5.2 Liveletter

[GrimGale]

1. We heal too well for the content we are given
2. Healing too well gives us a lot of downtime
3. That downtime would not be considered terrible, as in fairness, we have it in Stormblood too, but in Stormblood we had more to do in said downtime (though I prefer HW and ARR as an example of when healing was fun)
4. By stripping us of our DPS skills that down time can get incredibly boring
5. AST would be the one with a saving grace here in having their cards still but the changes to cards for many feel as though the system is now less impactful and mediocre


Those would be the core of the issues, there are other issues but the above is what has people's knickers in a twist.

On paper it looks like the design philosophy is that they wanted to move healers away from DPS and to focus more on healing. But by making healing pretty OP, they've made DPS a bigger focus and by stripping our DPS abilities our focus is dull as Heck.
It boils down to one of the following to be done:
1. nerf healing to push healers more (the Blue Mage solution, their healing is less significant, but is more engaging as a healer)
2. Adjust the content to make full use of our healing toolkit and reduce our downtime significantly
3. Fill our downtime with non-healer stuff to do like DPS


The 3rd option is the most popular as it doest raise the skill floor for less experienced healers, respects current playstyles, is the simplest for the devs to implement and is how things worked before. And at least it means when healers have to do solo content, it won't be dull. And the bonus, if they want us to heal more on certain content, they can just by making that content take advantage of our healing abilities. That's because the content and healing skills are what determines a healing or DPS focus, rather than the DPS skills you have.

I kept saying a good solution would be to implement the third point. It's almost there in fact.

We all agree Healers should have different identities when it comes to their gameplay, but require a similar basic set of abilites to manintain balance.

Now we have that but the often neglected part of healer identity is how they deal with healing downtime.

Ast fills it with cards, great! Now focus on making the card and buff system interesting again.

Whm fills it with dps, good! Now focus on making the dps interesting! Weave options, proper dps rotation, damage and healing effects tied together.

Sch should fill it with a debuff system that mirrors Ast buffs. Rather than enhancing allies, SCH would weaken enemies! AoE stratagems, Data gathering, weakness exploits, tactical advantages and so on.

[Gemina]

The live letter is a hype building marketing tool and talking about unpopular mechanical changes doesn't build hype. Makes sense they'd try to get away from that.

Hit the nail on the head with a tinkering hammer. And I would actually say that what usually takes place after the prelims outright kills that hype. I see no reason to make that happen even sooner.

[GrimGale]

Hit the nail on the head with a tinkering hammer. And I would actually say that what usually takes place after the prelims outright kills that hype. I see no reason to make that happen even sooner.

It's a good point. I just wish I could get hyped to play healers again.

[ForteNightshade]

That's what I mean, the established healers, especially at the higher end. This style is great for the kind of game it is and how the game engine works in conjunction with content design.

If that were the case, why have so many healers quit either the role or the game itself? From all skill levels you have people bemoaning how boring healers have become or how little focus is on actually healing. I agree, swapping Glare casts with Cure II wouldn't make the role more interesting. But neither does making it a gimped DPS hybrid with two buttons.

Considering the devs outright said they wanted healers to focus more on healing in Shadowbringers, it tells us they aren't intending for healers to spam Glare 80% of the time. They simply have no idea what to do since they stubbornly refuse to increase the outgoing damage, which is yet another reason why there have been so many more complaints this expansion. What use are abilities like Temperance and Seraph to a more casual player when they're comically overpowered for everything outside Savage? Content is so laughably easy to heal, you don't need two healers. This means, for non-raiders, you're essentially a gimped DPS and little else. Even Savage has suffered this tier—E3S being the worst offender.

What they should be striving for is a balanced gameplay model between DPS and Healing. Not one that heavily favors spamming one nuke over and over and over again.

[Rai_Takara]

If that were the case, why have so many healers quit either the role or the game itself? From all skill levels you have people bemoaning how boring healers have become or how little focus is on actually healing. I agree, swapping Glare casts with Cure II wouldn't make the role more interesting. But neither does making it a gimped DPS hybrid with two buttons.

Considering the devs outright said they wanted healers to focus more on healing in Shadowbringers, it tells us they aren't intending for healers to spam Glare 80% of the time. They simply have no idea what to do since they stubbornly refuse to increase the outgoing damage, which is yet another reason why there have been so many more complaints this expansion. What use are abilities like Temperance and Seraph to a more casual player when they're comically overpowered for everything outside Savage? Content is so laughably easy to heal, you don't need two healers. This means, for non-raiders, you're essentially a gimped DPS and little else. Even Savage has suffered this tier—E3S being the worst offender.

What they should be striving for is a balanced gameplay model between DPS and Healing. Not one that heavily favors spamming one nuke over and over and over again.

Can I get a quote on that devs wanting healers to heal more? Because my understanding was healers were made to heal more as in they have less shielding capabilities and such had to compensate with more raw heals.

As far as non-savage and under content, that's by design. The devs want people to not be challenged in content that isn't the recent raid tier + ultimates. You start making healers needing to heal to get through dungeons and then you'll find yourselves more healers quitting because they can't handle savage or extremes, let alone ultimates.

