loyalguard

The changelog (still a work in progress) for v.06 is now available in the PR Guide wiki: Project Reality 0.6

Here are some of the biggies IMO:

-CO Assets - Bunkers: Commanders now have the ability to place 'bunkers' which will act as a spawn point / kit request for the entire team. These bunkers must be constructed with the help of a Rifleman/Engineer's entrenching tool. These bunkers are fully destroyable and have certain limitations on where the commander can place them.

-Medics: New for v0.6, medics now cannot heal themselves with their medic bag. To heal themselves temporarily they may use field dressings

-Insurgency Game Mode: Al Basrah will be a testbed for a new game mode involving insurgents.

-Militia: Militia are Chechen based faction, who are more advanced than insurgents but are not like the conventional armies.

-Looks like there are lots of map changes and more...check it out!

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|TG| LoyalGuard

7ShadesOSin

Yuck. I thought I'd heard someone say that this change wasn't going ahead?

Hopefully it doesn't mean people will stop playing medic class.

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7Shades

How sweet, thought lifeless, yet with life to lie,
And, without dying, O how sweet to die!
- from Thomas Warton's "Ode to Sleep"

loyalguard

I don't think people will stop playing medic, I think they will just have to play it better/more realistically by focusing more on giving medical attention and not combat.

If anything, you may see more medics per squad so that if one is wounded, the other can heal him.

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|TG| LoyalGuard

Switch

oh no... they're putting proximity mines in.... thats just gonna suck for whoevers on point. Hope its limited!

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|TG|Switch

Better known as:
That noob who crashed the chopper.
That noob who ran over the mine.
That noob who TK'd me with a sniper rifle.
That noob who hit that APC at 300m with light AT! Our APC...

Bc2ID

I for one will continue to play medic and continue to fight. "Combat Medic"

I agree with the change, how would a medic dress his own sucking chest wound anyhow????

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Ferris Bueller

This is a joke right? This change is a CRIPPLING blow to medics who play the game right. In addition, we were pretty much assured that this kind of drastic change WASNT going to happen. Maybe a decrease in healing ability, but not a revocation. Let me break it down as I have done before:

I ONLY play medic unless i'm absolutely requred to take up another kit. I have my bag out 99.9% of the time. I usually wind up with the lowest number of kills and close to the highest score on the team. Why? Because I spend ALL of my time reviving and healing. I have my bag out so much that 75% of the time, when I round a corner into an enemy's gun, I get waxed because I dont have mine out and I certainly cant kill him with the medic bag. The ONLY asset I have is the fact that my bage keeps ME alive for longer periods of time so that I can heal myself as well. The medic bag isnt deployable, so if I'm in a firefight and healing my squad and I go down, they're up the creek unless someone else swaps kits for mine, which isnt very likely. In this kind of a situation in 0.5, i'd be ok because I could take a few extra bullets and keep doing my job. With this change, I'm nothing more than a meat shield for a couple bullets. Not being able to heal myself means that I may as well not even play medic as I'm likely to last 1/10th as long as I can now.

Furthermore, you have the wrong idea if you think that this will encourage people to have the bag out more instead of their gun. If anything, it will be the exact opposite. As a medic, if you take a bullet or two while you have your bag out healing, you can duck around a corner or take cover somewhere, heal a bit and prepare to fight. Since we can no longer do that, you're going to see medics that refuse to get the bag out just because doing so means they have absolutely no offensive capability, and they certainly dont want to die.

In addition, throwing out your emergency dressing to get healed is a HORRIBLE substitute. If I have the bag out under fire and I'm healing teammates and I get shot, I cant afford to waste time switching to a dressing and tossing it in the HOPE that i'll be the one to get healed by it and not one of my nearby teammates. Theres no way to ensure that you're the one that gets healed when you toss a field dressing, I've had mine snagged many many times by a passing soldier when I was bleeding out and needed the quick fix before I could pull bag and heal.

