Why is FFXIV Tuned to Discourage Healing?

[Derio]

At this point I see them adding 1 new healer job and redesigning all healer jobs come 6.0

Right now SHB will go down as one of the greatest expansions but perhaps the worst state of healers since 1.0

[Jollyy5]

This is an issue that I've been thinking about a lot over the years, and have come to a conclusion that FFXIV's engine, and how to game works, just doesn't support pure healer role.

The big bad here is the fact that there is too much downtime in most content because of how the game works, bosses have very predictable, scripted damage output, and they are essentially just a dance with a specific pattern, which when executed properly, deals either no or little damage. This is something that has been known by most players for a long time.

Yet, despite the game's design, the developers decided to go against the game engine and try to force healers into doing more healing, which of course fell flat because they gave all healers excessive healing tools while taking away much of their damage dealing abilities, but never increased the healing requirements for those tools to be necessary or useful, which was a given, since increasing incoming damage and thus healing requirements would make the game very difficult for many healers, so they really couldn't do that, FFXIV is also way too slow for intense "split second" healing due to its engine/server ticks/host side handling, and wouldn't be at all viable for 100+ping players.

Instead, I feel they should've embraced healer DPS, leaving healing as is while trying to solve the downtime issue by giving healers MORE damage abilities, not necessarily plain boring pure damage, but rather spells that do more than just deal damage, it could be spells that do both damage and healing, it could be damage spells that refund mana or build up your other resources, or spells that interact with the rest of your kit in general.

I'd say WHM has a pretty good example of healing and damage spells interacting with each other in Afflatus Misery, in that you use your lily heals to build up a resource to use on a big damage nuke, which is something that should be the baseline for all healers.

For example, knowing that skill pruning was going to happen in ShB, I really wanted for SE to merge Scholar's Sacred Soil and Shadowflare into Sacred Flare or some such, which would not only provide mitigation, but also deal damage to enemies. It would have been exciting to me by itself, but instead, they could make it cost some resource unique to SCH, something you build up with either damage, healing, or both. Once you have enough, it could turn the existing Sacred Soil into a Sacred Flare, to make it something to look forward to.

This same resource could also do something like give access to an ability such as: "Shatter" or "Shrapnel", which causes Galvanize to deal damage to surrounding enemies when broken.

It wouldn't need to be DPS that you default to during downtime, though, it could be something else like how AST has its cards, which if implemented properly could be a fun way to deal with downtime without having to deal that much damage.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

What I'm hearing is 'healing is boring because its too easy' but in other threads I'm hearing 'the playerbase is so very bad' so I can only surmise that the OP probably spends more time with people who attempt high-end content than say players who mostly do mostly low end. Because healing in Alliance Raid Roulette is always an adventure--regular raids too, since a huge number of people don't know Alex (myself included--I started in HW). I mean if you're that good, kudos but even if you're the best, 5 people down with one of them being healer and others constantly going down is still a challenge. Try healing regular Titan and Copied on Crystal. The adventure never ends there. XD

[SamRF]

What I'm hearing is 'healing is boring because its too easy' but in other threads I'm hearing 'the playerbase is so very bad' so I can only surmise that the OP probably spends more time with people who attempt high-end content than say players who mostly do mostly low end. Because healing in Alliance Raid Roulette is always an adventure--regular raids too, since a huge number of people don't know Alex (myself included--I started in HW). I mean if you're that good, kudos but even if you're the best, 5 people down with one of them being healer and others constantly going down is still a challenge. Try healing regular Titan and Copied on Crystal. The adventure never ends there. XD

I agree, healing is pretty fun in normal content with mechanics that will either kill or severely damage players if they're unknown to them. There usually are a few in those instances that don't know mechanics so imo you'll generally have a good time. Just kind of sucks that you end up wishing other players to perform badly to fully enjoy the job.

I think an "easy" solution to this could be to have a rewarding/engaging rotation during healing downtime so you can look forward to it and feel good/satisfied doing that when everything is under control.

[SieyaM]

We could definitely do with some change in the healer role. I would like to see them add some support to the role instead of either more healing or more damage. Things like bravery or faith, or debrave or defaith. It may just be keeping up a buff or debuff but it would still be another element to the healing role. They could try to get creative and have those abilities work with things already in the healing kits enhancing other abilities, but that might be getting more involved than SE wants to make a class.

