I think my concern is always "dev cost vs population use". Some content that everyone (or pretty much everyone) uses is worth a lot of development time and effort from the Devs. After all, everyone is using it. Things with high engagement, and especially high engagement + repetition. So MSQ getting a lot of dev time makes sense - everyone (pretty much) does it and it's one of the big draws of the game. 4 mans should PROBABLY get more than they do because, again, everyone does those AND (unlike MSQ), they tend to repeat them a lot in roulettes, especially Experts. 24 mans arguably fit into this as well, since a lot of people tend to do those, do them weekly, do them many times over the course of the expansion (since the armor upgrade materials can be bought with the coins), and they get a lot of currency in roulettes being one of the better roulettes to level or farm tomes with in terms of raw amounts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne
CONVERSELY, there are some pieces of content that get very little engagement. The less they get, the harder it is to justify dev time being spent on them. Consider what all could be added to the game if the devs took the time they devote to Ultimates and did literally anything else with that time.
It's probably hard for Yoshi P to justify content that has only a small and niche audience that requires a lot of time to create to his bosses that write the paychecks. I get he's got a pretty high position and a lot of clout, but he seems reasonable about understanding this and adjusting.
EDIT (for space):
I feel like that's the reason for a lot of the healer and Savage changes, because the audience that was being provided by them was considered too small, and Ultimates exist supposedly for the hardest of the hardcore. I have no idea what their target is, but I'd wager they want something in the 20-40% clear rate of players (that is, all max level players, not players that try the content) to justify continuing to budge and make Savages. It's not an entitlement or dumbing down issue so much as it is an efficiency one. There's no reason to spend limited money (SE isn't a small indy, but they still don't have infinite cash) on stuff like that. So I suspect they're trying to appeal to a general audience and reserve Ultimates for the elite of players. It's hard to justify a game with both Ultimates AND Savage that only 5% clears. One or the other makes sense, but not both.
As to your second point, I guess it depends on the people. I don't think Extremes are designed to be unclearable or "f**" people up, per se. Savages a bit moreso, but they're again not Ultimates. Again, we have Ultimates in this game, and that is the content that's supposed to consist of spending weeks and weeks of head vs wall to clear. "hours invested" and so on. Savages to a point and absolutely Extremes are supposed to be pugable. They aren't supposed to fall over, mind you, but they shouldn't take days or weeks for the general person to be able to beat if they're giving it a genuine effort.
From my perspective, we have Ultimates as the "small % do it, large dev time investment" content in this game. That's kind of the point of having that as separate content, isn't it? Unless we go back to the days of Coils. Which could be hilarious in its own way.
And btw, I'm not really saying this from my perspective - I kinda don't care, I can clear Extremes just fine and never bothered with Savage until 6.0 anyway - but I'm thinking more this is the concern of Yoshi P and his team. If content gets "exclusive" enough, players that like having exclusive content for themselves love it...but it becomes harder to justify spending limited development resources (not just money, but also time) on. And in a game where Ultimates already exist for that hardest of the hardcore, cream of the crop elite skill playerbase, it's hard to argue that Savage should ALSO be designed for that same group when they already have content exclusive to them that is hogging a lot of dev time as it is.
It really is just...strange, innit?Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
Like the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
I dunno if FFXIV is ever going to pull a 2.0 again, but it's pretty clear a lot of the systems are dated to what the game was. CNJ/WHM and SCH's levels they learn skills and stuff makes sense...if you're playing ARR or HW paradigm content. Lilies weren't even added to the game (in their current form) until ShB, but they're central to WHM's design. The game doesn't give you oGCDs at the start, and like you say, it more or less trains players not to use them. WHM's first oGCDs are a speed buff almost exclusively used for damage and not (to a new player) obviously useful as a healing tool, and its second is a super long CD massive heal, which SCREAMS "in case of emergency, break glass and use me", not "weave me in here and there within your damage rotation for patching up people". WHM doesn't get THAT until Tetra at level 60 or something like that.
And before EW, it didn't get any Lily heal until passed 70, I think? They lowered one down, but you still don't get it until HW levels, I don't think.
The game frontloads healers with (other than their nuke and dot and raise) abilities that they will try not to touch in high end content instead of the other way around. And the later abilities aren't JUST more used, they become the core of the kits. It's like playing PLD at level 90 or PLD at level 50 where the rotation's completely different, contrasted with playing WAR at level 90 vs WAR at level 50 where the basic rotation and mechanics of the Job (WAR, that is, are basically established by level 50 and the abilities just upgrade or have new functionality added to them (that doesn't completely change how they're used) later.
I think they've gotten better at this over time, since newer designed/redesigned Jobs seem to be a BIT better at establishing the core of the Job early and then adding the fluff, but there are some pretty obvious outliers. Post rework SMN, for all its faults, establishes the core early. To the point people complain leveling it is boring because it's just the same thing for all 90 levels. But the benefit of that is, you have far fewer people trained in bad habits that they're then confused about having to break later.
Not necessarily. It could be that it's become one of CONFUSED expectations - as noted above where people genuinely have trained themselves never to use a GCD heal, so even when they're needed, they...don't. A lot of party - non-healers, so tanks and DPS - have gotten used to not needing to align and use mitigation and self-healing tools that they have. So it's not just "healer" being a role of low expectations, it may be that tanks and DPSers have become roles of "low expectations" when it comes to anything that isn't straight DPS. A lot of the healing issues in current can be dealt with by healers, true, but they can also be made easier if the tanks and DPSers are actually using those tools.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
So I think you're too quick to attack the healer role here, specifically, when this might just be EVERY role has gotten used to low expectations when it comes to anything outside of just dealing damage and not using any other tools.
Maybe. But I've heard the opposed argument that FFXIV's combat raises are one of the things people love about it vs other games. WoW's pushes responsibility on more people, but healers still (often) get blamed when people die, and WoW also has people far quicker to kick group/leave party and generally be toxic. It's a chicken or the egg as to if one causes the other and which is causing the other if so, but I'd wager FFXIV's combat raise helps keep things less toxic in a more general sense. Which is to say, I think it's entirely possible things COULD be far worse than they are today if FFXIV's mechanics WEREN'T so forgiving and easy going. And I'd rather not see FFXIV become like WoW...ever, honestly.Quote:
Then maybe the game shouldn't allow players to get away with so many mistakes. Like, just restrict all battle rezz in all encounters. Instead of punishing dps for failing mechanics, in most content death is an inconvenience to healers first and foremost. In WoW this problem in my opinion is less pronounced because the game doesn't pushes healers to fix the mistakes of others indefinetely. If you are lucky, you have a class with brezz and that one is highly limited by cd. If somebody failed mechanics, they failed. Though WoW in higher end dungeon content also pushes more responsibilities to tanks and dps, like cc and interrupts.
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09-22-2022, 02:23 PMRenathras
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09-22-2022, 08:22 PMT-OwlI attack the healer role because its the one where I can wholeheartedly say, that it is just plain worse than competing MMOs outside of nice and flashy animations. For Tanks, while I would love for FF14 to just plain copy active mitigation, I can at least say their dps rotation can be fun and appealing. Can't say the same about healers. Healers are hit the hardest and have become the role of lowest expectations, because SE never replaced the challenges of high healing uptime and high healing requirements with something to substitute it. Mitigation became easier and aggro management became a non-issue, but at least tanks get flashy new dps tools to make the rotation more busy each expansion. Healers get an upgrade to their one st filler, aoe filler and dot to creat the illusion they get something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
to be honest, I don't feel it. 99% of Wow dungeon runs, even while leveling, are fairly simple, enough to learn your role, and just socially distanced. You will have Drama in M+ situations, but M+ is already high end content akin to extremes and on higher keys savage, with a hugh pressure to mitigate incoming damage and deal sufficent damage on dps and tanks alike. Not to forget that performance pressure exists in this case for all roles, if a Tank does pull more than he can handle and doesn't mitigate properly, you can see that and you have legal dps meters to see when a DPS is not pulling their weight and far behind the rest of the pack. These meters also make it fairly easy to log combat data and just link it in the group chat, if the dps who stood in the fire wants to act out of line. There is also the problem that DPS are just afforded ton of personal errors they don't have to carry. The game is disproportionally designed to push party failure on the healer while having basically no responsibility for dps players in casual content.Quote:
Maybe. But I've heard the opposed argument that FFXIV's combat raises are one of the things people love about it vs other games. WoW's pushes responsibility on more people, but healers still (often) get blamed when people die, and WoW also has people far quicker to kick group/leave party and generally be toxic. It's a chicken or the egg as to if one causes the other and which is causing the other if so, but I'd wager FFXIV's combat raise helps keep things less toxic in a more general sense. Which is to say, I think it's entirely possible things COULD be far worse than they are today if FFXIV's mechanics WEREN'T so forgiving and easy going. And I'd rather not see FFXIV become like WoW...ever, honestly.
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09-23-2022, 03:26 AMRenathrasThat's fine, but it is likely leading you to bad conclusions.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
FFXIV players have gotten lazy when it comes to anything that isn't maximizing DPS. This is true of ALL ROLES, not just healers. Every DPSer in this game has mitigation and self-healing tools. Tanks have more. But you rarely see anyone (who isn't a healer main playing an off-Job) that uses them. I can't recall the last time I saw a NIN use Shade Shift that wasn't me playing NIN. I also rarely see DPSers use Bloodbath, even though it's free healing. Stuff like those are buffs, so they are visible on their bars. Second Wind is harder to see (because it's an instant-cast and done button that doesn't have any indication other than health bar filling), but I'd wager it also isn't used often.
Tanks tend to be better about this, since it's more the focus on their mind, but as a whole, I think FFXIV's unhealthy obsession with DPS > all has lead to every role becoming lazy and low expectation when it comes to mitigation. That's not a healer role issue, that's an overall all roles issue. I get you love DPS rotations (see the problem I JUST NOW MENTIONED), but that's not the problem here. The problem here is a mitigation one.
EDIT (for space):
That's fine. It's entirely a subjective thing. But many people DO feel it, and it is one of the things a lot of people love about the game. Many players don't like games where one death means a probable wipe. I also contest that WoW dungeons are good for "learning your role", at least from when I last played in Legion, and I can't imagine they've been significantly changed since then. They were good for people being jerks to others, but not learning. I remember for a long while, they didn't even teach use of CC once AOEing down packs became the norm, to the point you'd be berated if you used something like Polymorph or other CC and weren't doing just damage. They flirted with making CC needed again in Cata, but it went over like a lead balloon at that point, so outside of Mythic, WoW dungeons don't teach you much of anything, no more than FFXIV ones do, anyway, and they tend to be toxic as all hells with people leaving party if there's even one wipe.Quote:
to be honest, I don't feel it.
That's not an improvement, imo. As I said, as someone who DID play Vanilla WoW and BC, it was different back then. Having to put together parties in /trade and WALK to the dungeon entrances meant people were invested, so they'd stick with it. That doesn't exist in modern MMO gaming outside of Statics. And so few people have Statics as a percentage of the whole community that you can't reasonably use that metric.
