MMO Healers! My Response to Healer Showcase. Also Share your Exp of Good Healing!

Astrolite

Here is a window into my experiences of succesful and not so succesful Healing in MMOs

I am going to preface this by saying my healing experience comes from TERA, Archeage, Elder Scrolls Online, FF14, Wildstar, WoW, Guild Wars 2, New World(yikes). There is a combination of factors in all these games in what makes or breaks how fun the healing is. As shown in your demo healers are not limited to just Healing, and should have access to a variety of abilities. Heals/Buffs/Debuffs/Shields/Cleanse/CCs/Resource Regeneration/Mobility Abilities to name a few. The one thing I see most games miss is that Healers should have the same dynamic abilities as other classes, just because it is a healer it should not necessarily be simplified to all targeted or circle AOE abilities.

I want to go into some examples:

Archeage
Archeage Healing will always have a special place in my heart in terms of feeling the impact of your healing in both Raid V Raid Combat and Small Scale. Great Raid Frames/Clickable Player Health Bars were ESSENTIAL for this system to be effective. Archeage's system of combining classes together inherently allowed for Diverse healer roles. Mobility is a HUGE factor in the success of action oriented combat.

(I Played all Classes)
Notable ability attributes:

* Healing and other abilities would combo together. Ex: Applying a single target HoT would Strengthen your Single Target Nuke or Proc an Effect with your AoE Mend Ability
* Variations on healing abilities Ex: Hearts or single target nuke heal could be applied as infinite lighting fast small ticks(mana limited).. 5 medium instant ticks.. Or One Large HoT for tanks.
* Variation of Classes allowed for several Healer Variants.. My favorites were Pure AOE Nuke Healers.. Healers with Crowd Control.. Healers With buffs and Songs.. Healers Dedicated to Resurrection through attack speed/ CD Reduction. All had their own strengths and weaknesses.
* Mobility Mobility Mobility Multiple teleports / back drops / stealth variations

(Not my Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XimZ7_qdc_s

Tera
Tera had one of the best healing systems ive ever played in terms of engagement and action oriented gameplay in an mmo. With the "Painting" targeting system and a small variety of healing abilities it set the priest apart from healers in other games. Tera had its limitations in the AoE placement but more than made up for it with the action-oriented fast gameplay.

(I played Priest)
Notable ability attributes:

* Notice the engagement of normal healing abilities have when you paint the target.
* 4 second Cooldown AoE Circle Cleanse in front of the Caster (IMO way better than the Typical Single Target Cleanse abilities and makes you aim or be in danger to cleanse)
* Dynamic AoE Healing abilities that spawn on target or where you place it. (More on this later)
* Access to Buffs and Shields(Magic barriers not Literal Shield)

(Not my Video) Loud Sound Warning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ABRTYyxoFk

Wild Star
Wildstar was a great example of action combat with no tab target abilities and innovation in Shaped AoE abilities. Within Healing it is often forgotten that there are more shapes than a circle. Wildstar was able to utilize its telegraph system to create several distinct healer archetypes.

(I Played Medic.)
Notable ability attributes:

* Healing was action oriented and telegraphed with different Shapes and locations where you aimed creating interesting healing gameplay
* Including but Not limited to Frontal Cones.. Diamonds.. Lines.. Circles.. Solid and void.. Random.. Pulsating/Changing
* Clear Ally/Enemy AoE indicators
* Different available builds to focus Healing/Shields/ or dps focus all in one class.
* Ability to choose effects on certain abilities.

(Not my Video)
https://youtu.be/Rh57C1nWDD8?t=40

Elder Scrolls Online
Elder Scrolls Online had some great moments when it came to Healing Action Combat but was limited by its active ability pool.The ability to place aoe's anywhere was a good move. The ability to block.. roll.. crouch.. sneak.. were all great features.This unfortunately was accompanied by auto-targeted Aoe abilities around the caster. This system was way better than whatever New World was trying to do with their targeting system but i still feel it lacks when you start to add more skills into the mix and doesnt allow for good skill based Healing.

