Force Heal Elongation / Globalization

[Tomoran]

I dislike that heal provides a means for force-heavy individuals to 'sponge' damage. Even someone that is supposed to be fragile can elongate their survival through higher levels of heal simply because it soaks so much.

I think that everybody should be able to benefit from heal and that survivability should come primarily from HP values and careful play.

So,

Heal Level 1
Restores 75 HP over 50 seconds
Costs 25 FP

Why?
I think that we should discourage medpack hoarding in scenarios and missions by allowing even students to be able to top themselves off over time. In spar situations, they'll be near a whole shelf of the things so it won't really matter. In addition, this will make it so that people who don't plan on taking a lot of damage can keep a low level of heal to simply 'passively' heal to wipe issues such as slight dings or fall damage.

Restores 75/100/125/150/200 HP over 50 seconds
Costs 25 FP
Remove the animation for casting at all levels

Keep in mind that as long as the 'heal' effect is on you, your force regeneration is 'frozen' and you'll need to either conserve your remaining energy or be prepared to spend it wisely. In out-of-combat situations, this will make it viable to simply turn heal 'on' and let it work its magic.

[Sebastin Creed]

This sounds good also Tomoran, I wouldn't mind a little change in the 'special effects' it triggers for cosmetic purposes (personally, I'd like to see a Force Absorb, but purpose for the healing with a different sound than that of absorb).

As for the way the healing works, I'd like it even through its elongation to have bigger and bigger benefits as that will balance out the need to wait or conserve the energy but also explore the self healing aspect of training. I know some don't want their Character to specialize in that area however, so I'd start from a solid block so that they don't lose out *too* much but for those that expand on it they do get the larger benefits of it.

[Tomoran]

I'd be fine with pumping up the higher levels healing rate. I actually need to do a little bit of testing on how long the current healing takes.

I know I watch Rash turn on heal 5 and stand there whistling as it gives him 100 hp back over a rather long time. If it's ... say 10 health a second it'd still take 20 seconds to give one of those bulldozers all their health back. And at the current moment it takes 2 'casts' which is 100 energy, so

How about :

100/200/300/400/500 HP over 50 seconds
(2, 4, 6, 8, 10 HP a second)

(( For a level 15 Student with 128 HP It would take
64/32/21/16/12 seconds to heal to full from 1 hp (from 30, it'd take 49/24/16/12/9 seconds) I think ideally I would like it to be dropped to around 20/15/10 seconds for levels 1/2/3 in the least. I'll fiddle with numbers throughout the day, wanted to introduce the concept to you, though. ))

[Sasha Raven]

I highly dislike the idea of changing heal the way it is as I don't role play any healing ability. I regenerate stamina.

[Tomoran]

Is there any particular explanation for the ability to overcome blaster shots in seconds, then? My character doesn't 'heal' either but his species has regeneration so I took the power as a function of his innate talents.

[Sebastin Creed]

The thing is Sasha that we need to admit that it becomes a bit easy to heal, I know it has for me and I'm only at level 3. Now, while I don't want to make level 1 irrelevant, I do think that adding a tiny bit of change to the way our healing is would be great. The Force Trance suggestion is a good way to show regenerating Stamina, this here is about the Health Points which *is* healing.

I don't want to nerf it completely, but I'd like to challenge myself and others over the ability with the benefits being in the exploration of the ability itself.

[Tomoran]

Let me try to better explain my thoughts on this one, since people aren't as familiar with concepts that I use pretty casually:

Because the current version of Force Heal has such a pronounced burst effect, even if its cost is steep, it allows individuals with a higher force pool to boost their survivability above those with a smaller force pool.

Okay, what is burst?

Burst simply means instantly or over a short amount of time. Say we have three sources of damage.

One does 100 damage right away.
One does 150 damage over 3 seconds.
One does 300 damage over 10 seconds.

The first is a burst damage.
The third is sustained damage.

Level 4 heal grants you 50 hp for 50 fp. It does this in a matter of a few seconds. If I have 100 max hp but 200 force, I have an effective health pool of at least 300 thanks to force heal. This means that if my health drops to 50 or below, I can burst heal my way back up towards full, protecting me from sustained damage but making me weak against burst damage.

