Anyone else hate the insta-heal promotion?

[eris]

It doesn't bother me and I have no idea why it bothers people so. And this thread has not helped that. Civ 5 doesn't support realism as a compelling argument, and other versions didn't do so much either. All I can see is "I don't like it because I don't like it. In fact, I hate it." It makes sense to me that people have different reactions to a given game concept, but the vehemence confuses me.

Fortunately for others they need neither my approval or understanding to form their own opinions.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Granted, when you could heal the same turn you attacked and save the promotions for later, I could understand it. But, right now, it seems reasonably balanced. It's something that's good in an opportune setting, but I'll use it only when it's crucial to victory (or victory would be delayed significantly otherwise).

 

[Rinnero]

Especially for those who "can see only "I don't like it because I don't like it"" argument:

The answer why you dont see it is MultiPlayer. Play it, and youll learn TRUE essense of game mechanics.

HERE: (i provided a link but no one bothers)


Too strong, game-breaking in some cases.

Please note that this problem exists in Multiplayer. In Singleplayer it doesnt really matter.

There are a lot of problems with this "promotion".

The least important: realism.
I cannot understand what could this represent? An almost dead unit returns its full manpower. Strange... Any ideas? Explain please.

Gameplay problems are much worse. In the best case instant heal is occasional. Only if you dont have any chance to save this unit.

BUT, this actually is used to gain advantage in war and to kill enemy units. That means that instead of killing enemy unit, you lose yours. That practically decides the outcome of battle, considering how valuable are now units (there are not many of them). One such full heal and you are at disadvantage. Two such instant heals can lead to complete wipe of your army. (or half of it)

+20% of CS is not that much compared to full heal. Also, this +20% become even less valuable as you get other bonuses. (explanation: fortified unit in hills with GG has +95% of CS. The same unit with +20% CS at rough terrain is not 20% stronger. Actually its 215/195 = 11% stronger. A unit with +65% CS (3 promotions) is 260/195 = 33% stronger. Understand that?) To have 33% stronger unit or a unit that can be healed 3 times. Whats better?

Even 5 HP heal is waaaaay better than such upgrade. In MP its hard to have units more than 4th level, if both players are strong. Its better to spam units without upgrades and insta heal them.

With patch it became impossible to accumulate promotions and than heal when you need, BUT that only lowered the chance of effective instant heal from 100% to 50%. (or even more). "Effective instant heal" means that your unit has 5 or lower HP, has enemy units (preferably cities) nearby, and obviously had just received promotion.

You can increase how often such situation occurs by having 1.5 exp gain rate, having melee army that moves rough terrain and fortifies whenever possible, having GG around. Your units will not die with 2 attacks. Things become worse if enemy has before artillery ranged units. Its hard to concentrate fire, and archers are unlikely to kill enemy with 1-2HP attacks. They just give enemy exp, allowing to plan attack so that after attack the unit got instant heal and could attack again. That even further encourage use of melee and makes ranged harmful to an extent.

Also, this instant heal is very strong but UNPREDICTABLE. You cannot check how much exp an enemy has, and thus cannot make right decision whether to attack or not. That is a very huge factor of luck. Something that should be decreaced to minimum in such tactical battles. (almost wargame). Its ok to have -/+1 damage by units, but sudden extra unit (+9HP) on the battlefield is too much.


Shortly:
- not realistic
- better than the usual promotion
- too strong
- can be used pretty often
- unpredictable by opponent
- encourages use of melees

Dont tell me you think thats not reasonable.

The only argument that can justify existance of instant heal is that everyone can use this... But I dont think many of us want warfare to turn into careful calculating of exp.



Here are some ideas how to change it:

- just remove it (or add an option for this)

- make instant heal give only 4 HP

- forbid taking promotions if enemy units are nearby and if unit shot or received damage during the last 3 turns.

- make the usual promotions stronger (+30/35/35% CS instead +20/20/25% CS)


And there IS such mod to remove it. Good news for Baleur. Dont remember how exactly it is called. Try something like "no instant heal". Can check how exactly it is called though.

 

[Becomedeath]

Realism?

Surely that means that you should be able to play 2 turns at the very most at the start of the game and then someone else would take over as leader?

