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

Since recently Yoshi P said FFXVI is fully playable and they will spend a year polishing, I hope the team will "reassemble "and put more time into XIV and urgently in the healer domain.
It's a wish. Not that I see it coming...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aarchie

Since recently Yoshi P said FFXVI is fully playable and they will spend a year polishing, I hope the team will "reassemble "and put more time into XIV and urgently in the healer domain.
It's a wish. Not that I see it coming...

---

It would be funny if some of the XIV team that got moved to XVI returns and says "WTF have you guys been doing?" when they look at healers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nizzi

It would be funny if some of the XIV team that got moved to XVI returns and says "WTF have you guys been doing?" when they look at healers

---

Unlikely to happen. The same 4 people have been designing all the jobs since 2.0, if I'm not mistaken. The team has never been expanded despite how many jobs there are now and that is something that desperately needs a change.

I wonder how many pages this needs to receive to get a single comment from any member of the development team. Rare responses to these sincere concerns (that are either ignored or mistranslated) feel rudely dismissive, disingenuous, and also tend to come from people who don’t spend a notable amount of time with the jobs that they personally order changed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MellowMink

I wonder how many pages this needs to receive to get a single comment from any member of the development team. Rare responses to these sincere concerns (that are either ignored or mistranslated) feel rudely dismissive, disingenuous, and also tend to come from people who don’t spend a notable amount of time with the jobs that they personally order changed.

---

Don't expect an actual response. The devs have probably been made aware of this thread but they've been dismissing healer concerns for years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maltothoris

Want to know one of the best things? When you reach Niddhog in Ultimate, you can't really use more than 2-3 healing gcds or else you run the risk of wiping to the enrage. The same kinda goes for the eyes as well. It seems the only really really intensive parts are when you dot he rewind part where the shockwaves keep going off and the akh morn edges but other than that, it's the usual spam one button when the boss is active.

---

When you look back at it it's really only Thordan swords, to Niddhogg stacks, to the rewind in the first half of the fight with shields/mitigation check.

But even then swords is downtime, Niddhogg the stack only happens twice, and intermission is already short. Nonetheless whole thing is really more of a consistency and mitigation-at-points check. Can even argue TEA LL/BJ/CC is 'harder' than all of DSR healing wise.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MellowMink

I wonder how many pages this needs to receive to get a single comment from any member of the development team. Rare responses to these sincere concerns (that are either ignored or mistranslated) feel rudely dismissive, disingenuous, and also tend to come from people who don’t spend a notable amount of time with the jobs that they personally order changed.

---

Pretty sure this thread could reach the post cap and all that will happen is the mods having to lock the thread and we'd need to start a new one.

Design philosophy indicates that Square believes the burden of responsibility in Healing is too heavy to add DPS rotation. Healing is simultaneously the most difficult and most boring role to play.

These counterpoints have been stated before, but are worth repeating:

> Imagine if Tanks had 1 DoT/1 Spam GCD and a majority of mitigation CDs

> Square gives Tanks and DPS tools for mitigating damage and healing in addition to their DPS rotations. They have not given the same consideration to Healers.

> Healer damage contribution is required for content, despite the numerous occasions where Square has stated the opposite. Week 1 and week 2 savage clears, and ultimate would not be possible without Healers dealing damage.

> Even in Ultimate, a very large majority of the Healer's time is spent on dealing damage.

> Current Expert roulette dungeons can be run with 1 Warrior and 3 DPS, Wall-to-Wall pulls

> Current Savage content can be cleared without any healers in the party.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

Design philosophy indicates that Square believes the burden of responsibility in Healing is too heavy to add DPS rotation. Healing is simultaneously the most difficult and most boring role to play.

These counterpoints have been stated before, but are worth repeating:

> Imagine if Tanks had 1 DoT/1 Spam GCD and a majority of mitigation CDs
.

---

Hey now, they get a single AoE as well. Can't push them too far.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

Design philosophy indicates that Square believes the burden of responsibility in Healing is too heavy to add DPS rotation. Healing is simultaneously the most difficult and most boring role to play.

---

Important to note this only applies to Savage and Ultimate, as any content below that doesn't really have damage checks that require healer dps. So a dps rotation on healers in Normal mode content would make no difference as you aren't required to use it. There's no added responsibility there.

