History Main / NoExperiencePointsForMedic

* Averted in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', where even a relatively inexperienced medic can easily reach the top of the scoreboard[[note]]normally it's one "point" per kill and half a point for an assist[[/note]] just by focusing on healing and gaining assists from kills made by other characters being healed.[[note]]Medics get one point for every 600 health they heal, which is chump change.[[/note]]
** One achievement requires players to score the highest among their own team in a single round without making any kills whatsoever. It's surprisingly common for people to unlock it without specifically trying.
** Engineers are also able to rack up points beyond just deploying Sentry Guns. They get a point for every two people who use their Teleporter, various points when teammates use their Dispensers, and a point each time they successfully defend friendly buildings from a Spy's electrosapper.
** While averted with kills, it's played straight with some of the objectives. Assists cannot be earned for completing objectives — if the Medic wants to get points for capturing a control point, he has to be standing on it too, and there's no (extra) points for healing someone carrying the [[CaptureTheFlag Intelligence Briefcase]]. Scoring a kill that "defends" a control point awards 2 total points to the Medic's patient, but the same 1/2 point to the Medic.

* Mostly averted in ''VideoGame/KillingFloor'', where healing regardless of perk will earn you [[MemeticMutation dosh]] and level up your Field Medic perk. Played slightly straighter with welding doors, which helps levels up Support Specialist but does not (as of current) help the player at the trader.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}'', as healers gain ''more'' credits for healing team-mates than killing foes or capturing points, and these credits are important as it lets players buy match upgrades to get better bonuses, rewarding a player who sticks to their class' strong points. As of update OB 67, healers will gain assist kills if their healing targets kill an enemy.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/PlanetSide''. While players do not directly gain Combat Experience Points for assisting players, they are rewarded every time the player you assisted gets a kill. A support player running around healing and repairing everyone in an intense firefight can make oodles of [=CEP=]. Other support roles benefit as well, such as engineer repairing AI turrets or vehicles gaining [=CEP=] for every kill, or a [[GunshipRescue Galaxy]] pilot gaining [=CEP=] for every kill made by the players they [[ItsRainingMen gal-dropped]].
** ''VideoGame/PlanetSide 2'' averts this completely, as EXP is granted simply for healing and reviving players.

* Averted by Voltar in the ''VideoGame/{{Awesomenauts}}'', who gains money for upgrades when healing his teammates.

[[folder:Real Time Strategy]]
* Averted by ''VideoGame/WorldInConflict'': in their pursuit of intense cooperation between players, the dev team awarded huge points to repair tanks for repairing things and to transport units for transporting troops. This quickly led to players driving their own units around the safe areas of the map, getting top scores without actually participating in combat, so an early patch removed transporting scores and reduced points for repairing your own units. Still, the repair+AA combo remained the top-scoring role in the game.
[[/folder]]

* Averted (for the most part) in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', where all participating fighters get experience. However, this trope comes into play when trying to get your characters different ways of filling up their Overdrive gauge (once you perform an action enough times, you can set the gauge to fill up when using that action)- Yuna is going to be stuck with Healer for quite a while. Can also be used to your advantage, against ThatOneAttack that deals damage equal to ten times the enemies you've killed. Yuna is going to laugh that one off.
* Averted in the original ''VideoGame/{{Persona 1}}''. Experience is distributed among the characters depending on how much they contributed in battle. So if a character kills all enemies with one multi-target spell before anyone else gets a turn, they'll hog most of the experience points while everyone else gets the bare minimum (which really screws over characters with low agility, making them several levels lower than everyone else). Multi-target skills and attacks also net more experience than single-target ones, but ''that applies to healing and support abilities too''. So a character can still hog most of the experience if they spam party-wide healing and buffs while everyone else uses single-target attacks.
* Averted throughout ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, which uses a leveling system in which the player gains experience toward an [[NonCombatEXP increase in a certain skill by successfully using that skill]]. For example, if you sneak around, your Sneak skill will increase. If you brew potions, your Alchemy skill increase. If you strike enemies with a sword, your Blade/Long Blade/One-Handed skill will increase, etc. This also applies to the [[WhiteMagic Restoration]] skill, which mostly governs healing and protective spells. One caveat that can make leveling up your Restoration skill a bit more challenging is that casting healing spells on yourself while at full health do not raise the skill, meaning you must be at less than 100% health for it to count.

