Combat Medic Developments

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by Juryrig

People who can't shoot straight (ie - me. I really am woeful) get to feel a lot less useless by having a bunch of utility stuff we can do that helps the team and doesn't involve direct combat. I tend to play engie rather than medic, but the principle is the same.

More utility stuff gives me more to do in between bouts of trying to shoot people and failing.

I suspect that's what Sledge means, although if I'm mis-interpreting him I'll apologise in advance.

Spot on brother. You see I brought my best friend into this game. He is a 38 yr old who has never played a fps game in his life. His kd ratio is .05. Its incredibly frustrating for him to be so impotent at shooting people and all ge really has to offer is heals and random rezzes. He has effectively quit the game. So Im thinking a way for people like my bud to be able to enjoy and contribute all the while being completely ineffective as a bullet thrower.

[Palerion]

Yeah, I get that. I don't think that means future utilities should be limited to this playstyle. But there should be some of it. The buffs could actually cater to both playstyles though:

For instance, if I am alone, I can use my shielding/health buff before engaging an enemy (for instance, a heavy assault) and have a better chance of coming out on top. But, in order to support my team, I could inject my teammates and support them. It benefits both the accurate fighting soldier and the supporting soldier's playstyle.

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by Palerion

Yeah, I get that. I don't think that means future utilities should be limited to this playstyle. But there should be some of it. The buffs could actually cater to both playstyles though:

For instance, if I am alone, I can use my shielding/health buff before engaging an enemy (for instance, a heavy assault) and have a better chance of coming out on top. But, in order to support my team, I could inject my teammates and support them. It benefits both the accurate fighting soldier and the supporting soldier's playstyle.

A really spectacular plan. What we can look forward to though are prolly just more assault rifles.

[Palerion]

Well, if they are considering a revamp in the roadmap, I think they'll do something. But they had better remove their idea of adding even more new healing tools. A "long range healing device" is not what we need. I don't think anyone cares to be a healing sniper. Just hope SOE does what's right

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

I think what you are asking for is kind of an op endlessly self healing heavy assault clone.

When someone says says "at the expense of the AOE/Self heal" this is exactly not what anyone is asking for.

The example of the engineer as a class with very potent offensive capabilities while retaining very important support functions is exactly the model the medic can follow.
The engy can not only repair max and vechs, but drop ammo (a passive activity, which can be completely continuous, unlike the AOE heal) and use one of the most powerful AV weapons and drop mines or C4 and throw nades and shoot carbines all with one load out.
Lots of these things are unique to the engy class.

The Combat medic on the other hand can revive and heal others and heal himself and use either support nades or the frag and then C4. He gets the ARs, and sure those are a little better than a carbine, it's not like they're some magical be-all-end-all gun, the weapon spreadsheet makes this quite clear.
When stacked against other classes, they only have two unique things: Reviving and healing others (all classes can heal themselves) and ARs. And to truly count ARs as being unique is a stretch.

I would love more and varied support opportunities, like buffs. But the offensive abilities of the class should certainly be expanded as well. Expand on the "medium assault" role or put in unique things that cause damage or types of enemy incapacitation/inconvenience, at the expense of the support and especially the self-support.

[CraazyCanuck]

What I would like to see is advanced squad/class synergy that are made available after certing the last rank in a particular utility/ability tree.

For instance:
Medics - the ability to increase the range their AE heal can affect their squad mates only or the range they can hit squad mates with med gun heal/rez. Any use of this particular AE heal, does not affect non-squad mates. The medic has to make the choice which option they want to load-out, either healing squadmates only at increased range, or all allies at normal efficiency.
-ae regenerative buffs equivalent to restore kits for squad mates only but have to sacrifice the grenade slot for it. Unlike the nanite grenade, this buff is an injection type buff that has a timer and is mobile while not being centralized on the medic. While timer is in effect the medic can not swap out at a terminal to switch back to grenades.

Infiltrators - the ability to pass on their self cloaking ability to a vehicle. They have to forgo the use of their self cloak to loadout with the vehicle cloak certification, and the cool down is greatly increased when decloaking the vehicle as the power source takes longer to recover for the larger surface area. Vehicles can not fire or spawn when cloaked and the cloak cannot be reinitiated immediately. Full cooldown time applies regardless if the full timer is used or not.
-forgo their cloaking of any sort to broadcast radar interference out in a radius (equivalent to the stealth cert) for their squad while on foot. While visible to the nake eye, no radar signatures will show even when shots are fired. Timer would be double of the equivalent rank of cloaking.

Engineers - similar to the medic - AE repair over focused repair. One or the other and the ae is squad mate max and or vehicles only, with the strength of the repair less then what a focused repair would be.
-AE shield buff - Engineer sacrifices repair ability for the ability to enhance squad mates shieldling and improve the regeneration timer.
-Deployable fortifcations - (This could get crazy) but even a small deloyable wall with minor overhed cover would be excellent. Of course a timer would be involved
If/Once deployable fortiifcations are implemented, ranks or trees of for different fortifications could be made available with further possibilities for synergy with other classes.

Heavy Assault - Allow for them to share their activated shield with their squadmates, each rank either increasing the number of squadmates that can be included or instead simply create an AE shield that will include all squadmates within the radius, with each rank increasing the timer. Not stackable with other HA in their squad who may have this ability. Cooldown time will be much greater then their personal shield timer, as the power source recovers.
Shockwave - AE damage effect. Shields are overcharged and damaging energy effect blasts out from the HA in radius. Each rank increases range and shortens cooldown timer which will be much greater as the power source recovers. HA will not have access to personal shield during this cooldown time.

Light Assault - (tougher one and not necessarily squad specific)
Squad specific - Line Grapple to allow squad mates to repelle to the LA's position up to a certain range.

Non-Squad specific
Afterburner (think Max Sprint but faster) - Expend all fuel of pack for a significant burst in speed and the equivalent of a parachute deploys to slow descent for a small period of time to allow a chance to survive while the pack recharges. LA can still take critical dmg from impacts that may cause death. Cooldown timer increased over that of the standard timer. Would allow a quicker means of reaching ascents for veterans of the jetpack.
Debris Field - Veteran LA have gained the expertise to use their packs to cause a debris field that impedes all vision around them
Improved Jetpack - improved side strafing and turnining while in the air.

Edit: Apologize if any of this was already stated, was writing this up between customers

[Palerion]

Yeah, Rbstr does understand what I'm getting at. You do sacrifice that self-healing survivability. It's just meant to let you spec your medic to be a more fierce force against other infantry, SUCH AS heavy assaults. He trades self-healing (long-term survivability) for more killing or damage absorbing power (moment-to-moment, or firefight, survivability), and maintains his ability to heal and support others.

CraazyCanuck: That is extremely broad and kind of unrelated to the original post. We're talking about the future development of the combat medic and how it should evolve. Not really talking about making classes have crazy abilities.

[OctavianAXFive]

I’m sure the devs will come up with all sorts of lovely healing tools for medics to play with but for my money I’d like to see some faction specific stuff.

Here’s my crack at it.

TR Stimulant

-Movement Speed while sprinting, walking, crouching, and ADS all increased when medic uses the “F” ability.

Pros

-You can feel like a real drugged up psychopath

Cons

-Replaces the AoE heal ability

VS Life Steal Rifle

-The medic shoots enemies with the rifle (via energy beam), returning a percentage of the health back to the medic and a smaller percentage to the soldiers nearest the medic

Pros

-Lots of healing can be done with this.
-It will look really cool
-Low recoil
-Very accurate
-Continuous beam of energy

Cons

-Would be a very low damage weapon
-Replaces clearly superior ARs

NC Heal Shield

-As a target is being healed, a small damage resistance shield is placed on them
Edit: Hell you could just replace the healing with a resistance shield gun altogether now that I think about it.

Pros

-Applies to fully healed targets
-Applies to targets being resurrected

Cons

-A different healing tool, thus requiring recertification
-The tool has a slower healing/revive rate

General Notes:

Possibility 1: These are one rank powers available for 100 certs. This approach works well with having a gun in the mix so you don’t have to worry about pricing the gun differently to compensate for other powers having scaling ranks.

Possibility 2: They are multi rank powers with the first power starting at 100 certs. Each rank would scale like vehicle chassis. The gun would have its own cert tree that basically acts as a power buff to the gun, increasing only the healing returned per damage output, but not the stats of the gun itself.

The only other certable change to the gun is the scope

The NC resist shield stacks with HA advanced shielding (including the HA resist shield cert tree)

In beta they had a medic cert tree that allowed the medic to get health back for healing a target. If they implement this mechanic again, and a player certs into it, the resist shield will apply to the medic as well.

TR movement speed increases do not stack

[Sledgecrushr]

Heres a couple of ideas for some short term medic buffs..
Super strength, one shot with knives
Super speed, run faster for a short time
Quick reflexes, ADS time is improved
Over healed, get some extra health for a short while
Red eyes, short duration night vision
Light feet, no footstep sounds while cloaked
Acuity, ability to fix stuff slightly faster
HoT, heals a very small bit of health over time lasts 5 minutes or so
Super hearing, hear ambient noise over battle noise
Springs, temporarily increases your jumping ability

I can go on forever. With buffs I could make everyone better.

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

I’m sure the devs will come up with all sorts of lovely healing tools for medics to play with but for my money I’d like to see some faction specific stuff.

Here’s my crack at it.

TR Stimulant

-Movement Speed while sprinting, walking, crouching, and ADS all increased when medic uses the “F” ability.

Pros

-You can feel like a real drugged up psychopath

Cons

-Replaces the AoE heal ability

VS Life Steal Rifle

-The medic shoots enemies with the rifle (via energy beam), returning a percentage of the health back to the medic and a smaller percentage to the soldiers nearest the medic

Pros

-Lots of healing can be done with this.
-It will look really cool
-Low recoil
-Very accurate
-Continuous beam of energy

Cons

-Would be a very low damage weapon
-Replaces clearly superior ARs

NC Heal Shield

-As a target is being healed, a small damage resistance shield is placed on them
Edit: Hell you could just replace the healing with a resistance shield gun altogether now that I think about it.

Pros

-Applies to fully healed targets
-Applies to targets being resurrected

Cons

-A different healing tool, thus requiring recertification
-The tool has a slower healing/revive rate

General Notes:

Possibility 1: These are one rank powers available for 100 certs. This approach works well with having a gun in the mix so you don’t have to worry about pricing the gun differently to compensate for other powers having scaling ranks.

Possibility 2: They are multi rank powers with the first power starting at 100 certs. Each rank would scale like vehicle chassis. The gun would have its own cert tree that basically acts as a power buff to the gun, increasing only the healing returned per damage output, but not the stats of the gun itself.

The only other certable change to the gun is the scope

The NC resist shield stacks with HA advanced shielding (including the HA resist shield cert tree)

In beta they had a medic cert tree that allowed the medic to get health back for healing a target. If they implement this mechanic yagain, and a player certs into it, the resist shield will apply to the medic as well.

TR movement speed increases do not stack

Resist shields arent like a biological function. If anyone could buff resist shields it would be an engineer.

[Palerion]

OctavianAXFive:

Those suggestions seem cool, but awful diverse. I would rather simply see faction-specific weapons for each class. Just like the heavy assault has, give combat medic faction-specific AR variants (or something completely different).

The TR Stimulant, as you mentioned, is a good idea; I just wouldn't want stimulants to be faction specific. Let combat medics across all factions have the same wide array of options for stimulants to use.

But, my question is, would this be an ability, bound to the F key, or a replacement of the utility slot? Would stimulants be released to oneself or others in AOE charges or injections?

Sledgecrushr:

I'm afraid a lot of those would not work. Jump height, night vision, super strength, etc. seem to be a bit too gimicky. But, a run speed increase, as mentioned, would be good. A health increase would be useful. Quick reflexes sounds too call-of-duty-ish. I'd sooner say something that would reduce recoil or CoF, but even that seems a bit far-fetched. These stimulants need to sound reasonable and useful.

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by Palerion

OctavianAXFive:

Those suggestions seem cool, but awful diverse. I would rather simply see faction-specific weapons for each class. Just like the heavy assault has, give combat medic faction-specific AR variants (or something completely different).

The TR Stimulant, as you mentioned, is a good idea; I just wouldn't want stimulants to be faction specific. Let combat medics across all factions have the same wide array of options for stimulants to use.

But, my question is, would this be an ability, bound to the F key, or a replacement of the utility slot? Would stimulants be released to oneself or others in AOE charges or injections?

Sledgecrushr:

I'm afraid a lot of those would not work. Jump height, night vision, super strength, etc. seem to be a bit too gimicky. But, a run speed increase, as mentioned, would be good. A health increase would be useful. Quick reflexes sounds too call-of-duty-ish. I'd sooner say something that would reduce recoil or CoF, but even that seems a bit far-fetched. These stimulants need to sound reasonable and useful.

When I said jump height increase it would be like a six foot jump instead of three foot jump we have now. Quick reflexes, todays military pilots often get small doses of amphetamines to increase their reaction time. A cof or recoil buff is mechanical and would have to do with the engineer. Im looking at stuff that would be biologically possible.

Temporary night vision seems pretty cool to me, would love to have that and a reflex scope.

[OctavianAXFive]

I'm pretty sure some NC engineer can whip up something to give that energy beam the medics shoot an over shield power. I mean, nanites right?

As for the diversity thing:

Reading through there are some fine ideas being presented here about stuff all the medics could use.

But something I think that the devs are trying to work on is making more faction specific stuff. I must admit, I don't like their handling of asymmetrical small arms balance at all. (Another argument entirely though)

The ERLs are great though, and they do just what Higby seems to have wanted them to do. They give the empires flavor. They change the way you approach them both as an enemy and as a user.

Are they well balanced to serve in their roles? Well that's definitely debatable.

If you look at the SoE line of thinking in regards to the Max suites, it's clear that Maxes are getting Empire Specific Powers in one form or another. As has been pointed out HA's get special guns.

Why not take a similar approach with all classes? Obviously the differences need to be minor but the challenge is trying to come up with some differences that are useful and change how each faction plays.

I encourage people posting future ideas to keep faction variety in mind whether its about medics or any other class.

But, my question is, would this be an ability, bound to the F key, or just a replacement of the utility slot? Would stimulants be released to oneself or others in AOE charges or injections?

It would play almost identically to the AoE heal bound to the F key and would go in that same certification slot. So no, it would not take up a utility spot. And in case anyone is wondering I have a perfectly passable lore explanation as to how the medic achieves this.

All TR soldiers have stimulants built into their suites that are activated via proper authorization from medical personnel.

Edit: Hey look I'm a Corporal now!

[Palerion]

I'm not sure about it being AOE though. The effects that I would imagine these stimulants having would be quite noticable; for instance, the health stimulant could mean the difference between life and death when a soldier runs into a powerful enemy. It may be overpowered to allow it to be applied to the user and everybody surrounding him. I think making it an injector like the medkits would be more ideal, so the player could inject himself or another player.

If it was an AOE effect, and all surrounding players recieved an extra chunk of health, wouldn't that be too strong?

[OctavianAXFive]

The stimulant I'm proposing doesn't do anything for health. It's a movement speed increase and probably a pretty potent one at max level.

I'm not sure how this one in particular is the most troubling. I was far more worried about the NC shielding and spent some time pondering if it would be too OP.

Also the VS life steal gun is stupid powerful in large groups for healing output. Might be too good when massed up.

Anyway, they were just musings to get people thinking about faction specific stuff.