G-give it Back T---T; !! (Scholar Edition)

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

How is anyone meant to take the discussion seriously when your point of comparison is the bloody death penalty of all things??? You're not going to die if you have to press a third button every 15-20 seconds or so as part of your MMO gameplay

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I completely glossed over that actually. Yeah, that is an absolutely insane comparison. You cannot say that whether or not your gameplay revolves around doing damage or providing buffs would be like asking someone to choose which form of lethal torture they would more willingly endure. This total rejection of even the smallest inch time and time again is getting exhausting. Roe's White Mage suggestion that deals 97% of the total potential damage when someone chooses to instead Glare spam will cause people to die to enrages, adding a new gauge element to White Mage's flower cane is too overwhelming, any use of additional cooldowns, resources, or DoTs is somehow all the same and would ruin a healer, having a simplistic branching combo is too many choices... It's all getting out of hand. These are not torture, they are normal expectations of MMO design.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I disagree. If people like a thing, then it's worth having it represented in the game if it can be done fairly and in a way balanced (in throughput/output) with others (that is, WHM Glarespam shouldn't be out-damaging other healers, it should be doing comparable damage; we see in cases like Tanks what happens when the balance is broken).

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But consider what that thing is. It's not "I want more to heal" but literally just "No one should be allowed more downtime agency than I, personally, want to optimize." That's not a desire for one's own gameplay. That's a desire to curtail others'.

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AND: That's your subjective opinion, not a factual statement. And has nothing at all to do with whether or not there are Tanks out there that want to be FF13 Sentinels that spam Flash and only do damage through Counter.

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I haven't said otherwise. But then, pray tell, is your subjective-factual opinion-statement, or what have you, as to why a group of players merely demanding what OTHER players NOT be allowed should influence healer design?


For the upteenth-and-one time now, players can use less than an entire kit. If I don't want to bother optimizing Dissipation, I do not have to; its contribution is nowhere remotely close to making a difference to my likelihood of clearing. Asking for more to the kit does not force players to use more. Players cannot, however, use more than what kit exists. Asking for less to the kit does force players to use less.

We do not presently have nearly enough downtime agency to fit the amount of healing required, and even if we increased healing requirements such that casual content would gatekeep healers harder than the most healing-intensive Ultimates do now, there would still be significant downtime among better players. And yet there is no cost to allowing those better players more to do in that downtime.

Call those actions simply downtime actions or rDPS or split them into "Direct Damage" and "Indirect Damage" or into "Damage" and "Buffs" or what have you, but the fact of the matter is that if you want engagement for both your more skilled and less skilled players, you're going to need to tap into that more flexible output. It can't be healing alone, and even with some triple or greater the healing requirements the ceiling to that downtime should not be as low as it is presently.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

This total rejection of even the smallest inch time and time again is getting exhausting. Roe's White Mage suggestion that deals 97% of the total potential damage when someone chooses to instead Glare spam will cause people to die to enrages, adding a new gauge element to White Mage's flower cane is too overwhelming, any use of additional cooldowns, resources, or DoTs is somehow all the same and would ruin a healer, having a simplistic branching combo is too many choices... It's all getting out of hand. These are not torture, they are normal expectations of MMO design.

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This is what I'm trying to work out about the stance. Like, if we got a SGE that has it's 'optional complexity' entirely folded into Kardia and Augmentation effect optimizations, with E.Prognosis remaining as 'the panic button/option for more casual players to fall back on', is that acceptable? The DPS rotation wouldn't necessarily need to change at all, as where 'optimizing SCH' for example would be 'have perfect uptime on DOTs, replace Aetherflow heals with other stuff to get more Energy Drains' etc, damage button related methods to optimize, then SGE's 'optimization' would be in reverse: You can easily optimize the damage kit, as it's as barebones as it is now. But the process of taking E.Prognosis casts out of your cast timeline, the thing we think is the 'first step to optimizing a healer', would instead become the final barrier. I think it'd be interesting, at least, especially if the output of the Kardia kit is balanced in such a way that it's not actually 100% possible to get to 'zero GCDs spent on healing'. So you'd have to suck it up and use at least one, somewhere, and then the question is 'where does that one GCD go'.

