"True" Healing

Heartburn

Did it improve the game, not in my opinion. I was able to play this game as much as I wanted, now only 20 minutes at a time. Big negative. As for diversity, if the characters don't have good balance, there is going to be an alpha team. It is just a matter of perspective is OBW plus whoever better then xforce Thor plus whoever? Or whatever alpha team develops. As for do players like it? How many are not here anymore to vote.

puppychow

Boommike wrote:

I've been an active listener on the forums for a few months and have seen loads of backlash for more recent changes. To the point where forumites are pushing for positivity rather forcefully. But I haven't really seen anyone bring up this change in light of the recent "terrible things D3 has done, without regard for its players". Does this not just give further weight to the "This Too Shall Pass" mantra?

On a lighter note, can this give us hope? Changes that are initially seen as bad and are met with immediate backlash may work out alright in the end? Or maybe even improve the game?

Why do you think D3 has been spending tens of thousands of dollars to rent exhibition space this year at conventions all across America? They lost a lot of customers due to a number of controversial changes, including the implementation of true healing, and needed to bring in new blood ASAP. I personally know players who quit due to true healing. D3 has managed to get some whales among the newcomers (judging by how many players with newer rosters carry maxed out Professors, Hulkbusters, etc.), so that has been fortunate for them.

D3 make changes to raise revenue, not to improve game play. If you want specific examples, please feel free to contact me via private messages and I'll make my case with examples. I don't want to go off topic.

Buret0

Because of the way this game works, they actually need to shave off some of the vets in order to allow newer players to progress.

Think about it.

As long as the people who are at the top of this game continue to place at the top of each event, the supply of 4* covers will continue to be rare amongst all but those who are already established.

If you've already got all of the best characters in the game, you are less likely to spend large sums of money to improve. For that, they need to continue to convince new players to push for the top... and to buy some help along the way.

For every 100 people that they bring in to play this game, maybe 1 of them will buy more than $50 worth of stuff in the game. Maybe 1 in 1000 will buy more than $150. Maybe 1 in 10,000 will buy more than $500.

There are clearly whales in this game who have dropped more than $5,000, which is just crazy to me.

But as long as there is a chance for advancement, MPQ has the opportunity to continue to convince someone to spend their money. To me, that's why they will always cater to the new users... more profitable to catch new whales than to try and squeeze a little bit more from an existing one.

Heartburn

That is only because there is a lack of end game/ further growth. If it kept on going and provide more interesting game play for the top tier then they wouldn't have that problem. They could just focus on making a good game, as we saw a lot people were very interested in playing New content... Vastly exceeding their expectation in fact. If they kept this up I don't see why they would need to recruit so hard.

Pylgrim

On second thought, I decided to make this little rant into a thread of its own rather than as a response to a particular poster, derailing this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29861

Unknown

Our Alliance's leader who was ranked number #2 on XBL's Puzzle Quest (the original one) leaderboard quit this game over true healing. He took a few with him. The alliance dynamic has never been quite the same.

He is a lawyer by trade and IIRC he used the phrase "bait and switch" to describe what the devs do in comparison to what they say...

Unknown

Overall it improved game, however fake healing is still broken and not utilized as proper mechanic. It can't overheal and for some reason it's valued 1 heal for 1 damage cost wise, means you will NEVER want to bring character with it unless it's completely passive (Khan). Spiderman, Beast, Rag all suffer for this, getting full value of heal is much harder than damage and I'd rather have match end sooner than just making it stalemate longer. I'm sure Spidey would see more play if he could heal for 5-6k to actually provide cushion for more than one power, but if he have average 3300 aoe heal for 12 I'd rather take 3300 aoe damage for 12 Kamala does. Or if Rag could actually tank with his new shiny instead of putting Mickey Mouse sticky bandage on his ouchie.

It's same problem with Protect tiles mind you. Which makes me scared for possible future passive generator akin to Cage assuming his is properly balanced.

JamieMadrox

SnowcaTT wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I swear to tinykitty Thanos that if this (d)evolves in to another True Healing debate I will smite this thread like an angry god.

Ah, to remember past times....

I've never said I've always agreed with everything that the devs have done. I wasn't too happy about TH when it was announced, but once it was live I saw how it made the game better. I also wasn't one to abuse the thumbs down feature. I used it when I legitimately disagreed with something, and even then sparingly.

blinktag

Well, this thread helps explain much of the repeated (endlessly) angst about health packs, and several other health-related complaints. I used to be in favor of additional healing after battles, or a couple of additional health packs. It's helped change my mind: I think the current system of each of this is better than the alternative.

As someone who came in after the change (or at least wasn't experienced enough yet to have noticed it), I think PvP is already a grind (yes, made more difficult by the MMR). Trying to move among the top 20% during the last few hours of PvP is already difficult. I can only imagine how much worse it would be if other players had more health packs. (Net result: similar standings, more battles, more frustration.)

Adding more healing (or more health packs) makes everything more grindey, not because I could use them, but because everyone else can too. And this game can certainly use less grinding.

