It depends on what else the game offers. For instance in City of Villains there was a scarcity in healing builds unlike City of Heroes and I recall playing a shielding Mastermind. Yes it was pretty hard controlling my pets and shielding everyone and their main pets too and masterminds were being played a lot and when you join a group with 6 other masterminds you have to shield you might get a nervous breakdown but I enjoyed playing the character a lot.
I also enjoyed playing a debuffer again sorry same example but City of Heroes comes to mind and I have played with groups with no healer but my debuffs and buffs were enough to keep everyone alive and going.
So no healing per se is fine but you must have a game that allows people to have skills and roles that while not including healing allows the player to feel special and that they are contributing. One of the reasons I found GW2 particularly sad for me personally as a player was that I was like everyone else just throwing damage and I never felt I was important.
I have a question for your question. Is this a game without classes? Does this eliminate an entire class? If not, would there be other support classes like debuffers? Would each class get their own ways of making an opponent vulnerable?
It depends on what else the game offers. For instance in City of Villains there was a scarcity in healing builds unlike City of Heroes and I recall playing a shielding Mastermind. Yes it was pretty hard controlling my pets and shielding everyone and their main pets too and masterminds were being played a lot and when you join a group with 6 other masterminds you have to shield you might get a nervous breakdown but I enjoyed playing the character a lot.
I also enjoyed playing a debuffer again sorry same example but City of Heroes comes to mind and I have played with groups with no healer but my debuffs and buffs were enough to keep everyone alive and going.
So no healing per se is fine but you must have a game that allows people to have skills and roles that while not including healing allows the player to feel special and that they are contributing. One of the reasons I found GW2 particularly sad for me personally as a player was that I was like everyone else just throwing damage and I never felt I was important.
YES YES YES! I initially felt like that with GW2. I have to say since I started playing again with the HoT release I've found random group events frequent enough to satisfy my support itch. I use my necro, elementalist, or guardian. Still not quite CoX though.
It depends on what else the game offers. For instance in City of Villains there was a scarcity in healing builds unlike City of Heroes and I recall playing a shielding Mastermind. Yes it was pretty hard controlling my pets and shielding everyone and their main pets too and masterminds were being played a lot and when you join a group with 6 other masterminds you have to shield you might get a nervous breakdown but I enjoyed playing the character a lot.
I also enjoyed playing a debuffer again sorry same example but City of Heroes comes to mind and I have played with groups with no healer but my debuffs and buffs were enough to keep everyone alive and going.
So no healing per se is fine but you must have a game that allows people to have skills and roles that while not including healing allows the player to feel special and that they are contributing. One of the reasons I found GW2 particularly sad for me personally as a player was that I was like everyone else just throwing damage and I never felt I was important.
CoX was great for that but was really designed with that in mind. The devs really put effort into their design to allow a lot of options.
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?"
I'd be ok with it, as long as other versions of in combat support were available. Without healing, active defense would have to be the replacement. Support could be in the form of CC and/or Buffers/Debuffers. There may or may not need to be some version of a cover system, depending on what genre we're discussing.
Additionally, what type of out of combat healing are we discussing. In a fantasy setting, would something like a Bard be able to play a song of regeneration out of combat? In a more modern setting, would there be something akin to a medic that tends to wounds out of combat? If you are just talking about having to sit and wait to regen after every combat encounter, then you aren't talking about a very fun setting.
Given the proper mechanics, it could work. Damage in combat would most likely need to be slow rolling, so defense could play a role, with potential for large burst damage that could be actively mitigated/avoided.
CC and Debuffing seems to be out as a trend in mmoRPG designs. Kind of sad.
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?"
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?"
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?
My response would be to stack mitigation and avoidance and play from range.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
When i go to the doctor they dont magically pull a cure up their ass. It takes time to heal. War medics? yeah, those take their sweet time too.
It should be that way in games too. It should always be easier to get hurt than to get healed.
If we are going to have instant healing every time we are about to die in game, mind as well replace them with a new class and give everyone instant potions they can refill with a button.
I'd be ok with it, as long as other versions of in combat support were available. Without healing, active defense would have to be the replacement. Support could be in the form of CC and/or Buffers/Debuffers. There may or may not need to be some version of a cover system, depending on what genre we're discussing.
Additionally, what type of out of combat healing are we discussing. In a fantasy setting, would something like a Bard be able to play a song of regeneration out of combat? In a more modern setting, would there be something akin to a medic that tends to wounds out of combat? If you are just talking about having to sit and wait to regen after every combat encounter, then you aren't talking about a very fun setting.
Given the proper mechanics, it could work. Damage in combat would most likely need to be slow rolling, so defense could play a role, with potential for large burst damage that could be actively mitigated/avoided.
