Thank you all for the kind words and I apologize Dubah for my short response. Allow me please to make up for it.
Predictive:
Part of the challenge of healing is being able to watch and predict where and when Damage might come in. Making those Long Cast Times matter greatly, and making you as a Healer have to really be wise to the situation at hand. By allowing players to switch targets last second you remove any predictive game play from a Healer and just make it reactive. To me this is one of the biggest differences between a great healer and not. In short you lower the skill cap and challenge of a Healer.
Risk vs Reward:
By allowing players to switch targets last minute you remove a lot of Risk vs Reward. Do you risk casting that Longer more Man Efficient spell on your Tank or do you choice to a shorter cast time to ensure you are able to heal others as damage moves around.
Spam Healing vs Thinking a Heal through:
By allowing players to switch targets last minute you encourage healers to spam their bigger more mana effienct heals and switch target reactively.
Clerics vs Shaman/Druid:
Lastly - The class that would benefit mostly from this would be Cleric with Direct Healing Spells. Being able to avoid predictive game play and easily work around long cast times gives them a major advantage in a fight for Healer vs Shaman as of now. I assume this much for druid as well. So unless we want Cleric to be the only viable Healer in a group I just don't see how this could be balanced without giving every healer a Large Mana Efficient heal.
Mostly what othes are saying as well.
Clerics vs Shaman/Druid:Lastly - The class that would benefit mostly from this would be Cleric with Direct Healing Spells. Being able to avoid predictive game play and easily work around long cast times gives them a major advantage in a fight for Healer vs Shaman as of now. I assume this much for druid as well. So unless we want Cleric to be the only viable Healer in a group I just don't see how this could be balanced without giving every healer a Large Mana Efficient heal.
100% agree if they were to make it a blanket capability such as the toggle option I've seen suggested in the thread. That is a terrible idea because it clearly favors anyone using the ability compared to those not doing so in addition to being more favorable to certain classes than others-a terrible situation for an "optional" ability.
However, if they use it as a mechanic on some individual abilities they could easily balance those abilities to keep it from making any particular class overpowered. Making it a choice to cast the reflexive ability that is less efficient and/or has other drawbacks but allows quicker reaction time than cancel/retarget/recast could be an interesting dynamic.
daemonios said:Sabot said:I don't think this has a place in the game. It makes combat easier. Thats all it does. Now I understand the people that want to make some of the tedious parts of the game easier, the quality of life issues. I get that. But to make the core of the game easier, to make something that should be a real tactical decision into an easymode version of that. That I can't get behind. This will add nothing to the game other than allowing people to defeat encounterts that should be challening with less effort. I think making a challenging fight now a days is hard enough without giving us the players even more of an advantage than we already have.
I'm sorry, but I disagree. You seem to imply that the mechanic makes the game easier by definition, but in fact it only makes it easier if combat isn't balanced for it.
If it had been an intended mechanic from the start, you could have something like boss attacks that wipe x% of HP from a target, requiring immediate emergency healing - including switching targets on the current heal. In that case you'd have a *different* issue, namely the need for split-second decisions which I believe is not what the typical Pantheon fan is after, but it would have made the game actually *harder* rather than easier, as without the ability to switch targets you could have unavoidable deaths.
I am not sure I understand. Are you saying that being able to cast a heal and then having the ability to choose the target at the last second as opposed to having to choose your target before casting does not make an encounter easier? It seems to me like it makes things way easier. If your whole groups is under assault you can cast a medium or big heal and wait to see who neds it most and give it to them instead of being forced to make that decision before the cast. Save the tank that may or may not need it or go for the ranger that looks like one more AOE might do him in, thats what we have right now. You have to make the call. With this new thing in game you just wait and see, ok the tank looks solid just before the cast completes so the ranger gets it. Tank can get the next one. Easier.
I can't see any situation, your example included,(there are already encounters in games where what you said happens and there is no need for this mechanic) where this new mechanic would not make the game easier. It takes away the need to make a tough decision. Having it in game means easier decisions. Thats all I am saying. No matter what else you do, no matter what you changes having this mechanic in the game does make it easier.
Sabot said:... No matter what else you do, no matter what you changes having this mechanic in the game does make it easier.
Playing devil's advocate, if, the consequence of enabling this feature and then availing yourself of it was: It consume ALL your mana, and snared your entire group for 30 seconds with a 50% snare, and stifled them all for 10 seconds, would that make it easier?