(I played Templar)
Notable ability attributes:

* Healing was action oriented and abilities were only limited by Global CDs and resources
* Clear Ally/Enemy AoE indicators
* Had a decent variety of Healing builds
* Mobility Mobility Mobility dashes / teleports / back drops / stealth variations
* Ultimate Healing Ability

(My old Video) lol.. 7 years ago.. sheesh time flies by
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOABs77JHwE

World of Warcraft Classic/Retail
WoW was not my first MMO and maybe that is why I am so hard on it, but Typically (Before DragonFlight) Healing in wow was severely limited by the tab targeting system. This is accompanied by classes and abilities that largely heal the same way(throw your hands up Resto Druids). If you didnt have some huge text pop up saying you are some type of CCed you wouldnt know what was going on because a lot of the animations are very similar and characters don't react in an action way. I think the new Evoker class starts to break this trend and is a step in the right direction for them in terms of engaging combat.

I Played Holy Priest in Classic and Pres Evoker/Resto Druid/Monk in Retail)
Notable ability attributes:

* Mostly Traditional Healing Mechanics with low mobility
* Good variety of Healing Abilities Instant/Hots/AoE/Totems. Skills also combo with each other within the class
* Preservation Evoker is great step forward in action engaging combat with skills that cause movement/AoE/Charging Healing Skills/Aimed abilities
* Typically good amount of skills and options


(Not My Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVswqXwk8JE
Evoker Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoeuQiYc4Ow

New World
I followed New Worlds Development and the regression in the amount abilities one could use blows my mind. You would imagine as a game goes on development you would increase the amount of skills, lets hope ashes does not go down this path. Healing in a game without raid frames.. Is this some kind of joke? The botched targeting options are a convoluted joke. The gameplay is spamming the same few abilities over and over and over again. I Digress.. They are at least trying action combat.. but why give healer targeting if nothing else in the game uses this..

(I Played enough.. with life staff and void gauntlet)
Notable ability attributes:

* Mix of action and target that fails in my opinion. There is no advantage to not targeting an ability. The aiming of the one aoe ability you do have is not good.
* You have what you have.. all 3-6 skills that have terrible customization.
* The ability to block.. roll.. crouch.. sneak.. were all great features.
* Trying to be positive here.. Skills trees/Ability Modifiers have potential..

(Not My Video)
https://youtu.be/ycbHWStMEY0?t=70

In final, my point of this post was to highlight different examples of Healing archetypes spanning multiple games. The elements of a successful Healing experience come from not only the abilities, but also the user interface and how you interact with the game. Allowing different healing builds focusing on one thing while providing another helps to alleviate stagnant gameplay of repeating the same thing over and over again. Unreal Engine with the use of Niagra has the potential to create some wild AoE effects and shapes so absolutely it should be used to produce new innovative AoE abilities. Imagine particle effects actually having collision with players and that is what provides the healing.. Not just a circle on the ground. For some reason I have always really loved healing in video games knowing that I have the ability to keep whole raids alive or changing the outcome of a battle with good timed or placed abilities. It just feels good.

Anyways.. I could go on for hours.. Feel free to let us know your thoughts and share your great MMO Healing Experiences..!! Lets make Ashes Awesome! =D

Iskiab

I’ve been playing MMOs for a while too, though not always as a healer. I’d say my favourites was a Bear Shaman (pre-nerf) in Age of Conan (do damage to heal), I played an arch mage in war hammer online and really liked how you were mobile while healing (cast times and having to stand still = I don’t play a healer).

I played a medic in Wildstar too but hated it, healing based on areas sucks in general imo. It’s something that sounds interesting but it’s never worked well and dumbed down gameplay.

An example would be ESO healing. Everyone stacked and the healers would spam stacking ground effect heals - dumb. ESO also tried getting away from targeting with smart heals, so you’d heal and whoever was in range with the lowest health would get healed, which was clever but I would have preferred to have control.

I prefer raid frames to heal. All the attempts to try something different have been clunky.

Leiloni

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve been playing MMOs for a while too, though not always as a healer. I’d say my favourites was a Bear Shaman (pre-nerf) in Age of Conan (do damage to heal), I played an arch mage in war hammer online and really liked how you were mobile while healing (cast times and having to stand still = I don’t play a healer).

I played a medic in Wildstar too but hated it, healing based on areas sucks in general imo. It’s something that sounds interesting but it’s never worked well and dumbed down gameplay.

