A good old boyish cott

[Kuwago]

At least the same minority as the forum or the reddit ones. Also i didn't mention the AST card case because i think the old system to be a big broken mess (few will agree with me but whatever). And some people haven't even given a chance to the new one. Moreover, it would be known if the only issue with AST was the card one. MP issue, noct sect ones are way more revelent.

I think what the problem that most people have with the newer cards is that it feels lackluster and more of a chore than the old cards. Yes you can buff 4-5 players within 5-10 seconds with draw and sleeve draw but before you had the option to give everyone the card buff. I agree that the old card wasn't perfect but it was unique and different and is the one identifier that differentiates AST towards SCH and WHM. While I love the old cards better than the new ones, the new cards are better in terms of calculating contribution to raid parties, but I still think that there was a way to combine the new cards with the varying effects of the old cards.

[Maeka]

Um...please direct yourself to the 30+ page discussion by players who have quite healing due to the current iteration.

Their opinion is just as valid as yours. Practice what you preach.

Your enjoyment of the game should not be at the expense of someone else’s. That’s the worst kind of attitude you could have in an MMO.

Yet, that's what a lot of people who want change, are asking for.

If we low-percentile healers don't want complicated DPS rotations, the elitists will go "YOUR ENJOYMENT SHOULD NOT BE AT THE EXPENSE OF MINE!" when they fail to realize that what they are asking for, would come at the expense of our fun when our jobs get harder to play.

I wouldn't mind optional DPS buttons that only give you like 10% of a difference or something, but then the elitsts will go "Pfft, that's hardly worth mentioning" and to be honest, would 1 or 2 extra DPS buttons really be THAT much different? Would going 12121212 or 12112112 be much different than 111111?

[Billythepancake]

Yet, that's what a lot of people who want change, are asking for.

If we low-percentile healers don't want complicated DPS rotations, the elitists will go "YOUR ENJOYMENT SHOULD NOT BE AT THE EXPENSE OF MINE!" when they fail to realize that what they are asking for, would come at the expense of our fun when our jobs get harder to play.

I wouldn't mind optional DPS buttons that only give you like 10% of a difference or something, but then the elitsts will go "Pfft, that's hardly worth mentioning" and to be honest, would 1 or 2 extra DPS buttons really be THAT much different? Would going 12121212 or 12112112 be much different than 111111?

That optimal DPS you mentioned is literally what they took away. Things like dots and shadowflare and fey wind, which is all stuff I'd like back. (tough, admittedly,I can live without shadowflare) and anything to break the infinite 1 spam is definitely better than an infinite 1 spam.

[Saefinn]

Yet, that's what a lot of people who want change, are asking for.

If we low-percentile healers don't want complicated DPS rotations, the elitists will go "YOUR ENJOYMENT SHOULD NOT BE AT THE EXPENSE OF MINE!" when they fail to realize that what they are asking for, would come at the expense of our fun when our jobs get harder to play.

I wouldn't mind optional DPS buttons that only give you like 10% of a difference or something, but then the elitsts will go "Pfft, that's hardly worth mentioning" and to be honest, would 1 or 2 extra DPS buttons really be THAT much different? Would going 12121212 or 12112112 be much different than 111111?

Rather than have this "so that we can have fun, let's take away your fun" approach, (which would just mean whoever shouts loudest wins), how would you feel about a tiered healer job system and adding a new healer job with a simpler rotation? Let's call the new healer "Dave" to avoid bias to any concepts.

Easiest Tier -> Dave. Basic DPS skillset, straight forward heals. Not too much complexity. Beginner friendly and friendly to people who don't want to get bogged down too much in non-healer aspects of the job. Much like how healer design is at the moment.
Easy Tier -> White Mage. But a little more of what we had like we had, a few more DPS options, but not the same as SCH. Still beginner friendly, but has more complexity than Dave.
Mid Tier -> Scholar. More like what we used to have. More complicated DPS rotation. Healing side is still pretty easy to learn, but the DPS side can add complexity
Upper Tier -> Astrologian. Designed to be more versatile, but having to balance more in their approach and the busiest of the 4, which'd make it the most challenging of the 4.

[ZeroFool]

Rather than have this "so that we can have fun, let's take away your fun" approach, (which would just mean whoever shouts loudest wins), how would you feel about a tiered healer job system and adding a new healer job with a simpler rotation? Let's call the new healer "Dave" to avoid bias to any concepts.

