DEVS: Magic XP for Healing??

[nunyas]

One thing that I'd like to see which would encourge more players to help those that have fallen would be for the healers to gain XP from res'ing/reviving those uncontious combatants. The XP gained from it could be based on the difficulty of the revision. For example, if you only have Heal1 and your Defensive magic (if you've gotten to 21) is only level 21 and you miraculously revive some level 70 fighter then you would obviously get 3K XP. If you res/revive someone that's approximately the same level as your magic then you'd recieve 1.5K and anyone lower than your level the XP gained would be reduced in the same manner that XP is reduced for killing lower level monsters. If multiple ungrouped people revive a single player, then the XP for the action could be split and scaled according to the amount of healing they did versus the difficulty it was for that player to produce that much healing for succesfully reviving the fallen.

As it is now, as others have said, there is absolutely 0 XP earned for *ANY* type of healing done outside of the combat role. My thoughts on reviving XP would help the healer class, and I know that it might not be the easiest thing to implement, but it would help encourage saving your fellow players from eating Death Penalty points. Also, since there are already mechanisms in place to detect if healing during combat in a group takes place then it seems logical that there should be a relatively simple way (or a way to addopt the current system) to detect whether or not the healing is going towards reviving another player.

One thing I noticed last night was that if your group is fighting two monsters, and you only heal people fighting the first monster then you will fail to gain XP for the death of the second monster. Kind of irritating, but it keeps you on your toes, and forces you as a "combat healer" to, at the very least, toss a heal or two on people reguardless of whether or not the person needs it.

[aelvana]

Actually the reason it was changed was the fact that people objected to 'drive by' healing if they were levelling self magic. As self magic no longer exists in game as a skill (other than the fixed self heal stanzas) there really isn't a reason to disallow it other than the fact it's turned off and why spend the effort turning it back on?

Incorrect -- this has nothing to do with self magic. It has to do with healing others.

Here's how bad it would get: a few people would do nothing but run around healing everyone that fights. These players would have no recourse. As this goes on for long periods of time, we'd not only have all our GMs tied up warning and banning people, but we'd have common incidents of people training mobs on each other to try to remedy the situation. And then we have another issue that GMs will be warning/banning people for.

It would have hurt the game a lot. If you want to level healing, it's simple -- cast during the fights and not after. IMO, the rare situations where the fix would hurt people greatly outweigh the kiddie-war mentality that would have become more prevelant in Ryzom.

[daleknd]

Although exp for any sort of healing any time at all is not the answer, there are still problems with the system as it is now.

Defensive magic is the only major skill area that is virtually impossible to gain experience in solo. I don't mean difficult, but literally impossible. I cannot stop in the middle of the fight to heal myself because the game system does not allow thes spells to be cast upon yourself.

To add insult to injury, last night I witness an acquaintence getting swarmed by a bad pull of normally non-aggressive creatures. Once they dispersed I headed over to rez. I knew there would be no experience gained but it was the neighborly thing to do. It came as quite a shock when as soon as I got my friend back on his feet, the herd of peaceful creatures milling nearby suddenly became upset and all zeroed in on me, the good Samaritan. Now in a way I found it funny that doing the right thing meant trading my life for his, but that is generally not how resurrection in these games works.

Not only is the window of opportunity on healing experience much narrower than other skills but the aggro system makes passing kindness to your neighbors a suicidal habit.

Dalwin
humble forager of the Fyros

[jdiegel]

Since we're on the subject, I had one instance where I was aggro'd by a mob and a def mag came by and "helped" me, though I didn't need it. While I could swear I was the only one damaging the mob, I wasn't given any xp or loot rights.

Is it possible for a defensive magician to effectively steal your kill by healing you to such an extent that the system determines that they out did the person who actually killed the mob? Or was that corpse simply bugged or attacked by somebody else too and I didn't notice?

[daleknd]

Since we're on the subject, I had one instance where I was aggro'd by a mob and a def mag came by and "helped" me, though I didn't need it. While I could swear I was the only one damaging the mob, I wasn't given any xp or loot rights.

Is it possible for a defensive magician to effectively steal your kill by healing you to such an extent that the system determines that they out did the person who actually killed the mob? Or was that corpse simply bugged or attacked by somebody else too and I didn't notice?

