A Proposed Change to Healing

[Sapient]

For what it's worth, I agree with Dragonking, noy, jb, and Mythological that it's a good thing when "smart teamplay can give you some addictional bonus." This proposal does eliminate the ability to stack heals upon a single unit, however it does effectively double the number of units that can be healed by an allied healer.

Not really. When a healer heals 6 allied units at the start of the ally's turn, it can't be surrounded by own units at start of its next turn.

Edit:
Okay, this may work:

1. A's turn: A's healer moves to circle of B's ills.
2. B's turn: B's ills are healed, and move away (forming a new circle some steps away).
3. C's turn: C's ills move arround the healer
4. A's turn: C's ills are healed, goto A.

But it won't work with A's own ills and other ones.

(Or I misunderstood something.)

It works for two sides as well:
[*]B's turn: B's ills are healed, and move away; another circle of B's ills surround A's healer
[*]A's turn: B's ills are healed; A's healer moves to next circle of B's ills.

[pauxlo]

Basically, in my proposal an allied healer has two chances to transfer their healing power. In this case, the unit would be healed 4 at the first opportunity, and 0 at the second opportunity. The amount that the shaman would heal on the second occaision (4) is not greater than the amount that has been reached for that round (4). 4-4=0. So on the second opportunity, 0 healing is transferred.

- a unit might heal 4 from a shaman and then another 4 by standing next to a WM

Yes

Next scenario ...

Assume, we have a unit of side A with 20/24 hp next to a white mage of side B.
First, on side B's turn it would be healed to 24/24.
Then, side C attacks it, damaging it to 18/24.
Does B's white mage now on A's turn heal it to 22/24, or does he not heal it at all (since it already healed it once in this round)?

Applying your healing in steps also is a bonus of allied healership after your proposal.

[Sapient]

Basically, in my proposal an allied healer has two chances to transfer their healing power. In this case, the unit would be healed 4 at the first opportunity, and 0 at the second opportunity. The amount that the shaman would heal on the second occaision (4) is not greater than the amount that has been reached for that round (4). 4-4=0. So on the second opportunity, 0 healing is transferred. Yes

Next scenario ...

Assume, we have a unit of side A with 20/24 hp next to a white mage of side B.
First, on side B's turn it would be healed to 24/24.
Then, side C attacks it, damaging it to 18/24.
Does B's white mage now on A's turn heal it to 22/24, or does he not heal it at all (since it already healed it once in this round)?

Applying your healing in steps also is a bonus of allied healership after your proposal.

Yes, it would! That's a good observation.

[Simons Mith]

[C-and-P from manual redraft thread for context, inside spoiler tags]

Spoiler:

1a. A wounded unit captures a village next to an allied +8 healer. When it starts its next turn, it will qualify for 8 points of village healing, and that will max out its healing allowance for next turn anyway. But what about this turn? It's next to an allied healer, and it hasn't had any healing so far this turn. When the allied healer starts it turn, will it heal the unit standing in the village?

1b. What if the wounded unit was side 3 and the healer was side 1? In this case, the new turn would start, the side-1 healer would heal the unit in the village, then side 3's turn would start and the unit presumably wouldn't get the village healing because it had already received its 8-point healing quota for the turn.

Currently (1.6.1) allied healing stacks with your own healing, so in 1a) the unit would be healed again on your ally's turn. In 1b) the unit would be healed by your ally, and then would get normal village healing on your turn.

Ah, thanks. So now the healing limit is 8 points per side turn rather than eight points per entire [4-hour] turn.

Ew, though. What about a unit that regenerates? Does it regenerate on its turn, then get healing from an ally as well? Whether it does or doesn't, that raises some supplementary questions, but I'll ask them in the healing thread, not here.

The supplementary questions are:

1. If a regenerating unit cannot benefit from allied healing, then the 1.6.1 healing rules make healing much more powerful relative to regeneration. Because a troll could only get 8 points over an entire turn, while a non-troll+same-side healers+allied healers could get (in the most extreme case I can think of, a rather unbalanced 1v8 multiplayer game) 64 points of healing per turn. (Yes, it involves either the unit or the healers moving about, but it could be done.)
2. If a regenerating unit does benefit from allied healing, it seems strange that it can't benefit from same-side healing. OK, the rule that oprevents it is that you can't have more than 8 points of per-side healing, but what's the in-game explanation for why your own Mage of Light can't heal you, but your allies' Mage of Light can?

[JW]

2. If a regenerating unit does benefit from allied healing, it seems strange that it can't benefit from same-side healing. OK, the rule that oprevents it is that you can't have more than 8 points of per-side healing, but what's the in-game explanation for why your own Mage of Light can't heal you, but your allies' Mage of Light can?

If it bugs you, think that the mage is healing him and he's not regenerating.

[Sapient]

After rethinking this, my statements about how to handle poison were wrong.
As such, I would like to revise the proposal as follows:

Poison should not be cured or slowed at any time other than at the beginning of the poisoned unit's turn.

Reasoning:
1. This is consistent with the principle that poison also cannot cause damage at any time other than at the beginning of the poisoned unit's turn.

2. Since healers cannot heal the unit until after its poison has been removed, this means that a poisoned unit which moves to an allied healer will not receive any tangible benefit (Unless of course the allied healer agrees to wait in that location).

3. However, it is also an improvement of the existing situation in version 1.8 where a healer may move next to a poisoned ally but it has no curing effect when the poisoned unit's' turn arrives.

4. Also, it eliminates any confusion that might have been caused by having an invisible "poison slowed" status (as my previous proposal had called for)

[Yoyobuae]

Another idea: Healer units only apply a visible "Heal" or "Cure" status effect on adjacent units. When the target unit's turn comes, this status effect is "redeemed" thus applying +4 / +8 HP or slowing/curing poison (and the status effect disappears).

Note: "Heal" status means to either heal +4HP or slow poison. "Cure" status means to either heal +8HP or cure poison. Both statuses are mutually exclusive.

Here's how it would work in the different cases:
1. For same team healing the status effects are redeemed immediately after they are applied, so it remains the same as it currently is.
2. When team A's unit moves near team B's healer, the status effect will be applied on A's unit when B's turn comes, but won't be redeemed until A's turn comes.
3. Only the Cure effect can overwrite Heal effect, but not the other way around (only the max healing has effect. heals don't stack).
4. Even if the healer can even moves away, the status effect will remain and be redeemed on affected unit's turn (might look a bit weird when the unit heals on it's own).
5. Regeneration self-applies "Cure" status (and it gets redeemed immediately after), villages apply it to the unit on the village.

Like this the benefits of healing are only applied at one point in time (in the affected unit's turn), thus the double healing/cure poison+heal situations are not possible. The healing status effects can be applied on ally's turn, or even upgraded from "Heal" to "Cure" by yet another ally.

Also, heals won't stack and healers can only affect 6 units max. Units will need to move towards allied healers in order to receive the benefit, but not the healer move to allied unit (if said unit moves away in turn). These could be potential downsides.

[Sapient]

Sure, the idea of merging healing and poison to be handled at the same time by similar code may seem like a good idea at first. But the more you think about the possible situations that can arise, the more confident I am that they should be treated separately as in my proposal. For example...

Even if the healer can even moves away, the status effect will remain and be redeemed on affected unit's turn (might look a bit weird when the unit heals on it's own)

It would not only look weird, it is weird. We need a system that is as intuitive as possible and I don't see how the benefits of what you are suggesting would outweigh its drawbacks.