Poll/Disc on Health & Armor

[Bridget]

Some people believe the armor system adds depth to the game. Those who can calculate whether or not their armor will protect them from a shot that would otherwise kill them have an advantage and are able to make or break a "play".

Others believe armor is pretty redundant. You're able to achieve the same effect with a single health value. Of course, values would have to be buffed a bit to compensate (and/or) damage values might have to be tweaked as they were probably assigned with armor in mind.

I argue it's redundant. We should just use a single health value. It's simple to understand and manage. Yeah, you no longer have to wild-guess whether your armor might compensate, but is it really necessary trying to make mechanics redundantly complicated so you can consider growing tolerant the act of "becoming more skilled"?

What do you think?

[angrypyro]

Removing armor would affect the Engineer and Medic classes though. Medic would be the only healing class and the Engineer's wrench and dispenser would be less useful. Might as well remove the dispenser and make it into a remote mine or something since the only class that ever runs out of ammo is the HWGuy.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by angrypyro

Removing armor would affect the Engineer and Medic classes though. Medic would be the only healing class and the Engineer's wrench and dispenser would be less useful. Might as well remove the dispenser and make it into a remote mine or something since the only class that ever runs out of ammo is the HWGuy.

It's a good thing if the Medic is the only healing class. His healing isn't very effective now because of armor. You can buff a team-mate all you want, but he's going to die in a few hits due to having no armor to absorb most of the damage. Get rid of the need for armor and tweak damage values, and suddenly the Medic is a good healer. Woo, right?

I don't think the Engineer should be obligated to repairing team-mates' armor. That heavily crippled class already has a fuckton of things to worry about. It's for another topic, but I think the dispenser should be phased out anyway. Armor should go, finite ammunition should go, the Engineer should generate cells on his person, and I think explosives make more sense on the Demoman. The dispenser is just another redundant buildable that beginners babysit at the expense of their sentry gun.

</myopinion>

[moosh]

I think you're the only one in the playerbase who actually thinks that this is a good idea.

[Bridget]

What's "this"? Be more vague.

[angrypyro]

Originally Posted by Bridget

It's a good thing if the Medic is the only healing class. His healing isn't very effective now because of armor. You can buff a team-mate all you want, but he's going to die in a few hits due to having no armor to absorb most of the damage. Get rid of the need for armor and tweak damage values, and suddenly the Medic is a good healer. Woo, right?

I don't think the Engineer should be obligated to repairing team-mates' armor. That heavily crippled class already has a fuckton of things to worry about. It's for another topic, but I think the dispenser should be phased out anyway. Armor should go, finite ammunition should go, the Engineer should generate cells on his person, and I think explosives make more sense on the Demoman. The dispenser is just another redundant buildable that beginners babysit at the expense of their sentry gun.

</myopinion>

iono about this. When I think engineer, I think of someone who can build and fix a bunch of things. Removing the armor fixing and dispenser, pretty much means that all the engineer can do is build a sentry.

[Born_In_Xixax]

TBH I've never precisely understood the health/armor system: - do certain types of damage effect one or the other more? how does armor effect health? Can anyone explicate? Would make this thread of some use at least...

I find the dispenser as a remote-controlled explosive and movement-blocker an interesting and fun mechanic - I would be pretty heavily against its removal.

While the actual game-play effects of going to a single health value may be pretty minimal, I'm not sure their are many/any strong benefits beyond simplification for noobs (of which there are vanishingly few) - probably not enough to justify the work.

I find it pretty unlikely at this late point in the game, with so few players and developers, that FF is up for any major cosmetic changes.

[WiFiDi]

i think the medic needs to be more important even on other games MAG, BF a medic is more important than this game. also like in tf2 the dispenser could just give out health. (just an idea or it could give out just ammo.)

[chilledsanity]

I really don't have a solution, but one thing I will mention is that since good engineers tend to stay in the same area and watch their sentries, they are FAR more likely to give you more armor if you run up to them asking for it. Medics however, I very rarely see drop medpacks, even when people are running in front of them yelling for it. Also in most cases, the medic isn't an effective enough healer to justify having him on D, so what you sometimes see a lot of is players with max armor and 15 health.

I'm not saying get rid of armor, but the current system feels kind of disproportional and not implemented smoothly.

