The Healer Double Standard

[TonberiScholar]

Technically, everything is "content". So that's a nice and easy way to completely sidestep my point. Go clear Ghimlyt 40 times with any engaging job of your choosing, then tell me it's not a chore - the DPS players are not having fun in that content either.

The content is designed to be fun for a few clears - it is simply not designed to be fun in your 100th run. Once you've learned the entire encounter, it's a chore. No job design will change this.

Wasn't intending to sidestep the point, though I think we're focusing on two different bits.

Engaging Job gameplay gets people to level other Jobs or do stuff like Experts that technically aren't "challenging" but serve a progression/reward purpose when otherwise they'd just see the content once and then log til the catch-up patch.

It's still not going to make anyone want to do Ghimlyt 40 times (I don't think anything would, honestly), but it may be the difference between them leveling and gearing one Job or two or five or whatever.

I know it has been for me (especially in ARR) and anecdotally for others (a lot of "I'm coming back" threads have info like this buried in them). I'd wager I'm probably not crazy-enough to be the only person that's felt like that (though as always, I may be wrong).

I find it silly when you (and other people here) say developers don't "get" how to make engaging Healer jobs, as if you do. It's simply the case of you not liking the changes - they know what they're doing and they're doing it deliberately.

I'm not a game designer, and despite my enthusiasm for it, I don't think I actually have any talent at it. Even before we get into stuff like "training" or "qualifications".

But I've been playing since ARR, and I've developed a feel for what I like and dislike about this game (and other MMOs, in a compare-and-constrast sense) and I spend probably way more time than is healthy reading other people's opinions on what they like/dislike (on here, places like reddit/discord and in-game in stuff like Linkshells/Novice Network).

Anecdotally (and that's not data, but it's also not completely irrelevant), the only groups that seem broadly happy with the ShB Healer changes are: White Mage mains and people who picked up healing this expansion. There are exceptions, but the ones who don't like it are both louder (which is normal) and more numerous (which isn't as normal). A lot of people take forum contrarianism as somewhere between a hobby and a religion, and even they are being drowned out by the salt.

Even in-game (let alone on forums), the AST/SCH players I know personally and see talking don't like the changes.

It's also possible that Aether's just uniquely salty or that I'm reading all the wrong topics.

There are three other points though:

• Healer Queues: Last time we had a new Tank, the standard of "Tank in need" returned far sooner to most of the roulettes. Though that may be complicated by tanking being easier now somewhat as well.
• Recent Interview with Yoshida: The situation he described "Scholar just shielding and then only doing DPS while the White Mage does all the healing" bears no relation to how Healers are actually played either at low levels (they'd just let the Fairy handle it or wouldn't bother to DPS) or high levels (the two healers would be rotating cooldowns to both have higher-DPS phases). Healer gameplay like he describes hasn't been around since ARR.
• We've had the same complaints since ARR, now we have more: People have been complaining that there "wasn't enough healing" and that "people shouldn't expect Healers to DPS" since ARR. We've not only not gotten rid of those problems, but now we also have the people who use their entire kits complaining that downtime is more boring than it was. No other Job issues have persisted in the same form since ARR

Any other Job role that was fundamentally broken in one regard and managed to end up being broken in a different way without the original problem being fixed would be a good indicator of the devs not "getting" how to design that Job.

We already know they can design engaging DPS Jobs, and we already know they listen to feedback on Tanks and adjust.

So why are Healers the outlier if it's not a case of them "not getting it"?

People "not liking their deliberate decisions" has, again, been a thing since 2.0 launch. They've just managed to, in the intervening time, also make the opposing camp just as mad without fixing the problems the first camp was up in arms about.

TL;DR: I'm in no way a pro but it doesn't take a pro to see that the Healer situation this expansion is clearly a bit awry.

"Customer is always right" is a terrible tyranny imposed on people who have to deal with customers. But occasionally, a group of your customers yelling about the same thing for a really long time and not stopping when an entirely different group of customers starts yelling alongside them for a different reason after you make changes might be cause for a little bit of self-reflection.

Maybe.

You posted a lengthy rework above and it's a clear example of you not "getting" it either, by your own standard. I understand it's not something you've thought about for weeks, but none of your suggestions fix anything or change anything fundamentally. Downtime will still exist in the same way as it does now. This can be done with what we have now.

They do though, because of two things:

Separating Uptime and Downtime Resources:

This is the big one, and arguably the more important goal. They need to break the ability to turn Healing GCDs into DPS GCDs at a 1:1 conversion rate. So long as that exists, the "DPS Healer meta" will always exist.

They operate on entirely different cost scales. Healing GCDs that keep the party alive are priceless, while healing GCDs that are overhealing are completely worthless. Meanwhile, party DPS is the Universal MMO Currency and it will always spend.

My solution isn't the only way to do it (obviously?), but it's my preferred one (also obviously).

You could also do oGCD Healer DPS tools and GCD Heals, but that's harder for most players without gaining much over what I suggested.

Or you could make Healing or DPS contingent on a split between MP and the Job Gauge, but that's even more complex and ends up having the same potential problems that they removed TP for.

Making the stuff you are recruited for/"have to" do the easier and the optional stuff reward optimization seems more extensible.

Conceptually, this "make the boring stuff boring but reliable and the interesting/optional stuff different" is the same sort of thing they did to Tanks this expansion (defensive cooldowns and threat mostly standardized, damage rotations are entirely different and interact with Job Gauges), and that's where I got the idea from.

