Poll: MMORPGS Without Dedicated Healers

[The_Vigilant]

It seems virtually certain at this point that Guild Wars 2 will not incorporate Monks, the dedicated healing class of its predecessor. Ironically, I always felt Guild Wars had the most interesting take on the medic, one based more on battlefield awareness and reflex. Change is always scary, and this one has me cowering in the corner. It begs the question: can tactical, team-oriented MMORPGS remain interesting, satisfying, and challenging in the absence of a class committed exclusively to redbar management. Could it even improve gameplay? ArenaNet says yes. I say no. What do you say?

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

I LOVE playing the healer in MMOs! I won't touch one without a healing class.

I think my personality has something to do with it, but I find it more rewarding to be the support of a whole group and help people than kill enemies. Call me a pussy, I guess. I also love being a scarcity since a lot of people don't play healers, makes it easier to join groups.

So yes, I am against this decision 100%.

 

[=RedMenace=]

I think Tabula Rasa tried that... Sort of... You could pretty much roll through the early dungeons solo and in the later dungeons 'tanks' and 'healers' were just a liability since 'dps' classes were dishing out ungodly punishment (that could not be out-agroed by a 'tank') and bosses went down faster than they could take down half the team.

Result: dps-fest clusterf*ck and a boring game with no challenge whatsoever (if you are a dps).

 

[evilneko]

While I think it would be pretty cool to see a game break the Holy Trinity of Tank-DPS-Healer, the post above me makes me skeptical that it could work.

I don't play mumorpugers anymore myself, though I might at least try one again, if it had an interesting implementation like that.

 

[The_Vigilant]

I have a hard time seeing the ArenaNet logic here. Specialization always engenders efficiency, and one of the key learning experiences of the gaming industry is that roleplaying is more rewarding and impressive when you are truly a master of something rather than a jack of all trades. It's also more fun when you are able to focus on the area of your mastery. It helps develop a mentality synchronized with the character you're playing. Requiring every skill bar to have a heal, or every member of the party to commit as much attention to red bars as to performing their own unique responsiblities seems regressive.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

its way more interesting to make healing more fun to do. or to take new approaches. Like the Sigmarites in warhammer online, heal by doing damage.
Or use some mechanic like the warden class in lord of the rings online has. 3 or 4 basic attack or defense skills that have to be cast in the right order to trigger combos. That was an all new feel of playing.
I like to play a healer, but the basic healmonkeys as wow priests get pretty boring. stressfull and full of fraction of a second management, but still utterly boring.
Give the healers something else to do than just watching redbars and pressing the "greater heal" or "minor group heal" buttons.

 

[infohippie]

I say yes. I really want to see MMOs break away from the Holy Trinity of tank, heals & DPS. Everyone should be able to deal with some aggro, whether by evasion, blocking, armour, or other methods and everyone should be able to do some healing. Maybe fights should be designed so that you win without heals, or retreat, or die. Then healing takes place after the fight, through more mundane and slower means such as bandages - this could allow opportunities for different kinds of gameplay.

 

[The_Vigilant]

Give the healers something else to do than just watching redbars and pressing the "greater heal" or "minor group heal" buttons.

I thought Guild Wars did an excellent job of that. So good, in fact, that Monking for top tier GvG was one of the most nuanced and interesting roles to play.

ArenaNet's presumable course of action is also bizarre given that GW had one of the best built-in target calling systems I've ever seen. As far as PvP was concerned, it was a core element of gameplay given the relative strength of the backline. Spiking was completely necessary in all but the most intense "pressure" builds. So what kind of perpendicular universe are they planning for the sequel?

I suppose it might also be appropriate to pose the question: does the nature of this debate change when discussing PvE as opposed to PvP? For me, the more interesting discussion concerns PvP, but several people have mentioned the holy trinity of tank, dps, and healing which is clearly a PvE notion. Perhaps removing healers is more appealing in a PvE context than a PvP one...?

 

[LordLundar]

City of Heroes does really well in breaking from the Trinity to a degree. If you try to beat a really tough enemy trying the Trinity, you will get wafflestomped. The key in those fights is to buff yourselves up and debuff the tar out of the enemy, which everyone can do (there's no such thing as straight physical damage in the game. There's always an additional effect.) and if people remember that, the fights become feasible.

The problem with this is the variables don't allow for dynamic fights. you can in theory handle any fight in the game with any group composition but it's not the most exciting fight. Consider WoW's fights, which can have several phases and different mechanics. If you were to try to take the CoH approach into WoW it would fail miserably because the fights are designed around a static style of group.

It's just two different types of combat mechanics. Static mechanics but dynamic groups, or dynamic mechanics and static groups. Having both just doesn't work as there needs to be something static to base the fight on.

 

[The K-man]

Taking away healers could work, but only if done properly. In the above given tabula rasa example of dps just simply being able to kill stuff really quickly, that would be an example of removing healers done poorly.

If dps/tanks were given abilities to mitigate or heal some dmg during fights, it could turn out well. Making players have to respond to the environment in a fight and react to abilities being used makes for interesting gameplay. Giving people the ability to just kill things really quick can be fun in the short term, but does not provide an engaging experience. On the other hand, giving people the ability to outlast if they use abilities in the right times/right scenarios provides good long term enjoyment.

Bringing the argument over to PvP however, healers play very differently, and removing them would have a different effect. This would more force the idea of super high dps so people would have the ability to kill another person before that person kills them. Thats pretty uninteresting gameplay, but for anyone not playing a healer in PvP already, thats pretty close to what it is anyway.

