[Feedback] Healing Infantry with the repair gun.

[Potatomcwhiskey]

Hi, I've sunk a few hours into the game now today and there is one huge issue that has been bothering me as I've been running around as an Engineer.

Trying to repair another infantry person when you're moving, they're moving or any other situation where you're both not standing perfectly still feels like complete ass. I feel like a hamfisted ogre trying to thread a thick steel rope through a needle held by an angry and disagreeable monkey.

I've summarised this in the image below.

Now, I'm not saying you need to make it super easy, but for whatever reason be it poor hitbox, server lag or the engineer beam being literally a pixel thick or some other shenanighanery it is really REALLY hard to hit an ally with the beam when you're not standing still.

I've played on mostly low ping servers with mid populations, and I'm fairly decent at FPS games - been playing most of my life so I'm fairly certain my aim isn't total crap.

I don't think it should be made tf2 style where it is pretty easy to keep a beam on someone but this section of the game definitely needs some love and attention.

How have you guys found healing people on the move? Am I an isolated case?

And to further the discussion, should we be able to heal people on the move?

Personally I think yes, and heres why:

Renegade, and RenX are more geared towards an arcadey style as opposed to modern shooters. It holds more in common with TF2 than BF/COD games to anyone with any experience in any of them. Despite its uniqueness I feel "borrowing" this neat little aspect of TF2, where support classes have a place in a firefight outside of offensive means would add more depth and give the players more options for gameplay while also giving people like myself, who love playing support roles a rewarding role on the battlefield outside of repairing vehicles and buildings.

Feedback and discussion on this topic more than welcome, do you agree/disagree, what tweaks would you make?

[TotemAatz]

Ive healed a few people and yes, it takes a better aim to heal people than killing people, so I'm not sure whats up with that, however if it was to easy to heal nobody would ever die...

[Cherno]

I thought about using a TF2 style targeting beam too, but then I realized that while the it's next to impossible to heal someone who is not moving away or toward you directly, this is more an issue of lacking teamplay and communication. Ideally, you would have comms and tell the wounded player to stand still. In public matches, it's mostly just a waste of time.

[SFJake]

Communication? (I have no idea why people go for the crutch communication thing in game, things happen naturally or they don't). If someone wants to be healed, they stand still, which also makes them more vulnerable.

People are bad at a HECK of a lot of things right now, which has nothing to do with communication, just that they are clueless.

[Potatomcwhiskey]

I thought about using a TF2 style targeting beam too, but then I realized that while the it's next to impossible to heal someone who is not moving away or toward you directly, this is more an issue of lacking teamplay and communication. Ideally, you would have comms and tell the wounded player to stand still. In public matches, it's mostly just a waste of time.

I specifically stated that having a TF2 style where the beam kind of "attaches" to the player isn't whats needed. Merely better hit registration on the move to give dedicated support players more to do in terms of gameplay. Playing other classes I noticed a lot of the time after I'd gotten through a firefight or two alive my health was so low that unless the next fight involved an equally low hp opponent I'd more often than not just auto lose, which is why I thought I'd run around in the firefight with my repair gun to help my team, but it was an exercise in frustration if I wasn't just babysitting a tank which I didn't find very fun.

Ive healed a few people and yes, it takes a better aim to heal people than killing people, so I'm not sure whats up with that, however if it was to easy to heal nobody would ever die...

The majority of the time playing as most firefighting infantry classes you're likely to get blown apart by explosives, or simply left low hp after a firefight with another person/group of people. I'm not suggesting you make it viable to run around with a team of engies and infantry chain healing and tanking everything, just make it a little easier to heal on the move when you're with a group of buddies, having to stop and stand still to heal in such a fast paced action game is a little jarring from a flow of gameplay perspective.

I'm not asking for Medic/Heavy levels of tank healing here, simply making it a little easier to do it on the move by your own admission its harder to heal than shoot people which makes that gameplay option essentially defunct - limiting the amount of meaningful choices players have when it comes to gameplay. If damage trumps healing by a huge amount in terms of difficulty to execute why are the players going to bother?

[Taramafor]

I think it's ok as it is. If you ever played planetside 2, there's people healing left right and center and the beam arcs by a lot once contact is made (which is just way too too much hand holding). Maybe if it arcs a little. If hurt, take cover/fall back and request aid. Means you actually need to plan where to take cover/fall back too and you can lay down covering fire at a corner while being healed. On that note, covering fire works pretty well sometimes, can give people behind you a chance to catch up and support.

[Potatomcwhiskey]

I think it's ok as it is. If you ever played planetside 2, there's people healing left right and center and the beam arcs by a lot once contact is made (which is just way too too much hand holding). Maybe if it arcs a little. If hurt, take cover/fall back and request aid. Means you actually need to plan where to take cover/fall back too and you can lay down covering fire at a corner while being healed. On that note, covering fire works pretty well sometimes, can give people behind you a chance to catch up and support.

I'm not asking for the beam to arc. I just want the hitbox for healing infantry to be more than 20 pixels wide when moving, which is what it feels like. I should be able to reliably hit people with the beam on the move if my aim is good like it is with vehicles. Instead whats happening is the beam passes through them, their arms, their head or anywhere that isn't DEAD center within a few pixels on their torso.

