Healing anyone

[amitst]

They plan to double heal bomb's effectiveness so I imagine it will start seeing more use after that.

they are halving the heal power at the same time so there is no overall change

[amitst]

All of sudden, you're hit with a large nuke, and have the time to perform 1 more heal before certain death. Instead of hitting just 1 member with a large heal, you could hit all 4 with your biggest possible bomb (taking into account your HP/sap at the time),

my biggets possible bomb heal takes 400 hp and 400 sap to cast. and after the nerf it will take 500 hp and 500 sap and take a minimum of 2.5 seconds to cast.
(if you notice, adding bomb effect already adds a second to casting time)

would be quicker and faster to cast two enchants, or smaller heal spells.... two single heals will take 5.6 seconds unamped casting time versus the post nerf 5.0 seconds for a double heal bomb(currently 4.0 i think), also two single heals will heal more than twice as much and cost less than half the sap and mana if you can use range credits

[borg9]

my biggets possible bomb heal takes 400 hp and 400 sap to cast. and after the nerf it will take 500 hp and 500 sap and take longer to cast.

would be quicker and faster to cast two enchants, or smaller heal spells, good luck finding a situation like that....

Why +20% ? Didn't think you could have bombs on a dbl spell.

Side note: As they are halving the heal and doubling the bomb effect, I would guess that things might end up coming out the same. (mabe wrong tho )

Edit - Goes off to sulk as points already covered .... *kicks heals*

[sehracii]

Why +20% ? Didn't think you could have bombs on a dbl spell.

Side note: As they are halving the heal and doubling the bomb effect, I would guess that things might end up coming out the same. (mabe wrong tho )

HP heal will come out the same, but sap and stam bombs will be mroe than double what they are now, possibly close to guadruple because their power alone is getting increased as well.

[amitst]

Why +20% ? Didn't think you could have bombs on a dbl spell.

Side note: As they are halving the heal and doubling the bomb effect, I would guess that things might end up coming out the same. (mabe wrong tho )

you can add bomb, ricochet, and spray effects to double spells
you used to be able to add all 3 at once even, but they took that out

[amitst]

HP heal will come out the same, but spa and stam bombs will be mroe than double what they are now, possibly close to guadruple.
How's that sound for keeping all the mages full of sap?

still bad because they set a maximum amount you can heal with a bomb to the amount you could heal to a single player normally, and that only happens if they are standing pretty much on top of each other, so the credit you are spending on bomb is going to wasted sap and hp. teams usually lose when the healers run out of sap/hp at least in PvE,

basically bomb/ricochet/spray are always bad right now

[madnak]

The arguments against allowing heals in PvP zones don't make much sense to me. I'll approach them one by one.

Number 1, Xavier's issue, "If we deactivated PvP upon TP, we would open the path to exploits, like being able to be fully regenerated without on-site help when you're almost dead in a FvF conflict (just TP somewhere else, get healed, and re-TP nearby); when used by large number of players, it can make a real difference."

I don't think this is realistic at all. In the first place, teleports take a full 15 seconds to use. Anyone who has played in a PvP battle knows how fast-paced the battles are. Spending 15 seconds to teleport to a safe zone, finding someone to heal you, teleporting back to the PvP zone, and making your way from the teleporter to the battle... That isn't exactly an unbalancing exploit. Particularly considering the nature of PvP right now. You can't take any actions during those 15 seconds, and "without on-site help" you simply aren't going to survive until the teleport. Also it would be much more efficient to simply die and teleport directly in most cases. Teleportation on death doesn't involve a 15-second timer, bypasses the issue of being unhealable, and will usually be much faster overall than a teleport while you are alive (assuming that you can successfully teleport when you are "almost dead in a FvF conflict" in the first place). Also you have more options when you die, since you can respawn directly at either the portals or the local teleporters, or you can go to a "safe" teleporter for healing before rejoining battle.

Even if this concern were relevant, I don't see how it bears on being able to heal out of team within a PvP zone. If you are already attackable, this argument doesn't approach why you shouldn't be able to heal neutral parties or even "enemies." And at the moment it is fairly easy to safely heal a teammate without putting yourself at risk, which should be fixed if the devs are really taking this argument seriously. Does anyone remember Infinity hugging the walls in the Arena and giving team heals with no fear of repercussions?

Number 2, what about bomb heals?

