Fixing healers are much harder than you think

I have been thinking how could square enix fix healers in the long run..

The issue is you HAVE to change the kit of 4 classes at once to do a proper change or all of them will be a copy cat of each other

I mean that’s what they did in ShB and a lot of people didn’t like them

They have had 2 expansions since then to revert the changes or change them again significantly again

The first they doubled down on healer design, the second the entirety of the non PCT job changes seem to have been done in an afternoon by one sleep deprived intern

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I mean that’s what they did in ShB and a lot of people didn’t like them

They have had 2 expansions since then to revert the changes or change them again significantly again

The first they doubled down on healer design, the second the entirety of the non PCT job changes seem to have been done in an afternoon by one sleep deprived intern

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What they did in ShB is homogenization of healers.. that what people didn't like.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

What they did in ShB is homogenization of healers.. that what people didn't like.

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They homogenised them by completely redesigning them

-SCH got most of its damage options removed, Selene became a glam, fairies lost most of their utility and aetherflow was changed
-AST lost its card individuality, it’s time magic and had most of it replaced by generic heals to cover the gap the healing cards used to cover
-WHM lost its terrible lily system and was rebuilt around the modern lily system being most of its throughput

All healers also lost most of their mana management and their ability to use lower tiers of DOT’s as well as higher tier (like aero 1 2 and 3 all being a gain on 1)

The level of change between SB and ShB is no more or less than the amount of change needed to “fix” the modern healers and they did it once, they can do it again

My point was “it’s very hard because they have to change 4 healers” is a non starter argument because they’ve already done it before

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

They homogenised them by completely redesigning them

-SCH got most of its damage options removed, Selene became a glam, fairies lost most of their utility and aetherflow was changed
-AST lost its card individuality, it’s time magic and had most of it replaced by generic heals to cover the gap the healing cards used to cover
-WHM lost its terrible lily system and was rebuilt around the modern lily system being most of its throughput

All healers also lost most of their mana management and their ability to use lower tiers of DOT’s as well as higher tier (like aero 1 2 and 3 all being a gain on 1)

The level of change between SB and ShB is no more or less than the amount of change needed to “fix” the modern healers and they did it once, they can do it again

My point was “it’s very hard because they have to change 4 healers” is a non starter argument because they’ve already done it before

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The premise of their change was " let's make all healers have same kit and kill individualitu" that a wrong way to think

I prefer old system way more than the current even it has its own faults..
The redesign should have 2 promises:
1- each job should play differently (playstyle wise)
2- all should be viable in any content

Weather dot mage or dps mage it's up to them and their creativity.. but what they did is making 3 jobs 80% same

It's not so much as that it's hard but rather their reluctance to make them players out more effort into using them.

The dev team has shown time and time again that they do not understand how people play healers in their game.

I truly believe they need a seperate job design team and some fresh eyes on the jobs, they're clearly out of creativity.

They're perfectly capable of fixing healers, they just do not want to since it would go against what they've said in the past about how they do not want their to be a massive gap between good/bad healers. If you bring in a complex toolkit that isn't just 11111111112111111 and 20 OGCD's to vomit out then suddenly shit healers will be gatekeeping other people from content.

I've already felt it in DT - a lot of dungeons where the healer dies, or a trial, and suddenly it's a guaranteed wipe.

Sounds like the job for a game designer...

Off the top of my head, MNK, SMN, PLD and SAM all got reworks in EW, either at the start or during the expansion itself.

If those 4 can get a rework, what's stopping SE from reworking the 4 healers?

I wonder... if the budget allocated to the "graphics update?" were instead put into job design. This mess could have been prevented

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Off the top of my head, MNK, SMN, PLD and SAM all got reworks in EW, either at the start or during the expansion itself.

If those 4 can get a rework, what's stopping SE from reworking the 4 healers?

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Healer role is more important that any regular dps

Healer is the most important role in the game.. changing 1 means changing all and make sure content is relevant or we will see what we see today

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Healer role is more important that any regular dps

Healer is the most important role in the game.. changing 1 means changing all and make sure content is relevant or we will see what we see today

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The healers are already a travesty of balance, WHM brings literally nothing to the table and SCH is the best at literally everything

Why are you acting like we can’t alter the sacred balance without uprooting everything, the existing balance is already hot trash, they can’t make it any worse so there is no downside to changing even one of them at a time

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Originally Posted by rawker

I wonder... if the budget allocated to the "graphics update?" were instead put into job design. This mess could have been prevented

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Job changes are more important than graphics.. I appreciate both but I am a gameplay enjoyer

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The healers are already a travesty of balance, WHM brings literally nothing to the table and SCH is the best at literally everything

Why are you acting like we can’t alter the sacred balance without uprooting everything, the existing balance is already hot trash, they can’t make it any worse so there is no downside to changing even one of them at a time

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If think that's easy why game can't figure out healers and tanks.. making all of them the same with almost 80% same job with different icons and weapons

There are several ways to address the healer problem. Here's an incomplete list that I brainstormed in a few minutes.

