After reading a few threads about self healing and life.

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by danjacobsmith, Apr 21, 2016.

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  1. danjacobsmith

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    I just started playing a couple days ago, and thought I'd make a support character. Because of this I've stumbled upon a lot of threads about buffing/healing in Shroud of the Avatar.

    A common theme I've read is that healing is a better defensive strategy than any of the defensive abilities in the game. Why learn to dodge for instance, if you can just get healing touch and it trumps going down a whole line of other defensive skills.

    I think a decent solution would be to have a negative effect on healing abilities called empathy. The empathy you feel when you cast life magic would makes you do less damage for a short period of time. I also think the amount of empathy you feel should increase the higher the level of the life skill used.

    Let me use an example. After casting a life healing spell for the next 10 seconds you would get a debuff that made you do half your skill level in reduced damage. So someone who uses a level 50 healing touch would do 25 percent less damage for 10 seconds after using the heal. This would also mean someone with only a 10 skill level would only see a debuff of 5 percent.

    This would mean that people might still raise the skill high and use it for out of combat healing, or might choose a lower skill so they can use small spot heals in combat with very little effect to their damage. It would simply make players choose their strategy.

    This would also promote dedicated healing and buffing while fixing the issues of defensive abilities being inferior to healing touch. Currently there's no reason to not take healing touch, and this quickly and easily adds a level of choice to character development.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2016
  2. Daevin Aruth

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    interesting healing mechanic.... Looks like a promising concept.
     
  3. Moiseyev Trueden

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    I like the concept. Not sure how well it balance for a solo player, but as a dedicated healer it is really interesting.
     
  4. Black Tortoise

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    Very interesting comment, though healing / life magic is not really robust enough yet for that. It is very difficult to play a "healer class" in the game at this time, its typically secondary to some combat skills.
     
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  5. Time Lord

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    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    ~Empathy~
    It's what's for dinner...
    +1 for Empathy

    As a smaller than mentioned tweak I like it allot!
    Keep those great comments coming Avatar danjacobsmith ;)!'
    ~Time Lord~
    :rolleyes:
     
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  6. Moiseyev Trueden

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    I was hungry, but the person next to me wasn't so I couldn't feed. Had to cry myself to sleep.
     
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  7. Time Lord

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    :cool:~Many SOTA Multi-Grand Master's Don't Know Squat on All Skill Subjects New~:confused:
    Most of the Milti-GM's players have not taken the time to ever rebuild their character in order to know enough to make such assumptions about defensive skills vs healing skills benefits... that's why they have so many GM'ed skills...
    At their level of play, they have very high healing skills which "catch their eye" when they are fighting, because those skills add to the character's health bar. Most of the time they are looking at the screen and only have time to glace up at the health bar, but also, those high healing skills combined with a high "Train Strength" means that their health bar is not as drastically telling of whatever effect is going on.

    Now if they had... say a health bar with only 10 str, yet had high defensive skills, then those differences would be much more noticeable a thing. I have been deleting my character almost every week, and I can tell you that "I do know" that those defensive skills are protecting those players much more than they realize, because defensive skills only hold back being more damaged, yet never replace it. The small effect that healing touch has at higher levels, is equaling to those player's str values, and thus creating the false image of being much better than using defensive skills.

    Anyone who tells you different, "just ask them how many times they've deleted or created new characters within the last 2 releases... and then weigh their opinion on that basis. Then if they insist that they have studied new character creation in depth... just ask then then where their new body style is and why they're not playing it if they do have a second account. The differences between old bodies are easy to spot, as well as our new ones ;)

    I think I'm on ~Nystal TimeLord~number #7 or maybe 9... because I can't keep count while learning more about our game....
    Instead of working a single stud... o_O
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2016
  8. Gix

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    I'm not sure if you're already aware but, the power of your healing is already reliant on how long you've last dealt damage.

    So people who just want to cast healing touch for a quick fix in-between attacks will not have as strong of a heal as one from a dedicated healer.

    Also: "power ups" are more fun than "debuffs". So instead of punishing players for doing a particular thing, you give them a bonus for that other thing. The result is mathematically the same but psychology suggests otherwise. Especially if the penalty increases as your skills improves.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2016
  9. Drocis the Devious

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  10. KuBaTRiZeS

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    I totally agree with the OP about how healing overpowers every single defensive ability of this game. Not saying that the rest of skills are useless... but all of them works based on chance or % reductions, while healing gives you a life increment with a 100% chance and which increment increases steadily, more if you consider that it effects can be increased with attunement and innates.

