All of these threads come down to people talking about the features as they like being absolutely neccessary and those they do not like absolutely being the death of the game.
If there is damage spam, there will be damage parsers. Making these only accessible to players able to spend hours getting 3rd party programs just widens the gap between players and makes the game more inaccessable to people.
Is a damage meter more game breaking then a UI at all? Learn your class, memorize the hot keys, you should not need buttons spelling out every attack!
I can hear you now, 'we must have a UI!'
'Why?' I ask
'Because that makes the game easier in a way I approve, and my opinion is the only one that should matter!' is the only honest response.
personaly i dont like the idea of dps meters they turn everyone into elitest jerks id much prefer to see it like it was during kunark back in eq. where people just used common sence if ya wanted to play a crazy strong warrior get the ogre ya wanna be something unusual be a dark elf enchanter what i am trying to say is when ever you try to add numbers to the game it seems to ruin it. look at wow...
kiljoe said:personaly i dont like the idea of dps meters they turn everyone into elitest jerks id much prefer to see it like it was during kunark back in eq. where people just used common sence if ya wanted to play a crazy strong warrior get the ogre ya wanna be something unusual be a dark elf enchanter what i am trying to say is when ever you try to add numbers to the game it seems to ruin it. look at wow...
Gaming and MMO's have changed and evolved, as well as, the internet and information gathering people can do. Gone are the days of just throwing numbers (people) at encounters to win. Not knowing does not equal fun, at least for me. What you are saying here, basically sounds like something great for an RP Server - but not in a scenario where people work together to conquer challenges successfully.
P.S. WoW was ruined by the dumbing down (LFR, Group Finder, constant anonymity, welfare epics, list goes on...) of the game and overall development practices, not by UI's or mods. Certain people may have been turned off by them (the default UI still exists for this), but that definately wasn't the catalyst.
DPS meters, threat meters, Deadly Boss Mods, mods telling you exactly how long a PvP enemy's cooldown on every ability is and similar mods definitely didn't enhance the experience in WoW in my opinion. Initially, content was balanced around people not using crutches like those and it felt better for it. MMO gaming DEvolved as a result.
I don't necessarily have issues with people wanting to use those tools, but once the floodgates are open people will fully expect that everyone else does too. Or else they can scram because they're not taking advantage of every tool at their disposal. Ironically, a game where the social experience no longer really matters and where people are given welfare epics makes the negatives of consciously choosing to surround yourself with like-minded individuals who also don't want heavily mod-driven content more bearable. Because what 'the elitists' are doing doesn't need to affect your experience at all.
But in a game like Pantheon where community is everything and where instanced content is not the norm, guilds that choose to exploit every possible advantage will directly influence the experience of 'purists' no matter what. So in my opinion it's good policy to completely disallow any mods that could give a gameplay advantage.
It wasent nessesary then surely isint nessasary now i mean lets take velous for exsample people just really knew thier jobs and did it relentlessly we didnt rely on dps meters we used good old fasion skill and know how to get it done just because a dps meter says your op dosent mean youll win thats why i loved gameing then, and will defenetly love pantheon in the future.
The difference between readily available DPS meters used in game and raid/guild leaders using 3rd party parsing logs to check the numbers is night and day for the health of the game. With readily accessible DPS meters it can creep into random XP group game play. This can cause the "elitism" or other exclusionary behavior others have mentioned. Using it in raids is reasonable because there is a sort of expectation not there in simple XP groups. Raids are higher tier content that many of the casual type players will not engage in heavily.
The major problem in XP grouping situations is where people are excluding those who are able to contribute to the content being cleared properly(as designed by the devs) because they are not high enough above said clearance. People want easy, not challenging. Path of least resistance and all that. You give players a way to remove the human element(yes for a digital game) of the player and replace them with a number, that exclusion becomes much easier.
Edit: As for the original spirit of the thread, I believe we will be able to have UI skin changes, but nothing requiring a functional API. Similar to original EQ.
Fragile said:Gaming and MMO's have changed and evolved, as well as, the internet and information gathering people can do. Gone are the days of just throwing numbers (people) at encounters to win. Not knowing does not equal fun, at least for me. What you are saying here, basically sounds like something great for an RP Server - but not in a scenario where people work together to conquer challenges successfully.
