Medic needs an overhaul

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Hello!

It is extremely clear that the medic role/squad needs a dramatic overhaul. There are quite a few reasons why players prefer to not use this role, and I think a huge reason is due to how healing/reviving currently works and TTK. Because how a health system affects medic gameplay, I will also have overhaul ideas for them as well.

Current downed system

The current downed/incapacitated system functions similar to a game like Call of Duty. After you knock down an enemy, you want to go in for the finisher to prevent them from becoming a problem again. Because you’re extremely weak and slow in this downed state, you are usually killed a second or two after being killed, and rarely will you be allowed to self revive, let alone be saved by a medic. Not to mention, the only way you can be downed is if you have a medical kit. I think this wounded state needs a bit more fleshed out!

Starting off, let’s change how exactly the game knows if you should be downed or not.

As of now, you can only be downed if you have a medkit on you. If you don’t spawn with one, or have already used yours, you don’t get downed. In my opinion, this is probably the number 1 thing that holds medics back. Saving a wounded ally is nice, but even if you weren’t there they would’ve been able to self revive because that’s how they entered the wounded state in the first place!

In my opinion, if a soldier takes enough damage while in range of a medic, even if they lack a medkit they should enter the downed state. This way, even if a teammate didn’t bring a medkit in they still can be saved by their teams medic if one is already nearby.

Secondly, the downed system as is really encourages you to “thirst”. I covered this already above but “thirsting” can be described as immediately finishing off an enemy after you’ve incapacitated them, securing that kill. Games like battlefield avoid this issue entirely by making it where you don’t even know that an enemy is downed - I think Enlisted should take a similar approach, or do a combination of these two.

Just as an idea: getting downed makes you ragdoll and appear as if you are dead to enemies, but while downed you can decide if you want to enter the crawling state, or you can stay downed state. While in the initial downed state, you can see how far you are from bleedout and you can look around, but can’t do much else. The only thing that can finish you off in this state would be grenades/explosions. Direct gunfire wouldn’t do anything (since to them you’d just look dead). While in this state maybe you bleed out slower. From this state you can enter “crawl” mode, which allows you to move around and/or self revive, but makes you vulnerable to direct gunfire again.

I believe a downed system that adapts this sort of battlefield-like downed system while keeping aspects of self reviving at a risk will make the downed experience a lot better and improve how long your standard soldier lives.

Icons

While playing medic, it can be difficult to see who needs health restored. I think this is due to the icons being hard to see, even though healing and keeping an eye out for players who need healed, is a medics priority. I would suggest changing the color/size of these icons so that way they stand out more, and medics know who needs healing.

I would also go as far as to suggest to outline allies who need healing with maybe a green outline. Similar to how a player who kills you is outlined in red when you die, maybe allies nearby who need healing can be outlined in green.

Healing

Healing others as a medic can get boring very quickly, and almost feel like a chore. It seems like right now, healing is fast but restores a small portion of health. I would really like healing more if it took a bit longer, but always restored max HP. Maybe depending on how wounded a player is, it would take longer/be quicker to heal a player. So if a player is close to death, it takes longer to heal them, but if they only have a few missing health points they get healed really quick.

Medical box

A few small tweaks to this thing would do real good. First of all, making it easier for players to identify where these are would be really nice. If there already isn’t outlining for these to wounded players/players who don’t have a medkit, there should be for sure. But I also think these medical boxes could serve another purpose, which could be being able to use the medical kit to revive yourself. If you lack a medkit, if you are nearby a medkit at time of being downed you could enter the downed state and crawl your way over to the medkit. I think being incapacitated near a medkit should slow your bleed out, and interacting with a medkit to revive yourself should be 2x faster than a normal self revive.

Carrying downed teammates

Another thing that could be cool is if you were able to carry wounded teammates to cover. Would really make medic more immersive and make you feel like you’re really risking it all to save members of your team. With my previous suggestion of changing how healing works, carrying a downed teammate would have use as since healing wouldn’t be instant, getting a teammate into cover before healing would be useful. I mean, look at your other game, War Thunder. Is a friendly tank currently broken? Tow cable him to cover to allow him to repair. Very simple, but a very cool addition that can help with teamwork/getting wounded teammates to cover.

