Azherae wrote: » Firstly disclaimer. I don't enjoy games where healing and DPS are particularly different in terms of level of engagement. I vastly prefer games where the moment-to-moment decisions of DPS are quite high as well as Healers. I am familiar with games where DPS is 'easy' and similarly with games where healing is 'easy'. In both these game types, I usually take on 'command' or 'coordinator' roles so that I have something else to do. I don't have a strong expectation that 'AoE heals' are a requirement just because things have moved more toward Action. Firstly because MMO designers know that many healers don't even care about being frontline anyway so they just have to get to the correct position and keep their reticle on target. Secondly because I personally don't find it necessary. Healing is not explicitly easier or harder for me in Action, except for one thing. If a game is explicitly designed with the expectation and intention that the healer is 'squishy backline' then they make it dangerous to be healing from up close, purposely. This makes sense because otherwise Healers often become able to tank somewhat in PvE (I enjoy this too). When 'pushing me to backline', it also makes 'close range big heal', a situation in which I move close to allies to heal strongly, a bad idea, which lowers my engagement relative to Action Combat. Not necessarily relative to healing, but if the game is 'telling me' that 'You're a healer you shouldn't be frontline or even close', I normally expect to be 'not allowed to have fun in Action style' and have to rely on the game to consume all my focus from backline (most don't). I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'.
Leukael wrote: » I wanted to make a post regarding the hybrid approach with action camera and how it relates to healing. The appeal to healing for me is to make judgement calls on when and which heals/spells second to second (wow holy priest in past life.) When I see a push to an action camera approach I tend to see a move to aoe heals which is more about putting it in a place where it hits the most people. This removes those moment to moment decisions that make healing engaging in a different way than dps.
PenguinPaladin wrote: » This is my generalized take on how healing can be done in ashes. My problem with action targeted heals, are alot of them are blanket heals, that auto target party within range, or nearest ally, or things like that, and those mindless press a single button heals, i dont see a huge place for. So most single target ranged heals being tab targeted and "melee" heals being an action target narrow cone, and group heals being action target "pool" reticles or tab target arch to nearest allies within range. Makes sence to me.
Azherae wrote: » I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'.
Leiloni wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'. I don't think it's necessary to limit healer's ability to self heal at all. That's just poor game design. Most games manage to work this issue out without limiting a class's primary ability - it's ludicrous to suggest when you really think about what you're asking. You can prevent healers from being OP in a ton of ways, but we do need to self heal. Sure I can have people peeling for me in PvP, but who heals my HP back up after I take those hits if not me? Otherwise you'll get a Crowfall-style meta where the standard group has 2 healers so they can cross-heal one another and nobody wants that. The same problem exists in PvE - if I take damage, who heals that up if it's not me? We can have the healer balance discussion in another thread if you'd like, but I felt it necessary to disagree with that bit at least here. I do think it's necessary for Clerics in Ashes to be able to have a wide variety of build choices - melee healer in heavy armor, backline in cloth, standard Cleric style with heavy armor, variety of heals, a bit of damage. Maybe there's even a medium armor stealth healer in your Shadow Disciple - SWTOR style.
Azherae wrote: » Leiloni wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'. I don't think it's necessary to limit healer's ability to self heal at all. That's just poor game design. Most games manage to work this issue out without limiting a class's primary ability - it's ludicrous to suggest when you really think about what you're asking. You can prevent healers from being OP in a ton of ways, but we do need to self heal. Sure I can have people peeling for me in PvP, but who heals my HP back up after I take those hits if not me? Otherwise you'll get a Crowfall-style meta where the standard group has 2 healers so they can cross-heal one another and nobody wants that. The same problem exists in PvE - if I take damage, who heals that up if it's not me? We can have the healer balance discussion in another thread if you'd like, but I felt it necessary to disagree with that bit at least here. I do think it's necessary for Clerics in Ashes to be able to have a wide variety of build choices - melee healer in heavy armor, backline in cloth, standard Cleric style with heavy armor, variety of heals, a bit of damage. Maybe there's even a medium armor stealth healer in your Shadow Disciple - SWTOR style. Well for clarity I didn't mean 'can never heal self'. Just that some skills don't heal self. And in general, 'aimed' healing skills can't be aimed at oneself in my experience. This is how I thought 'Devotion' was going to work in Alpha-1 and I found it interesting, I could use Devotion to heal others quickly and strategically, could use AoE and Hallowed Ground to heal myself, with Hallowed Ground being a real decision if I was backline at the time I wanted to use it, and still had the basic Heal that I could use on either others or myself. (Devotion was later changed to heal me too and then everything just became easy) Healers with good other mitigation make good tanks unless balanced to explicitly not. If your disagreement is with this specific thing, sure, I'm glad to talk about it in another thread.
