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THE DEDICATED HEALER
Posts
JosephSeraph
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CloseNot adding much to this topic, but it gave me delightful memories of Rena and Noel from Star Ocean 2.
I have this strange compelling to MERCILESSLY MURDER any party member who is not a mage, or in some cases, a healer at all. This wasa case. I played through Rena's scenario with everyone else dead! And well, it was fun. I think her repertoire of spells is incredibly well-balanced, and she could even do HUGE physical damage in the beginning (and magical damage at midpoint-end, with the proper gloves) with your Kitchen Knife raised to max level! I sometimes started RUNNING IN CIRCLES in battle just to have her casting Heal, since every 3 or so castings, heal cured one more Hp. For me, she's the best solo game character, and she's also one of the best healers in gaming. A reasonable ammount of buff-up spells, some party-hitting offensive spells, immediate (weak) healing, strong healing, Life, etc. She excelled at healing and also could do a decent ammount of damage. That's why I also like Noel. <3
I have a thing for white mages, really. For me, playing with a party of white mages is *very* exciting so I don't mind having them in my party. Maybe it's some sort of emotional attachment(might have been the reason for I to choose grinding Rydia, and not Rosa. Or maybe it was the Sylph spell.), but I overall love white mages and I really get annoyed at games that don't have one! I played a big part of Paradise Blue with Regen'ed white mages, for instance. (with dark magic skill subset, I think.)
I have this strange compelling to MERCILESSLY MURDER any party member who is not a mage, or in some cases, a healer at all. This wasa case. I played through Rena's scenario with everyone else dead! And well, it was fun. I think her repertoire of spells is incredibly well-balanced, and she could even do HUGE physical damage in the beginning (and magical damage at midpoint-end, with the proper gloves) with your Kitchen Knife raised to max level! I sometimes started RUNNING IN CIRCLES in battle just to have her casting Heal, since every 3 or so castings, heal cured one more Hp. For me, she's the best solo game character, and she's also one of the best healers in gaming. A reasonable ammount of buff-up spells, some party-hitting offensive spells, immediate (weak) healing, strong healing, Life, etc. She excelled at healing and also could do a decent ammount of damage. That's why I also like Noel. <3
I have a thing for white mages, really. For me, playing with a party of white mages is *very* exciting so I don't mind having them in my party. Maybe it's some sort of emotional attachment(might have been the reason for I to choose grinding Rydia, and not Rosa. Or maybe it was the Sylph spell.), but I overall love white mages and I really get annoyed at games that don't have one! I played a big part of Paradise Blue with Regen'ed white mages, for instance. (with dark magic skill subset, I think.)
Crystalgate
694
author=Pladough
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.
I know a lot of fights that have a boss whacking the party, but there's very little to think about. The boss whacks the party, the healer brings the party HP back up and everyone else chips away the boss' HP. Remove the healer and then strip the boss of any move that cases damage and you get the same result. Designing a boss with interesting mechanics can work though, but that sounds to me like instead of making healing something that requires thought, you make that element thoughtless and ask for strategy elsewhere. You can do that, but why not make both the healing and that elsewhere require strategy?
As for different tools for different healers, that may give the player something to think about when assembling the party. However, once battle actually starts, we're still at the situation where it's obvious who does what. I've also never seen the situation where changing up the roles have brought an unnecessary complication.
Pladough
163
I know a lot of fights that have a boss whacking the party, but there's very little to think about. The boss whacks the party, the healer brings the party HP back up and everyone else chips away the boss' HP. Remove the healer and then strip the boss of any move that cases damage and you get the same result.
If you don't balance battles correctly, then there's very little to think about. If a boss can hit for more than a healer can heal, what's going through a player's mind? If a boss can perform two actions in a turn and do AoE damage, the player is going prioritize who's getting the best heals and who get the scraps.
Designing a boss with interesting mechanics can work though, but that sounds to me like instead of making healing something that requires thought, you make that element thoughtless and ask for strategy elsewhere. You can do that, but why not make both the healing and that elsewhere require strategy?
