Meet the Medic!

(tokamak) #101

I did play RTCW but not nearly as much as W:ET. The principle of self-healing and the problem that comes with it still stands.

(BomBaKlaK) #102

why is this a problem ? medic need to be able to stay in the fight to help teamates.
I dont se any problem at all

(tokamak) #103

It’s not their priority and right now it is, and that’s why it’s a problem. The primary objective is healing your team-mates, only when that’s sorted a medic should lend fire support. Right now it’s the complete opposite. Medics are fighting and only when they find time they throw down a few packs. What makes this so terrible is that there’s no sense of prioritisation anymore. Medics fart out medpacks and revives at random moments rather than at moments where they’re needed most.

Reducing their combat advantage (thus rendering them equal to the rest of the team) means they need to keep their eye on the ball more. “Why force them?” Right now we’re "forcing’ the selfish players to play medic because they’d be fooling themselves if they didn’t. If balancing a class to take up the role it was originally intended then so be it.

(BomBaKlaK) #104

[QUOTE=tokamak;426456]It’s not their priority and right now it is, and that’s why it’s a problem. The primary objective is healing your team-mates, only when that’s sorted a medic should lend fire support. Right now it’s the complete opposite. Medics are fighting and only when they find time they throw down a few packs. What makes this so terrible is that there’s no sense of prioritization anymore. Medics fart out medpacks and revives at random moments rather than at moments where they’re needed most.

Reducing their combat advantage (thus rendering them equal to the rest of the team) means they need to keep their eye on the ball more. “Why force them?” Right now we’re "forcing’ the selfish players to play medic because they’d be fooling themselves if they didn’t. If balancing a class to take up the role it was originally intended then so be it.[/QUOTE]

like I told you it’s a players problem ! not a game system problem …
Players can make a choice, survive to revive teammates (self healing) , or give medpacks at the good moment to support team !
It’s really just a different viewpoint position. But like I said before I dont see any problem at all.
the big point is ammo drop who make the medic full of ammo … not the self healing or the medpacks drops.

(warbie) #105

Then they’re just not doing their job well. If someone wants to run around doing their own thing as any class then so be it. The issue at the moment isn’t the medic’s survivability, which needs to be better than the other classes to do their job properly, but that they have no reason to stick with and help their team mates. They’re each a little self sufficient team of their own. Let’s see how effective a lone medic is when they start with 30 bullets and have no other means of topping up without a field ops. Suddenly they need to find and stick with a field ops, and keep him alive. It’s a shame you didn’t play RTCW a little more. ET was great, but pretty much everything new it introduced made for a worse balanced team game. The RTCW medic is pretty much just what you’re asking for.

(EnderWiggin.DA.) #106

Warbie speaks the truth. Basically the same thing I’ve said since ET.
Warbie, this is another reason I think ammo cabinets are a bad idea coughcamden*cough.

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Pretty cool class diversity, eh?

(INF3RN0) #107

Look at me being all cute and playing recon bawwwww.

(H0RSE) #108

[QUOTE=ImageOmega;425753]
I really do believe that the medic should be the only class with health regeneration or, at least, the only class with two rates of health regeneration. The idea here is to increase the medic’s survivability as a tradeoff for diminishing his attack prowess (which we will discuss later). Also, a medic having an innate ability to regen (or a faster regen) will promote the use of medpacks to heal others instead of themselves.[/quote]
that sounds reasonable.

Medics should start with a low percentage health regen when recently damaged. The low percentage regen should kick in almost immediately after taking damage (maybe 2 seconds after taking damage). After a longer designated time (perhaps 5-7 seconds) of not taking any damage then a secondary, higher health regen rate should kick in. This would allow medics to be able to run for cover and quickly survive hostile encounters or at least push up with their teammates without worrying as much about taking damage when making a run to heal or revive a teammate.

again, sounds reasonable.

The medic, as he currently stands, carries 4 medpacks. A medpack he throws should regenerate health over time (like a health potion in Diablo or Torchlight) instead of being an instant heal.

When a player picks up a medpack he should immediately receive the benefit of being able to regenerate 50% of his health capacity at a rate of 10% of his total health per second. So, if a player has 25/100 health then when he picks up a medpack he will begin to regenerate 10 health every second up to 75/100. This scenario would mean it would take the injured player 5 seconds to regain 50 health.

Now, if a player picks up a second medpack, while the regeneration of the first is still active, then the heal over time effect will be doubled. This would mean the player would be regenerating up to 100% of his health at 20% of his health regenerating per second. Let’s say an injured player has 10/100 health left and he picks up one medpack. Immediately he would start regenerating 10 health per second. Then, a second later, he picks up a second medpack, which activates a two times stacked healing effect healing the player for 20 health per second thus taking four additional seconds to reach 100/100 health.