Those self-same DPS meters have also contributed to WoW having one of the most, if not the most, toxic community among all MMOs that it's even become famous for. The people that rigidly worship them in FFXIV are also among the more toxic elements of our own community. People that use meters for self-improvement aren't a problem, but I don't think there's any argument at this point in MMO history with all that we know that they DON'T contribute to toxicity wherever they are used/come into being.
I do agree with the last sentence, though. It's entirely the reason for stuff like Twice/Thrice Come Ruin in Delubrium and Damage Downs in Savage, though I'd argue the latter are not the right kind of punishment because the only thing it punishes (for the DPS player) is their parse, which aren't even "legal" to begin with. It can cause a wipe to Enrage, but without using an add-on, there's no way for the party to know that. Twice/Thrice Come, on the other hand, has the player KO. While this still shunts the problem onto the healer, it makes it obvious the fault was with the DPSer, and in DR Savage, can't even be raised normally.
I do kinda wonder if something like that would make sense to use in harder content. Like make it where Raises have a miss chance or (since that's annoying) can only be used so often on some kind of CD. Like if in Savage you could only Raise with Swiftcast, limiting it to once a minute per Job with a Raise. While that's still frequent, it's LESS frequent. Flipside, of course, is that Raises in Savage can often cause Enrage anyway due to low DPS... -
09-23-2022, 04:14 AMT-OwlThe issue is, that these tools are just not needed in every day to day play and even in savage outside of very early prog and even then its purely the mitigation tools and the anti-knockback, which is only really needed in savage. You can't fault players for not using tools which are just not necessary just for the pure fluff of doing it, especially if in most cases healers can deal with incoming damage mostly just fine with just using their ogcd tools themselves. With healers, their core feature of healing the party is rarely challenged but compared to Tanks they also lack an interesting dps rotation to make up for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
First to adress the elephant in the room, it is utterly stupid to ban parsing tools in a game that involves enrage timers in endgame content, because that one makes it a necessity to measure the dps the party in its entirety as well as individual players do. You could just as well make life bars invisible, so that bad players don't feel bad when everyone sees that they receive too much damage or that a bad tank didn't mitigates damage properly. Secondly, yeah, WoW dungeons are not the best learning tools before m+ because similarily to ff14, they are made to be just rushed. I feel like the higher levels of character customization at least encourage players more to seek outside ressources to optimize their game though, so there is that. I also kinda disagree with the supposed rampant toxicity of woW. In most cases everyday gameplay will be like FF14. People are quicker to point out flaws in ones play or when somebody plays badly, but I think the other extreme is this supposed stepford smiler forced positivity attitude in FF14 where people will rarely if ever tell you that you play shit out of fear of eating a ban, so as long as you don't enter high end content, there is little in terms of incentive to actually improve yourself in FF14. Its both not healthy and I think WoW and FF14 are kind of mirrors to each other in terms of community interactions. There is alot of toxic negativity surrounding WoW, did you know that the game is actually dead since 2008? and alot of toxic positivity in FF14, where people are quick to shut up legitimate criticism. MCH is actually objectively worse than any other rng dps? Doesn't matter, stop bringing it up because everyone can beat any content, as long as they have their Nakama and power of dreams and all that tried anime stuff. And just to be that person, yeah, somebody who flames people for not pulling optimal dps in content where it doesn't matter is a toxic arse. You know who else is toxic? Somebody who just doesn't cares about playing well and contributing to their team.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
On the second one, I think restricting the possibility to heal would be really at least somebody. I mean, having to long cast a rezz on itself feels already shit as a healer. -
09-23-2022, 07:43 AMZolvoltIf we're going to keep the 2m burst windows than I would love if I didn't have to worry about healing during them. Delaying cards or energy drain to save a life, during cd's is not fun.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne
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09-23-2022, 09:41 AMT-OwlHere you kinda made the critical error of ignoring what creats community engagement and streaming content which in this day and age is free advertisement and also additional content which keeos players engaged and in this regard, hardcore content by far outweighs casual content despite lower participation rates. Hardcore content creats guides, twitch livestreams and community discussions to an extent most casual content does not. Less people are willing to watch you do some easy casual content compared to following the ultimate world first race on twitch. Thats all extra content that keeps people engaged in the game despite being outside of it and outside of the initial peoduction cost of creating said content, its basically free for SE.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
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09-23-2022, 01:38 PMRenathrasMaybe...except you might be surprised that that isn't likely the majority of players. Like I don't think I've ever watched a stream of anyone doing a Savage or Ultimate fight. I've never found it fun watching other people play an MMO - Sword Art Online (Abridged, I think) got that point right in the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
I would argue casual content DOES get the clicks. Think of how many people have watched Island Sanctuary guides on YouTube since it came out just a couple weeks ago! And that's not "hardcore" content. People watched how to do Bozja stuff, how to get gear, and streamers playing the MSQ get massive amounts of views, and I imagine you wouldn't classify the MSQ as hardcore content. I have no idea the numbers, but I'd bet you even odds that the casual content gets as many or more clicks than the world first twitch race does. I bet casual content gets a LOT of clicks and views. Hell, Ginger Prime's controller guides get a ton, Mr Happy just conversation videos do, lore videos do, Asmon broke the internet leveling through the MSQ, Zepla's various discussions on bunny ears get a somewhat absurd amount of views, too.
I guess my point is, I've not seen much data supporting the argument hardcore content DOES "by far" outweigh casual content. They're probably far closer to even or even the casual content ahead over the course of a given patch or expansion. The hardcore stuff gets a spike at the start of a patch (if there's not casual stuff like Island to compete), but over the 4/8 months of that patch? I bet the casual stuff has overall more cumulative views. -
09-23-2022, 06:17 PMT-OwlJust because you didn't find it fun doesn't mean that plattforms such as youtube aren't a critical engagement tool for a MMO. They always have been since early WoW. And you ignore that FF14 streamers and content creators often tend to be raiders themselves. Its actually more of a flaw of FF14, that the game offers so little content, that everyoen has to cover everything.. Also even with people doing stuff like Island sanctuary content, thats not the casuals, its people who immediately tackled it as hardcore content and were done after a week or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
There is the additional question of who probably subscribes for longer, somebody who is just doing msq and its content or somebody who raids savage. And I personally would guess its the savage raider, just because outside of week 1 clearers, the average raider probably is kept busy with this content for at least a few weeks, while all casual content outside of stuff like Island Sanctuaries, which is fairly new, can be day 1'd. And if you aren't raiding, there isn't also much to do long term in the game for most of an expansion, like relics are only released once its halfway through. I mean, except hardcore casuals, who often tend to be this weird intersection of gaming addicts who spend most of their time and social life in a video game but remain perpetually just not good at it, if you know what I mean. -
09-23-2022, 06:50 PMRenathrasI didn't say that.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
I said watching people raid isn't something that as many people do as you think. If we tallied all the views of all FFXIV content creator videos, videos on glamour, fight guides for Extremes, Job guide and leveling from 1-90, and people's MSQ playthroughs probably have more combined views than world first raid clears do. EASILY.
I've easily watched hours of FFXIV content. I've watched a lot of Wesk Alber's Job guides. I've watched Ginger Prime/Gaming Kinda's talk cast things. I've watched Cole Evyx videos (which are just about whatever random topic he feels like and sometimes mini guides for things), Mioni's showcases of new glamour/weapon items, Desperious' for fun Job tier rankings and his random whatever topic videos, guides on PotD solo runs, Zepla random videos, Belular's FFXIV commentary, Mr Happy's "Monday with Mr Happy" videos which are also kinda random things, Speakers of Hydaelyn videos like Remnants of a Realm, The Fall and Rise of FFXIV, and occasionally some of their weekly talk cast things, and Synodic Scribe's lore videos. While I have watched Mr Happy or MTQ Capture (or some others' I can't think of at the moment) Extreme guids (and now, Savage guides), I usually do so weeks or months after the content went live.
None of that would you define as hardcore, world first, raider, etc stuff.
And no, just because people throw themselves as Island Sanctuary does not make it "hardcore content". If that's true, then I'm a hardcore player, because I was one of those people. YES, that's for casuals. YES, the videos for it are for casuals. You can't redefine terms so you can insist you're technically correct when you're wrong.
Savages raiders unsub after about a month of a patch then resub about 2 weeks before the next patch. The players who stick with the game and don't unsub are generally people who do SOCIAL stuff (housing more than anything because people not wanting to lose their houses), which is generally considered casual content.
EDIT (for space):
MSQ only players sub the least, that's probably true, but most casuals aren't MSQ only. You'd probably define me as casual - I've cleared exactly two Savages in all of FFXIV at level (P1S and P2S), but I've played since 2013 and had a sub that didn't lapse for most of that time because I do and enjoy other content. Bozja can't be day 1'd. POTD can't be day 1'd. Farming for mounts in Ex can't be day 1'd. Fully gearing my character with tome gear can't be day 1'd. If anything, Savage raids are the things with the expiration date. Normally, Savage raiders get their clear, they farm it for gear, they help their Static members farm it as they want to, but once everyone has their gear and their clears and mounts, what do you do the other 8 months until the next raid tier? You're done. Meanwhile, that person farming scripts in Ishgard so they can get that rare dye for their perfect glamour cosplaying Saber from Fate Stay Night? THAT PERSON - a casual - has WEEKS if not months worth of content at their fingertips.
I don't get what you mean about this game offering "so little content"/"isn't also much to do long term". I've managed to find things to do to justify staying subbed for years without raiding. In content lulls, I tend to go to Eureka/ARR/HW relics (and now Bozja), work on POTD, right now I'm in a weekly group proging DRSavage (which isn't current content raiding Savage/Ultimate), farm some old Mount, solo HW (now SB) Extremes/Riads for fun and/or achievements, work on maxing all Beast Tribe reputations (finally finished the last of those in November before EW came out), etc etc. I know a girl who has every ARR and HW relic and half the Eureka ones but has no static and has never done a single Savage raid (not counting BA).
Us dirty casuals just come up with personal goals to do. Right now, I'm pushing myself through POTD a few floors at a time - not too many, don't want to burn out on it. I'll get Necromancer eventually. Farming Bozja shards so I'll be ready on our group night with essences and Raises. Check my Island to keep my (near slave) workshop going so I can eventually buy all the mounts and such. Run Frontlines daily to get PvP season rank so I can get those minions and mount and stuff. Going zone by zone (every couple days) to clear all the sidequests I never did. Go on a mounted "walking tour" of ARR zones from one end to the other without using teleports to see all the sights and find old 1.X relics as well as references to past things (like the Allegan Sunway/Starway criss-crossing Thanlan), and so on and so forth.
While the entire community isn't me, a lot do play kinda like I do - they get it in their head they want to work on something and they...do.
And there is SO MUCH in this game besides Savage raids. If that's all you're doing, you're missing out!
