Thoughts on the patch

[carrie]

The more they push this game toward PvP, the less I will want to play it. I am sure I am not alone in this feeing.

No, you're not alone.

[philu]

No, you're not alone.

*bows again with deep respect*

Glad to hear it!

[sidusar]

HEALPOWER

A 250 healer should be able to heal a 250 melee, so that he is NOT down again by the mobs next hit.
I'm talking about real spells here, not about enchantments. At the moment a 250 healer can hardly heal 150 melee -.-
An increase of the HP-Healpower by 1,25 would make sense to me. Nobody needs a 5000 stamina heal by the way...

Granted, I haven't had a chance to test the new heals in the field yet. But before the patch I did simulate the effects a few times by using lvl 80 heal and paying for it with a 160 heal credit cost, and as a level 160 healer I had no problem keeping a level 230 melee up.
Seeing as now, we have resistance jewelry that protects against the super armorpiercing attacks, there is no way a level 250 healer can hardly heal a level 150 melee, unless if the melee is fighting 2 kirostas at once in light armor or if the healer is asleep at the job.

As for heal stamina and heal sap being better than heal life - to me it makes perfect sense that a less vital energy would be easier to heal.

SPELLCOSTS

I do accept the higher costs of spells as such and doubles in particular, BUT you should be able to pay these costs
without having to use the time-credits. Higher Sap/HP Credit-Stanzas (e.g. at Lvl 250) could be a good solution.

Absolutely not! The whole purpose of extra 20% cost was to force elementalists to use a time credit so they wouldn't be able to fire their double missiles at superspeed anymore.
If the elementalists are given higher sap/health credits so that they can pay for the 20% extra cost without time credits, they'd be still just as powerfull as before the patch, except they'd be eating sap and health even 20% faster than they were; a healer's nightmare.
Though, I would like to see a higher range credit. My maximum spell is 180 cost and my maximum range credit only 50 credit, decreasing the range from 50 to 36 meter. We don't really have the possibility to create a fairly cheap spell that only works at 10 meter.

PvP / FvF / GvG

If I can attack and kill Team- and Guildmembers, neutral Homins, friendly guilds and the like,
why then can't I heal my friends and foes under the same circumstances (depending on the area I'm in)?

Yes, that is quite absurb and rather annoying that you can attack anyone but not heal anyone.

[navra]

The more they push this game toward PvP, the less I will want to play it. I am sure I am not alone in this feeling.

There are many more of us who feel this way than Nevrax will admit to philu.

[Solaya]

I'll stop you here.
I am a level 180 healer.
I can heal a level 250 melee.
You are doing something wrong if you can't.
Try re-thinking your strategies.

Course you can heal him. But let's imagine you're against one or two cuttlers, or equally speedy mobs, kirostas or whatever. Or those nice little kincher Spec-attacks. Whatever - it means that the mob, depending on the power of your healspells will definitely make your melee lose more HP than you can give him back. Which makes lvling above lvl 230 quite annoying when you need a healer for the lvling purpose. Of course you can HEAL that 150 melee as long as he's still standing. But lets just imagine that melee has around 3000 hitpoints. My 250 double spell heals around 3200 hitpoints (depending on the amp). So lets imagine your melee is down. You cast your spell and your melee is up, with - lets say around ...hmm....300 hp and while he's still "standing up" the mob hits again and down is your little melee.
I wasn't talking about healing people, but about resurrecting them. Sorry if my choice of words didn't make that perfectly clear.

No time credits by principle? Or are you saying that elementalists can't do enough dmg?

I do not have a problem with higher spellcosts. What I do have a problem with is the fact that effectiveness of healpower was decreaed while at the same time the cost of every spell (def or off) has been increased. Mobs still have the same speed - we don't. Or we cut back on our spells, which slows down lvl-speed (sorry if that sound powergaming to you *g*). I won't talk of the PvP effects here - they don't bother me at all.

What I want to say by my heal topic is:
YES, heal WAS overpowered. Before the patch two fine homins could kill their evening through each and every 260 mob and some of the 270 mobs as well, just the two of them, thanks to healpower.
It IS good to have decreased the healpower BUT the way and method in my eyes is just simply frustrating and goes into the wrong direction.
First: giving something to people and later taking it away again is always the worst you can do in marketing...of yourse people will get all angry about it and feel nerfed (just the way I do now...)
Why havent things on Atys have been made a little harder (difficulty of mobs etc) and the decrease of the Healpower been slighter?
As I said: A 250 healer, so called Celestial Guardian, should at least be able to resurrect a 250 melee so that he will still be standing after the mobs next attack ...

Don't cut their wings off....

[aelvana]

Cuttlers hit harder than anything else. Clearly they were meant to. Avoid them, and hunt something that makes more sense :) No risk = no satisfaction.

I think the changes are appropriate. Maybe reduce sap and stamina heals to equal what HP are. Tidy it all up that way too!

I'm also very happy about the healing changes, for reasons of my own. The way anyone in a group could insta-rez anyone else, well, it made too many types of fights trivial. It would have been hard to create very challenging content that was fun the way things were -- I was going to try to push for an optional 30-second-rez-timer flag for encounters in Ryzom Ring. I need to be able to create situations where one mistake at the wrong time, like failing to keep an encounter MOB slowed, or losing a healer, can cause a full wipe. This just might do it :)