Dear SE: Your real mistake this weekend...

[AlliciaCapulet]

Dear SE,

I wish you had just come out and said it, that there will be no new healer class. Having to dig through poorly translated interviews for confirmation of our worst fears (that there's not going to be a new healer class), that really sucked. You have a history of teasing and baiting us, so we hung on to every word and every hint that you were doing it this time.

We're this far into the third fanfest and you still haven't given a super clear answer. I expect if there's no healer for it to be a statement and an apology. There will be no new healer class, we apologize and hope you will be excited for the new content we have planned for healer classes. Easy. No room for false hopes or speculation about trickery.

In the future, if you're going to disappoint us like this, please just come out and say it and apologize. Then we can move on and go back to being excited about everything else.

I'm still really excited about the expansion, I'm going to have a lot of fun, but please don't take advice from Activision Blizzard on how to relay bad news.

Sincerely,
a fan.

Thank you. I totally agree.

Also, I think that, what make all of it worse, it's everyone who don't care or are happy because they don't heal and feels the incredible needs to come here and add their grain of salt about how they are right and how we are wrong. "I don't heal so I'm glad", "There is sacrifice to make", etc. etc., sorry but that's 2 expansions without healer jobs, and everyone who cared about a new healing job still had some really small hope until the very end of the live letter. It would have been better to just be 100% clear at the start, and just to say a sorry to the people who wanted a new healer after 4 years and that it will be maybe next time.

And we were legitimly expecting one since there was already 1 tank announced, and DPS already had candies on Stormblood, so it was legit to expect that it was finally our turn to get candies, and not the dps again.

Also, I'm not going on the multiple threads about blue mage being a limited job, personnaly I had LOTS of fun playing it after the release, and I don't raid as a DPS, so I don't really care it's limited. But, I never went on any topics where people were complaining about that(or crying, to uses what some people say we are doing right now). It's our rights as players to tell the developers what we don't like and what we like, and the official forum is the best place to do it. You don't care? It doesn't matter to you? FINE. Pass your way and don't add your salt telling we cry for nothing or have no right to do that or all the bullshits I've read from people who think that they have the higher morale and were looking down on the healer who are legit mad about that.

[Barraind]

The biggest issue that should have a flashing neon WARNING sign going off in everyones mind is that with no healer in this expansion, and the interview given on the subject that for some reason wasnt given at the official "LETS TALK ABOUT THE GAME" community event going on at the same time, they're admitting they have no idea how to actually balance healers in this game, and that we shouldnt really expect them to be balanced going in to 5.0.


That is, by far, the most disturbing news imaginable.

Healers are the hardest kind of class to add to an MMO. It is hard to make a high quality healer that feels different from every other healer. Every healing spec in WOW is essentially the exact same thing except for Discipline Priest, which does damage to heal. It's harder than you think, and time and time again, the SE development team has refused to crap out some factory response to player demand

This is incorrect. It ends up being tanks, just due to there being only so many ways you can mitigate incoming damage.

Theres games that have 3 or more healing specs on a single class and can balance them to each have mechanically different gameplay (Hell, Guild Wars monks had 8 skills per loadout, overlapped 2-4 of them in each of their healing builds [because reversal was stupidly op] and STILL managed to have 3 completely distinct healing playstyles).

Theres more than 3 different TYPES of heals. And thats not even touching the things that arent heals.

WOW hasn't had a new healer since 2012

WoW also has 5/12 classes capable of healing across 6 heal specs and regularly updates the tools and advancement skill trees of their healers.

[Floortank]

You're right, they didn't. It was ASSUMED that after 4 years we were due something new. So the next time we MIGHT get a chance it will officially be 6 years. 6 YEARS since the last healer job. Ridiculous, there are no words.

Oh my goodness, Astrologian dropped in 2015. WOW hasn't had a new healer since 2012, and won't get another for the foreseeable future and it's not a big deal. Healers are the hardest kind of class to add to an MMO. It is hard to make a high quality healer that feels different from every other healer. Every healing spec in WOW is essentially the exact same thing except for Discipline Priest, which does damage to heal. It's harder than you think, and time and time again, the SE development team has refused to crap out some factory response to player demand. The lack of a healer means they take your desire incredibly seriously, because they want to make you happy. Not just dump out some crappy healer you won't be happy with.

Yoshi P straight up said as much when asked last night. "Healers are difficult to balance, so I would like to balance the existing jobs in 5.0 instead of adding new ones."

That includes balance changes to the current healers. Along with the battle system, the changes may significantly alter the way they're played, or spice them up into new and more enticing forms, giving you something to achieve while you enjoy the new content. There are 17 jobs, if you demand to only play one kind of job then you are destined to wait longer than people who enjoy and are thankful for every opportunity to play the game. Be reasonable.

[Poisonous]

Oh my goodness, Astrologian dropped in 2015. WOW hasn't had a new healer since 2012, and won't get another for the foreseeable future and it's not a big deal. Healers are the hardest kind of class to add to an MMO. It is hard to make a high quality healer that feels different from every other healer. Every healing spec in WOW is essentially the exact same thing except for Discipline Priest, which does damage to heal. It's harder than you think, and time and time again, the SE development team has refused to crap out some factory response to player demand. The lack of a healer means they take your desire incredibly seriously, because they want to make you happy. Not just dump out some crappy healer you won't be happy with.

He straight up said as much when asked last night. "Healers are difficult to balance, so I would like to balance the existing jobs in 5.0 instead of adding new ones."

