Current healing game mechanic is encouraging antisocial behavior

So since I've started in persistence I've been taking a note on a lot of the behaviors I see in this game.

The current game mechanic encourages players to be highly antisocial to people outside of their party.
Sure some do talk, but a vast majority do not. The issue with this, is the lack of interactivity.

1. You can not buff other players outside your party. (And with the current debuffs they wont want you to)
2. You can not heal other players outside your party. (Even if they are not flagged pvp)
3. You can not resurrect players outside of your party. (And you can't revive a PvP flagged player)
4. You can not speak while dead. (There is no feature for this)

With these "features", there is a major loss of connection between players who are not partied.

1. I think buffs should be beneficial enough that buffing another players helps them.
2. I think healing should not require consent. If someone is dieing, I want to save them. Why should you deny me this? If you want to opt out of being healed by other players there is friends mode and single online.
3. I think resurrect needs to be castable on any player who is dead, be that enemy or ally. There is still an option to say no already in the game.
4. I think the inability to speak needs to allow you a method of contacting other players. This would be a good way to separate the healers from the "healers". As if you got, say lv 100/GM of resurrect, you got the ability to see messages from dead players. Maybe even go a step further and allow them to understand the undead's scattered speak. I personally really like the way you only get a few words of what the skeletons say, as they are dead. That way only those with the GMed resurrect would see these messages and it wouldn't benefit spamming.

If these things were implemented in the proper fashion you could help other avatars in the world. Some days I just want to help a random stranger.

 

As for #4 above, let me be the first to ask you this: Have you ever heard a dead person talk?

 

this is like saying, "if you don't want to be hugged by random strangers, don't leave your house." people are allowed to interact with other people AND set personal boundaries, too.

 

I see dead people.

 

OoOooooOOOOooOoOoOoooo

 

There is a hug emote in SoTA? Someone else being dead is not your boundry though,

 

Let me ask this, Should another Dead Player be able to see another Dead Player. Can a ghost see another ghost?

 

<insert over thought bad joke about consent and personal space/ play style here>

 

So basically you are asking to be able to interfere in another persons game play without their permission? Because yes,that is exactly what this amounts to. You run by and see someone dying and want to heal them. What if they are testing themselves against mobs to test a new deck or improved gear and you just messed that up for them?
Not everyone wants or needs to be saved,are probably fine with the buffs they selected and doesn't want nor need someone who considers themselves to be their savior. Just no.

 

Only if the "light" spell is completely removed from the game; the only people who would want that buff already use the spell.

Some people are trying to stealth, here...

 

But I'd like to be healed by people who are passing by without the hassle of having to party up with them and potentially feel obligated to stick with each other.

This part of the UI basically forces awkward conversations with those people.

It seems way more situational that someone is going to troll you by healing you when you ask them not to. I was asked not to help someone fight some mobs once, and I just left that guy alone to do his thing.

 

You can actually grief other players with buffs; you can even grief other players with healing. I think that it's best left as-is.

 

What if I'm a death mage trying to get low health so he becomes more powerful?
So it could be a problem although I side with the OP in that it would be fun/nice to have healing between players not partied.
Overwriting buffs is another griefing move although this could be managed in the code to keep all self-buffs/party-buffs and not allow overwriting.
Maybe a selection for "Allow other players to heal me"?

 

I think that if the player is on your friends list then exceptions should be possible. It's easy enough to unfriend somebody if they persist in being a "good samaritan" even after you've asked them not to be.

 

this topic has been discussed before. You are correct, there should be a toggle to let people heal you or not heal you. A simple check in a context box.

 

In all seriousness I really don't see the "trolling" potential for healing someone. Odds are very good that person will heal you and move right along. If they don't, odds are also good they were trying to help you out so when you POLITELY tell them that you are doing something and their healing is interfering they'll also move right along with what they were doing.

All of these issues are so transient in the scheme of things I don't understand why we'd want to limit ourselves from helping others in our player base. That buffs come with debuffs now is just such a bullshit concept I don't even want to touch it.

 

its the price you pay when you have a "consensual" game. You need consent to cast on another person. As stated before people might not want to be healed. By healing them would violate the consent.

 

The chance someone would not welcome healing is small. For those cases of "I wanted to see if I could solo that." there are single player modes.

Edit, to OP it seems there are many that are just fine with the status quo. The horse is dead, give up.

 

its a downfall to the game for sure, but they went with it. If they allow it then they have to allow people to be freely attacked as well.

 

This is pretty much verbatim of how I see it as well.

And I understand and fully support this concept for PvP where actual harm can be done. I just fundamentally don't see it with something as harmless as healing. Imo if people are that curmudgeony that they can't stand the thought of other players interacting in any form with them, they can choose to play alone in the single player modes.