PenguinPaladin wrote: » Azherae wrote: » Leiloni wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'. I don't think it's necessary to limit healer's ability to self heal at all. That's just poor game design. Most games manage to work this issue out without limiting a class's primary ability - it's ludicrous to suggest when you really think about what you're asking. You can prevent healers from being OP in a ton of ways, but we do need to self heal. Sure I can have people peeling for me in PvP, but who heals my HP back up after I take those hits if not me? Otherwise you'll get a Crowfall-style meta where the standard group has 2 healers so they can cross-heal one another and nobody wants that. The same problem exists in PvE - if I take damage, who heals that up if it's not me? We can have the healer balance discussion in another thread if you'd like, but I felt it necessary to disagree with that bit at least here. I do think it's necessary for Clerics in Ashes to be able to have a wide variety of build choices - melee healer in heavy armor, backline in cloth, standard Cleric style with heavy armor, variety of heals, a bit of damage. Maybe there's even a medium armor stealth healer in your Shadow Disciple - SWTOR style. Well for clarity I didn't mean 'can never heal self'. Just that some skills don't heal self. And in general, 'aimed' healing skills can't be aimed at oneself in my experience. This is how I thought 'Devotion' was going to work in Alpha-1 and I found it interesting, I could use Devotion to heal others quickly and strategically, could use AoE and Hallowed Ground to heal myself, with Hallowed Ground being a real decision if I was backline at the time I wanted to use it, and still had the basic Heal that I could use on either others or myself. (Devotion was later changed to heal me too and then everything just became easy) Healers with good other mitigation make good tanks unless balanced to explicitly not. If your disagreement is with this specific thing, sure, I'm glad to talk about it in another thread. What should prevent healers from being tanks is their lack of skills to generate threat. They shouldnt be able to hold onto mobs. I dont care if they can be built to be hard to kill, they shouldnt get threat generating skills. Or really maybe threat needs to be looked at more and be made more complex. Tanks should get more medigation and CC skills in general than healers. Maybe give some mobs that gain buffs the higher dps they have, so chewing on a hp tank buffs them vs chewing on a medigation tank.