Your view of the community as a whole, I think, seems rather...skewed. -
09-23-2022, 07:16 PMAbsurdityThe 2 minute burst meta simply needs to go, it creates more problems than it solves on top of being just really boring.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zolvolt
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09-24-2022, 04:15 AMRenathrasI'm genuinely curious if there was a survey on the topic to the community, if the result would be that people like it or dislike it, collectively. Pretty much everyone - hardcore and casual - seems to agree it's a bad direction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Absurdity
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09-24-2022, 07:45 AMT-OwlTo be honest, I think your's is kinda self-centered. There is also the issue, aren't people who are basically just doing social stuff or running old content once its yoloable the people Devs can legitimately least worry to maintain? Same with the people who are deeply into the social stuff and either make FF14 the one single game they play or outright the center of their social life. And tons of the content you mentioned boils down to people engaging in hardcore stuff and making videos from that point onward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
And most of the content you mention outside of Bozja and soloing PotD is basically stuff you get start to do if you set your eye on a specific piece of glamour and be done with it in a day or so. Beast Tribe Reputation is really more of a leveling catch up system if you ask me and not really a good one, with how limited it is and with how little experience they give and the new relic weapon farm zone is literally only gettinf released once the expansion is halfway done. And I hate to break it to you, if I don't really need to play the game as a social plattform and want to focus on combat oriented content, FF14 is still kinda lacking with the amount of content that is released, especially since a great number of it is really do it a few times and grow bored of it. With how big it is, SE should at this point slowly start to expand the team and ramp out production to catch up to the amount of Content WoW releases during a regular expansion. Criterion Dungeons look like a good first step, though I hope it doesn't end up like a system where we get only 1-2 new ones each expansion.
If you ask me, it just makes the game much harder in the most nasty way, because with how most classes rotations are centered around building towards this strict, big two minute burst and to a lesser extend the 1 minute one, it makes recovery from death pretty much impossible. If you mess up once, you are basically out for the entire fight. I kinda feel like WoW is less stressful in this regard, because its really much less about pooling and slowly building everything for this big burst windows. There are burst windows, but these usually require much less preparation and usually you can recover from death and resume your rotation much much easier. Like if you're a BoS Frost DK and die, it isn't taking that long to pool back that runic power.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
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09-24-2022, 08:51 AMty_taurusThis reminds me of a video from Misshapen Chair from back when Kaiten was announced to be removed. He brings up the question of who are the job changes we see meant for? Who is being appeased by the oversimplification of job design? I think the entire video is really good and worth watching, but here's a timestamped link for anyone interested that basically summarizes the discussion of the video.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
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09-24-2022, 09:39 AMRenathrasAre you capable of one reply to me that isn't an insult?Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
Self-centered would be if I was arguing for content just for me/my interests. We aren't arguing about that. We're talking about the likely statistics of the playerbase. This is like two people talking about what percentage of stars are like our Sun and you coming in and calling one self-centered for saying Red Dwarves make up the majority of Main Sequence stars.
So wait, which is it, we need new content to keep people interested (and must make new content for only 5-10% of the hardcore community), or people don't need new content to keep interested?Quote:
There is also the issue, aren't people who are basically just doing social stuff or running old content once its yoloable the people Devs can legitimately least worry to maintain?
It's hard to say. People still want new content. This game has a lot of stuff, but if the game had no expansion for the last 8 years and only added new raid tiers, I'd probably have left. So while the Devs have to worry LESS about those people, they still need to make new content for them to keep them around.
Speaking for myself, if they go too many expansions without stuff like Bozja or POTD and only do raids, I might eventually lose interest, yes. So they DO still have to make content for casual and social players. Now, a lot of casual/social content doesn't require the same level of resources as a Savage raid. For example, adding a new emote and slapping it in as a PvP reward or MSQ quest completion reward. But these things still have to be added to maintain interest.
Except none of the stuff I mentioned was hardcore stuff? You guys can't just call stuff hardcore when it suits your argument but consider it casual the rest of the time.Quote:
And tons of the content you mentioned boils down to people engaging in hardcore stuff and making videos from that point onward.
Setting aside the rest: How much content does WoW release during a regular expansion?Quote:
and ramp out production to catch up to the amount of Content WoW releases during a regular expansion.
And I don't just mean raids and dungeons. New emotes, glamour/transmog, deep dungeons, exploration content, etc etc that FFXIV releases. I don't think WoW releases more overall content than FFXIV does unless you limit that metric to "raids only", but I'd be interested to see an actual comparative analysis between the two.
EDIT (for space):
Combat raises in WoW are much less common though, aren't they? If you die, is there a "recover from death" in WoW if you aren't an important thing (e.g. main tank or someone)?Quote:
If you ask me, it just makes the game much harder in the most nasty way, because with how most classes rotations are centered around building towards this strict, big two minute burst and to a lesser extend the 1 minute one, it makes recovery from death pretty much impossible. If you mess up once, you are basically out for the entire fight. I kinda feel like WoW is less stressful in this regard, because its really much less about pooling and slowly building everything for this big burst windows. There are burst windows, but these usually require much less preparation and usually you can recover from death and resume your rotation much much easier. Like if you're a BoS Frost DK and die, it isn't taking that long to pool back that runic power.
That said, agree on the 2 min thing entirely.
I think I saw that video. But I disagree with the analysis.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
Changes like this are made for the Devs, it's that simple. They aren't made for casuals or bads or whatever. These changes are so the Devs can balance their numbers easier. To a lesser extent, changes are made for the midcore. People who aren't QUITE hardcore, but are trying to push themselves to be closer to it, and who didn't ask for these changes, the Devs just thought it would slightly close the gap. And I do thing Misshapen Chair focuses WAY too much on combat - "Why did I even play this Job/learn this?"
Because it was fun? If it wasn't fun, why would one do it? And if it was fun, isn't that an end unto itself?
Though I do agree with him that as long as something is viable, there's no reason to change them. I still don't know why WAR's cone was changed to a circle instead of just taking their 2 in that 1-2 AOE combo and turning it into a cone so the two would be normalized to each other. -
09-24-2022, 02:17 PMZolvolt
My ast request is if we keep collective unconcious that the damage mitigation from it last an meaningful amount of time after hitting the button.
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09-25-2022, 01:02 PMArchwizard
I think it really depends on the kind of reworks each of them is getting. There are different kinds of reworks a job can receive during an expansion compared to an expansion launch; for instance, MNK got a rework in the middle of Shadowbringers to address immediate complaints about its Greased Lightning mechanic and specific abilities like Tornado Kick and Six-sided Star, before getting another one at Endwalker launch that completely rewrote its mechanics from the ground up.
The latter required significantly more assets and development time all made with expectation of the new abilities it would acquire to further refine them, where the former was mostly streamlining, and at worst needed programming adjustments (like altering number values and adding a bonus effect here or there).
The goal of a mid-expansion rework is to keep as much of the existing system as possible so people don't have to learn a completely new job, while resolving key issues so people don't hyperbolize that it's "literally unplayable", at worst as a hold-over for a more extensive rework to be provided by an expansion launch.
So if PLD sees changes in 6.3, they'll come from a single-minded focus to resolve what they see as an immediate, pressing issue; the most significant changes with the least amount of work.
If they're waiting for an expansion launch for other job reworks, expect things like completely new gauges and mechanics, or trimming/replacing abilities you think are keys to playing the job right now. And trust, AST definitely needs a trim.
Not... sure why DRG is in the mix, though... -
09-25-2022, 09:27 PMASkellingtonAST's slated reworks are their cards. If there's anything more to be changed I do not believe the devs have officially stated what those are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
Personally I don't believe changing the card effects is an expansion worthy wait if it was originally intended in 6.2. And even if it is, they should've changed it like we wanted at the start of this expansion. It wasn't as if AST mains were quiet about it all through Shb.
/shrug Who knows. There may be more they aren't saying. -
09-25-2022, 09:29 PMSupersnow845To be fair they have never changed the cards significantly mid expansion so that’s probably their reasoning, though 5.0 also changed their entire healing kit as well so it’s not exactly a 1 to 1 comparisonQuote:
Originally Posted by ASkellington
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09-25-2022, 10:00 PMASkellingtonI believe their reasoning for holding off changes is due to Kaiten backlash and them wanting to reevaluate what they originally planned because the state of AST cards is a hot topic. As in, they understand they alienated old mains of the class by changing the cards and people want them back but they want to acknowledge that people also like the current seals system... in practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
On paper both iterations in my honest opinion were trash from the ground up.
That's fair, but it doesn't make me any less bitter. Because from my perspective:
- They changed AST cards by taking the easy way out and made all 6 of them to be Balance.
- To keep the RNG flavor they made the Seals system so that while the CARDS don't really mean any thing the SEALS do.
- The Seals system in 5.0 was flawed because 6% damage on Divination vs 5% (coupled with old Sleeve Draw and even guarenteed seal Sleeve Draw afterwards) was not worth the effort you put into it.
- Seals System 6.0 moved it to Astrodyne but still kept the same issue. Constant refresh replaces Lucid Dreaming in 80% of content because we don't have high mana costs, Haste when you get it doesn't amount to anything and neither does having 6% damage on top.
They had a chance to make the Seals system decent while keeping the cards flavorless by having Moons, Celestials and Suns in certain set ups = certain buffs so that you could control when and where you got them (for example, don't like the refresh on 2+ Moons? wait for another draw and change it to something else) this expansion and didn't do it and honestly? I don't want it any more.
PvP AST has card effects even if it is only 3 at a time. PvE AST can have the same with Melee/Range split and I would prefer that. -
09-26-2022, 05:27 AMArchwizardYou do realize how central their cards are to them? Their main gimmick?Quote:
Originally Posted by ASkellington
We may not just be talking about a tweak to Astrodyne and the Seals system here, but completely reinventing the whole thing. And considering how much feedback they've been getting about how people hate Astrodyne, it wouldn't shock me if they decided to pull the trigger on the whole damn thing but need time to figure out how to make a RNG-based 6-8 card system continue to work on a job that has already hit peak button bloat, without Astrodyne or Divination as incentives.
And they probably have changed their plans about the rework prior to their decision to cut it from 6.2.Quote:
Personally I don't believe changing the card effects is an expansion worthy wait if it was originally intended in 6.2.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that either:
1) Whatever we were originally slated to get in 6.2 was just a delay on something that was in the pipeline prior to expansion launch, when they were already reworking the job in 6.0 and it would make no sense to wait this long to drop it if they had it in mind this whole time.
OR
2) Whatever we get with the expansion will just be a tweak that could have been a patch cycle, when the entire conceit of them pushing it back was that they realized their plans would have to go way bigger than just Draw, Redraw and Astrodyne.
6.2 was gonna give Rework Plan A, which would have been bandaid fixes on the job; we are no longer on Plan A, but something more significant. The stated 7.0 Rework =/= 6.2 Rework =/= any hypothetical 6.0 Rework besides what we got.
Yeah, and they did change things with the expansion, and their decision about the rework was affected by the feedback they received since those changes.Quote:
And even if it is, they should've changed it like we wanted at the start of this expansion. It wasn't as if AST mains were quiet about it all through Shb.
And by the way, 6.2 dropped almost a year into Endwalker; of course they've had new ideas since then, it's not like everything is just sitting in a hat fully-formed, waiting to be pulled. -
09-26-2022, 07:52 AMRenathras
I feel like the AST (and DRG) changes are going to be SOMETHING significant, but they got put off by all the SAM/Kaiten complaints. They made that change thinking it would be a relatively simple one for accessibility and balance/tuning, and the SAM community has had a complete and total meltdown over it. I feel like that stayed the Devs' hand and now they won't make ANY changes that are not outright necessary until expansions going forward because they don't want to have to deal with that blowback and people seem to accept changes more when they come with an expansion.