1) Reevaluate tank and DPS abilities with a bias against raw healing throughput. Propotional mitigation (-X% damage taken) and shields is generally better for balance over raw healing numbers.
2) Increase the amount of required healing. Must be done carefully, or you turn healing into a game of whack-a-mole.
3) Adjust healer cooldown strength. As you get more and more buttons, it becomes exceptionally trivial to top off player health pools. At that point, how can healers feel like they're getting a satisfying challenge?
4) Experiment with different encounter models.

To use examples from World of Warcraft: Loatheb, Valithria Dreamwalker, and Malkorok all featured unique twists to healing.

Loatheb was relatively basic. The boss dealt low to moderate damage over time but negated all heals for 17 second intervals, then allowed a 3 second gap for burst heals before the healing-blocking aura returned.

Valithria was based on healing a friendly NPC to full health, so the healer throughput takes over the traditional "bring boss to 0 HP" victory condition. DPS and tanks are tasked with killing waves of spawning enemies from start to finish.

Malkorok functioned similar to Loatheb, but converted raw healing into potent shields that were necessary to counter the boss's predictable cadence of high to overwhelming damage.

I don't want Square to copy these encounters to the letter, but to use them as a source of inspiration.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Off the top of my head, MNK, SMN, PLD and SAM all got reworks in EW, either at the start or during the expansion itself.

If those 4 can get a rework, what's stopping SE from reworking the 4 healers?

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PLD - Just made the class more boring, didn't really make it better outside of making it more of the same you get with other tanks (Veil, bulwark changes welcome, Divine might is a cool concept).
Sam - This was not a rework they removed Kaiten and made midare crit/dh this isn't a rework
Smn - I mean i shouldn't have to explain why this rework is bad, despite being popular it has casued a lot of caster balance issues just by it's design and it doesn't really feel like a great example to show how reworks can make jobs more "intresting"
Mnk - only rework that was somewhat fun, but it got another in 7.0 lol where you just press what lights up now.

I'm pretty worried that any sort of healer rework would miss the mark by the rework track record. well I would be but they reworked ast already and i can't stand playing it even giving it a fair try.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

PLD - Just made the class more boring, didn't really make it better outside of making it more of the same you get with other tanks (Veil, bulwark changes welcome, Divine might is a cool concept).
Sam - This was not a rework they removed Kaiten and made midare crit/dh this isn't a rework
Smn - I mean i shouldn't have to explain why this rework is bad, despite being popular it has casued a lot of caster balance issues just by it's design and it doesn't really feel like a great example to show how reworks can make jobs more "intresting"
Mnk - only rework that was somewhat fun, but it got another in 7.0 lol where you just press what lights up now.

I'm pretty worried that any sort of healer rework would miss the mark by the rework track record. well I would be but they reworked ast already and i can't stand playing it even giving it a fair try.

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I was arguing more that it's possible to rework 4 jobs, not that the reworks themselves were good. If they want to make the jobs even more crap than they already are, then it just means I'll be doubling down on my decision to play MNK this time around

It's not even the graphics update - Maybe they might consider hiring just one more fresh eyes on the job design team instead of making such evergreen content as the Island Sanctuary the big selling point for the patch cycle?

That had to be quite a few manhours invested in attempting to bandwagon on a video game trend FF14 was obviously never going to fulfill. But it's harder to market solid QoL updates instead, or so the executives will see it. I can just dream that the second dye channel being the one thing that got a proper cheering applause during the DT promotions might open their eyes a little.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

I have been thinking how could square enix fix healers in the long run..

The issue is you HAVE to change the kit of 4 classes at once to do a proper change or all of them will be a copy cat of each other

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I don't really agree. Base line, healers only need Cure, Medica, Raise, and Esuna to fill the base requirement to heal. Everything outside those skills, and their equivalents, can be customized and adjusted to the specific jobs flavor.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

It's not even the graphics update - Maybe they might consider hiring just one more fresh eyes on the job design team instead of making such evergreen content as the Island Sanctuary the big selling point for the patch cycle?

That had to be quite a few manhours invested in attempting to bandwagon on a video game trend FF14 was obviously never going to fulfill. But it's harder to market solid QoL updates instead, or so the executives will see it. I can just dream that the second dye channel being the one thing that got a proper cheering applause during the DT promotions might open their eyes a little.

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Hence, more resources, specifically money, had to be invested more onto designing the jobs as it is what's retaining players. Graphics is nothing if the experience is crappy

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Originally Posted by rawker

Graphics is nothing if the experience is crappy

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Graphics can pull players in, but good gameplay is what keeps them coming back. Since this is a subscription based MMO, long term retention is the name of the game, and healer design currently is antithetical to that goal.

