How to appeal Medic to the playerbase?

The forward station is a terrible terrible idea. It completely removes the need for more than 1 medic all together. Why bother waiting for revives or healing. Just respawn or redeploy right back to where we were!

Forward station is awesome for everyone else.

For actual medics you may as well just remove the med tool. Huh, maybe that's the whole point.

I think the forward station was more a response to sunderers being able to be killed easily ending the fights. The station can be put in any nook or cranny normally shielded from C4+rocklet/Tank mine cheese or long range vehicles. That's not to say it doesn't have the effect that you also describe, they probably didn't think too much about which sums up a lot of this games development.

The reason I don't adopt the medic class is simple - I don't have neither Nanoweave or Flak armor on it. And that's after having spent thousands of certs on Nanoweave for LA and infiltrator, as well as flak armor for the MAX.

As a medic I would really need both and switch depending on situation so embracing this class fully becomes even more cert expensive. It's not like I'm going to run around with 20% less HP just to be able to heal people, or hope I'm the lucky guy who survives a grenade barrage.

How to make it appeal? Simple as well, remove the mundane connection between suit-slots and singular classes and make those things like the weapons, simply put "Buy-once use-everywhere".

As a med you are going to die a lot especially if you are a worthy med willing to take some risks to rez your brothers in arm.

But in a big battle there will be lots of medics around so you will be resurrected in no time, don't worry: if you help you will be helped.

In the last big biolab fight I had I collected maybe 200 certs in a 3 hours and I have been killed maybe 10 times (5 in front of a door I kept being revived and killed on the spot, that's when you miss carapace! ).

Invest your certs in the rez grenade instead it is well worth it.

Let's just say I consider the CM a HA's equal for AI work.

The CM is THE most competent squad asset this game has; second to none. Like I said - it lacks any "shines", but is otherwise perfectly fine. All a rez does is cutting down travel time from the spawn to the objective, but that's all it has to do. In most cases, the lack of Medics makes it impossible to achieve "critical mass" and a trickle of attackers/defenders can be farmed indefinitely.

Frankly, I'm not quite sure what more could be done in order to make the class more appealing, but sure - a brainstorm certainly wouldn't hurt.

My main was medic for a long while - just for the cert farm..
If you want me to play a medic, change your play style.

I didn't catch who said it but throwing a Revive Grenade on point is just a zombies cert farm for the enemy or it gets out competed by medics in full defilade.

My problem is i'm always johnny on the spot running from corpse to corpse.. but, when I die.. all of a sudden there's no medic on the minimap.

It's true there are always waaay too many medics and no other classes or no medics at all. I switched to logistics support long ago and left the point fights behind. It's a much more fun game when you're not being spammed with grenades or HE from the ridgeline being rezzed every 5 seconds for no real benefit.

I'm sure these 2 have been suggested before or at least something similar so these are just my takes.

1. Safeguard drone - utility slot

When equipped can be placed on any allies within 30 meters with M1 (no matter the state) and on self with M2. Once placed, It hovers slightly above the player and follows around with a 1~2 meter rubber band. (Remains still when the player does and doesn't mimic every single little movement ideally) Also enters permanent deep cloak if "attached" to an infiltrator. The player can't see the drone following them but will receive a HUD icon.

While active it shortens all out of combat timers which are shield regeneration, bio lab/implant health regeneration and MAX NAR. (Correct me if I missed something) When activated/active on a downed player it automatically starts reviving them. Has 4 ranks to upgrade: 1/2/3/4 can be carried and deployed at any time. 20/40/60/80% out of combat timer reduction. (IMO the changes to shield regeneration made the engineers passive upgrade too weak to be considered here) All ranks have the revive speed of a rank 1 medical applicator.

If the drone succeeds in reviving the player. It returns to the players inventory with no cost. (Also if another CM replaces it with a more upgraded one or the ally redeploys) The drone has no collision box and a hit box about the size of a players head. Has 200 shields and has high resistance to splash damage but projectiles pass trough it while still damaging it. (Similar to other deployables pretty much but won't safe you from an AP shell to the head) A drone costs 75 nanites to resupply if destroyed. Resupplying doesn't remove any active drones.

