Should Medics get regeneration in Quake Wars?

(MuffinMan) #21

seems like some folks never played with a good medic at their side - find better servers and you might change your opinions

(Sauron|EFG) #22

It’s possible to pick up your own medpacks in WW 1.5 at least, but I haven’t tried the 1.6 beta…

I think it’s funny that basically everyone who wants to nerf “overpowered” medics wants to do so by removing the abilities that are unique to the class rather than reducing their other abilities.

(Zyklon) #23

I know! Just make the medic invincible, but unable to do anything but healing and reviving!

(Just joking, nice post you made there.)

(B0rsuk) #24

Medics shouldn’t be able to pick up medikits, but regeneration speed would be somewhat increased to compensate. For example to 7hp/sec. It would require medics, for the first time, to be cautious, while still giving them an ability to heal fast. Just no 20hp/second.

I don’t understand people saying medics working like that would be screwed. Other classes have to do with no selfheal at all, and they do. Try playing a class other than medic, for once, and you’ll see. I don’t see how having a built-in regeneration makes medics underpowered.

Uber hp is not the only way to make reviving easier, and it has a side effect of medics becoming ubersoldiers. It’s not just that they’re more powerful than other classes, even ones named like ‘soldier’. The problem is they’re potentially much more powerful, to the point where you often need two players as skilled as a medic to kill him. No, being equal skill to a medic doesn’t guarantee you a kill. If the firefight started close to a cover, medic has a BIG advantage. Just deal several dozens of damage (60, 80), run behind a corner, heal, come back. This results in second firefight, but this time you start with half or less of your hp.
When I see a medic run away on maps like Gold Rush, I often search for alternative route, unless the medic is very close. But if you’re farther than, say, a grenade throw from a medic, pursuing a wounded medic is a suicide if you’re alone.

It would be ok to just give medics more stamina intead of higher hp. Besides, how often do you actually see medics run under fire to revive a teammate ?

Or do it like Tremulous does. Aliens have fast regen, but it doesn’t work within 2 seconds of taking damage.
Humans have medikits (1 per spawn, but can be refilled for free at base), which heal up to 99 hp, but take several seconds to work, replenishing your hp at exponential rate. (nothing, nothing, snail pace, somewhat faster, medium, fast, very fast, very very fast)

(RX|marrafakka) #25

Here’s an idea:
If it hurts organized play (clans/gathers/etc) then don’t add it. It will split clan and public, just like stats do in BF2.

Here’s another idea:
Add an armorfactor saying that medics have less armor, but can heal themselves maybe 50hp or 75hp in 1 or 2 minutes.

(B0rsuk) #26

A better idea could be to limit amount of medikits a medic can feed himself within time unit. For example 3 medikits per minute.

(senator) #27

There is your problem, you play on servers/with players without teamwork, it’s not the medic class that is the problem.

I play medic almost exclusively, and I get rank 4 medic pretty fast, which means I get quite a few XP for doing medic stuff.

If a FieldOps is using his entire energy for giving ammo to himself or for airstrikes instead of resupplying his team, is that the fault of a bad class design?

If an engineer is only concerned with deploying mines and killing with his RifleNade, instead of blowing up objectives, is that because of bad class design?

If a CovOvs only snipes instead of infiltrating the enemy hideout, revealing landmies or stacheling objectives, is that because of bad class design?

If a Medic only heals himself and is more concerned with his k/d stats than in helping his team, is that because of bad class design?

You can’t enforce teamwork by designing a class such as it is only able to fulfill one purpose only, because that that class loses most of its fun factor and will be ignored by most, and the whole game balance would be in jeopardy.

If you are an engineer and lying behind a tank in the open field, seeing a medic making a mad dash for you through heavy enemy fire with his needle out, what is your first though?
“Damn, I hope he’ll make it through that hail of fire, than we can get this tank moving again and win this map”
“I hope he’s low on health and will die on mid-way, damn Rambo-Medic with uber health!”

(DG) #28

medics only spawning with the one 30 bullet clip and only being able to pick up one spare would be the first thing I’d try if attempting to re-balance the ET medic.