My hyperbolic point? There are ways to balance this that don't involved not using it at all. There is a opportunistic grey area for innovation between the black and white of no and yes.
daemonios said:zoltar said:I don't understand why you think the bolded part has of any relevance. Are you expecting to be able to heal both the tank and the enchanter with one cast? In the case of standard healing mechanics, the choice you're presented with is
- finish the heal going to the tank and risk the enchanter dying before you can heal them
- cancel your cast, healing the enchanter quickly, then going back to the tank.
The hypothetical situations involves an enchanter being put in grave danger due to incoming damage while you're in the process of casting a heal on the tank. I think we can assume that the risk to the enchanter is far greater than the risk to the tank, otherwise why would you switch the flex-heal from the tank to the enchanter in the first place. So comparing situation #1 to a flex-heal scenairo, both would have the same healing/time done but the flex-healing option has signfiicantly less risk due to healing the player in more danger first. Scenario 2 allows traditional healing to mitigate that some of that risk to the enchanter (probably not to the extent that flex-healing does) but also comes with the disadvantage of wasting all the time spent casting the original heal. And you still end up in the same situation with regards to the need to heal the tank, possibly worse if your new heal on the enchanter took much longer to cast than it took the flex-heal to just switch targets with their heal in progress.
It's relevant because the person I was replying to was only considering the advantages of target switching, i.e. bigger heal in less time, and not considering that the healer had actually intended to heal someone else first, and will have to see how they're going to do it after switching targets. If you don't consider the originally intended heal, then you're comparing apples to oranges.
but it's not a downside if it's true in both types of healing or worse for the alternative. If you have to cancel your heal in order to heal the enchanter, you still have to go back and heal the tank. Same-Same. If instead, you let the heal go to the tank, then you have to go back and heal the enchanter (who was in more danger) after that. It's absurd to say that still having to heal the tank 2nd is a downside when the alternative is the same deal but flipped so that you heal the safer target first and target in more danger second.
This is like saying if you had high-interest credit card debt and a student loan, the downside to paying off the credit card debt first is that you still have to pay the student loan. When, if you paid the student loan off first, you also still have to pay the credit card debt. The only difference is the order, and one order is 100% objectionably worse than the other.
Heloisa said:disposalist said:What about a heal that you can 'spray' amongst multiple targets as you channel it? :) It heals X amount per tenth of a second, can be channeled for 10 seconds and can be targetted as you like during those 10 seconds?
I don't remember ever seeing that mechanic either...
Priest of Mitra in Age of Conan has a "cone" healing spell: 120 degree cone (front facing) extending 6 m. IIRC it was a channeled heal too (it's been almost 10 years since I played that char).
If not an AE cone, it would be rad if Clerics had a channeled healing (single target) spell line. Heal becomes stronger the longer you channel.. with some cool animation akin to Mind Flay - Shadow Priest (WoW).
cheers <3
Tehcnically all 3 healers in AOC work roughly the same (not counting stuff that comes from perks and the like). A large targeted heal, a cone heal and an PB centered on self AOE heal. Cone and PBAOE are HoTs, large heal is a large heal. The differences come from what the heals achieve for the caster. Bear Shaman gets better heals the more they melees, priest of mitra does better damage the more they heal, and Tempest of Set heals better the when they do more damage (in a nut shell).
Age of Conan has, hands down, the best healing system I've ever played. It allows healers to be more than just people that stare at health bars, and to be truly great healers they HAVE to do more than just press heal buttons.
vjek said:Sabot said:... No matter what else you do, no matter what you changes having this mechanic in the game does make it easier.Playing devil's advocate, if, the consequence of enabling this feature and then availing yourself of it was: It consume ALL your mana, and snared your entire group for 30 seconds with a 50% snare, and stifled them all for 10 seconds, would that make it easier?
My hyperbolic point? There are ways to balance this that don't involved not using it at all. There is a opportunistic grey area for innovation between the black and white of no and yes.
Kind of arguing over a semantic difference. I think what Sabot is saying is that the mechanic is being able to switch your heal at the last second. That mechanic objectionably makes the game easier. You can tack on penalties to the mechanic to the point where it becomes a detriment, but the mechanic itself by definition makes the game easier.
I'm sure that you could find a way to balance it by adding just the right penalty to it, but IMO the game would still be worse because it's bad design and contrary to the type of gameplay that VR is trying to establish.
I think a mechanic like target switching before a heal lands could be balanced relatively easy. A 'simple' fix would be a cooldown that only happens, or is longer, when you switch targets.
Random numbers to illustrate:
Cast SuperHeal on Target A, don't switch target, cooldown is 1 second.
Cast SuperHeal on Target A, notice Target B is getting a beating, switch target, cooldown is now 5 seconds.
