So, the Heavy is next for new alt weapons and achievements, and in the post on the TF2 official blog, Robin Walker invites us all to play along with the developers by showing us the guidelines they use while inventing class packs.
I’m never one to turn down an invitation, except to parties, or weddings, or reunions, or dinners, or events, or shopping trips, or job interviews, or birthdays, or meetings, or the thing where someone needs help moving furniture so they offer to buy a pizza if you come help, as if that’s some kind of enticement for engaging in hours of backbreaking work.
So, I thought I might have a go at it.
Goal: Make the Heavy more viable when he has no Medic to pair with.
I guess you start by figuring out what the medic really does for the heavy. He heals him, obviously, and healing is a way to extend the heavy’s lifespan. So, the heavy needs some way to look after himself and extend his lifespan when the medic isn’t around. It doesn’t necessarily need to be through healing or health (and it really shouldn’t, because you don’t want to replace the medic) but it should be some way to keep him alive and successfully killing enemies while he’s on his own.
Avoiding taking damage is pretty much the same thing as getting healed from damage taken, so perhaps he needs some way to either protect himself from damage, or become more effective at killing those who would dish it unto him.
So, I have two separate ideas. Perhaps spinning up his minigun for an extended period of time could create some sort of static charge, a sort of electromagnetic shield thingy that could repel or deflect some gunfire (or maybe just protect him from crit rounds and projectiles) or push charging enemies back (like pyros), or keep the heavy from catching fire. That fits in with protecting him from damage and keeping him healthy.
Or, instead of shielding him, the charge from spinning his gun could instead build up a crit supply that he could unleash at will. Sort of a personal miniKritz, maybe with a meter to tell you how many crits you’ve got stored. That would help him live a little longer by killing more enemies before they can kill him.
The drawback would be as soon as he stopped spinning his gun, the electroshield would completely vanish, and keeping his gun spinning, of course, renders him unable to move at much more than a crawl and makes him prone to sniper attacks and backstabs. I guess he could probably keep his stored crits until he uses them or dies.
Now, let’s see how this fits in with the constraints Mr. Walker has outlined for us.
It shouldn’t have a cumulative effect when being healed by a Medic as well. Heavy/Medic pairs do pretty well as it is.
A bit of a problem. You don’t want an overhealed heavy with a shield or a personal supply of crits, that’s a bit too powerful. So you’d have to shut those items off if a medic is healing you, which means either make the medigun disperse the shield (or be unable to heal a heavy sporting a shield) or suck up the heavy’s stored crits and add them to his ubermeter.
Which means, if a heavy is busy building up his charge, he might not be thrilled if a medic comes along and nullifies it by healing him. And you definitely don’t want heavies running around yelling for medics to stop healing them, right? They’re buddies, after all. You also don’t want a medic being prevented from healing anyone, because that’s how he builds up his uber. So, I think this test is more or less failed.
It shouldn’t significantly change the Heavy’s role, relative to other classes. In particular, it shouldn’t significantly encroach on another class’s role.
I think we’re safe there, except for those medics who do use the kritzkrieg. If a heavy has his own crit supply, he doesn’t need the kritzkrieg. I don’t see the Kritz in action much, but it should still be an option for a medic, and this steps on his turf a bit.
It should be understandable for both the user and the player it’s being used on.
The shield would be pretty easy to understand, some sort of crackly force field lookin’ thing, though it would have to look different enough from the Kritzkrieg as to not be confusing. It would automatically appear when the gun was spinning, so it couldn’t be easier to use.
The crits meter is easy to understand, since we’re used to how the medic works, and I guess you could hit a key to start throwing your crits around. I think people would catch on pretty quickly.
How much work is it? How many new models, sounds, effects, etc?
A new effect, sure, and probably some sounds, like a humming or fizzling when the charge builds up. Plus, it’s the heavy, so he’d need some new voice overs, because he’s funy and we all love the things he says.
Does it deepen the Heavy’s skill curve? Is it easy to learn? Hard to master?
I guess the heavy would have to decide when it was worth it to charge his gun by spinning it and when he should just proceed as usual. There are times when you hold your ground, other times when it’s time to stop spinning the gun and move as fast as you can. Doesn’t really change his dynamic much in the long run, you’d just have to learn when the shield is worthwhile and when it’s better to move at speed.
How often does the Heavy need to think about it? Is it something he uses once every 5 minutes, or is it something he needs to be constantly thinking about?