Easiest Tier -> Dave. Basic DPS skillset, straight forward heals. Not too much complexity. Beginner friendly and friendly to people who don't want to get bogged down too much in non-healer aspects of the job. Much like how healer design is at the moment.
Easy Tier -> White Mage. But a little more of what we had like we had, a few more DPS options, but not the same as SCH. Still beginner friendly, but has more complexity than Dave.
Mid Tier -> Scholar. More like what we used to have. More complicated DPS rotation. Healing side is still pretty easy to learn, but the DPS side can add complexity
Upper Tier -> Astrologian. Designed to be more versatile, but having to balance more in their approach and the busiest of the 4, which'd make it the most challenging of the 4.

This makes me wish that there actually were three distinct healer jobs with different skill demands to suit a variety of preferences across the board.

[Maeka]

Rather than have this "so that we can have fun, let's take away your fun" approach, (which would just mean whoever shouts loudest wins), how would you feel about a tiered healer job system and adding a new healer job with a simpler rotation? Let's call the new healer "Dave" to avoid bias to any concepts.

Easiest Tier -> Dave. Basic DPS skillset, straight forward heals. Not too much complexity. Beginner friendly and friendly to people who don't want to get bogged down too much in non-healer aspects of the job. Much like how healer design is at the moment.
Easy Tier -> White Mage. But a little more of what we had like we had, a few more DPS options, but not the same as SCH. Still beginner friendly, but has more complexity than Dave.
Mid Tier -> Scholar. More like what we used to have. More complicated DPS rotation. Healing side is still pretty easy to learn, but the DPS side can add complexity
Upper Tier -> Astrologian. Designed to be more versatile, but having to balance more in their approach and the busiest of the 4, which'd make it the most challenging of the 4.

That would be a terrible idea, because then you'd have balancing issues and job discrimination.

If all four were to be balanced so that their healing and DPS output were similar to each other, Anybody who's trying to do progression raiding would want everybody to bring Dave to make sure they clear the content. Why would they want Astrologian if the classes were balanced properly when a more complicated skillset means more potential for mistakes and distractions, the very thing you DON'T need in a Savage Raid?

Or, they could make AST do way better on the charts than Dave, and then guess what? Nobody would want to play Dave because it underperforms. Kinda like how people scoffed at RDM, and now DNC. How people scoffed at WHM during Stormblood.

[Billythepancake]

That would be a terrible idea, because then you'd have balancing issues and job discrimination.

If all four were to be balanced so that their healing and DPS output were similar to each other, Anybody who's trying to do progression raiding would want everybody to bring Dave to make sure they clear the content. Why would they want Astrologian if the classes were balanced properly when a more complicated skillset means more potential for mistakes and distractions, the very thing you DON'T need in a Savage Raid?

Or, they could make AST do way better on the charts than Dave, and then guess what? Nobody would want to play Dave because it underperforms. Kinda like how people scoffed at RDM, and now DNC. How people scoffed at WHM during Stormblood.

Because difficulty is subjective, and because people will play the class they enjoy the most unless they're REALLY hardcore about parses (even for savage raiders, those people are rare, BTW). RDM was weaker than SMN in SB, but it was still considered perfectly acceptable to run RDM over SMN because while there was a difference, the difference was small enough it didn't matter. Despite WHM being considered useless in all of SB, there was no shortage of them in savage fights, with them only being excluded for parse runs, which, duh, the entire point of a parse run is to get as high of a parse as possible, so it's not shocking they would lock it to meta, as that is the entire point of meta.

[Maeka]

Because difficulty is subjective, and because people will play the class they enjoy the most unless they're REALLY hardcore about parses (even for savage raiders, those people are rare, BTW). RDM was weaker than SMN in SB, but it was still considered perfectly acceptable to run RDM over SMN because while there was a difference, the difference was small enough it didn't matter. Despite WHM being considered useless in all of SB, there was no shortage of them in savage fights, with them only being excluded for parse runs, which, duh, the entire point of a parse run is to get as high of a parse as possible, so it's not shocking they would lock it to meta, as that is the entire point of meta.

You didn't address the other point, though, about if the difference isn't large enough, that you'll get people wanting Dave over AST because of the simplicity, leaving people to concentrate more on mechanics rather than doing their job?

That, and... you know you will get ASTs going "Why does Dave get to be so good when he has to do only half of the work we do but he gets similar numbers that we do!? We should be doing more because we do harder work!"

Imagine for a second if RDM lost Verraise but topped the DPS charts instead. I'm sure there would be Ninjas (I assume they are still somewhat complicated? I've not played it since Stormblood) going "WTF!? Why do RDMs do more damage than me, when their rotations are way easier!?"

