Denied Vortiheal SWEP

[Tinbe]

Suggestion: Add a SWEP to Vortigaunts that enables them to heal people. It used to exist in ye olden days of Clockwork, but as far as I know, never returned in Helix
Why it would be worth adding: Admins aren't always able to tend to /help requests asking for a patient's HP to be lifted after RPing the usage of Vortessence.
Necessary content: Coding, hence why I'm not super expectant on something this superfluous coming to pass. Should abuse be a concern, I'm sure countermeasures can be put in place. Decrease the Vort character's max stamina or its regen for X amount of time (probably trickier to code), give the SWEP its own "ammo" that refills extremely slowly (probably less tricky to code), so on and so forth. Hopefully this thread can be used as a way to discuss the details of such a SWEP.

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

Suggestion: Add a SWEP to Vortigaunts that enables them to heal people. It used to exist in ye olden days of Clockwork, but as far as I know, never returned in Helix
Why it would be worth adding: Admins aren't always able to tend to /help requests asking for a patient's HP to be lifted after RPing the usage of Vortessence.
Necessary content: Coding, hence why I'm not super expectant on something this superfluous coming to pass. Should abuse be a concern, I'm sure countermeasures can be put in place. Decrease the Vort character's max stamina or its regen for X amount of time (probably trickier to code), give the SWEP its own "ammo" that refills extremely slowly (probably less tricky to code), so on and so forth. Hopefully this thread can be used as a way to discuss the details of such a SWEP.

On the same line, can we please have ground pound be a separate swep you have to equip. Shit is too easy to misclick

 

[Maytree]

As now a Vort main; I support this.

 

[Numbers]

I kind of like that vortigaunts can only heal outside of combat. Very gimmicky inside combat, feels like something they need to be in the right headspace ICly to do so

What do you think @Appetite Ruining Kebab

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

I kind of like that vortigaunts can only heal outside of combat. Very gimmicky inside combat, feels like something they need to be in the right headspace ICly to do so

What do you think @Appetite Ruining Kebab

I'm pretty sure this is so they can heal Out of Combat. The main this is that begging for staff is really annoying.

 

[FreeSpy]

This can be easily abusable in combat tbh

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

This can be easily abusable in combat tbh

I think having being on a whitelist which gives you the Vortswep (And right click) to begin with, you can probably trust players not to abuse it. Make it a faction rule to not use in combat, then enforce it?

It's not much different to cops being told not to spam med scripts in battle. And being trusted not to

 

[Raiden]

This can be easily abusable in combat tbh

In turn so can medigels and stuff - just have it restricted in the same sense of you cant use medkits mid combat too

 

[Tinbe]

Surely there a ways to create countermeasures which make it less and less usable in direct combat situations? For example, limiting ammo regen to only when the SWEP is held out - or better yet, only allow it when player is standing still. Apply all of that on top of a very slow ammo regen rate should do something against its usage in combat.

Might not even need to be automatic, but rather require the player to press smth like Mouse2. Give it audio cues, obvious particles, or anything really. Of course, the more complex it is to code the less likely it is, so the rule of KISS might be for the best - whatever it would lead to.

 

[Sil]

Perhaps give it the same consequences as the standard vort swep, where it uses stamina as ammo.

5 stamina per 1HP would be good, so it can technically be used in combat but wouldn't be enough to safe you in direct battle. Also makes it better to heal outside of combat.

 

[Tinbe]

Perhaps give it the same consequences as the standard vort swep, where it uses stamina as ammo.

5 stamina per 1HP would be good, so it can technically be used in combat but wouldn't be enough to safe you in direct battle. Also makes it better to heal outside of combat.

My concern with making it stamina-based is that it can recover very quickly. Sure, it's probably not obvious if the enemy is right around the corner, but anywhere with longer distances that can't be crossed quickly - or getting exposed - means you could quite plausibly heal someone by a few dozen points and be back in the fight to beam enemies a handful of seconds later.

 

[Sil]

My concern with making it stamina-based is that it can recover very quickly. Sure, it's probably not obvious if the enemy is right around the corner, but anywhere with longer distances that can't be crossed quickly - or getting exposed - means you could quite plausibly heal someone by a few dozen points and be back in the fight to beam enemies a handful of seconds later.

