Kelthar
11-18-2008, 04:35 AM
I'm not claiming to have all the keys to solve absolutely all the problems existing in Warhammer Online. But I'm an old fart, that wasted a good part of his life in an awful lot of the MMOs out there and for a reason that I ignore, I always ended up with a healer as my main.
I'm tired of MMOs that fail to realise, one after another, that a well thought design is the key, that you can't just throw a bunch of players against each others and hope they will create a wonderful game together, filling the lacks themselves.
I took part in a few healing discussions. First I thought like many that the game would never change, it was pointless trying to fight what was broken and that we should just try to improve that dumbed down version a little bit ... but that's not satisfying, it's just hiding the problems, giving them a better shape for people to swallow their fun and pride.
I believe that if we want this game to succeed we need to stop thinking that nothing big can be changed, and we need to point at the real troubles, even if they are deep into the game. Mythic has the power to change things, and maybe if we insist on the fact that wrapping the problems into candy-paper will not be enough, that they have to solve the real issues, maybe, and I say maybe, they will do something.
The only sure thing is that if we say nothing, and ignore the real problems, they will not disappear. So here is an example, a humble one, of what could be changed in the healing to give it another dimension. It will show how it improves the healer's gameplay but also it straight consequences on the other classes, and how, in the end, improves the entire game.
1- Disclaimer
This thread containing the discussion about the healing itself is there :
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184445
There are plenty of opinions, on the nerfs, wether it was needed or not, how it would influence the game and so on, but at the end I had to mess into that business out of frustration. I threw my opinion on the table, backed with facts and logic.
You are all free to disagree with me and I'd be really happy to discuss it all, as long as I don't have to repeat myself too much, but do it in the thread I linked, there is no need to create yet another clone of it.
In this current thread I am merily bringing an example of what I believe to be the right direction to take. You can merily discuss the spell in itself, its influence on the game, what it would change, what it wouldn't, just keep it on topic, remember that the debate on the healing itself, is in the other thread. This is the only respect I'm asking for.
Why making a new thread just for that ? Because I don't want a well written example to be lost on page #12540212102 of a random thread, being forgotten, and seeing people going back once again to hps VS dps considerations.
I will also easily admit that what I'll describe next isn't flawless, it will not solve everything. I'm sure many of you will find points they would see changed in it, some will even think it's stupid, I doubt I'll be able to convince absolutely everyone.
It's merily an example of what this game needs, of the potential lying behind that mass zerg action. A glimmer of dream for us all, of what the game could be, compared to what it is, changing the mentality of the players by opening the doors to a much larger and fun world.
I'm not saying that this one spell will be enough, that implementing it will suddently boost the game to the best PvP experience ever. Actually we would need tons of other ideas like this one to achieve it. But it's just an example of the good direction to take, the path on which the game should evolve. Try and go beyond the simple description of the spell, but see how the new dimension it brings is suddently giving the game a whole new flavour.
To lead this whole thread I'll use an imaginary character, called Uncle Joe, that will always ask the relevant questions some of you may have! Some humour always helps :D
2- Where the idea of the spell comes from.
Currently one of the biggest killer in the game, and what renders most healers pretty useless, is when casters (BW/Sorc, I will not make any difference between them, this is not a debate on which one is overpowered or not) gather and pick on the same target.
Without any kind of protection they will easily destroy their target, leaving no chance to any healer to save him as hard as he may try. If you see nothing wrong in that, remember the discussion is in the other thread, you are welcome to share your thoughts.
Uncle Joe says : "Wait a minute buddy, a protection to handle such magic spikes exists already! Those dudes with a shield ... tanks ...they have it! It's Hold the Line! Isn't that good enough ?"
First let me say that yes Hold the Line is something Mythic did right (bloody hell they deserve some credit too) and it does an awesome work in some situations when the team knows how to use it. But it is also rather limited, and in its current form doesn't provide enough protection. As I said, one spell isn't enough we need a variety of them, to create : choices, options, possibilities, all of them leading to what matters, strategy! I'll explain myself.
Hold the Line first of all protects the tank as long as he keeps it going : 45% disrupt proved to be really efficient, I tested that myself, when well coordinated three tanks can provide this 45% disrupt to everyone 40 feets behind them.