This may not mean much to you all, but one of the main reasons I play medic is because a.)I'm a horrible shot and b.)because it's the best way I can help my squad and my team. If my active playtime is sufficiently reduced due to the fact that I'm dead 90% of the time because I cant heal myself and have to depend on unsure teammates to do the job for me, I'm afraid that I'll have to look for something else to play. The fun just got sacked from the medic class.

This change may be positively viewed from an optimal-game standpoint, but NO game is EVER going to be an optimal game. The people playing medics just got our wings clipped. There were several other MUCH better ways to make a change of this nature that would have been fine: forcing medics to actively use (read: clicking the fire key) the bag to heal people/themselves or giving the bag a limited supply, so that you can only heal for a certain length of time before resupplying the bag (just like the defib). But it seems people in charge had to take the easy road and just code out the ability to heal yourself.

In my final push, this actually goes AGAINST the grain of creating a "realism" mod for bf2, as PR denotes. Any competent field medic would be able to use their own supplies to tend their wounds as well as those of their fighting unit. Taking that away is basically saying "medics are idiots who can heal everyone else but are too stupid to heal themselves." It's not like medics whip out the bag when theyre bleeding out and *POW* are instahealed to full health like vanilla BF2. It takes time, at least 20 seconds to get fully healed, and the chances of not getting waxed in that 20 second period, especially if you're either alone or pinned down, is between slim and none.

This is by far the worst possible change that could have been made and I do believe that it's going to negatively effect both my view of the mod and overall gameplay. If it sticks, I think i'm going to give up PR. Sorry guys, but I cant condone cutting the legs off of a class because they do a good job.

EDIT: to address the issue of people not playing medic anymore, I can give you a solid guarantee that you're going to see it happen. why play a class that, in order to do your job, you have no offensive and now no defensive capabilities save a field dressing, when you could just play any other class and have the field dressing and actually get to stay alive because you can kill people as your primary role? theres logic in it and thats the logic that people will see. nobody wants to be the lamb to the slaughter by intent, so nobody is going to play a class that is just that.

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|TG-6th|Ferris Bueller

loyalguard

Ferris-

It is clear we have distinctly different philosophies here and most likely will never agree, but I would like to address a couple points in your post:

I personally do NOT think a medic should have his bag out most of the time. As Bc2ID said, this is a combat medic position. You may find this as harsh, but the only thing I can say to in response to the scenario you describe running around the corner and getting waxed because you don't have your weapon out is: "Keep your weapon out!". You don't have to have your bag out 99% of the time to be a good medic. Have it out when you need to heal and then bring that weapon back up to your shoulder.


When playing medic, If a player cannot get back to me (where assumingly I am in a position of cover and not in the thick of the fight) and I cannot get safely to him under cover of smoke or otherwise...I am not going out to heal or revive. Even if all is quiet and then all of a sudden hell breaks loose, I will immediately defend myself but then find cover an re-evaluate. Clear out resistance and secure the area before trying to heal/revive. On the opposite of the fence as a rifleman if I have been critically wounded and it is too hot around me I will tell the medic not to come and revive me. Yes, I want to be healed and get back in the game, but I don't want the medic to risk his life to do so.


No one is saying they are too stupid to do this. Again, as Bc2ID said. It is conceivable that a medic could apply a dressing to himself, but not clamp an artery or give an IV or suture a wound under the stress of an injury. If they need that kind of attention, another medic has to provide it.

EDIT: It also now appears that medics will have body armor, so this should assuage some concerns over defensive capabilities.

