One last thing: A headshot is non lethal, but a knife in the left big toe is fatal ?
The knife thing is just a leftover from vbf2 I think. There was no thought around the knifes outright killing someone, we just didnt get around to changing that part of the code yet. Knife kills are rare enough that they dont have a huge impact on gameplay either way, but will look into it for future release.
There are certain assets on the battlefield who rely on their ability to inflict casualties in a way that can't be replaced - most particularly snipers, but also marksmen and Insurgents when they defend fixed points. The problem is not so much that headshots are not revivable alone (althought I think they shouldn't be) it's mostly that medics revive and heal too quickly when compared with other battlefield actions, particularly sniping, but also setting up LMGs, rifle mounted grenades and some other weapons systems. All of these actions happen at a speed which is, to my mind mostly "right" - it's reviving and healing that are off the wall fast. Fast revives give a squad the ability to simply bypass certain battlefield threats that would cripple a squad in real life - like a well sighted sniper - obviously against another squad strength element it's a little different, but the advantage it confers over some support weapons, without real co-ordination (ie supressing fire) is unacceptable.
Take how long it takes to Epipen someone back into a mobile state - normally less time than it takes for a sniper to steady his shot - a sniper can kill an Cfficer and barely be resighted before the medic has revived him and has him moving - this is unacceptable. In my humble opinion, the best yard stick for medic revive animation times (the time taken from either the click to the revive action if at all possible) should be twice what it takes for a sniper to sight in and gain minimum deviation after firing a shot. Good snipers will gain the ability to pin a squad in this way (kill the officer, force the squad to try and locate and pin you before reviving, healing and moving on) and medicspam will be somewhat alleviated, as well as making the whole thing a little bit more realistic.
I agree with you there Truism, the medic as of right now can sometimes be TOO effective at his job and not have to rely on much else. But you got to think of it the other way - if the medic was not that effective, would they even be useful? I strongly believe that if headshot = instakill, and there was a decrease in medpack healing speed, and there was a much longer delay with the epipen, the medics would not even be useful really, as spawning at the rallypoint would simply be faster way to fight.
But spawning at an RP does not require much teamwork and only reinforces a run-shoot-die-repeat mentality, much more so than using a medic system IMO, cause at least with medics you are relying on someone else on your team to help you out.
I think the changes I listed so far will help medics drastically, but a further decrease in medic healing speed as well as delay in epipen revival will only be possible if we make even more drastic changes, which I am all for actually (removing rallypoints, increasing default respawn times to 1 min+, further increasing the mandown time to 5min which means you will most likely not want to give up much less).
You got to remember a big reason medics are so effective right now and can insta-revive and run away with their patient is the fact that the shaders when being revived are not working for a majority of players, this means they got full sprint when being revived, a huge change compared to before when they would be revived and cant see shit and cant run anywhere. Believe me, if there was a way to force newly-revived players to stay prone for 1 minute to re-coup, it would have been implemented already.
Remember the new medic rules:
- Limited Medic, 1 per squad
- Limiting the frequency of revives. If you are shot within 60 seconds of being revived, you will be KILLED.
- Fixing the bleed out screen, so that it once again blocks your vision and limits your sprint (this is a huge factor and was broken due to newer video card drivers).
Maybe the devs could make it so that it takes longer to revive and making the casualty less comabt effective for a longer period of time.
Like I said, good idea but other elements of the game need to be altered in order to not render the medic completely obsolete, but rather having as a critical point of gameplay.
Then at least do so with sniper rifles.
Sorry to say, but PR is not a sniping simulator. It never has and never will be. Snipers will ALWAYS take a backseat to squads and combined arms gameplay. I've said this countless times before but I'll say it again: If it was up to me the Sniper class would only have a spotting scope and ability to call in targets and mark the map, I would not give him a rifle. That being said, the v0.85 snipers are absolutely devastating... dont know why ANYONE is complaining, I rarely snipe, but when I pick up that rifle it seems everything around me dies, medics or no medics. And I'm not even a very good shot. Whether sniper bullets should kill instantly or not is for a different topic, personally I dont care about them and think there is way too much focus on this class when very few players actually use it for its true purpose, but rather use it to pad their KDR.
The frustrating problem atm is, no one seems to die. If we forget about realism here, which I think is a mistake, you can´t have realistic behavior properly without a realistic environment, but it just isn´t right to play either.
It takes so many shots to wound someone anyway (2-4 bodyshots) not including hitbox lag and other things that it just gets incredibly stupid that person gets revived 5 times.
Then no one starts to care because well, get shot doesn´t matter, you just get revived anyway so then we get more rambo people and worse "gameplay".
This is a different topic, you think bullets should be 1 or 2 shot kills everytime, but thats a different topic (which I also disagree with). And I reaaally dont think people who lone wolf rely on medics. Lonewolf players will usually hit the give up button shortly after dying, cause they cant be arsed to wait around for someone that may or may not revive them. This argument doesnt make sense to me and seems to be hyperbole.
What happened to the actually being afraid of getting shot? That using tactics actually worked because you were rewarded with life?
Now all you have to do is get 1 SL, a roflman and 4 medics and just noobcharge the enemy, reviving as you go because its just about as effective.
Like I've already stated, this tactic may be slightly effective on small, CQB orientated maps, but on largescale (REAL) maps, this "tactic" is a joke. Its not a serious argument and is more hyperbole.
If you really want to bring squads together make it 1 shot kill (just about 2 shots for 5.56) and greatly decrease wounding time, then they will HAVE to be near their medic.
So, you think greatly REDUCING the wounded time would actually make medics played in a more realistic manner? hmmm I really dont understand where your coming from, maybe you dont play medic that often but the idea behind increasing the timer is so that medics dont have to be forced to play like that crazy-nutter sprinting across the battlefield dodging bullets to make it to someone before their timer ran out, but rather having their buddies in the squad provide surppresive fire or kill and clear out the enemy, and then have the medic come in afterwards to help the wounded.
See right now, that 3 mins means you can rambo off somewhere no where near your squad and the medic will still reach you, which just defies all logic about keeping squads together...
Now this is pure BS and you know it..... if you have played a signifigant amount of time in PR as a squad leader or medic you will know this to be BS. A lonewolf player will almost immediately press the giveup button, he will not wait for a medic because that means hes relying on someone else. Lone wolf players are usually after that thing called instant gratification, and waiting on someone else who may or may not save you just does not fill that need or "cool" factor. On top of that, alot of times a medic simply cant revive someone because they are stuck or their body is glitched, even though the times not run out yet, so the 3 minute timer hardly means your definitely coming back FOR SURE. And what happens when you wait 2 minutes, but then your squad ended up getting wiped out and the medic never could get to you. Sorry but this argument is just not sitting well what I have seen on countless servers.
However I do agree, that PR needs to head towards a slower paced gameplay where players value their lives more. How we get there I think we have a bit different ideas on it, but I know that PR is heading in that direction with each new release, and heading away from arcade-land gameplay (which alot of players get pissed off about with each new release as well).