Nerf healing.
No, wait, don't kill me! Stay with me for a moment and I'll try to explain.
Nerf healing...All of it. Regen, self-heals, team heals, inspirations, set bonuses, everything.
I've felt this way for years.
It could be done proportionally, I think, in such a way that it wouldn't really hurt any one character proportionally more than the others -- in a world of rare, weak healing, healing would still be valuable -- maybe MORE valuable than it is now -- even a lesser empath would still be a godsend.
Damage, of course, would be nerfed commensurately, where appropriate, according to some kind of carefully-worked-out formula.
Why? Several reasons.
Healing is un-dramatic and antithetical to the idea of struggle and sacrifice. In the movies and comic books, the heroes always, as far as I can recall, [i]always[/i] get beaten down and hurt/damaged/weakened, then struggle on despite their wounds and pain. They don't go ZING and fix everything every 15 seconds. We don't love Wolverine because he's instantly better after getting hurt -- we love him because he drags himself over to the big bad guy, bleeding and gritting his teeth in agony, and still gets the job done. Kryptonite was invented so that Superman could have something to overcome.
Healing makes it [b]hard[/b] to defeat/kill players -- SO hard that the eventual solution in every game I've seen is to make damage so freaking huge and fast that the characters go down before the players can react. Because if the players have time to react, they can fix almost anything. So game designers make spike damage to try and challenge (i.e., hold at risk of defeat) the players
This is, again, totally counter to our dramatic stories, in which the heroes press on, injured or weakened, and are slowly driven to take more and more desperate risks. In what stories does the hero instantly fall so fast the reader sits there, stunned, and the tale is over?
Real life, maybe. But these are larger-than-life characters...this is a comic book, not the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_somme#Casualties]Battle of the Somme[/url] or [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_cold_harbor#Aftermath]Cold Harbor[/url].
Disclaimer -- Like any other player, I'm used to making sure my life and other resources are topped off at each pause in the action. I understand people dislike to play while damaged. But being topped off at peak capacity all the time occurs pretty much only in games -- not in fiction, fantasy, or real life.
The hero's journey is much more interesting when he or she has decide whether to press on when injured, at partial capacity, with diminished resources, or understrength. It's more dramatic AND more realistic.
I'm not sure the numbers I would use, but I would want the game to have less healing available less often, and I would threaten players with more gradual defeat, where they had more choice over how much to press their luck, where they had time to worry -- to turn back or to reject the safe course and press on in the face of difficulty and increasing danger.
There would still [i]be[/i] Regeneration and Willpower and Empathy and all the rest; they'd still be the kings of healing...compared to other sets. They just wouldn't fix [i]everything, almost immediately[/i] and keep everyone topped off all the time.
There would be Less one-shotting, and no need for COH's "anti-one-shot" code. If the game can gradually wear down any player, any powerset, there's not so much need for gigantic attacks that will shred squishies, in an effort to even try to threaten the Tankers. Tankers will still outlast the others, even still ignore some threats, but it won't be quite so stark a difference.
It's more interesting when the players have to weigh the risk and have time to decide, even time to sweat, to dread, instead of instantly falling over and saying, "Dammit! I couldn't even react." It's more heroic (or more impressive villainy) to persist despite wounds and pain and win in the end, than to always be at absolute peak strength, freshly rebooted, every few moments.
[b]Nerf healing![/b]
Captain of Phoenix Rising
All of this sounds like PVP related. So long as it doesn't spill over into PVE thats fine with me. COH's biggest, most time-consuming problem came from attempting to "balance" PVP and killing PVE in the process. The basic appoach to "Nerf them, not me!" was to nerf EVERYTHING to the ground. "Nerfing" things was the cause of ED, Regen-Failure, and the obliteration of the Energy Melee set altogether. PVE; I don't want to have to wait around to get better to jump into the next fight. SWTOR has a rest power for EACH class and I LOVE that thing. Im not hiding in a corner hoping the badguys don't see me. Thats no fun at all. Do what you guys want with PVP just don't drag PVE down into the gutter with it.
Yeah, that sounds like a Jedi. Massacre a whole room full of people, then stand around apologizing for it. - Swtor NPC
Best way to handle this ... request ... is via a Challenge Mode. Hit Point Buffing (ie. "Healing") gets reduced in effectiveness, while Regeneration remains unaffected. Use multiple settings for this particular Challenge Mode so you can have different "scales" of reduced effectiveness and you'll have an entirely optional system that fulfills the request to [s]NERF REGEN[/s] ... uh, I mean ... [b]Nerf Healing![/b]
(sorry ... habit)
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
No, it sounds to me as if it's a sweeping proposal for [i]all[/i] of the gameplay, whether PvP or PvE.
The primary qualm about the proposal is that, as soon as you reduce the [i]effectiveness[/i] of healing, you make [b]having[/b] healing more important, and I suspect that this would twist gameplay back into [i]requiring[/i] healers on teams, and would encourage the wider use of "sack of hit points" end bosses.
One of the things that stood out in CoH was the ability, on teams (and depending on the specific situation), to back out of a fight to rest before jumping back into the fight, or use inspirations at will to recover HP. SWTOR, on the other hand, sets your 'status' to 'fighting' when combat starts, and you're [b]unable[/b] to use your 'Rest' ability while your status is 'fighting', and all the medpacs have a limitation that you can only use [b]one[/b] per fight, even if the fight continues past their cooldown. As a result, having a healer on your team, or a healer companion when solo, is [i]much[/i] more important -- in recent play with my (rDPS) Trooper, I determined that using my healer companion was [i]significantly[/i] more effective than using a ranged DPS companion, even though my character had a limited selection of healing abilities; the additional damage was outweighed by the mitigation of a dedicated healer. Unfortunately, I don't see how simply reducing damage and healing [i]wouldn't[/i] distort gameplay away from the flavor that CoH had; with damage and healing deemphasized, what healing you can get becomes more important, and all of the front-end mitigation -- debuffs, holds, etc. -- similarly rise in importance; the balancing act isn't so simple that a single-axis adjustment will correct things; it's going to change gameplay in ways that haven't been considered.
Yes, I did intend for it to be gameplay-wide. Yes, it is different from COH; this falls under the umbrella of "improvement" over the original (obviously, YMMV).
Not sure I parse [b]srmalloy[b]'s point that healing and all "front-end mitigation" will rise in importance...I mean, yeah, that's part of the point, if you mean "rise in importance compared to pure damage spam." A game where you can annihilate everything in a mouseclick or two trivializes content.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Buffing (including HP buffs) is always a balance problem.
Self Buffs are always a danger to balance, especially if/when they are stacked. I hope the build restrictions factor this in.
I generally support the ability to buff others on par with damaging others (the whole purpose of the Buffer Role is to help the team, not themselves). I will never advocate nerfing an entire role's playstyle so therefore I do not advocate a flat nerf of all healing as this would kill off said role. Also going to go the extra mile and say the same for Crowd Controllers now.. Too much crowd control IS dangerous and that's why there is a role built around it. The nature of combat systems balance has to take this into effect so that every Titan feels powerful at doing what they are designed to do.
EDIT: Also.. calling for nerfs when there has been no discussion of system baselines is extremely premature. For there to be a Δ there must be an established value
Crowd Control Enthusiast
You misunderstand. I am calling for a rollback from the "everything can be healed almost immediately unless it outright kills you" standard we've seen in so many games, because it [i]inevitably[/i] leads to "OK, this guy one-shots you. Heal THAT, player." And the prevalence of one-shot-level-damage will do more to render a healer ineffective than anything I have proposed -- remember healing in COH being regarded as less important than other mitigation? That's because you can't heal 100% of your life disappearing in one hit. Such spike damage is, IMHO, a response to the easy availability of massive healing.
I tried to make clear that, done properly and universally, this will NOT kill off the healing role. Heck, someone's already raised the concern this would make healers mandatory.
In context of NOTHING being set in stone yet, I used the term "nerf" obviously without reference to any class or role. (Note that I'm including inspirations and base healing rate, not just healer powersets.)
Captain of Phoenix Rising
I agree that various DPS values should be valued (Spike Damage AND Damge over Time). I don't know if all DoTs will be single casts or if "Maintained Blasting" will exist in CoT.