P.S. WoW was ruined by the dumbing down (LFR, Group Finder, constant anonymity, welfare epics, list goes on...) of the game and overall development practices, not by UI's or mods. Certain people may have been turned off by them (the default UI still exists for this), but that definately wasn't the catalyst.
Wow. I didn't realize role players were thought of so low. I wanted to just write two words in response to this, but I'll be more polite. In EQ2, we had a RP/PVP server where the cities were alignment locked on race and class. We had raid guilds, while gimped versus the PvE guilds, dedicated their time to conquer the content with our limited group dynamics. And boy, were we proud when our Evil-aligned raid alliance defeated bosses that the PvE'ers insisted you needed a Paladin or Mystic to take down. And yeah, we were also role players, not just some elitist raiders on the server to "pwn" because people assume role players don't care/can't do the harder content. We were also fairly successful PvPers.
I'm all for customizable UI's. If I decide to delve into the harder combat situations and have to go back to using ACT (like we did in the old days), I'm okay with that. Let me learn how to play my class and then use a secondary program to tweak it if the Developers would rather not have a parser in the UI.
Wanting tools to improve yourself doesn't make you elite, makes you human. DPS Meters (how I envision them) have a lot more information on them than just big dick sticks. If the 2-5% of "elitist" gamers are shitting in your breakfast, get a bigger bowl or dont eat cereal.
Naunet said:I agree completely, OP! UI customization is criticle for the very reason your quote provides. There will NEVER be a UI design that satisfies everyone, and no single dev or even a small group of devs will be able to come up with a UI that provides information in a way that is accessible to everyone. IMO, addons are critical and I do hope they change their mind. But at the very least they need to work on including a number of important features that, in other MMOs, have traditionally been left to addons.
In a game where managing threat is supposed to be so hugely important, I think not including a way to monitor your threat in-game is an oversight. FFXIV handles this unobtrusively by including a small bar in your party/raid frame that fills in/changes color based on where your threat is at. If you're top in threat, it's red and filled in. The person closest to you in threat will have theirs in yellow, with the bar progressing. It gives everyone a warning about someone coming up on you in threat, without messing with the overall flow of the UI too much.
Quick google search example image: http://i.imgur.com/keopnII.png
Out of the OP's suggested UI features (and all of them I agree with), the ones I most want/must have aree:
- mouseover healing functionality
- buff/debuff icon display within the party/raid frames (and a CLEAR distinction between which is which... preferably a way to customize where each appears)
- quite frankly, my ideal party and raid frame set up looks as close to Grid as possible (https://media.forgecdn.net/avatars/55/939/636141366500971019.jpg)
- aura displays for buffs especially
- font size scaling for all UI elements, including chat (you would be amazed at how many MMOs don't have this)
- transparency slider for chat boxes (again you would be amazed at how many MMOs don't have this)
- built in threat meter (see above description)
... With those, in addition to being able to resize and relocate every UI element, I can probably live with whatever else the game provides.
Have you played WoW? If so how can you EVER say that modding is a "must"?
Modding in the respect of DPS meters and gear score produced the most elitist era of WoW that blocked the vey players that needed content from getting into a group. Even now with the mythic+ "checker" it is not used how it was intended. It is a barrier for the very people that require the gear from said mythics now it used for people just wanting speed runs (as in quicker than Blizz intended mythic+ but that is a different debate on a different forum).
Mods are like tech in the hands of the average user they will imprison and not liberate.
Elitism seems the antipathy to #communtitymatters
Jazznblues said:Have you played WoW? If so how can you EVER say that modding is a "must"?
Modding in the respect of DPS meters and gear score produced the most elitist era of WoW that blocked the vey players that needed content from getting into a group. Even now with the mythic+ "checker" it is not used how it was intended. It is a barrier for the very people that require the gear from said mythics now it used for people just wanting speed runs (as in quicker than Blizz intended mythic+ but that is a different debate on a different forum).
Mods are like tech in the hands of the average user they will imprison and not liberate.
