Healer Mains and future Media Tours

Some users here have suggested we need to be more constructive with regard to our criticisms and concerns, so here's the biggest one from me.

TL;DR: What can we do to get more attention to the role of healers and their concerns in future media tours/interviews? How were influencers selected for the tour, and are there any healer mains or experienced healers we could push to be selected for future tours?

Something that was a bit surprising with the 2019 media tour was a lack of healer mains in the invited guests. While I don't intend to besmirch those figures invited to the tour and their efforts to cover the role as best they could, the coverage and questions they posed to developers was sorely lacking from a healer standpoint (mostly DPS/Tank focused when discussing roles). There's no issue with focusing on other roles if they main them/have more experience with them, but it simply made the lack of any noticeable healer main all the more jarring.

The post-media tour interviews weren't much different. I spent a bit scouring the four major interviews with YoshiP following the media tour and release of role-action information, and out of roughly 223 questions there were 92 question related to roles/classes.

Of those 92 questions, only 3 were focused on healers. And they all came from a single interview.

Now, this may be somewhat set off balance by the introduction of a new tanking/DPS job. But having an entire role that's undergoing some hefty changes and was already in something of an uproar/fervor over the lack of information following the Fan-Fests and previous live letters, having only 3.26% of your role questions being healer oriented is insufficient. In fact, some interviews went out of their way to avoid addressing healers ("As for the job balance, setting aside healers..." [4gamer's Shadowbringer Interview]) in favour of other roles.
Simply put, we've been left largely in the dark to stew over the changes with little official statements on our concerns, and that's not something you want to have happen with your consumers.

Now, the point of this thread: What can we do to get more attention to the role of healers and their concerns in future media tours/interviews? How were influencers selected for the tour, and are there any healer mains or experienced healers we could push to be selected for future tours?

And the four interviews for those interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...interview_not/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...our_interview/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...M1S5o_hgg/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...uMgaL704g/edit

Apologizes for the Reddit links, but they contained the translated interviews.

Personality. Find someone who is, shall we say, family friendly that plays the healer role and makes youtube videos (as in, makes videos, not just upload twitch streams), and get them popular enough where for a media tour it would be good press to get them out.

It seems the common thread between everyone invited is that they participate in higher end content and they make video content.

Remember: Someone selected these people. They probably knew they had no good news for healers and purposely didn't invite anyone who would focus on healing questions.

Conspiracy theorist in me wants to think that SE either steered them away from the healer questions or flat out asked them not to talk about it.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Remember: Someone selected these people. They probably knew they had no good news for healers and purposely didn't invite anyone who would focus on healing questions.

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That's making the assumption that Square Enix isn't proud of their decisions and know that they're bad.

It's entirely possible, and probably worse, if this represents a sincere attempt to balance healers and not inviting a healer main is because they thought nothing of it.

As another thread has pointed out, the dev team might just be utterly lost on what healers even play like in this game given the encounter design.

The thing that concerns me is that they will select healer mains that do not reflect the community very well if at all intentionally in order to try and push the "pure healer" mentality further when it must be scrapped.
The other thing, is that even if we do get healer influencers etc, that doesn't mean they will listen:

Look at how unpopular changes to the tanks have been- while the Forums here may be filled with WAR's who want their job to OP, the truth is that many WAR's and DRK's abandoned the job this expansion. The former because it became even more braindead and is little more than Marauder with additional aoe, the latter because it flat out plays like WAR but with an ogcd in place of a second combo plus TBN and Fray (whose bugged like seraph)

PLD players aren't fond of the fact their job has a rotation that disconnects it from buff windows etc. They have to drop a gcd every few rotations or fall out of line. PLD's are also pretty annoyed with the lack of shield based abilities- this is the job that has come of best of the tanks

No tank players wanted this homogenisation or further scrapping of complexity

I think simply not pre ordering is going to be something to keep in mind. I remember pre ordering shadow bringers the day it became available because of course I would love it, that simply wont be the case this time. It might not be an immediate solution but its still something to keep in mind.

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Originally Posted by Gaethan_Tessula

As another thread has pointed out, the dev team might just be utterly lost on what healers even play like in this game given the encounter design.

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There seems to be a disconnect even among the development team and staff.

