| I apologize in advance if these things have been brought up before. I was reading this forum when it started, then sort of stopped as I figured you would only need programming type assistance for awhile(now I see you guys already have a working engine going) which I don't have.
The one thing that most every MMO I've ever played (going back to Gemstone3 and up to WoW) has gotten wrong is their handling of healers. If you avoid a classic 'whack a mole' healer, you are a long ways towards a great MMO.
I've played a healer in 90% of the games (empath in GS3, Cleric in EQ, Priest in WoW etc..) I've played. NOT because I enjoyed whack a mole, I believe very few people truly do, but because it's always the most integral part of a group. I like being the most in control of whether my group survives or not. You'll notice that games where healers aren't that important, any pure healing class is rarely played.
The closest I think a MMO has gotten to (my idea) of the perfect healer was the direction WoW could have taken Shadow priests. I've heard City of Heroes had a similar idea, but I never played it, unfortunately.
If you are going to have a true cleric/priest class, make them able to heal their group while participating in the fight itself. I.e. they can put a buff on one person, who is the main recipient of any health they drain while doing damage. Think of vampiric touch, but it solely goes to one person, like the main tank. They can less efficient damage spells that would heal more, or vice versa. Also, some spells that would heal the whole group, but at a more inefficient ratio. etc etc.. You can easily balance it all out.
Other classes can have debuffs and reactive defensive abilities, that are based around reacting to the monster instead of a player's health bar. Exe: they can counter monsters' spells, put up temporary invulnerable 'wall' shields to prevent big physical attacks, launch attacks that stun the mob etc.. I could go on for days. | 