It's all about trying to get casual players who aren't very good at healer and don't really want to learn, clears in Savage and Ultimate. That's why the role is butchered.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Important to note this only applies to Savage and Ultimate, as any content below that doesn't really have damage checks that require healer dps. So a dps rotation on healers in Normal mode content would make no difference as you aren't required to use it. There's no added responsibility there.

It's all about trying to get casual players who aren't very good at healer and don't really want to learn, clears in Savage and Ultimate. That's why the role is butchered.

---

At the same time, in content below Savage, you can straight up go AFK for a majority of the fight if you're not DPSing. Fun role.

Just passing through to drop these

https://i.imgur.com/X2i0YKV.png

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/QbPfv...pe=damage-done

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Y411T74m

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by baklava151

Just passing through to drop these

https://i.imgur.com/X2i0YKV.png

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/QbPfv...pe=damage-done

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Y411T74m

---

Look, at least that AST was engaged, right?

FF14 has no excuse not to have dps rotations for healers when damage in this game is so predictable that you can literally go ahead and plan out mitigation and healing cooldowns throughout an encounter.
There's no variations on damage unless you have people sit on an AoE, and even then they're just gonna be one shot anyway, so you're just a rez bot instead.

And before you say that "oh, it's impossible to have both a more than barebones dps rotation and more unpredicatable damage", let me introduce you to the game that everyone loves to shit on, World of Warcraft .

I'm going to tackle on both Disc Priest and Holy Priest as these are the only healers that I've used to heal content with, and by god, they're a LOT more fun than both White Mage or Scholar.
These two jobs have better DPS rotations and one of them even have better healing rotations than their FF14 counter parts.

Because of how the game works (Talents and Covenants), I'm going to discuss my Priest builds, so YMMV and priests may or may not build different from how I do it.

--

DPS Rotations

Holy Priest (WHM equivalent)'s dps rotation is not actually a 1111111111 2 11111111111. Crazy right? Let me explain:

Smite is glare, but with a twist. It lowers the cooldown of your big boi nuke Chastice, giving it basic synergy.
Chastise is your big boi nuke. It stuns your target for 6 seconds and deals 140% spell power to it. It deals thrice as damage as Smite does, and like I said, its cooldown gets lowered by spamming Smite.
Shadow Word: Pain is your combust/aero/bio clone. It is what it is. Every healer needs a 2, this is its 2.
Holy Fire is your second DoT. It hits harder than your usual filler DoT, but its duration is shorter, and you want to deffo keep this up.
Shadow Word: Death is an execute. Remember the old days where most classes have an execute? This is theirs.
Divine Star is literally you throwing an orb of light that heals any ally that it touches, while damage every ally it passes. It's not an insignificant damage dealt either. It's literally a Smite to any enemy it touches. It also bounces back, so it can heal and damage twice .
Holy Nova is your filler aoe spell. Your holy, your art of war and your gravity. Self explanatory really. It both heals your allies and damages enemies at the same time. It's an insta cast holy but without the stun essentially.

So your single target dps rotation is literally:

- Apply Holy Fire and keep it up
- Chastise on cool down
- Apply Shadow Word: Pain and keep it up
- Smite (until Chastise is up)
- Shadow Word: Death when the target is below 25%.

And that's Holy's single DPS rotation. Now let's look at Disc Priest's:

So Disc shares a lot of skills with holy because they're specs under a single class. It has some changed behavior across the specs too. Think of it like old SMN and SCH.

- Smite is your usual glare. Yada yada yada.
- Shadow Word : Pain is your usual DoT but with a twist. It has a 50% chance of proccing a perk called Power of the Dark Side which empowers the next spell.
- Penace is probably the most versatile tool you have on a Disc Priest. It can be channeled to deal damage to a single enemy OR to heal a party member instead. It's also a useful movement tool because you can move while it's being cast.
- Solace is a single target nuke that you use on cooldown to regain mana. Self explanatory really.
- Mind Blast is your next nuke that deals twice as much damage as your smite, and reduces the damage of your the enemy you hit by a certain amount.
- Mind Sear is your filler AoE. You sit still and channel into a party member or an enemy and it will deal damage to nearby enemies.
- Divine Star is literally you throwing an orb of light that heals any ally that it touches, while damage every ally it passes. It's not an insignificant damage dealt either. It's literally a Smite to any enemy it touches. It also bounces back, so it can heal and damage twice .
- Shadow Fiend is literally Living Shadow. You summon a fiend that damages the enemy for you for X amounts of seconds.
- Shadow Word: Death is an execute. Remember the old days where most classes have an execute? This is theirs.