But that also fuels my "they don't get it" suspicions because they already fixed this problem with Tanks, yet didn't (or, to be fair,couldn't) stretch to do the same for Healers. "Didn't" and "couldn't" sting pretty hard though, considering we didn't get a new Healer because they were supposed to be "balancing" them.

Planning Job Mechanics around Downtime:

This isn't as important, but it's more a "two birds with one Stone" situation.

If they split the resources for (most) Healing and DPS (both in time and in depletable resources), that means you can't cut down healing to gain damage. But due to encounter design, you're still going to have a lot of downtime.

Instead of just having people use a boring DPS rotation for their downtime GCDs (which people like me are complaining about) or making ridiculously complex Healer DPS rotations (which some people are afraid of), do both but on a Job-dependent basis and split the difference.

"Has an involved DPS rotation for a Healer" should be as much a Healer Job Mechanic as "has a very simple Healer DPS Job rotation but has 'extra' healing that fuels a catch-up nuke" and "mainly buffs party members with a side-effect of party DPS increase".

All of which would be doable now that you basically have the Job Gauges and all their GCDs/GCD abilities open to play with.

The more important bit of the "splitting resources" requirement though is that you're splitting on time as well as your traditionally-understood "resources" (MP, Job Gauge, cooldowns, whatever).

Necessary Healing and optional stuff should be on entirely different timescales and you shouldn't be able to trade one for the other.

Your "standard" allotment has no clear definition and can't be a thing - because the amount of healing you need is variable depending on your party.

It does, but this is going to sound like a tautology. Bear with me.

"Standard" amounts of healing are "however much healing throughput is required by SE's internal metrics to judge the content as 'clearable' for the intended item level".

...I'm not screwing with you, I promise. But in addition to not being a game designer, I don't have those numbers. I can extrapolate and guess a bit, though.

Healing requirements vary due to party gear and RNG (which both can be fudged a bit with a bit of slack) and how many avoidable mechanics people eat.

An allowance for the first one is already made in the game, which is why no content has been completely unclearable when released (though A3S was close for different reasons).

An allowance for the second also exists, in the form of the DPS check. If people eat too many avoidable mechanics and die because of it, sometimes the debuffs/lack of people attacking means you fail the DPS check.

So just because I don't have them doesn't mean they don't exist.

But that's not really helpful, so if I had to explain my reasoning on this, here goes. This is, by nature, very clumsy.

• Make an Extreme or Savage mode fight
• Plan out how long the fight lasts before Enrage (so bare minimum DPS requirements)
• For that timeframe, for each phase:
• Take every Tankbuster's average damage when mitigated at bare minimum survival levels for intended iLvl
• Take every unavoidable AoE's average damage on the party at bare minimum survival levels for intended iLvl
• Take the average damage of half the instances of avoidable mechanic damage at bare minimum survival levels for intended iLvl

Add a 10% to 20% variance to each of those, individually. Then add 'em all together.

This is, broadly speaking, your combined "healing burden" for the fight, assuming people use bare minimum cooldowns, are in bare minimum gear and screw up half the screw-uppable mechanics.

Count, for each phase, how many single-target instances of damage that is and how many AoE instances of damage that is.

Take each Healer you can run for the fight. Strip them down to just their oGCDs in bare minimum iLvl gear, and calculate, if they do nothing but spam cooldowns/charges when available in a somewhat efficient manner (just "single target for single-target damage, AoE for AoEs), how much healing throughput they can do for the duration, on a phase by phase basis.

Make it so they have been 25% and 50% more oGCD single-target tools for the single-target hits than the bare minimum they "need" and about 25% more AoE than they "need".

Tweak the potencies so they heal for between 25% and 50% more than what the required total throughput is (again based on phase/damage instance).

This is "more" than they need in 8-person content (because two Healers), but adding a second Healer isn't always necessarily a net benefit and there may be a lot of wasted healing.

Repeat for all the planned fights for the expansion.

The average of that becomes your start-of-expansion "standard Healing requirements" and you tweak from there. Kinda like they do now.

TL;DR: SE has to have metrics for this sort of thing as part of the way they design content normally. They establish a baseline HPS/DPS threshold, then add in slack to account for less than perfect play and such.

A tweak to that could account for oGCD-based instead of GCD-based healing (you'd need to give slack on the amount of charges/cooldowns instead of GCD perfection, but it's doable).

We can kludge something together based on number of damage instances and combined necessary throughput and then add slack as necessary, but we're not the ones that'd be making it.

Or, the shorter version:

"How many Cure IIs do you need to cast in a fight to get through it?" "Make you able to cover that with Tetra charges instead based on a certain number of charges/recharge time".

Repeat for other Jobs and for AoE.

The advantage of this is that anything you build into the Job Mechanics that either replenishes/recharges oGCD heals or acts as a GCD heal is "extra", and most of your skill differentiation gets based on what people spend their GCDs doing, not their oGCDs.

oGCD healing with some level of competence gets you in the door. GCD competence lets you have some breathing room for oGCDs. GCD perfection clears the fight faster.

This makes it easier for new Healers to start Healing while not "requiring" them to drop healing GCDs for damaging GCDs (because their jobs aren't designed around healing GCDs in the first place).

It's a kludge that (sorta) fits both camps' complaints. With the big assumption that they then turn around and making Healer Job Gauges/mechanics both interesting and distinct (since they're technically 'extra' but also an avenue for differentiation).

Party buffs (for rDPS) competing with personal DPS through filler spam is a much more fair comparison than personal DPS through filler spam competing with healing.