[Saefinn]

-snip-

The problem with balance is that it's Sisyphus pushing his rock. People argue that the healer changes are better for balance, yet balance remains an issue. It is something the devs are constantly addressing because balance is not an achievable goal, but working towards it means stuff doesn't become too imbalanced. AST is in a 'bad' position right now. And WHM is on top. The issue WHM used to suffer was that SCH was OP making what advantage WHM would have over it redundant as WHM's thing has always been the 'healiest healer', which they made redundant back in HW and not given it anything to make up for it. Plus encounter design doesn't call for a "healiest healer". And AST had strong utility. WHM is in a good place now because it offers the highest rDPS of the 3 now, with AST suffering the most for rDPS. Ultimately, what successful balance will boil down to is rDPS (even on a healer & tanks), as it's a zerg heavy game and homogenising the DPS hasn't even given them balance.

With regards to raid groups, the two mentalities I've come across are: what's "meta" is important and how good people are is important, meta less so. Unless true balance can be achieved, the "meta" mentality won't go away and only a handful of jobs can be meta and this often changes, because they will be the configuration of jobs who're the most effective combination at clearing particular content.

On the player skill mentality, they're recruiting people who're capable of performing well at their job and getting the stats they need and are able to get them through that content. What's important then is your performance and your statistics.

This mentality means people play jobs that work best for them & they're able to do their best on. And they're more likely to pick a good AST over an average Dave.

The "meta" mentality does bleed into some non-top percentile groups, I've always maintained this is dumb and that no, the devs shouldn't cater to something because people have the wrong idea. And you're probably best keeping away from groups who think it's going to make a difference to their success, especially in a pug group where it's a roulette of who you get anyway. You complain about elitists too, I don't like their attitudes either, but I don't think SE should cater to them either, especially when they are misplaced. All jobs are capable of clearing all content and IMO that's the level of balance we need, if we go too far in trying to fine-tune it then we're more likely going to suck the fun out of how jobs play and offer a more homogenised state of play because homogenisation is probably the most manageable approach of balance.

Whilst yes, in a more complicated setup, there could hypothetically be more room for mistakes, but that depeneds on the player. But I am not even suggesting something we've not already had before, where previously it was not an issue. We did raids just fine with previous complexities. What it does is mean the skill ceiling is higher if you want to optimise how you play.

However, if we were to agree my idea is terrible. Where would you go from here?

Should we sit firmly in a non-compromising position of pushing our own ideal desires for play and hope the devs pick our prefered playstyle over the next person's when they make adjustments in future? It could be what you like about the current design changes in favour of another. Because my vision of what I'd like healers to be is actually different to what suggestions I've put out and I expect my vision would put them in a direction you wouldn't like.

Why are they different? Because as much as I'd love to have my vision return to the game, I get it's not for everybody and not everybody enjoys it or will enjoy it and I'd be putting them in the position I am in now, which isn't fair on them. IMO having separate playstyles and design philosophies between jobs is how to cater for people who enjoy different approaches, hence my suggestion. All I'm really asking for is to be able to enjoy healing again, and I think some level of compromise is better. I've been a career SCH since launch, I fell in love with how it played, for me, it didn't need to change, IMO it was fine the way it was back in 2.0 and 3.0 (though it should have been less OP in 3.0).

So, what would be a better compromise?

[WaxSw]

Yet, that's what a lot of people who want change, are asking for.

If we low-percentile healers don't want complicated DPS rotations, the elitists will go "YOUR ENJOYMENT SHOULD NOT BE AT THE EXPENSE OF MINE!" when they fail to realize that what they are asking for, would come at the expense of our fun when our jobs get harder to play.

I wouldn't mind optional DPS buttons that only give you like 10% of a difference or something, but then the elitsts will go "Pfft, that's hardly worth mentioning" and to be honest, would 1 or 2 extra DPS buttons really be THAT much different? Would going 12121212 or 12112112 be much different than 111111?

If we strip the gameplay to please those who are less skilled over and over we will end with 1 button for dps and heal. What we "toxic elitist" want is a rotation with higher skill ceiling and more fun that rewards us for doing a good job at managing our heals not one that actually punish us for doing our job good by providing a more boring gameplay and this does not mean that the rotation needs to be hard. An example I like for this type of rotation is SB's sam, was simple, fun and not hard at all to understand but gave players tools to maximize their damage which lead to having a high skill ceiling, why not ask the devs to do that for healers? We could have dots, modifiers for our dots, different types of buffs and maybe skills that interact with out healing kit (like how energy drain does for example) a rotation that while not hard to execute is varied enough and gives the player enough management of resources to make the lesser skilled not intimidated while giving those who are more skilled much more ways to optimize their playstile. Is that asking for too much?