Alternative to medivac healing mechanism

I think solution is they works little but expensive(with upgrade) jump pack add on medic..(like a reaper)

sorry my english is not good......

 

Marines aren't specialist units either, so why do people micro them and medics to harrass a small enemy base? Also the reason why the reavers are so effective is because you primarily use them against a base that lacks anti-air or is small, so wouldn't practically any air units with very few exceptions (with ground attacks) be useful in the same situation as well?

Since the medivac is a healing unit, it wouldn't be too hard to predict that they'll be available early to mid game which is common to find a small base to harrass, and I heard harvesting race is a bit faster in SC2 (correct me if I'm wrong) so it wouldn't be long before you reach the medivac.

 

I agree that it is a good idea, but it is offtopic, as we are discussing Medivac healing mechanisms, not Medic healing mechanisms.

 

My idea would be this, the medivac can only provide an aura that increases energy regeneration and can also repair vehicles quickly for a larger energy cost. Get this...The marines would now have two abilities, Stim Pack, and Field Kit. Field Kit would cost 50 energy and would heal the marine by 75% of their HP over a course of ten seconds. THe stim pack would now also cost energy but would work the same way otherwise. This would increase the unique unit micro of the marine, and give the healing ability a direct micro task to the player, while at the same time giving the medivac a more sensical support role.

How does that sound?

 

A self healing equipment like a counter-part to the stim pack isn't a bad idea, but I don't think it should require energy, rather a cool down or a limited number of use is more like it IMO.

 

Or a single use healing mechanism which recharges after spending 5~ seconds in medivac dropship, and possibly only while stationary. I like that much more than the concept that your units will have to be removed from the fight just to heal. That provides your marines with longevity in actual combat and simultaneously promotes micro management. As well as providing downtime for those marines after a skirmish, so they cant just heal up and run back in. It will take time to get them healed back to 100% and get their field kits recharged.

 

Like a bad idea.

The health regeneration is the zerg exclusive feature, and through this idea, the marines would basically be able to recover health over time, which is not good, from both a racial disctinction point of view and a gameplay point of view.

The auto-repairing, auto-healing aura just sounds like the ultimate cheat.

The concept with the terrans is to basically be able to recover health/hit points faster than the other species, but with some resources cost and with some management (the medics heal for free, but they are basically not good for anything else, which is sort of extra cost and extra management).

And in addition the marines would become vulnerable to energy-related abilities, which would be teh suk.

I am not really against a healing dropship: pushing the healing ability to higher technology levels will prevent those early marines+firebats+medics rushes, which are abusive to me (especially given the rate medics can heal), but this is just a white beam looks way too trekkish to me. Really, I don't want a kind of machine hoovering over my marines during a battle and giving "the light of heavens" like some angel or paladin or something like that, that would really suck to me. I rest on my case that turning the dropship into an hospital would be much better, from both a gameplay and a roleplay point of view, and if you consider this requires too much of management to tell the wounded marines to go in the carrier, then ask the carrier to release them when they are back fully healthy (which I agree), let just picture some kind of auto-cast ability for the carrier to automatically release marines that have been fully healed and that's it.

Please no drophip carriers of tiny healing bots or something. This is Starcraft. Please.

 

If you have to put the units in the dropship, I think that will increase the micro. I think this is a great idea, but I haven't played StarCraft 2 so I can't say which idea is better.

But, still, kudos on a great idea.

 

@Jissé: I agree with you on the energy usage. It would in a sense defeat the purpose of the healing mechanism all together. I also agree that the white beam of light is also very unlike SC.
Im curious however, about how you would feel about the idea i proposed. That is no energy cost, simply a one time use healing item (not necessarily an instant full heal just a heal) which has to be recharged by putting the marines in a (again possibly) stationary dropship for a set amount of time to recharge this 'medic kit' ability. The dropship would, aside from the above, retain its previous function and no other. No healing drones or beams of light/auras. It would allow terran a healing mechanism, thereby providing longevity for tier1/2 non-mechanical units, while not overpowering them, and while retaining a realistic feel for the terran race. This is not such a far cry from the stim-pack itself mind you. And would not stray terribly far from the function of the medic in SC. It would provide a higher sense of instant gratification (to compensate with the speed of starcraft2) but would provide it at the cost of micro management.

I think it would fall in very well with some of the micro possibilities available to protoss now(I am referring of course to the stalker micro most notably to my knowledge used by Yellow in that exhibition match against Sonkie. And as well the ability to warp fresh units into mobile pylon power.)

I can't comment much on any balance in terms of zerg, however I do agree the regeneration would infringe on the zerg specialty. Terran would become "how many marines can I get on the ground and covered by dropships." I digress, however, to say that I think this instant heal would give no unfair advantage against any of the races, and might level the playing field without creating imbalance.

The concern is that it wont provide the marines (and other low tier units) with -enough- longevity. It might just be too difficult to manage to be feasible. Anyway just a though.

 

One time use of healing will make the marine a bit useless in the long run. I'd rather they have to "buy another healing pack" from the machine shop or whatever for 5 minerals which is next to nothing with the primary side effect of doing so is wasting your time.

