One way to breathe a new life into multiplayer shooters could be removing any guns from healers.
Make them potent, but vulnerable!
Why is it important:
- Players that don’t like shooting, but love teamwork would finally be represented (yes, I’m speaking of your girlfriend!)
- Having to protect healers would benefit more organized teams, rewarding teamwork
- Healers would have a more dynamic gameplay revolving around avoiding damage: stealthy movement, ability to quickly traverse dangerous zones, coordination with fellow teammates are all required to benefit your team as a healer
What might need to be tweaked:
- Healers should be made into the only revivors, and we should either punish death more (which we’d better be careful of if that’s a dynamic game) or give buffs on revival
- Healers should get more movement abilities to increase survivability. They may also get speed boost when running towards teammates (similar to Conduit Savior’s Speed in Apex Legends)
- Team compositions should accommodate for several healers as to not introduce a single point of failure
Overall, I think it could introduce a new dynamic to team arenas and skirmishes, as winning now requires more coordination within a team and better understanding of everyone’s roles.
I like the idea from a roleplaying-POV.
However, as someone who loves to play medic since BF2, I can tell you that I’d stop playing supportive (medic) if they’d remove the guns from the class. It sounds like it’s just half as fun.
If healers are unable to harm others, then maybe add a scoring system which penalizes people for harming/killing healers. Taking “kills” away or whatever.
I think it’s okay to gain score by killing enemy healers - this puts them in danger and forces more tactical gameplay. In a more realism-focused gameplay, though, this might be an option.
ugh. why?
In reality, it’s a war crime to fire on medics in combat zones. That doesn’t always stop people from doing it, but it’s still frowned upon. Same rule could apply to unarmed medics in games.
There should be some penalty for shooting unarmed healers. Just to let others know that you’re a dick.
That would just make them even bigger targets than they already are. And now they won’t have a way to defend themselves? That sounds like a nightmare. I used to play Overwatch and would always play support. There’s no way in hell i’d trust my team to help me if I’m being attacked. They’re probably just gonna jump ahead and say “I need healing!” fifteen times and call me a trash healer as I get the shit beaten out of me with no way to fight back. If this is how support roles worked nobody would play them. I already get left to my own devices as the rest of the team ignores me getting attacked in the back line. It’s already a thankless and painful role to play and this would make it unbearable.
Nope. Favours pro play and is absolutely shit at lower tiers.
This is why Mercy has a gun and why tanks in mobas have to have a bit of kill potential. It’d be incredibly frustrating to want to play a healer like that and your team being completely dogshite without you having any ability to affect enemies.
AugustUwU, a Riot developer talks about that a bit on some of his videos.
Disagree. Both Ragnarok Online pvp and World of Warcraft arena had tank mage builds (discipline priest and priest/high priest) and they were incredibly fun to play. Especially early-ish discipline pvp was all about proactive absorption and then removing as many buffs and burning mana of the enemy.
Then of course blizzard did their usual blizzard shit.
Balancing is different in a MMORPG. And one person having fun really doesn’t tell a lot. The point is that when it’s done in team games, usually it ends up frustrating most players.
Like say a MOBA had a hero who had a 30% winrate. There might be plenty of mains who don’t mind at all and find the hero fun and good. But the stats from a million games tells a better story than anecdotal experiences.
edit remember that in an mmorpg, everyone in a pvp scenario already has a ton of experience in the game, whereas with a moba, you haven’t necessarily played one character through hundreds of hours of grinding.
I still think it’s okay to have high skill ceiling classes though. It’s one reason dota2 Invoker was so popular for example.
They could probably add one healer in a moba or team shooter that has a complicated but rewarding game play.
Like think about this this way; you couldn’t really have a champion who couldn’t heal at all either, and did “100% damage”. Like, if you did insane amounts of damage, but only had a certain amount of health and no way of getting it back.
It’s not exactly the same, of course, but it does highlight something that could sort of never work. (Never say never, but, you know…)
I still think it’s okay to have high skill ceiling classes though
I never implied otherwise.
But you can’t really have 100% healers and 100% tanks who can’t deal damage in teamgames like mobas and shooters.
That’s why Mercy has a gun, even when it is very rarely used.
