True Healing Discussion (Live 6/25)

Unknown

Although I was determined to post my overwhelmingly negative response of the forum immediately after D3 deployed this change, a registration issue inadvertently gave me a chance to experience the rollout of True Healing before I could post. In short, it’s not as horrific as I thought, but it’s terrible in other ways I didn’t expect. Let me explain.

For all the fans of the game, I'll let you in on a secret: the latest trend in mobile gaming is instituting in-app purchases in combination with an element of delayed gratification. For example, the game Two Dots supplies users with five attempts to solve puzzles before forcing you to wait for an extended time (about an hour) to regen your lives. OR you could simply spend $.99 and instantly replenish them to keep playing. The developers reason that users will give in to their impulses and ignore the $1 threshold for immediate gratification (though I won’t spend a dime on the game, my wife has probably shelled out about $10).

After several days playing with the True Healing change in MPQ, I am now utterly convinced that it has NOTHING to do with fair play or as IceIX states,

IceIX wrote:

What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters.

With OBW, players were able to heal their characters outside the tourneys, allowing us to constantly return to the fight and boost our chances to win covers. In turn, this increased our collective enjoyment, and therefore the personal value of the game. From a business POV, it also greatly increased the odds of players spending real money to upgrade their rosters. It's obvious MPQ has been a real success thus far, but I have zero doubt that D3 has let its success get the better of its judgment.

IceIX suggests that using your strongest characters consistently is:

IceIX wrote:

...not a very fun time for most players.

Really? I was having a blast every day, and from all the views and comments on the forum, as well as the in-game competition, you all were too. D3 has made a conscious gamble, betting that users will eventually surrender to their need for instant gratification by spending more money on health (primarily), but also ISO and Tokens. So let's not kid ourselves – the underlying truth behind this change is they want you to spend more to upgrade your weaker characters. In light of this, we'll just have wait-and-see if longstanding users now find the $5-100 purchase threshold too much. In 30-60 days their internal reporting will make the facts obvious enough.

The game has now COMPLETELY changed for me. I am far less determined to play, much less win, as the wait to heal simply diminishes my anticipation of returning as often. Over the last six months, I’ve probably spent close to $100 because I've enjoyed this game so much. Since I’ve first owned my iPhone, back when it was first released, I haven’t spent that much IN TOTAL on all my apps and games combined.

Kudos to D3 for developing a well-designed and well-maintained game, with new and fresh content consistently. That said, I find this thinly-veiled attempt at forced behavior modification for commercial purposes utterly discouraging. I've committed never to spend another dime on the game, rewarding D3 any more than I already have. Unlike nerfing a specific character's abilities, which might've been designed to be too powerful, the True Healing change does not discriminate. This change was universal, meaning it affected all players equally. While all users could prolong their playing enjoyment – healing to return to the competition, or killing time in either Season 2 or Prologue while waiting for the next event – this apparently was not profitable enough for D3.

Since this was rolled out, It's clear that many of us have been impacted negatively. It’s also clear from participating in events and tourneys that MPQ has tons of active, zealous users who love playing daily. Though I still enjoy the game itself, it's unfortunately regressing to just being another app on my phone.

Cry-Havok

I still don't understand why people think it's okay to have someone tell them how to play a game that they choose to play.

If you want to grind, then that's on you. It should be up to them to tell you. Whether you pay or not.

I really don't understand this.

Now, instead of me want to play more,I'm here waiting 3 to 4 hours for my characters to heal completely.

I thought it would be a honour to pay for something you enjoy and play as long as you want. I guess I was wrong.

P.S. If you didn't want a character to be used all the time and have the capability to heal, then don't add them. Love this dictatorship you guys are running here.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Postmortem on first PVP event post True Healing change.

I finished with about 100 more points than what I average and won more HP than I spent.

Yes it was more of a grind than usual, but I'm sure it was for mostly everyone. I just stated earlier and played a bit more often. It was actually more fun than how I'd play before.

It was actually about the same amount of grind as usual. Since I haven't started the pve yet, I didn't even run out of medpacks!