I am not 100% sure but I believe if he was helping you during the fight he would be getting some of the experience. If that is true then the way the shared experience system works is such that the higher skill level between those participating is used. If he was a lot higher this could reduce your experience to nearly zero but I am not sure I have ever seen no experience at all unless an NPC guard or some other creature gets the kill.

Dalwin
humble thane of Midgard

[aelvana]

There are probably a few things that could cause it. I've attacked the aggro mob in a fighting pair, both still at close to full health, and got no EXP. This was in a large group that killed fast.

I don't think it's healing though -- I've healed much lower level players lots during fights and never stolen the experience. From a programming perspective, it would also be simplest to just omit the "damage credit" line from the little bit of code that is a healing spell (I don't work for Nevrax and have no idea how it was done, just saying that'd prolly be it).

[lariva]

The XP system at the end of the first Open Beta gave XP on a per action basis, thus you could XP for drive-by healing complete strangers and probably for healing harvesters. This system was eventually scraped, after intensive work and testing, because I believe they could not get it well balanced.

Thus we have the current system.

Just to extend on that a bit. Since all XP system was based on the action - what we eneded up doing for max gain, is to find 5 strong mobs cross heal and kill them with cold 1. Would take forever to kill and 50 to 150 magery in 5 days.

I dont like the capped approach chosen today although it is better then what it used to be. Risk is required to prevent macro abuse.

[lariva]

I am not 100% sure but I believe if he was helping you during the fight he would be getting some of the experience. If that is true then the way the shared experience system works is such that the higher skill level between those participating is used. If he was a lot higher this could reduce your experience to nearly zero but I am not sure I have ever seen no experience at all unless an NPC guard or some other creature gets the kill.

Dalwin
humble thane of Midgard

If the mob was more then 50% damage and 'in fight' with someone else - you will not get any xp.

[co1osse]

One thing that I'd like to see which would encourge more players to help those that have fallen would be for the healers to gain XP from res'ing/reviving those uncontious combatants. The XP gained from it could be based on the difficulty of the revision. For example, if you only have Heal1 and your Defensive magic (if you've gotten to 21) is only level 21 and you miraculously revive some level 70 fighter then you would obviously get 3K XP. If you res/revive someone that's approximately the same level as your magic then you'd recieve 1.5K and anyone lower than your level the XP gained would be reduced in the same manner that XP is reduced for killing lower level monsters. If multiple ungrouped people revive a single player, then the XP for the action could be split and scaled according to the amount of healing they did versus the difficulty it was for that player to produce that much healing for succesfully reviving the fallen.

As it is now, as others have said, there is absolutely 0 XP earned for *ANY* type of healing done outside of the combat role. My thoughts on reviving XP would help the healer class, and I know that it might not be the easiest thing to implement, but it would help encourage saving your fellow players from eating Death Penalty points. Also, since there are already mechanisms in place to detect if healing during combat in a group takes place then it seems logical that there should be a relatively simple way (or a way to addopt the current system) to detect whether or not the healing is going towards reviving another player.it.

I agree that wandering healers should get some experiance for their services, but... to avoid players using this to power level defensive magic there should be a timer for experiance gain for raising the SAME character(s).
Lets say that one could gain experiance for raising someone every 5 mins or so. This way Bob and Bill wont duel eachothers to gain defensive experiance far more safely than Jim who's advanturing with a party.

Any other toughts on this?

[gralen]

Since we're on the subject, I had one instance where I was aggro'd by a mob and a def mag came by and "helped" me, though I didn't need it. While I could swear I was the only one damaging the mob, I wasn't given any xp or loot rights.

Is it possible for a defensive magician to effectively steal your kill by healing you to such an extent that the system determines that they out did the person who actually killed the mob? Or was that corpse simply bugged or attacked by somebody else too and I didn't notice?

I hate to do this but will because I and a number of others warned of it long ago during beta when the 1 team rule and current xp system came out: Healers can nullify a lower player's xp during any battle. The healer likely won't get any xp but neither will the lower player.

I know I try to watch a battle and will only heal during a fight if the player is obviously going to die or I will wait until the battle is over and then heal the player. The point being that healers (real healers) don't want to do any harm to fellow players but the current system builds harm into non-team combat healing.

BTW, if you can prove me wrong, please do so as I'd love to go back to full time drive by healings when I see a homin in need.