Obviously, Medic is a critical class. They are not necessary for a team to win, but they the most necessary. I think most people would agree that a team not allowed to have medics would be at a great disadvantage vs. a team deprived of any other single class.
But, lately I've noticed I've been on a lot of teams lately where no one would play medic, no matter how obviously they were needed, and these are teams of 9-12, certainly the more players per side, the more important a medic becomes (maybe moreso at standard spawn timers than fast).
Sometimes, I play medic and usually if no one would play it I end up switching. I admit I don't love playing Medic and want to focus on getting better at other classes so I think I can sympathize with those desiring not to play it to an extent but I know I'll end up doing it sooner or later.
It seems there are a few hardcore medics, a bunch of people that play it as a 2nd or 3rd class (maybe mostly when needed), and a majority of people who never/almost never play Medic at all . I think there aren't nearly enough of the first two types around.
Medic class was first with its update/acheivements, so many people have played it out and are more interested in shiny new toys. I imagine just about anyone who doesn't already have all three unlocks at this point is just as likely to pick them up randomly anyway (I've already tossed five kritzkriegs but am still waiting for jarate or either spy watch).
To some extent, the recent sniper/spy update is still hurting by overloading spy/sniper spots, leaving many others feeling pressured to play power classes in order to balance - and medics are not all that useful to a team that's half sniper/spy/engies.
Would additional class limits help? (I know everyone hates them).
Would it be good for Valve to add additional achievements for Medics?
Playing medic means accepting a poor K/D ratio; for better or for worse, people care about their ratios a lot and that will make it less desirable to play medic. Further, it means taking a lot of deaths (negative points varied by who kills you) in exchange for greater, but fixed, points for assists (3) so it's a very poor way to build HLStats if you're low ranking (but a good way to keep getting points once you're high level).
The more subtle side is that moreso than any other class, the Medic is entirely dependent on the skill of his teammates for results. Nearly all of a Medics usefulness comes from keeping players alive and dispensing ubercharges. This can be frustrating since the statistical outcomes of assists and to a lesser extent ubercharges - are the result of what someone else does - if the people you're healing aren't getting any kills, you're not getting any assists. If your team is getting rolled it's hard to stay alive long enough to build an ubercharge unless you do it in spawn which really isn't helping for the minute or two you and another player are power-building that uber. On top of that, being a particularly weak class means you don't have a lot to do besides heal and backpedal while needling in the hopes of escape or a lucky kill.
This is a hard one, you can't make people who are big time deathmatchers just give that up. I think it would be a big mistake to make medics harder to be killed or deadlier than they are (the blutsauger already helped a LOT in my opinion).
But I can think of the following which are stat based only (I can't imagine a way for Valve to fix medic kills and deaths without unbalancing the Medic as a class):
- If HLStatsX would keep separate records for classes (or at least one for Medics and one for other classes), then it might stop discouraging players from spending time in Medic because they're afraid it will being down their total K/D ratios. This sounds whiny - but if you're a marginal player just trying to keep your head above 1:1 playing soldier or demoman, I can see how swapping to Medic hurts your ability to track your own improvement in that arena).
- If Medic assists can be fixed to a different number, is it possible to allow medics to lose 0 points for any death?
- I was going to suggest a point be given out for putting out someone on first, but I see that's already been implemented, yay!
- The assist system is a big improvement over tracking only kills, but the medic assists are far from perfect. When healing multiple people, you often don't get assist credit so you're encouraged to over focus on someone. I'd like to see up to two assists handed out per kill - one for medics/engineers: if the killer was being healed when the kill was made or had been healed for more than, say, 75 health, in the last, say, 15 seconds. If there was more than one healing source the one that provided the most healing in that time would get the credit. The other would be for acutal kill assists - those would be doled out to anyone who significantly contributed to the kill - anyone who did more than 75 damage to the target since it's last break from healing, had set the target aflame, jarate'd it, sapped it, or slowed/knocked it back would get a combat assist credit.
Obviously some of these are pie in the sky ideas - I doubt Valve will jump on these since they've already made their medic update, but its food for though and, heck, I feel like there haven't been many good discussions of TF2 gameplay lately in here.
RIP TW 1954 - 2008