To the OP's point, of 'Fixing healers are much harder than you think', I disagree, because I've written up designs that, at least in the short term, would fix the main issues that healers face (namely, having only one button to spam in downtimes). I'm a random on the forums, and I don't get paid to design FFXIV Jobs. If I can do it, the devs should be able to.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Graphics can pull players in, but good gameplay is what keeps them coming back. Since this is a subscription based MMO, long term retention is the name of the game, and healer design currently is antithetical to that goal.

To the OP's point, of 'Fixing healers are much harder than you think', I disagree, because I've written up designs that, at least in the short term, would fix the main issues that healers face (namely, having only one button to spam in downtimes). I'm a random on the forums, and I don't get paid to design FFXIV Jobs. If I can do it, the devs should be able to.

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Me and you and many people agree.. but I feel like square enix is only listening to Japanese players and they like the current healer design.. maybe they are right that this role isn't for us anymore.

RIP

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Me and you and many people agree.. but I feel like square enix is only listening to Japanese players and they like the current healer design.. maybe they are right that this role isn't for us anymore.

RIP

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And on the JP forums, they say that SE only listens to EN forums, people like us. So if it feels to us like they're not listening to us, and it feels to JP like they're not listening to JP... Who are they listening to?

When they say 'we received feedback about X and so we have made these changes (eg RNG removal on AST)', who did they hear that from, if it's not EN and not JP? Is there some playerbase in Antarctica that is weighing in on job design? Are SE receiving interstellar transmissions from aliens in another galaxy, asking that WAR should be given even more selfhealing capabilities?

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

And on the JP forums, they say that SE only listens to EN forums, people like us. So if it feels to us like they're not listening to us, and it feels to JP like they're not listening to JP... Who are they listening to?

When they say 'we received feedback about X and so we have made these changes (eg RNG removal on AST)', who did they hear that from, if it's not EN and not JP? Is there some playerbase in Antarctica that is weighing in on job design? Are SE receiving interstellar transmissions from aliens in another galaxy, asking that WAR should be given even more selfhealing capabilities?

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WAR will receive buff note my words

Bloodwhetting will be a trait passive so healers can glare healers like how square enix view them

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Originally Posted by Tunda

I have been thinking how could square enix fix healers in the long run..

The issue is you HAVE to change the kit of 4 classes at once to do a proper change or all of them will be a copy cat of each other

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No you don't have to change the kit of 4 classes, it's been discussed countless times that even small additions would already do.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Me and you and many people agree.. but I feel like square enix is only listening to Japanese players and they like the current healer design.. maybe they are right that this role isn't for us anymore.

RIP

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Yep, sadly they only listen to the japanese, and since the japanese like their rigid 111 spam, we're fked.

Easy hotfix for SCH:
-Remove Protraction
-Remove Fey Blessing
-Return Miasma II w/ 15 second duration
-Give Biolysis 18 second duration
-Return Bane
-Reduce Broil potency to compensate

Bam, SCH has a simple and fun gameplay loop.

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

Easy hotfix for SCH:
-Remove Protraction
-Remove Fey Blessing
-Return Miasma II w/ 15 second duration
-Give Biolysis 18 second duration
-Return Bane
-Reduce Broil potency to compensate

Bam, SCH has a simple and fun gameplay loop.

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strangely you fix 80% of the job issues

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I was arguing more that it's possible to rework 4 jobs, not that the reworks themselves were good. If they want to make the jobs even more crap than they already are, then it just means I'll be doubling down on my decision to play MNK this time around

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My bad I looked back and likely misunderstood, I'm just saying any sort of rework track record is likely that any sort of future healer reworks will likely not really be better.

I've played Paladin, Astro and Black mage and pretty much had to see jobs i enjoyed for their uniqueness be put in the same box as every other job, So any idea of a "healer rework" would further push down the role if gone wrong (if that's even possible). I think a core issue is that a lot of reworks don't actually appeal to their current player base and try to make the job more appealing to people outside of that playerbase, which you see with most reworks they become more popular but lose a lot of what made them fun for people who enjoyed it.

I'm more then willing to see the direction of "reworking healers" at this point but I can't say I'm very optimistic about more reworks, then again picto seems pretty fun, so theirs maybe slight hope that job design will get better.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I think a core issue is that a lot of reworks don't actually appeal to their current player base and try to make the job more appealing to people outside of that playerbase, which you see with most reworks they become more popular but lose a lot of what made them fun for people who enjoyed it..

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This is true, but we often see that the second half is not the case.

Jobs like AST and MNK go through changes just about every expansion (and sometimes more often) because they're the least played. And they're still the least played because they've alienated current players and given anyone else no reason to try it out.

It's a weird, very corporate idea to begin with, that having a completely flat distribution of players on jobs is even desirable. It speaks to how they look at data and not feedback when they make these kinds of decisions.