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|TG| LoyalGuard

Ferris Bueller

See, this thing has got me riled up enough that I may come off as mean, but you already contradicted yourself. You're telling me that, in this latest post, you want medics to focus MORE on combat and less on being a medic in order to stay alive, which is the exact opposite of your post in which you said:
This isnt a difference of opinion here, but a difference of playstyle. I play the role of combat medic, providing CLOSE medic support to my squad, meaning that it's a very rare occasion where someone gets far enough away from me that I cant heal or revive because usually i'm right next to them. I tend to stick to tightly organized squads who dont get spread out all over the place, and as such, i'm not the guy hiding in safety while my squad does the fighting. I'm out there in the suck keeping them alive at all times.
Plus, if you're not willing to risk your neck to save your squad, IMO you shouldnt be playing medic. It's your job. The guys with the big guns take risks by fighting and killing people. We take our risk by keeping them alive in combat situations. Again, not referring specifically to you loyal, but the general "you".

Ah, last but not least. I'm a nurse in real life and I've seen bullet wounds many many times and provided the same kind of care that a medic in the field would, except in a hospital. If a soldier requires an arterrial clamp or an IV, he isnt going to get it in the field, he's probably going to die there or he's going to have to get some form of combat triage care that will completely remove him from battle. So in order to make it realistic along these lines, anyone who bleeds out should have to spend a period of time at the UCB getting "patched up" before they can rejoin combat, because no medic in the world is going to be able to stop arterial bleeding enough to allow a soldier to keep fighting.

As for suturing a wound, I suture my own wounds all the time! Hell, i've got a 2" gash on my left leg right now that I sutured myself when I got ran off the road on my motorcycle last week. It's not realisitic as it is, but thinking that a medic in the field is too incompetent to perform the same basic tasks on themselves that they could on other people with the same injuries is insulting. Dont get me wrong, i'm not saying you're insulting me, the change is.

The only way I could see to rectify this to completely remove the ability for other classes to heal themselves. No more field dressings for anyone but medics. After all, if a trained anti-tank soldier gets shot, you really think he's going to be able to provide his own medical care? Nope. That's the medic's job. Certainly, I wouldnt be able to treat my own "sucking chest wound" as BC put it, but neither would anyone else. Especially someone with little or no medical training. If you want medics to focus on being medics, you cant give everyone else the ability to be a medic as well as play their own class.

Also, unless this is nuclear body armor, it really doesnt mean anything except the ability to take one more bullet. I go down fast enough as it is, I dont think one extra bullet is going to make much difference to the guy shooting me timewise. I'll still die just as fast. It's like the difference between insurgents and USMC/UK forces: the insurgents have no armor and go down quick, but the marines and UK forces go down just as fast. A gun in capable hands is going to kill you no matter how much armor you have and it doesnt make me feel any better that i'm not 1/10th more passively protected than I was before.

Expanding on another point, in which squads will have multiple medics, here I go: If you have a full squad and one medic, you have a decent chance of staying alive. I have full confidence in my abilities to keep a full squad running alone on my medic skill. That still leaves 5 players with offensive capabilities when I have my bag out. With this change, adding another medic to the squad now means that when healing, the squad now only has 4 offensively operational members. Anyone can tell you that an extra man shooting downrange is often a make or break deal, which is why medics are so important for reviving people alone. You want full force readiness, not being crippled because your medic cant provide support to you because he's dead or requires another medic to sustain him. As it stands now, if the medic dies and someone picks up his kit, you're still down to 4, but quickly back up to full speed when the former medic-now something else gets revived. Multiple medics means that your forces are now further depleted if one dies, and very very much in jeopardy if both die.

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|TG-6th|Ferris Bueller

IOOB_583

<<< Worst medic ever.

Having run quite a few squads with few standing requests of kit selection I, and I am sure this is just me, see it as more of a wasted kit anyway. Such as my feelings for the sniper/marksman kits. I plan to go in harms way and, if I die, I will be back in "x" # of seconds. Is it occassionaly nice to be revived because the one guy that stood between us and our objective has also died in the firefight but more often than not I will get revived and die shortly thereafter (if not immediately because that "dink dink" you just heard is a nade landing next to my recently dead body). Increasing "x" and the wait to do something different when I come back.

