As a hypothetical you see an MMO where you like the general pitch and mechanics, Then you find out there is no healing in combat. What is your response to it?
The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There is another factor as well,sure you can remove the healer and add in some cheesy ideas like ahem ...GW2 but then you have non plausible,non realistic ideas that at least to me just look dumb.Even still they are still healing effects just not an actual healer so you are not removing healing.
All a game needs to do is make a healer class fun to play,combat fun,interactive AND give players something to do while waiting.This area is tough to pull off w/o totally ruining immersion because an idea of like portable crafting on the fly is not one i really endorse but would allow players to say craft while waiting to form a group.Another aspect would be to allow players to instantly warp to the leader's camp which again ruins immersion but does help the problem so i could accept it.
Too many people playing SOLO games is what has ruined it as well too many elitist gamer's.FFXI had the right idea for grouping/game play and combat as a healer could do a LOT more than just heal.Teleporting,buffs,removing status effects,providing haste,raise the dead,as well could take part in a player to player combo attack as part of the very unique Renkai system that NO other game has ever had.
Bottom line is i have no idea WHY anyone would want to remove healing and if there is a reason it is most certainly fixable.So rather than remove the idea fix the problem.
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The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There is another factor as well,sure you can remove the healer and add in some cheesy ideas like ahem ...GW2 but then you have non plausible,non realistic ideas that at least to me just look dumb.Even still they are still healing effects just not an actual healer so you are not removing healing.
All a game needs to do is make a healer class fun to play,combat fun,interactive AND give players something to do while waiting.This area is tough to pull off w/o totally ruining immersion because an idea of like portable crafting on the fly is not one i really endorse but would allow players to say craft while waiting to form a group.Another aspect would be to allow players to instantly warp to the leader's camp which again ruins immersion but does help the problem so i could accept it.
Too many people playing SOLO games is what has ruined it as well too many elitist gamer's.FFXI had the right idea for grouping/game play and combat as a healer could do a LOT more than just heal.Teleporting,buffs,removing status effects,providing haste,raise the dead,as well could take part in a player to player combo attack as part of the very unique Renkai system that NO other game has ever had.
Bottom line is i have no idea WHY anyone would want to remove healing and if there is a reason it is most certainly fixable.So rather than remove the idea fix the problem.
There are plenty of reasons to to not have healing, especially if you want to shift the focus of game mechanic or themes.
I can't imagine having a horror game that has Healing designed like a normal RPG(especially Cosmic Horror like lovecraft).
That or you want to shift mechanics more towards prevention and evasion. An MMO where you're strongly encouraged to use stealth(on all classes), would probably be better with a lot less healing to encourage ambush mechanics over tank and spank.
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The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There's an important difference between removing dedicated healer classes and removing healing entirely.
The fundamental problem is that if groups require exact proportions of various classes (e.g., FFXIV's one healer, one tank, two DPS), the classes players play are not going to perfectly match those proportions everywhere. Make healers more fun to play so that too many people want to be a healer and then healers end up waiting on groups and you have basically the same problem as before. Trying to get the balance right is like trying to flip a coin and have it land on its edge--and repeating that every single time.
If you're going to have dedicated healer or tank classes, I don't see how to get around the problem of required group compositions. What you need is to be able to grab enough random people to fill a group and usually have their set of classes work for a group, rather than sitting and waiting for the missing role. If you don't have that, then grouping in your game simply doesn't work and you've created a solo game whether you intended to or not.
You would have to make up for that with other potent support systems (like damage prevention akin to a GW1 protection monk).
I'm not interested in a support-free MMO, and I'd imagine most would share that opinion. DPS is great and all, but a game needs more than just dps to function.
Didnt Guild Wars 2's developers ANET demonize the Healer role when they were first hyping up the game. That didnt turn out well as many of the people bought into that hype, soon realized. Everything turned into a zerg dps fest. Some bosses in the world had to be nerfed, because of the way Tech work today, isnt as reliable when it comes to combat like that. They eventually tried to add healing back in slowly. But for a while they had a useless +Healing stat, and a few support classes that were pretty much useless and not going to get a group invite. Making their "Freedom of Build" philosophy obsolete.
All around bad idea. Action Combat is cool and all, but removal of vital combat roles such as defensive tanks and group support, or nerfing them down to being useless, just hasnt been shown to workout.
The problem with pure healing classes is that not very many people want to be pure healers. That means a lot of groups have to sit and wait around until a healer comes. If half of your "grouping" time is spent waiting for a healer (or tank), that's just not fun for a large chunk of the playerbase. That's a major factor in MMORPGs moving toward more soloing over the course of the past decade.