For the cards, this also makes some sense as they may want to do some stat reworks and such, and if that's the case, they may be waiting for those. For example, say for the sake of argument they were going to rebalance crit to just be a chance and NOT increase crit damage. That would change gearing but would also change the value of things like Chain Strategem. It would also make a DH and Crit Card somewhat equal in power (vs today where Crit would automatically be better). So there may be some of that going on.
And for DRG, they said they weren't sure where to go with it now (like 5.X SMN), so...yeah. -
09-26-2022, 08:15 AMASkellingtonAnd in my second post I said that it was fair.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
And I also said in my second post it doesn't keep me from being salty that they waited this long to fix the cards. I'm not mad that cards aren't getting changed in 6.2. I'm mad they weren't changed in 6.0. Because and I'll quote myself here:
The seals mechanic COULD have worked as a replacement for cards if they actually worked on it. Instead of it being a damage buff a la Divination (5.0) or Astrodyne (6.0) it could have given some of the effects old cards had for support.Quote:
Originally Posted by ASkellington
They didn't do that. We LITERALLY got 5.0 Divination lite with Astrodyne.
And on top of that, we don't know what they're doing. IDEALLY they will reinstate the cards in some way. Either akin to PvP or some adjusted way of SB's. I have 0 faith in the devs right now for anything considering what 6.0's gimmick is for AST currently and their decision choices with some classes do not inspire any confidence.
Tl;dr - I am not saying that their reasoning for pushing back is wrong. It is a completely valid reason. I am just frustrated both in my class (AST) and role (healer) suffering from major neglect and what seems to be consistently ignored feedback. Because once again they could have changed the card system in 6.0 and didn't do it. I know why and why is 100% valid, they wanted to make the seals system work I get it, but they clearly didn't understand WHY we wanted our cards back and incorporate it into the seals system in 6.0. So I'm angry. -
09-26-2022, 10:58 AMRenathras
I think part of the problem is that the healer community doesn't even agree.
You have two groups of people in the same role - those that like to optimize damage and those that like to optimize healing. And it's further compounded by the encounter design and Job design. The ones that want to optimize damage go full in on optimizing healing with oGCDs and get bored with the damage kits, so want more damage buttons. The ones that want to optimize healing tend to dislike the oGCD healing model entirely but are just kinda stuck with it. And I'm not saying either is better than the other, just they're sharing a design space/role.
The encounter design and healing model has shifted considerably since ARR/HW, or even SB. Some of those beloved (and infamous) raids of HW were designed under the GCD healing model, not the oGCD one. The SB raids/fights were designed for far more GCD and far less oGCD healing than are in our toolkits today, and those are (generally) well loved. Healers did have an extra DoT (or 3 in SCH's case) back then, but there was also FAR more GCD healing and far LESS oGCD healing and a healing paradigm of the oGCDs being more emergency tools outside of Aetherflow heals.
The Dev team, though, isn't really designing Jobs OR encounters for, frankly, either of those groups, which leads to a lot of unhappiness.
That said, there are also a lot of people happy, or at least content, with things as they are right now. They're the masses of the 2-3 million strong playerbase that aren't in these threads and don't visit these forums or Reddit to post about it. -
09-27-2022, 02:00 AMty_taurusOptimizing damage and optimizing healing is the same thing. In order to maximize DPS output you need to maximize the value you get out of each healing tool. If you heal suboptimally, at least in savage, there's a good change that may bleed into your DPS optimization. I think what you're trying to describe is moreso the group who wants a more engaging selection of GCD actions, largely in the form of DPS rotations on par with what tanks have vs those who don't want to have to DPS at all nor have to engage in anything resembling a rotation. Naturally there are people who fall in-between of course, but those are your left and right stances.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
On the topic of encounter vs job design, absolutely. The way encounters are fundamentally designed continues to blatantly and directly clash with their supposed stance of not wanting healers to feel obligated to DPS. In challenging content, maximum DPS uptime on healers is quite literally essential. Just look at how tight the DPS checks were for this savage tier at launch. Sure it can be outgeared, but fights should launch with expectations that reflect the goals and values the team has of each role. And if we go to casual content, damage is so infrequent and so low that there's no reason any of the healers shouldn't have 100% DPS uptime outside of WHM using lilies. Dungeon tankbusters do so little damage, it barely breaks through a single layer of Haima.
On the topic of people content with the role. I would challenge that most of them would be content no matter what happens to the healing role. Most players are casual and really don't care about buttons, actions, or rotations. As long as it looks cool and clearing casual content doesn't require beating your head against the wall, they'd be fine with healing gaining complexity, as they'd either adapt or not care and just do whatever they felt like. That's what happens anyway now. It's what happened before ShB when the community was far happier with the state of healers.
Healing also has a very high turnover rate. The vast majority of people who heal are not dedicated healer mains. They're players who have WHM leveled for free roulette bonuses, and/or who are comfortable flexing into healer as needed if needed. -
09-27-2022, 03:41 AMLiam_HarperWhich is a good thing. Because the community provided strong negative feedback over badly done changes that made no sense, the devs actually have to analyze their own jobs and make the toolkits enjoyable and work well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
The bad thing is that now they're forced to do something that should be standard, we have to wait an entire expansion because their job design team isn't actually capable of it. It demonstrates there are serious issues with their job design team and how few experienced developers are assigned to it. -
09-27-2022, 03:45 AMAvoidy
I'm glad it's delayed. Their track record with tweaking healers has honestly been pretty terrible lately. I'm expecting them to completely gut the job in 7.0 because some people who don't even play AST complained about having to weave or something. But my opinion on this is pretty moot. I quit AST at the start of EW when I felt the new changes firsthand. I'm so apathetic on everything this job has to offer now. Maybe they'll take this extra time and really think about what they want to do with this job before they ruin it even further, but my hopes aren't high. I mained it in shb but dumped it for whm in endwalker because I just can't be bothered to play it right now.
Never played DRG, but I feel for them. Most I met in game seemed happy with the job as it was, and now they're all dreading the rework because none of them asked for it and they're wondering wtf square is even going to fix. -
09-27-2022, 03:48 PMRenathrasNo, it isn't. And never will be.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
That's like saying mastering being a gunslinging police officer and mastering being a surgeon treating gunshot victims is "the same thing".
I'm not quite sure that's accurate, but it's probably an approximation of an understanding. There are some who want more DPS buttons, some who don't, and many who are probably more than content with things as they are today. The old adage is accurate that those who are upset complain but the vast majority who are content sit in contented silence and aren't taking part in these discussions. These "healers need more DPS buttons" discussions don't at all represent an majority position.Quote:
I think what you're trying to describe is moreso the group who wants a more engaging selection of GCD actions, largely in the form of DPS rotations on par with what tanks have vs those who don't want to have to DPS at all nor have to engage in anything resembling a rotation. Naturally there are people who fall in-between of course, but those are your left and right stances.
EDIT (for space):
Somewhat agree. It's ironic that the trash packs (in wall to wall pulls) in dungeons are more deadly than the bosses. Though it should be noted that it's pretty clear they DIDN'T intend the DPS check to be so tight this raid teir. But yes, I agree overall that it seems like the encounter design and their desired objective kind of clash with each other. Though that's also somewhat the nature of Enrages in general. If DPSers are slacking off, Healers (and Tanks) have to pick up their slack, if they can, to get clears. Though right now, even post nerf, the Enrages are too tight to meet without Healer (and Tank) damage being fairly pronounced. Enrages are a sticky subject because I've hated them since way back when. I've never felt they're a good system for encounters, and it's lazy design that developers use because...well, it's lazy.Quote:
The way encounters are fundamentally designed continues to blatantly and directly clash with their supposed stance of not wanting healers to feel obligated to DPS.
I will contest that and say you're wrong. Now, here it really DOES depend on who we're talking about, but first we have to do a quick and dirty parsing of the community. At the top end (99%ers) you have the 1% of the community. Bleeding edge, theorycraft in their sleep, you know, the actual best of the best. Then we have the 9%ers, these are the 90-99% who AREN'T the elite, but want to be. These are also the people that most complain about things like balance and want to exclude people less skilled/dedicated/whatever than them from content. They see themselves as part of the 1%, but they aren't actually quite there. Then you have the Mid-core, which is the 50-90% types that still do hard content, still clear it, but do it more as a social thing with friends for fun and good times. They derive general joy from doing the stuff together, but they don't derive joy from min-maxing everything or making the game into a job. (I largely fit into this group, personally, and have since at least the middle of SB.) Then you have the "casuals(?)" which are the 0-50% that many times don't even step into hard content at all, and on the rare occasion they do, either do so with a group of friends or are doing old content for glamour or the like. These people generally don't know what weaving is, the difference between a GCD and an oGCD, etc. (I was one of these up until probably mid-SB when I started looking into SCH guide videos and happened across one from Momo or Wesk Alber or someone that explained the difference.)Quote:
I would challenge that most of them would be content no matter what happens to the healing role.
The Mid-core would be destroyed by changes like that, and so they would, in fact, not be content if the roles were completely changed. The hyper-casuals wouldn't care IF it doesn't come to bother them - the issue with Cleric Stance type stuff is that it DID, in fact, come to bother them with people getting yelled at in Dungeon runs if they were never using Cleric or weren't DPSing, which resulted in Cleric being removed ("This is why we can't have nice things"). Whenever stuff like this has bled out into the common player/casual content, the result is always that it was removed/nerfed. If the Healer rotations were made harder and it WAS a significant part of clear times so that 9%ers running 4 man roulettes started complaining about them, it would run into the same problem Cleric did.
The 1% wouldn't care. The 9% would be gleefully smirking at the mid-core no longer being able to clear "their" content and relishing having more exclusivity.
So I contest that they wouldn't care. The 50-90 would care because they aren't able to clear content, and the 0-50 would care because the 9% would now be complaining about every dungeon run taking longer than they want.
Let's correct that: It happened in SB once HW era healing was arguably gutted with the Cleric removal BECAUSE that was going on. It forced Cleric's removal and a stricter hand with TOS for people to be "far happier". Not only that, you say "the community was far happier". What evidence do you have of this? I would wager the 9% was far happier, but was the community AS A WHOLE? As much as the 9% complain, I feel the community AS A WHOLE is far happier with ShB healing than SB and certainly than HW.Quote:
It's what happened before ShB when the community was far happier with the state of healers.
Agreed, but in the opposite direction you likely mean.Quote:
Healing also has a very high turnover rate. The vast majority of people who heal are not dedicated healer mains. They're players who have WHM leveled for free roulette bonuses, and/or who are comfortable flexing into healer as needed if needed.
The people that want more DPS buttons on healers likely fit that mold. They want more DPS buttons because they'd really rather be playing a DPS Job but are on a Healer either for ques or for a raid spot.
People that DO main healers - as in have only one Job at level 90 and it's a Healer - are likely more the casuals or "Sylphies" who don't want that.
I'd wager that's the case, anyway. Again, when I was 0-50 casual, I only had WHM and SCH leveled (ARR, HW, and half of SB). It was literally all I did. It was when I shifted more into the mid-core that I actually had other Jobs leveled.