Azherae wrote: » PenguinPaladin wrote: » Azherae wrote: » Leiloni wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'. I don't think it's necessary to limit healer's ability to self heal at all. That's just poor game design. Most games manage to work this issue out without limiting a class's primary ability - it's ludicrous to suggest when you really think about what you're asking. You can prevent healers from being OP in a ton of ways, but we do need to self heal. Sure I can have people peeling for me in PvP, but who heals my HP back up after I take those hits if not me? Otherwise you'll get a Crowfall-style meta where the standard group has 2 healers so they can cross-heal one another and nobody wants that. The same problem exists in PvE - if I take damage, who heals that up if it's not me? We can have the healer balance discussion in another thread if you'd like, but I felt it necessary to disagree with that bit at least here. I do think it's necessary for Clerics in Ashes to be able to have a wide variety of build choices - melee healer in heavy armor, backline in cloth, standard Cleric style with heavy armor, variety of heals, a bit of damage. Maybe there's even a medium armor stealth healer in your Shadow Disciple - SWTOR style. Well for clarity I didn't mean 'can never heal self'. Just that some skills don't heal self. And in general, 'aimed' healing skills can't be aimed at oneself in my experience. This is how I thought 'Devotion' was going to work in Alpha-1 and I found it interesting, I could use Devotion to heal others quickly and strategically, could use AoE and Hallowed Ground to heal myself, with Hallowed Ground being a real decision if I was backline at the time I wanted to use it, and still had the basic Heal that I could use on either others or myself. (Devotion was later changed to heal me too and then everything just became easy) Healers with good other mitigation make good tanks unless balanced to explicitly not. If your disagreement is with this specific thing, sure, I'm glad to talk about it in another thread. What should prevent healers from being tanks is their lack of skills to generate threat. They shouldnt be able to hold onto mobs. I dont care if they can be built to be hard to kill, they shouldnt get threat generating skills. Or really maybe threat needs to be looked at more and be made more complex. Tanks should get more medigation and CC skills in general than healers. Maybe give some mobs that gain buffs the higher dps they have, so chewing on a hp tank buffs them vs chewing on a medigation tank. Don't care much. In my experience it's harder to balance, that's all. Particularly in a game where 'subclass', 'subjob', 'secondary kit', etc, are available. If Intrepid WANTS Cleric/Tank to be able to do this, I'll be glad for it. I just don't want them balancing Cleric to be squishy backline so that they can't do it. Making Clerics explicitly generate LESS Threat when healing has other problems, but honestly, at this point I'm arguing against my own interest here. The more 'broken' or 'potentially broken' Cleric is, the 'better' for me. I just don't like playing unbalanced games, and I don't like most of the approaches used for 'Cleric balance'. Low threat generation? I'll abuse it. Strong mitigation? Someone else will, I might too. Massive powerful heals? EZ, absolutely using it. The only good way I know to 'not result in abusable mechanics for Cleric in a system with secondary stuff' is to make healing HP as a whole weaker/less important in the game (hoping for this) or limiting the self-heals (will accept this).
PenguinPaladin wrote: » Azherae wrote: » PenguinPaladin wrote: » Azherae wrote: » Leiloni wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I would like to be able to heal from close. I do not mind if my 'big heal' cannot be self targeted to prevent me from also tanking. For a while I thought this was where Intrepid was going to go and they still might. I would be able to enjoy Action healing then, as I do in some other games. I feel as if 'having access to too much AoE' would make it difficult to balance this, since it would also heal me, so I will hope that isn't the case, just from the perspective of 'I want to be more active while playing Shadow Disciple'. I don't think it's necessary to limit healer's ability to self heal at all. That's just poor game design. Most games manage to work this issue out without limiting a class's primary ability - it's ludicrous to suggest when you really think about what you're asking. You can prevent healers from being OP in a ton of ways, but we do need to self heal. Sure I can have people peeling for me in PvP, but who heals my HP back up after I take those hits if not me? Otherwise you'll get a Crowfall-style meta where the standard group has 2 healers so they can cross-heal one another and nobody wants that. The same problem exists in PvE - if I take damage, who heals that up if it's not me? We can have the healer balance discussion in another thread if you'd like, but I felt it necessary to disagree with that bit at least here. I do think it's necessary for Clerics in Ashes to be able to have a wide variety of build choices - melee healer in heavy armor, backline in cloth, standard Cleric style with heavy armor, variety of heals, a bit of damage. Maybe there's even a medium armor stealth healer in your Shadow Disciple - SWTOR style. Well for clarity I didn't mean 'can never heal self'. Just that some skills don't heal self. And in general, 'aimed' healing