[[folder:Simulation]]
* Averted in ''VideoGame/MechWarrior: Living Legends''. Players detecting enemies and then forwarding their location via a C3 computer system are granted C-bills every time a new enemy is detected, or when a detected enemy on C3 takes damage. Players using the TAG laser guidance system or the NARC missile beacon are granted a percentage of the reward C-bills every time another player's missile hits the target. Players driving the AwesomePersonnelCarrier receive C-bills every time a player spawns at it, buys weapons, or ammo from it.
[[/folder]]

* Averted with the Priestesses in ''VideoGame/{{Dungeons}}'', who'll gain Soul Energy by healing other heroes. A good ol' fight will usually fully replenish a Priestess' Soul Energy gauge, while other heroes will need more time to reach such a level (usually by either fighting monsters or pillaging your vaults).

* Until about a year after its launch, ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' did not reward healers for the achievements their patients got and the healing characters as a whole were seen as collective [[GameplayScrappy gameplay scrappies]]. This was eventually rectified.

** Engineers are also able to rack up points beyond just deploying Sentry Guns. They get a point for every four people who use their Teleporter, various points when teammates use their Dispensers, and a point each time they successfully defend friendly buildings from a Spy's electrosapper.

* Averted in [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} the first]] ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' game. Experience is distributed among the characters depending on how much they contributed in battle. So if a character kills all enemies with one multi-target spell before anyone else gets a turn, they'll hog most of the experience points while everyone else gets the bare minimum (which really screws over characters with low agility, making them several levels lower than everyone else). Multi-target skills and attacks also net more experience than single-target ones, but ''that applies to healing and support abilities too''. So a character can still hog most of the experience if they spam party-wide healing and buffs while everyone else uses single-target attacks.

Contrast NonCombatEXP.

A variant: in ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' (and in particular, in the fourth version of the game) units get XP for winning battles (and nothing else, other than some limited free XP gained when the unit is first made). Offensive armies tend to be involved in lots of battles, and while many will die the survivors will reach a high level. Meanwhile, defensive troops will just be protecting a particular area, and waiting until someone attacks them, and thus tend to get very little XP. In Civilisation 4 (and, perhaps, the later editions of the game) there are several lines of promotions to spend XP on that buff options other than direct combat, such as a line helping siege weapons knock down enemy walls, and - fitting for this trope - a medic promotion line that lets the unit heal other nearby troops. Getting a unit a long way up these promotion lines is extremely difficult.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', where even a relatively inexperienced medic can easily reach the top of the scoreboard[[note]]normally it's one "point" per kill and half a point for an assist[[/note]] just by focusing on healing and gaining assists from kills made by other characters being healed.[[note]]Medics get one point every 600 health they heal, which is chump change.[[/note]]

** While averted with kills, it's played straight with some of the objectives. There aren't assists for completing objectives -- if the Medic wants to get points for capturing a control point he has to be standing on it too, and there's no points for healing someone carrying the [[CaptureTheFlag Intelligence Briefcase]]. Scoring a kill that "defends" a control point awards 2 total points to the Medic's patient, but the same 1/2 point to the Medic.

** It's pretty common for Support classes to rank high on the scoreboard for healing, even passive healing like Lucio's, but earning Play of the Game is much more skewed. Some, like Mercy, tend to earn it to a disproportionately high degree thanks to her powerful Resurrection ultimate. Others, like Ana or Symmetra (until the latter's range and durability was buffed), rarely earn it because they deal relatively low damage and their ultimates rely entirely on teammates doing well by receiving it.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}'' as healers gain ''more'' credits for healing team-mates than killing foes or capturing points and these credits are important as it lets players buy match upgrades to get better bonuses, rewarding a player who sticks to their class' strong points. As of update OB 67, healers will gain assist kills if their healing targets kill an enemy.

