Lets talk about healers.
How can you make them more fun? People dont wanna stare at Red bars all the time but see whats going on around them. Can there be any solution you can think of? Maybe an Alarming signal on the mid of the screen that shows you now its very neccessary to shoot of an heal?
Also in pantheon will there be a Tier list of Healers? Cleric being the best healer followed by Shaman and Druid? Or will they be equal and just different flavors. If there is a tier list , what do the other classes need to make them sexy for groups?
Nolaen said:Lets talk about healers.
How can you make them more fun? People dont wanna stare at Red bars all the time but see whats going on around them. Can there be any solution you can think of? Maybe an Alarming signal on the mid of the screen that shows you now its very neccessary to shoot of an heal?
Also in pantheon will there be a Tier list of Healers? Cleric being the best healer followed by Shaman and Druid? Or will they be equal and just different flavors. If there is a tier list , what do the other classes need to make them sexy for groups?
Who says people dont wanna stare at red bars? You might not, but I loved my Cleric in EQ. I dont need you to do any thing at all to make them more fun, that is what ruined the MMO in the first place. I dont want to dps to heal, I dont want to constantly cast spells to keep the tank up, I dont want any of your new fangled flashy everything happens in a milli second twitch type game play. Thanks but no thanks. Let me sit back and keep track of my party...I follow the action of the game just fine even when watching the red bars, and honestly if all you do as a healer is watch the red bars youre playing the class wrong. Sorry if this sounds overly agrresive but I just get tired of people speaking for me, I love the old style healing and I know ALOT of people who do too.
Woudlnt' be opposed to a few more mechanics, I was a huge fan of preventative healing such as powerful HOTs and Damage shields (immediate downsides of which are they can be wasted if the damage never occurs or if the damage shield is used a second too late.. TIMEING!
But needing a true spell rotation and needing to dps to heal at all and bells and whistles and what not telling me when its time to heal can definetly take a jog...
Also, in terms of class equality, a powerful slow and decent enough HOT from shammies could often outclass a cleric except for raid and 'oh ****' healing... I call it balance, but situational... not sure if thats the same direction or if it really is role equality all the time... I guess all classes should be viable without question, but different ones should be better at different situations and obviously everyone is going to think "well this is the most common, so they is the best" type of stuff... idk... rantrantrant
Talv said:Also, in terms of class equality, a powerful slow and decent enough HOT from shammies could often outclass a cleric except for raid and 'oh ****' healing...
I don't entirely agree with that statement (go figure people online don't always agree :P), but I agree that it needs to be balanced of course. I thought Torpor in EQ1 was a well designed and interesting spell that shammies had.
1: Increase Hitpoints v2 by 300 per tick
3: Decrease Movement by 100%
11: Decrease Attack Speed by 30%
Duration 4 ticks IIRC.
So there was an ok regen spell, but it almost rooted (SoW etc kept it from fully rooting) and slowed the tank. This made it so that both the healer and tank were required to figure out when to keep the heal on and the tank to be ready to click it off for various reasons. In addition to that, if the heal was left on the tank full-time then the puller needed to pull directly to the tank (especially if a warrior since no ranged threat outside of a bow) and that DPS needed to be careful when they started attacking and how hard since the tank was slowed. IIRC it was meant as a helper heal because the shaman couldn't heal as hard as a cleric of course and also needed to slow the mob and other casts too. It wasn't needed by shamans depending on their and the tanks gear and skills, but it certainly made life easier for the healer.
Giving spells, especially ones as essential as heals, pros and cons so it takes extra thought, strategy, and teamwork is definitely something I'm for. I feel like it adds to a healer having more to do than stare at bars and hit a heal. It also helps make it so that different classes can get similar (regen for example) heal types, but each class has different pros/cons to further prevent players from experiancing/saying that the healers all heal the same but druid/shaman get other stuff so cleric is left out etc.
The overall PvE class balance was good in World of Warcraft - Burning Crusade IMHO. Every class had their strengths and flaws. A paladin was a very good supporter and a good single target healer but he had no hots and aoe healing spells. A shaman was also a good supporter (Bloodlust!) and a good raid healer but he had mana problems and no hots. Priests were very flexible because they had hots and aoe healing and shields and strong single target heals but their support was not good etc.
I like such class design. But it also depends on gear and encounter design. Later with Sunwell the class balance was out of balance. Shamans and warlocks were too strong because of gear scaling and the massive amount of AoE damage on the raid. Shamans could outheal every other class because of their chain heal-spell and Bloodlust gave an nice dps boost for the raid. Sunwell was very very very hard tuned even for the best raid guilds in the world.