You see the problem is kinda a self fulfilling prophecy. Healing infantry allies is a pain in the ass unless they're standing still. Therefore less people put effort into trying to heal them, ergo less people see a point in standing still/looking for an repair gun if no one is going to bother healing them.

Your point stands up well in organised competitive play. But in pub matches expecting people to stand still with very limited ways comminicate in an action packed game is an effort in futility.

Simply the fact that you said "Its fine how it is" means you've never actually tried it. Go try it and tell me if its fine. The beam doesn't register hits on allies when I'm clearly hitting their model 90% of the time.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

If you press ctrl + 5 (= "Hold position.") and your ally still ignores you, i would basically abandom him anyhow. Take care of your engineers, so they will take care of you. You need to help each other if you want to achieve something in this game.

[ErroR]

It would be much easier to keep the beam on people if we had free aim.

[SFJake]

Screw free aiming abuse and aim normally.

[Fr3EdOm]

I would actually really enjoy seeing a TF2-esque "locked" aiming mode, for infantry as well as tanks.

It would certainly piss off the vanilla Renegade fanboys but would be a great addition to the list of Renegade-X upgrades, along with my visually satisfying idea of the "parabolic arc" effect of the repair beam (viewtopic.php?f=108&t=71401).

[Trooper]

I'm not sure about the targeting thing for tanks, but maybe as a secondary fire where it locks onto an allied infantry.

[TotemAatz]

I'm not sure about the targeting thing for tanks, but maybe as a secondary fire where it locks onto an allied infantry.

I would actually really enjoy seeing a TF2-esque "locked" aiming mode, for infantry as well as tanks.

It would certainly piss off the vanilla Renegade fanboys but would be a great addition to the list of Renegade-X upgrades, along with my visually satisfying idea of the "parabolic arc" effect of the repair beam (viewtopic.php?f=108&t=71401).

No.

[Potatomcwhiskey]

If you press ctrl + 5 (= "Hold position.") and your ally still ignores you, i would basically abandom him anyhow. Take care of your engineers, so they will take care of you. You need to help each other if you want to achieve something in this game.

This has nothing to do with people not stopping. It would be nice if they did but there you do.

This has to do with the hitbox being horrific. Go try it out, beam passes through extremities of players and sometimes even the torso.

I swear sometimes people don't read the thread.

It would be much easier to keep the beam on people if we had free aim.

What in the name of dickens is free aim, if you don't mind me asking?

Screw free aiming abuse and aim normally.

Free aim abuse?

I would actually really enjoy seeing a TF2-esque "locked" aiming mode, for infantry as well as tanks.

It would certainly piss off the vanilla Renegade fanboys but would be a great addition to the list of Renegade-X upgrades, along with my visually satisfying idea of the "parabolic arc" effect of the repair beam (viewtopic.php?f=108&t=71401).

The repair beam is fine as it is. Its just the hitbox on allies is fucked. The beam goes through peoples arms, legs and head, and so help you god if you're a pixel off their torso they wont get anything.

I'm not sure about the targeting thing for tanks, but maybe as a secondary fire where it locks onto an allied infantry.

Why are we talking about locking on? This thread is about hitboxes, there should be no locking on in this game, except for missiles. You can take liberty with some things but fundamentally changing the gameplay like this will push it towards losing it's charm.

[Taramafor]

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

I for one hate free aim and will stop playing the game if it's implemented in this game horribly as it is with splinter cell blacklist (oh look, yet another head shot kill with little to no skill). This is a PC game and we need more games with less hand holding, not a console COD for dummies.

On the subject of the repair gun, perhaps adding a "lock" on alt fire where the beam will then guide itself on the target. This would also prevent healing on mass too quickly, not letting it get over powered. Would also help with beacons if those could be targeted.

[Noodlesocks]

I would actually really enjoy seeing a TF2-esque "locked" aiming mode, for infantry as well as tanks.

It would certainly piss off the vanilla Renegade fanboys but would be a great addition to the list of Renegade-X upgrades, along with my visually satisfying idea of the "parabolic arc" effect of the repair beam (http://renegade-x.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 08&t=71401).

While it would certainly improve the functionality, what you would really end up with are a bunch of heal chains in fire fights.

I would much rather they just improve the hitbox/reg when using against moving targets.

[Noodlesocks]

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

I for one hate free aim and will stop playing the game if it's implemented in this game horribly as it is with splinter cell blacklist (oh look, yet another head shot kill with little to no skill). This is a PC game and we need more games with less hand holding, not a console COD for dummies.

On the subject of the repair gun, perhaps adding a "lock" on alt fire where the beam will then guide itself on the target. This would also prevent healing on mass too quickly, not letting it get over powered. Would also help with beacons if those could be targeted.

Free aim is where you can lock your screen in one particular direction and aim anywhere on the screen and the bullet will still go where your crosshair is pointing.

It will be interesting to see how the devs handle it given that ballistic weapons aren't hit scan anymore.