There are some people who do want to be healers, and they're very well catered to. If a lot of MMORPGs had no healer classes, so that a lot of the people who don't want to be healers weren't playing games that rely on healers, that might soften the imbalance substantially. Though in games that do have dedicated healers, it could also mean substantial movement away from healing by people who didn't really want to be a healer but got sick of spending half their time waiting for groups.
If there are going to be games that don't have dedicated healers, games have to make that work somehow. Some have, such as the Guild Wars 2 approach of everyone having some healing capability, or the Spiral Knights approach of there being very limited healing so you better not get hit much. Healing in Elsword is almost entirely healing yourself, and often from consumables, though Elesis does get substantial self-healing skills. All of those games notably have to do away with traditional MMORPG tanking, as without heavy healing from other players, a player who absorbs a ton of damage is going to end up dead and quickly.
There isn't--and shouldn't be--one single model of "all MMORPGs must do healing this way". There's plenty of room to innovate here, and "no healing in combat" could be part of a good solution, though other mechanics would really need to be designed around it.
The thing is Healers and Tanks, are like Leaders in real life. There are Few Leaders per Followers. Group encounters in combat need to have a functional group role or you just get an all out kill fest like CoD. Games like CoD appeal to those kind of gamers, because it really has no team responsibility. Its all Solo gameplay in a forced team design.
Trinity Combat is all about Team Efforts with Team Roles. In older games, yes the wait was long. But thats why tools were created to help speed that up. Guild Wars 2 and Rift, both for many years refused to add Grouping Tools, because the general assumption back then when WoW first added grouping tools, was that it ruined the game. But both GW2 and Rift suffered from the problem of finding groups. Rift had a Trinity, and Guild Wars 2, did not. So that myth that its the Healer/Tank thats making it hard to find a group, is just straight out proven wrong.
I usually play a healing light class if I can. I do not like DPS trash thrash many games have become.
One question I have is why don't we have more regeneration style templates like the one from City of Heroes?
Or better yet, more abilities/classes that focus on buffs/debuffs to the point CoH did that makes dedicated healing almost unnecessary? Damage mitigation/prevention is just as, if not more, useful than the old damage sponge+healer formula.
Because as time went on, more developers and games had a focus on the grinding, and they didnt want players with zero offensive ability to be burdened with being forced to group to get through the grinding phase that most modern day MMOs put players through to slow progression while they make more content.
And by giving them Solo damage abilities, it was impossible to take that away from the same player once they reached Endgame without players looking at them side eye, like a Paladin in Vanilla WoW/Early TBC. So they said, F it, lets just get rid of the pure 100% support classes, and go the hybrid route. This way we can build our content around that, and not have to take DPS away from support classes when they reach endgame.
For me, it's going to depend on what other roles are available. I've always found the trinity to be boring, I prefer my games with more roles (buffer, debuffer, cc, off-tanks etc). So, if you are removing the healer role, to me it makes it sound like the game is going to be worse.
Now, you can still have deep combat on a class-by-class basis, but roles help to create more interesting tactics.
So, if you're dropping to just tank and dps, or even just dps, then I'm not interested. If you are dropping healers but still have plenty of other roles then I'll take a second look.
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The problem with pure healing classes is that not very many people want to be pure healers. That means a lot of groups have to sit and wait around until a healer comes. If half of your "grouping" time is spent waiting for a healer (or tank), that's just not fun for a large chunk of the playerbase. That's a major factor in MMORPGs moving toward more soloing over the course of the past decade.
There are some people who do want to be healers, and they're very well catered to. If a lot of MMORPGs had no healer classes, so that a lot of the people who don't want to be healers weren't playing games that rely on healers, that might soften the imbalance substantially. Though in games that do have dedicated healers, it could also mean substantial movement away from healing by people who didn't really want to be a healer but got sick of spending half their time waiting for groups.
If there are going to be games that don't have dedicated healers, games have to make that work somehow. Some have, such as the Guild Wars 2 approach of everyone having some healing capability, or the Spiral Knights approach of there being very limited healing so you better not get hit much. Healing in Elsword is almost entirely healing yourself, and often from consumables, though Elesis does get substantial self-healing skills. All of those games notably have to do away with traditional MMORPG tanking, as without heavy healing from other players, a player who absorbs a ton of damage is going to end up dead and quickly.
There isn't--and shouldn't be--one single model of "all MMORPGs must do healing this way". There's plenty of room to innovate here, and "no healing in combat" could be part of a good solution, though other mechanics would really need to be designed around it.