I don’t know! Stop asking questions! The shield will appear just by spinning up the gun, so you don’t really need to think about it at all. The crits supply, you’d have to decide when to use it, if you should use it before it’s full, if you should hold off using it until the last moment, all weighed against how much danger you’re in and how much damage you’re taking.
That’s about what I’ve got for the minigun alt, so maybe I’ll post some ideas for his other weapons later.
67 responses so far ↓
1 Jimmay // Jul 2, 2008 at 11:43 am
I really like the idea of a shield, but I think the key would be making it selective, which you already mentioned. Block crits and rockets, maybe flares and stickies too? Regular attacks still work, but the Heavy has a healthy amount of hit points you have to work your way through. The biggest challenge would be working that in with the Medic. Can you imagine a heavy with 450 hit points and a shield like that? Oy vey!
2 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 11:47 am
That electro shield ideas rather interesting. And the mini kritz idea is ingenious. And if it adds to a Medic’s UberCharge, they might do it perposly, to get a faster UberCharge for another, not Electro Gun heavy.
3 Tom90deg // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Hmm…I think the idea of some kind of shield is a interesting idea. I’d make a few small changes though, so tell me what you think.
The biggest threat to a solo Heavy, in my opnion, is a sentry gun. The other classes may be able to dodge a bit, and manuver, but the heavy is so slow that he’s got no option but to go toe to toe with it. Which brings me to my idea.
The Electromagnet - A modified heavygun, that, when spun up, starts a large electromagnet on the front that sucks in bullets AND, this is important, explosives. What does this do? If a heavy is spinning in front of a level 1 sentry, nothing will hit him. Level 2, maybe 50 or 75% will hit. Level 3, same, but also EVERY rocket will hit. Of course, when the heavy is spinning, he can’t move, basically frozen until he stops the gun.
I think this passes quite a few of the guidelines, it doesn’t effect the Heavy/Medic buddy, it doesn’t overpower him, as he’s now more vulnerable to explosives. He’s also frozen, or extremly slow, so he can’t just walk around mowing down people immune to bullets.
Anywho there’s my idea, feel free to rip it apart!
4 J3553 // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:11 pm
All I’m doing is preparing for the onslaught of, “THE HEAVY IS OVERPOWERED!!! VALVE RUINED THE HEAVY!!!!! THEN THEY PEED ON THE SEAT AND HID MY KEYS!!!!”
Maybe he could wear a dispenser, put in runs out of metal quickly, so an engie has to follow behind and hit him constantly.
5 Lack_26 // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I came up with an alternate idea for the shotgun earlier, but it is lost in a pile of posts. For those that can’t be bothered to find it I’ll copy it below. I like your idea Chris, but you’re certainly right about the stack-ability problems.
”
They want to make the Heavy solo-able, therefore I guess they want some sort of healing device, to cut reliability on the medic, but not make the medic unwanted, now, here is my idea.
Instead of, say the shotgun you have a cardboard cut-out of the medic, he does similar healing to the heavy than a normal medic does (possibly the same, while the cardboard cut-out keeps in sync with the art style). This is deployed in a similar way to an engineer building, this would allow the heavy to secure a place defensively, while the medic ensure a good team offence, but a medic is still desirable for the mobility (possible a greater healing rate as well).
I think this is probably fairly balanced, I don’t know how the cut-out would appear to the enemy, possibly as an actually medic (the spy had a mask, and that works). It would be hilarious to see a spy back-stab a medic, only for it to fall forwards as a piece of cardboard, with the heavy turning round and obliterating the confused spy.”
Also, perhaps, if a medic starts healing the heavy the card-board cut out should stop healing him.
6 buster42 // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Shield’s an interesting idea, but yeah, having a medic come along would kinda ruin things in various ways.
My idea for an alternate melee is iron knuckles or gauntlets or something like that, and it would send enemies flying away (like the pyro’s air blast). It would be useful for when your medic suddenly dies and you need to make a hasty retreat. I dunno how it would work when medics were around, though (not that I see Heavies using melee much).
I’m more curious what they’re going to do for achievements, since there’s not really as many “interesting” things do to with the Heavy compared to the Medic and Pyro.
