Too many healers?

Will there be too many healers in AoC with too little demand for them?

My concern stems from two bits of information coming from Steven, stated in various interviews.

1.) Clerics will be the only main archetype with a focus on healing, that is, you’ll need to be a cleric/something to fulfill the healer role in your group.
2.) The standard group size will be 8, and the content/PvP will be balanced around the idea of these groups of 8 containing one of each of the main archetypes.

It follows from the above that a group of 8 will require one main healer, allowing that other something/cleric classes will be able to provide some off healing, the ratio of which we have no information on as of now.

I have little experience with MMOs, only ever played WoW and ESO, where the standard group sizes (requiring one healer) are 5 and 4, respectively. And in neither of these games have I seen a shortage of healers, which means that every 4th or 5th player in the game is willing to play a healer. If AoC is balanced in a way that requires every 8th person to play a healer, won’t there be too many of (with too little demand for) them?

#clericunemployment

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bloodprophet

Most MMO's I have played suffer from a lack of tanks and healers.
The instance ques in WOW and cross server mask this quite well.
My first MMO was GW1 I started as an elementallist (mage) and could never find a group due to lack of healers. So I went and made one. Never had problems finding a group after that.
But anything is possible.

Damokles

You... You.... YOU PLAYED WOW AND NEVER NOTICED A HEALER DEFICIT?!?

Let me tell you a story. I played a rogue for most of my life in WoW. I normally waited 15-30min for a healer in group finder or lfm.
15 TO 30 MINUTES!

Healers are like yetis. Some say they exist, but I tell you boy they are just a fkn myth!

Let me tell you a tip: For every healer in WoW exist 15 rogues or 30 hunters.
What kind of content did you run? Casual normal dungeons or the REAL stuff?
Everyone can quickly respec into a healer spec and run a normal dungeon thats easy.

Dont forget, it wont be possible to change your specialisation of your class like in WoW where you click on healer and become a fkn healer.
A paladin DPS can become a healer for one run no problem (especially now that they have always have either strength/intelligence on plate, dex/intelligence on chain, dex/int on leather switching depending on your current specialization)

Warth

Yes, overplayed primary Archetype will have less demand than underplayed archetypes in a System, where 1 of each primary archetype is optimal.

Clerics usually do not count towards those. Clerics, Tanks and Bards will most likely be the most sought after primary archetypes as they tend to be the ones that are played the least.

Mages, Rogues and potentially Summoner tend to be the most overplayed classes.

Damokles

bloodprophet wrote: »

Most MMO's I have played suffer from a lack of tanks and healers.
The instance ques in WOW and cross server mask this quite well.
My first MMO was GW1 I started as an elementallist (mage) and could never find a group due to lack of healers. So I went and made one. Never had problems finding a group after that.
But anything is possible.

Good old GW1 man. I miss it.
(I was lucky that my best friend in the game ran a Ritualist/Monk back in the day)

Snow Fall

I plan to play full cleric... I want to be in demand.

Orell

bloodprophet wrote: »

Most MMO's I have played suffer from a lack of tanks and healers.
The instance ques in WOW and cross server mask this quite well.
My first MMO was GW1 I started as an elementallist (mage) and could never find a group due to lack of healers. So I went and made one. Never had problems finding a group after that.
But anything is possible.

I only played WoW without LFG/LFR, my experience is limited to that. Never saw the lack of healers as a problem. Tanks? Oh yes, big time. My concern is more like the main healer role limited to one archetype, and the danger of that archetype being overrepresented compared to others.

Xenotor

From my personal experience with MMORPGS you usually lack both healers and tanks.
When i qued up as Dmg dealer for dungen runs in ESO i would sometimes wait up to 5 min while as a healer i waited around 20 seconds and as a tank around 5 seconds.

But that's my personal experience.
Im sure there will be content where 1 healer is not enough in the group.
Healer can also augment like all the others so there will be a difference between a Cleric/Cleric healing ability and a Cleric/fighter healing ability.

There is also a difference in what skills each cleric focuses on.
You can spend more skill points on a skill to make it better. But you only have limited skill points.
Maybe i play cleric but only have dmg ability's with a single heal for emergency's.

With all that i believe no 2 clerics will be the same and you may find groups that take clerics as extra dmg dealer and off healer with them.

In the end we got 8 Archtypes and nobody knows how popular each of them will be.
All we can do is wait for the testing to start.

bloodprophet

Damokles wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Most MMO's I have played suffer from a lack of tanks and healers.
The instance ques in WOW and cross server mask this quite well.
My first MMO was GW1 I started as an elementallist (mage) and could never find a group due to lack of healers. So I went and made one. Never had problems finding a group after that.
But anything is possible.

Good old GW1 man. I miss it.
(I was lucky that my best friend in the game ran a Ritualist/Monk back in the day)

I missed the launch of the first expansion and when I came back just couldn't get into it. RL being what it is.

Aeri

In most MMOs, there is usually the least number of tanks, followed by healers, with DPS being a rather large majority of the playerbase. Since we don't really know the effect of the subclass on each archetype yet, it's hard to say if setting a tank/healer as your subclass will in any way make you viable to take over that role.

WoW somewhat mitigates the lower numbers of tanks/healers in a couple ways. While definitely lower than at their peak, they still have one of the largest overall playerbases of any MMO. They also allow you to basically freely switch between specs within your class. With 5 (I think?) classes having at least one spec that is a healing spec, it is very easy for players to switch to a healer if needed.