    From my point of view, the healing tree is too desirable because of the instant nature of the healing buff. To me the best solution is to rework the healing tree and make the basic healings work like healing over time effects and put two ranged healing spells in the top tier; one with little casting time, high cost, and moderate heal and another with more casting time, less cost, and heavy healing. I'd also love to see most of the defensive skills that works by chance reworked (in fact i'd love to get rid of most of the chance elements)
     
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  11. Etheom

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    I like the concept, and with some balance it sounds promising.
     
  12. Jack Knyfe

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    Ok, that makes some sense for Life Magic.

    Now, how do you balance that with Death Touch, aka, Death Magic?
     
  13. Curt

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    Bit alternative.
    Instead of keeping track of when you last was healed , keep track of total amount of healing received (total during this fight or total during this scene)
    And use that number as a kind of resistance for deciding new heals.
     
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  14. Time Lord

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    ~Class Wars~
    The more I read about such balances and skill systems in competition, the more it seems our game still wishes to become a class based game... "Apart from that";

    ~Monster Healing~
    I've had quite a few ~Nystal TimeLord~ remakes within the last few releases and many of those chose to have no healing ability at all and concentrated on the skill "Healthy", which is I believe in the same spirit as the monsters and animal critters heal. Those characters have (so far as the tests I ran) held up well within their battles and waited for healing afterward. The ability to heal within a fight seems a hinge point within our discussions here, where many wish to heal within the battle and then say in comparison that healing is more powerful than defensive skills. "What if healing were separated from combat?"

    ~Gaming Separations from Reality Cause Conflict~
    As for me, separating healing from the battle simply placed me in the same position my character was before with healing being in the battle. The only differences in that was my non-healing characters found themselves fighting just very slightly lesser mobs. Their progression then depended on their ability to survive or know when to run through the defensive skills, yet when in the attack, those defensive skills were seldom used unless it was before the monster got close to begin the first of the battles blows. Thereafter, the fight all depended upon the attack skills. "By providing separations between defensive, healing and attack, to me seemed more life like" ... because that's how real battles are.

    We may agree to disagree on having further separation as described through my game play while testing, yet I've always thought that healing gains of any health during any real battle were time consuming away from fighting because real healing or maintenance of craft had to be done while not shooting at the enemy. "Only in games does this healing while attacking seem the way life and death work".

    ~Medics Lost~
    The above in it's entirety I feel describes where such debate has it's flaw or cause to be discussed by so many, because it's not a natural thing, whereas natural things fit more easily into everything within the world including into games. We all search for the medic who's prime concern is healing others in real life, which does take us away from the battle, as seldom does one keep firing while having a band-aide applied and seldom does a medic keep firing at the enemy while applying one.

    This is the source of the problem...
    There's no separation...
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
  15. Moiseyev Trueden

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    The more people you inflict pain on the better your death magic?
     
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  16. Jack Knyfe

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    Think of the healing aspect of Death Touch / Death Ray / Death Field
    Death Magic is more powerful as your health becomes decreased.
    Theoretically, someone with high Death attunement could crit a Death Touch/Ray/Field and get a huge heal off while still being able to do a lot of damage if they were at very low health prior to using the skill.

    True, they would then do less damage due to having more health, but that wouldn't last long in a proper fight.
     
  17. Gix

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    It's easier to design a "balanced" game if you break it down into as many distinct archetypes as possible, make them playable (and fun) and then let the players go wild. Find combinations that break the game, and adjust them in accordance to what's already been established with each archetypes.

    Because, yes, some people will want to play certain archetypes. The game is supposed to let us build our characters in any way we want, right? So...
     
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  18. Time Lord

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    ~Here in Lay Our Game's Class & Classless Struggle~
    Classed Players; This is one of the deeper reasons I see that bring such subjects to our writing table for discussion. Our game wants and is shaping up to be a place where all can build what they wish, yet when faced with further gaming challenges, those self imposed restricted characters have limited themselves under what it will take to defeat certain challenges that our game will present us with. In PvP, we see classed players compete, because of their choice in the cards build they have chosen, yet within the PvE, that same set may not apply very well. The PvP wishes for a balance within our differing circles of skills, mostly by mind set and not by actually what could be better within a multi-classed deck or skill trees they have built. Equal playing fields are what class restricted players strive for, yet our game allows for all to be available.

    So yes, the game allows it, yet yes, the game also allows more and more will always beat less given the same opportunities... and of course, luck, skill and tactics within choosing the cards will always be a continuing factor therein.
    It's balance that is easier to design into archetypes, yet without limits to the skills one chooses, then balance is not a question, but a tactic.