Could also introduce extra mana costs or a debuff on the target you switched to that reduces healing for the next X amount of time.
You'd really, really have to consider the value of switching targets at that point.
As for preloading up a big heal and cancelling - that would be a factor regardless of switching targets or not but you could also introduce penalties for doing so. I'm not in favour of that because sometimes you estimate the need for a heal wrong and there should be little or no penalty for doing so.
disposalist said:Saicred said:I believe this makes Large Direct Heals way too Powerful. Period.
Agreed, but the mechanic itself intrigued me and I think it could work as an alternative. Much like healers can often choose single-target, group-target, AoE, etc this would add flexi-target and my second concept multi-target (where you can 'spray' heals by changing target as you channel a HoT. splash it all on one or move around all or some of the group). Of course they would have to have balance - pros and cons, risk vs reward - but just as more traditional single, group and AoE do.
More options = more tactical choice!
I think there should be a AoE type heal. I could not agree more on the tactical approach. The healer has to be flexible to ensure group survivability. The bug in the video is something that should be fixed. The overall tactic of the healer should be specific to the fight.
Ox
It needs to be left in. It's a positive change and offers more flexibility to the healers, especially the cleric, and especially in a one healer group setting. There is no downside to leaving it in. None.
Healing twice is still going to take the same amount of time and mana either way. This just gives you the flexibility to switch to a non-tank class in burst or AoE situations at the last second. Thus, the single healer can keep the Enchanter up on a charm break and then get right back to healing the tank. It's absolutely stupid to take this type of flexibility away, especially in a challenging game. We should all want more options and flexibility to strategize around. Healing is hard in this type of MMO. We can see that on the streams. It's intense. This is a tool to help healers. If Hive didn't have the ability to hop heals, they wouldn't have beaten the mini-boss. It's not OP, it's flexible and strategic, and it helps.
Everyone is arguing about exploiting and just spamming heals. This makes no sense. It's not even the proper debate. If you spam heals, you'll run into mana situations. That's always been the case. And it would be the case whether heal hopping stays in game or not.
The only debate with merit is whether it makes healing easier, which it does, but I'd argue that's a good thing because it's very hard as is. And on a more specific level, does it harm the strategy involved with healing, which it does not. Yes, it removes the need to "jump to interrupt current spell, re-cast heal on another target" tedium, but it doesn't remove the strategy of letting the heal land on one target and not another. Prioritizing heal target and mana usage is the skill of a healer. Heal hopping actually adds to that core concept. As some other astute posters have pointed out, you're just changing the order of who gets healed.
Also from a lore and common sense standpoint, the act of praying or drawing power to heal shouldn't have to be stopped midway to change a target, you would just direct that energy in another direction or simply pick out a different target. Having to interrupt a heal to recast on a different target thematically makes zero sense, it never has. It was a tedium inserted in game that is no longer needed.
In the end, a healer relegated to just healing is a boring class and playstyle. Healers primary role should be watching and healing hit points, but give them some CC, damage, and other roles to keep things interesting. The ability to hop a heal gives the healer more time to do other things in between heals. It makes the class more dynamic and fun. It also frees up time to med if need be. In the end, the ability to hop heals simply gives more flexibility and options, which in turn can make playing the healing class more enjoyable and slightly more forgiving in stressful situations. It would be a terrible decision to take this emergent gameplay healing style out of the game. They can use this in their sales pitch right now. They always talk about how the goal is unexpected things popping up and players running with it, well here you go, talk the talk and walk the walk. Keep it in.
I'm not going to quote and answer everyone, but I think a lot of you are missing the point that, yes, allowing switching of targets on the current single-target cleric heals would be bad, but that doesn't make the mechanic itself bad. It could be balanced to not be over-powerful, but be another interesting tactic just like HoT, AoE heals, fan-shape-heal-sprays, healing by doing damage, and a dozen others.
And imo it doesn't necessarily encourage tunnel vision on health bars. A good cleric always watches all of the group's health and always benefits from situational awareness as well whether or not they can switch targets.
vjek said:Sabot said:... No matter what else you do, no matter what you changes having this mechanic in the game does make it easier.Playing devil's advocate, if, the consequence of enabling this feature and then availing yourself of it was: It consume ALL your mana, and snared your entire group for 30 seconds with a 50% snare, and stifled them all for 10 seconds, would that make it easier?
My hyperbolic point? There are ways to balance this that don't involved not using it at all. There is a opportunistic grey area for innovation between the black and white of no and yes.