An example would be ESO healing. Everyone stacked and the healers would spam stacking ground effect heals - dumb. ESO also tried getting away from targeting with smart heals, so you’d heal and whoever was in range with the lowest health would get healed, which was clever but I would have preferred to have control.

I prefer raid frames to heal. All the attempts to try something different have been clunky.

Hard to call TERA clunky unless you haven't played. They did targeted action combat healing really well. That being said Esper and Spellslinger in Wildstar had smaller, more specific shapes that felt more like targeting as opposed to "everyone get in this area". The big AoE melee/medium range healer was the Medic's thing so yes, it was suppose to feel like you said. But Esper and Spellslinger had things like long lines for heals - some thicker some thinner, long, slim cones, etc. Things that act as more "targeted" 2-3 person heals without needing devs that can code TERA-style lock on effects.

Because as much as I love TERA's lock on heals, over the years I've come to realize that those devs likely had skill and tech that most MMORPG devs just don't have based on the action combat healing attempts I've seen in the past 10 years since TERA came out. If Western devs could code TERA style lock on heals, we'd have seen it in Wildstar, ESO, and New World at the very least, probably others. Of the other styles we've seen in various MMO's, Wildstar is one at least I enjoyed and can see myself playing again if Ashes does something similar. And I'd like to see more of that with the Cleric in Ashes - I was disappointed that the only "action" style heals we saw were traditional tab target MMO fare - PbAoE and GtAoE skills.

Astrolite

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve been playing MMOs for a while too, though not always as a healer. I’d say my favourites was a Bear Shaman (pre-nerf) in Age of Conan (do damage to heal), I played an arch mage in war hammer online and really liked how you were mobile while healing (cast times and having to stand still = I don’t play a healer).

Mobility is huge for healers! And if you happen to have low mobility There should be some trade off like pumping more heals or buffs or whatever.

Iskiab wrote: »

I played a medic in Wildstar too but hated it, healing based on areas sucks in general imo. It’s something that sounds interesting but it’s never worked well and dumbed down gameplay.

An example would be ESO healing. Everyone stacked and the healers would spam stacking ground effect heals - dumb. ESO also tried getting away from targeting with smart heals, so you’d heal and whoever was in range with the lowest health would get healed, which was clever but I would have preferred to have control.

I prefer raid frames to heal. All the attempts to try something different have been clunky.

I think what I am showcasing is that a variety of AoE shapes will promote different formations and stacking. Having a Variety of Abilities that you can cast not just around yourself also helps to alleviate this. Raid Frames are a must in this day and age! Looking at you New World!

Leiloni wrote: »

Hard to call TERA clunky unless you haven't played. They did targeted action combat healing really well. That being said Esper and Spellslinger in Wildstar had smaller, more specific shapes that felt more like targeting as opposed to "everyone get in this area". The big AoE melee/medium range healer was the Medic's thing so yes, it was suppose to feel like you said. But Esper and Spellslinger had things like long lines for heals - some thicker some thinner, long, slim cones, etc. Things that act as more "targeted" 2-3 person heals without needing devs that can code TERA-style lock on effects.

Because as much as I love TERA's lock on heals, over the years I've come to realize that those devs likely had skill and tech that most MMORPG devs just don't have based on the action combat healing attempts I've seen in the past 10 years since TERA came out. If Western devs could code TERA style lock on heals, we'd have seen it in Wildstar, ESO, and New World at the very least, probably others. Of the other styles we've seen in various MMO's, Wildstar is one at least I enjoyed and can see myself playing again if Ashes does something similar. And I'd like to see more of that with the Cleric in Ashes - I was disappointed that the only "action" style heals we saw were traditional tab target MMO fare - PbAoE and GtAoE skills.

I agree! Although I think the TERA "painting" lock-on system is a design choice as opposed to a technical constraint but maybe you are right. I do still think there is much to learn from it in regards to action combat vs the traditional tab-targeting system. They also made very good use of having to place AoEs in certain ways that made it interesting. The different shapes of AoEs in Wildstar gave a good sense of targeting as well.

Iskiab

Yea, I don’t think I played Tera. In wildstar I think it was an esper who had traditional type healing, and we were going to migrate over from medics to esper but we ended up leaving the game.

