A summary of healer issues

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Cool

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Now how many of these occurred in your head or aren't massive stretches because you know.... Renethras posts etc?

1) Show me a legit post that asked for Aero III to be removed here

2) Tried chat gpt yet? Maybe it'll give you some fresh material

3) So why didn't Eos get removed when people thought she was worthless for some ~2-3 years?

4) By all means link me to any post here that says 'yes, what I really want is a cut and paste SCH with lasers'.

5) Are you hallucinating? Maybe get some water and sit down, also please link your source material. Preferably something that isn't from Titanmen, bonus challenge, can you find it without having to use google keywords? I'm not convinced.

6) Again, cite your sources. You're either lying or just plain deluded.

7) As above, people complained about AST's HPS throughput early on, then they complained about balance fishing later. I don't remember ever seeing a complaint thread over abilities such as time dilation getting traction.

8) Ironically I'd argue 3.4 was the worst state WHM was ever in, but if google says 4.0 was worse then I guess that's what you're going to go with right? Remember 3.4 literally had to spend time standing there doing nothing and not casting at all to conserve mana. As worthless as Lilies were, Thin Air was an incredible ability and it at least allowed WHM to actually do stuff for the entire fight. Do you remember this? I'm not sure google does.

9) Might want to double check your numbers there sir.

Seriously though, I don't have a hate boner for the devs. I'll always merrily say that they did an incredible job with the design of 2.0. The issue is that Yoshida has allowed the game to outgrow his team by a significant margin. They haven't been able to keep up with the demands of the player base for years now and that's not really acceptable for a game of this size and stature.

I think it's important to remember that you can criticize someone's work while still respecting them as a person, as a creator, and acknowledge the good that they have done. No game is perfect in every conceivable angle. Every game has flaws. Every developer will tell you that there are probably a million things they wish they could do differently with a project. That's entirely normal. Good design is about owning those flaws and striving to improve on them, being transparent with your audience, and listening to what people think about your product. This doesn't mean you must make changes as they demand, but rather, acknowledge the problem and find a solution.

The people who care about you the most are the people who will call you out on your BS and love you anyway, not the people who will be polite out of obligation. The same is true for art and design.

Healer design is a problem. This is a factual statement and not an opinion. If it wasn't a problem, this constant back and forth wouldn't exist. It doesn't exist for Black Mage. It doesn't exist for Dancer. It doesn't exist for Gunbreaker. If the healers were in as good a state as these job, then it wouldn't exist for the healers either. But it does. If all people on the forums wanted to do was trash talk every job and every aspect of the game, then these other jobs as well as several others wouldn't be exempt from the same experience.

I've been thinking, instead of heavy hard-hitting raidwides that kill when mitigation isn't on point, why don't they just give us a series of moderate raid damage hits during mechanics instead?

Let's take High Concept in P8S part 2 for example, instead of what they do now, what if, during the part where you have to combine 2 players to take towers, the boss marks one random tile with fire/ice and the remaining 6 players have something to do instead of standing there and staring at the boss until his wing starts glowing. Or maybe High Concept cast applies a minor bleed to everyone to keep healers on their toes?

There's other things they could do too, I think the problem of filler spam could be partially solved if most fights aren't just waiting for the next castbar.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

My best guess is balance concerns. An example: Expedient. They gave us this new ability people were mocking vs SGE in the Job Actions trailer, but some smart people were noting at the time how it could be useful. Even some early EW guides were panning it. I remember Wesk Alber saying "You know what else gives people a few seconds of Sprint movement speed? Sprint.", implying that it was a silly action.

Then it turned out to be super powerful, not just for the damage reduction, but for the movement speed. To the point they nerfed its duration in half over fear of balance concerns.

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https://i.gyazo.com/d7d55274c61b5a62...c932b0043e.png

https://i.gyazo.com/4e98b113e4328dbf...2abba4ff26.png

https://i.gyazo.com/daa5ff37845b3ccb...55371ee0ae.png

https://i.gyazo.com/21b4355d5afd3080...63b6885940.png

https://i.gyazo.com/5d3b7a3a324a4a12...12c3008f75.png

Ooh curse those smart people with their rational takes and their logical conclusions, they should just submit to the anger and outrage of the hivemind!

(sorry couldn't resist)

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Seriously though, I don't have a hate boner for the devs. I'll always merrily say that they did an incredible job with the design of 2.0. The issue is that Yoshida has allowed the game to outgrow his team by a significant margin. They haven't been able to keep up with the demands of the player base for years now and that's not really acceptable for a game of this size and stature.

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Think the problem they mentioned in the past is that, unlike in the west where the criteria is 'knows how to program games', over there it's 'knows how to program games, and is able to speak japanese', which means way less total people to recruit from. Also the geography means that eg Blizzard could theoretically recruit from any part of America (if the person is willing to move to CA to work for them), which is a vastly larger population than Japan.

What SE needs to do is realize how much money THIS game pulls in, and devote more devs to it from other parts of the company. Hopefully the reason things are kinda 'ehh' moreso than ever is because so much of the company is focused on FF16, so once that's out, bring those devs into the fold to work on FF14

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...So we replaced those actual gamble elements with "Which melee|ranged each has the greatest burst dps during their 2min, their 60s mid-burst, and their shifted 30s between-bursts? DPad up to 3 times to target them and deliver a ST damage buff unnoticeable without a parser. If your top 2 DPS are of the same type at each of those windows, well, sucks for you and your rDPS, I guess?"

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Oh, don't get me wrong. I never said it was a good decision. The whole shift from Astro has clearly been one failed iteration after another considering we'll soon be on the fourth rework. I do recall Yoshida outright saying players only cared about Balance, which is why they made the changes they did. Although, that was always a problem of their own making for precisely the reasons you outlined. They still seemingly operate with the idea players will sacrifice damage for utility despite them never making said utility worthwhile. If there's one positive I can give on the Endwalker job design, they have gotten better about not doing that. Even if Lady shows they remain a bit too stubborn.