I'd say that makes it more reasonable, as it encourages the Combine to actually approach to deal with the threat rather than staying at a distance. The Combine have access to much more powerful long-range weaponry than the rebels, so giving vortigaunts the capability of self-healing (or healing others) mid fight balances it out

 

[Tinbe]

I'd say that makes it more reasonable, as it encourages the Combine to actually approach to deal with the threat rather than staying at a distance. The Combine have access to much more powerful long-range weaponry than the rebels, so giving vortigaunts the capability of self-healing (or healing others) mid fight balances it out

Maybe, but it's not what I'd be expecting, rather than mainly making the SWEP be used for complementing RP. Giving the healing SWEP more capabilities in active combat puts Vorts in an awkward place as snipers with few peers while also becoming healers that operate completely differently to the rules of healing (one item per fight) other people have to adhere to.

 

[Señor Jaggles]

We already had issues with the vort swep not logging when it begins shooting so I'd say this needs to be logged when used too somehow for it to work well, if it will exist

 

[Numbers]

are you sure you want to become expected to heal everyone you come across even when theyre missing like 10 hp, you're gonna become demanded as heal dispensers on another level if this is added, which might limit your ability to say no to people without looking like dicks

 

[Cindy]

I actually have a little bit of insight that I'd like to share in regards to Vortigaunts and healing that might recontextualize the topic a little.

Something I noticed during a re-playthrough of the games several years ago was that the ONLY instance we see Vortigaunts performing a healing action is when Alyx is injured— which required the use of a remedial reagent: The antlion larval extract. We see them perform this miracle nowhere else (the closest we see is Vortigaunts recharging Gordon's HEV suit/the EP2 mine generators). So, this begged the question: What if vortigaunts aren't actually able to heal on their own? What if they require things to augment their abilities to perform that kind of miracle, and on their own they can only stabilize the wounded until help can arrive?

Vortigaunts being the resistance's pocket medics has always been somewhat of an issue in my experience as it allowed players to be quickly resuscitated from injuries at a rate that the Combine absolutely could not keep up with, and nearly removed the need for actual human medics. So with the above revelation in mind, I pitched to have Vortigaunts incapable of healing without reagents at their disposal, and could only go as far as stabilize the wounded otherwise.

The results were extremely positive, in my opinion. Enough to be worth the consideration in this context. It would prevent abuse in combat, make it something that Vortigaunts can only do with the utilization of a limited resource, and even give Vortigaunts a soft RP objective in the interest of acquiring these materials for later use.

 

[Cindy]

Also by "reagents" I don't just mean The Extract(TM). Let's make some random ones up that are less powerful but still useful! Give Vortigaunts a reason to go foraging for alien materials! Things like houndeye eyes, bullsquid venom, gargantua hearts, etc. You could even go as far as create, in a sense, "recipes" that rejuvenate people in different ways and require a multitude of ingredients and thus making the antlion extract the one and only cure-all that doesn't require a second ingredient.

Maybe one will heal your injuries but you go on a vision/dream quest of some sort. Perhaps another will cause you to hard purge your body and vomit but you are suddenly cured of your illnesses. It would go a long way to portray an almost shamanistic element to the Vortigaunts that would go along with how we as roleplayers have come to interpret them.

 

[Señor Jaggles]

Things like houndeye eyes, bullsquid venom, gargantua hearts, etc. You could even go as far as create, in a sense, "recipes" that rejuvenate people in different ways.

Exactly what a witch would say. Nobody ever expects the Spanish inquisition do they.

Anyhow I like the overall idea but I'm personally more confused as to how to implement it. Faction specific healing items that only vorts can use? Maybe?

 

[Cindy]

Exactly what a witch would say. Nobody ever expects the Spanish inquisition do they.

Anyhow I like the overall idea but I'm personally more confused as to how to implement it. Faction specific healing items that only vorts can use? Maybe?

Something like that could work. I'm thinking maybe creating some crafting recipes from the ingredients and then only Vortigaunts can use the resulting item that's crafted?

I'm not developer so I'm kinda talking out of my ass here, but it would be really cool if these were made to drop from NPCs if they're killed by a Vortigaunt SWEP— beam, claw or otherwise.

 

[Cindy]

Okay I have to come clean: This is actually just me trying to make the bit in Ration Line where the Vortigaunt becomes super buff after eating spinach server canon. I need to roleplay Popeye Vort.