Greetings
IMO Healers also need something in their arsenal so they are not gimped so much at solo play. I just remember trying to farm faction for the shawl quest in Velious EQ1. Took an eternity to kill a giant and then med for half an hour. At least the damage proc buff Clerics got at level 70 in dragons of norrath helped a bit.
Also the DPS ''stance'' buff they had ...gimped healing by 75% but gave them a huge nuke proc DD.
There are 2 aspects to look at here.
(1) Class Roles / Uniqueness
However healers are implemented, whether:
'pure healers' (Cleric), 'half-healer + utility (shaman or druid) divisions, OR
'large hp healer' (Cleric), 'heavy HoT, small wards' (Druid), 'light HoT, larger wards' (Shaman) etc
doesn't matter as long as each one has distinct roles with little/no overlap. If you offer 3 healer types... (i) 90% heal, 5% other (ii) 50% heal, 30% other (iii) 25% heal, 40% other, then people can chose what type/flavour of healer they want. Split healer classes getting a penalty to ensure they are not OP, since healing is inherently OP of itself. These classes (as per original EQ) do not even need to be 'balanced' as they are almost essential to any group. If one is harder than another, peopole will compensate... particularly if these hybrid healers get unique utility spells (Eg Druid port or SoW, Shammy buffs).
(2) Class limits
There must be an upper limit to healing effects, and these need to be strictly adhered to. Even EQ could make mistakes, and this was (Arguably) the biggest of them all.
(A) only one healer class should be able to Rez in its poper form.
This should be the 'pure' healer class and not be available to any hybrid healing classes. This does not mean there cannot be other solutions, Eg Necro with (expensive, heavy, unstackable) coffins able to rex with no XP recovery and perhaps other limitations too.
(B) only the 'pure' healer class should have access to the 'best' (ie ultimate or biggest heal).
Hybrid classes whould never get access to the 'ultimate' form of *any* class ability. This extends way beyond healing. If the best heal available is a 'Mass Heal' or 'True Heal', say, then none of the hybrid healing classes should get anything even remotely approaching it - and certainly not ever get a version of this spell (even at higher levels). Nor should their 'ultimate' flavour of healing ever perform better than the 'pure' healer class in terms of sheer 'heal quantity done in a 10 minute period'. Perhaps equal it in certain limited ways - but never exceed it.
(C) There should NEVER be a 'complete heal'
This was, I think, where EQ broke Risk vs Reward. Until complete heal, you had to provide enough maan to give healing for all the hp damage taken directly to the cleric. Later improvements in chanter mana regen + items + clerics only needed to produce 1 complete heal every set time period broke the system. It moved from worrying about depth of mana pool to just mana regen rate. If your tank could sustain his full hp for 15 seconds, then this was how long you had to refil that hp pool with 1 complete heal spell. With 2-3 clerics you could rotate this replenishment on any tank with a sufficiently deep hp pool or ability/armour to mitigate the extr dmg. Clerics stopped being predictive, proactive healers, carefully watching for dmg spikes and monitoring the raid as a whole. They moved to a simple 'cast CH, wait x seconds then repeat' as nauseum.
Pantheon need to seriously consider the effects of this form of spell (healing) and how it affects the whole MMO. It is likley to be the class that makes or breaks the entire system, long-term. If healing is too strong then challenge is lowered for those *with* a healer. To counter this, mobs will have to be made tougher - thus impacting all groups without healers and, obviously, non-healer soloers. All other classes can be balanced or changed indipendently over time, but this class and type of effect (healing) will have a pronounced effect on all aspects for all classes.
Sevens said:Nolaen said:Lets talk about healers.
How can you make them more fun? People dont wanna stare at Red bars all the time but see whats going on around them. Can there be any solution you can think of? Maybe an Alarming signal on the mid of the screen that shows you now its very neccessary to shoot of an heal?
Also in pantheon will there be a Tier list of Healers? Cleric being the best healer followed by Shaman and Druid? Or will they be equal and just different flavors. If there is a tier list , what do the other classes need to make them sexy for groups?
