GIVE US FLOATING HEALTH BARS

This is not simply a "git gud" situation. Sure, I can eventually learn to play that infuriating minigame where I locate my party members every time they get whacked so that I can actually deliver the heals to them on time. OR Anet could simply make healing NOT a pain in the kitten by allowing us to toggle party members' health bars above their heads. I vote for the latter option, based off of my notion that games should be fun and they shouldn't give you cancer. Oh wait, what's that? People have already been asking for floating health bars for years now? Then what has Anet been doing? WHERE ARE THOSE HEALTH BARS? GET ON IT.

:+1: /15characters

Dont they already kinda have that? The party window that has their name shows their health going up and down already. Isnt that what you're wanting?

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Dont they already kinda have that? The party window that has their name shows their health going up and down already. Isnt that what you're wanting?

Say you're playing healer. If you manage HP bars using just the party/squad UI, it's going to take your eyes/attention away from the action. Not to mention that it makes it a whole lot harder to quickly find the party members who need healing quick. Floating HP bars solve these problems. You can keep your eyes on the action and more easily locate priority targets for your healing.

@Kreed.2768 said:Say you're playing healer. If you manage HP bars using just the party/squad UI, it's going to take your eyes/attention away from the action. Not to mention that it makes it a whole lot harder to quickly find the party members who need healing quick. Floating HP bars solve these problems. You can keep your eyes on the action and more easily locate priority targets for your healing.

You're on the wrong game if you want that sort of gameplay. This game doesn't have proper healers. You have people that can heal sure. They are not the traditional sense of healers from other MMOs. Why? Because in those games you have heals that target specific players. This games idea of healing is mostly Carpet an area with AoE, Regen and water fields.

Another issue is that for that person to get healing, they would have to be with less than 5 people to make sure they get healing as a lot of the heals and healing abilities in the game have a 5 person limit. So even if you find that person that needs the heal, gotta hope that the heal you cast affects them when they need it and not others around them who have taken slight tickles in damage compared to the poor guy bleeding out on the edge of death.

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@Kreed.2768 said:Say you're playing healer. If you manage HP bars using just the party/squad UI, it's going to take your eyes/attention away from the action. Not to mention that it makes it a whole lot harder to quickly find the party members who need healing quick. Floating HP bars solve these problems. You can keep your eyes on the action and more easily locate priority targets for your healing.

I wasn't aware that the definition of healer is determined by the ability to cast a heal directly on an ally.

Anyways, you're missing the point. Floating HP bars would make playing a heal type support such as druid, ventari rev and the likes a whole lot easier, be it in raids or zergs in wvw. Yeah, sure, there's a target cap, but iirc it should prioritize the members of your subgroup, so even having floating hp bars for just your own subgroup would make your role as support a whole lot easier.

I don't really get why you're seemingly so against the idea. Would it negatively impact the game somehow, in your opinion?

@"Kreed.2768" said:I wasn't aware that the definition of healer is determined by the ability to cast a heal directly on an ally.

Anyways, you're missing the point. Floating HP bars would make playing a heal type support such as druid, ventari rev and the likes a whole lot easier, be it in raids or zergs in wvw. Yeah, sure, there's a target cap, but iirc it should prioritize the members of your subgroup, so even having floating hp bars for just your own subgroup would make your role as support a whole lot easier.

I don't really get why you're seemingly so against the idea. Would it negatively impact the game somehow, in your opinion?

Because, there is a big difference in terms of "healers" in this game and healers in traditional MMOs that have various healing abiliites, target heals, AoE, shields and such. Here, its AoE and you kinda have to hope that the person gets healed if hes around people.

But this game does already show if people in your raid groups are in need of healing. Could it be better? maybe. Is it needed? Not really. It shows their health and such, is it as easy to see and such as MMOs that NEED that sort of thing? Of course not, but for the most part it works.

I believe one of the devs on Reddit has posted that they are working on it, or it's at least on their to do list. I'm not sure if it would apply to all game types, but there has been acknowledgement. I would search the reddit post(s), but I am too lazy.

Welcome back to WOW ;)

We even used to have floating health bars in the past. And we still have them. It's just that you have to mouse over to see them. So it makes no sense that there can't be a toggle to show them at all times. "working on it" sounds more like fighting whoever's in charge for permission to change it.

Agree, would make life a lot easier

To be honest, the entire UI is unsuitable for coordinated group gameplay in the first place, and it makes high end content like raids very frustrating. If Anet plan on promoting more challenging group content (which appears to be where they are switching their focus to) then the entire game UI needs to be redesigned to accommodate it. This includes adding things like floating health bars. So Anet have 2 options, either they redesign the UI themselves, or they let the community do it through mods. Hell, they don't even need to fully allow mods, just unlock all the UI elements so we can put them wherever we like.