Hypothetical ultimatum: Yoshi P comes to the forums

He comes into this very forum on his official account. Coming to us all right now (via translator), he says:

"We will change 3 healers and leave 1 the same. This is non-negotiable. Choose which."

Which would you pick to leave as it is, and why that one?
Which would you pick to change, and why those three?

You want WHM changed to a former incarnation.
You want SCH changed to a former incarnation.
You want AST changed to a former incarnation.
SGE has had no former incarnation, but you also want to have it for your class fantasy.

So which would you pick to not change?

Note that the alternative is NOT to change all four: If you don't pick one, then all four will remain as they are today.

Note that "not picking" isn't an option, unless you would prefer NONE changed to only three changed. Sort of a "If I don't get everything I want, I'd rather get NOTHING" extreme absolutionist position.

If so: Why would you prefer the current system over one where three Healers were changed?

SGE stays as is, being as it has no 'previous incarnation' to work off of

Two years later, SGE is also reworked to match the depth available to the other three, because of player outcry about it being an outlier becoming too prominent to ignore (this has nothing to do with my choosing here, it's just what would likely occur should I make said choice)

Like I said on the other thread, this is like a "what would you do if you were stranded on a desert island" question. It's a useless question because that is not an ultimatum we are given, nor will we ever be given.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Like I said on the other thread, this is like a "what would you do if you were stranded on a desert island" question. It's a useless question because that is not an ultimatum we are given, nor will we ever be given.

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You're right in a way: The ultimatum you've been given is "This is what we're doing with Healers. You can like it or not, but this is what we're doing and doubling down on with each subsequent expansion."

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

SGE stays as is, being as it has no 'previous incarnation' to work off of

Two years later, SGE is also reworked to match the depth available to the other three, because of player outcry about it being an outlier becoming too prominent to ignore (this has nothing to do with my choosing here, it's just what would likely occur should I make said choice)

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It's possible, but not as likely as you think. SE has this weird propensity to stick to their guns for years on things, and if something is still viable (which the Job left alone would be), it won't be changed. If anything, the other three not working well enough or people complaining about having to do "more work to get the same reward" would see them slowly brought back to where they are now over time.

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EDIT:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Actually it's not. All the healers suck, and they continue to suck. We're not being offered 3 good healers at the cost of 1 bad healer. All of them are tone deaf, shit design.

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No, I mean the ultimatum that's been given is: All 4 Healers will be this way. What you fail to understand is that your position isn't the dominant position in the discussion. You consistently argue from it as if it were a position of strength and that you hold all the cards, but you don't.

What we've seen from the Devs, both in the ShB changes, their explanations given for it, and that the doubled down super hard "all-in" going from ShB to EW means that this is the direction they've chosen. While they might change, there aren't massive Healer shortages (Healers are often the first slots to fill in PFs across many of the DCs, and Healers are still not AIN as often as Tanks, even having several minute waits for groups during some periods of time, while DPS ques remain in the 3-10 min range and Tank ques remain instant) to force the issue. The people who really really hate Healers right now have largely swapped to either dual maining a Healer and DPS/Tank, or just outright swapping to maining DPS (often DNC, RDM, sometimes SMN, and WAR or PLD if Tanks), the ones that offer them Support feel and options with gameplay they find more engaging.

The community as a whole, and the healer subsection of that community, may not overall be in love with it, but they aren't repulsed by it to the level you are, nor the level you would need them to be to have the leverage you act like and think you have.

It's the reason that changing some of the Healers SHOULD appeal, but it doesn't because you fundamentally overestimate the strength and ubiquity of your position in the playerbase as a whole, and think you have no reason to settle or compromise, on anything, for any reason. Instead of seeing that as an avenue to get something you want, you think you already can get everything you want and have no desire to give away some of what you think you already have...when you have none of it.

This fundamental misassessment is the core of the issue, and why the things you argue for aren't realistically going to happen or be adopted.

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Can this change in the future?

Probably, but the base of Healer players who are, at worst, at least content with the present system is sufficient to sustain it. Whether Yoshi P and the Devs decide to change that is up to them, but their actions so far have shown they have no interest and see no need to do so, and their metrics are better than ours.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

You're right in a way: The ultimatum you've been given is "This is what we're doing with Healers. You can like it or not, but this is what we're doing and doubling down on with each subsequent expansion."

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That's not an ultimatum. That's a sentence

Also, are you okay?

You've come out swinging hot and emotional today, with no cause. You replied in a thread we'd been having a cordial conversation in with "I don't give a shit!" as your first reply of the day to me anywhere, out of the blue, and have been just as rage angry in most of your replies since. Are you feeling alright?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It's possible, but not as likely as you think. SE has this weird propensity to stick to their guns for years on things, and if something is still viable (which the Job left alone would be), it won't be changed. If anything, the other three not working well enough or people complaining about having to do "more work to get the same reward" would see them slowly brought back to where they are now over time.