I've long thought the logical step for Royal Road would have been to split the cards into two slots: Offensive and Defensive. This immediately makes resource or utility cards have actual value as they're no longer competing with damage. It also allows them to balance a smaller number of cards against each other. I also much prefer how cards like new Spear made you have to be aware of which jobs benefited from it. Of course, that's before they gutted a good amount of unique gameplay aspects like Bard interacting with Crit. All in all, I suspect the Astro changes were more about simplicity in balancing than listening to player feedback.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Think the problem they mentioned in the past is that, unlike in the west where the criteria is 'knows how to program games', over there it's 'knows how to program games, and is able to speak japanese', which means way less total people to recruit from.

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IMHO it goes deeper than that. FFXIV 1.0 outsourced significant amounts of world design to an unnamed Chinese studio, needless to say, that's not a route I can imagine SE going down again ;)

The other massive elephant in the room is simply F2P game money. It's been a huge market for much longer in Asia and it's free of the development stigma that it carried for the longest time in the west. Luring developers away from that potential money isn't easy or cheap.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Now how many of these occurred in your head or aren't massive stretches because you know.... Renethras posts etc?

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/sigh

And just when I paid you that complement in the other thread. I'll ignore the rest until you can make a good faith post. Except this bit, because it actually has something in it worth discussing:

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

The issue is that Yoshida has allowed the game to outgrow his team by a significant margin. They haven't been able to keep up with the demands of the player base for years now and that's not really acceptable for a game of this size and stature.

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Yoshi P has a lot of clout with Square, but it's not infinite. If it was, Dream Fitting wouldn't be in the game.

The issue is that FF14, like FF11 before it, generated a lot of money for Square. But the executives at Square have this interesting quirk. Instead of doubling down on things that make them money, they like pulling money from those sure bets to finance experimental ideas that often turn out to be boondogles. Like NFTs.

Seriously.
N.
F.
Ts.

And this isn't even a NEW thing. They did this as far back as Spirits Within, which is why the company's name is "Square-Enix" right now instead of "Squaresoft".

They have some of the most fantastic money generating games in video game history, but instead of capitalizing on those, they constantly try these experimental ideas. Now, some experimental ideas can be good, especially ones that advance on existing ones - I suspect Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link is going to be wildly popular...though it's always possible it won't be, I suppose - but they've tried all kinds of things seemingly to avoid "just give FFXIV more money".

Activision-Blizzard did this same thing. "We have the biggest cash cow in history in WoW, sir! What should we do? Put more money into it? Make sure it's sustainable for perpetuity?" "Oh HEAVENS no, man! We need to make a cash shop so we can fleece the loyal customers for all they're worth while mocking them for doing it and dump all the excess money into mobile gaming and trying to dethrone League of Legends! Duh!!"

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Healer design is a problem. This is a factual statement and not an opinion. If it wasn't a problem, this constant back and forth wouldn't exist. It doesn't exist for Black Mage. It doesn't exist for Dancer. It doesn't exist for Gunbreaker. If the healers were in as good a state as these job, then it wouldn't exist for the healers either. But it does. If all people on the forums wanted to do was trash talk every job and every aspect of the game, then these other jobs as well as several others wouldn't be exempt from the same experience.

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But people do complain about GNB. And PLD. Tanks in general. People DO complain about DNC. More Ranged in general, though. People DO complain about BLM via Casters in general. Basically anything that isn't Melee. Or SAM.

The difference with Healers and BLM is that if people don't like BLM, they can play RDM or SMN. So people don't complain about BLM who don't like BLM, they just swap to one of the MANY other options. They have 2 other options for just Casters, 5 if they just don't like Melee but want to DPS, 10 if they don't mind Melee and just want to DPS, and still 2 others if they want to play a selfish DPS (SAM and MCH). It's why I push so hard on the Four Healers Model all the time, as it would make Healers like BLM is. "Oh, I don't like WHM because it doesn't have a lot of damage buttons. But man, I love SCH because of all the damage buttons!", "I don't like AST because of the RNG, but man, WHM is great without the RNG!" It would remove the "problem" almost entirely, if not entirely.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Ooh curse those smart people with their rational takes and their logical conclusions, they should just submit to the anger and outrage of the hivemind!

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I do tell you we're more alike than you think.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

What SE needs to do is realize how much money THIS game pulls in, and devote more devs to it from other parts of the company. Hopefully the reason things are kinda 'ehh' moreso than ever is because so much of the company is focused on FF16, so once that's out, bring those devs into the fold to work on FF14

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100% agreed.

I hope that it's just FF16 and FF14 gets the love and attention it needs after that.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

I've long thought the logical step for Royal Road would have been to split the cards into two slots: Offensive and Defensive. This immediately makes resource or utility cards have actual value as they're no longer competing with damage. It also allows them to balance a smaller number of cards against each other. I also much prefer how cards like new Spear made you have to be aware of which jobs benefited from it. Of course, that's before they gutted a good amount of unique gameplay aspects like Bard interacting with Crit. All in all, I suspect the Astro changes were more about simplicity in balancing than listening to player feedback.

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Agreed.

I'm not an AST person, but for AST to keep the random/RNG element AND not have "Balance fishing", what it needs to do is have several flavors of offense (crit, direct hit, and damage, maybe?), and then it can have a separate set for utility (mitigation, MP regeneration, and...I dunno, a Regen or something? Whatever, just a 6th something that isn't damage). Getting Bole in HW wouldn't have sucked if it WASN'T keeping you from a Balance.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

/sigh

And just when I paid you that complement in the other thread. I'll ignore the rest until you can make a good faith post. Except this bit, because it actually has something in it worth discussing:

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Lordy. Sebazy calls you on lying about the history of the community's stances on healer design, and it's a "bad-faith argument". Redditors should have logical fallacy names forbidden to them until they can actually use them correctly. All the widespread dissemination of that information has done is enable people to smugly cry "bad-faith" or "ad hominem!" when they're wrong but want to dishonestly shift the discussion to "tone".

