Originally posted by R3born Take some time to read interviews instead of expecting full explanations from each new press release. It has been said before, that players will be able to spec full support, so with that in mind it is not that far-fetched to think of actually building your own healer.
In the majority of games that include dedicated healer classes, you will find all of your skills, proficiencies, and possible builds, given to you on a proverbial silver platter. However due to combat mechanics, healers will be prone to various pitfalls, such as over-aggression or lack of dps. These healers are seldomly perfectly suited, usually lacking dynamic structure, and generally very dependant. This as I said once before all depends on the game being played.
In Guild Wars 2, you will not only be able to spec support, but also effectively create your own personal class, in which you can play the healer more suited to your style. The truth is everyone has their own class preference, one that cannot be covered by one classname in any one game. I will not elaborate this point, however if you have played more than one mmo, you will fully understand, one healer is not the same as another. The choice is now yours, be the healer you have always wanted to be...
Well if they have got rid of companions, the 'everyone heals' may be more than just to make it a soloists dream. I await more infomation, maybe they can pull of something new.
I have read almost everything that everyone has written and I have just a few thoughts/worries.
It seems like healing will be defocused and damage mitigation/avoidance is going to take a larger role. Will that mean that the classes that can buff/debuff become the new “healer” class that every group needs? If so it kind of defeats the purpose of freeing up groups.
If the developers think groups will be able to work with coordinated healing rotations they are wrong. Healing rotations is one of the hardest things to set up, even for top raiding guilds. Groups are not going to pug if they have to set up healing rotations.
Lastly, I kind of worry that GW2 is moving towards an everyman/woman for themselves game. It will be interesting to see how this develops and how it is implemented. I hope it works but I am very skeptical. I have seen a lot more poorly designed new ideas than I have seen well designed ones.
There's much more to damage mitigation than buffing. Anyone who's played Magic: The Gathering (inspiration for GW2's combat system) will tell you that self-fortification, while useful, does not a rock-solid defense make. Offensive damage mitigation (i.e. hexes, interrupts, knockdown, cripple, daze, blindness, even just fast, focused spiking) can be used to reduce the effectiveness of the opposing team / mob.
And just because there's no single, unbeatable healer class doesn't mean there won't be anyone capable of healing a group.
The fact of not having a specific healer class seems a little flawed in the long run. When you give different heals to different class types to omit a main healer people are still going to look for specific spell or ability that heals how they want, like a heal that is AoE or heals for a lot in 1 cast ect. So the end result will be the same, people looking for a certain class or someone with the heal type they want. I'm not sure how they will end up working but I'm very eager to see how GW2 turns out without a dedicated healer.
Death to the pure healer class and the need to use one in every group..
I like it, i can totally get behind this, ive always hated relying on a healer to get shit done, finallly a dev team sees that the whole concept is fucking broken, the healer has always been the most sought after class in every MMO and that is far to much importance to put on a single class.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I have read almost everything that everyone has written and I have just a few thoughts/worries.
It seems like healing will be defocused and damage mitigation/avoidance is going to take a larger role. Will that mean that the classes that can buff/debuff become the new “healer” class that every group needs? If so it kind of defeats the purpose of freeing up groups.
If the developers think groups will be able to work with coordinated healing rotations they are wrong. Healing rotations is one of the hardest things to set up, even for top raiding guilds. Groups are not going to pug if they have to set up healing rotations.
Lastly, I kind of worry that GW2 is moving towards an everyman/woman for themselves game. It will be interesting to see how this develops and how it is implemented. I hope it works but I am very skeptical. I have seen a lot more poorly designed new ideas than I have seen well designed ones.
There's much more to damage mitigation than buffing. Anyone who's played Magic: The Gathering (inspiration for GW2's combat system) will tell you that self-fortification, while useful, does not a rock-solid defense make. Offensive damage mitigation (i.e. hexes, interrupts, knockdown, cripple, daze, blindness, even just fast, focused spiking) can be used to reduce the effectiveness of the opposing team / mob.