[Cherno]

I would guess that modifying the hitboy is out of the question, as nice as this would be for infantry healing. After all, it's the same hitbox that is used for getting shot and hit with normal weapons, so either those can hit better as well or each character carries a seperate set of hitboxes that only interact with the healing ray raycast.

[Potatomcwhiskey]

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

I for one hate free aim and will stop playing the game if it's implemented in this game horribly as it is with splinter cell blacklist (oh look, yet another head shot kill with little to no skill). This is a PC game and we need more games with less hand holding, not a console COD for dummies.

On the subject of the repair gun, perhaps adding a "lock" on alt fire where the beam will then guide itself on the target. This would also prevent healing on mass too quickly, not letting it get over powered. Would also help with beacons if those could be targeted.

No it doesn't. I was asking for an explanation, not a vitriol filled rant that has no place in a thread discussing hitboxes. Take your ego and your bias elsewhere. And I've even found a thread explaining it on these forums in great detail, and your post contains many factual errors.

Free aim is not Aim assist, take your propaganda elsewhere thanks.

Again and again, this thread is not about a lock-on system. A player with good aiming skills should be rewarded for a higher amount of healing done in the healing department, as opposed to just firing and forgetting for the duration of a teamfight while he bunny hops around.

I just want the hitboxes to register properly, as time and time I've state that the beam will not have any effect on an ally unless it hits a very specific "Magic box" that consist of their central torso.

I've addressed this several times in the thread and its getting tiresome, please read the thread and refrain from spreading such vitriol and ignorance. Your post stinks of "I just want to be heard despite having nothing of value to say".

I would actually really enjoy seeing a TF2-esque "locked" aiming mode, for infantry as well as tanks.

It would certainly piss off the vanilla Renegade fanboys but would be a great addition to the list of Renegade-X upgrades, along with my visually satisfying idea of the "parabolic arc" effect of the repair beam (viewtopic.php?f=108&t=71401).

While it would certainly improve the functionality, what you would really end up with are a bunch of heal chains in fire fights.

I would much rather they just improve the hitbox/reg when using against moving targets.

Thank christ someone who finally understands. All I want are better defined hit boxes for the repair gun on friendly infantry. Or even just "fatten" the beam to compensate for the wonky hitboxes.

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

I for one hate free aim and will stop playing the game if it's implemented in this game horribly as it is with splinter cell blacklist (oh look, yet another head shot kill with little to no skill). This is a PC game and we need more games with less hand holding, not a console COD for dummies.

On the subject of the repair gun, perhaps adding a "lock" on alt fire where the beam will then guide itself on the target. This would also prevent healing on mass too quickly, not letting it get over powered. Would also help with beacons if those could be targeted.

Free aim is where you can lock your screen in one particular direction and aim anywhere on the screen and the bullet will still go where your crosshair is pointing.

It will be interesting to see how the devs handle it given that ballistic weapons aren't hit scan anymore.

Its an interesting concept, I'm looking forward to it having never used it or even been aware of its existance until now it sounds like a unique mechanic to master that will help the game stand out from other games.

I would guess that modifying the hitboy is out of the question, as nice as this would be for infantry healing. After all, it's the same hitbox that is used for getting shot and hit with normal weapons, so either those can hit better as well or each character carries a seperate set of hitboxes that only interact with the healing ray raycast.

There are many ways around this sort of thing, and if the same hitbox is used for getting shot its absolutely awful. As I stated earlier the repair gun beam goes through several areas of the player model which is frustrating and wonky. Many many times I've been aiming straight at someone and the beam is passing through them hitting the wall. The extremities of the player hitboxes are especially notorious. My guess from my development experience is that they have multiple hitboxes per model and they're either incorrectly sized or for some reason the repair gun isn't registering on certain ones. E.G. The head hitbox seems to work fine for bullets, but is basically non-existant for the repair gun. I could be entirely wrong, but that is my suspicion.

[R315r4z0r]

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

Free aim isn't aim assist. It's just the ability to aim your weapon without the crosshair being tethered to the center of the screen. (You can freely move it around the screen while looking in a fixed direction.) This is not an aim assist even in the slightest. The best way you can see how free-aim works is to use it yourself in the original Renegade. You can't really rely on videos of other people using it because from that perspective it does look like aim assist... but it isn't. They are just making it look easier than it actually is.

As far as the thread goes, I've noticed it's kind of hard to hit friendlies with the repairgun. But it was also pretty hard to do it in the original as well. I don't think it needs to be adjusted because it would make healing infantry too easy and they would be harder to kill. Also, I think adjusting the hitbox would also have adverse effects with weapons being more lethal (since it would be easier to hit people.)

[Potatomcwhiskey]

As far as the thread goes, I've noticed it's kind of hard to hit friendlies with the repairgun. But it was also pretty hard to do it in the original as well. I don't think it needs to be adjusted because it would make healing infantry too easy and they would be harder to kill. Also, I think adjusting the hitbox would also have adverse effects with weapons being more lethal (since it would be easier to hit people.)

Theres more than one factor in the balance of power. They could simply decrease the rate at which infantry are being healed by the repair gun to compensate for the "buff" of it being less buggy or "easier" to heal people while moving around.

The easiest way to balance it would be to make it heal slower than the weakest weapon in the game does damage, that is if they improve the hit detection.

