Games for altruists / Games with dedicated support roles

I was always drawn to support roles in video games. It fits my personality best to support others and help them achieve their goals. In Diablo 2 I was the paladin providing useful auras or the barbarian shouting at people to give them more endurance. In WoW I was drawn towards priests and druids to fulfill the classic healer role. In Minecraft I built elaborate shelters for my friends and stockpiled materials for them to use. Does anyone even know Dofus? Anyway...I obviously played the Eniripsa (dedicated healer class) there. In LoL I always picked the support characters, invested all my gold in wards and tried to overcome toxicty through encouragement. Bottom line is: If there is a way to play a game in a support role, I'll do it.

But these days I find myself in a bit of a drought: I have the feeling that true support roles are slowly vanishing from games. Many MMORPGs are moving towards allowing players to be able to play alone without the help of others. I've fallen off MOBAs, because I don't dig the repetetiveness anymore. So...I'm running out out of games that satisfy my drive to support others. And to make things worse, this role often comes with the necessity to play multiplayer and I have a hard time committing to e.g. joining a guild, because I play at strange hours, sometimes jump between games a lot or completely miss out on gaming for weeks.

If I had to describe my perfect game, it would probably be some kind of singleplayer action RPG, where I'm part of an KI-controlled adventurer group that I have to keep alive as a dedicated healer. I'm not into war as a topic for gaming at all, but I might even be willing to try out a game, where I'm a medic on a battlefield. As far as I know, there are no games like this out there.

Support players of GWJ, what are you're favorite games to satisfy your altrustic tendencies?

Fascinating topic.

Have you tried being a Medic in Team Fortress 2? Or Overwatch? Or other games like that?

Battlefield has dedicated medic classes but you’ve kinda got to shoot as well to stay alive. Not your thing by the sound of it.

I played a healer in WoW. I enjoyed the challenge of keeping a team alive but in raids it got very stressful. It felt like a next to impossible war between the AI and the healers for the rapidly fluctuating lives of your party. If the raid failed it felt like my fault.

In the end, even though my instinct is always to play healer, I’ve had to give myself permission to play other classes and let others take the strain for a while.

Overwatch may be a good game to try as garion333 says.

Playing Mercy on Overwatch is very satisfying. You don't just feel like some bit-part player, instead you've got to really think and can play a major role in a game. I think Overwatch is probably the best implementation of the support class I've seen in a game.

Resistance 2 Coop was always my favorite for coop where you had to rely on healers. Loved that game.

Thanks for your answers!

Overwatch is definitely a recurring theme, when I bring this topic up. I can't really confirm or deny that, because shooters in general are my cryptonite. They are incredibly hectic, I always struggle with the controls and my orientation goes down the drain at some point. (And regarding Overwatch I can't bring myself to play Blizzard games any longer; but that's a separate discussion.) But just because I don't like them doesn't mean it's not good advice for others who are looking for the same thing.

Healer in WoW definitely was one of my favorite experiences. I really enjoyed how it becomes a mini game in itself to decide quickly which spell to use on whom, juggling aggro and all that. Orienting myself in 3D wasn't too difficult there somehow (probably because everything happens a bit slower in general). Unfortunately it's a huge time commitment. (And well...Blizzard again.) My last MMORPG was Neverwinter, where healers exist, but are quite boring to play and have very little impact overall.

garion333 wrote:

Fascinating topic.

It is!

I fell in love with support roles way back in the early days of City of Heroes, as an empathy defender I was primarily a healer. I loved the mini-game of managing the health bars of the team, it felt so satisfying to bring back a tank from the brink of death, thus enabling the group to survive.

This continued in WoW as a healing-focused priest, but as the difficulty curve in higher level instances grew steeper, my stress level outpaced enjoyment of the game. My sense of responsibility in keeping the party alive lead to lingering guilt when we failed, regardless of the weak link in the group.

A game revolving around battlefield medicine sounds like it'd be right up my alley.

Well, I hear ya on the Blizzard thing. RIP Blizzard.

I've never done it, but I've played a lot of the game otherwise, but you might consider Elder Scrolls Online. The Restoration Staff will be your jam, though, yes, it is a mixed class like all classes in the game.

The old school healer is beyond dead at this point outside of the shooters I mentioned. Hybrid gameplay is all the rage.