Unfortunately, in Jedi Academy, it's rather easy to avoid taking damage. Running, jumping, using force abilities, hiding and other things keep you out of the fray. This means that if you have 100 hp and 200 force, you may as well have the same survivability as someone with 200 hp but 100 force. To me, this seems like a poor situation.

So I want to reduce heal's effectiveness as a burst survivability tool and make it more of a sustained method for staying in or between combat phases. By doing this, it makes heftier individuals more suitable to take damage and punishes force-intensive (and health sensitive) individuals for careless maneuvers.

[Amoné Fayden]

I'm totally fine with this alteration.

I would also like to see similar laws transfer over to Heal Other as originally suggested by Nicholae. (See here)

Obviously it'd be best if these topics were kept seperate, but the two powers are near identical, the difference being mainly the target. (Self or Other)

With the proposed change, Heal and Heal Other could be used together to create an insanely quick recovery time.
I was never a fan of instant effect for either ability.
Having a channeled effect forces a player to retreat to a safe area to rest rather than instantly healing between swings.
Likewise, for Heal Other, it would remove the intrusive "I'm an instant health dispenser!" approach.

[Tomoran]

I'm fine with that, as long as the amounts/costs are normalized so that they're consistent with one another.

[Sasha Raven]

I still don't get the point. There is A LOT more we could do before neutering heal. From the explanation I've just read over that seems to be the path you want to take with it.

Until I either am convinced or understand (Because maybe I'm missing the point.) I still stand against this proposal. For what ever that's worth. Rage? sure. But let's not just systematically neuter every power. I hear a lot of " Certain individuals" do this and that lately so let's do this and this to counter act them. I still say if heal spamming is a problem that it needs to be REGULATED by our staff rather then chopped to bits. Everyone jumped right on the defense with the regen rates because they can't endlessly flip around. Heal is one of things that (by the way is expensive to lvl up) Is kind of mandatory because of the way our community CHOOSES to portray it's soldier classes. So like I said.

I stand firmly against changing heal. I stand firmly for regulation and fairness in use and I'm quite happy with my current "stamina regeneration" role played by heal.

My two cents.

[Sebastin Creed]

I actually think its easiers to regulate how the Soldiers are potrayed, tell them to basically use primary fire only or given them certain weapons.

With this proposal it takes away the spamming effect we are used too, sure it's useful and easy, helps keep the flow of an all out spar going for some people but in realistic terms it's not technically ideal. That's why I think this elongation idea works, personally speaking, I feel it would add a different kind of pressure and challenge to the spars, but more importantly those missions in which it's called upon. Retreat to high ground, safety - gain your focus and replenish your health.. the more you invest, the great the benefit (as I don't want Level 1 being too nerfed that it becomes irrelevant to those who don't want to take their Character down that path).

For me, I just think it would add a new kind of change and challenge to what we current know of our healing abilities and player tactics in its uses.

[Amoné Fayden]

the more you invest, the great the benefit (as I don't want Level 1 being too nerfed that it becomes irrelevant to those who don't want to take their Character down that path).

This is a fair point.
There still needs to be a benefit of having it even at level 1.

But at the same time, the last thing you want is the "Force Speed effect" where taking it beyond level 1 is pointless as the cost vs benefit doesn't make it worth it.

[Tomoran]

Well, with the change, the cost for level 1 heal would be 25 energy and those poor students who get stuck at 40 health and only have 80 max can just pop heal and let it slowly trickle back up to full instead of needing to do the mystical hand wave over and over.

As it stands, level 1 heal is 15 hp over 1.5 seconds for 65 force energy. (You must also be standing still for it to work)

With the new system, it'd be 100 hp over 50 seconds for 25 force energy with no animation.

So if you are missing 15 hp you'd still heal that in about 7 seconds. But ... you could keep heal at level 1 if you don't intend to smash the heal button and take care of worse wounds, up to 20-50 health missing if you're prepared to do a little bit of waiting and think you can conserve.

If you want to be able to endure more hardship, train towards a HP-heavy path or get a high level of heal. They won't both accomplish the same thing - not everybody should be guaranteed survival against damage. If you work hard enough, you can avoid most of it, anyway.

[Oberon]

I hope you plan to make heal 1 mobile then, because if you move it stops increasing your HP.

[Tomoran]

I plan to make them all mobile and have no animation. They're control powers.