Idea Medic

I would disagree that the entire aspect of steak removing should be removed from medic. This would only encourage camping, and would encourage respawning a bunch. The problem is that medic regens steak too fast, way to fast for a concentrated recovery effort to help.

 

The issue is that this implies only a single recoverer will be able to attack the flagholder, in many situation the recovery comes in droves that whittle down the flagholder. With the removal of steak entirely, a Soldier would have very little chance against multiple people on recovery.

I understand the point about instakills, but the power of recovery would still be polarizing compared to the power of holding the flag with a medic nerf without a proper instakill nerf

 

With the state of CTF now, Id much rather have stalemates than have such a fast paced CTF. The gameplay as of now consists of Trying to overcome huge defenses, attempting to get out of the flag and back to base, and hold it as long as possible to cap. Overcoming huge defenses is already a major issue with the game, unless the difficulty of grabbing the flag were to be balanced along with a higher chance of dying whilst holding at your teams base there will be much less incentive to try and capture.

The difficulty of offense decreases the closer you get back to base. Instead of making the difficulty akin to an hourglass (Hard to grab and hold the flag with slight difficulty running away) Id much rather the 3 phases of capturing a flag get balanced in overall difficulty.

 

What about we unnerf pyro, chemist and then we start talking about new nerfs?

 

Now that's just undoing the bit of progress we do have.

 

Note: This post is very long but that's only because I wanted to offer an adequate response to @Arevoir's suggestion.

You're generalizing a little here but that is mostly true.

Okay. A couple things here:

You are absolutely right that it is often tricky to kill an enemy once they have one or more active Medics but you are leaving one major thing out of the equation, which is that Medics can only heal allies once every 15 seconds. That factor changes the scenario and the discussion entirely and I am pretty surprised that there has not been more discussion on it.

For instance, suppose there is only one medic camping out with the flag carrier, not an uncommon situation. The flag carrier is only getting healed every 15 seconds so if an enemy, say a Ninja or a Pyro, were to attack the flag carrier directly after they got healed then Medic's healing capacities are irrelevant for the next 15 seconds. The flag carrier would need their steaks to survive and depending on how many enemies or allies (aside from the Medic) there as well as what classes they and the flag carrier are, it could be easy or very difficult to do.

My point here is that the current in game situation is not quite like you make it out to be, that being Medic able to restore steaks (or other items) ruins the chance of recovery by non instant kill classes, when in fact, whether or not that is the case depends quite heavily on the situation. As you know, Medic's ability to restore items inherently increases the survivability of allies making recovery more difficult but to what degree it does that, and whether or not that is okay to have in the game is the question. In the example I listed above, item regeneration made recovery harder but it did not ruin the chances of recovery because the Medic can only heal their team-mate once every 15 seconds and in my view, that situation certainly does not call for its removal in that instance.

I agree a lot of this in the sense that if Medic did not return items it would make camping much more of a rarity. But you seem to tout a faster paced CTF, which is basically what eliminating steak regen would cause, as a good thing. I do not agree with that at all.

When you nerf something in a game, when you decide to tone down the power of one class, you are, as you know, forcing the need for more team-work in the game. It is especially the case by eliminating a lot of sustainability from CTF by removing item regen. Making CTF, a team game, more centered around the power of a few people using strong classes is not necessarily a bad thing since it can make CTF less pay to win (with powerful premiums like Mage etc.) and so on, but in this case it certainly is a disaster.

What I see this heavy nerf on sustainability in CTF leading too is two possibilities: many more deaths in CTF, or a collective nerf on the meta.

Possibility no.1: If your change was implemented into CTF, as it currently stands, with few changes to compensate for it (maybe Medic could give allies temporary resistance etc.) what that would lead to is a lot more deaths in CTF. It's not much of a logical leap to imagine that if everyone saw a large dent in their potentially infinite health pool for each life, most of the time, that they would die a lot more often. In many scenarios instead of having say an additional 12 or 24 hearts of health many players, being unable to regenerate their steaks in a single life, would have 4 to 8 or none additional health at all.

As someone who dies a lot, and racks up a ton of very bad KDR's (I'm not very good), in CTF I can tell you this would not help anyone's CTF experience although it would piss off a lot more people. That is what a ultra fast paced CTF game is like, where everyone is dying all the time.