Who says people dont wanna stare at red bars? You might not, but I loved my Cleric in EQ. I dont need you to do any thing at all to make them more fun, that is what ruined the MMO in the first place. I dont want to dps to heal, I dont want to constantly cast spells to keep the tank up, I dont want any of your new fangled flashy everything happens in a milli second twitch type game play. Thanks but no thanks. Let me sit back and keep track of my party...I follow the action of the game just fine even when watching the red bars, and honestly if all you do as a healer is watch the red bars youre playing the class wrong. Sorry if this sounds overly agrresive but I just get tired of people speaking for me, I love the old style healing and I know ALOT of people who do too.
Touchy ... This topic.
The only thing I can say sev is I hope you are not the minority, because if you are the minority group within our minority group ... Your thoughts on healer design may go ignored
Healers are not played as often due to many reasons including they are not fun to play. I have offered the reason why is because they are so fundamentally different in play that it creates an imballance.
If I as a dps can perform my roll in and outside of a group but the healer classes perform two different rolls ... Why is that?
Having half your spellbook being unusable due to being in A group just isn't fun. Your 'kit' as a class is important, you should be able to use that kit effectively in and outside of a group. This is fundamental for each class.
Fixing this is easy and I have outlined it in other threads. The fixes I'm afraid would make you hate the class seven. For the health of the class healers need these new age changes.
Ie.. Being able to kill things solo and heal often during solo play. And while in a group do the same thing. Heal and do damage.
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-Todd
Raidan said: @Tehtawd Your last post just isn't true - you are stating your preference as a need. Classes shouldn't be designed at all with the idea of how well they can solo in mind - they should be designed around what they can bring to the group. The whole idea of class interpendence - which will result in some classes being able to solo better than others. And, if you want to solo, choose one of those classes once the community realizes it. Don't ask to water down class uniqueness so all classes can solo. There is no fix. What you are asking for is to allow all classes the ability to solo, and to do that, you first have to remove resource management and slow out of combat regen. Basically, what you are asking for like Sevens suggested does lead to newer MMO game design.
I agree with @Raidan on this one. Stating that healers are "not fun" is how you feel about healers. I played both a Shaman and Druid in EQ, Disciple and Shaman in Vanguard, Shaman, Priest and Druid in WoW and I will play at least Shaman in Pantheon. Why would I continue as a healer in every MMO I play if it wasn't fun? That's not to say that we can't explore ways to make healers (and by extension, gaming in general) more fun, but it’s nowhere near as black and white as you claim.
Raidan said: @Tehtawd Your last post just isn't true - you are stating your preference as a need. Classes shouldn't be designed at all with the idea of how well they can solo in mind - they should be designed around what they can bring to the group. The whole idea of class interpendence - which will result in some classes being able to solo better than others. And, if you want to solo, choose one of those classes once the community realizes it. Don't ask to water down class uniqueness so all classes can solo. There is no fix. What you are asking for is to allow all classes the ability to solo, and to do that, you first have to remove resource management and slow out of combat regen. Basically, what you are asking for like Sevens suggested does lead to newer MMO game design.
You could have a fully functionable healer that does things other than just heal (his example was DPS, but it could be utility as well) without encroaching into WOW territory.
Infact WOWs healing system is far more traditional than most realize... IMO atleast. And Class mechanics on 1 by 1 basis in newer MMO's arent necessarilly the devil. Though I agree Soloing should be an afterthought, though in EQ even: All the healing classes could solo (especially Clerics post level 71). Each of them did it a diffferent way and had different amounts of Success (and level 60 shaman was OP at soloing lulz).
Its almost impossible to make a class that can heal not able to solo especially if you add in other things that they can do damage/utility wise.
It shouldn't be a primary goal though I agree, but based on what we saw in the Sham class reveal and the Cleric kickstarter info/reveal. I would guess both classes will be able to solo, reasonably well regardless of community opinion about soloing.
I've always thought playing healers was very fun. I can somewhat imagine watching healthbars isn't everyone's cup of tea but it definitely is mine. When I played a cleric in EQ I'd use other things than heals in groups depending on the composition of the group, like my stuns and root. If we had a very good group I'd melee stuff for laughs (skill ups woohoo). But personally I really like the focus on one thing at a time, having to weave in dps fpr example just makes it feel gimmicky to me. In a way it ruins my "happy rush" when I simply watch after the health of my group and everyone is alive and feeling taken care of.