7 Mr brit // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:26 pm
J3553, Interesting idea but maybe expand it a bit, alternate sasha does much less damage, less ammo BUT it allows two building slots. The engineer can thus build two of his buildings on to the back of the heavy. A sentry would only go to level one but would protect the heavy from flanking and a spy would have to sap the stuff to backstab the heavy. The heavy is vastly slower with the stuff on him and to prevent engy’s from stacking stuff on the heavy has to aprove the build. When the heavy dies, the buildings simply drop to the floor and can be used as normal. Also medics cannot heal a heavy with a building on him.
The biggest problem with this idea is that it is useless without an engineer. So I was thinking maybe anyone can use these slots. Picture a sniper taking shots from a heavy’s back or a pyrosneakily deploying right when the heavy distracts the enemy. I think this fits most of the demands as it calls for a skilled heavy to remain alive in order to carry his cargo but it may change his relationship with classes….
Oh well I’ve warbled on enough…
8 Mr brit // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Lack_26, I like your idea, It adds tactical decisions as to where to deploy it and helps the heavy do what he is designed for, defense. It should heal at a slightly faster rate but the sacrifice is manouverability. It should deploy quickly (say 2 seconds) but take much longer to pack up (15 seconds) so the Heavy must decide when it’s safe to put it away. The main drawback is the loss of a secondry weapon but I doubt anyone will complain. Spy wise, the heavy should be informed if it is backstabbed, much like an engineer is with a sentry being sapped.
“Spy has backstabbed my Medic!”
“What Medic?!” Kill 10 spys who backstab your fake medic.
9 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Thats actually incredible awesome Mr Brit. The Heavy is a transport vehicle with weapons.
Though something tells me he won’t be carrying other Heavies.
10 mr. Brit // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:42 pm
lol, yeah maybe no heavies, although the idea of them stacking could be fun, so 5 heavies all in one great big stack…
11 J3553 // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Perhaps a teleporter on his back to get teammates to the front lines faster. But in order for it to work, the Heavy would have to stand still.
Imagine looking at an entrance teleporter and seeing, “EXIT IS IN MOTION!!”
12 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Hahaha, that would be hilarious. A giant defense tower made of Heavies would be something wonderfull to see.
though something tells me they would be a nice Spy target. Imagine that bugger dropping his cig ontop of a pile of Heavy bodies.
13 Schrodinger's Monster // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Without the Medic, the Heavy is not economically viable.
Now I’m going to be reciting the movie Falling Down in a comical russian accent. Shit.
14 Yojimbo // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I like the idea of the minigun charging crits, however I think a better way of doing it would be to force the heavy to crouch and spin to charge the weapon. Say he has to crouch in a stationary position for 5 seconds before he can stand up and unleash the beast for a quick 3 seconds of critical mayhem.
It would be easy to use and mastery of it would come from learning how to move from cover to cover where he can charge it up.
It would also be pretty easy. You would probably only need to create a loud charging sound effect (to alert enemies). The electrical effects from the medic kritskreig could be reused for visual effect.
For a alternate weapon I’d give him a dirty hairy type machine gun. It would go well with his motif and give him some long distance fire power. I suppose this weapon could function like a snipers machine gun only I’d give it a little more accuracy. Pretty easy to implement and it makes the heavy a little more versatile at long range. Difficulty low, as you’d just need to reskin the snipers weapon into something that looks like it would match Heavys personality.
For a melee weapon I’d say barbed wire boxing gloves. Or since the barbed wire theme was taken by Pyro then give him nail filled gloves. These gloves would be heavy and force the heavy to take longer to wind up a punch, but would have the knock back ability. Difficulty on this one would be a little high since you’d have to alter the heavies punch animation which could take a while to get right.
Wow I way over thought that one. I need to get back to work.
15 ZomBuster // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Still love this idea
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/9695/121488472065on0.jpg
16 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Something I just want to see implemented in the Heavy is this. If he happens to be useing melee, and his next hit would kill you, make it insta crit just to send the enemy flying.
17 Pentadact // Jul 2, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Damn it Chris, slow down! You’re out-blogging me horribly. I’m sure I started my post on this before you, and now yours is twice the length, already finished and funnier than mine.
I think dedicating a whole key just for one unlockable weapon is paying too high a price in the control economy, though.
I also think crits-at-will is a hugely powerful ability, and just spinning your barrel is too easy and grindable a route to obtaining it. The Medic has to sacrifice his ubercharge, then heal people to earn it, and even once he’s got it he doesn’t get to direct the fire himself, he’s got to rely on someone else to be competent: lots of drawbacks.
