Medic system: choose the necessity - either epi of morphine

[Hees]

Playing a medic makes me vulnerable to being hit and become unconscious. It would be great to change the necessity of waking up with epi when applied by a non-medic. This would give the freedom to all to revive with epi. But to combat the consequences of pain, you would still need a medic. So being revived with epi, your vision would still be blurred but you would be able to walk around, shoot, climb on board a medivac. But only the morphine applied by a medic would ease your pain and restore your vision.

[kripto202]

you can do that in a option in the agm medical module if you have allow non-medics true

[KoffeinFlummi]

I believe he wants morphine to require medics instead of epi, not allow everything.

[Daantjeeuh]

That would be the weirdest idea ever IMO. I think a better idea would be to make the 'allow non medics module' to be set separate allowance for epi and bloodbags

[Cephel]

I believe the option shouldn't be there at all. Sticking someone with a disposable epinephrine syringe isn't exactly rocket science: They're designed to be easy to use. Besides, every soldier nowadays is trained in first aid and emergency response.

Instead, medics should have access to more features that regular soldiers do not have because of their training. CPR springs to mind, although that's yet another feature all soldiers should have.

So how about these:

• The bleedout immunity in vehicles is only applied if there's a medic inside that vehicle, simulating him treating the casualtie(s) on the go, which a regular soldier would not be good enough to be trained for ( by default, the module option would allow you to turn it either to all soldiers can do this, or the current behavior, of bleedout immunity always applying, regardless ).
• Bloodbags are fine as they are, I don't believe regular soldiers are trained in putting down blood IV's, but they should be their own setting, seperate from above.
• Morphine and Epi can be used by all soldiers. There shouldn't even be a setting for those, it's a no brainer, they're specifically designed ( and trained btw ) to be used by all soldiers.
• CPR for everyone. Would do the same thing it does in ACE2: Prevent you from dying due to bleedout, while you do it.
• Here's a whacky idea, how about you make diagnosing people a medic exlusive ability, beyond reasonable defaults. ie. A regular soldier can only tell that a person is injured and where, but not by how much, he also can't tell if the patient is in pain, needs morphine, etc. Would obviously also have a module setting, but by default would allow medics to perform much more accurate diagnosis, than regular soldiers ( NOTE: Self diagnosis is always accurate, for obvious reasons ).

Also IFAK's when?

[Hees]

KoffeinFlummi is right. Sorry if I was not clear enough on that.

[Lumnuon]

I think Cephel´s idea is a good starting point for the improvement of the medic system.

[nicolasbadano]

@Cephel, @Lumnuon,

The issue is the following: saving people is the most (and probably only) interesting thing a combat medic has to do on the frontline, because it's the only risk-reward mechanic that they have. If you give anyone that ability (call it epipen, defribilator, RCP or whatever), then the medic has nothing interesting to do anymore; then you might as well allow anyone to do everything medical and move on.

Better diagnostics alone wouldn't cut it under the current system, (except for preventing morphine overdose), because there's nothing complicated about treatment: you bandage and apply epi; basically you can't ever do anything wrong.

I would like to have an optional more complicated system in the future, where correct diagnostics and procedures play a bigger role and proper medics become more valuable. But in any case, that's something for the far future.

TL;DR: IMHO, medics have little to do already; if you simplify their role even more you might as well remove them altogether.

[nicolasbadano]

One more thing: bringing a soldier back to a battle is difficult IRL, not something that anyone can do. We are abstracting and simplifying that process in a HUGE way, but at least requiring a medic to do that is a small step in the right direction. In our abstraction we use epipen to model that, but AFAIK that's not very realistic in the first place (they counter anaphylaxis IRL); so claiming anyone can revive a person because anyone can use an epipen (true) is a flawed argument.

[Lumnuon]

I totally agree with you, I didn´t meant that the important skills of the medic should be accesible for everyone. Actually I think all the medical mechanics should get harder, because it´s kind of unrealistic being able to revive and completely heal a person several times throughout a mission. I would enjoy a harder system allowing for MEDEVAC missions and stuff like that.

[Cephel]

The issue is the following: saving people is the most (and probably only) interesting thing a combat medic

The medic is never supposed to do that. Unless you by saving you mean "waiting for people to bring you casualties behind cover so you can treat them". The more restrictive you make medics, the less useful they are, because you need to hide them from all harm, because losing your medic means instant game over, that's terrible design.

you might as well allow anyone to do everything medical and move on.