I remember seeing a vid from Momo about how he and his coheal got the combined rank 1 for O12S, with a total of 4 GCDs spent on heals between the two of them. I don't remember thinking 'lol still 4 to go idiots', I remember being mindboggled at their tech. Using a Super-Potion because they had a fast enough killtime to only have 2 potions anyway, or 'use a Succor for this raidwide, then Deploy the same Succor off the fairy (who is not hit by raidwides, but does get Succor for some reason)

The question is, if the OPTIONAL complexity of SGE goes up on the healing side of things, with a reliable fallback for the causal players in case of emergency (Prognosis being 0 MP cost for example), and the damage kit is the same as now, does that work for the 4 healers thing, because my understanding is 'no, because there is a way for the skilled players to make the less skilled players look bad at the game by comparison'. Everything about the '4 healers' thing seems (to me) to be an attempt to make less skilled players get the same results as skilled players, not by improving the performance of the 'skill floor' level of gameplay, but by hamstringing the 'skill ceiling' level of gameplay so it can't get too far ahead. Happy to be proven wrong

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It's all getting out of hand. These are not torture, they are normal expectations of MMO design.

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On the topic of hands though... AST sure does 'torture' my hands, doing that opener over and over for reclears /s

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

This is what I'm trying to work out about the stance. Like, if we got a SGE that has it's 'optional complexity' entirely folded into Kardia and Augmentation effect optimizations, with E.Prognosis remaining as 'the panic button/option for more casual players to fall back on', is that acceptable?

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Slightly tangential, but... how much would be impacted if, say, players again had to level some other classes to unlock the "jump to lv70" jobs, etc., such that those trying SGE would already have had some experience with healing? Or at least... forced some minor degree of training (perhaps increased if that's their first healer)?

Would we still need to give each healer a "baby's first healer" way out?

I'm all for accessible floors, but it seems likely to be a redundant requirement to have every healer rely on an "out" via the most obvious means possible.

Just a thought.

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On the topic of hands though... AST sure does 'torture' my hands, doing that opener over and over for reclears /s

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I feel like AST is the counterexample to any/every claim that XIV has wholly sufficient controller control schemes.

One related idea, from another thread:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

How about, say, Compass / Party-Wheel Targeting?

Steps:

1. Un-neuter macros and allow [st] / [soft] / [softtarget] as targeting options for abilities. Additionally, allow targeting procedures (such as [on-release], [@cursor], [@mouseover], [@UI, etc.] to be attached directly to skills via the Actions and Traits Pane.
2. Allow players to simultaneously hold a Soft Target and "Hard" Target, perhaps with a UI component added for said Soft Target.
   
   
3. Allow for a "Party Wheel", with a fair few sub-options. This places a radial display at the bottom of your screen that allow you to select, via joystick or D-PAD (but using Top, Top-and-Right, Right, etc., instead of having to list-cycle), the target of your next soft-targeted ability from a wheel of party members. What else is displayed in your Party Wheel is highly configurable, but let's say there's at least contextual display of icons (e.g., cleansable effects, who all has shield HP greater than what you could produce with a non-crit, and highlighting Melee DPS and, in a more subdued color, your tank when drawing a Melee Card) and compact option for HP display either as a compact bar, section divider bar, or as a background.
   
   Optional center section (no D-PAD selection / no joystick nudge) into which you can place self, hard target, focus target, or a trickle-down through them in custom order (casting Malefic with hard target > self > focus would cast it on the Focus; casting Asp. Benefic with hard target > self > focus would cast on self if target isn't friendly; etc.).
   
   
4. [OPTIONAL]No longer require a target to be set before beginning a cast and give the option to swap to new targets mid-cast if/when applicable (yes, this greatly helps prehealing against random-target mechanics, but that doesn't seem so awful).
5. [OPTIONAL]Allow for a "prevent movement while holding button on casted actions" option, so that people can use their movement key to aim while they cast.

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Simpler version: Allow players to hit a button that temporarily allows DPAD to select party members directly, with each among P1-P8 having a cardinal or semi-cardinal direction.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Slightly tangential, but... how much would be impacted if, say, players again had to level some other classes to unlock the "jump to lv70" jobs, etc., such that those trying SGE would already have had some experience with healing? Or at least... forced some minor degree of training (perhaps increased if that's their first healer)?

