THE DEDICATED HEALER

How much does it bother me that I am FORCED to use anybody?

Always.

"If the game has made strong efforts to ensure that offense is just as important as defense, does this still matter? If you can customize each character and choose who gets healing spells, does it still bother you when the game ropes you into only having one dedicated healer?"

Usually, the problem is that defense is more important than offense. If you have made offense 'just as important' that actually further exaggerates the need for strong defenses - especially if you only get to have one healer. If I can customize everybody why would I still only be able to have one dedicated healer??? This makes no sense. FFX-2. I can customize everybody's classes and make them all white mages or secondary white mages if I want to.

FF5: Can customize everyone, can make them all white mages
FF6: Can customize everyone, can make them all learn Cure3
FF7: Can customize everyone, can equip Curaga materia
FF8: Can customize everyone, can make them all learn Curaga

etc

author=LockeZ
And if you combine that with bosses that punish excessive turtling, then the player doesn't feel compelled to make a team that has all the healers.

Does playing a party with 4 healers work effectively? Definitely not, even without bosses who 'punish turtling'. How many times in FF5 did you bring 3 white mages? If it WERE the best party though, if you need to actively discourage people from doing it, it's a fundamental balance problem; adding a punishing element in is literally just punishing you for using what is otherwise the best option.

Well in my game, there are several ways to go about healing.

1) There are always items, so that's an option so everyone can heal. It can get expensive later on with the higher cost/better healing items required when enemies start doing more damage.

2) Magic sheres: In my game, just have a 'cure' sphere in your inventory allows all characters to cast that spells, however, unlike the cure spell specific to the White Mage, spells learned via spheres cost triple the amount of MP to cast. Making some characters unable to cast higher level healing spells such as Curaga and unable to cast simple Cure as often. You 'could' use the sphere itself as the spell with no cost to your MP, but you destroy it and must go find/buy another. Another non-cost effective way of healing for everyone, but it is an option and gives you another choice in battle.

3) The white mage himself can be your dedicated healer with lost-cost healing spells, provided you can keep him protected and not die.

4) Your blue mage if you are able to find the enemies that have healing skills and watch them use it in action several times before your mage learns it. They aren't as potent as the higher level healing spells of the white mage, but they'll do.

So there are a variety of healing options in my game and I present them up front to the player. Its up to the player to decide how best to heal his party through the game.

Personally I think I like the Chrono Trigger approach where half the team has good healing spells, and everyone can use at least a small amount of healing/defense. That gives the player enough real options that they don't feel boxed into any one setup. And if you combine that with bosses that punish excessive turtling, then the player doesn't feel compelled to make a team that has all the healers.

I don't really think the FF9 method (two of your eight characters are great healers, a third one can become a good healer extremely late in the game, no one else can heal at all) is satisfactory. I'm not actually sure what I dislike about it. Maybe it was just that the two main healers were extremely similar and so it didn't really feel like a meaningful party choice. But somehow I feel like giving everyone the ability to heal is a good idea.

I like the Chrono Trigger approach, too, more than any other approach for a choose-your-own-party game, because of how much flexibility it gives you. If you want the burden of healing to fall entirely on one character, you can do that. If you'd rather have multiple characters split the load, you can do that too. If you're really worried, you can have a dedicated healer AND two supplementary ones - or you can have none at all and just go all-out on offense. It gives the player the fullest degree of freedom in delegating the roles in his party, allowing him to play however he pleases. Also, since healing is a situational consideration (unlike attacking, which is always necessary), a typical i cast cure and that's about it white mage finds herself with nothing useful to do 75% of the time, which, as we all know, is boring. CT clearly avoids this by having complex and versatile healers who do more than just cure - even Marle, whose offensive options all suck iirc, can still augment the party's damage output by way of her dual techs, and thus finds herself with a use even outside of healing-intensive boss battles.

The FF9 method, on the other hand, pales because it only gives you one option: entrust all the healing duties to a single character. Even though you get two different white mages, the division of labor is the same - one person heals full-time, the other three dish out the damage. There is only one play style. And unlike in Chrono Trigger, FF9's healers couldn't do much besides restore HP. Their summons were mediocre at best, largely inhibited by low damage/cost ratios, and their support spells were, of course, of little value in regular encounters. Thus if you wanted any substantial healing on your team at all, you had no choice but to carry around the dead weight of a situational character. Ultimately I think I picked Eiko since, late in the game, Holy and Half MP gave her something handy to do between Curagas.

