Future of MMO's without healers? Oh please, let it be

[Lytke]

gw2 is finally trying to do something about this and i respect that.

[Satans_Puppet]

gw2 is finally trying to do something about this and i respect that.

 

This is NOT a problem, the problem stems from WoWs lets turn an MMO into a single player experience for those who want it. You can run around with loads of people in WoW and still be alone. The best MMO's I've played have been EQ and FFXI where to progress you needed to talk to people, you needed to group up to complete certain missions and people waited around to group up but in the mean time spoke to each other in global chat etc... these days you talk in global chat it's "Stop spamming"..

 

The character types should increase social interaction, if people could heal themselves in hutt ball how do you think that would work out. Pugs would be all over the place and bigger fodder for Premades because everyone wants to be a hero or a medal hussy.

 

Healers and tanks to stay!

[Cartooon]

Before I totally agreed with this, but now I'm beginning to realise that the age old tank/healer/dps system actually gives depth to the game.

 

I recently played the GW2 beta. Now mentioning GW on this forum in general seems to be taboo but hear me out. I was a big fan of GW1, which somewhat used the healer and tank system and when the developers talked about GW2 and the removal of some of the standard MMO systems, healers being one of them, I was really happy.

 

However my excitement was soon killed when I played the GW2 beta. Having the class styles removed seemed to kill the individuality of each class and the choice that the player has. I tried almost every class in an attempt to find one I enjoyed but apart from ranged vs melee almost every class was the same. I started to realise that healers, tanks and dsp not only give the game structure but individuality and interest to what your doing.

 

I understand this system needs some tweeking or some changes to give some interest back to the MMO but class styles I feel are a necessity. I almost always pick the healer class, because its the style I enjoy. Without it and tanking everything just seems flat and uninteresting.

Edited May 13, 2012 by Cartooon

[mhsiao]

I think dev team just need to make healer fun to play. IMO TF2 did great good on medic and make it fun to play.

[Myria_K]

Contrary to the rather myopic beliefs of GW2 fanboys everywhere, there is nothing whatsoever new about eliminating the trinity. Fallen Earth doesn't have it, Champions has it but no one uses it, there's a long line of games that have been designed either without a trinity period or such that you really don't need one.

 

And they have all tanked miserably.

 

Just as, in the long run, GW2 will, and for pretty much the same reason.

 

It isn't the trinity people have a problem with, it's the forced interdependence. But without that forced interdependence you have no interdependence and even group content turns into a bunch of single players zerging content -- mindless, strategy-less, pointless. Creating any encounter that requires real strategy becomes impossible because everyone is a group unto themselves and any requirement for anything other than a dps zerg fails because it requires the group have more than one kind of component -- exactly what people are railing against.

 

An MMO doesn't have to have the trinity to succeed, but it does have to have something that fills the role of enforcing player interdependency. To date no one has come up with anything else that works at all, let alone works as well as the trinity.

 

Removing the trinity wholesale without an adequate replacement is a recipe for fail.

[Lugh]

I like Healers in general and don't mind playing one.

 

My issues come with tanks, the whole concept completely baffles me. The Harbringer of Doom is smart enough to devise a plan to destroy the entire universe but is not smart enough to attack the cloth wearing fireball thrower as opposed to the guy infront of him in full armor swinging at him with a stick.

 

It's just a flat out dumb concept and nobody wants to play a tank.

 

From the mere fact that so many people in this game ARE playing tanks and quite well, you'd be wrong.

[vojinsa]

I would feel pretty lost, if I cant play a tank or a healer. I play these 2 roles since I play MMO´s - dps is boring for me and doesnt really need much skill either, so I would miss the challange then.

 

feel the same way. dps requires no skill and most just reek of fail.

[vojinsa]

I like Healers in general and don't mind playing one.

 

My issues come with tanks, the whole concept completely baffles me. The Harbringer of Doom is smart enough to devise a plan to destroy the entire universe but is not smart enough to attack the cloth wearing fireball thrower as opposed to the guy infront of him in full armor swinging at him with a stick.

 

It's just a flat out dumb concept and nobody wants to play a tank.

 

 

People dont play tanks because it requires attention and you are responsible for more then just yourself.

Edited May 13, 2012 by vojinsa

[syntxerr]

Well, I would feel very lost in a game without Trinity. I love it. I love healing, I like tanking, I absolutely hate DPSing. In fact, no joke I have trouble staying concentrated and awake playing a ranged DPS through a one hour Flashpoint.

 

So speaking from my personal views: I just wouldn't play a game without Trinity. I don't like those concepts, I don't like being forced to fight because most people prefer DPS and hate healers for PVP reasons or for having to wait for them when grouping.

 

I am also not the least interested in GW2 for this very reason.

[amnie]

Champions Online has always been like this, they even released the game without a healing spec. You can design your character to be able to self heal if you want. A great feature they have I wish every other game had was the healings powers were also attacks as well. Lock on to a enemy and it becomes a damage ability, lock on to your teammate and it is now a healing ability.

