Originally posted by Vynt

Originally posted by bazak

k  i been holding this in for months but i just gotta say it finally, does real world combat have healers? (medics dont count they dont and cant do what magical healers in games do). to me guild wars 2 seems like they are making the game work more like real combat does adapting to the situation but still being best at one thing (snipers are have more skill in sniping because of training and experience but they any decent member of a military unit can do some basic field medical stuff and has decent to great training in other weapons and skills).

 

this is realy all i think needs to be said anyone who knows someone twho has a problem with the no healers point them at real life combat and see if they dont change their minds (if they dont or they use the "its a game excuse" then they are being a bit dumb *me being very polite*). i hope this helps you man

Not a real accurate analogy since in the game people will be hacked over and over, hit with all kinds of magic, yet still be able to fight on. Real life I would probably equate more with a fps game, 1 shot or maybe a few and dead.

 

On a side note, it is possible we could have the equivalent of a healer in the future. If our tech gets high enough and people have personal shields, we could have techs that could restore the energy of those shields when they get low, hehe. I could see that as the healer mechanic in a scifi MMO. Makes more sense to me than an actual healer. Once those shields are out, 1 hit and you're dead.

thing is the complexity of the programing and the leveling of power needed in a computer to simulate reality to that degree is insane and very unlikely to happen anytime soon. of course there are differences with reality but i think what they are doing here is making a more realistic form of combat.

its an analogy that doesnt mean it lines up perfectly with what im talking about but it does line up well enough to make my point that the combat will likely be viable, and that arguments that because its not the typical tank/dps/healer setup it wont work are wrong.

Cool, fights are more intense when you dont have a dude that just sits there and keeps you alive. Like in old D&D where its better to leave the healing for after the fight and just focus on survive it and win it.

Besides, its just more dramatic that way, you dont see healers in movies/animes/books healing the dude in the full plate fighting an orc in the middle of the freaking battle.

thing is the complexity of the programing and the leveling of power needed in a computer to simulate reality to that degree is insane and very unlikely to happen anytime soon. of course there are differences with reality but i think what they are doing here is making a more realistic form of combat.

 

its an analogy that doesnt mean it lines up perfectly with what im talking about but it does line up well enough to make my point that the combat will likely be viable, and that arguments that because its not the typical tank/dps/healer setup it wont work are wrong.

I don't think I would want a game to simulate reality that way, heh.

Originally posted by Vynt

thing is the complexity of the programing and the leveling of power needed in a computer to simulate reality to that degree is insane and very unlikely to happen anytime soon. of course there are differences with reality but i think what they are doing here is making a more realistic form of combat.

 

its an analogy that doesnt mean it lines up perfectly with what im talking about but it does line up well enough to make my point that the combat will likely be viable, and that arguments that because its not the typical tank/dps/healer setup it wont work are wrong.

I don't think I would want a game to simulate reality that way, heh.

 

I know combat will be viable. i've played MMOs without a (dedicated) healer. Couple of them were everyone just used healing potions, another people had self heals and minor heals castable on others in conjunction with potions. Personally I didn't enjoy any of them.

Especially in pvp, missed that dynamic of a timely heal preventing crisis and overcoming long odds( remembers daoc fondly).  No healer isn't the reason I would pass on GW2 though. Just doesn't really peak my interest much. Nothing these days in MMOs do sadly. Think my friend will get GW2 though, so i'll just try his and maybe it will win me over, lol.

well on that note i hope you do like it, main reason i havent posted much is the dam large amount of people using straw mans and refusing to argue logicly and civily. nice to run into someone who is of differing opinion but also knows what they are talking about.

im pretty sure we just see different things when we look at this game. personaly i see this combat as having a good chance of having those pivotal make or break decision moments like your talking about except not with timely placed heals just with a difference system more optimized for it. like closer to how combat is on a battlefield in reality.

ill leave it at that and hope ya do end up likeing it tho.

The real ultimate point behind what GW2 is doing anyway above all else....is that every single player is focused on watching the screen and playing.... and NOT watching health bars.

That, is massive and why the hype is so much for this game and why it WILL succeed on a large scale.

I am not saying it will dethrone WoW or do this or do that, one of the strengths of a non sub game is you can play GW2 along side other games.... that is yet another strength of GW2 and what ANet is doing.

Same thing with GW1 my wife and I played off and on, her more than me while at the same time playing WoW for years and this past year Rift + GW1.

