Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

Alright Yoshi-P I've healed your ultimates a while ago. Now what? Should I just have done TEA over and over since I cleared it?

While we're getting one soon we haven't had a new ultimate in 2 years and for those past 2 years the other ultimates available have had their healing trivialized by gear... That's a pretty infuriating response. Because I could be enjoying myself in Extreme too if we had a better DPS kit.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

While I don't disagree that is how the devs see Healers. Content in this game simply doesn't make that an engaging experience when the majority of your gameplay would essentially boil down to spamming the same button or stand around doing nothing. All those real life equivalents you cited relish having nothing to do considering the alternative ranging from mild inconvenience to life-threatening. Games don't function quite the same way. People typically want something to do. And spamming Glare is about as riveting as watching paint dry.

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Again, my own experience does not mirror this. While my own DPS experience as a healer would very likely be considered the ST spam everyone refers to, what I don't reflect is how engaging/disengaging it is. My engagement as a healer has absolutely nothing to do with my offensive capability. It never has. Even back in 3.x days. My engagement as a healer comes from keeping the situation under control, or getting it back under control should things slip. The RL experiences is to compare mentalities. Not situations. Like I said in my last statement, you don't have to play a healer.

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Originally Posted by ZedxKayn

Alright Yoshi-P I've healed your ultimates a while ago. Now what? Should I just have done TEA over and over since I cleared it?

While we're getting one soon we haven't had a new ultimate in 2 years and for those past 2 years the other ultimates available have had their healing trivialized by gear... That's a pretty infuriating response. Because I could be enjoying myself in Extreme too if we had a better DPS kit.

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He'd prolly say pick another Job or leave play another game another game for awhile, lol...

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Not situations. Like I said in my last statement, you don't have to play a healer.

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This is about as dismissive as "If you want to be engaged, play the hardest content in the game (ultimate)"

"You don't have to play healer, play something else."

I do play other jobs, but in every MMO I've ever played I've "mained" healer because I like helping support my group. Part of that support is making enemies die faster (whether by direct damage or buffing allies) because dead enemies don't do any damage to my party.

I want to play healer because that's what I enjoy, but my enjoyment of the role doesn't blind me from seeing the blatant missteps the Developers have made in designing the role. Just like I point out how badly designed other jobs are this expansion (DRK being blatant as well)

What I'm realizing is that while holding out for years, this statement by Yoshi might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me. The utter dismissiveness toward healers for two expansions now is evident.

• They are out of touch with a section of their player base that wants engagement in all facets of play.
• Their healer design actively conflicts with itself on multiple fronts, mostly because they don't have a dedicated healer developer. When all your battle design devs play either a tank or a dps you will never understand what healers actually want. When you are a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
• The stated game design vision and what is actually being put into the game conflict with each other. How many times have they said they'll look into making outgoing mob damage be higher so we actually have something to heal only for it never to materialize?

As much as I hate to admit it, this game has changed and it looks like it might not be the game for me anymore. And that's OK. Not everything has to be for me. Glad to see if people are having fun, good for them. I'm not and the developers don't look like they're willing to make any changes for veteran healers who want something interesting to do during the massive downtimes between healing this game has.

Bad game design was the exact reason I left World of Warcraft, Bad game design was the reason 1.0 was a failure. With success comes ego and I'm concerned that the devs have it in their head it's their way or the highway and the highway is looking mighty good right now.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Interesting you bring up the strawman as I have always found myself in the middle of a field of them when it comes to the healer woes. Some of the gripes are reasonable. Some I share, and others I understand even if I don't agree. However, the one argument my own experience has yet to validate is how DPS and tank jobs are somehow magically more fun and engaging than healers in synced content. In fact, the incorrigible side to me sees things as the exact opposite.

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You're entirely missing the point if you think we're talking about level sync or anything like that. We complain having a gameplay that consist on pressing the EXACT SAME BUTTON over 50% of the time without thought, resource management, interactions nor depth, thats why healer are so unrewarding and dps and tanks were brought because contrary to the healer gameplay both dps and tanks have all of the previous mentioned qualities.

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As a healer [...]

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Our dps skills simply have no growth (in an rpg which are games centered about adventures and growing) we play the same from lv10 to lv90 for the majority of the time, we can heal more efficiently yes but that is meaningless when all the normal content of the game barely need healing at all (and depending on the tank no healing at all), players would have to fuck up seriously to make a healer have meaningful healer gameplay.