While carrying, you sprint at half your normal sprint speed and use more stamina. However, while carrying a wounded teammate they won’t bleed out. They can give up if it has been more than 10 seconds while carrying though, to prevent any “abuse”.

Weaponry

Most people would describe the medic role as just an “assault squad with heals”. I do believe that this statement is generally true. But also, a good WW2 game is generally going to restrict the amount of automatic weapons can be on the field at once. Medics being issued sub machine guns doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense - they encourage you to get up close and personal with your enemy, or take risky flanks - neither of which are what a proper medic should be doing. Because medics are issued sub machine guns, medic players are less likely to stick towards the back of their team and provide healing, and more encouraged to run to the front to get some kills. I know you’ve already put a lot of work into what medic squads carry weapon wise but I seriously think the weapon choice for these guys needs to be evaluated and swapped.

I do think they should carry bolt action rifles instead. I know this sounds horrific, I know. But lowering the offensive capability while increasing their supportive capability (as I’ve detailed above) can really make medics stand out and actually be fun to play, even if you’re not in it for the kills. A fun and supportive medic class doesn’t need to get kills to be viable to their team - just look at Team Fortress 2! I do think medics should, at default, start maybe with only a pistol, with their squad leader being given a bolt action, and bolt actions can then be assigned to medic squad subordinates. This would encourage medics to stick behind their team, and only be at the front when absolutely necessary, such as to move in to save a wounded teammate.

Critically wounded

While medics currently only serve the purpose to heal and revive allies who can still fight, I think being able to save allies who have already been taken out of action would be neat, because that was their entire purpose in real life. This would also give medics more to do that doesn’t revolve around combat - which is something a good medic class will have. What do I mean by this? Let me go in depth:

When a soldier dies completely. as long as they were not killed via explosive or headshot, they should be “critically wounded”. In this state they are effectively dead and can not be revived. However, if a medic heals a “critically wounded” soldier within 30 seconds, the amount of time it takes for the player who was in charge of that unit’s squad to recharge is reduced. So, hypothetically, if your squad gets wiped but a medic comes by and saves members of that unit who are critically wounded, you’ll be able to use that squad sooner.

This would give medics more to do in battle, and also let them serve a purpose that really helps strengthen their backline/logistics.

AI

I don’t think that the Ai does enough medic wise. A medics main priority, as an Ai, should be healing and recovering downed teammates. However it seems that they only do these things in specific circumstances, while it should be the norm. They also don’t seem to drop their medkit boxes from what I’ve seen. So I think Ai should automatically drop their medical box in areas where the most amount of teammates are dying, and their top 1 priority should be restoring/reviving downed teammates.

TL;DR

WOW I did not expect to take so much time writing this. But I do believe that Enlisted can really do well with a medic role, but the current function of them just isn’t doing it. Let me simplify what all I’ve listed incase “I ain’t reading allat”:

-Downed system changes - two different states. Start with “unconscious”, where you can look around and bleed out slower, and can’t be finished off by direct gunfire, and “crawl” state, where you can crawl around and self revive, but can be finished off.

-Icon adjustments to make it easier to identify who needs the heals.

-Healing changes. How long it takes to heal someone scales with how injured they were.

-Medical boxes slow bleed of nearby downed allies, as well as give them the ability to revive using the box itself (and they can be downed while in range of a medical box, even if they don’t have a medkit on them)

-Carry downed teammates, to give you more cinematic “hero” moments.

-Weapon changes. Swap from sub machine gun to bolt action to encourage players to play a more backline support role, rather than just be a assault class with heals.

-Critically wounded state, which allows medics to reduce the amount of time it takes for a squad to charge by recovering soldiers who are out of action (aka ‘dead’).

-Ai changes to make them more useful on the field.