.
Overall, I don't exactly disagree with you on some things in a general sense, but I disagree on the specifics and the why of them, I suppose?
.
This is a position I do kind of agree with. Why change something when no one's asking for a change to it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Avoidy
SB to ShB change to WHM made sense. SB WHM was pretty meh and people were asking for changes, and the Lily/Misery changes we got were pretty fantastic. ShB/EW WHM was and is an improvement over SB WHM with their glorified Freecure Lily system. Losing twirly-staff Aero 3 kind of sucks, but trading Aero 3 and Aero 2 for Solace, Rapture, and Misery is an absolute gain in my book and has been so significant it's arguably WHM's core identity at this point!
On the other hand, SB SCH's were largely satisfied with the Job. The only thing they really needed were Eos to be more responsive and ghosting to be less of an issue. Well, they got changes in ShB...but those weren't them. They DID finally get a more responsive Eos in EW, but ghosting still exists.
I don't know why the NEED to change a Job. I get the SMN argument of "we didn't know where to go with it", but the solution might have just been "a bit more of the same until people complain" as opposed to a complete top-down rework... -
09-27-2022, 05:24 PMty_taurusI don't understand your analogy. The way the game mechanically functions dictates that optimizing your healing does in fact have a direct impact on your ability to optimize your DPS. The two are intrinsically linked. By choosing the best healing tool for any given scenario, you are extending your ability to continue DPSing, so I'm not sure what it is you're trying to talk about. In a given example, imagine you have a SCH who needs to heal the party after a light raidwide. Using Fey Blessing may be the most optimal heal, whereas opting for Succor instead, the less valuable heal, will take away from your ability to contribute DPS. In practice, though, I suppose we can say there's a fair amount of room for error, particularly in casual content, where choosing certain unnecessarily powerful heals that result in overhealing both don't take away from your DPS and aren't going to stress your resources later. Using Pneuma on a dungeon raidwide, for example, is highly unnecessary, but it's not going to leave you wanting for a Pnuema later in the fight where it will be on cooldown.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
I mean I wouldn't exactly toss around any numbers or percentages as I haven't polled the playerbase or anything, but I've been here since ARR and I've seen how people have reacted to job changes both good and bad--a lot of people. I've been on these forums since ARR days, and I've talked with many players over the years whether in FCs, linkshells, or shout chats. Most people just don't have strong opinions on job changes. They tend to pick the jobs that they like visually or thematically and just stick with those with a small caveat that overly complex jobs do tend to drive people away, hence AST or ShB SMN. What most players care about is the MSQ, glamour, and the aesthetic of their job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
I'll elaborate that when I said "community" I should've specified "dedicated community" as in the types of players who do engage with job discussion whether here, on Reddit, or on YouTube discussions. With that in mind, what I've seen is that during ARR, there was very little negative that anyone had to say about the healers. FFXIV's healers were regularly praised, actually, for not being curebots in contrast to WoW at the time. During HW, there was some amount of bickering that started as more WoW players started getting into HW, and WoW healers were not expecting FFXIV's healers to have to DPS or stance dance. I won't say it was exclusively WoW healers, of course, but they were the ones who kinda started the fire. SB was more mixed as WHM was very poorly thought out, SCH was initially missing several core tools at launch, but also had good elements as well. I'd argue it was great for Cleric Stance to be removed, actually. It was too much of an all-or-nothing ultimatum that left no room for error and was heavily punishing. So yeah I would argue that the at least dedicated healer community was much happier prior to Shadowbringers given how little issues people had with healing overall. It wasn't really until feedback was being outright ignored that things started to heat up. And as mentioned earlier, those not heavily invested in healing were and still are largely indifferent.
I find this statement quite callous to be honest with you. If I wanted to play as a DPS, then I'd play a DPS, and I do as it stands because healers are so poorly designed that it angers me how much I dislike playing as a healer. I love playing a support role in every other game out there. When I played league a couple years ago, my favorite role was specifically enchanters--characters like Bard, Rakan, and Nami. I recently played through Xenoblade 3 where I'd actively control healers, my favorite of which could spread debuffs, create evasion fields, and could heal the party, all while still dealing moderate damage. I also played Wakfu a long time ago where my favorite class was the Eniripsa who was the dedicated healer, but also had the ability Unnatural Remedies that would zombify enemies and cause healing to hurt them. You could even heal allies while also injuring zombified enemies with your AoE heal. All that said, I still want each FFXIV healer to have a wider library of GCD options, not just healing mind you. I've said before that I feel SCH and SGE should be the DPS heavy healers, AST the support heavy healer who replaces GCD DPS with GCD support that passively contributes to their DPS numbers, and WHM who's more balanced.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
I find it kind of rude that you are writing off those of us who fight for more DPS options on healers as effectively 'not real healers,' because the true healer mains are apparently the casuals who don't want DPS at all. That's a really narrow minded perspective to have. There are many different types of healer players, and all of them are valid. That said, this game does not support heal-only healers on any level and there's no way around that without quite literally redoing the game's encounter design from scratch which is just not reasonable. It's like playing Super Smash Bros and complaining about its platforming elements. That's a part of the package, just as DPSing is a part of the package with FFXIV's healer design. I would love to see one of the healers fulfill a gameplay style that could better satisfy people who want a healer that only heals or supports, but it will still realistically need to rely on some amount of DPS.
At the end of the day, if you are content with the healers as they are, then that's your right. But they are still terribly designed for this game. You can like something that is poorly designed just like how you can like food that's bad for you, like clothes that don't match, or like a movie with bad acting. -
09-27-2022, 06:33 PMRenathrasYou're looking at the problem mechanically and ignoring the non-mechanical side of the puzzle. The best way I can explain it is imagine a doctor with no bedside manner. One who is competent in the treatment of illness, but shows neither empathy nor compassion to Human patients, and thus it interferes with their recovery as Humans (being social creatures) need that as well as mere physical ministrations.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
Your belief is that mechanically, by perfecting an oGCD healing plan for an encounter, you are able to devote more GCDs to healing, and thus optimizing healing in this way leads to optimizing DPS. What you aren't taking into account is that many people don't enjoy DPSing. They optimize healing because they like healing, and then when they've done that, they will hit a one or two button DPS rotation as filler in the truest sense of the word - something they don't enjoy but they put up with on a basic level because it's not too obtrusive.
People can arrive at a similar destination by different routes. But the distinction here is that if the DPS rotations were more involved, many people would not enjoy that and wouldn't optimize it. Further, the optimizations themselves are different. For example, across my 20ish years of playing healers in MMOs, I've gotten fairly good at it. And by it, it mean healing, not DPSing on a healer. I learned about what my heals do to healthbars of my targets and so figured out what to use that is most MP efficient, thus freeing up more MP for future heals if needed, and also adapting to the group and comfort level, such as using Succor on practice/clear groups doing new content, knowing that those shields can actually save people from mistakes while I would omit that step with more experienced parties. Comparing cast times vs healing needed - I can say I've legitimately used Cure 1's shorter cast time before to spot heal someone who would have died before a Cure 2 would have landed - MP costs, and how much healing actually is needed.
This is optimization, is it not?
But it's not optimization to optimize DPS. It's optimization to optimize healing. If that means I can use an extra GCD on a Glare, so be it, and that's fine and good, but that is neither the focus of the effort nor would I relish having to fill that GCD with "Comboglare" or "Dia 2 refresh".
EDIT:
Indeed, but we both have that same story. I have been playing since the patch before NIN was released (which I think was 2.4). I distinctly remember the "7 NIN lf healer for FATE train" in Northern Thanalan because of the legendarily bad DPS ques. I was drafted into one of those a Saturday afternoon, getting from the lower 40s up to level 50 from it. Which made finishing the MSQ more streamlined (remember how bad the level gating was on quests where you'd have to grind out a level every so many quests so you could continue the MSQ?)Quote:
I mean I wouldn't exactly toss around any numbers or percentages as I haven't polled the playerbase or anything, but I've been here since ARR and I've seen how people have reacted to job changes both good and bad--a lot of people.
In that time, I've interacted with quite a few people as well.
The general position is that people want to do well, but people's minds work differently. I'm great at optimizing healing. I'm mediocre at optimizing damage dealing. That's part of why I play healers in games. (The other and main reason is that I like helping people in need with healing and raising - when I go into Eureka, I'm generally one of those people replying in shout with an "omw" when someone's asking for a Raise)
While I WILL use my damage buttons, I prefer them to be as streamlined and unobtrusive as possible, since they're interfering with or, at beast, as side plate to my main objective, which is ensuring my party members are hale and whole so they can complete their objective of defeating the big bad boss. But that only goes to an extent that the rotations AREN'T obtrusive and AREN'T overly convoluted. It is the reason I don't play DPSers, because I genuinely don't enjoy DPSing as a thing. When I play WAR, I like Fell Cleave and Primal Rend because they look and sound cool. I pay so little attention to damage numbers I couldn't even tell you what my average damage when using them is. Come to think of it, I can't on WHM, either.
On the contrary, though, I CAN tell you that Cure 2 does a bit less than 20k healing, 30k on my crits, as does Solace and (roughly) Tetra. Or approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of a tank health bar (depending on their gear) or 1/3 to 1/2 of a Healer/Caster's. Those are the numbers my mind works for and I'm most concerned with. I accept my Dia uptime and Glares are killing bosses, but I can't see 0.01% change increments on the boss health bar the way I can see 25% increments on a Tank's, nor can I even tell you offhand what that damage number that pops up on enemies I hit with Glare even is in a ballpark way. I dunno, 15-25k? Legitimately no idea.
I do agree with you, though, about players driving away from overly complex Jobs. It's why my position is still WHM should be left alone while SCH, AST, and SGE can be changed to have more involved DPS rotations, as that would at least provide a haven for people that don't want that.
And fair enough on that elaboration. When we're talking about FFXIV and the word "community" comes up, I'm thinking "the community of players of FFXIV as a whole". If you meant only those who come to the official forums and Reddit (which...seem to be the ones most likely to be jaded and/or disappointed with the game - those who enjoy it seem not to be on the forums defending or even talking about it), then you're probably right. However I would caution against the Devs making any changes as requested by such a small portion of the community that WOULD affect the whole, which such changes as these would, make no mistake.
I'd also caution about relying too much on ARR. When games are in their infancy, a lot of weird stuff happens. Molten Core circa 2004 was considered the pinnacle of raid design at the time. But many bosses were tank and spank + gimmick, which was something like "remember to dispell this one thing every 5 minutes". Many classes had simple, or even no rotation. Hunters were expected to autoattack because their damage attacks would often pull threat from the Tanks, and bosses could only hold 8 debuffs, so only a few select debuffs were allowed to be applied to the boss, no DoTs or similar. ARR wasn't as bad, but theorycrafting and optimization was far from what it is today. Moreover, healing wasn't, either. Modern FFXIV healing can often be done with oGCDs, to the point people complain about GCD healing outside of WHM Lilies. Back then, GCD healing was not only expected, it was the norm, especially for WHM. The only oGCD heals at the time were Benediction on a 6 min or something CD and Lustrate which was a % heal not a potency based heal (and thus bypassed Cleric Stance limitations)
Encounter design damage was also completely different. And healers even in HW were not being "regularly praised" for not being curebots. They were being regularly CONDEMNED if they were being curebots, to the point that the Devs removed Cleric Stance from the game because it was creating such a toxic environment.