However you show perfectly how flawed the healing design is, its only engaging when players seriously fuck up (something that even in casual content rarely happens) you dont need to be focused on optimize the run to notice since as long as you press some buttons of our overloaded kit the problem will show, tanks and dps are more engaging because their reward systems are consistent, a Warrior will always be able to use fell cleave as long as they play well, a Blm will always use Fire 4 as long as they played well, healers on the other hand do not have not even a semblance of that.

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Healers, simply put are not designed to be all the engaging through their offensive capability. This is what I wish the devs would come right out and say. They do say this, but they keep sugar coating it. Healers are quite literally like the guidance counselors at camp, or the adults at recess/break in grade school.

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If healers are not supposed to be engaging through offensive capabilities then, why make enrages that rely on healer dps to be cleared? why making the offensive spells much more mp efficient than the gcd healing? why designing content that does not rely on healers to be even present at all to be cleared? why giving tanks the sustain to basically solo everything? If healers are not supposed to be engaging through their offensive capabilities what is the focus of their engagement? because clearly healing isnt.

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There are literally tons of people whose level of comfort is found in idleness, and sense of accomplishment is gained by their ability to react despite that circumstance.

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Thats ok but a game shoudnt catter to people that do NOT play the game, as simple as that. This game is designed around doing stuff every 2,5s at the very least, if they wanted people to iddle there would systems designed around that, currently there are none.

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Don't fault people for that. You don't have to play a healer if you don't want to.

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Bullshit, if there is a problem any player that cares should speak up and ask for solutions and not simply hide it under the rug and move away, that mentality is what causes the downfall of hundreds of games because today may be healers, tomorrow may be tanks, the next dps and eventually every job will be badly designed

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

This is effectively what the lead designer of this game told Healers in the latest live letter.

Consider if he had said that about your role (tank / dps) for a second and how you would feel.

Forget the leveling experience, it doesn't matter.

Forget dungeons up to 90, they don't matter.

Forget normal raids, EX's, and Savage, they don't matter.

If you want your job to be engaging, play Ultimate, the hardest content in the game that only a few percentage of actual players do.

Engagement shouldn't be either 0% or 100%. It shouldn't be either braindead easy in 95% of content or pull your hair out in the hardest thing the game offers.

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Well, time to hold hands and be spoonfed to the max!

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Originally Posted by ZedxKayn

Alright Yoshi-P I've healed your ultimates a while ago. Now what? Should I just have done TEA over and over since I cleared it?

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While I do not plan to clear ultimates myself unless my static actually wants to try one out... it baffles me how many simply glossed over or do not realize how ridiculous this rhetorical question of yours sounds.

I play a lot in a span of a week. At minimum I always have at least 3 to 4 hours of actively gaming every day depending on job calls. It's not so uncommon I play twice amount of hours a day. Outside 4 hours weekly that I spent hanging with my staticmate where we would tackle EX/Savage contents, I dabbled into the regular/casual contents. Anymore than that would exhaust me mentally. To me, Yoshi-P's answer basically translates into: "Go play high end contents in your 28hrs of your playtime weekly then to get your 'fun'."

What an inspiring answer for the lead designer to spoke...

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Originally Posted by Gemina

...As a DPS or tank in synced content, I lose DPS skills. Sometimes, the loss of a skill can lead to your rotation completely changing. Even for a job like MNK where my rotation doesn't change post level 60, the satisfaction of using those upgraded skills still has an impact when they are taken away. The point here is not to compare dicks, or even to express an issue that encompasses all roles. The point is DPS and Tank jobs are impacted greater than healers in synced content. If you still find them more fun than healers despite this, that's fine. You do you. But let's not pretend that healers are impacted greater than they are, because this is entirely false.

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Could have just said you find pressing more than one dps button in a rotation too challenging. Casual content exists so players are not required to play efficiently to clear.

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As a healer, I have found myself equally engaged and having fun in both synced and current content. Because our DPS skills are so concise and upgrades through the levels have a gradual ascension in satisfaction, the impact that is felt by healers mainly pertains to how efficiently they can perform their healing duties. Because of this, healing can actually be MORE fun in synced content, as it is more difficult to patch players up. Engagement as a healer is almost entirely dictated by the performance and skill level of the other members of the group. When I think about things in this manner, it makes total sense to me why these woes comes from mainly the high-end content runners, where optimization is key; and also likely why I don't share them, and often post anecdotal statements in contrast. Because it is in the casual content where players derp like crazy.