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Lordy. Sebazy calls you on lying about the history of the community's stances on healer design, and it's a "bad-faith argument". Redditors should have logical fallacy names forbidden to them until they can actually use them correctly. All the widespread dissemination of that information has done is enable people to smugly cry "bad-faith" or "ad hominem!" when they're wrong but want to dishonestly shift the discussion to "tone".

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No, she doesn't, because I didn't lie.

Other people say the same thing, and as discussed (in that other thread), she was probably not part of a "casual" raiding group by most definitions of the word. And when you START your post with "oh, that's just you being a you" with negative implications - she was literally using my name as an insult - then that's not going to get a positive response. It's not even just me saying this. On the first page of the summary of healer issues I cross-posted to General, someone ELSE already mentioned it as well. In one of his Q&As, Mr Happy was asked about taking the game back to that era and he - who was a raider at the time just like Sebezy was - was the one who said it nearly killed the game a second time.

You can't call something "lying" when it's shared by a lot of people and is truthful, no matter how desperate you are for a gotcha against your hated enemy.

Take the stick out for once and try not to be so desperate for a gotcha, Semi.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Yoshi P has a lot of clout with Square, but it's not infinite. If it was, Dream Fitting wouldn't be in the game.

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Dream Fitting wasn't forced into the game by the mogstation lady.

The community was asking for a way to preview outfits on their ingame character because more often than not you buy a mogstation outfit only to find out that it looks god awful on your character or dyes terribly.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

IMHO it goes deeper than that. FFXIV 1.0 outsourced significant amounts of world design to an unnamed Chinese studio, needless to say, that's not a route I can imagine SE going down again ;)

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They've been outsourcing armor designs, environment assets, monsters and weapons to Lemon Sky Studios for Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers (not sure about Endwalker) so it's actually not only likely, it already happened.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

They've been outsourcing armor designs, environment assets, monsters and weapons to Lemon Sky Studios for Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers (not sure about Endwalker) so it's actually not only likely, it already happened.

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That's true, I completely forgot about the mog station stuff in particular being heavily outsourced. Didn't know monster assets were though, good to know and it's great that SE haven't shut down that route after getting burned in the past.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-healer-issues

Cross posted the thread there. It doesn't have 270 likes at the present time, but maybe there's a discussion going.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

That's true, I completely forgot about the mog station stuff in particular being heavily outsourced. Didn't know monster assets were though, good to know and it's great that SE haven't shut down that route after getting burned in the past.

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What about asking a question about that in a future Q&A?

"With each expansion increasing the total number of jobs available, this also means it becomes more time-consuming to not only manage the balance between jobs, but also ensure they're all fun and enjoyable. How does your team manage this steadily increasing work load, and are there any plans to expand the team responsible for job adjustments to ensure every job gets the right amount of attention?"

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What about asking a question about that in a future Q&A?

"With each expansion increasing the total number of jobs available, this also means it becomes more time-consuming to not only manage the balance between jobs, but also ensure they're all fun and enjoyable. How does your team manage this steadily increasing work load, and are there any plans to expand the team responsible for job adjustments to ensure every job gets the right amount of attention?"

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Great question IMO. I like it.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Dream Fitting wasn't forced into the game by the mogstation lady.

The community was asking for a way to preview outfits on their ingame character because more often than not you buy a mogstation outfit only to find out that it looks god awful on your character or dyes terribly.

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No, the management actually wanted to put Mog Store purchases in the game. Yoshi P said he didn't want any in-game connection to the store - a position I agree with after playing RIFT, TOR, LOTRO, and GW2 and finding the obtrusive store to be immersion breaking and annoying. But the executives kept pushing and said he had to relent and capitulate to them in some way. His compromise was Dream Fitting. I don't remember which interview or Live Letter it was, but Yoshi P himself was saying he didn't want to do it but his hand was forced.

You can claim the community was asking for it now, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Yoshi P has a lot of clout but doesn't have power to unilaterally make all these big decisions. He still is subject to the board. Even though he was given a seat on it, it's his one seat, not a veto power or executive authority to demand things like bigger pay for his team to be expanded.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What about asking a question about that in a future Q&A?

"With each expansion increasing the total number of jobs available, this also means it becomes more time-consuming to not only manage the balance between jobs, but also ensure they're all fun and enjoyable. How does your team manage this steadily increasing work load, and are there any plans to expand the team responsible for job adjustments to ensure every job gets the right amount of attention?"

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That's actually a good question. Would support.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Yoshi P has a lot of clout with Square, but it's not infinite. If it was, Dream Fitting wouldn't be in the game.

The issue is that FF14, like FF11 before it, generated a lot of money for Square. But the executives at Square have this interesting quirk. Instead of doubling down on things that make them money, they like pulling money from those sure bets to finance experimental ideas that often turn out to be boondogles. Like NFTs.

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This is an interesting one that would make for a great deep dive for sure.

From where I see it FFXIV's budget is strange.

In terms of the core in house team within CBU3, it's been fairly consistent and Yoshida has gone on record many a time proclaiming that he prefers to keep a smaller tight knit team which is fair enough. That coupled with the difficulty of actually hiring in the JP market is why I think that SE need to consider outsourcing ideas from a Mythic equivalent.

Server and system costs have definitely increased, we've had extra data centres and capacity has generally been sufficiently scaled up in line with expansion projections which is great but issues or improvements beyond that have generally been ignored or brushed under the rug (EU Duty rubber banding in Sigmascape anyone?).

The thing that catches my eye in terms of spending is the quality and quantity of voice acted sequences though. ARR had some truely abysmal voice acting that might as well have been done on Fiverr. I'm still amazed that old Cid's lines in Praetorium were kept around for as long as they were. That was some truly dire delivery and no amount of 'interference' could mask it ;). Compare that dross to the quality of what's followed and it's night and day. Tons of stuff has voice acting now, the quality is top notch and the actors have been fairly consistent over the years. That sort of quality can't come cheap. I wonder if that's where Yoshida decided to spend the money feeling that his team had the rest well in hand.

