Trippy Medic Revive Idea

A thought came to mind a few seconds ago about how Medics would go about sacrificing something to revive someone. And so I thought, what is the ultimate sacrifice? Experience. However, that is much too pricy, and Medics wouldn't do it unless something was in it for them. So my idea is that when you revive someone, you spend a given amount of EXP. If you don't have enough current EXP in that level, you cannot Revive others (for the sake of simplicity). Now, because you have given 'a part of yourself' in order to unite their spirit with a body to create a soul, you gain a portion of all their EXP gained in their lifetime until the next wave (or anything that would cause them to respawn normally, had they been dead). Say, 50% EXP (obviously a valid tweak point). The person who was revived can't complain, because if they were dead, they wouldn't be getting any! And they'd get their full share once everyone else comes to life, anyway. The Medic should hope they chose the right person to revive, else they might get a net loss of EXP, but if they choose the right person, it would be very profitable. It's a gamble, but alas, you are toying with life and death, are you not?

This is a very out-there idea, and follows the theory of 'crazy enough it just might work'. What are the comments of the mass?

So if I understand this right, there is an incentive to reviving a powerful player versus a weak player. This seems more like a rich-get-richer situation, which seems kind of discriminatory towards new players.
If this were implemented, I think I would stay away from it with my medic character.

But how often do powerful characters die? At the same time, I figure instead of having the same model as your character, people would appear as 2D white person-shaped blobs, identical to CTF-PhaseShift, and also lacking nametags, so the only thing medics would see is a dead person, not having any way of knowing who they are.

KohanX wrote:

But how often do powerful characters die?

Not nearly as often as weak players, which in that case, why would I want to revive them if I'm constantly having a net loss of experience? That doesn't leave many players to be revived.

The experience cost and percentage are both, of course, highly sensitive variables which would have to be tested very thoroughly. But it can work, if correctly executed.

I think it's a good idea. I'd rather see the cost of reviving someone be a set amount of adrenaline, but you still get a portion of that person's XP during that wave. If you revive someone you ought to be rewarded, whether that ends up being a couple XP points nearing the end of a wave or a couple hundred reviving someone during a titan wave.

Yes! Thank you for your support! Sorry to make a big deal out of it, I just don't get it that often

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I like it but instead of 50% cap it at the end of the wave or double what the medic spent to revive the person....

I like the basic idea and I would like to see a "revive" (or in RPG terms: "rez" from "resurrect"). As Kohan alread said, the cost/reward would have to be tweaked... otherwise why would you rez close to the end of the wave?

Traditionally, the cost of rez'ing is very high for medics/clerics/healers/etc... but I've never seen it be XP (interesting). Although most games will give some XP to the rezzer as a reward - but they may not be able to do much for some time due to the high cost (power/mana/concetration/etc...)

Edit: forgot to add that some games tie the medic's ability to rez proportionally to the ratio of the medic/player levels. I.e. you can't rez someone that is 2X+1 levels above you... being that the cost would be more than you can afford (if you tie the cost to that ratio as well). So, rez'ing lower level players may not cost you much (but you don't get much XP back either).

I really like the idea of not seeing their names/levels beforehand too.

What would be a "high cost" other than XP for the medic? Maybe the effect of Ghost-1? The medic would be left with 1 point health, 1 point adren, no shield? Or frozen? (so weak that you can't move)?

The XP cost is intriguing but unless it is well balanced, it may not be very practical. I'm curious to see how this turns out!

If I understand everything correctly:

You're smartly avoiding "level loss" (which has a whole slew of both code and concept problems) by limiting the ability to resurrect to Medics who have "sufficient" current XP.

The regain of XP for the medic stops at the end of the wave. While I understand the concept, it's not a good idea - waves go quick, and Medics won't revive someone who dies at any point that would be considered "late" in the wave. Typically, only the weakest of players (and the lowest of XP gainers) will die early enough to have any chance to gain further XP to make the loss to the medic worth it. Any body strong enough to gain the medic XP will likely have Ghost and would have to "suffer a second death" in a wave to become revivable. Finally, anyone who died early enough to need to be brought back is likely weak enough to where they'd probably just die again anyway.

I'm not so sure though that extending the regain of XP past a wave, potentially through to the end of the map, is a good idea either. Another death should very well break any connection between the medic and the former corpse. Few medics would bring someone back from a death in a later wave when the formerly dead is more likely to die yet again ...

I just don't see many medics going for this. Loosing XP (the hardest thing to gain in appreciable amounts when compared to things like Health or even Adren), and then relying on someone else to make it back for you, someone who has already proven their ability to die?