Really, it's probably fine of pvp, since you can largely play it on your own schedule, and then use shields if necessary. The real health crunch is for PvE, which you have to tightly schedule, where if you run out you're either going to have to leave points on the table, or throw off the rest of your schedule for refreshes. Also, because of shields the "final hour" of pvp can be anywhere in the last 3/8/24 hours, fitting into your schedule, and you can shield hop to delay it if you need more healthpacks, whereas if you run out of them in the last hour of a pve, you're pretty small felined

I'm not seeing why healing even has a significant impact on PvE. Back in the days when stuff scaled to 395, you either beat the encounter taking almost no damage or you don't beat the encounter at all. Even though the scaling has been toned down significantly, most of the nodes that matter are not something you can drag it out and win and require a decisive action one way or another. Maybe there's some range of scaling at the lower end of PvE strength where you can walk away from a fight bruised instead of dead, but at least for me, even with the new scaling where nothing seems to be higher than level 150, it's very rare to walk away a fight against Ares or Juggernaut just bruised. You either wipe them out in a spectcular fashion or the other way around. This goes double if they have any AP generating goons. For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

Unknown

20 minutes of Dark Avengers and the 6 characters I have are at 20% health. So now I don't play for 3 hours. You're right, this IS much more fun!

The effects of 'true healing' are obvious. I played a bit of Dark Avengers this morning and was #22 when I stopped. I came back 8 hrs later and was #46. In days past I would've been #250 or so. Enough said.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

That's just not true, especially if you're using OBW to try to get some fake healing in. My last time through this, I got hit with 3 headbutts and 2 world ruptures, but still limped out with only one down. The other two were obviously useless. Last week, this meant one health pack and 10 minutes of prologue if I wanted to play some more. Now, it means 3 health packs. That's a big difference, especially when this isn't the only node that deals heavy damage.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Phantron wrote:

For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

That's just not true, especially if you're using OBW to try to get some fake healing in. My last time through this, I got hit with 3 headbutts and 2 world ruptures, but still limped out with only one down. The other two were obviously useless. Last week, this meant one health pack and 10 minutes of prologue if I wanted to play some more. Now, it means 3 health packs. That's a big difference, especially when this isn't the only node that deals heavy damage.

I can't remember a hard node prior to true healing changes where you can take 3 Headbutts and not end up with at least 2 dead guys (and often it'd be 3), so they must have lowered the scaling to compensate. If you could've healed, those guys would just be high level enough from scaling that you'd flat out die. Taking 3 Headbutts + 2 World Ruptures isn't something you could've possibly survived based on the old scaling.

yogi_

This from IceIX via http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10735&start=20#p177017.

"We haven't abandoned discussion on the healing changes, there's simply nothing for us to actively contribute at the moment. The change is made, we're monitoring that thread (and others) to see what general discussion is like. We're also heavily monitoring associated data streams such as play times and play patterns across multiple tiers of player types to see if the change made the difference we were expecting. We need at the *very* least a full PVE Event to see how player patterns change during the Event to start to get an idea of what worked and what can be iterated on. Trust me, we're listening. I just don't have anything that I can say other than that until we figure out precisely what the change did in total."

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I'm not seeing why healing even has a significant impact on PvE. Back in the days when stuff scaled to 395, you either beat the encounter taking almost no damage or you don't beat the encounter at all. Even though the scaling has been toned down significantly, most of the nodes that matter are not something you can drag it out and win and require a decisive action one way or another. Maybe there's some range of scaling at the lower end of PvE strength where you can walk away from a fight bruised instead of dead, but at least for me, even with the new scaling where nothing seems to be higher than level 150, it's very rare to walk away a fight against Ares or Juggernaut just bruised. You either wipe them out in a spectcular fashion or the other way around. This goes double if they have any AP generating goons. For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

Most of my fights I end up with 30-60 minutes of healing needed. I can usually go 2-3 matches with someone without needing healing. In the past, I'd rotate a little and use prologue healing to keep from having to burn health packs in this situation, but I have to either waste a healthpack on someone who doesn't really need it or chance using someone who's 30% down. Maybe your playstyle is all or nothing matches, but I generally come out of PVE about how I come out of PVP. True healing has a huge effect on my ability to do sustained PVE.

killerkoala

Cry-Havok wrote:

I still don't understand why people think it's okay to have someone tell them how to play a game that they choose to play.

If you want to grind, then that's on you. It should be up to them to tell you. Whether you pay or not.

I really don't understand this.

Now, instead of me want to play more,I'm here waiting 3 to 4 hours for my characters to heal completely.

I thought it would be a honour to pay for something you enjoy and play as long as you want. I guess I was wrong.

