trivia pursuit comes to mind. ask a crowd of people a single trivia question and you have a contest. create a board, playing pieces, and turn-order and the game emerges.

even in the Olympics, you have single events that combine to form subset games that ultimately combine again to form the Olympic Games. two tiers: subset games (track, swim, acrobatics, et alia) and one master game: The Olympics.

even as complex as the events get, say Judo, the game-theory is in point transferal from event to event, given certain events more/less weight. So the game isnt Judo, the game is managing your points throughout several events.

Most people would agree that a game is a system that always has one or more players; always has rules; and almost always has clear goals for the players. A footrace fulfills all of these criteria.

It’s just not a very interesting game; the game part of a footrace is so trivial, obvious, and uninteresting that it’s rightly ignored in favor of the far more interesting part, the physical ability that it takes to win this game.

a foot-race is NOT a game. It’s a single contest…

a track-meet (a series of contests) IS a game.

10/10

A powerful shot gun might be a good idea, but i don’t see how it would help with the medic problem. The medic allows a heavy to stand out in the open on the front lines and take fire from enemy’s without taking much damage. A weapon that lets the heavy heal it’s self can achieve the same thing, but a powerful shot gun would change the heavy’s role, turning him into a solider type class, and not help with lack of a medic.

I can understand that you may not like the idea. Personally, i don’t use the back burner, but other players do. Giving player options is the key, even if they choose the original weapon.

And i don’t see how it’s that complicated. It’s a vacuum that sucks things up and heals you. Most player will understand that. But advanced techniques like removing stickies can be learned. As the requirements asked, it’s easy to learn, hard to master.

It’s ridiculous how much great downloadable stuff is coming out lately. I barely keep track of it, mostly because the most interesting stuff is coming out for PS3 and I don’t have one. It’s great that Everyday Shooter came to Steam, since that’s an amazing experience that, as you mentioned about Braid, felt somehow personal. Also: Much better to buy for $10 than to shell out a few hundred for a PS3 and play on that.

About this vacuum-idea… I just don’t like it, I can’t explain why i don’t like it, it’s just so.. Complicated. I can’t imagine myself using it, or seeing any advance in it. It might be a nice idea working idea, but.. no.

Instead Shasha should get some accuraty while ducking. Something like in Americas Army, that you pop out a bipod in one second. Then heavy get’s more accurate. And it takes 1 second to get back to walking mode. But i don’t know, does it change heavys role too much? It would make heavy more defencive class, but maybe more like a camping class? And more anti-sniper.

So i have two suggestions. First, make it a 50 point drop. This is not as big, and an over heal would but it at 375.
Or, remove the over heal from the medic, but give it to the vacuum. Just like the medic, the vacuum can heal the heavy over his max hp, but it instantly begins to drop.

As for my first idea, i meant that the vacuum would replace the spinning. Right clicking would only vacuum. Then, left clicking would activate the gun part. While vacuuming, the heavy would move slower, similar to how spinning slows you down. And the vacuum, while in use, would take a while to speed up and to shut off. (I picture the vacuum as a giant jet engine looking turbine attached to the mini-gun, so picture it spinning up and then slowly shutting off). The gun portion would either immediately star firing, or it would still take time to spin, but you wouldn’t be able to pre-spin it.

My final thought is that, if a medic was healing a Heavy while using the gun on a group of enemies, the Heavy would take almost no damage. He would be constantly healed by two sources. This might be a problem, since it would make the heavy almost invincible.

(At this point in the discussion we’re just about at the point where it’s hard to say what mechanic would lead to more fun dynamics. The best thing to do is implement different things and see how they play.)

The second idea feels more drastic. I do see your point that we should avoid changing the Medic’s rules (by removing overheal in this case) - I’ve seen many suggestions of giving the Heavy a weapon which, while he has it equipped, doesn’t let the Medic uber him, or even heal him - changes which drastically affect Medic gameplay, and not in a good way. (As a Medic, there’s nothing I like to see than a Heavy hoofing it back toward our base with 1 HP - I can get a ton of ubercharge by healing him up. Being suddenly unable to heal that guy would be almost as frustrating for me as it would be for him. But I digress.)

Still, I don’t think that most Heavies would choose this option if it gave them a flat decrease to their HP. The goal isn’t to gimp the Heavy globally, it’s to cut down on his dependence on the Medic but also on the benefit of the “synergy” between Medic and Heavy. (As most players have seen, a good Medic/Heavy combo who are really working together intelligently can be the most powerful force in a game - and a key part of their effectiveness is that they move carefully and keep the Heavy overhealed at all time - thereby ensuring that no single attacker can take down the Heavy on its own (except for a Sniper or a Spy). Losing the overheal waters all that down, which is the downside desired here.

Then again, I tend to try to be too “clever” with my design solutions - your solution is certainly more understandable and keeps things consistent with other rules in the game. But I do think that it would water-down the Heavy in EVERY situation, instead of just in the Medic-combo situation.