That being said.. there is a combat baseline for how much damage and time that needs to be established before you advocate weighting either side of the equation. Some people LIKE longer combat battles and some do not. Originally in Champions Online for instance the baseline was (originally) to defeat the average enemy group in 10s. DPS characters handled this combat at about 8s and sustained more injury. Tanks were at about 12 seconds with a lesser level of injury. Support was about 16 seconds with varying injury level (their HP was also lowered so the injury was almost equal to that of DPS). The HP of the Enemies and HP of the Players and almost ALL other mechanics were built around this baseline. We don't know what baseline will be set for CoT and what factors will be put into this equation (build parity) so as of now I still think the conversation is premature.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I think what's really being advocated here is not so much less healing, but a more delicate balance of healing vs. damage. I support the idea of that a battle with an ultra-powerful opponent should leave you with the feeling of "Whew! we made it!" Rather than "Geez, Finally! What's next?"
The biggest problem I see is how do you spread that across the spectrum of the possible bonuses/enhancements/etc. of the healing powers? Not saying it can't be done, but if you design the balance around the "mean" the risk is making early, "un-slotted" heals nearly useless, but ending up with the same problem you're trying to correct at the higher player levels.
As much as I agree with the OP in principle, the problem here is that players are players, not action movie heroes (although the characters may well be action movie heroes).
I would expect players to react to nerfed healing with a tendency to take more healing abilities and to wait around to be fresh before moving on.
That said, there are some tricks that can be played for the rare 'gimmick/puzzle enemy' fight with long lasting debuffs and temp powers. I also like Redlynne's idea of leveraging healing optionally via Challenge Modes.
Besides, everyone knows that Rocky Balboa saves up his green, red and purple chicklets for the end of the fight.
______________
IANAL, IMHO, WYSIWYG, YMMV, IIRC, AFAIK, ETC
[color=#ff0000]Composition Assistant Director, Composition Team[/color]
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/em grins smugly
I have my moments ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
In the grand scheme of buffing others, I tend to think that one character's buff-support should effect more than one friendly target in combat. (As opposed to focusing on healing one ally, they have many heals and AoE heals to heal a substantial number of its teammates). This is being challenged in other games (Can't say enough about Wildstar's Medic healing at melee range.. sounds SO fun in an action (twitch) combat game!). Overall tho i think the role model extends to the idea that buffers buff multiple allies adding either flat or linear bonuses (not exponential).
The potency of debuffs in many games is what keeps many game designers limiting debuff targeting and efficacy. In games like CoH where Healing is rampant then Debuffs often are too (or should be). There is so much to the debuff gameplay that I'm interested to learn (Stacking from multiple debuff characters and how magnitude of debuffs will be handled). Debuffing both Movement/Action AND Perception/Targeting are commonplace in games but each game i've seen so far has not struck a balance where I feel it successfully be used as a counterbalance to the rampant prevalence of the healing role.
Because I want Debuffing to be potent and balanced, I hope the designers of the game take both sides of the "buff" equation into account.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Oh dear ... [i]I just had [b]An Evil Idea™[/b][/i] ...
[i]/em watches Lin Chiao Feng drop everything and SPRINT for the bunker(!)[/i]
What if ... and yes, I'm talking [i]purely hypothetically here[/i] because I'm just toying with the concept ... what if "Healing" Powers, which I shall define specifically as Hit Point Buffing as opposed to Regeneration Buffing ... what if "Healing" Powers had a built in "limiter" on them governing their effectiveness? Specifically ... what if "Healing" Powers could heal no more than a set specific percentage of the Hit Points a particular target was down below Max HP?
Example:
Healing Power can heal up to +200 Hit Points and is limited to healing no more than 80% of the Hit Points a target has lost due to damage.
Target has 1000 Hit Points maximum (to make math easy for example purposes).
[list][*]Target has lost -10 Hit Points (total). Healing Power heals +8 Hit Points ... not +200.
[*]Target has lost -100 Hit Points (total). Healing Power heals +80 Hit Points ... not +200.
[*]Target has lost -200 Hit Points (total). Healing Power heals +160 Hit Points ... not +200.
[*]Target has lost -300 Hit Points (total). Healing Power heals +200 Hit Points.[/list]
With such a "limiter" in place, the only way a Healing Power would be able to grant a "full heal" to a target is if the Power can Heal to 100% of the Hit Points the target has lost due to damage and effectively operates as a "clamp" on how much Healing can be delivered in a single use of a Power.
(Max Hit Points - Current Hit Points) * Heal Percentage Limiter = Max Healing delivered to target
Using such a system, the only way to get "fully healed" without use of a 100% Healing Power is through ... Regeneration ... although use of a Healing Power, particularly if used repeatedly, can bring a target "close enough" to being fully healed that natural Regeneration can take care of any "unfinished" healing in seconds.
Also note that "clamping" Max Healing delivered to target in this fashion offers yet another game balance control to the Developers, such that the Heal Percentage Limiter value could be set up to be an Enhanceable value of the Power, in addition to the actual Hit Points of healing the power is rated as yielding, and could potentially even run these two modifiers on different multipliers when enhanced by the same Enhancement. Thus it would be possible to set up some Powers to have only a small gain in +Hit Points but gain considerably more in Heal% limitation ... or vice versa ... creating a situation where you use some types of Heal Powers to recover from "critical" damage taken and other Heal Powers to "top up" when the damage taken is relatively light, resulting in a competitive "push-pull" dynamic in the use of Healing Powers such that you don't have a One Heal Fits All Situations solution.
Granted, this idea is a bit off the wall, but it also seems like it would work as a way to mitigate the sorts of "instant healing" that so many games are prone to.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
@Gauntlet
Glad I am not the lone voice proclaiming how PVP focus in MMO's tends to create more problems than it solves over time. I have no issue with PVP in games, but dammit, it's an MMO, if you want PVP play COD or Battlefield. I've yet to hear of any significant game where the PVE play was not diminished in the hopes of "fixing" PVP which is just a constant moving target as hard core PVP'ers all gyrate to several builds, discover one is weaker, and then usually get the others nerfed in some fashion, and it becomes a never-ending cycle.
The more I ponder the issue the more I believe toons should have a Free form PVE build, and a more restricted power set for PVP play, perhaps even an entirely separate build.
And yes, I do play PVP in games that a really focused on it, but a superhero MMO should be PVE first with PVP a distant second as a priority imnsho.
Just remember - CoT is in the spirit of CoH, it is not CoH!
Whether players PvP or not, build parity is important to player retention.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Most PVE builds by devs have enough parity with some tweaking to suffice for group PVE play if they are given half a thought, it's the fine edge that PVP focuses on that we are discussing, and tends to drag development off in the wrong direction. If you have the freedom to build what you want everyone understands that implicitly there isn't going to be exact parity, and building in build a play style the player likes they also accept that it comes with limitations that other builds might not have. The more of a hybrid you become the less damage, healing, whatever you should do compared to a specialist (think Bard compared to Wizard).
Just remember - CoT is in the spirit of CoH, it is not CoH!
This topic was not intended to have anything at all to do with PVP. Not sure where you're getting that.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
No problem - I was responding to Gauntlet who pointed out a lot of the same concerns I have as a general issue related to relative power levels for characters and damage, healing etc. If one trims back healing for instance without affecting damage, and we have locked in "class system" then healing "classes" will be unbalanced compared to damage focused "classes".
Just remember - CoT is in the spirit of CoH, it is not CoH!
If I am understanding some of these suggestions correctly we are talking about diminishing effectiveness, or some form of capping for de/buff generally and healing in particular.
Just to add a different perspective.....one of the appeals of the prior game vs other MMOs was the ability to build effective teams outside of the normal trinity. A subject which has been flogged in a few other threads. Mechanically this was possible because de/buff stacking was such a major part of that game. Now, some sort of limitter to healing would arguably work to maintain that feel. Extending the limitation to other forms of de/buff would be a slippery slope however. We are forced to balance the need to keep de/buff from trivializing content with trap of limitting it so far that MOAR DPS and tanks come to be viewed as mandatory.
