As someone who often plays a healer, there is not much I find more annoying then sending a much needed heal to the the tank (and be stuck immoble as I cast) only for them to run away to the next target, causing said spell to fail. Then hearing it from everyone about not getting the tank healed properly, cause they don't see all the failed attemps, they just see health dropping.
Maybe there should be an invisible wall, so when an ally is the target of a friendly spell they can't go out of range, or better yet, any casting limitations should only apply to STARTING the spell, once it is started, it doesn't matter if you loose line of sight or they run out of range or whatever. If you can successfully start the spell, and get to fnish it (without of a fizzle, assuming that a posibilty), it should hit them no matter where they've gone (porting out of zone excluded).
/rant
I honestly don't like LoS for heals... In most lore, there are healer spells that require LoS and heals that don't. There's also game bugs that cause LoS to really suck... I've experienced it in a few games and prefer not to deal with it ever again... Follow me into this scenario of a single experience I had while playing in an area that has trees... though there's no leaves on the trees only branches... a healers hanging around the pull spot... and tested heals on the group... everything looks good... then the mob gets moved... a branch is in the way of healing the tank... though it's not visibly in the way. Tank dies, cleric get's pissed because to them nothing should have caused it. It makes for bad gameplay.
My history is mostly with all spells requiring line of sight. I wouldn't have expected otherwise without someone bringing it up.
I think it would be fine to have some of both. I would prefer it to be some clear distinction in the type of spells which determines which ones do and don't. Rather than an arbitrary 'this spell does and this one doesn't'.
For a healer, one breakdown I think 'feels' natural would be to have group spells not require it, as if the healer just casts the spell on himself and everyone in range gets it. But single target spells would have to have LoS.
To me LoS means you can actually see them, so the target should have to be in your field of view. That could certainly be defined as the 180° in front of you. For the practical logistics of being in confined spaces in an mmo, I'd be ok with some minimal range like 1-3m where you could cast on someone behind you.
I think there should only be physics for Line of Sight. To explain what I mean by this I think using fireball compared to a prayer is a good example. You can pray for someone from behind a wall and blessings/healing can be bestowed upon them from your god whereas you can't hurl a fireball at someone through a wall. With that said, there could be types of healing that a healer is required to channel the power through their physical form instead of praying to a higher power... So I'm ok with a mixture of some spells being LoS and some being justified as not requiring LoS as long as it doesn't break immersion by completely ignoring game physics with fireballs through hilltops and boulders (you should be able to protect yourself from an arrow behind a large rock or tree).
Darch said:I think there should only be physics for Line of Sight. To explain what I mean by this I think using fireball compared to a prayer is a good example. You can pray for someone from behind a wall and blessings/healing can be bestowed upon them from your god whereas you can't hurl a fireball at someone through a wall. With that said, there could be types of healing that a healer is required to channel the power through their physical form instead of praying to a higher power... So I'm ok with a mixture of some spells being LoS and some being justified as not requiring LoS as long as it doesn't break immersion by completely ignoring game physics with fireballs through hilltops and boulders (you should be able to protect yourself from an arrow behind a large rock or tree).
That might be hard to do in the game like i shuffle behind a pillar to evade a fireball and it might cause players to use for a exploit.
I belive we will se fireballs to pass walls and hit players directly,this physic should apply to players to if you se the target when you start casting it will hit,i mean equally for all =)