I like to dig ditches, at least right now!

#0 - Sept. 12, 2010, 5:40 p.m.

Say our job is to dig ditches and there are 100 of us that like to do this job. We have this machine that helps us dig these ditches that has several tools to help us accomplish our task. Now some of us only use two or three of the tools on this machine to accomplish the task of digging these ditches, but others of us tend to use many more of the tools on the machine. And some of us like the additional complication of pesky gardners popping up and lobbing rocks at our heads while we are trying to dig these ditches.

Say out of the 100 of us that dig these ditches, ten or so say it is too easy (after all you can accomplish the job by just using a couple of the tools on the machine). Those 10 or so say we should dig those ditches by hand, now that is fun. Even though our 10 friends are telling us that digging the ditch by hand would be fun, we can imagine what it would be like to accomplish the job doing it their way and it does not appeal to us at all (not to mention the added discomfort of having rocks thrown at our heads while doing the job with fewer resources). Now our company has decided that those 10 or so people are right and digging ditches should be more fun. It is an admirable stance by the company and we respect them for it.

Now we think about our other friends that accomplish the job by just using a limited number of tools. They surely realize that they could use more of the machines devices and they might not be so bored. In addition, the ones that enjoy digging the ditches with using only a couple of the marvelous machines tools, are they just wrong for doing so? In the end we wonder if the ditch gets dug (which is after all our primary job) does it matter how?

We ponder the situation the company will enforce on us, what if they ultimately decide that the 10 of us are right and digging the ditch by hand IS more fun. Well that is ok too, I guess, because I am not required to dig ditches. I have a flaym thrower at home and I can just melt faces and that is ALWAYS fun.

Ghostcrawler

#6 - Sept. 12, 2010, 8:13 p.m.

We see the sentiment expressed often that making healing more challenging might drive players away. That is a risk, but the flip side is that making healing more engaging might attract some players who find it boring today.

While it has always been a goal to make World of Warcraft approachable to a lot of different kinds of players, including those who found traditional MMOs too hardcore, we'd rather retain players because the gameplay is fun than because the gameplay is easy.

Taking your argument to a probably illogical conclusion, if we made healing even easier, we might get even more players to heal. Is that really good for the game as a whole though?

Ghostcrawler

#15 - Sept. 12, 2010, 9:03 p.m.

Q u o t e:
The argument worked for tanking in WotLK, why not healing in Cataclysm?

"I'm just going to AE tank everything" doesn't work in Cataclysm. So yeah, we are trying to make tanking more engaging too.

Ghostcrawler

#16 - Sept. 12, 2010, 9:06 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Yes, making healing more challenging is a laudable goal. The problem is that you can't sacrifice making it interesting to do so!

Do I want us to just spam rejuv? No--no challenge. But there are ways to add challenge without completely destroying our HoT-centric style:
Lifebloom is now only usable on a single target, and is refreshed by nourish, anyway.
Rejuv is now our lowest HPM spell, in addition to its HPS loss.
Regrowth's HoT has been reduced from a 27 second duration to 6.
WG's cooldown has been increased to 10 seconds.

Look at what you're saying though. In a nutshell:

Do I want to just spam Rejuv? No. But why are you changing all these other spells so that I have to consider the right situation to use each of them? :)

Ghostcrawler

#21 - Sept. 12, 2010, 9:13 p.m.

Q u o t e:
It's a tough question. What's more game-breaking for the game as a whole though? More healers for the role, or not being able to find healers for the role?

Players played WoW for six years without Dungeon Finder though. Dungeon Finder is awesome, don't get me wrong, and I spent a lot of time personally working on it. But the intent is not to be able farm dungeons as fast as you possibly can.

Healing (and tanking as well) isn't for everyone. It takes the right kind of mindset. I know there are players who want to make healing and tanking super easy in an attempt to adjust the ratios of dps to tanking and healing. There are also some who just want to get rid of the healing role completely.