I love healing, have done it for a long long time but man being able to play a MMO and just focus on watching the screen and not health bars will be so much more fun. I enjoy healing and keeping people alive but then why am I paying to play a game where I spend more time looking at bars and not anything else... you could play a MUD and do the same thing.

There is no dedicated trinity. Switch out skill sets as needed and provide healing. There just isn't dedicated class roles like the old model. This is the future. No lazy ass Cleric/Druid/Shaman sitting at the back of the party, occassionally hitting a heal button. Buck up, you will have to work from now on!

If you are not dodging, positioning correctly and not using your self heal, you're doing it wrong.

You can't fix stupid.  Discussion over.

Originally posted by heavyhebrew

If you are not dodging, positioning correctly and not using your self heal, you're doing it wrong.

You know what is funny?  In PvP games healers becomes the best at dodging and such.

In Global Agenda any decent medic puts almost everyone else to shame for maneuverability.  After I played a medic to 50 I realized what I had thought was good dodging in the game was merely mediocre and realized why certain medics were such an amazing pain the ass to kill.  You learn to move, it just becomes second nature, you can almost sense the bullets coming at you.  Because everyone wants you dead, everyone is gunning for you.

Once you become that good at moving you can actually heal and kill people.  Hell I often would jet around people land behind them and start backstabbing them as a medic, then jet away heal someone and then start shooting that guy again.  Killed a number of Recons who thought I was meat for them.  I didn't have great firepower or tons of poison offhands.  I just made them missed and punished them with counters.

But GA is an third person shooter.  That sort of thing makes you way better than it would in a tab target game. 

This is the way any decent game should be.  Its not about "dedicated" healers.  That is a crutch for bad players.  Dodge, be mobile, be smart, throw out support when its needed.  Everyone has a basic heal (that will get you killed in combat due to a +damage debuff while its active, but heals you decently ) in Global Agenda.  I don't run around and try to heal recons.  I expect them to be able to take care of themselves.  They can pop their heal and then stealth.  I will heal them if they are nearby or meleeing on a point.  Many assaults do expect you to simply follow them around and heal.  And sometimes this is a good idea, especially with a good assault.  But those teams only work when both the medic and assault are decently mobile (and the assault can aim well).  The bad assaults just stand there and expect you to heal them while they blast things.

This is what GW2 is trying to do and its a better system than a standback and heal type thing.  There is healing in GW2 you can heal yourselves and you can get some from teammates.

But it is never meant to be something someone does SOLELY.   Healing is brain dead simple.  Some of the stuff a good monk could do in GW was not, but just replenishing some life is brain dead simple.  Its a travesty to even have a class where that is all they do.  There is actually quite a bit of healing in GW2 from the gameplay videos I have seen.  Its just often being done by an individual.  But anyone who thinks that, therefore Guardians won't do support builds is just being dumb.  A forcefield or damage reduction buff will magnify survivability in a multiplicative way.  A good ranged DPS with a self heal and a support-based Guardian will be very tough to kill most likely.  Far harder than two DPS with only their own self-heals.  I would go so far as to say they would usually lose to that combo.

Similarly healing alone is not the only means of supporting.  Just look at City of Heroes or Robotics class of Global Agenda.  Between a heal station and forcefields a Robo in GA can mitigate damage as well as a Medic in many cases.

The guardian class of GW2 will most likely play out very similarly to a robo.  Anyone who thinks there will not be significnat defensive support is fooling themselves.  It simply won't be in the form of a monk backline or some dude sitting back and tab targetting and hitting the same heal over and over. 

Its meant to be active and semi-sustainable but not something you can just spam and not something you can neglect other things completely for.  And not meant to be so brain dead one-dimensional as a simple heal.

Originally posted by maskmurda
So my coworker was looking at my phone while I watched some gw2 pvp. He said that looks cool but I don't see a healer. So I told him there are no dedicated healers in this game. So his reply? That's dumb so how am I gonna survive in the game. I told him that you are self reliant and mostly depend on yourself. He said that's stupid why am I gonna play a game where im going to die all the time im not playing that dumb game and proceeded to list several(noobish) reasons why wow is better and told me to play dc universe instead. Discuss.

 i think the best thing to tell your friend is that he should really wait till the game is closer to launch to pass judgement on it...who knows what will happen by the time the game launches, still very far out.