You may find it callous if you wish, but that isn't my intent. From talking with a great many people, it seems to be the truth.Quote:
I find this statement quite callous to be honest with you.
People that like healing - and by that I mean making health bars go from somewhat empty to somewhat full or applying shields or mitigation (there's something amazingly satisfying, if moderately fruitless, about Recitation + Critlo + Deployment + Soil a party before a boss ultimate and seeing the shields not even fully consumed after the attack lands - THAT is the kind of thing that I enjoy) - tend to like the healer kits in the game right now. They're powerful, functional, and capable, and with minimal obtrusiveness of non-healing mechanics (e.g. damage)
People that don't EXACTLY like healing - and by that I mean, and I quote from prior conversations, "I don't want to be the party's heal b-tch while they have the fun pulling big numbers" - are the ones largely complaining. People that, if FFXIV was more like FFXI, would likely enjoy playing on RDM in that game as a hybrid that throws out clutch heals to save the party ("The only health point that matters is the last one!" mentality folks) while pushing their kit to the highest level to deal damage on enemies. The people that take great pride if they can "keep the party alive and do it while out-DPSing tanks and even some damage dealers!"
Folks that would enjoy something like an Everquest Bard or a Guild Wars Mesmer that really shift the course of a battle if they're highly skilled in leveraging their sometimes-finicky, often highly nuanced, but powerful when executed well, toolkit.
I'm sure you've met a few people like that, given your above statement on your history and conversations?
You say "If I wanted to play as a DPS, then I'd play a DPS", but this is just as true of folks saying "If I wanted to damage the boss instead of heal party member healthbars, I'd play a damage dealer", right?
If there were Jobs in FFXIV that DID work that way, would you not find yourself likely enjoying them more? Reading your post, it seems like you might. "characters like..." "spread debuffs, create evasion fields, and could heal the party, all while still dealing moderate damage". Does my statement above not well encapsulate your mindset?
And note, I don't mean it as an insult, so please don't take it as one. In my mind, there are four types of players in MMOs (well, besides the spade/heart/club/diamond):
Tanks, Healers, Supports, and Damage Dealers.
But for whatever reason, games tend not to like having Supports (probably harder to balance, but it's not like MMOs are ever perfectly balanced anyway...) This forces Support minded players into other roles that they have to make a best fit with. A FFXIV friend of mine has that mindset and his favorite Jobs are RDM and PLD, and he likes it when we let him RDM-heal 4 man dungeons. We could probably add BRD and DNC to that list of Support-oriented Jobs.
So it's not me "writing off" people like you.
I'm merely pointing out that you don't exactly speak for all healers, since you (to my way of thinking) speak for Supports as a group - as I'd wager Support minded people would agree with your positions.
The unfortunate truth is that FFXIV doesn't have such a role. It really SHOULD, but...
So we're stuck fighting over the Healer role.
It's not me saying you're "lesser" or anything. I don't say Tanks are "lesser" than Healers. But if a Tank minded player picked up a Healer and started complaining that they don't have enough mitigation and agro generation, we'd both agree that they're barking up the wrong tree and should play Tanks instead.
It's kind of a tough spot for Support people, though, since the closest thing they have in FFXIV to a dedicated role is Ranged (DNC and BRD, specifically), but SE won't just make that a thing already, so we're stuck fighting over Healers.
Which also plays into my continued proposal to leave WHM and shift each of the others to different aspects. I'd personally like to see AST go all in as a buffer/Support, SCH as a DoT juggling class, and SGE as a RDM-lite Healer/Damage Dealer semi-hybrid (just from the healing side where RDM is from the DPS side). I feel like that's the best way to appeal to and make the most people happy. And to clarify on this:
This is the strawman that's obnoxious.Quote:
I find it kind of rude that you are writing off those of us who fight for more DPS options on healers as effectively 'not real healers,' because the true healer mains are apparently the casuals who don't want DPS at all.
I didn't say "not real healers", though I do think "would be happier as Supports" is correct. That isn't an insult or a "writing off". If I was "writing off" those people, I wouldn't be suggesting no less than 3/4ths of the Healer Jobs be shifted to tailor to them, now would I?
The second part is only true in people who don't ENJOY dpsing, but will throw dps spells if it's unobtrusive and uncomplicated.
No, that's not narrow minded - it's me looking at reality. And I'm even trying to please people with that other mindset with the lion's share of the Healing Jobs as a compromise position - a compromise position that offers 75% to the other side is a pretty good compromise, one would think...
That's hardly true - ARR encounters and HW encounters required far more Healer healing GCDs, and (in THEORY if not in PRACTICE) was supposedly balanced around healers contributing no DPS.Quote:
That said, this game does not support heal-only healers on any level and there's no way around that without quite literally redoing the game's encounter design from scratch which is just not reasonable. It's like playing Super Smash Bros and complaining about its platforming elements. That's a part of the package, just as DPSing is a part of the package with FFXIV's healer design. I would love to see one of the healers fulfill a gameplay style that could better satisfy people who want a healer that only heals or supports, but it will still realistically need to rely on some amount of DPS.
That said "it will still realistically need to rely on some amount of DPS" - if we kept WHM as it is today, I wouldn't be upset with that. I still hate DoTs and would honestly prefer a 1-2 rotation over a 11111211112 rotation, but no one's arguing to strip healers of all their damage buttons when someone says to have one healer (generally WHM because it's already there and is the only healer in the game right now that seems designed to actually USE GCDs for healing) remain with the current system.
In fact, the Devs have said since ShB that's what they want for all the healers - again, their encounter design, we agree, has not met that design goal - so a compromise position would probably be the best answer.
Now who's being rude, callous, and writing off?Quote:
At the end of the day, if you are content with the healers as they are, then that's your right. But they are still terribly designed for this game. You can like something that is poorly designed just like how you can like food that's bad for you, like clothes that don't match, or like a movie with bad acting.
Some people like vanilla and some like rocky road moosetracks. Neither is good or bad, they're just different flavors.
WHM is pretty well designed for the game right now, imo. The only changes I'd honestly make is give Plenary Indulgence a 10% damage mitigation as well (basically Protect/Shell on a 60 sec CD that does some bonus healing), make Regen not a DPS loss (either generate Blood Lily or be oGCD), and...that'd honestly be about it. The rest of the kit I find fun and enjoyable to use. -
09-28-2022, 01:00 AMty_taurusI'm just going to summarize for time because it's getting to the point of extreme with these post lengths. Sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
On Optimization: If someone is slacking off on their DPS uptime, that means their optimized healing is no longer optimized. I don't care if they don't enjoy DPSing. They chose to play FFXIV, not me. I didn't drag them here. In this game, healers contribute to DPS for every GCD that isn't need for healing, which is nearly all of them. Every 2.5 seconds that they cast nothing because the idea of DPSing upsets them, they are griefing the party. Either contribute or leave. If they don't like that, then they can play something else.
On not liking DPS: Like I said before, I can sympathize with wanting healers that don't spend 80+% of their time casting offensive spells. I understand that there are players who don't like that and think there should be a heal/support oriented healer who's DPS is passive rather than active, because they still need to compete with the other healers and thus need similar DPS contributions numerically to not be dead in the water. That said, if you do not like DPS rotations in a game built on GCD combat design, then you are playing the wrong game. This is why healer design is objectively bad--why WHM should not stay as it is. This game is foundationally built on the concept of having a rotation of actions to cycle through, and that is the benchmark for effective game design regardless of opinion. If that is not the type of gameplay you enjoy, then this is not the right game for you no more than Super Smash Bros is the right game for you if you don't like platform fighters, or any more than Persona 5 is the right game for you if you don't want to engage with slice of life management. The healing role is failing utterly to utilize the core style of gameplay that FFXIV uses and it is creating an exodus of people leaving the role. Healer population is on the decline and it's only going to get worse if nothing changes.
On what it means to be a "Healer:" Both "healer" and "support" are seen as synonymous. You may not agree, but the entirety of the game design industry sees differently. Xenoblade 3, for example, labels the role as "healer" and not "support," yet every healer has offensive skills, and some combination of utility, many interesting combinations I might add. There is no LoL healbot character, nor a healbot in any other MOBA that I've seen. Even in the 'Tales of' series where older games had dedicated healers, they would still have offensive spells they'd use regularly. Cheria, the dedicated healer of Tales of Graces, for example... Wanting to have engaging gameplay outside of just ways to counter boss mechanics is absolutely something true healers can want. It doesn't make them any less of a healer, it just means they have higher standards for their gameplay.
On FFXIV's DPS Checks: All savage level content has required a significant amount of healer DPS contributions on launch regardless of how perfectly the DPS play. Eventually, this could be circumvented with gear, but it has always been the expectation that most of a healer's GCDs would gear toward offense, even in HW where savage demanded far more frequent usage of healing GCDs, moreso due to a far more limited OGCD healing library on each healer. No amount of practice would fix that until you started gearing.
On bad game design: I wasn't being rude saying that you're allowed to like the healers. But the reality is, none of them are well-built for this game objectively. This is because of how poorly they translate to the core design philosophies of the game as a whole. If you're content with that, that's your choice. It's not being rude to say that it's your choice. I like honey mustard on pasta, but that's not a good choice. It's not healthy, nor is that something most people enjoy, but that's fine. The key though is that me eating honey mustard on pasta doesn't force anyone else to eat honey mustard on pasta. You can like bad things. It's not an insult. -
09-28-2022, 06:13 AMT-OwlCan you in any shape or form back your numbers or are you just trying to frame yourself as the silent majority like people with opinions on certain movies and comics on Youtube try to do? Just from my personal experience, just catching a glimps at cast bars when doing just random dungeon content, the majority of healers in very high level content seem to be fairly competent in upholding high levels of dps uptime and play with a basic level of competence in casual content, not just 1 in 2. I feel like generally, people overestimate the incompetence of the FF14 community, it seems like most do fairly well in current casual content once its not first time anymore and lack in older content that is not very common in roulettes because many people forget the mechanics at some point and it usually isn't done often enough to keep them memorized.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
And to be honest, you could just as well claim that cleric stance was removed because pure heal sylphie minded fanatics bullied new healers who were still about to learn and optimize when to use it and not to use it and find the right balance between dpsing and healing, which will mean that sometimes players will not saved from their own mistakes by a healer. I think the removal of cleric stance without anything in return comes with SEs schizophrenia when it comes to healers. They are pushed heavily into the direction of DPSing alot and were from the very beginning by the very design of the game and at the same time SE pays lipservice to nooo healers don't have to dps. To be it feels like backing down in front of very hardcore pure healer fanatics who in my subjective experience with the community tend to be fairly abusive and intimidating. -
09-28-2022, 07:30 AMSupersnow845I posted some data to him a while ago when he asked me if I had evidence that the healer role was not popular or well received recently though most of the data was from ShB since there is little to no data for endwalker and somehow he interpreted me having outdated data meant the healer role was totally fine despite presenting no data of his own. So yes he is big on framing his opinion as being the “silent majority” with nothing to back it upQuote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
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09-28-2022, 07:55 AMT-OwlI always chuckle at Sylphies who are so proud at putting healing first always and being superior due to their anime healer waifu mentality when I'm certain that they would probably be beaten by wannabe parsers in most cases when it comes to healing output and optimization.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
I feel like people who have this pure healing nothing else mentality are stuck in their mindset in very very oldschool mmos which would force players into that role by being centered around a conservatist and passive attitude while healing, due to ressource scarcity enforcing inefficent healing to preserve mana and inactivity during downtimes to regen it, which doesn't fit into the modern style of gaming which across most genres shifted towards a more fast paced action oriented style of gameplay, which just organically leads to making ressource preservation a secondary concern or a no-concern at all and instead shifts the focus from using downtimes for manag regen towards dpsing towards downtimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
To be honest, it begins with the assumption that high dps uptime and the glare spam is a hardcore gamer problem, when I personally would describe me by no means as that. I play savage very casually and most of my healing experience stems from leveling a healer and doing casual content with it, having very casually flirted with the role when I started, during Stormblood a bit and most seriously for a few months after Endwalker release. And I ran into this burnout really, really quickly, not by being an elite pro-gamer but just by knowing how healing works in FF14 and wanting to do it well from the get go. Healing is just such a role that burns you out very quickly once you actually try to be a productive team member.Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
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09-28-2022, 02:27 PMRenathrasWe're literally talking about anecdotes and our personal experiences talking with people.Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
Do you keep a log of every person you talk to?
