Remove the hit point display in parties.

[Monkey_Archer]

The HP display is a good thing, and every time anyone gets kicked because of HP it is good.

Heres why:

1) If your 200 hp rogue gets kicked from an epic DQ, dragon, etc.., its because there's no way you can possibly survive and contribute. If you're dead the whole time: a) you are a wasted party spot and b) you aren't going to be having any fun residing in someone's backpack anyway. So theres no reason for you to want to be there, and theres no reason for a party leader to bring you along.

2) If your 399 hp ranger gets kicked from a normal shroud, vod, hound, etc..., its because that party leader is a complete noob that has no idea how to play the game, or what it takes to complete raids. If the party leader is a noob: a) the group might never fill and b) is likely to fail if it does. So theres really no reason why you should even want to be in that group in the first place.

Its really a win win situation

[Thlargir]

I honestly don't understand why someone's hitpoints should be any secret.

Let me explain, no, there is no time; let me sum up:

1) Roll playing: In RL nobody walks around with their HP on their nametag, one simply assumes that the NFL lineman has many HP and the chartered accountant not so much. In PnP the gods got really angry with characters who talked publically. In short, it has no place in an RPG.

2) Topical Distraction: Since U11 I cannot recall a single PUG where HP has not been a topic of conversation at some point. Hopefully the novelty will wear off and only the epeen brigade will care, however, I doubt it.

3) Grief Tool: Not that is is new, however, the presentation of this data so obviously to the entire party makes the would be griefers opportunity to be a jerk so much easier.

4) Visual Distraction: When healing I don't care about absolute values, I care only about bars not hitting the end stop. Now, I may be old with failing eyesight but things were a lot cleaner with a fatter bar with no clutter.

5) HP are class/gear dependent and are not determined by player capability. The very fact that some folks have set the bar at 400hp at cap for all classes/races simply shows that they have not played certain class race combos to cap as first characters. The arithmetic is shown in other posts in this thread.

Disclaimer: Being old and slow my characters have plenty of HP, but that does not blind me from the fact that it is not desirable for everyone.

[Sarisa]

As a raid and epic healer, I like the display.

It

• Lets me know how much I need to watch the bars, and how much I can offensive cast/CC/melee.
• Gives me a hint as to who is going to need watched carefully, or in Mass Heal situations, who is not going to survive between Heal's. Vitally important for SP conservation in eVoN6.
• Lets me know exactly how close a tank is to the Horoth Disintegrate danger zone. I could estimate it before, but it's far better to know exactly now, especially if the tank is rotating Scourge Choker triggers.
• Lets me know when "Voltron" dispels the tank's Deathward, and neither I nor the tank sees it, and he gets Energy Drained.

So yes, it can be used to grief, but it also does a great service to most healers. I personally haven't seen much of any HP griefing.

[sirgog]

Someone with insufficient HP to contribute to an AoE damage fight - like a 440hp melee in eVON6 - is griefing the divines in the group by making it more likely they will need pots.

Now it's easy to kick these people BEFORE they waste mana potions.

Of course for normal Shroud, who cares? Any half-decent caster can finish the Fiend off solo if everyone else dies.

[Jaid314]

yeah, i wouldn't consider any of my characters to have particularly awe-inspiring hit points, but i do put some effort in to keep all of them at decent hit points. i don't feel that i have sacrificed much if any offensive capability on any of my characters to do so. so far i have been kicked from approximately zero groups for having too few hit points.

sure, some people can get by with really bad hit points. but, they'd be fine in every single situation they're currently fine in, plus in any further situations where a few more hit points would have kept them alive, if they had more hit points. and, generally speaking, that would come without any major losses in offensive capability.

[Sweyn]

Let's look at some numbers, shall we?

This is the HP breakdown on my reasonably geared level 20 Drow Sorcerer, Wyllywyl:
14 base con
+6 item
+2 tome
+2 exc con ToD ring
=24 con
80 base HD
20 Heroic Durability
140 Con Bonus
30 GFL
10 Argo favor
20 Minos
22 Toughness
20 toughness enhancements
45 GS
=387 base HP. Rage puts me barely over 400, and this is effectively the MAXIMUM possible hp, barring stupid ideas like putting level ups into Con instead of Cha or me ever finding a +4 tome (and, tbh, I'd rather sell the tome out of the chest for a stack of reds than take an extra 20 hp)

The MAXIMUM HP? Lol that's way far off. My drow sorc has 507, without anything "extraordinary."