The thing is Healers and Tanks, are like Leaders in real life. There are Few Leaders per Followers. Group encounters in combat need to have a functional group role or you just get an all out kill fest like CoD. Games like CoD appeal to those kind of gamers, because it really has no team responsibility. Its all Solo gameplay in a forced team design.
Trinity Combat is all about Team Efforts with Team Roles. In older games, yes the wait was long. But thats why tools were created to help speed that up. Guild Wars 2 and Rift, both for many years refused to add Grouping Tools, because the general assumption back then when WoW first added grouping tools, was that it ruined the game. But both GW2 and Rift suffered from the problem of finding groups. Rift had a Trinity, and Guild Wars 2, did not. So that myth that its the Healer/Tank thats making it hard to find a group, is just straight out proven wrong.
I've found competent group leadership to be the greatest role shortage in almost all MMOS, not healers or tanks.
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The problem with pure healing classes is that not very many people want to be pure healers. That means a lot of groups have to sit and wait around until a healer comes. If half of your "grouping" time is spent waiting for a healer (or tank), that's just not fun for a large chunk of the playerbase. That's a major factor in MMORPGs moving toward more soloing over the course of the past decade.
There are some people who do want to be healers, and they're very well catered to. If a lot of MMORPGs had no healer classes, so that a lot of the people who don't want to be healers weren't playing games that rely on healers, that might soften the imbalance substantially. Though in games that do have dedicated healers, it could also mean substantial movement away from healing by people who didn't really want to be a healer but got sick of spending half their time waiting for groups.
If there are going to be games that don't have dedicated healers, games have to make that work somehow. Some have, such as the Guild Wars 2 approach of everyone having some healing capability, or the Spiral Knights approach of there being very limited healing so you better not get hit much. Healing in Elsword is almost entirely healing yourself, and often from consumables, though Elesis does get substantial self-healing skills. All of those games notably have to do away with traditional MMORPG tanking, as without heavy healing from other players, a player who absorbs a ton of damage is going to end up dead and quickly.
There isn't--and shouldn't be--one single model of "all MMORPGs must do healing this way". There's plenty of room to innovate here, and "no healing in combat" could be part of a good solution, though other mechanics would really need to be designed around it.
The thing is Healers and Tanks, are like Leaders in real life. There are Few Leaders per Followers. Group encounters in combat need to have a functional group role or you just get an all out kill fest like CoD. Games like CoD appeal to those kind of gamers, because it really has no team responsibility. Its all Solo gameplay in a forced team design.
Trinity Combat is all about Team Efforts with Team Roles. In older games, yes the wait was long. But thats why tools were created to help speed that up. Guild Wars 2 and Rift, both for many years refused to add Grouping Tools, because the general assumption back then when WoW first added grouping tools, was that it ruined the game. But both GW2 and Rift suffered from the problem of finding groups. Rift had a Trinity, and Guild Wars 2, did not. So that myth that its the Healer/Tank thats making it hard to find a group, is just straight out proven wrong.
I've found competent group leadership that are not a-holes to be the greatest role shortage in almost all MMOS, not healers or tanks.
The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There's an important difference between removing dedicated healer classes and removing healing entirely.
The fundamental problem is that if groups require exact proportions of various classes (e.g., FFXIV's one healer, one tank, two DPS), the classes players play are not going to perfectly match those proportions everywhere. Make healers more fun to play so that too many people want to be a healer and then healers end up waiting on groups and you have basically the same problem as before. Trying to get the balance right is like trying to flip a coin and have it land on its edge--and repeating that every single time.
If you're going to have dedicated healer or tank classes, I don't see how to get around the problem of required group compositions. What you need is to be able to grab enough random people to fill a group and usually have their set of classes work for a group, rather than sitting and waiting for the missing role. If you don't have that, then grouping in your game simply doesn't work and you've created a solo game whether you intended to or not.
You could have healing as a secondary ability, for two classes. And tanking as a secondary ability for two classes. You still only need one "tank" and one "healer" in a group. Not perfect but mitigates the finding group issue.
The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There's an important difference between removing dedicated healer classes and removing healing entirely.
The fundamental problem is that if groups require exact proportions of various classes (e.g., FFXIV's one healer, one tank, two DPS), the classes players play are not going to perfectly match those proportions everywhere. Make healers more fun to play so that too many people want to be a healer and then healers end up waiting on groups and you have basically the same problem as before. Trying to get the balance right is like trying to flip a coin and have it land on its edge--and repeating that every single time.