So, if you like these changes I’ve suggested, or have problems with some of the ideas here, feel free to leave feedback. I will be responding to clear any confusion that this concept may have made, as I am aware that some people may get confused / not read completely and miss something important :wink:

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I like the ideas. Yes Medics should be built upon and improved to get more tools for better healing.
But SMGs and Carbines is the weapon of the Medics, The Weapons meant for support classes.
Say MP40 and Kar98 for German Medic, M3 SMG and M1 Carbine for US as example.
Having the Medics use the more short range shitty weapons makes more sense, since they usually only carried Pistols and occasionally used weapons, if they wanted to use weapons at all. Making sure they use shit SMGs and Close Range Carbines etc is the way to go, since they should be taking care to team healing and supporting rather than actually go aggressively fighting, if they are limited to SMGs and Carbines the can’t effectively engage enemy long range which they shouldn’t and only have weapons as last resort when enemy manage to get though own frontline and get a jump on them. And I mean it’s kkinda were it’s at now so I wouldn’t really change it at all.
Your ideas of different stages of downed is good idea, a more severe state that only medics can revive would instanly make them more viable, also ability to drag wounded friendlies out of harms way is good.

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Whats up y’all, Greetings from Texas!
First and formost These are some great ideas with some really in depth thought and insight into it. I really like what you have here. One of my buddies and I spent the entire afternoon running medic and brainstorming thoughts on how to improve the class and make it a more viable class to play. While the vast majority of your thoughts revolve around the core game mechanics which drive medic most of ours revolved around their kit and how to make the medic kit more useful and viable. There is a little bit of overlap that might be able to be folded together with your ideas but as far as your ideas go I do not have much to add or change. Seems like you thought this through rather well.

If there is one thing that I would say about your ideas that I disagree with and would like to see you rethink a bit it is the weaponry. While I understand your points as to why you think bolt action may be more suitable for the squads, Here is why I think that it might cause some potentially unforseen issues.

1: I think that it would in many cases discourage player from playing them as they would not be able to serve a dual puprose. Keep in mind that if you are not a premium player you get a grand total of 3 infantry squads. While I myself am a premium player, I can see how if you only have 3 squads of infantry to take, even with all of your listed changes, it would be a steep price to pay to lose those SMGs. If the squad can serve an dual purpose as both assualt and support it would encourage players who are not premium to pack these squads into their roster since they can be more versitle with their limited slots.

#2 if the team has access to those SMGs and Shotguns, it allows for the medic class to serve more of a front line triage role. Especially with the change ideas you have detailed, such as a critically wounded state, and better visablity for wounded men, a vast majority of casualties will be happening right where the fighting is. While if you are good you can room clear with a bolt action, not everyone can do that. So keeping things like SMGs and Shotguns in their kit would allow the medics to swoop into a room or zone and clear out the bad, before dishing out some of those sweet sweet heals.

#3 this point is similar to number 2 but instead of focusing on why keeping those weapons would augment your sudgestions like crit wounded or better heal visablity, this time I want to address the proposed carry mechanic. Again like I said in number 2, medics will find themselves rushing into the thick of things. Grabbing men and carrying them to back to friendly lines. Having an SMG or a shotgun will allow you to better take out any threats, and carry your men back safe and sound. Thusly in conclusion I think that your proposed changes would be better augmented by keeping the current weapon kit than not.

All diliberation or debate about weapons put to the side however, I will post what we came up with and see what you and the community thinks. I will also do my best to format my sudgestions in similar style to yours so that it reads more like one string of ideas rather than two seperate posts.

Medic Bag
With the exception of paratroopers who are required to use their bag slots for parachutes, basically everyone has access to a large selection of bag options, inculding ones which allow for you to carry additional medkits. Personally I find it odd that the medic is excluded from this especially when it comes to carrying extra medkits. When combined with the proposed mechanics to allow carrying men back, it seems to me that medics would greatly benifit from an increased ammount of medkits they can carry along to heal themeselves. As such I would propose that the medic bag, in addition to providing the syringes also opens all 4 invintory slots to pack in more medkits or for further use of our next suggestion.

Medkit box changes
As it stand right now each medic can only carry and place a single medkit box and it is locked into your second weapon slot. The problems with this are that the medkit is used not only to allow your allies to grab extra medkits but also as your way of refilling your syringe uses. On top of this if the flow of battle shifts you will effectively lose the box which means after you use your 10 heals your medic is essientially done being a medic.
What I would propose to fix this is to remove the medkit box from the second weapon slot and instead make it an inventory item. This change would pair nicely with the proposed change I have detailed for the Medic Bag allowing for an individual medic to carry their choice in any combination of up to 4 medkits or Medkit boxes. This combined with the proposed changes made by @110412258 would allow for multiple styles of play as well with some medics packing more medkits to stay up while they cart the wounded back from the front lines or to focus more on providing support in the form of medkitboxes and increased usages of healing on the front lines.

