4th Class - The Medic | Forums

[cra2yazn]

I feel like the game doesn't necessarily need this but would benefit greatly from it. Im also not expecting this to be implemented even by the time this game goes live. Just something for you guys to ponder over. At the moment the Assault seems like its trying to be 2 classes at once. One half of the assault is trying to be the offensive frontline soldier but also a weird medic. The key features of the medic would be the following:

• Basic Character Stats
  
  

  1. 100 Base HP
  2. Uses Personal Defense Weapons or Sub-Machine Guns
  3. Has medium armor similar to Specialist
• Personal Abilities
  
  

  1. Resuscitation - This ability would allow the Medic to charge up and deploy a AoE revive ability similar to Blackout's deployment method and would bring back affected teammates with 40 HP. Revived teammates would also have a 1 second timer to stand back up similar to when one gets knocked down by a blitz. This ability would have similar cooldown duration as AEGIS or Blackout, but slightly longer. Also would not bring back those who have already spawned. DUH
     
     Upgrades
     

     • Shorter cooldown
     • Increased Radius
     • Increased Revive Health

     
     
  2. Nano-Cloud - This ability would be a cloud of nanobots that surround the Medic and those affected would get a buff in health regen by 3. This would not be combat regen of the Assault but the regular regen rate that all classes have. This would be the defense oriented ability and would be ideal for those recuperating after a push or dealing with an enemy attack. Friendlies who pass through the Nano-Cloud would also gain the ability's benefits for 2 seconds before the nano-bots wear off and they return to their standard regen rate. This would prevent the need for everybody huddling around 1 medic.

  
  

  
  Upgrades
  

  • Shorter Cooldown
  • Increased Radius/Increased Duration on Allies by 1 second
  • Increased Regen Bonus by 1.5
• Team Abilities
  
  

  1. Combat Regen - The assault's team ability essentially.
  2. Toughness Boost - Will boost all nearby teammates toughness value by 1 at Mk 1.

The current idea of the Medic is that it is a class that isn't combat focused but more of a support role. It would be the class that teams would want to keep alive and the enemy will prioritize to kill. The idea of the PDW weapon set would be to offer the Medic a more powerful alternative to the SMGs but at the cost of Handling and RoF. The PDWs would be somewhere between SMGs and ARs for damage, RoF for most of them somewhere around the 600-750 area, and accuracy ratings somewhere between AR and LMG in terms of shot grouping. These weapons would ideally be for flank security since the Medic would be too squishy to be frontline class. The Medic's armor choices would be somewhere between Recon and Specialist but more toward to Specialist stats. Their strength lies in their ability to keep others alive. This isn't a class for those aiming for high kdrs but more for those that want to make sure they cap the next point. The Medic would pwn vicariously through the performance of the other classes. The replacement ability for the Assault losing the Combat Regen would be an ability called Leadership where all nearby allies are boosted by 1-2% on their critical chance.

[Freelancer852]

Yeah I've had this idea in my head ever since I initially came up with the idea for an additional group-revive ability (Resuscitation). It wouldn't really fit with the Assaults image as a front-line attacker.

This Medic class is the brain-child of myself, Taco, and Typhoon. It's something that would make a really neat addition to the game, I'd love to see how the fourth class plays out.

[Pookie223]

[hoak]

I like the ideas, but think a fourth class where three aren't even being fully and equitably utilized is perhaps too much extra content, for too little return. How about instead offering these features to the Specialist, and/or Recon that opts to run with a SMG or PDW? Or even any of all three classes? I'd also like see means to resupply my team mates ammunition rather then have us rely on pick-ups from dead players -- as well it would be cool if team members could share 'power' for abilities -- either to recharge just one guy for longer duration, or to pool resources in a tough spot to 'see' your way clear, or fight your way out.

[SoK-CRiTiCaL]

You can the specialist has a team ability to supply ammuniton to himself and teamates close to him.

[Freelancer852]

Indeed, it is already possible to resupply ammunition to yourself and nearby squad-mates as Specialist already.

