At first I thought “What are you nuts…?!?!?”, but having time to think it over I’m starting to like the idea. When I play as a Cleric I’m one of the first to ***** that playing an EQ Cleric was boring during raids, and depending on the encounter we were usually behind a wall to protect ourselves from AOE’s and would monitor a group members health by watching his health bar decline which we would then poke our head out cast a heal and then duck behind a wall again. Fairly boring right?!?!?!?
The idea you presented to the forum is interesting in that it would actually require players to always be paying attention to the action as well as the players moving around out there. It would be a lot of work for certain classes (Healers…) to keep track of everyone and then to find them in a group of players and monsters, but I think it would be more exciting (and I’m sure frustrating as hell…)
I not against it, but I like the idea of it. It just needs to be further developed…
Rint
I have played a healer as my main in every MMO I have ever played, and there have been at least a dozen. In any case, the problem I see here is: a DPSer can miss a shot, a healer can't. If the lightning bolt hits the target 3 seconds late, or if a rogue is 5 seconds late on delivering his poison backstab it really isn't that big of a deal. In many cases, no one notices. But if a healer misses a heal, even by 5 seconds... it can often lead to a party wipe. Unless you want to reduce the ability of MOBs to focus their DPS, forcing a healer to move around and manually target will result in a lot of deaths. This problem is even more exagerated if the MOBs have a dynamic AI that includes mixing up targets.
Also, how would you med?
Rint said:At first I thought “What are you nuts…?!?!?”, but having time to think it over I’m starting to like the idea. When I play as a Cleric I’m one of the first to ***** that playing an EQ Cleric was boring during raids, and depending on the encounter we were usually behind a wall to protect ourselves from AOE’s and would monitor a group members health by watching his health bar decline which we would then poke our head out cast a heal and then duck behind a wall again. Fairly boring right?!?!?!?
Rint
I couldn't agree more! Healing raids can be crazy boring. It's these types of AOE/wall, ect.. mechanics that make it so boring. For one, I dont think you should be able to heal a target if there is something blocking you. The healer should always be able to see their target to heal them, even if they are not actually looking in their direction.
I have an idea: Short range heals, or heals that are stronger the closer you are to your target.
Raidan said: Raids in an of themselves are boring regardless of the class (to me). I much prefer the game be designed around the 6 man group. The only positive of a raid was being able to tackle harder content on a much larger scale and handling the associated logistics (drama) that ensues from a larger group - especially early EQ. And, it would make sense that EQ raids were more boring - if resource management is a thing - then that aspect of gameplay would increase as well thus increasing the perception of boredom/downtime on raids as you're tackling content with a much larger group than 6. A bit off-topic, but If I were designing a raid - I would try to build the zone in which you needed coordinated 6 man groups that may have to meet up for a few boss encounters.
Enforced splitting is a good mechanic to increase difficulty. One of the better imo raids in EQ had enforced splitting, and was reasonably difficult.
Really I agree with everything your saying, I prefer 6 man teamwork as well.
I'd go further and say that any endgame content group or raid wise needs to be difficult enough to justify being called Endgame. I can count on 1 hand probably how many raids I felt justified in calling endgame. Group encounters as well, in the highest Risk verse reward zones need to be tough.
But I don't think many folks would like that sort of thing.
My concern here would be, as someone stated, how do you know who's health bar is who's? When the battle begins, everyone clumps up, and short of a cycled tab targeting, it's nearly impossible to target a specific player in the clump.
Amsai said: @ Fulton One of many reasons i prefer smaller group content for endgame. But im not against larger group content just not to the point i feel it looks/feels zergy.
I'm not a raider myself. I prefer smaller groups, adventuring content and exploration. But do enjoy the occasional big event.
Raidan said: A bit off-topic, but If I were designing a raid - I would try to build the zone in which you needed coordinated 6 man groups that may have to meet up for a few boss encounters.
Yay! More zones like Vex Thal! 12 groups all handling their own targets, raid constantly moving, no stopping, no pauses, rezzing mid-fights so you can keep on moving. Only breaks were right before each boss.
Not trying to derail but wanted to chime in on the group content that was brought up.
I've always been a fan of extremely hard group content. I'm reminded of the MPG/PoJ trials, and Vxed (in EQ). The loot is ok, you need the flag, but the true reward was completing the trial. I want group content that is so hard that groups become Pantheon famous when they beat them, content that even hardcore players google for hints, content that only extremely coordinated smart groups can complete. On a side note, keys/flags should be viewable on player inspection.
You had to have a lot of hotkeys in raids in EQ. / target " so so" The main tanks weren't always in your group but you still had to heal them. Healers would be split up so that we were able to spot heal our groups plus heal the main tanks. Healers would be told who they were going to be healing so we made target hotkeys for those specific persons. Sounds crazy but it was actually really cool how so many people could coordinate so easily