Healers - why not giving them an aura with a +0.X regeneration rate?

[Jofursloft]

I was curious to test healers because I think they are mostly a "psychologic" unit rather than a useful one. In my opinion if you have healers they help you to feel more confident when attacking, but their practical utility is low. As shown in the video below 40 slingers + 20 FULL UPGRADED healers lose against 50 slingers. Same rank, 0 fight upgrades for both armies, almost 0 micro (I just pressed "H" a few times in order to prevent light blue slingers from chasing the healers when they were running away).

In my opinion the main problem is that slingers are not targeted by only one unit each (in this case this type of healer would make sense), but they are rather attacked from multiple units, so healers begin to heal them when it's already too late. 

I think a solution could be giving healers an aura which could heal slowly every own unit inside it (same principle of Acharya Chanakya maurya hero).

[Feldfeld]

Healers are much more useful healing melee / tanky units, or champions, than weak ranged units that get overkilled anyway.

They also make better use of promotion mechanic for melee units

[alre]

whatever is your army composition, healers have a very weak effect on battles, a single javelineer deals more damage a priest can heal. The value of priests is given by the fact that they can keep healing your troops after they stop fighting. If your army is fighting without rest, it makes much more use of a javelineer than a priest.

However, note that, while ranged soldiers get almost no benefit from veterancy, veteran healers are extremely more effective than base healers, also note that healers have their dedicated set of techs in addition to blacksmith techs for soldiers, so it is possible to have healers make a decisive impact to battles (especially in support of melee infantry champions), but it requires a lot of preparation, and I honestly don't see how can it be worth it.

Edited September 2, 2021 by alre

[Player of 0AD]

Fully upgraded healers... Have they also been rank 3? I think that healers gain too much via climbing the ranks, and of course they also have too many hitpoints. That should be nerfed

Edit: Or maybe remove healers from the game completely, except the mauryan hero. They are annoying

Edited September 2, 2021 by Player of 0AD

[Yekaterina]

I like the idea of healers getting an aura instead of doing the healing themselves, it would reduce much frustration over them. They were used quite frequently in A24 but not in A25. The only problem is you might miss the animation of the healers waving at each other

A problem that arises from aura effect rather than 1 to 1 healing is OP undying army. So we either nerf their production, cost, or healing rate / aura

1 hour ago, Player of 0AD said:

Edit: Or maybe remove healers from the game completely, except the mauryan hero. They are annoying

No please no, we still need them!

[Dizaka]

11 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I like the idea of healers getting an aura instead of doing the healing themselves, it would reduce much frustration over them. They were used quite frequently in A24 but not in A25. The only problem is you might miss the animation of the healers waving at each other

I think healers aren't used nowadays because of champions.  Champions just mow through units.  It's more prudent/reasonable to go get champions versus healers, especially with the metal and food costs of their upgrades.

  

11 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

A problem that arises from aura effect rather than 1 to 1 healing is OP undying army. So we either nerf their production, cost, or healing rate / aura

No please no, we still need them!

Undying army, lol.  I remember in A24 where I had 12-20 healers healing 1 elephant that was going slowly at a fort, lol.  Not even archers could kill that ele.

There's a point where having enough r3 healers is overpowering.  Which makes Kushite r3 temple OP in a way.

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, Dizaka said:

Undying army, lol.  I remember in A24 where I had 12-20 healers healing 1 elephant that was going slowly at a fort, lol.  Not even archers could kill that ele.

Lol? Why weren't you shooting the defenseless healers? 

[Dizaka]

11 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Lol? Why weren't you shooting the defenseless healers? 

That would have been a friendly fire situation :P.  The ele and healers were mine!

That's makes me think.  Maybe 0ad should have ranged-weapon misfires (archers, xbow, bolts, cataputs, etc).  A 1 in a 1,000,000 chance to have all ranged units misfire and die to misadventure at the same time.

[Stan`]

Friendly fire exists but is disabled.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Friendly fire exists but is disabled.

Yeah, ranged units just don't have the unit AI yet to allow friendly fire to be a general thing. Ranged units would have to be 'smarter' to make it a thing. Though, DE has friendly fire with catapults.

[Feldfeld]

  

9 hours ago, alre said:

a single javelineer deals more damage a priest can heal.

Not necessarily after armor is factored in

9 hours ago, alre said:

The value of priests is given by the fact that they can keep healing your troops after they stop fighting.

They also can keep a units alive while fighting, allowing them to promote in combat. That said I don't know how useful this is compared to having more units of the same type fighting. But if you want melee units to get promoted / stay alive it's probably better to add healers rather than skirmishers.