(something like that but no lights or animations)


2. Rescue harness - suit slot

When the CM starts reviving an ally using the medical applicator they automatically appear on the CMs shoulders if the CM is within 1 meter of them halting the revive timer.

While the CM is carrying an ally they can move and use all their equipment normally but their medical applicator can only target the ally on their shoulders. M1 or successful revive drops the ally at CMs current location. If the ally is dropped without revive the timer continues from the minimum of 10 seconds. Picking up or dropping allies shouldn't interrupt any ongoing revives. Can't be used on MAXes.

This could be given to the LA as well by giving them an "empty" 5th slot when switching weapons if this suit upgrade is used. The LA can however pick up a fallen MAX but their jump jets are disabled and the fuel is drained when sprinting or jumping. The LA will have the skull icon on top of their normal HUD icon and a CM can right click on the LA to start reviving the ally they are carrying. Rescue assist XP is gained if a player you carry/carried recently is revived as well as bonus XP for any MAXes rescued.


3. I had 2 clear primary "weapon" ideas but as I wrote this, those clear images turned into one mess D:

I recently transitioned from CM to HA because the rocket launcher is so good against anything.
I used CM early game for cert farm and now i have all the good stuff.
Nowadays I pull CM only for unhurried infantry spectator mode or squad-sized skimrishes when i have no ideas what to pull else.
Shooting bad guys with guns is mandatory for every class and all classes do exceptionally well depending on the player.
I think the CM lacks some big bang because staring at the floor with a water gun feels unrewarding quickly.
LA rocklet launcher would be very nice. I don't use it with my LA at all. All would be fine then.

Otherwise, improve general quality of the game to attract new players. CM is very populary amongst low BRs.

• Advertise how many certs a Medic gains through reviving teammates who are killed by enemy players, not through suicides and betrayals.
• Also advertise that multiple Medics sticking together can improve KDR, because that's all people care about whenever there's a KDR tracker.
• Reduce fuse time on Revive Grenades.

Removing the heavy assaults shield. Hue.

Medic is medic, the only thing I can see that would make a new player not want to play medic is that the other classes seem like more fun bar none, you build turrets, take more damage, JETPACKS, and a fuggin cloak, with medic you....heal people. Understandably not something to be excited about, the methodology of being a medic in PS2 is boring too, you swap to a device that leaves you vulnerable without any chance of retaliation just to revive someone else to half HP that could get easily killed in one body shot from a sniper rifle. That's not fun, that's not exciting, it's a boring grungey job that seems relatively pointless since players spawn in 10 seconds anyhow and that also seems counter intuitive to be vulnerable when the main draw to this game for most players is the PVP aspect.

So what's the cure? You make healing more strategic/interactive in it's playstyle.
Let's take an example:
TF2's medic, had an assortment of tools in which to do his function, he did not just heal he gave invulnerability, seems OP in PS2, but it was used to break choke holds which was a problem in that game, but he also has the kritzkreig, the vaccenator which gave resistances, crusaders crossbow, there wasn't JUST one way to heal, the various ways to heal and support your team is what made medic fun in TF2.

Now for planetside we have dumbed down ways to heal with moderate benefit, the direct heal with the applicator, the cloud heal to heal multiple people and the shield generation field. AoE heals are not a new concept to gaming, but they are certainly not the only ways to heal, we don't have enhancements, speed buffs, resistors, negators, mitigation, status removal, etc. There are a lot of things you can do with the medic, not just healing or reviving.

medics have assaultrifles which while limited in ammo than lmg´s are more accurate
a medic generally has much more tools than a HA .. the rocketlauncher beside his overshieldsability is the HA´s only tool
giving a grenadelauncher to the medic as a additional tool would make him too versatile (and for that kind of versatility you have the engineer with his turrets) ..
so he would have to commit to one role be that AI or antiarmor with his primary

base rocklet ammo is lackluster even as lockonversion you need to be either buttclose to the aircraft to propperly magburst it or hit it with multiple mags as lock on .. which is simply not gonna happen on a mobile esf .. and realy libs and gals laugh at rocklets anyway ..