Exactly. Some are looking at the idea like I'm suggesting it can be just left as it is, when I've said it obviously needs balancing.
disposalist said:I'm not going to quote and answer everyone, but I think a lot of you are missing the point that, yes, allowing switching of targets on the current single-target cleric heals would be bad, but that doesn't make the mechanic itself bad. It could be balanced to not be over-powerful, but be another interesting tactic just like HoT, AoE heals, fan-shape-heal-sprays, healing by doing damage, and a dozen others.
And imo it doesn't necessarily encourage tunnel vision on health bars. A good cleric always watches all of the group's health and always benefits from situational awareness as well whether or not they can switch targets.
vjek said:Sabot said:... No matter what else you do, no matter what you changes having this mechanic in the game does make it easier.Playing devil's advocate, if, the consequence of enabling this feature and then availing yourself of it was: It consume ALL your mana, and snared your entire group for 30 seconds with a 50% snare, and stifled them all for 10 seconds, would that make it easier?
My hyperbolic point? There are ways to balance this that don't involved not using it at all. There is a opportunistic grey area for innovation between the black and white of no and yes.
Exactly. Some are looking at the idea like I'm suggesting it can be just left as it is, when I've said it obviously needs balancing.
You're getting peer pressured into defending your stance. Stop it. Some of the counter arguments people are posting are ridiculous.
The mechanic is fine as is. Does not need to change. And it's not bad in any form.
Does it make healing a little bit easier in a crisis situation? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. It literally just provides the opportunity to heal a non-tank class from unexpected burst damage, but then the tank might die because the heal went elsewhere. This is needed flexiblity. Leave it as is. No apologies. Nothing wrong with it. Does not need balancing.
Mathir said:And on a more specific level, does it harm the strategy involved with healing, which it does not. Yes, it removes the need to "jump to interrupt current spell, re-cast heal on another target" tedium, but it doesn't remove the strategy of letting the heal land on one target and not another. Prioritizing heal target and mana usage is the skill of a healer. Heal hopping actually adds to that core concept. As some other astute posters have pointed out, you're just changing the order of who gets healed.
This is nonsense. Deciding whether it's worth canceling your current heal in order to more quickly get a heal onto another target is a strategic decision. There is risk and reward involved. Dismissing that as "tedium" is completely absurd. Furthermore, adding this flexibility onto your standard healing spells reduces the need for other specialized healing spells such as fast casting heals/instant heals/shielding spells with longer cooldowns, higher mana costs etc. Maybe I decide to let my heal finish on the tank, then use an emergency heal on the enchanter. But now that spell is on a medium cooldown, so I won't have it available to use on the tank if he takes a spike in damage.
Yes, deciding the priority order of heals is part of the skill of a healer, but that's just the surface. Making decisions about how to heal those targets, what spells to use, and being penalized for changing your mind or failing to use the right spell add layers underneath that surface.
Mathir said:disposalist said:I'm not going to quote and answer everyone, but I think a lot of you are missing the point that, yes, allowing switching of targets on the current single-target cleric heals would be bad, but that doesn't make the mechanic itself bad. It could be balanced to not be over-powerful, but be another interesting tactic just like HoT, AoE heals, fan-shape-heal-sprays, healing by doing damage, and a dozen others.
And imo it doesn't necessarily encourage tunnel vision on health bars. A good cleric always watches all of the group's health and always benefits from situational awareness as well whether or not they can switch targets.
vjek said:Sabot said:... No matter what else you do, no matter what you changes having this mechanic in the game does make it easier.Playing devil's advocate, if, the consequence of enabling this feature and then availing yourself of it was: It consume ALL your mana, and snared your entire group for 30 seconds with a 50% snare, and stifled them all for 10 seconds, would that make it easier?
My hyperbolic point? There are ways to balance this that don't involved not using it at all. There is a opportunistic grey area for innovation between the black and white of no and yes.
Exactly. Some are looking at the idea like I'm suggesting it can be just left as it is, when I've said it obviously needs balancing.
You're getting peer pressured into defending your stance. Stop it. Some of the counter arguments people are posting are ridiculous.
The mechanic is fine as is. Does not need to change. And it's not bad in any form.
Does it make healing a little bit easier in a crisis situation? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. It literally just provides the opportunity to heal a non-tank class from unexpected burst damage, but then the tank might die because the heal went elsewhere. This is needed flexiblity. Leave it as is. No apologies. Nothing wrong with it. Does not need balancing.
It was never my stance that it isn't currently bugged or in need of change, just that the mechanic was interesting and could make a good basis for another spell line, perhaps.
