#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

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Originally Posted by Saraide

So let me try to get what you are suggesting healers do.
You think:
-healers should provide feedback in the proper channels
-stop playing healers so the devs are confronted with low healer rates and will then connect it with the feedback from the proper channels

Did I get that right?

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"It's not a problem."
"If it is, it isn't that bad."
"If it is that bad, it isn't a big deal, just a small minority."
"If it is a big deal, you brought this upon yourselves."

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

From my understanding, the reason Yoshi is resistant to the idea of giving healers a full damage dealing rotation is it would result in players neglecting their healing abilities and also lead to players being put under social pressure to deal damage more than their skill level may allow.

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Just make all heals oGCD and all DPS GCD so this situation becomes impossible. Not using healing GCDs is already meta, why not design proper resource system around it? I am not sure if there is some game engine limitation that would prevent oGCD costing MP if this is needed.

The fact this is still going actually blows my mind and is somehow getting more and more entertaining.

I personally have nothing to say on the whole matter of how healers are. I like them as they are now and I will like them as they will be. it's a game, not a job, just have fun!

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Originally Posted by Airah_Lith

The fact this is still going actually blows my mind and is somehow getting more and more entertaining.

I personally have nothing to say on the whole matter of how healers are. I like them as they are now and I will like them as they will be. it's a game, not a job, just have fun!

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https://i.ibb.co/54NdH87/Untitled.png

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

This indicated that (at least) up to 2021 Yoshi has been aware of Healers and their feedback but they just didn't think that those changes were needed for their vision of the jobs role.
So they haven't ignored feedback for 5+ years, as some have brought up.
And I'm sure they have seen feedback post 2021 as well and most likely still not seen those as needed.

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I'm assuming that era is where he said "Just play ultimates" which totally misses the point when it comes to why people dislike the current healing model.

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Originally Posted by Airah_Lith

The fact this is still going actually blows my mind and is somehow getting more and more entertaining.

I personally have nothing to say on the whole matter of how healers are. I like them as they are now and I will like them as they will be. it's a game, not a job, just have fun!

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Games are supposed to be fun. Of which there is no objective definition as what constitutes as fun.

Some people would like an instant win button to feel like they are playing the almighty. Some others would like a modicum of gameplay. Some others would like to also have a shred of opportunity to engage with their toolkit.

The funny thing about this? None of them require turning the game into a job. A 15 minute encounter is not a job, and no amount of stretching will change this fact.

Same few people still bumping the thread? Good job!

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Originally Posted by PintyMcEars

Same few people still bumping the thread? Good job!

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I suppose people should thank you for your valiant contribution in this endeavor?

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm assuming that era is where he said "Just play ultimates" which totally misses the point when it comes to why people dislike the current healing model.

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Earliest I could find is from 2022, so yeah, it's from the same era.
It seems like he and the team simply wanted to keep the Healer as stress-free as possible for newcommers and so on.
There was the time when Healers who didn't utilize their DPS skills (they had more before) kept getting complaints from others as they didn't fully do their part.
And it seems that SE simply decided to cut the DPS so they could focus on the healing.

Problem with that is that the combat isn't engaging enough for healers to use those skills regularely.
The Healer jobs toolkit is build upon groups failing mechanics and so on.
Might've worked better before, when not every single attack a boss does (except Auto Attacks) were marked out.
There's little to no room for mistakes these days in group content.
Heck, even Savage and Ultimate runs on clockwork rotations so as long as people knows them they can avoid everything but room wide damages and a couple few mechanics that involved taking damage.
And as someone brought up before, in those harder content, if someone makes a mistake it's often a 1-shot mechanic and if a person died at the wrong time there's no saving it.
So that leaves even less room for a healer to actually try and do their job and save the run.

I can understand Yoshi's and the teams desire to keep the stress on new healers to a minimum.
But even if the combat itself during group content was a bit more challenging in terms of incoming damage, said healers would still only have to focus on healing.
As Yoshi and the team wanted them to.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

I suppose people should thank you for your valiant contribution in this endeavor?