And, all the above aside, as far as anything I would code is concerned, I have a general rule:

Don't muck with "subtracting" XP.

The idea of being able to revive someone sounds pretty cool...but the price for it is all wrong. I'm like Mach, I'd rather use adren. to revive someone, NOT my XP.

My idea would be that it costs AT LEAST 150 adren, Maybe some of the medics health (kind of like donating blood type of thing) but they can't heal or be healed back to their max health until next wave or maybe even the wave after that (i.e. bring someone back on wave 7, can't go back to their maxed health until wave 8 or possibly 9).

And as for getting a portion of their XP back, I think that's a bit much. Just bringing them back gives us a better chance at winning the match, giving us a better chance at the 80 XP at the end of the map.

Spike wrote:

but I've never seen it be XP

That's part of the method in Dungeons and Dragons, which is what this was based off of.
The reason I suggest EXP is for that very reason; EXP is not easily expendable. How long does it take for someone to get 150 Adrenaline? Well, with Adrenal Drip 3, at most a minute and a half. You can specialize in Health and Adrenaline, but not with EXP. It's just as much of a sacrifice no matter what your level.

Spike wrote:

The medic would be left with 1 point health, 1 point adren, no shield? Or frozen?

That's been suggested, but I find that too taxing. What's the point of bringing a life back if yours is guaranteed to go down the drain, yeah? Something valuable, but not invaluable. EXP fits that. It's not like EXP is limited.

BotFodder wrote:

Medics won't revive someone who dies at any point that would be considered "late" in the wave

Well yeah, it'd be impractical if they're going to be back in a few seconds anyway.

BotFodder wrote:

someone who has already proven their ability to die

Then why revive them at all, regardless of the system of sacrifice?

BotFodder wrote:

Don't muck with "subtracting" XP.

Why not?

Hobo_Joe wrote:

can't heal or be healed back to their max health until next wave

Oh, that sounds pretty cool actually. For every person you have alive as a burden, -10% max health until they die or 'respawn'? Or a degeneration along the same lines that stops at 10% max health? That could serve as an awesome total replacement for this system! Good thinking!
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Miscellaneous Thought: Though you wouldn't be able to see the revivee's level beforehand, it could be used as a factor of the required EXP. So that way, weaker players don't have to earn as much EXP to give you your money's worth. You get what you pay for, yeah?

And whoever's rating all of my posts with 1 star, that's not very nice

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Additional suggestions just to spurn this thought process further:

1. After a char dies, any medic w/ "revive" capabilities has X seconds to respond. If they don't, the person is unrecovable until the next wave.

2. Medics have to be in/near the vicinity of the player's death. No voodoo revivification from the other side of the map.

3. The reviving medic must remain immobile and untouched by monster attacks for Y seconds otherwise the revival process is botched. This might encourage other players to support medics.

4. The revived player has a health/speed handicap to reflect their post-mortem reanimation which lasts Z seconds, until the wave completes, or until they do some amount of damage proportional to their level.

Just ideas; take 'em or leave 'em.

reyalsnogard wrote:

3. The reviving medic must remain immobile and untouched by monster attacks for Y seconds otherwise the revival process is botched. This might encourage other players to support medics.

Ion Cannon of Resurrection!!

Actually I like that idea, also imho while resurrection in other rpg type games is a powerful and costly ability (also more easily implemented / balanced) with the presence of waves and ghost resurrection might not be as valuable as you would think. I doubt that if there is a high cost for purchase / use of this skill that anyone would get much use from it... of course I haven't got around to purchasing ghost (or the hb to be able to) on any character I have so I guess I would benefit

BotFodder wrote:

anyone who died early enough to need to be brought back is likely weak enough to where they'd probably just die again anyway.

come on everyone knows that after wave 11 the monsters home in and use the monster mover to swarm all over me! I usually don't even bother looking for weapons I just try to escape

reyalsnogard wrote:

1. After a char dies, any medic w/ "revive" capabilities has X seconds to respond. If they don't, the person is unrecovable until the next wave.

2. Medics have to be in/near the vicinity of the player's death. No voodoo revivification from the other side of the map.

3. The reviving medic must remain immobile and untouched by monster attacks for Y seconds otherwise the revival process is botched. This might encourage other players to support medics.

4. The revived player has a health/speed handicap to reflect their post-mortem reanimation which lasts Z seconds, until the wave completes, or until they do some amount of damage proportional to their level.

Thank you for your ideas, but those are dealing with the function of the ability, not the cost. There is another topic somewhere about that, albeit in the DruidsRPG Development forum.

The idea I have for resurrection is very different from yours, so your ideas don't apply (though would certainly all be implemented/fixed, for the most part).