I really must stress, I'm not looking for the game to move in a TF2 "medic" direction, but I would very much like to be able to top up my allies a little bit as I run from objective to objective, instead of having to completely stop still everytime someone loses 25 hp because the hitboxes are ass, or whatever else is causing this issue.

Just a quality of life improvement for infantry combat and support really is all thats needed on the repair gun.

[R315r4z0r]

I understand what you're saying. I don't think there should be any locking feature at all.

But I don't think the hitboxes should be adjusted either.

I've personally never considered healing infantry anything viable. Sure it's possible, but there are other things you can do like helping to kill the attacker. You should have to stand still to heal infantry and not be on the move. It doesn't matter how slow the rate is because I still think it's just a bad idea in general.

Both the healer and the target should be stationary for the most optimal healing to be done.

There is also another reason why I don't think it should be easy to heal infantry with the repair gun, but I'm not 100% sure on it and I don't want to talk about something I have no actual insight on. But I will say it has something to do with healing infantry. Whether it's an actual thing or not, remains to be seen.

[OfficerMeatbeef]

It's not impossible to imagine there's some kind of issue with hitboxes on movement, but I think I'm going to go with Occam's Razor here. I belief the difficulty in healing moving people is a simple result of 2 things:

1. The repair gun fires a projectile that is no larger in the area it hits than most other projectiles, including bullets.

2. The characters in this game are proportioned in a fairly realistic way, are fairly thin and they move fairly quickly. Thus, they are hard to hit when moving.

I don't think the repair gun is any harder to hit with than any other weapon on a moving target, the difference is just that with most other weapons even only a hit or two in a spray of say, 5-10 will do a noticeable chunk of damage, whereas the repair gun is designed to heal damage slowly but steadily. Thus, your one or two "shots on target" in a stream of repair gun if you're trying to heal a moving teammate will appear to not hit at all!

Personally, I think this is how it should be really. People needing heals should be falling back from the front to their "triage" engineers in a safer spot to get back to good health, as It automatically gives battles a better ebb and flow and makes them a bit more tactical. Hell, even TF2 knows it and has a mechanic designed to work just in that way, though most probably don't know about it!

[Potatomcwhiskey]

I understand what you're saying. I don't think there should be any locking feature at all.

But I don't think the hitboxes should be adjusted either.

I've personally never considered healing infantry anything viable. Sure it's possible, but there are other things you can do like helping to kill the attacker. You should have to stand still to heal infantry and not be on the move. It doesn't matter how slow the rate is because I still think it's just a bad idea in general.

Both the healer and the target should be stationary for the most optimal healing to be done.

There is also another reason why I don't think it should be easy to heal infantry with the repair gun, but I'm not 100% sure on it and I don't want to talk about something I have no actual insight on. But I will say it has something to do with healing infantry. Whether it's an actual thing or not, remains to be seen.

1. Thats something we can agree on.

2. Could you elaborate more on that one?

I know your stated in your first post it might be too easy to kill people if the hitboxes are adjusted, but as I've stated in this thread before

A: If the same hitboxes are used for player damage, and the repair gun registering "healing" then something is fundamentally wrong with the hitboxes as the beam goes through peoples extremities like arms, legs, head, edge of their torsos etc.

B: The repair gun isn't interacting with the hitboxes the same way damaging projectiles do due to some kind of bug.

C: The hitboxes can be adjusted assymetrically, or the beam could become "thicker" by a few pixels, meaning you need a little bit less than savant levels of aiming skill to top someone up after a firefight while you're both heading to the next objective.

If A: is true then the hitboxes most definitely need to be adjusted, even if they are similar to the original. The best example for this that is pertinent is WC3 Dota and Dota 2. In WC3 Dota the character "Bounty Hunter" had a notoriously tiny hitbox that made it very difficult to click on him. In Dota 2, the remake and upgrade of WC3 Dota they gave "Bounty Hunter" a much more generous and reasonable hitbox that accurate matched his character model. "Bounty Hunter" didn't suddenly become super easy to kill overnight, but what did disappear was the frustration in trying to click on a character whos hitbox didn't accurately match his model.

If B: is true then thats obviously a bug and should be adjusted - I'll detail why later in my post.

3: Why isn't it viable? Why shouldn't it be viable? Why should all the roles be limited to killing a player, after all we can heal vehicles easily enough, why should infantry who are much more fragile be an exception?

4: This is where you've lost me a little bit.

Think about it, this isn't a military simulator like Operation Flashpoint, or the Arma series, or Novalogics Delta Force/Join Operations series.

Nor is it Battlefield, Call of Duty, or whatever variant of the 3 bullet kill modern military shooters are making the rounds currently.

This is Renegade, strafing, jumping, missiles, grenades, plasma, ligntning, lasers, tanks etc. Out of any game on the market that I can think of it has more in common with Team Fortress 2, and Nuclear Dawn/Natural Selection, Quake and Unreal Tournament. These games are more arcadey than the Mil Sim/ModMilShooter Genre.

It makes sense in a MilSim thematically that you have to stand still to heal because its a Simulation and even then they're taking liberties for the sake of gameplay.