For example the gear designers, healer gear is riddled with Piety when WhM/ScH barely need it. Class designers, WhM's have bad clipping issues, ScH's pay taxes to weave and the pet is broken, AsT has free mobility as a side effect of the cards, but they barely seem aware of it and probably aren't even aware of clipping being a thing or loss of uptime from movement at endgame. Yoshi stated healer dps isn't accounted for. However the encounter designers are fully aware healer dps is a thing and do account for it in EX and Savage enrage timers. The quest designers and Trust designers also realize healers deal damage and account for it.

It's just all over the place, they don't seem to communicate or know what's going on with healers and tanks, unlike dps. You can tell half the team haven't gone near a tank or healer.

I believe expecting anyone to bring light to issues that a company doesn't want to address, at an event that is completely controlled by said company, including interviews (which are scheduled and coordinated according to the needs and desires of the company), is expecting too much. Furthermore, an influencer's "job" is to influence the general population; Squeen knew what they were doing when they brought in the people they brought in, and they used their resources accordingly.
Considering, also, that those influencers would likely want to return to future events and have the special treatment that come with having an invitation, they're not going to rock the boat.

Therefore, I wouldn't expect the Media Tour to be anything other than a highly publicized circle jerk in Squeen's honor.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Therefore, I wouldn't expect the Media Tour to be anything other than a highly publicized circle jerk in Squeen's honor.

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I totally agree with you. the sad truth is that the media tours are always bound to be circle jerks and hugboxes filled with influencers kissing up so they dont lose their privilege. I think it might be time for us average players to take this matter into our own hands though. we have to start getting the word out there, even if it gets drowned out by the naysayers, or else we'll end up with no dedicated healer and tank devs, more homogenisation, and further disconnect between staff and players for the next expac, hell maybe even future expacs too.

I don't want this game to go that route. I think STB was so close to being the perfect version of the game. the jobs just needed a few tweaks for balance, and they just took it too far. had square enix just hired one dedicated dev for tank and healer jobs, this might not have happened

I don't expect we'll ever see much in terms of interviews around healers because healing is the one role in the game at this point where controversy is inherent.

Either SE opens up and obviously acknowledges that healer dps is a thing and that they're attempting to balance it (thus angering all the bads who believe otherwise) or they risk giving that side of the argument more ammunition apart from the like 5 year old interview they like to quote where YoshiP mentioned not balancing encounter dps with healers contribution in mind.

At this point they just don't want to make anyone mad and their solution is to not give it any public focus. It's a politician's escape.

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

Either SE opens up and obviously acknowledges that healer dps is a thing

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I feel like... they can't do it ?
Because, all around this game, there are still plenty of healer playing as pure healer, refusing to touch any single damage button because they're healer.
If they openly say healer dps is a "must" (even if that's already the case, whm itself is the perfect exemple with its big personnal dps and its lily refunded in afflatus misery), they get huge uporoar for that part of the community.

At least, that's how I see it.

But don't get me wrong, I don't like that they stay silent about healer state and design every LL and expansion.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

I feel like... they can't do it ?
Because, all around this game, there are still plenty of healer playing as pure healer, refusing to touch any single damage button because they're healer.
If they openly say healer dps is a "must" (even if that's already the case, whm itself is the perfect exemple with its big personnal dps and its lily refunded in afflatus misery), they get huge uporoar for that part of the community.

At least, that's how I see it.

But don't get me wrong, I don't like that they stay silent about healer state and design every LL and expansion.

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SE already tells healers that they should DPS if they're doing nothing else. The Hall of Novice includes a line just for that.

The thing is, the healers that refuse to DPS aren't going to start because they're told it's expected. The only reason not to DPS right now is laziness, and being asked to do something doesn't make you less lazy.

SE may as well go full steam ahead, as it won't affect the portion of the player-base that just stands around doing nothing when they don't need to heal.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

I feel like... they can't do it ?
Because, all around this game, there are still plenty of healer playing as pure healer, refusing to touch any single damage button because they're healer.
If they openly say healer dps is a "must" (even if that's already the case, whm itself is the perfect exemple with its big personnal dps and its lily refunded in afflatus misery), they get huge uporoar for that part of the community.

At least, that's how I see it.