This effect will be capped at two times and no extra healing bonus or benefits would be gained from picking up a third med pack. Perhaps, the player is even unable to pick up anymore medpacks once the two times healing power effect is reached. The type of healing effect the player is receiving should be noted by a small icon depicting “1x” or “2x” regeneration power.

Perhaps making it so the medpacks give an a small initial instant heal before regen kicks in? Maybe the small heal could be used instead of the multiplayer on regen speed.

Finally, I do like Anti’s idea that if a player takes damage while regenerating health from a medpack, then regeneration immediately ceases. Any 1x or 2x bonus goes away and he will have to pick up another medpack to start the process all over again. Also, forgive me if my math is dumb or doesn’t make sense with the numbers I use. The mechanics still stand and I am sure better numbers could be used.

Yes, I also like that idea, makes sense.

We already talked why just straight up reducing the damage amount a medic can dish out is silly. So, what do we do instead? I think the amount of bullets the medic gets is the answer to diminishing his killing ability without completely negating his ability.

Right now, the medic gets three clips of 35 bullets or 35 bullets in the gun and 70 bullets in reserve. This just seems like a lot of ammo, especially with the gibbing mechanics the way they are now. Instead I think the medic should get slightly less ammo per clip (like 25 or 30) or one entire less clip to carry. Perhaps, even both of those mechanics together make sense.

The former idea would mean the medic spawns in with 25 or 30 bullets in the gun and 50 or 60 bullets on reserve. The latter idea would mean 35 bullets in the gun and 35 bullets on reserve. Either way the idea here is to reduce the amount of kills a medic can rack up by himself to instead highlight his survivability and support abilities.

Why not just go back to way it was in Wolf - start with low ammo, but can pick up ammo/guns off dead players?

It is apparent that classes are going to have different loadouts with differing abilities (see: “‘Dazzler’ is out! ‘Conker’ is in!”). What about a version of the medic more suited to killing without so much survivability? This would allow players to play the medic as a killing machine that heals himself and maybe with even a little more of a push in this direction.

A Combat Medic would have an increased clip size in comparison to the regular medic (such as the now current 35 plus 70). A possible secondary of the combat medic could be a machine gun pistol like the Recon class has now. That would be a pretty abusive one-two punch combination if you ask me.

So, what’s the tradeoff? Well, the Combat Medic would lose his innate ability to regenerate health on his own. He’d have to use up one of his precious medpacks in order to heal himeslf, which means less for his teammates. And, that’s not all! Also, his medpack’s regeneration rate would be capped at 1x with no stacking of the buff. The original 1x amount was regenerating 50% of health capacity at a rate of 10% health per second. Collecting a second one of the Combat Medic’s medpack would allow for another 50% of the player’s health to be restored, but still only at 10% health per second. Obviously, this all assumes that the medic is the only class with the innate ability to regen (or at least have a faster regen).

I designed an alternate tech tree awhile back for Brink, where I came up with “Specialization” classes for each class, and one of them was a combat medic. I like the idea of sacrificing the support role for a more offensive approach.

Finally, some random ideas I had that could be cool additions for alternative medic classes. An alternative medic character could have a medpack that increases player sprint speed, amount of damage delivered, or a decrease in amount of damage received. Also, an off the wall idea would be to have different medic classes that revive players with increased health after revival.

I can think of three different types of Medics that could be viable choices - A typical healing role medic that focuses on restoring HP, a defensive “buff” based medic, that focuses more on making teammates take less damage rather than on healing wounds, and the combat medic.

I know that was a long post and I can only hope I explained myself thoroughly. Which is probably part of my problem and why I ended up making DirtyBombers.com. I am a wordy typist. I do that. But, agree or disagree, hate it or love it, I thank you for reading!

It was nice to see some Medic love :slight_smile: Healer/support roles are my favorite class.

(Kendle) #109

Self-healing creates a problem, but it also serves a purpose.

I gave the example previously of a Medic and Engie as the last 2 alive but the Medic was nearly dead and the Engie was on full health. You said it was OK in that scenario that the Medic be unable to heal himself because it made him the same as any other class. But he’s not the same as any other class in that scenario. Any other class could receive healing from the Medic. The fact the Medic is the one needing the healing is besides the point.

I’ll give you another one (nearly happened to me yesterday), a Medic is the last person alive on the attacking team on London Bridge, final stage, EV is nearly home, but the Medic is nearly dead. Does he a) pack himself up, rush the EV, move it the final few metres and win the round, or does he b) hide and wait for a team-mate to re-spawn and do the objective instead, or get damaged enough to allow the Medic to heal so he can do the objective, assuming of course they’ve got time to do all that?