PVP is an entirely different animal, with no relation to PVE mechanics. I would urge others to treat it as a totally different game since it is effectively.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Gonna agree with all of your post except this part. While I LOVE that Marvel Heroes has used given PvP its own mechanics and powers.. I do not think the "Seperate to be Equal" flag is universal. In a point and click movement, point to aim, limited Z access and limited movespeed game the idea of changing PvP from PvE is very appealing.
But what works in one game with one set of rules OFTEN does not work for other games. I bring to contention MOST games approach to crowd control in PvP is to say "KILL IT ALL". Which is to say "kill off that entire type of gameplay because players complain about anything outside of DPS, Mitigation and Heals". To this I must bite my thumb completely. Crowd Controllers should not be marginalized to crappier versions of their powers ever again in a MMO that has a controller class (as most modern games have figured out needs its own role/class).
Debuffing should come at a great cost because in the grand scheme it has the greatest gains. That cost should be built into the build parity and not be diminished for PvP. If I see one more game where confuses cost a ton to get/use and don't work in PvP I may scream.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I loved that in CoH I could take as many INSP as I had as fast as wanted.
Triple stack Acc? Sure.
Add in a dose of +Def? Go for it.
HEAL HEAL HEAL HEAL? As long as I had 4 Greens then yes.
No cooldown timer.
No using 1 replaces another already in use.
I sincerely hope this aspect of CoH is kept in CoT.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
So if we reduce damage to balance reduced healing, and then reduce debuff to compensate for these two changes, my controller will bestride the planet like the collossus that he is, unstoppable and unkillable, at least as long as revolver is available as a temp power...
I've been thinking for a long time something going in the opposite direction from the OP. What if your toon is down 200 HP and the emp heals you for 500? In COH you get 200 healing and the rest is wasted. I'd rather have a system where the remaining 300 points of healing becomes a temporary 3% damage or accuracy boost, derived from the fact that you are soooo healthy. Seriously, extra buff should "overflow" to other areas. No one would NEED an emp or buffer on the team, but they might WANT one...
How refreshing that would be!
I'm with Sailboat on this. "Wait five seconds, out of combat, you'll get all your HP back" is something that happened in several games and it kind of makes healing pointless. I liked how in Tera inherent healing was slow, so if you wanted to keep a high tempo, you brought bandages or a healer. I liked how it was slow in CoH, too, before everyone slotted Numina and off to the races we went.
So the question is, should CoT be another "players will steamroll all opposition, easily, or they'll leave in droves" game?
Red, your limiter idea does not send me running for the hills. It just reminds me of an infinite series of 1/2[sup]x[/sup], x = 1, 2, 3, 4, ... where no matter how many iterations you do, the running total never reaches 1.
[b]BUT...[/b]
What if there were two factors. What if a character had both Hit Points, which worked much like now, and a Hit Point Maximum which slowly degrades with combat damage and slowly improves when resting? What if that degradation rate were slower for "tank" classes and faster for "glass" classes?
For example: The tank starts with 1000 HP (making this all up, bear with me) and a HP cap of 1000 as well. The tank takes four consecutive attacks of 200 HP each, for a total of 800 HP. So he's down to 200 HP. At the same time, those attacks cost him 20 (10%) off the HP cap each. So the HP cap is now down to 920.
The healer heals for 800 HP, bringing the tank back to 920. The battle wears on, and the tank gets down to 600 HP. Then he screws up and the healer gets hit.
Well, the healer only has 600 HP (cap at 600 as well), but the cap degrades with 20% of damage. Two 200 HP hits get through, so the healer is down to 200 HP and the cap is down to 520 HP. The healer is a lot more vulnerable now...
Note that this mechanic makes mitigation point-for-point better than healing, even if there isn't enough spike damage to kill anyone.
Another thing is that the various attacks could have different rates at which they reduce the HP cap. Weak attacks (beanbag gun?) could reduce the cap by a smaller percentage of damage, while other attacks could be designed to hammer the cap down faster as an anti-regen measure.
As for ways to get the cap back up, I'd suggest that items be used for that, or upper-tier healer powers... [i]separate[/i] powers from the usual heal spam powers, and they should be single-target as well. I'm not certain the cap should go back up on its own; if it does, it should be really slow; if it doesn't, it should be something you can restore to full power easily back in town.
The goal of all this, of course, is to stop rewarding fools who rush in.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
How about this as a counterpoint to your idea:
Healing to 100% health is fine. Extra Healing becomes a buff to Regen?
Same goes for anything else. If someone has a Buff for team Acc but some members are already at the cap then the excess becomes 'sticky' in that it stays around after the Acc buff is removed.
The buffs would remain for no longer than 60 seconds to avoid the idea of 'buffbots outside missions to buff the team as they go in.
In this way the team gains some small reward for going over the top but that reward isn't OP.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Resting is almost never a popular mechanic, though I generally like favoring mitigation other than healing.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
The mechanics need to be set up so that resting is for:
[list][*]really low levels, so the player is motivated to do things to avoid it
[*]people who have no other means of getting their cap back
[*]idiots who went overboard and nearly bought it
[*]completely imbalanced, heal-free teams
[/list]
But it shouldn't be required for players that are paying attention, using strategy, letting the tank take the heat, teams with lots of mitigation (at the expense of DPS), etc.
Basically, there are two ways to kill something that has a lot of healing: spike it fast or wear it down. Without the cap, "wear it down" is not an option, which forces everyone into the "spike it or fail the mission" category.
So to get back to trying to explain these mechanics in "realistic" terms, the cap represents the overall integrity of your body over the duration of mission (for example), while HP represents how much damage you can take in the short term without falling over.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I just really, really don't like the "tank + healer = it is as if incoming attacks never happened" mechanic.
Bear in mind that there's no reason not to have powers that buff or debuff HP caps. The liquid metal Terminator is an example of something that could have a huge cap buff, where the players need to primarily hit it with mez-type attacks, such as confuse or knockback, and kite it over somewhere it is vulnerable to finish it off if they can't generate enough spike damage to destroy it outright. The point being that not every end boss has to be like that.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
"I just really, really don't like the "tank + healer = it is as if incoming attacks never happened" mechanic."
Nor do I, and that's from someone who played a TON of tanks. I almost never had a team mate with an ally heal, but I nearly always had a debuffer or two around. That meant I was receiving help to survive the encounter but I could not simply ignore incoming damage.
One concern I do have with your suggestion though, a team that is struggling for whatever reason could face the very real possibility of a cascade failure.
Get off on the wrong foot early on in a mission and you may never be able to get the team's legs back under them.
Any ideas how to avoid that?
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Inspirations fill you up to full?
Or taking a knee for the full (long) rest period resets everything? Have a shorter rest period that just fills you to the reduced cap?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yup. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes]Zeno's Paradox[/url] is exactly what I was reaching for.
Interesting reverse angle on the problem. Definitely a case where doing things both your way AND my way would be decidedly detrimental (ie. Global Defense Nerf PLUS Enhancement Dysfunction combo nerfing with iron cored nerf and battery). The only problem I have with your system is that it would effectively put an upper limit on the (small e) "endurance" of characters to fight in combat, since they could potentially get nickled and dimed through heavy fighting into being simply unable to continue engaging in combat unless there were some mechanism put in place to avoid "runaway" loss of the maximums. Additionally, your system would potentially disadvantage Resistance protections relative to Defense protections, barring some kind of compensation mechanism (which would no doubt get included, but I bring this point up for purposes of awareness rather than objection).
The fundamental underlying concept however appears to be relatively sound and has possibilities, particularly if it gets keyed to individual Powers ... because that then opens up the possibility of Crippling Attacks made by Archvillain and Giant Monster class Foe NPCs ... and it gives Healers more than one type of "healing" to keep track of (ie. there is more to being a Healbot than putting Healing Aura on Autofire).
I always thought the best reward for fools who rush in was [b]DEBT[/b].
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It was meant as an alternative to, not an expansion on, your idea.
The primary mechanism being "don't charge in like a moron and expect the healer to cover for your incompetence."
It's by no means a complete system, but an initial framework. I expect the default cap recovery rate would be much like the HP recovery rate, unboosted, in CoX. I.e. a few minutes to get to full.