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would be nice, yes

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

https://i.postimg.cc/zv0f8yvP/SE-Tol...k-to-forum.png

: p e p e g a :

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Please actually read the entire thing...instead of underlining a portion of it. IT IS LITERALLY right on there....there's only three sentences, read!
But I guess trolls can't bother reading things it seems, or else they would understand the healer issues and stop these L takes. Either that or a lack of reading comprehension...I am not sure.


https://i.ibb.co/wJk3gBj/readplease.png

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

Earliest I could find is from 2022, so yeah, it's from the same era.
It seems like he and the team simply wanted to keep the Healer as stress-free as possible for newcommers and so on.
There was the time when Healers who didn't utilize their DPS skills (they had more before) kept getting complaints from others as they didn't fully do their part.
And it seems that SE simply decided to cut the DPS so they could focus on the healing.

Problem with that is that the combat isn't engaging enough for healers to use those skills regularely.
The Healer jobs toolkit is build upon groups failing mechanics and so on.
Might've worked better before, when not every single attack a boss does (except Auto Attacks) were marked out.
There's little to no room for mistakes these days in group content.
Heck, even Savage and Ultimate runs on clockwork rotations so as long as people knows them they can avoid everything but room wide damages and a couple few mechanics that involved taking damage.
And as someone brought up before, in those harder content, if someone makes a mistake it's often a 1-shot mechanic and if a person died at the wrong time there's no saving it.
So that leaves even less room for a healer to actually try and do their job and save the run.

I can understand Yoshi's and the teams desire to keep the stress on new healers to a minimum.
But even if the combat itselves during group content was a bit more challenging in terms of incoming damage, said healers would still only have to focus on healing.
As Yoshi and the team wanted them to.

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There are a lot more body checks now but that doesn't mean that skill isn't there. In Strength of the Ward you can use the fact that anyone you raise stands up at the position you cast the rase, and place them in a tower, which you can do either as a side flare by putting them in your tower and running to the missing stack tower or as a member of the two stack itself (with targeted gcd shields to live). People claim Strength is an 8-man check, and it is, but that doesn't mean you can't recover from a death.

This is one little example, there are many. There's also plenty of transcendence and limit break tech to know. Heck if a lot of people died in golbez extreme before the knockback towers you could deliberately jump off and get a pending raise to get lb3 out since that fail condition is only damage and doesn't go through immunity.

There are more recovery modes than people realize, but that would imply the healer class actually is interesting I suppose.

A point of note rather than anything else, but it is interesting to read this thread and then read the 'Tales from the Duty Finder' threads both here and on the various social media platforms.

- On one hand you have this thread, where good points are being made amongst the bickering.
- On the other hand you have the various aforementioned 'Tales from the Duty Finder' threads with posts describing experiences of Healers who clearly struggled with the role - a quick look on Reddit brings up a current (at the time of this post) thread about a run of 'The Dead Ends' where the Sage in the OP's instance wasn't using dyskrasia, phlegma or pneuma (and as a side note the Reaper didn't use Enshroud at all, so it isn't just Healers).

I mean, I do understand where those who support this strike are coming from - but there does seem to be a vast amount of territory that lies between the extremes of 'Healers are not Necessary' and the demonstrable difficulty some players (who're not here voicing their opinions) have playing Healer jobs.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

A point of note rather than anything else, but it is interesting to read this thread and then read the 'Tales from the Duty Finder' threads both here and on the various social media platforms.

- On one hand you have this thread, where good points are being made amongst the bickering.
- On the other hand you have the various aforementioned 'Tales from the Duty Finder' threads with posts describing experiences of Healers who clearly struggled with the role - a quick look on Reddit brings up a current (at the time of this post) thread about a run of 'The Dead Ends' where the Sage in the OP's instance wasn't using dyskrasia, phlegma or pneuma (and as a side note the Reaper didn't use Enshroud at all, so it isn't just Healers).

I mean, I do understand where those who support this strike are coming from - but there does seem to be a vast amount of territory that lies between the extremes of 'Healers are not Necessary' and the demonstrable difficulty some players (who're not here voicing their opinions) have playing Healer jobs.

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Sure there exists a vastness between reaching the final destination and starting out...but there should be the tools there to get you to the final destination and the tools there once you reach it. Healers don't have that...in any regard...Once a healer understands their job at its core, they realize healing holds very little responsibility...where they are only left with their lackluster one dps button...no extra bells or whistles, no extra rotation, nothing.

As per your example, you can have the tools needed, and not know how to use them yet (as with your example with the RPR), and yet still clear the content. That's what healers should also have...where healing is expanded in higher expansions so you creep into learning the role while also having a more fun varying down time after figuring out how your role can be spread out.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

So let me try to get what you are suggesting healers do.
You think:
-healers should provide feedback in the proper channels
-stop playing healers so the devs are confronted with low healer rates and will then connect it with the feedback from the proper channels

Did I get that right?

