gameplay. A medic needs to be able to get up to full health very quickly at the point where he’s needed - which at times this solution might cater for, and at others may break as the medic finds himself chasing after every damaged teammate in order to get health himself.

[tokamak]

Well let me help you make me understand you then

In essence, what’s the real value of having to spend the same resources on yourself as you would on others?

[Camercon]

I think that letting a medic only regen to 50% is a bit too harsh.

I haven’t had much in-game time, so numbers were just a ballpark. Never thought about rewarding medics for healing so much.

…but allowing them to regenerate over 100% up to say, 120% because they dish out a lot of medpacks then you get a nice support role going.

I like the idea, it can lead to power-play situations with a health advantage. The only question is whether is favours attack or defence.

I think generally offence should be taking more damage naturally, leading to more healing/overhealing, thus more “power plays”*. In my mind, a faster game is better and setting times is always better. If you’re playing stopwatch, attacker bias is fine. Sadly this doesn’t apply to other game types, which is where I think a majority of players will be spending their time.

You’d have a tougher time holding a choke point and a tougher time pushing through defense because the medic would always be dead.

Seems like these points cancel each other out? If it’s tougher to hold and push, aren’t you in the same situation? If anything, it punishes those who can’t protect their medics or medics who die recklessly.

In TF2 the medic regens, can shoot to regen, and can become invincible…

I don’t like this comparison at all. TF2 doesn’t have static regen, their medics need to stay on their target to heal and can’t do damage otherwise. Not to mention there are ways to prevent medics healing, knockbacks and such. It’s a fairly different system.

*Perhaps the devs have some more information on this, maybe ECHO tracks this stat or can possibly track it? I would be interested in seeing something like this.

[tokamak]

I like this guy!