It makes sense for ModMilShooter games to have tiny health pools and for healing to take a back seat role. Because they are inherantly more casual and having to sit with your friend patching him up is time taken away from throwing bullets by the clip at other people. The designers of those games have gone to great pains to maximise the time spend shooting at other players that is and that means stuff like medics take a back seat.

In Renegade, it makes no sense thematically for the gameplay to Force you to stand still to get Any healing whatsoever. The game is fast paced, hectic and people take time to die in a firefight comparitive to other games. It makes way more sense for medics/repair guns to be effective while mobile because

A: The game is fast paced on the front line, forcing people to stop and sit still to heal up for even minor injuries breaks the flow of battle/Gameplay.

B: Limiting mobile medics/Reps reduces the amount of meaningful choices players can make to form a strategy I.E. Grab a Engy for the push on Point X as opposed to "Screw medics just bring something else".

C: It its hilariously fun, and both teams can do it so it can't really be "overpowered". Lets not confused "Overpowered" with "Effective Strategy".

D: It gives more options to people who like playing Engy, Imagine you are repairing a friends tank which blows up. You seem some infantry pushing but you decide not to go with them because healing them is a pain in the ass and you don't know if they'll stop. Now you trek back to the base to change class or get a veh/whatever or join the push anyway and just C4 the shit out of stuff when you reach a building but you then die perhaps not being useful if the push fails to get to a building. If you could heal on the move there wouldn't be a "Useless" outcome there and the player would be more satisfied even in failure.

5: If you're going to bring something up and then not elaborate on it and use it as a part of your point why bring it up? Its basically like saying "I have a hunch and thats why I disagree with you" or "I know a secret and thats why you're wrong".

I have no way of knowing if either are credible or accurate. And if its in reference to some kind of medica class whats the harm in bringing it up? I haven't heard anything about it but it would be nifty to have.

It's not impossible to imagine there's some kind of issue with hitboxes on movement, but I think I'm going to go with Occam's Razor here. I belief the difficulty in healing moving people is a simple result of 2 things:

1. The repair gun fires a projectile that is no larger in the area it hits than most other projectiles, including bullets.

2. The characters in this game are proportioned in a fairly realistic way, are fairly thin and they move fairly quickly. Thus, they are hard to hit when moving.

I don't think the repair gun is any harder to hit with than any other weapon on a moving target, the difference is just that with most other weapons even only a hit or two in a spray of say, 5-10 will do a noticeable chunk of damage, whereas the repair gun is designed to heal damage slowly but steadily. Thus, your one or two "shots on target" in a stream of repair gun if you're trying to heal a moving teammate will appear to not hit at all!

Personally, I think this is how it should be really. People needing heals should be falling back from the front to their "triage" engineers in a safer spot to get back to good health, as It automatically gives battles a better ebb and flow and makes them a bit more tactical. Hell, even TF2 knows it and has a mechanic designed to work just in that way, though most probably don't know about it!

Occams Razor is a succint way to solve a problem account for all the details, not just the "Simplest solution".

Your post doesn't take into account that the repair gun passes through people when you're following right behind them aiming squarely at their back. This has happened to me on multiple occasions and I wouldn't be bringing it up if it didn't. The beam, no matter how accurately I use it will simply pass through the majority of the players model if he is moving.

So its not really an occams razor if you're not accounting for the fact that the beams pass through peoples character models.

Keep in mind, and perhaps I should have been more clear on this earlier in the thread - I thought I had been, I'm talking about when you're behind a teammate and you're both running[Not Sprinting] the same direction its damn near impossible to hit him with the beam. YES, if hes running perpendicular to you it should be JUST as hard to hit him with the repair gun as it is with a normal gun.

Its my fault I didn't present the specific scenario I have been mostly refering to - following someone directly behind and healing. I could understand if they were strafing it would be a pain in the ass to heal them, but the beam shouldn't be passing through arbitrary areas of the character model just because they are moving.

[Taramafor]

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

I for one hate free aim and will stop playing the game if it's implemented in this game horribly as it is with splinter cell blacklist (oh look, yet another head shot kill with little to no skill). This is a PC game and we need more games with less hand holding, not a console COD for dummies.

On the subject of the repair gun, perhaps adding a "lock" on alt fire where the beam will then guide itself on the target. This would also prevent healing on mass too quickly, not letting it get over powered. Would also help with beacons if those could be targeted.

No it doesn't. I was asking for an explanation, not a vitriol filled rant that has no place in a thread discussing hitboxes. Take your ego and your bias elsewhere. And I've even found a thread explaining it on these forums in great detail, and your post contains many factual errors.

Free aim is not Aim assist, take your propaganda elsewhere thanks.

Again and again, this thread is not about a lock-on system. A player with good aiming skills should be rewarded for a higher amount of healing done in the healing department, as opposed to just firing and forgetting for the duration of a teamfight while he bunny hops around.

I just want the hitboxes to register properly, as time and time I've state that the beam will not have any effect on an ally unless it hits a very specific "Magic box" that consist of their central torso.

