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

Quickened Aetherflow in patch 4.05 was such a stroke of unintentional genius. It actively encouraged usage with a decent reward. A shame they couldn't do anything with secret of the lilies 2 the fact that trait was was gated by double proc rng.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

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

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

Forget the leveling experience, it doesn't matter.

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

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

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

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

The same basic damage rotation from level 4 to level 90 (A 30s dot and a filler spell) is not acceptable gameplay or game design.

Edit:

Yoshi-P's statement is about as tone deaf as the Lead Designer of WoW flat out saying they didn't want players playing a certain DPS spec. (Language warning)

Background: Instead of properly balancing a certain DPS spec, the WoW devs nuked it to the ground so people would play other things.

Sound familiar?

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Being generous about what is and what isn't "engaging", if we're looking at its meaning by face value, Ultimates, PvP, Savage and Deep Dungeons are the only engaging content in this game.

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Originally Posted by MahthildisMMORPG

Being generous about what is and what isn't "engaging", if we're looking at its meaning by face value, Ultimates, PvP, Savage and Deep Dungeons are the only engaging content in this game.

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I'm not sure of what you mean by "if we're looking at its meaning by face value". One point- about the content that you see as engaging, you're not even going to get consensus about some of that list. For example- I don't regard Deep Dungeons as engaging.

There's also some content I would add, such as Bozja CEs. The issue their is that it doesn't age well.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I'm not sure of what you mean by "if we're looking at its meaning by face value". One point- about the content that you see as engaging, you're not even going to get consensus about some of that list. For example- I don't regard Deep Dungeons as engaging.

There's also some content I would add, such as Bozja CEs. The issue their is that it doesn't age well.

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The Deep Dungeon community is huge, and Aether is the main Deep Dungeon server to be. There are several discords for it.
If you never tried to solo deep dungeons or FULLY complete it was a static party, then you probably would have never thought of it as engaging.

Engaging content as in content that always keep you coming back due to the cool rewards, and there's always something new to aim for, something that can be fun, rewarding or fulfilling, possibly has variety in gameplay, gives special rewards that other people don't have, also specific content you can enjoy with others. Something you can chew on every time you can log on and still find enjoyment. Which includes Ocean Fishing as well, forgot to include that.

Deep Dungeons (for Necromancer, Lone Hero, Eureka Orthos titles, max gear cosmetics, mounts, adventurer plates)
Bozja
Eureka
Ultimates
Savage
PvP
Ocean Fishing

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Originally Posted by MahthildisMMORPG

The Deep Dungeon community is huge, and Aether is the main Deep Dungeon server to be. There are several discords for it.
If you never tried to solo deep dungeons or FULLY complete it was a static party, then you probably would have never thought of it as engaging.

Engaging content as in content that always keep you coming back due to the cool rewards, and there's always something new to aim for, something that can be fun, rewarding or fulfilling, possibly has variety in gameplay, gives special rewards that other people don't have, also specific content you can enjoy with others. Something you can chew on every time you can log on and still find enjoyment. Which includes Ocean Fishing as well, forgot to include that.

Deep Dungeons (for Necromancer, Lone Hero, Eureka Orthos titles, max gear cosmetics, mounts, adventurer plates)
Bozja
Eureka
Ultimates
Savage
PvP
Ocean Fishing

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I'm not sure that we're understanding each other. I'm not challenging whether Deep Dungeons are quality content, or whether they aren't popular with a segment of the community.

I picked that as an example. from your list of what you cited as "engaging content" , of what not everyone considers to be engaging content. While I appreciate your listing various ways in which it can be run, personally I don't enjoy it , so no it isn't engaging.

I could also walk down that list and knock off (in my case), for example ocean fishing, and ultimates. So that list shrinks quite quickly.

Was Bozja engaging? Yes, however its lifespan was short. Eureka has its own issues. We can add Blue Mage however to the list.

However, I would say my point is that "engagement" should exist throughout the game. It could be crafting, all modes of dungeons, PvE (all modes), or improved PvP modes. Even in PvP the team has withdrawn maps and it's been years since they've "been working on them" (RW).