And Disc Priest's DPS rotation is actually tied to its healing, as a portion of Disc Priest's damage is converted to healing through Atonement. I'll explain this later.
But for now, the filler disc priest rotation is:

- Keep Shadow Word: Pain up
- Solace off cool down to regenerate mana.
- Mind blast off cooldown
- Penace off cooldown to either heal the tank or deal damage
- Smite
- Shadow Word: Death if the target is in execute range

Now I don't know about you, but that's now infinitely a lot more interesting than FF14's current dps rotation, and I haven't even talked about the Covenant abilities, like Boon of the Ascended or Mindgames or even talent specific choices like Schism or Halo, but let's go to the healing rotation part of the healers, specifically Disc Priest.

----------

Healing Rotations

Holy Priest is a dead simple healing rotation. You dump cooldowns, and everytime you use your gcd heals, the cooldown for your healing cooldowns decrease.
It's very standard, not unlike WHMs, but with little bits of synergy here and there.

Disc Priest is where the fun is. You've heard how Sage is supposed to be "Disc Priest" in FF14? No lol. Sage isn't even close to Disc Priest at all.

Disc Priest healing revolves around this little buff called Atonement, and Atonement scales off your Mastery stat. So if you want to increase your healing through Atonement, you better have more Mastery. For reference, right now on my Disc Priest, roughly 25% of my damage gets converted to Atonement healing.

Now Disc Priest has a number of different ways to apply Atonement You can either apply with the following:

1. Shadow Word: Mend which is essentially you're Cure 1/ Cure 2. It's a bog standard direct heal that has a cast time. It applies Atonement with its full duration.
2. Power Word: Shield which is essentially old Nocturnal(RIP I miss you :c ) Astro's aspected benefic. Insta cast, applies a shield but no heals. Just a shield. It applies Atonement with its full duration.
3. Power Word: Radiance which is essentially you're Succor, except it only has two charges, on a 20 second cooldown per each charge, and only applies Atonment for 60% of its normal duration.

Now that that's out of the way. How do we heal as Disc?
Simple. We apply Atonement to everyone, and burst the living shit out of anything that moves.

Now because of the nature of Disc Priest healing, you'd want to save your big damage cooldowns like Shadowfiend or, Boon of the Ascended, or Divine Star, or even Solace if you don't have anything, to when you're gonna have to get everyone back up.
Now you can spam shadowmend as an emergency, and that's fine. I do it at times too, but more often than not, the fact that 25% of your dps is your healing is what makes Disc the most fun healer. Your dps synergises with your healing.

Now this is just a Barebones overview of the two healing classes I play in WoW. There's all sorts of different healers that are distinct from one another and I can't in good fatih, try to explain all those other healers without playing them so, you'll be stuck with these two for now.

----

Content

Now. You have a barebones idea of the dps and healing toolkit of two healers in WoW. Now let's talk about content. Let's talk about Mythic +.

Mythic + Dungeons have very unpredictable damage due to the nature of it.
There are specific add mechanics that will chunk your tank all of a sudden if the tank makes mistake, like an add empowering another add that will turn their auto attacks into tankbusters that leave behind a nasty bleed, to literally adds silencing your school of spells, so you can only cast either Holy spells (Smite, Power Word Shield) or Shadow spells (Shadowmend, Mind Sear). The dungeons have so much unpredictable mechanics and damage sources compared to FF14 dungeons or even content as a whole that fitting all of them in this forum post isn't viable.

So let's just talk about the affixes:

These affixes change the dungeon in such a way that it demands more healing in various parts of the dungeons depending on the week.
It can either make the trash significantly stronger or the bosses, and thus the raid wides, a lot stronger.
It can make it so that killing the adds will explode, leaving a puddle where any enemy that sits in it will be healed slowly back to full hp.
It can make it so that killing the adds will explode, leaving a dot that stacks on your entire party.

You know the drill. These affixes also become available and hits harder and harder the higher you're "Key" level is. So your "+2 key" will be significantly easier than your "+9 key" as well, giving you harder variable heal checks the more you invest in the content.
Now is this content perfect? No lol. It has its problems, but it's probably the only content in any MMO I've had fun healing in.