Those 40 feets is what is limiting the spell, creating the need for more. I can easily that the other melees, dps or tank, helping on the push will be within those 40 feets, it's in their best interest since they will constantly aim at closing the gap. So with some practice and organization, a set of tanks can rotate and keep them safe.
What about the ranged people, are they going to stay within 40 feets of the tank ? Well if your tank is on the front line, beating on the opposition's front line, that puts you within 80 feets of the ranged opponent (knowing spells and attacks are 100 feets), so in range of many things that could lock you, prevent you from doing what you want, it's also 40 feets of the melees, which is really short knowing that many melee abilities start affecting people within 30 meters.
Any sane ranged group will stay further than those 40 meters in a zerg vs zerg situation. They will merily run forward, nuke, run back to safety, rinse and repeat, playing that ping pong game over and over. So it is very unlikely that Hold the Line will save them when the front line tanks are using it. It's a melee defensive system!
Uncle Joe wakes up : "Waaaaaaait a minute! You said it yourself, it's only if the tank is on the front line, what he stays back and does his stuff right in front of the ranged people ?"
This is how a few people adapated to the current situation and this is where I say "Welcome awful design!", forcing a tank, that should be in the middle of the battle, whacking stuff, being beaten on, being on the front line putting the pressure on the opponent, forcing that force of the nature to stand in the back and standing still ... this is beyond stupid and boring, a typical example of what people shouldn't accept and where the design fails.
Claim the right to do your job properly, you're a tank, you're meant to bleed up front, not to catter to the backline. And honestly, Hold the Line does a fantastic job at this : protecting the front line, especially the squishy MDPS if used properly with some organization.
Uncle Joe then replies : "Yea but if both ranged zergs stand this far back they can't reach others anyway, so they aren't going to nuke each others, there is no threat anyway!"
Well the typical behaviour that you see in large scale battles, is that a group of ranged people will move from their backline a little bit, nuke stuff quickly (if they aren't simply sucking them in with EM/CR, even with the change), then run far back, out of range of their enemy, as soon as a few target fell to avoid the threats. Usually they get a few targets down, the enemy reacts but doesn't have time to cast much more than a few instant spells (which are mainly DoTs), DoTs that are outhealed by so bloody boring HoTs : the enemy proceeds to whine on the forums because HoTs are overpowered, also that their healers suck and should L2P because they didn't save them ... and so on.
Another outcome would be that the enemy sees those ranged people moving forward, anticipates and focus fires them before they can. Then you have the first group of players coming to forums, whining about focus fire, about their healers sucking, how they couldn't even do , they just flat out died!
I personally still believe that simply taking the same target, absolutely ignoring all other parameters, such as the healers, shouldn't be enough to kill someone. Because using /assist is basic, takes one button to press, it's debilitating! No one sane can call this a serious strategy, it's basic, you can find this in simple FPS games and removes so much depth of the game.
So the idea is simple :
3- The Spell itself
Give healers, thanks a given spec, a spell that works like Hold the Line :
- It will create a dome over the healer, with for instance a 30 feets radius (that can be changed/balanced, it's Mythic's job). For the visual effect imagine a big pillar of light coming out of the healer, going up and then spreading into a dome around him.
- That dome works like Hold the Line but only for the disrupt part (only magic, not ranged physical attacks), stacks like Hold the Line (but not with it, a real Hold the Line effect overwrites this dome, it doesn't add to it) : anyone sitting under it will gain the appropriate disrupt chance.
- It's a channeled spell like Hold the Line
- It moves with the healer like Hold the Line
Uncle Joe all excited : "Ok i got many questions! First why that big pillar of light coming out of the healer, it's killing my FPS dude!"
Because if the opponent is meant to react and handle that dome in some way, they need to know who is casting it. The pillar is like a giant arrow pointing at the healer that needs handling!
Uncle Joe then wonders : "45% disrupt! I know focus fire is a bit strong right now, but with that I can't do anything anymore! Before at least I could kill stuff, now they just need to rotate healers and keep it up constantly!"
Here I need to make two points :
a- Sure, as long as that dome is up the BW/Sorc will be useless, but that's exactly the idea, now before getting to nuke anything, they need a strategy to remove that dome. And here shines the beauty of the idea, what different dimentions to healing bring for other classes too.
