What is this "You aren't hurt but I'm healing you anyway" new trend about?

This is one of the most annoying things in game, medics making me a glowing target when I'm trying to take some quick shots at the enemy from cover... I have come to a point to beg medics *not* to heal me, that's why I got plenty of healing kits with me

Despite what you medics think, you really don't know to play your class properly, and that's my humble opinion

- UI bug (+ showing at full health or not showing with 30% health)

- Weird aiming with the tool

- Dont step in the beam, I try to heal the guy behind you

- In big battles, you actually dont care to aim at everyone to see if the need healing. You just heal. Its inconvenient and not medic friendly that you have to look at someone to see their health bar. Especially if everyone runs around like on caffeine mixed with epinephrine.

- Experienced medics wont heal you at night if you ambush an outpost. Just tell them once, and theyll will understand.

- Its a misconception that youre more visible while being healed at daytime. I tried it out with a mate, like the new stroboscope thingies on the aircraft, the glow doesnt really show further away and its bright enough that it doesnt really matter. And if you are in range, youll be spotted anyway (by q spam).

Last night I witnessed healing/repairing glitches. My engy teammate was trying to repair a Harasser and it kept dropping down to 75% or so health. I was a medic and kept seeing people with health bars above their heads that indicated they were injured, but when I medic-gunned them they were full health.

That's because if you have played medic, sometimes you will see an ally who has not the medic cross on top of his head BUT he will ask for heal, you will heal him and realize he wasn't at full hp. Since that moment you will start healing everyone.

yes I think there's a colored bar to show the health, but not always is as visible as you would like

that's the real cause

This, especially when soloing or in a large platoon. I like to let maxes that I see stalling in an assault know that I've got their back. It helps sustain the push and also keeps them from charging out of the fight at the drop of a hat and leaving me facing a squad with only my repair gun drawn. I don't expect them to die of course, but I don't want to die needlessly while they're running for the spawnroom because they're down two notches of health.

Can't speak to the medic aspect myself. I'm always very conscious of the glow from heals so I don't think I abuse it. I will heal someone if they're down even one health bar but I don't think that's what you're referring to.

Nope, not what I was talking about, and since you are keeping the glow in mind, you are doing great.

Also wanted to give a thank you to all the engineers that responded to this thread. I'm barely ever an engineer, don't claim to be any good at being an engineer, but I feel like I've learned quite a bit from your responses and rationale. Thanks again!

I guess its TF2 medic players trying to overheal you

I like to give people a quick spray to let them know I'm there. Like a pat on the back to say "I got you buddy, do it!". But not like, hose them down for minutes at a time. That's too much. But I mostly do this as an engi, as it never hurts to know you've got a repair buddy around when you're in a MAX.

Good medics don't heal with the medic gun... Good medics look around for targets while using the aoe heal.

That AoE Heal of which you speak has a spotlight effect that can cause your nearby Infiltrator friendlies to get killed while cloaked. Unlike the Applicator, it still works on cloaked friendlies and shows the nifty green glowing particle effect all around their cloaked form.

I'll look into this issue. Cloaked players should not be healed (which means the PFX should not be shown on them).

Just putting another side of the story out there for the OP: Do you think perhaps some players are new to FPS and healing is their way of playing the game with their friends? Quite a few MMO RPG players have said that this is the first FPS they've played and starting off as a medic purely just using the medic tool helped them slowly transition.

I last noticed this prior to GU08, it may have been patched in that update or in a hotfix. I don't want to send you on a bug hunt based on old observations.

This update has brought some weird 99% not topped off heals both vehicle, max, and infantry wise. It would go all the way like it should than I look back and it's a quarter of the health or 10 points off. It's very annoying.

That could very well be. I've only really noticed it being a trend over the past couple or three months, though; I didn't see people doing it at first. (I started in December, I think?) Did SOE start doing some advertising in a new place recently that might have started to draw in more RPG oriented new players? I've seen a few posts on the boards that were more wanting to be/worried about being pigeonholed as dedicated healers from new players recently - I hadn't thought that it might be because of a shift in recruiting sources. Makes perfect sense if that is the case.

I mostly just wanted people to start thinking about the glows they are surrounding other players with, and to balance whether it is worth it or not to use it (especially on other medics, since not only then is it highlighting them, it's usually a waste of time that could be used healing another player or shooting at enemies). My eyes are drawn both day and night to a lot of medic-induced glowing enemies that I wouldn't have noticed quite as quickly as if they weren't being healed, and I don't want people resenting friendly medics because of it. I actually think engineer is a better class to start out with on no certs, because while people will just leave if a low-cert repair gun takes too long, they will be annoyed/angry at a low-cert meditool low health revive. (And if I'm wrong in my thinking, I bet the engineers will tell me. )

I'm actually glad to hear that healing cloaked infiltrators is a bug, because I worry about giving them away when using my aura to heal myself or others nearby.

That's typically due to server-side lag. Which has been pretty bad all week on Mattherson and Waterson (and other servers). Basically, because the server is running behind, when the client says "I've healed/repaired XYZ to 100%" the server replies with "nope, they're only at 75%".

What are the graphical settings required to show those particle effects? If players on less powerful computers can't even tell that they're lighting us up, that might be something to say in Proximity when getting healed for no reason. I really can't think of a reason to heal someone who's full for more than a few seconds.

Also, LAG. One of the most irritating kinds of latency I've seen is the kind that makes heal/repair status not "take" and reset back to its old value as soon as you stop healing/repairing. It's cost me several tanks because it triples the time needed to repair.

You seem to have the assumption that everybody is familiar with the game. This is not the case.

There are other shooters like Team Fortress 2 where the medic role is implemented in a different way: Medics are preparing your team for a fight instead of picking up the dead afterwards. Applying healing to 100% HP players allows a health buff of up to 150% health.

Besides I like to keep healing people I just revived (even with my fully certed med tool) to ensure they make their way to cover.

I'm usually a medic, and pretty much the only reason I heal apparent non-hurt players is due to the bug which displays the + symbol on their heads. Another issue is because their health bars look damaged, but it's actually not.

I run on high (but not ultra). I'm not sure how they show up on the other settings. Usually when you are being healed you can hear a low toned hum, too, if that helps any.

And I hear ya on the server lag undoing our healing. Bleh.

Then hopefully they will read posts on the forums to help learn how this game works. Healing people that were just revived to make sure they can make it to cover and get their shield back isn't the problem I was talking about; I do that too and think it's a good idea. I'm talking about being completely healthy, semi-concealed and not taking enemy fire, and another medic runs up to heal me.