This almost seems like healers would become the main focus of the game. Some might like it some may not. But it would change things. It almost seems like you want healers to be so core that you will basically auto lose a fight due to a lack of revival and sustain. So if your healer gets caught out of position or sniped you just have to back off or otherwise just lose. To me that does not sound like a fun game loop.
A better option would likely to be have a multitude of different style of healers that can fulfill multiple different styles of gameplay. Sure have one that can only heal and not dps and has to be protected by teammates, but also have a healer that can Frontline and half allies when they do melee dmg. Have are healers, have single target healers. Have dot healers, have burst healers.
Of course it has to be somewhat balanced - healers should not get super OP, but they should be good enough for players to give up damaging abilities and still be important in a team.
There could be an in-between option added though, fair enough.
Don’t most medics have a sidearm? I know there are/have been pacifists & conscientious objectors in those roles in the past. But I don’t know what standard issue is for medics.
Play squad or Arma.
Fuck no.
As someone who loves maining healers, I would never play one again if my only hope for defence was my team mates.
Healers are already are hard role due to lack of support and cover, making them more dependent on it would be worse
You’ll just die all the time because hardly anyone would help you, and as a bonus you get yelled at by your team for not healing them. Sounds like fun.
As one of the commenters has put it, there could be options, like having more of a “field healer” that is armed but has less healing-related abilities, and a full healer that only heals but has unique options.
You could pursue the former.
Also, movement and stealth abilities are a must for a defenceless healer, so you could still protect yourself in other ways.
like having more of a “field healer” that is armed but has less healing-related abilities, and a full healer that only heals but has unique options.
And this differs from most existing games how, exactly?
This is coward talk. Healers should be given silver bullets for their guns with badass names like “Spectre Covenant” and huge medieval maces.
So you’re respawning and no DPS are near you and you encounter an enemy DPS in a narrow corridor. No thanks.
Wouldn’t that mean death for you either way? Unless the healer has a massive weapon, I guess.
See team fortress 2 for healing done properly
Team Fortress is built off the idea that no class can’t do something, some just do it way better.
Team Fortress ain’t perfectly balanced and thoroughly thought out though. It’s just a fun meaty shooter, that’s it, and it’s alright :)
The whole idea of different kits in a shooter already precludes balance though. That’s an accepted loss for more enjoyable gameplay.
Oh no it is very ballanced.
if you use 6s rules
Casual is more balanced actually
Huh?
Casual is more balanced due to the amount of people. It’s more viable to play other classes.
That’s not really any sane definition of balanced.
In that sense Highlander would be the most balanced because every class is always played.
Battlefield does most of this, except medics csn defend themselves because people already rarely play support. As seen by the endless rage and whining, the ad-hoc emergent teamplay doesn’t work as often as it does.
The only reason I start shooting is if my team isn’t doing their job. You want me to go out there and heal with no protection from the enemy? They already focus on the healers as it is, and we get left behind often. I honestly would never play healer again. All the stuff you’re explaining already happens. My goal already is to avoid damage, my team is already supposed to protect me (and when they don’t/can’t, I have a weapon for that).
also, not only “girlfriends” dislike shooting, there are plenty of guys who are main healersGirlfriend joke was just a light pun :D
I respect healer main guys, and often am one :)
Went over my head. My bad.
Was with you until you thought you were speaking of my girlfriend being a support role.
Dude, I’d be willing to bet she’d eat your lunch in a multiplayer shooter.
Maybe lose the sexist shit and I’d say you’ve got something here!
Sorry if this sounded offensive, I thought it could be a light pun. My apologies.
In any case, I know plenty of girls that would absolutely kick my ass in shooters and that actively take offensive roles. I never meant to say all girls are opposed to taking a gun!
You’re all good.
Nope, I’m cancelling OP. He’s cancelled. He’ll get the paperwork… Eventually.
That’s not what a pun is anyway tho
What If “healer” was assigned at random at the start of a match of no one picks it, healers weren’t on either team, land were scored separately by how many people they revived?
Neutral medics? That would likely be a shitshow to balance, but I would actually be interested in trying that. Lore accurate Swiss Mercy!