And just because there's no single, unbeatable healer class doesn't mean there won't be anyone capable of healing a group.
I clearly stated buffing and debuffing. Everything you stated falls under one of those two categories. I have no clue how what you posted contradicts what I posted. I think you should reread what I typed.
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I will not play gw2 due to one problem, well its a problem for me:
It will be full of instancing (aoc anyone?)
I like open worlds with very little or no instancing
OzzallosRunes of Magic CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 35
This piece is kinda light on detail, the critical piece in being how they impliment it. Runes of Magic is the only MMO that I can recall (ignore the title to the left; I've washed my hands of that game for other reasons) that successfully addresses the issue of healer availibility though dual classing.
Since GW2 doesn't sound like its going that route, I'm guessing that either every class has a healing talent tree that you can spec and/or you can swap talent trees ala late Warcraft. The swappable build (assuming they do it somewhat traditionally) is almost nessisary to kill healer availibility issues... After all, the reason they're so rare is because of the sacrifices you make to actually be good at it. Leveling a priest in Warcraft was liking driving a nail through steel with your forehead only up until recently, and the game has been out how long now?
I don't know if I'm down with every class having priest abilities since you begin to kill of the pretige of the class itself. I understand why they're doing it, but now the ability is no longer unique... RoM can get away with it because you can also go double dps, dps/cc, etc and those classes won't have access to priest abilities. The presitge of a priest is somewhat maintained.
Depending on how GW2 executes, of course. It's like yelling, "I'm an Elementalist!" while everybody looks at you, rolling their eyes, saying, "Yeah so are we." I guess if you're tryin to destroy any unique value healing has as a class, then that's the way to do it. Though I think they would have been better off giving it to a select few classes and implimenting swappable talent trees so the ability itself has at least some unique value.
My only other concern is stat allocation (something RoM doesn't address). Just because anybody can be a priest and something else, doesn't make your character effective at both; even once you change talents. Warrior <--> Priest = some messed up stat structure that would need to be addressed.
I've personally never played Guild Wars, but I can say as a healer, yes, I play the healer in every game I can, that I've seen other games try to split up healing between the characters. For example, the meat shield (tank) would get buffs, the mage would get the actual healing spell along with their attack spells, and assassin, per se, would get debuffs.
Every time I've seen this attempted, it hasn't worked out too well. Games like, say, Gears of War, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5, Army of Two, where everyone was an attacker and you could pick each other up, worked several times better, since everyone essentially had a res spell.
Based on the "Attack, support, control" phrase, it seems more like they're going to try what Squeenix did with FFXIII, where they put a buffer and debuffer, warrior, black mage, white mage, and a defender, where the defender and white mage play the smallest possible role, as opposed to what an average old-school RPG player would expect. Wherein, the buffer and debuffer lead the party, then fall back until buffs wear off, the warrior and mage hug everything until they need heals, where the white mage runs in for all of three seconds, spam heal, and then run away again. If the items weren't so expensive and weak, the white mage could have easily been replaced by potions.
To me it seems they're attempting to split the spells, or it might end up like FFXIII where the buffer and debuffer are more significant than the healer. Now, were it to end up like Phantasy Star Online, where everyone could heal and debuff and the like, ontop of their specialization, that would be great. Otherwise, I'd say not to try.
Though, I have yet to see what they're going to do. Might end up as a pleasant surprise.
In my opinion, while it's no fun looking for a healer so you can group, it's also no fun having to BE a healer when you don't want to. It's also no fun getting heals from some guy who doesn't know how because that's not really his class.
But, I'm keeping an open mind until I see it.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I will not play gw2 due to one problem, well its a problem for me:
It will be full of instancing (aoc anyone?)
I like open worlds with very little or no instancing
Why do people insist on making comments like this without bothering to actual look at the details of the game.