With a dedicated healer, you told me that there's no strategy involved. When there's strategy involved, it's better to put in more strategy? I don't think players like being tested too much.
I've also never seen the situation where changing up the roles have brought an unnecessary complication.
The game becomes easy when party members can do everything. It's also hard to design and balance battles to maintain a good level of difficulty. Having a dedicated healer gives you a leg up on how a player is going to react and what actions they're going to take based on what you have designed.
Crystalgate
694
If you don't balance battles correctly, then there's very little to think about. If a boss can hit for more than a healer can heal, what's going through a player's mind? If a boss can perform two actions in a turn and do AoE damage, the player is going prioritize who's getting the best heals and who get the scraps.
I suppose you could do that. That takes some very tight balancing to pull of though and I can't remember seeing that happening. In fact, the only fights I can recall I had to decide who gets healed and who can do without until the next turn, is fight where I have multiple potential healers, like the Dhoulmagus battle in DQ VIII.
With a dedicated healer, you told me that there's no strategy involved. When there's strategy involved, it's better to put in more strategy? I don't think players like being tested too much.
I think I told you that with a dedicated healer, the healing part becomes trivial. I don't think I said that you can't get strategy elsewhere. As for the player being tested to much, are we anywhere near that problem? Most JRPGs offers plenty of strategy prior to battles, like how you spend money and how you set up your character. However, once the battles start, it's rather obvious what action you should input for the characters.
The game becomes easy when party members can do everything. It's also hard to design and balance battles to maintain a good level of difficulty. Having a dedicated healer gives you a leg up on how a player is going to react and what actions they're going to take based on what you have designed.
Giving more than one character the ability to heal hardly means the characters can do everything. You can give the characters the ability to play multiple roles and still have multiple roles they cannot play.
author=Pladough
That being said, there's nothing wrong with having a dedicated healer. If someone has to sacrifice their turn, it might as well be the priest or the doctor of the group. Having a dedicated healer just makes things simpler for everyone.
This is kind of dumb. Yes, in order to heal, someone's turn must be used, but in the scenario where you have no dedicated healer, and/or the only healing available is through items, it actually creates more strategy: WHOSE turn do you sacrifice when someone is NOT your obvious heal-slave, or in a boss fight where everyone is equally important? You need to have a reason to use different characters dynamically.
author=Pladough
With a dedicated healer, you told me that there's no strategy involved. When there's strategy involved, it's better to put in more strategy? I don't think players like being tested too much.
The game becomes easy when party members can do everything. It's also hard to design and balance battles to maintain a good level of difficulty. Having a dedicated healer gives you a leg up on how a player is going to react and what actions they're going to take based on what you have designed.
Who ever said that all your characters can do everything equally well? I guess if you're not that good at balancing battles, being able to predict which character is used for what role consistently would be a good crutch, but it can oversimplify things.
I'll give you an example of how a character can be a mixed physical/magical offense unit and still have healing options. Check out V&V's blogs for some skills that illustrate perfectly how someone who is not a dedicated healer can be given HP-restoring skills. Here's an example from my game, in which there is a girl with equal ability in Sword skill (costs HP) and Water spells:
Lifespring - For 3 rounds, whenever you deal Water damage, you will regain HP.
Mists of Avalon - For the rest of the battle, if an attack that costs HP misses, that HP is refunded.
She doesn't get any direct healing spells, but she has ways of regaining HP. Those spells don't cost MP either, they're a separate skill currency (something like Rage).
DFalcon
2141
LockeZ:
Well, I like to think that a team of four dedicated white mages will be eventually dead in most cases. I wasn't thinking so much about evening out the large-scale problem as providing room for a little undershoot. Things with more significant effects I can think of tend to be less systematic - like giving some boss fights a lot of enemies and making killing off a few fast important.
Anyway, to go back to your original question, I don't really mind being forced to have a dedicated healer, but it's nice if I have to think a little about what to do with that character.