But this recovery rate would not "disable" in combat, so if the cap is coming down too fast, reduce your tempo and/or shift your power usage to increase mitigation at the expense of DPS or whatever.
So you could look at it as a means of saying that the character could expect to [i]absorb[/i] some amount of damage per second over the long haul, regardless of heals, and this absorption rate is related to the operational tempo.
Without heals, and running full tempo, you could get a demolition derby...
Resistance protections could decrease the rate of cap loss caused by the resisted damage, probably to a greater proportion. So 10% resistance could reduce cap loss by 15%, and a real high resistance could result in effectively no cap loss. This gives the "bullets bounce off" effect without saying you can bounce RPGs as well.
... and mission-specific temporary powers that are crippling attacks against otherwise overpowered AVs... train runs both ways ...
Yep, giving them more of a "do I do this or that?" game, especially when trying to keep the tank go without dropping the rest of the team.
Debt? I forgot there was such a mechanic, [i]it was so irrelevant.[/i]
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I agree with nerfing healing! I do not agree with nerfing Regeneration!
Healing one self is a staple of superhero comics! Healing others isn't! Make healing others rare! In fact, make it so rare, that to even do it means unlocking the option by getting to max level and then running an extremely tough must have a full team to take on a cosmic level threat, that rewards only one member the unlock while the rest get some substantial credits.
Why the full team? Well, no reason for a strictly solo player to play a healing other type :p
I also agree with having low healing.
I believe that the primary "survivability" in the game should always be life sustainability, not recovery.(regen being a special case of "resilient toughness")
Basically (and I think the OP would agree with me) Have healing options be low strength, have damage be on par with means of defense. make it so that the little healing there is might "tip the scales" in a particularly close fight, but not be the means of keeping a team on their feet.
resting is stupid. instead of resting, simply have a click, instant recovery button (call it "second wind") that has a very long cool down so it cant be abused in most situations
same concept, less down time, more "themey"
simplify, and add lightness. get rid of astronomical damage that must compete with astronomical healing potentials. make defenses a part of everyone's potentia, and simply provide more options for archtypes that expect it (why the heck can't storm defenders protect themselves from anything without a "heal"?)
make Defense the primary protection from Offence, focus the gameplay around damage mitigation through toughness, d/buffs, and mezzing... not healing(self or team). It's a Fantasy mechanic, not a super hero one. Stop thinking Prague police and start thinking playstation.... design the mechanics around the setting they are intended to represent, not the "rules" handed down from DnD 50 years ago.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
No because one of our tenants is being able to play what you want. If any percentage of the playerbase wants to run a 'healer' and they have to jump through hoops to unlock the AT they'll scream holy hell that nobody else has to do that.
Personally, I don't even see the NEED for an AT where healing others is a major factor. Hell, make it a Pool Power so anyone who wants it can take it but it'll be limited (interruptable maybe?). Spamming a PBAoE Heal should be greatly discouraged IMHO
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Even better. No more empaths! No more PBAOE Healing others in sets. Make it the equivalent of a power pool power.
I'm on board with that. Make 'empath' a power pool set.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
woah woah.. make empath a power pool?
no way x1000
make dps a power pool that empaths have access to and you have a deal.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Restricting healing to a pool power is an overreaction. There's no need to ban healers; there are very good reasons why someone would want to play a character who specialized in healing. There's also no need to make the Ronco Heal-O-Max 2000 (available at fine stores near you) the epitome of healing.
There is a need to make playing a healer a bit more challenging than putting PBAoE Mass heal on autofire and setting the character to follow the tank. This is part of my proposal: give the healers more tradeoffs to keep track of, making it much less easy mode, and make it important but not so uber that characters with a healer along are free to ignore incoming damage and all start running around like Rambo. If they want to play Rambo, they should build a Rambo.
Let's stay focused here.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Uh ... I get the feeling that you're ... [i]overcompensating[/i] ... for something, there.
/em thumbs down (all of them)
Being able to heal others is not an "Incarnate" level ability.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
You will inevitably end up with a combo of tank and healer that is virtually indestructible, that is a goal that people will try to reach.
We saw the same thing with perma-phantom army, these OP situations are only achievable with high-end builds, the average tank/healer is just that.. average.
http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Empathy
Sooo.. slightly more involved than "healer", which is how it should be.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
While I entirely empathise with the original intent, might I suggest another way to come at this?
Fundamentally the issue is that people want that green bar right at the time all the time. For understandable reasons, for sure, but still.
Can we, perhaps, offer reasons to not be filled up to max constantly?
The simplest solution is to buff damage the closer to dead you get, ala the failed Blaster inherent. Not the worst mechanic, but expecting a squishy toon to be running the red line all the time does seem like it might engender some small frustration.
There are other ways, however. Increasing inspiration (or the CoT equivalent) drop rate as your health lowers, perhaps. Increasing your team's damage as you get lower. Increasing influence rewards.
Of course, all of these have the issue of rewarding players for taking risks. Oh wait, risk vs reward. That sounds kinda familiar... :P
Joking aside, taking away from players the need to be constantly at full everything seems to generate the same feel as the OP, but creates interesting choices and counterplays - "Ok guys, this mob has some nasty spike damage, so keep me at full until they're down" - and offering options is generally a good thing.
Betcha they nerf accuracy in the first patch...
Yes, you can ... but you'll very quickly run into a Perversity Of Incentives problem, just like [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Defiance]Defiance[/url] 1.0 had for Blasters. [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inherent_Powers#Vigilance]Vigilance[/url] for Defenders had a similar Perversity Of Incentives factor going on in it as well (although not as bad as Defiance 1.0 did) where Defenders were "rewarded" for being "bad defenders" of their Team.
Essentially what you're after though is an incentive to Play Hurt And Stay Hurt ... and there's precious few reasons for why doing that [i]ought to be[/i] advantageous [b]in game mechanical ways[/b]. Most of the reasons and rationales for doing that sort of thing revolve around [b]story and character driven reasons[/b] for doing so ... hence the classic line, "That which does not kill me only leaves me colder and more embittered." courtesy of Adam Warren in his [url=http://www.amazon.com/Bubblegum-Crisis-Grand-Adam-Warren/dp/1569711208]Bubblegum Crisis: Grand Mal[/url] comic. And while that's a fine thing to do for STORY reasons, it's not a fine thing to bake into the underlying fundamentals of a game at the mechanical level.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
There are, IMHO a few fallacies here. The following are the opinions of a writer, I am not a game balancer.
Players are of course going to try to be filled to the max at all times. This is expected, intelligent behavior. It is also detrimental to the game over time, because it can lead to a cycle of "I'm bored, but I don't want to make things more challenging because that can lead to failure."
I have in mind some ways of dealing with this situationally, but without saying anything about those, let's look at how they are handled in stories. Think about various action-adventure movies as you read this little list (The Avengers, the Batman movies, the Superman movies, even things like the Alien movies, the Predator movies or various Kung Fu movies)
- Even an efficient well crafted team cannot cover every potential hole or situation.
- There are rewards or other incentives to plunge into a situation less than completely prepared.
- Situations can change rapidly and chaotically,perhaps even randomly.
- Smart enemies can adapt to the protagonist's tactics over time.
- The protagonists (even if they are villain protagonists) are simply expected to win the vast majority of the time. But not all the time.
- The Big Bad is so bad, they almost always capture the protagonist or KO them at least once.
My thought is that if you want to get into a Zen state of melting mobs without being seriously threatened, you should be able to do that. If you want to face dire terror and peril around every corner, that should be available too (I will be very surprised if we don't end up with some kind of difficulty slider).
But don't be surprised if if you get the occasional wake up call, and don't be surprised if challenging play is more rewarding than 'cruise mode'.
...and yes, I am well aware that Games Are Not Movies. Games offer more options to appeal to a disparate set of preferences than movies do. In gae=mes, to an extent, YOU are the director. I hope to be able to give you the tools to direct in a way you will find engaging for a long time. But that may mean stepping to the edge of your comfort zone...