I've addressed this several times in the thread and its getting tiresome, please read the thread and refrain from spreading such vitriol and ignorance. Your post stinks of "I just want to be heard despite having nothing of value to say".

I would actually really enjoy seeing a TF2-esque "locked" aiming mode, for infantry as well as tanks.

It would certainly piss off the vanilla Renegade fanboys but would be a great addition to the list of Renegade-X upgrades, along with my visually satisfying idea of the "parabolic arc" effect of the repair beam (http://renegade-x.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 08&t=71401).

While it would certainly improve the functionality, what you would really end up with are a bunch of heal chains in fire fights.

I would much rather they just improve the hitbox/reg when using against moving targets.

Thank christ someone who finally understands. All I want are better defined hit boxes for the repair gun on friendly infantry. Or even just "fatten" the beam to compensate for the wonky hitboxes.

Free aim speaks for itself. It's an aiming assist where the bullets magically home in on an enemy target even if the crosshair is directed a little off the target. Or even automatically guiding themselves to the head when you're aiming at the torso. So yea, screw aim assist.

I for one hate free aim and will stop playing the game if it's implemented in this game horribly as it is with splinter cell blacklist (oh look, yet another head shot kill with little to no skill). This is a PC game and we need more games with less hand holding, not a console COD for dummies.

On the subject of the repair gun, perhaps adding a "lock" on alt fire where the beam will then guide itself on the target. This would also prevent healing on mass too quickly, not letting it get over powered. Would also help with beacons if those could be targeted.

Free aim is where you can lock your screen in one particular direction and aim anywhere on the screen and the bullet will still go where your crosshair is pointing.

It will be interesting to see how the devs handle it given that ballistic weapons aren't hit scan anymore.

Its an interesting concept, I'm looking forward to it having never used it or even been aware of its existance until now it sounds like a unique mechanic to master that will help the game stand out from other games.

I would guess that modifying the hitboy is out of the question, as nice as this would be for infantry healing. After all, it's the same hitbox that is used for getting shot and hit with normal weapons, so either those can hit better as well or each character carries a seperate set of hitboxes that only interact with the healing ray raycast.

There are many ways around this sort of thing, and if the same hitbox is used for getting shot its absolutely awful. As I stated earlier the repair gun beam goes through several areas of the player model which is frustrating and wonky. Many many times I've been aiming straight at someone and the beam is passing through them hitting the wall. The extremities of the player hitboxes are especially notorious. My guess from my development experience is that they have multiple hitboxes per model and they're either incorrectly sized or for some reason the repair gun isn't registering on certain ones. E.G. The head hitbox seems to work fine for bullets, but is basically non-existant for the repair gun. I could be entirely wrong, but that is my suspicion.

No need to be an ass. 1: I made a mistake. I can own up to that. I did not see that thread. If I'm not contributing anything with my statements then how does your bashing on me help any? It's only stooping to what you see as a lower level and will only encourage hostility. 2: I've been burned by aim assist and you'd probably be pissed too in my position. OTHERS brought up the subject (Or rather a subject I misinterpreted) and I decided to reply. And 3: I think I've contributed a fair amount with OTHER ways of trying to heal others then simply making the hitbox larger, which has been covered and as stated, may make OTHER WEAPONS easier to hit players. If I'm spewing "propaganda" then by that logic, you must be purposefully trying to make it easier for everything to be hit. That is of course not the case but that is an example of how I could have reacted due to letting my emotions get the better of me as you have done.

Now on the subject of larger infantry hitboxes (just so a certain SOMEONE doesn't go stating I'm not contributing) as someone already stated, a way of giving an infantry larger hitbox tag may help. eg: Making a big box and having only healing guns interact with that hitbox. I believe that's perfectly possible to do as other games seem to be doing it currently. Such as a mass driver weapon shooting through shields in a space game. This may not be a space game but it's the same theory and logic, just in a different environment.

Either way, looking into OTHER ways of heaping to heal can't hurt. The thread is called "healing with the repair gun" after all, not "make hitboxes larger". Besides, what if it's not possible to make the hitbox larger for only the repair gun?

Edited March 3, 2014 by Guest

[Daedhart]

TL; DR

Healing infantry has always been crap, even in the original Ren. Thats why when somebody tells me not to move to heal, I just ignore him. Id rather avoid a sniper than stand around like a tard for 7 flow breaking seconds.

If you really wanted to fix this, make it so that the repair gun heals infantry faster than tanks. That way even when missing a lot, its still a viable option.

[OfficerMeatbeef]

Its my fault I didn't present the specific scenario I have been mostly refering to - following someone directly behind and healing. I could understand if they were strafing it would be a pain in the ass to heal them, but the beam shouldn't be passing through arbitrary areas of the character model just because they are moving.

Like I said, I wasn't discounting the existence of a possible hitbox bug either as a result of lag or whatever, merely that as you described it (being difficult to heal people moving in general) the most probable explanation was that it is simply very difficult to maintain accurate, sustained fire on a moving target in this game.

In the situation you describe, yes, I'd absolutely agree that seems like a bug if it's happening frequently in reasonable-latency situations. Though it likely would indicate trouble with most other weapons as well! So that will suck a bit if it's true.