If you mean the %ers, I dunno what to tell you other than every survey of the FFXIV community shows only about 20% of people clear Savage tiers and at most 40% of people even try them. This is highly dependent on server and the overall average seems to be around 15% clear them, which includes some of the mid-core.
Also, see this post I just made a bit ago, where I pulled up old, ARR period guides of Turns 5, 9, and 13 and discussed what the healers were doing, specifically WHM vs SCH:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...87#post6096787
You'll note that my overall perspective of the two and what they should be today matches that period's reality (just I think SCH going to SB and WHM keeping Lilies makes sense) while yours does not.
Notice ALL OF THE WHITE MAGES in ALL OF THOSE VIDEOS linked, which are the MTQ Capture guides and Mr Happy's, are what you would degrade as "Sylphies". Indeed, as I point out in that post, you don't see the WHM go into Cleric Stance basically at all in those videos/fights. I didn't see it once. I did see the SCHs going into it several times, but NOT the White Mages.
Further, you don't see the WHMs casting Stone and Aero uptime goes from basically none in Twintania to "spotty at best" in the later fights. Meanwhile, you see the SCH maintain far more uptime, throw Shadow Flare, and while you don't see Ruin casts, you see the Ruin bolts here and there, meaning they're using Ruin 2. The WHM, on the other hand, is almost exclusively casting Cure 1, Cure 2, Stoneskin - yes, STONESKIN - and Medica 2. There's no part in those fights where the WHMs are acting as damage dealers, and these were leading raiders of the period. WHM was played as a Sylphie.
Dun dun duuuuun!
And no, Cleric wasn't removed because of Sylphies being bullied. Holy revisionist history, Batman! Cleric was removed because of people like you bullying Sylphies, not the other way around.
As I said in that post, btw, you and people like you are correct - with regards to SCH. But you appear to be dead wrong with regards to WHM. And Cleric. And Sylphies.
EDIT:
You shouldn't lie.Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
I didn't say "healer role was totally fine". I said that a majority of players are LIKELY content with the healer role, and explained the reasoning for it. You just disregarded the reasoning because you didn't like it and refused to consider the possibility that people's views changes over time, which is ridiculously wrong in almost every real-life situation.
FFXIV 2.1, 2.3, and 2.5 were "very very oldschool mmos"?Quote:
Originally Posted by T-Owl
FFXIV is the game we're talking about playing!
BLM: Exists.Quote:
the modern style of gaming which across most genres shifted towards a more fast paced action oriented style of gameplay
But ONCE AGAIN, this is why I feel that all four healers should be different here. WHM should be more like the ARR paradigm just with the addition of some mitigation tools like Temperance and movement tools like Afflatus abilities that modern fights posses. It doesn't need a "fast paced action oriented style of gameplay". Guild Wars 2 has that. I don't play GW2 because I don't like that. And I'm not saying FFXIV must have that FOR ALL JOBS.
There's literally a simple way for everyone to win here, which I've proposed repeatedly and you guys summarily reject because unless you're getting everything, you seem to consider it somehow horrible.
Thing is, you've been playing the role since SB, as you say.Quote:
To be honest, it begins with the assumption that high dps uptime and the glare spam is a hardcore gamer problem, when I personally would describe me by no means as that. I play savage very casually and most of my healing experience stems from leveling a healer and doing casual content with it, having very casually flirted with the role when I started, during Stormblood a bit and most seriously for a few months after Endwalker release. And I ran into this burnout really, really quickly, not by being an elite pro-gamer but just by knowing how healing works in FF14 and wanting to do it well from the get go. Healing is just such a role that burns you out very quickly once you actually try to be a productive team member.
I've been playing the role since ARR.
On WHM, no less.
Same here.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
On Optimization: Read https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...87#post6096787 and watch the videos yourself. Yes, I chose to play FFXIV. THAT is the FFXIV I chose to play a healer on.
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On not liking DPS: I will point you here again https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...87#post6096787 where, AGAIN, THIS IS THE GAME I am playing and wanting to play. The game that is FFXIV. THIS game. You got frustrated when you thought I told you you weren't a "real healer", yet here you are telling me I'm not a "real FFXIV player". Can you not see how that's even worse? Especially when my playstyle is arguably as native to FFXIV as yours is - again, see that other post where I note in summary that SCHOLAR did, in fact, play the way you point out, but WHITE MAGE did not, and played the way that I point out. FFIXV absolutely once catered to both healer gameplay styles AT THE SAME TIME.
Seriously, you need to stop the gatekeeping. This IS the right game for me, as proven by me showing you how that was how it started AND where the current healing design - of all four healers, no less! - matches my gameplay perspective, not yours. If anything, it seems like FFXIV may not be the game FOR YOU considering the healer DPS kits are not to your liking but they are to mine. Do you not see how those words apply to you more than they do to me?
Indeed, my perspective more matches OG FFXIV than yours does AND matches current FFXIV design and Job kits, too!
.
On what it means to be a Healer: No, healer and support are not synonymous. Is DNC a healer? BRD? Both are considered supportive Jobs. CLEARLY, while healers often are given support tools and get the de-facto role of "Support" in games that don't have it as its own fourth role, the two terms are not at all synonymous. You keep mentioning Xenoblade 3. How about we look at a FINAL FANTASY game instead, considering we're talking about Final Fantasy 14? Let's look at the one just before it, FF13. The Medic class in that game had NO OFFENSIVE ABILITIES at all. But there were also TWO Support classes, the Synergist (which I actually loved - all the buffs!) and the Saboteur (all the debuffs). Note that Saboteur spells DID deal damage. Neither Synergist nor Medic had a single damage attack. So both were even MORE pure healer than what FFXIV offers in the role. This was also true of the White Mage Dresssphere in FFX-2, where they didn't even have autoattac/Attack command, instead having "Pray" as their spamable ability.
Indeed, you're reaching into everything OTHER THAN Final Fantasy games to make your argument. Particularly, you're reaching into games that aren't like FFXIV at all - Xenosaga is a single player semi-action RPG (this would be more relevant if we were talking about Guild Wars 2 class design), and League of Legends is a MOBA, which isn't like MMOs in most any respect other than within the short duration matches you gain some levels.
If we instead look at Final Fantasy games, or even other non-action MMOs, we see thee healer role is much less defined the way you suggest. Some even outright had Support as a recognized fourth role, like Guild Wars 1 and Everquest, and Pantheon and Ashes of Creation are also looking into doing that same thing with their own takes on the Support/Control role, AoC with Bard and Pantheon with Bard and Enchanter. Both WoW and FFXIV's devs are, I believe, on record saying if they ever DID a fourth role, it would be Support (suggesting they see it as potentially distinct), and many of the most support oriented classes in games that don't have a Support role are in those games as DPSers or even Tanks, not always Healers.
And further, what you consider "engaging" and what other people consider "engaging" are not necessarily the same things.
You ARE correct in that different people like different things. And the great irony here is, there's a way to ACTUALLY make everyone happy - everyone who doesn't insist on getting everything their way and anything less than that being unacceptable, that is, but those people would be more content too, at least.
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On FFXIV's DPS Checks: Look at those videos. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...87#post6096787 Again, LOOK AT THEM. Notice that the WHM is contributing essentially 0 DPS for the most part. They're still clearing the fights. Now, you can argue those weren't "Savage level content", but people of that era would call you out on that claim. Indeed, other than Second Coil (which was given a Savage version that broke the internet), all of the Coil fights were what we would consider Savage content today, and the Savage Second Coils we'd probably call Ultimate. Regardless, your claim is off by the face of it. BUT THAT ASIDE: No one is asking for healers that deal no DPS.
Seriously, that's such a strawman of a canard fallacy, you guys need tto stop it.
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On bad game design: Well, just as you above incorrectly thought I was being rude to you, I'll accept here you likely weren't tyring to be rude, either. But I contest none of them are well-built for this game. They are all built where they are suited to clearing the content. Moreover, the Devs' stated design philosophy, that healers be approachable and functional in content and not too alienating to players to pick up and be competent with, seems to be being met.
It strikes me that you're confusing what you WANT healers to be, and what you personally FEEL game design should be, that is, two very subjective things, with objective fact.
You're expressing subjective, which is fine, but not objective analysis.
OBJECTIVELY, the healers are built VERY WELL (arguably too well) for the healing needs of the encounters, and they are built very well to the Devs' design intention for the Healing role.
As far as the last - that you liking something doesn't force it on others - you realize that's literally my argument, right? Indeed, my entire position at this point, restated several times, of changing SCH, AST, and SGE to appeal to different players while leaving WHM to appeal to those of us that like FFXIV healing as it is right now IS that solution.
And "You can like bad things" is a statement, but when you're attacking people's taste (which, again, is a subjective thing), that is, in fact, an insult. Though I accept you are not INTENDING it as one. -
09-28-2022, 03:30 PMfulminating
What does savage clear rate have to do with healers being poorly designed in all content?
Not that t13 is remotely relevant to non blue mage healers these days, but all the old clear guides/vods indicate is that white mage wasn’t as well designed as scholar. A lot of the gcd healing the did seemed unnecessary, but they did have aero uptime. It’s also unfortunate that coils were chosen seeing as there’s no logs from the time. -
09-28-2022, 03:41 PMRenathrasThe argument often goes "FFXIV healers have never worked this way", so here is demonstration that they, in fact, DID work this way.Quote:
Originally Posted by fulminating
It's an odd "appeal to authority" fallacy where people are appealing to the game's history to make their argument have an aura of authority to it. The problem is - they're wrong, as the game never WAS what they are saying was.