skills can't be aimed at oneself in my experience. This is how I thought 'Devotion' was going to work in Alpha-1 and I found it interesting, I could use Devotion to heal others quickly and strategically, could use AoE and Hallowed Ground to heal myself, with Hallowed Ground being a real decision if I was backline at the time I wanted to use it, and still had the basic Heal that I could use on either others or myself. (Devotion was later changed to heal me too and then everything just became easy) Healers with good other mitigation make good tanks unless balanced to explicitly not. If your disagreement is with this specific thing, sure, I'm glad to talk about it in another thread. What should prevent healers from being tanks is their lack of skills to generate threat. They shouldnt be able to hold onto mobs. I dont care if they can be built to be hard to kill, they shouldnt get threat generating skills. Or really maybe threat needs to be looked at more and be made more complex. Tanks should get more medigation and CC skills in general than healers. Maybe give some mobs that gain buffs the higher dps they have, so chewing on a hp tank buffs them vs chewing on a medigation tank. Don't care much. In my experience it's harder to balance, that's all. Particularly in a game where 'subclass', 'subjob', 'secondary kit', etc, are available. If Intrepid WANTS Cleric/Tank to be able to do this, I'll be glad for it. I just don't want them balancing Cleric to be squishy backline so that they can't do it. Making Clerics explicitly generate LESS Threat when healing has other problems, but honestly, at this point I'm arguing against my own interest here. The more 'broken' or 'potentially broken' Cleric is, the 'better' for me. I just don't like playing unbalanced games, and I don't like most of the approaches used for 'Cleric balance'. Low threat generation? I'll abuse it. Strong mitigation? Someone else will, I might too. Massive powerful heals? EZ, absolutely using it. The only good way I know to 'not result in abusable mechanics for Cleric in a system with secondary stuff' is to make healing HP as a whole weaker/less important in the game (hoping for this) or limiting the self-heals (will accept this). I agree with threat limiting not being a great idea, i realized as it came out of my mouth, but i peft it in. Thats why i made the suggestion of enemy variety. Enemy variety probably truly is the best way overall to ensure the classes can feel powerful in some ways in some cases, and not be over powered in situations you dont want them to be over powered.
Azherae wrote: » Well for clarity I didn't mean 'can never heal self'. Just that some skills don't heal self. And in general, 'aimed' healing skills can't be aimed at oneself in my experience. This is how I thought 'Devotion' was going to work in Alpha-1 and I found it interesting, I could use Devotion to heal others quickly and strategically, could use AoE and Hallowed Ground to heal myself, with Hallowed Ground being a real decision if I was backline at the time I wanted to use it, and still had the basic Heal that I could use on either others or myself. (Devotion was later changed to heal me too and then everything just became easy) Healers with good other mitigation make good tanks unless balanced to explicitly not. If your disagreement is with this specific thing, sure, I'm glad to talk about it in another thread.
Dygz wrote: » When I played a Cleric in NWO, I kinda liked those moments when my heals missed my target - especially fun when intercepted by someone accidentally running between me and my target. Emulates rolling a 1 in D&D. Sometimes people miss.
Leiloni wrote: » This I hate honestly. If a skill is designed well and the reticule location and camera angle make it possible for me to accurately target, it should still aim at that target. That's within the player's control. If someone else walks in front of my heal and "steals" it, there's no skill-based way to prevent that because I can't predict another player moving in front of my heal target. And in large scale PvP/PvE that would also relegate people to mostly AoE heals which we're all trying to avoid because it's skill-less and unfun. If a single target heal is unreliable like that, people just won't use it. That leads to awful gameplay. I'll throw New World under the bus again here because for many, full AoE became the meta for PvP because single target healing was unreliable in zergs. Or alternatively, people would lock their heals to only heal their group, making it impossible for them to heal anyone outside of that 5 man party, forced to avoid healing the rest of the raid. So they could more easily single-target heal their 5 people but at the cost of everyone else. I hope everyone understands how bad that is.
Leiloni wrote: » Generally a healer can't be a tank because they need to heal themselves to stay alive and getting hit while casting slows down or interrupts your cast (or the animation if it's an ability without a cast bar but which instead relies on the animation as the "cast bar"), depending on how it's designed. Even if your cast is only slowed down, it's often enough to prevent you from healing yourself up enough to stay alive if constantly getting hit. So you die eventually because you can't keep up. This is why big heals, or big abilities in general, have longer cast times or longer animations - because it balances them. So sure you can heal yourself with a big ability, but you need to have the time to do so - risk vs reward.