I don't think this issue is significant enough to dictate the mechanics here. But even if it were... If bomb heal did heal enemies as well as friends, that would add a tactical layer and might not be such a bad idea. Unfortunately bomb heal is almost useless right now and would be even more so if it healed everyone. That might change after the stronger bomb heals. But to me the solution seems clear - I might be missing something - just make bomb heals affect only your own faction (or team outside of FvF battles). That should be very simple to implement, so I don't understand why it's an issue at all.

Number 3, if you don't choose a faction, but are able to heal anyone, this could open the door for exploits

That's a condensation of most of the other arguments I am seeing here, and my first response is that it's not necessarily an "exploit" in the first place. Neutral parties are already open to attack, are able to attack others, and can heal in teams. Healing out of team is highly inefficient. Neutral parties should probably not be allowed to heal from a safe position, of course, but that applies to everyone else too (including teammates). Altogether, I don't see how this or related arguments apply. There is no way I can see to exploit this as a neutral party where you couldn't just as easily exploit it in a team. Since teams (and presumably factions) already have the option of healing their allies, allowing neutral parties to heal on the battlefield can't possibly cause any major balance issue.

Number 4, this will allow rez-ganking!

As far as I can tell, this is the most coherent problem. Personally, I would like the ability to refuse any rez (for RP reasons among others). I also think that a "rez timer" might be a good idea, as it would make the game much more challenging and prevent PvP from being the kind of "up-down-up-down-up-down" gopher game it is now. If you had to wait 60 seconds before being eligible for a rez, the tactics in Ryzom would need to become much more sophisticated (and tanks would be much more useful, tending to balance magic and melee). Large bosses would suddenly be challenging battles rather than pushover mat-stations.

Radical solutions aside, I don't think this possible inconvenience measures up against the utility of being able to heal anyone - from healing up your foes after a friendly duel, to managing treks, to allowing more complex interactions than simple black/white battles, the ability to heal in a PvP or FvF zone is much too valuable to trash for this reason. I really don't think this kind of ganking would occur very often, it would only occur in high-level areas, and there are a few possible ways of dealing with it (ask for help in region, relog, possibly teleport, send a CS ticket).

[amcyr]

I also think that a "rez timer" might be a good idea, as it would make the game much more challenging and prevent PvP from being the kind of "up-down-up-down-up-down" gopher game it is now. If you had to wait 60 seconds before being eligible for a rez, the tactics in Ryzom would need to become much more sophisticated (and tanks would be much more useful, tending to balance magic and melee).

Great idea!
Healers would try a lot harder to keep their melees alive if letting them drop had a greater penalty.

Another thing I've noticed (while yoyo-ing).
If I have a mob taunted and drop, the mob goes for the next person.
When I get rezzed, the mob seems to immediately come back to me.
That behaviour doesn't seem natural to me; I think I should have to retaunt.
Having a rez timer would probably solve that problem also.

Sorry to go off-topic.

[sehracii]

Another thing I've noticed (while yoyo-ing).
If I have a mob taunted and drop, the mob goes for the next person.
When I get rezzed, the mob seems to immediately come back to me.
That behaviour doesn't seem natural to me; I think I should have to retaunt.
Having a rez timer would probably solve that problem also.

To extend that, it's even worse if it kills you then wanders off. If you get rezzed too soon it makes a beeline for you even if its out of aggro range (and even if it's not an aggro mob!). What, they create some sort of psychic link and know you're been revived and can't go on living knowing you're alive?
In contrast, all it takes is one second in water and you're totally forgotten

I'm not sure what to think of the rez timer, but halving HP heals is going to take the situation in that direction.

I agree with all Saiwin's points. Even more, I think rez-ganking is a trivial concern. At worst, can't you just click the "respawn" during one of the seconds you're dead and get out of there?

On bomb:
With heal life cut in half, heal bombs won't be used that much even with double AoE. I still think sap and stam bombs though will be effective, but sap can easily be bombed onto mages being attack by enemy melee or stam onto melee attacking enemy mages without concern for helping the other team.

[amitst]

If you had to wait 60 seconds before being eligible for a rez, the tactics in Ryzom would need to become much more sophisticated (and tanks would be much more useful, tending to balance magic and melee). Large bosses would suddenly be challenging battles rather than pushover mat-stations.

Additionally, some bosses would be impossible if that happened, since a few of the bosses do more damage than anyone could ever possibly defend against. Doesnt the level 220 slayer kinrey spit area effect for over 6k?