I never was good at sitting back and waiting for all heck to break loose. If I have a coordinated sq under me they run just fine without me. Continuing on the assigned mission (most of the time better off without me as I go on rp hunts and reconoiter the surroundings for bad guys). It's about a 50/50 split between good manuever and bad. On a constant assault or defend mode CAN leave you with a dead squad when stronger forces are encountered but, in that case, the medic would be among the dead anyway.

When you come up against a force of equal or lesser size, or a force which has not acclamated themselves to their current surroundings (IE just jumped out of the chopper and is bumbling around lookin for you), you can mop them up in short order by being the aggressor.

Sniper/medics both equal a minor amount to the overall success in my thinking (snipers being the lesser on the Sq assistance scale) though it is nice in those rare occassions to get revived when "All's quiet on the Western Front."

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Don't let the bastards grind you down!

loyalguard

Sorry to get you riled up...not my intention at all!

Regarding my apparent contradiction, which I admit, I would like to clarify. I do think that medics should focus on proving medical attention first and foremost. But, as I also said, this doesn't mean keeping the bag out all the time is the best way to do this. Gun up when fighting/moving/defending, bag out when healing.

The only real reason to keep your bag out all the time is if you can heal yourself which I do think is unrealistic (at least the way med bags and field dressings are handled in PR). I don't think using a med bag just to keep you alive long enough to get properly healed is good gameplay. To me, a medkit seems to be someting that you could only use while stationary, not walking or running.

You obviously know a lot more than me about medical care so I respect your knowledge. Personally, I do think that a medic should be able to get some healing out of a med kit. But, you would have to be completely staionary and I also think that he wouldn't be able to provide the same level of care to himself than he could to someone else (back wounds, some arm wounds, etc would be hard to treat on yourself under most circumstances). What is supposed to be in a BF2 medkit anyway?


I actualy support this idea, but I know that is beginning to delve into even greater gameplay/realism balance issues that the developers are hesitant to tackle.

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|TG| LoyalGuard

Bc2ID

Medics can drastically save vital tickets from being lost. Those that play medics realize the importance of the role. I do not soley play medic, however it is the kit of my choosing when given the option. A medic can turn the tide of a firefight, by keeping the two to three downed members alive. This will instantly change the squad's ability to survive the firefight and press on with its mission. I realize that some people do not like medics or the medic kit in general, however it does add to the squad. Compare the 1 to 2 ticket loss as opposed to six (the entire squad), and you will see my point. Just magnify this throughout the enite round and you will see how many tickets a medic can save. Not all medics are created equal and in fact sometimes folks have to be forced into going medic due to lack of desire. I am not saying that people are not versitile, just that an above average medic can turn the tide of many firefights.
As to the sniper comment, well I am sure the BLKOPS guys, Floody, Belhade and others will explain their roles in battle. All kits have importance and variety is the spice of life. It would be very boring to have a side full of riflemen, although it may be an interesting concept.
That's it for now... (seeking cover)

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gerardnm

.....don't change what's not broken, the medic class was grand as it was

Grunt 70

I prefer medic and will continue to play it quite a bit, despite the changes. Remember when tac mod introduced no medic bag distribution. It was all gloom and doom then as well...Adapt and overcome my man, adapt and overcome. Two medics per squad will be common.

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|TG-X| Grunt


"When force is necessary, it must be applied boldly, decisively, and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with maneuver" - Leon Trotsky

TheSaboteur

I think we will now see a lot of former medics going rifleman so they can have unlimited field dressings for themselves (and teammates).

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|TG| TheSaboteur

Red

I have played medic in all diffrent versions and mods and its till one of the most important kits due to the revive possibility of the SL and other squad members. It will still be very important after the change you just have to be more careful to not get hurt.

My best and preferred kit is medic and I got used to using the bag to heal myself so this will most likely change my play style.

But I will first test the change before I get mad about the change.

I personally think it could be a good change. Just give us body armor...!!!!