It don't think simply allowing target switching without consequence or balance is a good idea, but equally, dismissing it as just 'wrong' and can't be balanced is a tad ridiculous.
Saicred said:Thank you all for the kind words and I apologize Dubah for my short response. Allow me please to make up for it.
Predictive:
Part of the challenge of healing is being able to watch and predict where and when Damage might come in. Making those Long Cast Times matter greatly, and making you as a Healer have to really be wise to the situation at hand. By allowing players to switch targets last second you remove any predictive game play from a Healer and just make it reactive. To me this is one of the biggest differences between a great healer and not. In short you lower the skill cap and challenge of a Healer.
You're locked in on Complete Heal type spells. Of which, in EQ, there was one. Many other games don't have those type of spells. Do we even know if Pantheon is going in a Complete Heal direction? I'd assume not. So, lets remove the Complete Heal concept from your argument.
Now we are left with your standard 2-4 second cast time heal, with a 0-1 second global cooldown. The amount of hit points being healed is finite. Being able to hop a heal provides more strategy and flexibility, but it does so in a very brief moment. I'd argue it increases the skill cap and decision making capability of a good healer.
You also seemed locked in on chain healing a tank in a raid setting or boss encounter. Those are generally the only encounters where you need to predict future damage and start a long heal while the tank is still at full health. Most of the game is not that situation. Also, if Complete Heal is out, there's no long ten second cast time heal to pre-plan.
And finally, if they do put Complete Heal in game, just make that one spell non-transferable. Your issues are now fixed. And the healers still have more flexibility to respond to stressful and unpredictable moments.
Saicred said:Risk vs Reward:
By allowing players to switch targets last minute you remove a lot of Risk vs Reward. Do you risk casting that Longer more Man Efficient spell on your Tank or do you choice to a shorter cast time to ensure you are able to heal others as damage moves around.
Long cooldown instant heals still have their place. This doesn't impact them at all. They are still there, and if you have to hop a heal in the first place, it probably means an AoE went off or damage is ping ponging around the group, so the other instant heals are about to be used as well.
In terms of mana efficiency, that's not impacted at all. That heal was still going off before you switched targets, now in fact, you probably have to cast a second heal on the orginial target. Only the order of the heals has been altered.
Risk v. Reward is not impacted. Again, you seem to be locked in on Complete Heal chain casting as if that is all the healer ever does. Cast heal, cast heal, cast heal, cast heal, sit, cast heal. If that's the case, then the class was designed poorly. The Cleric in EQ was terribly boring against anything other than Undead or in a CH chain on a raid. The Druid and Shaman were much better balanced in terms of utility and damage. And pretty much all modern MMO healers are more than just "sit and heal chain casting types". I would argue the ability to hop heals allows the healer the opportunity to do other things then just heal, sit, and stare at heal bars. That's a good thing. And again, the only class I've ever seen that just was a boring, stare at health bars and chain cast heals class, was the EQ1 Cleric. Lets not recreate that nonsense from twenty years ago. They've already made the Rogue updated and more strategic with some quality of life improvements. Lets do the same with the Cleric.
Saicred said:Spam Healing vs Thinking a Heal through:
By allowing players to switch targets last minute you encourage healers to spam their bigger more mana effienct heals and switch target reactively.
As opposed to what? Guessing ahead of time where the heal should go? Healing is a reactive skill. You have to be hurt to be healed. I'd argue reacting to the damage quickly takes a lot more skill than front-loading and chaining heals on the tank, which if that is your thing, you can still do. I'm all on board for strategy and mana cost being the core of any healing class. I see the ability to change heal targets as increasing the flexibility and options of the class, thus more strategy.
I think all you have to do is watch that Hive Leader video. They don't survive if he can't move his heals around. And that guy is a good healer. This is a hard game, that flexibility is needed, and it did not in any way look overpowered or take away from the challenge or strategy.
Saicred said:Clerics vs Shaman/Druid:
Lastly - The class that would benefit mostly from this would be Cleric with Direct Healing Spells. Being able to avoid predictive game play and easily work around long cast times gives them a major advantage in a fight for Healer vs Shaman as of now. I assume this much for druid as well. So unless we want Cleric to be the only viable Healer in a group I just don't see how this could be balanced without giving every healer a Large Mana Efficient heal.
Mostly what othes are saying as well.
It definitely would appear to help the Cleric the most, but that's not a bad thing. Flexibility is a good thing, and I'm not sure it makes the game that much easier so much as it allows the Cleric better ability to react and direct his heals. I assume the Druid and Shaman will also benefit as all classes will probably have some form of direct heals to pair with their primary healing method.