6 hours ago, Dizaka said:

I think healers aren't used nowadays because of champions.  Champions just mow through units.  It's more prudent/reasonable to go get champions versus healers, especially with the metal and food costs of their upgrades.

I think they aren't used primarily because of their cost, and the cost of their upgrades. Healers are expensive, and cost 100% food, so if you want to train them you have to rebalance your economy quite a bit. On top of that, their technologies are also expensive. 

Champions + healers could be a combo worth doing even in this alpha, however only possible if a game stays more or less stalematy/equal for a long time, which rarely happens right now.

My suggestion for healers themselves is to reduce their overall cost, and add a metal cost. At some point before A26 they will be changed I think. 

[alre]

2 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

They also can keep a units alive while fighting, allowing them to promote in combat. That said I don't know how useful this is compared to having more units of the same type fighting. But if you want melee units to get promoted / stay alive it's probably better to add healers rather than skirmishers.

Not really. I made tests, a support javelineer makes your melee survive better than a priest. I tried 100% spearmen battles, and also 50% pikemen + 50% javelines. I don't know why but not even level 3 healers could save those pikemen from an army with extra skirmishers (the opposing army had skirmishers instead of healers, 1 to 1). I also tried spearmen champions, and they work better with healers instead.

10 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

My suggestion for healers themselves is to reduce their overall cost, and add a metal cost. At some point before A26 they will be changed I think. 

Metal? No please! At least now you can train priests without problems when you have extra food. Stone maybe? As in temples?

By the way, it's not like they are totally useless in this alpha either. If you have a level 3 priest somewhere, it arguably means that he had repaid his cost. It's just that only a smaller part of their job is during battles.

[Stan`]

34 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Yeah, ranged units just don't have the unit AI yet to allow friendly fire to be a general thing. Ranged units would have to be 'smarter' to make it a thing. Though, DE has friendly fire with catapults.

@Freagarach made a feature attack a specific area. Maybe we could have friendly fire for that when it's committed.

[Feldfeld]

  

38 minutes ago, alre said:

Not really. I made tests, a support javelineer makes your melee survive better than a priest. I tried 100% spearmen battles, and also 50% pikemen + 50% javelines. I don't know why but not even level 3 healers could save those pikemen from an army with extra skirmishers (the opposing army had skirmishers instead of healers, 1 to 1). I also tried spearmen champions, and they work better with healers instead.

I have to admit I didn't make specific tests yet. Which side won the fight with citizen soldiers?

38 minutes ago, alre said:

Metal? No please! At least now you can train priests without problems when you have extra food. Stone maybe? As in temples?

Well there are multiple objectives I want to reach in order to give healers a good place in game, not being too weak or OP. First of all they should be affordable/ the player should be able to regularly train more healers. Right now it's absolutely not the case, training 4 healers burn 1000 food, and having a unit only present for a player to rebalance his eco is bad in my opinion, good players will/should not have big eco imbalances.

So healers should cost less food, but as they are intended to be a useful unit they should not cost only food otherwise they would be OP. Stone will just look unnatural I think. I think metal is the best.  I don't know how much though. 

 

Also, here healers were compared to skirmishers but that's not all there is to it. Personally I think skirmishers are a bit strong this alpha and could take a damage nerf, but it is only the beginning of the alpha anyway and I know not everyone share this opinion for now, so we'll see about that later.
The second thing is that one of the advantages of other ranged units (slingers/archers) over skirmishers is that with their higher range they deal damage before the other army engages. Healers however can start healing immediately so they are better in that case. Also healers should be helpful against harrassment (although I don't see a lot of harrassment this alpha)

[alre]

 

15 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

I have to admit I didn't make specific tests yet. Which side won the fight with citizen soldiers?

The side with extra javelineers almost always won. Although I too must admit I didn't sign down all the results, so I'm going by memory. Also when priests work well, it's just few of them (they support champions wonderfully).

I agree that maybe archers would be a better comparison for priests. I chose javelineers because are. more comparable to them in range. Also healers are costier so it didn't feel they deserved an easy benchmark. Anyway I'd say that any other ranged unit other than skirmishers are quite UP in this alpha (or rather they are OP, but you would also use spears otherwise).

[ChronA]

A thought: perhaps priests could be given a harvest-rate boosting aura like female citizens used to have. That would give them a lot more utility distinct from their marginal combat role, which at that point might just be a nice bonus. It would also reinstate an economy optimization minigame I assume some people enjoyed, but without the complication of the aura source also being an obligate harvester.

[Gurken Khan]

49 minutes ago, ChronA said:

A thought: perhaps priests could be given a harvest-rate boosting aura

Basically living scarecrows: put'em on a field to increase the harvest a bit. I don't really see a reason why healers especially would increase harvest.