16 - Base
6 - Item
3 - Exceptional
2 - Tome
1 - Litany
----------
28 Con

80 - Sorcerer
20 - Base
180 - Con
30 - GFL
20 - Minos
10 - Argo favor
42 - Toughness
45 - GS
20 - Rage
40 - Yugo Con pot
20 - Airship
-------------
Easily sustained 99% of the time = 507 HP.

^ Sure, minus 20 from not being a double TR, and Minus 20 if you die and lose the airship buff, that's still 467 on a Drow Sorcerer, 100% self buffed and 100% sustainable. ~400 HP is not "effectively the MAXIMUM" hit points for a Drow sorcerer.

[taurean430]

I'm going to have to go with not signed.

It's very true that a base 14-16 con coupled with standard items, favor granted feat (draconic vitality), minos, and a +2 tome grants a hp total worthy of running content without problems.

The argument the OP presents is one that is limited to an extremely small sample of the population of players. There are in fact players that can faceroll any content this game offers with low hp. This does not apply in the vast majority of cases. The recommendation exists for a reason. The same reason that players with the most experience share variants of their builds that work on these forums. It's to actually help newer players be functional and not a party drain or wasted slot in difficult content.

I still see people trying to debate in parties that their sub 300hp are good enough to do EVon6. Improved evasion, higher dps, yadda yadda. He was allowed in and proceeded to die 4 times on the bases, and another 6 times in front of the dragon before I got bored with ressing him. This guy still wanted to blame me for throwing only mass heal on the party without multiple mass cures so he can live. All in all that would have equated to a multi pot venture. Forget that mess. With zero pots I can heal a party to around 25% of the dragons health before I am tapped.

I am amazed that people are complaining about supposed discrimination based on hp. My cleric (d6)has a lowish 490 or so at cap. My wizard (d4) has 467 before buffs, 527 after buffing himself with ability to boost to 567 if needed.

Suffice to say, I don't support the idea of people with dumpstated con or minus standard simple to get gear making my cleric or fvs job three times harder.

[Vyrn]

Im pretty sure my cleric is reasonably geared, nothing amazing like eRoSS but pretty fine at 542 unbuffed, so I personally could care less about people looking at my HP/SP. I do however agree with people saying it removes a part of the game, and creates unnecessary and, in alot of cases, unjustified ePeens.

Possible way to solve this would be to just convey the information to just the party leader, theyre the only ones who need to know this information anyhow. We were healing just fine using just red bars before and dont really need to know the actual max HP.

[Xenostrata]

The MAXIMUM HP? Lol that's way far off. My drow sorc has 507, without anything "extraordinary."

16 - Base
6 - Item
3 - Exceptional
2 - Tome
1 - Litany
----------
28 Con

80 - Sorcerer
20 - Base
180 - Con
30 - GFL
20 - Minos
10 - Argo favor
42 - Toughness
45 - GS
20 - Rage
40 - Yugo Con pot
20 - Airship
-------------
Easily sustained 99% of the time = 507 HP.

^ Sure, minus 20 from not being a double TR, and Minus 20 if you die and lose the airship buff, that's still 467 on a Drow Sorcerer, 100% self buffed and 100% sustainable. ~400 HP is not "effectively the MAXIMUM" hit points for a Drow sorcerer.

You did catch the bit where I was talking about what would be attainable by a NEW player, right?

Assuming most new players do not have access to yugo pots or high level guilds. Also, why are you wearing a Litany? It should be putting your charisma on an odd number, and the trinket slot would be better filled with a Spyglass for UMD/TS or a VB/PL ioun stone.

Also, note that I only have +2 exceptional because I'm an air savant, and my ring choice has +1 exc dex. My other ring is Ann Velsing's, for the strength bonus (carrying capacity) and the +1 exc charisma.

So, first life Drow loses 20 off the top from stats, 20 from the litany/exc con 1, 20 off of the airship (you really shouldn't count airship buffs when considering "max possible", since you are most likely to lose them in the places you need them the most) and I'll admit that I forgot the Yugo pot. So 440 on a decently geared first life Drow. My point, however, still stands that for a NEWLY CAPPED first life drow that 292 is pretty much the top, until some other serious gear is put in.

[Drekisen]

/not signed

get more HP and/or don't play with morons who are unable to adapt to lesser than optimal parties and still prevail.

I think the new UI rocks now that they scrunched it down in size.

[Vellrad]

Once we had 10 guildies for hox, so we put up LFM.
Artificer and rogue joins, first with 400HP, second with 150.
Guess which one died?
Rigth, artificer.
Also rogue was healing people with wand when needed, and shocked me by healing me with inflict wand when I was tesnered.