Possibility no.2: If your change was implemented into CTF there would have to be a collective nerf on the meta to keep the previous possibility from becoming a game breaking reality. You hinted at this already although you vastly underestimate the scope,

It is not just Assassin and Archer. When you nerf everyone's sustain you have to nerf the damage output of almost everything else to avoid creating an ultra hardcore version of CTF. For example, Mage, Heavy (buffed Heavies would be a terror), Soldier, Chemist, Engineer, Dwarf, and Pyro, classes like these would need nerfs or reworks so they would not become too dominant in CTF (especially big damage dealers like Pyro, Dwarf, and Mage). To keep from overreaching here, the nature of these changes would greatly depend on what changes Medic would receive to compensate for losing its ability to regenerate items in most scenarios like this:

The problem is, this idea would create unnecessary chaos in the flagroom, making Ninjas and Chemists (both highly mobile classes) very, very powerful in capturing or would make Medic extremely strong in flag-rooms. I know what you posted is a rough idea that has not been fleshed out but what I am getting at here is that the alternatives to just keeping steak would start a ridiculous chain reaction of nerfs and tweaks which does nothing but harm the meta and brings gameplay closer to 'A Nerfed CTF'.

But the trouble is, that is far less useful in keeping allies alive than actually being able to regenerate their items in team-fights. Nevertheless, this needs clarification. For instance, how long would someone have to be out of combat to get healed? How would this work with the current cool-down on Medic heals?

What the real problems are, which this thread largely or completely ignores, are things like this:

Medic's ridiculously fast rapid heals which has already been touched on by a lot of other people on this thread (@obikenobi21). How is anyone supposed to kill someone in combat when they are receiving Regeneration V (or something like that) heals without instant kills?

Dwarf's ability as a flag-room powerhouse. If you have got a Dwarf or multiple Dwarves in the flag-room guarding the flag carrier that makes recovery a lot more difficult.

Chemist buffs. Good luck getting the flag back from a super buffed Medic, Chemist, Soor Heavy.

Anyway the way I see it, this thread aims to solve problems with recovery in CTF in the same manner that medieval doctors tried to treat everything by bleeding terrified patients with leeches. It makes a gamely attempt to solve the issue by eliminating item regen from Medic heals in most scenarios, but instead of actually fixing anything that solution will nerf the meta far more than necessary and in the end makes things worse.

In short, the problem(s) being discussed here are real but they need well thought out solutions, not damaging and misguided half measures such as massively nerfing Medic heals and the sustainability of every class.

Eliminating or tweaking Medic rapid heals is one solution a lot of people have already suggested, I have one that's a little bit different, which is incremental heals. It would work something like this:

If a Medic heals an ally at,

0.5-3.5 hearts they receive Regeneration IV and Resistance II.
Upon reaching 4 hearts (or if healed at 4 - 7.5 hearts) they receive Regeneration III and Resistance I.
Upon reaching 8 hearts (or if healed at 8 - 9.5 hearts) they recieve Regeneration II and do not receive (or lose) Resistance.

Also,

True, to a point. Instant kills are valuable for countering Medic's rapid heals but they also exist for countering high damage classes such as Pyro, Dwarf, and mid-fielding monsters like Mage, and other instant kill classes (Archer) which would otherwise be far more dominant.

 

I would LOVE this. I was thinking of medic reworks to fix this problem, but this would fix it perfectly. Passing off the flag would be a big part of capping, which would be awesome to incorporate more teamwork in the process of a cap. (though ninjas should not be able to recov the flag when invis, if this were to change, to have a little less risk with flag passing)

 

I know that the time between attempts is what you were referring too but I was pointing out that the 15 second delay is not as irrelevant as you make it out to be. This is because you are assuming quite a few factors, such as that the medic does not die before being able to heal the flag carrier or that they do not get trapped (webbed by an enemy medic or 'iced' by a mage) and that they would constantly be able to be in range to heal their ally. In short, you are trying to draw a conclusion that steak regeneration (or item regeneration, which is really what we are talking about here) by making a lot of assumptions about recovery scenarios, when that is not solid grounds to be making that judgement on since as you know very well, the situation often significantly varies. As someone who has played a lot of defensive Medic lately I know this as well.

So who gets more kills? More skilled PvP'ers? Do people like CERBIZ or Byzantine get to dominate everyone to an even greater extent than they already do because sustainability in the meta got a massive cut?

What we talk about with a fast paced CTF, as I am sure you are aware of, is often much shorter fights, both individual and team-fights. That is not necessarily a good thing as I have written about in my previous post, as it serves to make CTF more like a hardcore survival server and for a game where people with massive skill disparities are thrown together (largely unlike League of Legends) I fail to see how that can end well.

As with item regen, I know you support it but you are basically advocating for removing it in circumstances where players most often do get healed, which is when they are in combat or holding the flag. That is why what you are proposing heavily undercuts everyone's sustain.

What is the point of attempting to fix a problem by addressing something that is not even a primary cause of it?

Are you kidding me? Your connection between Archer's and Assassin's instant kills and Medic's ability to restore items for flag carriers and people in combat is extraordinarily shaky. As someone who plays a lot of defensive medic, as I have already said, the main thing that makes it harder, much harder, to kill a flag carrier without instant kills is the rapid regeneration, not item restoration.

