The Terrible Heal/Hurt Gun

Long ago, some guy had a brilliant idea. They were going to play Uber Game's Monday Night Combat. A class-based third person shooter that's actually a lot of fun to play. Well, the demo is, anyway. That's what I played and that's what I liked.

The game has a class known as the Support, an overweight Italian-sounding fellow who takes the roles of both the Engineer and the Medic to serve as the game's primary support character. Which explains his name, I guess.

In any case, he came armed with a unique primary weapon: the Heal/Hurt gun. It does exactly what it sounds like: it heals and overheals allies, and hurts enemies. A little toggle twitched in the guy's brain. This heal/hurt gun, it heals people! It's exactly like the Medigun! But it also hurts them. So it's better than the Medigun! Why not give the Medic a heal/hurt gun? The "hurt" action will behave exactly like the heal action, but it'll attach to enemies and hurt them for damage equivalent to reverse healing. What's so bad about that?

The most obvious answer is that an inversed medigun would do terrible damage. 24DPS? That's miserable. The solution is to up the damage, but how much? It's a weapon that latches on to the victim. It's actually less challenging to aim than the flamethrower, so it couldn't be that much. Time spent hurting instead of healing is time that could be spent healing, or living to find more patients in need of healing. Realistically, time spent hurting ends in time spent sitting in spawn, thinking about how close you were to killing the guy currently wearing your blood as decorative face paint.

Of course, the Medigun also has to lose something in order to gain any sort of combat ability. So people start by reducing the amount of health the medigun can heal. Usually, they move on to swapping out the ubercharge. Of course, the hurt function isn't like the ubercharge. There's no conflict between healing and ubercharging. You're still doing the same job. Healing and hurting, however, are opposites and require you to focus on two very different targets. Realistically you can only be doing one at a time, even if you could technically be doing both.

Ultimately, there's no reason for a heal/hurt gun to exist. The Medic has a hurting gun: it's his sidearm, the Syringe Gun. Giving him a second hurt gun, one that's meant to be sidegraded against a pure-healing weapon, is invariably going to be bad at healing and certainly can't match the syringe gun for damage output or range. By dividing the gun's goals, it's made weaker on both fronts.

History of a Weapon: Quick-Fix

The experimental Field Combat Healing Device (code-named the "Quick Fix") was the first battlefield-ready prototype of the now-standard line of TF-1968 combat Mediguns. Developed in secret at an undisclosed location in the Thunder Mountains, it remains a remarkable piece of field medic technology.

Like the now ubiquitous TF-1968, the Quick-Fix consists of three basic components: a medicinal reactor backpack, handheld beam emitter, and in-patient beam reciever. Accounts from the battle during its initial test case report that the invulnerability charge worked successfully for nearly thirty seconds before the glass casing of the barrel cracked, jamming the feed hose and permanently shorting the machine's ability to generate ubercharge.

The Quick-Fix was considered to be a vital asset and as a result was put into immediate mass production, with further testing to be done with field trials. Field trials discovered, however, that the guns were excessively unstable in combat. The glass casing was prone to cracking as charged notdeadium fluid experienced rapid pressure fluctuations. In short, the machines often exploded.

Experimental retrofitting to combat explosions became commonplace amongst field medics. It was soon discovered that adjusting the gain in the machine's feedback loop primed the uber coil faster and sped patient recovery. Depressurizing the fluid while the circuit was active generated the uber field, but without the high-pressure gain the field was no longer capable of stopping bullets. The less rigid field had a unique property, however: external kinetic energy couldn't penetrate it.

Although the machine now healed faster and would no longer explode while venting its uber circuit, the open-faced vent and unshielded reactor continued to cause problems: medics using the machines would occasionally become inexplicably faster. The closed-face radiator vent decreased energy waste, allowing healed patients healed by the device to generate an "overheal" effect, which protected them from wounding briefly even when no longer exposed to toxic healing radiation.