If you're going to have dedicated healer or tank classes, I don't see how to get around the problem of required group compositions. What you need is to be able to grab enough random people to fill a group and usually have their set of classes work for a group, rather than sitting and waiting for the missing role. If you don't have that, then grouping in your game simply doesn't work and you've created a solo game whether you intended to or not.
You say "THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM" as if it is a real problem. You want one size fits all and everyone is replaceable style of gaming. That doesn't make your way the one true way it only makes it different. So don't call it THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM. Own it by saying your problem. That is my problem with your post.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There's an important difference between removing dedicated healer classes and removing healing entirely.
The fundamental problem is that if groups require exact proportions of various classes (e.g., FFXIV's one healer, one tank, two DPS), the classes players play are not going to perfectly match those proportions everywhere. Make healers more fun to play so that too many people want to be a healer and then healers end up waiting on groups and you have basically the same problem as before. Trying to get the balance right is like trying to flip a coin and have it land on its edge--and repeating that every single time.
If you're going to have dedicated healer or tank classes, I don't see how to get around the problem of required group compositions. What you need is to be able to grab enough random people to fill a group and usually have their set of classes work for a group, rather than sitting and waiting for the missing role. If you don't have that, then grouping in your game simply doesn't work and you've created a solo game whether you intended to or not.
You could have healing as a secondary ability, for two classes. And tanking as a secondary ability for two classes. You still only need one "tank" and one "healer" in a group. Not perfect but mitigates the finding group issue.
You could be creative and have a two target system. Say the enemy and your groups tank. When you heal the tank with your healing spell #1, any over-healing goes on the enemy target as damage. Other spells might have other effects like debuffs on enemies and so on and so forth.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
In combat healing, as it currently exists in MMORPGs, isn't very realistic. The medic works on the patient, while the patient continues their dangerous activity. In ancient armies, men were pulled from the front lines (when possible) and another man stepped in to take the injured man's position. At the back, the injured man would receive first aid to stop bleeding and assess their fitness to return to action. Even with modern armies, this process is essentially the same -- injured personnel are moved to a safe point for immediate first aid, and any serious healing occurs further away.
Part of the reason for this system is due to the training -- doctors require much more training than the average soldier. It isn't wise for an army to risk highly trained personnel in advance positions near active combat.
Another issue is that healing requires conditions not readily found on the front lines. Sanitation is one factor, availability of materials another, and conditions conducive to concentration are a third.
Finally, the mechanism of healing in-place takes away other battlefield factors, such as the panic and breaking when soldiers fall nearby. The combat healer is directly opposite one fundamental human psychological reaction -- the fight or flight decision. One way we judge people as 'brave' or 'courageous' by their willingness to stand and fight when others run away. MMORPGs have effectively restricted players from those realistic commendations.
In combat healing reduces games to Incoming Damage vs. Friendly Healing rates. Breaking the reliance on hit points would help, as people wouldn't be able to calculate how much time they have left. (Ask a doctor how many times a scruffy man can hit you in the face with an axe. You will not get a meaningful answer, and will probably get a psychiatric note on your medical files). Without that knowledge, there would be danger and fear in the game. I feel that combat wouldn't be something a character routinely engages in 100+ times in a day.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
The fact that things like "The Trinity" are considered elements of an MMORPG is proof of the fact that the MMORPG industry has been ruined by lack of variety.
And before you say "The trinity is an RPG element that goes back as far as D&D" I'd like to say I play 3.5 every single Saturday. And no, the trinity is not a thing in D&D. None of the core classes are tanks or healers in the sense they are in MMOs. And the Healer class they implemented later is considered a massively underpowered class for anything but an NPC henchman.
Paladins, druids, and clerics can all hold their own in combat (Or seriously kick butt depending on the build, my paladin's smite has a +35 to hit and averages over 100 damage at level 12 and will double when I take my level 15 feat. And he's a Charisma based pally, not strength based.) and mainly use healing only when it is absolutely critical or after combat, and bards a skill based buffer class. They're a support class but NONE of the core healing classes are one trick ponies that have healing as their main focus.
The argument of "waiting for a group " to happen because of needing a healer is a poor excuse to remove healing.That is just a crappy game design,at least the part of grouping.
There is another factor as well,sure you can remove the healer and add in some cheesy ideas like ahem ...GW2 but then you have non plausible,non realistic ideas that at least to me just look dumb.Even still they are still healing effects just not an actual healer so you are not removing healing.
All a game needs to do is make a healer class fun to play,combat fun,interactive AND give players something to do while waiting.This area is tough to pull off w/o totally ruining immersion because an idea of like portable crafting on the fly is not one i really endorse but would allow players to say craft while waiting to form a group.Another aspect would be to allow players to instantly warp to the leader's camp which again ruins immersion but does help the problem so i could accept it.