[Inkpot]

What I'm hearing is 'healing is boring because its too easy' but in other threads I'm hearing 'the playerbase is so very bad' so I can only surmise that the OP probably spends more time with people who attempt high-end content than say players who mostly do mostly low end. Because healing in Alliance Raid Roulette is always an adventure--regular raids too, since a huge number of people don't know Alex (myself included--I started in HW). I mean if you're that good, kudos but even if you're the best, 5 people down with one of them being healer and others constantly going down is still a challenge. Try healing regular Titan and Copied on Crystal. The adventure never ends there. XD

You hear both because both are true. Outgoing damage has been increased in 5.0 content. Healing is, objectively, harder. However, healing is in no way so much harder as to be engaging. It is more difficult, and less fun. New players struggle to heal dungeons because they are still learning the basics, while familiar players have had all their toys taken away and their reward for efficient oGCD healing is hitting broil/glare/malefic again. It sucks, for everybody.

[ForteNightshade]

You hear both because both are true. Outgoing damage has been increased in 5.0 content. Healing is, objectively, harder. However, healing is in no way so much harder as to be engaging. It is more difficult, and less fun. New players struggle to heal dungeons because they are still learning the basics, while familiar players have had all their toys taken away and their reward for efficient oGCD healing is hitting broil/glare/malefic again. It sucks, for everybody.

Fun fact. Outgoing damage was actually decreased—or at least made neutral. It's among the more baffling decision they seemingly made but outside the initial leveling dungeons you aren't technically healing more than you did in Stormblood. This is why in normal mode content, abilities like Temperance or Seraph are almost completely worthless unless your co-healer has no idea what they're doing. Savage highlights this the most where none of the bosses hit remotely hard enough to justify the toolkits healers have except Titan. And the devs even admitted they scaled them lower.

It often feels like they have two entirely separate teams on this game. That would certainly explain the disconnect because trying to make healers heal more and the pitiful outgoing damage from most content.

[Saefinn]

What I'm hearing is 'healing is boring because its too easy' but in other threads I'm hearing 'the playerbase is so very bad' so I can only surmise that the OP probably spends more time with people who attempt high-end content than say players who mostly do mostly low end. Because healing in Alliance Raid Roulette is always an adventure--regular raids too, since a huge number of people don't know Alex (myself included--I started in HW). I mean if you're that good, kudos but even if you're the best, 5 people down with one of them being healer and others constantly going down is still a challenge. Try healing regular Titan and Copied on Crystal. The adventure never ends there. XD

There's a whole spectrum of players. And I've found the demands of those who are getting bored aren't a detriment to those on the low end of the spectrum. Because the most popular request is "better DPS options", which means healing spells don't get touched nor is content made more difficult. The skill floor stays exactly where it is, what it does instead is raise the skill ceiling. It is also one of the simplest solutions and is based on a design philosophy in this game they already had.

If you're somebody who finds it harder to heal, chances are you're not doing content where you're brought to heal and contribute to DPS, so those people can continue to play as they are.

But actually, how "difficult" healing is and how much of a healing or DPS focus somebody has in the game's content won't boil down to their DPS kit but how effective their healing kit is and how much the content pushes the use of it. So if the content is easier and the healing effective, that might make it more accessible to less experienced players, which is a good thing, but those that are experienced will get bored unless there's something more they can do. DPS makes sense then.


I am really puzzled as to why the devs moved away from this design principle. I know people may yell at healers to DPS, but that's still a thing. The only way they're going to solve that problem is to make them heal more. And for content where the extra DPS from a healer isn't that important and as long as that healer isn't being lazy and is putting some effort in like the rest of the party then anybody who berates them for their DPS being too low can sod off lol Plus, with SE cracking down on harassment, to me it makes sense to do that than make weaving DPS easier for less skilled players.


But you are right, 5 people down with one of them being a co-healer can be more of a challenge and sometimes it can be enjoyable, like in those moments can be where you can be like "oh yeah, look at me carrying our victory" (and then not get any comms for it :P) and I think how our kit is designed works for those scenarios so you can clutch it back. It's just the rest of the time that's an issue.

[deadman1204]

I don't think it is at all. Instead, FFXIV gives healers the option to do more than continually chain healing. It makes everyone else pay attention to the entire fight instead of mindlessly spamming dps. I think its an improvement over some MMOs

[Rongway]

TBH, most of this can be easily fixed with crowd control

Please no. Crowd control should be a almost exclusively a solo tool. A rare boss/raid exception would be fine, for example the old use of Heavy on the cyclopes in Turn 7 to fix them in place until they could be petrified; but it needs to be not a common dungeoning mechanic.

The biggest issue with crowd control is that damage breaks it. This means that if you want to use crowd control effectively, everyone has to switch to single target attacks. This is not something we should want in dungeons, ever. That leaves just boss battles, and you can't have a strict crowd control mechanic in a raid because then you have to bring a certain job for the CC. And since we can't require a CC, the mechanic needs to be manageable without it, so then why even bother with the CC.

Crowd control is not the answer to fixing anything, unless the question is about balancing solo survivability.