Blog FeedSupport Classes Unite
When I first played World of Warcraft, I selected my typical RPG character. I started out with a fighter—after all I typically like to knock heads with people. But as I got through the game I started getting really bored. At first I thought MMO’s weren’t really my thing. Much the way I’d gotten tired of team based on line shooters, I’d imagined that I’d gotten bored of the MMO mechanic already and that was just that. Then just recently (about a month ago) I signed up for another go at WoW. Only this time I played a Priest and I thought to myself wow this is a lot of fun. Frankly the worst thing about it though is that you still need to kill stuff to gain experience and just the concept of PVP. I don’t quite get why people enjoy PVP. I joined a PVP server to play with a friend but frankly I find the whole concept of competitive play in an MMO rather silly. I play the game, and the class to help people not to hunt them down. If i wanted to do that i have a copy of Quake 3 with Rocket Arena sitting right her on my HDD. So That brings me to the point, why don’t more games reward people for playing their class right? I used to really enjoy playing RTCW as a Medic because you got scored based on healing people but to look good in say BF 42 you’ve got to play the Medic like a light assault trooper, the engineer like a sniper/vehicle driver.
So What do I want? I really would like to see games that reward players who want to play something outside of the typical Rambo. I don’t know about you but I get a lot more joy out of bringing life than I do out of delivering death. Even in the handful of MMOs I’ve played though the Priest/Cleric/White mage class really makes their bones killing shit just like everyone else. Then the healing model is just like the death model. Apply proper spells in proper proportion flash heal-prayer of healing and so on and so forward . It’s nice but it’s not really as cool as it could be. Something like working in a field hospital as a career for instance that had healing mini-games where you could heal people who needed it for money or some such as a career. Now that would be pretty cool. Or in a FPS assign point values to doing your job so going Rambo on people, and focusing on wracking up kills would actually land you on the bottom of the leader board versus somebody healing, repairing, or filling some other support role.
But yet every online game that’s actually polished out real nice basically you gain experience by killing things, you get points by shooting people? What on earth is up with that? I’ve never been a glory hound, I get a real satisfaction when people can survive being stupid simply by me being there. It seems to me that games are still punishing players who are really into team play and aren’t all about wracking up a frag count. They obviously can see that some players are into a differently style of approach by the fact that they make so many games that support these classes but why are they always relegated to the back of the bus. I hope i’m not the only person who feels this way I don’t need to be the star of the show, just want to be part of the team. Or maybe someone has some good suggestions of games that reward being a team player?
11th September | Reply
I’ve noticed a lack of variety in WoW missions. The vast majority of them are to kill a certain number or collect a certain number of something that drops from dead enemies. If you ask me, that just shows a lack of imagination in teh developers.
Yeah, priests were built with offensive capabilities, but was that a result of giving priests the ability to solo in PVP, or just out of necessity cause you can’t heal things to death on the multitude of kill/collect missions?
An idea I had for missions for priests would be to follow a group of NPCs (soldiers) as they went out and did stuff (killed things). You’d be their primary healer and the mission would be completed when everyone came home. This kind of mission would be expecially useful in the point in teh game when the developers felt it necessary that you learn your job while grouping. I’ve also heard of a mission for a human priest in WoW where you go out and find a wounded soldier. You have to heal and buff him. A nice change of pace, but it is only one in many kill/collect missions.
11th September | Reply
These are interesting points you bring up, but I’ll keep my comment centered on WoW as that is the only online game of this sort that I’ve played.
What I’ve found is that there is a large market for non-lethal class-types. The priests in my guild are priests because they want to be healers and enjoy it. One specifically told me he rolled a warrior alt just because he wanted a change of pace, but that he loves his priest more.
Unfortunately, no developer seems to realize that this market exists. They develop their games based around the mentality that the only people playing are the people who want to kill things.