Too many people playing SOLO games is what has ruined it as well too many elitist gamer's.FFXI had the right idea for grouping/game play and combat as a healer could do a LOT more than just heal.Teleporting,buffs,removing status effects,providing haste,raise the dead,as well could take part in a player to player combo attack as part of the very unique Renkai system that NO other game has ever had.
Bottom line is i have no idea WHY anyone would want to remove healing and if there is a reason it is most certainly fixable.So rather than remove the idea fix the problem.
That person might be better off joining a guild or starting one if people don't want him in their guild.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
It appears a lot of Devs have problems balancing healers and morphing classes so it's just easier to not do them. Those are the two classes I really like. Also game makers are always looking at ways to cut corners.
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Personally if there was one way I could shake up trinity as it exists in most MMOs would be to remove every single skill from the game that increases or decreases threat and aggro and make it entirely dependent on things like damage/healing output and distance from the target.
This would have 3 major implications:
1. First and most importantly, tanks would become more like D&D tanks. They rush headfirst into the fray but there is is no expectation that they are able to hold EVERYTHING's attention. Even things with provoke like abilities are going to have to pick a single target for it. As such they are less focused on taking massive damage and grabbing thing's attention and more focuses on actually killing things or CC, or something. With proper positioning they might attract a lot of attention but not all of it.
2. Healers cannot expect the tank to hold all the aggro. Therefore they need to have a plan for what happens when something breaks off and comes at them. They need armor, CC, and maybe even some damage of their own. They need to be well rounded.
3. DPS, especially melee DPS cannot effectively be a glass cannon. The tank cannot hold all the aggro for you, so you need to be able survive on your own.
No healer class and no healing in combat are two separate things.
The first one is easily doable and many games have flirted with this to a smaller or greater degree simply by giving everyone a reasonable amount of self-healing, mitigation, and dodging and blocking mechanics.
The second idea, no healing in combat, is sort of silly since any game that does this simply replaces healing with other forms of damage mitigation, avoidance, escapes and heavy-handed self-regeneration that amount to the same thing. If they don't, you just end-up with simplistic combat that relies on hitting hardest and hitting first and is over in seconds or combat with wet noodles that do barely any damage.
In-combat healing in MMOS and RPGs isn't done in 99% of games because developers are lazy and just copy each other - it's done this way because it produces more interesting fights with extra layers of decision making.
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You would have to make up for that with other potent support systems (like damage prevention akin to a GW1 protection monk).
I'm not interested in a support-free MMO, and I'd imagine most would share that opinion. DPS is great and all, but a game needs more than just dps to function.
Didnt Guild Wars 2's developers ANET demonize the Healer role when they were first hyping up the game. That didnt turn out well as many of the people bought into that hype, soon realized. Everything turned into a zerg dps fest. Some bosses in the world had to be nerfed, because of the way Tech work today, isnt as reliable when it comes to combat like that. They eventually tried to add healing back in slowly. But for a while they had a useless +Healing stat, and a few support classes that were pretty much useless and not going to get a group invite. Making their "Freedom of Build" philosophy obsolete.
All around bad idea. Action Combat is cool and all, but removal of vital combat roles such as defensive tanks and group support, or nerfing them down to being useless, just hasnt been shown to workout.
Combat worked better in Guild Wars 2 than in any strictly trinity combat game I've seen.
The problem with pure healing classes is that not very many people want to be pure healers. That means a lot of groups have to sit and wait around until a healer comes. If half of your "grouping" time is spent waiting for a healer (or tank), that's just not fun for a large chunk of the playerbase. That's a major factor in MMORPGs moving toward more soloing over the course of the past decade.
There are some people who do want to be healers, and they're very well catered to. If a lot of MMORPGs had no healer classes, so that a lot of the people who don't want to be healers weren't playing games that rely on healers, that might soften the imbalance substantially. Though in games that do have dedicated healers, it could also mean substantial movement away from healing by people who didn't really want to be a healer but got sick of spending half their time waiting for groups.
If there are going to be games that don't have dedicated healers, games have to make that work somehow. Some have, such as the Guild Wars 2 approach of everyone having some healing capability, or the Spiral Knights approach of there being very limited healing so you better not get hit much. Healing in Elsword is almost entirely healing yourself, and often from consumables, though Elesis does get substantial self-healing skills. All of those games notably have to do away with traditional MMORPG tanking, as without heavy healing from other players, a player who absorbs a ton of damage is going to end up dead and quickly.