[quote]Originally posted by afhn2110
 i think the best thing to tell your friend is that he should really wait till the game is closer to launch to pass judgement on it...who knows what will happen by the time the game launches, still very far out.
[/b][/quote]

That's the second dumbest response ever.

People play tanks because they like to *lead*; in most trinity-style games the tank sets the pace, pulls the mobs, and the party follows.

Healers and buffers like to be relied upon too; I don't know too many healers who pick the class just to sit at the back and hit a heal button 'every once and a while', like the tank they relish being responsible for their party but would rather not be 'leading'. They tend to stare at health bars more than monsters.

I think what people really want, is that group dynamic, when you're in a good group with a good tank, dps, and healers, and the dungeon just seems to melt before you, it's incredible.

One of the main problems of the trinity is the amount of time you spend looking for the right classes before you can even leave the town, and the other is class balance. In parties, tanks and healers are kings, but when you want to solo? Forget it. It's hard to balance tanking/healing classes so they can compete when it comes to soloing and PvP, yet not dominate due to their damage mitigation through armor/heals.

Most of the non-trinity games I've seen, the majority of the 'group' activities people spend racing from mob to mob trying to get a hit in before the mob dies. Since there's no tank and no healing, the game instead just throws more solo mobs at you, you probably don't even need to talk to your team mates, or they could AFK and you wouldn't even notice. (Diablo II, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, etc)

The game just needs to find a mechanic where having more members in your party means more than more mobs to fight, or the mobs have slightly higher hit points. Having a game where every party is 6 DPS spamming heal pots, is just plain boring, unimaginative trash.

Originally posted by snippy64

[quote]Originally posted by afhn2110
 i think the best thing to tell your friend is that he should really wait till the game is closer to launch to pass judgement on it...who knows what will happen by the time the game launches, still very far out.
[/b][/quote]

That's the second dumbest response ever.

People play tanks because they like to *lead*; in most trinity-style games the tank sets the pace, pulls the mobs, and the party follows.

Healers and buffers like to be relied upon too; I don't know too many healers who pick the class just to sit at the back and hit a heal button 'every once and a while', like the tank they relish being responsible for their party but would rather not be 'leading'. They tend to stare at health bars more than monsters.

I think what people really want, is that group dynamic, when you're in a good group with a good tank, dps, and healers, and the dungeon just seems to melt before you, it's incredible.

One of the main problems of the trinity is the amount of time you spend looking for the right classes before you can even leave the town, and the other is class balance. In parties, tanks and healers are kings, but when you want to solo? Forget it. It's hard to balance tanking/healing classes so they can compete when it comes to soloing and PvP, yet not dominate due to their damage mitigation through armor/heals.

Most of the non-trinity games I've seen, the majority of the 'group' activities people spend racing from mob to mob trying to get a hit in before the mob dies. Since there's no tank and no healing, the game instead just throws more solo mobs at you, you probably don't even need to talk to your team mates, or they could AFK and you wouldn't even notice. (Diablo II, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, etc)

The game just needs to find a mechanic where having more members in your party means more than more mobs to fight, or the mobs have slightly higher hit points. Having a game where every party is 6 DPS spamming heal pots, is just plain boring, unimaginative trash.

     I think you seem more than a little uninformed about the classes and grouping in GW2. There are no DPS classes, there are no tank classes, there are no healing classes. There are no aggro skills. There aren't even healing potions.

     Does that mean group content is everyone charges the mob to do some damage before it dies?

     No.

     For many mobs, hate is based Primarily on Proximity. For a group to take on Elite mobs and bosses, they need to rotate roles mid fight. Someone takes aggro until they can't handle the damage any longer, then they drop back and someone else steps in. Everyone has a self healing skill, but most are more for quick recovery once you shake aggro, not to keep you in the tanking position longer. There are some additional healing and support spells for some professions. None of these target a team member, they place healing effects at a targeted spot on the ground; some Heal over Time, others "click to heal".  An example of support spells are walls that provide a temporary barrier vs. mobs, barriers that can reflect spells and ranged attacks back on the casters, noxious effects that not only effect the enemy, but can enhance the attacks of your allies i.e. a poison cloud that damages mobs, party members in the cloud get poison added to their attacks and arrows and rounds shot through the cloud also gain poison, etc...