And guess what, even in higher keys, I still engage in my DPS rotation. Even with unpredictable, heavy hitting damage I still DPS.

--------

Conclusion:

So Yoshi-P and every healer job designer has NO EXCUSE on why they're refusing to add a little bit of depth to the healer rotation as a whole when another game that demands more healing in its content has a more complex dps rotation.

I'm not asking for healers to have a DPS' rotation. I'm asking for an engaging filler, just like Holy Priest and Disc Priest, in a game where you're going to spending more time dpsing than healing.

WoW proves that having more "complex" rotations is possible and WILL work, despite their more Heals per second oriented community, despite their content having damage spikes, despite healer damage not mattering as a whole.

Accessibility is not an excuse for reducing the fun in a video game. You can still have baby healers do the old 111111 2 11111 rotation as their learning and in casual content, that's fine.

Giving healers the possibility of pressing more buttons will not make skill floor higher, it will make the skill ceiling higher, and make the game more fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Important to note this only applies to Savage and Ultimate, as any content below that doesn't really have damage checks that require healer dps. So a dps rotation on healers in Normal mode content would make no difference as you aren't required to use it. There's no added responsibility there.

It's all about trying to get casual players who aren't very good at healer and don't really want to learn, clears in Savage and Ultimate. That's why the role is butchered.

---

Sadly, I think it goes beyond even that and the devs actively want a role where casual players can essentially get away with very little contribution. Hence the constant mention of healer DPS being optional outside of week 1 prog and Ultimate. They want better players to carry the load. Hell, Yoshida has come right out and admitted that when nobody was queuing for Castrum in Bozja. And later added they want to explore more large scale content like that because it allows better players to "help" less experienced ones.

Their concern seems to be that if they were to give healers even tank rotations, it'd immediately become the expected norm especially at the Savage level. Which it would. The fact they view that as a bad thing speaks volumes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by baklava151

Just passing through to drop these

https://i.imgur.com/X2i0YKV.png

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/QbPfv...pe=damage-done

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Y411T74m

---

Oh hey! They are clearing the new ultimate with only one healer even before the a new patch drops?

So finally the healer found engaging content: solo healing ultimate.

Now I get what you meant Yoshi P. Visionary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aarchie

Oh hey! They are clearing the new ultimate with only one healer even before the a new patch drops?

So finally the healer found engaging content: solo healing ultimate.

Now I get what you meant Yoshi P. Visionary.

---

And their most used spell was still Fall Malefic...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by baklava151

Just passing through to drop these

https://i.imgur.com/X2i0YKV.png

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/QbPfv...pe=damage-done

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Y411T74m

---

Hahaha oh wow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Important to note this only applies to Savage and Ultimate, as any content below that doesn't really have damage checks that require healer dps. So a dps rotation on healers in Normal mode content would make no difference as you aren't required to use it. There's no added responsibility there.

It's all about trying to get casual players who aren't very good at healer and don't really want to learn, clears in Savage and Ultimate. That's why the role is butchered.

---

I don't really want the game to be all about who does the most damage wins the fight and the dev team doesn't want that reality either. Savage is not supposed to be the root purpose of a job, it is an extension of the base game that is designed to be as hard to beat as the game designers are willing to go, since it is very easy to make unbeatable content, but incredibly difficult to make content that is tight on "correctness" in playing a set of 8 jobs without blasting the entire group into oblivion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

I don't really want the game to be all about who does the most damage wins the fight and the dev team doesn't want that reality either. Savage is not supposed to be the root purpose of a job, it is an extension of the base game that is designed to be as hard to beat as the game designers are willing to go, since it is very easy to make unbeatable content, but incredibly difficult to make content that is tight on "correctness" in playing a set of 8 jobs without blasting the entire group into oblivion.

---

Jobs are literally designed and balanced around Savage and Ultimate, what are you talking about?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

I don't really want the game to be all about who does the most damage wins the fight and the dev team doesn't want that reality either. Savage is not supposed to be the root purpose of a job, it is an extension of the base game that is designed to be as hard to beat as the game designers are willing to go, since it is very easy to make unbeatable content, but incredibly difficult to make content that is tight on "correctness" in playing a set of 8 jobs without blasting the entire group into oblivion.