But don't get me wrong, I don't like that they stay silent about healer state and design every LL and expansion.

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Well there's a difference between making it very obvious in terms of toolkits (as with WHM) and blatantly saying "the issue is healer dps, which is a part of our fight balancing" which is something else entirely.

There is not a single pure healer who is into potencies and minmaxing enough to care about all of this stuff so as long as it's just worked into adjustments and the like it's fine. Once you put it in an interview with YoshiP (which, let's be honest, would also immediately be thrown in their faces) then all of a sudden they're mad.

That's my point. Anyone with half a functional brain can see how healers work in this game but we wont get solid answers from the devs about it because they have to coddle those idiots.

I feel like the media tour is about as much about journalism as it is about marketing- people who ask hardball questions may be being good journalists, but... I imagine those are the types of questions that would have consequences for your future SE invites interviews, due to providing less-than-stellar marketing. Hell, maybe some people asked some hardball questions that we want answered, and were politely told "hey, um, you're getting a little off topic, wink wink nudge nudge, can we take a pass on that one? :^)" As much as I'd love to see anybody step up and raise awareness for what's going on here, I wouldn't want them to do it at the expense of their career.


I really really understand the frustration, though. They put job changes front-row-center, showed them off to everybody, and then gave people the chance to ask questions afterwards... So why the hell did nobody stop to comment on how that sure is a LOT of cut abilities on healers? There's something really fishy about that. I'd love for some journalist to dig deep and air out what went on behind the scenes to lead to an outcome like this, but... ugh this shouldn't be something we need slim hopes and prayer for miracles for, we're in the designated forum that we're supposed to post our dang feedback on, so why haven't a full year of these kinds of posts gotten a serious response???

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Originally Posted by Gravagar

I feel like the media tour is about as much about journalism as it is about marketing- people who ask hardball questions may be being good journalists, but... I imagine those are the types of questions that would have consequences for your future SE invites interviews, due to providing less-than-stellar marketing. Hell, maybe some people asked some hardball questions that we want answered, and were politely told "hey, um, you're getting a little off topic, wink wink nudge nudge, can we take a pass on that one? :^)" As much as I'd love to see anybody step up and raise awareness for what's going on here, I wouldn't want them to do it at the expense of their career.


I really really understand the frustration, though. They put job changes front-row-center, showed them off to everybody, and then gave people the chance to ask questions afterwards... So why the hell did nobody stop to comment on how that sure is a LOT of cut abilities on healers? There's something really fishy about that. I'd love for some journalist to dig deep and air out what went on behind the scenes to lead to an outcome like this, but... ugh this shouldn't be something we need slim hopes and prayer for miracles for, we're in the designated forum that we're supposed to post our dang feedback on, so why haven't a full year of these kinds of posts gotten a serious response???

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im sure that theyll get a response. in the next expansion......

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

im sure that theyll get a response. in the next expansion......

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heul
heul my friend
that's what we said last expansion, and we got this rework as an "answer" ; ;

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Originally Posted by Gravagar

heul
heul my friend
that's what we said last expansion, and we got this rework as an "answer" ; ;

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TT

./10chars

I'll be blunt, SE needs to embrace the playstyle healers used to have that had more of a focus on balancing cleric stance and healing. Nobody should give a single Hugh Hefner about the extremely small minority of bads who think 'pure healers' are a thing. If they're mad, they're mad - the rest of the playerbase can enjoy the toys they've theoretically gotten back in this scenario. And the 'pure healers'? They can continue being bad.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

I feel like... they can't do it ?
Because, all around this game, there are still plenty of healer playing as pure healer, refusing to touch any single damage button because they're healer.
If they openly say healer dps is a "must" (even if that's already the case, whm itself is the perfect exemple with its big personnal dps and its lily refunded in afflatus misery), they get huge uporoar for that part of the community.

At least, that's how I see it.

But don't get me wrong, I don't like that they stay silent about healer state and design every LL and expansion.