Well, I like to think that a team of four dedicated white mages will be eventually dead in most cases. I wasn't thinking so much about evening out the large-scale problem as providing room for a little undershoot. Things with more significant effects I can think of tend to be less systematic - like giving some boss fights a lot of enemies and making killing off a few fast important.
Anyway, to go back to your original question, I don't really mind being forced to have a dedicated healer, but it's nice if I have to think a little about what to do with that character.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
So, as far as the original question, I guess here all are the possibilities I can think of. I'll be using examples that have a total roster size of 7-10 characters, not that it really matters that much, but that's the common case.
1 healer in party roster
Example: Star Ocean: The Second Story (if you don't recruit Noel)
With this method, the player must always use the healer character on his team, no matter what. Also, presumably the player must always use the main character, who presumably isn't the healer. So two of your party members are locked in place for the entire game. If you have a max party size of 4 people, that's marginally annoying. If you have a max party size of 3 people, that's unbelievably annoying. This is the problem case that was brought up in the original post. The player is supposedly given a choice of party members, but they absolutely must choose this character or they get a game over. If the main character and the healer are the same character, this is not problematic.
2 healers in party roster
Example: Final Fantasy 9
In this case the player is actually given a choice of which healer to bring. In the FF9 example, the healers are perhaps too similar - they have some major differences in their attacks, but their healing/defensive spells are almost exactly the same. But this doesn't have to be the case. In any case, this gives the player the feeling that their choice of party members is actually a legitimate choice. The feeling that they can customize their team is of very high importance to many players. However, care must be taken to ensure that if they put both healers on their team, the boss fights do not all become trivially easy. One way to do this is to punish the player for bringing both healers at once - there are other ways as well.
Several healers in party roster
Example: Chrono Trigger
With close to half of their roster or more being viable healers, there are few combinations of party members that result in game over, giving the player much more freedom. A natural result of this is that the player is extremely likely to include multiple healers on his or her team. Punishing the player for bringing multiple healers is no longer a realistic option - instead, if you want to make bosses not become trivially easy, you have to punish the player for *using* multiple healers. That is, if multiple party members have the ability to heal, you have to include mechanics to make sure that the player is punished somehow for overhealing. This isn't impossible or even hard, but it is a consideration, one that isn't necessary in the first two examples.
All party members can heal, but have major differences from each-other
Example: Final Fantasy 6
This results in total party freedom, giving the player the most choices. The fact that the characters are different makes the choices still feel meaningful, but no choice is going to kill them. It also makes it easiest to turtle, since the player can heal with every party member when needed (though not every round for the entire battle, unless there's some sort of passive damage being dealt). The considerations of the above method regarding boss difficulty are therefore all still true, and in fact amplified.
All party members are extremely similar, but must choose different specializations from each-other
Example: Final Fantasy 8
Like the above method, the player has total party freedom. However, the player can no longer use every character as a healer. Either each skill can only be given to one character, or some other method is employed to ensure that the entire party cannot be geared toward maximum defense at the same time. This results in the anti-turtling considerations no longer being necessary - the party is forced to have some characters go on offense. However, this can make the act of choosing characters feel somewhat meaningless - there is little or no difference in who you choose. It's possible to get around this problem by giving the characters subtle differences but still allowing them to choose any role. It's also possible to ignore it, and make character selection be almost purely a matter of appearance/personality.
1 healer in party roster
Example: Star Ocean: The Second Story (if you don't recruit Noel)
With this method, the player must always use the healer character on his team, no matter what. Also, presumably the player must always use the main character, who presumably isn't the healer. So two of your party members are locked in place for the entire game. If you have a max party size of 4 people, that's marginally annoying. If you have a max party size of 3 people, that's unbelievably annoying. This is the problem case that was brought up in the original post. The player is supposedly given a choice of party members, but they absolutely must choose this character or they get a game over. If the main character and the healer are the same character, this is not problematic.