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This is one of the few places I agree with you, and is one of the strongest reasons I have for changing all four of them. The Great Shadowbringers Lobotomy was the result of having one craptastic simplistic healer with two high skill ceiling competitors, and Square couldn't (wouldn't) do the obvious thing and make WHM interesting, fun, and competitive to play too. Whether it's because WHM's popularity remained high enough for Square to think they struck gold, or laziness, or Savage complaints, or 2ch crying the other two healers were too haaaaaaaaard, we'll never know. But from experience, it's plain to see that having all but one healer designed with nuance, an expansive kit, strong potencies, etc just makes that one goober of a healer stand out all the more, and not in a good way. If players complain that the obvious effort difference between Glarespam Medica2mage and having a full kit of abilities with opportunities for improvement and skill expression necessitates clearly lower output from Jethro over there, then you have two (probably more, but the two most obvious from the context) choices: you can design the outlier with skill expression and nuance in mind while keeping the "raw oomph" aesthetic, or you can beat all of the other healers over the head until they're just as barebones. I want the former. Square chose the latter. Because none of them play healers, so they don't have to suffer the jobs they curse to boredom.

I think leaving one healer as-is will doom the role to permanent stupidity. It's the choice they made in Stormblood; I see no evidence to suggest they wouldn't do the same if given the same circumstances again.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

This is one of the few places I agree with you, and is one of the strongest reasons I have for changing all four of them. The Great Shadowbringers Lobotomy was the result of having one craptastic simplistic healer with two high skill ceiling competitors, and Square couldn't (wouldn't) do the obvious thing and make WHM interesting, fun, and competitive to play too. Whether it's because WHM's popularity remained high enough for Square to think they struck gold, or laziness, or Savage complaints, or 2ch crying the other two healers were too haaaaaaaaard, we'll never know. But from experience, it's plain to see that having all but one healer designed with nuance, an expansive kit, strong potencies, etc just makes that one goober of a healer stand out all the more, and not in a good way. If players complain that the obvious effort difference between Glarespam Medica2mage and having a full kit of abilities with opportunities for improvement and skill expression necessitates clearly lower output from Jethro over there, then you have two (probably more, but the two most obvious from the context) choices: you can design the outlier with skill expression and nuance in mind while keeping the "raw oomph" aesthetic, or you can beat all of the other healers over the head until they're just as barebones. I want the former. Square chose the latter. Because none of them play healers, so they don't have to suffer the jobs they curse to boredom.

I think leaving one healer as-is will doom the role to permanent stupidity. It's the choice they made in Stormblood; I see no evidence to suggest they wouldn't do the same if given the same circumstances again.

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In other words, the "leave 1 healer alone" argument is destined to fail.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

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I'm still of the opinion that the lobotomy happened as much down to a lack of creativity within the team as it did any of the wildly varied player feedback.

Back in ARR healers had healing kits that were well tuned to the content on offer at the time. SCH and WHM both had advantages over each other whilst also covering each other's key weaknesses superbly. Outside of Infirmity arguably favouring SCH a little too heavily, neither job truly stepped on the other's toes as SE were evidently able to commit enough time to polish and balance both relative to each other.

Both HW and SB's launches demonstrated that SE were clearly struggling to tune and test things effectively as we got more jobs and in turn, more complexity within each job. What we have now is the solution to that problem. You don't have to worry about a job ending up in the same state 3.0 AST did when all of them have wildly overtuned healing kits. And you don't have to worry about a job ending up in the same state that 4.0 SCH did when all of them share virtually the same core kits.

Having 3 nuanced and complex healers vs 1 that can achieve functionally the same result by face rolling the keyboard is a balance and tuning nightmare that SE have demonstrated they don't have the manpower nor desire to deal with.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

He comes into this very forum on his official account. Coming to us all right now (via translator), he says:

"We will change 3 healers and leave 1 the same. This is non-negotiable. Choose which."

Which would you pick to leave as it is, and why that one?
Which would you pick to change, and why those three?

You want WHM changed to a former incarnation.
You want SCH changed to a former incarnation.
You want AST changed to a former incarnation.
SGE has had no former incarnation, but you also want to have it for your class fantasy.

So which would you pick to not change?

Note that the alternative is NOT to change all four: If you don't pick one, then all four will remain as they are today.

Note that "not picking" isn't an option, unless you would prefer NONE changed to only three changed. Sort of a "If I don't get everything I want, I'd rather get NOTHING" extreme absolutionist position.

If so: Why would you prefer the current system over one where three Healers were changed?

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First I would have nothing to say to him other than read the damn Healer mega post. You say you read, its clear you don't. Get a translator and READ like you SAY YOU DO.

Second and more close to your question SGE.

Sorry SGE fans but

1. We didn't need SGE. We needed WHM, SCH and AST fixed first and become fleshed out healers before we got another one who took away something from one of the original three (AST) because SE can't use their brains and make diverse healers.

2. No one asked for SGE to be a reskinned SCH or even the same crappy game play as the other 3. SE had the chance to give us at least ONE (1) healer that we've been asking the return of since the start of ShB and failed. Well since it isn't even new other than effects it can stay that way. Fix the other 3.

3. No healer should be left behind. If the "ultimatum" is to leave one or leave none, I'll do you one better: remove the role from the class if you can't design ANYTHING from dungeons to Ultimate where the "healer must heal kit as decreed by people who don't know how a healer plays in this game" kit doesn't fit and do what ESO does and let every class do everything.

If you don't care about healers, their wants, their whole role being worth more than a glorified green dps because you're oh so afraid of Savage and Ultimate turning them away with high amounts of healing, then don't make them. Remove them and replace them with something else you ACTUALLY care about and want to work on then.