     Some classes can take more damage than others. Some classes have evasion skills that allow them to strike quick, then get away from enemy aggro. Active dodging is a part of combat and powerful enemies have powerful specials that are telegraphed, so players have an opportunity to counter or get out of the way. Combat also has a positional element, not reserved for just certain skills.

     You won't have a party of all Elementalists drinking potions (there aren't any) racing to get a shot in before the enemy dies. You will have groups playing "hot potato" with enemy aggro and using skills and dodging to evade attacks and balance out incoming damage, so that what healing there is in the game can keep pace.

     Healing, Damage and Damage Absorption still play a role in the game. Aggro management is important, but it's managed often primarily through proximity, rather than skills and server based damage meters. Some Professions are better at some roles than others, but all professions allow you to juggle all three roles in group content.

     People who enjoy tanking will still be best served by playing a heavily armored melee class, as they will be able to spend more time taking aggro than a squishy. People who enjoy healing/support still have professions that allow (not force) that to be the primary focus of play, but you'll never be spending time looking at health bars and spamming heals; you'll be looking at the battle field and  planning where to place heals and how to best alter the engagement via buffs, debuffs, barriers and location based effects. You may also be watching for opportunities to briefly grab aggro yourself, so a damaged team mate can "tag out" and recover.  People who enjoy DPS still have classes that deal better than average damage, but there is more going on than just standing in one spot spamming skills.

     It's a much more active, engaging form of combat. There are still professions best suited for individual playstyles, but players will be encouraged to be less narrow in focus. Group content will make tactics and smart play more important than what professions make up the group.

     We'll need to play it to know exactly how well they system works in practice, but on paper and based on feedback from people who have had access to the demos, it does seem extremely promising.

     Edit: New info. Current AI is not the final AI. Though many mobs may base hate primarily on proximity, some will have more specialized rules of engagement to keep combat dynamic and less predictable. e.g. Some mobs may go after player who where a particular weight class of armor, or against players who use certain kinds of skills, etc... Tactics will have to change based on what your group is facing.

Originally posted by maskmurda
So my coworker was looking at my phone while I watched some gw2 pvp. He said that looks cool but I don't see a healer. So I told him there are no dedicated healers in this game. So his reply? That's dumb so how am I gonna survive in the game. I told him that you are self reliant and mostly depend on yourself. He said that's stupid why am I gonna play a game where im going to die all the time im not playing that dumb game and proceeded to list several(noobish) reasons why wow is better and told me to play dc universe instead. Discuss.

So your coworker must be really dumb if he said that. I mean come on, how can he state "reasons" why something is better if he doesn't know the product he is comparing to. Also narrowmindedness of his is just dripping from his "opinion"

Ignorance at its finest imo. Hopefully he won't play gw2. Less of that kind of players = better for us.

Originally posted by wojtekpl

Originally posted by maskmurda
So my coworker was looking at my phone while I watched some gw2 pvp. He said that looks cool but I don't see a healer. So I told him there are no dedicated healers in this game. So his reply? That's dumb so how am I gonna survive in the game. I told him that you are self reliant and mostly depend on yourself. He said that's stupid why am I gonna play a game where im going to die all the time im not playing that dumb game and proceeded to list several(noobish) reasons why wow is better and told me to play dc universe instead. Discuss.

So your coworker must be really dumb if he said that. I mean come on, how can he state "reasons" why something is better if he doesn't know the product he is comparing to. Also narrowmindedness of his is just dripping from his "opinion"

Ignorance at its finest imo. Hopefully he won't play gw2. Less of that kind of players = better for us.

I can see it now,

"Where are the healers?"

"There are no healers"

"What?!'

"You heal yourself ..."

"What?!! I got to heal myself?? That's retarded! It's not my job to keep myself alive!"

" ... what?"

Originally posted by Otakun

I can see it now,

"Where are the healers?"

"There are no healers"

"What?!'

"You heal yourself ..."

"What?!! I got to heal myself?? That's retarded! It's not my job to keep myself alive!"

" ... what?"

Pretty much a repeat of GW1's launch, in other words. 

"Hey, this isn't exactly like WoW, this game sux."

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Otakun

I can see it now,

"Where are the healers?"

"There are no healers"

"What?!'

"You heal yourself ..."

"What?!! I got to heal myself?? That's retarded! It's not my job to keep myself alive!"

" ... what?"

 

Pretty much a repeat of GW1's launch, in other words. 

