My vision of a "healer"

[ccoa]

So this is in response to all the posts about no healers and how healers ruin certain aspects of a game. So I had an idea...

Like the OP of "no healers please" said he enjoyed the Gears of Wars style of dying and being ressurected. I was thinking of a class or skill that would allow you to bring up incapacitated or fallen allies in the midst of battle. It wouldn't be completley useless as they have their other skills to use master whichever other skills they want. Maybe be a tank that has this skill that way you can ressurect your fallen ally right next to you instead of having some weaker armored ally run in the midst and have a chance at dying yourself, which also would add to the excitement and overall fun of the class or skill.

Now taking more from the Gears of War style of gameplay, everyone would have a sort of regeneration rate. Like in GoW you had to sit behind cover when you were close to dying before you fought again. Something like that could be implemented so your health goes up rapidly when your not in combat, by incombat I mean not swinging your sword or being harmed. And these classes or skills could give auras that increase the rate of regeneration.

Along with that it could add alot of interesting tactics. Taking multiple tanks to a raid would be a good idea incase the main tank needs to switch off because he's close to dying.

With this sort of skill or class it eliminates pure healers and encourages a more combat oriented style of gameplay.

[Zigkirby]

Originally Posted by ccoa

So this is in response to all the posts about no healers and how healers ruin certain aspects of a game. So I had an idea...

Like the OP of "no healers please" said he enjoyed the Gears of Wars style of dying and being ressurected. I was thinking of a class or skill that would allow you to bring up incapacitated or fallen allies in the midst of battle. It wouldn't be completley useless as they have their other skills to use master whichever other skills they want. Maybe be a tank that has this skill that way you can ressurect your fallen ally right next to you instead of having some weaker armored ally run in the midst and have a chance at dying yourself, which also would add to the excitement and overall fun of the class or skill.

Now taking more from the Gears of War style of gameplay, everyone would have a sort of regeneration rate. Like in GoW you had to sit behind cover when you were close to dying before you fought again. Something like that could be implemented so your health goes up rapidly when your not in combat, by incombat I mean not swinging your sword or being harmed. And these classes or skills could give auras that increase the rate of regeneration.

Along with that it could add alot of interesting tactics. Taking multiple tanks to a raid would be a good idea incase the main tank needs to switch off because he's close to dying.

With this sort of skill or class it eliminates pure healers and encourages a more combat oriented style of gameplay.

I feel that a healing style similar to what you presented would favor hit and run, and long ranged combat, making stealth types, ranger types, and mage types far too valuable while making a tank obsolete.

Just because a system works in a First Person Shooter doesn't mean it will work in all types of games.

[ccoa]

Perhaps, but what would the differense be if there were no healers? I'm just suggesting an alternative to healers. Because if there were no healers, like you said, hit and run tactics would be a commanplace.

Basically what I'm getting at is a secondary skill that would raise fallen players and eliminate the need for a healer class and allow for fast passed combat. I was thinking that you wouldn't limit this skill to any particular class.

[Kaoy]

I feel I have to agree with Zig on this. That system works for FPS games becuse encounters are over as soon as they begin. In an MMO, combat generally takes time. To have people duck-and-covering every few seconds would actually impeede gameplay, as it would be come stop and go. Again, that works in FPS, becuse those games are geared towards having quick bursts of extreme action, wheer a minor error can end you, and then a short strech of time before another such encounter. While that sounds nice, take th healers out of WoW, or EQ, and envision that. It would kill the feel and the flow and things would become sluggish.

If I am not mistaken, Mortal Online is meant to have an open advancement system, sans actual levels. There is no reason a person building themselves as a tank can't learn a few restorative skills, thus making them a sort of Paladin/Cleric type character. Like wise, there shouldn't be anything stopping a person in robes or the like making themselves a big healer, thus being a more traditional Priest.

I personally see my self possibly focusing on Nuke skills, while having healing at a side so that a can heal myself when alone and be secondary in a party. This is not a 'pick a class' game, from everything I have seen. There IS a guild system where they will limit you in some places, but expand you in others. I highly doubt joining the 'Warrior Guild', or what ever it will be called, would completely banish your ablity to heal. You may have to work harder for it, but thats how this game is set to work: You'll advance in skill as you use skills. Liekwise, there will probably be individual guilds for 'Healers' and 'Mages', but they are both forms of magic, so I will likely be able to do both to some degree, if I became a 'Mage'.