Great question!

As someone who also wants to try non-blizzard options, I'm feeling this keenly. I'm also kind of despairing by shopping via "who's least bad" as a metric. Was enjoying role-queue support locking in OW, and now looking to other games like destiny, but yeah the hybridization of everything makes locking into a certain role trickier than in, say, an MMO.

For Diablo and ARPG fans, there are usually support skills you can build into, regardless of the game. Grim Dawn and certainly Path of Exile have pretty robust support stuff available. That presumes you're playing in a group, of course. But there are many different options - buffing and auras I guess are the primary, but totems and the like are good too.

Guild Wars 2 also has dedicated healer, buffer and other support types built in. You can freely change into those builds, best enhanced by gear, but you can do it with generic equipment too.

I disagree that "hybrid" is the new norm. I still see separate roles for healers, tanks, dps, etc in most games. It's not the case that games are moving to "one type to do it all". They are making it easy to change between roles, in some games, but I think that's just to reduce the grind to stand up different roles. And that's a very good reason, it seems to me.

I've been really enjoying some support roles in Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. The Sunflower has some great healing abilities, and actually can temporarily increase an ally's total health points.

The Engineer on the Zombie side has a really fun grenade thrower, but the best is the turret they can deploy with an area of effect that increases allies weapon damage.

I'm finding I'm having more fun playing these support roles than more front line attack units.

The Bard class in Everquest was the classic support role. I played that for years. When WoW came out I played a Shaman and when the Burning Crusade expansion hit I felt the Shaman finally felt close to the support class I enjoyed in WoW. Dropping melee buffing totems was right up my alley.

I recall Guild Wars 1 where I played support as a Monk and quite enjoyed doing so until folks began passing blame, and critiquing my build. That totally sucked the enjoyment out of the profession. I reverted to Elementalist and forged on free of burden and responsibility from babysitting reckless cranky pants. I should say how it wasn't particularly often. The community was mostly pleasant. It was just too much when it did occur.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein, as a Medic, was awesome. I loved passing out med-kits and hitting up revives. I also loved playing Lieutenant to pass out ammunition and call in air strikes.

Diablo 2! Yes! I similarly enjoyed the Paladin, and Barbarian, in support roles. Necromancer, too. Whether it was auras, shouts, or curses, I'd be nerfing enemies and buffing allies more than I'd be tanking or damage dealing, for a time.

Uncharted Online Multiplayer was fun with revival packs, or grenades, or totems. I took great joy in turning the tide in our favour through healing rather than blunt force retribution.

I haven't played anything online in a long time, years now, so I'm afraid I'm zero for current suggestions. Good to reminisce, though. I'd love to play a few of those over again.

It is basically a third person shooter, but you might consider Fortnite, *not* the battle royale mode. The original PvE where you build a *gasp*

fort

and then zombies come and attack. You can essentially dedicate yourself to being a builder/resource collector. It is a 3D space game, but the movement isn't too full on compared to something like Warframe, or Apex Legends, or anything else like that.

I know that the BR mode totally eclipsed the PvE "Save the World" mode, but I would have to imagine there are still a few people in the OG version, and I'd be surprised if there isn't regularly easier missions you can drop in to.

Grim Dawn is great multiplayer, but last time I played*, there was no medic, it's super easy to just chug down HP potions. And while it's true you could walk around buffing another player/debuffing enemies, I don't think that would be very fulfilling on its own.

*like two years ago now

If anyone is reading this and is down this track and is down with shooters, Warframe has a bunch of support-y characters, but you'd still be doing a bunch of shooting. I wouldn't say there's call for full on healers, but some chars fill shields and restore a bit of health etc.

And in games that no longer exist, miss you forever Dirty Bomb xox.

I can't quite give it my full-throated recommendation due to some clunky event scripting... But Eastshade definitely gets some love from me. You play a travelling artist on a quest to revisit and paint some areas your mother loved. Along the way you can help people, solve mysteries, ride a bicycle, craft a boat, and trip on mushrooms. Oh, and take screenshots with your easel camera. "Painting" ostensibly.

I stalled out after unlocking the final area and discovering that it felt mostly empty, more windmills than people I could interact with.

But, an RPGish experience where you help people. If I have a gripe it's that you still steal their candles, sailcloth, and old crates. RPG tropes will never die.