Bottom line i suppose is this, removing healers could make mmorpgs more engaging for people that dont like playing healers, but only if done right. However, there are people that truly enjoy playing healers and nothing else, and these people would be left out in the cold.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

The idea of Guild Wars 2 is that preventing damage is more interesting than fixing it, so there'll be a larger variety of defensive skills for all classes.

They also want to make watching the health of the group, a group effort, everybody has to watch each other's backs, so every class will also have a few healing skills.

And really, I'm fine with this, why should only the healer have to watch the health of the group like a hawk while those damn rangers can just pew with reckless abandon and without a care in the world?

I find it an interesting decision, I won't say that healers have to go since I've mained them in several games including the first Guild Wars, but I certainly am willing to try things out in GW2.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

Give the healers something else to do than just watching redbars and pressing the "greater heal" or "minor group heal" buttons.

I thought Guild Wars did an excellent job of that. So good, in fact, that Monking for top tier GvG was one of the most nuanced and interesting roles to play.

ArenaNet's presumable course of action is also bizarre given that GW had one of the best built-in target calling systems I've ever seen. As far as PvP was concerned, it was a core element of gameplay given the relative strength of the backline. Spiking was completely necessary in all but the most intense "pressure" builds. So what kind of perpendicular universe are they planning for the sequel?

I suppose it might also be appropriate to pose the question: does the nature of this debate change when discussing PvE as opposed to PvP? For me, the more interesting discussion concerns PvP, but several people have mentioned the holy trinity of tank, dps, and healing which is clearly a PvE notion. Perhaps removing healers is more appealing in a PvE context than a PvP one...?

I once came up against an all monk team in GW. My team was well balanced, a bit of this a bit of that. We dished out damage, they just healed it. our monks kept us healed because their monks were all retr or healing spec. it took hours for the game to end, but it was really really fun. We lost.

 

[bificommander]

I don't think it should be removed from every MMO ever, but I like the idea of doing without. I still occasionally play GW, and while I admit that the system is fun for people who like playing healers, it sucks for everyone else. Every other class is optional in your hard mode team, but you need a monk. One ritualist can take over one of the two healer slots, but not both due to the mechanics. It's become slightly more tolerable with the introduction of heroes, but for your large hard mode parties, this means running suboptimally.

As for their promises for GW2, it doesn't sound they'll make it just a dps fest. You can choose to play support or control too. And the party support skills look interesting, in that they are all supposed to affect an area rather than the one selected healthbar in your party window. Positioning will be more important, and the support-players will hopefully spend more time looking at the screen than at the health bars (I suppose in high-level play in GW1 looking at the health bars was not enough any more, but frankly I never got that good).

Of course it remains to be seen how well they live up to their promises (some of the non-scripted footage of battles looks disappointingly static and classic) but I do feel this is worth checking out. I think even players who enjoyed the monk can have their fun (Guardian sounds good for them, as does a water-elementalist or an appropriately build engineer). And if you can't enjoy a game without having a dedicated healer, there are still plenty of MMO's for you.

 

[LostCrusader]

I quit guild wars because of the holy trinity mentality preventing me from getting a party with anything other than warrior, elementalist, or monk. Anything that changes that is a plus to me.

 

[9thRequiem]

I LOVE playing the healer in MMOs! I won't touch one without a healing class.

I think my personality has something to do with it, but I find it more rewarding to be the support of a whole group and help people than kill enemies. Call me a pussy, I guess. I also love being a scarcity since a lot of people don't play healers, makes it easier to join groups.

So yes, I am against this decision 100%.

The big difference is removing the Heal class, and instead allowing having Support. This is different is terms of being Proactive vs Reactive. Reactive covers Healers. The idea is you wait for something bad to happen, then heal up the damage. Proactive is about throwing out protection to stop the bad thing happening.
Pure Healers represent a terrible way of looking at combat : looking at health bars and making sure they are high enough.

It also makes each party member able to be diverse. Sure, you can have someone invest heavily in support while another goes heavy damage, but each person with a single task to do makes the experience boring.

 

[Ickorus]

I like the idea of having to look ot for my own arse, feels like it would actually make the game a bit more fun for me, I also hope it means that weget some support abilities to assist the team too.

I play LoL sometimes and when I do I love to play as Lux for the fact that she is so useful in team fights, not only does she deal high damage but she's bloody good for support with her slows stops and shields. If GW2 can make me feel that useful then i'll be very happy.

 

[The Lunatic]

... That's like not having a tank class.

Kinda a silly idea.

 

[BoredDragon]

I don't see how you get stuff done without a healer unless everyone has healing abilities. If that's the case it's going to be hard to balance them and make the healing powers feel unique

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I love playing the healer so I would hate to lose that from multiplayers.

 

[Bebus]

I think somebody mentioned above, but City of Heroes does this fairly well. The typical 'healer' power set, the Empath, only has 3 heals out of 9 powers (and one of these is a 'sacrifice' type move, not for regular use!). The rest are buffs. Making your character harder to hit, do more damage, regenerate stamina faster, etc.

The game has a heavy emphasis on debuffing and controlling type powers. Who cares that you don't have a healer when the enemies have their accuracy at 5%, or are all too busy being knocked on their arses to attack? The defender class was always so much fun, whether you were a Kinetic who specialises in transferring your enemies' power to your allies, or a Cold Dominator who can encase your allies in icey shields as well as freeze your opponents.

Much more interesting way to play a support character than just watching health bars all day! But alas, with all of these interesting things to do, every single WoW player who came over sent the old message "U H3alor?"