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IANAL, IMHO, WYSIWYG, YMMV, IIRC, AFAIK, ETC
[color=#ff0000]Composition Assistant Director, Composition Team[/color]
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To be fair.... there are zero action-adventure films, of any genre, where someone is following the hero/hero team around constantly keeping them at or near full health.
the number one way to mitigate cruise mode is to balance the game with mminimal healing...
....it is also, incidently, the way to make the game the most like a hero's tale
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
First off, allow me to apologize for the wall-of-text to follow (and please keep in mind that I slept 5 hours... yesterday). Alrighty, now that that's out of the way...
TL:DR; Healing wasn't needed overall, nor was it solely OP in CoH... buffs and debuffs -were- (especially when stacked and/or combined with healing). People who called out for "need healz" when forming teams didn't understand power mechanics. Rather than nerf healing, make encounters more dynamic and/or random. Allow mobs to debuff various aspects of player characters better, including all forms of healing and regen. Want to know my suggestions? Read the post. :)
-The part where I disagree with this topic-
"Healing" wasn't even needed in CoH due to the massive amount of buffs and debuffs available from "healer" ATs (which include defender, controller, corruptor and mastermind at the core, along with team buff ATs like VEATs and pools like Leadership), and when healing was needed, for the most part, a few inspirations could cover just fine. The funny part about that is, it didn't make ATs like defenders obsolete at all. They were still wanted for the various buffs and debuffs at their disposal... reasons other than "healing".
There are better options than nerfing things from the gate to keep it interesting. CoH actually kept a decent balance in the respect that, (and possibly aside from a small number of players) every character still had a weakness, no matter how strong they were. Willpower was vulnerable to tough mobs with high damage in small numbers and alpha strikes. Invulnerability was vulnerable to psionics and radiation damage, Super Reflexes to Defense debuffs, Dark Armor to KB.. and so on.
Granted, it's generally better practice to start too low on the power scale and work up (buff), than to start too high and work down (nerf)... but this thread is basically asking for any and all healing to be ineffective, while leaving superior forms of mitigation like defense (aka dodge), resistance and various extremely powerful debuffs alone. I don't agree that healing needs to be less effective.
-Suggestions for an alternative-
Rather than "nerf this-or-that" talk, why not discuss making enemies more engaging? I don't mean buffing enemy damage to compensate, no cheesy death-on-hit abilities or making them huge sacks of HP... I'd like to see enemies that account for player powers and use a counter to them.
One way would be making more "trouble mobs"... malta had their sappers, for example, and a really good example would be Kheldians vs. Quantums... Quants would appear in every.single.mission that a kheld was in... and even former teammates after the kheld left a team. The problem there was, after people learned who was what by naming conventions, and it became easy to counter by killing them first or locking them down.
Now, I don't think having various out of place random mobs like Quants appearing in every mission is a good idea... but what if those gang members, pirates, mobsters, or scientists stole, bought or invented various projection weapons that emulate a certain type of superpower a hero might be vulnerable to, like psionic attacks, or armor piercing weapons - where a large portion of damage can bypass defense, or degeneration rays that reduce/nullify regeneration and healing powers... or even buffs in general, either given or received by a character?
How about random or semi-random weapon spawning? Make it so you can go in one mission fighting aether pirates and some of the mobs have anti-matter weapons that debuff resistance, and another mission with the same enemy group has degeneration rays. If possible, make it so individual spawns within a mission may have different weaponry or powers. you could do the same mission 20 times, and while you may know the map layout, you'd still have to be cautious when approaching each mob.
Point is, don't be afraid to use mobs to debuff the player and make them think twice before rushing into the unknown. Heck, make them wary of carelessly running into the mobs they -do- know. The absolute worst that could happen is that OP mobs may need to be brought in line, and nobody is going to care if you have to nerf the NPCs.
-As an aside: Something that was mentioned regarding the "rest" Mechanic-
The whole bit about requiring players to use "rest", even in the low levels, was already done in CoH, and it failed... miserably. That's why Stamina became a level 2 inherent, and rare items like Panacea: Chance for +hp/end and Regenerative Tissue: +regen were available all the way down at level 10. Performance Shifter: Chance for +end and Miracle: +Recovery were available at 20, and Numina: +Regen/Recovery at 30... the majority of players don't -want- downtime forced on them through a silly mechanic.
I also happened to like that fact that "my tank, alone=it is as if incoming attacks never happened" Even though that isn't an entirely accurate statement. I ran an Invulnerability/Energy Melee tanker, and worked my rear off to IO two builds for it. One with softcapped Defense to S/L/F/C/E/N, and another with Psi resist/defense. Both had near-capped HP (about 3,200 if I recall) with perma dull pain, and I still took Unstoppable, just in case. It actually came in handy at times.
I had no purple IOs, but I did have the +def and +res PvPIOs (no Panacea). I survived a team wipe on that character during ITF in the 2nd to last mission, when all the khelds, Cyclops and Minotaurs ambushed the top of the mountain. I held off the mobs alone until the whole team got back, which included a fully purple'd PVPIO'd Granite brute the team leader thought was some kind of deity. I won't lie and say it was a cake-walk, I had to work at it to stay alive... hard, but that was an accomplishment, and it made me proud of the character I'd built. IMO, the fact that things like that -could- be accomplished, with enough work and effort, was a huge plus for CoH. So reducing that, to me, would not be an improvement.
If anyone bothered to read this all, Thanks for your time :)
Regards,
D. A. Cross
CEO of Phoenix Rising
CoX: @Mystic Cross ; @Pareidolia // CO: @Deadman-X ; @Citymystic // CoT: @Cross ; @D.A.Cross
I believe I said exactly that (and quoted that exact example) in my original post. I'm well aware of how badly it's been implemented in the past.
I don't /necessarily/ believe the concept itself is bad, just that it's difficult to do well.
Again, I'm not convinced that is always true.
It's quite likely a bad idea for /squishy/ toons to be doing so, but something like a tank, or a scrapper could arguably run on lower health with less risk.
*shrug*
Just throwing out ideas, and trying to keep an open mind. A bad implementation doesn't mean the whole idea is bad.
Betcha they nerf accuracy in the first patch...
It is also the number one way to saw off one of the three legs on the stool that is the Holy Trinity so that it doesn't "balance" on a flat surface anymore. Two legged stools are not exactly well known for their stability.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Not really. GhostHack pretty much stated it nicely. And if you look at my past posts, I want a game that feels more like the superhero comics and less like some D&D Fantasy setting.
Healing others in comics is rare. There's a reason it's rare. It ruins any sense of drama. Now buffs outside of returning HP is different, there is those type of buffs.
Did I say get rid of buff class? Nope. All I said was limit anything that's like the Empath Power Set.
Seeing as how they have a limited number of sets at the beginning this shouldn't be hard to move anything resembling the Empath Set to the bottom of what should be a long list.
Honestly not a fan of anything where healing is the only viable means of support. I think buffs/debuffs and also crowd control should totally be more useful, overall, than just healing, as healing I think should be a last resort, something you do after you've already taken enough damage to need it when the former options had all failed. It shouldn't be "take damage first and then heal it after". What causes the holy trinity is, and has always been, when buffs/debuffs and crowd control are to weak in general that healing is a requirement. Actually it's when healing is a requirement in general that the holy trinity typically results, and consequently everyone begins to slowly ignore buffs/debuffs and crowd control, or demand the three to be further nerfed when they were already to weak.
The gameplay should focus on the buffs, the debuffs, and crowd control first, healing second. Not the other way around, nore would i necessarily say healing by itself should be the viable either, because then people ignore the buffs/debuffs and the crowd control and even exclude people who's builds aren't exclusively healing. Granted to prevent it further I think it's wise to have tutorials encouraging damage mitigation practices first, healing second. Otherwise the holy trinity starts taking root and people try to force it on everyone else.
