Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Deceptus]

I've been mulling over this situation a bit, but before I share a thought does anyone know if SE has stated why they decided to go with another DPS over a Healer this time around? Anything beyond the Gamer interview about Healer balance I mean.
Have they outright stated they went with Dancer/a Ranged-Physical DPS because they wanted role number parity, or is that just player speculation/excuse? I didn't see anything official from a cursory check.

At this point it's purely player speculation. Anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest. Other than balance, SE hasn't said anything else.

[cicatriz313]

At this point it's purely player speculation. Anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest. Other than balance, SE hasn't said anything else.

Uh says it right here. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...w_with_yoship/

A: It's not that we had no plans for a healer, but rather than making Dancer a healer, for FFXIV expansions we prioritize the players' game experience. It was decided early on that we would add a new tank, because MT and OT roles are poorly balanced when there are an odd number of tank jobs. Just for example, if we want to have two MT jobs and two OT jobs but we only have 3 tank jobs, then even if we make them capable of doing both, because of their advantages/disadvantages it tends to lead into a 2:1 ratio. We felt that it would be easier to balance with 4 jobs. We also wanted to add the gunblade as an iconic FF weapon that would appeal to people who hadn't tried an online FF yet.

When we were deciding what the other role would be, the last remaining options were a third ranged DPS or a fourth healer. However, we were still struggling with balancing the three existing healers, and SCH was always dominant because of the fairy. Even if we re-balanced them again for 5.0, and even if they also have the shield healer vs pure healer dichotomy, we thought it would be better to solidify the balance between the three healers instead of trying to balance four. By adding a third ranged DPS, we could round out the number of jobs per role.

Gives reasoning for both tank and ranged dps.

[hasana]

No one wants to answer this because the only way to refute this is to move the goal posts (but SAM fits SB more) because they literally caused this problem by adding two dps in the last expansion instead of 1+1 where they could have had actual parity right now instead of causing a problem they apparently NOW need to fix. Hilarious.

Let's be real, with their dart boarding healer balance they just didn't know how to add the 4th healer, same excuse as last time when they nerfed SCH to the ground to try to fix it, then they just spend the rest of the expansion buffing it back so now it is glued to the shielder slot once more. Time for another 2 years of fixing the fixes.

Okay let's assume for a moment they went sam+dancer or dancer+rdm in stormblood.

1)
3 tank
3 healer
4 melee
3 ranged
2 caster

2)
3 tank
3 healer
3 melee
3 ranged
3 caster

When we were deciding what the other role would be, the last remaining options were a third ranged DPS or a fourth healer. However, we were still struggling with balancing the three existing healers, and SCH was always dominant because of the fairy. Even if we re-balanced them again for 5.0, and even if they also have the shield healer vs pure healer dichotomy, we thought it would be better to solidify the balance between the three healers instead of trying to balance four. By adding a third ranged DPS, we could round out the number of jobs per role.

if 1) you just put caster instead of ranged
if 2) they would have chosen between tank-melee-ranged or caster anyway

So either way healer wasn't an option, deal with it.

[Vaer]

Okay let's assume for a moment they went sam+dancer or dancer+rdm in stormblood.

1)
3 tank
3 healer
4 melee
3 ranged
2 caster

2)
3 tank
3 healer
3 melee
3 ranged
3 caster



if 1) you just put caster instead of ranged
if 2) they would have chosen between tank-melee-ranged or caster anyway

So either way healer wasn't an option, deal with it.

Option 1 makes no sense because that is just a variation of the same setup that caused this problem. (the imbalance)

When we were deciding what the other role would be, the last remaining options were a third ranged DPS or a fourth healer. However, we were still struggling with balancing the three existing healers, and SCH was always dominant because of the fairy. Even if we re-balanced them again for 5.0, and even if they also have the shield healer vs pure healer dichotomy, we thought it would be better to solidify the balance between the three healers instead of trying to balance four. By adding a third ranged DPS, we could round out the number of jobs per role.

[Deceptus]

Okay let's assume for a moment they went sam+dancer or dancer+rdm in stormblood.

1)
3 tank
3 healer
4 melee
3 ranged
2 caster

2)
3 tank
3 healer
3 melee
3 ranged
3 caster

if 1) you just put caster instead of ranged
if 2) they would have chosen between tank-melee-ranged or caster anyway

If they had went Option 2 in your scenario there would be no backlash at all because the dev's would have a valid premise to start from. All jobs are equally represented so this time we chose X and Y.

So either way healer wasn't an option, deal with it.

Completely unnecessary (emphasis mine). You're not helping your case by spouting such divisiveness.

[cicatriz313]

If they had went Option 2 in your scenario there would be no backlash at all because the dev's would have a valid premise to start from. All jobs are equally represented so this time we chose X and Y.