    I'm a class player too, sort of, yet I also know that there will come a time in which I need more.
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
  19. Gix

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    I have no idea what you just said, so forgive me if I'm not replying properly to your particular points of view.

    This is the part where I can more or less decrypt and I'm reading it as: "Instead, it is the balance between the skills that are easier to design in accordance to the archetypes. Because everyone can have as many skills as they want, balancing these skills is less important but rather the tactics we use these skills for are."

    Just because that every skill is available for every player, it doesn't mean that one should use every skill. The worst thing you can do in an RPG is have your character feel like everyone else. If a "tactic" is ultimately to choose a different skill not aligned with the player's wishes, then the game has failed in what it's trying to achieve.

    This logic can be applied to simple things like using a torch/light/night-vision when it comes to the discussion that night scenes are insanely dark, for example. If one wishes to not play a spell-caster of any kind, that player is stuck with the torch. This is not a tactic; that's just process of elimination. Said player has to play within the constraints of the torch, for better or worse.

    If everyone is playing with healing spells (which is what most people conclude), that's not necessarily a tactic either, that's just process of elimination. Healing is just outright "better".

    The cycle is pretty nasty because, if everyone is playing with healing spells, then obviously the content should be balanced with the idea that everyone uses healing spells...

    If someone in the bunch decides to not use healing spells and has problem with content, then he'll be surrounded with the notion (mostly by other players) that the game "is fine" and that he or she should play with healing spells... and then so on and so forth.
     
  20. Time Lord

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    ~And This is What SOTA Has For Much Deeper Tactical Decisions to Be Made~o_O
    I understand the class based objections to this concept in game design, yet I also know that all games when regimented to such class bases remain "the same as all other games". For better or worse, our SOTA allows the player to strive higher into all classes of skills, thus tactic when and where to use those skills becomes important. "I agree that these departures do not feel comfortable from a class standpoint or when compared to player addiction from another game, yet this is what we have... so it's either our choice to embrace our game's diversity, or remain unsatisfied in attempts to balance our skills to challenge one another. There does need to be balance still, but only from a purely development point of view to provide equaling content, yet to attempt to balance each against the other in combat is not in the game's leading interest. They are interested in entertaining such balance, yet it's the diversity that negates the minute need of importance.

    I didn't make the game, I only play it, yet if a player disagrees with the program, then they are subjecting themselves to feeling such dissatisfactions as described through their "other game brain". I personally feel that battlefields are never a balanced place of technology, nor are they differing schools of technology. They are usually unbalanced to the tech abilities of it's contenders and lopsided in their ways of deploying what they have.

    What is being discussed here is an arms race, where those that are fans of healing are then pitted with those that feel defensive skills should contend. There are only 2 ways to heal in our game, by standing around, or by magic, and there is only one way to defend yourself and that is by the defenses provided.

    As long as those are mixed within any battle, then this provides the balance, yet they are not the same and only pitted against each other for player wishes to bring about changing our game into a class based system, which brings this thread.
    I enjoy class play, yet here it is not. It exists here only by those players that restrict themselves by their fandom of class based gaming. So we can choose to die by our class restrictions, or better chance at living through our battles by embracing all what is here in play.

    So when we see such skills that are defeating us, we need to place that skill in our wish list to be included within our training. This brings us to a play style that is much more complex, where you must know your enemy much deeper and find where they too, have lent themselves to favor a class of skills and then counter their attack with something within our skills to defeat them. Said in another way, classes of skills are tactics and not personas within our game, so we should utilize them as such.

    Napoleon wanted to fight one way, and the Russians fought him with guerrilla style tactics. He was a class act warrior and the Russians found that the winter would kill them much better than meeting them in equal class. Gorilla tactics are defensive in nature with hit and run, and Napoleon wanted to stand, fight and have lines of battle. this is no different here, yet the difference lay in our ability to stand and fight. If healing were different, then it too wouldn't be in the defensive line of our cards. it's a well used defensive skill because it works. Because it works, people use it to complement the rest of their defensive cards.

    Within the SOTA system, I see no need to double any creation of another form of healing to be placed in any other circle of magic for the sake of class in a classless game. Though a player can play class as much as they like... with a higher probability of death.
    Maybe there's a better way, or a better game in some people's minds, yet this is what we have thus far.

    I am not the game, I only play by it's rules and limitless or limited features, but balancing circles is not advancing what is here. Each circle is different and only needs balance in the number of things one can do with them.
    I'm still adjusting to it, but I find it much deeper in tactics with it's current classless nature.
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
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