There is also (coming at it from another angle) a mobile game where you are trying to help a stranded astronaut to survive through the power of text messages. It's called Lifeline. I played it and it started well but, for me, went off the rails at the end. There are other similar games out there now though.

Mermaidpirate, Occultist has a good AOE heal you can fire off several times a minute, and Shaman has a bunch of AOE totems. No dedicated healer class but you could build in that direction for MP.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one, you're right. I did have a tricked out occultist with a lot of points in that, but I didn't use that char in MP. I was mostly remembering that gear set with the healing cross on it that only gives a mild benefit iirc, and I was planning on taking that set to the max and being the sh*ttiest arcanist healer. But I never found the last piece of it or something.

Also, my co-op partner, didn't stand still enough to ever be healed, and had some crazy build with a yoyo hp thing going on so it was pointless trying to heal him anyway XD

Veloxi wrote:

I've been really enjoying some support roles in Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. The Sunflower has some great healing abilities, and actually can temporarily increase an ally's total health points.

The Engineer on the Zombie side has a really fun grenade thrower, but the best is the turret they can deploy with an area of effect that increases allies weapon damage.

I'm finding I'm having more fun playing these support roles than more front line attack units.

Oh man, that's a good suggestion. As the Sunflower in Garden Warfare 2 you could basically walk around healing the whole time, just like the medic in Team Fortress 2 (or some characters in Overwatch). I haven't picked up Battle for Neighborville yet, but the games are in 3rd person and less intense than something like Overwatch.

Robear wrote:

Guild Wars 2 also has dedicated healer, buffer and other support types built in. You can freely change into those builds, best enhanced by gear, but you can do it with generic equipment too.

I disagree that "hybrid" is the new norm. I still see separate roles for healers, tanks, dps, etc in most games. It's not the case that games are moving to "one type to do it all". They are making it easy to change between roles, in some games, but I think that's just to reduce the grind to stand up different roles. And that's a very good reason, it seems to me.

If your healer is meant to attack from time to time then that's a hybrid class.

GW2 and FFXIV both present the issue that your healer or support role isn't firm. For PVE content you basically don't need a healer or support person in GW2. In PvP/WvW you're looking at specific builds, but you could spend all your time de/buffing and healing.

(As an aside, has anyone done healing in SWTOR? Been a long time since I played and I can't remember how firm the healing is there. Same goes for Lotro.)

I won't disagree about it being a good thing though. I'm all for hybridization, but if you want to be a true healer then you aren't going to find it in many game anymore.

I have always been drawn to support roles in multiplayer because it seems like an appealing way to be useful and get some sort of recognition without trying to compete in the skills where I know others are going to be better than me. In shooters, I know I'm never going to have the best kill-death ratio, but acting as a medic in Team Fortress or Overwatch makes me feel like I can make a difference without having pinpoint headshot accuracy. Another example I haven't seen noted here is the Battlefield series. Of course they have medic roles, but I recall particularly enjoying in Battlefield 3 and/or 4 being a class that had the ability to "spot" enemies. By getting an enemy in your sites and hitting the spot button, you'd put the enemy on your teammates' radars and score a few points for yourself. I believe it was Battlefield 4 that I spent a few dozen hours just running around spotting everyone and getting hardly any kills, but feeling like I was actually helping.

Similarly, there was that brief window in maybe 2013-2015 where every game had a tablet companion, and you could sometimes play a support role that way. I know I spent a lot of time in "Commander Mode" I think it was called for Battlefield 4, where you could see a map of the battlefield and deploy resources to help your teammates. I remember a similar mode being teased for The Division, but I'm not sure whether it ultimately came out. The whole second screen experience thing fizzled out, but I really liked this concept in theory, that you could whip out your tablet when not in a place to play console games and participate in a few matches, help out your teammates, and gain some progression for your character.

Tar-Minyatur wrote:

If I had to describe my perfect game, it would probably be some kind of singleplayer action RPG, where I'm part of an KI-controlled adventurer group that I have to keep alive as a dedicated healer.

Have you checked out Looking for Heals?

I haven't played it, but it looks like it fits your description pretty well. It has been in early access on Steam since June.