[Crazycarl]

Originally Posted by Born_In_Xixax

TBH I've never precisely understood the health/armor system: - do certain types of damage effect one or the other more? how does armor effect health? Can anyone explicate? Would make this thread of some use at least...

http://www.fortress-forever.com/wiki...hp?title=Armor

If we did get rid of armor (or, rather, just make it infinite), we could tweak medic and engy so that they can both heal at a reasonable rate.

[WiFiDi]

though i voted for get rid of armor i wouldn't mind it if you reworked it it could use some reworking. keeping it as it is just isn't officiant even if your used to it.

[angrypyro]

Originally Posted by Born_In_Xixax

TBH I've never precisely understood the health/armor system: - do certain types of damage effect one or the other more? how does armor effect health? Can anyone explicate? Would make this thread of some use at least...

I find the dispenser as a remote-controlled explosive and movement-blocker an interesting and fun mechanic - I would be pretty heavily against its removal.

While the actual game-play effects of going to a single health value may be pretty minimal, I'm not sure their are many/any strong benefits beyond simplification for noobs (of which there are vanishingly few) - probably not enough to justify the work.

I find it pretty unlikely at this late point in the game, with so few players and developers, that FF is up for any major cosmetic changes.

The dispenser should be able to give out health along with armor and ammo as well as curing infection. That way the medic can be the offensive healer while the engineer is the defensive one.

[Don]

I vote for CHANGE

[thiz]

Moans about not getting problems fixed then makes up a non-existant problem. Great job!

[Bridget]

You must have a mental disorder.

[Eon Seig]

Why people vote to keep a system that does absolutely nothing we couldn't do more easily with a less redundant single number that can be more easily understood by potential new players (yeah I bet we need those, don't we) eludes me.

The change to all health would be 100% positive with no downsides and nothing but improvement. Medic becomes more important as a healing class and the Engineer has less to think about. Buffing people's HP is actually useful. We can get rid of all the stupid armor spawns (not that you hadn't already phased them out in most maps by merging them with bags)

Make dispensers give out health packs at regular intervals and build up a supply of 5 packs. Medics can drop extra packs in the dispenser by throwing them, increasing the max to 10 packs. Number of packs in a dispenser should be displayed by a floating number visible to your own team.

Problems fixed, primary class function made more important, redundant and completely pointless system removed.

AND NOTHING OF VALUE WAS LOST

[Born_In_Xixax]

Originally Posted by Eon Seig

Make dispensers give out health packs at regular intervals and build up a supply of 5 packs. Medics can drop extra packs in the dispenser by throwing them, increasing the max to 10 packs. Number of packs in a dispenser should be displayed by a floating number visible to your own team.

I like this quite a bit, actually. An impromptu yard defense (or other 'mobile' task team) could conceivably hold on indefinitely if an engy is there with a dispenser keeping everyone buffed up.

All-in-all I tend to agree there are benefits to the OP suggestion, and so far no one has really come forth with reasons to keep the current complexity. My only question would be if it the benefits are worth it in the priority scheme of other needed improvements, given the extremely limited resources. I assume such an extensive revamp would touch a _lot_ of pieces of code: weapons, classes, dispensers, damage, maps/lua, game balance, etc.

[Don]

Reasons to keep armour:


1. I like complexity it adds depth to the game.
2. Armour makes the HUD look more balanced, and pleasing to the eye.
3. Hitting people with the spanner and complaining when they don't say thank you is fun.
4. Armour has been around since Doom and Quake and so should stay in such a classic fortress based game.
5. Armour is close to the French 'amour'
6. Armour means that the dispensers actually have a use; removing armour would reveal dispensers' true purpose - (green/yellow) demo pipes in disguise.
7. Armour unconsciously makes you feel stronger and makes your playstyle more aggressive.
8. In Counter-Strike armour is essential - so why not keep it in FF?
9. Armour is the reason that classes have different speeds - the HW and medic both have 100 health, but the HW has 3x more armour weighing him down so is 3x slower. Removing armour would probably screw up the game play and take weeks and maybe months to code.

New reason:
10. The differences in spelling between US and UK (armor and armour) reminds us of our cultural differences out of game and is a reminder of the Civil War.

[WiFiDi]

don i hate to tell you this don but non of these are valid reasons just bullshit. they all point back to one reason tradition. all of the other reason could be fixed easily, easily.

[moosh]

If we remove armour,why not remove health too? It just complicates things!

Let's simplify a great game until there's nothing left,just to attract some fucking new people.