Unknown

The main reason I still seriously resent true healing is that it severely limits my ability to play. I have a regular 8-5 job, and so the only time I can play much is in the evening. That means I'm now limited to how many matches I can get in during the 6-10 timeframe, and I have to work that in with everything else. That's about enough time to regenerate seven health packs, plus the five I start with. Since the average "real" match costs me about 1.5 health packs, that allows me about 8 matches per evening against real competition in PVP, because you can't use B teams in PVP because of how it's designed.

I used to be able to prologue heal and play as much as I like. But true healing is pretty much 100% responsible for me playing Contest of Champions, because it forced me to put the game down even when I wanted to play, and I went looking for another game to play while my health packs were regenerating. True healing is something to force you to play on D3's schedule, not your own.

And anyone thinking it increased roster diversity may not remember, but the "Every team is Sentry + Hood" era started almost immediately after True Healing went in. There was more diversity before, because people were more willing to take risks when prologue healing meant you weren't getting severely punished for risk taking. True Healing was one of those changes that made everybody start playing as safely as possible. This game severely punishes risk-taking, and encourages safe, boring play. And it's gotten worse over time.

Buret0

Ben Grimm wrote:

The main reason I still seriously resent true healing is that it severely limits my ability to play. I have a regular 8-5 job, and so the only time I can play much is in the evening. That means I'm now limited to how many matches I can get in during the 6-10 timeframe, and I have to work that in with everything else. That's about enough time to regenerate seven health packs, plus the five I start with. Since the average "real" match costs me about 1.5 health packs, that allows me about 8 matches per evening against real competition in PVP, because you can't use B teams in PVP because of how it's designed.

I used to be able to prologue heal and play as much as I like. But true healing is pretty much 100% responsible for me playing Contest of Champions, because it forced me to put the game down even when I wanted to play, and I went looking for another game to play while my health packs were regenerating. True healing is something to force you to play on D3's schedule, not your own.

And anyone thinking it increased roster diversity may not remember, but the "Every team is Sentry + Hood" era started almost immediately after True Healing went in. There was more diversity before, because people were more willing to take risks when prologue healing meant you weren't getting severely punished for risk taking. True Healing was one of those changes that made everybody start playing as safely as possible. This game severely punishes risk-taking, and encourages safe, boring play. And it's gotten worse over time.

Could you imagine how much more often you would face a Sentry team before his changes if you could go team heal in the Prologue? The main reason that people are scared of using Sentry is that he forces you to team heal after using his powers.

Of course, Sentry became the ultimate D man after the fact because it doesn't matter if he injured himself or his team on D, he was always going to be at full strength and it wouldn't hurt your healthpacks.

Unknown

Buret0 wrote:

Could you imagine how much more often you would face a Sentry team before his changes if you could go team heal in the Prologue? The main reason that people are scared of using Sentry is that he forces you to team heal after using his powers.

Of course, Sentry became the ultimate D man after the fact because it doesn't matter if he injured himself or his team on D, he was always going to be at full strength and it wouldn't hurt your healthpacks.

At the time, you were always facing them, and always getting hit by them, so it would have been exactly the same amount. Literally every team above a certain point level was Sentry back then.

Buret0

Ben Grimm wrote:

At the time, you were always facing them, and always getting hit by them, so it would have been exactly the same amount. Literally every team above a certain point level was Sentry back then.

Yeah, but was it because Sentry made it so that you used less health packs on O or because it forced enemies to use health packs on D?

I didn't have a Sentry pre-nerf, so I'm legitimately asking.

Unknown

Buret0 wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

At the time, you were always facing them, and always getting hit by them, so it would have been exactly the same amount. Literally every team above a certain point level was Sentry back then.

Yeah, but was it because Sentry made it so that you used less health packs on O or because it forced enemies to use health packs on D?

I didn't have a Sentry pre-nerf, so I'm legitimately asking.

Neither. It's because a boosted Sentry could win a match in literally 30 seconds. I don't think there's much of a direct connection between this and true healing, it's just that the idea that true healing resulted in roster diversity is laughable because the "every team is exactly the same" problem started shortly after. I think there is an indirect connection, in that true healing made people even more risk-averse, and so everyone started using the same strategy.

cyineedsn

True healing definitely made me more risk-averse, and feels annoying/frustrating. But why? Realistically, other f2p games also have mechanisms to limit my playtime. It's probably a good thing, I don't particularly desire to play this game 8 hours a day like a job.

For me, the difference is when I play other F2P games, which "usually" have an energy system, I play, use up my energy, and say "Okay, made some progress, used up energy, time to put the game down." Because of the true healing/health pack system, in this game I play, make some progress, then a bad cascade leads to eating a buffed RotP and I say "tinykitty this tinykitty" and then put the game down angry, even though I probably did make some progress.

I think this is just one of those games where even when you win, depending on how much damage you took, you still feel like you lost, and that's kind of sad.