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Isn't that what the solo instance in the job quest right after unlocking the job is meant to be for? Whether said solo instance actually teaches the player effectively is a different question

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Simpler version: Allow players to hit a button that temporarily allows DPAD to select party members directly, with each among P1-P8 having a cardinal or semi-cardinal direction.

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I'd do it with Right Stick, dpads can be weird with intercardinals sometimes (I find it especially weird with the Xbox dpad). Letting go of the 'activation' button while holding a direction selects that party member, letting go while holding no direction on the stick (neutral position) cancels the retarget command. So it'd be, for example, 'hold R2, move right stick to up-left to select that player, let go of R2', or some such. Sounds convoluted to explain but in execution it'd be pretty fluid, I think. For M/KB, it can bring up a menu where your mouse cursor is, and you just drag your mouse in the direction you choose to select. Or just don't cos M/KB can select party members way more directly via the list, whichever

My stance is basically this: The healers should, for the most part, mirror the tanks in regards to how they approach offense with slightly fewer, yet more readily available options for healing tools (i.e. some combination of shorter cooldowns, charges, and shared resources like the lilies).

WHM: Reflects a midpoint between Warrior and Paladin complexity. Methodical, but designed to be very forgiving.
SCH: Reflects Dark Knight complexity. Make Aetherflow all about damage and somewhat bursty while Fey Gauge is all about healing, but with a way to convert Aetherflow to Fey Gauge in emergencies.
SGE: Reflects Gunbreaker complexity. Feels like a mini DPS. Shift gears away from Addersgall as your main source of healing and toward Kardia instead.

AST: Does not reflect any tank. AST is a support engine builder who spends their GCD setting up engines for healing, for offensive buffs, and for utility to detonate as needed while generating DPS for other players to execute with a reworked Synastry similar to Dance Partner or Kardia. Can still do this themselves while soloing, and perhaps their buffs become attacks when you apply that Synastry to yourself for the purposes of soloing. Weaker than supporting your team, but useful for solo duties and deep dungeons.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

SCH: Reflects Dark Knight complexity. Make Aetherflow all about damage and somewhat bursty while Fey Gauge is all about healing, but with a way to convert Aetherflow to Fey Gauge in emergencies.

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Isn't that just a clunkier way of, in essence, having a single gauge with twice the (means of) generation, that can be spent on both offense and defense?

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SGE: Reflects Gunbreaker complexity. Feels like a mini DPS. Shift gears away from Addersgall as your main source of healing and toward Kardia instead.

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I'm hoping this allows a fair bit of flexible timing in said DPS and a Kardia that actually scales with DPS instead of solely one's GCD speed?

Otherwise, these sound... probably fine? Not especially sold on WHM being "methodical" (since in XIV that usually means inflexible / turning all but one GCD option into solely a finger-trap for 2-3 GCDs at a time), but yeah, I could get behind the rough idea for each.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Isn't that just a clunkier way of, in essence, having a single gauge with twice the (means of) generation, that can be spent on both offense and defense?


I'm hoping this allows a fair bit of flexible timing in said DPS and a Kardia that actually scales with DPS instead of solely one's GCD speed?

Otherwise, these sound... probably fine? Not especially sold on WHM being "methodical" (since in XIV that usually means inflexible / turning all but one GCD option into solely a finger-trap for 2-3 GCDs at a time), but yeah, I could get behind the rough idea for each.

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Oh we can cut out the exchange tool.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

The question is, if the OPTIONAL complexity of SGE goes up on the healing side of things, with a reliable fallback for the causal players in case of emergency (Prognosis being 0 MP cost for example), and the damage kit is the same as now, does that work for the 4 healers thing

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I've pitched the same thing and asked this exact question before in another thread. He never gave me an answer, maybe he'll give you one.

