Combat Medic Archive
Thread: How would CMs feel about this?
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jfang
Mon Jun 14, 2004 1:36 pm
#14
That is a very interesting idea, BigOlJim. My gut reaction is that "I don't like it". However, in writing my counter post though, I noticed it hasseveral merits I hadn't noticed at first blush. So before I go on, what are you trying to accomplish by doing this?
For example, if the devs implemented this without making it a blanket nerf (such as dividing up potency as you suggest but tripling the base potency and the effect of ease of use experimentation) would this help accomplish your goals? What are you hoping to come of this change?
jfang
Mon Jun 14, 2004 2:44 pm
#15
When I said triple potency and experiment ease of use, I meant to say "you can experiment potency of area poisonsmuch higher than currently" (that is in the ease of use tree of experimentation). And my point about tripling potency is do you want to nerf area poisons, or just somehow change/balance them.
So, as I understand it, your goals are to:
1) Reduce the symptoms of "I poison 5 people, you can only cure 1, haha!", somehow make a 1 CM to 1 Doc equivalent (* I have notes about this below)
2) Make individual poisons more important in PvP, and removing area from being the end all and be all
3) Make combat medics think more about who they are targeting
4) Encourage doctors to join the fight
There are some unexpected consequences of your change though:
1) This gives people an advantage and vested interest in sticking together.
-So if you get a group of 20 teras kasi sitting inside a base, how can you force them out?
-Cone attacks like strafe shot and chargeshot2 will start being more effective as people cluster more, do you want this
2) Will combat medics really think about this when throwing a poison? After all, hitting4 people with a 90 potency poison is still better than 1 person with a more effective one, and in the heat of combat few will think beyond a simple heuristic
3) With poisons as they stand now, doctors have a very large vested interested in joining the fight and healing people (although many are rifleman-buffers, so don't). I don't think this would give any additional incentive to get docs to join the battle, and in fact gives them less chance
4) There is the problem of realism (but we all know how much a factor realism plays with the game design...)
5) Poisons and diseases would be the only weapon which is target situation dependent. Unlike grenades, and area of effect attacks. Is this fair, and does it make sense? What does this say about the potential difficulties in implementing, and unexpected side-effects (both bugs, in effect onplay style, and exploitability)
"Agree disagree? Let me know. I really think this has potental, if everyone is willing to work on it." Well, my gut reaction was "are you crazy, that will never work". However, like I said, upon further consideration it has a lot of potential. One of the more innovative ideas I have heard in a while. However, there are a lot of side effects to be considered (not all of which are bad), and this has almost no chance of being implemented even if we all loved it. 
However, at second thought, I think this is a good idea, assuming the devs balanced it and didn't just make it a major nerf. I won't say I think it is a great idea (yet), but it definitely has a lot of potential. 
(* In my opinion, I think that the idea of 1 doc to 1 CM is flawed. I think that healing should be based on people on your side, as opposed to opponents you are facing. For example, if you have 1 doc to 3 people in your party, you should be set no matter what you are facing. This may or may not be the case, but I personally think it makes more sense in real life to say "we need more doctors because this hospital services 10,000 people" than "we have 5 fires on average this week so we need more doctors in the area", and the same reasoning should translate to the game.)
Edit: added spacing in paragraphs
Message Edited by jfang on 06-14-2004 05:45 PM
BigOlJim
Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:08 pm
#16
Yes i agree, i am crazy. But that is what makes life fun. Back to the matter at hand.
I dont think anything should be changed at first. Im really not sure how current poisons will suffer from a change like this. If you try to triple experementation right away you will not have a base to judge the changes off of.
The goals you listed are basically correct, except the first. I agree with you that the more ppl there are the more docs you need. I was just hoping that this would lessen the ratio of people per doc.
Consequences:
The goals you listed are basically correct, except the first. I agree with you that the more ppl there are the more docs you need. I was just hoping that this would lessen the ratio of people per doc.
Consequences:
1) I agree 100 percent that this encourages people to stay together. I see this as a positive consequence. People who stay together live longer (thats how it is now) and it will be enforced by this change.
-Also, if 20 tka's are in a base, a group who sticks together and goes in as a single unit will be more likely to flush them out. Yes many will die, but you always need more attackers than defenders.
-As far as cone attacks go, it also adds to the strategy. If a few rifleman start strafing the group will have to decide whether or not to divide up and risk getting poisoned or charge as a group and kill the rifleman before they kill you. People who charge the base on theirown or stray away from the group die. game over. This will add life and strategy to PvP compared to the unorganizedspamming of specials on your ownthat takes place. In my opinion this will make PvP alot more interesting.
2) They may not have to decide who to hit, but they will have to decide what to throw. They will have to pay more attention to where the enemy is and where they are going. (or if they are not moving at all)
3) It may not give additional incentive, but it will take away excuses to NOT help.
4) Realism is already out the window =)
5) The only thing i am trying to solve is the somewhat overpowerednessesness (sorry not a real word) of CM. I dont know if area poisons are coded the same as granades and other things. If so then this would probably be difficult and a waste of the dev's time. I am merely trying to avoid CM being revamped/nerfed completely.
I'm lazy at the moment and dont feel like typing more...but i hope this helps.
jfang
Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:54 pm
#17
You would need to change the base schematic to consider this change. Assuming poisons are working as the devs want them to (I know they stated this a while ago, but am not sure if they said so recently), if you just change it so hitting multiple targets affects potency will be a major nerf, to the effect of maybe halving damage (rough guess). To change things like this is exactly why Test Center exists.