Shielding’s a good concept, though, I was thinking on similar lines. It fits the Heavy’s nature much better than any regen, vampiric or self-healing ideas. So far all healing concepts are tied to the Medic: passive regeneration, health-stealing and healing itself. I think it should - and will - stay that way.
Tom: I like your electromagnet idea. A defense mechanism that’s great against some types of fire but worse than useless against others would lead to some interesting decisions and hilarious moments. The percentage of bullets blocked would have to be up for grabs in balancing, obviously.
Lack: I love the imagery of your cardboard cutout medic, but I fear it treads on both the Medic’s and the Engy’s toes too much. Gives me an idea for an Engy unlock, though: booby-trapped Sniper mannequin. Explodes when backstabbed.
18 mr. Brit // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I like the sniper dummy, it would have to throw a decoy dot as well to really bug the enemy.
19 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Spy sappin mah Sniper?
That sounds fun.
20 Niteowl // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Two words you talentless hacks:
Jet Pack
Why none of you have thought of this BOGGLES THE MIND.
Also, if you think that’s too OMFGTOOOVARPOWRD!
NINJA STARS
Featuring such greats as Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and maybe that guy who had that Ninja Show in the 80’s? He wore a frigging SILVER chainlinked mask, because you know, that’s really hard to spot.
What would happen is, the heavy would yell “NINJA STARS!!” and one of the aforementioned ninjas would pop out of nowhere (a la Marvel Vs. Capcom) and do some CRAZY SHIT, then disappear.
This will negate the need for medic, for you balance whores, the ninjas would could not be healed by a medic.
This would not be a very steep learning curve. Maybe they can put some voice synthesizing techmonology in there to make you YELL into mic “NINJA STARS!” and how well you yell it will determine how AWESOME the ninja is. If you ahve a very wimpy voice, or don’t really ’sell it’, then you’d get the ninjas from say, American Ninja 3. If you really yell a gutbuster you’d get Snake Eyes and the ninja robot from Transformers.
I think this goes without saying that the player would be thinking about this ALL THE TIME. But then, you should ALWAYS BE THINKING ABOUT NINJAs.
21 roBurky // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:12 pm
That does lead to the amusing mental image of a spy repeatedly and ineffectually trying to sap a real sniper.
22 PhatMan // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:13 pm
On the steam forums yesterday, there was an idea for a grappling hook instead of the shotgun, and i thought it was a pretty good idea.
It would have two and a half uses:
1) Use it on an enemy to bring him towards you. This would get him close to you, which is a good thing because heavies are great in close quarters. If you punch the enemy when he’s still being drawn toward you, his momentum will cause you to crit and knock him far back. or you could wait until he stops in front of you, and THEN beat him up so he cant get away.
2) Use it on a wall to be pulled to it, and on a ceiling to swing around. This gives the heavy newfound mobility. imagine a heavy popping up on the battlements in 2fort!
i think that the point of the heavy’s shotgun was to give him a mobile ranged weapon, but it never really worked well. this replaces it and is much better IMO.
the point of an alt weapon tho is that it’s not better, but can be used in different situations. this isnt fair because the shotgun just sucked for a heavy, so i dont want my grappling hook to be on its level.
i was thinking that the grappling hook could be destructible, maybe from being used too much or if it’s shot. then you’d have to find a dispenser or go back to a resupply locker.
thats all i can think on it.
23 Jimmay // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Spy sappin mah dummay!
24 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:16 pm
That grapple hook actually seems like a good idea. Maybe a new minigun could have it as an alt fire, but its not as strong as the normal gun.
I would have it as a secondary alt, but I remembered the ammo vaccum and thats still an awesome second alt.
25 J3553 // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Wait, how about (DIVERTING FROM SUBJECT) a spray that looks like a sniper dot and moves. That would be brilliant.
26 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Sniper dot spray is ingenious. If you wanted to be extra crafty, disguise as a sniper and have a friend put the dot far away so it looks like your sniping.
27 J3553 // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Get a lot of sprays on one wall, they will realize its a spray, but they won’t know which one is real…
BOOM!! HEADSHOT!!!
28 Lack_26 // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:28 pm
@Pentadact, you’re probably right about that, but like the idea you suggested, I would love to see the card-board cut out idea used somewhere, regardless.
29 PhatMan // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:33 pm
yea the ammo vacuum was the idea i kinda based mine off of (i dont know why i said it was on steam forums, im pretty tired) but i didnt think it was useful enuf.
ALSO i didnt finish my post! (man im tired)
i said 2 and a half uses.
