Question on encounter design.

I've been wondering about the balance of the game since lurking in the tank forms and checking out the healer forms. Namely I'm curious if the encounter design in Shadowbringers were ramped up in difficulty to compensate for the simplification of the two roles.

It wasn't.

Healers one-button downtime problem was pointed out as soon as the FFXIV tour in 2019 allowed for journalists to try the Titania normal mode fight.

We thought SE was going to compensate with more healing to do, but turns out they didn't.

No.

If anything it's easier. A few of us spent months trying to get that feedback through before release, against a wall of "it's not released yet", "it's still in beta just wait" and "Yoshi mentioned a super vague comment on pure healing so healer dps is obviously gone and we'll be spamming heals!" ...but here we are and the "told you so" isn't satisfying at all because we'd have preferred to be wrong.

if only. encounter design hasn't evolved at all. Healing is easier than ever as scripted damage seems to be getting weaker, as is maintaining aggro (unless you have a gnb with tank stance on despite being ot)

People are afking in most duties at 50 as there isn't fun anything to do. 60 and 70 you might get something in the raids and trials but not the 24 mans unless its orbonne or construct 7.

Aggro management used to be a party wide thing until SB and heal checks were a thing back in 2.0 days (titan's tumult scaling with the hp loss, odin's bleed etc)

Difficulty is still average, perhaps overall easier. E8S stands out as being one of the harder fights we've had in a while but that was mostly for early clears due to the dps check and it's a definite outlier in the 8 fights we have so far. Third floors used to be difficult but are jokes right now in comparison to last expansion.
Alexander was average for an ultimate.

Healers had their skill set gutted and nothing to show for it. I think E8S is the only fight this tier that'll push you to gcd heal, kinda sad.
Aggro is no longer something you need to manage either. Everything has been simplified so much and I'm not even sure it's achieved the purpose of getting lower tiered players into raiding. Wonder how that debrief is going at SE currently.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Difficulty is still average, perhaps overall easier. E8S stands out as being one of the harder fights we've had in a while but that was mostly for early clears due to the dps check and it's a definite outlier in the 8 fights we have so far. Third floors used to be difficult but are jokes right now in comparison to last expansion.
Alexander was average for an ultimate.

Healers had their skill set gutted and nothing to show for it. I think E8S is the only fight this tier that'll push you to gcd heal, kinda sad.
Aggro is no longer something you need to manage either. Everything has been simplified so much and I'm not even sure it's achieved the purpose of getting lower tiered players into raiding. Wonder how that debrief is going at SE currently.

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E8S is hard due the ungodly combination of several one-shot mechanics in a row and the way ping works in this game.

The more one shot mechanics the less healing actually matters since, you can't heal or shield through insta kills.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Healers one-button downtime problem was pointed out as soon as the FFXIV tour in 2019 allowed for journalists to try the Titania normal mode fight.

We thought SE was going to compensate with more healing to do, but turns out they didn't.

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God I remember how excited my healer friends were when that went out and they thought the healing load was gonna increase. Womp womp

The other way around actually - there's been less need for tanks to control enemy position and bosses are no longer able to crit with their auto attacks, which lowers importance of good mitigation plan for tanks and makes healing them far more predictable and easier for healers.

Honestly had they upped the difficulty in healing I think most healers wouldn't be complaining. Sure the pruning of skills would have been annoying, and unwarranted, but an increase in difficulty would have at least allowed us to have something more engaging as compensation. Instead I really can't think of any encounter that had consistently hard healer checks that weren't reduced to a mundane nuisance once you got used to the fight.

Even if they made the extremes and savages harder to heal, healers still need to go through solo story missions. That relic mini dungeon was such a damn bore with a healers damage rotation, and they even gave everyone a healer bot so there wasn't even a chance to use 90% of our kit

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Originally Posted by althenawhm

Even if they made the extremes and savages harder to heal, healers still need to go through solo story missions. That relic mini dungeon was such a damn bore with a healers damage rotation, and the even gave everyone a healer bot so there wasn't even a chance to use 90% of our kit

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That does bring up a good point, the solo instances seem to mostly assume you're playing as a DPS (with player demographics and queues, it's hard to argue). With the few exceptions being the healer quests and maybe some MSQ stuff.

Would be interesting if certain sidequests take into account you're playing a healer and tweak the objectives accordingly. Meanwhile the dungeons and such shoudl take a page form the healer quest and add NPC mobs/adds/targets that are meant to be healed rather than killed.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

That does bring up a good point, the solo instances seem to mostly assume you're playing as a DPS (with player demographics and queues, it's hard to argue). With the few exceptions being the healer quests and maybe some MSQ stuff.

Would be interesting if certain sidequests take into account you're playing a healer and tweak the objectives accordingly. Meanwhile the dungeons and such shoudl take a page form the healer quest and add NPC mobs/adds/targets that are meant to be healed rather than killed.