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Isn't that what was suggested in the first place?

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

A point of note rather than anything else, but it is interesting to read this thread and then read the 'Tales from the Duty Finder' threads both here and on the various social media platforms.

- On one hand you have this thread, where good points are being made amongst the bickering.
- On the other hand you have the various aforementioned 'Tales from the Duty Finder' threads with posts describing experiences of Healers who clearly struggled with the role - a quick look on Reddit brings up a thread about a run of 'The Dead Ends' where the Sage in the OP's instance wasn't using dyskrasia, phlegma or pneuma (and as a side note the Reaper didn't use Enshroud at all, so it isn't just Healers).

I mean, I do understand where those who support this strike are coming from - but there does seem to be a vast amount of territory that lies between the extremes of 'Healers are not Necessary' and the demonstrable difficulty some players (who're not here voicing their opinions) have playing Healer jobs.

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I think this is why we need casual content to be designed in a way that makes healers necessary but not too difficult (e.g. by frequent low-level damage that, if untreated, adds up and exceeds the non-healers self-heals/mit, but can easily be patched up. As a result it woud require you to use more healing instead of your sinlge button damage spell) and perhaps add some casual-specific safety nets into normal mode content (I keep on harping on variant-dungeon style resses but there can be other things too of course) instead of trying to engineer the safety into the kit itself by making it as easy as possible.

Alternatively if that is not possible I still think a better DPS rotation can be a good compromise. Like this the difficulty could stay as is and healers that are still learning/struggling could clear it as they do now, but seasoned healers would at least get more to do than spamming 1.

Imo the game also doesn't do a good job at communication due to its lack of proper tutorials.
If you have a complex kit then it should still be possible to run casual content in a way that doesn't require you to use it optimally at all to clear it.
If this was communicated properly in the game or if it was "common knowledge" in the community (bc I think for many who don't engage in FF14 social media it might not be) then complex kit designs might feel less overwhelming and anxiety-inducing to casual players. They could be assured that they don't need to use of all of it.

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Isn't that what was suggested in the first place?

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So since we finished stage 1 of this two stage plan 6 years ago what’s the opposition to starting stage 2

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Originally Posted by Katish

Please actually read the entire thing...instead of underlining a portion of it. IT IS LITERALLY right on there....there's only three sentences, read!
But I guess trolls can't bother reading things it seems, or else they would understand the healer issues and stop these L takes. Either that or a lack of reading comprehension...I am not sure.


https://i.ibb.co/wJk3gBj/readplease.png

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Hey, that's lovely. Perhaps I should've never added that red underline to begin with. They are to indicate that it is in SE's own written words that they're -asking- for our feedback. I'm not saying I'm/people only reading what was underlined.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Hey, that's lovely. Perhaps I should've never added that red underline to begin with. They are to indicate that it is in SE's own written words that they're -asking- for our feedback. I'm not saying I'm/people only reading what was underlined.

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They quoted you, but I think the answer was aimed to this one :

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Originally Posted by 1313

Look, someone gets it! aaaaamaaaazing

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Originally Posted by Hellebore_Ghrian

They quoted you, but I think the answer was aimed to this one :

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Yes it was aimed toward that one, sorry for any misunderstanding.

People are using the forums for the reason they exist and now people who don't usually come to the forums are telling them how to use them lmao.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

I think this is why we need casual content to be designed in a way that makes healers necessary but not too difficult (e.g. by frequent low-level damage that, if untreated, adds up and exceeds the non-healers self-heals/mit, but can easily be patched up. As a result it woud require you to use more healing instead of your sinlge button damage spell) and perhaps add some casual-specific safety nets into normal mode content (I keep on harping on variant-dungeon style resses but there can be other things too of course) instead of trying to engineer the safety into the kit itself by making it as easy as possible.

Alternatively if that is not possible I still think a better DPS rotation can be a good compromise. Like this the difficulty could stay as is and healers that are still learning/struggling could clear it as they do now, but seasoned healers would at least get more to do than spamming 1.