HA DOES sacrifice alpha dmg for lock on capability .. dumbfiring the ESlock ons still take the same ammount of hits as actualy locking on with them
firing default rocketlauncher at esf while being able to oneshot is next to impossible if the pilot ain´t superdumb

engineer hitting aircraft with an archer while possible just tickles libs and gals and is for your avarage player too difficult to perform on moving esf´s consistently ... same problem with engineer turrets even though doing higher dmg it is even more difficult with the slow projectilespeed of the AV turret and worse you have to remain stationary all the way until it hits and it still take at least 2 hits with a AV turret to down a base esf ...

medic heal and revive as well as recharchable auto AoE heal or deployable shieldrechargegen, and coming soon forward spawn
are what give the medic his role and the former are simply a fact that those are the medics thing .. just like ammosuply and repair are the engies thing allong with turret or wall deployment ..
and YES considering surviveability i indeed consider selfheal viable especialy when it comes to keeping default mobility ..
considering the avarage engagement ranges it is more likely to survive as medic than as LA or HA .. both LA and HA unless you play support are the main classes that get to the front .. so the medic even though he´ll be always a primetarget when it comes to infantrybattles rather just needs to fear longrangeweaponry ..

giving "SOME" AV/antiarmor option to the infil while not as damaging as c4 or AV mines would help them not to be excluded when it comes to battles against armor .. basicaly if all a squad faces are vehicles the infil could do nothing but at best launch a detection dart in the general direction .. and unless anyone of the drivers decides to jump out that´s about all to the infils capabilities .. a infill doesn´t have to be powerfull against maxes at all but i don´t see any real harm in them having a option to impede maxes in some way or at least scare them of to be able to retreat ...

now you probably will ask "but what bout xplosive hunter stalker with AV grenades and grenadebandolier?"
while retaining some AI capability that´s imo a huge commitment to antiarmor and with explosive bolts and the general low health a infil is at huge risk killing himself trying a shotknifecombo also loses a good ammount of range with explosive bolt ..
as with AV grenades on bandolier first of that´s quite the nanite investmeant on something that would be most effective against maxes but would requiere multiple of those to down one and will not be enough to kill anything above a harrasser imo (need to test again) so taking down a sunderer especialy a shielded one will always be a teameffortrequirement with an infill .. hitting esf with AVgrenades even if sticky ?.. good luck i guess ... so that for the infill


back to medic and why no flak .. basicaly for the same reason HA has no flak on rocketlaunchers and as said default rockletammodmg is rather pitiful unless you get a magburst in the face of an ESF which still may not be enough ..
i see a grenadelauncher like a tankgun in handform so that doesn´t mean you can´t use it against air but doing so shouldn´t be easy and giving such grenades flakcapability like bursters or ranger would make that too easy hitting aircraft imo ...

finaly the fact that general AA is not pulled as much is a problem of AA and not a problem of a medics lack of versatility ..
if you speak about HA AA .. i almost always have it with me unless i know i primarily fight indoors ..

As some additional idea's, imagine this:
To use a spawnpoint like a Sunderer or Spawnbunker, someone has to be at that Sunderer or bunker and use a tool on a terminal there. They can't look away from the terminal, they can look a bit to either side to check for safety but that's it. Only when someone does this can you spawn at that Sunderer or bunker.
Teamplay wise, you are one of the most important guy, if not the most important guy. But there's very few people who will enjoy this kind of gameplay. You could spice it up by making it more interesting, for example the player is capable of looking around, or the player can look at the map and speed up player respawn by selecting dead people or even changing the exact point they respawn at so they get closer to the front.

And that's the same problem the Medic has: It locks you on to the dead body with a tool that can't be used to defend yourself, and besides throwing more certs into the thing there's nothing you can do to speed up the process (although at max rank it's maybe a second revive time).
I like the idea for example Demonic Treerat gave. Rather than the CM being either combat or medic, the player can be both at the same time. Reviving happens with a hotkey that doesn't require you to swap weapons or constantly look at your target dead guy, meaning the CM can be fulfilling all his tasks at the same time no problemo.