Weaponslot 2
If you are freeing up weapon slot 2 by changeing medkit boxes to an inventory item this can further provide more options for the player. One idea is to double down on the ability for the medic class to double as assualter further allowing them to swoop in, kick *** and chew bubblegum before saving their teammates like I was mentioning in critiques of switching medics to bolt actions.
The other idea would be to add a completely new item to that slot. This could come in the form of some of the ideas that @110412258 posted about medkit boxes. Maybe this new item is the thing that slows bleeding or revives. Perhaps you make it an item that throws out some low level passive heals, which is something my buddy Solv proposed. Many options you could go with here.

More Medics in more places
as it stand right now very campaigns even have medics as an option. While this will be fixed by the upcoming patches to unify the tech trees it remains a problem right now. This could be fixed simply by adding medics squads preferably relativly early in the progression tree for all campaigns. An additional idea tagging along with this to make medics far more prevalent on the battlefield is to adjust troop slot unlocks for squads. As it stand right now all squads that can take a medic are forced to choose between medics and other things like NGs, raido ops ect. I would propose instead of doing this add an unlock for many if not all squads that just gives you a medic slot. No choosing between this or that. Just give us the option to have a medic in our squads.

More Syringes
The primary use of the medic is to help heal folks. As is you get ten uses plain and simple. This can be mitigated by either allowing you to get more from medkit boxes or by simply increasing how many you get. You could also always do both.

Medtents and Radio Ops
Another idea we had was adding more types of troops to the medic squads. I would love to see Engineers and Radio Ops to the medic squads. Here is my logic and justification.
First medics would logically have a radio man with them. This would allow them to call for medical support from a logic perspective, and from a game perspective giving radio operators would allow them to call in arti to support or even possibly depending on implimentation allow them to call in smoke shells to help give them cover while healing.
Second Engineers like how engineers in MG squads can build a heavy machine gun emplacement, you could add an engineer with the ability to build a Medical tent. This medical tent could give passive heals, it could allow for soldiers by it to heal faster with their own med kits or perhaps the community or devs have some better ideas then that. Regardless of what utility it provides you could make it a relativly large construction that which would make it harder to build on enclosed points, or you could make it really crazy good at healing and have it have a simliar mechanic to the rally points, where it cannot be built too close to objectives. This would play very well with the proposed carry mechanics giving medics a place to carry downed troops to. Either way I think it would be a really neat addition that would add alot of flavor and utility to the medic squads giving you more reasons to take the squad instead of just a medic in another squad.

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I really like the offer. but there are bots in the game. it spoils some moments. You need to think about it. How it will be combined with bots.

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The largest problem with medit is they dont have space for large ammo pack

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How does more ammo help with healing?

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With more ammo, you more likely to reach the wounded.

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A good medic will rarely run out of ammo because he is occupid with healing and reviving. If you want to kill enemies you should play a different squad IMO

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From my experience of this game - it’s rare, to use medic squad.

More often, medic- is a part of very combatant squad, and should fight as any other soldier, but with very usable healing skill.
Also, as medic, I am often should kill guy (or two, or even more), who down my squadmates, before I can revive them.

So, medic need same ammo, as another fighters (and axe, or even sword).

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Not directly for sure. But as the medic class replaces the assaulter 1 tier in some campaigns, I feel personally that it’s crippled.
Personally I just use the premium medics in Stalingrad for fun reasons. Love the supporting role for sure.

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They are able to use swords.

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I have 100 percent run out of ammo on medic since I am sitting there clearing point when no one needs medical attention, that being said… thats what ammo boxes are for. By in large the community should not have to resort to large ammo bags not to run out. NGs should just do their jobs better and drop more ammo. With all that being said as I have proposed having an NG slot added to medic squads this would also mitigate the issue as they would be able to drop ammo themselves.

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Can confirm medics in japan can have swords and all classes to my knowledge may be equipped with axes

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Sure, they able.
Anyone able in this game (but only Japs have enough swords for any soldier).

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unfortunetly true. I would love to see them bring some of those sabers from the event or a varient of them back as a more standard weapon. They were pretty slick. But that is really neither here nor there when it comes to medics