Imo the game also doesn't do a good job at communication due to its lack of proper tutorials.
If you have a complex kit then it should still be possible to run casual content in a way that doesn't require you to use it optimally at all to clear it.
If this was communicated properly in the game or if it was "common knowledge" in the community (bc I think for many who don't engage in FF14 social media it might not be) then complex kit designs might feel less overwhelming and anxiety-inducing to casual players. They could be assured that they don't need to use of all of it.

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It's not that hard to come up with a system to accommodate everyone.
Solo players have trusts. Party people have (harder) group content. If you have a single player duty you can select between very easy UP TO very hard so you have options. There. It's not perfect but it's a start.

This problem has been solved decades ago. Difficulty settings.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

People are using the forums for the reason they exist and now people who don't usually come to the forums are telling them how to use them lmao.

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And they’re still gonna act superior with their poor display of ignorance. Like that number guy few pages earlier.



I mean me, of course. What a poor choice of names.

I mean every excuse everyone makes is dumb.

"If your casual/midcore your opinion doesn't matter only savage/ultimate raiders opinions matter."
Only like 10% of the entire games playerbase enters savage and less clears it. It's really not good to focus only on them. Less than 5% play ultimate let alone clear it.

"I like current healer."
Ok well good for you other people don't and are voicing it, you can have your own opinion.

"JP disagrees."
JP isn't the only people who play this game, compromises can be made for the west and JP.

"The game is balanced around ultimate and savage."
Reclears without one healer is common in savage and TOP was cleared without a healer. You can say they were really good players but older ultimate raids haven't been cleared healerless but a new one was when it was current content. This is not balance and anyway balancing around something few people play is dumb.

"The strike won't do anything."
It already has, it's been covered by journalists and CCs, I doubt square enix isn't aware of this thread considering how viral it is. That alone may make them rethink potencies and nerf non-dps heals and self sustain.

Either way the strike is mostly for healer mains to say they quit the role to play other roles and letting the Devs know why. Even if no changes happen in the game that change will remain.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

It's not that hard to come up with a system to accommodate everyone.
Solo players have trusts. Party people have (harder) group content. If you have a single player duty you can select between very easy UP TO very hard so you have options. There. It's not perfect but it's a start.

This problem has been solved decades ago. Difficulty settings.

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The problem is certain content like trials, raids, etc still force these differing groups of people together which is going to create friction when you start dealing with situations where individual performance matters.

IE, the Bozja raids are seemingly way above the level of stuff a lot of people are comfortable with judging from the number of times I've ended up with 60-70% of the raid on the floor and it eventually getting to a point where the competent healers just give up on rezzing people because their MP pools can't support it.

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

I mean I don’t have the time and energy but it would be fascinating to see how many unique users here who are in support of the strike and taking that data and percentile generating it against a rough active player count. Granted wouldn’t be a complete picture cause that’s without the Japanese playerbase or Twitter or Reddit but then it’s hard to corroborate that. Would be a fun exercise that’s for sure

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The problem is certain content like trials, raids, etc still force these differing groups of people together which is going to create friction when you start dealing with situations where individual performance matters.

IE, the Bozja raids are seemingly way above the level of stuff a lot of people are comfortable with judging from the number of times I've ended up with 60-70% of the raid on the floor and it eventually getting to a point where the competent healers just give up on rezzing people because their MP pools can't support it.

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

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IMO you gave your own answer with healers not bothering to rezz them anymore.
The ultra casuals can and should fail at Midcore content. This is a video game first and foremost.
If Solo trials with very easy mode and trusts is allowed to be so easy for everyone to clear it no matter what then it should also be ok for them to be filtered in real multiplayer content.

It’s ok to have a wall in an mmo, it’s ok to have a moderate level of friction between players.
It should actually go for difficulty
Very easy solo content > Trusts > dungeons > 24 raids and so on.

Slightly off-topic but, I think "Touch Grass" should not have been on the bingo card since many of you aren't capable of doing so in-game either, by being terminally online in Limsa Lominsa.

[This is not meant to be taken seriously at all.]

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The problem is certain content like trials, raids, etc still force these differing groups of people together which is going to create friction when you start dealing with situations where individual performance matters.

IE, the Bozja raids are seemingly way above the level of stuff a lot of people are comfortable with judging from the number of times I've ended up with 60-70% of the raid on the floor and it eventually getting to a point where the competent healers just give up on rezzing people because their MP pools can't support it.