Lol we both know that if they then had done Gunbreaker and Sam after choosing option 2 we would be in the same spot. Healers are upset about not having an option after so long, they don't care about the reasoning. To prove my point, I already linked the reasoning Yoshida gave after you specifically said they never gave a reason besides "balance", and you've completely ignored it.

[Miste]

Lol we both know that if they then had done Gunbreaker and Sam after choosing option 2 we would be in the same spot. Healers are upset about not having an option after so long, they don't care about the reasoning. To prove my point, I already linked the reasoning Yoshida gave after you specifically said they never gave a reason besides "balance", and you've completely ignored it.

Why does their reasoning matter though when there was multiple ways they could have fixed it? That is why they are getting feedback about it.

At least for me I am not "ignoring" their reasoning. I just feel they are really flimsy excuses and they still deserve some criticism for the choices they made.

1. They want to wait to balance the healers we have now.

-They had 4 years to balance healers, that is a really long time in a game's life, yet here we are again. Also, balancing the 3 we have now MAY be pointless since when they add the fourth onto the scale it may get tipped again. Keeping jobs balanced is a never ending problem when developing a MMO so they are trying to avoid something that cannot be avoided.

2. They wanted to round out the number of jobs per role.

-They added SAM in 4.0 which moved the melee DPS from 3 to 4, while physical ranged still sat at 2. Blows their reasoning out the window there since they caused this whole problem by doing this. If they wanted to round out the jobs per role then they aren't really doing a great job at it so far.

As a paying customer waiting 6 years for a healer is not acceptable to me so I posted my feedback about it and how I don't like that the healer role is being ignored. I feel like I am quite a reasonable person and rarely had any complaints about this game either, so if someone like me has an issue it is probably a bit telling since I am usually quite easy to please.

It's as simple as that. Their reasons do not fix my personal issues with how this was handled because I can think of ways they could have fixed this with better planning so I felt like sending them my feedback about it, and it seems I am not alone in my sentiments.

[cicatriz313]

Why does their reasoning matter though when there was multiple ways they could have fixed it? That is why they are getting feedback about it.

At least for me I am not "ignoring" their reasoning. I just feel they are really flimsy excuses and they still deserve some criticism for the choices they made.

1. They want to wait to balance the healers we have now.

-They had 4 years to balance healers, that is a really long time in a game's life, yet here we are again. Also, balancing the 3 we have now MAY be pointless since when they add the fourth onto the scale it may get tipped again. Keeping jobs balanced is a never ending problem when developing a MMO so they are trying to avoid something that cannot be avoided.

2. They wanted to round out the number of jobs per role.

-They added SAM in 4.0 which moved the melee DPS from 3 to 4, while physical ranged still sat at 2. Blows their reasoning out the window there since they caused this whole problem by doing this. If they wanted to round out the jobs per role then they aren't really doing a great job at it so far.

As a paying customer waiting 6 years for a healer is not acceptable to me so I posted my feedback about it and how I don't like that the healer role is being ignored. I feel like I am quite a reasonable person and rarely had any complaints about this game either, so if someone like me has an issue it is probably a bit telling since I am usually quite easy to please.

It's as simple as that. Their reasons do not fix my personal issues with how this was handled because I can think of ways they could have fixed this with better planning so I felt like sending them my feedback about it, and it seems I am not alone in my sentiments.

That's fine. I wasn't talking to you. I was specifically responding to the quoted individual because I had responded to him/her before after they had said the reasoning was never given. Besides the way you made your point in the first post (blog-like fashion) I have no issues with you being upset. In fact I was pretty surprised it wasn't tank/healer too. But no matter how they did it, not getting a healer after this long would have led to this backlash no matter what route they took. The whole Sam thing was a different expansion, different circumstances. I think it's pretty fair to say that they knew they were doing Doma, they knew that the playerbase favored Samurai, and it was an easy win to include them at that time. Maybe the better argument would be they could have made RDM somehow into a healer? But even then, probably not.

[Seraphor]

At this point it's purely player speculation. Anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest. Other than balance, SE hasn't said anything else.

I believe they said at some point (in a more general sense) that when adding new jobs, they ‘look for gaps’ and think about what could fill them. They obviously wanted to fill in the ranged DPS gap before the healer gap, I doubt either had higher priority for them, both haven’t been updated since HW, it’s just what they wanted to do first.
But they did also say they want to focus on healer balance before adding another one. Yes I know, the same excuse they used last time, but if healer balance is still not sorted then it is what it is. I do think the existing healers would need shifting around quite a bit to fit a fourth one in there as it stands, and I don't personally want to see WHM relegated further.

Also, the process was likely “We want a throwing weapon ranged DPS class, let’s make it a Dancer” rather than “We want a Dancer, let’s make it ranged DPS.”