Breaking Free from the Healing Dependency
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Date: 09-18-2009 Views:
KeyWords: Healing Dependency, Jaime, major tank, MT, healer, DPS
- Summary: For any MMO that features a healing mechanic necessary for groups, the phrase 'LF healer and GTG' is so overused, players will often get creative with new ways of begging for a healer for their group. Players will wait hours for the illusive healer, and they'll take what they can get, even if it ends up being under geared, poorly specialized, or on trade for specific favors to the player. I don't have to explain it to any of you beyond that; we have all at times suffered the lack of a healer in a group (unless you've always played a healer.)
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Breaking Free from the Healing Dependency By Jaime Jaime grew up in southern CA, but has been living in Salt Lake City, UT for five years. Since the days of Ultima Online - she has been playing MMORPGs with a passion. Online gaming has become one of her most passionate hobbies, as the games internally and externally evolve over time, providing an ever-changing gaming experience. Her professional experience comes from the fields of retail, telecomm, customer service, and investing. Her hobbies include photography, writing, crafting, outdoor activities, and, of course, video gaming. |
For any MMO that features a healing mechanic necessary for groups, the phrase "LF healer and GTG" is so overused, players will often get creative with new ways of begging for a healer for their group. Players will wait hours for the illusive healer, and they'll take what they can get, even if it ends up being under geared, poorly specialized, or on trade for specific favors to the player. I don't have to explain it to any of you beyond that; we have all at times suffered the lack of a healer in a group (unless you've always played a healer.)
The sad fact of the truth is that most MMOs have come to rely on the holy triad: Tank, Healer, and DPS. While players can find ways to skate by the Tank requirement so long as they have a healer, there seems to be an impasse when it comes to being without one. The issue is simple: while tanks are still capable of DPS, and DPS are still capable of tanking to some degree, neither tanks or DPS have any real method to handle healing without completely switching their role.
What are we left with? Cumulative hours spent looking for a healer, leveling one ourselves, and finding that the healer's burden of dry micromanaging mechanics, standing in the back while everyone else looks to be having all the fun. That's another core problem with healing: it offers little excitement and little interaction in the actual encounter. Healers are like the guys that get up to get drinks and popcorn during a movie – they make sure everyone's comfortable, but miss the best parts of the movie.
So what can MMOs do to break away from this healing dependency? Here are a few ideas.
1. Make potions more powerful. There's nothing wrong with potion chugging, as long as it's balanced so that a player can't survive every encounter simply because they bought enough potions.
2. Making healing damage based. The popularity of Warrior Priests in Warhammer Online isn't a fluke: healing's just fine if players can get in there and do some damage, too. Stop sticking healers in the back, away from the action. Even make it a group effort, with an aura that converts a portion of damage done into healing.
3. Introduce in-combat "rest" states. If a tank or DPS is wounded, allow them to go in a state where their abilities are severely reduced, but they can recover their health in the meantime.
4. Turn back to real time based combat, where attacks and magic can be physically dodged within reason.
MMOs don't have to give every class a healing ability. What they do need to do is introduce more options, and start breaking away from the "Tank tank heal tank" mold that has made so many of us bored with our current options. We spend more hours playing MMOs than we do any other single game – make them more exciting, not less.
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DPS failfest - tank and healer win the Nexus!
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All dead except the monsters!
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