Anyway, I have a 4 healers model of my own:
WHM - Powerhouse turret that can outdamage a tank if allowed to
SCH - DoT, fairy and resource management, should be the ultimate spreadsheet job
AST - Bring back a focus on buff management so large that we don't even realise we only have Combust and Malefic
SGE - Give more healing interactions with the damage kit through Eukrasia/Kardia or any such new abilities, become a dps healer not in the sense of having a lot of dps tools, but in the sense of doing your healing through dps

And there you have it, 4 different styles of healer with different complexity considerations, WHM (movement), SCH (resources), AST (buff management), SGE (healing considerations), and none of them are "Help, I tripped over the skill ceiling".

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Every job in the game needs...

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So a couple things:

1) What Jobs NEED is an audience and to be at least somewhat suited to the playerbase - that is, to be fun. What that is varies from person to person, so each Job in the game should appeal to a swath of people. There may be some overlap with others, but the idea is to cover as many general preferences as possible so everyone has something they kinda like. Like we have BLM for people that like complex Caster Jobs with fight knowledge optimization. There are some other Jobs for people that like Casters, people that like complex, and people that like fight optimization, but they aren't all BLM with different animations. And there are also Jobs that appeal to people who don't like Casters, don't like fight knowledge optimization, and don't like complexity, or that like some but not all of those things.

2) Healing can - and even has been earlier in FFXIV's history - the neutral state, and has been in other MMOs. Very clearly, it's POSSIBLE to design a game that way, and this one once was. Whether you think it's likely or preferable or not is a worthwhile discussion, but it's very much in the realm of possible.

3) Healer #4 does exist - you're moving the goalposts. "No one thins this state is the best possible state of healers". Where did I say "best possible state"? I said "Some people like things as they are". At least don't shift the goalposts dishonestly. There are legitimately some players do NOT want to see things change. And also, no, I don't prefer to never press my DPS spell at all. And I've said this enough times by now, I'm somewhat shocked you still are wrong in your belief of my position...

4) Not everyone likes "set up and execute" Jobs. I know you do, but I generally don't. The only times I do is if it feels good to execute, which is a pretty moving target and requires it to be optimal. For example, I like Recitation Adlo Deploy. But it's always suboptimal and not damage neutral, thus I dislike it. In short, you didn't make a Job for people like me. You made a Job for people like you who are stand-ins for what you think people like me are/should be.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Love that my semi-sarcastic implication of...

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Well...

A) Poe's law.

B) Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were posting/arguing in good faith and assumed so. Should I assume bad faith posts from you as the standard going forward instead?

C) Ah, I see, instead of getting the point, you'd rather argue about how I made the point. Pretty sure that's one (or multiple) logical fallacies...

D) The "4 healers thing" is compatible with that; the only things it's not compatible with are (a) if every Job is the same (either as we are now or moving to all be a different same) and (b) doesn't have options for the people who dislike the kit/all have the same general playstyle and focus. You seem not to understand what the 4 Healers Model is, despite me explaining it, including in simple terms, so many times... Also, "5 Healers Model" would just mean "the new Job isn't identical to any of the existing Jobs", which should be the expectation, yes. Should it not?

E) Agree with your response to Ty, I think, though I'd note that different players like different things. There are some that loved SB SCH and some that hated it and played AST and WHM because they hated it. Again, the goal should be to make the healer Jobs different. Because different players like different things.

F) Not entirely untrue on the redesign argument, though...though that doesn't explain all of #4, only some. In my case, as I've said before, I genuinely believe WHM in EW is the best iteration of the Job in FFXIV's history. It's the first time the Job has ever not been hostile to new players (Cleric), MP functional (instead of incarnations that literally cannot do long encounters without running out of MP), doesn't have incredibly stupid systems like SB Lilies (remember when you had to cast Cure 1/2 on people to generate them? AND TO interact with Plenary?!). ShB was nearly the same, and I did like its Thin Air better, but Lilies are now actually damage neutral and WHM in EW is really just ShB's WHM with iterative improvement. I don't believe that of SCH and AST (SGE is obviously just the one), but I absolutely believe that of WHM. But also, that 6.0 WHM was in a bad way, and so don't entirely trust changes to be...good. Especially when we already have a thing that works really well and I find really fun to play. I'd personally make a few changes, but minor ones. But I like it as it is vs all the alternatives, and so am happy with it staying as such.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I completely glossed over that actually. Yeah, that is an absolutely insane comparison.