While all of this may seem like rambling, my point is that there isn't meant to be any forced limitation on you character. Go play Runescape for a little bit, and see how your skills advance there. I envison something simmaler to that here. The only difference, is, say, one wanted to be a Tank, they may get a boost in how high thier Defense skill was able to go, but lose abit of potential in magic, but still be able to do some to get by when they needed it. Basicly, I see the guilds system incresing your possible potential in one or more areas while limiting, not stopping, your potential in others. You vision of a Great Tanking Healer, or 'Cleric', is possible. The standard vision of a willowy and weak Bringer of Ultimate Divine Aid, or 'Priest', should also be possible.

[ccoa]

Well, maybe the regeneration idea might be flawed. But what you aren't undertanding is this is a First-Person game and combat won't be long and drawn out like most mmorpgs. And the rest of your post is pretty much exactly where I'm getting at. Basically I'm saying that you have the people that can ressurect without sacrificing their main ability to fight. They could use this as a secondary skill so that hey don't have to waste a party slot for a healer.

[Kaoy]

If you need a healer for the strongest heals(and more of them, as they would more likely have higher Int and Wis, thus more mana), then that isn't a waste. And I do understand this is First Person, and that actually means combat will most likely last longer, as you feign or defend. It would be akward and lack balance if battles were over quickly with a first person game, since that would mean a class with high sneaking abblity would always have the ultimate advantadge.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by ccoa

So this is in response to all the posts about no healers and how healers ruin certain aspects of a game. So I had an idea... (insert whole post here)

While I like the idea of a skillset/class dedicated to bringing dying people back on their feet - i.e. first-aid/resuscitate -skill. I really hate the idea of having fast regen rate similar to most of today's action games.

<sidetrack>
I don't know who started the trend, but I simply hate it. Call me old fashioned, but I'm one of those people who feel great excitement when playing a game, your character is about to die all the time, barely standing on their feet and then finding that hidden first aid kit... I guess it's a console trend, because console games don't have quicksave/load. I guess I've always been more of a realism-junkie than a fast action -junkie.
</sidetrack>

Though keep in mind that if it's just one skill that everyone can learn, it takes away the rarity of it, because everyone would possess such a useful skill. I wrote about the whole skill-based healing already, in this thread.

[Camper]

Originally Posted by ccoa

by incombat I mean not swinging your sword or being harmed. And these classes or skills could give auras that increase the rate of regeneration.

My definition of not in combat means the enemy is farther away than missile weapon range - a radius of about 200m (although hitting anything at that distance is impossible).

[Batman]

I would actually like to see maybe a chemist or something. Someone who's good with medical kits or something. They can be good with a ranged weapon or some type of chemical bomb or something. Then when someone needs healing they can (ripping from FFT) throw healing potions (downside is with FP POV it wouldn't work out too well with that. Or have to go in a apply a kit. Something that everyone can develop in but the higher the med kit they higher level you need (Neverwinter Nights ....or similar to WOW but instead of bandages you can have different types of med kits and different levels of that type). One med kit can be good at stopping bleeding while another is better and getting rid of impurities from the body.

With that being so, you could have your "healer class" but he wouldn't have to be confined to robes. You can wear medium class armor and still lob bombs at things. My favorite idea is the chemist though, because you would be able to make potions for the party and make different weapons. Acid flasks, Fire bombs, explosives, freezing compound of some sort, etc.

[catmorbid]

A chemist class/character, which Batman described would fit very well in a steampunk world, but rather poorly on a medieval type world, which I've understood MO's world will be. So while, it's not a bad idea, it would be very much out of place in MO.

[Blahman]

Call it an apothecary and it fits just fine.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Blahman

Call it an apothecary and it fits just fine.

I'm not referring to the name he used, but what it represents: A scientist/alchemist type person throwing bombs and other exquisite alchemical products at their opponents. It refers to a whole another era, that is a steampunk era. It would just stand out too much in a serious non-steampunk fantasy world. IMO at least

[Batman]

They did have some type of stuff like that though, just not as sophisticated. With a world in which orcs and magic are real though you can embellish a little bit lol. Fire bombs could exist, Molotov cocktails pretty much, same thing with an acidic based weapon. As for as black powder and a freezing compound you are correct though.

[lokius]

Typical healing priest (a healbot as some would call em) is the worst aproach ihmo. For me in most games a fight with a healer involved looks like that:


player 1 hits player 2 for 10 dmg
player 2 hits player 1 for 40 dmg
player 3 heals player 1 for 60 dmg
etc etc.

