>>3965543
Healer is just another component of game system that is pretty natural, intuitive and logical in a party-based rpg with class system. HP is pretty much the most important resource for the player and against bigger enemies and in dungeons you need some sort of sustain.
You may twist the concept around and spread healing options among multiple classes, but ultimately the result will be the same - a class with best healing toolkit will be dedicated to keeping your other guys alive - your healer being called "arcanemancer" and having few mildly useful offensive spells will not change the fact that his main use is making other party members healthy and alive.
You can't really develop challenging/interesting system without any healing option because again, health is the main resource and one that game specifically is targeting. You may allude yourself by making enemies draining mana or other resources, but their point is still just softening you to become vulnerable and prone to death.
Not having healing spells/skills and focusing on items is just reducing options for the sake of it and again, in party-based system your best bet will be turning the most resilient dude into glorified potions dispenser.

The DPS-Tank-Healer triangle may be bit overdone and seemingly boring, but it's because ultimately it boils down to most basic functions that naturally fit to every system. Dude dealing damage, dude taking damage and dude keeping team alive. You may allude yourself with memes about support class but that too exist to make one of these three functions more efficient.

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>>3965555
I guess tl;dr would be that healers are needed because game the job of game system is to drop player's health points to 0. Any other logical answer will just end with creation of crypto-healers doing exactly the same thing under different name and different fluff.

>>3965555
>The DPS-Tank-Healer triangle may be bit overdone and seemingly boring,
The only real problem is the overspecialization. I don't have MMO experience, but in Xenoblade 3 it was basically enforced by the game and it was too specialized imo.

>>3965543
Is HP an outdated concept? You know that doctors exist in real life. Like. Medicine and managing medical crises has been one of the few specific areas of human endeavor that has literally ALWAYS dominated our existence. And not just like, it's always been there. I mean that it has been a thing that our entire lives and civilizations are directly and intentionally centered upon, designed explicitly to deal with. It's THE SPECIFIC THING that mortal sapient entities are constantly, constantly CONSTANTLY thinking about.

Healers are not outdated. The bland abstraction of HP is what's outdated. It's so simplified and reductionist, that it robs the narrative of the drama of injury and recovery that would otherwise be a major component of adventuring. If there is no risk, there is no payoff.

Healers are why the story exists in the first place.

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>>3965543
Who needs healer when you got lifesteal.

Games that avoid the “trinity” liked NuXCOM devolve into everyone playing a hyper specialized dps and massively alpha striking the enemy in round one. Rather than adding complexity to the game, you end up simplifying it, and making it far more boring.

Healers aren't "outdated", they are newshit. D&D never had healers and the oldest vidya RPGs didn't either.

>>3965543
D&D literally solved this problem twice in the same edition and that's considering it wasn't actually a problem in older editions because healing is like 5% of what a Cleric has available to them but idiots were forcing it to be a healbot.

>>3965543
My main healer in Etrian Odyssey is literally a ninja who heals by dying. Repeatedly. Sometimes multiple times per turn.

>>3965543
My main healer in Etrian Odyssey 3 is literally a ninja who heals by dying. Repeatedly. Sometimes multiple times per turn.

>>3965600
Clerics have been in D&D since the very beginning. Stop spreading misinformation.

>>3965636
It's a common mistake to make. Most classes can be fit into the archetypes of Fighter, Mage, or Thief which is also a well-known multiclass choice in 2e, so they assume those were the OG classes, but it was actually Fighter, Mage, Cleric; Thief didn't come until later.

Believe it or not but the last class to be introduced, after paladin, monk, and assassin, was druid despite them being extremely important to European mythology.

>>3965555
>You can't really develop challenging/interesting system without any healing option
Wrong, the best systems are those that have little or no healing altogether.

>>3965636
Clerics having healing spells isn't the same thing as Clerics being dedicated healers.

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>>3965555
Go play a game that doesn't have a healer sometime.

>>3965636
Clerics are not healers as in "dedicated healers". They were more like the happy middle ground between Warriors and Mages.