There isn't--and shouldn't be--one single model of "all MMORPGs must do healing this way". There's plenty of room to innovate here, and "no healing in combat" could be part of a good solution, though other mechanics would really need to be designed around it.
The thing is Healers and Tanks, are like Leaders in real life. There are Few Leaders per Followers. Group encounters in combat need to have a functional group role or you just get an all out kill fest like CoD. Games like CoD appeal to those kind of gamers, because it really has no team responsibility. Its all Solo gameplay in a forced team design.
Trinity Combat is all about Team Efforts with Team Roles. In older games, yes the wait was long. But thats why tools were created to help speed that up. Guild Wars 2 and Rift, both for many years refused to add Grouping Tools, because the general assumption back then when WoW first added grouping tools, was that it ruined the game. But both GW2 and Rift suffered from the problem of finding groups. Rift had a Trinity, and Guild Wars 2, did not. So that myth that its the Healer/Tank thats making it hard to find a group, is just straight out proven wrong.
Even before Guild Wars 2 officially added grouping tools, you could assemble groups elsewhere about an order of magnitude faster than assembling groups in Vanilla WoW. And about an order of magnitude faster than in FFXIV with grouping tools if you're DPS.
The problem with pure healing classes is that not very many people want to be pure healers. That means a lot of groups have to sit and wait around until a healer comes. If half of your "grouping" time is spent waiting for a healer (or tank), that's just not fun for a large chunk of the playerbase. That's a major factor in MMORPGs moving toward more soloing over the course of the past decade.
There are some people who do want to be healers, and they're very well catered to. If a lot of MMORPGs had no healer classes, so that a lot of the people who don't want to be healers weren't playing games that rely on healers, that might soften the imbalance substantially. Though in games that do have dedicated healers, it could also mean substantial movement away from healing by people who didn't really want to be a healer but got sick of spending half their time waiting for groups.
If there are going to be games that don't have dedicated healers, games have to make that work somehow. Some have, such as the Guild Wars 2 approach of everyone having some healing capability, or the Spiral Knights approach of there being very limited healing so you better not get hit much. Healing in Elsword is almost entirely healing yourself, and often from consumables, though Elesis does get substantial self-healing skills. All of those games notably have to do away with traditional MMORPG tanking, as without heavy healing from other players, a player who absorbs a ton of damage is going to end up dead and quickly.
There isn't--and shouldn't be--one single model of "all MMORPGs must do healing this way". There's plenty of room to innovate here, and "no healing in combat" could be part of a good solution, though other mechanics would really need to be designed around it.
The thing is Healers and Tanks, are like Leaders in real life. There are Few Leaders per Followers. Group encounters in combat need to have a functional group role or you just get an all out kill fest like CoD. Games like CoD appeal to those kind of gamers, because it really has no team responsibility. Its all Solo gameplay in a forced team design.
Trinity Combat is all about Team Efforts with Team Roles. In older games, yes the wait was long. But thats why tools were created to help speed that up. Guild Wars 2 and Rift, both for many years refused to add Grouping Tools, because the general assumption back then when WoW first added grouping tools, was that it ruined the game. But both GW2 and Rift suffered from the problem of finding groups. Rift had a Trinity, and Guild Wars 2, did not. So that myth that its the Healer/Tank thats making it hard to find a group, is just straight out proven wrong.
Even before Guild Wars 2 officially added grouping tools, you could assemble groups elsewhere about an order of magnitude faster than assembling groups in Vanilla WoW. And about an order of magnitude faster than in FFXIV with grouping tools if you're DPS.
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No healer class and no healing in combat are two separate things.
The first one is easily doable and many games have flirted with this to a smaller or greater degree simply by giving everyone a reasonable amount of self-healing, mitigation, and dodging and blocking mechanics.
The second idea, no healing in combat, is sort of silly since any game that does this simply replaces healing with other forms of damage mitigation, avoidance, escapes and heavy-handed self-regeneration that amount to the same thing. If they don't, you just end-up with simplistic combat that relies on hitting hardest and hitting first and is over in seconds or combat with wet noodles that do barely any damage.
In-combat healing in MMOS and RPGs isn't done in 99% of games because developers are lazy and just copy each other - it's done this way because it produces more interesting fights with extra layers of decision making.
Evasion, mitigation, and yomi(EDIT: countering the counter type of gameplay, just checked and it's not as common of a term as I thought) style gameplay works really well for some genre's. Card games, Fighting games, brawler's, Stealth games, and similar. I mean lets be honest most games don't have healing in combat, and quite a few games aren't twitch fests on top of that.