I also don't get why you keep going back to mana efficiency, it does not impact that at all. If some idiot wants to spend all of his time chain casting a long, mana efficient heal, which this game might not even have as a lot of people did not like the Complete Heal trap, then he's going to be doing that and nothing else. If they design these classes correctly, the healer should be more than just a stand, heal, sit, repeat class. They should be required to do more than just heal. But, even if that's all the Cleric is, there is very little difference between CH and jumping to interrupt if not needed and immediately recast, and having the option to move that heal to someone else if damage spikes the group. It just makes it less tedious and probably does let you at least save one party member, but then you have to start burning instant heals, shields, and still have mana to recast your long heals to keep everyone else alive.
The ability to change targets on the fly with your heals is a good thing. It adds flexibility and removes some tedium. It increases strategy, as you now have more options, it does not diminish it. And it in no way removes the need to pre-start heals on the tank on tough encounters and predict future damage. It really just gives the healer more options when he has to make that split second decision of who to heal, especially if an AoE just went off or a ton of adds showed up. I am all for more strategy, tactics, and options. I'm also completely against Complete Heal and all the nonsense that singular ability created for EQ1. Seems to me that with no giant massive heal, a lot of your issues go away.
disposalist said:It was never my stance that it isn't currently bugged or in need of change, just that the mechanic was interesting and could make a good basis for another spell line, perhaps.
I wholeheartedly agree that it would be a neat / great / added bonus addtional heal line. Maybe a later stage heal line, or AA reward applied to some types of heals.
zoltar said:Mathir said:And on a more specific level, does it harm the strategy involved with healing, which it does not. Yes, it removes the need to "jump to interrupt current spell, re-cast heal on another target" tedium, but it doesn't remove the strategy of letting the heal land on one target and not another. Prioritizing heal target and mana usage is the skill of a healer. Heal hopping actually adds to that core concept. As some other astute posters have pointed out, you're just changing the order of who gets healed.
This is nonsense. Deciding whether it's worth canceling your current heal in order to more quickly get a heal onto another target is a strategic decision. There is risk and reward involved. Dismissing that as "tedium" is completely absurd. Furthermore, adding this flexibility onto your standard healing spells reduces the need for other specialized healing spells such as fast casting heals/instant heals/shielding spells with longer cooldowns, higher mana costs etc. Maybe I decide to let my heal finish on the tank, then use an emergency heal on the enchanter. But now that spell is on a medium cooldown, so I won't have it available to use on the tank if he takes a spike in damage.
Yes, deciding the priority order of heals is part of the skill of a healer, but that's just the surface. Making decisions about how to heal those targets, what spells to use, and being penalized for changing your mind or failing to use the right spell add layers underneath that surface.
Cancelling spells just to recast on a different target is tedium. Is there strategy as well, sure. Does that strategy go away with the ability to hop heals? No. Now you have another layer. Maybe the heal you wanted to use for the tank isn't the right heal for the situation, so you still do everything you've always done. Interrupt, recast something else. Strategy intact. However, maybe you can re-direct that heal somewhere else, though the odds are you'll like cast it on the target 90% of the time, but it does give additional options and strategy to do so if needed. It also does not diminish insta-heals since you're probably changing targets most of the time in a situation that the group is suffering from AoEs or adds, thus you'll be burning all your instant heals as well. In the singular situation that a rogue pulls aggro or an Enchanter has charm break and you're mid cast with a heal on the tank, yes, the spell could replace an instant heal, but you could also just finish the heal and then use your instant heal. Otherwise, you switch to the rogue/Enchanter, but now you have to make a quick decision on what to do with the tank who didn't get his heal. This increases flexibility and strategy. There's no way to argue around that.
I actually agree with your feeling on what it takes to heal and be a good healer, but I disagree that tedium and penalty over flexibility and increased strategy is the way forward. You still have to make the right decisions in directing your heal. Mana remains finite and an issue. This sounds a lot like the arguments for when instant heals were introduced to the genre, but those also just increased strategy and gave the healer more options. Now, today, those types of healing abilities in dire moments are looked at fondly and accepted. I get that people don't like change and seems to suspect the worst, but being able to re-direct heals on the fly is a step forward that adds strategy and provides flexibility for those tough moments when things start to get overwhelming.
One of the drawbacks of this bug, is also that it removes the possibility to pre-target mid heal in preparation for your next heal, as it will derivate your heal from the intended target. It's a big loss in micro-management as taking the time to target is usually a loss of reactivity if your cast await your target to cast. Not such a good bug/gameplay then.