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Good GOD you guys are terrible. FINE I'll come up with a different example, gee-zus! You wonder why I get annoyed with you. This kind of BS is why. Especially since we ARE talking about effectively killing off Jobs. But whatever:

Imagine you offer someone sushi and they tell you they don't like raw food. So you offer them sushi and salad, not understanding they didn't say they don't like raw SEAFOOD, but RAW FOODS in general.

You think you've offered them something to meet their needs, but you haven't, because you aren't actually listening to them, and/or you think you know better. But then you say you're offering them a thing that they'll like and seem confused when they say it is not what they like. And that's if we're just considering 2 groups of people.

Stop getting so locked onto a tree that you ignore someone explaining the forest to you. Both of you. It's like the Centaurs in Harry Potter when asked any question of importance:

<look up at the sky>
"The stars are very pretty tonight, aren't they?"

Someone inclined to believe others act in bad faith MIGHT be inclined to think you do it intentionally to avoid getting the actual point, which is obvious to you and something against which you have no defense... <_<

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But consider what that thing is. It's not "I want more to heal" but literally just "No one should be allowed more downtime agency than I, personally, want to optimize."

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Except it's not.

That would be if I was demanding ALL FOUR HEALER JOBS be the exact same so there's nothing that others can do during downtime. Which it's not since I'm not asking for that.

"But for this one Job..!" BUT YOU'RE DEMANDING YOUR CHANGES FOR ALL FOUR. So no, YOU are doing that, I am the one NOT doing that.

NO ONE is saying YOU are not allowed to optimize things or have more/different downtime gameplay. All I'm asking is that YOU not get to force YOUR preferred downtime solution ON ME. You're literally doing the thing you're accusing me of doing while I'm the one person NOT doing that.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

The question is, if the OPTIONAL complexity of SGE goes up on the healing side of things, with a reliable fallback for the causal players in case of emergency (Prognosis being 0 MP cost for example), and the damage kit is the same as now, does that work for the 4 healers thing,

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Yes, it is. As long as it's not something that all 4 healer Jobs are doing and as long as there's an option left (one of the other Jobs) for people that like current healer design better.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

because my understanding is 'no, because there is a way for the skilled players to make the less skilled players look bad at the game by comparison'.

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This is because you DON'T understand the 4 Healers Model, despite me explaining it - including to you specifically - multiple times. You keep preferring your caricature of it to the reality because that caricature is something you can easily defeat. It's a strawman fallacy that you, for whatever reason, don't want to give up. The 4 Healers Model has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with "skilled players" making others "look bad at the game". NOTHING. That is, in exactly NO WAY, a part or component of it. Never has been. And I've even told you this before, I think. Directly.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

I've pitched the same thing and asked this exact question before in another thread. He never gave me an answer, maybe he'll give you one.

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I just did.

And I've answered this question before. You'll have to point me to that exact thread, but someone (I thought it was you) accused me of not answering before and I directly answered (I already had, but I made it far more explicit and direct), and it was just ignored.

You can't ignore when someone answers something or has answered it over and over again and accuse them of refusing to do so when they literally have.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

And there you have it, 4 different styles of healer with different complexity considerations, WHM (movement), SCH (resources), AST (buff management), SGE (healing considerations), and none of them are "Help, I tripped over the skill ceiling".

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And which of those is someone who likes healers right now going to like?

Because I find none of them likeable.

I don't care for BLM, so I'd hate WHM that is "BLM but healer". I generally dislike resource Jobs, but especially if the resources seem tacked on or highly limiting how much you can engage with the fun abilities of the kit. Buff management can be interesting, but isn't my preference (in EQ terms, I prefer a Cleric to a Bard or Enchanter, I guess). And SGE sounds less like "healing considerations" and more like "heals by doing damage Discipline Priest", which is fine for SGE to be and I support SGE becoming...but I wouldn't enjoy.

So which of your four healers is for people like me? Right now, seems none of them.

Meanwhile, my suggestion is for 3 for people like you and 1 for people like me.

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It's fine for there to be some you like. And some you don't like. It's not fine to take away all of them from people who like what they are right now.