There are circumstances in which it’s necessary, for the greater benefit of the team, for the Medic to self-heal, or for the F/Ops to give himself some ammo. And the fact they can do that means they have a judgement call to make, which adds an extra dimension to the game. The game isn’t a combination of predictable set plays, in which only certain scenarios occur and all of them are best served by having Medics and F/Ops who don’t consider themselves part of their own team (i.e. can’t do for themselves what they can do for others).

But even if you don’t agree with all that, why are we all theorising about what might help when we have a proven solution available? RTCW invented the objective mode game play and it’s essentially DB without ammo drop. Why are we ignoring that, and what’s the argument FOR retaining ammo drop?

(BomBaKlaK) #110

[QUOTE=EnderWiggin.DA.;426513]Warbie speaks the truth. Basically the same thing I’ve said since ET.
Warbie, this is another reason I think ammo cabinets are a bad idea coughcamden*cough.

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Pretty cool class diversity, eh?[/QUOTE]

look like a match line up, I dont see anything strange to have 1 obj engie and 4 medics.

(tokamak) #111

We may have completely different definitions of the word ´strange´ then.

Yes I would fully accept this scenario. The situations where the entire team is full hp and the medic is not will be incredibly rare occurrences and an acceptable weakness in the class. They are acceptable because this is something that comes naturally with making a medic more reliant on staying with his team. When the team drops then naturally the medic should drop in value as well.

If you want a class that can persists regardless of the team then I refer you to the assault and covert.

But he’s not the same as any other class in that scenario. Any other class could receive healing from the Medic. The fact the Medic is the one needing the healing is besides the point.

A medic can always receive healing from another medic, just not from himself. That makes him just like any other class.

(Kendle) #112

tokamak, well done missing the point again.

I think I’m going to have to ignore anything else you have to say on this matter until you answer this :-

(Kendle) #113

That you don’t see anything strange in that lineup is part of the problem.

SD’s stated goal is that all classes have a place in the game. If there was no ammo drop one of those Medics would be a F/Ops. If the Solider was a better, er, soldier, 1 or 2 more of those Medics could be dropped.

Interestingly tokamak’s idea for Medics only able to heal others would actually make 4 Medics on a team of 5 more viable, not less.

(BomBaKlaK) #114

Yeah I understand but actually like said before in a lot of topics, Ammo drop make the F-ops useless, and soldier is not really heavy with only an mg not so lethal.
So if ammo drop is remove and Soldier got some other usefull wepons to stop the EV for example then it can be played. but actually there is no real advantage to use this both classes. Sniper is a bit played for the skilled class it represent and snipe is not so useless in good hands.

But yeah like I say I dont see anything strange if the others classes are not boosted yet.

(Kendle) #115

OK, I took you to mean you found that class mix acceptable.

You’re right in that currently it’s optimal, but the point is it shouldn’t be, and we’re here trying to suggest ways in which the class mix could become more in line with SD’s stated goals.

(BomBaKlaK) #116

Yes but all discussions turn around the medic like if that’s “the” problem number 1 and for me that’s not,
the others classes are just underpowered or abilities are not so usefull. make them usefull then you gonna see some different line up.
add some back door open with disguise, remove ammo drop, add smoke nade, heavy weapons, or something in this way.
let’s see what’s happen with all the weaponry “ON” cause I really think we dont have all the cards in our hands, it’s a bit hard to tell who is really under or overpowered. and every one say it’s like this or this ! but wait and see all the capabilities of all classes.

(Kendle) #117

The Medic might not be the no.1 problem, but it’s the subject of this thread, which is why we’re trying to confine it to that.

I agree though that at the moment there’s little reason to play anything other than Medic or Engineer. Sniper is probably only ever going to have a niche role, i.e. on some maps there’s simply going to be no need for one, the F/Ops is redundant, and the Soldier isn’t good enough to warrant not having med-packs.

(tokamak) #118

It’s not about power or balance between the classes either. It’s about how far a class goes in fulfilling its role it was intended to and right now the medic simply doesn’t do that.

[QUOTE=Kendle;426550]tokamak, well done missing the point again.

I think I’m going to have to ignore anything else you have to say on this matter until you answer this :-[/QUOTE]

I disagree with how RTCW handled it. Even in RTCW the medic still supported himself the most. The medic in RTCW is not in any way different from the games that followed. If people played it a bit differently a decade a go then it’s simply down to an underdeveloped meta-game.

(Xai) #119

i’d love to see the sniper fill a worthy role tbh!
Make them good like awp’s in cs and limit to 1/team :wink:

(Humate) #120

[QUOTE=EnderWiggin.DA.;426513]Warbie speaks the truth. Basically the same thing I’ve said since ET.
Warbie, this is another reason I think ammo cabinets are a bad idea coughcamden*cough.

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Pretty cool class diversity, eh?[/QUOTE]

Gib strychzilla?