CC and Debuffing seems to be out as a trend in mmoRPG designs. Kind of sad.
I'm not really seeing this. Debuffing, yes. But CC is huge. Unfortunately it's all in the form of hard CC. Things that completely shut you down like stuns and knockdowns so you can sit there getting wailed on by your opponents and completely unable to respond.
This guy has terrible taste in music but is a great PvPer:
Darkfall is an amazing example of CC done right. The glowing blue circle's you'll see are called Wall of Force and pull you inside but don't render you completely unable to move. You'll also see eye rot and other abilities that massively obscure your ability to see, but again you still have full control of your character.
100% better than the stop and go and pray your CC break isn't on cooldown of WoW and it's legion of clones.
Don't really think it is a good fit for a group play MMO. You basically would be doing away with healing classes all together, which would alienate all the players that enjoy that style of play the most. It would be fine to do that as long as they stuck to their game plan and didn't change it down the road to try and attract more players. What you describe just has that arena feel to it where you don't need anything but dps and mitigation.
I think your view is very narrow - as in MMORPG games like WoW, FFXIV, Rift that arw designed to have healing classes.
But it doesn't have to be like that, game design can be done to where on combat healing is not necessary and the game retains combat depth.
Many turn based games have proven this.
My view as narrow and I was talking about MMORPG's in particular with what I said. I guess I should have put RPG on there. This design doesn't fit those type of game types that well. It is more of a MOBA or arena type game style.
As I've said earlier in the topic my primary role has been healer in most games that offer it since the original Guild Wars. I'm damn good at it, and I really enjoy it but...
I in no way feel alienated when it isn't an option.
Some healers may feel that way but certainly not all of us. There is a lot of pressure to be a healer in games that have them if you are good at that role, and sometimes it's nice to not have that. Or to be able to play a healer that is still good at other things because the game doesn't allow for pure healers.
I have a question for your question. Is this a game without classes? Does this eliminate an entire class? If not, would there be other support classes like debuffers? Would each class get their own ways of making an opponent vulnerable?
It's a purely hypothetical game where you've done your initial research and are thinking "yes, this sounds sweet", but come across "no healing in combat mechanics". So the answer to those questions, are the ones you want them to be.
I think it's a pretty justifiable and interesting question since there is rarely an RPG that doesn't have some sort of "The Healing Master" or similar. And that that mechanic of healing missing is even rarer in MMORPGs. ______
Now if I were to pick for you:
I'd say there is a good amount of buffers and debuffers. With the ability to apply a small buff/debuff being a little easier to apply than damage(One button AoE or similar). While applying a big debuff like a stun is a little harder than applying damage(A slow moving skill shot or similar).
Something that isn't necessarily classed based, but if you veer too far from having a "class like build" you'll find yourself punished in a few aspects(too low of base stats, not enough adaptability, incapable of standing by yourself, High susceptibility to debuffs, 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."
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.
Most people who play healers love being pure healers. I am one of the few people who really enjoys playing a pure healer and I like to go 100% healing in my healing build aside from potentially adding survivability to PvP healing builds.
I think the reason you don't see more of us is because leveling as a pure healer is awful. You kill everything super slow, so with all games except games where you get NPC companions (SWTOR, Guild Wars etc.) or where you are leveling with someone else you go from 1-Max as a DPS build then immediately switch over to full healer.
For instance in ArcheAge, I went through 1-30 in a group as a healer and when our group started leveling separately I went from 30-55 doing nothing but crafting and dungeons. Wasn't worth it to try to quest anymore.
So IMO the solution is give players NPC allies to level with, or give some enjoyable ways to level from 1-MAX without having to either solo or sit around waiting for a group forever.
That being said, I can enjoy a game with no or light healing in combat. For one thing as an experienced healer I feel pressured to play the healer role whenever it's present, because it's in high demand and I'm damn good at it. Removing that role allows me to branch out and try new things a bit more.
The other thing is that when there are traditional healers that do massive healing in combat those healers end up being the focus of combat. As a healer I know extremely well that in a PvP fight, the objective is to keep your healers alive longer than the enemy healers. Do that and you will win the vast majority of all fights. Removing healers from fights completely changes up the tactics, sometimes in a very positive way.
I've also seen some REALLY cool non-magical out of combat healing systems. If you have "Zap, your wounds are gone!" healers, then there is no point to such systems. Which is a darn shame.
What you describe is a problem of the game radically changing when you hit the level cap. If a game needs a bunch of pure healers at the level cap, but the leveling content makes it horrible on healers, then the game is really screwed up.