2 healers in party roster
Example: Final Fantasy 9
In this case the player is actually given a choice of which healer to bring. In the FF9 example, the healers are perhaps too similar - they have some major differences in their attacks, but their healing/defensive spells are almost exactly the same. But this doesn't have to be the case. In any case, this gives the player the feeling that their choice of party members is actually a legitimate choice. The feeling that they can customize their team is of very high importance to many players. However, care must be taken to ensure that if they put both healers on their team, the boss fights do not all become trivially easy. One way to do this is to punish the player for bringing both healers at once - there are other ways as well.
Several healers in party roster
Example: Chrono Trigger
With close to half of their roster or more being viable healers, there are few combinations of party members that result in game over, giving the player much more freedom. A natural result of this is that the player is extremely likely to include multiple healers on his or her team. Punishing the player for bringing multiple healers is no longer a realistic option - instead, if you want to make bosses not become trivially easy, you have to punish the player for *using* multiple healers. That is, if multiple party members have the ability to heal, you have to include mechanics to make sure that the player is punished somehow for overhealing. This isn't impossible or even hard, but it is a consideration, one that isn't necessary in the first two examples.
All party members can heal, but have major differences from each-other
Example: Final Fantasy 6
This results in total party freedom, giving the player the most choices. The fact that the characters are different makes the choices still feel meaningful, but no choice is going to kill them. It also makes it easiest to turtle, since the player can heal with every party member when needed (though not every round for the entire battle, unless there's some sort of passive damage being dealt). The considerations of the above method regarding boss difficulty are therefore all still true, and in fact amplified.
All party members are extremely similar, but must choose different specializations from each-other
Example: Final Fantasy 8
Like the above method, the player has total party freedom. However, the player can no longer use every character as a healer. Either each skill can only be given to one character, or some other method is employed to ensure that the entire party cannot be geared toward maximum defense at the same time. This results in the anti-turtling considerations no longer being necessary - the party is forced to have some characters go on offense. However, this can make the act of choosing characters feel somewhat meaningless - there is little or no difference in who you choose. It's possible to get around this problem by giving the characters subtle differences but still allowing them to choose any role. It's also possible to ignore it, and make character selection be almost purely a matter of appearance/personality.
Skie Fortress
2394
I don't mind the usual healer setup in most traditional JRPG style games because at the end of the day, a hefty stock of potions/hi-potions/mega-potions/miracle drug x/status restoring items can replace a healer if you really want to use those other party members.
In my own project I've taken the same logic a step further, so there is no 'dedicated healer'. Rather, healing is largely removed from spells lists and made into it's own specialized mechanics. Items are gone as well. Instead, defending restores HP/MP, and then there is also a special action all party members can take to further restore their HP/MP. And on top of that, there are various passive skills that provide healing.
With this setup, the player generally has the freedom to use whoever they want, since healing is universal
In my own project I've taken the same logic a step further, so there is no 'dedicated healer'. Rather, healing is largely removed from spells lists and made into it's own specialized mechanics. Items are gone as well. Instead, defending restores HP/MP, and then there is also a special action all party members can take to further restore their HP/MP. And on top of that, there are various passive skills that provide healing.
With this setup, the player generally has the freedom to use whoever they want, since healing is universal
Hoddmimir
200
Option 4 seems like the best one, I'll admit that, but I personally prefer option 3 with several different healers. A dedicated healer class makes sense. Healing is so important it is generally reasonable to want to have someone who is good at it. Having several healers to choose from though, still give you the freedom to choose your party how you want it.
Actually I myself prefer somewhere between 2 and 3.
Also, in FFVIII you aren't forced to drop healing when you need to get offensive, you see -- All party members can have 100 curagas (presumably in their hp-j), drain added to their status-j and, say, ultima or firaga in their str-j. To add more insult to it, someone can have mad rush. So all party members will deal absurd damage AND heal A LOT, EVERY SINGLE TURN.
That being said, FFVIII and similar systems are, at least to me, really flawed.