MauvaisOeil said:One of the drawbacks of this bug, is also that it removes the possibility to pre-target mid heal in preparation for your next heal, as it will derivate your heal from the intended target. It's a big loss in micro-management as taking the time to target is usually a loss of reactivity if your cast await your target to cast. Not such a good bug/gameplay then.
Not really. Since you can move your heal now, you don't have to pre-target, you cast the heal and then move it to your target before it goes off. So, just a different order in the micro-management.
Ainadak said:I don't particularly like the notion of the flexi-heal because going down this road would lean towards reaction speed. If the flexi-heal is even well balanced [...]
First of all- this is clearly a great thread as I see it being commented by folks who have played clerics, well. Makes me want to try playing a cleric :)
But I had to stop on "Flexi-heal". Maybe insted of a feature/mechanic it can be embedded in an item? that has 2 charges maybe and once used allows a code to trigger that allows the switch healing ability on the character, on no timer. However the second charge does have a fairly long cool down timer(like a day?). and its lore, no trade, self target only.
And a goblin on a boat says "and if you get one "Flexi-heal" now, you get one free! only 19.99 gold!"
Manouk said:Ainadak said:I don't particularly like the notion of the flexi-heal because going down this road would lean towards reaction speed. If the flexi-heal is even well balanced [...]
First of all- this is clearly a great thread as I see it being commented by folks who have played clerics, well. Makes me want to try playing a cleric :)
But I had to stop on "Flexi-heal". Maybe insted of a feature/mechanic it can be embedded in an item? that has 2 charges maybe and once used allows a code to trigger that allows the switch healing ability on the character, on no timer. However the second charge does have a fairly long cool down timer(like a day?). and its lore, no trade, self target only.
And a goblin on a boat says "and if you get one "Flexi-heal" now, you get one free! only 19.99 gold!"
Being able to change the target of your heal mid-cast is not some great ability. It just provides more strategy and flexibility.
For the people that don't like this option, what is the difference between this and being allowed to interrupt your heal. Wouldn't the fact you chose to start a heal instantly lock you in to that choice and you shouldn't be allowed to cancel or adjust? That's literally the same argument some of you are making. The kicker is that some of the people making that argument are using the ability to interrupt a heal as a basis for arguing why heal hopping shouldn't be allowed. It's mind-boggling. We're not in the archaic age where you make a decision and you can't adapt to new circumstances. Interrupting a heal is adapting. Changing the target of a heal is adapting.
Emergent game play. The best stuff in EQ1 came about by accident as well. Good job VR, you found your first accidental gem in allowing healers to change targets mid-heal. Emergent gameplay. Keep it in.
Saicred said:Thank you all for the kind words and I apologize Dubah for my short response. Allow me please to make up for it.
Predictive:
Part of the challenge of healing is being able to watch and predict where and when Damage might come in. Making those Long Cast Times matter greatly, and making you as a Healer have to really be wise to the situation at hand. By allowing players to switch targets last second you remove any predictive game play from a Healer and just make it reactive. To me this is one of the biggest differences between a great healer and not. In short you lower the skill cap and challenge of a Healer.
Risk vs Reward:
By allowing players to switch targets last minute you remove a lot of Risk vs Reward. Do you risk casting that Longer more Man Efficient spell on your Tank or do you choice to a shorter cast time to ensure you are able to heal others as damage moves around.
Spam Healing vs Thinking a Heal through:
By allowing players to switch targets last minute you encourage healers to spam their bigger more mana effienct heals and switch target reactively.
Clerics vs Shaman/Druid:
Lastly - The class that would benefit mostly from this would be Cleric with Direct Healing Spells. Being able to avoid predictive game play and easily work around long cast times gives them a major advantage in a fight for Healer vs Shaman as of now. I assume this much for druid as well. So unless we want Cleric to be the only viable Healer in a group I just don't see how this could be balanced without giving every healer a Large Mana Efficient heal.
Mostly what othes are saying as well.
Yay, this is what I wanted to see lol, i knew you had a good argument that I wasn't even thinking about. This is why i like constructive posts.
100% agree with you by the way, I wasn't even thinking about the effectiveness of this ability with a cleric over druids and shamans.
I see a few arguments of people saying healing is hard, it really isn't. I've done it for every MMO I've touched and have never had any types of problems. The real problem is bad DPS that is aiming to steal aggro from tanks, or not getting out of marked AoE's. Things like that are what make healing hard, and that's bad players doing it, not hard healing.