Here's some idea's (not including the one's like shields I already proposed in the previous one), in a large part rehashes of already proposed things:
AR's basically get the Medgun attached to it. Tap "E" (or a more suitable hotkey, I forgot is ALT used for something?) to fire a sphere of healing energy, this can't overheat. A target that's hit will regen health (for example at half speed of what it does currently at each rank, 500hp max per sphere). This allows the Medic to heal at (short?) range while spending less than a second on each target he wants to heal.
Revival could happen by holding "E" or another hotkey while looking at a body, the moment you start reviving you can look away. If a body is close enough you don't even need to look at the body and the nearest body will be revived.

Another way to offload the Medic in terms of requiring to personally see every single player, have them place a medpack on the ground. A player that wants to be healed walks up to it, presses "E" and the Medpack shoots out a healing beam. As long as the player remains within say 5m distance from the medpack he'll keep receiving heals. This process is stopped whenever the player receives damage or reaches full health.

AOE buff. For your ability slot, once used players within your AOE will receive a temporary buff. Buffs could include reduced damage, decreased reloadspeed, reduced screenshake, faster ability recharge, having shields start regenerating instantly for a short period etc.
The buff doesn't have to be huge.

Ranged AOE debuff. Fire something and where it hits enemies within the AOE will get a debuff.

Distortion field generator. At a distance (say 70m or more) it creates a distortion similar to being within a stealth-field but potentially stronger, making it harder to shoot the people who are within/behind this distortion-field. The players nearby or within this distortion-field are barely affected. Especially handy against vehicles who tend to stick to long-range bombardments or against Snipers.
Because someone is going to mistake this as a stealth-field, this is not a stealth field, it only distorts the visuals from the area making it harder to see where they actually are or what they actually are.

I never play medic because DBG decided you can't rebind the right click for the res. operation and I have it bound to something else. It's pretty dumb they force you to use right click and can't be remapped like pretty much everything else

I'm not so sure. The forward station itself should be as durable as a spawn beacon, so it's going to be extremely destroyable.
Then we must consider the biggest part of the Combined Arms Initiative (aka "the game overhaul no one ever asked") stil has to be implemented. If devs want they can play with numbers and make Sunderers tougher in a blink of an eye.

I also dislike the FS idea. FIrst of all we already have too many respawn options. Sundies are so spammable there is usually a lot of them.
The problem with Sunderers destroyed too quickly can be summed up like this:
1) Players do not even try to defend their own sunderers. Ok, smoetimes this does not work, battle is too harsh and there is nothing you can do, but it often works. People have to least to try! Unfortunately the game does not reward this kind of behaviour in any way. Once again: most of players run after KDR so they do not want to wait for the enemies to come. They want to kill right here and right now.
2) There are some effective anti-c4 loadouts but players pretend to run with random loadout and get mad when they get C4-ed. Like those idiots who park stealth Sundies in the Sundy garage and they cry because a C4 fairy destroyed their toy.
3) Many players underestimate the importance of suppressing the vehicle bay. The best way to make sure your Sunderer will last long is the prevent the enemy from spawning a bunch of battle tanks.


But in the end this Medic / Forward Station / Sunderer discussion end up at the same point: the problem is the game does not encourage / reward players for doing the right things. As long as Planetside 2 will keep running after the e-sport mentality that makes player value more their personal stats than faction's goals then we are going nowhere.

You cannot force people to play a support class in a game where being a supporter is generally perceived as a suboptimal choice.

I don't like this idea. Can you imagine the number of raging HA who will blame the medic for not healing them when they die? Many planetside 2 montage have already shown that medics should shoot first and heal/revive second. There are already too many med tool primary medics out there who get absolutely slaughtered without even trying to fight back and we should not encourage having med tool out even more.

My thoughts abouts medic players:

If they just kill, they are selfish!
I hate nothing more than having a medic standing ON me and not rezzing for 30 secs, with no danger at all.