We thought about adding more abilities to each of the individual classes. Specifically adding more "support" abilities to the classes. Right now the two abilities seem to be focused on offense or defense to a degree. We figured that a third "style" of abilities aimed at healing or some other kind of support would be neat, however that seemed to encroach on the Specialists abilities a wee bit. We also came to the consensus that adding a lot of extra abilities into the game (potentially more than three per class in the future) would basically make games come down to; whichever team chooses the abilities to counter the other team wins.

Adding the Medic as a class instead of spreading the abilities out to other classes seemed to be the best option.

Something I'd like to see for the Medic class is more points being awarded for using abilities and helping to regenerate your team. Since this class isn't designed to maintain a high kill:death ratio they would consistently score lower than the other classes unless they gained extra points somehow.

[hoak]

The same problems of balance can prevail whether it's a class or an ability; in the case of a Medic Class you can get a team of 'Medic Wh*res' just like in Battlefield 2, that can use class exploit tactics and be virtually unkillable -- which is no less decisive then the imbalance of chosen vs unchosen abilities.

I think a Medic ability should be a 'value added' ability to an existing class, not a replacement as you're completely vulnerable patching someone up, which when you fail will be a pretty thankless job as there will be two men down instead of one -- and more multi-tasking should make it more interesting.

To keep a Medic 'Ability' from being over-powered it could be team limited to one player per every three on your team and it could be a no points affair of total altruism and self-preservation through team work so no points for healing or rezing knocked-down players.

The more variations of the idea we throw out there, the more likely we're to find something that works with Ubisoft's vision, budget, and goals for how they see this game being enhanced with feature content ideas that we also like...

Shifting gears again in that direction, if were to be a Class, it could be one with only 'less lethal' weapons; stun guns, stun grenades, gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and a knock-down only melee -- and this could play well into some more original or at least better game modes.

[Freelancer852]

'less lethal' weapons; stun guns, stun grenades, gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and a knock-down only melee -- and this could play well into some more original or at least better game modes.

That's an interesting idea...

[cra2yazn]

When we were discussing the concept of a completely new class to add to the fray we thought about keeping the balance as much as possible. An entire team of medics would be about as useful as a full team of recons are. The revive ability only brings back allies at 50 health which is easily taken down due to the Medic being design almost as fragile as the Recon is. Also even is all 8 were to stack the toughness boost and all stay within proximity of each other they would still be outclassed in a gunfight due to their weapons. The problem that BF has is that when a Medic revives you in that game you come back with full health so you are in theory a new soldier unlike in our scenario which is a highly fragile player who also has to wait 1 second before being able to get back in the fight. We opted for an entirely new class since if we just tacked on these healing abilities to the other classes we would run into the problem we have with the Assault where the game is trying to shoehorn in a healing system into the game when none of the classes fit that niche. Also the Medic doesn't need a gimmick like LTL(Less Than Lethal) weapons for players to choose them. The Medics using LTL weapons would be more annoying for the developers than if they just gave them actual guns. Would armor factor into LTL? Would toughness? Would it be useful against anything? ie:AEGIS, Cloak, Blitz. Couldn't players essentially point farm a downed opponent by repeatedly stunning them? Since this game runs off the basis of people being able to be brought down with fewer hits than your typical shooter how would you balance the LTLs? Do you make them like shotguns where they are 1 hit stun at close range or do they make them like SMGs where players must hose down enemies with pepper balls to stun them or would some weapons be column A and other column B? Also the ability to pool energy to 1 player sounds like a good team-work oriented feature in theory but the actual application would just be everybody gives their energy to the nearest Specialist with AEGIS or Blackout. What benefit would the team gain by overcharging a Blitz? So the Assault can be the only one making the push? How about overcharging a cloak? This mechanic would probably lead to more AEGIS spamming then what we currently see. If you actually read this block of text then you can see that we actually tried and discussed how to incorporate this into the game with as little changes as possible to the current balance and playstyles.

[Freelancer852]

Cortexian was defeated by: Wall of Text.