Medpack cost increased to 2 tres. HP healed from 50HP to 60HP.

General effect on most combat sitations:
Note: 1 bite = 1 swipe.... Also note the HP totals that meds give to marine HP are only true if medpack landed after 2nd hit.
Armor 0 marine. 160HP + 1 medpack(50hp) = 210HP = 3 bites. ----> 160HP + 1med(60) = 220HP = 3 bites (Note: no medpack still = 2 bite parasite)

Armor 1 marine. 200HP + 1medpack(50HP) = 250HP = 4 bites ----> 200HP + 1med(60) = 260HP = 4 bites

Armor 2 marine. 240HP + 1medpack(50HP) = 290HP = 4 bites ----> 240HP + 1med(60) = 300HP = 4 bites
Armor 2 marine. 240HP + 2medpack(100HP) = 340HP = 5 bites ----> 240HP + 2med(120) = 360HP = 5 bites

Armor 3 marine (280HP + 2medpack(100HP) = 380HP = 6 bites ----> 280HP + 2med(120) = 400HP = 6 bites

Conclusion: 100% increase on marine tech path cost for using medpacks, minimal increase on marine effective HP from medpacks. Overall, net nerf on marines.

You might notice this does not buff marine's effective HP much at all. Keeps all 1on1 numbers exactly the same for those phases of the game. So why buff from 50HP to 60HP? What does this give us?

1. Armor 0 marines early game who are 2 bit will have 10HP. This means it will cost 4tres to make them 2 bites again. This will help aliens early game to handle tough pressure.
2. Armor 1 marines early game who are 2 bit will have 25HP. This means it will only cast 2tres to make them 2 bites again, because 1 medpack puts them at 85hp.

TLDR: If we don't buff the health healed by the medpack when we double res cost, any marine who's lost his armor will cost his team 4 tres to get back up to 2 bites/swipes, which will be too devastating on marine economy. This change is mainly aimed to nerf medspam in big combat situations so it's more costly to marines to invest in big fights. My numbers above show that the health increase proposed does not largely affect gross HP of a marine in combat situations.

This change should be accompanied by a slight increase of medpack aim assist (and catpack aim assist should match!)

Picky I know... but 2 tres meds giving 60hp each would be 120.. not 110... (the totals are correct though... just the way its written is wrong :P )

Simba says

General affect on most combat sitations:

effect*

this means 1 medpack heals as much as 1 lerk bite does damage (excluding poison damage)

Now that we're done correcting my math and grammar, let's hear what you people think about the change.

Yes, 1 medpack would equal 1 lerk bite, but it would cost twice as much.

I'm all for trying it TBH. (cuz I won't be playing heuheuheuehueheuhuheuheuhe)

Mendasp says

Simba says

General affect on most combat sitations:

effect*

yaluzan u better delete this shit u eu bias hypocrite

sure

Lets try it, but not for the season - untested, and strait to the season sounds like a disaster.

I think you aim this for high level competitive play, correct? It might be too hard a nerf in the lower level competitive play, where aliens often is stronger.

There has been talk, suggested by Tane on the UWE forums to make the skulk smaller. I would still like to see this change, but I would be extreemely surprised if we could pull that off. I would also belive that this hit the core of the balance, rather than an effect of it. But again, lets try it - just not in the season untested.

Ixian says

There has been talk, suggested by Tane on the UWE forums to make the skulk smaller. I would still like to see this change, but I would be extreemely surprised if we could pull that off. I would also belive that this hit the core of the balance, rather than an effect of it. But again, lets try it - just not in the season untested.

Let's keep this thread focused on this single medpack idea instead of throwing in other ideas. Don't want to open up several cans of worms.

as a commander, I have been wanting to see the 2Tres Medpack introduced for a long time... as i've said before I'd like to see the AoE of the medpack increased (note: NOT doubled, but maybe around 15 - 20% larger) to lessen the effects on lower skill play.

but other than that I'm 100% behind the idea and would love to see it tested.

ill only accept 2 res medpacks when you remove the CD on picking up medpacks. make the medspam real and make all the fades who walk em suffer (aka rip chams)

I'm with Ixian here. Not opposed to the change, but:

Can we try this first, and not make actual S9 become the testing lab? I'm no mod developer; but maybe it could be linked it to the league config (which already distinguishes between PCW, Gathers & Officials) and tested on gathers for a week while getting feedback accross the whole spectrum, from Div1-Players to the ones who are new in the comp scene?

I believe it's important to also judge this from lower divison levels. If it's the right nudge to perfectly balance out highest level comp play, but leads to default alien wins everywhere else, it may not be what you want.

Changing the medpack cost is not as simple as it is. We have done tests on it in the past and the perfect cost seems to be around 1.5 tres. However it needs to be done in mix with other changes.

If you change medpacks to 2tres marines will be forced to play very conservative early game since medpacks will simply slow tech way to much when used.

The issue with late game medspam is also a symptom of the dual resource system. After you get access to full tech you can spend all your res into medpacks withour really hurting you in any way.

One of the changes I would recommend with 2tres medpacks is removing sprint and increasing marine base speed to compensate. It would not only make the feel and combat more fun it would also mean skill wins instead of marines having to depend on medpacks to survive. It also gives the option of increasing skulk walk speed and base speed making it easier for less experienced players to play.