1) on enemies to pull them towards you.
2) on walls and ceilings to get across the map.
2.5) on friendlies to drag yourself around. they will basically work like moving walls, so when you grapple onto them you can sort of ski and swing past them. they can only move say at 75% speed while being grappled (except for heavies who will move full speed, and except for scouts, who it wont be usable on) and the heavy will be drawn towards them until the grapple detaches on its own and the heavy catapults past them.
the heavy could also use it to swing from friendly to friendly to get really movin!
i also have a way to build off of chris’s electro shield idea. while spinning, the barrel starts to generate electricity, and a electro-magnetic shield grows out from the barrel. the longer you have it spin, the larger the shield will grow (thus protecting the heavy more and more) until it cannot grow any larger, say a bit larger than the heavy, just to provide some protection to teamates.
the shield stops/repels bullets, and projectiles (like rockets and grenades) are deflected slightly so they go off course. a rocket aimed directly at the heavy will still hit him, but do considerably less damage.
crits will penetrate the shield, but be un-critted, or treated as regular munitions.
when you fire the minigun however, the shield shrinks at 2x the rate it grew.
i also REALLY like the idea Mr.Brit thought of, the backpack. i think it would be a good replacement for the fists, because he would become slower and the punches would be slowed (but otherwise unaffected).
the backpack (or whatever it actually could be, ill just call it a backpack) could hold one other NON-HEAVY person or building. if its a dispenser, the heavy now has unlimited ammo and a good health supply, especially when combined with a medic healing you. however, the heavy is considerably slowed down, especially when firing, so the medic probably wont want to stay with the heavy.
it would be a great place to put a teleporter exit, and a sentry (only upgradeable to level 2?) would stop flankers quick.
if a friendly (or enemy spy! :O ) hitches a ride, they should be almost completely protected, and would be able to shoot from the back. this could also be the new place for the medic to hide with the heavy, preventing him from being taken from behind.
30 PhatMan // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:36 pm
i also like the cardboard cutout medic and the sniper-dummy. that should definitely be in the engy pack.
the medic would work like a dispenser (except only healing, no metal/ammo), and like it was already explained, the sniper would explode when attacked.
31 Ayrton // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:38 pm
How about a helmet? When he spins his barrel it sort of weaves a helmet which protects from headshots.
32 Chijts // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I played Heavy for quite a while today to have a think about what could be done. When using his main gun he’s essentially a walking sentry. Everybody jumps on you, headshots you, backstabs you if you so much as show off one of your big toes. But I think he doesn’t need large changes to his abilities to be more effective without a medic.
I found moving around solo a mixed bag. On the one hand I had quite a few sprees, and others, just rubbed out very quickly due to either not being able to move out the way of rockets or nades. But that’s a good thing as going around completely solo isn’t really the idea.
What’s the Heavies main goal? Shoot alot of people/cause as much damage as possible. As mentioned elsewhere, an increased damage the lower his health gets is a neat idea - it doesn’t have to be by much, but it could help keep you alive by killing quicker, and it’s not something that could combine with an uber well.
I also still think that if a Heavy had the choice of a weaker gattling gun but when spinning the barrel you could move at normal Heavy speed would be good. You wouldn’t have to change much at all design wise, and then you would have the choice of being more powerful but more medic reliant and slow or more mobile and less damage.
But I see that has its problems already too. As you could probably argue that’s the shotguns job, but that is more 1 on 1 then the big gun.
I think that a decoy idea has to be implemented on either the spy, engie or sniper. It’s too cool to pass up.
I also have a strong feeling that Valve will implement brass knuckles as the melee choice. It is pretty obvious and simple - slower swings for increased damage/crit when punching in the head/knockback effect.
I love reading all these ideas though, Valve must have alot of fun coming up with this kinda thing.
33 mr. Brit // Jul 2, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Phatman, thanks! And I like the idea of an enemy spy being carried behind enemy lines by a heavy, the ultimate embarresment! I’d love too this in the game but I fear it might be a little much for an unlockable :( and I envisioned it as two wooden platforms that dangle from a rope around the heavys neck. A backpack could be funny though.
34 Chijts // Jul 2, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I should add (to my already lengthy comment) that I kinda like the Heavy the way he is. It’s very satisfying to slowly move about and yet plow through 7 or so people. Much in the same way I liked using the pyro because it felt much more satisfying being the maniac on the team jumping out a people and generally being more suicidal.
