Combat Medic Archive
Thread: DOT suggestion
Barca
Wed Jun 23, 2004 6:10 pm
#14
So, basicly there are a whole 3 people surfing the CM boards, come on people
jfang
Wed Jun 23, 2004 8:35 pm
#16
Sorry about all the trolls...
The problem with your idea is that is no longer a DOT. What you are describing is a time delayed grenade that only works no biological targets. This may or may not be good for the game, but given the devs have introduced poisons and defended them time and again, it seems like the devs will not so quickly abandon the idea of a DOT attack.
By removing the DOT aspects of the weapon, you remove all that is special about it (constant damage making it viable in the opposite situations of normal combat, forcing changes of tactics, forcing the inclusion of doctors in a well rounded group, etc.). This also may or may not be a good thing, and it sounds like this is what you want to happen, but again given the support of the devs to poisons seen thus far, it is unlikely this will happen.
Finally, as you describe it, you are seriously nerfing the damage potential of combat medics. Assuming that combat medics are balanced now which the devs have stated in the fanfest (either in current combat, or post revamp combat), this is not acceptable. So to compensate, there must be in increase somewhere else. It isinheirently impossible to compare a DOT to a standard attack, but I would estimate this would maybe be a2-3 fold reduction in strength. So to compensate they would increase the damage for the single tick by2.5 (a1500 mind tick, ugh), or drastically increase the range (maybe make it2 times wider, or hitting everything within a 60m radius of the launch point, also ugh). It is hard to think of a way of balancing a dramatic change like this.
Given your complaint, a better suggestion which have been proposed in the past are:
1) poisons stop ticking after the combat medic dies
2) Everybody gets a weak"remove poisons" ability like meditate, so if you can disengage from battle (eg. killing the combat medic) you can heal yourself
3) Giving everybody some weak form of poison cure, for same reasoning as #2
There are several others which I won't get into now. However, assuming your primary complaint is that poisons keep ticking after killing the combat medic, there are many less disruptive ways to do it... I think your goal is sound, but your implementation needs more thought. 
Edit:
Upon further consideration, I was overestimating the effectiveness of poisons and diseases... Note I can not stress enough that comparing a DOT to a standard attack is not a fair comparison.
Message Edited by jfang on 06-23-2004 11:53 PM
Barca
Wed Jun 23, 2004 10:05 pm
#17
I heard somebody compare a poison and a disease as a negative heal, so thats how I got this idea. I dont think it would be a serious nerf to the class, the CM would just have to be around tossing more poison on somebody it hurt them. anyway, it doesnt sound like a bad idea to me. More input is welcome
RandosAmazingLovehandles
Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:44 pm
#18
Barca wrote:
One of the main problems with CM is that after you kill them, their poisons still hurt you. I am suggesting that mabye every poison and disease that you throw has absolutely no durration. The poisons would tick once after 4 seconds, and the disease would tick once after 40 seconds. This would make it so that a CM has to be fighting in order to hurt the enemy. Im ready for negative comments from the CM community. Have fun
are u mad?
i they did that they might as well take combat medic off!
if ur so anoyyed with it its called turning DOCTER
jfang
Thu Jun 24, 2004 6:31 am
#19
The comparison between a poison and a negative heal is because I *think* a dev mentioned a while ago that stims and poisons were using the same framework, so from a back-end code perspective, a poison is like a negative heal. Which is why there aredifferences between it and normal combat(so you could poison in water, for example), and difficulties in changing them.
And just to reiterate, you are removing the "OT" from "DOT", so I do not really agree with your implementation of the change. The goal may be sound, but there are less disruptive ways to go about it in my opinion.
Gnuut
Thu Jun 24, 2004 7:39 am
#20
Barca wrote:
One of the main problems with CM is that after you kill them, their poisons still hurt you. I am suggesting that mabye every poison and disease that you throw has absolutely no durration. The poisons would tick once after 4 seconds, and the disease would tick once after 40 seconds. This would make it so that a CM has to be fighting in order to hurt the enemy. Im ready for negative comments from the CM community. Have fun
I don't know. Something like this would require revamping the crafting process as well. Decreasing the tic rate to 4 seconds would drasticallyincrease damage output. Killing duration would turn poisons into "direct damage" hits rather than "damage over time". Even if you decreased duration to say a minute base with an ability to increase duration through experimentation, you still can't change the tic rate which is hard coded for almost every DOT in the game. I remember reading in other forums that stated bleeds and fire also tic every 10 seconds. I don't think this is a coincidence.
jfang
Thu Jun 24, 2004 8:39 am
#21
Gnuut wrote:
I don't know. Something like this would require revamping the crafting process as well. Decreasing the tic rate to 4 seconds would drasticallyincrease damage output. Killing duration would turn poisons into "direct damage" hits rather than "damage over time". Even if you decreased duration to say a minute base with an ability to increase duration through experimentation, you still can't change the tic rate which is hard coded for almost every DOT in the game. I remember reading in other forums that stated bleeds and fire also tic every 10 seconds. I don't think this is a coincidence.
I agree that it's probably not a coincidence, but it is likely just a matter of design than one of limitations. Chances are somebody said "what should we make tick speed, how about 10 seconds... wait, this makes diseases too harsh", and balance went from there, rather than there being a "tick timer" so to speak. After that, all the numbers were balanced to 10 seconds, and things when from there. I'm guessing if there was a real need to, they could change bleed tick speed to be 9 seconds without *too* much difficulty (as evidenced by diseases ticking at 40 seconds). Just no real reason to...
But I haven't seen the code, so who can say?
Barca
Thu Jun 24, 2004 10:35 am
#22
Yea, so I said4 seconds because Im a big noob. I guess the tick is 10 seconds but it seems to go by so fast when youre fighting.
Cyndane00
Thu Jun 24, 2004 11:37 am
#23
I think the biggest thing to be helpful is to not allow poisons to be stackable on each other. Like if the person is affected by a poison already, you shouldn't be able to stack a lesser poison an A or a B on them or a single poison of any type on them. Same with diseases. You should be able to stack a poison with a disease however, as those are different things. And I mean a poison/disease that effects the same stat. You should still be able to use and area health with an area mind. Just not and area mind with a single mind with a an area mind B and an area mind A, etc. It is just like some of the foods for example if you are already affected by it it doesn't let you eat more. That is my biggest suggestion anyway. This would really make a big impact.
cyndane
cyndane
Barca
Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:19 pm
#25
Im glad this thread is getting some helpful input, keep it comming.
SolSpur
Thu Jun 24, 2004 3:56 pm
#26
He who has the most DOTS wins
Sadly thats true. Every pvper has mind fire/poison guns, stun batons, swords, and pikes. Why? Cause dots are the only thing that can hurt you in your 90% armor. The typical combat spam goes a little something like this:
Bob shoots you for 6 damage, your 90% composit absorbs 4 damge.
You have been burned, you have been poisoned, you have sustained more fire.
By balancing armor and buffs, dots will have a less effect on pvp due to the fact that every combat class will have an equal chance to deal damage, much more and faster then dots.
Heres a true story. Theres a rebel on my server thats near unkillable. He can solo kryates, the corvett,and take on groups of elite pvp professions and not even get a scratch. You want to know what killed him, a combat medic. Players like him are the reason for all the nerf crys. By nerfing cms they'll retain their god like status. But all that will change given time. Dots may rule pvp now but after the revamp all the fotm players will migrate leaving the real cms, giving us back our profession.