And what says the other hero can''t respond? Maybe when the somebody pulls out a potion, the person fighting it has a big chance to negate its effect (Kicking the herb out of a hero''s hand, using a sword to break the vial, or even snatch away the elixer and drink it instead.) This would make people slightly more cautious, waiting until the battle is over before healing.

Will it change everything? No, But it may be a step.

quote:Original post by frostburn
It''s a strategy game right? The effective strategy in this case would be to cut off his support. Ie kill his healers and then focus on the fighters.

It''s not that easy you know. Both groups tried that. And usually the healers would run away if attacked, then when you think the healers have gone you would attack the fighter. But then the healer would come back and heal the fighters and it just kept going on and on.

But my point is, the fighter didn''t see the potential dangers he was facing if there is a healer around him or anything that can instantly heal a huge amount of HP. He was fighting in the middle of the battle for kitten''s sake. Everybody is focus firing on him but he stays!

Just like you said, Iron Chef, can''t you see how much benefit instant heal gives? And how much is the negative cost?

@RuneLancer:
True. An instant heal potion should cost really expensive and they should be rare (you can''t purchase them, but you must find them like in FF).

what is wrong with instant heal potions ? If you have a game which wants to simulate "the real thing", then of course instant healing should be non-existant or really rare.

In WC3 there''s nothing wrong with the potions. They add strategy and don''t remove it. Do you buy a healing potion or another unit ? Is your enemy focussed on killing your heroes or does he ignore the heroes till all other units are dead ? In a battle you can see which enemy heroes got potions, so you should know they will get those extra hitpoints, unless you surprise the enemy kill his hero before he even reacts.

Every strategy/choice has, or atleast should have, good and bad sides. And at least in wc3 those bad sides are there. There are other things in the game that are "imbalanced" or "bad", healing potions are now balanced through a cooldown-timer, which only allows to take a potion every 10-15 seconds.

For FPS games I think healing should either be fast or non-existant during missions. I don''t want to sit in a room for 30 minutes and wait for recovering, although I already know I made it through a horde of enemies and that I am supposed to heal now.
In a MP game this is even more important. Imagine Quake with healing items that take 60 seconds (or maybe more?) to bring your health back. Does that sound like the fast paced fps that quake is ?

The degree of realism is of course a designers choice and while person A will love your decision person B will hate it.

The important thing is to make sure that the decision about which means of healing exist go fine with the rest of your design and the intended gameplay.