P.S. If you didn't want a character to be used all the time and have the capability to heal, then don't add them. Love this dictatorship you guys are running here.

you must buy more health packs. pay to play

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I'm not seeing why healing even has a significant impact on PvE. Back in the days when stuff scaled to 395, you either beat the encounter taking almost no damage or you don't beat the encounter at all. Even though the scaling has been toned down significantly, most of the nodes that matter are not something you can drag it out and win and require a decisive action one way or another. Maybe there's some range of scaling at the lower end of PvE strength where you can walk away from a fight bruised instead of dead, but at least for me, even with the new scaling where nothing seems to be higher than level 150, it's very rare to walk away a fight against Ares or Juggernaut just bruised. You either wipe them out in a spectcular fashion or the other way around. This goes double if they have any AP generating goons. For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

Most of my fights I end up with 30-60 minutes of healing needed. I can usually go 2-3 matches with someone without needing healing. In the past, I'd rotate a little and use prologue healing to keep from having to burn health packs in this situation, but I have to either waste a healthpack on someone who doesn't really need it or chance using someone who's 30% down. Maybe your playstyle is all or nothing matches, but I generally come out of PVE about how I come out of PVP. True healing has a huge effect on my ability to do sustained PVE.

I'm not seeing how you could have a non decisive result on the bottom right section of Heroic Jugg. The other sections are probably impacted by true healing more since they've much more margin for error, but you're not dragging out a fight like the level 120 Daken + Lieutenant + Soldier. If it doesn't end in your decisive victory it definitely will end in theirs.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

Taking 3 Headbutts + 2 World Ruptures isn't something you could've possibly survived based on the old scaling.

I'm not really sure that's the point. The point is, my PvE experience has never consisted of "all or nothing" nodes that were going to force me to use health packs anyway.

killerkoala

Ben Grimm wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I'm not seeing why healing even has a significant impact on PvE. Back in the days when stuff scaled to 395, you either beat the encounter taking almost no damage or you don't beat the encounter at all. Even though the scaling has been toned down significantly, most of the nodes that matter are not something you can drag it out and win and require a decisive action one way or another. Maybe there's some range of scaling at the lower end of PvE strength where you can walk away from a fight bruised instead of dead, but at least for me, even with the new scaling where nothing seems to be higher than level 150, it's very rare to walk away a fight against Ares or Juggernaut just bruised. You either wipe them out in a spectcular fashion or the other way around. This goes double if they have any AP generating goons. For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

Most of my fights I end up with 30-60 minutes of healing needed. I can usually go 2-3 matches with someone without needing healing. In the past, I'd rotate a little and use prologue healing to keep from having to burn health packs in this situation, but I have to either waste a healthpack on someone who doesn't really need it or chance using someone who's 30% down. Maybe your playstyle is all or nothing matches, but I generally come out of PVE about how I come out of PVP. True healing has a huge effect on my ability to do sustained PVE.

Diversity they say, you'll love it......yet they roll it out during and 1st event after are both heroic where you are allowed to use only 8 players. i still think they are laughing their **** off in their offices. since i can't play as long as i want; i get to troll their forums between play time. oh good this is fun

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I'm not seeing how you could have a non decisive result on the bottom right section of Heroic Jugg. The other sections are probably impacted by true healing more since they've much more margin for error, but you're not dragging out a fight like the level 120 Daken + Lieutenant + Soldier. If it doesn't end in your decisive victory it definitely will end in theirs.

I win, generally with everyone still alive, but down some hitpoints. That one's not that tough; I deny red, take out the thug providing ap first, and whittle down the other two. It almost always ends in my down 25-50% hit points. Occasionally one person takes all the hits, and they're down but the other two aren't down that many, but most of the time I make a point of spreading the damage around. I don't like to do no-damage wins in PVE because it screws up the scaling.

You never used prologue healing in PVE, and that's fine. But this idea that you have that nobody plays in a manner where prologue healing helped in PVE is just not borne out by multiple people's experiences. Everybody's PVE experience is different, and that doesn't mean one is playing right and one is playing wrong.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I'm not seeing how you could have a non decisive result on the bottom right section of Heroic Jugg. The other sections are probably impacted by true healing more since they've much more margin for error, but you're not dragging out a fight like the level 120 Daken + Lieutenant + Soldier. If it doesn't end in your decisive victory it definitely will end in theirs.

I win, generally with everyone still alive, but down some hitpoints. That one's not that tough; I deny red, take out the thug providing ap first, and whittle down the other two. It almost always ends in my down 25-50% hit points. Occasionally one person takes all the hits, and they're down but the other two aren't down that many, but most of the time I make a point of spreading the damage around. I don't like to do no-damage wins in PVE because it screws up the scaling.

You never used prologue healing in PVE, and that's fine. But this idea that you have that nobody plays in a manner where prologue healing helped in PVE is just not borne out by multiple people's experiences. Everybody's PVE experience is different, and that doesn't mean one is playing right and one is playing wrong.