You should, nothing a COMBAT LIFE SAVER ( which is what medics do in this game ) is complex, nothing, you do not need special training IRL for it actually, it's a course for EMT-Basic level, which takes about 16 weeks in the US Army, every soldier has it but every soldier is trained in first aid and emergency response as well. The "actual" medics sit at base and treat casualties in actual field hospitals way way way far away from any fighting, pretty sure you don't want this. We can simplify this whole procedure by letting people be treated in the field fully, but you should never make this a medic exclusive endeavour, because it's unrealistic, it's not fun, and it makes for terrible gameplay.

Better diagnostics alone wouldn't cut it under the current system

Yes it would, all you have to do to reward this system is to unlock all options at all times ( require diagnosis would be removed ), then people have to manually look through the diagnosis to decide what to treat next, and bad coordination and bad diagnosis skills ( such as what regular soldiers would have ), would lead to wasting materials, taking longer to treat people and potentially cause overdoses on morphine. THIS is where a medic shines, they could coordinate people, tell them what to do, and make sure treatment of casualties goes smooth and fast, as well as any action they do can be faster, because they're better trained.

It's absolutely and utterly terrible game design to have a stick of epi that would allow the mission to continue but unable to use it because the medic thinks he has more fun this way when he's dead, and trying to sell the idea that all other soldiers are literally too dumb to stick the medic with the pointy end of a needle.

TL;DR: IMHO, medics have little to do already; if you simplify their role even more you might as well remove them altogether.

TL;DR, learn to use medics correctly, then they'll have plenty to do, but it won't be what you're used to from casual Battlefield gameplay.

[nicolasbadano]

TL;DR, learn to use medics correctly, then they'll have plenty to do, but it won't be what you're used to from casual Battlefield gameplay.

Sorry @Cephel, you're missing the point and your attitude is way out of line again. Please don't bother about posting on AGM anymore; frankly your opinion is of no value for any of us.

BTW, I haven't ever played a single round of Battlefield

[Cephel]

Sorry @Cephel, you're missing the point and your attitude is way out of line again

again

If you can't take criticism and can't defend your opinion, then it's not a good opinion. And that kind of attitude is the worst you can bring to a project. I'm speaking from years of Arma experience and I have provided valuable feedback to this project for more than half a year now.

it is you who is missing the point. There is the magical fairy land where things go as you think they do, and then there's actual people playing this game, and if you make ANYTHING exclusive to a medic, then the medic is simply not allowed anywhere near harm, period. It's the inevitable consequence, and terrible game design.

And locking certain functions to medics exclusively for "their fun" reeks of elitism that is unwarranted in a team based game like Arma, especially when it sacrifices the fun of the rest of the community.

[nicolasbadano]

I explained the reasons behind my opinion already; you called it terrible and said I was a Battlefield player. Hardly constructive criticism. It isn't been the first flame war you started while given your "valuable" feedback either.

Guess what? Back your attitude with code and I may change my mind about you. Until then, please don't bother.

[Cephel]

If you consider that a flamewar, never work on a big project, you won't like it. People get VERY vocal in them.

I also didn't call your opinion terrible, just that they lead to terrible gameplay. The difference is that you might THINK they're a good idea, but they're really not. Sorry that I don't break this easier to you, but that's just how it is. And the whole medic thing is simply because "I wanna go out there and save people" is literally how battlefield treats medics and it's a hard wake up for anyone going to Arma for the first time and noticing that it doesn't work this way here. Especially not with a realism focussed mod like ACE or AGM. It just doesn't work this way. There is no nice way putting it, it just doesn't work.

[nicolasbadano]

You think that our design decisions lead to terrible gameplay? Go play something else. Or code something yourself and convince the world that it is much better than our piece of shit.

We don't agree with your assessment so we won't change anything due to it. That's the bottom line.

[Cephel]

Wanna know how many projects I've worked on that had the exact same attitude? A lot Wanna know how many of those are still around? Not a lot

Just because you created the thing does not mean you're the ultimate authority on good design decisions for thing, it has happened more times than you can imagine and almost all of them have failed, because they stopped paying attention to feedback and lost contact to their userbase. If you want this project to success you can not have this attitude. That is all.

It's considered extremely childish and unprofessional to assume you know better just because you started the project, fyi.

[nicolasbadano]

Sorry man, it's not the user base... it's you yourself.

Do you think we don't play? That we don't have are own arma communities?

Get me a poll where it shows that more than 50% of people using AGM think as you do and I may be convinced to add your system as optional. Or code it yourself and check if people really enjoy it at all. I won't loose any more time with this until you do.