I'm sorry you get stuck with the junky players, gotta remind them not to be junky, unless it's a solid group of people who are constantly working together, i will say it is never acceptable to aim to take threat off the tank. Work with what you got, otherwise I will let you die. I'm not going to come down to their play style, you need to make them work with yours, that's what working together is.
Now luckily, they already said this mechanic is a bug, which works for me. It was nice when first thinking about it, but then I really started looking at the bigger picture and realizing how broken this would make healing. I want healing to be a challenge, that's why I heal.
Mathir said:
Being able to change the target of your heal mid-cast is not some great ability. It just provides more strategy and flexibility.
For the people that don't like this option, what is the difference between this and being allowed to interrupt your heal. Wouldn't the fact you chose to start a heal instantly lock you in to that choice and you shouldn't be allowed to cancel or adjust? That's literally the same argument some of you are making. The kicker is that some of the people making that argument are using the ability to interrupt a heal as a basis for arguing why heal hopping shouldn't be allowed. It's mind-boggling. We're not in the archaic age where you make a decision and you can't adapt to new circumstances. Interrupting a heal is adapting. Changing the target of a heal is adapting.
Emergent game play. The best stuff in EQ1 came about by accident as well. Good job VR, you found your first accidental gem in allowing healers to change targets mid-heal. Emergent gameplay. Keep it in.
Unfortunately, as the feature seems extremely controversed, it's not really possible to make it a default feature. You like it, and some others do, but as much people don't (and the dev themselves but it's not really the subject), thus you will make people unhappy by forcing it, as much as removing it.
The fun part is : If no one heard about it, no one would have asked for it.
Zyellinia said:Planning ahead and choosing the "right" spell for the encounter situation is part of being a good healer.
This.
No need to change the healing paradigm, and tactical situatons are why there are different lines of heals: big and small heals, HoTs, AE heals, mana efficient long casts, mana inefficient short/emergency casts, etc.
Mathir said:It needs to be left in. It's a positive change and offers more flexibility to the healers, especially the cleric, and especially in a one healer group setting. There is no downside to leaving it in. None.
Healing twice is still going to take the same amount of time and mana either way. This just gives you the flexibility to switch to a non-tank class in burst or AoE situations at the last second. Thus, the single healer can keep the Enchanter up on a charm break and then get right back to healing the tank. It's absolutely stupid to take this type of flexibility away, especially in a challenging game. We should all want more options and flexibility to strategize around. Healing is hard in this type of MMO. We can see that on the streams. It's intense. This is a tool to help healers. If Hive didn't have the ability to hop heals, they wouldn't have beaten the mini-boss. It's not OP, it's flexible and strategic, and it helps.
Everyone is arguing about exploiting and just spamming heals. This makes no sense. It's not even the proper debate. If you spam heals, you'll run into mana situations. That's always been the case. And it would be the case whether heal hopping stays in game or not.
The only debate with merit is whether it makes healing easier, which it does, but I'd argue that's a good thing because it's very hard as is. And on a more specific level, does it harm the strategy involved with healing, which it does not. Yes, it removes the need to "jump to interrupt current spell, re-cast heal on another target" tedium, but it doesn't remove the strategy of letting the heal land on one target and not another. Prioritizing heal target and mana usage is the skill of a healer. Heal hopping actually adds to that core concept. As some other astute posters have pointed out, you're just changing the order of who gets healed.
Also from a lore and common sense standpoint, the act of praying or drawing power to heal shouldn't have to be stopped midway to change a target, you would just direct that energy in another direction or simply pick out a different target. Having to interrupt a heal to recast on a different target thematically makes zero sense, it never has. It was a tedium inserted in game that is no longer needed.
In the end, a healer relegated to just healing is a boring class and playstyle. Healers primary role should be watching and healing hit points, but give them some CC, damage, and other roles to keep things interesting. The ability to hop a heal gives the healer more time to do other things in between heals. It makes the class more dynamic and fun. It also frees up time to med if need be. In the end, the ability to hop heals simply gives more flexibility and options, which in turn can make playing the healing class more enjoyable and slightly more forgiving in stressful situations. It would be a terrible decision to take this emergent gameplay healing style out of the game. They can use this in their sales pitch right now. They always talk about how the goal is unexpected things popping up and players running with it, well here you go, talk the talk and walk the walk. Keep it in.
Downsides as mentioned:
Dynamic and Fun:
"They always talk about how the goal is unexpected things popping up and players running with it, well here you go, talk the talk and walk the walk. Keep it in."
I'm not sure what this last sentence means could you please explain it to me. Thank you.