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Except they already have. In multiple occasions. The game has told you that when things are going well, healers are supposed to heal.

https://i.imgur.com/3wXop7L.jpg

Problem is, lazy players take it to the extreme and think that below 100% is "bleeding" when it's relatively safe to be sitting at 50% or so and still be in a manageable situation.

even that potato is tired of this shit where purehealers get their way because the devs hate healers

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Except they already have. In multiple occasions. The game has told you that when things are going well, healers are supposed to heal.

https://i.imgur.com/3wXop7L.jpg

Problem is, lazy players take it to the extreme and think that below 100% is "bleeding" when it's relatively safe to be sitting at 50% or so and still be in a manageable situation.

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THIS. LITERALLY THIS. This NPC alone shows the disconnect between the encounter design team and the battle systems team. The encounter design guys know that healers should be doing damage after they get comfortable enough to do so, but the battle systems devs don't like to play healers, so of course they would think butchering the DPS options is the way to go (which doesnt make sense considering they're DPS devs?)

I don't even know why they don't communicate with the other teams before making such drastic changes. that doesn't make any sense. in fact, it makes more sense to just straight up hire a dedicated healer dev so that they won't have to worry about being forced to work on a role they don't enjoy playing. what is even going on back there?

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

THIS. LITERALLY THIS. This NPC alone shows the disconnect between the encounter design team and the battle systems team. The encounter design guys know that healers should be doing damage after they get comfortable enough to do so, but the battle systems devs don't like to play healers, so of course they would think butchering the DPS options is the way to go (which doesnt make sense considering they're DPS devs?)

I don't even know why they don't communicate with the other teams before making such drastic changes. that doesn't make any sense. in fact, it makes more sense to just straight up hire a dedicated healer dev so that they won't have to worry about being forced to work on a role they don't enjoy playing. what is even going on back there?

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On top of all that:

NPC healers do damage

Trust Healers do damage

Squadron healers do damage.

Certain Players don't want to.

Hmmm, wonder which one is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Except they already have. In multiple occasions. The game has told you that when things are going well, healers are supposed to heal.

https://i.imgur.com/3wXop7L.jpg

Problem is, lazy players take it to the extreme and think that below 100% is "bleeding" when it's relatively safe to be sitting at 50% or so and still be in a manageable situation.

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I have no idea how YoshiP and SE forgot about this. Makes me wonder what's clogged their heads when they designed 5.x healers. I know they lost some battle developers, but still.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

I have no idea how YoshiP and SE forgot about this. Makes me wonder what's clogged their heads when they designed 5.x healers. I know they lost some battle developers, but still.

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They probably lost the battle developers responsible for healers being as interesting as they were in HW and ARR.

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Originally Posted by Videra

They probably lost the battle developers responsible for healers being as interesting as they were in HW and ARR.

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as far as I know, someone in another thread posted screenshots from the credits of the games, and noticed that there were 4 battle devs during heavensward, but the game was much smaller back then. sometime either after HW or before STB, the lead developer quit and the other 3 were left to develop for STB. As of SHB they hired one additional assistant, but the game has raked in so much money by then that they should have at least hired a dedicated tank and healer dev or 2, and hired a few more assistants. for a game with 20 million active users that sure is one small, unorganised team.

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Originally Posted by bundythenoob

as far as I know, someone in another thread posted screenshots from the credits of the games, and noticed that there were 4 battle devs during heavensward, but the game was much smaller back then. sometime either after HW or before STB, the lead developer quit and the other 3 were left to develop for STB. As of SHB they hired one additional assistant, but the game has raked in so much money by then that they should have at least hired a dedicated tank and healer dev or 2, and hired a few more assistants. for a game with 20 million active users that sure is one small, unorganised team.

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I'll repost for relevance!
https://i.imgur.com/TqJqpAQ.png
This screenshot is from the Shadowbringers credits. At the time of 5.0, we essentially had less than 3 devs- I say less than 3, because of the fact that some time and energy from the remaining three must be used to onboard Isami. Less than three people to cover three roles. Or, if you count each flavor of deeps as a separate role (which I'm going to, because "there were only 2 ranged deeps though" was one excuse we were given for a lack of healer, and it doesn't really get more black and white than that), five roles. I do not know if this team is responsible for Blue Mage. If they are, we're at a sum of 6 roles.


Strongly agree that this team is overworked, understaffed, and in dire need of help. To be clear, I'm not saying this team is 100% responsible- no matter the circumstances, the buck stops with Yoshi P. Dude's got a lot to explain.