"Hey, this isn't exactly like WoW, this game sux."

Otakun, Your exactly right. That is exactly how that conversation went. And Icewhite, you are also correct. Players complain when a game is just like WoW, and then complain even harder when it isn't like WoW. How exactly do you win?

"Man this is new, I don't like change, but complain about change."

Well, in that case, time to go buy COD9 while COD8 came out 10 months ago, oh look! attack dogs are now in the 21st century! now with bombs on their backs!(PETA's gonna be angry!)

Originally posted by maskmurda

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Otakun

I can see it now,

"Where are the healers?"

"There are no healers"

"What?!'

"You heal yourself ..."

"What?!! I got to heal myself?? That's retarded! It's not my job to keep myself alive!"

" ... what?"

 

Pretty much a repeat of GW1's launch, in other words. 

"Hey, this isn't exactly like WoW, this game sux."

Otakun, Your exactly right. That is exactly how that conversation went. And Icewhite, you are also correct. Players complain when a game is just like WoW, and then complain even harder when it isn't like WoW. How exactly do you win?

"Man this is new, I don't like change, but complain about change."

Well, in that case, time to go buy COD9 while COD8 came out 10 months ago, oh look! attack dogs are now in the 21st century! now with bombs on their backs!(PETA's gonna be angry!)

The thing is that anyone with that attitude is almost certainly a horrible horrible player.  Even in Tab-target holy trinity games the difference between someone who actively participates in their own survival and one who doesn't is gigantic.  And good players know that.  In Trinity games they understand that a healer is necessary but they also understand just how much they themselves bring to the table.

Bad players have no idea and get scared of the idea that they would have to do something themselves.

The immediate answer to this thread should have been "Oh he's a bad player who doesn't get it".  IRREGARDLESS of the game.

I have played healers in many MMO games of many different playstyles and its always the same.  People with this attitude use it as an excuse to be lazy and bad.  Its a dead give away.

I look at the GW2 roles system as flexible.  It would help if we actually got to look at some in depth dungeon crawling that lets us see actual builds but this is what I'm thinking it's like based on all I've read and seen:

You pick a profession based on the type of mechanics you like to play with.  Within each profession there are mechanics based on different weapons and profession related skills.  To be honest it will take everyone a while to figure out which weapons they like working with best so I expect in the beginnings of the game will have a very different feel than later in the game.  Everyone can rez and everyone has some form of self heal.  Everyone also gets other types of profession skills such as CC, Group Buffs, Group Heals, specialized equipment (e.g., flamethrower for Engineer).

Dynamic Events don't require groups but will probably benefit from coordination.  Personal Stories don't require groups but you can bring friends along.  Dungeons require groups - and this is where we need to get more information.  I really don't believe that 5 Warriors no matter how they are specc'd will be able to complete a dungeon as effectively as a group made up of different professions.  Now do I want Arena Net to release that info?  Not necessarily - figuring out what's optimal for each fight is more than half the fun for the players.  I do think that it will depend on each branch of a dungeon (they have 1 story branch, and 3 explorable branches) on what is optimal.  PVP is another matter - will 5 Warriors be as effective as a group made up of different professions?  Who knows PVP entirely depends on the players.

Basically what I like about the system I've seen so far is that you can change your build pretty much on the fly (as in no trip back to a trainer or whatever) so that you can react to whatever situation you are in at the moment.  When I solo I play differently (sometimes drastically) than when I group.  Normally I play either the healer, the tank, or a combo.  In LOTRO I'm a Captain and even though we aren't the best tank it's the best tank for the friends I run with - lol it's also the best healer, yes my friends in LOTRO are lame when it comes to grouping - hehe you should see them when cc is involved.  So as a consequence, at least for my Friday night dink around group I am looking forward to GW2.  My friends from other games are just flat out looking forward to something new.

irregardless ...

is not a word :P

Originally posted by Delvie

 I really don't believe that 5 Warriors no matter how they are specc'd will be able to complete a dungeon as effectively as a group made up of different professions.  

It should probably be noted that they didn't claim 5 Warriors could complete a dungeon no matter how they are specc'd.

That's actually the point they are trying to make. You can specc a Warrior in such different ways that a group of 5, properly specc'd, can complete a dungeon run.

edit: Uhmm, ok, so they actually said just now on the PAX panel that you can do the story mode dungeons with a group of 5 in pretty much any specc.