 

however in champions online they still let player be healer exclusively. no, I'd go even further: the healer were still needed.

 

same is going to happen in games such as the secret world (where everyone can do everything), same happened in both final fantasy online games... having your char do 'a lot' does not mean you are suddenly no longer in need of tanks or healer or dps or ccs.

 

some people enjoy just smashing everything as fast as possible, some people enjoy sneaking up to the enemy and stabbing them in the back so they bleed to a slow death, some people really enjoy throwing stuff around to root an enemy, others like having the enemy on them the whole time so the other people can do their thing... and yet others really really enjoy keeping an eye on the others the whole time, making sure they don't get killed.

 

I would even go that far and say the majority of people actually enjoys growing with their 'set role'. changing your role is nice. having freedom to test everything and find your prefered playstyle is awesome. but everyone doing the same sounds super boring to me.

[Flaminica]

City of Heroes is another MMO with no dedicated heal class, and it's design is eight years old now. It's trinity is a square: tank/DPS/CC and buff/debuff.. The problem is that players are so accustomed to the tank/DPS/heal formula that they try to impose healing on a system that doesn't need it.

 

Best way to deal with "LF1M heals" spam IMO is get rid of heals. Make everyone responsible for their own green bar. It won't work though because some people like playing the nanny classes.

[amnie]

City of Heroes is another MMO with no dedicated heal class, and it's design is eight years old now. It's trinity is a square: tank/DPS/CC and buff/debuff.. The problem is that players are so accustomed to the tank/DPS/heal formula that they try to impose healing on a system that doesn't need it.

 

Best way to deal with "LF1M heals" spam IMO is get rid of heals. Make everyone responsible for their own green bar. It won't work though because some people like playing the nanny classes.

 

oh yeah and calling it 'nanny classes' and acting as if 'we' (the ones who LIKE playing the 'nanny classes') are the problem.

 

give me a break. I've been playing MMOs for more than 10 years now. you are not the one to tell me how I can have fun. if you want a game without the trinity (honestly, before coming to this game - and hearing people talking about gw2 - I was under the impression there are more than 3 roles in MMOs) .. then go play one. there are several out there or in the making.

[Technohic]

Ok, so role playing, as in being in character is no longer popular in "role playing games." And now you all want to take out one of the roles as far as function goes?

 

I need to start a file where I keep track of everyone who doesn't want healers so I am sure not at offend anyone with my presence in warzones when I log in on one of my healers.

[stephenjohnp]

There should always be a Support class. A class that Healers/Prevents damage. The class that I believe should be taken out is the Tank because it simply makes no logical sense.

[Allagnar]

Most people are looking at it rigidly: "you cant take it out, I love it/ they should remove tanks, I dont like them/ I dont wanna play a single dps class..." I didnt mean removal of the healers would be possible or needed in the current mmo template of gameplay. I meant it as a theoretic, "future" evolution of entire mmo gameplay, one that isnt constricted with outdated mechanisms like cooldowns, rotations, hp percentages and abilities that restore certain amouts of the said hp. SWTOR is one of the dying breed, and its a shame since it is so fresh and already so constricted with current mmo frame of mind.

[buhoazul]

See, the beauty of the multi-focus paradigm in MMO's is the implicit dependence in others to achieve a balanced team. The two cultures of players differ in that some players simply do not want to have to depend on others for some of the necessary aspects of the game, such as healing, crowd control, aggro management, damage, leadership, etc. The other culture is one that embraces this dependence.

 

As a healer I still do some DPS in the game. I could argue that a better balance could be achieved by getting rid of all DPS'ers and have the developers buff our already existing DPS abilities (as well as those for the tanks). In fact, for 2+ heroics I'd always rather play with a tank than a DPS. We usually collaborate more and also last more and play more effectively (I've met some DPS guys that are impressive, though, and worthy of all my respect!).

 

So i guess it all boils down to whether we want to be self-sufficient or not. And if we do, what's the point of MMO's? teaming up with other humans? There's tons of killkillkill oriented online games out there. Games like SWTOR are meant to be more challenging than that, since they force a player to depend on others for success. It forces us to embark into a flashpoint with players who wear heavy armor yet end up refusing to tank, and they have a right to do so. How do we healers adjust to that? How does a tank adjust to the fact that a "healer" has no regard for the team's health? Or a DPS that "thinks" he's a tank, keeps jumping at the heaviest bosses and crowds ahead of the tank and consistently gets his arse killed? How does the rest of the team adjust?

 

This level of uncertainty is what makes MMO's challenging and, well, fun. If it was about button smashing+heal potion+button smashing, let's face it: there's plenty out there. The triangle paradigm in SWTOR forces us to depend and adjust to others, and in reality most of us knew that before we bought the game. Deep down, that's why a lot of us play this instead of Halo, right?

 

Let's embrace diversity. It makes things fun!

