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Originally Posted by Malakie Torsade Here is an idea to make healing less tedious. To start, think about D&D, where being the Cleric isn't a bad job at all. Why? Though you can heal, you also bring other important things to the group which are fun; melee damage, great utility spells, etc.
For starters, make healing more of something you do during downtime or in emergency situations. Make healing innefficient in battle while giving them tools that make it less necassary for healing in the first place; short duration mitigation buffs, crowd control, etc. Of course, there is the whole "balance" can of worms, but something really does need to done. |
I touched on this in my post above about adding "Task" versatility to the healer classes in WoW. But the problem isn't the Healer classes themselves.
Noone will argue that Ret Pallies, Balance Druids, Shamans or Shadowpriests aren't FUN to play solo in WoW---because they _are_ fun to solo. The problem isn't their repertoire of skills, it's the fact that the _activity_ of healing is both mission-critical and totally unrewarding as a gameplay activity. You can throw more and more abilities to a given class, let my priest backstab and mortal strike and it would NOT make a difference, because at some point people or circumstances will require me to heal---and among today's EQ-alikes, that's boring as shit.
I can farm with my priest in shadowform all day and I wouldn't get too bored. I sit there mindflaying and mindblasting and sometimes even wanding and it's almost as fun as any other class. It's when I'm in a raid HEALING mode (or even in an instance) that it's no fun. The problem is neither the class nor a real or imagined deficiency of capabilities---the problem is that the fundamental activity of HEALING, in everquest and its successors, isn't as tactile and exciting as the other group/raid roles like DPS or hell even CC.
Suggestions like Zinke's would help a lot. Make healing an immediate and interactive experience. Make sure that the GROUP sees the effects of the healer's efforts. A lot of vets take it for granted that the healer is a crucial core of their group, but you have to admit that seeing a giant chunk of a mobs life go poof after an ambush generates a bigger group response-- nothing intrusive, just something simple that makes the healer's contribution obvious.
But I also think even SIMPLER mechanisms, like making the healing effects visually engaging and impressive, would go most of the way to accomplishing this. Basically just make the healing EVENT as momentous and impressive as the activity of healing actually IS during an encounter. Why should the melee and casters get all the cool audio/visual rewards when healing is just as mission-critical to the group effort?
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Originally Posted by Malakie Torasade Basically, I think the Healer role should be done away with and replaced with the Supporter (for lack of a better term.) This person has heals, sure. But his main role is to keep the group alive and killing efficiently, which, until now, has been the same thing as healer. Make healing a tool that this character uses to keep others going, not his entire arsenal.
Sorry the post is all over the place, keep getting interupted with phone calls. You get the idea though.  |
I thought about that for a PNP game I was working on a few years ago but we went even further... just get rid of healers altogether. Just distribute the healer's survivability contribution as various skills, spells and abilities among the other classes.
Think of healers and healing as a value, and that a priest would bring a net survivability value to a group of 100. Now distributing that survivability "points" would have to be fairly even. Though of course the execution and the semantics would be wildly different. Something like:
Give tanks an ability to shield other players to the tune of 25% of a healer's total value. Or maybe they can even spec a cross-parry skill that's like another 10% of a healer's value.
Give rogues an ability to poison or disable a mob's offensive capabilities that yields a survivability bonus that's close to 20%.
Give mages an ability to cast a magical bubble on a player that yields 20% survivability.
Give chanters an ability to create mirror images of a player that comes close to 20%.
Basically with the right tactics and coordination, the party wouldn't lose survivability because a healer isn't there. And if done correctly, it would even make for more interesting gameplay (it actually did on paper). It actually started as a conceptual solution to the problem of tank stacking in everquest-alikes. Best part is you don't end up SHORTCHANGING a player with all the tedium and thankless work that comes with healing.
Ultimately though, the conclusion was that none of this would be necessary if healing wasn't such a dull, thankless and unrewarding activity. We shouldn't be looking to remove a class or role and diminish the richness of the whole system, but find ways to fix and enhance it.