Elitism seems the antipathy to #communtitymatters
I agree that the 'gearscore gate' really made WoW some toxic culture. Straight from the wowpedia - "Be warned: reliance on gear score, without following up the initial assessment with the armory or inspecting, is in fact counterproductive. It degrades the community by encouraging less knowledgeable players to 'upgrade' based strictly on item levels, as well as decreasing the motivation of some players to improve."
The last part of that statement, "decreasing the motivation of some players to improve", is why I think it is important to have some sort of damage meter or way to keep track of output. Another thing you have to remember about WoW was that the easier WoW became, the more idiots that came along to it. You really did get to see just some flat out awful players (thanks group finder/LFR).
#LoveYouZoltar
If dungeons were private like wow, then I would say "allow mods" but since they are "open world" I hope they only allow customizations to the Ui and no mods. They are usefull but arent they part of the reason most of us are here in the first place?
Really looking forward to not having my hand held.
If they allow certain mods, I fear it will be a slippery slope and soon ther will be a LFG or LFR in game feature.
Then it wont be Pantheon.
i never liked the fact that in wow you had to have certain mods to even raid. i know the fights i know what i need to do and im not blind. it's really brain dead having a mod tell you what you need to do at what time. i mean what's the fun in that? you don't learn anything other than how to take orders and commands(not that it's a bad thing, but makes for boring gameplay).
This post is going to focus mainly on the raid UI and the original posters suggested UI features that he considers essential and I’ll try to explain why in my point of view most of them are not required to be in game and in fact are detrimental for the gameplay experience Pantheon is trying to achieve.
I will start by pointing out that EQ didn’t have raid frames like wow (these ugly ass things that became the norm in every single mmo after….. link to what I’m talking about “ https://i.imgur.com/6nU7QCp.jpg “ ), where you can see the HP values of every single member of the raid, in an organized way, instead in EQ to keep the raid alive healers where distributed through the various groups and had to tend to their group’s HP.
This type of UI element kills any sort of difficulty in raid healing, because all the healers can heal all the raid members due to the UI giving them easily accessible information, thus removing a part of the pre-fight raid setup where healers would be spread out through the groups, and trivialises raid healing into oblivion. This also neglects an aspect of healing, the “spot” healing, where you see the raid member’s in-game character that’s not on your group frames taking damage and you heal them, because you saw them take damage in your screen not in an UI element.
Now onto the UI suggestion you said were essential, and why I disagree with most of them, and consider them a detriment to the gameplay of Pantheon.
Predictive incoming heals displayed – If pantheon as no Raid wide UI frames, then this is not required, because usually there will only be one healer per group, and that healer knows what target he’s currently healing. I know you wanted this feature because you’re used to raid healing with 4+ other healers and knowing what targets are going to get healed in the next few seconds is extremely helpful to avoid overhealing a target that already got topped off 1 second before. But not a necessary feature, only if they have those horrible raid frames would this be helpful.
Mouse over healing support – nothing against it, nice QoL for the players that are used to using it.
Optinal on-click healing support – don’t know what this is can you explain?
Buff/Debuff icon display costumization – Buffs I can definitely agree on, but only the buffs you casted on the target, debuffs I think not, they should only have a visual indication on the 3d player model (Green aura for poison/diseases, red aura for fire, blue for magic etc) Having a debuff icon pop-up as soon as a player gets debuffed, makes dispelling a trivial part of the game, instead if players need to communicate (ask for dispels) or the healer is good enough to spot the debuff landing on a players and dispels it right away or see the 3d player model with the debuffs aura and ends up dispelling it makes dispelling a compelling part of gameplay, instead of a quick UI glance for debuff check and a button click to take it off. The same cannot be said for debuffs on enemies, I will admit that displaying debuffs on the enemy 3d models is impossible because they will be too many debuffs on them at once, so the only way to display debuffs will be through the use of icon on the target frame, but these shouldn’t have the time duration displayed, and the time they stay up on an enemy should be “randomized” sometimes it might stay up for 14 seconds, other it might stay up for 18 seconds, to avoid rotations being made, this rewards players that are paying attention (if I’m not mistaken the currently in-game the debuffs start flashing when they’re about to wear off, I actually like this because it doesn’t tell you the exact time it’s going to wear off, but it tells you that it’s going to happen soon so watch out for it)
Optional designated main tank & target frames – I’m torn on this one but I can agree that a main tank frame is technically already in-game (because you can create a macro for casting heal on the tank even though he might not be in your party frames) and the same applies to a main target frames, because the /assist command will be in game. So I guess these are reasonable, and wouldn’t trivialise the game that much, but if it were up to me I would still say no to these.