Where the most important thing in those fights is how fast and how many times a healer can heal. If he can do more healing than the enemy damage they won.

I hope MO will take a much diffrent approach to combat and itself thus to healers also. Personaly im sick of games where you start with lets say 100 HP and end up with few k of it. I'd wish you could hardly gain any hp. If combat outcome would be determined rather by 2-3 hits that do actual damage where rest of the atacks would be blocked, dodged, parried and so on, then a need for a typical healer would be very restricted. Instead we could have some kind of support character with deffensive spells where healing would be a last a resort spell hard to cast consuming lots of mana or whatever spells will need to be casted. I'd just love to see a game where healing spells are something high-end for casters. I hope it's possible to get my idea.

[Victor]

I think this idea would work well in Mortal Online.

[patamon]

i am still for a typ of healer like a kind of alchemist or medicine man...were you coud do only limited thiks to help somebody get beack to fight..:
copied from my other post>
why do not make not healing at it self but only a way to make the self regeneration quicker...so ifyou woud be "healed" you would not be healed with a amouth of healt /at once or ower time/ but you would regenerate quicker based on you own regenaration ratio or skill, also it woud be great if it woud be not in form of magic but in form of using plants or other things to heal,
maybe plants witch could be used to heal only by charakters with specialization on healing or with healing skills, maybe only on tuch,
also it woud be good if different plant or ingrediences woud work different on different races, for exaple a plat witch heal a humen will heal a halforc very slowly, and it will not heal a dwarf, and it will paralize a elf and a goblin woud by even poisoned by that plant.
it woud be great if players who use to play healers woud have to think in the fight and not only click on anyone who is hurt.
also it woud be greath for trade if any race woud need adifferent healing plants.

ou..and another idea...why do not make some bad injures, that could not be ewen healed or regenerate on a jurney, like broken leg or arm, or deap wound or bleading. broken parts of body could be not healen only bymagick or plants it woud need to go to a specialistin the town or a healer on bigger level coud make it but only if you do not move or atack an it woud take a lot of time...like 2 minutes or something like that. if you do not repare it you woud have lowered maximum healt witch coud be regenerate or healed. and and deep wounds or bleading would permanenty lower you healt quckly ifno one take care of them, it coudmake more damage if you move yourself or if you fight, so a hurt charackter will move away from fight to prevent more healt lost even if he is a biger level or a taffer charakter. yust like in real live.
end it woud be great to have a butto like "take care ofyourself" or "first aid" witch woud allow the player to sit down and take care of his wounds to be able to survive, not healing him but stabilizate him so he coud move himself to the next town to heal. But it woud happen in perhaps 1 minute so you can not perform it in fight..
....yust like in real live.

[foolheart]

Originally Posted by lokius

Typical healing priest (a healbot as some would call em) is the worst aproach ihmo. For me in most games a fight with a healer involved looks like that:


player 1 hits player 2 for 10 dmg
player 2 hits player 1 for 40 dmg
player 3 heals player 1 for 60 dmg
etc etc.

Where the most important thing in those fights is how fast and how many times a healer can heal. If he can do more healing than the enemy damage they won.

I hope MO will take a much diffrent approach to combat and itself thus to healers also. Personaly im sick of games where you start with lets say 100 HP and end up with few k of it. I'd wish you could hardly gain any hp. If combat outcome would be determined rather by 2-3 hits that do actual damage where rest of the atacks would be blocked, dodged, parried and so on, then a need for a typical healer would be very restricted. Instead we could have some kind of support character with deffensive spells where healing would be a last a resort spell hard to cast consuming lots of mana or whatever spells will need to be casted. I'd just love to see a game where healing spells are something high-end for casters. I hope it's possible to get my idea.

That's true. The only thing a healer's good for is protracting your sense of boredom

They're so lame, besides.

Healing poisons, dispelling certain curses etc is perfectly okay. But actual healing is such an inane concept. Can't we just die in half a minute instead of five?

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by foolheart

That's true. The only thing a healer's good for is protracting your sense of boredom

They're so lame, besides.