Here comes that little Squig Herder, or his fellow Shadow Warrior, he thinks and realises that ... he has a ranged silence attack! Spells are disrupted, but he is a physical RDPS, which arrows. He runs in, shoots his stuff and voila! The doors are now open for the casters to nuke.
That little SH/SW that felt gimped because his DPS was so low before compared to the BW/Sorc, now feels useful. And the bugger has plenty of options! Silencing, knocking the healer away to make the dome move with him, even and Engineer/Magus could kick in, laying a mine under the healer to knock him down. DPS isn't the ultimate and universal solution, and classes define themselves beyond the simple idea of topping the damage meters.
See how fixing the healing suddently influenced other classes ?
b- Second point is important : say the SH/SW stops the dome, another healer will just step in and create a new one while the former healer will resume the healing. This is where it is crucial to seperate both roles, a healer having the power to protect shouldn't have the power to heal, same the other way around.
You don't want one super hero to save all the world, you want multiple healers working together to keep their warband up. Protection and raw healing need to be separated and efficient in their respective domain only.
Uncle Joe is puzzled : "Why is it channeled ? That's just eating the healer's AP and he can't do anything else! Quite a dumb playstyle asking him to stand there and look pretty in his dome!"
It's channeled exactly because you don't want him to do it all on his own. While channeling he isn't casting anything else, so it's another healer that will have to nudge the green bars up, and another handling physical issues.
As I said multiple healers working together, rather than one saving the world alone. Also the protection healer would have to choose between the magic protections, the physical protections, the ranged protections, the melee protections, this dome wouldn't be his only toy, he would have a large variety of them, but would have to choose, at a given time, which one to use. The fun of the gameplay is in the choice.
Uncle Joe comes back with : "Yea physical damage! Now that you mention it, that dome does jack all against physical focus fire!"
Indeed, and that's great, because like I said we don't need one spell that does everything, we need several spells like this one, that are situational and push the healers to make choices. Choices and variety are where the fun comes from, they are the ones improving one's gameplay.
People are welcome to suggest something else to handle physical damage. Only be careful to keep in mind strategies, here the protection towards magic damage is avoidance based, which means the spells don't even land. For the strategies I describe with the SH/SW to even happen, their arrows have to land, which means that the physical means shouldn't be avoidance based too. Or else you are creating the opposite of what we want here. It could for instance be mitigation based, like Mountain Spirit (which is one of the few spells Mythic did properly!) but in a more accessible way.
Uncle Joe mumbles : "Why introducing such a fancy toy, the current system is complicated enough! You're just making things harder!"
Honestly I'll point at the fact that :
- It doesn't take a genius to push this one button and understand how the protection works.
- It doesn't take a genius to understand that if you walk and stand under it you are protected.
- It doesn't take a genius to spot a big dome and know that you need to remove it before stuff can die.
- It doesn't take a genius to follow the big pillar of light to know which healer to disable in order to remove the dome.
In the end it's a rather elementary spell, prolly an even too basic one, but I find it amazing on how easily it will suddently create the need for a strategy beyond the simple /assist.
Uncle Joe asks : "You say healers, so when given to a WP for instance doesn't that kinda play double standards with Hold the Line, doesn't it remove the point of tanks protecting the melees ?"
Sure does, I'm saying healers but it's obvious that I consider this all from my point of view, from the healer I play, so yes I'm definately talking for the RP/Zealot here and yes this shouldn't be introduced on a WP. They would need different toys but following the same logic : pushing them to make choices.
4- Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the read. I hope you will all see the main point of this thread : how fixing one aspect of the healing suddently influenced the entire game and introduced strategies, giving some meaning to the healer, but also to other classes.
I am advicing people to use their wonderful imagniation to think about more spells like this one, that go beyond the simple healbotting, that would give the game more depth. Let's push Mythic to give us this amazing game where one fight never looks like an another, where people have to adapt constantly, think, vary their tools and don't play like mindless bots.
I'll finish this thread with a note of humour, here is a list of suggestions on how the spell could be called :
- "Cover me!"
- "Can't touch this!"