Target marking using selection of icons – This is a touchy subject, if you allow target marking mid fight (when the fight is occurring) then priority targets go from assist the main tank and dps the target that target to “kill the skull”, I could see a good compromise being you can mark targets while you’re outside of combat to plan the battle sort out CC and things like that, but when the combat starts the mark disappear.
Aura/buff cooldown indicator – Screen clutter is dangerous with a UI system like this one, but if it’s limited to 1-2 icon I can see it being a very cool addition for those that like using it.
TL:DR – Most of the features proposed by the OP are not essential to play the game, they are UI feature that make the gameplay go from an experience that relies on the player looking at the world and surroundings, communicating with the party members and requiring a good amount of awareness to understand what’s going on to a “watch the UI” style of gameplay.
jpedrote said:This post is going to focus mainly on the raid UI and the original posters suggested UI features that he considers essential and I’ll try to explain why in my point of view most of them are not required to be in game and in fact are detrimental for the gameplay experience Pantheon is trying to achieve.
I will start by pointing out that EQ didn’t have raid frames like wow (these ugly ass things that became the norm in every single mmo after….. link to what I’m talking about “ https://i.imgur.com/6nU7QCp.jpg “ ), where you can see the HP values of every single member of the raid, in an organized way, instead in EQ to keep the raid alive healers where distributed through the various groups and had to tend to their group’s HP.
I see what you're saying, but part of being a good healer is having good awareness, being able to watch the raid frames and the action. We're going to have party frames regardless. Adding 6 more bars in a 12 man raid is not a huge difference, and even in a 24 man raid you'd likely see healers being assigned to 1 or 2 groups or the tank in a 24 man raid. So I don't think the inclusion of raid frames is going to completely flip a switch and making healing about tunnel visioning on HP bars.
zoltar said:I see what you're saying, but part of being a good healer is having good awareness, being able to watch the raid frames and the action. We're going to have party frames regardless. Adding 6 more bars in a 12 man raid is not a huge difference, and even in a 24 man raid you'd likely see healers being assigned to 1 or 2 groups or the tank in a 24 man raid. So I don't think the inclusion of raid frames is going to completely flip a switch and making healing about tunnel visioning on HP bars.
I'm not talking about tunnel vision! I'm saying that implementing raid frames will fundamentally change how the game is played, because the strategy of spreading healers through the group gets eliminated, spot healing gets eliminated, raid healing becomes easier because you have access to all the HP values information and even if you assign healers to groups raid healing will always be affect (in the sence of being more trivial) because you can easily ask for the help of other healers to heal your part of the raid (or you don't even need to ask for their help because they can see every HP value of the raid members). With a single UI element (raid frames) 3 gameplay aspects get completly eliminated from the game, ofc raid frames are a great tool and work perfectly, but with adding these tool and extra UI elements, the game will slowly go from an experience that relies on awereness of what's going on in the game world and knowledge of the game to a watch the UI style of gameplay.
That's why I defend having a really minimalistic UI, (because after all there needs to be some base UI elements to play the game) beyond those few essential UI elements that are required to play the game (health bars, party frames, action bars, and chat) the devs should try to keep every other combat UI element to a bare minimum.
jpedrote said:zoltar said:I see what you're saying, but part of being a good healer is having good awareness, being able to watch the raid frames and the action. We're going to have party frames regardless. Adding 6 more bars in a 12 man raid is not a huge difference, and even in a 24 man raid you'd likely see healers being assigned to 1 or 2 groups or the tank in a 24 man raid. So I don't think the inclusion of raid frames is going to completely flip a switch and making healing about tunnel visioning on HP bars.