However- none of this has to do with the original point of this thread aside from what I just put in bold, so that healers aren't steered to just one level of content that most will likely not ever do.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Was Bozja engaging? Yes, however its lifespan was short

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Yeah, I remember when the Savatori fight would pop every five minutes and Lyon was throwing out his notes like it was confetti...
/playdead

Going to be a broken record but getting this back to the page itself

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Originally Posted by MahthildisMMORPG

The Deep Dungeon community is huge, and Aether is the main Deep Dungeon server to be. There are several discords for it.
If you never tried to solo deep dungeons or FULLY complete it was a static party, then you probably would have never thought of it as engaging.

Engaging content as in content that always keep you coming back due to the cool rewards, and there's always something new to aim for, something that can be fun, rewarding or fulfilling, possibly has variety in gameplay, gives special rewards that other people don't have, also specific content you can enjoy with others. Something you can chew on every time you can log on and still find enjoyment. Which includes Ocean Fishing as well, forgot to include that.

Deep Dungeons (for Necromancer, Lone Hero, Eureka Orthos titles, max gear cosmetics, mounts, adventurer plates)
Bozja
Eureka
Ultimates
Savage
PvP
Ocean Fishing

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Admittedly its on our perspective but for healers its the gameplay loop. Even going into most of these, our core loop is spamming our nuke with the occasional dot every 30 seconds. Sometimes there will be parts where we have to gcd heal but for the most part if we look at the timelines of the fights we can generally plan around them. This is more prominent in Ultimate and savage.

Deep Dungeons could be more engaging but it would most certainly could get less and less the more floors you get farther in and the tank has to pull less and less to account for the damage from the mobs.

Part of the issue with any discussion of healer complexity is fundamentally just the massive disconnect between the high-end players, the low-end players, and the average players. Each group has *wildly* different needs (doubly so for controller vs keyboard & mouse on top of skill difference) and the game needs to be balanced so that the game is playable for as many players as possible.

High-end players want more complexity, more responsibility. The low-end players need to be able to clear MSQ content, normal raids, and alliance raids with trusts or randoms without much hardship. Those of average skill might want a bit more complexity, but also more in the way of options for "oh FUCK" options in the event of a fuck-up. Players on keyboard & mouse generally are okay with having more buttons than players on controller would be, while players on controller are okay with fewer buttons than KB&M players would want. Ultimately, CBU3 balances jobs so that they're playable for the most people in the most content, at the cost of being less tuned for any individual group.

The "obvious" solution would be to utilize the job system to its fullest advantage here - we have four healers, it's not unreasonable to aim them at different skill levels, but then comes the issue of, if Healer A does healing and DPSing just as well as Healer B but with way less difficulty, why would anyone play Healer B? Not to mention, CBU3 really doesn't want to lock anyone out of any story content - DSR having as deep a narrative as it does is frankly shocking to me, and honestly I'm surprised they never made a Dragonsong Reprise (Normal) to appease those who got annoyed at a plotline being locked behind an ultimate - so having any job or any role be difficult enough that a low-end player won't be able to see its job/role quest or do the MSQ with that job is basically out of the question. It'd also be kind of a problem to make such a change now, because there are low-end and average skill players who only really play healers, and if you suddenly ramp up the complexity of a job where these players will be below the skill floor, you've essentially told them "go level another job and hope we don't change that."

I don't envy the position CBU3 is in. There's not really a good solution here to make everyone happy, but when you're developing a big MMO that's also aimed at a crowd that doesn't typically play MMOs, you're kinda stuck between a rock and a fandom place.

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Originally Posted by IcarusAvery

High-end players want more complexity, more responsibility. The low-end players need to be able to clear MSQ content, normal raids, and alliance raids with trusts or randoms without much hardship. Those of average skill might want a bit more complexity, but also more in the way of options for "oh FUCK" options in the event of a fuck-up. Players on keyboard & mouse generally are okay with having more buttons than players on controller would be, while players on controller are okay with fewer buttons than KB&M players would want. Ultimately, CBU3 balances jobs so that they're playable for the most people in the most content, at the cost of being less tuned for any individual group.

