Rambo medics? I dont know what players you play with but medics usually teammate up with other medics and play positions or push together. They help revive / med each other. Depending on the game. They also run with a teammate that might whoever have the ammo, so you have a nice combination. It makes the game faster paced and require alot of teamwork.You’re asking for a soldier to take more damage? ok, so whats the point in taking slightly more damage and having a medic behind you ready to heal? then say a LT with a medic behind you? That makes no sense honestly. The “heavy” is a meat shield in this game apparently. I think you have to wait to see the lay out of weaponry and what not also. Is the soldier going to have a overpowered gun like in wolf ( new ) m43? or he going to have the same kind of guns like medic / lt. If so it would be useless for him to take more bullets cause he would still die. By the way just because will just teammate together and heal one another. Its part of the game play. You are asking to take away one of the best features in the game, which other games dont have.
Please design for gameplay, not for flavour
Rambo medic: 146hp, 3hp healthregen / sec, shitload of medpacks, 7/8 teammates play it. Welcome to the average ET pub!
Personally I’m not sure which scenario is worse. ET where everybody plays medic or ETQW where nobody plays it. I tend to think it’s the latter. It shows that the class balancing is a delicate thing. Most likely the first thought for selecting a class by the average player is “What good does it do for me?” and not “What good does it do for the team?”.
[QUOTE=darthmob;198407]
Personally I’m not sure which scenario is worse. ET where everybody plays medic or ETQW where nobody plays it. I tend to think it’s the latter[/QUOTE]
I prefer ET:QW where there may be not enough medics. At least in ET:QW there’s a variety of classes in use. In ET:QW:
- a lot of the time player is gibbed by something big (a vehicle) and beyond healing. I don’t like this particular point.
- maps are much more open, people tend to run in different directions, thus medics are much less useful. Technicians have it easier because spawn hosts are not going anywhere.
What made rambo medics particularly annoying in W:ET was that there wasn’t much you could do about them - no vehicles, no turrets, and adrenaline made medics much more resistant to panzerfaust than other classes bar expert engies. You could only try to beat medics at their own game, which was 3 headshots. Brink may see the raise of rambo medic again, but at least there are turrets this time around.
Maybe it’s strange, but I actually think having healthy and dangerous teammates around me is good for me. They’re my living shields and bodyguards, my minions, and I’m a, eh, necromancer ;-). It would be cute if Brink could give medics some points whenever a revived teammate does something important. Like, you get bonus cash/xp/whatever if you revive someone who plants an explosive charge and destroys objective.
Sounds like it has a lot of strategic implications. Now there are two major variables for players to play with - class and body type. This got me thinking…
- if weapon is determined solely by body type, what’s to stop medic from taking a grenade launcher ? He may do a worse job reviving teammates, actually teamkill some, and accidentaly gib those on the ground.
But if a player wants to play grenade launcher first, and frag as much as possible, I don’t see many reasons to take something other than medic ! This may or may not be fine depending on your point of view - but I don’t like it.
I wonder if body type affects what class specific equipment you can have. For example skinny medic could be swifter, sneakier and have easier time reaching teammates in need. On the other hand heavy medic could carry more medpacks, needles etc. Or is body type completely separate from class, so no medics with sniper rifles, coverts with grenade launchers…
if I may pitch an idea for Brink, I have this: improved scoreboard display. In W:ET and more so ET:QW, it was sometimes hard to tell what those “soldiers” are actually doing, because some classes could vary greatly depending on item loadout. You see 4 agressors and don’t know how much turret damage they can do - if all have hyperblasters, not much. That’s why I think scoreboard should show not just your teammates’ classes, but also weapon choice. Sten covert op and K43 covert op are probably doing very different things, and the one with sten is more likely to blow up command post.
This would be very difficult to balance with the option to change class in-game. It works much like you’ve described with skinny vs heavy, but it’s more a tradeoff between speed/agility and weapons/damage soaking. I’ve seen people in playtests be effective using both methods. We do have other mechanics that effect equipment you’ll hopefully be hearing about soon.
Body type is separate from class, weapons are separate from class. Some combinations will be more effective than others, but we’ve decided to let the players decide that for themselves rather than limit the choices from the start.