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

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I think this was EW content design problem in particular.
As many have said before, there's no "midcore" (or however you want to call it) content in EW. There's no large zone where players of different skill levels can gather and do something together. Bozja was great in that regard, some skirmishes, but especially CE used mechanics from the previous fights but made quite a few additions to them, so they are fresh and fun to do and do offer a higher difficulty. All 3 large scale raids i.e. CLL, DRN and Dalriada were very fun on content.
Usually Alliance Raids are harder than regular Dungeons and Trials content (YoshiP himself mentioned that they design Alliance Raid with harder and less noticeable mechanics so even if more casual players make mistakes, better players can still carry them), but the devs overcorrected after Nier complaints way too hard. Bosses have no health and spend way too much time tutorializing before they start mixing mechanics in a half-interesting way, by which point they are dead. Bosses spend way too much time telegraphing one attack. Thaleia is very guilty of this.
EW Extremes were somewhat on a weaker side with the exception of Barbs or Golby.

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Originally Posted by CStrife912

I mean I don’t have the time and energy but it would be fascinating to see how many unique users here who are in support of the strike and taking that data and percentile generating it against a rough active player count. Granted wouldn’t be a complete picture cause that’s without the Japanese playerbase or Twitter or Reddit but then it’s hard to corroborate that. Would be a fun exercise that’s for sure

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It would be pointless, you don't even know what proportion of in-game players know that the forum exists, even without saying they use it. It's easy to see the futility of this exercise, seeing the number of accounts created in June 2024, with 1 post, of people who come here because their beloved CCs told them about the forum's existence because of the strike.

Anyone noticed that warrior don't spend mana on Bloodwhetting and healers get cost something of their bars?

No downsides I guess

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Originally Posted by Hellebore_Ghrian

It would be pointless, you don't even know what proportion of in-game players know that the forum exists, even without saying they use it. It's easy to see the futility of this exercise, seeing the number of accounts created in June 2024, with 1 post, of people who come here because their beloved CCs told them about the forum's existence because of the strike.

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Considering the forum is the only place to get a tech support answer, I'm sure everyone knows the forum exists, just chooses not to come here, and probably a not insignificant portion of the raiders are suspended for doing disruptive things on the forum in the past. So they choose to complain in places SE doesn't control.

As for the sudden pop-up of other hashtags on the forum... the community management here doesn't tolerate disruptive activities, so people being trolls and trying to disrupt the actual forum or the game by spamming the forum might see that backfire.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

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I mean at the end of the day this is always going to be "it", no matter what sort of blow-harding occurs on any "side" of the topic.

Mr. Yoshida himself is on record as basically stating, in so many words, that if he was going to make a game just for his own pleasure, it sure as hell wouldn't be anything remotely like FFXIV. Though he does 459390 different interviews per year, so trying to scrounge-up the exact quote I'm thinking of where he said something along those lines has exhausted my patience with DuckDuckGo.

But the point is, if CBU3 had the will for it, they absolutely could tighten-up FFXIV's loose edges, and make a much more standardised and consistent difficulty-curve across the game, a more firm identity and style for each Job, and a more firm identity for each Role in all levels of content.

It's just that they know damn well that doing so would shrink FFXIV's audiences back towards a more dedicated "gameplay-positive" crowd, and they clearly don't want to ever be "that quirky boutique MMO" ever again. They want to remain "WOW, but Coherent Plot, Horrible Network Response Times, and Catgirls" — certainly not in gameplay refinement, but at least in terms of "pop-culture consciousness".

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Mr. Yoshida maintains a certain outward "friendly dad gamer" persona, because he's a designated "company mascot". But he's also clearly a shrewd and perceptive businessman with a life clearly spent keeping a close eye on the gaming industry, both local and international. He is certainly well-aware of what happened when WOW became overconfident in Cataclysm, and Blizzard's self-proclaimed "rockstars" stopped caring too-much about providing anything to players below the Endgame Dungeon / Raiding tier of content, distorting the entire game dramatically within the space of a single expansion-patch compared to what its fans recognised and expected beforehand.

So none of the CBU3 resistance to course-change on "normal" content and gameplay is surprising — FFXIV isn't an unsettled passion-project like it was in the early days of 1.x emergency-recovery and ARR/HW "finding its footing". Everyone responsible for FFXIV's direction forward knows that they have a well-ensconced cash-cow "formula" that they're now afraid to breathe-on wrong, because most game companies are ultimately designing with something akin to shamanistic prayer and superstition due to their fear of how fickle and volatile the interests of gaming audiences can be.