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But that isn't necessarily true, though. There have been many ongoing conversations over on the healer forums where the high-end players that want more complexity have actively discussed ways to do so such that it does not affect the bottom level player, or actually makes the game easier to the novice, not harder. Things like making basic GCD healings like Cure II and Medica cost no MP, reducing the pressure on players to maintain DPS uptime to achieve similar levels of DPS output, reworking Phoenix Downs to allow non-healers to revive outside of high-end duties so that there's less pressure on healers to not fail mechanics or, revamping the UI for things like Esuna-able debuffs so that newer players can actually recognize when a debuff can be removed with Esuna, and more. Talks of wanting more depth and complexity enter into the equation largely with DPS in mind, something that is not required of healers in 95% of the game's content, and is not an issue for the low-end player base because they are not pressured to hit enrages. For literally years, the high-end players have been fighting for a raised ceiling that does not raise the floor.

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Originally Posted by IcarusAvery

I don't envy the position CBU3 is in. There's not really a good solution here to make everyone happy, but when you're developing a big MMO that's also aimed at a crowd that doesn't typically play MMOs, you're kinda stuck between a rock and a fandom place.

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There is a solution to make everyone happy.

Keep the skill floor we have now and raise the ceiling.

The players on the lower-end are already comfortable with what we have now, that's not an issue. What is an issue is that the higher-end players, or even the above average players, have nothing to strive for. There is no ceiling, so to speak. We just want a higher ceiling, none of us want to raise the floor higher than people can reach.

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Originally Posted by IcarusAvery

High-end players want more complexity, more responsibility. The low-end players need to be able to clear MSQ content, normal raids, and alliance raids with trusts or randoms without much hardship. Those of average skill might want a bit more complexity, but also more in the way of options for "oh FUCK" options in the event of a fuck-up. Players on keyboard & mouse generally are okay with having more buttons than players on controller would be, while players on controller are okay with fewer buttons than KB&M players would want. Ultimately, CBU3 balances jobs so that they're playable for the most people in the most content, at the cost of being less tuned for any individual group.

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The problem is this mindset only affects healers. For some reason CBU3 seems to think that tanks and DPS can juggle their primary responsibility with other addons as well perfectly fine but for healers are some delicate flower that can't.

And we can.

Because if tanks were treated like healers, had the exact same damage rotation from lvl 4 to lvl 90 (with massive emnity generation on them), they would riot but for some reason this is perfectly acceptable for healers because reasons.

It's not engaging and it's simply bad design, it's a self inflicted wound by the job design team, and now they've designed themselves into a corner with no easy way out.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Because if tanks were treated like healers, had the exact same damage rotation from lvl 4 to lvl 90 (with massive emnity generation on them), they would riot but for some reason this is perfectly acceptable for healers because reasons.

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It's 'acceptable' in the dev team's eyes, because they do not main healers. And so when it's testing time for a raid, they don't ever test with 'is it fun and engaging' in mind, they test with 'is it numerically possible' in mind, and as soon as they find 'yes the healer player can keep up with the healing and damage output required of them', job done ship it

That, or they really want to have Cataclysm-era healing gameplay and kit, but forgot the part of Cata design where there was damage that necessitated such a healing kit

And the longer they stand in this position, the more this is going to hurt them and the hole they dug is just going to keep getting deeper.

Again just bumping this up.

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

And the longer they stand in this position, the more this is going to hurt them and the hole they dug is just going to keep getting deeper.

Again just bumping this up.

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At this point I honestly think it will have to hit critical mass for them to reconsider.

And once again bringing this back up to the front page. THis probably the thread about healers that has the most traction of them all so on the slight chance that this can reach the devs ear, just gonna make sure this is on the front page whenever I can.

Yes, it needs critical mass, and more. Either way, anything they do and f up will be blamed on the players at the end, so there is no real point when there is no public test servers for people to give feedback on the changes they make.

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

And once again bringing this back up to the front page. THis probably the thread about healers that has the most traction of them all so on the slight chance that this can reach the devs ear, just gonna make sure this is on the front page whenever I can.