I totally agree with you on scoreboard display, especially on a game that comes down to a lot more than simple kill and death counts. But it’s a bit early for info on that one. 
i’ve mentioned this elsewhere, i’m pretty sure, but one of other things we’re playing with for body type is the bigger you are, the more “power” you have, so you can do more special abilities. we’ll see how it works out.
seeing which gun a guy has on the scoreboard isn’t a bad idea at all. i’ll look into it.
Such as more damage for a melee attack for the heavy, where as a light body type takes off less health but can melee faster?
And what would be the point of that ? If DPS remains the same, this would be a non-choice. I think the whole point of light/medium/heavy is that heavier types are slower but get some advantages for that.
Er… you what?
I think the whole point of light/medium/heavy is that heavier types are slower but get some advantages for that.
Yes… so the heavy guy has a melee that takes off more damage than the light, but the light has a shorter interval between strikes… what’s hard to comprehend about that?
DPS = Damage Per Second. Slow heavy swings can have the same damage total output as short heavy swings. That’s what you were confused about right?
In TF2 the Heavy can chose between two melee weapons (fists and boxing gloves) the latter strikes slower but awards critical strikes.
i’ve mentioned this elsewhere, i’m pretty sure, but one of other things we’re playing with for body type is the bigger you are, the more “power” you have, so you can do more special abilities. we’ll see how it works out.
seeing which gun a guy has on the scoreboard isn’t a bad idea at all. i’ll look into it.
I hope this makes the heavy guy a better interrogator. And perhaps heavy guys can chuck grenades further. Oh I would love to see them being able to kick doors in.
[QUOTE=darthmob;198407]Rambo medic: 146hp, 3hp healthregen / sec, shitload of medpacks, 7/8 teammates play it. Welcome to the average ET pub!
Personally I’m not sure which scenario is worse. ET where everybody plays medic or ETQW where nobody plays it. I tend to think it’s the latter. It shows that the class balancing is a delicate thing. Most likely the first thought for selecting a class by the average player is “What good does it do for me?” and not “What good does it do for the team?”.[/QUOTE]
This is irrelevant. You are talking about a pub. Sorry, but not matter what game you play even this game. There will be a class that stands out for pubs. The only way to eliminate this is how many you can use per team. That is it. In cod its Snipers. rtcw type games, medics. TF2 its scouts ( atleast was when I played ). So in reality it doesnt matter if you “dumby down” the medic. If he sucks, you will just hurt the game in general and make another class stand out. If medics dont have the ability to heal themselves they will get destroy by whoever is the “power class” in the game. Stupid solution if you ask me. Limit the amount you can have on a server and regeneration of any kind is an awful answer to any game. There should never be regeneration. Whoever came up with that idea should jump out a window. That just takes away from more of the learning curve, hey look at me Im hiding and getting health back ( nice talent )
The point is not the power of a class. The problem is people using a class it is not intended for. This is clearly something that can be avoided from the start.
If people want to go for a high body count, then soldier should be the easiest class for this and not a medic. Keeping the roles clear and defined only benefits a shooter. If you want to do different things with a class, fine, but then you enter the realm of requiring skill and creativity.
[QUOTE=tokamak;198499]The point is not the power of a class. The problem is people using a class it is not intended for. This is clearly something that can be avoided from the start.
If people want to go for a high body count, then soldier should be the easiest class for this and not a medic. Keeping the roles clear and defined only benefits a shooter. If you want to do different things with a class, fine, but then you enter the realm of requiring skill and creativity.[/QUOTE]
So by that theory you want to make a class not played at all? Nice suggestion. Team Fortress 2 is a prime example. The medic has a needle gun. His main objective is to heal. Yet why do people never play the class in public servers and hardly anyone wants to play it in Matchs or Scrims or Pugs? Nobody wants to play a useless class that does nothing but heal, and has a weak gun that shoots pellets ( needles). Sorry. People play video games ( atleast FPS ) to be in the action offensively. Not being able to, pushes people away from those classes because they feel that ( why should I just heal people and die in the process, when I can go another class and actually fight and kill them right back ) Its common sense. Not rocket science. To avoid this its quite simple. Limit the availability of that class. I have yet to see it a problem in any game. Good players competitively or on public servers might do what you say “rambo”, but so what…
if they are bad they will die, thats their fault, if they are good then they are helping your team drastically, because he doesnt need as much help as the people who need more “hand holding” to progress… A better player will shine regardless of what class he uses. Its better to have a rambo medic then a server full of people hiding because they are scared to die.