(kamikazee) #29

That would be the best (and RtCW-like) approach.
However, the problem is that the XP system gives an extra clip so that the whole XP system should be changed no matter what class you play as.

(senator) #30

And another suggestion about how to make the medic easier to kil/less fun to playl, how original :bump:

Lets recapitulate: ET is an objective based game, your goal is to achieve your objectives, killing is optional.

How will weakening the medic improve his role for achieving said objective? In my opinion a weaker medic will make it harder not easier, so how would these changes help the flow of the game (especially for the attacker)?

I think most of you want to change the medic so that you get some easier kills, for the sake of getting a frag, not because you think it would improve gameplay or teamwork.

I have a hint for you, Quake Arena might be more your type of game, lots of deathmatches and he who has the most kills wins :wink:

(Hakuryu) #31

For those saying that the medic needs the regeneration to revive fallen enemies, your missing the point. Regeneration does not help you for the 1-2 seconds you are rushing to revive a fallen teammate. It does however help immensely when you are fighting others. Borsuk said it best :

Uber hp is not the only way to make reviving easier, and it has a side effect of medics becoming ubersoldiers. It’s not just that they’re more powerful than other classes, even ones named like ‘soldier’. The problem is they’re potentially much more powerful, to the point where you often need two players as skilled as a medic to kill him. No, being equal skill to a medic doesn’t guarantee you a kill. If the firefight started close to a cover, medic has a BIG advantage. Just deal several dozens of damage (60, 80), run behind a corner, heal, come back. This results in second firefight, but this time you start with half or less of your hp.

Regeneration is much more of a firefight helper than the revive helper. The best revive helper is the level 4 syringe giving you damage reduction, but most medics will only use this before entering a firefight and not to revive.
Lastly, those saying a medic will become a health pack dispenser to make up for regeneration… that is just silly. It only takes 15% at higher levels to throw a pack, which means 6+ packs can be thrown before their energy depletes, and they regain it so fast this really isnt an issue.

(B0rsuk) #32

Actually, the point of first part of my quote was that a medic eating his packs himself can go more rambo than one who has to rely completely on passive regeneration, because passive health regeneration is slower. Ideally, it would be enough to prevent healing within say 3 seconds from taking damage, but I would get flamed for that on the grounds it’s too complex and people don’t want to do advanced math while playing ET. When I say regeneration, I literally mean regeneration, not using health packs to heal yourself.

There’s one more thing about reviving no one seems to consider. Some of posters seem to imply healing other players somehow makes you worse and ruins your gameplay. But is it really bad to always have (alive) bodyguards with you ? Or are you concerned they’re going to steal your kills ?

Adrenaline is used mostly as an offensive tool, true. I have an idea how to fix that, but I’m not sure it’s really needed. Keep adrenaline as it is, except that it would additionaly make medic’s aim shaky for the duration. Medics who actually use adrenaline for reviving wouldn’t notice.
I used adrenaline mostly as speed enhancer on maps like Radar or Fuel Dump. It really helps to cover distance quickly.

By the way: engineers are esential on many maps, yet they get very little for their work. They just get rifle grenades, but that comes at a price of weakened main weapon. Ok, it can be nice at short range, but it’s usually weaker than thomp40. Engies also gain mines to play with, and mines can be fun, if tricky, way to kill people. But mines are limited in their functionality and are hardly useful if you’re playing ofense. So, engies get mostly just satisfaction of being helpful. And they don’t complain about how much they deserve. Perhaps engies simply attract different kind of players.

(senator) #33

Again you completely focus on killing, as for the reference to Rambo-Medic, what you seem to completely forget is that it will also weaken the ‘true’ medic and its misson, which is to accompany his team. Just imagine, a medic+ engineer team, ambushed by a Panzerfaust, both are hit from splash damage and are down to 5HP. Medic kills/revives engineer, gives him a HealthPack and than tells him: “There mate, good as new, now off you go, I have to wait here as I have to wait for my health to go up by natural regeneration, but I should be good to go again in 30 sec.”
Yeah, would really improve teamwork, or?