Another healer I liked was the night blade healer in ESO come to think of it. Healer with stealth was cool. The doing damage to heal portion was busted because the amount healed was based off damage done after mitigation (making it bad in PvP) but it was a solid pure healer and fun. Combination of squishy, stealth , heals that drained your health, highly mobile and good healing potential made it fun to play. You were the equivalent of a squishy heal canon with stealth.

Astrolite

Iskiab wrote: »

Yea, I don’t think I played Tera. In wildstar I think it was an esper who had traditional type healing, and we were going to migrate over from medics to esper but we ended up leaving the game.

Another healer I liked was the night blade healer in ESO come to think of it. Healer with stealth was cool. The doing damage to heal portion was busted because the amount healed was based off damage done after mitigation (making it bad in PvP) but it was a solid pure healer and fun. Combination of squishy, stealth , heals that drained your health, highly mobile and good healing potential made it fun to play. You were the equivalent of a squishy heal canon with stealth.

Stealth is an interesting mechanic for healers. Not saying every healer should have access to it but in Archeage there were stealth healers that would wait in stealth during a big raid v raid fight and resurrect on a 3-4 sec cooldown. 2-3 of these type of healers could completely res a 100 man raid in a minute

Thokan

Awesome thread!

First off, let me join the chorus of normally not playing healer in MMOs but doing so in Age of Conan. Played a Conqueror back at launch when noone did, but switched to playing Tempest of Set and Priest of Mitra as a main coming back to the game in later years when everybody plays Conqeror suddenly.

The healing in Age of Conan is simple in nature, but not boring, and frees you up to DPS/support/react to gameplay rather than being a healbot just looking at the raid frame.

Secondly, let me be contrarian and tell you I hate Raid Frames. The best thing about Hero Quest is the minimalistic raid frame and lack of numbers cluttering your screen.

In Age of Conan the main healing system is made up of three kinds of heals for the three priest classes. They all got their own version of The Blue, The Green and The Big.

The Blue is a frontal cone and your main heal. Thus, position and watching the game is prioritized. Still, the cast is trivial when you are where you are supposed to be. You always keep it on CD, and little blue circle around everyones feet.

The Green is even more trivial. A passive group heal. Keep it on CD.

The Big is reactionary. This is what you press when you notice someone on the Raid Frame is dropping fast or someone is screaming in voip. It's also situational. Everyone recipient to the Big Heal becomes immune to that class Big Heal for a minute, so you cant cast it willy nilly.

I feel this healing system gives me agency and lets me do other stuff than just healing. I am focusing on the game and sideyeing peoples HP bars in the raid frame, and not vice versa.

There are certainly tonnes of more kinds of healing in Age of Conan, but this is the bread and butter. Two or three simple casts, and the rest of the time you react, buff, CC, kite, shield, debuff, DPS and sometimes pop that bubble and do some tanking too!

Here's a clip of the first T4 boss encounter with the main healing class. Where there is a lack of numbers, there sure is an abundance of particles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKV_keAQ2kQ

If theres moving around and few Heal on Target I might very well level a healer. No doubt.

Iskiab

Astrolite wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Yea, I don’t think I played Tera. In wildstar I think it was an esper who had traditional type healing, and we were going to migrate over from medics to esper but we ended up leaving the game.

Another healer I liked was the night blade healer in ESO come to think of it. Healer with stealth was cool. The doing damage to heal portion was busted because the amount healed was based off damage done after mitigation (making it bad in PvP) but it was a solid pure healer and fun. Combination of squishy, stealth , heals that drained your health, highly mobile and good healing potential made it fun to play. You were the equivalent of a squishy heal canon with stealth.

Stealth is an interesting mechanic for healers. Not saying every healer should have access to it but in Archeage there were stealth healers that would wait in stealth during a big raid v raid fight and resurrect on a 3-4 sec cooldown. 2-3 of these type of healers could completely res a 100 man raid in a minute

Yea, it was fun, it worked because the class had next to no survivability, especially with lag and action combat. The lag could be so bad someone could get off multiple abilities before they’d render on your screen and you’d die. Anyways, stealth + healer would normally be OP, but if you’re squishy enough that you have to rely on stealth then it worked.

Thinking back on healer mechanics, there’s one kind of ability I’ve always disliked - ground effects. Usually there’d be a setting so you can cast the ability on your cursor, but even then that’s not great. Casting an ability and then having to click to place it drives me nuts.