It was in conjunction with the discovery of a superior casing material for the handheld emitter that the Quick-Fix was abandoned, to be replaced by the newly developed TF-1968 Medigun.

Engineer Buildings in Medieval Mode

Buildings that are generally applicable in both Medieval Mode and regular gameplay don't work. Medieval Mode--currently relegated to DeGroot Keep--has a very specific game imprint and buildings introduce a number of problems.

First of all, buildings inherently favor RED. RED has more access to metal and more time to work on buildings. While BLU is inside the Keep after an A/B capture, they are concentrating on capturing the final point. That would leave very little time to engage buildings built inside the higher reaches of the Keep, whereas BLU's map area is huge and immediately accessible to RED. With no objectives outside the Keep to defend and no bottlenecks to improve the effectiveness of buildings, BLU won't benefit from offensive buildings and support buildings become very vulnerable.

Buildings also form natural barriers. Even if they had no other function at all, they could be built to block access to DeGroot Keep's final point. Friendly REDs can clip through them, using them for cover, while BLUS need to either engage or circumnavigate them. The point's access is only about two dispensers wide, so a pair of Engineers could stop access to the point for at least two seconds, and unless their melee weapon swings slowly or repair rates are modulated for Medieval Mode, they could outrepair any damage done.

Sentries are generally expressed as automated crossbows. I don't know why. It's not like they're a thing. However, the common expression is slow firing rate, fire-friendly arrows. Inexplicably common, also, is the condition that Engineers must continuously hit the sentry in order to make it work. Specific stats relating to fire rate may change, but the requirement for constant Engineer supervision is mystifying--it's absolutely no fun for the Engineer. Weighed against the sniper the sentry is guaranteed to have lower potential DPS on arrows but it requires less effort so players using it would look doubly bad-they're not maximizing their damage output and they are taking the easier job. Nothing about this translates out of Medieval Mode--the sentry is too weak to justify the expensive balancing measures used to make it fair in the Keep.

Dispensers are often replaced with kegs of mead. Tables of food or healing fires show up less commonly. They favor RED for all the reasons already listed; RED has more time and resources, they offer more effective cover for RED inside the keep than they would for BLU outside. Often dispensers have no metal generation in exchange for extra healing, which obviously doesn't make any sense; only snipers, Crossbow medics and other engineers will ever need ammo, and the extra healing gives RED a big advantage when BLU is pushing for the point. Dispensers are normally fragile, but without ranged weapons enemies must expend valuable time destroying them, both to break through or to deprive the REDS of the extremely valuable boost.

Teleporters aren't that great in their traditional role. Again, they favor RED because the BLU field is not large enough to hide them or necessitate their use relative to the cost of building one. At best, a sneaky BLU engineer could build one inside the keep, but putting the effort into hiding it instead of gunning for the point is probably wasted. On the other hand, REDs can use them to potentially stall enemy Democharges on the point, or build effective telefrag traps since it's easier to guess where enemies will be when their only access point to your base is a 110HU door.
Plus, they're always generic "magic portals". Allow me to wiggle my fingers in disgust.

Ultimately, if the Engineer needs a buff in Medieval Mode, other opportunities should be examined. Most buildings offer a pretty unconditional advantage. Since Medieval Mode is already reasonably balanced (i.e. fights can go to either BLU or RED), creating new items that will mostly have appreciable benefits only for RED unbalances the game in RED's favor.

The Ark--A Medigun

The Ark
Level 20 Medigun

Allows you to select two heal targets simultaneously.
50% Healing during dual-heal

Ubercharge: Arcing Bolt Wall

Upon an ubercharge, healing speed returns to normal and both patients earn an 85x50 HU wall of invulnerability that centers on their crosshair. Enemy fire cannot pass through the wall, but enemies themselves can. If the two patients stand within 200HU of one another, their walls will arc together, becoming a single long wall 300HU wide. Projectiles vanish upon hitting the wall, but players will absorb knockback force as normal.