>>3965543
Later Etrian Odyssey games have several classes that can restore HP in addition to their regular roles, but they usually sacrifice ease of use. Like the Arcanist:
>can put down a "circle" on the enemies which inflicts status effects every turn, and also passively heals the party a small amount every turn (30-40ish HP to a 250 HP party)
>has various active skills that dismiss the circle to do effects, such as damaging the opponent (it's the main way they attack) or bestowing a powerful heal on your party
>but after dismissing the circle, you lose your regen and obviously can't dismiss it back-to-back so if your big heal didn't save you, next turn is going to be uncomfortable
Class design like that means you can often get by without a dedicated healer, but there's still room for the Medic class for parties that need constant healing due to recoil attacks or just yoloing the game without a defensive front line.

>>3965636
A cleric doesn't specialize in restoring HP, it's probably the least effective thing they can do. Please don't cry misinfo when you are ignorant.

>healer has barrier
>tank has reflect
>dps has lifesteal

>>3965543
No, they're not an outdated concept. They might not be a party member, they can be a pokecenter or an HP pot, but the concept itself is not outdated.

In order for anything to be engaging it has to continually produce novelty for the audience. Otherwise they get bored and the trance breaks. Novelty comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, flavors... but part of the novelty creation toolkit is enemies dealing damage to the player and in order for the player to feel engaged and feel novelty? Enemies can't be dealing the exact same damage each time they hit and certainly the damage dealt can't be the same across all enemies. The human brain would far too easily pick up the pattern and grow bored. So that means the player is going to encounter some wimps that probably don't require healing. Other times the player is going to get hit by a bus, and it has to feel like grievous damage has been dealt to them.

You might not need a PC healer in position to heal, but you have to have some mechanism to heal the character otherwise the player doesn't have fun because you just broke their toy, possibly their favorite toy.

Even the most brutal, permadeath, rogue-like game takes this "you just broke my toy" concept into consideration. Somewhere in the dungeon there is a way to heal yourself and give yourself another chance at victory. Might not be guaranteed, might not be easy to come by, but there's a chance and that chance of saving the toy builds tension which is what makes a game thrilling.

At least IMO.

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>>3965565
>>3965861
How many years did you wait to write this out anons?

>>3965543
Through almost all games.

>>3965555
There should be some injury system. Insta healing ruins games. Hp as a resource should be managed over a longer time period than a 2 minute fight.

>>3965565
>Is HP an outdated concept
It screams 70s form every... Well letter.

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>>3965565
>The bland abstraction of HP is what's outdated. It's so simplified and reductionist, that it robs the narrative of the drama of injury and recovery that would otherwise be a major component of adventuring.
"It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage, and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection."
"Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm - the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment. Having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts, and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points."
"Commonly it is necessary to resort to the passage of time, however, to restore many characters to full hit point strength. For game purposes it is absolutely necessary that the character rest in order to recuperate, i.e. any combat, spell using, or similar activity does not constitute rest, so no hit points can be regained."
-some ancient tome

>>3966003
>passage of time
The significance of the passage of the time *cackling intensifies*

>>3966003
>It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage, and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection
Shouldn't attributes like DEX, SPD or STR increase HP then? I think Traveller use STR and DEX as HP.

>>3965543
>No matter how diverse your class system is, you always need a character that specializes in restoring HP.
This is taken as axiomatic and it never really made sense to me. On one hand, out of combat restitution is perfectly sensible and logical, especially if you have any intention of traversing a long labyrinthian dungeon for hours or even days at a time. A doctor character devoted to that function is fine.
What's stupid is the JRPG/MMORPG bullshit where healing is not only an option, its arguably the most centralizing aspect of combat by FAR, where your healer's ability to outpace the monster's DPS is downright essential for the sake of you and your party's survival. It removes all the grit from combat entirely, since your HP bar may as well be the healer's mana bar at that point

>>3965565
>autistic reddit-spacing faggot mouthing off some bullshit that misses the point
Fuck off.

>>3965555
You genuinely can't even envision a single form of damage mitigation that doesn't involve pushing a bar back into the green zone, can you?

>>3965543
healing is how you not die. a lot of rpg dungeons are a game of attrition and how well you can manage your resources before resting at a healing spring or what have you. having dudes that can expend mp or some other resources to heal back damage taken during fights is always gonna be good.

>>3966011
irl you mostly decrease hp from strain by getting more str and dex

>>3965543
>No matter how diverse your class system is, you always need a character that specializes in restoring HP.
Says who?