So regarding an earlier comment, I finally got round to running Lapis Manalis whilst using only GCD heals, assize and no oGCD healing cooldowns. I did habitually hit PI once, but Aquaveil, Benison, Asylum etc were completely off the table.

Lilies and Regen had pretty much everything covered, I had hoped to need to Medica II more but I only ended up casting it twice on the final boss around it's big AoE transition.

Depressingly and perhaps predictably, it made naff all difference.

I got a 94% for my damage which given that I'm not BiS on my healer and don't have a Savage weapon, I'm pretty happy with that.

Dungeon damage is just too low, I suspect I'd have to limit myself to no in combat Lilies, no assize and pray I get a bad tank before no oGCD heals would actually start having an impact.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

So regarding an earlier comment,

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What was said comment, just out of interest? Cos I'm not really sure what you were trying to find out from this run you did. All I see is 'if we remove every OGCD entirely from the healers, they still have enough spare time to have around 40% of their casts dedicated to doing damage in the EX roulettes', which I assume means that some people's suggestion would be 'okay then we need to not only remove every OGCD entirely, but also halve the potency of the GCDs that remain, that way we'll have only 20% of the casts be damage, that'll make healing fun'

I wonder, is this what we're gonna be doing for the month before the patch comes out? Just coming up with more and more stupid 'challenge runs' for testing how little of the 'healer role's responsibilities' we actually need to do as healers?

'Meet Kardialetics, my 'can only heal with Kardia-triggered heals' Ultimate Ironman' etc

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

What was said comment, just out of interest? Cos I'm not really sure what you were trying to find out from this run you did. All I see is 'if we remove every OGCD entirely from the healers, they still have enough spare time to have around 40% of their casts dedicated to doing damage in the EX roulettes', which I assume means that some people's suggestion would be 'okay then we need to not only remove every OGCD entirely, but also halve the potency of the GCDs that remain, that way we'll have only 20% of the casts be damage, that'll make healing fun'

I wonder, is this what we're gonna be doing for the month before the patch comes out? Just coming up with more and more stupid 'challenge runs' for testing how little of the 'healer role's responsibilities' we actually need to do as healers?

'Meet Kardialetics, my 'can only heal with Kardia-triggered heals' Ultimate Ironman' etc

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Hey, considering Eos/Selene can do all of your healing for you in Sastasha, who can blame us for making challenges like this?

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

Hey, considering Eos/Selene can do all of your healing for you in Sastasha, who can blame us for making challenges like this?

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Well, I already screwed up by suggesting 'kardia only', if I had a group of FC friends who didn't mind potentially getting griefed that one actually sounds kinda fun, having to constantly swap Kardia around. If there was a CD that made it temporarily AOE then I'd be way more up to actually trying it

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Well, I already screwed up by suggesting 'kardia only', if I had a group of FC friends who didn't mind potentially getting griefed that one actually sounds kinda fun, having to constantly swap Kardia around. If there was a CD that made it temporarily AOE then I'd be way more up to actually trying it

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Honestly, this is how PvP SGE works, and it's actually kinda fun if you get a party that doesn't spread to the four corners and actually stays together (talking Frontlines here). PvP Kardia has no CD so you can constantly hot-swap it and it's the only way SGE can effectively heal.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

What was said comment, just out of interest? Cos I'm not really sure what you were trying to find out from this run you did. All I see is 'if we remove every OGCD entirely from the healers, they still have enough spare time to have around 40% of their casts dedicated to doing damage in the EX roulettes', which I assume means that some people's suggestion would be 'okay then we need to not only remove every OGCD entirely, but also halve the potency of the GCDs that remain, that way we'll have only 20% of the casts be damage, that'll make healing fun'

I wonder, is this what we're gonna be doing for the month before the patch comes out? Just coming up with more and more stupid 'challenge runs' for testing how little of the 'healer role's responsibilities' we actually need to do as healers?

'Meet Kardialetics, my 'can only heal with Kardia-triggered heals' Ultimate Ironman' etc

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You now have me curious to see if I can heal 90 expert with Lady of Crowns only.

I am half temped.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

You now have me curious to see if I can heal 90 expert with Lady of Crowns only.

I am half temped.

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You'll get lords only for the entire run.

You'll still clear with zero deaths.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

You'll get lords only for the entire run.

You'll still clear with zero deaths.

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Not with my luck I won't.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

What was said comment, just out of interest?

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It was theory crafting about how much impact it would have if we moved from a primarily oGCD healing mindset to a focus on GCDs instead.

I suspect in Extremes it'd likely be more noticeable, but in Experto and 24 man, I genuinely don't think it would change much of anything as the incoming damage just isn't there.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

It was theory crafting about how much impact it would have if we moved from a primarily oGCD healing mindset to a focus on GCDs instead.

I suspect in Extremes it'd likely be more noticeable, but in Experto and 24 man, I genuinely don't think it would change much of anything as the incoming damage just isn't there.

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In other words: The thing I pitch all the time would...probably work?

Maybe?

I think you're correct. It would be noticeable (and make harder) the high end content (at least until people hyper overgeared it), but wouldn't affect casual players in casual content. Which...is kind of what we're going for in order to make a working solution, right?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

In other words: The thing I pitch all the time would...probably work?

Maybe?

I think you're correct. It would be noticeable (and make harder) the high end content (at least until people hyper overgeared it), but wouldn't affect casual players in casual content. Which...is kind of what we're going for in order to make a working solution, right?

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It's not that I don't think it would have the desired effect on casual content, I just don't think it would have much if any effect at all. On higher end content it should streamline things, but I don't think it's going to be an improvement, rather it just addresses the bloat. Personally I think that recent 24 man content is the absolute low of the game for healers, perhaps even more so than soloing. Aglaia is unbearable on WHM for me at this point and Euphrosyne is only marginally better.

24 mans are so swingy.