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All of this is to say that, yes, the game neglects to train people or provide a sanely-presented learning-curve, but it's partially because the game literally doesn't want to, since every bit of mild effort or slight disappointment that gets introduced along the way is another chance for a precious juicy payment source to pout furiously, and then wander-off to one of 342039943092 competitors for time and attention that are still willing to provide "You Win!" in exchange for just flat time-sunk and/or direct monetary investment.

There is no hyperbole intended when I say that the XIV devs wouldn't hesitate to reduce every Job to exactly 3 Actions and 1 Ult if they thought that they'd gain or retain more customers than they'd lose by doing so.

The only reason that there's any tension at all between complexity and simplification remaining in XIV's Job Design is that games rely somewhat on the outsized effect that proselytising and passionate dedicated fans / community-members provide a game as a form of powerful viral advertising and potently sustaining interest / sub-cultural relevancy. Over-simplifying too far runs the risk of driving that dedicated "actually likes playing games" segment away completely.

So market-widening "accessibility" adjustments are done in little nudges, and sips, and nibbles, to try to "boil the frog" to the exact edge of what will be tolerated from as many segments of the audience as possible.

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One could point to all of this and say, "Well, see, exactly, then... complaining and protesting is pointless, you're pining for a game-design that the devs no longer have any willpower to make".

But that's the thing — refer to my point about how much game developers actually fear their audience's fickle attention-spans and mysterious, almost incomprehensible desires and preferences.

Make your unhappiness clear, and loudly — and, preferably, coherently — enough, and it will plant that seed of doubt in the developers's minds.

"Oh no... have we gone too far? Might this entire gingerbread-house begin to crack and crumble soon? Will we soon begin to lose more than we gain or retain? Perhaps we must reconsider..."

That doesn't mean that 100% of all complaints will ever be addressed, because again, from the perspective of the creators, it's a balancing-act that ultimately just centers on what benefits the health of the company the most. However, it does mean that there's a chance that some portion of the feedback will actually be actioned — perhaps in horrible, horrible ways that were never intended, but actioned nonetheless.

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I mean, think about it.

Would we really be seeing even such "complexity" (lol) as "POM → Glare 4" and "Psyche" introduced into Healer "rotations" if the last 5 years had been totally silent?

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that Mr. Yoshida and CBU3 would be perfectly-content to just keep offering "High Broil 3: Revengeance", "Emergency Emergency Tactics", and "Seraphism-ism" until the end of time.

As insipid and inadequate as updates like "Baneful Impaction" seem right now, I still think that they're a sign that the dissatisfaction is in the periphery of the developers's minds, and they're just struggling to figure out how to address that dissatisfaction without provoking and enraging the monster that they've created by going soft-ball on the lower end of content and Role Design for too many years in a row.

ie, NO, REDDIT / YOUTUBE / TWITTER / TWITCH, I AM NOT CALLING CASUAL PLAYERS MONSTERS, I am just saying that the developers must absolutely know the sheer inconceivable shite-storm that they will provoke if they attempt to adjust-up any of the push-back or resistance that Job Design or Content Design provides.

So they're "sweating", because they've now lodged themselves between a new sort of exotically low-effort "proudly casual" base on one side, that views FFXIV as their safe-space from any sort of performance demands whatsoever (since content is so slack that other people can just infinitely carry-them through), and an increasingly-irate and exasperated portion of the "alternative casual" and up base, which is tired of needing to keep a dose of Narcan on-hand when trying to remain conscious through half the game's cooperative content.

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TLDR
There's a lot of tangible reasons that the game, nowadays, very intentionally doesn't bother trying to hold players to any sort of performance standard until suddenly slamming you into EX / Savage / Criterion like a moose on a windshield.

But I think that continuing to express dissatisfaction with it — preferably in a coherent, well-organised, and reasonably-diplomatic manner — is still productive, and will still influence the developers... even if it's slow, or their response is incomplete compared to what would ideally be desired (the exact specifications of which will fluctuate wildly from player to player, anyway).

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Slightly off-topic but, I think "Touch Grass" should not have been on the bingo card since many of you aren't capable of doing so in-game either, by being terminally online in Limsa Lominsa.

[This is not meant to be taken seriously at all.]

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Green-haired lalas may count as grass ? as for getting touched, well... Limsa....