35 fishface60 // Jul 2, 2008 at 2:27 pm
To make the Heavy more survivable without a Medic… to survive it’s killing the enemy quickly or taking lots of damage. There’s always the health bonus from killing, but how about RAAAAGE.
More damage when health is low, perhaps reaching the point where crits 100% when health is below 25. This wouldn’t stack with a medic as the medic would nullify the RAGE bonus by healing the Heavy.
36 Dan // Jul 2, 2008 at 3:14 pm
> To make the Heavy more survivable without a
> Medic… to survive it’s killing the enemy quickly
> or taking lots of damage. There’s always the
> health bonus from killing, but how about
> RAAAAGE.
that’s a great idea! works with everything on the checklist, too.
37 Sentry Gun // Jul 2, 2008 at 3:43 pm
If a shield exists, it should simply decrease damage and be based on remaining health. As you have less health, you gain more shield. It’s a bitch escaping at ~40 health and getting a stray shotgun to your back while you’re making an otherwise perfect getaway.
Personally, I see a speed decrease as a viable change. I dunno how, but I wouldn’t mind being an even slower target. Not completely stopped in my tracks, but notably slower, and only while spinning.
Also, Valve needs to get people using the shotgun. Pretty much nobody uses the damn thing, and they should.
38 AlphaHawk // Jul 2, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I think one thing that we’ll see in the update is the heavy’s new chaingun (Or whatever it is) will make him slower than he already is when walking with it, or stop completely, kind of like a human sentry. Although valve is walking a fine line with the Heavy/ Medic relationship. I would hope they stay the course and don’t screw it up now.
39 Cmdt_Carpenter // Jul 2, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I like the idea of a minigun that, when spun, actually speeds up the Heavy to the speed of a Demoman. However, it does not crit, takes off about 50 health, and holds a maximum of 75 shots; enough to take down an enemy or maybe two unless he keeps getting ammo. The point is that he must kill quickly and keep moving, but enemies that he passes by get an easy shot at him
For the shotgun, he could have a blunderbuss. No, really. The fire rate slows down immensely, and it must be reloaded after every shot, but a point blank shot deals about 150 damage. This is about as close to a ripped scattergun as you can get, Pentadact.
Fists: Boxing gloves. Deals a bit less damage, but knocks the target backwards. It’s pushes more based on the “weight” of the class. (movement speed) Scouts get pushed back fairly far (and into the air a bit) and other classes get pushed less and less, till the Heavy, who is barely pushed at all.
40 ZomBuster // Jul 2, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I think it’s already pretty obvious he will get brass knuckles or something, since the “My hands, they are made of steel!” sound files.
41 AR // Jul 2, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I think the “carry a dispenser around” idea is brilliant. Certainly Valve could test it easily. A “dispenser with backpack straps”, if you will.
You’d have to either nerf Sasha a bit, or block medic heals (although as a medic, I don’t like this idea). Or it could take up the shotgun and/or fists slot - so the heavy would always have to spin up to deal damage.
If the heavy doesn’t have a medic, then chances are the team doesn’t have a medic - and so a walking dispenser for the team is a pretty great idea. If the heavy does have a medic - it gives the medic somewhere to heal up - although it puts him in the line of fire.
Carrying around sentries seems over-powered. Carrying around people is just useless (everyone else moves faster than a heavy). A teleport is interesting, though.
42 J3553 // Jul 2, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Brass Knuckles, Metal Boxing Gloves, or Actual Hands of Metal. All three would work as a upgrade to the fists.
43 Cmdt_Carpenter // Jul 2, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Wait. This is his only upgrade:
http://www.teamfortress2fort.com/custom/24/images/gallery/40cec878-13a2-4884-a546-921b73455e52.jpg
44 Azzen // Jul 2, 2008 at 6:17 pm
To Cmdt_Carpenter:
Headshot.
45 atomicthumbs // Jul 2, 2008 at 6:42 pm
My idea: an alternate Minigun. When fired, the bullets would sit in midair, doing a slightly larger amount of damage than normal when somebody runs into them, and shielding from projectile attacks (the demoman more so than the soldier).
When he spins down, the bullets would go flying off as normal. This would enable making a sort of bullet-shotgun-cloud, as it would be more inaccurate to prevent this from being a long-range sentry buster.