That said, I think I simply have to fundamentally disagree with much of your argument. "Fast-paced and hectic" does not automatically mean "chaotic masses", and a constant push/pull ebb and flow of attacking vs. defending is already the heart of the design without needing to be "milspec", just as in the RTS it is based on which is no more realistic than this.

Vehicles are not any easier to repair than infantry because they are vehicles, vehicles are simply easier to hit with a repair gun because they are big targets. However, they are ALSO required to stick with their engineers if they want that repairing, because otherwise they will completely outpace their healers. Thus, the speed of a vehicle push must be tempered with the fact that they must be careful not to overextend themselves and be left without healing, and eventually they, too, will more or less be forced to stop to get a reasonable amount of healing done. Infantry works the same way, except that instead of infantry outpacing their engineers, they simply move too erratically during combat to effectively heal.

Further, just because an engineer generally wants to be back from the front lines does not mean they cannot be part of an attack, and I don't really see why "having to drop back for a second to get healed" somehow equates to "medics are useless" or contributes to any sort of loss in "meaningful choices". In fact, going by that metric I would argue it ADDS meaningful choices, if anything.

Is not "should I keep pushing forward or fall back for a second to get healed up to preserve this $1000 credit Volt Gun, plus the front line is down a unit for many seconds if not minutes" a meaningful choice? Is "is it safe enough out there for me to push up with my comrades and try to get in that building to blow it to hell" not a meaningful choice? Hell, even the choice of "it'll be just as hard for me to heal my teammate as it would be to shoot the enemy, am I up to it anyway?" is one that goes away if healing on the move is rendered too easy, though again, if it is too difficult because it's a bug, that is a different matter.

[R315r4z0r]

You're making it kind of hard to reply to you with your formatting lol. But I'll try my best.

2. Could you elaborate more on that one?

I did in the portion that you highlighted as light blue.

3: Why isn't it viable? Why shouldn't it be viable? Why should all the roles be limited to killing a player, after all we can heal vehicles easily enough, why should infantry who are much more fragile be an exception?

You misunderstand. I didn't say that it shouldn't be viable or it couldn't be viable. I said it isn't viable. Meaning it's too hard to coordinate it to a good effect for it to be of good use. It wasn't even like that in the original Renegade. You had to be either good at aiming your gun or you had to have that person stand still.

Making it easier to heal small infantry on the move has a major impact on the gunplay. Not only does it already take quite a bit to take someone down, but having them be healed at the same time? Either way this carries over into...

4: This is where you've lost me a little bit.

You should have to stand still to heal and the target should have to stand still to receive heals because it creates a flow of combat. Front vs rear. If everyone was just being healed on the front lines, it would make it harder for the enemy to break through them. You're denying the enemy room to move and that makes the game only fun for you and the aggressor team.

Players who want heals should have to leave the front lines, thus weakening the lines and allowing a chance for the enemy to break through. They should also have to stand still and thus make them a vulnerable target.

And you can see exactly what I'm talking about when you look at vehicle sieges. You get things like artilleries and tanks backed up with technicians and hotwires. These are incredibly hard to kill unless you get a good coordinated effort to break through them (or now, in Renegade X, a good airstrike). They don't back down if they are constantly getting repaired and that makes it hard for the defending team to press out. But I don't think that this is a problem because at the end of the day it is still possible to press out.

You might say that's contradictory and ask why that shouldn't also apply to infantry. But that's because infantry are one of those ways out. If Nod has a group of teched arties hammering down the front of your base, you can always try to flank them with some infantry. But if you suddenly make it easier to heal infantry on the move, then Nod can just have a good, easy to establish and hold infantry defense in the tunnels to defend against that as well. You're cutting off ways for the defending team to play. Even though they backed themselves into a corner, that doesn't mean they deserve to have less fun than anyone else in the game.

5: If you're going to bring something up and then not elaborate on it and use it as a part of your point why bring it up? Its basically like saying "I have a hunch and thats why I disagree with you" or "I know a secret and thats why you're wrong".

I have no way of knowing if either are credible or accurate. And if its in reference to some kind of medica class whats the harm in bringing it up? I haven't heard anything about it but it would be nifty to have.

I had to bring it up in one way because it pertains specifically to this topic. While I disagree with easier infantry repair gun healing overall, this one thing makes it irrelevant whether or not you agree with infantry repair gun healing.

The reason why I'm iffy about talking about it is because, as you can see from the color of my name and title, I'm an internal beta tester... and I don't want my words to be taken out of context as someone who knows what the heck he's talking about. I have absolutely no insight about internal game development what so ever. I just play stuff before most people. Anyway, if you look at some videos of the more recent internal play tests (before the open beta), like those twitch streams with TheGunrun, you might spot what I'm talking about in the PT menu. I think SFJake might have spotted it because he's alluded to other things listed in the PT menu, like motion sensors.

But anyway, from what I read from the PT, and again I don't know if this is still planned to be added or not, but there was a medical kit item that you could purchase and throw down and it would heal all people within a small vicinity, including enemies. Therefore, if it was easier for the repair gun to heal infantry, this med kit would be sorta pointless. And that's what I was trying to get at.