Edited May 16, 2012 by Notannos
quote of moderated content

[BlueFromMoon]

feel the same way. dps requires no skill and most just reek of fail.

 

This.

[Hambunctious]

The entire trinity needs to go. Healing ,outside of med units, doesn't even make sense in this universe.

 

Tanks, dps, and mezzers/debuffs I might understand, but not healers.

Edited May 18, 2012 by Hambunctious

[Butterstoo]

"feel the same way. dps requires no skill and most just reek of fail."

 

^ I call B.S. you must have never played a class with a good random rotation. I loved my feral druid and mut rogue for how random the rotation was. It made it fun and a challenge bc is was not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to do MAX dps you had to THINK on the fly. With mutilate depending on if you crit or not gave an extra combo point, your finisher had a chance to generate another combo point, even SS had a glyph for an extra random combo point.

 

Feral had a similar mechanic and used to have omen of clarity procs (have not played wow since the end of wrath so) which you should have used for shred, but would be wasted on another ability if you were just spamming buttons. Another thing with the feral was when and if to ferocious bite since it would eat/convert and extra energy into damage. If you did F.B. at the wrong time you would be energy starved and would drop savage roar, rip, and rake etc. LOSING you dps. I also knew about the dps loss without an arms warr or dk to keep up the bleed debuff for you and ran the mangle glyph all through wrath even though EJ said not to use it. It was only a 1k to 2k dps loss if you had to put up your own mangle without the glyph. I wonder why blizz changed mangle going into cata and extened the mangle buff to 18 secs from 12 secs like it was in wrath...

 

It is any wonder there are so many bad dps out there that want to hide how little dps they do. They love to run around in non maximized specs and complain about the people that actually learn the class and min/max for what ever role they are trying to do. Why can I not get a simple built in dps meter, but have to jump through hoops to figure out my dps and/or have to download 3rd party software (which is always fun and safe). Tanks that have hybrid specs and or gear and fail at Denova should not have a voice. This holds true for dps or heals too.

 

Do you really think that you will be able to go into GW2 with 4 random people and not have to change or adjust your weapons, skills, gear etc. to be able to complete the harder dungeons? You will still not be able to run "your" spec/skills or whatever they call it that you "love" and leveled with. You will have to min/max for the situation. Considering the attention span of most groups I have ran with, people will not talk in the group that much and assume that others know the dungeon. Sure you may get a couple good groups, but most will end in failure and with people QQ'ing. That or it will be facerolling easy/boring.

Edited May 18, 2012 by Butterstoo

[syntxerr]

SWTOR already took a standard and antiquated notion of tank/heal/dps class divide, but what do you think about the future, do you think healers are becoming just a prehistoric annoyance? Dont get me wrong, my main on wow for years whas a resto shammy and I loved it, but there is something fundamentally, game brakingly bad about the concept of a char staying in the background, just healing his team. More self heal abbilites, more defensive cc's etc, where you need some skill to survive, that is the way of the future, hopefully. Tommorow is Diablo day so ill bid this fine game a farewell, but healers in their current state need to be gone, asap.

 

P.S. This is mostly about pvp healing

 

That'll be the day I'd be gone too.

[BlueFromMoon]

The entire trinity needs to go. Healing ,outside of med units, doesn't even make sense in this universe.

 

Tanks, dps, and mezzers/debuffs I might understand, but not healers.

 

Well, SWTOR is more like WoW with Star Wars skin. WHy they do it because million of wow-players cant be wrong.

Edited May 21, 2012 by BlueFromMoon

[fungihoujo]

If we take away healers and tanks and only have DPS.

 

More people will play because less people will play.

 

Or something.

 

 

ITT- people who don't like a role who think that means nobody likes that role. Not everyone just wants to DPS DPS DPS DPS.

[Kanana]

I like Healers in general and don't mind playing one.

 

My issues come with tanks, the whole concept completely baffles me. The Harbringer of Doom is smart enough to devise a plan to destroy the entire universe but is not smart enough to attack the cloth wearing fireball thrower as opposed to the guy infront of him in full armor swinging at him with a stick.

 

It's just a flat out dumb concept and nobody wants to play a tank.

 

Having taunting skills reduce damage to others like it does in TOR pvp is a way to make tanks work.

[Kanana]

This level of uncertainty is what makes MMO's challenging and, well, fun. If it was about button smashing+heal potion+button smashing, let's face it: there's plenty out there. The triangle paradigm in SWTOR forces us to depend and adjust to others, and in reality most of us knew that before we bought the game. Deep down, that's why a lot of us play this instead of Halo, right?

 

Let's embrace diversity. It makes things fun!

 

There is no diversity in the holy trinity. It guarantees button smashing, and often with the same build and same classes in a group.

[So-low]

If you get rid of us healers then who will you blame when you wipe?

 

Certainly not yourselves...

 

Healing actually requires a high iq. We have to think on the fly and adjust methods based on split second situations. We cant just mindless button mash and follow the same rotation.