They're the content I'm most excited to heal blind while having little desire to reclear on healer on it's own merits.

Hey, thanks so much for this summary. It must have been a lot of work. I agree with most everything included, and I had a suggestion that might help with this point as it's something I've often thought a lot about myself:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Yoshi P even said that they were wanting to encourage people to play healer and tweak the balance so that its less stressful and he said much the same thing again this expansion.

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Now, I don't really know if this is a good thread for discussion because of its size so I might make a separate thread for this too, but I think one of the reason players feel the healer role is 'stressful' is because of the perception that if the group wipes it's their fault. And, something that can easily lead to this is if they die or the tank dies and they can't rez them then it's all over and it's their fault.

I think that they could just let every Job rez, at least once per 5 minutes ala BLU mage. Call it Phoenix Down and make it a general action or something. SMN, RDM and Healers can keep their versions, too, but this would mean that a random duty finder group isn't wholly reliant on having extra dps that can rez or new healer players learning a fight quickly as just being brought back to life for 30 seconds would be plenty of time to heal up the group before dying to the next mechanic. Also gives healers more opportunities to watch and learn a fight while dead before rejoining the fray, which is something that other Jobs have long enjoyed.

Other than that, it'd be nice if they stopped adding so many actions that only affect your party. Like, I get that they're fixated on their Trials, Raids and Ultimates, but PvP and Alliance Raids are things that exist, too. It makes sense for AoE actions like heals or Divination to be group limited as it would trivialize raid healing even more if you could hit all players alone, but it sure is dumb that you can't use Kardia, Synastry, Aquaveil and Faerie's Embrace (anymore) and the like on the main tank of a 24 man! Or even just random players you encounter out in the wild. I'm sure Joe Catgirl out there grinding FATEs or even random enemies for crafting mats wouldn't give a damn if I played a Balance card or Excogitation on him, it's pretty hard to mob-tag credit steal in this game.

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Originally Posted by Post

Hey, thanks so much for this summary. It must have been a lot of work. I agree with most everything included, and I had a suggestion that might help with this point as it's something I've often thought a lot about myself:



Now, I don't really know if this is a good thread for discussion because of its size so I might make a separate thread for this too, but I think one of the reason players feel the healer role is 'stressful' is because of the perception that if the group wipes it's their fault. And, something that can easily lead to this is if they die or the tank dies and they can't rez them then it's all over and it's their fault.

I think that they could just let every Job rez, at least once per 5 minutes ala BLU mage. Call it Phoenix Down and make it a general action or something. SMN, RDM and Healers can keep their versions, too, but this would mean that a random duty finder group isn't wholly reliant on having extra dps that can rez or new healer players learning a fight quickly as just being brought back to life for 30 seconds would be plenty of time to heal up the group before dying to the next mechanic. Also gives healers more opportunities to watch and learn a fight while dead before rejoining the fray, which is something that other Jobs have long enjoyed.

Other than that, it'd be nice if they stopped adding so many actions that only affect your party. Like, I get that they're fixated on their Trials, Raids and Ultimates, but PvP and Alliance Raids are things that exist, too. It makes sense for AoE actions like heals or Divination to be group limited as it would trivialize raid healing even more if you could hit all players alone, but it sure is dumb that you can't use Kardia, Synastry, Aquaveil and Faerie's Embrace (anymore) and the like on the main tank of a 24 man! Or even just random players you encounter out in the wild. I'm sure Joe Catgirl out there grinding FATEs or even random enemies for crafting mats wouldn't give a damn if I played a Balance card or Excogitation on him, it's pretty hard to mob-tag credit steal in this game.

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I had made the suggestion before that Phoenix Downs should just be reworked since they do exist as an item anyone can use. The summary of that rework is essentially, they have a 2 minute cooldown that is not shared with any other item, they can be used in combat, players can hold multiple phoenix downs instead of only 1, players get 1 free Phoenix Down for clearing any roulette once per day, and high-end duties have a 'silence phoenix down' effect similar to silence echo where phoenix downs cannot be used in combat. Ultimately, it's an item that already exists, so we may as well use it.

I would agree except that I think going a step further to make them "not an item" and just exist as a general action would be a good idea, because otherwise it's just clogging up inventory space and providing folks with a reason to not bring them (ran out of them, didn't know about them etc. Heck, almost every week I run into a new player that doesn't know about Limit Break and that's for free). Having them as a reward from roulettes would also make them feel even more scarce, making players less likely to use them or more grudging of players that need a rez, or it would make the classic double/triple/quadruple rez a real facepalm moment.

Others have mentioned using Antidotes, Spine Drops, Smelling Salts and Echo Drops and the like, which are all really great tools very, very occasionally, but most players don't use them because they take up space and don't know they exist, and maybe a smidge of 'elixir syndrome' where you just don't wanna use consumables, ever.

I think the idea is to make rezzing more available so that healers don't have to shoulder that burden. Their job should be focused on preventing death in the first place. I also don't see a reason to arbitrarily restrict its use in all but the most specific of difficult duties like Savage Criterion, because enrage timers basically already exist in high end content to prevent sandbagging with rezzes forever. So, allowing more people to rez doesn't guarantee that you'll win those encounters, just that you'll have more opportunities to see more of them, and help your group learn them quicker.

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Originally Posted by Post

I would agree except that I think going a step further to make them "not an item" and just exist as a general action would be a good idea, because otherwise it's just clogging up inventory space and providing folks with a reason to not bring them (ran out of them, didn't know about them etc. Heck, almost every week I run into a new player that doesn't know about Limit Break and that's for free). Having them as a reward from roulettes would also make them feel even more scarce, making players less likely to use them or more grudging of players that need a rez, or it would make the classic double/triple/quadruple rez a real facepalm moment.

Others have mentioned using Antidotes, Spine Drops, Smelling Salts and Echo Drops and the like, which are all really great tools very, very occasionally, but most players don't use them because they take up space and don't know they exist, and maybe a smidge of 'elixir syndrome' where you just don't wanna use consumables, ever.