I think the medic of TF2 is a very good example here. His needle gun is puny and only used in emergencies, he can’t heal himself, the only way he can boost himself is trough getting invulnerable after having healed enough.
This comes very close to what Darthmob is suggesting.
Just because there are egocentrical people that like to turn every game in a deatmatch does not mean that we shouldn’t have any support classes in the game. If support class proves to be unpopular and people don’t play it, then the game design should make it so that it’s their loss, that the team who has these support classes avaible is more powerful. With other words, what a soldier contributes in kills to his team, so should a supportive class give an equal if not better contribution to the team. And yes this does mean that it won’t be the most efficient class to get kills in.
Right now you’re reasoning from a solo player perspective, if a class can’t rack up the most kills it’s not the best class and should not be played. But it are especially class based games like ET and TF that demonstrate that players can do so much more for their team than just getting kills. After all, it’s the team that fulfils it’s objective at the end of the match that wins, not the team that has the most kills.
Making the class roles very clear from the start leads automatically to better team cohesion. People can do whatever they like and not be confused about which class should fit their needs the best. That’s why the OP made drastic changes to the classes, foregoing the flavour of the class just to make their role more distinct. If you want to get a class specialised in kills, then it does make sense to see the soldier as the sociopath who specialises in aimology, excuse me, in getting kills and doesn’t want to be bothered by the rest of his team.
Limiting the availability of a certain class or guns only shows a lack of imagination. In ETQW most classes have increasing or diminishing returns, meaning that they become more respectively less effective the more players join that class. More medics in the GDF mean a larger max hp for team-mates, and more field ops means longer reload on the artillery. These are far better solutions than putting flat limits to classes.
Wait a second. I did not suggest anything! To make it short: all I said is that class balancing is a very delicate thing and that at least in public play people tend to select the class which does the best for themselves and not for the team.
Personally I do not like the way the medic is implemented in TF2. I always liked to run around with guns blazing and reviving at the same time. I’m equally against the medic being to powerful as I’m against a strong nerf.
If a class is no fun to play than people won’t play it. It’s as simple as that. The game design should make all classes interesting and fun to play so that problem doesn’t even come up.
XP incentives would also influence class choice, I’d imagine. Playing the “healer” isn’t for everyone, but I know plenty of people who love it. It’s a different play style to be sure, but it caters to different interests. Furthermore, I’m not sure how the medic plays in Brink, but it would be neat if they were given certain debuff abilities to defend against enemy threats (slow enemies down, and/or cause their weapons to jam momentarily while the medic SMARTly gets out of harm’s way, for example).
Dude, Bezzy and I gotta do battle some time… Unless he uses one of those arcade sticks by MadCatz, they pwn us keyboard users. (PC SFIV of course)
Sorry to get off topic… Carry on.
He plays on PC at lunch in the office, then goes home and plays on 360 (issues, much?). Uses a 360 controller for the PC, so I dunno how that would do in Ye Olde Keyboard vs Controller debate…
Aimology wasn’t arguing that fun classes are popular, he was saying that classes powerful in combat are popular. All the while support classes can contribute just as much, if not more and can be just as fun, if not more to play with.
I just don’t like the focus on the combat alone. There should not be a competition between the four classes for the ‘killer class’ award. Killing the opponent team is just a specialisation like any other, not more important not less important.
[QUOTE=tokamak;198544]Aimology wasn’t arguing that fun classes are popular, he was saying that classes powerful in combat are popular. All the while support classes can contribute just as much, if not more and can be just as fun, if not more to play with.
I just don’t like the focus on the combat alone. There should not be a competition between the four classes for the ‘killer class’ award. Killing the opponent team is just a specialisation like any other, not more important not less important.[/QUOTE]
I just want to say… and this is probably from only really playing kill games… that i dont enjoy playing as a support class that cant hold his own in combat, i really enjoyed the medic in quakewars because i could heal up the team AND join in the fight with them, yes it was overpowered as i could re-stock my own ammo and health and hold a door for a loooonng time by ducking out and dropping medpacks to heal up then popping out and dumping more bullets into the hallway, which soldiers cant do… but it was fun.
soldiers have to pump through that hallway and pump bullets into the medic using their increased health and damage to kill him before he kills you…
i guess the problem there is that if thats all they have to do how does the medic ever survive if all the soldiers are too tough and just run him down…
and if the soldier is not tough enough etqw happens.