I'm not talking about tunnel vision! I'm saying that implementing raid frames will fundamentally change how the game is played, because the strategy of spreading healers through the group gets eliminated, spot healing gets eliminated, raid healing becomes easier because you have access to all the HP values information and even if you assign healers to groups raid healing will always be affect (in the sence of being more trivial) because you can easily ask for the help of other healers to heal your part of the raid (or you don't even need to ask for their help because they can see every HP value of the raid members). With a single UI element (raid frames) 3 gameplay aspects get completly eliminated from the game, ofc raid frames are a great tool and work perfectly, but with adding these tool and extra UI elements, the game will slowly go from an experience that relies on awereness of what's going on in the game world and knowledge of the game to a watch the UI style of gameplay.
That's why I defend having a really minimalistic UI, (because after all there needs to be some base UI elements to play the game) beyond those few essential UI elements that are required to play the game (health bars, party frames, action bars, and chat) the devs should try to keep every other combat UI element to a bare minimum.
I couldn't disagree with this more. In every MMO I've raided in, I've had access to the health/etc of everyone in the raid, and yet we still had healing assignments (oftentimes very specific and always planned according to the needs of the fight). Raid frames just mean you don't have to play musical chairs with raid members. I can tell melee to move to X position and task a healer or two to follow them around. I can split up groups in whatever way an encounter may require. I can dynamically assign additional backup when needed. And as a healer, I can notice that someone's struggling and make the active decision to help save someone's life. This never took away from my situational awareness, as I still had to deal with various raid mechanics, on top of monitoring the position of tanks or dps so that I could both position myself to heal properly and get a heads up that maybe someone is about to take damage.
Honestly the way you describe how you want a UI sounds like a horrible healing experience to me. Raid frames have only ever enhanced my own healing experience.
jpedrote said:zoltar said:I see what you're saying, but part of being a good healer is having good awareness, being able to watch the raid frames and the action. We're going to have party frames regardless. Adding 6 more bars in a 12 man raid is not a huge difference, and even in a 24 man raid you'd likely see healers being assigned to 1 or 2 groups or the tank in a 24 man raid. So I don't think the inclusion of raid frames is going to completely flip a switch and making healing about tunnel visioning on HP bars.
I'm not talking about tunnel vision! I'm saying that implementing raid frames will fundamentally change how the game is played, because the strategy of spreading healers through the group gets eliminated, spot healing gets eliminated, raid healing becomes easier because you have access to all the HP values information and even if you assign healers to groups raid healing will always be affect (in the sence of being more trivial) because you can easily ask for the help of other healers to heal your part of the raid (or you don't even need to ask for their help because they can see every HP value of the raid members). With a single UI element (raid frames) 3 gameplay aspects get completly eliminated from the game, ofc raid frames are a great tool and work perfectly, but with adding these tool and extra UI elements, the game will slowly go from an experience that relies on awereness of what's going on in the game world and knowledge of the game to a watch the UI style of gameplay.
That's why I defend having a really minimalistic UI, (because after all there needs to be some base UI elements to play the game) beyond those few essential UI elements that are required to play the game (health bars, party frames, action bars, and chat) the devs should try to keep every other combat UI element to a bare minimum.
No, the strategy of spreading out healers won't be eliminated. You'll still have spells that affect your group specifically, so you'll want to strategize on where to put your healers. And you'll also still assign healers to different roles (eg- healing the tank, healing groups 1-2, healing groups 3-4, spot healing, etc). Not because you're artificially knee-capping the healers by limiting the information available to them, but becasue it makes sense strategically. Do raid frames make raid healing easier? To some degree, certaily. You're giving players more information and the abilityt to easily target individual players. But IMO those are things that players should have the ability to do, and the claim that it's trivialized is HIGHLY suspect. Finally, basic raid healing is not something I think deserves the prominence of being something you call out on voice comms for. The combat and encounters should have more important mechanics and the raid more important strategies that call for voice communication. Not "somebody toss a HOT on me".
To clear up a few misconceptions.
You never were required by wow to have addons to raid. You were required by the guild you were joining to have addons. There were many guilds in wow that did not have these requirements. And very few pug groups required specific addons.
Gear score did not create elitism. It gave a way for raid leaders to determine who was actually ready for the raid they were attempting to join. This existed in EQ as well, alot of guilds required specific AAs and would even ask for magelo profiles.