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The problem is after a certain point, we’ve exhausted the discussion and nothing else needs to be said. It’s hard to keep a thread going indefinitely because eventually you start pulverizing the dead horse into a pile of mush. At this point it’s kinda just a waiting game until the next DT live letter, whenever that happens.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The problem is after a certain point, we’ve exhausted the discussion and nothing else needs to be said. It’s hard to keep a thread going indefinitely because eventually you start pulverizing the dead horse into a pile of mush. At this point it’s kinda just a waiting game until the next DT live letter, whenever that happens.

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For the moment indeed we are beating a dead a horse but that is until we get the new actions and they finally start talking about job changes.

Bumping this up again and reminding people that this what yoshi p said when people wanted more engaging content for healers.

I just want to see an effort made to do something other than stay the course.

I'll just take some open dialogue and honest explanations from Yoshida

Instead we get them going in precisely the opposite direction, hiding numbers because they are seemingly embarrassed of their ineptitude but also unable to actually do anything to solve this.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

I'll just take some open dialogue and honest explanations from Yoshida

Instead we get them going in precisely the opposite direction, hiding numbers because they are seemingly embarrassed of their ineptitude but also unable to actually do anything to solve this.

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They also constantly refuse to talk about healers since pre-ShB launch, I suspect that Yoshida expected the changes to be massively unpopular, remember how he skipped over the healer rework slides very quickly? Almost like he didn't want people to talk about it too much and instead focus on other things.

I think its safe to say that healers will forever now be boring.

But dont let that stop you from trying to ask for changes.

And I will not stop keeping this on the first page, since it really doesn't take much to do so. That and Yoshi and his team are fools in regards to healers.

I don't think they care about Healers. Their answer to Healer engagement is just going to be them telling you to play Warrior. They seem to be doubling down on their 1 DPS button and 20 heal button format.

Personally, I feel like it's rather pointless to continually bump the thread. There's not much new discussion that can be had, and keeping it on the front page may invite antagonistic people to come in and make wild claims, as has happened before multiple times.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Personally, I feel like it's rather pointless to continually bump the thread. There's not much new discussion that can be had, and keeping it on the front page may invite antagonistic people to come in and make wild claims, as has happened before multiple times.

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pot meet kettle

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Originally Posted by Mostly_Raxus

pot meet kettle

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Yeah, you're so clever, aren't you? Bet you smirked at how clever you thought you were.

It may indeed be the case that at this point this topic can't really be constructive anymore now that dang near every single minute aspect of healers have been dissected and looking over all the facets of it as well. But I want it to this blemish on Yoshi P to stay here and and if people get riled up over it, let them.

It’s a desire to want to see the conversation stay relevant. The problem has not gone away, and the people frustrated by it are not any less frustrated, and there’s a fear that if the conversation ends, that these issues will just be quietly swept under the rug. But yeah everything that can be said has been said at least a dozen times at this point.

Someone will pop in and go “I’d rather just heal more” or “if you want to DPS then play a DPS job”, and I or someone else will once again push the boulder up the hill explaining why that isn’t a viable solution by itself or why that’s a double standard that no other role experiences respectively. But there’s nothing new to say, and at this point, whatever direction they’re taking healers in for DT is likely set in stone for the next 3 years. All we can really do is wait and see what happens.

Yeah.

Still torn on if I want to hope the AST rework is fun and makes one healer enjoyable again.

Or be pessimistic and hope it is so bad it kills healer population.

Sadly until the media tour there's little to do but speculate and/or grumble into the void about the EW status quo.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It’s a desire to want to see the conversation stay relevant. The problem has not gone away, and the people frustrated by it are not any less frustrated, and there’s a fear that if the conversation ends, that these issues will just be quietly swept under the rug. But yeah everything that can be said has been said at least a dozen times at this point.

Someone will pop in and go “I’d rather just heal more” or “if you want to DPS then play a DPS job”, and I or someone else will once again push the boulder up the hill explaining why that isn’t a viable solution by itself or why that’s a double standard that no other role experiences respectively. But there’s nothing new to say, and at this point, whatever direction they’re taking healers in for DT is likely set in stone for the next 3 years. All we can really do is wait and see what happens.