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I'd be rather happy with this, because it does get kinda annoying doing those instances with a dedicated heal bot that basically reduces my entire rotation to spamming Broil 3, Energy Drain, and Biolysis. If those instances had actually been keyed towards forcing /me/ to keep the NPC's alive I dare say I'd have had more fun with them. Even if realistically the damage going out would have to be minimal so as to appease the super casual crowd.

On the dungeon side of things I'd love to see adds that required healing. Likewise I really wouldn't mind if they took a page from Grandpappy Cid's playbook and gave us more mechanics like his Cleansing Strike - where the healer HAS to heal everyone to full or they all bite the dust. Even if it would be trivial for most healers, it'd still be something to do other than mindlessly spamming our three button DPS 'rotation'. Because these days the only rush I get from healing dungeon content is when the tank decides to pull EVERYTHING they can and it's sink or swim time - with the bosses being almost a break in comparison. Just more healing in general please, especially if an actual DPS rotation for healers is no longer in the cards.

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Originally Posted by Enla

I'd be rather happy with this, because it does get kinda annoying doing those instances with a dedicated heal bot that basically reduces my entire rotation to spamming Broil 3, Energy Drain, and Biolysis. If those instances had actually been keyed towards forcing /me/ to keep the NPC's alive I dare say I'd have had more fun with them. Even if realistically the damage going out would have to be minimal so as to appease the super casual crowd.

On the dungeon side of things I'd love to see adds that required healing. Likewise I really wouldn't mind if they took a page from Grandpappy Cid's playbook and gave us more mechanics like his Cleansing Strike - where the healer HAS to heal everyone to full or they all bite the dust. Even if it would be trivial for most healers, it'd still be something to do other than mindlessly spamming our three button DPS 'rotation'. Because these days the only rush I get from healing dungeon content is when the tank decides to pull EVERYTHING they can and it's sink or swim time - with the bosses being almost a break in comparison. Just more healing in general please, especially if an actual DPS rotation for healers is no longer in the cards.

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I wouldn't be surprised if that instance was the straw that broke the camel's back for any healer mains. I feel that if SE really was paying attention to their healers, they would design instances accordingly instead of throwing in a heal bot, and expecting you to hop in there as a DPS. I was also curious how tanks feel about this instance, because Thancred makes it completely unnecessary for you to grab agro. This isn't the only instance in the game btw that makes the primary role of a healer or tank totally redundant.

Stormblood was when I picked up SAM, which at the time was with the purpose of feeling more like a WoL who fights on the frontlines because it did not, or ever feel that way as a healer. The MSQ hardly acknowledges any healing talents you have, and constantly praises you for being a BAM. I couldn't even imagine doing the recent solo instance as a healer. I would be bored out of my mind.

I think similar to Hall of Novice, a solo instance should have different objectives depending on the role you play. It could had been really neat to have to heal Cid through a barrage of Akh Morn's or something, or have to take them in his place if you are a tank. I think the encounter design team eats way too much effin red meat, because it's all about DPS. They seriously need some veggies in their diet.

In short OP and to echo the others, it hasn't changed at all. Plus they've also made tank and healer roles easier to play in general. I hardly even touch dungeons anymore. Correction: I don't run them at all.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I hardly even touch dungeons anymore. Correction: I don't run them at all.

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Me too, WHEN I bother to cap my tomes, I only do pixies and alliance roulettes(healing something spicy like Dun Scaith is a rare bit of fun)

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Originally Posted by althenawhm

Me too, WHEN I bother to cap my tomes, I only do pixies and alliance roulettes(healing something spicy like Dun Scaith is a rare bit of fun)

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Alliance raids is the only content I feel valid as a healer. It is also the content I have the most fun doing it. I feel like a big reason for such a distinction between 24-man and 8-man content is the former allows you to be more reactive. Healing is also the only role where I will feel invalidated if I die during an encounter. If you are KO'd and the group can literally still take care of things without you, it is one of the crappiest feelings in the world. This doesn't happen as a DPS or Tank because their contributions to the party consist of more than smashing 1-2 buttons for the majority of the encounter.

It used to be a joke that you have to be a masochist to enjoy this role, but I find it to be a very true reality.

The easiest thing they can do is simply increase complexity of healer dps rotation, it won't require to fundamentally change encounter design and will be a change that affects healer gameplay in all older content as well.

It doesn't really decrease accessibility all that much imo since dps checks seem to only be significant in high-end content. They could perhaps soften the dps checks in future designs to compensate for the more complex healer rotation.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Healing is also the only role where I will feel invalidated if I die during an encounter. If you are KO'd and the group can literally still take care of things without you, it is one of the crappiest feelings in the world.

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It's pretty sad how almost any dungeon boss can be done without a healer. It's actually often meta to go into dungeons with 3 dps and a tank for speed runs.