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Slightly off-topic but, I think "Touch Grass" should not have been on the bingo card since many of you aren't capable of doing so in-game either, by being terminally online in Limsa Lominsa.

[This is not meant to be taken seriously at all.]

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That's because there's no grass in Limsa. The green stuff there, is astro turff, and Algae.

Soo... whats the goal here? Acknowledgment from devs? I mean ultimately what could the devs do to fix/bandaid healers at this very moment? Meaning no new skills, only adjustments to the current kits. Gotta keep in mind their dev process takes them ages to get anything major done especially if blindsided them and didnt plan ahead; planning>development>testing>art/animation/sound>translations>update...

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

Soo... whats the goal here? Acknowledgment from devs? I mean ultimately what could the devs do to fix/bandaid healers at this very moment? Meaning no new skills, only adjustments to the current kits. Gotta keep in mind their dev process takes them ages to get anything major done especially if blindsided them and didnt plan ahead; planning>development>testing>art/animation/sound>translations>update...

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for a start? take the new 2 min DPS buttons out from behind the cd gating them, and give them to us much more regularly. with adjusted potencies if need be. would at least be a band aid showing they are willing to listen.

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

Soo... whats the goal here? Acknowledgment from devs? I mean ultimately what could the devs do to fix/bandaid healers at this very moment? Meaning no new skills, only adjustments to the current kits. Gotta keep in mind their dev process takes them ages to get anything major done especially if blindsided them and didnt plan ahead; planning>development>testing>art/animation/sound>translations>update...

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tbh acknowledgment is major. second they can change the already added dps skills they gave to each healer and make it more repeatable in healing downtime which i think will improve it massively.
lastly turn the DOT spells to AOE already, like come on its 2 expansion where healers need to target switch each mob to cast it in a bundled group.(last one is my personal opinion if it wasn't clear)

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

[HB]

TLDR
There's a lot of tangible reasons that the game, nowadays, very intentionally doesn't bother trying to hold players to any sort of performance standard until suddenly slamming you into EX / Savage / Criterion like a moose on a windshield.

But I think that continuing to express dissatisfaction with it — preferably in a coherent, well-organised, and reasonably-diplomatic manner — is still productive, and will still influence the developers... even if it's slow, or their response is incomplete compared to what would ideally be desired (the exact specifications of which will fluctuate wildly from player to player, anyway).

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I completely agree with this but I think it's also really sad because games like Elden Ring have shown how popular and "mainstream" the "overcoming hard challenges" type of gameplay can be.

There is obviously also a huge self-selection effect at play but the game's impressive growth compared to older Soulsborne titles could indicate that far more people are willing to try content that requires you to fail and learn if they are eased into it.

(And the funny thing is that ER doesn't even make it easy for new players. You have a lot more tools to make the game easier for you as you play but the beginning is still really tough for newbies.)

Now imagine a game that actually slowly introduces their players to increasing difficulties step by step and teaches you to gradually get more comfortable with harder content. If done right I really think this could work.

I'm not advocating for FF to adopt ER levels of difficulty of course. But I wonder if it's not just a problem of "what" (difficulty) but als of "how". As in, how your initial encounter with content that challenges your current skill level goes and how organically you can progress on that difficulty curve.

I wonder if proper game design could successfully utilise the psychology behind positive difficulty (having a good balance of rewards and frustration, with the scales tipped in such a way that the frustration doesn't become so big you want to quit but instead motivates you, while the rewards are fulfilling enough to generate a strong pull and intrinsic motivation themselves).

Because right now I think FF14 does a terrible job at dealing with those underlying psychological mechanisms, often making it a lot more stressful for casual players to even consider harder content.

Naturally you will never win everybody over to try harder things but I still think there is a lot of room for improvement in FF14's current game design and communication to make increasing difficulty exciting for inexperienced players without risking losing them or pushing casuals out.

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Originally Posted by CrimsonGunner

tbh acknowledgment is major. second they can change the already added dps skills they gave to each healer and make it more repeatable in healing downtime which i think will improve it massively.
lastly turn the DOT spells to AOE already, like come on its 2 expansion where healers need to target switch each mob to cast it in a bundled group.(last one is my personal opinion if it wasn't clear)

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It's important that the devs recognize an issue before the mid-patch of the first raid tier.

Historically they have allowed poorly designed jobs to rot for the next 20 months if they haven't taken action by then.