Likewise you can shift some mechanics: like applying damage being more difficult, shift tactics towards preferring to CC an enemy down before attempting a damaging strike, or even making the act of initiating combat a part of the game itself(IE: honor bound knights, playing for the crowd, needing to first destroy someone's grace/protection first, investigating to prove a crime, or similar).
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You would have to make up for that with other potent support systems (like damage prevention akin to a GW1 protection monk).
I'm not interested in a support-free MMO, and I'd imagine most would share that opinion. DPS is great and all, but a game needs more than just dps to function.
Didnt Guild Wars 2's developers ANET demonize the Healer role when they were first hyping up the game. That didnt turn out well as many of the people bought into that hype, soon realized. Everything turned into a zerg dps fest. Some bosses in the world had to be nerfed, because of the way Tech work today, isnt as reliable when it comes to combat like that. They eventually tried to add healing back in slowly. But for a while they had a useless +Healing stat, and a few support classes that were pretty much useless and not going to get a group invite. Making their "Freedom of Build" philosophy obsolete.
All around bad idea. Action Combat is cool and all, but removal of vital combat roles such as defensive tanks and group support, or nerfing them down to being useless, just hasnt been shown to workout.
Combat worked better in Guild Wars 2 than in any strictly trinity combat game I've seen.
Naw, DAOC in its day was the best I've ever seen, but that's just me
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There is another factor as well,sure you can remove the healer and add in some cheesy ideas like ahem ...GW2 but then you have non plausible,non realistic ideas that at least to me just look dumb.Even still they are still healing effects just not an actual healer so you are not removing healing.
All a game needs to do is make a healer class fun to play,combat fun,interactive AND give players something to do while waiting.This area is tough to pull off w/o totally ruining immersion because an idea of like portable crafting on the fly is not one i really endorse but would allow players to say craft while waiting to form a group.Another aspect would be to allow players to instantly warp to the leader's camp which again ruins immersion but does help the problem so i could accept it.
Too many people playing SOLO games is what has ruined it as well too many elitist gamer's.FFXI had the right idea for grouping/game play and combat as a healer could do a LOT more than just heal.Teleporting,buffs,removing status effects,providing haste,raise the dead,as well could take part in a player to player combo attack as part of the very unique Renkai system that NO other game has ever had.
Bottom line is i have no idea WHY anyone would want to remove healing and if there is a reason it is most certainly fixable.So rather than remove the idea fix the problem.
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I can't imagine having a horror game that has Healing designed like a normal RPG(especially Cosmic Horror like lovecraft).
That or you want to shift mechanics more towards prevention and evasion. An MMO where you're strongly encouraged to use stealth(on all classes), would probably be better with a lot less healing to encourage ambush mechanics over tank and spank.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
The fundamental problem is that if groups require exact proportions of various classes (e.g., FFXIV's one healer, one tank, two DPS), the classes players play are not going to perfectly match those proportions everywhere. Make healers more fun to play so that too many people want to be a healer and then healers end up waiting on groups and you have basically the same problem as before. Trying to get the balance right is like trying to flip a coin and have it land on its edge--and repeating that every single time.
If you're going to have dedicated healer or tank classes, I don't see how to get around the problem of required group compositions. What you need is to be able to grab enough random people to fill a group and usually have their set of classes work for a group, rather than sitting and waiting for the missing role. If you don't have that, then grouping in your game simply doesn't work and you've created a solo game whether you intended to or not.
That didnt turn out well as many of the people bought into that hype, soon realized. Everything turned into a zerg dps fest.
Some bosses in the world had to be nerfed, because of the way Tech work today, isnt as reliable when it comes to combat like that. They eventually tried to add healing back in slowly. But for a while they had a useless +Healing stat, and a few support classes that were pretty much useless and not going to get a group invite. Making their "Freedom of Build" philosophy obsolete.
All around bad idea. Action Combat is cool and all, but removal of vital combat roles such as defensive tanks and group support, or nerfing them down to being useless, just hasnt been shown to workout.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Trinity Combat is all about Team Efforts with Team Roles. In older games, yes the wait was long. But thats why tools were created to help speed that up. Guild Wars 2 and Rift, both for many years refused to add Grouping Tools, because the general assumption back then when WoW first added grouping tools, was that it ruined the game. But both GW2 and Rift suffered from the problem of finding groups. Rift had a Trinity, and Guild Wars 2, did not. So that myth that its the Healer/Tank thats making it hard to find a group, is just straight out proven wrong.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
And by giving them Solo damage abilities, it was impossible to take that away from the same player once they reached Endgame without players looking at them side eye, like a Paladin in Vanilla WoW/Early TBC. So they said, F it, lets just get rid of the pure 100% support classes, and go the hybrid route. This way we can build our content around that, and not have to take DPS away from support classes when they reach endgame.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Now, you can still have deep combat on a class-by-class basis, but roles help to create more interesting tactics.