There’s one more thing about reviving no one seems to consider. Some of posters seem to imply healing other players somehow makes you worse and ruins your gameplay. But is it really bad to always have (alive) bodyguards with you ? Or are you concerned they’re going to steal your kills ?

I dont think anybody ever said that healing others ruins your gameplay, if you mean me, I said that keeping yourself alive is more important than feeding healthpacks to your teammates, because if they die, you can easily revive them and you can continue as a team, if the medic dies the others are on their own. And as you said in your second sentence, you need an ‘alive’ bodyguard, now how is taking away the ability of eating his own healtpacks, or removing natural regeneration in any way helping in keeping your bodyguard alive? Right, it isn’t
Another thing I said is that playing a one-dimesional class (say a medic who can only/mostly heal is is worse in combat that at the moment) is a lot less interesting to play, nobody enjoys running behind others having nothing other to do than dishing out a healthpack every now and than. try it sometime, play a medic and do nothing than reviving / healing teammates. You will be hailed as a good healer and will feel great! 2 weeks pass, people will hail you as a great healer but you get somehow bored by the repetative and unchalleging gameplay. One month passed, and you will have lost any interest in playing that boring class.
ET is a First person Shooter, not a First Person MovingHealthStation.

By the way: engineers are esential on many maps, yet they get very little for their work. They just get rifle grenades, but that comes at a price of weakened main weapon. Ok, it can be nice at short range, but it’s usually weaker than thomp40. Engies also gain mines to play with, and mines can be fun, if tricky, way to kill people. But mines are limited in their functionality and are hardly useful if you’re playing ofense. So, engies get mostly just satisfaction of being helpful. And they don’t complain about how much they deserve. Perhaps engies simply attract different kind of players.

You have found your class and that is fine, you know what to do and work for your team to win the map, good. Now imagine somebody starts a post, complaining about how overpowered Riflenades are, how unfair it is that Engineers get 4 additional grenades or a FlackVest which makes them far to resilant against splash damage, and on top of that those stealthy mines! And he starts a poll as to remove all that stuff, so that an engineer has nothing but a thompson so that he cant go killing people any longer and should concentrate on repairing objectives more. Would you think that that would improve the fun you have in beeing an engineer? Would you think that those changes would ‘improve’ your gameplay so that you repair objectives more often?
Or isn’t it rather that you say that you need these tools to accomplish your misson, and that you very well know what to do and dont need to be stripped down to the bare minimum to be a good teamplayer. And that you are sick about beeing compared to those lame RifleNoobs who care about nothing than kills?

Think about that and than compare that to the current medic discussion.

Oh, and no offence meant :banana:

(carnage) #34

i like borsuk’s idea. the faster regen is a good idea since medics can still health a fairly good speed but not fast enough to go quickly from one kill to another keeping health full or dash of during a fire fight

just because medics have to dash into hostile areas to reive teamates doesnt mean they should be given extra health etc to do this. its kinda making it very easy to get to wounded teamates even when they are under the watch of a good defence. medics should have to work for there revives just like every other class has to work for there abilites

the longer dash is a cool idea (or maby a faster sprint recovery) it gives a nice way for medics to be able to revive easier without just cranking up the health. its like waying engineers are finding it too hard to plant under enemy fire… just give them extra hp then

i also agree that the xp makes the medics too independant of there team. in rtcw there is a definate realtionship between filed ops and medic. ET with lots of spawning ammo, akinbo pistols and ability to pick up enemy guns means there realy isnt a need for ammo like there was. also ammo cabinates alow a skilled medic to stock up for a while. ET intended three map xp got a lota the issues with this out of the way since you would keep droping to 0 xp and then be more dependant of your team. obviouslt xp resents werent popular with the majority of players who prefer to whore xp

its almost a bf2 kinda atitude that it probably wont benefit the game in a posative way but its an easy way to keep people happy so lets save xp or add some uber tank that cant be killed

(SCDS_reyalP) #35

Every time I play medic. I usually pack up before or after too. Maybe you should try it :moo:

(carnage) #36

Every time I play medic. I usually pack up before or after too. Maybe you should try it

i would but as my rambo medic nature means that ill pretty much pack myself up whatever situation im in. and tbh i dont have many situations where the extra health realy helped me get that revive since you move so fast anyway you can often be to the wounded player befoer they react then prone behind his invunrable hitbox

(B0rsuk) #37

“There mate, good as new, now off you go, I have to wait here as I have to wait for my health to go up by natural regeneration, but I should be good to go again in 30 sec.”
Yeah, would really improve teamwork, or?