If the rezz mindless, they are necrophilic!
Rly, they have a gun, use it, and help. There are situations where a fast rezz or heal beam is better, but just rezzing mindless is allways wrong.

If they are good, they are heroes!
Two to three medics a a well played squad make sundies almost unnecessary, also resist shield heavy and medic is a good combo.

FS is a wonderful idea. I should know because it's mine. It helps players break out of spawnrooms and it helps create multiple fronts for both the defenders and attackers to launch attacks from. Sunderers and Spawnrooms will still be immensely useful because the FS has only 100m range in which players who died can spawn on it. FS also has a 2-minute maximum life, is vulnerable to small-arms fire and grenades (1 grenade or 1 magazine should do it. Try it on the PTS with an enemy because the 85% FF reduction will skew your idea of how much punishment it can take), denies placement of other FS's within it's area and judging by the placeholder godbeam they currently use the radar auto-detect range will be pretty big as well.

The FS helps one Medic in the area revive players on a specific location, a specific location that needs to be easy to protect or the first infil/LA will take it down while your FS is still recharging. Other Medics will still have much use out of their medtool to revive people as they revive them at the front in positions where it counts.

It's a response to my idea to give the defenders a way out of their spawnbunker. Because who's going to be using this more, the attackers who are likely to have one or more Sunderers deployed close to the point and have more freedom in where and how they spawn, or the defenders who are stuck with a single spawn, can't keep their Sunderers alive for a long time due to the attacker vehicle superiority (which is why practically no one ever places a defender Sundy except in specific bases where they can be placed outside of vehicle reach) and can use the FS to keep their counter-attack going especially in bases that don't offer defender transport.

One frag or one magazine of a weapon does it on the current PTS version unless they stealth-changed it recently.

As for the rest of your post, I already gave an answer to that in an earlier post: You can make someone the most important guy by forcing someone to stand at the Sunderer/Spawnbunker so people can actually spawn there, but it's not going to be fun gameplay. If you gave them tools to prepare the Sunderer area to protect the Sunderer without standing around doing nothing all the time, and perhaps also the tools to command the battle far deeper from that position to have a larger effect while standing around, and you can solve that problem. Otherwise, the FS is designed to give the defenders the biggest edge because they don't have Sunderers.

This nailed it. This game went too CoD and now those are the players we're dealing with. Stats and leaderboards absolutely ruin cooperative games. Kill die kill die kill die.... No re-spawn timers, no logistics... There's not much point to sitting around and waiting for a medic if you can just deploy right back in to the fight and charge the front lines with a bouncing betty in hand. The HA being glaringly superior in infantry combat only compounds the issue. I don't see much point in most of these discussions, the devs tried to go e-sports and this is what we're stuck with. Maybe Planetside 3 will cater to its own players and not those of CoD and Battlefield.

That's why I don't play in teams and outfits anymore.
There is simply no point in playing as a team in Planetside 2 because 3/4 of people around is simply not even looking at the map. They just look at the killboard. At the same time trying to lead a squad is incredibly unrewarding because groups of unorganized people can still outplay you: they just need to zerg and use redeploy to destroy anything you can do with huge efforts of Teamspeak and logistic vehicles.

In order to make the game appealing to the widest audience they made it very brainless, and now we're here wondering why players seem to ignore support classes. Smart, isn't it?

Shield recharging field needs a significant buff. An HA standing in the field should be able to bullet sponge a bit without retreating. Right now all it does is provide a marker for enemies to concentrate fire. It *should* cause enemies to think, "Oh ****, we gotta get that thing down or we aren't overtaking that corner". Offset the *significantly* increased buff by making it a consumable that needs an equipment terminal to replenish.

The healing tool needs two separate cert paths:
1. Recharge shields. This would make it more similar to the TF2 medic in that you would see medics following assaults the same way engineers follow MAXes. Give cert points to medics when their healing target gets a kill.
2. Revive overshield. While actively reviving, put a damage mitigating shield (similar to HA) over the medic.

Overall if you buff the support abilities of the medic to the point where enemies prioritize them, then you've gotten it right. If medics aren't made a better force multiplier then there isn't a huge reason to run as one.