>>3966018
Kill yourself. A desperate witch hunt for redditors is not a valid response to anything.

>>3966106
Channers who use "reddit" as a go-to dismissive insult are literal subhumans.
Especially on constructive posts that they don't agree with,
reddit is more useful than your autistic screeching adding nothing to the discussion.

>>3966019
Increasing your defensive capabilities is ultimately the same thing but wrapped differently. You heal yourself or stack gazillion buffs - either way the point is to stay alive long enough till your enemy will drop dead or you leave the dungeon.

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>>3965543
Time to ditch healing and go for damage mitigation

>>3966018
Newfags think paragraphs are “Reddit spacing”

>>3965555
>allude
Everything else you said made sense but the fact you misused that word twice convinced me you're still a retard.

>>3966173
>Increasing your defensive capabilities is ultimately the same thing but wrapped differently.
That doesn't make any fucking sense.

Making clever use of positioning is not healing.
Utilizing your action economy to devote your characters to defensive maneuvers so as to avoid incoming damage is not healing.
Alpha striking the enemy or stunning them with debilitating effects before they can muster an attack on you is not healing.
Any rhythmic combat structure where you punish the enemy for their mistakes rather than chugging a flask or casting a healing spell to patch up the damage you got from a big monster throwing a rock at you is not healing.

Healing is healing if it aids in RESTORING the "Keep me alive" bar.
What OP has problems is not the existence of healer archetypes, but their pivotal focus in the majority of non-CRPGs RPGs out there. It's certainly not a problem in D&D games considering there is almost no scenario where you're better off healing in combat instead.
>You heal yourself or stack gazillion buffs - either way the point is to stay alive long enough till your enemy will drop dead or you leave the dungeon.
It's not the same at all taking into account there's no way to make in-combat healing an interesting mechanic without relying on gimmicky interactions.

>>3965543
It's funny that you chose an image with the FF1 white mage sprite. FF1 is a game where you absolutely don't need a white mage.

>>3965650
>>3965701
>>3965716
What the fuck are you idiots talking about. The Cleric was THE healer in D&D.

>>3966179
Kawazu is years ahead of the competition as usual

>>3966406
The Cleric originated as someone wanting to play Van Helsing: Vampire Hunter

>>3966406
Clerics were bless bots and never healed in combat if they could reasonably help it.

>>3966406
You should try playing Pool of Radiance and using your cleric's turn to heal in combat. See how useful it is.

>>3965543
>Are healers an outdated concept?
Always were. Turn spent healing is turn not used to do damage or CC. So it always was bad idea from action economy standpoint. Unless game was designed with healer being mandatory, using heals is bad idea. Especially if it also costs limited resources like spell slots while HP is (in most games) restoreable by items you buy with cash you have nothing to spend on.

>>3966470
Okay, so is it good game design if you're able to do your damage and crowd control optimally at all times and the game never throws any opposition your way or forces you to interrupt your flowchart to interact with it in any way? Because the point of having heals and sustain is that sometimes the enemy is going to punch you really hard, and you MIGHT have to drop your damage for a bit to deal with it. And how quickly you're able to get back on the bike after being knocked off is what determines your skill at the game mechanics, not whether or not you memorized a rotation.

why do mmo players come here? they don't know shit about rpgs.

>>3965543
No.
See the IFAK existing in real life but still having dedicated medics, corpsmen, and field hospitals.

>>3966485
>Okay, so is it good game design if you're able to do your damage and crowd control optimally at all times and the game never throws any opposition your way or forces you to interrupt your flowchart to interact with it in any way?
Yes.

>>3966501
Medics don't run into the frontlines wrapping up a soldier with bandages while he's still in the middle of fighting.

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>>3965565
Fuck off, you don't matter.

>>3966505
You don't want a game, you want a toy.

>>3966513
Your favorite genre of video game is literally simon says where you activate the obligatory heal aoe when the boss throws out his unavoidable damage nuke.

>>3966517
Why are you here complaining about wanting to change a genre you clearly don't like?

>you don’t like RPGs
>no, YOU don’t like RPGs!
#just/VRPG/things

>>3966522
Jarpigs and MMOs means nothing to me.