Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I'm also going to point out that the difference between a first person shooter and a third person shooter is actually massive. You wouldn't think so but they have a massively different game feel to them.
That's why I'm gonna play Bard instead
This is the opposite of how I feel, tab just requires you to click a nameplate and press a button, takes less skill.
Failing occassionally can also feel satisfying.
Not all AoE Heals are made the same.
Hallowed Ground, the Ashes A1 AoE Heal felt great. Cleric creates a dome which Heals allies and damages enemies. It lasts for 20 or 30 seconds (whatever). Plenty of time for allies to run to that sanctuary if they feel the need.
During Sieges, several Clerics would work together to keep Hallowed Ground constantly active as attackers tried to bust down the front gate and allies fought to defend the front gate. That AoE did not feel unsatisfying.
I agree with most of this in regards to action combat healing in most games. I'll say I really liked how TERA did it. It wasn't perfect and sure was different from tab in some ways. But it was damn good.
I'll say I agree with Sybil. Tab healing is often much more complex with a good healer in a well designed game being required to make a lot of decisions moment to moment about what skill to use, when, on whom, or maybe target a boss/mob with something. And even in older games combat was fast paced enough with enough happening to different players in my party, and various mobs/boss actions, or enemy player actions, that there are a lot of such decisions to make to keep me thinking. Healing is very much a thinking game. And what to do and how to play is very dynamic which is what makes it so fun. But it also requires a deep knowledge of your class instead of a lot of DPS who can get away with basics like "What is my rotation". A good tab healer doesn't really have a rotation and needs to effectively go through a decision tree in their head in a fraction of a second when someone needs healing.
Of course it's easy to be a bad tab healer and just press buttons, but then people die more often and you're often unable to get through difficult or unexpected situations. Or you find your group pulling less mobs, or playing it safer in other ways, or the bad healer might have to drink more often, etc. "Getting by" sure, but not well. But a good healer in a group is evident to most players as they're capable of much more, and as the healer, that challenge is much more interesting than most action.
It's why while I would love if they could do some really good action skills, I wouldn't be upset if we had to stick with tab plus templated AoEs, because it's the better choice than doing poorly designed action. By far.
Even vanilla WoW/now Classic Era requires me to think more about healing than most action combat games. The only exceptions are as you know TERA, and I'd say something like New World. But not because New World requires much decision making (it doesn't - it's quite simple), it just has a lot of mechanical skill required.
But most action combat games just throw a lot of AoEs at us which removes most of the decisions required and as Sybil mentioned, one of those is priority targeting. If I just plop down AoEs, that's incredibly boring and a bot could do it. Few action games have targeted healing outside of a few. TERA did it exceptionally well. New World did it exceptionally poorly. Don't get me started on how clunky their targeting system is and how the low, close camera angle makes it worse. Then you have games like ESO that just auto target the lowest HP target, or closest, or whatever. Again, removes any decision making from me. It's the ultimate hurr durr press button do good.
But in comparison, look at TERA where the majority of my healing was targeted healing. And the AoEs I had that were any good and at all worth using, were very tiny 5m AoEs. One was a targeted AoE on a CD, so this was a targeted spell as well. But to heal anyone else with it they had to be in melee range of my target (and I couldn't spam it like many other action games let you do - it had a 20 second CD). The other good AoE was stuck to my feet, so I had to put myself, a squishy cloth healer, in harm's way to find a clump of friendlies in melee range of each other to heal. And also worth mentioning is this game had collision which many did not, so you could only fit so many people in a tiny 5m range circle. Even the AoEs in TERA had limits that required skill and decision on my part as well as on the part of my team.
You have never played Darkfall Unholy wars, that healing was fun. Tab healing hasn’t been hard in any game I’ve played.
didnt you feel bad if your target needed that heal and died?xD
There's an important distinction to be made between hard vs interesting and engaging. I would say even New World healing is harder than most tab games, and from what little I've played and know of Darkfall I'd agree with your statement that it's harder. But the above post is what makes a game interesting and engaging for me, and that's more important than merely being challenging to play. Because difficulty doesn't always equal fun. However focusing on interesting, engaging combat - everyone is enjoying it and you can still design it to have a measure of skill required to excel.
Right and veterans will blow through the fancy lights that are interesting and engaging.
Having a high ceiling to push Mastery for me personally suspends that, I don't see the game for just a fancy light show tied to some computer logic. It immerses me and gives me something to strive for, it grounds me in the game. Buttons will never be interesting and engaging if they don't require a measure of skill.
High skill ceilings are good for everyone, no one runs out of learning something. The only thing it does give those who wish chase mastery something continuously and completes content at a slower rate.
It's a player ultimately who determines how much they want to master, it's on them. So a high skill ceiling gaming being present should never be an issue.
Why "WoW healing with addons" when WoW healing without addons is literally tab target healing?
Assuming there are healing spells in the live game that don't use projectiles, I would actually say action healing is probably closer to WoW healing with addons - mouse over your target and press the big "heal" button.
Ya, but who plays wow without add ons these days?
Not the point.
You are saying tab healing is shit and easy, and like WoW healing with addons - despite the fact that WoW heights without those ad ons is tab target healing, and as you see to be suggesting, people find that too hard.
Tab target healing is not like WoW healing with ad ons, it is like WoW healing without add ons
also the point is that I was only using one thing in wow as an example, you just had to add in more derailing the convo, and I do not want to make 50 posts arguing with you about something so dumb. Also I did not call tab targeting shit. I just said it was lazy. It is easier than curser targeting. Just my opinion, and you want to argue about subjective opinions now..... give it a rest. I know you will post after this...so you have the last word.
You were trying to compare tab target healing to the worst healing gamplay you could think of.
I'm happy if you don't want to continue a post about something so dumb, but my suggestion is to just not post the dumb thing to start with.
I mean, you literally said you think tab target healing would be akin to altered tab target healing. Think before you post, my dude.
ok my dudette.
Sometimes shit happens.
🤷🏾♂️
Rolling a 1 at the right time in BG3 can see you 'win" the game within 5 minutes of leaving the flying, brain infested squid ship.