I also find it interesting that the two people who quoted and replied to that paragraph said basically the opposite: hardly any healers want to be pure healers, versus most healers want to be pure healers.
A game needs to support about the same percentage of players being pure healers (or any other role) at every level range. That's one reason why the abrupt transition from solo content to group/raid content doesn't work.
If you want the game to be about grouping, you have to start the game being about grouping almost immediately. Elsword is the only game I've seen do that, and doesn't have dedicated healers (or tanks, for that matter) at all. Some early MMORPGs that I never played were supposedly about grouping almost from the start, but made it impractical to get a group.
What if there were an MMORPG where you had required roles and everything was grouping, and it was also easy to get a group? Or would the required roles give you the FFXIV problem of some roles having to spend a large fraction of their "grouping" time waiting for a group?
You can have MMO's that dont have healers, but i prefer the ones that do, even Eve Online has healing in it, although its labelled shield and armour repping, although your not hardcore until you have hull repped in combat
I enjoy playing Healer classes, if a game doesn't have them, then that is one less reason to play it. Everyone has preferences in terms of gameplay, if you remove one type of gameplay then the games appeal is also limited in a similar manner.
I prefer pure healing roles. If a game is more survival type, then I don't mind it as much, so long as there are roles that make meds for outside of battle and heal their comrades. However, I would still largely prefer any mmo to have healers, even in a classless mmo, I'd rather play support based and healers. Maybe just make finding spell books really hard, and hard to max out the healer skills, so there aren't many healers out there, just those who want to find the stuff to increase your healer abilities and skills.
Ummm...NOPE!!! As a dedicated healer/support player there is just sooooo much hate towards healers and healing classes in general in MMOs...Everyone wants to be DPS and go pew pew pew pew nuke nuke nuke nuke...DEAD!!!!!
100% better than the stop and go and pray your CC break isn't on cooldown of WoW and it's legion of clones.
I remember CoX having resists. You could be locked down, but you could also put enhancments that boosted your resistance. So say you would be immune or would be have your stats decreased in some way versus completely blocked. Unless, you were going against several opponents placing a similar hold or debuff on you. This stacking debuff/hold came in handy in big boss fights. You would have to hit things from time to time. You weren't so 'clicky' trying to fight holds. That was and kind of still is my issue with GW2. Hold...click...blinded...click...tormented...click. You're too busy clicking away debuffs that you don't get to swing your actual weapon. haha
Oh there were some tank builds that had tons of built in resistance depending on type, but you still had to occassional click depending on tank type.
I like a variety of classes healer class included. I like topping someone off or tossing them a shield. What never made sense to me (even though it's such a popular combat model) is tank taunt mechanics. I liked tanking but one class that holds a mob while others pew pew, so dumb. Or runs as a healer where you stare at hp bars, man so many yrs of that and so boring.
I find it much more engaging without that when I can play any class in a group where threat is on all. Takes much more strategy as a grp and less need for the exact class group combo. Best thing you only have yourself to blame when you dps or heal too much and die. Good thing some new mmo's went that way.
healing in combat makes fights/battles last long that's one of the things I've always liked in mmos, sometimes dealing with a stalemate waiting for someone to make a good play just makes things that much more interesting. 2-5 minute duels are not my cup of tea.
The acronym MMORPG use to mean Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
As a long term healer/support, I wouldn't be much interested
I'm the same, that doesn't mean the idea couldn't be integrated, however. If I could play a class that uses support mechanics during the fight (perhaps buffing/debuffing) and then can heal the party after the battle is over, that would interest me.
You can have MMO's that dont have healers, but i prefer the ones that do, even Eve Online has healing in it, although its labelled shield and armour repping, although your not hardcore until you have hull repped in combat
I enjoy playing Healer classes, if a game doesn't have them, then that is one less reason to play it. Everyone has preferences in terms of gameplay, if you remove one type of gameplay then the games appeal is also limited in a similar manner.
EvE's healing can be intense. While EvE's combat has a lot of the worst downsides when it comes to tab targeting, when it came to a healer countering the enemy, the ability to use foresight, and the ability to bluff/play the enemy it does a really good job.
There's even a few exciting places to play a healer like in drifter hives when the spawns/shift-change go/goes wrong. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice watching a near certain defeat get turned around by the right pilot and logi catching them before the whole fleet gets eaten through. ___________________
That being said I think that EvE if it took a different path could have had some other interesting mechanic instead of healing. Which could have gone a good way to discouraging N+1 mechanics in SOV game play. Prevention in the form of directional FLAK 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."
Without healers you might as well just make combat in the form of a diablo-clone or an fps/tps. For better or worse mmorpg combat is static and as long as that remain true something will be missing if group-healing is gone.