---

Yet I think you missed the point that Liam was trying to make: Healers are extremely unengaging in 95% of content and nearly effectively braindead with heals in that unengaging content.

Dungeons - Just heal.
Normal Mode Raids - Just heal.
Alliance Raids - Just heal.
Solo Instances - Spam 1 Button and 1 DoT ad nauseum.

Yeah. You can see how boring the role is after you've done everything on your healing checklist and the Tanks/DPS aren't dying. Savage/Ultimate pushes the jobs further to their maximum because your new shiny tools actually matter in this instance. It's not about who does the most damage, but rather about healer engagement. It's what we've been yelling at them to do since we figured it out in Shadowbringers - and they still haven't listened.

If you're looking at the base game itself, excluding Savage/Ultimate, you have a game where you do not require 20% of your buttons or shiny new tools to clear content. Heck, one healer would be enough and they still wouldn't touch a whole lot of their kit. This is why raiders are focused on improving to take on Savage - because Savage is challenging. So is Ultimate to a greater extent. In these areas, you use the full extent of your kit and it's where you actually see the job's strengths and weaknesses if they weren't already pointed out in Extreme Trials for some reason or another - and this includes our engagement and where it is aligning during points of Downtime if you bother to think about where the damage is when you're healing a Savage fight. Of course, one can say that "SGE just heals by DPSing! That's engagement, right?" No. SGE is not exactly as engaging as it should be - and the other healers are in the same boat. Sure it has Phlegma and an extra damaging GCD, but I'm still pressing the 1 Button a lot when I'm not executing mechanics or don't need to heal, either because I've already done my checklist or my co-healer and I are working in tandem.

At the end of the day, what the charts say is that we hit the 1 button too much even in Savage/Ultimate when there isn't any healing needing to be done. That's why we're going to continue pointing this out until Yoshida and the Dev Team bother to do something about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

I don't really want the game to be all about who does the most damage wins the fight and the dev team doesn't want that reality either. Savage is not supposed to be the root purpose of a job, it is an extension of the base game that is designed to be as hard to beat as the game designers are willing to go, since it is very easy to make unbeatable content, but incredibly difficult to make content that is tight on "correctness" in playing a set of 8 jobs without blasting the entire group into oblivion.

---

Casual content doesnt need balancing at all. We already have massive balancing differences between warrior and the other tanks when it comes to dungeons. Yet no one cares because balance is completely irrelevant for that level of content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Sadly, I think it goes beyond even that and the devs actively want a role where casual players can essentially get away with very little contribution. Hence the constant mention of healer DPS being optional outside of week 1 prog and Ultimate. They want better players to carry the load. Hell, Yoshida has come right out and admitted that when nobody was queuing for Castrum in Bozja. And later added they want to explore more large scale content like that because it allows better players to "help" less experienced ones.

Their concern seems to be that if they were to give healers even tank rotations, it'd immediately become the expected norm especially at the Savage level. Which it would. The fact they view that as a bad thing speaks volumes.

---

Unfortunately very true. I wouldn't even mind helping the less experienced players if they actually wanted help. If someone genuinely wanted to improve I'd happily set aside my free time and run over anything they wanted. If I see someone in a group doing their best and asking questions I'll be patient with any number of mistakes. But Yoshida's attitude that I'm meant to set aside my free time to carry people who don't particularly like me much and don't care about contributing is baffling. Especially when there's no reward and content I enjoy is butchered to accommodate carrying those players more easily. For me, it's a lose-lose deal.

As that type of player likes to say, "they don't pay my sub". They can carry themselves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

I don't really want the game to be all about who does the most damage wins the fight and the dev team doesn't want that reality either.

---

No one is saying to turn Normal mode content into tight dps checks. They're saying to give healers more to do than 1 button. The only place this would cause potential difficulty is Savage or Ultimate, since all other content doesn't require any healer dps. Thus, healers likely have 1 button dps because of Savage and Ultimate and how the devs want bad players to be able to clear it.

I'm sorry, but if a player couldn't handle more than 1 button to deal damage as a healer and didn't want to learn, they have no place in Savage or Ultimate. It's meant to be designed for the players who want a challenge. This developer mentality of butchering an entire role just to try and hand hardcore content over to the entire playerbase is crazy.

The design philosophy of making the gap between the skill floor and the skill ceiling barely visible so people won't feel bad when they're not good is not good.