You sure you're not talking about the upper right nodes? The highest level node in the last event was Daken + Lieutenant + Soldier at bottom right and they have no use for any color whatsoever, and you're not going to outlast Daken with a Lieutenant behind him unless you did some serious damage very early.

The easier the node is the bigger an impact healing has, but the nodes that really make or break your placement usually are far too difficult to approach in an attrition format reliably. In Heroic DA I'm seeing level 127 Ares and level 103 Juggernaut on the middle path, and they take at least 25% health with any of their AP consuming moves. Even the level 75 Sentry + Juggernaut + Analyst on the essentials can easily get nasty if they fire off a couple of their red abilities. I've been sitting at around #10 overall for a while so maybe my nodes are higher, but I'm guessing anyone getting in that range will face a similarly level enemy. Now of course if your placement is lower you could have easier enemies, but what's the point of extended playing if it's not to advance your ranking? As you get close to the top, the hard nodes will become all or nothing.

Spoit

Phantron wrote:

Spoit wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Postmortem on first PVP event post True Healing change.

I finished with about 100 more points than what I average and won more HP than I spent.

Yes it was more of a grind than usual, but I'm sure it was for mostly everyone. I just stated earlier and played a bit more often. It was actually more fun than how I'd play before.

It was actually about the same amount of grind as usual. Since I haven't started the pve yet, I didn't even run out of medpacks!

Really, it's probably fine of pvp, since you can largely play it on your own schedule, and then use shields if necessary. The real health crunch is for PvE, which you have to tightly schedule, where if you run out you're either going to have to leave points on the table, or throw off the rest of your schedule for refreshes. Also, because of shields the "final hour" of pvp can be anywhere in the last 3/8/24 hours, fitting into your schedule, and you can shield hop to delay it if you need more healthpacks, whereas if you run out of them in the last hour of a pve, you're pretty small felined

I'm not seeing why healing even has a significant impact on PvE. Back in the days when stuff scaled to 395, you either beat the encounter taking almost no damage or you don't beat the encounter at all. Even though the scaling has been toned down significantly, most of the nodes that matter are not something you can drag it out and win and require a decisive action one way or another. Maybe there's some range of scaling at the lower end of PvE strength where you can walk away from a fight bruised instead of dead, but at least for me, even with the new scaling where nothing seems to be higher than level 150, it's very rare to walk away a fight against Ares or Juggernaut just bruised. You either wipe them out in a spectcular fashion or the other way around. This goes double if they have any AP generating goons. For example Sentry + Jugg + Analyst you either put away the Analyst very quickly, or you'll have a clinic in Supernovas and Headbutts. Prologue heailng or not this isn't a battle you can recover from if you didn't win decisively immediately.

Back then it was quite possible to lose characters just due to match damage alone. PRobable even, with daken

Unknown

The old healing method was an EXPLOIT. This new one is fair. It encourages you to use your full bench of characters. It gives players some down time too.

I think D3 had gone in a right direction with this one.

Unknown

hawklanzs wrote:

The old healing method was an EXPLOIT. This new one is fair. It encourages you to use your full bench of characters. It gives players some down time too.

I think D3 had gone in a right direction with this one.

and who are you? A D3 in disguise? Ahahah

I also liked the other thread of character changes to muddy the waters, but I encourage all the people who do not like to play with the current system of healing to vote 1 star for this application

Unknown

hawklanzs wrote:

The old healing method was an EXPLOIT. This new one is fair. It encourages you to use your full bench of characters. It gives players some down time too.

I think D3 had gone in a right direction with this one.

Bringing a character into PVE and gaining health when healing was an exploit? When are they going to fix the exploit where doing damage to enemies lowers their health? And the one where matching three or more gems of the same color makes them disappear?

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I'm not seeing why healing even has a significant impact on PvE. Back in the days when stuff scaled to 395, you either beat the encounter taking almost no damage or you don't beat the encounter at all.

But that 'almost no damage' still looked like 2k at least just from matches until you got AP to do something.

Or you retreated right on looking at a bad board ad took 1/3 on all heroes, healed up in next minute and retried.

Or played the goon-only fight till see unavoidable shot and retreated at that point.

Unknown

Wraith9490 wrote:

20 minutes of Dark Avengers and the 6 characters I have are at 20% health. So now I don't play for 3 hours. You're right, this IS much more fun!

The effects of 'true healing' are obvious. I played a bit of Dark Avengers this morning and was #22 when I stopped. I came back 8 hrs later and was #46. In days past I would've been #250 or so. Enough said.

Part of the effect comes from people who chose to quit the play entirely or not bother with the event at all due to changes.