* Averted in [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} the first Persona game.]] Experience is distributed among the characters depending on how much they contributed in battle. So if a character kills all enemies with one multi-target spell before anyone else gets a turn, they'll hog most of the experience points while everyone else gets the bare minimum (which really screws over characters with low agility making them several levels lower than everyone else). Multi-target skills and attacks also net more experience than single-target ones, but ''that applies to healing and support abilities too''. So a character can still hog most of the experience if they spam party-wide healing and buffs while everyone else uses single-target attacks.

** This was corrected in the second game and onwards. Healers gain EXP for healing in every game except the first one... But they still only gain Mana from knocking out an enemy, and Mana is needed to increase the area of spells they know and to learn new spells. Fortunately, there are ways to [[LeakedExperience leak mana]] from one character to another.

** ''Super Famicom Wars'' and ''Days of Ruin'' require a unit to deal damage to gain experience at all. It's even worse in Days of Ruin because you need to get ''kills'' for ''any experience'', and you don't even get any major stat boosts at all.

** In the first game, healers did not gain experience from healing, but instead would get it from ''being hit''. They got as much as with a kill, so with a HP-recovering terrain such as a fortress nearby, they could [[LevelGrind Boss Abuse]] and get to a high level fast. Would count as a GameBreaker if it weren't for the magic stat not being a concept at the time and tomes having low might (this counteracts enemies having no resistance)

** DoubleSubverted in some later games, where they do gain experience from healing, but it's so low unless you go out of your way to train them they'll still trail far under the rest of the team. Other games avoid this by allowing to LevelGrind, using Bonus Experience on them or simply [[GameBreaker making staffs give tons of Exp]].

* Averted for the most part in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' and the sequels, where any successful action performed grants experience, based on the level difference of the user and the target(s). Offensive classes do have a slight edge as killing an enemy gives more EXP.

** In the first game, healers did not gain experience from healing, but instead would get it from ''being hit''. They got as much as with a kill, so with a HP-recovering terrain such as a fortress nearby, they could [[LevelGrind Boss Abuse]] and get to a high level fast. Would count as a GameBreaker if all the healers of the first game didn't have low-ass growths...

** The sixth game had this problem not with the healers, but with the merchant, a squishy NonActionGuy. He can only gain Exp (1 point at a time) by surviving an enemy attack, and it takes 100 to level up. Game seven fixes this by giving him a full level every time he survives a mission, making it possible to promote him to a mobile cart by late game without ever putting him harm's way.

As a corollary to that system, the healer class is screwed over. Not built for offense, the healer is not going to be able to "last hit" enemies well. As a result, he will be particularly stubborn to level up. In a multiplayer game, expect players to attempt to play a DeadlyDoctor, or to avoid the class altogether. In strategy games, a typical loophole is softening the target with strong attackers and then allowing a weak support/specialist unit [[CherryTapping to make one last killing blow]].

** The first game had this, as healers did not gain experience from healing, but instead would get it from ''being hit''. They got as much as with a kill, so with a HP-recovering terrain such as a fortress nearby, they could [[LevelGrind Boss Abuse]] and get to a high level fast. Would count as a GameBreaker if all the healers of the first game didn't have low-ass growths...
** The second game, ''Gaiden'', also prevented healers from gaining experience through healing. The good news, though, is that healers started with Nosferatu, a somewhat inaccurate LifeDrain spell that ''did'' grant experience, and eventually learned a more accurate attack spell when they promoted.

[[folder: 4X]]

[[folder: First Person Shooter ]]

[[folder: [=MMORPGs=] ]]

[[folder: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena ]]

[[folder: Real Time Strategy ]]

[[folder: Role Playing Game ]]

[[folder: Simulation ]]

[[folder: Third Person Shooter ]]

[[folder: Turn Based Strategy ]]

* The first ''FireEmblem'' had this, as healers did not gain experience from healing, but instead would get it from ''being hit''. They got as much as with a kill, so with a HP-recovering terrain such as a fortress nearby, they could [[LevelGrind Boss Abuse]] and get to a high level fast. Would count as a GameBreaker if all the healers of the first game didn't have low-ass growths...

* Averted in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', where even a relatively inexperienced medic can easily reach the top of the scoreboard[[note]]normally it's one "point" per kill and half a point for an assist[[/note]] just by focusing on healing and gaining assists from kills made by other characters being healed[[note]]Medics get one point every 600 health they heal, which is chump change[[/note]].