- "Homer's fault!" (for those that saw the Simpson's movie)
- "Use the Squiggy, Luke!" (for the RP version)
- "Use the Blondy, Luke!" (for the Zealot version because we all know that all SW are Legolas wannabes, therefore blondes)
- "Home sweet home"
Feel free to suggest some more :D
I'm tired of MMOs that fail to realise, one after another, that a well thought design is the key, that you can't just throw a bunch of players against each others and hope they will create a wonderful game together, filling the lacks themselves.
I took part in a few healing discussions. First I thought like many that the game would never change, it was pointless trying to fight what was broken and that we should just try to improve that dumbed down version a little bit ... but that's not satisfying, it's just hiding the problems, giving them a better shape for people to swallow their fun and pride.
I believe that if we want this game to succeed we need to stop thinking that nothing big can be changed, and we need to point at the real troubles, even if they are deep into the game. Mythic has the power to change things, and maybe if we insist on the fact that wrapping the problems into candy-paper will not be enough, that they have to solve the real issues, maybe, and I say maybe, they will do something.
The only sure thing is that if we say nothing, and ignore the real problems, they will not disappear. So here is an example, a humble one, of what could be changed in the healing to give it another dimension. It will show how it improves the healer's gameplay but also it straight consequences on the other classes, and how, in the end, improves the entire game.
1- Disclaimer
This thread containing the discussion about the healing itself is there :
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184445
There are plenty of opinions, on the nerfs, wether it was needed or not, how it would influence the game and so on, but at the end I had to mess into that business out of frustration. I threw my opinion on the table, backed with facts and logic.
You are all free to disagree with me and I'd be really happy to discuss it all, as long as I don't have to repeat myself too much, but do it in the thread I linked, there is no need to create yet another clone of it.
In this current thread I am merily bringing an example of what I believe to be the right direction to take. You can merily discuss the spell in itself, its influence on the game, what it would change, what it wouldn't, just keep it on topic, remember that the debate on the healing itself, is in the other thread. This is the only respect I'm asking for.
Why making a new thread just for that ? Because I don't want a well written example to be lost on page #12540212102 of a random thread, being forgotten, and seeing people going back once again to hps VS dps considerations.
I will also easily admit that what I'll describe next isn't flawless, it will not solve everything. I'm sure many of you will find points they would see changed in it, some will even think it's stupid, I doubt I'll be able to convince absolutely everyone.
It's merily an example of what this game needs, of the potential lying behind that mass zerg action. A glimmer of dream for us all, of what the game could be, compared to what it is, changing the mentality of the players by opening the doors to a much larger and fun world.
I'm not saying that this one spell will be enough, that implementing it will suddently boost the game to the best PvP experience ever. Actually we would need tons of other ideas like this one to achieve it. But it's just an example of the good direction to take, the path on which the game should evolve. Try and go beyond the simple description of the spell, but see how the new dimension it brings is suddently giving the game a whole new flavour.
To lead this whole thread I'll use an imaginary character, called Uncle Joe, that will always ask the relevant questions some of you may have! Some humour always helps :D
2- Where the idea of the spell comes from.
Currently one of the biggest killer in the game, and what renders most healers pretty useless, is when casters (BW/Sorc, I will not make any difference between them, this is not a debate on which one is overpowered or not) gather and pick on the same target.
Without any kind of protection they will easily destroy their target, leaving no chance to any healer to save him as hard as he may try. If you see nothing wrong in that, remember the discussion is in the other thread, you are welcome to share your thoughts.
Uncle Joe says : "Wait a minute buddy, a protection to handle such magic spikes exists already! Those dudes with a shield ... tanks ...they have it! It's Hold the Line! Isn't that good enough ?"
First let me say that yes Hold the Line is something Mythic did right (bloody hell they deserve some credit too) and it does an awesome work in some situations when the team knows how to use it. But it is also rather limited, and in its current form doesn't provide enough protection. As I said, one spell isn't enough we need a variety of them, to create : choices, options, possibilities, all of them leading to what matters, strategy! I'll explain myself.
Hold the Line first of all protects the tank as long as he keeps it going : 45% disrupt proved to be really efficient, I tested that myself, when well coordinated three tanks can provide this 45% disrupt to everyone 40 feets behind them.
Those 40 feets is what is limiting the spell, creating the need for more. I can easily that the other melees, dps or tank, helping on the push will be within those 40 feets, it's in their best interest since they will constantly aim at closing the gap. So with some practice and organization, a set of tanks can rotate and keep them safe.
