The fun part about doing damage is getting an elimination. The satisfying noise mixed with the satisfying hitmarker and satisfying crit sounds/hitmarkers culminate to produce a very temporary, but impactful sense of euphoria. I can’t think of a single thing more satisfying than getting a dink with Hanzo.
To get that satisfaction, the first thing you think to do is pick a role that specializes in doing that, AKA the DPS role (supposedly). So the solution the devs chose to give players that satisfaction on every other role… was to turn them into DPS. This clearly creates a lot of problems.
So what if, instead, they gave satisfying sounds or hit markers for healing and mitigating? Some alternative reward exclusive to those two roles would incentivize players to play other roles if they want to satiate their cravings for that variation of satisfaction.
I think the “saved ____” was their attempt at this for healing. I’ve always thought that there should be a “saved” marker for tanks too; when a bullet that would’ve killed a teammate is blocked by a shield, let the tank know.
Characters that provide overhealth can also get “saved” notifications, like Junker Queen’s shout.
It’s hard to add some tangible metric that allows a “bonus” or reward to be applied that will reliably trigger. If the threshold is too high, it becomes an RNG thing that can’t be consistently given. If the threshold is too low, it just becomes a support buff. It’s hard to hit right at that sweet spot where it can be activated reliably but not so readily available that it’s just the status quo.
My favorite feeling, just about, is when you hit the Charge and land at the D.Va bomb, lifting your shield just before it goes boom and you save everyone behind it as your shield breaks into dust.
How do you do hit markers for harmony orb or Lucio heal aura? These 2 heroes have been in the game since launch so we didn’t turn them into anything they weren’t meant to be. And there simply is no way to make kiriko healing feel as good as the dinks
Doing damage takes more skill than simply healing since most supports don’t have to aim to heal. Doing things that require higher skill expression is generally more fun and should be more rewarding
Healing in this game is pretty satisfying already. There’s an army of healbots out there, and they healbot because it feels darn good.
The trouble with moving tanks and supports away from contributing to damage is more of a gameplay thing, I feel. If they’re not doing damage, then how do they bring value? Through mitigation/healing or utility. Buffing the first risks slowing the gameplay down to a crawl and the second risks introducing its own problems. Most supports’ utility gets complained about as it is.
True, but I think it needs to be a bit more satisfying and noticeable than what’s currently available.
It’s not necessarily about knowing as much as it is about feeling rewarded for doing so. This way more people will flock to the role to feel that satisfaction.
But is it impactful enough? I don’t believe that it currently is. If they want to draw players to other roles, they should increase the satisfaction received from doing the job of said role.
I agree, but I believe something should be put there regardless. Even if it is a very frequent occurrence, there needs to be a visual and audible representation of effort being paid off. Otherwise, people are just going to look for satisfaction in getting elims which is a far bigger issue.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a hit marker for healing specifically, or a hit marker at all, really. It could give you a little set of angel wings after healing a certain amount on a player/saving someone from death.
I believe putting some sort of resource meter that fills when healing and slowly depletes when not healing could work to satisfy players. It’ll incentivize healing without making it feel forced/boring to do.
But it’s not as satisfying as killing, which is the problem imo.
I also feel like the same could be said about DPS’s job. You could go for every kill, but there are a lot of cases where you have to chose whether it is the right time to be shooting or doing something else like repositioning.
It’s not so much about incentivizing mitigating/healing as it is rewarding the player when they do choose to. It’s up to the player to suppress their urges for quick satisfaction in order to make a strategic move. It just adds to the learning curve, which in my opinion, is the fun part of playing a game.
This. I recently started playing DPS (from tank / occasional support) and jumping down from high ground as reaper, two-shotting an Ana before anyone can react, and wraith form-ing back to my team is an incredible feeling, even though it’s not as impactful as saving the tank or making lots of space.
For a while now, at least up to the last patch, Blizzard seemed driven to make Tanks fat DPS. So much so that people no longer wanted to play the role.
I suppose, if you think it will help people play Tank more often because they are getting more audible and visual feedback, sure have at it.
I think like many things, this is a player issue, and not a role issue. People do not enjoy playing Tank because its hard. I make this assessment because pretty much any game with Tanks in it, the Tank role is the least played. Human beings are naturally driven to the path of least resistance, and that happens to be the DPS role. We see this because its the most populated role. We could of course argue the merits of where I stand to where you do, but I won’t be changing my mind, and I assume you won’t be changing yours either.
Tank players, like myself, wish to play the defender. The person who reduces incoming damage, and who is difficult to remove from the location they have decided is their space. The major push back on this is normally from career DPS players. Something akin to,
“Tanks just want to be unkillable monsters that never die and kill everything.”
No actual Tank player wants this. What we want is for our gameplay to be more impactful then the other roles because we are solo, and because the Tank role is the most difficult to play given any standard metric. I will go back to what I already said. The Tank role is the least populated because humans tend to flock to the path of least resistance, which is the DPS role.
Hard core DPS players disagree with this. I get it, they want their role to mean the most. They want their Play of the Game where they deleted the entire enemy team in a 5K, and everyone fell to their glorious “skill expression”. Where me, as a Tank, wants someone else on my team to get Play of the Game, and know that I was the one who facilitated it.
