How precious is life?

[Nekota]

Well if you wanted to help the enemy... but I'm thinking more like if you don't want to be a prisoner you can always recall back to Sanctuary. Of course this is going to set you back from your squad. Of course you could always take a HART back to the action but, you'd of been released in 8 minutes anyway when the holding cell is gased allowing you to respawn at your nearest friendly spawning tube. The process of freeing the prisoners would be as simple as having a Hacker hack the lock (not from your cell of course). The whole point of captivity is really to help empahsize progress. If you can capture your enemy rather then killing them you'll end up doing more harm to your enemy since you'll have effectively removed a soldier from battle for a longer period of time and, possibly their squad too if they attempt a rescue. The trade off is that a medic has to get to them to capture them and, in the heat of battle that could turn your medic into a prisoner.

[Nekota]

Tieom- Well the biggest issue with the current philosphy is that numbers will always rule over tactics. A highly trainned squad will only succeed for so long before numbers overwhelm them (Mogadishu was a prime example of this). The other problem is that Medics really don't have a role in the game at the moment. Reviving your teammates is great and all but, not needed. Hell even fixing armor isn't needed if I need new armor just get yourself killed, spawn at the nearby tower (that about 90% of the time the assaulting side owns anyway) or AMS (which about 30% of the time is nearby), restock and re-engage.

[Lion of Judah]

yep, medics are a rare breed, and about as useful as a dead Vanu.
IMHO, they should add exp to medics who heal or revive. I personally liek the idea of having one, but the "stay still" aspect is very difficult... especially in a fight. I tried playing a medic, and it was a PITA. No one would stop, i used it on myself mostly. It was about the same size as one med pack and was fast. A nice tool to have. Usually i find medics after a fight, healing guys to max.

[SaltzBad]

Originally posted by Tieom
If you kill someone, they will be back in action in a matter of seconds, killing them is just an inconvenience to them.
***THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY A PROBLEM***

The point of killing someone is not to put the screws to them, but to make it easier to push forwards by temporarily removing them (and others) from combat. Who is dead at what time does not matter, what MATTERS is gaining the advantage by having a large number of the opposing force in a continuing state of respawning, so you can gain ground.

The problem that arises is when it becomes equally feasible to respawn as it is to expend the ammo and effort to make the kill in the first place. Thats why the speed of reinforcements in PS imo needs to be slowed down - for heavy battle testing in beta, fine. For a release game it would grow too old/shallow too fast no matter the updates if all there is to it is spawning and running back at the maximum possible speed.

[Raideno]

Originally posted by Nekota
Well you're right it'd be no fun for the prisoner other then maybe the anticipation of his squad rescuing him/her and, person penalized for excessive griefing won't be having fun but, it's punishment it's not supposed to be fun. it.

Can you take prisoner's?

[Nekota]

No you can't take prisoners but, I wish you could. This thread is mainly for suggestions to make dieing something you'd want to avoid more.

[d3ath4u]

I'm sorry if i am mistaken, but i thought there was a penelty for dying, in the latest patch notes, the devs said that if you die 0-1 times for every ten minutes, there is no penelty, 2-3 times per 10 min, 5 sec. delay, so on and so on until a 20 sec delay for like, 10 kills for 10 min. Check out teh newest patch notes, but i think i am wrong.

[Nekota]

Yeah but the 20 sec. delay is nothing. It's less of a penalty and more of an inconvinence. For a total of around 30 seconds there's not reason to wait for a medic to heal you.

[d3ath4u]

ah, here is the link i was talking about:

http://www.planetside.info/nuke/modu...rder=0&thold=0

well, i dont know about you, but a 20 delay is enough to keep me from kamakizing, but thats just me.

[Nekota]

Seriously count 20 sec. out to yourself. It's a very small amount of time. It's very easy that your medic could be more then 20 sec. away. All together death is meaningless especially since it can take longer to get from a nearby tower to the gate then it does to respawn at the highest penalty. I guess I sort of like the DAoC system. Where once you've rolled over the invaders you've got around 10 minutes before you see the same faces again more depending on how close to the portal keep you are. Granted death is going to happen in the game, it's going to happen quite a bit actually with explosives and massive weaponry. However don't make death inconsequential or the game will be about as deep as a deathmatch.

[SaltzBad]

The main problem is, the most obvious solution, setting timers up, would also hurt everyones gaming experience heftily. The respawn timer can be set to about ~60 secs before it starts being a pain in the ass not doing anything, after that you need smarter methods. For example having to wait or 'pay' for any specialized piece of equipment (anything beyond standard armor and stuff), or reducing general respawn availability and increasing the importance of HART drops/Sunderer/Galaxys.

An example would be to have zones around bases for deployal of AMS/ANTs - or having to actually deploy those things within a (larger) zone of influence of your own base, ergo just cutting the time from base to base in half, not spawning right in his face (again, I have no exact idea about proportions).

In another thread someone mentioned with death being a larger handicap because of increased traveltime people would antline to the front - well thats just fine, since the offense has a major advantage here already. And by experience from other games, basic coordination along 'lets walk over there together' isn't hard under any circumstances, provided theres a reason for players to do so.

An addition to any solution they come up with would be to increase the spawntimer for every death in so-and-so much time - so that for example a defense relying largely on respawning of large numbers would grow weaker and weaker, by adding ~30-60 seconds of respawn to every death in the last 5 minutes (obviously that sort of system limits itself on how much respawn time you can accumulate). Someting needs to be done either way, and it should include as little idle-time for the player as possible. Making their way back and re-coordinating with their buds is fine, but harsh respawn timers should be used with care.

@death:
Say you're outta ammo, or just hurt bad - low respawn times make it possible that its more economic to just die and walk off with the new stuff than actually get it. Or that hurting an enemy can be 5 times more efficient than killing.

Edit : Patchnotes says an addition system is in already, but respawn times reduced slightly. Wtf.

[LaserTobias]

Hey, well, it is very nice of you to write such a long passage like that so I will say that you should be congratulated on such a remarkable piece, but I think that if the PS guys heard your Idea, they would say that the respawn is there so no one would get bored rotting in prison....Ah well, you do have a point, and the game wouldn't get boring so dang fast because you would hope that someone comes by and frees you. In which case the advanced medic is rather useless.



Word.......Good hunting and enjoy your respawn

P.S- My personal Quote: Death is not only the beginning..........A respawn is.

[RUEN]

hey, look at me... lemme just go pick up the corpses of my enemies, wait 6 mins, and then run this thing offa cliff, and have my buddy waiting to pick up their corpses again so no one will ever want to play this game! sounds cool! <= sarcasm

[LaserTobias]

Originally posted by RUEN
hey, look at me... lemme just go pick up the corpses of my enemies, wait 6 mins, and then run this thing offa cliff, and have my buddy waiting to pick up their corpses again so no one will ever want to play this game! sounds cool! <= sarcasm

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...........NO!!!!!

[RUEN]

no, genius (i use this term loosely)... it was me pointing out the flaws of this "great" idea... get a life.