What they're actively doing with this job design, with every role, is to effectively make it so that a new player can pick up a job, and feel like they're making optimal use of the job after barely any time investment.
("OH LITTLE TIMMY YES YOU NOW ARE A MASTER AT THIS JOB WITHIN TEN MINUTES OF HITTING THE STRIKING DUMMY!")

THAT IS A BORING WAY TO DESIGN JOBS. FUN SHOULD BE MORE OF A FACTOR IN THE DESIGN PROCESS RATHER THAN GUTTING DOWN JOBS TO GIVE PEOPLE A FAKE FEELING OF ACCOMPLISHMENT THAT THEY DONT EVEN CARE FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Adding more complexity on top of the base jobs, the base rotations, is not gonna matter for people who don't care about them. Just like how people still spam Cure 1, when Lily GCDs and Cure 2 exist.

It's not gonna lower the skill floor, cause you can still function in content designed for casuals. More dps buttons ain't gonna mean there needs to be dps checks in Casual Content. Casual content will be as clearable with a healer who 1111111 2 1111111 or actually utilizes all their dps buttons. It doesn't matter if the skill ceiling gap is wide, because the skill floor is still low. The jobs are still accessible.

Where it does matter is in Savage and Ultimate, and frankly those are the people who WANT to be better, who wants to feel like they're improving.
Who wants to feel like they're progressively inching towards a high skill ceiling.
Who WANTS a skill ceiling.
And frankly, that's what's missing from the job design ever since 5.0 .

Bring back the skill ceiling. Make being better at X job FEEL BETTER . Stop trying to forcibly remove the skill ceiling to cater to people who are perfectly content to stay at the skill floor.
People aren't asking to raise the skill floor. People are asking to raise the skill ceiling instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Payotz

[…]Bring back the skill ceiling. Make being better at X job FEEL BETTER . Stop trying to forcibly remove the skill ceiling to cater to people who are perfectly content to stay at the skill floor.
People aren't asking to raise the skill floor. People are asking to raise the skill ceiling instead.

---

I don’t want to be apathetic, but part of me thinks they simply don’t want to see an excessively huge gap of performance between the experienced and inexperienced players.

At least on the jobs the dev never mains, that is… /shrug

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

I don't really want the game to be all about who does the most damage wins the fight and the dev team doesn't want that reality either. Savage is not supposed to be the root purpose of a job, it is an extension of the base game that is designed to be as hard to beat as the game designers are willing to go, since it is very easy to make unbeatable content, but incredibly difficult to make content that is tight on "correctness" in playing a set of 8 jobs without blasting the entire group into oblivion.

---

We just want most people to have fun.
Casual or veteran/experienced player.

You shouldn't have a big gap in gameplay enjoyment in a role like this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

I don’t want to be apathetic, but part of me thinks they simply don’t want to see an excessively huge gap of performance between the experienced and inexperienced players.

At least on the jobs the dev never mains, that is… /shrug

---

This is a very large focus of their changes. IIRC YoshiP even talked about it at one point.

They want to lower the skill gap but don't understand why it exists so they simply go back to the basics and start taking off body parts and see how many it takes before the guy missing two legs finally catches up.
A few more inches from the ankles up to the shins, we're almost getting there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Unfortunately very true. I wouldn't even mind helping the less experienced players if they actually wanted help. If someone genuinely wanted to improve I'd happily set aside my free time and run over anything they wanted. If I see someone in a group doing their best and asking questions I'll be patient with any number of mistakes. But Yoshida's attitude that I'm meant to set aside my free time to carry people who don't particularly like me much and don't care about contributing is baffling. Especially when there's no reward and content I enjoy is butchered to accommodate carrying those players more easily. For me, it's a lose-lose deal.

As that type of player likes to say, "they don't pay my sub". They can carry themselves.

