Gadget ideas

[Gawain]

there's nothing wrong with a more deadly merc in trade off for one free gadget slot less. considering he has to use up another one for gasmask, he pretty much wasted 2 slots if the spies don't choose to attack him directly. don't get me wrong, i see the problem with the godlike pt merc, but then again he got an insanely long tazer range and the spies had no proper flashbangs, heartbeatsensor etc.

1) read above about making the gasmask innate 2) oh noes, the tazer uses a gadget slot. That downside alone is not enough to justify allowing it to negate the merc's main weakness with the rifle.

1)if you make the mask an innate gadget without reducing the free slot number to 3 you got yourself quite an overpowered merc.
2)you focus too much on the merc's close up combat weaknesses. in almost any situation in which you can taze the spy you could also charge him or simply shoot him (which is only fucked up in ct because of bad netcode) anyways, a tazer just allows the same in a safer and quicker way. im pretty sure the tazer could be a well balanced gadget again if you take out autoaim charge and play with the range and cooldown.

There's never been a problem with how healing worked before, there's no point in changing it.

shooting a spy to 5hp, seeing him disappear in some stupid vent and popping out 10s later with 80hp is not only frustrating, but also bad for gameplay.
however, i don't think mutual healing is that much of a problem as it takes teamplay skill and once the mercs know there are 2 spies in one area the spies are pretty much fucked unless they are some uba-aggro players.

[Westfall]

shooting a spy to 5hp, seeing him disappear in some stupid vent and popping out 10s later with 80hp is not only frustrating, but also bad for gameplay.
however, i don't think mutual healing is that much of a problem as it takes teamplay skill and once the mercs know there are 2 spies in one area the spies are pretty much fucked unless they are some uba-aggro players.

I agree with the first point. However, if a player gets away from you and the spies collectively get together, without you knowing, because that's not all that difficult, an instant heal is pure shit. A spy can get away from you no problem and hide themselves off the merc's patience grid. There buddy can reunite and heal to 100%. The only reason for healing to maintain instant is if the spy hits a poison mine. Otherwise, it should be a timed heal. It could even continue to be a timed heal with the poison mine. The life can drain, but when the connection to heal is happening it can stall until they are healed or they are broken up, in which it would resume.

[VaNilla]

If you can't separate spies effectively enough to stop them from getting away, then the consequence of that is fine by me. Spies aren't exactly hard to kill once your shooting them.

[I <3 U]

wrong, more often than not spies get away once you start shooting. Taze + Flash, then run works most of the time.

[Westfall]

unless they stupidly run into a mine or something, but taz/smoke and dropping a flash along the way will make you disappear.

[Gawain]

the only guys i know that abuse mutual healing are weezer+havoc, and the stuff they pull off shouldn't work in the first place. though i have to admit their vids are fun to watch  ;D

[Westfall]

They played the game in a way would fuck most teams because they weren't prepared for the aggro style. They didn't abuse it, they used it to an advantage. Especially with how committed they were to actually making sure it got done. Then along came the crowd of on-lookers and so began the aggro style.

This would be an instance where the aggro can get nerfed by the timed-heal.

[I <3 U]

i like this idea, about the healing. But would this lead to everyone playing stealthy because of it? If so, id rather stick to how it is atm.

[Gawain]

my guess is that it was only possible because the mercs weren't used to that new aggro playstyle and because of the bad netcode. those guys did the same amazing thing as seefoo on the other side of the spectrum.
but back on topic. what was also very annoying was bad placement of medkits (eg club, polar vanilla).
i suggest something like this:
-remove auto-healing completely
-keep the instant mutual healing animation in the game but make it that the hp rises slowly afterwards up to 50 additional hp max; repeating the mutual healing adds another slow 50 hp rise to the current hp count
-medkits work the same, but with 100hp
-better medkit placement

[Wh1tE_Dw4rF]

Merc1: Hey! There's something funny about this medkit!
Merc2: Huh? What do you mean?
Merc1: Well, it looks a bit out of place for any intruder, perhaps we should move it to a better spot! It's hard for them to easily acces it from here.
Merc2: Screw you hippie.

[Spekkio]

1)if you make the mask an innate gadget without reducing the free slot number to 3 you got yourself quite an overpowered merc.

Firstly, doing so would defeat the purpose of making the gasmask innate. Secondly, the spies also have more room for an extra gadget as well. You can't predict that the mercs will be hugely overpowered, particularly if you fix the finickiness of grabbing and jumping on them.

my guess is that it was only possible because the mercs weren't used to that new aggro playstyle and because of the bad netcode.

I see nothing wrong with the way havoc/weezer played. In fact, few people have been able to pull off the aggro coordination that they could, which goes to show that it's not so skill-less and abusive as you think.

The bad netcode was really the only defense the mercs had...funny punching, lag charging, uzi lagging, berserking and jumping before the spy could punish you for it, etc.

[Gawain]

i never said it was skill-less or abusive. in fact, i admire them just like a handful of other players coming up with a unique play style that everyone before thought was impossible. what those guys did takes immense teamplay coordination skill and that's one of the reasons why i don't think quick mutual healing is a bad thing. and i have to admit, you're probably true about the netcode being rather of advantage to the mercs (thouch it's way easier to play aggro as host) as it's theoretically nearly impossible to stop a perfect aggro approach.

[Westfall]

With your idea about continuing the instant mutual healing, I would just spam it if I knew I could stack in another 50hp to fill the spy's hp. Make the heal take 3 sec if you're worried about it. It should not at all be instant.

[Gawain]

you got me wrong, you can't spam it. probably i should explain it better (my english skills suck, sorry for any confusion), here's an example:

spy has 20 hp left > quick mutual healing like in ct > hp rising to 70 with 5hp/second (minus damage taken in between) > another mutual healing spamming attempt when the spy is on 25hp > hp continues to rise with 5hp/second, but now it will stop at 75 (minus damage taken in between)

with a system like this, spamming is impossible, and it takes two well-timed mutual healings to get out more than 50 additional hp.

regarding poison mines: mutual healing stops the poison and starts the same process.

[VaNilla]

wrong, more often than not spies get away once you start shooting. Taze + Flash, then run works most of the time.

Maybe for you, on the other hand I don't have shit aim :).