It's like a Mage heal, trying to kill someone, without an instant kill, when they have Regeneration V or something crazy like that is not practical. Trying to kill someone, without an instant kill, when they have say 3 or 4 steaks is typically not nearly as tricky to do. I do not think it is a stretch of logic to any degree to arrive at these conclusions. With your changes in mind, they might not actually do much good because they do not address the issue of rapid heals, which means that it would still be difficult to kill a flag carrier (or someone in combat) upon their being healed by a medic without instant kills. Furthermore, flag carriers could still get their items restored simply by dropping the flag (maybe giving it to someone else), having the medic hit them twice to restore their items, and then picking the flag back up again. While this sort of 'flag juggling' could potentially make recovery a bit easier, it would still allow long term camping to be perfectly possible to do.

Secondly, Archer and Assassin's instant kills, their whole reason for being in the game, is not simply for countering Medic's rapid heals it is also to counter the other ridiculously powerful things in the game such as flag-room Dwarves, mid-fielding Mages, Pyro's frenzy mode, other instant kill classes and so on. There are many reasons why instant kills are in the game, they do not simply revolve around rapid heals or item regeneration (which has absolutely nothing to do with instant kills).

Not my point. My point is that it will make more players die more often during combat, especially in the flag room where there tends to be Medics around a lot more than almost anywhere else in a game.

That's fine. I got the general idea and I am not a fan of it

More often than not I tend to get healed when I am in combat. This is often the case in flag-room combat.

If you are really going to give a response like that to my point, which is that rapid heals, not item regeneration, is the issue here then here is what I have got to say about it:

Why are instant kills mysteriously 'required' to kill someone because their items get regenerated every now and then but it only takes 'teamwork' to kill someone who is getting Regeneration V or something every 15 seconds?

Yes it is possible to kill someone with Regeneration V in a 5v1! That's some great teamwork for you right there!

Dwarves are entirely relevant to this discussion because you are pushing this fantastically bogus talking point that instant kills cannot be removed until item regeneration is done away with when it is a combination of problems such as Dwarf's current design and rapid (instant) heals that makes instant kills called for in the first place.

Let me guess, instant kills are not 'required' to counter buffed heavies, medics, chemists, or soldiers either right? Even if they have Strength, Speed, Regeneration, or lord knows what else?

Buffed Heavies and Medics are far, far more powerful than someone who gets their items restored every few seconds.

But that's the thing, your idea does not even make the flag holder 'beaten' or 'worn down', although I see where you are coming from there. They can still get their items regenerated. They can still get rapid healed back up to 10 hearts. And they can still get super buffed so their health bar is hardly ever under 10 hearts. Your idea simply does not solve the current issue with recovery, but instead needlessly messes with the meta.

The thing is, item regeneration is only a major problem with recovery in certain scenarios, such as when the flag carrier is very skilled at PvP and can steak quickly enough to divert any non instant kill attack. But what is the issue, and what makes recovery a bit of an 'all or nothing' situation, is the rapid heals because as you have said yourself, it is very hard to kill someone with Regeneration V without an instant kill.

 

I tried reading the walls of text... didn't get close to succeeding, but I got some things, and thsee are the opinions of a medic main:

Item regeneration is crucial in ctf. As memeson here said, it greatly would affect the meta game too much. As stated, and what I would personally love to see, is to nerf the regeneration. This can help many situations, not only for flag carriers. If a soldier with a flag got a medic midmap when being chased by 2 ninjas, and had 2 steaks left, with the current situation, the regeneration from the medic would far outdo the damage coming from the ninjas. However, with this idea of a slower regen, the ninjas would do more damage, and so the flag carrier and medic would have to kill the ninjas quicker in order to stay alive.

Another situation where this would help is when you are the flag carrier. There is a ninja trying to recover off of you, and that ninja gets a medic. You're dead, or at least very close to being dead. The slower regen would prevent such scenarios from happening, and give flag carriers an advantage to counter a disadvantage. This balances nice and neatly recovery and offense.

I once again state that this nerf instead of the removal of item regen would be fantastic.

@NomNuggetNom
@Admiral_Memeson

 

Its called quickdropping tbh

 

Buffed classes can do some major damage, along with assassin and archer's insta-kill. So as long as theres a long enough cool down or time in between heals, (which is definitely not long enough atm) then it'll give the recov team enough time and man-power to pull off a recov in one go, while the medic should be able to only heal the flag carrier just once during that recov wave.

Or am I looking at it true traditionally/idealistically? xP
I'm still all for not regening items or maybe better yet– some SUP3r big nerf on item regen regarding the time required to do so. Furthermore, the flag carrier should not be able to be healed if s/he was engaged in combat (aka hit by anything by the opposing team) in the last 10 seconds.

 

Medic is broken lmfao

If you get healed by one medic you can be healed by a different one without cool down lmfao no 15 second cool down m80's