I think the idea is to make rezzing more available so that healers don't have to shoulder that burden. Their job should be focused on preventing death in the first place. I also don't see a reason to arbitrarily restrict its use in all but the most specific of difficult duties like Savage Criterion, because enrage timers basically already exist in high end content to prevent sandbagging with rezzes forever. So, allowing more people to rez doesn't guarantee that you'll win those encounters, just that you'll have more opportunities to see more of them, and help your group learn them quicker.

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The roulette reward was meant to be a way to get them for free. You could still buy them, but the inventory argument does make sense, or make it a collectable like the aether compass. Either case if item phoenix downs are no longer needed, removing them does also reduce server load slighly, which is a growing concern as the inventory expands, but they'll eventually need a more long-term solution other than just converting a few inventory items into an action or collectable item.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Either case if item phoenix downs are no longer needed, removing them does also reduce server load slighly, which is a growing concern as the inventory expands, but they'll eventually need a more long-term solution other than just converting a few inventory items into an action or collectable item.

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That feels like such a tiny thing, though compared to all the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, by which to reduce inventory bloat already?

I mean, just look at Materia, for instance. It's about the most bloated way possible by which to allow players a means of customizing their secondary stats independently of their (un)lock with gear drops.


Or the many items that are just redyes of a former, undyable set. There's no need to have 9 colors of Shisui Bikini with only three tiny variations outside of color. Just have the 3 sets, based on those actual featural differences, each dyable and usable by multiple gear types' jobs.

The so-frequently shared Striking/Scouting or Striking/Maiming or Aiming/Casting or or Scouting/Aiming or Casting/Healing appearances? Should every dungeon be required to have 7 gear sets despite having as few as 3 appearances between them and to make those sets undyable just to try to differentiate them unnecessarily? All just to add to the grind and inventory space required with no increase in appearances available to players?

That said, I can mostly agree with making Phoenix Down usable in more content, though I might advise sharing a cooldown party-wide on its use. So long as hard enrages remain, even if we make MP more of a mechanic, it shouldn't make things too cheese-able.

And if we were to go that route, using them as roulette rewards might make the roulettes seem a tiny bit more attractive, though I have to agree with Post that we'd probably also want to make the option more obvious / visible.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That feels like such a tiny thing, though compared to all the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, by which to reduce inventory bloat already?

I mean, just look at Materia, for instance. It's about the most bloated way possible by which to allow players a means of customizing their secondary stats independently of their (un)lock with gear drops.


Or the many items that are just redyes of a former, undyable set. There's no need to have 9 colors of Shisui Bikini with only three tiny variations outside of color. Just have the 3 sets, based on those actual featural differences, each dyable and usable by multiple gear types' jobs.

The so-frequently shared Striking/Scouting or Striking/Maiming or Aiming/Casting or or Scouting/Aiming or Casting/Healing appearances? Should every dungeon be required to have 7 gear sets despite having as few as 3 appearances between them and to make those sets undyable just to try to differentiate them unnecessarily? All just to add to the grind and inventory space required with no increase in appearances available to players?

That said, I can mostly agree with making Phoenix Down usable in more content, though I might advise sharing a cooldown party-wide on its use. So long as hard enrages remain, even if we make MP more of a mechanic, it shouldn't make things too cheese-able.

And if we were to go that route, using them as roulette rewards might make the roulettes seem a tiny bit more attractive, though I have to agree with Post that we'd probably also want to make the option more obvious / visible.

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You're not wrong, but they did it with the Aether Compass as well. There are definitely bigger areas that could be addressed, but it's still worth mentioning. And it does also help the player's inventory as well.

And as for hard enrage, I suggested that phoenix downs be disabled for high-end duties, at least initially. Allowing them is very big uncharted territory that also devalues RDM and SMN, though depending on who you ask, that could be a good thing. Honestly, it'd be up to the devs to decide if they want them or not, I just think it's worth mentioning that we can simply have them disabled to dismiss any concerns about how it affects raiding.

I don't know if it'd be a great idea to have Phoenix Feathers continually be usable nor do I think it'd be balanced as one per person, that sounds devaluing as mentioned above. Having it as a party cooldown also sounds complicated and I don't know if they would implement a unique whole functionality for just one item, they don't even do that to most class skills lel. Plus I can see someone totally just wasting the action if they did do so. However, I'd be totally okay with them implementing the usage of them in all types of content if it was a hard cap as a party utility over a personal one. Another way to look at it is the party can only use Phoenix Feathers up to three times collectively during the fight, dungeon, what have you. Where each person has a long cooldown for their personal item and therefore cannot spam it. As it's a binary check of true or false, it would be easier to implement. That way it'd keep the value of bringing a res mage to prog and it would be ideal to implement. Additionally, they should also be adding to res mages to further their stance in the party. I could see red mage, smn, and the healers gaining a beneficial damage potency buff as a give for resing someone as a benefit for them wasting their efforts to do so, this solidifying them to be prog mages.


To differentiate Phoenix Feathers from Resing further you could make Phoenix feathers lower cast time or instant cast, probably better as the former.

I think infinite rezzes would be just fine for most content because you already can rez people forever. The only reason I'd slap a cooldown on it is because so many jobs don't even use MP, which is its only limiting factor normally. Keep a cast time on it so there's no reason for a dps or tank to be the first player to rez as a healer'd still have their Swiftcast combo.

The whole reason I'd suggest the change is because it puts less pressure on newer healer players. It would mostly help 4 man groups where it's least likely to have another player that can rez your healer if they go down, especially if it's their first time and the group just carries on to victory with them dead. It would also mean that they could afford to make more n

The most noticeable difference would be in alliance raid release weeks, where deaths are most prevalent. Any 'serious' content would basically be unaffected because of enrage timers.

I know this might seem like a strange thing to push for, but I'd hope a change like this would give them less of an excuse to make every healer a copy of WHM where 80% of your spells and abilities are just "restore HP" and they'd feel more free to be creative with the way healers play, which is what this is all really about in the end.