What would be interesting is if healers had more ways to do damage since they do spend most of their time doing damage. How SE goes about it, not sure, but that sounds more fun than being forced to spam same old GCD heals.

[Maltothoris]

From the savage team interview. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...4_battle_devs/

Kawamoto: As a member of the battle system team, i wanted healers to be conscious. We actually held down/nerfed healers' healing capibilities across the board in shadowbringers, so having a percentage based attack that hit hard was on purpose.

This is probably the closest insight we have to the current design at the moment. It was only one question though and nothing else was really discussed.

[Rai_Takara]

From the savage team interview. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...4_battle_devs/

Kawamoto: As a member of the battle system team, i wanted healers to be conscious. We actually held down/nerfed healers' healing capibilities across the board in shadowbringers, so having a percentage based attack that hit hard was on purpose.

This is probably the closest insight we have to the current design at the moment. It was only one question though and nothing else was really discussed.

Hmm, all that says is healers needing to just be awake and pay attention though.

[Saefinn]

I kept saying a good solution would be to implement the third point. It's almost there in fact.

We all agree Healers should have different identities when it comes to their gameplay, but require a similar basic set of abilites to manintain balance.

Now we have that but the often neglected part of healer identity is how they deal with healing downtime.

Ast fills it with cards, great! Now focus on making the card and buff system interesting again.

Whm fills it with dps, good! Now focus on making the dps interesting! Weave options, proper dps rotation, damage and healing effects tied together.

Sch should fill it with a debuff system that mirrors Ast buffs. Rather than enhancing allies, SCH would weaken enemies! AoE stratagems, Data gathering, weakness exploits, tactical advantages and so on.

Very much this. And as a SCH I feel they've missed a trick with this. 2.0 SCH had debuffs tied in with the DPS skills. I feel like they should have evolved from that point to make SCH better at it rather than remove the debuffs entirely. One thing I've already argued is that I think Blue Mage in dungeons has demonstrated how debuffs can be useful in a dungeon without being game breaking. One of the problems from 2.0 SCH's debuffs is they weren't always noticeable for the effect they're supposed to give and of course got resisted by bosses. But I think it'd still be accepted if bosses didn't resist them but instead it affected their autoattacks but not scripted mechanics.

The suggestion I had was to reutilise Selene as a utility faerie, but focus on her having debuffs or a new system of debuffs. But your talk of exploiting weakness makes me think SCH could have 'libra'. Thinking on my feet, perhaps when Selene is summoned "Libra" replaces "Summon Seraph" and we have access to additional and stronger debuffs themed around gathering data about weaknesses and exploiting them.

I think it would work, because if this is designed to be what we do in our downtime, then SCH isn't really needing to utilise these extra healing abilities and instead could be replaced with something more useful with the added bonus of not needing to add anything new to your hot/crossbar (except maybe 1 skill if you've removed one of your faeries)

And when you need that healing efficiency, back to Eos. New/less experienced/less skilled players could rely more on Eos as to not raise the skill floor.

And I agree with a proper rotation for WHM, WHM's advantage of providing DPS could be interesting. I feel it's appropriate for WHM given I feel it is the Black Mage of healers, powerful heals, powerful attacks to match the might of Amdapori in the war of the Magi. Dia and Glare should be separate skills as part of a rotation and not as upgrades of Stone/Aero. Maybe give WHM a proper water spell at last.

[Miziliti]

After this live letter, I completely believe the devs think all jobs (not just healer role)'s designs are fine. This is my final straw and I give up. My interest in playing healer dropped to the ground. They just refuse to take in any feedback anymore. They won't give details on job balance prior to patch anymore. What are the chance of they fixing afterwards? One fix per major patch aka 3-4 months is not acceptable. At this point I expect to see almost no adjustments on healers, tanks, and some minimal potency changes to create illusion for balance. Hopefully SMN won't be ruined.

[Rai_Takara]

After this live letter, I completely believe the devs think all jobs (not just healer role)'s designs are fine. This is my final straw and I give up. My interest in playing healer dropped to the ground. They just refuse to take in any feedback anymore. They won't give details on job balance prior to patch anymore. What are the chance of they fixing afterwards? One fix per major patch aka 3-4 months is not acceptable. At this point I expect to see almost no adjustments on healers, tanks, and some minimal potency changes to create illusion for balance. Hopefully SMN won't be ruined.

I think they are taking back feedback but the OF isn't the only source. Consequently, it would be interesting to see feedback from the JP side as well. But at the same time they're under no obligation to take action given the feedback, especially if they don't agree without issues. I'll have to see what these patch notes look like, but if there only thing missing from the patch notes is potency adjustments for RDM and SMN, then we didn't really lose anything as Yoshi already said those jobs were getting adjustments.

Currently, all jobs are balanced besides RDM, SMN, and I'd argue BRD (being underpowered), and perhaps WAR (it also is a little on the soft side). Whether their playstyles are fun are not is another matter, but that doesn't equate to balance.