A refreshing change of pace would be if you received experience points for healing things. Or if you gained weapon profeciency by using that weapon to heal. It isn’t a brand new, novel concept. White Mages and Chemists in Final Fantasy Tactics receive experience for healing, why not in World of Warcraft?
I would like to add that there is a low-level Druid mission where the goal is to cure X number of gazelle in the Barrens of a pox. That was pretty cool. I was hoping for more missions like that for the Druid. I didn’t roll a Druid to be a glorified Priest, but I thought it would be great if the missions revolved around healing the land from the Burning Legion and protecting it from, whatever really.
It would be an interesting change of pace and really differentiate the various classes from one another.
12th September | Reply
Hmmm, you guys do know that in WoW you get exp in a group for healing right? When you go on instances as a priest ALL you do is support. The only time you bother to look at a mob is if everyone is in fine health and you have a wand. Most of the useful priest spells generate a good amount of hate so causing any critical damage to a mob is not a good idea. I thought WoW was pretty unique for making the priest class good at its healer job but able to be played solo. Fear not though Vermouth. Go Holy in your talents and you will have the type of priest you desire. However, you will need lots of friends too
A problem in many pre-WoW MMORPGs is the lack of priests and healers. They are the most essential part of a group yet in most games they are played by the very few. Try to find a white mage to group with in FFXI, getting the right group takes longer than the quests you’ll go on. The reason no one plays healers in MMOs other than WoW? They suck at combat
Essentially, to create the healer that focuses solely on healing, he must be with a group, always. Without anyone to heal the healer is useless. WoW gave the priests a good set of combat skills and all of a sudden priests/druids have better numbers (although priest is still the least played class on most WoW servers).
Sadly I think you may be in the minority Vermouth.
However, if your priest is low level just wait. After the initial 15 levels or so when everyone fights alone you will have to be grouped constantly. Blizzard made the talents so you can play a straight healer or a ’shadow priest’ which is more for combat and PvP. Put your points into healing and you’ll have many friends and get by purely by being a beneficial presence in groups.
Why don’t priests just get straight up exp for every healing spell they cast? Easy, it would be impossible to stop exploiters. The monster death = exp system allows all classes to use their strengths in a group without creating easily exploited inbalances in the game world. Someone could easily take a guild mate out and have the guildmate fight a low level mob and not attack back. Priest just macros a heal on his friend for hours/days until he is level 60 for doing jack.
To do this properly you would have to overhaul the entire leveling system. Warriors would have to get exp per-successful hit. Mages for successful damage spells and such. It would end up being very much like Ultima Online. Actually… I would dig that
UO’s system of “use a skill and get better in it” seems far more suiting than allocating points to skills you may have not even used in combat/exp gaining. Your character should be made of your experiences rather than your template.
However, there is hope. I can’t believe this didn’t spring to others’ minds. Battlefield 2. In Battlefield 2 a medic can be the top on the scoreboard of his team without ever shooting his gun. Healing and reviving is the name of the game. Because the points for reviving an incapacitated character are quite substantial you will see medics risking life and limb to save comrades. Most medics are very focused on the soldier’s around them rather than the battle at hand. It is quite refreshing.
Also the engineer class and support class function the same way. Support hands out ammo and gets rewarded for it. Engies get points for repairing tanks and structures vital to the commander. Spec Ops will (next patch) get points for sabotaging enemy equipment. BF2 has a very well implemented reward system, whatever class you choose.
12th September | Reply
I wondered about BF 2–So it is like RTCW and not BF 42 in that regard. I only played the demo a few minutes because i was drugged out of my mind on BG2. Back on WoW a bit i’ve got a 37 Holy Priest which is getting me more invites than i got as a warrior for sure but how long before i’m bombarded with invites? I’m usually forced to beg to get a group together. i frankly don’t enjoy killing things that much but preserving life–now that’s quite fun indeed and keeping a lot of lives together is more fun than a few.
13th September | Reply
Lvl 45+. Especially if you are not in a clan. At that point you have Mauradon and many other big time instances, we each one NEEDS a priest.