I never saw anyone kicked for having less than X HP, I was once kicked to having too much HP.
Some people don't understand that you can get a lot of HP and don't dump anything important.

[Sweyn]

You did catch the bit where I was talking about what would be attainable by a NEW player, right?

Assuming most new players do not have access to yugo pots or high level guilds. Also, why are you wearing a Litany? It should be putting your charisma on an odd number, and the trinket slot would be better filled with a Spyglass for UMD/TS or a VB/PL ioun stone.

Also, note that I only have +2 exceptional because I'm an air savant, and my ring choice has +1 exc dex. My other ring is Ann Velsing's, for the strength bonus (carrying capacity) and the +1 exc charisma.

So, first life Drow loses 20 off the top from stats, 20 from the litany/exc con 1, 20 off of the airship (you really shouldn't count airship buffs when considering "max possible", since you are most likely to lose them in the places you need them the most) and I'll admit that I forgot the Yugo pot. So 440 on a decently geared first life Drow. My point, however, still stands that for a NEWLY CAPPED first life drow that 292 is pretty much the top, until some other serious gear is put in.

I quoted you saying "It's the MAXIMUM possible HP for a well geared out sorc, like yours." I simply put it that that was far from the fact. You weren't talking about a new player in the line i quoted you.

Why am i wearing litany? Because it's the best casting trinket in the game. It only puts your CHA at an odd number if you take the CHA III enhancement, which if you are wearing litany you don't have to, effectivley freeing up 6 AP. That alone makes it the best. I mean, what if there were an item in game that just randomly gave you 6 extra AP? Everyone would wear it. Secondly, it also gives you 20 HP, which is very meaningful on a d4 character. The spyglass is an utter waste of a slot. At level 20 you should be able to get 40+ umd without any items anyway, true seeing is cast by a spell or scroll. The litany is hands down the best trinket in the game for most people.

As for your exceptional +1 con, you can craft that on pretty much any epic item no? Being an air savant is a poor excuse for not being able to have +1 con.

The fact is, is that there are so many ways to boost your HP in this game, that even new players shouldn't be below 300 on any toon. Sure, the second they hit cap they might be, but run a few quests, get a few items and your good.

[Xenostrata]

I quoted you saying "It's the MAXIMUM possible HP for a well geared out sorc, like yours." I simply put it that that was far from the fact. You weren't talking about a new player in the line i quoted you.

Why am i wearing litany? Because it's the best casting trinket in the game. It only puts your CHA at an odd number if you take the CHA III enhancement, which if you are wearing litany you don't have to, effectivley freeing up 6 AP. That alone makes it the best. I mean, what if there were an item in game that just randomly gave you 6 extra AP? Everyone would wear it. Secondly, it also gives you 20 HP, which is very meaningful on a d4 character. The spyglass is an utter waste of a slot. At level 20 you should be able to get 40+ umd without any items anyway, true seeing is cast by a spell or scroll. The litany is hands down the best trinket in the game for most people.

As for your exceptional +1 con, you can craft that on pretty much any epic item no? Being an air savant is a poor excuse for not being able to have +1 con.

The fact is, is that there are so many ways to boost your HP in this game, that even new players shouldn't be below 300 on any toon. Sure, the second they hit cap they might be, but run a few quests, get a few items and your good.

If you missed the beginning, I said reasonably geared out sorc. That generally means no +4 tomes, no past lives, and you can't count ship buffs for anything "standing".

Litany is a nice trinket when it doesn't drop your casting stat on an odd number, but I'd MUCH rather wear a VB ioun stone 24/7 for the spell pen 9/archmagi than get a "free" 6 AP (especially since it effectively frees up the Spell Pen enhancements, which cost the same or more than that last rank of charisma). Don't start on how hard it is to get one; if you are grinding out 20+ abbots you should be at the point where you can afford it.

[gloopygloop]

If you missed the beginning, I said reasonably geared out sorc. That generally means no +4 tomes, no past lives, and you can't count ship buffs for anything "standing".

Litany is a nice trinket when it doesn't drop your casting stat on an odd number, but I'd MUCH rather wear a VB ioun stone 24/7 for the spell pen 9/archmagi than get a "free" 6 AP (especially since it effectively frees up the Spell Pen enhancements, which cost the same or more than that last rank of charisma). Don't start on how hard it is to get one; if you are grinding out 20+ abbots you should be at the point where you can afford it.