---

I want to believe Yoshida genuinely feels these players want to try instead of it being a PR statement. Unfortunately, that only showcases his naivety. A lot of people asking for "help" are, in fact, expecting a carry even through their actions alone. A perfect example is a friend of a friend who's been trying to teach her now to play SMN. She keeps arguing with him that "mechanics are more important!" as justification for literally stopping her rotation to perform them. I helped them last night in P1S going on Sage, a job I have never taken into Savage, and was only 800ish rDPS offer her. And I have less gear. This exact attitude is what Yoshida seems to willfully ignore. I'd be a lot more willing to "deal with it" if healing was fun. To be fair, I did enjoy it... but only because it was my first crack on Sage in Savage. I also sat there baffled at how little healing I actually did. Granted, I knew from my static the healing was a complete joke but feeling it out myself made it standout even more.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

No one is saying to turn Normal mode content into tight dps checks. They're saying to give healers more to do than 1 button. The only place this would cause potential difficulty is Savage or Ultimate, since all other content doesn't require any healer dps. Thus, healers likely have 1 button dps because of Savage and Ultimate and how the devs want bad players to be able to clear it.

I'm sorry, but if a player couldn't handle more than 1 button to deal damage as a healer and didn't want to learn, they have no place in Savage or Ultimate. It's meant to be designed for the players who want a challenge. This developer mentality of butchering an entire role just to try and hand hardcore content over to the entire playerbase is crazy.

---

What irks me about Normal mode content and its ilk is this would be the perfect spot to introduce mechanics at reduced level. Alas, they make them utterly pointless. Take E4N, for example. They finally put a tank swap debuff in Normal but then made Titan's autos so laughably weak nobody ever bothers swapping. For a more recent example, Nald'thal's tank buster soak doesn't actually do anywhere near lethal damage if you solo it. I had a Warrior the other night ask if they could try. They lived with just Vengeance and Bloodwhetting. This doesn't teach players anything because if it isn't threatening, why bother? Hell, it's why I don't bother disengaging on normal mode bosses and just eat the invul stacks. Why should I care? They won't kill me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

What irks me about Normal mode content and its ilk is this would be the perfect spot to introduce mechanics at reduced level. Alas, they make them utterly pointless. Take E4N, for example. They finally put a tank swap debuff in Normal but then made Titan's autos so laughably weak nobody ever bothers swapping. For a more recent example, Nald'thal's tank buster soak doesn't actually do anywhere near lethal damage if you solo it. I had a Warrior the other night ask if they could try. They lived with just Vengeance and Bloodwhetting. This doesn't teach players anything because if it isn't threatening, why bother? Hell, it's why I don't bother disengaging on normal mode bosses and just eat the invul stacks. Why should I care? They won't kill me.

---

100% agree. Normal mode is the absolute best place to introduce new things because the repercussions of failure are minimal.

Pagl'than is my go to example. Lunar Bahamut, supposed to be this big scary threat.

His "tankbuster" doesn't even come out until 75% of the fight (if you even ever see it you've done poor dps) and then it barely scratches the tank.

All the aoe that goes out barely does 20% of a DPS health.

Normal mode boss damage is completely irrelevant. The only reason trash does any damage is because we have developed a culture where you pull to the wall to pose any iota of challenge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

100% agree. Normal mode is the absolute best place to introduce new things because the repercussions of failure are minimal.

Pagl'than is my go to example. Lunar Bahamut, supposed to be this big scary threat.

His "tankbuster" doesn't even come out until 75% of the fight (if you even ever see it you've done poor dps) and then it barely scratches the tank.

All the aoe that goes out barely does 20% of a DPS health.

Normal mode boss damage is completely irrelevant. The only reason trash does any damage is because we have developed a culture where you pull to the wall to pose any iota of challenge.

---

Don't even have to go all the way back to Pagl though I'm surprised it actually is that bad.

Smileton? I think is one of the 90 experts? Yeah the second boss is a friggin joke. I have video footage of that boss and specifically that boss for a reason:

Did you know that boss has a tank buster? I didn't! Cause majority of the time my group kills the thing before it goes off!!!! The boss opens with an AoE that you ALSO only see once on my usual runs.

...WHAT?

Don't forget about this thread, devs need to acknowledge it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Minarisweet

Don't forget about this thread, devs need to acknowledge it.

---

not gonna happen sadly we all know this but one can dream

Quote:

---

They want to lower the skill gap but don't understand why it exists so they simply go back to the basics and start taking off body parts and see how many it takes before the guy missing two legs finally catches up.

---

The gap isn't just skill, it's a whole lot of sandbagging and not caring. Why would that not happen? There's disturbingly little meaningful combat in XIV and just about all of it allows you to effortlessly fail your way to success.

These types of people are going to show up and sandbag glamours no matter how many skills you lob off of Samurai, because they don't care, XIV gives them no reason to care.