Besides, it's true that healing in comics is rare. In fact many good writings, healing is always done after, not during, battle, because it's unrealistic to heal during battle within the fight itself as your arm is getting chewed off by that bear or hacked apart by an orc even in fantasy mmo's, let alone being shot by a thug in a super hero game.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
uh.. no, it's replacing healing (which is a very narrow and unthematic gaming element) with mitigation (mezzes/cc and d/buffs)
still three legs, grouchy pants, just a different three that better maintains and enforces the underlying dynamism in the adventure (and superheroic) genre
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Actually I'd say rather than seeing it as a trinity, when buffs/debuffs/crowd control is good enough, you actually see a "muscle/backbone" setup in teams. Some classes naturally don't buff/debuff/crowd control, but have powerful raw stats. These are "muscle" classes, which benefit far more than backbone classes from buffs/debuffs ect. While at the same time, backbone classes can also benefit to, allowing for much more freedom in teaming.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Well, if we're talking fancy healing, has anyone here played EarthBound? Or any other game in the Mother series?
EarthBound had a unique way of looking at HP, damage and healing. It uses Rolling HP. That is, when you take damage, it doesn't immediately stick, the HP counter just starts rolling downwards slowly until you end up at the new total. But if you healed damage, it would start counting upwards instead. turning some fights into a HP tug of war. It even let you heal a hit that would have KO'd a character as long as it was delivered before the character's HP rolled down to 0.
I'm not entirely sure if this is applicable to an MMO, but it would mean that a heal would not be an instant Set HP to 100%, but merely a very fast regeneration rolling to HP upwards to 100%. Same with damage. You'd take a hit and then the HP would roll down to the new total in a few seconds. That would give you a chance to use a healing power to avoid getting KO'd, but unless the fight is just starting, you probably won't be at 100% HP, even with a healer on deck. I'd imagine damage resistance and similar would make it so the damage rolls down slower, and regeneration characters would heal quicker and so on.
Just tossing this idea into the mix.
McNum, it's not a bad idea to have it somewhat that way, though i'd rather damage be more instant, healing more over time, but again, doing that we'd need to have tutorials in-game to highly emphasize mitigation first and drill it into the players head. Good tutorials that are fun tend to do that, and allow players to use all the mechanics.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
The party trick to the EarthBound rolling HP, really, is to allow for stupidly powerful enemy attacks. for example, one boss self-destructs doing three times as much damage as your characters have HP. But if you have enough HP left, you can survive the victory music (it is an odd game sometimes) and continue on because the roll hadn't hit 0 HP yet.
I'd say a faster rolling HP, like 25% of your Max HP per second in damage would be nice. Get hit by a Damage = Yes attack at full HP and you have four seconds to react. At 25% HP you have just one. But it only needs to be the weakest of heals to stop the rolling counter. I'd say healing should be 10-20% of your max HP per second. Both of these, should be modified by buffs/debuffs.
How very front row/back row :P
though, honestly, it's more accurate to the dynamic seen in comics... where tough guys rush in, and range/mezzers move around the field "behind cover"
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Check me on this; this is what I am hearing:
"Healing should not be mathematically more efficient than any other form of ally damage mitigation."
"Please take into consideration the possibility that healing may be perceived as more efficient than it is."
"Healing is not as prevalent in comics as in fantasy, have incentives for ally support to be more likely to be based on something other than healing."
... am I hearing anything close to what is being said?
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IANAL, IMHO, WYSIWYG, YMMV, IIRC, AFAIK, ETC
[color=#ff0000]Composition Assistant Director, Composition Team[/color]
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One of the few times I think the trinity got it right was probably the one place everyone here will hate: end-game raiding in World of Warcraft.
Now bear with me please, hopefully it's not all bad...
The major downside to limiting regen, healing, etc. from a global gameplay level could make the trinity vital no matter how it's dispersed among the methods of tanking, healing and dps. The upside of such a limitation is challenging gameplay mechanics that can only exist if those parts are played at their best, because the other roles can't make up for it so easily (as it was often seen with "tank, alone/heal = lolwutdmg?"). If healing is limited in any way from how rapid it was in CoH, this might answer some balancing issues that would make the slow fight just drag on for ages.
I could see only two classes that have any form of regeneration over 5%: empath/heal-others-role, regen/heal-self-tank-role. (using the trinity as examples of how they would work) the self-player health and medicine pools wouldn't have anything nearly so strong, nor could they be enhanced to equate to any primary/secondary power. Once that's out of the way, the balancing can start playing with boss fights that challenge tanks to not just blow all their toggles or for 3 defenders to = 1 tank. (It'll take 6!)
The beauty of how precisely CoH broke the trinity was that it fractured two of the roles to make a fifth, and establishing ranged vs melee as significantly different. I truly believe that it's possible to apply one or multiple whole or hybrid parts of the suggestions made here and still keep the fractured trinity direction CoH took. It also presents abilities for the devs to design AV/Hero fights to include mechanics that can't be accomplished without enough dps buffs, heals/regens, mitigations, or crowd control.
Something I never really saw was the use of crowd control mechanics for boss fights, especially after the mez nerf on AVs waiting for that god forsaken purple tinky winky triangle aura making controllers a half-neutered effort for the buffs provided by defenders and only helpful for taking out the trash...sorry sore spot tangent...
I could get into other mechanics...but for the purpose of "nerf healing" and to bring this tangent to it's point...
TL/DR: please yes let's have some semblance of healing balanced with the other roles to be challenging with content driven mechanics. Without mechanics that encourage buffs, mitigations, or taking moments to heal up for the next wave, nerfing heals only hurts 2 powersets. Foe mechanics should play a part in any nerfed heal balancing.
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
What can I say? Surprisingly it's alot more realistic, it's just that in the trinity, it isn't so cause yeah, just as well let the katana swat at the neck cause you got enough health to take it even though your not invulnable. It makes little sense to me.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Exactly this, city of heroes had a huge number of grey-area classes, and each one had a variety of different strategies that were all viable without requiring healing to even be a factor in some cases, or they had some but also still had some damage mitigation in there. The game didn't actually treat healing as a form of damage mitigation but actually just healing, to, and it was balanced like that; healing damage after it's taken, it's not damage mitigation, cause your not reducing the damage taken.
One always has to remember that mitigation = reducing, not taking in full. Healing is done separately, so your not mitigating the damage, your taking it in full then healing it after. Thats why healing damage after it's taken is not mitigation. Some think that, but they do not understand the term properly and are misusing it. Your instead looking at net health change would probably be a better way to look at what the health bar looks like after it's been healed from a damaging blow.
Edit: Thing is though, we shouldn't HAVE to have a guy take all the agro all the time cause he's the only one with mitigation, nore should healing be required. Heck, every layer of defenses should be good enough on it's own to really make a significant difference, thats where city of heroes excelled at and other mmo's always fail; they balance all the layers around healing being a requirement, and consequently the layers end up very weak for it. City of heroes buffs to allies were enough to upgrade their durability, overall, to a tier higher, a blaster with fortitude was as survivable as a scrapper, a scrapper as survivable as a tank ect. Force fielded teams had defenses equivilent to tanks on everyone save the force fielder himself.
Mobs likewise could be debuffed enough to cripple them, recharge, to hit ratings, and damage could all be lowered. At the same time what balanced CoX further that so so SO many people forget fighting nothing but council late-game, was that many mobs had debuffs of their own, making buffs more important. Mobs also had buffs to and crowd control, making buffs/debuffs/crowd control more important. Ignoring it left you horribly vulnerable to mobs using them themselves.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
This one for sure.
Soooooo........let me see if I get this? We basically got mad that NCSoft took away CoX, so we wanted CoX back, now somebody is trying to rebuild CoX but under a different name, and now we want it to be nothing like CoX?? I'm confused. I understand that there were things that could have been done better, but completely gutting the whole thing that made CoX CoX? Dafuq?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I am kinda of the mindset what made CoX, CoX, was the damage mitigation first healing second gameplay. CoX the layers were; you, if possible, removed the damage source outright with crowd control or destroying the mob fast, if that didn't work, you had defense and to-hit debuffs reducing the number of hit taken. For the hits you did take, you had damage reduction debuffs and damage resistance, then finally you healed what was left over. It was brilliant because everything was treated and balanced as kind of a separate layer, rather than the game trying to balance so it was all just one layer in which everything had to have healing, everything was treated as separate while still balancing out.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
no, what is happening here, is a portion of the community had (has) problems with elements of COX from as early as alpha-testing of the game that was never effectively addressed.... and now that there is a clean slate, they hope to keep what was loved in COX, and finally get the changes they always hoped to see....