Yes there will be SOME instancing, mainly for your Personal Story (which is mainly focused on your individual character, and looks like it will play out similar to the Mission instances in GW1), and some dungeons. Other than that, it will have an open persisten world with dynamic events, massive underwater areas, etc,. This open world with events and stuff is going to be where you spend the majority of your time playing the game, especially once you finish going through the personal storyline.
1: Some people like playing healers, for whatever reason.
2: Players will not be able to attack if they are spending time healing themselves or someone else.
3: For players that cannot multi-task as well as others a player or players could end up dead.
The Good:
1: After combat group healing can be done very quickly. This may impact PvP more than PvE depending upon game mechanics.
2: Solo play may be more survivable, then again, time taken to heal is time taken from offense.
Suggestions:
In addition to heals: If there is to be no dedicated healer in the game, then there should be an attack that yields two results, one of which is a heal. For example, if 100 damage is done 100 heal can be given, or a percentage of damage, such as 60% or 75%. Heals can also be provided for any type of attack, not just damage, but crowd control and personal defense, such as knock back.
More defensive armor and attributes can be provided.
More damage output and longer timers on crowd control and disease type attacks.
Edit: Added "and disease type attacks".
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5 SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
Originally posted by Spiritof55 I will not play gw2 due to one problem, well its a problem for me: It will be full of instancing (aoc anyone?) I like open worlds with very little or no instancing
Why do people insist on making comments like this without bothering to actual look at the details of the game. Yes there will be SOME instancing, mainly for your Personal Story (which is mainly focused on your individual character, and looks like it will play out similar to the Mission instances in GW1), and some dungeons. Other than that, it will have an open persisten world with dynamic events, massive underwater areas, etc,. This open world with events and stuff is going to be where you spend the majority of your time playing the game, especially once you finish going through the personal storyline.
Do you really want people like this to be in the game in the first place?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Difficult to say how it will pan out at this stage. I enjoy playing healers and dps, and it will be interesting to see these roles become a bit more blurred, although I'm sure there will still be one main healing class, just lots more support available from other classes. Similar to GW, but more so, I am guessing.
Whether this idea will add to the game, or detract from it for the majority of players remains to be seen, but to me it's another example of the way this team are keen to try new things in order to freshen the gaming experience.
What track record? Anet has only released one game. Unless there's a couple I'm unaware of? Bioware has a track record, Bethesda has a track record, square has one. Anet does not.
One game that has been very successful and has had a large following for some time? Seriously, you guys give Anet far less credit than they deserve.
I hope it works out for them because the genre really needs something new and different from the norm, BUT as someone who enjoys playing healer classes, this above all else will keep me from buying GW2.
I'm in the same boat as Murashu. I always play a healer and hence wont be buying this game. I also think its narrow minded of the developers to think a game would be more fun if dedicated healers weren't needed. I'd like to suggest that actually getting rid of tanks would be more fun. I for one enjoy situations where I'm having to heal/keep alive several people at once. Spam healing just the tank is boring. So GW2 make the game more fun by getting rid of tanks. So basically that leaves dps. May as well play an online shooter
I hope it works out for them because the genre really needs something new and different from the norm, BUT as someone who enjoys playing healer classes, this above all else will keep me from buying GW2.
I'm in the same boat as Murashu. I always play a healer and hence wont be buying this game. I also think its narrow minded of the developers to think a game would be more fun if dedicated healers weren't needed. I'd like to suggest that actually getting rid of tanks would be more fun. I for one enjoy situations where I'm having to heal/keep alive several people at once. Spam healing just the tank is boring. So GW2 make the game more fun by getting rid of tanks. So basically that leaves dps. May as well play an online shooter
I feel for you guys, but have you concidered that the 'lack of a healer class' is basically being shifted to a support class instead? What I mean by this is that instead of spamming heals over and over on the tank, you'll be throwing around some heals, but more protection buffs?