Group healing with old mods like grid works because you can auto-run and your cursor is in a small area, then use your keyboard to move. Flipping back and forth between raid frames and placing ground effects sucks.

Someone mentioned they prefer healing mechanics that let you focus on your environment is best. The more I think about it the more I think they’re right.

Harlow

I've played a healer for many moons. EQ2 as a mystic was fun because my wards were hit before the other healers' heals, which put me usually at the top of the HPS charts, which let's face it, always feels good.

I think the most FUN I had as a healer was in Warhammer Online during massive pvp - I had this AOE heal that was true AOE, if I recall (didn't even have to be in group or raid for it to hit people).

WOW absolutely killed my love for healing. It was my final straw. Not that I hated healing - I hated the constant nerfs to the different healer types that either kept me changing classes or relearning my class, but mostly because other people in that game are so incredibly toxic that I never want to heal again. New World was my first pure DPS spec game, and I enjoyed feeling OP without the stress of keeping other people alive.

Edit to add: In last week's stream that showed the healer having to sit to regain mana (I'm ok with this), I think it could be fun if DPS types could "donate" a portion of their energy, if they choose, to the healer's mana pool to keep the sitting around time to a minimum. But only when out of combat. Mana management can't be so trivial that it doesn't exist.

McShave

My main MMO experience is playing a healer in WoW raids. I consider it the most challenging role because on top of watching out for raid mechanics, I also had to watch the raid grid and keep everyone alive while also making sure I conserved my mana enough to last the entire fight.

After seeing the Alpha 1 cleric, i had a dream imaginary build that I hope I can implement in Ashes:

The idea is a combat focused group healer. In a 8 person dungeon party, I don't know if this could be the main healer, but I hope that it could heal the party well enough. Using a big 2 handed melee weapon and medium-heavy armor (if armor types are cloth, leather, mail, and plate, somewhere between mail and plate). I would jump into melee range of a fight and heal nearby party members while also hitting enemies with my big weapon. Then I could jump out of the fight and maybe cast a heal on an ally or 2 (or chain heal or something) and then jump back into the fight.

This would make the character fun to play, and not just a heal-bot for the party while they all fight the monsters.

Astrolite

McShave wrote: »

My main MMO experience is playing a healer in WoW raids. I consider it the most challenging role because on top of watching out for raid mechanics, I also had to watch the raid grid and keep everyone alive while also making sure I conserved my mana enough to last the entire fight.

After seeing the Alpha 1 cleric, i had a dream imaginary build that I hope I can implement in Ashes:

The idea is a combat focused group healer. In a 8 person dungeon party, I don't know if this could be the main healer, but I hope that it could heal the party well enough. Using a big 2 handed melee weapon and medium-heavy armor (if armor types are cloth, leather, mail, and plate, somewhere between mail and plate). I would jump into melee range of a fight and heal nearby party members while also hitting enemies with my big weapon. Then I could jump out of the fight and maybe cast a heal on an ally or 2 (or chain heal or something) and then jump back into the fight.

This would make the character fun to play, and not just a heal-bot for the party while they all fight the monsters.

While I think one of the options should for sure fill your ideal role of a close combat healer it should not be the "Main" Heal focused archetype. just wanted to clarify that the option should for sure be there, but there should also be more effective overall raid healers and the other types discussed in this thread. I could see a offensive 2hander? leeching type of healer in this case or tank buff/debuffer with a shield.. Maybe even some heavy crowd control variant since you are close combat. Just have to be careful fulfilling the role of dps too much on a healing class imo. As for the last comment some people like being a heal-bot =D but that is why I tried to show some examples that expand on the idea the typical healing archetype that stare at raid frames over action oriented abilities.

McShave

Astrolite wrote: »

McShave wrote: »

My main MMO experience is playing a healer in WoW raids. I consider it the most challenging role because on top of watching out for raid mechanics, I also had to watch the raid grid and keep everyone alive while also making sure I conserved my mana enough to last the entire fight.