I personally wouldn't mind if they adapted PvE to be more slim and dynamic ability wise, like PvP but it's not going to solve the content problem or inspire people to play better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mapleine

The gap isn't just skill, it's a whole lot of sandbagging and not caring and it's not difficult to see why. XIV is barely a game a lot of the time, the paper thin content we've been asked to be shored up since Heavensward isn't doing the job of motivating the same way anymore.

MSQ is text boxes, walking to a black circle and killing 2-3 fodder mobs riding/flying across an empty valley with nothing of interest in it and repeating for a couple hundred of hours. There's not really a game to speak of.

Then you hit post-MSQ and little changes, gear is still awful, dungeons are still all identical and mindless, all the paper thin progression you have is 4 bosses for 8 months and like everything in the game: the difficulties present are very easy and hard, with nothing in the middle.

We have a selection of jobs, including a full role, that are so easy to play that going much further would require Square developing auto-cast systems. Maybe we could try adding interesting, exciting new content instead of another confused job revamp? Please?

---

"bu-but my MSQ should require no effort or player interactions why should i learn my job to complete the story in a MMORPG other games don't force me to learn them to complete it"-the average current game state defender

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Minarisweet

Don't forget about this thread, devs need to acknowledge it.

---

Never gunna give you up, never gunna let you down~

FFXIV is the opposite of WoW. Far too much focus on making sure casual players have accessibility to all content with only the bare minimum amount of effort required. Leaves a huge gap in between casual and hard difficulty content. Especially when that casual content doesn't really take the opportunity to teach you how to play your job role and such.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soge01

FFXIV is the opposite of WoW. Far too much focus on making sure casual players have accessibility to all content with only the bare minimum amount of effort required. Leaves a huge gap in between casual and hard difficulty content. Especially when that casual content doesn't really take the opportunity to teach you how to play your job role and such.

---

it also doesn't help when actual good suggestions like a hall of the advanced and a hall of the expert basically get ignored which would teach people more of the nuances/tricks of their jobs and advanced rules of their role like for tanks how to grab a mob while running or how to position bosses for mechanics (which would hopefully at least give us back our responsibility of moving bosses)

That moment when even Ultimate isn't enough to fully engage TWO Healers. . .

While the spell most frequently cast in that solo heal of the hardest content in the game is their DPS filler spell. That also makes it every single ultimate able to be solo healed.

But nope, there's nothing wrong with encounter design or Healer Role design. (heavy /s)

This is nothing more than another example of how badly the healing role is disposable and diminished.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

That moment when even Ultimate isn't enough to fully engage TWO Healers. . .

While the spell most frequently cast in that solo heal of the hardest content in the game is their DPS filler spell. That also makes it every single ultimate able to be solo healed.

But nope, there's nothing wrong with encounter design or Healer Role design. (heavy /s)

This is nothing more than another example of how badly the healing role is disposable and diminished.

---

Man, seems like they should get a new healer battle designer... oh wait.

I went and played DSR(and still am).

Most of the time I spend pressing 1 button on my keybord. It took some getting used to, compared to what I usually do in raids or dungeons, but I figured it out eventually.
Sometimes I have to refresh my DoT on TWO targets. I feel enormously challenged by that. Please remove healer DoTs next expansion.
Having most of my single-target oGCDs not work on Haurchefant because they are party members only, is also very thrilling.
What I like the most though, is planing Earthly Star and Macrocosmos to places where they deal most DPS, like on the phase 5 meteors, because their healing capabilities are just a minor addition to see more numbers on my screen, when they go off. I like how especially Macrocosmos is such an awesome tool for healing the party back up during those meteors. As a healer I definitly feel those skills are prioritized correctly. Imagine actually requiring them primarily for healing because party burst damage being high or something - unthinkable.

Also healing in general is very overwhelming for me too. Most heal checks are mitigation based, so I feel even more challenged than ever, juggling all those group mitigation tools I have. Being able to shield my party once every two minutes, and reducing party member damage with my Collective Unconscious by 10% every minute, has me absolutley on the edge. With all of those two skills I feel like I am an invaluable asset to my party as well.

What I like the most though are all the instances where I need to burst-heal my party back up in an instant, because let's be honest - downtime between heavy hitting AoEs being 10+ seconds is so narrow, I sometimes fear dying from a heart attack. Such tension.