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I'm not saying we should stop talking about it entirely, I'm just pointing out that if we have to deal with someone coming in and making strange claims again, it would just build more frustration. It's also the fact that all the regulars have already said all there is to say, so there's really not much conversation that can be had until something new is brought onto the table.

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Originally Posted by Sani2341

Still torn on if I want to hope the AST rework is fun and makes one healer enjoyable again.

Or be pessimistic and hope it is so bad it kills healer population.

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I don't think the AST population is that high at all, so there's probably not much of a population to kill in the first place. Isn't AST the least popular healer?

AST is the least popular healer by a long shot

WHM is the most popular (except in criterion where the shields dominate), SGE and SCH trade for second and third based on data centre and then AST is dead last in pretty much every piece of content, the AST stats on AAI are actually hilarious with how underused it is because that invisible projecting buff they give to buff jobs in 4 man content is hilariously underpowered on AST because AST also sucks at AOE alongside sucking at 4 man single target

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Originally Posted by Aravell

I don't think the AST population is that high at all, so there's probably not much of a population to kill in the first place. Isn't AST the least popular healer?

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Yes it is but more or less the reason Is why play astro finger destruction simulator when whm does the same with less finger breaking. Like I could learn a piano or other finger heavy hobby’s that are funny , rather then play astro.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

Yes it is but more or less the reason Is why play astro finger destruction simulator when whm does the same with less finger breaking. Like I could learn a piano or other finger heavy hobby’s that are funny , rather then play astro.

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In a good chunk of content AST is 100x harder (and horribly designed) and still ends up being weaker than WHM anyway (it’s massively weaker than WHM in criterion, is generally weaker than WHM in ultimates and only passes WHM in savage at like the 97th percentile)

At least SCH somewhat rewards you for being harder than SGE by being better than SGE in most content at even the low mid percentiles

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

In a good chunk of content AST is 100x harder (and horribly designed) and still ends up being weaker than WHM anyway (it’s massively weaker than WHM in criterion, is generally weaker than WHM in ultimates and only passes WHM in savage at like the 97th percentile)

At least SCH somewhat rewards you for being harder than SGE by being better than SGE in most content at even the low mid percentiles

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I did play AST in the first criterion, I think the biggest issue I had with AST was that Earthly Star is so obscenely big that you can easily pull extra mobs if you're not careful. But yeah, it felt so much easier when I played SGE instead for the second criterion.

For astro partially the reason for was what they did to the new card system. Stb astro may of had issues but the card system wasn’t too demanding. Come shadowbringers, controller players were not having the best time with it and o remember like the numbers for week 4 were like 90k white mage clears that week for Eden’s gate compared to 8k astro clears.

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

For astro partially the reason for was what they did to the new card system. Stb astro may of had issues but the card system wasn’t too demanding. Come shadowbringers, controller players were not having the best time with it and o remember like the numbers for week 4 were like 90k white mage clears that week for Eden’s gate compared to 8k astro clears.

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Patch 5.0 AST was basically unplayable for controller players. Sleeve Draw was manual draw, so you had 3 extra buttons to press during your (re)opener, and that's without counting any Redraws that you need to do.

I remember having problems joining parties in Eden's Gate Savage PF in early weeks as an AST because of the problems it had with low healing potencies at launch which made things like basic w2w pulls in dungeons virtually impossible (until they buffed potencies on savage patch day) which led to some parties outright locking slots to whm+sch, or asking to swap to SCH.

It's unfortunate that I've gone from loving this class to suddenly finding it not at all enjoyable anymore, but I think it's the Shadowbringers 2.0 effect.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

Yes it is but more or less the reason Is why play astro finger destruction simulator when whm does the same with less finger breaking. Like I could learn a piano or other finger heavy hobby’s that are funny , rather then play astro.

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I played 90% astro (when I was healing) this expansion because it's the most active and variable healer, so the "why" is a subset of players enjoys it more than the other options atm