There's still 4 classes, so it's hard to say one way or the other, however in GW1 this was most definitely the case. They did have healing monks, but eventually it transformed into monks who casted protection / smite and threw around the ocassional healing spell, rather than the monk who did nothing but cast heals. If this still isn't what you're looking for, then I think SWTOR has a more dedicated healing class, as does FFXIV (though I know that's not everyone's cup of tea).
I keep hearing the same thing about GW1 and as far as I can tell, there's a ton more content for PvE than there is for PvP or any of it's offshoots. It's always felt more like a tacked on feature than one that had an entire game built around it, but that's just my impression. Currently, GW2 is giving me the same impression.
Either way, just because you can't muster the imagination to see how it will be possible to PvP without a dedicated healing class, doesn't necessarily make it impossible. I expect that the dynamics of PvP encounters will be quite different from what people are used to with the same old, tired mechanics. Whether or not you can get into this new style is really up to you. Judging from how things appear to be playing out, I expect that ANet will make PvP perfectly workable and challenging. But like its predecessor, I just don't see this being a case of an entire game being built around PvP.
The fact of not having a specific healer class seems a little flawed in the long run. When you give different heals to different class types to omit a main healer people are still going to look for specific spell or ability that heals how they want, like a heal that is AoE or heals for a lot in 1 cast ect. So the end result will be the same, people looking for a certain class or someone with the heal type they want. I'm not sure how they will end up working but I'm very eager to see how GW2 turns out without a dedicated healer.
I can see this happening on occassion, but I think for the most part, if a group wants to get going, they'll take any warm body to fill out the roster, then just ask that they bring a certain skill that might be of more use than another. I really doubt people will be willing to wait for even a few minutes for that perfect fit when they can get someone who's only a near perfect fit, or at minimum, an adequate fit. Personally, I'd rather just get the show on the road and adjust tactics on the fly to take advantage if the odd skill dynamics we're sure to encounter, when we aren't relying on filling specific roles.
Yes, some people will insist on waiting for a "healer". But I think in many cases, others in the group will tend to drop and go with anyone heading out in the same direction. I mean, why bother waiting when you really don't need to? Those that do, may find that they're spending a lot of their time bench warming compared to everyone else. Good thing their time online isn't being charged by the hour.
The recent videos from this german convention show people fighting mobs, bosses and doing missions/events without healer. and they are doing just fine. So I don't see a problem with removing a healer from a game. btw. I love healers and most of the time I play one but I understand that game shouldn't depend just on 1 class.
Well see how it turns out, i dont care either way what healing system they will use really aslong as there is someone to keep me alive :P Im never a healer anyways. Hope they wont give my warrior heals tough, then they might aswell just rename it to a paladin.
I hope it works out for them because the genre really needs something new and different from the norm, BUT as someone who enjoys playing healer classes, this above all else will keep me from buying GW2.
I'm in the same boat as Murashu. I always play a healer and hence wont be buying this game. I also think its narrow minded of the developers to think a game would be more fun if dedicated healers weren't needed. I'd like to suggest that actually getting rid of tanks would be more fun. I for one enjoy situations where I'm having to heal/keep alive several people at once. Spam healing just the tank is boring. So GW2 make the game more fun by getting rid of tanks. So basically that leaves dps. May as well play an online shooter
I find that your reaction to developers breaking a mold and trying to solve a issue that plagues every MMO released to date as being "narrow minded" amusing as well as self-centered, especially as you suggest getting rid of the other staple of MMOs for which dedicated Healers are typically graded by their ability to keep going, namely the Tank.
Basically what you're in effect saying is "Cater to me and FU to the rest of the MMO playerbase so that they MUST look for MY class to be able to complete content." I'd say that fits the term of narrow mindedness a lot more, if it weren't more accurately summed up by the term "selfish". The formula of 1 function classes that leads to a successful group is a blight to MMOs, and results in nothing more than competent cookie cutter play at best, and at its worst leads to all sorts of roadblocks ranging from class imbalances to borked up functionality.