Having some means to incapacitate, and maybe kill pesky mobs 15 levels lower than me, is all fine, but I really don't need healing in a group to be spiced up by fancy mechanics. I've played WoW for quite some years and it were especially the added healing mechanics that bugged me. Combo point systems, dps-ing to heal, hit this to add healing to that and then hit that key to add more by hitting the next key... pffff. I like my heals straightforward. My utility as well. I feel EQ did a great job in that sense those first few years when I played. Even with Complete Heal. It wouldn't surprise me if that doesn't make a comeback as CH chains in raids were silly but Complete Heal was so much more than that. I have very fond memories of perfect CH hits on pullers when they just entered the room (which would include 10 secs of praying and hyperventilating very hard), well pulled of CH's on tanks, funny desperate saves with groups that would explode in laughter and crazy chat because we survived despite it looking really bad... it was fun because it demanded a good knowledge of your group and knowing what to prioritize when. No heal has had such an impact on me as that one.
If groupcontent is somewhat demanding of a group, healing is very fun imho. If the content is too easy it's unrewarding in more than one way.
Im dont play healer classes. But I have to agree with the interdependence thing. Also Shaman appears to be maybe a bit too hybridized (already made a couple threads on my worry over this). From the description I expect that they could do everything but tank. But regardless how I feel about Shaman, I dont think that means Cleric needs to or should even be able to solo. Some classes will be able to very well. Some Okay. And I wouldnt mind seeing some that are the life of any party set up, but are functionally useless solo (fair trade off as theyd likely not hurt for a party 99% of time). However, I dont see anything wrong with future/non-traditional classes being introduced later that might keep things fresh and different (Like XIs Dancer or VGs Blood Mage). But they would need to be balanced as to not make old classes useless. Its Okay to hybridize, but you have to be careful to both not create a useless class or one that is too OP. Which is my exact worry with Shaman which reads like a jack and master of all trades just about. Where is the class uniqueness and interdependence for Shamans?
Amsai said:Im dont play healer classes. But I have to agree with the interdependence thing. Also Shaman appears to be maybe a bit too hybridized (already made a couple threads on my worry over this). From the description I expect that they could do everything but tank. But regardless how I feel about Shaman, I dont think that means Cleric needs to or should even be able to solo. Some classes will be able to very well. Some Okay. And I wouldnt mind seeing some that are the life of any party set up, but are functionally useless solo (fair trade off as theyd likely not hurt for a party 99% of time). However, I dont see anything wrong with future/non-traditional classes being introduced later that might keep things fresh and different (Like XIs Dancer or VGs Blood Mage). But they would need to be balanced as to not make old classes useless. Its Okay to hybridize, but you have to be careful to both not create a useless class or one that is too OP. Which is my exact worry with Shaman which reads like a jack and master of all trades just about. Where is the class uniqueness and interdependence for Shamans?
@Amsai - while I agree with most of your thought here, I'm not sure I agree about the Shaman. From the class reveal info I don't see much difference from the EQ Shaman in all honesty. The class described seems to be a healer with some utility abilities and buffs. Their iconic ability is even a slow. Sounds almost exactly like the EQ Shaman. Did you think that the EQ Shaman was OP?
But I'm perfectly willing to leave it at that until we know more (and you may very well be right in the end). As it stands, I don't think we can really know one way or another what the Shaman (or any class for that matter) will really be like until we get in game.
Sunmistress said:In early era EQ (trilogy) before Slow mitigation Shaman were squarely in the Godmode level if played properly, only rivaled by Enchanters for sheer power. So your fears are probably warranted.
Fair enough. But that was a balancing issue, not a fundamental design flaw.
Permitted we don't see a class like cleric get a spell as OP as Complete Healing, each healer should bring something to the table that makes them a viable addition to most groups. That one spell in EQ is what made clerics imperative for not only raiding, but also efficient groups.
Yes, there will probably be certain encounters or places where a specific member of the healer role may be better than the others, but in general, its important that all healers are viable in general.
Dullahan said:Permitted we don't see a class like cleric get a spell as OP as Complete Healing, each healer should bring something to the table that makes them a viable addition to most groups. That one spell in EQ is what made clerics imperative for not only raiding, but also efficient groups.
Yes, there will probably be certain encounters or places where a specific member of the healer role may be better than the others, but in general, its important that all healers are viable in general.
I agree id rather not have my group make up pigeon holed by one class being so much better at XYZ that not having that 1 class in your group means your group is going to be mediocre.
Thats what is kind of scary about bards not being available at release (atleast in my mind), If we only have 1 option for CC, that will mean every group that wants to be efficient will absolutely have to have one. Though I am getting off the main topic at hand.
