[QUOTE=tokamak;425857]You’re just asserting this without giving a single good reason why the medic should be able to compete with other classes.
I’m seeing this a lot in WoW forums. People get invested in a particular class and start lobbying on forums to keep them powerful. This is completely detrimental to balancing the game.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=tokamak;425875]And you know what. I actually prefer that. “Oh dear! Selfish rambo players are going to abandon the medic class which they weren’t using properly anyway” is totally the wrong attitude. It’s basically saying that the medic is like Goldman Sachs, too big too fail and therefore needs disproportionate support from the development team.
Yes, absolutely, THIS should be the key objective. Medics SHOULD be able to compete with other classes but only under the the condition that they’re doing their class job as well. THEREFORE their combat performance should be tied directly to the amount of support they give which means that in order to stay proefficient in combat they constantly need to keep their eyes on the health of their team-mates.
This means that if they’re not holding up their end of the deal, they will be an inferior class in combat. They need to start at 75% of the other classes’s combat potency and if they’re doing a mediocre healing job they get to be 100% combat potency, and if they’re doing an excellent support job they will rise to 125% combat potency compared to other classes.[/QUOTE]
Tokamak, you sound like you’re playing devil’s advocate just because you can. First, you say the medic shouldn’t be able to compete with other classes, then you say they should, but only if they receive buffs for support, and then propose that their combat proficiency surpasses other classes if they do x, y, and z.
Let’s start at the beginning. The pure and simple reason (which I’ve read you support in other forums) is that we don’t want the medic in DB to turn into the medic of TF2 (despite this thread’s title). A medic in TF2 can definitely use his needle gun to get kills, but when it comes to a real one on one with any class he will have a hard time killing them first. This is due to the mechanics of the game and weapons used. Obviously, a medic with a needle gun won’t be able to take down a heavy with a chain gun or a solider with a rocket launcher. However, the guns and mechanics in Dirty Bomb are expressively different. The weapons are guns…they shoot bullets…they go bang bang bang. The focus in shooting however is to get headshots which if you get four of them on an enemy with a full health, you get the kill. The combat proficiency of the medic, by himself, should not extend beyond being able to win a couple of one on one fights without needing more ammo to continue on. This would be due to the fact that his overall bullet capacity would be lowered. Also, a medic should not be able to engage multiple enemies on a continuous basis, by himself, due to the fact that his clip size is smaller, thus he has more down time while reloading.
The mechanics of this game create classes where they are each, on their own, combat effective. That is why the medic should not be hindered via a damage reduction and be able to fight one on one with any class and still be effective enough to win. Will he always win? Well, that part is dependent on the skill of the players. But, again, after one or two 1on1 engagements, a medic should have to find a FOPs to re-supply. Thus, we get the synergy we have all been clamoring for and medics are slightly less combat potent.
Next, I believe you are looking at current rambo medic players as the bane which fuels your argument. Have you ever considered these players are just really good at the game and taking advantage of the medic’s great gun and ability to heal? Regardless, the goal should not be to gimp a class. The medic in TF2 can afford to be a “lame duck” in combat because of his uber charge. He becomes invaluable due to his synergy with ANY class in that regard and his survivability immediately hits 100% when he builds an uber charge (which only builds through healing players). So, since the gameplay and combat of Dirty Bomb and TF2 are different, what do you really want? Do you want medic to be able to get a kill on their own at all? I guess that’s why you proposed the buff system…
So, finally, let’s look at that. I can see now why you mentioned WoW since we’re bringing buffs based on player action into the mix. By the way, while I am talking about WoW, they went through this same routine trying to find out how to nerf priests in the early days of WoW. They were literally killing machines and were even really good at silently slipping past mobs to kill unsuspecting players in open world PvP (battlegrounds did not exist). This was because you had players picking shadow and holy talents, allowing them to heal proficiently and still kill effectively. When they changed the trees up and nerfed certain skills they forced priests to either become Holy or Shadow (or Discipline I guess), but not both. If priests wanted to be able to damage (or solo) they had to go Shadow. This was apparent (I don’t play WoW anymore, so forgive me if things changed) because while leveling up it was recommended to go Shadow to do damage. Later, to be the main healer (not the support/bonus healing that shadow provided) for raids or advanced instances you had to be Holy. Otherwise, you would not be able to heal through the damage that your party would receive or just plain go out of mana too fast. You see, they solved player dilemmas by offering up TWO different roles for one class. Kind of why I proposed the idea of a combat medic. However, this is not WoW and this game’s “skills” pretty much boil down to placing that crosshair on the enemy’s noggin.
You should be able to kill any enemy with any class because this game does not enforce a rock, paper, scissors mentality. Every class should be able to kill another class in a one on one fight. This is probably also the reason the Recon’s secondary is a machine gun pistol, so he can survive that close quarter encounter. Now, you were talking about buffs. Like Kendle stated, this becomes a system all too easy to abuse or which altogether makes medics the most complicated class to play because they have to manage their own “buffs”. How do we abuse it? Well, I don’t know what your examples will be, but let’s say they have to heal 100% of a players health and revive at least one player to reach “100% combat proficiency”. Now, let’s assume friendly fire is on: you damage your teammate, heal them, damage them again, killing them, then revive them. Conveniently, your teammate is playing field ops so they give you any ammo you lost doing this. Basically, having to manage buffs just slowed down gameplay and forced players to exploit a mechanic in order to make them the best version of themselves they can be. Why not make medics the best version of themselves they can be inherently and leave the ability to kill up to skill? But, the tradeoff is that their ammo capacity and clip size is limited so they have to rely on field ops for support and ammo. And, I think Kendle is also right here where the best way to enforce this is to remove ammo drops from gibbing. This completely forces classes to be reliant on others. As a teamplay based game, I don’t think this is such a bad thing.
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