I applaud Anet for having the vision and courage to break the tried and true formula that hasn't deviated since EQ and which WoW has pounded down our throats. Ideally, this break from the holy trinity will so seize the MMO community that a new generation of MMOs finally gets to start taking its breath and thriving, breaking the ruts that condition and create the above example of true narrow mindedness. And honestly, someone who can't be bothered to adapt and learn a more challenging form of play in which more than single function expectations is required, is not someone I'd like to see buy the game and have the misfortune of having to run alongside of.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price, and the only time you are completely safe is when you lie in the grave.
Comments
Well said, let's hope GW2 can fully live up that.
Well if they have got rid of companions, the 'everyone heals' may be more than just to make it a soloists dream. I await more infomation, maybe they can pull of something new.
There's much more to damage mitigation than buffing. Anyone who's played Magic: The Gathering (inspiration for GW2's combat system) will tell you that self-fortification, while useful, does not a rock-solid defense make. Offensive damage mitigation (i.e. hexes, interrupts, knockdown, cripple, daze, blindness, even just fast, focused spiking) can be used to reduce the effectiveness of the opposing team / mob.
And just because there's no single, unbeatable healer class doesn't mean there won't be anyone capable of healing a group.
This article outlines a possible battle scenario: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/29/guild-wars-2-interview-part-2-a-major-event/
The fact of not having a specific healer class seems a little flawed in the long run. When you give different heals to different class types to omit a main healer people are still going to look for specific spell or ability that heals how they want, like a heal that is AoE or heals for a lot in 1 cast ect. So the end result will be the same, people looking for a certain class or someone with the heal type they want. I'm not sure how they will end up working but I'm very eager to see how GW2 turns out without a dedicated healer.
Death to the pure healer class and the need to use one in every group..
I like it, i can totally get behind this, ive always hated relying on a healer to get shit done, finallly a dev team sees that the whole concept is fucking broken, the healer has always been the most sought after class in every MMO and that is far to much importance to put on a single class.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
Healers are no longer the most sought after class .That dubious honour goes to the tank class.
They both have that honour...
This is not a game.
Again, there's no tanks in the traditional sense either...
I clearly stated buffing and debuffing. Everything you stated falls under one of those two categories. I have no clue how what you posted contradicts what I posted. I think you should reread what I typed.
--John Ruskin
I will not play gw2 due to one problem, well its a problem for me:
It will be full of instancing (aoc anyone?)
I like open worlds with very little or no instancing
This piece is kinda light on detail, the critical piece in being how they impliment it. Runes of Magic is the only MMO that I can recall (ignore the title to the left; I've washed my hands of that game for other reasons) that successfully addresses the issue of healer availibility though dual classing.
Since GW2 doesn't sound like its going that route, I'm guessing that either every class has a healing talent tree that you can spec and/or you can swap talent trees ala late Warcraft. The swappable build (assuming they do it somewhat traditionally) is almost nessisary to kill healer availibility issues... After all, the reason they're so rare is because of the sacrifices you make to actually be good at it. Leveling a priest in Warcraft was liking driving a nail through steel with your forehead only up until recently, and the game has been out how long now?
I don't know if I'm down with every class having priest abilities since you begin to kill of the pretige of the class itself. I understand why they're doing it, but now the ability is no longer unique... RoM can get away with it because you can also go double dps, dps/cc, etc and those classes won't have access to priest abilities. The presitge of a priest is somewhat maintained.
Depending on how GW2 executes, of course. It's like yelling, "I'm an Elementalist!" while everybody looks at you, rolling their eyes, saying, "Yeah so are we." I guess if you're tryin to destroy any unique value healing has as a class, then that's the way to do it. Though I think they would have been better off giving it to a select few classes and implimenting swappable talent trees so the ability itself has at least some unique value.
My only other concern is stat allocation (something RoM doesn't address). Just because anybody can be a priest and something else, doesn't make your character effective at both; even once you change talents. Warrior <--> Priest = some messed up stat structure that would need to be addressed.