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Well forgive me, but so far I've seen a lot of "Get rid of PVP Market", "Get rid of Knock Back", "Get rid of Healing", "Get rid of xxxxx" posts. To me that pretty much says, let's not make CoT anything like CoX. And I have a problem with that. My first Hero to 50 on CoX was Empathy/Electricity Defender. Couldn't tell you how many times I was the saving grace of the team using my healing powers. Now you are trying to take that away from me? Why? What did Healing ever do to you?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I think the best order here is:
healing, as seen in MMO's, is antithetical to the spirit of the hero genre, and while there are a few (three, maybe?) comic characters who utilize healing as their "Super power" (again, regen being an exception) it should not be a primary factor of the game dynamic
then
please take into consideration that due to how healing is handled in other MMOs, it WILL be considered a "vital part of the trinity" if it is given any credible weight in the game.
finally
mathematically, healing should be the least effective form of damage mitigation, behind defense, mezz, buff/debuff, and offense.
I know, I sound harsh.... but this is coming from someone who ALWAYS plays healers in other games. Healing is my jam.... but it's not really super hero. it's that other kind of fantasy with clerics and orcs.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Ummm. No.
I was never for the idea of rebuilding CoX under a different name. I loved CoH. To me, CoH was the best MMO, but I wasn't blind to seeing it needed improvements or had design choices I didn't agree with.
CoX was the best superhero MMO imo. That doesn't mean I don't see some positive game play elements in CO and DCUO.
Not to mention, for most it was the loss of a community and less the loss of a game.
I know in CoH, I hated how it limited you to melee or range for most of it. I hated how they were against the idea of porting certain animations to power pools/epic pools. I didn't care for the fact that, yes, I could make a martial artist who can throw a fire ball, but it was a complete waste of time to throw the fire ball if I wanted to get the best damage I could do, so I could solo the AV :p
what if healing hadn't been a saving grace for those teams? what if it had been the buffs "empathy" had provided, and the skills of your fellow players....
...would your experience have been hurt so much that you'd miss managing those green bars?
City of Titans will be a different beast. And, rest assured, most opinions voiced on these forums will not be taken as gospel by the development team.
Indeed, we have all put our faith in them to take what we say with a grain of salt.... and keep the ones that best flavor the dish.
The important thing, at this stage... is to voice what we had a problem with, in COX.... so that the developers can, hopefully, come to understand WHY we had the problem... and address that "WHY" while still maintaining what worked in the original.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I'm sorry to break the news to you, but that first hero to 50 of yours, will not be possible in CoT. Why? It's not using the same AT system for one. You might be able to get something close, but it won't any different than you remaking your Empathy/Electric Blast Defender in CO (which is possible btw).
That's just it. I had applied the buffs. The damage coming in was too much for the buffs to handle though, so I HAD to use healing to keep them alive. I wasn't the typical Empathy defender that just put Healing Aura on auto and Followed the Tank. I actually considered myself as a Lightning Blaster with Healing capabilities. I would apply my buffs, then run in and start blasting the crap out of everything in sight, and when I noticed somebody was low on health I'd heal them! Sometimes you need that Heal at just the right moment to keep the team going. Why take that away? I can understand making things like a PBAoE Heal not have as much potential to heal than a targeted Heal would, but seriously don't take healing away. Don't nerf it to the point that it's worthless. I'm seriously beginning to fear for this game. I'm starting to think it's going to be NOTHING like CoX was and that makes me sad.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Yes, I know I won't be able to make that exact character ever again. Thank you for reminding me of that. But, yes, I would like to try my best to recreate my characters from CoX as much as I possibly can.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Your right in that healing can be percieved as more efficient then it really is. City of heroes had that problem, big time, actually, in that many thought empaths doing nothing but healing was the only viable support and when you didn't have enough, you just got more of them. They litterally used the cave-mans solution to a problem of something not working by itself; just throw more at it, or "make it bigger and put more on it". Which of course, was a very unsuccessful tactic against any well-rounded mob in the later levels, carnies and malta would often steam-roll pure trinity teams.
Thats why I emphasize often having tutorials emphasizing the importance of mitigating damage first rather than only healing it and making it very clear. Otherwise people will ignore support other than healing, make the same mistakes over and over(and they will, trust me), then wonder why they have huge debt bars or whatever is the penalty for dying.
Not only should healing not be the be-all-end-all but it has to be clear that the other methods of support are viable and the game has to really tell you that. It has to tell the player they have the tools to not need to be healed and just have to use them, teach them some basics of it and let them experiment and have fun without misleading them into thinking "ok X is healer class and should ONLY heal and if it does anything else, kick it!".
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Goes back to what one considers CoX to have been. For you it sounds like whack a mole with health bars. For me, it was playing a superhero, like in those comics and movies we see.
I want to see more Spidey's, Wonder Woman's, Storm's, Rogue's, Wolverine's and less Blood Elf Priest or Night Elf Shamans.
I want to see less IC Auction House and Tailors, as that always distracted from the immersion into the genre I enjoy.
"Oh! Hey Spider-Man! Where ya going?!"
"Hey Spider-Girl! I'm heading over to Spandex Trading Company to get some changes done on my outfit and then over to the Super Hero EBAY to see if I can get some components for my web shooters. Wanna come?"
"SURE!"
Yeah...no...I wanted a superhero mmo like CoH ORIGINALLY was marketed as.
I hate to say it Alex.... but no one's gonna care what the tutorial says, when 20+years of MMO gaming says differently.
why do we still move using wasd? it's not any more sensical then any other option, and you can see when anyone tries to change, they always have to put in an option to "change it back"
We, as a species, resist change... even at heavy costs.
The only viable solution is to remove the option, until people learn to live without it.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
And you can do that without having to have healing set or even a powerful PBAOE heal.
is healing what made COX, COX?
to me, healing felt off from the word go. it felt like a concession to Everquest gamers and other fantasy MMO players who believed healing MUST be in the game... BECAUSE it was an MMO.
as it stands, it was really ONE powerset (per side) and a peppering of other powers throughout.... and yet we still sit here, feeling compelled to say DAMN, That's a lot of healing for a superhero game...
Don't you find it strange, that you call yourself an "atypical" healer, because you engaged in combat? that you believe the role of a healer is to sit on their heels and spam AOE?
This isn't an attitude that you developed by reading comics or watching saturday morning cartoons..... This attitude was created by MMOs. It exists no where else.
You loved your Empathy/Elec defender because you loved YOUR CHARACTER and the experiences you had with them...
....the fact that you felt needed and useful, the fact that you reached the level cap... all the adventures you had with that character.
....none of those things required heals. heals just happened to be a part of the experience.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
You obviously never played CoX with me. No, I did not ever consider CoX as whack-a-mole hp bars. I did not spend most of my time running to costume editors and changing up my costumes, or hours at the Auction house flipping salvage and making billions of inf in one day. Did I use those tools occasionally? Yes. Most of my characters were of some kind of Lightning based hero or villain. In the end I was playing more Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers, and Stalkers than anything else. I just loved the way CoX was period. Everybody kept bitching and moaning about how things were so unfair for one thing or another, then the devs would try to fix it, and in doing so would destroy something more of CoX. Everybody wants to think they are doing all this "Nerfing" for the good of the game, but all it does is just break it even more.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Okay, first off, no nerfing is happening. Sorry to break it to you, but anything we ask/suggest here is just that, asking/suggesting. It is in no way asking/suggesting a nerf, because the game hasn't launched yet.
So what is being asked/suggested? To have the game feel like the superhero genre and not your sword and sorcery mmo with spandex outfits. (at least from me...I can't promise that's why others are asking it).
to be fair, static... COX is dead. It's never coming back.
Even if the team did everything in their power to duplicate COX, they couldn't.... it would be ILLEGAL for one thing, and functionally impossible, for another (they don't have the code)
Any attempt to directly duplicate COX would feel, even to you (perhaps ESPECIALLY to you), like a sham.... a thin and hollow shell of the game you loved.... a mockery of that game.