None of those are our goals though. We want to make healing fun for healers, not make healing so easy that anyone can jump in without any fear of failure.

I remember looking for Scholomance or Shadow Labs pugs for literally 2-3 hours. There is almost no chance of that ever happening again now that we have Dungeon Finder, even if tanking and healing require a little more finesse.

So to answer your question, I think having more healers available at any cost is bad for the game. We want healing to be fun for people who like healing. If that means the mages and rouges have to wait 15 minutes for Dungeon Finder instead of 5 minutes, I think we can live with that. If nothing else, fast Dungeon Finder queues (or ease in finding a raid slot, etc.) remain attractive benefits of tanking and healing.

Ghostcrawler

#22 - Sept. 12, 2010, 9:15 p.m.

Q u o t e:

i took it more as, we agree rejuv spam isn't fun. but neither is being a gimp holy paladin. all of our hots have been neutered.

If that was the case, druids would literally be casting one spell, Healing Touch, and they aren't doing that. They are using a variety of heals, and that will only improve as we get things adjusted so that say Regrowth spam or efficient over-use of Nourish doesn't dominate.

Ghostcrawler

#124 - Sept. 13, 2010, 9:02 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Right now on the Beta videos a lot of the healers seem to be spamming the weak "Heal" for 90% of the time. So spamming is ok and we are expected to spam for most of the fight as long as what we're spamming is a weak spell? is this truly what is intended for Cata healers?

No, that's not the intent. We made those heals very cheap so that healers wouldn't be in constant terror of running out of mana. We also are making the normal modes easier than the heroic modes. You'll have to pair the right heal for the right situation to a greater degree in heroic modes. I think part of what you're seeing is that healers are using the base heal because they can get away with it. It's also possible that in our effort to distinguish them from the more expensive heals that we made the base heals too cheap or efficient.

Ghostcrawler

#125 - Sept. 13, 2010, 9:13 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Heal: 53..4 percent of healing done
Greater heal: 14.8 percent
Prayer of healing: 7.7 percent
Penance 7.0 percent
Divine Hymn: 4.0 percent
Binding Heal 3.3 percent
Prayer of Healing: 2.6 percent
Holy Nova: 1.9 percent
Glyph of Power Word Shield: 1.8 percent
Flash heal: 1.6 percent
Renew: 0.8 percent
Glyph of Prayer of Healing: 0.4 percent

Let's assume for the moment that you were 100% effective with this breakdown. (I'm not going to take the time to do dig through the log.) The Heal percentage is a lot higher than we would want it to be, and Flash Heal and Penance in particular are too low. Penance is your unique spell, so the intent is that you get some mileage out of it. If you were playing perfectly, then this suggests that Heal is too cheap for what it does.

Ghostcrawler

#233 - Sept. 14, 2010, 6:16 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I think you'd have been better off just giving the standard beta response about not worrying about numbers yet since they're not balanced/aren't necessarily what we'll actually be seeing when cata goes live and so on.

You shouldn't worry about the numbers yet. I thought the poster asked a perfectly reasonable question of whether we wanted as much use of the efficient heal as he was doing. I said no. That either means he wasn't healing as well as he could have been, or more likely in this case, the numbers aren't yet tuned correctly.

Ghostcrawler

#234 - Sept. 14, 2010, 6:19 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I really fail to see why you guys thought it would be good design to introduce the 'auto attack' heal to force healers to be spamming 100% of the time. I enjoy healing because it is reactive/triage oriented -- if I wanted to be predictive/spam a rotation I would play DPS.

We don't want healers to be spamming one heal 100% of the time. I'm not sure how you could be following Cataclysm news and think that. The reactive / triage feel is what we're going for. But that means that there needs to be room for weaker heals that you use when nobody is in immediate danger. That's triage -- "Oh, this guy's not going to die in the next few seconds, so a Heal is all he needs."