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So your enjoyment comes from unoptimized play where shit hits the fan because no one is even trying or attempting to avoid avoidable damage. Cool, then this thread isn't for you. This is about the players who are "optimized" being bored out of their mind, because we spam one single dps button in all facets of this game. Even in the hardest content of the game this is an issue.

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Healers, simply put are not designed to be all the engaging through their offensive capability... There are literally tons of people whose level of comfort is found in idleness, and sense of accomplishment is gained by their ability to react despite that circumstance. Don't fault people for that. You don't have to play a healer if you don't want to.

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Sage design and enrage checks with healer dps in mind says otherwise. If people wanna "idle" and afk heal, then stick with trusts. Players will notice and have issues with that.

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You don't have to play a healer if you don't want to.

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No, and I will still continue to argue that the current healer design is flawed and needs improvement.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

While I do not plan to clear ultimates myself unless my static actually wants to try one out... it baffles me how many simply glossed over or do not realize how ridiculous this rhetorical question of yours sounds.

I play a lot in a span of a week. At minimum I always have at least 3 to 4 hours of actively gaming every day depending on job calls. It's not so uncommon I play twice amount of hours a day. Outside 4 hours weekly that I spent hanging with my staticmate where we would tackle EX/Savage contents, I dabbled into the regular/casual contents. Anymore than that would exhaust me mentally. To me, Yoshi-P's answer basically translates into: "Go play high end contents in your 28hrs of your playtime weekly then to get your 'fun'."

What an inspiring answer for the lead designer to spoke...

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A good part of what makes Ultimate difficult is that it's very much a marathon and can be very mentally straining depending on your hours, who you play with and how fast you progress/how consistent you are with reclears. It's not content that is accessible for everyone and that's perfectly fine.

Healing TEA was great, I personally felt like it justified the millions of healing tools we had that I could forget about only having 2 DPS buttons most of the time.
But healing like one heals in TEA is gated by what can be a mental strain that would deter off many good healers from attempting it. And basically telling people "if you wanna have a crumb of enjoyment, dedicate yourself to that relatively inaccessible content, and if it's not feasible, that's too bad" feels insulting.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Again, my own experience does not mirror this. While my own DPS experience as a healer would very likely be considered the ST spam everyone refers to, what I don't reflect is how engaging/disengaging it is. My engagement as a healer has absolutely nothing to do with my offensive capability. It never has. Even back in 3.x days. My engagement as a healer comes from keeping the situation under control, or getting it back under control should things slip. The RL experiences is to compare mentalities. Not situations. Like I said in my last statement, you don't have to play a healer.

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I don't play healers. I only dabble with them; less and less nowadays because the very scenario you describe: "keeping the situation under control" does not deviate my attention away from spamming Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis. When I can have a Tower run where my co-healer and I together cast 20 raises and we're still primarily spamming our DPS abilities, it speaks volumes to just how little healers need to contribute healing to their respective groups. Which would be tolerable if they had something else to fall back on.

This whole line of logic falls apart when compared to tanks. They have mitigation tools yet when those aren't necessary, they have a simplified DPS rotation to fall back on. Healers have nothing. Even some extra DoT management to help break up the monotony of spamming the same button 500 times (I'm not exaggerating, by the way. I casted Dosis II 513 times; ten times more than any healing I did combined. And this was in Copied Factory, level 80 content.) is too much. People would be overwhelmed! Tanks can manage 1-2-3, Fell Cleave but Healers can't, evidently. Saying you "don't have to play a healer" essentially translates into "My subjective experience matters more than yours." At the root core, we're going to disagree. It just turns out a LOT of people dislike current healers.

What I find ironic about the DPS argument is were they to actually add back some DPS abilities it largely wouldn't impact casual players. The only time it'd be relevant is in Savage and Ultimate; perhaps the odd EX. Yes, you'd be expected to manage more but the majority of players who dislike that or simply can't handle it (or don't want to) aren't touching Savage or Ultimate. Therefore, this is only a benefit to Healer mains who want more to engage with. Casual players can still spam Medica II and pointlessly overheal all to their fancy in the next Normal Mode or 24 man that releases but those of us who want more engagement can have something to do that isn't spam Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis for the 500th time.