After seeing the Alpha 1 cleric, i had a dream imaginary build that I hope I can implement in Ashes:

The idea is a combat focused group healer. In a 8 person dungeon party, I don't know if this could be the main healer, but I hope that it could heal the party well enough. Using a big 2 handed melee weapon and medium-heavy armor (if armor types are cloth, leather, mail, and plate, somewhere between mail and plate). I would jump into melee range of a fight and heal nearby party members while also hitting enemies with my big weapon. Then I could jump out of the fight and maybe cast a heal on an ally or 2 (or chain heal or something) and then jump back into the fight.

This would make the character fun to play, and not just a heal-bot for the party while they all fight the monsters.

While I think one of the options should for sure fill your ideal role of a close combat healer it should not be the "Main" Heal focused archetype. just wanted to clarify that the option should for sure be there, but there should also be more effective overall raid healers and the other types discussed in this thread. I could see a offensive 2hander? leeching type of healer in this case or tank buff/debuffer with a shield.. Maybe even some heavy crowd control variant since you are close combat. Just have to be careful fulfilling the role of dps too much on a healing class imo. As for the last comment some people like being a heal-bot =D but that is why I tried to show some examples that expand on the idea the typical healing archetype that stare at raid frames over action oriented abilities.

Good point about not wanting to have too much damage on a primary healing role. This is probably leaning more towards maybe a fighter with cleric secondary.

We'll have to see what combat and the classes will look like further in development, but I hope that we can see some cross functionality in regards to class roles and "hybrid" type classes.

Letterz

not much to add but one thing i didn't see, i could be blind, is the pull other ability like in swotr, wow ect. super fun, useful versatile all positive adjectives i can think of. I loved that ability!

PickleJar

SWTOR - my favorite MMO for healing. Agent (on the imperial side) had hots, direct heals, splash heals, and a mix of CC and damage abilities. Some of the heals were situational - i.e. a heal that wouldn't fire off until you took damage, or a heal effect that prevented other negative effects for the duration. Channels too, some weaker which were off the global cooldown and permitted movement, and some stronger which required more planning and locked out movement.

Sorcerer had good heals too, utilizing similar mechanics but with a different balance obviously.

I never hear SWTOR mentioned and it's likely because the game has morphed INTO something unrecognizable from the original game, the skills system was essentially rebuilt and nobody even knows what to compare to anymore.

I am a big fan of a wide variety of available skill types that can be used to counter things situationally, and skills which can work in any situation, so the class can be approached by those who want to min/max and those who only want to keep it simple.

Iskiab

Doing damage to heal is always fun, but imagine it’d be really hard to balance well. If it’s melee then that works in PvE and duels but would be horrible in group PvP. I’m thinking you wouldn’t always have a target to hit which would be a big negative.

If it’s a ranged healer who heals by doing damage I’ve seen it work before in other games. Some pitfalls that can come up are healing amounts tied to your damage done so the mitigation of your target matters. Other then that it usually works well.

ZombieHeart

I haven't played healer yet but I think I'll try it with this game. Is Cleric considered the traditional / meta healer in Ashes? I think Clerics are usually melee ranged and have weaker heals than dedicated healer toons?

I have played tank, and some of the most fun I have had with healers, is when the risk of going below zero health increases, or if there are perhaps built in healing mechanics that make me further question if I can depend on the heals to be there.

Airborne vicinity based heals were also pretty fun, simply being able to stand inside the heal area is cool too.

McShave

zombinvestor wrote: »

I haven't played healer yet but I think I'll try it with this game. Is Cleric considered the traditional / meta healer in Ashes? I think Clerics are usually melee ranged and have weaker heals than dedicated healer toons?

Cleric is the primary healer class and the only class that has any sort of healing capacity (as far as I know). If you choose Cleric as a secondary class, you can do a small amount of healing, but it definitely wont be enough to keep a party alive.

Around the time of Alpha 1, Steven mentioned that they might go both melee and ranged, you get to pick. But that was over a year ago and we will see how they have changed things up in Alpha 2.

Iskiab

Well bards might have some healing too, but I’m guessing not much. Bards and clerics are both listed as support classes, but I’m thinking bards will be more buff/debuff oriented and clerics more heal oriented.

Vaknar

Neat post going over different healing options and playstyles across notable titles in the genre! I enjoyed the videos you included. It's very cool that you have such depth with your healing resume

I look forward to reading more experiences and stories in this thread!