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ACE Medical setting change - The Stitching


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I would like to open debate about stitching restriction on AWE / modded events.

Im of the opinion, that current restrictions to stitching (only in vehicles) is very detrimental to flow of the gameplay. Neither is this restriction realistic.

 

From realism perspective:
Experienced combat medic would have much easier time to stitch patient lying on the ground, than trying to stitch them in backseat of a vehicle (cramped space, unless medical van), not to mention MOVING vehicle. Idea of someone being stitched in Humwee moving 50kph on country road is just preposterous (or in flying Littlebird HAHA).

 

From gameplay perspective:
1)
Vehicles are often more risky place to be, than some covered "outside" location (ground depression / trench / building).
We all know, how Arma AI reacts to vehicles that are occupied.

 

2)
On many missions where vehicles are scarce (or none) or too risky to be used, players will often run long streches of mission with only bandaged - and constantly reopening - wounds.
This will quickly deplete their supplies and starts eating into medic's supplies and time, grinding the Squad to standstill, affecting not only individual wounded soldiers, but whole Squads and mission progression from Platoon/Zeus perspective.

It also makes riflemen gameplay miserable, because their Aim will be more and more affrected by accumulated bloodloss and unstitched wounds.

 

I believe this review is now needed more than ever, due to new ACE medical system, which generaly makes it harder to wake people up from unconsciousness, and requires medics to be well supplied with fluids. Ability to stich multi-wounded, will preserve their fluid reserves better.

 

 

PS:

Another thing to consider would be re-usability of Surgical Kit.

There I'm kinda on the fence. There are part of surgical kit that are extremely light and take almost no space (needles and threads) and parts that are re-usable (scalpel, clamps).

That would speak for re-usability.

 

On the other hand, for scalpel and clamps to be reusable, and for the individual woulds to be cleaned for stichting, disinfectants are repeatedly needed, and those cans will take lot of space and weight in large quantities.

 

Maybe if the Surgical Kit item can be made heavier (say 3x heavier), it would be ideal to make it into re-usable item.

 

 

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This is something we have discussed at length in the staff team, I think for the purposes of the gamenights we thought that having them only in vehicles would allow us to see how it worked in the environment and this was when the vehicles were always allowed and we didnt want the threat of being shot being deminished by the fact that they can easily be bandaged. However i think this point is valid and will be brought up within staff and see what the opinions are here. 

 

as to reusing them. 

We can not easily change the weight and as you say a lot of things in the kit will either be single use or need sanitizing before reuse so i believe that they should be single use and have to worry about the logisitics behind them.

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16 minutes ago, kman said:

I would like to open debate about stitching restriction on AWE / modded events.

I am fine with the current system as it actually punishes people for taking risks/not valueing their virtual lives and getting shot.

If everyone could just always be stitched up I imagine that it would lead to people taking more unnneded risks like taking too dangerous peeks and engagements...at least that tends to happen to me.😅

 

16 minutes ago, kman said:

From realism perspective:
Experienced combat medic would have much easier time to stitch patient lying on the ground, than trying to stitch them in backseat of a vehicle (cramped space, unless medical van), not to mention MOVING vehicle. Idea of someone being stitched in Humwee moving 50kph on country road is just preposterous (or in flying Littlebird HAHA).

Though I am totally on your side with it being unrealistic to stitch people in vehicles but on this point I am more for just not being able to stitch at all unless at base. Because yes an experienced combat medic could stitch someone in the field, but he would just stabilize the patient and RTB him and not stitch him and send him off into the next fight.

 

26 minutes ago, kman said:

From gameplay perspective:

23 minutes ago, kman said:

2)
On many missions where vehicles are scarce (or none) or too risky to be used, players will often run long streches of mission with only bandaged - and constantly reopening - wounds.
This will quickly deplete their supplies and starts eating into medic's supplies and time, grinding the Squad to standstill, affecting not only individual wounded soldiers, but whole Squads and mission progression from Platoon/Zeus perspective.

It also makes riflemen gameplay miserable, because their Aim will be more and more affrected by accumulated bloodloss and unstitched wounds.

As you said casualties can bring the gameplay to a complete stop. But I think this is totally fine because otherwise we would just always kicking ass like in some BF/CoD-arcade-shooter. This way, we gotta be carefull, we have to be scared of every corner, window, roof, hill, etc. to avoid getting shot and pinned. It just always offers the possibility of failure or that we just have to hit the brakes, withdraw to regroup and then set out again. And if someone is just completely shot up, then I don't see a problem. Just call in a medevac and regroup later. So I'd argue that this aspect actually enhances the gameplay because of the unpredictability that stresses the player out.

 

 

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A field medic can and will use a stich kit to stabilise a patient and in our gamenights and AWE play we aim to have as many boots on the ground at a time as possible. As such we will never remove the option to stich from the medics. We have limited the PAK to medical facilities that provides enough reason to send someon back to base in the situation that they are badly wounded enough that the medic cant deal with them in field. 

