There's a little oversight in CRPGs that has always annoyed me. It's something very specific, and might seem like a minor issue when you look at it from a general perspective. But when you start analyzing it more closely it becomes an apparent trademark of the flaws in experience-based systems that most CRPGs use. Ever noticed how resurrecting someone never gets your character any experience points (XP)?

Resurrecting? Bah! That's easy...
I have yet to see an experience-based system award XP points for a player healing or resurrecting another player, or another party member. Whether it's in single-player, or even multi-player CRPGs, healers get experience points for doing the exact same thing as every other class : killing monsters. It's always been a flaw that has affected me particularly. I like playing support classes in my RPGs. I like to be the one that stands behind the front lines and work at keeping everyone alive, or even bring them back to life once the danger has passed. Yet, the systems that CRPGs are based on never rewarded me for doing what my character does best. Instead, I get rewarded for helping out during the fight. While that makes some sense, it doesn't really reflect my character's true role.

The problem becomes more apparent between battles. It's not uncommon to see a cleric resurrect players that have fallen after a tough encounter. Yet this very valuable ability is seldom rewarded with experience points. And here I thought resurrecting was a big deal... Apparently it isn't. Think back to any Dungeons & Dragons based CRPG, and you won't find any one of them giving experience points to a cleric for healing or resurrecting one of his fallen companions. Designers must think resurrecting someone is a pretty meaningless task...

Can I resurrect myself?
In single player gaming the problem is somewhat less important. The player is sometimes controlling a full party, and a good cleric is always essential to a group. The player knows this, but doesn't generally carry any special feelings towards any specific character in the group since he has control over all of them. Yet somehow I myself always felt bad for the cleric of whom you ask the ultimate task of bringing someone back to life for absolutely nothing in return. The cleric should be given more experience points for surviving the fight and then resurrecting his fellow companions. He is the reason this fallen hero can go on with the group so quickly, yet he gets nothing more than everyone else does. I guess it balances things out, and prevents from one character to gain levels more quickly than the others. Still, I think it's unfair.

In games with only one character to control, a cleric will seldom have to resurrect anyone, and the only probable target for his healing spells will be himself after a fight from which he already got all the experience points. The problem becomes almost irrelevant in that case. But then again when is the last time you played a true clerical class in a single-character game? I mean a really healing-focused character... I'm ready to bet a very small minority of people ever did. Why would anyone choose to play this class in a game where you only control one character in the first place?

I'm coming! Don't release!
But it's worse in the case of MMORPGs where classes that are able to resurrect (rezzers as they are lovingly called) are very much in demand. When a game penalizes you for dying and "releasing" your character to the last place he was bound to (a save point, in an MMORPG sort of way), it creates a world where "rezzers" are very busy people because resurrecting prevents this penalty from being too important. When I play my Bard in DAoC I often get "rez calls" from fallen players in the general area. With my incredible speed I can easily help anyone within a good distance, but that often means stopping what I am currently doing to go help someone I don't even know... and not get anything in return. Some players might offer me money for the trouble, but that's not the same, is it? That's not really helping me further my character's development. And I certainly don't want another player stripping himself of his wealth to satisfy me. What I really would like is to be given some XP for doing what my class, and only a couple of others can do.

Healers, in any type of MMOG, are a very useful and valuable commodity. Yet many players end up casting their healer aside at some point in their character's life because it's unrewarding work. They never have to wait very long before finding a good group to adventure with because they are essential to their survival. But yet the flip side of the coin is that we healers, bards, druids, wardens and clerics have a part time job that most people don't really acknowledge. We run around between adventures, "rezzing" our fellow players left and right.

Now, I don't mind doing this, and I'm sure that most people playing "rezzers" don't mind it any more than I do. It's part of our character's life to do this. We would just like to be rewarded in a meaningful way for what we do best. Resurrecting someone is rewarding in itself when that person greets you with a thankful sigh of relief, but when I look down at my experience bar it sure never moves...

Resurrecting is a skill
With a skill-based system the problem is solved, of course, and I will never emphasize enough how much I personally think such a system, although perhaps a lot harder to implement, is better. A skill-based system allows the character to be rewarded for doing whatever he can actually do, every time he does it. But is it so impossible to award XP for resurrecting another player in other, more conventional systems?

I don't think it is. I think it's a simple oversight on the developers' part in general. Resurrecting and healing were never rightly rewarded. It says a lot, I think, about traditions in CRPGs. Yet I think it could be easily changed. I refuse to believe that awarding experience for casting a successful resurrection spell would be too hard to implement in an XP-based system. And those who think that it would be overpowering for a player to be able to receive XP for resurrecting someone would be wrong. On the contrary it would be more than just. Would that make a character less effective in a group when he needs to heal? Would that make him too powerful for others to take on in PvP (Player vs. Player)? Hardly.

Support the support class
I think this all goes to show how much the support classes, although appreciated and useful, do not occupy an important place in any developer's plans. They are implemented in a game simply because it makes sense to have them. They create a sense of balance. They make groups more powerful and they make everyone feel safer. But developers don't really think about those players who actually play these types of character classes. If they did, they'd quickly realize how much their system needs a little more tweaking to accommodate them.

I am Rezzer, hear me roar!... and then give me my XP...