** Originally, the skill rankings systems used in matchmaking would undervalue the medics if the team was doing to well (and thus needed less healing), which could give even a very cooperative team a wide spread of ratings. This was eventually fixed.

* Zigzagged in ''{{VideoGame/Overwatch}}''. It's pretty common for Support classes to rank high on the scoreboard for healing, even passive healing like Lucio's, but earning Play of the Game is much more skewed. Some, like Mercy, tend to earn it to a disproportionately high degree thanks to her powerful Resurrection ultimate. Others, like Ana or Symmetra (until the latter's range and durability was buffed), rarely earn it because they deal relatively low damage and their ultimates rely entirely on teammates doing well by receiving it.

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombiesGardenWarfare'' gives characters objectives they need to meet in order to level up; this includes healing. In addition, simply healing others earns smaller monatary rewards.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}'' as healers gain ''more'' points for healing team-mates than killing foes or capturing points and these points are important as it lets players buy match upgrades to get better bonuses, rewarding a player who sticks to their class's strong points. As of update OB 67, healers will gain asisst kills if their healing targets kill an enemy.

[[folder: MMORPGs ]]

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}'' as healers gain ''more'' points for healing team-mates than killing foes or capturing points and these points are important as it lets players buy match upgrades to get better bonuses, rewarding a player who sticks to their class's strong points.

* Averted in ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' for ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'', ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', and ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' due to how the leveling system works. If the player choses to have Restoration as a major skill, they would have to actually use it to be able to put points into it to add up to the limit to level up. However, since Restoration is a mostly passive, healing type of magic and the spells need to affect a target to be counted as "used" it's far more difficult to use and level.

* ''TransformersWarForCybertron'': Scientists get no steady source of XP for healing teammates.

* ''ShiningForce'' plays this pretty straight with the staff-wielding healers, but the monk characters avoid this by having respectable attack power as well as healing magic. This is especially true in the second game, in which Master Monks are very powerful melee fighters. The second game also awards huge amounts of experience for each Cure spell cast, making the healers level up ''faster'' than everyone else.

** The sixth game had this problem not with the healers, but with the merchant, an immobile squishy NonActionGuy. He can only gain Exp (1 point at a time) by surviving an enemy attack, and it takes 100 to level up. Game seven fixes this by giving him a full level every time he survives a mission, making it possible to promote him to a mobile cart by late game without ever putting him harm's way.

** The second game, ''Gaiden'', also prevented healers from gaining experience through healing. The good news, though, is that healers started with an attack spell that ''did'' grant experience, although its inaccuracy could still make healers difficult to level.

* Averted in ''MechWarrior Living Legends''. Players detecting enemies and then forwarding their location via a C3 computer system are granted C-bills every time a new enemy is detected, or when a detected enemy on C3 takes damage. Players using the TAG laser guidance system or the NARC missile beacon are granted a percentage of the reward C-bills every time another player's missile hits the target. Players driving the AwesomePersonnelCarrier receive C-bills every time a player spawns at it, buys weapons, or ammo from it.

* Averted in the first ''VideoGame/Persona'' game. Experience is distributed among the characters depending on how much they contributed in battle. So if a character kills all enemies with one multi-target spell before anyone else gets a turn, they'll hog most of the experience points while everyone else gets the bare minimum (which really screws over characters with low agility making them several levels lower than everyone else). Multi-target skills and attacks also net more experience than single-target ones, but ''that applies to healing and support abilities too''. So a character can still hog most of the experience if they spam party-wide healing and buffs while everyone else uses single-target attacks.

* Completely inverted in ''{{Warhammer Online}}'' - you will gain influence, renown and experience for killing enemies or assisting, but healers will get a portion of the rewards by healing those who dealt the damage, depending on how much is healed. Not only do you get rewards during the fighting, but by healing an ally who has ''recently'' gained rewards you also get bonuses, meaning that by throwing heals on random allies who are coming back from a battle will give points. Considering that an {{Area of Effect}} heal that restores 10% health to 5 allies in will give the healer roughly 10% of the spoils that each ally just received, ''per heal'', it's no surprise that healers are always the top classes when it comes to the charts of earned XP and renown at the end of a scenario.