What about the ranged people, are they going to stay within 40 feets of the tank ? Well if your tank is on the front line, beating on the opposition's front line, that puts you within 80 feets of the ranged opponent (knowing spells and attacks are 100 feets), so in range of many things that could lock you, prevent you from doing what you want, it's also 40 feets of the melees, which is really short knowing that many melee abilities start affecting people within 30 meters.
Any sane ranged group will stay further than those 40 meters in a zerg vs zerg situation. They will merily run forward, nuke, run back to safety, rinse and repeat, playing that ping pong game over and over. So it is very unlikely that Hold the Line will save them when the front line tanks are using it. It's a melee defensive system!
Uncle Joe wakes up : "Waaaaaaait a minute! You said it yourself, it's only if the tank is on the front line, what he stays back and does his stuff right in front of the ranged people ?"
This is how a few people adapated to the current situation and this is where I say "Welcome awful design!", forcing a tank, that should be in the middle of the battle, whacking stuff, being beaten on, being on the front line putting the pressure on the opponent, forcing that force of the nature to stand in the back and standing still ... this is beyond stupid and boring, a typical example of what people shouldn't accept and where the design fails.
Claim the right to do your job properly, you're a tank, you're meant to bleed up front, not to catter to the backline. And honestly, Hold the Line does a fantastic job at this : protecting the front line, especially the squishy MDPS if used properly with some organization.
Uncle Joe then replies : "Yea but if both ranged zergs stand this far back they can't reach others anyway, so they aren't going to nuke each others, there is no threat anyway!"
Well the typical behaviour that you see in large scale battles, is that a group of ranged people will move from their backline a little bit, nuke stuff quickly (if they aren't simply sucking them in with EM/CR, even with the change), then run far back, out of range of their enemy, as soon as a few target fell to avoid the threats. Usually they get a few targets down, the enemy reacts but doesn't have time to cast much more than a few instant spells (which are mainly DoTs), DoTs that are outhealed by so bloody boring HoTs : the enemy proceeds to whine on the forums because HoTs are overpowered, also that their healers suck and should L2P because they didn't save them ... and so on.
Another outcome would be that the enemy sees those ranged people moving forward, anticipates and focus fires them before they can. Then you have the first group of players coming to forums, whining about focus fire, about their healers sucking, how they couldn't even do , they just flat out died!
I personally still believe that simply taking the same target, absolutely ignoring all other parameters, such as the healers, shouldn't be enough to kill someone. Because using /assist is basic, takes one button to press, it's debilitating! No one sane can call this a serious strategy, it's basic, you can find this in simple FPS games and removes so much depth of the game.
So the idea is simple :
3- The Spell itself
Give healers, thanks a given spec, a spell that works like Hold the Line :
- It will create a dome over the healer, with for instance a 30 feets radius (that can be changed/balanced, it's Mythic's job). For the visual effect imagine a big pillar of light coming out of the healer, going up and then spreading into a dome around him.
- That dome works like Hold the Line but only for the disrupt part (only magic, not ranged physical attacks), stacks like Hold the Line (but not with it, a real Hold the Line effect overwrites this dome, it doesn't add to it) : anyone sitting under it will gain the appropriate disrupt chance.
- It's a channeled spell like Hold the Line
- It moves with the healer like Hold the Line
Uncle Joe all excited : "Ok i got many questions! First why that big pillar of light coming out of the healer, it's killing my FPS dude!"
Because if the opponent is meant to react and handle that dome in some way, they need to know who is casting it. The pillar is like a giant arrow pointing at the healer that needs handling!
Uncle Joe then wonders : "45% disrupt! I know focus fire is a bit strong right now, but with that I can't do anything anymore! Before at least I could kill stuff, now they just need to rotate healers and keep it up constantly!"
Here I need to make two points :
a- Sure, as long as that dome is up the BW/Sorc will be useless, but that's exactly the idea, now before getting to nuke anything, they need a strategy to remove that dome. And here shines the beauty of the idea, what different dimentions to healing bring for other classes too.