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Originally Posted by Post

I think infinite rezzes would be just fine for most content because you already can rez people forever. The only reason I'd slap a cooldown on it is because so many jobs don't even use MP, which is its only limiting factor normally. Keep a cast time on it so there no reason for a dps or tank to be the first player to rez as a healer'd still have their Swiftcast .

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The problem with everyone being able to infinitely rez with Phoenix feathers is that it devalues those with raise or some equivalent and removes any possible risk. Those with raise have the trade of less dps or as a healer generally less to do overall (which is a flaw in ffxiv). Which is why I reccomended adding to the value of rezing as rez mage and perhaps even expanding that value to make way for differentiating the two slots to help keep that identity. The only time a Phoenix feather should be used is when your rezers are down, thus should be limited somehow, when your rezers are up they should be incentivized to use their rez as needed rather than at random, this adding to the identity as rez mage.

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Originally Posted by Katish

The problem with everyone being able to infinitely rez with Phoenix feathers is that it devalues those with raise or some equivalent and removes any possible risk. Those with raise have the trade of less dps or as a healer generally less to do overall (which is a flaw in ffxiv). Which is why I reccomended adding to the value of rezing as rez mage and perhaps even expanding that value to make way for differentiating the two slots to help keep that identity. The only time a Phoenix feather should be used is when your rezers are down, thus should be limited somehow, when your rezers are up they should be incentivized to use their rez as needed rather than at random, this adding to the identity as rez mage.

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It wouldn't because while 'anyone can res', it'd be limited, RDM and healers would be still able to cast their res as many times as they like (presumably). I would suggest making the 'phoenix feather' charges be shared across the party, so if someone uses it, it depletes a charge from everyone, that makes it the final 'absolute emergency' button

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I mean, just look at Materia, for instance. It's about the most bloated way possible by which to allow players a means of customizing their secondary stats independently of their (un)lock with gear drops.

Or the many items that are just redyes of a former, undyable set. There's no need to have 9 colors of Shisui Bikini with only three tiny variations outside of color. Just have the 3 sets, based on those actual featural differences, each dyable and usable by multiple gear types' jobs.

The so-frequently shared Striking/Scouting or Striking/Maiming or Aiming/Casting or or Scouting/Aiming or Casting/Healing appearances? Should every dungeon be required to have 7 gear sets despite having as few as 3 appearances between them and to make those sets undyable just to try to differentiate them unnecessarily? All just to add to the grind and inventory space required with no increase in appearances available to players?[/INDENT][/INDENT]
That said, I can mostly agree with making Phoenix Down usable in more content, though I might advise sharing a cooldown party-wide on its use. So long as hard enrages remain, even if we make MP more of a mechanic, it shouldn't make things too cheese-able.

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1: I want SE to do the obvious, and merge Grade 1-5 into a new 'Grade 1', and then subtract 4 from each current grade of materia. 6 becomes 2, 7 to 3, 8 to 4, 9 becomes the new 5, 10 the new 6. This doesn't fix the issue per se, because SE is going to add another two grades and repeat the issue again next expansion most likely. I've suggested a 'High Materia' that can only be melded to the weapon, and you can only have one, which provides a Job specific buff to something (ideally not damage unless you're a DPS for balance reasons). Stuff like a choice between 'Kardia is now AOE but slightly weaker' versus 'You can activate Pepsis right after a shield breaks to get partial healing still', or 'Dark Mind now has 10% physical mitigation too' versus 'Living Dead CD reduced by 1 minute so you can do WAR exclusive cheese strats as DRK too'. Instead we'll get grade 11 and grade 12 materia, which will give +15 and +60 stats respectively

Also, by merging lower levels of materia, the ARR relic becomes a lot easier, as you'd use the new Grade 1 for the full 75 materia. Grade 5 (which would become Grade 1 with the merge) is a potential reward via Mhachi Matter, which can be obtained via Wondrous Tails and other sources, so we don't need to rely on weird methods to earn the weird grades, like afaik the best way to get grade 3 is via submarines, and grade 2 is 'spiritbond or bust' probably

2/3: I wish they'd just merge Scouting into Aiming, and Maiming into Striking. They should have done it a long time ago, if they're going to keep refusing to add another DEX melee. Heck, SAM could have been that DEX melee. Or RPR could. But yeh, just make DRG/MNK/SAM/RPR share gear (SAMs now able to get more armored looks), merge NIN with the Aiming set (so NIN mains can actually flex to a different job with their earned gear). Also fix the glamour system properly instead of constantly band-aiding it with 'we gave you more space'

4: Just copy other-game: you start with 1 charge. After X minutes of combat, you earn another charge. Healers and RDM/SMN keep their 'utility' as their res is not affected by the charge system, they can use as many as they like. The only real issue I foresee with a system like this is that in a situation like A4S, the healers would be first to be sacrificed to 'cheese' a mechanic, as the issue of 'well if we sac them we cant res' is gone, and they're the lowest damage. On the flipside, I guess that's technically possible now as SMN and RDM would just use their current res options to res the healers.

For balance, maybe the Phoenix Feather res always resses people straight into Brink of Death (the 50% penalty)? You would want to have a proper res if possible, but if worst comes to worst, you burn this instead.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

1: I want SE to do the obvious, and merge Grade 1-5 into a new 'Grade 1', and then subtract 4 from each current grade of materia. 6 becomes 2, 7 to 3, 8 to 4, 9 becomes the new 5, 10 the new 6.

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That'd be quite an improvement, but I honestly just wish they'd entirely remove Materia-as-items. There are a number of ways to go about that, though, from the minimalistic to more ambitious.

The Minimalistic:

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Let it take after job-specific Bonus (Secondary) Attributes. As one does content --be they quests, instances, leves, or anything else that previously granted Materia-- they generate AP*. Each tier, the AP cap increases (e.g. 600 in the Abyssos tier, maybe 640 by next). This customization is done through job-specific plates, whereby one sets up to 5 stat goals in order, such that the last is the dump stat (e.g., 6.33% Haste if possible -> 12.5% Haste if possible -> 20% Crit if possible -> Equal Crit and DHit dump).