TheGameguru wrote:

The Bard class in Everquest was the classic support role. I played that for years. When WoW came out I played a Shaman and when the Burning Crusade expansion hit I felt the Shaman finally felt close to the support class I enjoyed in WoW. Dropping melee buffing totems was right up my alley.

The original EverQuest before all the later expansions is THE Support game for all time (yes I mained a Bard). Every class had to chip in though to get anything done. Casters had to bind you in a city. Druids/Wizards teleported you around the world. Necros/Bards led you to your corpse(s). All combat centered around grouping with tanks/healers/crowd control/dps required. The class you played actually shaped how you viewed the world. I miss those days, spent some time in Project 1999, but I don't have the spare time to put together a group much less handle a corpse recovery in Lower Guk.

Mermaidpirate wrote:

Also, my co-op partner, didn't stand still enough to ever be healed, and had some crazy build with a yoyo hp thing going on so it was pointless trying to heal him anyway XD

Ahh yes, my Vampire Tasmanian Devil build!

You can definitely do some wacky things in Grim Dawn, I never tried a healer/support build, but it should be possible for sure, although not from level one I would think. Path of Exile is even more flexible, but healing is one of the few things that you can't really do in it much at all, as far as I'm aware.

Personally I've always been interested in offensive support roles, debuffs and mesmerise effects, which are - much like healing is now - kind of rare in a dedicated-to-just-that sense. Usually those sort of abilities are hybridised into your witch/warlock style damage over time dealer and left at that.

The mil-sim FPS: Squad has a medic role. I play it a fair bit, when I do play. I never see where I’m getting shot from anyway, so I focus on keeping myself safe, patching teammates up and getting them back in the fight.

The free-to-play “big spaceship” team-deathmatch(?) game: Fractured Space has a support-class. I haven’t played it in a long time, but it still seems to be going “strong”... not World of Tanks/Warships strong, but there was some overlap.

Higgledy wrote:

Battlefield has dedicated medic classes but you’ve kinda got to shoot as well to stay alive. Not your thing by the sound of it.

Although, in Battlefield V they decided to give the Medic Class a starting weapon meant that they were incapable of defending themselves on a couple of the maps!

It came as a huge disappoint to me to discover that I was being hit from 80 yards, whilst armed with a weapon effective only up to 30 yards.

I agree on the Overwatch recommendation though.

So many great answers already! Thanks so much!

Veloxi wrote:

I've been really enjoying some support roles in Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. The Sunflower has some great healing abilities, and actually can temporarily increase an ally's total health points.

Huh. I only heard rumors that this game exists. Thanks for the recommendation. That definitely goes on my list of games worth trying.

Dyni wrote:

Have you checked out Looking for Heals?

Never seen that before. A really good find. Definitely on my list now!

And also so many other ideas. I never thought of Grim Dawn as a multiplayer game, to be honest. Very intriguing! Not sure, if I should go back to something like GuildWars 2 or Everquest, but I'll keep them in the back of my head, if I run out of things to try.

It's incredible to see how many different takes there are of what counts as support. Everyone always thinks of healing. Fixing problems afterwards, if you will. But there is also prevention (disc priest anyone?) and so many other cool ways to be supportive in a game.

Warframe has quite a few frames that either (almost) exclusively heal/buff (Trinity, Harrow, Oberon), and loooots of them that have at least one power that will buff the team in general. Everything from damage-resistance, to energy-boosts, to healing, to CC, to damage-boosts, to speed-buffs... heck there are a few that even boost the drop-rates for loot!

After hearing about this on the show, I had to drop by and tag myself. Support is my jam. I've always enjoyed helping other players more than being the play-maker. Healing, buffing, ferrying items back and forth, you name it!

I think my favourite thing is MMO healing. I don't particularly love MMOs, but there's something about the class fantasy of MMO healers that really gets me. I play FFXIV from time to time and always get so swept up in the idea of being a White Mage. It just feels like me. I'm the White Mage. It helps that White Mage just feels lovely to play, with just the right amount of pure heals and damaging spells to weave into the mix.

It's a shame that FFXIV (or any MMO...) requires such a huge time investment. I've been trying to find smaller (solo) games that give me that same satisfaction. I'm not sure anything could, because half of the fun is supporting other real people. I think Healer's Quest looks interesting, but I'm waiting for a bit of a discount because I'm just not sure...