Here comes that little Squig Herder, or his fellow Shadow Warrior, he thinks and realises that ... he has a ranged silence attack! Spells are disrupted, but he is a physical RDPS, which arrows. He runs in, shoots his stuff and voila! The doors are now open for the casters to nuke.
That little SH/SW that felt gimped because his DPS was so low before compared to the BW/Sorc, now feels useful. And the bugger has plenty of options! Silencing, knocking the healer away to make the dome move with him, even and Engineer/Magus could kick in, laying a mine under the healer to knock him down. DPS isn't the ultimate and universal solution, and classes define themselves beyond the simple idea of topping the damage meters.
See how fixing the healing suddently influenced other classes ?
b- Second point is important : say the SH/SW stops the dome, another healer will just step in and create a new one while the former healer will resume the healing. This is where it is crucial to seperate both roles, a healer having the power to protect shouldn't have the power to heal, same the other way around.
You don't want one super hero to save all the world, you want multiple healers working together to keep their warband up. Protection and raw healing need to be separated and efficient in their respective domain only.
Uncle Joe is puzzled : "Why is it channeled ? That's just eating the healer's AP and he can't do anything else! Quite a dumb playstyle asking him to stand there and look pretty in his dome!"
It's channeled exactly because you don't want him to do it all on his own. While channeling he isn't casting anything else, so it's another healer that will have to nudge the green bars up, and another handling physical issues.
As I said multiple healers working together, rather than one saving the world alone. Also the protection healer would have to choose between the magic protections, the physical protections, the ranged protections, the melee protections, this dome wouldn't be his only toy, he would have a large variety of them, but would have to choose, at a given time, which one to use. The fun of the gameplay is in the choice.
Uncle Joe comes back with : "Yea physical damage! Now that you mention it, that dome does jack all against physical focus fire!"
Indeed, and that's great, because like I said we don't need one spell that does everything, we need several spells like this one, that are situational and push the healers to make choices. Choices and variety are where the fun comes from, they are the ones improving one's gameplay.
People are welcome to suggest something else to handle physical damage. Only be careful to keep in mind strategies, here the protection towards magic damage is avoidance based, which means the spells don't even land. For the strategies I describe with the SH/SW to even happen, their arrows have to land, which means that the physical means shouldn't be avoidance based too. Or else you are creating the opposite of what we want here. It could for instance be mitigation based, like Mountain Spirit (which is one of the few spells Mythic did properly!) but in a more accessible way.
Uncle Joe mumbles : "Why introducing such a fancy toy, the current system is complicated enough! You're just making things harder!"
Honestly I'll point at the fact that :
- It doesn't take a genius to push this one button and understand how the protection works.
- It doesn't take a genius to understand that if you walk and stand under it you are protected.
- It doesn't take a genius to spot a big dome and know that you need to remove it before stuff can die.
- It doesn't take a genius to follow the big pillar of light to know which healer to disable in order to remove the dome.
In the end it's a rather elementary spell, prolly an even too basic one, but I find it amazing on how easily it will suddently create the need for a strategy beyond the simple /assist.
Uncle Joe asks : "You say healers, so when given to a WP for instance doesn't that kinda play double standards with Hold the Line, doesn't it remove the point of tanks protecting the melees ?"
Sure does, I'm saying healers but it's obvious that I consider this all from my point of view, from the healer I play, so yes I'm definately talking for the RP/Zealot here and yes this shouldn't be introduced on a WP. They would need different toys but following the same logic : pushing them to make choices.
4- Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the read. I hope you will all see the main point of this thread : how fixing one aspect of the healing suddently influenced the entire game and introduced strategies, giving some meaning to the healer, but also to other classes.
I am advicing people to use their wonderful imagniation to think about more spells like this one, that go beyond the simple healbotting, that would give the game more depth. Let's push Mythic to give us this amazing game where one fight never looks like an another, where people have to adapt constantly, think, vary their tools and don't play like mindless bots.
I'll finish this thread with a note of humour, here is a list of suggestions on how the spell could be called :
- "Cover me!"
- "Can't touch this!"
- "Homer's fault!" (for those that saw the Simpson's movie)
- "Use the Squiggy, Luke!" (for the RP version)
- "Use the Blondy, Luke!" (for the Zealot version because we all know that all SW are Legolas wannabes, therefore blondes)
- "Home sweet home"
Feel free to suggest some more :D