Healing poisons, dispelling certain curses etc is perfectly okay. But actual healing is such an inane concept. Can't we just die in half a minute instead of five?

healing isn't a stupid concept at all. it would be ridiculous to have NO healing in the game. sure, in a seige it wouldn't be such a bad thing, but as a small group or 1v1, that would make for some very uninteresting fights. you get hit 4 or 5 times and your dead in under 20 seconds.

the problem is having a specific class devoted to ONLY healing. healing should just be a skill that everyone can pick up, and as long as it isn't op, it shouldn't be a problem. you should expect a heal to heal about as much as a damage spell, maybe a little less. it's just stupid when you've got a healer that can just sit back and keep anyone relatively invincible.

as far as the op's regeneration idea, well, that could work fine if your able to get ooc, but if your in a small group or solo, they aren't going to let you get away long enough to regen, and even then, you'd have to have a pretty sick regen rate to recover enough to make a difference if you managed to get away for a couple seconds. although from a siege standpoint, it doesn't sound bad.

another way to solve this sort of problem would be to have diminishing returns on heals. so the first couple times, the heal would help someone out, but by the 3rd or 4th heal, the amount healed would continue to drop significantly, until it just wouldn't be worth the mana anymore.

i live for epic 1v1 fights that last a couple minutes or more, but i agree that in a siege this could be somewhat problematic. the key is to find a way to balance healing so that it is useful during small group/solo pvp, but won't be overpowered so much as to result in sieges taking 10 hours.

[lokius]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

healing isn't a stupid concept at all. it would be ridiculous to have NO healing in the game. sure, in a seige it wouldn't be such a bad thing, but as a small group or 1v1, that would make for some very uninteresting fights. you get hit 4 or 5 times and your dead in under 20 seconds.

[...]


i live for epic 1v1 fights that last a couple minutes or more, but i agree that in a siege this could be somewhat problematic. the key is to find a way to balance healing so that it is useful during small group/solo pvp, but won't be overpowered so much as to result in sieges taking 10 hours.

By getting hit do you mean taking actual damage? I said it before, you can have long fights, epic even without need of implementing ridiculus hp amounts and tons of healing. Woudn't it be nice if shields and armor didn't only block some fixed amount of damage but rather stop hits completly. If your opponent is lucky enough at some point you won't be able to block with your shield and the blow will be strong enough to pierce your armor, its when you lose some of your hp but that doesn't mean your out yet. Also if time betwean getting wounded is long even slow regeneration becomes much stronger.

Having a plain healing class as well as single healing skill that heals instantly and is recastable is only following same old hp aproach wich have been used over and over again in so many games. There should be rather something like a support caster with diffrent buffs that reduce damge one takes or ragenerate health bit faster over time, maybe some phisical shield spells and an emergency heal something like typical lay on hands consuming lots of mana or with a build in cooldown ( im against cooldowns for spells :P ).

Sorry for saying kinda same thing as in previous post but I have a feeling i didn't said it clear enough before. ( well i still probably didn't )

[framinal]

why are so many ppl against healers?
i love playing a pure healing class, meaning low DPS high survivability
and big ball heals that can save the day

just cause you dont like playing one doesnt mean they need to remove it
its an MMO, lets keep it that way plz =)

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by lokius

By getting hit do you mean taking actual damage? I said it before, you can have long fights, epic even without need of implementing ridiculus hp amounts and tons of healing. Woudn't it be nice if shields and armor didn't only block some fixed amount of damage but rather stop hits completly. If your opponent is lucky enough at some point you won't be able to block with your shield and the blow will be strong enough to pierce your armor, its when you lose some of your hp but that doesn't mean your out yet. Also if time betwean getting wounded is long even slow regeneration becomes much stronger.

Having a plain healing class as well as single healing skill that heals instantly and is recastable is only following same old hp aproach wich have been used over and over again in so many games. There should be rather something like a support caster with diffrent buffs that reduce damge one takes or ragenerate health bit faster over time, maybe some phisical shield spells and an emergency heal something like typical lay on hands consuming lots of mana or with a build in cooldown ( im against cooldowns for spells :P ).