Giving everyone the ability to heal is not a bad idea, I think, but you have to be careful about how you do it. If healing is too widely available, it ceases to be a consideration for the party-building process, which means that choosing your team is a more simplistic, less meaningful task. This is especially true of games like FF6, wherein any character can cast the best heal spells at relatively little cost (as opposed to, say, FF5, wherein the privilege of White Magic will cost you a precious ability slot). Restorative spells are so abundant and accessible in that game that the player, in picking his teammates, need never worry about who exactly is gonna keep his party alive. It's luxurious, sure, but it detracts from the diversity of the cast, the importance of party-building, and the challenge of the game. Frankly I'd avoid either extreme (the other being the dedicated healer) and stick to either the Chrono Trigger model (limited healing distributed between characters in different amounts) or the FF5 model (unlimited healing, but at the cost of other abilities).

If the dedicated healer (or any dedicated character at all, I suppose it could be said) has any place at all, I think it's in games like FF4 wherein you have no choice over who's in your party, or like FFX wherein every character is situationally useful and you are expected to employ each of them as circumstances dictate. In either case, you aren't punished for not using the healer because you can't not use the healer; they're always technically in your party.

edit:

Why waste someone who does healing and damage equally on just healing, when you have someone who can heal much better than they can do damage, if they aren't going to be damaging anyways?

One thing I disliked was that white mages in FFT had access to holy. An attempt to diversify the role perhaps, but it was one of the strongest attacks it the game and hit the final boss for maximum damage. I'd rather be punished on the offensive end than have a role that does everything.

Mm, I take back what I said about dedicated healers not having a place in choose-your-own-party RPGs. I sat in on my friend's economics class and her professor was actually saying something along these lines. I forget all of his fancy economic terminology, but what I gleaned from him is that, for instance, a White Mage with Holy makes a worse healer than one without it, since for the former to cast a recovery spell, he has to give up all that damage that Holy would have done. The Holy-less mage's cure spell is relatively much cheaper, since he doesn't have to give up nearly as much.

So I guess the idea behind the dedicated caster is not just that their healing is stronger than that of any other character's, but also relatively cheaper. Any character who opts to heal instead of attack chooses to sacrifice damage for health; dedicated healers merely have the benefit of the best exchange rate.

Uh, I don't really know where I'm going with this, now. Guess I'm just musing. Hm.

I'd rather have one party member capable of healing than have all party members capable of doing everything (healing, swinging a sword, casting offensive magic, etc.) The dedicated healer is like the medic in the squad.

There are some games that prevent you from just wearing down the enemy with an all defense team. If the enemy can heal all their health points then you have to be able to spike damage. If you have limited magic points or mp restoration items, then you still have to kill them before they wear you down.

I always try to give my White Mage at least some offensive capability but yeah at least one character is going to be a primary healer.

The classic Fighter, Rogue, Healer, Wizard at least makes characters different from each other.

author=LockeZ
That really was only part of the question. Am I to take it from this that you don't mind when a game pretends to give you a choice of characters, but one of them is the healer and thus you are forced to always use that one?

Well, I tend to play as a tank, so healers are usually high priority. I'm probably so used to having a healer in the party that I never really questioned it. I guess if I were to think about it, I'd rather not need one. But even if I don't have to have one, I'd prob still take one. Most of my healers were played by female friends and I enjoyed their company.

When I'm playing solo I even take an extra npc healer (2 total) so I can go nuts with the aggro, so that one healer can heal the other healer, and so that I don't have to worry about keeping the glass cannon wizard alive that I put in the party every time. :)

ps. Even though I use 2, I tend to double up on heal not split 1 healer/ 1 holy-offensive-anti-undead unless it really tips the scales.

I don't think the dedicated healer issue has ever REALLY bothered me. It does bother me when I don't need to do any healing and they don't have anything to do. For that reason I definitely think it is important to diversify the role. Add support spells, defensive spells, offensive spells, whatever you want just not ALL healing. I feel that way about every class though. A fighter class does not mean it can't have a boost ability for itself or perhaps a blue mage effect to learn something that heals himself. On the opposite side though, I don't like classes that can do everything either. I want the class to be a CLASS. I just don't want that to be so incredibly structured and limited that they only serve one purpose.

In my game I only have one character. Obviously this does not fit the topic perfectly since we are discussing party design but... I have tried to do away with the healing issue by making basic healing a passive thing. Everytime you deal damage with a normal attack you gain some hp back. I will probably also have a regen type ability as well, but if the passive healing isn't enough there are items that heal the character if they choose. I feel like this allows me to cut out the idea of a healer altogether without suffering for not having one.

In order for a battle to require strategy, there has to be a question of what you should do. If it's obvious what you should do, then there's practically no thinking required, or even encouraged, from the player.

When you have a boss whacking the party, that's plenty for a player to think about. If you design a boss with interesting mechanics, then a player will have to employ some strategy. If you design different tools for different healers, a player is going think about who to bring and who to leave behind. When you have different elements coming together like that, changing up roles becomes an unnecessary complication.