13 replies to this topic

[Ranma]

I always go for medic because I don't trust anyone else with medic; they are all so bad at healing people. I pay attention to my teammates' health AND fight at the same time; no one else seems to do that. Whenever someone else is medic they don't seem to want to heal unless someone else calls for it, and that just won't do.


I propose that the little green arrow above every player's head slowly drops from green to red depending on the player's health. That way medics have a clue on when they need to heal a player. Maybe that way I'll be able to trust a medic to heal me while I'm fighting.

[warbrand2]

already been suggested I don't remember the outcome of the discussion though.

[Ranma]

Sorry. I looked for it in the pinned thread, but I didn't see it.

[WAXT]

Yes, this has already been discussed in a miscellaneous thread.

As much as I like the idea of having the "health bar" like so many games before this one (eg, TF2), I personally think it will make the game too easy for the rebels and is not really needed. Being a cooperative game, I believe the players should talk to each other and organise themselves instead of having all the information 'force fed' to them via a waypoint. Of course, there will always be those who ruin a good game by selfishly taking the medpack for personal gain, but what can you do?

As for the result, I think transparent markers were discussed as a better alternative to coloured ones. You can view that topic here.

[Ranma]

I guess that's why I didn't see it.


It's not just the selfish players.

I'll call out for a medic in crossroads, but the guy can't find me from all of the people spread out. Besides, it's not exactly easy healing on the field (for everyone else, it seems). All of the other medics seem to whine and complain about players strafing while trying to heal them.
"MEDIC HEAL!"
"OMG!!!! stand still so i can heel you!!!!"

I've seen that on Canals and both of the morons got killed from standing still (at the first bomb area). True story.


Standing still is a death trap when on the field, so the loser medics could use a head start. Hardly anyone I've seen (beside myself and one other player) actually can heal a player properly during combat, unless it's a player standing still-- risking the chance of getting demolished.



The thing I liked the most about Overwatch from day 1 was that it was retard proof. With waypoints and objectives written in the corner every new player knew what to do from the word "go". Even playing Overwatch was easy as hell to figure out, even for the most simple minded person.

When giving players responsibilities it should still be just as easy. The last thing a team needs in a new player holding the medic kit and not knowing who to heal and when.

[ScrooLewse]

Ranma, on 29 January 2011 - 02:14 PM, said:

I'll call out for a medic in crossroads, but the guy can't find me from all of the people spread out. Besides, it's not exactly easy healing on the field (for everyone else, it seems). All of the other medics seem to whine and complain about players strafing while trying to heal them.
"MEDIC HEAL!"
"OMG!!!! stand still so i can heel you!!!!"

The thing I liked the most about Overwatch from day 1 was that it was retard proof. With waypoints and objectives written in the corner every new player knew what to do from the word "go". Even playing Overwatch was easy as hell to figure out, even for the most simple minded person.

When giving players responsibilities it should still be just as easy. The last thing a team needs in a new player holding the medic kit and not knowing who to heal and when.

Firstly, thanks for noticing me. Secondly, I think that all that needs to be done is make a rectangle in front of the Medic where the closest person within that rectangle gets healed. That way strafing doesn't cause as much misery. Thus, much more noob-friendly.

[WAXT]

Ranma, on 29 January 2011 - 02:14 PM, said:

I'll call out for a medic in crossroads, but the guy can't find me from all of the people spread out. Besides, it's not exactly easy healing on the field (for everyone else, it seems).

I disagree with your tactics Ranma. The medic is a unique player, easily distinguishable from the regular rebels by the different skin and waypoint marker. While it is quite easy to locate a medic among a group of moving players, it is not for the medic who must locate one specific player calling for help within a sea of other players.

For this reason I believe players should go to the medic instead of the medic coming to them. This way the medic can heal you on-the-spot and get back to healing random rebels or fighting the combine.

(Perhaps a medic-call button and a flashing waypoint marker is a better solution?)

[braddollar]

I think having an indicator / beacon to go with the call medic button would be enough of a "fix". Honestly yeah it can sort of suck trying to heal somebody who's moving, but that's true in a lot of games. If people want to be healed perhaps they should stand still? I think of games like Killing Floor where it's tough to heal a moving player, but that's displayed as being more the moving player's fault than anything else. I think it should be looked at the same way here. If the person really wants to be healed perhaps they should smarten up, stop moving, and wait to be healed.

[Ranma]

Not really. The beacon only worked in TF2 because when injured called for a medic, the beacon that appears above the head changes from white to red depending on how injured; it was easy to avoid fakers asking for a medic. If that's the only compromise you can see than it's best to leave it alone. I'd rather the retards look for who is injured than follow some faker calling for medic when a REAL injured person is nearby.

Honestly, I don't have a problem healing people while they are strafing and moving around. That's actually a good thing because it puts more of a risk when healing on the field. It's just I don't trust anyone else as a medic because they don't know who to heal, and checking who is actually hurt is pretty hard for them. They have to check who is injured by aiming their cursor at the person while the person is moving around. Pretty damn hard for noobs that can't aim worth a damn. A noob grabs a med-kit and he won't heal anyone on the field because he's not talented enough to see who is actually injured.


How are players supposed to push forward if they come crying to the medic whenever they are hurt? I mean, in situations like Canal and fighting the helicopter, yea, that makes sense. But today, you saw. The team needed me-- you needed me, in order to progress through Breach and Canal. It would be a faster heal to grab a health pack than running back to the medic and wait in line for him to heal.

[WAXT]

Ok. Jumping back to the "Health Bar" idea, how about having the waypoint marker change at set intervals? So instead of showing the exact amount of health remaining, it changes when the health resides within set parameters.

For example:

• When a player's health is greater than 80%, the waypoint marker is fully shaded/green/complete (depending on how the visual system works).
• When a player's health is between 80-50% the marker is more transparent/incomplete.
• The same occurs for health between 50-20% and for health less than 20%.

Of course the actual health measurement can be obtain in the normal fashion (by looking directly at another player), but this proposed system is designed to put a little more guess-work into playing Overwatch from a distance, rather than hand-feeding players all the information. It would also help for locating wounded players who may be in need of assistance.

[Quenquent]

braddollar, on 29 January 2011 - 03:26 PM, said:

I think having an indicator / beacon to go with the call medic button would be enough of a "fix".

Already suggested :

And why do not make something like in TF2 : when someone have under X hp, the auto-call for a medic is activated.

And you got a good idea too WATX

[braddollar]

I don't think it should ever be an automatic thing. It should at least require -some- interaction.

[WAXT]

braddollar, on 30 January 2011 - 02:52 PM, said:

I don't think it should ever be an automatic thing. It should at least require -some- interaction.

So true. That would be worse than hand-feeding the players. The game would pretty much run itself, then we might as well all be in spectator mode watching ourselves play.

[Ranma]

WAXT, on 29 January 2011 - 08:14 PM, said:

the "Health Bar" idea.........

That's my home, right there.


While playing, it would still be important to call out for medic so they can put down their gun and pull out the med-kit, but with the identifier they can have an idea on who is the most injured and they'll be able to set up a priority on who to heal first.



And auto calling is A HUGE no-no. When relying on retards the system needs to be idiot proof, but I don't want the game to run itself. I don't want the game telling them (or more important, me) what to do and when to do it.