50% healing means that both patients receive 50% of their normal healing allotment. If you're healing one patient (A) who has 100% rampup and one with 0% rampup (B), A would receive 36HPPS, while B would receive 12HPPS. "Double healing" during the ubercharge means that healing returns to its standard amount

Soldier Lines

Buffing more than two allies with any banner
[screams The Ride of the Valkyries]
[screams The Revielle]
[screams the Charge bugle call]
[incoherent screaming]
Yer mammas are very proud of you!
Forward, you bunch of nancies!
I am commending you all for a promotion!
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavok!
These colors do not run!

Using the Buff Banner specifically
Make these ones count, boys!
Shoot 'em right in the whites of their eyes!
We come waving the [Green/Yellow] Flag of War!
I love the smell of crits in the morning!
I am literally urinating glory!
Let's give these hippies haircuts!
Kill 'em. Kill 'em all.

Using the Battalion's Backup specifically
We are engaged in a Charlie Foxtrot! And a one-two-three-one-two-three!
We will fight them until they are in the ground.
You sorry lot will die when I tell you, and not a moment before!
You call that killing me?
Armor's on!

Using the Concheror:
Happy forward times for great successful!
Their blood will salve your wounds!
Your pain sustains me!
Bring me their ears!

The Injury Update!

Now for a fake update about being wounded!

The Scout

The Big Hurt

Level ouch scattergun

Painslayers

Level 1 Painkillers (secondary)

While in use, heals the scout for 30HP and kills ramp-up on incoming damage for ten seconds.

While worn, the scout cannot be overhealed.

Tiny Tim

Level 1 Crutch (melee)

Improves returns from health kits by 15%.

-50% Damage

Hat: The Baseball Bill's Sports Shiner (a black eye)

The Soldier

The Tenderfoot

Level 5 Leg Casts

Deals damage to anyone within ~40HVU upon landing a rocket jump (groundpound)

+10% self-damage

Hat: The Spirit of 76 /The Hedwound

A stylish head-bandage recalling a famous painting by the same name

The Pyro

Another Burn Ward

Level 10 Flamethrower

Wearer shares any healing his victim gets until the fire is extinguished.

The Mental Exercise

Level 10 Imaginary Axe

party blowers and confetti on kill

Hat: The Invisible Person

A well-bandaged head in two styles!

The Demoman

The Hurt Launcher

Level 2 Grenade Launcher

The Company Health Plan

Tier 3 Scotch

Self-damage heals over time

+10% bullet vulnerability

Hat: The Double Eyepatch

Vision is for menn who don't rely on skill

The Heavy

The Medkit

Sandvich reskin

The Reverse Heimlich Maneuver

On kill: allows you to throw enemy ragdoll at opponents

-25% attack speed

Hat: The Sour Tooth

A toothache wrap

The Engineer

Sorry, Engineer fans!

The Medic

The Blood Drive

Level 10 Syringe Gun

Allows the medic to earn ubercharge for nearby non-medigun healing

-25% damage

The Suppository

Level Cough Bonesaw

Crits from behind

-50% base damage

this is a joke

Hat: Surgeon's cap

The Sniper

The Lobotomy

Level 5 Sniper Rifle

Pierces targets

+.5s charge time

Sample Seven

Level 2 Urine Joke

Splashed allies earn temporary health regen

Hat: The Reminder

Bandage over cheek-scar, numerous additional bandages on face

The Spy

Insurance Fraud

Level 5 Sapper Replacement

"Sapped" enemies share 10% of their healing with you

Surgical-Grade

Level 2 Scalpel

Hat: The Sympathy Solicitor

A neck brace

The Engineer:

Unlike Valve, I was kidding before.

The Workplace Accident

Level 3 Nailgun

Minicrits on headshots

-25% Damage

-50% Clip

The Quarpal Tunneler

Level 2 Right-hand cast

Allows engineers to walk through their buildings

-25% swing speed

Hat: The Clumsy Carpenter

A cracked version of the standard hardhat with nails in it

Meet the Test Subjects

Scout

Challenge: aerial faith plate

The scout sits at an aperture brand folding chair, leaning back and resting his feet on the table. He's wearing the standard Aperture jumpsuit with the sleeves cut off plus his dogtags, headset, and cleats.