I.e., a customization system done in the most convenient way possible... that also happens to slightly shrink the brief, minor inertial advantage of raid gear. No Extract Materia chores.

Gil sink and crafter privilege to be made up elsewhere (e.g., by offering enhancements to the armor itself, attachable without item trades).

* (AP = Aetherial Power, per old FF Ability Points, since Materia Points would look like Magic/Mana Points; Dynamis [Points] is likewise spoiler-y and has a not-great acronym.)

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Slightly More Ambitious:

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The same as above, but the stats are applied through actual Materia. Each job can select up to 5 materia and spend any amount on each. But, since it's actual materia now, we should go a little further. For instance, we might create a few classes of these.

Common would be your plain secondary stats: Haste, Determination, Critical Hit, etc.

Rare might be limited to just 1 or 2 and might feature things like the ability to self-raise or to offer an additional charge to Swiftcast, Bloodbath, Second Wind, etc.

Because these would be situational and either actively cast or conditional, they might not even take on AP themselves, but simply drain AP from the materia slotted below them upon use / if used. In that way, they come at cost, temporarily draining from one's dump-stat Materia with the amount trickling back to the drained Materia over time.

Finally, Epic grade of materia that we might take only one of and which is specific to one's job in order to offer some simple change in power that nonetheless varies one's rotation at some scale.

For instance, reducing the damage of Twin Snakes and Dragon Kick themselves in order to increase the modifier of Twin Snakes would allow for one to drop Twin Snakes before DK and TwS and thereby allow for different optimal GCD thresholds. By supporting only a few of these, with very simple rules in themselves despite decently pervasive rotational effects, the devs can allow for tweaks to playflow for jobs that would otherwise just barely fail to attract certain players without creating new balancing nightmares.

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Perhaps Yet More Ambitious:

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Scrap the Materia system entirely and do something around AP instead. No firm idea what that'd look like yet, though. /shrug

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I wish they'd just merge Scouting into Aiming, and Maiming into Striking.

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I wouldn't mind that they're different sets... so long as they actually look different and if they would (again) have a noticeably different niche/fixture/impact in/on combat, much like back when those armor ranks were created (Lancer being a half-tank about as distinct in its kit and purpose from Pugilist as it was from Archer).

But, so long as homogeneity is to be the only path forward from here out, then, sure. Or even just have Maiming and Striking be the same gear (both "Striking"), but inexplicably look different on Dragoon, and Aiming and Scouting both merge into "Scouting"* but have Machinist, Bard, and maybe Dancer* look different (per old Aiming armor instead).

* All are Scout-y, but not all look like they aim. And Dancer as often seems to be better fit to the current sleeker/lighter/unencumbered Scouting aesthetic than the current Aiming aesthetic.

I just hate that despite previously significant differences, all three melee sub-roles are now treated as the same thing while the ranged sub-roles are not... and yet "melee" then is charged three times the amount of gear to deck out that role. All for the purposes of what now amounts only to gear bloat.
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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

4: Just copy other-game: you start with 1 charge. After X minutes of combat, you earn another charge. Healers and RDM/SMN keep their 'utility' as their res is not affected by the charge system, they can use as many as they like. The only real issue I foresee with a system like this is that in a situation like A4S, the healers would be first to be sacrificed to 'cheese' a mechanic, as the issue of 'well if we sac them we cant res' is gone, and they're the lowest damage. On the flipside, I guess that's technically possible now as SMN and RDM would just use their current res options to res the healers.

For balance, maybe the Phoenix Feather res always resses people straight into Brink of Death (the 50% penalty)? You would want to have a proper res if possible, but if worst comes to worst, you burn this instead.

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I feel like the charge limitations would probably be plenty. (If we're blowing past Swift-Rezzes so early on as to be quite worried about the charge limitations on the speed/efficiency of PD rezzes, Brink of Death seems practically a given anyways.)

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

1: I want SE to do the obvious, and merge Grade 1-5 into a new 'Grade 1', and then subtract 4 from each current grade of materia...
...'High Materia' ...

2/3: I wish they'd just merge Scouting into Aiming, and Maiming into Striking..

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Honestly, this game's never been about interesting gear decisions, but that's often been to its benefit. It's almost always been 'pick the thing with the most weapon damage/primary stat', and then 'the thing with the most crit.' They even got rid of Accuracy because it was too intrusive for their otherwise streamlined system. The main reason materia exists at all is because it was a holdover from 1.0, and since crafters and gatherers could make use of it they eventually decided to expand it to all gear (while also making sure they were easy to obtain) back in 3.2.

Materia gave some flexibility while Accuracy existed, but its biggest impacts now are to spread gil around, grant Direct Hit to healers and tanks who arbitrarily aren't allowed it, and trick poor new players that might think Tenacity and Piety matter (this is kind of the worst thing about any complex gearing system in an MMO: you can be 'wrong'). It probably won't be heavily iterated upon because it's streamlined to take a backseat to the actual focus of the battle system: great encounters, fun-to-play jobs (as sarcastic as that sounds in this thread).

The more gear and gear management they add to the game, the more laborious it is to enjoy swapping and trying new jobs, which is a major strength of FFXIV. Accuracy requirements were a barrier, and different desirable melds jobs within a group (WAR being the only tank hating Direct Hit for a long time; BLM's flirting with SpS while SMN and RDM despise it) can still be annoying. At least nowadays the main thing separating jobs is their weapon and credit where it's due, if there were a unique meld system for the weapon that'd be the perfect place to put it!

Ultimately, I always want them to make it easier to swap jobs. Anything they can do to support this is good imo, from merging more gearsets together, or streamlining materia further. I think more uniform rez availability to non-healers helps this as well, at least for someone that's swapping based on their group's composition.