46 Caskwarrior // Jul 2, 2008 at 7:14 pm
How about instead of directly increasing his speed while spinning his minigun make his feet really low friction so you slid with way less control over direction, ie maintain your forward motion you had before sliding. You could also be pushed back by enemy munitions hockey puck style. this is sounding extremely retarded after writing it but what the hell.
47 Edge // Jul 2, 2008 at 7:31 pm
How about a mini-sized mini-gun? It allows you to move faster but has like 50-75 ammo, while giving you 50% more crits than normal.
48 Neoviper // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:04 pm
My idea was a minigun that heals the heavy only if he is very low on health, and only if he hasn’t been hurt for a few seconds. had some others, but this was the best one.
that and using his minigun like a bat instead of fists, but that will never happen. can only dream though.
that walking dispenser idea was pretty cool, but kind of unbalanced, if it only healed the heavy carrying it then awesome.
49 PhatMan // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:10 pm
@Cmdt Carpenter:
i just had the best visual of it - fan blades on the the barrel of the minigun! when it spins fully it pulls you forward, and wherever you aim it!
helicopter heavy!! well, maybe it wont pull that hard, but it could act like a parachute. or a lead weight if you aim it down…
and lol at your pic:
HEAVY Gear
50 PhatMan // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:10 pm
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Heavygear_activision.jpg[/img]
51 PhatMan // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:10 pm
:\
how do i do pics? i already tried img src
copy and paste the link!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Heavygear_activision.jpg
52 The Linker // Jul 2, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Fishface, I like that idea. That’s pretty dang good, actually. It fits all the parameters! Especially if he gets no crits at 300 health or above, though I think Kritzkrieg should still work.
He’d need some kind of visual indicator, so you can tell how much rage the Heavy has from afar. This does create interesting tactical options. If he’s got 34 health, do you try and finish him off, or run like mad?
53 mr. Brit // Jul 2, 2008 at 10:56 pm
AR, the point of having classes ride the heavy is that they have a sort of shield, without this the heavy requires an engy to use his unlock. Speed would be a negative factor to taking a ride on a heavy, but he would offer protection. Imagine a heavy with a soldier and a demo firing from his back!!
54 LaZodiac // Jul 2, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Indeed. A minigun with a missle and grenade launcher straped to it is a very awesome idea Mr Brit.
Also. Blunberbus is yes. yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
And I’ve never seen something more epic then Heavy Mecha Guy. Its a shame a single head shot brings that all down.
55 Mr. Mustard // Jul 3, 2008 at 12:06 am
My idea for the main weapon was a little more lo-tech:
Adding a bipod and a metal shield to the gun, making it so that when the heavy is not moving or turning his spread is narrower. While crouching behind the gun mounted shield, pipebombs bounce off instead of exploding on contact, stickies stick, the spread gets really wide, and damage to the front is reduced by 50%.
I think using the heavy as an (un)armored personnel carrier would be a waste. Imagine a soldier and a demo firing from the back of a heavy as one demo drops stickies on them and a sniper caps them all. I don’t think anyone would want to take that ride unless there was a medic around. Which leads me back to the stated goal of not relying on medics.
As an aside, I wonder if they were planning on making the scout’s nailgun a part of his pack? If so, they ought to make it like caltrops were, E.G. shoot a guy in the leg, guy moves slower.
56 Mr. Mustard // Jul 3, 2008 at 12:19 am
My reasoning for my design:
A heavy would last just as long standing still or hiding behind a shield and risking getting hit from the back/above as he would with a medic healing him (some adjustment might be necessary). While standing still he trades kills for lifespan. While crouching he trades aim for the same. This WOULD be easy to learn and hard to master and adds a lot of depth to the heavy’s “strategic deployment” element while still leaving the original weapon with a lot of use.
With a medic, standing still wouldn’t make much sense. The medic could hide behind the crouching heavy and essentially wait to get killed from behind/above. The heavy could stand around and, even though he would be doing more damage to each target, both of them would get wasted.
57 fishface60 // Jul 3, 2008 at 3:17 am
For the visual effect of RAGE, I’ve got two ideas
The Heavy has blood textures added, or perhaps the hit ones should stay. This is the realistic choice
The Stylistic choice would be some kind of flamey aura, or maybe a demonic one.
Of course this adds a downside that the enemy can know your health, which they can’t currently do.
This might be enough to have it as an unlockable weapon instead of a core modification.
58 Erik Z // Jul 3, 2008 at 6:46 am
A lightning minigun. When it fires, you’re getting eletric arcs instead of bullets. Which automatically hit players in range or attract to the edges of things.