For ESO, since many skills depend purely on the weapons you use, I believe it is possibly for any class in that game to switch to a healing role if needed. It's been a while since I played, so I could be wrong. While not every class might have the say effectiveness at the role, it helps considerably towards alleviating the issue.

For whether there will be too many or too few healers in AoC, it's way too early to tell. I would hazard a guess that it will be like most other MMOs, and tanks/healers will be on the lesser played side. But a lot will depend on how big of a factor healers will be able to be in the various content.

Orell

Damokles wrote: »

What kind of content did you run? Casual normal dungeons or the REAL stuff?

TBC and Lich King 2007-2009, and now classic since release. Never played the one-button-respec expansions. And it depends on what you mean by the "real stuff". Played arena/semi-HC raiding.

I really hope you guys are right. I don't fancy myself a game designer, it just seemed strange to me to hear that if you wanna be a healer, you need to go cleric. But as stated above, probably much is subject to change in class design still.

bloodprophet

GW1 only had 1 healer class at launch. The monk.

Aeri

Orell wrote: »

I really hope you guys are right. I don't fancy myself a game designer, it just seemed strange to me to hear that if you wanna be a healer, you need to go cleric. But as stated above, probably much is subject to change in class design still.

If you want to be healer, you have to go Cleric initially, sure. Then you get some levels, and everyone starts to become a Scryer, High Priest, Templar, Oracle, Protector, Shadow Disciple, Shaman, or Apostle. While they're all primary Clerics, I imagine they should all play reasonably differently.

And who knows, it's entirely possible that something like a Soul Weaver - the Bard/Cleric class - could end up being a viable main healing class. I somehow doubt any of the other X/Cleric classes will be, but since Bard is already support-heavy, I could see that working out.

HiddenDaggerInn

Just as long as they aren't OP like in AA, healers are healers. The point of dps and tanks it to protect the healers meaning if they were unprotected they would get their ass kicked. It brings balance to need other classes to do their job.

Debase

This will be something to assess with the tuning of the content. My hope is that, for example, if you have multiple clerics, they could both pick more offensive secondary classes to up damage or utility output (oracle, shaman, shadow disciple, templar, etc). Or you can run groups with a lone cleric (with a bard?) who is more heavily heal-speced (high priest) and get through the same content.

It all depends what sort of tanking, healing, and damage outputs the variety of content is tuned around.

CCCorp

Healer population is also balanced by how much of the content in the game they can do with out having to find a Pocket DPS, If healers can solo the “solo” content then their are less cons to roll a healer, especially if in AoC your primary is locked or hard to change, if secondaries are more flexible and provide healers with being able to access the solo content I would think you’d see higher numbers of healers, I think that’s why games like WoW provides that flexablility later on in the games life.

Piedplat

I played gw1 and so many played for secondary class the monk, but the heal not like a real healer must like supporting himself

novercalis

CC Corp wrote: »

Healer population is also balanced by how much of the content in the game they can do with out having to find a Pocket DPS, If healers can solo the “solo” content then their are less cons to roll a healer, especially if in AoC your primary is locked or hard to change, if secondaries are more flexible and provide healers with being able to access the solo content I would think you’d see higher numbers of healers, I think that’s why games like WoW provides that flexablility later on in the games life.

agree. There been some rough mmo being a healer trying to do solo content. Sure I can group but my XP rate is slower tho or I could spam dungeons but lose out on world content.

Scifi

isn't bard part of the healer group too?

novercalis

Scifi wrote: »

isn't bard part of the healer group too?

yes and no. in AoC - clerics are the only MAIN healer. A bard can't run you through a dungeon. They are healers and buffers / debuffers.. they are more utility based.

if you need a tank - it's gonna be a tank. Not a fighter spec into def or rogue spec in def / or high evasion.
if you're gonna need a healer - only choice will be a cleric only, not a paladin, druid, bard, etc.

delghinn

does seem quite a mistake to only have one base archetype each to support tank and healer roles

while there needs to be game mechanics to support group interactions to deal with challenges the sad fact is the trinity sucks. the majority dont enjoy it however end up advocating for it due to never seeing anything else work.

the game mechanic trinity concept forces archetypes into not enjoyable game classes. fighters shouldnt be attention holding damage sponges and clerics in table top games and literature while often a tier down on raw general damage are often highly destructive to exceedingly dangerous targets like undead and demonic. both monster types that get powered down in video games from their table top and literature counter parts which greatly diminish the combative role for the cleric archetype.

here's a thought experiment. instead of playing the party, play the mob. So if you are playing a dragon and group of trinity classes invade your lair how ridiculous would it be that you are forced to attack the not particularly threatening damage sponge and do nothing to counter the heal blasting mages masquerading as 'clerics' and never mind the army of dps archetypes rofl stomping you? the group game mechanics suck and are not popular evidenced by the lack of support for 2/3rd of the trinity roles.

video game group mechanics do not represent archetypes well. fighters should be up close because they do the best damage there and can survive the burst damage that is common there. fighters should be putting themselves between mob(s) and other targets. the cleric should not be reduced to heal blasting. the vast majority hates it, lets lose the mechanic. one could still do plenty of support in a conflict however it could be varied and have just as varied solutions and tactics.

dps should be an opportunity not a class defining role. fighters that arent in a fully committed defense posture should be every bit as deadly as anyone else. a wizard should be able to not only be highly defensive but provide support to their group as well. magic shield, ice wall, teleport another out of danger, ..

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