Question for the Developers about Pips

[Jess_Alon]

What made you guys decide that you wanted to give all body types equal pips instead of the lights having less and the heavies having more?

And about how fast do they regenerate?

[Weeohhweeohh]

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;275617]What made you guys decide that you wanted to give all body types equal pips instead of the lights having less and the heavies having more?

And about how fast do they regenerate?[/QUOTE]

There have been a couple videos (maybe old so not sure if they tuned them) that show pip regeneration. If memory serves, its between 20-30 seconds.

Edit:
this video

He revives at around 1:35 with 1 pip down and it is filled at around 2:05.

[Jess_Alon]

[QUOTE=Weeohhweeohh;275618]There have been a couple videos (maybe old so not sure if they tuned them) that show pip regeneration. If memory serves, its between 20-30 seconds.

Edit:
this video

He revives at around 1:35 with 1 pip down and it is filled at around 2:05.[/QUOTE]

Cool then my only question is why the change with the bodytype varience?

[Herandar]

I’m guessing that it truly made Lights undesirable (or so much more likely to Lone Wolf). The speed and agility bonii did not outweigh the health AND the ability reductions.

[Jess_Alon]

I’m guessing that it truly made Lights undesirable (or so much more likely to Lone Wolf). The speed and agility bonii did not outweigh the health AND the ability reductions.

Every elitist “competitive” player already rails on the heavy. That’s the great thing the heavy had going for them.

[Weeohhweeohh]

I’m guessing that it truly made Lights undesirable (or so much more likely to Lone Wolf). The speed and agility bonii did not outweigh the health AND the ability reductions.

Seems reasonable. Though I was sad when I saw that it had changed.

Every elitist “competitive” player already rails on the heavy. That’s the great thing the heavy had going for them.

The chaingun was enough for me =D

[Mad_Hatter]

Yeah, if I had to guess I’d say it’s to make the Lights more capable team players. Just trying to cut back on the selfishness.

[tokamak]

I’m guessing that it truly made Lights undesirable (or so much more likely to Lone Wolf). The speed and agility bonii did not outweigh the health AND the ability reductions.

The bodytype polls we had suggest otherwise.

I find it dubious, being faster does make doing tasks other than shooting a lot easier. You’re very flexible and can apply ‘triage’ wherever needed. A heavy doesn’t have that at all.

[Jess_Alon]

Yeah, if I had to guess I’d say it’s to make the Lights more capable team players. Just trying to cut back on the selfishness.

Most light fanboys talk about how they are gonna be leet and murder you from the heavens and dodge bullets… didn’t think buffing others wouldn’t really occur to them as much.

[Herandar]

I find it dubious, being faster does make doing tasks other than shooting a lot easier. You’re very flexible and can apply ‘triage’ wherever needed. A heavy doesn’t have that at all.

Speed is not relevant at all to the argument. If the Light medic only had two syringes and the Heavy medic had six syringes, the light medic might not stick around, but would rather go lone wolf it and revive himself.

[Jess_Alon]

Speed is not relevant at all to the argument. If the Light medic only had two syringes and the Heavy medic had six syringes, the light medic might not stick around, but would rather go lone wolf it and revive himself.

Light medic should be rushing across the map to downed allies that are harder to get to in the case of a medic. As a light in general you need to be concentrating on flanking the enemy so that the mediums can in essence “sub-flank” and then the heavies can stage frontal assault effectively pinning fortified positions down.

One wouldn’t think that a light would be buffing as often because the light is moving and engaging more often. The heavy is going to get left behind at times but if the heavy has a higher number of pips then he can serve as a staging teammate that hands out buffs like crazy before making a push forward into a firefight. I think maybe I’ll end up using the medium more then I thought with the pips being the same for all.

[tokamak]

Speed is not relevant at all to the argument. If the Light medic only had two syringes and the Heavy medic had six syringes, the light medic might not stick around, but would rather go lone wolf it and revive himself.

There’s an infinite supply, but previously only the max pip pool varied. It was a nice ‘quantity vs quality’ contrast. Heavy guys could apply their skills whenever and lights could apply their skills wherever. In this sense speed is incredibly important.

I’m a bit disappointed as this means that the health pool of the heavy is enough to offset his slow speed when it comes to abilities, that means the differences between body types won’t be that big after all and will mostly be noticed during combat rather than on slightly bigger scale.

[Jess_Alon]

I just think that since it takes the heavy a little longer to get around it makes sense that he has more buffs to hand out when he’s reunited with the bulk of the squad. That’s all. I just wonder why they made them all even.

[JeP]

Cause they’ve tested it and found it unbalanced ? I was surprise too, but that’s still another choice we can’t predict the impact.

[Herandar]

There’s an infinite supply, but previously only the max pip pool varied. It was a nice ‘quantity vs quality’ contrast. Heavy guys could apply their skills whenever and lights could apply their skills wherever. In this sense speed is incredibly important.

Yes, it is infinite, but how many light medics would shepherd their squad if they could only revive two of their teammates before needing to recharge? And you have to remember that we are talking about anyone playing a light medic, not just the people that analyze potential meta-game functions on a game that isn’t even out yet on the developer’s website.

Assuming the 2/4/6 ratio for abilities applied, which I think is a logical starting point, it means the light medic could buff/revive two teammates once, or self-buff/self-revive (which henchforth, I intend to call ‘zombivive’) once. I would guess that most players would choose the selfish route, to the detriment of the team.

If the lights can help more, then they will be more likely to stick around and help. Sounds a touch perverse, but I think it is human nature.

I’m a bit disappointed as this means that the health pool of the heavy is enough to offset his slow speed when it comes to abilities, that means the differences between body types won’t be that big after all and will mostly be noticed during combat rather than on slightly bigger scale.

Yeah… The Heavy went down way too easy in the new video.

[Jess_Alon]

I’d seriously like to hear the developers speak on this. And yeah what’s up with the only heavy in the new video getting taken down like a bitch?

[Herandar]

And yeah what’s up with the only heavy in the new video getting taken down like a bitch?

Sizeism bias. All those skinny game developers…

[Wraith]

I’d seriously like to hear the developers speak on this. And yeah what’s up with the only heavy in the new video getting taken down like a bitch?

I think you answered your own question there. It was a lot of upper body/headshots. That medium also got pretty owned.

[DouglasDanger]

Do we know if the heavy took damage before he started getting shot in the video? No, we don’t.

I’m sure there is a good reason for everyone having the same number of pips. I imagine it is related to encouraging team play. It is 0010 here, on the east coast us, which is -4gmt. I think SD is based in the UK somewhere, so that makes it somewhere around 4 in the morning.

[Shadowcat]

Seems to me that the intuitive “balance” of lights with less pips and heavys with more pips wasn’t actually balanced. Only reason to level the playing fields.

Lets look at this from the perspective of the medic. Might be biased of me, since its my preferred class, but to me revives are where the pip limits really matter.

Sure, it makes sense that Lights may be able to get to people faster, either just from movement speed or from parkour; probably pulling off some revives that a heavy just plain couldn’t. However, look at it from the other side: are there revives that a heavy can pull off that a light simply can’t? Probably.

For all their speed and dexterity, there will be some incapacitated people that are simply out of reach. Heavy enemy cover without enough cover for them to duck and weave. The heavy may have a chance to just push through where a light would fail.

Furthermore, giving the heavy the ability to push through then revive extra people on top of it, right on the front lines, probably turned out to be too much.