Sorry for saying kinda same thing as in previous post but I have a feeling i didn't said it clear enough before. ( well i still probably didn't )

i see what you mean, but keep in mind, not everyone will be carrying a shield and wearing heavy armor. there are ranger type players who wield a bow and wear light armor and thus won't be carrying a shield, or casters who will most likely be wearing leather armor (although, if magic can't be blocked by shields, they wouldn't be at a disadvantage in this case). but these types of characters realisticly wouldn't fare well against a few hits from a claymore, for example. it'd be interesting, however, if mages had some form of magical blocking ability or something. also realisticly speaking, after blocking a couple swings from a 2h sword, fatigue will start to wear in. so maybe the amount of damage shields block could be subject to diminishing returns as well.

i agree, the insta full heals just doesn't belong in a game like this. i think rapidly diminishing returns on heals would be a good compromise. i also think that touch-heals (you have to be next to them to heal them) would also be a good compromise, provided the heals aren't overpowered.

the main thing i'm against is healers that can basically make themselves or someone else relatively invincible since any damage you do to them is instantly healed afterwards. heals, on average should heal less than a damaging spell harms someone. maybe they could make it so that if the caster is hit while healing, there would be some spell interruption which would slow his casting, but each time he's hit it would also make his spell a little less effective, so if he's hit like 3 times before getting the heal off, his heal will be significantly less effective than normal.

i'm against full insta heals in this sort of game, but i also can't say that raw healing should be removed competely. there needs to be some sort of compromise imo.

Originally Posted by framinal

just cause you dont like playing one doesnt mean they need to remove it
its an MMO, lets keep it that way plz =)

it's not that we don't like playing pure healers (well, i don't think most of us do like playing healers from the sound of things, but that isn't the issue here). it's that we don't like the way pure healing classes work in most MMO's. since this is meant to be a pvp oriented game, having one guy that sits back and can cast full-life heals doesn't sound appealing in a large siege battle. the idea that you can hit a guy a hundred times and he doesn't die b/c he heals everytime you hit him doesn't make a lot of sense. i'm all for some small heals, or like i mentioned above, having diminishing returns on heals, since that makes more realistic sense and it would suit this style of gameplay a little better. just think if there was an FPS game where a medic could just sit 10 feet away from someone and keep him virtually invincible w/ heals. just doesn't sound right does it?

[framinal]

AoC tried it that way, a class with small heals
and more ppl than not are complaining about it

be careful what you wish for...

[patamon]

totalty right...no one need a more common MMos we wont something new...and MO is not a common MMOPRG so stop thinking about it like that...thanks.

[foolheart]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

i see what you mean, but keep in mind, not everyone will be carrying a shield and wearing heavy armor. there are ranger type players who wield a bow and wear light armor and thus won't be carrying a shield, or casters who will most likely be wearing leather armor (although, if magic can't be blocked by shields, they wouldn't be at a disadvantage in this case). but these types of characters realisticly wouldn't fare well against a few hits from a claymore, for example. it'd be interesting, however, if mages had some form of magical blocking ability or something. also realisticly speaking, after blocking a couple swings from a 2h sword, fatigue will start to wear in. so maybe the amount of damage shields block could be subject to diminishing returns as well.

i agree, the insta full heals just doesn't belong in a game like this. i think rapidly diminishing returns on heals would be a good compromise. i also think that touch-heals (you have to be next to them to heal them) would also be a good compromise, provided the heals aren't overpowered.

the main thing i'm against is healers that can basically make themselves or someone else relatively invincible since any damage you do to them is instantly healed afterwards. heals, on average should heal less than a damaging spell harms someone. maybe they could make it so that if the caster is hit while healing, there would be some spell interruption which would slow his casting, but each time he's hit it would also make his spell a little less effective, so if he's hit like 3 times before getting the heal off, his heal will be significantly less effective than normal.

i'm against full insta heals in this sort of game, but i also can't say that raw healing should be removed competely. there needs to be some sort of compromise imo.



it's not that we don't like playing pure healers (well, i don't think most of us do like playing healers from the sound of things, but that isn't the issue here). it's that we don't like the way pure healing classes work in most MMO's. since this is meant to be a pvp oriented game, having one guy that sits back and can cast full-life heals doesn't sound appealing in a large siege battle. the idea that you can hit a guy a hundred times and he doesn't die b/c he heals everytime you hit him doesn't make a lot of sense. i'm all for some small heals, or like i mentioned above, having diminishing returns on heals, since that makes more realistic sense and it would suit this style of gameplay a little better. just think if there was an FPS game where a medic could just sit 10 feet away from someone and keep him virtually invincible w/ heals. just doesn't sound right does it?

Can we please just have no heals at all? I still fail to see the appeal of them.

I'm totally in favour of magic and everything, i'm not saying im against it. But healing is just too instamatic.

Besides, what's the point of reinvigorating someone who's supposed to die?

Regardless of how one implements it, healing is still just healing. Although, touch healing at least makes sense.