Healing makes combat bad

Take out healing and the combat system would be much better.

Healing is killing this game.

 

What?

 

That makes no sense whatsoever Would you rather have everyone dying constantly (especially when they are stating out with a new character) ?! That would certainly be very frustrating for players and drive them away from the game

 

agreed, they should remove attacking as well, that's just not nice

 

I'm starting to come around to this thinking. Currently, repeatedly healing myself is by far the best use of my focus in combat, and the more I use it, the better deal it is... I miss at least half my attacks, but healing is guaranteed and my auto-attack is more than enough to take down enemies.

 

Drocis I think you forgot to eat breakfast this morning.

 

Actually an old suggestion from players along those lines were, to have diminishing returns similar to that of durability on gear. So that healing in the field gives a lowered current max vs real max.
Then to reach max you have to do a 'rest' action with an interruptable timer and a buff/debuff thingie.

For instance if every hit you recieve gives X damage and reduces your current max with (X/10 round down) then you'd see a slow diminishing return on 'in-combat-healing'.
The round down assures that new avatars are not affected in the same way as high level avatars.


Why this could be a good idea is to reduce camping, reduce guild tanking and give that added risk/reward thinking that could make it exiting.

 

Because a combat mechanic is optimal that doesn't mean you should remove it... The way it works may be altered, and we need alternative non magical ways of healing but removing it is like giving up on finding a solution.

In my opinion, changing the life skill tree so lower tiers are HoTs and you only get instantaneous heals in the top tier may balance the field so people rely on other defensive mechanics as well.

And also shameless plug summoned (probably unintended) by Spoon; Don't know if he was talking about the hangout from where i thought about this alternate way of handling health and focus (which i brought up recently, but i'll keep doing it since i'm sure that would improve combat greatly hope i'm not bothering anyone in excess) or something else, but there goes my share.

 

It's funny you say that. I'm just getting to breakfast now.

Healing as it's currently implemented is OP. That's really the point I was trying to make. It's so over powered that we can't get rid of it without fundamentally changing the way the game is played. (which in my mind would be a great thing to do because the way the game is played is really REALLY bad)

Healing Touch is probably the most used spell or skill in the entire tame. Soul Tap may be right up there too, but I think that's entirely because of the use based system rewarding people for standing around doing the same thing over and over again.

The problem I see with healing is that you simply have to have it. You have to spam it. The game was designed for players to need it, want it, use it. We could probably rename this game to EverHealing and it would make sense.

And sure, there are ways that we could reduce healing's effectiveness. If on average healing gives you back 13 hit points per player now. We can just dial down that number to 9 or some other arbitrary thing. But that's not going to FIX anything. It's just going to feel slightly better than it was before. Diminishing returns is the same thing. It's better but it doesn't make healing any less mandatory.

So this is something very radical and obviously we're unlikely to even try this. But I'm serious, I think we should just get rid of it and see what happens. Because if everyone has to have it (and they do) then what's the point? Why not take it out and see if there's a more compelling game behind there when people are using their time and energy doing something other than spamming the "I need more hit points" button?

 

I haven't played much of R21 yet, but in past releases I always felt healing was UNDERPOWERED at lower levels and at higher levels, I found that I rarely even USED healing. In PvP situations at say levels 30-50 I felt that healing was pretty well balanced in that context.

Without ANY healing spell the game would become VERY frustrating IMO.

So I disagree, but I'm glad you grabbed some breakfast.

 

Well, I'd encourage you and others to pay attention to HOW and WHEN you use healing. I think if you do that objectively you'll realize that there's ZERO RISK, 100% REWARD, ZERO SKILL involved, and it basically is a requirement for anyone that's not going to stand around inside of a town selling crafting supplies.

This isn't even about "best builds" it's about mandatory builds. You can't make a character that doesn't have healing if you're going to be fight in PVE or PVP. That's stupid. If it were anything else we'd hear people crying forever. Can you imagine if everyone had to use a shield in the game to survive? That's essentially what's happening here.

 

Well, healing is kind of key to every single player RPG I have ever played (...and I have played hundreds) Since you regenerate health and focus so slowly at low levels (even when out of combat), what would you have players do instead - just sit or stand around waiting (...and leaving themselves open to attack ) ? Well, I guess I could drink some more of this fine ale from the Bear Tavern in the mean time...

 

Once bandaids are in (crosses fingers), I won't use the healing tree.

I think at this point, healing is a requirement for survival. It is a choice tho, it takes alot of focus to heal, leaving you unable to damage with spells if you spam healing.

 

I've actually played lower levels without healing and it's been doable. It's not a lot of fun, and you die a lot more. But it can be done because the regen rates are stupid high too.

Here's the problem we run into with this thinking though. If I say that "it can be done" then people say SEE YOU DON'T NEED IT, it's not MANDATORY. If I say it can't be done then people say THEN HOW ARE WE GOING TO TAKE IT OUT?

People just like the control that healing gives them. It makes the game a lot less challenging and turns everyone into a tank of sorts designed to grind out levels.

But to answer you question specifically. What would I have players do? Get better at determining risk. Learn when to run away. Go in groups.

One other alternative to all this might be to make healing require FAR MORE focus than it currently does. The game of using Soul Tap and Healing to continuously maintain skill use without downtime is alive and well. My feeling is that if it worked like this, we would have far less of a problem with macroing and spam healing.


Soul Tap should give 1/4 focus for every 1 health it burns up.
Healing should give 1/2 health for every 1 focus it burns up.

This would be the best healing or soul tap would every do, even with buffs and innates and crafted items. It would just never get better than this.

So if you use soul tap to get 10 focus, you just burned up 40 health.
If then try to heal your way out of that by getting back 40 health. You just burned up 80 focus.

Problem solved.

 

as i have said in previous releasing, heal spells should be way further up the tree, at a minimum. you should have to takew purify before healing touch and healing ray and have to take purifying burst as a prereq to any busrt heals or heal over time.

 

I would have to disagree with you with regard to nerfing healing I personally think that right now it consumes TOO MUCH focus at low levels, leaving precious little focus to cast offensive spells

As far as judging risk goes, that might be fine for experienced players like us, but what about new players?


New player: Aw... that little spider doesn't look so tough. A few whacks with this sword should take care of it....

(Spider spits poison at player. Player dies thirty seconds later because he ran out of focus and couldn't cast heal or purify. Player starts cursing...)


...and by the way, not everyone likes to hunt in groups. I do my best hunting solo

 

I'm the most anti-social player there's ever been.

You're missing the point. If new players can't survive, then giving them an unbalanced option to insta heal themselves is not the right answer. There are larger problems at work here, like not designing areas where new players can learn how to play the game and making a level based system that punishes players for being new.

 

I don't find healing to be unbalancing, but I do agree with you about the need for more and better designed starter areas New players will always be at a disadvantage no matter what type of skill system (whether level or use-based) is employed

 

I challenge this statement


just trying to be social lol.

 

On that note, let's just get rid of doctors nurses and paramedics too!! (EDIT: Sarcasm about reality. This was not obvious to some)