@lome

That issue is connected to this - It wouldn't be right to ignore it, especially as i believe they are the problem, not the medpacks, but as you say, lets keep this focused on the medpacks. Besides - not my idea, Tane's idea, which i really like.

I'm not sure lerk bites would be affected that much because of the rate of fire. If anything this could be a big buff to lerk spikes because it'll drain tres. Because of the expense of the medpacks, armor is far more valuable (unless we see some W3 rushes now because you either need to commit to more armor quicker with welders, or rush weapon upgrades to pick lerks).

So this could open up different metas and play styles which would be lovely to see, or lerks would have to be re-balanced and spikes do only armor dmg, or switch spikes with spores (which do only HP dmg and area of denial. and maybe reduce wing hitboxes, or increase lerk speed :D)


1. I like the medpack change idea
2. I'm indifferent to changes through the season, the scene has become stale imo and changes could be fun but I appreciate the concerns of devaluing the season through constant changes
3. It's great to have Grissi back with his input

I'm not sure I really like this idea.

I'm assuming it's mostly aimed at helping fades to make it harder to out-med their swipes?
I think there are other ways to do that, like perhaps a slight increase in medpack cooldown for pick-ups. It seems such a drastic change. But also I feel if it's to buff fades perhaps fades just need to work better together. With a marine on now armour if they land their swipes together it's unmeddable entirely, and with lerks/gorges/other swipes/whips it's not unrealistic.

I'd suggest either higher med cd, or perhaps lerks do more damage with spikes but focus armour before hp? So they do more damage on marines in general, but don't need as many meds if they keep armour up.

I think it would be nice to know if medpack spam is the difference in situations/fights. If that is the case, I like the idea for the change.

I don't see why we can't try it during the season if enough people agree. If not, then we have to wait months to bring this up again. I think it's important to balance the game from the highest level perspective and then assess the other divisions if need be. It's almost like we are balancing out the most op'd portions of lucky chams game with new updates to comp mod. Change the way cyst health works, change gorge speed, change medpacks - which is good because it's being balanced at the top level.

Do the top teams/players think medpacks are op'd in their current form with div 1 teams/commanders? If so, why not try it and we can switch it back if it's terrible? It would be nice to have some changes to the game and would make commanders think a little differently.

Grissi says

One of the changes I would recommend with 2tres medpacks is removing sprint and increasing marine base speed to compensate. It would not only make the feel and combat more fun it would also mean skill wins instead of marines having to depend on medpacks to survive. It also gives the option of increasing skulk walk speed and base speed making it easier for less experienced players to play.

- I think this is a decent idea, but could offset the balance on how skulks and marines battle it out. I think the movement in ns2 is very good between marine and skulk, and I don't really want to change it. I do like the idea of not having to press a sprint button on marines like counter strike, but I also feel like sprinting through a room makes you vulnerable which is part of the game. Marines move so slow that you want to sprint, which results in a disadvantage to the pistol sprinting marine - I like that trade off. I would rather try the update without changing marine speed and do something similar to what simba said about compensating with medpack hp and/or medpack cooldown time.

kmacg says

I'm not sure I really like this idea.

I'm assuming it's mostly aimed at helping fades to make it harder to out-med their swipes?
I think there are other ways to do that, like perhaps a slight increase in medpack cooldown for pick-ups. It seems such a drastic change. But also I feel if it's to buff fades perhaps fades just need to work better together. With a marine on now armour if they land their swipes together it's unmeddable entirely, and with lerks/gorges/other swipes/whips it's not unrealistic.

I'd suggest either higher med cd, or perhaps lerks do more damage with spikes but focus armour before hp? So they do more damage on marines in general, but don't need as many meds if they keep armour up.

I can't remember when it was, but a cooldown on meds was tried before and people blew up about it... it just felt so bad it wasn't funny.

Valid points. This was just interesting discussion that came out of the comp mod slack channel, and I wanted to put it here so everyone can discuss it. Otherwise it would never get discussed, because people are too afraid to make these posts themselves.

I agree now, though, that this change should not go into season 9. Let's keep the discussion constructive.

Cooldown on dropping meds feels very bad, but cooldown on picking up meds is a good way to balance medpack spam without increasing tres cost. Healing over time was another thought to balance it, but it is more drastic than just increasing the pickup cooldown.

Solution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llLlIGQWRcg

GORGEous says

Cooldown on dropping meds feels very bad, but cooldown on picking up meds is a good way to balance medpack spam without increasing tres cost. Healing over time was another thought to balance it, but it is more drastic than just increasing the pickup cooldown.

Yeah, I definitely meant for pick-up.

Is it actually possible for meds to cost 1.x res currently, or only whole numbers?

kmacg says

Is it actually possible for meds to cost 1.x res currently, or only whole numbers?

Yes, because most things are rounded off already. For the sake of keeping it visually simple, multiply everything by 10.

I think this is one change that people have been asking for since the 250 meta settled. It will certainly clamp down on over aggressive marine play and should help lerks and fades out a bit.

Depending on how it goes, you may find that the values need to be tweaked - if it's too big of a nerf and you start to see crazy alien map control which results in mass pve, the hp regen value per pack might need to be bumped up to as much as 100hp, with a larger heal-over-time mechanic to offset this.

Scatter experimented with HoT med mechanics in his mod NS2 Overhaul, so that mechanic is certainly possible.

I think the biggest issue with this is how major of an early game nerf this is to marines. But I never had enough chance in Sewleks mod to get the real feel of the 2tres med cost