This may have been addressed before, but I here is an argument for changing the ‘medic’ vsay system to correspond more closely with the original RTCW’s system.
Wounded players should not call for medics automatically. The manner in which wounded players were handled in RTCW was the best way that calling for medics could be handled. When a player was wounded, the player yelled out ‘medic’ or ‘help’ within the environment rather than through the chat system. Any medic within earshot (50 feet) could hear the wounded player yell out, and with stereo sound a medic could tell what direction and how far away the wounded was, thereby allowing the medic to go revive him quickly, efficiently, and without difficulty.
In ET, when people are wounded, they call for a medic using the voice chat system, automatically. I play medic often, and in ET I find that I am less effective as a medic, because:
- Have to search for players that are closest, and this takes time.
When I don’t hear the player say "help’ or ‘medic’ within the game environment means I have to take time to find the wounded player on the map. A quick glance at the compass is not a replacement for the old system, because it takes time to look at the compass – when there were two wounded players in the original RTCW, one within earshot, one farther away, hearing the closer one cry out, or both cry out at different volumes allows you to go for him immediately and without thinking,
- Wounded players more likely to get gibbed, or worse: not revived.
I can’t immediately tell if the wounded player is near me or far away. An enemy can gib a wounded player in the few critical seconds it takes to open the map or look at the compass and find where the player is,
- People get killed constantly
I find myself listening to a non-stop string of ‘medic’ vsays, which I tend to just ignore as background noise,
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People who are waiting to be revived are ignored and forgotten more often than not.
In RTCW, the system provided that the ‘medic’ chat was only used where the player intentionally used the ‘medic’ vsay. To a medic, this meant ‘hey I am wounded, come revive me; I did not tap,’ or ‘hey you didn’t notice me, but I see you; revive me please!’ In ET, the constant flooding of vsays precludes a medic from knowing whether or not a person has tapped out or not – because the ‘medic’ vsay is used whether or not the person has/will immediately tap out. I find this really frustrating as a medic.
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Medics are less useful in ET.
When I’ve played ET I am more often seeing players lose confidence in medics and never waiting; conversely, many medics in ET just ignore other players and only revive when they can see the wounded player. The vsay system in ET simply reduces the effectiveness of medics.
- Can’t hear enemy players call out when they die.
This is important for gameplay. When you hear an enemy die around a corner, you usually can be assured that your own team killed him, and that it is safe to proceed. For example – say on Fueldump, there a a few axis guarding the entrance. Allies have two covert ops getting in position to take out the guarding players, and allied engineers are waiting around the corner from the entrance. When the covert ops snipe the guards, the allied engineers hear the guards each cry out, and will know when to proceed. This is just one example of how the original RTCW medic vsay helps gameplay immensely.
So, please, SplashDamage – consider these arguments and weigh them against the arguments that persuaded you to make the ET ‘medic’ vsay the way it is.
I think you will find that the old RTCW method would benefit ET far more than the current system.
The voices you need to do the old RTCW system are already in ET, so this woud not be a really tough problem to fix; Please give us back the old RTCW system for the sake of perfecting and refining ET’s gameplay!
Good Job guyz !