So, if you're dropping to just tank and dps, or even just dps, then I'm not interested. If you are dropping healers but still have plenty of other roles then I'll take a second look.
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You could have healing as a secondary ability, for two classes. And tanking as a secondary ability for two classes. You still only need one "tank" and one "healer" in a group. Not perfect but mitigates the finding group issue.
You say "THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM" as if it is a real problem. You want one size fits all and everyone is replaceable style of gaming. That doesn't make your way the one true way it only makes it different. So don't call it THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM. Own it by saying your problem. That is my problem with your post.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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You could be creative and have a two target system. Say the enemy and your groups tank. When you heal the tank with your healing spell #1, any over-healing goes on the enemy target as damage. Other spells might have other effects like debuffs on enemies and so on and so forth.
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https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Part of the reason for this system is due to the training -- doctors require much more training than the average soldier. It isn't wise for an army to risk highly trained personnel in advance positions near active combat.
Another issue is that healing requires conditions not readily found on the front lines. Sanitation is one factor, availability of materials another, and conditions conducive to concentration are a third.
Finally, the mechanism of healing in-place takes away other battlefield factors, such as the panic and breaking when soldiers fall nearby. The combat healer is directly opposite one fundamental human psychological reaction -- the fight or flight decision. One way we judge people as 'brave' or 'courageous' by their willingness to stand and fight when others run away. MMORPGs have effectively restricted players from those realistic commendations.
In combat healing reduces games to Incoming Damage vs. Friendly Healing rates. Breaking the reliance on hit points would help, as people wouldn't be able to calculate how much time they have left. (Ask a doctor how many times a scruffy man can hit you in the face with an axe. You will not get a meaningful answer, and will probably get a psychiatric note on your medical files). Without that knowledge, there would be danger and fear in the game. I feel that combat wouldn't be something a character routinely engages in 100+ times in a day.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
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https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
And before you say "The trinity is an RPG element that goes back as far as D&D" I'd like to say I play 3.5 every single Saturday. And no, the trinity is not a thing in D&D. None of the core classes are tanks or healers in the sense they are in MMOs. And the Healer class they implemented later is considered a massively underpowered class for anything but an NPC henchman.
Paladins, druids, and clerics can all hold their own in combat (Or seriously kick butt depending on the build, my paladin's smite has a +35 to hit and averages over 100 damage at level 12 and will double when I take my level 15 feat. And he's a Charisma based pally, not strength based.) and mainly use healing only when it is absolutely critical or after combat, and bards a skill based buffer class. They're a support class but NONE of the core healing classes are one trick ponies that have healing as their main focus.
That person might be better off joining a guild or starting one if people don't want him in their guild.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
This would have 3 major implications:
1. First and most importantly, tanks would become more like D&D tanks. They rush headfirst into the fray but there is is no expectation that they are able to hold EVERYTHING's attention. Even things with provoke like abilities are going to have to pick a single target for it. As such they are less focused on taking massive damage and grabbing thing's attention and more focuses on actually killing things or CC, or something. With proper positioning they might attract a lot of attention but not all of it.
2. Healers cannot expect the tank to hold all the aggro. Therefore they need to have a plan for what happens when something breaks off and comes at them. They need armor, CC, and maybe even some damage of their own. They need to be well rounded.
3. DPS, especially melee DPS cannot effectively be a glass cannon. The tank cannot hold all the aggro for you, so you need to be able survive on your own.
The first one is easily doable and many games have flirted with this to a smaller or greater degree simply by giving everyone a reasonable amount of self-healing, mitigation, and dodging and blocking mechanics.
The second idea, no healing in combat, is sort of silly since any game that does this simply replaces healing with other forms of damage mitigation, avoidance, escapes and heavy-handed self-regeneration that amount to the same thing. If they don't, you just end-up with simplistic combat that relies on hitting hardest and hitting first and is over in seconds or combat with wet noodles that do barely any damage.
In-combat healing in MMOS and RPGs isn't done in 99% of games because developers are lazy and just copy each other - it's done this way because it produces more interesting fights with extra layers of decision making.
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Likewise you can shift some mechanics: like applying damage being more difficult, shift tactics towards preferring to CC an enemy down before attempting a damaging strike, or even making the act of initiating combat a part of the game itself(IE: honor bound knights, playing for the crowd, needing to first destroy someone's grace/protection first, investigating to prove a crime, or similar).
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon