The Gameplay Affect - Reduce Medic/End Combat Abilities

I will like to see some sort of decay grenades cert for medics.
Something like 100dmg to health and bypassing shields on initial detonation killing weak
Then some sort of miasma floating over area for maybe 10sec disintegrating bodies into nanites to forbid future rezzing.
Some sort of evil medic

The main logical argument revolves around endless sustainability, and whether a clump of players with a high medic concentration should be able to endlessly keep itself alive, even if it's getting fairly outplayed. Certainly in the short-term the point of medics is to offset a few mistakes and revive players. But it's problematic to allow this to persist forever -- instead of the skilled team gradually making headway, they won't be able to win unless they crush the entire enemy force at once.

And experience across many shooters has shown that eternal-infinite-revives just plays worse than a game where you know you can wear the enemy down and eventually win.

This is neither a new nor isolated issue. If it was just me starting the issue up a year after release, that might be one thing. But the reality is that unlimited fast revives have been complained about by many players since the first release of beta!

So the point would be to balance a feature players have complained about since beta which creates a fundamentally weaker combat flow than other examples of games which have worked better.

All of which support my point:

• As an MMOFPS, the need for a medic class to have a soft cap on revives is increased, not decreased.
• The fact that your first set of revives is instant in my system alleviates your first concern about medic danger (but after that burst of ~5 revives, you'll be vulnerable if you revive afterwards.)

No, I'm saying that history and experience have shown that in games with limited revive the people in charge of figuring out class compositions for the team aren't concerned with optimizing for whether they can infinitely revive every death. They're concerned with the strongest overall composition and/or a strong combination for the current battle conditions.

So your idea that everyone would suddenly stack medics after this change just seemed like bad strategy, and so not relevant to the conversation.

/ragemodeengaged

Prepare your rectum Axehilt!

Why is that a bad thing?

You can wear the enemy down and win by killing the medics and blowing up their deployment beacons.

I've never seen these complaints, and frankly it doesn't matter. Balance isn't determined by majority vote.

Tell me, honestly, how many MMOFPS games have you ever played? I know of three in existence, two of them being Planetside and Planetside 2. You can't possibly have the data necessary to say "These other games did it better", because the sample size is so small. These games don't play like others, and each of them use completely different mechanics from each other. So I hope you can understand my trepidation.

Interesting view

The need for medics increases exponentially as the number of players and map size goes up, so I highly doubt nerfing them would prove to be productive.

That's actually a huge liability. I get five revives in a minute, and I often find myself working overtime to cover my team. I frequently get a dozen or more revives per life, and your change would cripple my intended role more than removing AR's or, say, removing the aura.

Why do you assume medic-focused units are not a factor in the "best" composition? Medics are a force-multiplier, and having a few specialists healing and reviving without any artificial limitations can sway battles, as it was intended.

They would be presented with the choice of A) Attack without sufficient medics and get ground down in a few minutes or B) Attack with sufficient medics and have shortcomings in many other areas. Those two situations exhaust all possibilities.

That being said, I'd like if there was a 'soft' revive cap of 5-6 per minute like you suggest, but with all of them regenerating every minute or so. It's a workable idea, but I disagree with the specifics of your implementation. I've recently witnessed what a badly-handled change in medics, from Battlefield 3 to Battlefield 4, can do. It virtually destroyed the playstyle.

Because it undermines the value of player skill.

You do realize medics are revivable too, right?

Being ignorant of the problem doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Smart controls on revives would obviously result in a better game: history has shown this.

The MMO nature of PS2 has little to do with balancing medics, which is why learnings from FPSes and other game genres are entirely relevant. It's a common tactic in balance discussions to act ignorant of game design (or maybe it's genuine ignorance) and pretend that each genre lives in its own happy walled garden where learnings of the outside world have no relevance, but the fact is that cross-genre learnings are usually quite relevant to the design of any game. (Full disclosure: I've been in the games industry ~14 years, and a designer for ~7, so there's a lot of experience backing what I'm saying.) Each genre has its own unique traits of course, but in this case it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out why the medic learnings of FPSes might be relevant to a discussion of MMOFPSes. (Whereas sometimes the learnings I carry across genres make a much larger jump -- and are still relevant, but are less easy for non-designers to understand why they're still relevant because they get hung up on Genre A and Genre B being two very different things.)

The little that being an MMO does have to do with medic balance revolves around the significant power increase I get as a medic reviving for a team of 12 vs. a team of 40+. Which is why the limits are needed.

Well yeah if you're measuring "productive" in terms of Team A with balanced (limited) medics vs. Team B with current medics, obviously Team B will trounce Team A because they'll be able to revive more. Changing the existing balance is the point!

You're not entitled to be revived each death. In every other game with limited (or nonexistent) revives, the skilled team still wins. The battle just becomes slightly less silly, and each kill becomes that much more meaningful.

Again you seem surprised that my suggestion to limit revives will limit revives.

...and having medics with reasonable limitations on revive will also sway battles, but will have a soft cap on its capability of scaling way out of control in the most broken situations.

You hold a very binary A-or-B view of what's actually a spectrum of possibilities with an "optimal amount of medics" in the middle. If your force gets ground down with that optimal amount of medics, you deserved to lose because you got outplayed.

The exact numbers are obviously tweakable (the entire system is flexible by design,) but obviously if you set things so high (5-6 per min) that you never incur the limit, the system won't do its job of preventing the revive spam it's supposed to prevent.

If you respond to this, can you possibly take one thing I say here and expand on that in particular? I don't want this discussion to go on a tangent.

Player skill means jack in a game where hundreds of people can be in a single battle. What matters is strategy and cohesion.

Unless dying and being revived resets your charges (which would be stupid and render this discussion irrelevant) this doesn't matter.

I'd like some examples of this working well please.

Conversely, I know of other games (Blacklight, Battlefield, Gears of War) where changes of a simple, unlimited revive system to a more restrictive one have backfired horribly and contributed to much player disdain.

Also, you were employing a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populem.

Except that it does.

In game where people regularly fight is massive battles based around combined arms and complementary loadouts, balancing that would be fine in an arena shooter becomes woefully inadequate. The idea as proposed doesn't scale.

They're obviously relevant, they're just not as broadly applicable as they are normally due to the nuance of the situation.

Thanks for implying I'm being dishonest.

Except in certain circumstances (FPS & TPS, RTS and 4X) most genres do well not to overlap with others to a major extent; some RPG elements can be placed in an FPS without issue for example, but a hybrid of them usually isn't that good. You're talking about sub-genres of the FPS genre. While many lessons can be learned from, say, an arcade shooter like Call of Duty, those ideas are not as easily introduced to others of a different sub-genre like Battlefield (War Emulation) or Halo (Arena).

Logical fallacy called the argument from authority.

Albert Einstein, one of the smartest people to ever live and probably the best theoretical physicist ever, once said that Quantum physics (the underpinning of our entire modern understanding of the universe at the micro scale) wasn't true. He had qualifications out the wazoo, didn't stop him from being completely dead wrong. Same with you; would you say that everything a game dev says about gaming is accurate because they have the qualifications?

Since you brought up the subject; I've been playing games competitively since the 1990's, have played and won several local championships and have participated in open and closed betas of every genre of gaming since 2003. My qualifications are irrelevant here, for the same reason yours are.

You're right.

From what I've learned from FPS', games that start with an unlimited medic tool/ability/whatever and then transition to a more controlled one, end up sucking more.

Try me.

How about the fact that the job of a medic player gets incredibly difficult the more work/teammates he's lumped with? Those 48+ players aren't just carrying their dead bodies to the medic's feet for him to farm XP, the Medic needs to spend resources, run like a madman and put himself in extreme danger (exacerbated by the fact that dozens of people can shoot him at once) to even have a shot at supporting large numbers of people.

Realistically, you need two medics per 12 players to sustain the team at the moment.

And I'm saying changing the existing balance is a bad thing, that's the point!

lol

If you run with an outfit, you are.

With all due respect, **** those games and everyone who looks like those games.

I wouldn't have an issue with it if your idea wasn't bad.

How do things scale out of control at the moment?

Currently, you need 2/12 medics per squad, roughly, to keep up with most battles. Any more than that, and their effectiveness-per-medic drops like a stone. Additionally, the medic's relative dearth of mobility (LA's and Infilitrators) and lack of AV weapons (MAX, HA, Engineer) means that any team with an overabundance still gets trashed.

You either bring the ideal amount of medics, or you don't. That's a binary proposition. There is no middle ground here.

Conversely, if you complain medics are turning the tide of battles, you deserve to lose because you're getting outplayed. See how that works?

If there was to be a limit, it would have to be high enough/regenerate fast enough to make long-term viability a non-issue, but punish farming in a short time. 5-6 revives in a minute would be fine, one every ten seconds or so.

They're not exclusive concepts.

Deep games which reward every tier of skill (twitch -> loadout-tactical -> local-tactical (cover) -> base-tactical -> region-tactical -> continent-strategy -> global-strategy) are worth playing for years.

The fewer tiers of skill matter, the shallower a game is. The shallower it is, the faster you master it. The faster you master it, the faster you stop playing.

So the fact that player skill matters in addition to those other elements is the core what makes PS2 worth playing. PS1 was even better at it.

Unlike Einstein, we're discussing things that we've seen work and not work. It's so self-evident that cross-genre design principles exist that you apparently don't even believe your own ******** (in two posts now you've cited FPS mechanics as why you believe it won't work in a MMOFPS.)

You had difficulty believing FPS concepts were valid in MMOFPSes (despite later providing several examples yourself), so no I'm not going to waste my time describing other game mechanics which involve principles which are relevant across genres.

No, actually when revives become soft-capped you would simply burn the revives you have and carefully triage any other potential revives until more instant charges replenish. Unless it was an allstar or a MAX, you'd simply act as a healer and combat infantry instead of reviving. Medics farm XP just fine in the current system and it wouldn't really change much in the new system (because they have a fantastic weapon still and switching from reviver to healer means that the delta in XP income doesn't change much.)

Well I did start this all off by pointing out that you've latched onto the status quo as the only possible way medics could be balanced...

There is no mandate from the FPS-Gods that decrees revives should be in unlimited supply. In fact we've covered the logical reasons why that's a risky too-powerful thing to give medics. So no, you're not entitled to be revived in a shooter. It's actually okay and desirable for the sake of a game's logistics depth to prevent groups from endlessly spawning or reviving on top of each other.

So when it suits you, you call out logical fallacies.

And when it doesn't, you say "**** those games" and "your idea is bad" without any logical basis.

That seems convenient.

Um, actually it's a spectrum between "all medics" (too many) and "no medics" (too few), with the ideal amount being somewhere between those points.

Punishing farming isn't the goal. The goal is that if the enemy is holed up in a building with medics, that if you cause enough of the players in there to die fast enough you can actually wear down their medics' ability to revive. That's the number one situation where medics are overpowered currently (and variations where it's not a single room but just a general spam of medics across an area where any single medic can end up reviving the whole army.)

The XP medics generate is pretty irrelevant to this change. Balance needs to be attained first, after which XP values for revive can be tweaked if necessary (probably not since 5 insta-revives is freaking powerful.) But I'm sure if we compared my ~666 SPM to your 209 you'd just claim that was an Argument From Authority. The extreme side of citing that fallacy is to pretend that proven expertise has no value at all (a fact bemoaned by this fantastic article, The Death of Expertise.)

I am not exactly sure what you are trying to imply with this part here. Comparing your SPM to his is not really relevant to the discussion and neither is your linked article. Unless you are somehow trying to pass yourself off as an expert on PS2 or FPS in general and thats why he should listen to you. However if that was your case then you need to do more than post a ~666SPM as if it was some kind of diploma from FPS university and makes you an "expert" on PS2 game mechanics because honestly thats not a really stellar credital in and of itself.

On the topic of medic revives I do think that at max rank medics can rez a dead player nearly instantly and that is a minor issue. Rezzing should take a few seconds to allow your opponent to "wear down" your squad as has been said. And to that end I am also not a fan of rez grenades. Tho fast and mass rezzing is almost necessary given the fast TTK of many weapons and the fact the dozens of soldiers can die within seconds. So there is a very fine balance that must be maintained between rezzing and TTK and buffs/nerfs regarding this should be considered carefully.

...And?

What does that matter?

I started at 86 SPM with a 0.4 K/D, now I'm almost triple of both. The game has quite enough to learn as-is. I'd rather have actual meaningful additions (like continent locking) than some dinky ******** medic update which only serves to get in the way.

When he had said this, there were already tests and equations that demostrated that it was correct, Einstein just thought it was distasteful (god does not play dice, after all)

I don't believe I ever said they couldn't. Hold on, let me get my direct quote.

"Except in certain circumstances (FPS & TPS, RTS and 4X) most genres do well not to overlap with others to a major extent; some RPG elements can be placed in an FPS without issue for example, but a hybrid of them usually isn't that good. You're talking about sub-genres of the FPS genre. While many lessons can be learned from, say, an arcade shooter like Call of Duty, those ideas are not as easily introduced to others of a different sub-genre like Battlefield (War Emulation) or Halo (Arena)."

Woah, it's almost like you're distorting what was actually said.

Never said such a thing, you're literally making that up.

Because you can't.

Again, then your choice is either a nuisance or pointless, or both. Great idea.

And I said that you need a reason to change it, one you have yet to provide.

Neither is there a mandate for the opposite.

Except that it's not, and your logic was flawed because it was non-sequitor

When you are with a cohesive group where people have the explicit job of keeping you up, you are.

Lucky for you, the resource revamp is in the pipe for a few months from now. Go ahead and celebrate.

It suits everyone to call out fallacies.

Not going to repeal what you said or back yourself up?

That's because it's my opinion, and I don't dress it up with BS like you. I tell it how it is.

PS2 is the way it is, and it's one of my favourite games as-is. You're proposing a change that would demolish my preferred playstyle, one that keeps the game going. Changing that would demolish what we have, so you need a justification to proceed. You don't have that.

You know what else is convenient? Being honest.

Let's do logic 101 k?

You have a question; "Do you have the ideal amount of medics?"

There are two answers; no you do not, or yes you do. Those are the only options as they are defined as the only answers.

Then your team is bad, and should feel bad. Medics camping can be smashed easily if your guys actually rub their brain cells together and pull their heads out of their *****.

Not if it changes the highest-XP oocupation to one of the least effective.

That's 500 XP, peanuts. That's a huge nerf.

Cementing your reputation as a queef won't help you here, but thanks for confirming my earlier point.

And yes actually; just because someone is gifted at something doesn't mean they're an expert on implementing and developing it. Like with Einstein in my previous example. Or take my late brothers, who could tell you everything about any player on any team in the MLB, but they couldn't tell you worth a damn what it took to manage one or coach one. Ring a bell?

I actually don't have any proof you're a game designer (not that it matters, who cares), and I've seen people with much higher XP/Minute, so again, that means jack ****.

Try again.

I distinctly remember medic having the name "Combat" in it's title.

Engineers hosing down LA's is just common sense. If you can't hit it with a tank cannon, just do it like a man. Now as for taking away the primary weapon...what?
The "Medic" is the rifleman. The standard, core infantryman. Everyone else is a specialization off of the CM. You don't take the assault rifle away from the rifleman when you got someone else with a machine gun because "we already got dakka"

That being said, I will say that all is not right with the medic. It is easier and faster to revive someone then it is to heal them (with a maxed tool), you can do so infinitely and without break. Nanite revive grenades.
I am a "hands-on" kind of medic. I despise the revive grenades. I won't argue that they are useful, but after being stuck trying to defend an amp station generator against a squad of medics, who I can assume had grenade bandoleers and revive grenades I will attest that I still hate it with a passion.

Medics should be able to revive the enemy and turn them into an army of zombies that only go down with headshots.

Terrible idea.

A squad or two holding a point, and you can't dig them out because of medics? You got outplayed. There are a number of ways around them. Concussion or flash grenades will do the trick. Maybe a max crash. Or hell, just bring more dudes. That's what strategy and teamwork is for: to counter stuff like this.

Creating a deeper game matters in its own right. I shouldn't have to explain the value of Chess vs. Tic-Tac-Toe.

Well if you agree the FPS-gods didn't mandate that you would be revived each death, why did you disagree when I pointed out you're not entitled to be revived? It really feels like you're just here to argue, and not to understand that soft-capped medic revive is a completely viable solution to a problem complained about since beta.

It wouldn't. For nearly everyone the highest-XP is MAXes, and the highest-XP balanced class is Infiltrator (for most other players this is HA, but it can vary and often isn't medic.)

If you were intentionally playing horrible to try to "prove" a point, maybe. Meanwhile everyone else would continue healing and fighting and earn XP just fine.

Well I've provided the logic and the expertise backing it. But if neither matter to you, and you're just gonna Dunning-Kruger the thread to death by thinking the status quo is automatically better, then there's not much point trying to teach you.