It's fair to say - as I did - that it was PARTLY that way in that SCH was a support DPS/Healer hybrid. But it clearly was not that way in total truth because WHM was not. It's also interesting to see how LITTLE Aero uptime there is in those videos, and how the vaunted Cleric Stance dance, supposedly the high point of healer design and gameplay, wasn't even being used at that high level by WHMs, and was only somewhat being used by SCHs.
My point was to dispel that faulty appeal to authority so we could actually come to a shared realization:
FFXIV has, through its history, appealed to both types of players AT THE SAME TIME in Job and encounter design. And there's zero reason why that was true then and not possible now. No laws of physics or even encounter design have changed to make a thing impossible that was once the norm.
Also: Do you have links to these guides/analyses about WHM not being as well designed as SCH in ARR? I remember that argument (and it was valid) in SB, but in ARR, the assumption was you carried one of each to raids and they were considered to fill different niches and do so well. -
09-28-2022, 03:56 PMSupersnow845Yes so your argument basically becomes “person with opposing view has outdated data so I’m just gonna assume that general sentiment has moved in the completely opposite direction took with nothing to back that up because………”Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Whether you go by outdated data, opinions on the forums, reddit, Facebook, literally anywhere people don’t like the design of the healers, you are well within your right to still like them but I still have no idea where your absolutely unshakable insistence that the healer role isn’t a problem comes from -
09-28-2022, 05:05 PMArchwizardQuote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
That's a flawed analogy, least of which because neither one of those two has the overlap to fulfill the role demanded by the game. Gunslingers are not expected to render first aid while shooting, nor are surgeons expected to shoot while performing surgeries (and in fact take an oath to do no harm).Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Optimized healing is the most efficient use of your healing (and mitigation) tools, to minimize the amount of additional healing required for maximum group uptime. (Any definition that proposes "maximizing healing" invites overhealing, which is suboptimal by definition.)
Optimized damage is the most efficient use of your damage-dealing tools to maximize the amount of damage you personally deal.
Optimizing raid healing, consequently, optimizes personal damage: By minimizing GCDs spent on healing, you are maximizing time for damage output.
Simultaneously, optimized raid damage requires optimizing personal healing: Maximum damage is only achieved when the entire group's downtime (ie death), as well as periods of reduced output (like Weakness debuffs), are reduced to zero.
And of course, maximizing your damage output is a form of damage mitigation, as it reduces the periods in which the party is taking damage that needs to be healed.
For any given group composition, the two are intrinsically linked -- of course, the bulk of healing optimization falls onto the healer's shoulders, rather than any other role, due to the tools at their disposal being more numerous and powerful than any other job's, while their GCD heals come at the lowest damage cost.
However! This is also why it's a tank's responsibility to use their mitigation tools, and why DPS are given tools to assist in personal healing and raidwide mitigation, in order to assist healers in minimizing raid downtime while continuing to deal damage.
So yes, for a healer, optimized damage is optimized healing and vice versa. -
09-28-2022, 06:47 PMRilifane
Optimizing healing is basically the requirement for optimizing damage. And in turn, optimized healing (not maximized, as you said) is with with optimized damage in mind even if it that's not the active thought process behind it or the person doesn't go through with it in the end because there is no reason to work towards dropping a GCD heal unless you plan on using that GCD on something else and the only other option is damage.
MP is not an issue unless you plan on going for high dps uptime and thus constant MP loss... which, again, means that damage is the goal in mind.
Minimizing healing has nothing to do with not wanting to heal, secretly wanting to play dps, not like having to heal or anything like that, it is a logical consequence of how the game is designed: incoming damage is limited and predictable, survival is binary (you live or you die, you can't "live more" or "die more"), damage is always useful.
So there are no two different camps called "optimized healing" vs "optimized dps". The former is a requirement for the latter and done with the latter in mind. The latter won't work unless you work on the former.
The goal with anything that has limited usefulness (like healing) is always to find the sweet spot where you meet the requirement but don't waste resources on going beyond that as anything beyond this point simply has no purpose. As such, getting good at healing will always result in healing less regardless of personal preference. -
09-28-2022, 08:55 PMRenathrasQuote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
...and then gave several reasons as to what that because was. I didn't stop with "because.......". I don't remember what all I noted at the time, but (a) being further removed from the emotive knee-jerk reaction, (b) new people to the role enjoying it, (c) overall que information (that healer ques went from being in demand across the board to being more similar to tank ques, and this was WITH Tanks getting a new Job then), (d) additional changes that happened (at least one of your surveys was from before Energy Drain was returned to SCH), and so on and so forth.
I didn't stop with "just because I say so", I actually GAVE REASONS for my thinking so. Reasons you didn't dispute so much as you ignored, just as you're doing now.
NOT ONLY THAT, but even your own data - the later data - showed a reversion, with SCH even in the surveys YOU PROVIDED being the number 7 most satisfied Job in the most recent data that you DID have, where it was rock bottom in the first set. This both shows that the data you provided MAY have been unsientific to the point of being bad data, but if we assume it was overall valid, seemed that the community had moved away from the initial position and views had changed, which was literally my position proved by YOUR data.
Yeah, leave ALL of that out, why don't ya.......
And this is part of the problem - setting aside the outdated data, the rest of your points of reference are all SPECIFICALLY groups who don't like healers. That is, the people who don't like them are the ones most likely to go to forums and complain about it. Look at these threads. ALL of these threads have roughly the same 20 people complaining. There are some additional voices, but it's largely a relative handful of people in a game with over 3 million players, a good quarter or more of whom play healers. Do you not see how insane it is to try and extrapolate the views of THE most upset to the entire community, especially based on such a small sample size to begin with? And even IN THESE PLACES, you get pushback from people like me who aren't upset about the state of healers, or who think that they need some tweaks but are not horrible.Quote:
Whether you go by outdated data, opinions on the forums, reddit, Facebook, literally anywhere people don’t like the design of the healers,
In simple terms, this is like only surveying Political Party R to get an opinion on Political Party D's position on an issue. OF COURSE it's going to be resoundingly negative. But if you surveyed Political Party D OR if you surveyed all citizens in the polity, you'd be getting different results.
Because it's currently entirely functional in the game, because there are other solutions for dealing with the issues, and because the VAST MAJORITY of the playerbase aren't on the forums complaining about them.Quote:
you are well within your right to still like them but I still have no idea where your absolutely unshakable insistence that the healer role isn’t a problem comes from
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Originally Posted by Archwizard
It's mindset. WHY are you doing what you're doing.
One man may be driven to make money because he wants to bask in wealth and use his fortune to dominate others. Another man may be driven to make money because he wants to create philanthropic organizations to ease the suffering of others. Both are amassing wealth, but their minds of of completely different matters for the why. So when they get wealth, their goals of what to do with it are different. Further, how they approach doing so is different - the first may be perfectly fine with unscrupulous means while the second sticks with entirely legal and ethical ones.
There is a similar case here.
I optimize healing because my mind works for healing. It works for thinking about damage and restoring it, mitigating it and requiring lesser additional tending, etc etc. No where in my mind is the thought "How can I ensure I don't waste a GCD on a heal instead of a Glare...". The entire thought process is "How can I ensure this heal is sufficient for the situation...". The end result may be the same, but the base approach is not, and the goal is not. To me, Glarespamming is filler once everything else more important to me is done with. To you, Glarespamming is the GOAL that drives you to do everything else leading to it.
It is for this reason that Glarespamming doesn't bother me, because it's just something I'm doing in deadtime while waiting for something more important and interesting to need doing, whereas to folks on the other side of the fence, the GOAL is to be able to sit and do damage, and thus the damage rotation being boring is a big deal because that desired playstate is boring. As my desired playstate isn't the damage dealing piece, I don't care how boring it is, it's the filler. Filler's going to be boring. NIN's filler is boring, too; 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3...not particularly exciting.
This is, in fact, what I specifically addressed pointing out that his view is entirely mechanical. If you don't like the police/doctor, how about this: Firemen sometimes break into homes to put out fires. Robbers break into homes to steal stuff. Both are looking at the most efficient and functional way to "break into" the home to achieve their goal. But their goals are night and day, even if they are using the same methods and tools to achieve them. Again, just because two things MECHANICALLY achieve the same result doesn't mean, in terms of feel or enjoyment of Humans doing them, that they're the same. I don't know how many examples I can come up with - all of which you'll hand-wave away for one reason or another - to point this out to you. (And yes, as a person who has been in the former of those two businesses, firemen are thinking how to do so while causing the least unnecessary damage they can, so it's not dissimilar - in case someone was thinking "Firemen don't care about damaging the doors/windows and just bust in", that's 100% false, in fact.)
IN ORDER TO optimize damage you must optimize healing, but OPTIMIZING HEALING is not necessarily TO optimize damage.
A true Sylphie (which apparently I'm not, despite being accused of being one) might optimize healing and then sit on their hands to "regen MP" until more healing is needed. CLEARLY they aren't optimizing damage while they ARE optimizing healing. So, QED, that demonstrates that the two are NOT the same.
You MUST optimize healing to optimize damage, but you CAN optimize healing WITHOUT optimizing damage. Clearly, then, the two are and must be distinct. In the first case, optimizing healing is a means to an end/goal. In the second case, optimizing healing IS the end/goal. They are clearly distinct.
As stated above, agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rilifane
And here's the breakdown and where you become wrong:Quote:
And in turn, optimized healing (not maximized, as you said) is with with optimized damage in mind
No it's not.
To use the fireman example above, the fireman IS trying to optimize how best to break into the home, but they are NOT doing so with the intent of robbing the place, as the robber would. While they are trying to do the same first part of the A-then-B process, they are not doing so with B in mind. At all.
This chiefly depends on the person. It isn't true in all cases, it is true in some others.Quote:
Minimizing healing has nothing to do with not wanting to heal, secretly wanting to play dps,
There ARE two things you further said that I agree with. Specifically:
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unless you plan on using that GCD on something else and the only other option is damage.
THIS is what I feel like the problem is with current healer design in this game.Quote:
incoming damage is limited and predictable, survival is binary (you live or you die, you can't "live more" or "die more"),
To the first, that there's nothing else we're allowed to do. We don't have buffs that aren't on CD that we can use, we don't have useful mitigations that aren't on CD that we can use, etc. Again, watching those videos of those ARR fights, there are a number of times you see the WHMs casting Stoneskin, and it WAS ACTUALLY USEFUL (and arguably necessary) to do it in that content.
And to the second, this is more or less related in that the damage in this game has become insanely boring and predictable. Sometimes you get more challenging things going on, but generally the answer is just "use more oGCDs!" instead of unpredictable things that require spot healing or actual triage thinking. Again, you can look to Coils and Alexander fights where damage was less predictable and required more active and reactive healing.
Yes, there are.Quote:
So there are no two different camps called "optimized healing" vs "optimized dps".
Your first sentence was correct. Those that seek to optimize damage MUST optimize healing, but it's because their objective is to optimize damage. Those who optimize healing TO OPTIMIZE HEALING are not doing so to optimize damage. Indeed, you get a lot of healers out there that have optimized healing but don't have optimal damage. Why is that?
Because, clearly, the two actions are not the same.
...but, this is a total canard. This is a completely irrelevant diversion from the core issues.
I feel the need to correct it, but at best it's a technicality - and a technicality you guys are getting wrong anyway.