It can be challenging for some characters to get above 400 HP without a couple of buffs.
No character should satisfied with running around under 300 HP at 20.

I think it's fine for a first life character to have "low" HP when they hit 20 because their gear hasn't yet caught up with their level. The idea that it's hard to get over 300 HP, though, is just absurd.

[Astraghal]

I don't see why anyone has an issue with HP totals being displayed, unless they are trying to hide something. Prior to the changes, I suspected that low HP often went hand in hand with incompetence. The UI changes confirmed my suspicions. I have come to realize that a lot of supposedly good players got really lazy on their HP and that's actually the main reason they fail when they do. I find HP are a very good index of competence.

Almost all the epic raids that I see fail are the one's where you see a 350-600 HP range, rather than a 450-700 range. When clerics, bards, rogues, monks, arcanes and rangers have less than 400 HP I know the chances of success for that group are lessened. Having 500 HP on a softer character is a huge survival boost and those are the players you see still standing contributing at the end of an eDQ2/eDragon/any fight where something unexpected might happen that requires you to survive.

Yes it might be annoying for newer players, but it really isn't that hard to get HP and they really do make a big difference. I'm glad it's easier to identify the gimps now.

[Sweyn]

If you missed the beginning, I said reasonably geared out sorc. That generally means no +4 tomes, no past lives, and you can't count ship buffs for anything "standing".

Litany is a nice trinket when it doesn't drop your casting stat on an odd number, but I'd MUCH rather wear a VB ioun stone 24/7 for the spell pen 9/archmagi than get a "free" 6 AP (especially since it effectively frees up the Spell Pen enhancements, which cost the same or more than that last rank of charisma). Don't start on how hard it is to get one; if you are grinding out 20+ abbots you should be at the point where you can afford it.

UMADBRO?

Lol in my rebuttal i said "Sure, minus 20 from not being a double TR, and Minus 20 if you die and lose the airship buff, that's still 467 on a Drow Sorcerer, 100% self buffed and 100% sustainable." So i'm not counting +4 tomes, i'm not counting PL, and i'm not counting ship buffs. I'm not gonna get into a discussion on what's the ideal gear slots for a sorc, whatever floats your boat man.

[Elixxer]

Perhaps this is the developers way of saying that con is not a dumpstat?

This gave me a good laugh!

[Drekisen]

Wouldn't be so hard for people to step it up a little to and be a little more helpful.

I mean this more towards vets who have more than they know what to do with anyways.

Example........Rogue had an LFM up for Cursed Crypt the other day...and I really wanted my third upgrade on my talisman.....so I join......oh noooooos....newb from hell right...LOL.

I basically solo'ed it but he was stilla good player....listened great, and learned...probably died 5-6 times LOL...but oh wells.

But in the midst of this run I was hearing the critical hit thud all the time, and asked if he had a heavy fort item on, he said he needed to have something else on.

Whatever...it's his first time through, the game that is...after we finish I ask him if he has a Minos yet....he says no......I hop on my capped Sorc who has like 100 Taps just sitting around doing nothing and get him one....of course asking him to put it on to make sure he didn't just grab my tokens and run LOL.

He did and was all happy about it.....getting the helmet I mean...no he didn't take off with the tokens I gave him for the AH lol......or maybe he did and had a MINOS already LMAO...either way it made me feel better

P.S. that kind of run tho is why I don't use voice chat.....when I type I am really nice.......I sure as heck was not being nice about what a was saying out loud to myself while I was doing that run tho...HAHAHAHA

[Flavilandile]

Not entering the debate...

But with a 342 ( unbuffed ) hit points rogue you can live and thrive quite well in epics...
Up to and including epic DQ and Epic VON 6. I'm doing that all the time. ( that's actually my main epic character )

[Gorbadoc]

I quoted you saying "It's the MAXIMUM possible HP for a well geared out sorc, like yours." I simply put it that that was far from the fact. You weren't talking about a new player in the line i quoted you.

I know, I shouldn't feed the troll. Blah. This one is just too funny.

Suppose I write, "This post is about chicken pot pies. Cooking times vary greatly." By Sweyn's thinking, I'm not talking about chicken pot pies with that second sentence. I could be talking about ANYTHING! Maybe I'm saying that pizza cooking times vary greatly. Because, ya know, the words that came before a sentence don't matter!


Back to the OP, I'll /sign if people are obnoxious about hit points six months from now. So far, though, I haven't had too much trouble. On Ghallanda at least, I think a lot of people already understand that hit points, while important, are not a definitive indicator of player ability.