Interview: "Yeah. I finished the tests. All of 'em. Perfect score. Yep. Didn't take any brain smarts or nuthing. They gave me this cube thing? Bam, I incinerated it. No problem. Listen pal, I can solve tests. I can solve any test, any time, no problem. Yeah, they tried giving me these dumb looking boot things when I came in here and I said "No way are you putting those girl shoes on me, nerd!" And then I gave him a noogie. You know what I'm saying? This guy does, ha ha ha."

Test Footage:
The door to the room opens, and the scout comes out, arms outstretched, mugging and strutting for an imaginary audience. He stops mid-gloat, noticing that the room is mostly empty of objects and completely empty of people. Cautiously he scans the whole room while backing up, only to step onto an AFP, which then launches him into the far distance. At the far end, another AFP activation can be heard, and one of the scout's shoes comes flying back and knocks over the camera.

Soldier

Challenge: Thermal Discouragement Beam

The soldier is dressed in an aperture jumpsuit, Long Fall boots (in a slightly more masculine style) and a test helmet that hides his eyes.

"How do I feel about this challenge? What is this, girl scout preschool? I am a man, and MEN do not talk about their feelings. Men do things with their hands, like build PROUD NATIONS or BIRDHOUSES. Do not test me, science man, I will not be--Oh! Sixty dollars? I'm in!"

The soldier tumbles into the middle of the testing room floor as though he were diving for cover, and lands in the middle of a nearly empty chamber. Quickly he takes stock of the elements in the chamber. Thermal Discouragement Beam generator. Two weighted discouragement beam redirection cubes. The Thermal Discouragement Receiving Port. After thinking carefully, he fires four successive shots. The first portal drops a redirection cube under the Thermal Discouragement Beam, rerouting it to another discouragement cube, into a portal on the wall and out to the Receiving Port. Standing direction in front of final receiver, on fire, is the Soldier.

As he crumples, the portal gun drops out of his hand, rolls through the open door, and the "test completed" success bell is heard.

Spy
Challenge: Turrets

The Spy is wearing an inexplicably classy Aperture jumpsuit with the sleeves rolled down and buttoned. He has a boutonniere on the lapel, and somehow retains his balaclava and cigarette. His pants are rolled up at the knee, revealing the Advanced Knee Replacement and a pair of wing-tip shoes. While speaking he dismisses one smokable and lights another.

Interview:
"Am I to believe you will be administering a test? And during this test, you will allow me to be alone in a series of rooms which may grant an invisible man who is not me access to unguarded industrial secrets? Top shelf."

Test Footage:
The primary testing area consists of a small antechamber with a security camera and aroom with several turrets (a genuinely ridiculous amount), arranged in a crowd that leaves a path between two doors. There's some conversion gel splashed on the floor. The spy enters the room, and immediately uses the portal gun to dispatch a nearby security camera. Glados' signature complaint regarding vital testing apparatus is heard. The Spy peers around the corner. One turret asks "Hello?". The spy ducks back into the lee of the door, activating his invisibility watch and chuckling softly.

Completely invisible to the viewer, his movements are implied by the movement of the camera. Quickly, he enters the room, the camera moving laterally to suggest he's strolling casually and mark his progress. There's an overhead shot of the scene, with the many, many turrets' targeting lasers staring straight ahead. A close up of the conversion gel puddle being disturbed, with a few footprints trailing out of it, then a close-up of a turret.

The turret is staring straight ahead, then blinks and looks down, its eye following the apparent progress of the footprints. There's an overhead shot again, only this time one of the sentries is following the footprints with its tracking beam. Slowly, ominously, the tracking beams begin to converge on a space near the footprints.

One of the turrets quips "Goodbye" and the scene fades to black over gunfire, and a gentle thump.