This is a massive fuss about nothing. You're not talking about an entire invasion force suddenly respawning, you're talking about one unit that you might have to take out twice, and to be perfectly honest I've racked up over 500 hours and have only, to my memory, seen the computer use it on a few very rare occasions.

Why have I seen it so rarely? Because I take the time to kill things. Not dance with them.

Build a decent army and you won't get AI healing.

But for the haters...how often has an instant heal got you out of a jam early on? I seriously doubt that anyone can say with a straight face that this ability has caused them more harm than good. I suspect it just causes harm when it's inconvienient.

But game breaking? Unrealistic?

 

[Baleur]

So can anyone please just show if someone made a mini-mod that removes it or not?
I've been searching these forums and googling for an hour and cant find any info on how to do it.

 

[jbevermore]

I've had it save my bacon a couple of times when attacking cities early with only spearmen and archers.

I've lost some hair to it before when the AI gets cavalry in my home turf and I've only an archer and city defense to fight them with while they wreck my mines and farms.

I do agree that having to count xp is a problem but I think this can be addressed without having to kill the entire mechanic. But the simple fact is that like every RTS game from Civ to Ogre Battle to Starcraft applies; if you don't want the wounded unit to heal, kill it first.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I wouldn't go so far to say I hate the insta-heal, but I do find it doesn't fit very well and personally I don't like using it.

I say it doesn't fit very well because it's consumable unlike all the other promotions which are a permanent bonus for the unit. It doesn't fit very well with the whole concept of "xp" (which I assume is generally short for "experience") being earned in order to learn new abilities. Yeah, I know a realism argument is weak in a highly abstracted game like civ but it's also important for game rules to be internally consistent with each other. Insta-heal stands as the odd one out from all the available options. How does it make sense that by getting experience from battle your warriors can heal to full health on just this one occasion?

Gameplay wise it makes for an interesting decision - the trade-off between a short-term advantage and a long-term advantage - so I can see perfectly why some people might appreciate it more than others.

I'm sure I'm not alone in my playstyle where I like to make highly experienced units (<-- hey look at that sweet Drill IV Phalanx ). This isn't something that happened recently - I was doing it sort of as far back as civ1 where you could get units to "veteran" status by having them win at least one battle or building them in a city with a barracks. Civ2 and Civ3 had similar mechanics, but Civ4 and Civ5 are where the lid was really blown open on this aspect of the gameplay, opening up vast and complex (relatively speaking!) promotion trees. Seriously it feels like there are more promotions in civ5 than there are units.

From a game enjoyment point of view, I think it makes a lot of sense that some players will try to achieve highly experienced units. They get unique abilities as a reward for you accomplishing some goal. This is one of the core things that would make the gameplay fun to players. Especially because in civ5 units are even more scarce (due to 1UPT and its consequences) to sacrifice a unit to never achieving its true potential by "wasting" a promotion just doesn't feel good even if the current tactical situation dictates it's the best action.

In short, while the insta-heal may make for an interesting option for the more tactically minded players, it doesn't seem very internally consistent against the other promotions and is unfavourable for players who take part in the unit leveling mini-game.

 

[seasnake]

In Civ IV when you got a promotion you got an immediate health boost. Did people complain? Did I miss that?

You're picking between getting a short-term rush of health and investing in a more effective unit, long term. I don't mind having the choice, I think it's fine. The promotion system isn't really realistic, anyways (I've killed fifteen units, and that means I'm better at attacking cities now!). It's a mini-rpg element that let's you customize units for experience, and it makes the game more fun.

 

[The Mad Russian]

I hate when the AI uses it but it has saved my butt quite a few times. You take the good with the bad I guess.

 

[snarzberry]

I dislike the general idea and feel of the instant heal but the one thing that it has going for it, which is why I'm against removing it now, is that the AI uses it well (not hard - unit likely to die = instaheal) so disabling it will hamper their ability to war even more than the insufficient code does now.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, the AI doesn't retreat well, so insta heals keep their army alive. I use it rarely. If I can safely retreat, I almost always will. It's only when I'm very close to achieving my objective and don't want to withdraw and regroup that I'll use it. Back when you could heal after attacking and could save promotions to heal more than once, it was powerful. Now it's good for a fluke counterattack, but you sacrifice significant long-term gain (extra attacks is much better, but that becomes harder to achieve).