Also, in FFVIII you aren't forced to drop healing when you need to get offensive, you see -- All party members can have 100 curagas (presumably in their hp-j), drain added to their status-j and, say, ultima or firaga in their str-j. To add more insult to it, someone can have mad rush. So all party members will deal absurd damage AND heal A LOT, EVERY SINGLE TURN.
That being said, FFVIII and similar systems are, at least to me, really flawed.
Hoddmimir
200
I've had another sort of thought...
We see this problem as a two sided kind of thing. Damage is dealt, then healing repairs the damage. This is what the entire concern of the dedicated healer is focused around and what all of the different party configurations LockeZ mentioned are focused around. If we mix things up just a bit though the problem takes on a whole new dimension. Say for instance status ailments were a big deal in your game. Maybe each character is able to cure certain status ailments but not others. Every character has different combinations of these they are able to heal. Then choosing your party becomes important because you want to make sure the status ailments you are most concerned with are covered. Another option is what if there are two different types of heal to worry about? Damage to your life and damage to your sanity for example. Now we have different kinds of healers in the mix beyond the normal set. Maybe a dedicated damage healer, a dedicated sanity healer, and a mix healer. These might seem like they fit the categories of every character is able to heal a little and several healers in your roster, but the decisions are even more important than those basic ideas. Every character may be able to heal a bit but now healing does still need to be factored in to which character you pick. Or in the second case, going with two dedicated healers, one for health and one for sanity, might be the best healing option but you might be more tempted to go without one or the other or replace both with the mixed healer instead to deal damage. It's the same problem but with more depth I think.
We see this problem as a two sided kind of thing. Damage is dealt, then healing repairs the damage. This is what the entire concern of the dedicated healer is focused around and what all of the different party configurations LockeZ mentioned are focused around. If we mix things up just a bit though the problem takes on a whole new dimension. Say for instance status ailments were a big deal in your game. Maybe each character is able to cure certain status ailments but not others. Every character has different combinations of these they are able to heal. Then choosing your party becomes important because you want to make sure the status ailments you are most concerned with are covered. Another option is what if there are two different types of heal to worry about? Damage to your life and damage to your sanity for example. Now we have different kinds of healers in the mix beyond the normal set. Maybe a dedicated damage healer, a dedicated sanity healer, and a mix healer. These might seem like they fit the categories of every character is able to heal a little and several healers in your roster, but the decisions are even more important than those basic ideas. Every character may be able to heal a bit but now healing does still need to be factored in to which character you pick. Or in the second case, going with two dedicated healers, one for health and one for sanity, might be the best healing option but you might be more tempted to go without one or the other or replace both with the mixed healer instead to deal damage. It's the same problem but with more depth I think.
Rhuan
110
I have been thinking of a game in which the standard formula is broken by having people die much more easily, instead of lengthy healing slogs, you have to use various methods to not get hit as they'll kill you in maybe two hits and you can't heal fast enough, but perhaps you can also kill them in a couple of hits, alternatively perhaps you can put them to sleep or raise a barrier or something.
THe they can kill you in a couple of hits and you can kill them in a couple of hits would perhaps work better with a SRPG (think fire emblem style) rather than a normal RPG.
The whole concept of you have X hp, boss has maybe 20 X hp and you do less damage than he does, you just have to keep healing to get through the fight has been done so many times...
Dedicated healers crop up because of that format, to avoid a character being used a s a dedicated healer, I think what you want to do is avoid that format. But perhaps I haven't thought this through very well.
THe they can kill you in a couple of hits and you can kill them in a couple of hits would perhaps work better with a SRPG (think fire emblem style) rather than a normal RPG.
The whole concept of you have X hp, boss has maybe 20 X hp and you do less damage than he does, you just have to keep healing to get through the fight has been done so many times...
Dedicated healers crop up because of that format, to avoid a character being used a s a dedicated healer, I think what you want to do is avoid that format. But perhaps I haven't thought this through very well.