Like i said, article needs moar meat
I've personally never played Guild Wars, but I can say as a healer, yes, I play the healer in every game I can, that I've seen other games try to split up healing between the characters. For example, the meat shield (tank) would get buffs, the mage would get the actual healing spell along with their attack spells, and assassin, per se, would get debuffs.
Every time I've seen this attempted, it hasn't worked out too well. Games like, say, Gears of War, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5, Army of Two, where everyone was an attacker and you could pick each other up, worked several times better, since everyone essentially had a res spell.
Based on the "Attack, support, control" phrase, it seems more like they're going to try what Squeenix did with FFXIII, where they put a buffer and debuffer, warrior, black mage, white mage, and a defender, where the defender and white mage play the smallest possible role, as opposed to what an average old-school RPG player would expect. Wherein, the buffer and debuffer lead the party, then fall back until buffs wear off, the warrior and mage hug everything until they need heals, where the white mage runs in for all of three seconds, spam heal, and then run away again. If the items weren't so expensive and weak, the white mage could have easily been replaced by potions.
To me it seems they're attempting to split the spells, or it might end up like FFXIII where the buffer and debuffer are more significant than the healer. Now, were it to end up like Phantasy Star Online, where everyone could heal and debuff and the like, ontop of their specialization, that would be great. Otherwise, I'd say not to try.
Though, I have yet to see what they're going to do. Might end up as a pleasant surprise.
I look forward to seeing how it gets implemented.
In my opinion, while it's no fun looking for a healer so you can group, it's also no fun having to BE a healer when you don't want to. It's also no fun getting heals from some guy who doesn't know how because that's not really his class.
But, I'm keeping an open mind until I see it.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Why do people insist on making comments like this without bothering to actual look at the details of the game.
Yes there will be SOME instancing, mainly for your Personal Story (which is mainly focused on your individual character, and looks like it will play out similar to the Mission instances in GW1), and some dungeons. Other than that, it will have an open persisten world with dynamic events, massive underwater areas, etc,. This open world with events and stuff is going to be where you spend the majority of your time playing the game, especially once you finish going through the personal storyline.
Regarding no healer.
The Bad:
1: Some people like playing healers, for whatever reason.
2: Players will not be able to attack if they are spending time healing themselves or someone else.
3: For players that cannot multi-task as well as others a player or players could end up dead.
The Good:
1: After combat group healing can be done very quickly. This may impact PvP more than PvE depending upon game mechanics.
2: Solo play may be more survivable, then again, time taken to heal is time taken from offense.
Suggestions:
In addition to heals: If there is to be no dedicated healer in the game, then there should be an attack that yields two results, one of which is a heal. For example, if 100 damage is done 100 heal can be given, or a percentage of damage, such as 60% or 75%. Heals can also be provided for any type of attack, not just damage, but crowd control and personal defense, such as knock back.
More defensive armor and attributes can be provided.
More damage output and longer timers on crowd control and disease type attacks.
Edit: Added "and disease type attacks".
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5
SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
Do you really want people like this to be in the game in the first place?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Difficult to say how it will pan out at this stage. I enjoy playing healers and dps, and it will be interesting to see these roles become a bit more blurred, although I'm sure there will still be one main healing class, just lots more support available from other classes. Similar to GW, but more so, I am guessing.
Whether this idea will add to the game, or detract from it for the majority of players remains to be seen, but to me it's another example of the way this team are keen to try new things in order to freshen the gaming experience.
One game that has been very successful and has had a large following for some time? Seriously, you guys give Anet far less credit than they deserve.
I'm in the same boat as Murashu. I always play a healer and hence wont be buying this game. I also think its narrow minded of the developers to think a game would be more fun if dedicated healers weren't needed. I'd like to suggest that actually getting rid of tanks would be more fun. I for one enjoy situations where I'm having to heal/keep alive several people at once. Spam healing just the tank is boring. So GW2 make the game more fun by getting rid of tanks. So basically that leaves dps. May as well play an online shooter
I feel for you guys, but have you concidered that the 'lack of a healer class' is basically being shifted to a support class instead? What I mean by this is that instead of spamming heals over and over on the tank, you'll be throwing around some heals, but more protection buffs?