Mythic.io is actually an amazing tool... where it fails is that it pulls information from a limited pool... so only the top 1000 or so players on a server have their information logged, and therefore creates a situation where if you wait 2 or 3 days you wont be able to up your score. I ran into this issue towards the end of the prior expansion. I solved it by making my own groups... (but yes. This system should be improved).
And as for damage meters... these have existed forever. The "elitist" era in wow didnt begin until sometime in or around WotLK... which was the most popular time in wow history... with millions of people playing... you're going to have people that take the game differently. With varying levels of seriousness. If you are looking to coast thru a dungeon while watching Netflix and I'm looking to utterly crush this dungeon with a speed run.... we shouldnt be playing together. Damage meters give people a way to determine how engaged you are and make sure you are on the same level as them.
EQ somehow gets a pass with these issues. In certain zones in eq groups would always make sure the tank had xxxx amount of life or AC and that the healer has a sufficient mana pool... this is the same idea as gear score, just without an easily accessible number.
I understand why people get concerned about things like this happening. Most players are not hardcore players and will most likely not be able to join a top tier guild... this does not mean anything. It there will be a small amount of the playerbase that will "maybe" not invite you to a group. There are hundreds of guilds and groups that do not care. A vast majority of the players will not be elitists. And if you, as a "casual" player... want to step up into a more hardcore group or guild... you should expect that they will have requirements for you... that's what makes them elite, I dont see it as unreasonable.
To give you an idea from personal experience. I am a very elitist player when I'm trying to do something cutting edge. If I'm just farming old content, I tend to loosen my guidelines and invite anyone who's interested (within reason). The biggest issue i see, is players who roll an alt that is under geared, and wants to join a raid (and essentially be carried) gets mad that they dont meet a certain item level. I see no issues with this.
The most frustrating thing... is when people are asking for a particular achievement from a boss.... in order to do that boss.... but again. These players arent looking to "progress" through this raid. They want it quick and easy... I dont see any issues with even this. I've been able to talk my way into raids without meeting requirements by advising of previous achievement or explaining why I'm behind.
TLDR: not everyone plays the game for the same reasons. Find people that play for the same reasons as you. Addons and damage meters dont change this.
Also. Raid frames dont make a game easier. They make it less tedious. Without raid frames you just put raid healers in dps groups and tank healers in tank groups. You give healers specific assignments. And make sure they follow them.
Raid frames give you more flexibility in designing groups. Theres no negative to having them.
Porygon those are not misconceptions...if you did not use the addons you did not get to raid in any serious capacity. Could skilled players theoretically raid without addons? Yes! Did raid guilds let players raid without addons? NO! How is it a misconception?! I don't know any progression raid guild in WoW that would have let me run without addons even in the vanilla era let alone BC and beyond. You really think I was gonna be allowed to be main tank in raids without Omen threat meter running? And what about decurse duty? Do you think progression raiders were allowed to go without decursive? Hah! Gear score did foster elitism by the way that's not a misconception either. But you are correct about EQ raid guilds requiring the same type of things making sure players had the correct resist gear, FBSS, epic weapon etc. They had to do it the old fashioned way back in the day though and pug raids weren't weeding players out like that. Gear score made it a lot easier to exclude players and it helped foster an elitst culture even amongst the puggers and low tier raiders. But yeah in any game where gear is important certain players are gonna get weeded out due to lack of good gear. The problem in these types of games is players end up in a catch 22 where they can never get their "gearscore" high enough due to not being able to join raids due to low gearscore. The issue in WoW was that it wasn't just the elite players rejecting all but the best geared players and I think the gearscore thing had a lot to do with it.
As someone who healed raids in EQ and WoW I can safely say raid frames are more than you are making them out to be. Having the health bars of every single player in the raid completely changes how things are done you just said so yourself with how players had to deal with things without raid frames essentially shooting down your own argument. It's a lot more work to put healers in each group, give assignments, etc. With raid frames I could take up the slack from fellow healers that slipped up for whatever reason (dying, distracted, stunned). In this case I am not against raid frames however...it gives the best raid healers a chance to really shine. But it can be a crutch that leads to raid leaders not learning how to assign heals when the content gets truly challenging...I've seen it happen.
