Comments on: Lifegain Probably Sucks

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:29:10 +0000

This is true for multiplayer games, but for singleplayer is usually opposite. In a typical RPG you lead a strong party of powerful heroes fighting with thousands of punny enemies. In such game healing abilities are far more important than damage dealing abilities since the only thing that matters is if you are fully healed before the next battle or not.

By: Tim!

Tim! — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 03:54:36 +0000

Aaron, it's interesting that you chose Magic the Gathering as an example of a game where life gain can be pretty good. The first time I was introduced to the idea that life gain was actually not that great was in a pair of articles on why life gain is popular despite it being not very good and why life gain doesn't show up much in competitive magic. Since then, life gain has gained in popularity in the tournament scene, but almost always in the context of cards that do something else as well as give you life (kill a creature, put a permanent in play etc.) Life gain is is especially vulnerable in Magic to the fact that there are alternative victory conditions and a lot of deck strategies that don't care how much life you have. I just posted part 2 where I went into an abstract explanation of when healing is more powerful, and you're quite right about things like Tanks and Healers in team play as support roles that by being different bring more to the table than yet another damage dealer.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:32:01 +0000

I agree with this from an abstract perspective, however as combat devolves into more and more separate units (more players or targets), the ‘ticking dps clock’ algorithms start to change a bit.

If you have 6 party members on 6 enemies, being able to heal (provided it’s a great enough ratio of heal speed on abilities) doesn’t just make the battle longer – you can selectively heal to keep some important character alive (often long enough to do what they need to do). Again, this relies on an asymmetric ability concept and likely on a non-damage effect ability being present in the game. The other way healing can be useful in just a one-on-one combat is when there is a secondary counter race (the primary being hit points, but magic points is a common secondary) – whereby the healer can extend the battle frugally enough that he/she wins the secondary race first changing the equation (basic piecewise).

Also, there are many systems where healing doesn’t automatically lose. The most common system today is a >0 health system where your effectiveness does not diminish with loss a health until you hit 0 and then it goes from 100% to 0%. In systems where your effectiveness (and damage) decrease as your health does or in systems where there is no ‘max’ upon which healing is ineffective (in MtG you can wind up with 80+ health), healing has a bit more of an equal footing.

In a 1-on-1 dueling game of only damage and heal abilities and everything else being equal, damage abilities are invariably more useful.

By: Tim!

Tim! — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:29:03 +0000

“Also, you can only heal yourself, but you can mete out damage to many opponents. So 10 healing doesn’t really do as much as 8 damage (done to multiple opponents).”

True. But now we’re talking about AoE type attacks. Which I’ve now decided I should talk about next!

By: Pat

Pat — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:53:03 +0000

For 1 on 1 games I’d agree, but for x vs many the dynamics are different. It depends on the symmetry of damage dealt vs health lost. It adds an important tactical dimension to RTSs, RPGs and squad based FPSs.

By: Jake

Jake — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:59:06 +0000

Also, you can only heal yourself, but you can mete out damage to many opponents. So 10 healing doesn’t really do as much as 8 damage (done to multiple opponents).

On the other hand, aren’t there any games where having lower health affects one’s abilities? Like, at half damage, you can only inflict half of the damage you can normally do. If games don’t do that, why not?