 

[Roxlimn]

Rinnero:

I don't get the point of the contention in MP. Obviously, if your opponent is using the Instant Heal promotion, he's healing, at most 9 HP per turn, and that only if you're stupid enough not to kill units that are likely to be killed. The entire argument that a ranged unit cannot kill a ground unit is based on units that do not have promotions. A highly promoted Era-appropriate Ranged unit against a normal unit without promotion is outstandingly deadly, easily capable of two-shotting an enemy unit, at which point it cannot Heal.

Moreover, the same argument could be made, and with more justification, for the Medic Promotion. A Fortified unit (which is what you were speaking of) anywhere gains +2 HP per turn that it is Fortified and adjacent to a Medic unit. This be better because it is reliable, it is constant, and it doesn't consume promotions, allowing the healing unit to be correspondingly stronger as it is attacked. In fact, this is how you "farm" XP on SP.

Frankly, I would need a demonstration of how Instant Heal could so super-powerful. It's never bothered me on the AI because I generally kill units that I attack.

 

[SemperFi2382]

In Civ IV when you got a promotion you got an immediate health boost. Did people complain? Did I miss that?

I actually liked that method of promotion. If they added that back in where you got x amount of health for a promotion versus but left the option for a full heal, then I would be okay with that.

Personally, I do not mind how it is. Yes, the AI pretty much seems to exclusively pick full heal during a battle, but I tend to not attack a unit I cannot kill outright in a push.

 

[Becephalus]

I agree, I don't see this adding anything, and it is unrealistic. Not to mention the fact it introduces some bizarre incentive sin combat.

 

[turtlefang]

I rarely (I actually can't remember a time that I did) use instant heal. When the computer uses it, it does irate me - but it also bugs me when the computer gets a good "attack roll" and kills a unit that it shouldn't.

Its just part of the game - and it doesn't happen that much.

As far as MP goes, I play a little MP and don't recall having seen it used. Won't say it never happened, just don't recall it being used by another player and certainty don't recall it as a "game breaker".

The bigger game breaker tends to be my own stupidity which is relativity common. Now, if you can cure that with a rules change, I would support that change!!

 

[WeaselSlapper]

I really don't like it, but the fact that it improves the AI is a plus, but if they ever make the AI better I hope they remove it. The only good thing I can say about it is it helps me level my ranged units faster. I can bombard a CS ground unit from the water and just when I think it's going to die and I can XP farm anymore, bam! it's got full health again and I can resume farming.

 

[eris]

Especially for those who "can see only "I don't like it because I don't like it"" argument:

The answer why you dont see it is MultiPlayer. Play it, and youll learn TRUE essense of game mechanics.

Ahh. That explains it. If it is an issue primarily in multiplayer,( and it seems only for some users of multiplayer) then it is something to which I and a large majority of users will never see. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. I have remember to check for when multi-player users complain about a feature as if it broke everyone's experience. I don't always catch that.

It sounds like there is a mod out there to handle what you don't like and here's hoping that helps you out. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Steelyglint]

There's a mod which removes it, I use it in all games. I dislike it because it take away from the battle aspect of the game, the AI uses it more than I ever did and it hinders the AI - they heal their units all the time so they can never get proper promotions for their units, making them less powerful. So if I've fought well over the past 5 millennia then I'll generally have a mid-sized army of super-powered units, of which the AI never has any.

 

[mlund]

There shouldn't be a Heal Instantly promotion. Regular promotions should grant the effect of one turn healing - whatever the context may be with friendly/hostile terrain, medic promotion, Khan, Fountain of Youth, etc. This can reflect general reinforcements. Going from 1HP to Max as a free action just forces an awkward mutation in attrition-based combat math.

- Marty Lund

 

[WickedWombat]

It's in no way realistic, but it's saved my soldiers at least as often as it's saved an AIs. I'm not crazy about it, but it's not a bad feature, in my view, to trade a promotion a unit could never use for a new lease of life.

Yup, it's way unrealistic, but it's sure nice to have if you're trying to take an AI city, and it's the only unit available at the moment.

But other than that, yeah, it's pretty stupid.