There's still 4 classes, so it's hard to say one way or the other, however in GW1 this was most definitely the case. They did have healing monks, but eventually it transformed into monks who casted protection / smite and threw around the ocassional healing spell, rather than the monk who did nothing but cast heals. If this still isn't what you're looking for, then I think SWTOR has a more dedicated healing class, as does FFXIV (though I know that's not everyone's cup of tea).
Is it?
I keep hearing the same thing about GW1 and as far as I can tell, there's a ton more content for PvE than there is for PvP or any of it's offshoots. It's always felt more like a tacked on feature than one that had an entire game built around it, but that's just my impression. Currently, GW2 is giving me the same impression.
Either way, just because you can't muster the imagination to see how it will be possible to PvP without a dedicated healing class, doesn't necessarily make it impossible. I expect that the dynamics of PvP encounters will be quite different from what people are used to with the same old, tired mechanics. Whether or not you can get into this new style is really up to you. Judging from how things appear to be playing out, I expect that ANet will make PvP perfectly workable and challenging. But like its predecessor, I just don't see this being a case of an entire game being built around PvP.
Call it what you want though.
I can see this happening on occassion, but I think for the most part, if a group wants to get going, they'll take any warm body to fill out the roster, then just ask that they bring a certain skill that might be of more use than another. I really doubt people will be willing to wait for even a few minutes for that perfect fit when they can get someone who's only a near perfect fit, or at minimum, an adequate fit. Personally, I'd rather just get the show on the road and adjust tactics on the fly to take advantage if the odd skill dynamics we're sure to encounter, when we aren't relying on filling specific roles.
Yes, some people will insist on waiting for a "healer". But I think in many cases, others in the group will tend to drop and go with anyone heading out in the same direction. I mean, why bother waiting when you really don't need to? Those that do, may find that they're spending a lot of their time bench warming compared to everyone else. Good thing their time online isn't being charged by the hour.
The recent videos from this german convention show people fighting mobs, bosses and doing missions/events without healer. and they are doing just fine. So I don't see a problem with removing a healer from a game. btw. I love healers and most of the time I play one but I understand that game shouldn't depend just on 1 class.
Well see how it turns out, i dont care either way what healing system they will use really aslong as there is someone to keep me alive :P Im never a healer anyways. Hope they wont give my warrior heals tough, then they might aswell just rename it to a paladin.
Currently Playing Path of Exile
I find that your reaction to developers breaking a mold and trying to solve a issue that plagues every MMO released to date as being "narrow minded" amusing as well as self-centered, especially as you suggest getting rid of the other staple of MMOs for which dedicated Healers are typically graded by their ability to keep going, namely the Tank.
Basically what you're in effect saying is "Cater to me and FU to the rest of the MMO playerbase so that they MUST look for MY class to be able to complete content." I'd say that fits the term of narrow mindedness a lot more, if it weren't more accurately summed up by the term "selfish". The formula of 1 function classes that leads to a successful group is a blight to MMOs, and results in nothing more than competent cookie cutter play at best, and at its worst leads to all sorts of roadblocks ranging from class imbalances to borked up functionality.
I applaud Anet for having the vision and courage to break the tried and true formula that hasn't deviated since EQ and which WoW has pounded down our throats. Ideally, this break from the holy trinity will so seize the MMO community that a new generation of MMOs finally gets to start taking its breath and thriving, breaking the ruts that condition and create the above example of true narrow mindedness. And honestly, someone who can't be bothered to adapt and learn a more challenging form of play in which more than single function expectations is required, is not someone I'd like to see buy the game and have the misfortune of having to run alongside of.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price, and the only time you are completely safe is when you lie in the grave.