this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

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...)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 3 days ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Nope, I'm cancelling OP. He's cancelled. He'll get the paperwork... Eventually.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (3 children)

So basically Mercy from Overwatch? I think most games have versions of this type of healer. Medic in TF2 etc. They basically have guns that can't do much other than be used to shoot your teammates in the face to get their attention.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Last time I played Overwatch I was healing as Mercy and our Roadhog just watched as I fly past while getting chased by someone on the other team and kill the guy chasing me. Then he bitched me out for fighting instead of healing him. I was like mfer if you don't want me to fight keep them off me. Then everyone acted like I was the toxic one.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Medic mains when their "useless" ubersaw crits for the 12th time in a row

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Have you never seen a battle mercy wipe an enemy team?

[–] skulblaka 4 points 2 days ago

Mercy got that Glock delivered straight from the angry hands of God and it shows

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 days ago (6 children)

I enjoy playing support classes, you want me to stop Playing support classes? Make it so that they are utterly defenseless and rely solely on others to stay alive.

Ultimately, it will play absolutely terribly if all you can do is run away unless you are playing with a well organized team. And then you may find that all your team mates get to have all the fun in the game while you get stuck with only the boring stuff.

No thank you.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Medic in TF2 is a pure healer. The only time their weapons come out is if they get separated or get surprised by a spy. In high-level play, basically never.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Same with Mercy in Overwatch. She has a little peashooter pistol but is effectively defenseless. This already exists.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

There are pure healers in wow too for example.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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 healers~~

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Girlfriend joke was just a light pun :D

I respect healer main guys, and often am one :)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Wouldn't shooting them violate some kind of convention (like Geneva, idk) in this case?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (13 children)

Team Fortress is built off the idea that no class can't do something, some just do it way better.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Sounds like you want OG Mercy from Overwatch, who didn't work out btw

No, FPS players tend to be the “killer” type of player who play to score and win, they are rarely the “socialite” type of player who are in it for teamwork.
Simply put, this is the wrong audience to implement this idea in, there are gaming communities where this works but FPS just isn't one of them.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

This is coward talk. Healers should be given silver bullets for their guns with badass names like "Spectre Covenant" and huge medieval maces.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

So you're respawning and no DPS are near you and you encounter an enemy DPS in a narrow corridor. No thanks.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Play squad or Arma.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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?

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