 

Well, I know something better than a light beam or drones: a sort of mechanical arm. It could be as flexible as a rope, it would look terranish and would work just as the healing beam(which is fine imo).

 

The arm would reach out and start shooting the beam at close range to the marines? Sounds a bit funky to me.

 

its better than the beam, but for a unit to go inside and stop fighting would be a problem. because if u think about it, alot of terrans do a early drop on the base of a zerg. it would be useally 7/6 rines and 1/2 meds. they could fight while being healed and use the medics to make a small wall between them and the ling(or whatever unit) is comming at them. with the medivac and the go inside the ship to heal thing, the rines would have to stop fighting. if only 8 rines are droped, if just 1 or 2 stop fighting to go heal, then the others are only 3/4 as strong as they were.

 

Well lets face it. I don't like the medivac firing a beam of light at units to heal them, because i do think it is a little unoriginal. However the medics in SC DID fire a beam of light at units to heal them, it just happened in close range. So we can't really say that its not 'Starcraft-like.' It is just a more advanced form of what the original medics used. For the sake of balance, this might be the only option. Every solution that I've seen/proposed myself has at least as many problems as current system/animation. I would definitely like to see the mechanic changed, but i get the feeling this is going to be one of those things we get to grin and bare.
On another note, I am not completely opposed to the concept of the medivac carrying healing drones like a carriers interceptors. Or even having them take up slots inside the dropship when it's not stationary. I believe i had seen this mentioned somewhere before, but at a quick glance i didn't notice it in this thread. It would be no less cost effective than the old medic (if you moved them with your marines you had to give up slots in your dropships) . I would, however, like to see something that promotes terran micro more than this mechanic.
Sorry if that has been mentioned, I didn't re-read every post, just know I saw it somewhere so i thought i would mention it here.

Edit: On a second note about idea i proposed before. The more I think about it, its just not an option. I believe it promotes micro and I think it would be a fun mechanic, however, I don't believe terran will be able to keep up with the speed of the new zerg or protoss units. So i think it has to be a mechanic that does it's healing on a slightly larger scale.

 

look the terran already has targeting drones, and i think we all agree no one is complaining about it, and imo healing drones are the best way to go.

what Neon said i agree 100%, considering all functions he mentioned, pricing availiabity etc.

and lastly, don't forget the main reason why Blizzard changed medic to medivacs- in order to keep up with the reapers- which are known to be hit and run units.

 

Honestly, do you all feel that it is absolutely necessary to keep a common terran strategy used in SC1 to bring to SC2?

You don't want the strategy to change, you want it to be the same?

You think that the healing in SC1 is perfect and should never be changed even though you've never played SC1 with different healing mechanism (for terrans).

I'm not looking for a right answer, but I am wondering why some of you are so heavily trying to oppose my intention using examples from SC1.

 

THe real issue visom, is that everyone here has never met a girl before, and the medics were the closest we have ever had to a real life girlfriend. i used to write love letter to her; "heal me baby!!"

 

LOL nice xD we just cant cant lose our medics =p

 

I don't know if the comment was directed at me or not, but I for one am not trying to oppose you're intention Visom. I even stated above that I would like to see the mechanic changed. My opposition was simply that the beam of light is really not -that- unlike starcraft. I want to see as many new opportunities as possible, and am not particularly fond of the healing beam. Just believe we should be more focused on the mechanism itself than trying to change what might be a great gameplay mechanism because "the animation looks trekkish."

That being said, I haven't played SC2 yet and don't have a solid idea about what Terran needs. I would like to see the M&M setup remain, and have defended that to an extent, because i feel it has kindof become a Terran trademark in many respects. But it doesn't matter much to me if we have medics, healing drones, self healing mechanisms, Comsat AoE healing or whatever else anyone can come up with.

The other thing that you have to understand is that a lot of people DO want to see as little change as possible. We already have a great game and a great system that works well. And people tend to be skiddish about seeing too much change.

I will keep my posts directed from this point towards the purpose of the thread: -Alternatives- to the medivac.

 

@l3ttuc3

I understand, I don't mind if you have an idea of your own but if you just sit here and try to keep an old strategy on a new game then that could strategy could (and will) set a ceiling on how much improvements will follow upon it.

"Just believe that we should focus more on the mechanism than the animation looking trekkish". That is exactly my point, I don't (forgot to say "don't) hate the healing beam to start out with, I just saw a poll with a large number of people who don't like the healing beam ONLY because of the way it looks, so this thread is directed towards that topic. However I find it a bit difficult to make the animation look better because I'm not artist, so I thought I might as well change the mechanism for healing.

Honestly I don't mind if my alternative isn't the best, as I stated already that I don't care as long as its a bit more unique and different than the healing beam.

I'm not one of those people who plays very competitively and would absolutely hate anything that would majority change their game play for fear that they won't do as good as they did in SC1, I play because I want to know the game mechanic and the storyline so when it comes to people hating changes I know that I should just stay away from that topic.

As for the healing drones, not a bad idea. So will it be like a healing counter part to the NightHawk's auto-turrets?