That includes balance changes to the current healers. Along with the battle system, the changes may significantly alter the way they're played, or spice them up into new and more enticing forms, giving you something to achieve while you enjoy the new content. There are 17 jobs, if you demand to only play one kind of job then you are destined to wait longer than people who enjoy and are thankful for every opportunity to play the game. Be reasonable.

I'm okay with it if their decision is to focus on balancing healers rather than adding more. Disappointed, but okay with it.

But they didn't talk about it as much as they should. It made it feel like we're an afterthought, us healer mains.

[LashL]

Oh my goodness, Astrologian dropped in 2015. WOW hasn't had a new healer since 2012

Wow also launched with 4 unique healing specs (3 shared between them both) for each faction whats your point? There not even close to the same how they work they all have massive strengths and weaknesses. Everyone seems to love to use wow as a reference but than also randomly yell this isnt wow stop comparing it. Lets be real they used the balanced thing in 4.0 as well as the current roles added to aren't even closed to balanced with drk and mch being a mess compared to there counter parts.

[Ayer2015]

Yoshi P straight up said as much when asked last night. "Healers are difficult to balance, so I would like to balance the existing jobs in 5.0 instead of adding new ones."

I will be shocked if the 5.0 healer changes amount to anything meaningful or substantial.

[Sauvage]

The biggest issue that should have a flashing neon WARNING sign going off in everyones mind is that with no healer in this expansion, and the interview given on the subject that for some reason wasnt given at the official "LETS TALK ABOUT THE GAME" community event going on at the same time, they're admitting they have no idea how to actually balance healers in this game, and that we shouldnt really expect them to be balanced going in to 5.0.

That is, by far, the most disturbing news imaginable.

This is incorrect. It ends up being tanks, just due to there being only so many ways you can mitigate incoming damage.

Theres games that have 3 or more healing specs on a single class and can balance them to each have mechanically different gameplay (Hell, Guild Wars monks had 8 skills per loadout, overlapped 2-4 of them in each of their healing builds [because reversal was stupidly op] and STILL managed to have 3 completely distinct healing playstyles).

Hell, theres more than 3 different TYPES of heals. And thats not even touching the things that arent heals.

If I could give you a million likes, I would my friend. This post is exactly why I'm mostly disappointed.

They've had 4 years to get their act together on balancing these classes, and yet still can't get it done. The first two years during 3.x series, patches 3.05, 3.07, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 were all AST changes. AST was in such a bad state, and with the increase difficulty in the Gordias/Midas raid tiers, very few people were using them in their comps. 3.4 introduced 20% balance, and with the joke that was the Creator tier, healers started to migrate over. After the 4.0 rework, we had some cleanup in 4.05 for all classes then some SCH buffs and WHM enmity changes in 4.1 and 4.5 respectively. That right there is essentially their attempt to balance the healers over the course of 4 years.

I agree with Yoshi, I'm sure balancing them is hard. However it's not impossible. WoW does a pretty decent job at it, given that they have 36 specs. From balancing their catalog of dps, tanks, and healers for raids, but also in understanding how specs perform and roles they play in regards to their damage output while balancing for mythic+, kick timers, cc timers, etc. But most of all, when I look at WoW, I see them taking an active approach to balancing. Since FFXIV patch 4.5 dropped on 1/7/19, there have been 17 hotfix patches in WoW that addressed various balancing items from raid difficulty to class performance. If FFXIV would have put in the same effort, then maybe healers wouldn't be in such an "unbalanced state."

[Zumi]

They never said the 2nd job announced was going to be a healer. Dancer in Final Fantasy has never been a healer. Its always been like a debuffer/buffer support dps.

[Kadrothan]

I think what I find baffling about all of this is that in 4 years time, they couldn’t balance healers properly enough to add a new healer job. Top that off with no guarantee that we’ll get one in 2 more years. I was really hoping we’d get a new healer since tanks were given something new to work with. Alas this is par for the course with SE. Bringing joy to some and salty tears to others in the same moment.

[Purrsnikitty]

Thank you. I totally agree.

Also, I think that, what make all of it worse, it's everyone who don't care or are happy because they don't heal and feels the incredible needs to come here and add their grain of salt about how they are right and how we are wrong. "I don't heal so I'm glad", "There is sacrifice to make", etc. etc., sorry but that's 2 expansions without healer jobs, and everyone who cared about a new healing job still had some really small hope until the very end of the live letter. It would have been better to just be 100% clear at the start, and just to say a sorry to the people who wanted a new healer after 4 years and that it will be maybe next time.

And we were legitimly expecting one since there was already 1 tank announced, and DPS already had candies on Stormblood, so it was legit to expect that it was finally our turn to get candies, and not the dps again.

Also, I'm not going on the multiple threads about blue mage being a limited job, personnaly I had LOTS of fun playing it after the release, and I don't raid as a DPS, so I don't really care it's limited. But, I never went on any topics where people were complaining about that(or crying, to uses what some people say we are doing right now). It's our rights as players to tell the developers what we don't like and what we like, and the official forum is the best place to do it. You don't care? It doesn't matter to you? FINE. Pass your way and don't add your salt telling we cry for nothing or have no right to do that or all the bullshits I've read from people who think that they have the higher morale and were looking down on the healer who are legit mad about that.

Since you think the only ones who disagree with you are not healers..

Hi, I am a healer main and have been so for 5 years. I am glad that they are focusing on balancing the healers they already have before they go and push more out. I am also happy that Dancer is a DPS, as it has never been a healer, just a support who was sometimes given some heal capabilities. Would I like more healers? Eventually, but I am not going to sit here and tell Square Enix that they made a mistake when they have their priorities straight. Why add to the problem before its fixed?