Ziegfried said:Porygon those are not misconceptions...if you did not use the addons you did not get to raid in any serious capacity.
My friend. You know what else you cant do if you wanna main tank Onyxia? You cant be a fury warrior. Or a paladin. You cant walk into the raid with AH greens. You also probably couldnt walk in and never tanked anything before.
There are things you need to have in order to push content. If you want to just stick to pugs, you dont need addons. Yea, you might have a pug get mad you don't have Omen. But you also should never have threat issues in a pug onyxia raid as a warrior lol.
I've said it before. These discussions are always funny because theres no way I'm ever going to change your mind, it's just an outlet for people to express there opinions.
Naunet said:I couldn't disagree with this more. In every MMO I've raided in, I've had access to the health/etc of everyone in the raid, and yet we still had healing assignments (oftentimes very specific and always planned according to the needs of the fight). Raid frames just mean you don't have to play musical chairs with raid members. I can tell melee to move to X position and task a healer or two to follow them around. I can split up groups in whatever way an encounter may require. I can dynamically assign additional backup when needed. And as a healer, I can notice that someone's struggling and make the active decision to help save someone's life. This never took away from my situational awareness, as I still had to deal with various raid mechanics, on top of monitoring the position of tanks or dps so that I could both position myself to heal properly and get a heads up that maybe someone is about to take damage.
Honestly the way you describe how you want a UI sounds like a horrible healing experience to me. Raid frames have only ever enhanced my own healing experience.
zoltar said:No, the strategy of spreading out healers won't be eliminated. You'll still have spells that affect your group specifically, so you'll want to strategize on where to put your healers. And you'll also still assign healers to different roles (eg- healing the tank, healing groups 1-2, healing groups 3-4, spot healing, etc). Not because you're artificially knee-capping the healers by limiting the information available to them, but becasue it makes sense strategically. Do raid frames make raid healing easier? To some degree, certaily. You're giving players more information and the abilityt to easily target individual players. But IMO those are things that players should have the ability to do, and the claim that it's trivialized is HIGHLY suspect. Finally, basic raid healing is not something I think deserves the prominence of being something you call out on voice comms for. The combat and encounters should have more important mechanics and the raid more important strategies that call for voice communication. Not "somebody toss a HOT on me".
Yup, “we still had healing assignments (oftentimes very specific and always planned according to the needs of the fight). “ this is pretty much always going to happen but only when the encounter required the raid to be separated, otherwise raid healing becomes top whoever is not getting a heal right now , and raid frames have a huge effect on that. But what I’m talking about is the trivialization of raid healing, if you have access to all the health bars of the raid, you can pick up the slack when the other healers are not holding up, if you only have access to your party raid healing becomes a whole lot more complicated, especially if your group get’s RNG and hit with all the bad ****, or take a few extra ticks from an AoE, healing the group is instantly a lot harder. Also keeping the group alive becomes the responsibility of the healer, not of the raid healers.
I didn’t say regular raid healing (when nothing dangerous is going on) need the use of voice communication, infact when I healed and DPSed in WoW doing top 50 world kills on mythic the healers barely spoke, raid healing was just top off everyone, and we had cooldown already assigned for phases of the fight, everyone knew when to use their stuff, but without the raid frames, making this happen would be a lot harder, because there would be only 1 healer per 5 players instead of 5 healers for 2-3, what do I mean by this, after all the amount of healers are the same haha, but if there’s no raid frames, in the case of lets say 3 raid members getting really low HP, if raid frames exist then there’s 5 healers that can heal these 3 players, but if there’s no raid frames and you get really unlucky those 3 players might all be on the same group, making it 1 healer for 3 players, making this an extremely dangerous situation that needs to be dealt with, as opposed to the other situation where the 5 healers would simply top of those 3 players in no time.
I know this is a matter of opinion to some degree I for one do not enjoy the style of healing raid frames bring and enforce both of you are of the opposite opinion and I get it, but you cannot just brush off the fact that raid frames make raid healing easier and eliminate some aspects of gameplay.