It doesn’t have the range of bullets though, say, 30 feet. But the arcs CAN go around corners automatically.
Also, even though it contains less ammo than a minigun, it has a generator, and builds up it’s own charge.
Maybe only that and the dispenser can recharge?
59 garrett // Jul 3, 2008 at 7:40 am
how about he becomes stronger when he has less than 100 health?
60 Duke // Jul 3, 2008 at 11:46 am
Oh, so i was going to write a good long reasonable post, like Chris’s, but you guys already done it… Anyway, my 2 cents.
The problem of Heavy that is solved by pairing with medic is NOT just that he looses a lot of health. Even more, loosing health is due to the original cause. And this, like mentioned or not already, is Lack Of Movement.
Heavy with spinnging minigan pretty much stays on one place => He’s spammed with gunfire and rockets and everything else => he loses lots of health => he dies.
While pairing with medic the last implication is broken - health is restored. But we can “broke” the chain in other places too.
Back to the first implication: Speed. Heavy needs speed boost! There are different ways to do it and discussed already.
My proposition is the shotgun-changing one. Actually minigun is a midrange to shortrange weapon and shotguun is a shotrange weapon too, so usually you only see Heavy using shotgun when he’s out of minigun shells. Thus i think an unlockable should be changing shotgun drastically, like the flaregun came for Pyro.
OK, I’m getting to wordy.
CHAINSAW!!!
61 fishface60 // Jul 3, 2008 at 12:31 pm
For the heavy you’d need a meaty chainsaw, perhaps a throwable circular saw on a rope so you can reel it back in.
The alternative is a rocket chainsaw, but I get the feeling that’s going to be for the Soldier pack.
62 AR // Jul 3, 2008 at 4:33 pm
mr. Brit: or they could, you know, just stand behind the Heavy ;)
63 Mr brit // Jul 3, 2008 at 11:12 pm
AR: Ok, fair point. Perhaps they get a slight damage bonus or something. The main reason that classes should be able to use the heavy is because if they didn’t then this unlock would require an engineer without a nest to be effective. Maybe not all the offensive classes would find much use but the engy could build a dispenser and then hop on, keeping it healthy and shooting down backstabbin’ spys. Or a sniper could use it as a wall for snipong behind that won’t suddenly lurch to the right so that he gets blown apart because he’s on it’s back.
Also, regarding sentry’s, I said only up to level 1, so it protects the heavy from would be flankers but he is probably more powerful than it so there is no point walking backwards at then enemy unless conserving ammo.
Teles would be great fun to see on him and dispensers would be really useful.
64 Duke // Jul 4, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I forgot to wrote, but i meant that with chainsaw he would get some special state of mind to move faster. would combine great with the RAGE proposition much above.
Rocket chainsaw? How do you even imagine it? o_O
65 Mr brit // Jul 6, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Just thought I’d invite you to give me all your life’s savings, it does’t fall into any of the categories you vetoed, lol.
66 Bob // Jul 13, 2008 at 5:46 am
I think another thing that would answer these questions for the minigun would be some kind of absorb-o-gun. Every successful hit could grant the Heavy like 1 health point. That way he’s gaining health, but only when theres an enemy around and not nearly at the rate that a medic could heal him. You could animate it by having a slight glowing outline or something, and it would cause less damage than the normal minigun to balance things out a bit. And it would encourage Heavies to play even more aggressively.
Other ideas could be knucle-dusters that provide some sort of kick-back. Hitting someone would send them flying.
As for the shotgun… well I dunno.
67 Plaz // Jul 28, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Here’s an idea… what if the fists were replaced with a riot shield? The primary fire would be a short-range thrust attack weaker than the fists, and holding the alt fire increases defence, but reduces visibility by making the camera zoom through the tiny slit in the shield. It only protects from the front, of course. It would be pertty easy to understand the heavy walking around, holding up a steel plate would be harder to hit, and the shield would not be effective with the Medic, because what medic would want to waste an ubercharge on a Heavy with a close-range, inferior attack?
With the main problem out of the way, a good shotgun alternative would be some of goo launcher gun that sticks the enemy to the ground, making them easier to hit with Sasha.
An alternative to Sasha, though….Hmmm, I’d just have to say a more focused gun with lower spin up/down time. Not the most original idea, but eh.
If the riot shield got in, a good achievement would be “Defender of the People”, where the Heavy protects another player, optimally the Medic, with a shield or his own body.
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