[OfficerMeatbeef]

And just one more important thing to consider: repairing people earns points for you and thus, your team. Unlike many games, these points are not just "xp" for your character or your own gloating rights but actually essential for determining the winning side in many (if not most!) matches. Should healing therefore be any easier than hitting a target with any other weapon? And if so, how much should the amount of points granted for the action be adjusted?

This also relates to the concept of falling back for healing, as pushing too far and getting killed does not just cost you time and the unit, it also awards the enemy team more points AND denies your team the potential healing points. Again, these seem like pretty meaningful choices to me!

[Anemia]

I honestly think that it works well in it's current state. That's not saying that I don't know what you're talking about but I believe that it prevents a lot of healing mid combat. If you want to effectively heal someone you both need to walk back a bit into cover and then do it. I personally wouldn't like to see an infantry combat similar to the vehicle combat where you have a couple of strong units in the front fighting and a couple of engineers in the back healing.

[ErroR]

I disagree with healing inf being bad in ren. Hotwires often repaired each other on the battlefield when they were low on health on their tank repair post.

It's just that in renegade the repair gun didn't have a straight beam so it's hitbox seemed bigger.

I see a lot of people agree that enlarging the infantry hitbox is a bad idea however I don't see anyone suggesting that the repairgun "bullets" have a bigger one. (I didn't go through all the thread, way too much)

[RoundShades]

To make it as authentic as Renegade as possible, no locking. It is possible to do though.

However, it is also a balance thing, it should require double player attention. That way, it can't be a dump heal, instead it is a trickle heal or a heal hidden out of combat.

If the teammate isn't cooperating with the heal, he isn't doing his part for the heal. It requires him being hit-able and you firing you healgun BOTH to make a heal happen. When one of those things doesn't happen, it isn't your fault and they get what they deserve. I mean, if you are climbing a tall wall, and you are ready to vault the other guy up but he doesn't try to jump into your hands, then you are doing your part and no amount of help will fix it.

IDEA: This is totally not very "Renegade", but I was thinking it would actually be more balanced/realistic if the repair gun only repaired infantry "armor" and not health. That way, it isn't a heal but armor replacement, and the "welding" effect makes sense because it is armor and not a person which you are welding. Just a thought. That would be cool.

[SeriousPan]

IDEA: This is totally not very "Renegade", but I was thinking it would actually be more balanced/realistic if the repair gun only repaired infantry "armor" and not health. That way, it isn't a heal but armor replacement, and the "welding" effect makes sense because it is armor and not a person which you are welding. Just a thought. That would be cool.

I agree. It may not be very Renegade, but it is still a very good idea. It could work out well and aesthetically makes sense. Nice thinking.

[wolfrikku]

To make it as authentic as Renegade as possible, no locking. It is possible to do though.

However, it is also a balance thing, it should require double player attention. That way, it can't be a dump heal, instead it is a trickle heal or a heal hidden out of combat.

If the teammate isn't cooperating with the heal, he isn't doing his part for the heal. It requires him being hit-able and you firing you healgun BOTH to make a heal happen. When one of those things doesn't happen, it isn't your fault and they get what they deserve. I mean, if you are climbing a tall wall, and you are ready to vault the other guy up but he doesn't try to jump into your hands, then you are doing your part and no amount of help will fix it.

IDEA: This is totally not very "Renegade", but I was thinking it would actually be more balanced/realistic if the repair gun only repaired infantry "armor" and not health. That way, it isn't a heal but armor replacement, and the "welding" effect makes sense because it is armor and not a person which you are welding. Just a thought. That would be cool.

I don't think he is wanting it to be fixed for combat healing but for more of healing on the run. It seems like its almost impossible to heal someone your running behind.

[ErroR]

I see infantry repair each other quite often.

There's usually a few havocs on the silo side on mesa being repaired by a hotwire.

She disarmed the c4 I placed on one of havocs ;_;

[R315r4z0r]

IDEA: This is totally not very "Renegade", but I was thinking it would actually be more balanced/realistic if the repair gun only repaired infantry "armor" and not health. That way, it isn't a heal but armor replacement, and the "welding" effect makes sense because it is armor and not a person which you are welding. Just a thought. That would be cool.

It's funny you say that. Because in the build just before the game went public, there was a bug where the repair gun would only heal infantry armor just like you're suggesting.

[SeriousPan]

How did that work out in the long run?

[DKrumpp]

Not necessarily related to the hitbox, but anyone feel like most people don't realize the repair gun actually heals infantry in the first place? Having not played the original Renegade in some time, it admittedly took some time to realize this. Perhaps we can also change the voice command "I need repairs" to "medic" if the person in question is on foot.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

TL; DR

Healing infantry has always been crap, even in the original Ren. Thats why when somebody tells me not to move to heal, I just ignore him. Id rather avoid a sniper than stand around like a tard for 7 flow breaking seconds.

If you really wanted to fix this, make it so that the repair gun heals infantry faster than tanks. That way even when missing a lot, its still a viable option.

At least someone gets it... I do admit healing infantry on the move in C&C Renegade was easier, but you were never supposed to heal infantry while they were in combat. You're more likely to get yourself killed before you fully healed that mobius.