This is precisely why I wrote the lines about medic’s personal bodyguards. Look what happens if all that remains is a nonmedic class. He stays there, alone, with just a fraction of his hp, and all teammates dead. Better ?

Try it sometime, play a medic and do nothing than reviving / healing teammates.

I did just that in RTCW demo (I didn’t have full) and early W:ET. It felt great for a while, and then very cheap. I didn’t get so much satisfaction from kills as a class that has to work for kills. The game(s) became quickly swarmed with medics. I often focused just on healing, because my aim doesn’t seem to be the greatest, althrough this may be related to my old hardware/fps.

You have found your class and that is fine, you know what to do and work for your team to win the map, good. Now imagine somebody starts a post, complaining about how overpowered Riflenades are

I wouldn’t mind, because I hardly use them. I usually stick to Thomp40, one of reasons being that rifle grenades quickly drain your power bar making you a bad engineer. Nothing sucks more than having to wait half a minute next to objective.
When I use garand, it’s because I enjoy shooting it, not using grenades. It’s not that I think grenades are cheap - they’re just boring, and somewhat unreliable.
I play any of following classes (engineer, soldier, covop) depending on what’s most needed at the moment. Usually there’s a deficit of engineers.If medics do unusually bad job, I play a medic, but I don’t do it very often.
For some reason I don’t enjoy field op. By the way, unlimited ammo doesn’t compare to unlimited health. Most people are dead before they shoot half of their ammo.

just because medics have to dash into hostile areas to reive teamates doesnt mean they should be given extra health etc to do this. its kinda making it very easy to get to wounded teamates even when they are under the watch of a good defence. medics should have to work for there revives just like every other class has to work for there abilites

Heh, funny. Let’s give engies more hp, because they tend to go into VERY dangerous places, often under fire. Nice logic :slight_smile:

It’s not just xp that makes medics more powerful. I didn’t play full version of rtcw, but I think there are no ammo cabinets in base rtcw. Cabinets are good source of ammo.
Mere +1 clip isn’t going to do much. I suspect Mega Ammo Packs from field op are more of a problem, they make spawn areas overflowing with ammo. It would probably be more limiting for medics to have their upper ammo limit lowered.

Picking up enemy guns (most probably) isn’t going to happen in ET:QW.

In any case, it’s rarely a good idea to dash for revive. Medics I see usually kill the opposition then revive. Extra health or not, suicidal tendencies don’t help.

(ouroboro) #38

Eveything should be the same as W:ET, except ammo/health racks should be removed and medics shouldn’t be able to pick up discarded weapons. Those are the biggest contributors to the “rambo medic” phenomenon. Look at RtCW pubs running Shrubmod, where you can pick up guns. Everyone plays medic; it’s just like pubbing W:ET.

Regen, however, is integral to the Wolfenstein gameplay. Leave it.

(B0rsuk) #39

We already know medics will be able to call for… supply stations. So they will have their own cabinets, sort of. Creepy.

Also, for good or bad, there are reasons (reviews) to believe people will be able to resupply in APCs or some other vehicles, but as with everything in ET:QW, it all can still change.

(Hakuryu) #40

Heh, funny. Let’s give engies more hp, because they tend to go into VERY dangerous places, often under fire. Nice logic

They do get a flak jacket, which gives 50% damage reduction versus explosives. Not health, but a very helpful thing and basically the same idea as regen (bonus to do things under fire) but with a different twist.

If medics are so balanced in ET, then answer this simple question… on a good server, how come out of 16 players on a team, at least 10 are medics? Most pubs are more varied, but play on a good server like HKF (where players really know the game) and 90% of the time this is true.