Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Miste]

There are a bunch of SB interviews in which YoshiP clearly states that he and his team do not like healer focusing too much on DPS. They did remove the stance dance to make it easier for those who wanted, but clearly double pointed out that it was not mandatory.

I think what Taika is pointing out is that what YoshiP said just doesn't make any difference in this case. Just because healer DPS isn't mandatory from the game developer standpoint doesn't mean it isn't objectively the better thing to do instead of overhealing or standing idle for long periods of time. Simply how this game is designed doing zero DPS on a healer is objectively playing extremely sub-optimal. What the developers are saying they prefer and how the game currently functions are two separate things.

Also of course YoshiP would say "it isn't mandatory"... he isn't going to tell people paying SE money to play this game that anything to do with play style choice is mandatory. Ever. No matter what he personally thinks on the matter (except buying the game and paying subscription fees anyway). It would be bad for PR. It would be sort of like going into McDonald's ready to spend your money on some nuggets and they tell you it is mandatory you buy the BigMac because it is the best burger.

The company will never force that on a customer even if the BigMac was factually (for the sake of argument) the best burger on the planet they still wouldn't do it. They want to make money so they let the buyer choose what they want instead of making ultimatums. Obviously there is a limit, but SE will only put their foot down and refuse to budge when it is something they really cannot oblige even if it would make the customer happier.

You have to remember that nothing in this game is technically mandatory. Which is why Taika said it was not relevant to the discussion about playing healer at least somewhat optimal. What you wish to achieve makes certain things mandatory, but if it wasn't for you to achieve anything then you technically have no personal obligations. Unfortunately with DF it isn't only about "personal" obligations because there are more people in there than just you.

If I didn't use Flash on tank because the animation hurt my eyes do you think SE would ban me over it even though I cannot hold hate on all mobs all the time? Nope. The group I am with either will decide to deal with it or kick me. SE isn't going to tell me "using Flash is mandatory on GLD/PLD. The community that has to deal with me losing hate all the time might say that though and in DF majority rules so whatever the majority deems mandatory then you either have to compromise, leave, or get kicked if it ends up people cannot come to some sort of agreement.

The company though? Nah. In their eyes all the abilities and spells in the game are optional based on the person playing it. They will not interfere with a player's play style choices in such a way unless a player openly admits to purposefully playing badly in order to grief others. That is the only time they will step in.

Community can't say a pure healer is a bad/inefficient/(pick whatever negative adjective you want) healer if the game dev didn't make healer DPS mandatory. I honestly have a hard time understanding how people can't get this simple fact.

The reason so many of us, in your mind, don't understand that simple fact... is because it isn't a fact.

The real fact is that no matter what the dev team "says about the game" it has to reflect in "how they develop the game" otherwise it is simply their opinion and not a fact about how the game is designed. You need to drop this "it's not mandatory" argument. It really has no bearing on the fact that the game is designed in a way that not DPSing on healer is sub-optimal.

The argument isn't about us forcing healer DPS to be mandatory, the argument is that healer DPS, with how the game is currently designed, is beneficial, easily utilized, and it is objectively better than doing no DPS at all; therefore it should be something that all healers strive to do in order to fully contribute to their team.

I believe I also already clarified this to you before as well.

Objectively this is how the game is designed unfortunately so despite what you've said a healer that uses their whole toolkit to contribute as much as possible is objectively better at playing their class than someone who doesn't...which is the same for every role and job. If someone as a pure healer can do 4000 HPS (but 0 DPS) and then another healer does 4000 HPS (but also contributed 1000 DPS), then which player is better? Objectively the one who contributed more is better at their class because they kept the party alive with the 4000 HPS but also did 1000 DPS at the same time which helped the group.

So yes, factually you can say that a healer that does zero DPS is "inefficient" or "unskilled" it is not about putting people down or belittling them it is just a fact about the game design. As you can see I am not calling people out by name and declaring them bad. I am simply talking about the facts of the game design and looking at it objectively.

It is basically the same as real life trades. If there are two electricians working in a newly built house and both of them do the same job onsite of setting up a light fixture in identical bedrooms of said house and Electrician A only made one mistake and it took him 10 mins to set it up, but Electrician B made around four mistakes and it took him 30 mins to set it up. As an outsider looking in and making an objective observation....Who was more skilled in this case? Who was more efficient? It is just a simple fact of life when it comes to differing skill levels on certain tasks.

Cars can easily go faster than 55mph. If you want to be efficient with your car, you better drive it at 70mph, since it can go that fast. State patrol could arrest you if you went above 55mph, but who cares, they're never watching, and actually won't even say a thing if they do happen to catch you speeding. Hell, even state patrol is driving way above 70mph... So it's a common thing for everybody to be driving at 70mph on that 55mph road. Then, you encounter someone who is driving at 55 mph... because there was that one sign that was saying so : would that be considered as bad driving ?
If you happen to stop that driver and start arguing with him, it will be the same thing as in this thread.

This analogy makes no sense for the situation unfortunately.

For one you won't get arrested irl or in-game for DPSing on a healer. Two there are no "speed limits" in-game when it comes to healer DPS, beyond the mark of simply not letting people die, so the analogy would make more sense if it was a road with no speed limits (except an extreme high end one that would cause death if attempted) which gives you the choice on how fast you can go and the traffic was going at 60-70km/h (not the fastest but a quick pace that doesn't suffer from being overly dangerous) while a subset was going anywhere from 10-20km/h and some of the 60-70km/h people simply asked the 10-20km/h people why they choose to go so slowly because they could safely go quicker to get to their destination quicker. (sorry for using km, but I am Canadian so I don't know mph very well)

I mean people will have varying answers, but this analogy in the end still doesn't work so it doesn't really matter what their answer would be because a bunch of cars driving on a road very rarely have the same exact destination and therefore they don't highly interact with each other, nor would they likely need to ask why another was going so slowly, and there are usually ways to simply pass by the ones going slower and go quicker to the destination on your own.

Unlike in DF where everyone's primary end destination is the same and should be to get to the end of the dungeon and clear it and everyone has to rely on everyone else to actually get there. A DPS cannot just run and go into the passing lane and go ahead to the destination alone for example.

Cars all traveling separately on a road don't rely on each other to get to their end destination in a general sense because their end destination is not the same. If you wanted to make an analogy about it compared to DF I would say that the car itself would be the DF group. Multiple integrated integral parts that have to work together to achieve a goal. If one of those parts is broken the car might break down. If one of those parts is not functioning properly the other parts may have to work harder to avoid a break down to try keep the car running. If one of those parts goes slower than the rest and does not contribute as much power as it could then the other parts may have to work harder to make up for it and the car has to travel for a longer period of time to get to the destination which may cause more wear and tear for the other parts and also make the car late on arrival depending on the situation.