My main reason why I don't like the idea: the position of my fields is in the back, the position of my healers is at the front.

Personally I don't think healers are OP, reading that they're hardly seen in high level games seems to support that. I deal with the food cost, but I wouldn't want them to cost more metal; the tecs already require metal.

[alre]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

Basically living scarecrows: put'em on a field to increase the harvest a bit. I don't really see a reason why healers especially would increase harvest.

My main reason why I don't like the idea: the position of my fields is in the back, the position of my healers is at the front.

Personally I don't think healers are OP, reading that they're hardly seen in high level games seems to support that. I deal with the food cost, but I wouldn't want them to cost more metal; the tecs already require metal.

healers are UP.

I suppose @ChronA meant any type of resource gathering. Doesn't seem like a bad idea to me, but it could turn them from UP to OP.

However, I'm not sure healers need a correction (a less steep improvement from promotions would be nice though), because it makes sense to me if they are only used in tiny numbers.

[Dizaka]

  

7 hours ago, Feldfeld said:

I think they aren't used primarily because of their cost, and the cost of their upgrades. Healers are expensive, and cost 100% food, so if you want to train them you have to rebalance your economy quite a bit. On top of that, their technologies are also expensive. 

Champions + healers could be a combo worth doing even in this alpha, however only possible if a game stays more or less stalematy/equal for a long time, which rarely happens right now.

My suggestion for healers themselves is to reduce their overall cost, and add a metal cost. At some point before A26 they will be changed I think. 

I believe reducing costs by 50% for upgrades (the equivalent of Mauryas civ bonus) would be good.  A 50-65% cost reduction for the actual priests too.  I'm not sure however what should be done with Maurya civ bonus and/or the hero that reduces temple costs, increases upgrade speeds, and construction speed.

  

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

Basically living scarecrows: put'em on a field to increase the harvest a bit. I don't really see a reason why healers especially would increase harvest.

Farmers have injuries in the field.  Also, morale in doing the same mundane task.  Healers take care of injuries and increase morale by singing the Wololo and Neeneenee folk songs in the fields.

  

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

My main reason why I don't like the idea: the position of my fields is in the back, the position of my healers is at the front.

Personally I don't think healers are OP, reading that they're hardly seen in high level games seems to support that. I deal with the food cost, but I wouldn't want them to cost more metal; the tecs already require metal.

Back/front could be a tradeoff.  Do you want healers helping eco or the military, which is more important, etc.

 

  

8 hours ago, Stan` said:

Friendly fire exists but is disabled.

I was thinking a bow snap mid pull and kills the archer equipped with the bow.  Sometimes, 1 in a 1,000,000 , your whole archer army does that.

Or a skrimisher being crazy and impaling themselves in the back of the head and dying.

Or a slinger launching a rock into their own face.

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Dizaka

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Dizaka said:

I was thinking a bow snap mid pull and kills the archer equipped with the bow.  Sometimes, 1 in a 1,000,000 , your whole archer army does that.

Or a skrimisher being crazy and impaling themselves in the back of the head and dying.

Or a slinger launching a rock into their own face.

Nobody would dare to make ranged units anymore, so the game becomes a pure melee fight (more historically accurate though). 

Suggested healer stats:

Cost 125 food.

Heals at rate 1.5 hp per second (for units within aura)

Basic range: circle with radius 7 metres. 

Reason: pikemen have length 6 metres. The should be able to clear themselves of a pikeman like to avoid pathfinding problems. 

[Dizaka]

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Nobody would dare to make ranged units anymore, so the game becomes a pure melee fight (more historically accurate though).

1 in a 1,000,000,000,000 chance?! ;/

 

  

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Suggested healer stats:

Cost 125 food.

Heals at rate 1.5 hp per second (for units within aura)

Basic range: circle with radius 7 metres. 

Reason: pikemen have length 6 metres. The should be able to clear themselves of a pikeman like to avoid pathfinding problems. 

Would multiple healers stack with aura?  Curious.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Dizaka

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Dizaka said:

Would multiple healers stack with aura?  Curious

That's the intention. 

[Dizaka]

53 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

That's the intention. 

May make going just citizen soldier viable versus champs.  That'd be interesting in a way if there was the "champs" and the "citizen soldier + priests" strategies for endgame.

Mounted priests would be fun.

[Yekaterina]

49 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

Mounted priests would be fun.

Nice one. That would cost a lot though. 

We can have a ship or a ram that heals nearby ships / rams. 

[Dizaka]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Nice one. That would cost a lot though. 

We can have a ship or a ram that heals nearby ships / rams. 

Dry docks out in open water.  Heh.