Healer or Not?

[Discount Ninja]

I'm sure a lot of players agree with me that it saves a lot of down time to have both of those NPC's available. I personally don't like huffing around trying to gather my party members for an MvP hunt.

[Chilly]

Even though there are official healers on every server for 5k, i still prefer the free healer that most private servers use.  Although, i do think the free healer needs to have a delay on it so champ/sura can't abuse it for mvping, something like 3-5 minute delay would be nice.

[exii]

Even though there are official healers on every server for 5k, i still prefer the free healer that most private servers use.  Although, i do think the free healer needs to have a delay on it so champ/sura can't abuse it for mvping, something like 3-5 minute delay would be nice.

^this
The mass of players is looking for the way with less effort. Basicly most MvP stuff will be farmed by abra+Inn ports. There always is a way. And basicly its a grinding game. Ways like this are very common.

[eKoh]

Even though there are official healers on every server for 5k, i still prefer the free healer that most private servers use.  Although, i do think the free healer needs to have a delay on it so champ/sura can't abuse it for mvping, something like 3-5 minute delay would be nice.

^this
The mass of players is looking for the way with less effort. Basicly most MvP stuff will be farmed by abra+Inn ports. There always is a way. And basicly its a grinding game. Ways like this are very common.

There will be always a way to do somethings easier, but that's the point, smarter players are the ones who will stay on the top and who are not..., are going to hunt less effective.

I actually think that adding a delay on asura after using Healer is a enough good way to reduce the abuse, without making a slower game.

[MrMystery]

I personally think that players who like the Healer and Warper like them because they are typically free or very cheap rather than because they are a convenience. As mentioned, warpers and healers already exist in the form of Kafras and Inns, but players ask for healers and warpers. So what if you simply made it more convenient but not free? Essentially a warper that determines the cost of town warps based on the city you're currently in.

Let's say that I'm in Payon and want to go to Juno.

Using the Kafra if costs 4,800z total.
Payon -> Prontera (1.2k)  -> Geffen (1.2k)  -> Aldebaran (1.2k) -> Juno (1.2k)

Using a Warper that took you straight from Payon -> Juno for 4,800z would be cutting out the tedious map loading and clicking on kafras, but not any cheaper than it would be using a Kafra. My guess is that people would complain because that's too expensive for a town warp. Now we're at the heart of the issue, it's likely not about convenience, but about the price. Most players seem to most concerned about efficiency: maximizing zeny gained, reducing the amount of zeny wasted for warps and heals, fastest EXP/hour, etc.

Players also don't want to feel locked to a region in the beginning of the game because of zeny problems. Though, I assume that's what the starting towns all have newbie monsters around them so you don't have to use the Kafra right from the start to go to the starting leveling areas.

You could always try coming up with your own way of immersing the warper and healing into the game so it doesn't stand out as a Warper NPC and Healer NPC that it seems most other servers have. But then again, I would say that a Kafra and Inn are already immersed into the game.

It really all depends on your target audience. If your target audience are those that want to get the most zeny, get all the items, and max out their level ASAP and care about nothing else, you might as well add in a free healer and free warper. If your target audience is one that wants to be immersed into the gameplay, I would say that you should stick with the Kafra and Inn, but maybe optimize them in a way, or come up with another way to implement these features smoothly into the gameplay.

[exii]

I personally think that players who like the Healer and Warper like them because they are typically free or very cheap rather than because they are a convenience. As mentioned, warpers and healers already exist in the form of Kafras and Inns, but players ask for healers and warpers. So what if you simply made it more convenient but not free? Essentially a warper that determines the cost of town warps based on the city you're currently in.

This is like the same as you would go in a restaurant to cook your own food there because "the requirements are there - you only have to use them".
Even many LRs have @go commands btw.
I think this is ok on a server with episode 8.x but this isnt a generally working argue for LR servers.

[OriginsRO]

On low rare servers healers and warpers have no place. They devalue the priest class significantly. Plus, Inns and Kafras services (like the teleporter) are there as a money sink to keep the economy in check.

[eKoh]

On low rare servers healers and warpers have no place. They devalue the priest class significantly. Plus, Inns and Kafras services (like he teleporter) are there as a money sink to, to keep the economy in check.

lol, but anyways, you still need a Priest in a party to go anywhere, but I do agree with the priest's warp portal skill.

And there can also be other ways to implement as zeny sinker.

[Astraeos]

Having to select an NPC and all that is just a bother. @go is just a convenience, same with the healer. There's a 5k healer is every town anyways and it's a pretty poor zeny sink. I used to spend all day in PvP/WoE and would spend maybe 100k on heals/repairs/storage/watever in an hour. While I can do a run at ET and make 100m in the same amount of time.  So you're only holding down new players from getting somewhere, it doesn't effect your server's veterans in any way. All in all, your just impeding on the rate in which players can effectively enjoy a server. (Sitting around to recover or going through making another character to be a slave).

The only precedence it has when replacing the priest class is when the healer is also a buffer.

[Playtester]

You don't get 100M NPC loot in an ET run. More like 200k maybe.
Also zeny sinks simply add up together, even if they are just small zeny sinks.

Having real inns and warp services with a background story, improves immersion a lot. Sure it's more convenient to just have commands to instantly heal and warp to any place, but that ruins immersion.

Also even if it's only a little additional time you invest by walking to the Inn or talking to the NPC, it still can make a difference, especially in cases of MVPing with Asura.

I agree that the default price setup mostly hurts new players, though. I guess the warp issue is already solved a little by free warp tickets new players get so you can at least get started. Inn is a problem for new players, but on the other hand, you can also just sit down to regain HP/SP for free.

[Triper]

You can actually get that easy with ROR/ROFL/Naught Swords/Valk gear/OCAs if the server is full of lazy and/or noobish people that can't even past off the first 50 lvls solo.