Without being able to play a healer I'm just not that interested in mmorpg.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
I'd play that. I've always thought that an out of combat surgery system in which healing rate depends on the skill (whether character or player) of the surgeon would do well in an MMORPG.
If it is to create a different gameplay dynamic great. If it is to make the game even more solo than the MMOs of today which are already made for Hans Solo, then no.
Comments
I also enjoyed playing a debuffer again sorry same example but City of Heroes comes to mind and I have played with groups with no healer but my debuffs and buffs were enough to keep everyone alive and going.
So no healing per se is fine but you must have a game that allows people to have skills and roles that while not including healing allows the player to feel special and that they are contributing. One of the reasons I found GW2 particularly sad for me personally as a player was that I was like everyone else just throwing damage and I never felt I was important.
CoX was great for that but was really designed with that in mind. The devs really put effort into their design to allow a lot of options.
I felt like you in regards to GW2.
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?"
CC and Debuffing seems to be out as a trend in mmoRPG designs. Kind of sad.
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?"
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?"
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
When i go to the doctor they dont magically pull a cure up their ass. It takes time to heal.
War medics? yeah, those take their sweet time too.
It should be that way in games too. It should always be easier to get hurt than to get healed.
If we are going to have instant healing every time we are about to die in game, mind as well replace them with a new class and give everyone instant potions they can refill with a button.
This guy has terrible taste in music but is a great PvPer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWgmTF5eVpI
Darkfall is an amazing example of CC done right. The glowing blue circle's you'll see are called Wall of Force and pull you inside but don't render you completely unable to move. You'll also see eye rot and other abilities that massively obscure your ability to see, but again you still have full control of your character.
100% better than the stop and go and pray your CC break isn't on cooldown of WoW and it's legion of clones.
I in no way feel alienated when it isn't an option.
Some healers may feel that way but certainly not all of us. There is a lot of pressure to be a healer in games that have them if you are good at that role, and sometimes it's nice to not have that. Or to be able to play a healer that is still good at other things because the game doesn't allow for pure healers.
It's a purely hypothetical game where you've done your initial research and are thinking "yes, this sounds sweet", but come across "no healing in combat mechanics". So the answer to those questions, are the ones you want them to be.
I think it's a pretty justifiable and interesting question since there is rarely an RPG that doesn't have some sort of "The Healing Master" or similar. And that that mechanic of healing missing is even rarer in MMORPGs.
______
Now if I were to pick for you:
I'd say there is a good amount of buffers and debuffers. With the ability to apply a small buff/debuff being a little easier to apply than damage(One button AoE or similar). While applying a big debuff like a stun is a little harder than applying damage(A slow moving skill shot or similar).
Something that isn't necessarily classed based, but if you veer too far from having a "class like build" you'll find yourself punished in a few aspects(too low of base stats, not enough adaptability, incapable of standing by yourself, High susceptibility to debuffs, 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."
I also find it interesting that the two people who quoted and replied to that paragraph said basically the opposite: hardly any healers want to be pure healers, versus most healers want to be pure healers.
A game needs to support about the same percentage of players being pure healers (or any other role) at every level range. That's one reason why the abrupt transition from solo content to group/raid content doesn't work.
If you want the game to be about grouping, you have to start the game being about grouping almost immediately. Elsword is the only game I've seen do that, and doesn't have dedicated healers (or tanks, for that matter) at all. Some early MMORPGs that I never played were supposedly about grouping almost from the start, but made it impractical to get a group.
What if there were an MMORPG where you had required roles and everything was grouping, and it was also easy to get a group? Or would the required roles give you the FFXIV problem of some roles having to spend a large fraction of their "grouping" time waiting for a group?
I enjoy playing Healer classes, if a game doesn't have them, then that is one less reason to play it. Everyone has preferences in terms of gameplay, if you remove one type of gameplay then the games appeal is also limited in a similar manner.
Oh there were some tank builds that had tons of built in resistance depending on type, but you still had to occassional click depending on tank type.
I find it much more engaging without that when I can play any class in a group where threat is on all. Takes much more strategy as a grp and less need for the exact class group combo. Best thing you only have yourself to blame when you dps or heal too much and die. Good thing some new mmo's went that way.
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
There's even a few exciting places to play a healer like in drifter hives when the spawns/shift-change go/goes wrong. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice watching a near certain defeat get turned around by the right pilot and logi catching them before the whole fleet gets eaten through.
___________________
That being said I think that EvE if it took a different path could have had some other interesting mechanic instead of healing. Which could have gone a good way to discouraging N+1 mechanics in SOV game play. Prevention in the form of directional FLAK 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."
Without being able to play a healer I'm just not that interested in mmorpg.