Trying to get people to stick together might add some strategy in the game. I would think there is already enough incentive ot stick together (and concentrate firepower and keep people close enough to help each other), but I don't do very much PvP combat. My inclination is that if it forced people to stay together (which it may or may not), the effect would be more negative than positive. However, I it is not clear what the net effect on PvP combat would be, and you might be right that it will add more coordination strategy to PvP combat than removes from maneuvering strategy.
My impression was that in the fan fest the devs expressed they were happy with how poisons and diseases worked, so there is very little chance of "CM being revamped/nerfed completely" as you put it. If that is the only reason for the change, the change is not really needed. It sounds like you have several other good reasons to try it out though (although you can't just "try out" a major change like this unfortunately).
As I understand it, ranged poisons are coded based on the same architecture as ranged stims, which are related to normal stims
Brainplay
Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:14 am
#18
The idea of dividing up the effectiveness of a MIND poison by the number of people affected has alot of merit to it. It would keep a bit of realism while at the same time still not give us that super edge many people complain about during base defense/attacks but still keeping our damage ability up to par in 1vs1 fights. Of course if a 600 tick poison landed on 20 people the effect would be so negligent that doctors wouldn't need to cure unless alot of CM's showed up. Keep diseases the same though, they barely do enough damage where they stand.
I'm still pushing for Area cure A packs for CMs. It would be nice to get something new for a change.
Brainplay
Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:51 am
#19
Tyrst wrote:
I was looking on the commando boards today and apparenlty they get hit by thier grenades when they are in the blast raidus. How would CMs feel if thier range was reduced to 64m and they were affected by thier poisons/diseases if they were in range? This would give most CMs a 34m safe zone. It would also mean that if they were charged they would have to consider whether or not to throw a poison/disease if thier target was in range. If they stacked a ranged profession with CM they would have to kite or be at a disadvantage if melee made it into range. If they took melee they would not be able to master both of them and would have to reduce the effectiveness of 1 of thier professions. If they took doctor to cure thier poison/disease they would not have any combat abilities. Just some thoughts to put some strategy in the profession without taking away your combat ability.
Commando grenades hit everyone and everything in their blast radius whether friend or foe and is one of the reasons why very few commandos use them. Having our poisons capped at 64m is perfectly fine and I'm surprised they took so long to fix that but why affect only CM's? Why not make the poisons AND stims affect everyone in their radius? It ranks up there with why a friendly area/cone attack doesn't affect other friendlies. Granted it would make the game ALOT more challenging but that just wouldn't fly with alot of people (look what happened with the Nova troopers).
Most of what you're asking probably goes into effect at the next patch. They've already stated that our stuff was "supposed" to be capped at 64m. Most of the considerations you're asking we CM's have to deal with already. I wish i could be a TKM but I'm stuck with rifle,carbine, pistol elites.
Renzeron
Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:05 am
#20
BigOlJim wrote:
damn it sorry...
Here is my proposal to make CM fair. Divide up theeffect ofarea poisons/diseases. This could be done 2 ways:
1. Divide up the potency of the poison/disease. So if a CM throws and area into agroup of 10 ppl
instead of doing 500 (or whatever) per tic, the poison/disease will only do 500/10 ppl = 50 per tic.
This will force the CM to either use areas when there are groups of 2 or 3, or use single target poisons/diseases.
This way in PvP doctor will actually have a chance to heal thepoisons as fast as (or close to) the CM can throw them.
2. The othe option is to divide the duration between targets hit. This would still result in a strong hit to everyone, but may only tic once or twice.
Just an idea i had, yes i'm sure there are flaws in it. But to me i believe the first would do the trick.
So what you are saying is that, everyone else with aprofession that has an AOE attack will have the same reduction? If so, I would not mind so much. But if not, then this makes no sense. Lets see how many combat professions will give up their AOE damage. In PvE I've seen rifleman do 1000's of points of damage every 1 to 2 seconds. We do this every 10 to 40 seconds with not that much damage. And you still want this? OK, you are talking PvP... But there are two sides to every story.
jfang
Tue Jun 15, 2004 7:20 am
#21
Brainplay wrote:
The idea of dividing up the effectiveness of a MIND poison by the number of people affected has alot of merit to it. It would keep a bit of realism while at the same time still not give us that super edge many people complain about during base defense/attacks but still keeping our damage ability up to par in 1vs1 fights. Of course if a 600 tick poison landed on 20 people the effect would be so negligent that doctors wouldn't need to cure unless alot of CM's showed up. Keep diseases the same though, they barely do enough damage where they stand.
I'm still pushing for Area cure A packs for CMs. It would be nice to get something new for a change.
If you divide effectiveness, it would not be realistic. If I breath mustard gas and you breath it 5 meters away, neither of us will really be less affected because the other happened to be near by. But we all know how "realistic" the game is already, so on to gameplay ones...
I think dividing effectiveness is a bad idea for exactly the reason you said. If you have5 people huddled together camping an outpost, and a combat medic drops a 250effectiveness area poison on them. If you just divide the effectiveness between them that is only a 100 tick mind poison,which most will barelybat an eye at. And since you can only have one area poison C thrown, there is no way to amplify this, no matter how many combat medics there are. I think dividing potency is a better idea of the two, as it lets a combat medic still have a chance to make a difference in a medium sized group (two people with 250 effectiveness poisons is better than 5 with 50 effectivenesspoisons), they can "try again" if they have time to, and it is easier to tweak the potency of area poisons to compensate for the change than effectiveness.
My main concerns about this idea, as stated before, is that it makes combat medics very dependent on the circumstances of their opponents (not just *what* they are but *where* they are as well) which would be relatively unique in combat, and I am concerned that it might render area poisons unviable, both for PvP and for attacking lairs and squads in PvE. I can't say for certain that it would break them, and it very much might improve them and PvPcombat, but it is a drastic change...
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