And I don't think any of us want that.
SO, instead of crying foul that Titans won't be COX..... Make every effort to express what it was you want to hold onto, what was most dear, to you.
I can bet you money, that if you really look at what you loved about COX.... "the healing" won't be on that list....
the team dynamic, might be.... the way combat functioned or the storylines.... the community... the way powers looked or felt.... the fact that you could put what you had in your head into a physical space....
whatever those things are, for you.... champion them. Express why they mattered to you, how their form or function benefited your experience.... and, on the flipside, how other aspects didn't seem to work, or failed your expectations or desires.
above all, remember that what is said here on these posts are the feelings of OTHER people.... people just like you, who feel just like you, who are just like you.... and if you believe that your thoughts and feelings matter..... believe that theirs do too.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
If they do have a healer, they could make the NPC AI smart enough to go "Better get rid of them first" and have them pull aggro so much, it'd make a tank jealous.
City of Titans is intended to have a similar feel and hopefully the same wonderful community as City of Heroes.
It is not in any way shape or form "City of Heroes II: Electric Boogaloo"
It is a NEW game with NEW BETTER tech and gameplay informed by playing and seeing everything that has come out since City Of Heroes debuted.
Spiritual Successor.
BioShock is not System Shock III.
The movie Mirrormask is not Labyrinth II.
That 70s Show is not Happy Days II.
YMMV on which was better, but the point is that a similar feel does not mean that everything stays the same. What should stay the same? What should change?
We are reading and considering.
That does NOT mean we are building the game by committee: we have a vision. But our minds are not closed.
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IANAL, IMHO, WYSIWYG, YMMV, IIRC, AFAIK, ETC
[color=#ff0000]Composition Assistant Director, Composition Team[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
So then using that logic, we shouldn't have Broad Swords, Katanas, Long Swords, Bows and Arrows, Battle Axes, Maces, War Hammers, Rapiers, Short Swords, etc. We also shouldn't have anything that involves mystical powers at all, so no clairvoyance, esp, telekinesis, time manipulation, fire, lightning, ice, storm manipulation, water manipulation, etc. Well that pretty much kills all the powers.....
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
um, no.... there's a difference between "sword and sorcery mmo" and "swords" and "sorcery"
and thanks, Kits, for sticking with us through our rambling "debate" :P
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Ahh, good old healing Aggro, which some games love, others hate.
I would also have "buffer/debuffer" aggro as well, just to make it all fair ;)
The simplest answer is.. if you don't want heals, don't team with a healer. That does NOT mean we shouldn't have team or solo or small group or PvP healers. Just YOU don't have to play with them.
So.. along with no healing there is no market, no OOC mechanics, it needs to be like the movies.
That's not the kind of game I'm hoping for or will play. I watch movies, I play an MMO.
Superheros that heal, superheros that have a mission creator (did I miss someone try and nerf that yet?), superheros that have access to a costume creator (surely that is OOC?), superheros that have a market.. yeah those things were and are both CoX and MMO requirements.
I actually very rarely played my healers, with the high level teams I was running with there generally wasn't much need for healing however not being a pure healing set they still got played, but for the rest of their sets and power pools, not for heals. For lowbie teams.. especially pugs.. a healer was extremely useful. I do not see how staying alive to carry on fighting (like in the movies right) was immersion breaking IF I WAS KEEPING YOU ALIVE WITH HEALS. For those sewer runs or full team street sweeping, radio/newspaper missions where you got swamped, ST buffs, debuffs.. not going to cut it. A (let's face it) extremely low level pbaoe heal sometimes saved the day (yay for saving the day like in the movies)
Geez... can we stop being so nerf heavy already?
Or.. it would be THE OPPOSITE. Seriously..
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I'd love to see Aggro become more complex and varried (able to be manipulated by ALL powers and effects)
though, i'd still rather have no true healers, and give "healing aggro" wholesale to d/buffers and mezzers.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Well empathy was about layered defenses but thing was, and to be honest I don't think healing would have to be nerfed compared to CoX, but just healing by itself in CoX in general was weak as heck. A single mob in an 8 man team could easily do 3-4 times the damage a single "pure healer" could put out. Course, because many people thought healing was the sole thing that mattered many bad players would just add 2-3 more "pure healers", they didn't understand waht fortitude did or what attacks with to-hit debuffs did.
If it was clearer, empathy would have been seen as a set designed to layer defenses as a buff set that had some emphasis on healing, rather than just "the healing set".
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I get that CoT will never be CoX due to legal ramifications. I understand that this is a game being built from the ground up. I was hoping, and probably not unlike a few others, that the game would be as close to a version of CoX as it could be without stepping on NCSoft's toes and getting big corporate lawyers involved costing millions of dollars. THIS is what I'm trying to fight for. A game that isn't EXACTLY like CoX, but as close to it as it possibly can be without sacrificing too much that it is completely alien from it. To keep it feeling like CoX never left us. I know that you can't have the exact same AT's, Powersets, Costumes, etc. that CoX had, but why can't we at least try to keep as close to it as we possibly can? If we get rid of Healing, Knock Back, Market PVP, Power Leveling, Sewer Runs, etc. it's just going to be another Champions, DCUO, or Marvel. I thought the idea was to try to bring to life something that was burned into ashes. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but even in the beginning this was labeled as a CoH Spiritual Successor, so why are we trying to take it away from being as close to CoH as we can?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Well trust me when I say, tbh I wouldn't want healing abolished from the game but treated as it should be, something you do after you have actually taken damage rather than just taking the damage in full first then healing after. Empathy was decent at it to when played correctly, fortitude was an amazing power. As for city of titans, yes this is becoming a spiritual successor but not super close, the devs do want to give this game an identity as that. I will not be surprised if we have some sets more healing oriented, honestly I'd think we'd have alot of sets like we did in city of heroes with some healing as part of it, as a last line of defense often obtained early.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
we are keeping in mind that, of your examples... only the costume creator (and healing) existed at launch.. right?
these other mmo elements were added later (the auction house, the mission creator).... they weren't "required", they simply became part of the experience.
That said, the fulfilled a need. Auction houses are deemed necessary to provide an "economy" in the game (which is really just a means of resource sinking the arbitrary tick-rewards acquired through play)
the Architect was an OOC mechanic (the ability to write your own stories in the game setting) given an In Lore context.
neither of these are vital components of the game, they simply appealed to the will of the playerbase.
if the game wasn't designed to compensate for healing powers, it would be a non-issue. As you said, later game dynamics made most healing superfluous.... that's how the whole game should be.
Put some heals in a powerpool set for people who want to "tip the scales" or who are obsessed with fantasy MMO dynamics, or just really want their character to be a healer....
and remove the need for healing-based damage mitigation from the rest of the game. (obviously there will always be an intrinsic desire for healing, but if you don't rely on heals to survive a fight, they cease being a "need")
we can't nerf anything... nothing has been produced yet. The Inciting title of this thread not withstanding, we aren't discussing nerfing, we're discussing core functionality
um, no. a copy is always a copy. it is always less then the original. It always fails to capture the underlying qualities that the original possessed.
that's much of the reason, i assume, that the development team have gone out of their way to express that Titans IS NOT intending to copy or duplicate, in any way, the actually COX games... and is, rather, hoping to carry on the spirit of those games into a new one.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I think one of the reasons many of us feel this way is that we've grown. I was never one to go begging for a healer for the team but I was often glad we had one when the plan went south.
For many of us gaming started with D&D and similar games where the holy trinity was created. It makes sense that this might be a tough habit to break. But do you remember what CoX was like just before the announcement? Nobody hollering for a healer...nobody crying for a Rad. Most players had figured out how to get what they needed to win the day without those. This a change yes but not necessarily a bad one.
I'd like to see an 'Empathy' set include one ST heal with a moderate range, one AoE heal with a moderate recharge and a bunch of other things to help the party in other ways.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Very true, honestly if the game was well designed healing by itself wouldn't be the be-all-end-all, it'd be a last line of defense after all else has failed, which is what CoX had. It was awsome that you could have healing but did not at all need healing in a team to be successful, it was more about how you used the powers you had to reduce the damage you were taking somehow or another.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
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