Welp, done reading the thread in full now, so some additional thoughts inc. The thread got pretty sad at one point, glad to see it's recovering.. let's keep it that way? --- Gibbing. Definitely don't support in general. With current mechanics, the corpse would probably count as gibbed before the death animation finishes. The only variant I'd even consider is melee range, although I feel if you're in a position to stand over a corpse you probably are/were in a position to deter medics from reviving in the first place (or, in case of revive grenades: kill the zombie pretty fast). Instead of gibbing, I feel like the time one can accept a revive (after the medic finished) should have a limit. make it 10-20 seconds and that way you don't have to camp corpses forever, if you ever felt the need to (isn't it better to hunt down the medics instead? Infiltrator darts are particularly useful here.. if nobody is nearby, it's better for the corpse to respawn rather than wait.. and if they do wait, you basically win). I believe it's already the case that corpses have a time limit (of 60 seconds) for initiating the revive, but it couldn't hurt to get devs to clarify this (could be just lag and players being impatient enough that they usually respawn elsewhere rather than wait for more than a minute). If it's not the case, it should be. --- One big issue in any sort of numbers-limited (medical applicator ammo, revive counts or whatever) change to the revive mechanic is definitely how to communicate this to the players. The HUD is already full of little glowing icons everywhere, but manually keeping track of this seems pretty difficult. If the change in numbers is also variable on top of that, things just get worse. --- Any sort of communal penalty (deaths reducing resources/power from base, for example) is right out, as it will breed horrible elitism: "Go away pubbie zerglings, our outfit handles this and you're just wasting <resourcesetc>". Same deal with putting all of the burden on the medic: "I don't want to pay for your mistakes noob. No revive for you". --- I haven't really had an opinion on revive grenades, not having used them myself (they're unlocked on my character because I once tried them out in VR..). From what I've seen in the game before, they haven't been widespread in use (although things may have changed now.. The resource cost was reduced, right?). Can't say much, but if their area of effect is huge, that could probably use some reducing (so long as the grenade is simple enough to bounce where you want it. I prefer bouncy grenade over impact fuse though, for the additional options it gives). --- If Medical Applicator "revive ammo" is to be used (healing shouldn't use this ammo, not until engineer repair tool is similarly ammo limited anyway (and ammo packs removed?)), I think a utility item (infinite use like engineer ammo pack? 1-5 packs that fully refresh?) for recharging the "revive ammo" should be added. Finally having an actual choice between C4 and medikits would be refreshing. Make it act as a short distance aoe shield generator (additive on top of normal shields, a true boost to survivability) if it's not desirable enough alone. --- I probably had more thoughts while reading the 13 pages, but that's all I can remember now. I should learn to take notes.. edit: 14 pages now, damn ninjas.. Regardless of if any other changes happen, the status of corpses (revivable, not revivable?) should be better communicated to the medics.. it can be pretty hard to tell sometimes (especially when the corpses clip into terrain/structures). Especially so when/if the timer for corpse revivification exists.
I don't think a change like that would actually help to solve the problem. It is a limit to be sure, but with these "medic zerg trains" chances are one of them isn't overheating. It would all depend on how the overheat mechanics worked for the medic. Limiting the medic directly isn't the best solution nor the right one in my opinion.
What about limiting the amount of times a player can be revived in a short period of time? I'm not a fan of the hard cap suggestion some people have made like "three revives per life," more along the lines of once every 30 seconds/minute/whatever.
Watching the Hossin livestream? "Medic train to Bravo!" Entire squad switches to medic and goes from point to point.
I'm not so sure about it, it all depends on how you decide to implement it. You could set things like this: - when a player falls, the status is set to "dying" and the corpose do not take any more damage untill the death animation finishes, let's say 1 second at most. Any damage in excess taken falling is not counted to calculate the dead status - if an already fallen player is hit and takes a certain amout of damage, the status is set to "dead" and cannot be revived anymore In this case if a player falls by a flying granade he remains revivable as long as someone comes to finish him, if he dies by an aircraft bombardment or within a heavy fire corridor it is quite easy he will take some more damage after falling, so he will likely be totally dead. I do not find any weird or unbalanced gameplay in this. Maybe I'm missing something?
The last two community clashes have been perfect examples of why medic revives need to be fixed. Maxes should not be revivable, and medic revives need some time of limiting factor in general.
Please do not nerf medics. Speaking as a proud member of the sturggling UBGL community I find solace in few things about this game, but grenading piles of medics over and over only to have all of them spring back to life in a moment's notice is one of the best things in Planetside 2.
So how exactly would you make up the loss in EXP if you change revive ? If I make less exp I would go play another class simple as that, so I guess that would fix the problem since medics simply wont be played. Don't want MAX's to be revived ? I good with that as long as they don't cost resources any more and can spawn just like any other infantry class (no timer).
As someone who primarily plays a medic. I have to agree that the revive mechanics are a bit wonky. At max rank it takes longer to heal someone then it does to revive them to full health. Now that's a bit messed up. But since it is part of a larger system, you can't really buff up the healing speed of he medigun without running into the TF2 "I am bulletproof!" at some point. Meaning a medic could (in theory) outheal incoming damage. The system could be made into any of the suggested above, but it has to remain simple to use. We're not playing America's Army here where you have to determine what's wrong with the victim and then treat him. I am partial to the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars system. Most notably the Strogg side. Revive distance is close, very close. It takes time (check), BUT, once the downing animation has completed, you become gibbable. And it took quite a bit to off a would-be corpse. Then again we COULD separate the two. Make revving into a medic only utility item. Lets say a "Revive injector" looks kind of like a normal medical stick but you can only use it on others and you carry a limited number of those. It is separate from the medical gun. So you choose whether to become a more damage oriented Assault trooper (C4) or a support rifleman (revive injector)
I'm all for 'fatal damage' and shortening the window of how long the revive window will be open, instead of nerfing the medic here. And perhaps you can keep them DEAD dead when you manage to damage enemies enough when they get their revive prompt, which is usually visable when the body is lifting up a little. Works in BF3, at least.