 

 

After discussion with the staff we are going to test out stitching in field but leave them single use to ensure that they are still balanced and the logistics still have implications if a medic is using them a lot 

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10 minutes ago, Noah_Hero said:

I am fine with the current system as it actually punishes people for taking risks/not valueing their virtual lives and getting shot

No just no.

People on AWE never take or not take risks based on consideration whether they will later be stitched or not. This will just not enter into equation.

 

If you want people to consider risk of being shot at, you have to either:

1) limit number of respawns, making it clear that dead people will not be able to continue mission at all

2) server-force specialised mods like Laxeman's suppression.

 

15 minutes ago, Noah_Hero said:

As you said casualties can bring the gameplay to a complete stop. But I think this is totally fine because otherwise we would just always kicking ass like in some BF/CoD-arcade-shooter.

Again you are wastly exagerating. Wounded people need to be: bandaged, stitched and their fluids largely replenished before returning to optimal effectivenes.

What you describe woud be vanila first-aid kiting people.

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I think stitching in the field could be fine so long as it is limited to one use stiching kits so that to not make any medical teams that are added useless and speed up medical gameplay too much.

 

It could even be worth having specialised Field Surgeon roles with more specialised abilities like stiching in the field as well as having access to more medical supplies, like a Platoon Medic for example.

 

If that was done, you could make each Squad Medic act more akin to a Combat Medic or Combat Life Saver. These would essentially be the roles to stabilise units and have limited full heal options where the Field Surgeons would be the ones to travel between units and ensure full heals where available. These Surgeons could even fold into a specialised medical team that act on the ground and/or perhaps have MEDEVAC Choppers. Twisting the gameplay to that scene effectively keeps a sense of difficulty and slower paced, thinking gameplay where leaders will also need to take into account using WP's, OP's and Operational Phaselines as points of reference to gather not only a supply check from their men but also a medical check. On the vast majority of Gamenight's I've attended, a lot of the leaders tend to have a sense of urgency even when they've got Flat Stan and his 1000ml blood brothers walking faint like "s-sir please could we take a knee for just 1 minute and get a medical check." Perhaps that'd slow down leaders in areas where needed and give the medical roles that extra time to get things squared away. Combat Medics could use that time to gather a quick triage of their men and consider whether they can keep them stable or if they need a Field Surgeon to quickly drive/fly over and get their patient fully squared away - IF the Combat Medic has already used up all of his LIMITED Field Surgical Care supplies.

 

TL;DR - Consider implementing Field Surgeons in perhaps a Medical Team that will be the brunt of Field Surgical Care, leaving Combat Medics with limited Field Surgical Care supplies so that gameplay can still advance at a quicker rate as players desire, but also restrain and withhold dangerous manuevers from taking place too many times as Field Surgeons would be needed to fold between squads either on ground or in the air to full heal players between Operational Waypoints such as WP's, OP's and Phaselines.

 

Additionally: I agree with Kman that a review of the Medical Situation is greatly needed. ACE's Update has made things much more difficult, I personally believe that a dedicated Medical Team is needed now more than ever. I think they could fill a great gap and would be a welcome addition: carrying extra medical equipment, having access to dedicated medical vehicles that can get them across the battlefield quickly and SHOULD be relatively protected through the Geneva Convention (I'm looking at you Zues). Personally I'd fill it as such:

Paramedic Team Leader / Pararescue Pilot

Paramedic / Pararescuemen

Paramedic / Pararescuemen

 

*In case you wanted a purely air based role on occasion.

 

That's my personal 2 cents. Personally think it would be a fun and engaging way of doing things whilst also filling that speeded up gameplay that people desire, done correctly there is no reason why this would be slower than the current state of things. Just takes clear communication - that is key.

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I don't know @Minipily, it seems to me too much details put into medicking.

 

It migh be fine for very specific missions, or when the server is nearly full capacity. But for our usual ~30-40 people, I would not create two degrees of medics where squad medic needs to send / wait for specialised doctor to do stitching.

 

But on large mission when we do have Medevac, combat surgeon with PAK ability might be created.

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12 hours ago, kman said:

But for our usual ~30-40 people, I would not create two degrees of medics

But why not? That is about as full as it gets and a perfectly reasonable number to have squad medics just as CLS to stabilize people and keep them alive and platoon medics to actually get them fully back up as @Minipily proposed. It is just a nice little measure to slow down the gameplay and make it a bit more challenging.🙂👍 Or is that not wanted?

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As stated above, 

 

The staff team agrees that the intention we had with the vehicles can have unintended limitations and we feel that having the current setting changed so that medics can stitch in field, but the kit is consumed is a good move for the mission. 

 

We will not be adding roles to slow the gameplay down as the gamenights we currently run are between 2-3 hours long and we feel this is long enough for them to run with a good balance of action and planning. 

 

The PAK can be used in medical facilities and they are usually only available in the main base.

 

We value all input and will continue to monitor the situation with the ace settings

 

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