Has anyone quit healing?

[Mortex]

I doubt it was about simplification to appeal to more players, or if so, it missed the mark. There seems to be shade thrown at casual players and those who don't raid, but, there was nothing confusing or hard about Aero 3. The lily system WHM has now isn't complicated, but it's far more complex that what WHM did previously, so if it's all about simplification why add that? Putting one or sticky DoTs on a target and using Bane wasn't complex or hard either, certainly no harder than managing the new tools SCH got. And the changes to Astro cards are almost a draw. Before you had to know which job would benefit from which card by how the mechanics of other jobs worked, as some loved more speed for instance but it threw other jobs off. Now you still have to learn and manage cards just in a different way. If learning what cards do and who should get them was too complex before, it's marginally better now but not by a large degree. I don't buy the "dumbing it down" idea as the main driver or logic behind the changes to healer jobs. They could just give us the current PvP bars for all jobs to do that

From a thread almost a year ago:

Yes but the problem is even now a lot of fights don’t have decent heal checks. Like the only hard ones this expansion are e4s first week and ultimate Alexander 1 and 2 phase. The rest of these fights you as healer do dmg. Even week 1 shiva whas a joke healing wise and you were forced to dps a lot as healer to get through the enrage.

[tinythinker]

Yes but the problem is even now a lot of fights don’t have decent heal checks. Like the only hard ones this expansion are e4s first week and ultimate Alexander 1 and 2 phase. The rest of these fights you as healer do dmg. Even week 1 shiva whas a joke healing wise and you were forced to dps a lot as healer to get through the enrage.

I was referring to the idea of overall job simplification as the reason for the healer changes, which doesn't line up with what SE and and did, so I was highlighting the relevant portions for that. In fact, after the part where he talked about 5.0 SCH he talked about WHM:

Yoshida: Almost all healing spells the Whitemage had required you to cast, they had high healing potency, but you always where in a situation where you had to time your heals to the incoming damage and you had to precast your heal in most cases. You couldn’t start moving until you had finished your healing cast which left very little space for DPSing and the feedback we received indicated that this was causing more stress to the Whitemage players compared to players who played Scholar or Astrologian. Because of this our adjustments on Whitemage tried to focus on increasing possibilities for your next action and making it easier to move instead of just buffing DPS potencies. You can choose to use this mobility for DPSing or preparing for the next heal. In any case main focus for Whitemage adjustments were to increase mobility and give the player more freedom of choice for their next action. In addition, we felt like Healing Lilies were difficult to use efficiently, so we changed these to automatically start charging up once you enter battle. When a Lily is charged, you can use it for instant heals and increase mobility.

...[T]here is a thin line between stress and fun while playing.

The quote I shared above from Yoshi P also talks about healer feedback being all about dps, which he and the team wanted to change, presumably by pruning some things from SCH. There is an older quote, though, that says they don't make content that absolutely requires healer dps (as in it's technically impossible without it), but that doesn't mean they feel all groups can clear content that way or that it would be preferable.

They just seem to want to make dps feel less prominent for healers in their toolkits by having fewer damage buttons. Do damage, yes. But don't focus on it. Sending SE more feedback about doing dps than healing as a healer seems to tell them dps features on healers should be scaled back. That seems to be their perspective. Not attacking or defending their stance, but I strongly suspect this is a big part of the disconnect. The notion that healer dps isn't irrelevant or undesirable, yet should be presented in no uncertain terms as secondary to the design and play of the job.

Viewed that way, it makes sense that WHM increased in complexity (on average) over the last couple of expansions, while SCH gameplay complexity decreased and AST just kind of morphed weirdly but is actually more frustrating now button-pressing wise. If my summary of their perspective and goals is accurate, that is what players might be better off adressing rather than focusing on "SE is dumbing down healers" or "SE doesn't want healers to DPS". Some have and do, which is great. I don't expect every healer to agree with my take, but I feel it is worth sharing for their consideration.

So I suppose I would frame it to them like this:

Dear SE,

1. Healer gameplay cannot only look and feel fun when healing, even though you wish to emphasize healing abilities over damage abilities. While some healers spend a large amount of their time healing, others spend very little time healing due to the basic game design. Yes, some healers obsess about their contribution to DPS, but having boring DPS options - even if they have high DPS numbers - makes that part of being a healer boring both for more casual players and those who have the time and desire to maximize their DPS.

As you know very well as successful developers, there is the basic effect/throughput of a skill, like healing, damage, and CC, and there is how it feels to use based on animations, sound effects, and synergy with other abilities. While trying to standardize aspects of healing to improve balance between the jobs and give a baseline for future development is highly sensible, this must not be neglected for healer damage abilities.

For example, WHM is more complex now than in Heavensward and has some fun synergies with lilies that lead to dps opportunities with Afflatus Misery in addition to Glare and Dia and the occasional Assize. Plus Holy. Lots of Holy. It is simple in DPS terms, yet that has always been the WHM identity. The stereotypical desktop RPG and MMORPG style healer, like a properly geared Templar in Elder Scrolls Online or a Holy Priest in World of Warcraft.

For Shadowbringers, SCH has been brought in line with that WHM standard by having a similar number of dps-related abilities: Broil III, Biolysis, Art of War, and Chain Stratagem. Yet, it seems off to many players. Sure, some want previous abilities back, but it also has to do with job identity and gameplay. WHM incorporates two of its DPS abilities into healing (Afflatus Misery and Assize), which makes sense as it is "the healer's healer". But SCH has always had interaction between its damage abilities and a sense that it was a job for people who liked to strategize, which fits its in-game image.

In ShB there is no interaction for SCH. Biolysis doesn't affect how Broil III impacts targets (yet it could). Art of War does not affect Biolysis in any way or relate to Broil III (yet it could). Same for Chain Stratagem. And with WHM having more DPS-related buttons than WHM maybe SCH could get one more? Even with only four damage-related button, though, SCH doesn't have to be so flat and sterile when it comes to its DPS gameplay. Please consider how to make these more interactive with each other, and/or, perhaps even the Faerie?

AST has Malefic IV, Combust Three, Gravity, and its Card(s), the latter of which are all DPS buffs in Shadowbringers. Again, similar in number to the other healer jobs. Yet having all cards be DPS cards is something many players find boring, not to mention the number of button presses seems to some players excessive compared to what is accomplished. I won't go to into detailed suggestions as AST main have made many, but with the current card conversion system you could make all of the cards non-damage and nearly always useful but able to be recycled for something else. In a system where, based on player behavior, either card has to be a damage buff or none can, we've tried every card. What else do you have up your sleeve?

2. Per the above, even with fewer DPS buttons it is still really important for the DPS component to feel fun and engaging. Of course, as Yoshi P has stated, "[T]here is a thin line between stress and fun while playing." This is very true. I personally find some situations as a healer to be stressful that others would find fun. Not to mention that some players expect raid-level healer play in basic dungeons, which can add to said stress for new players and those who have limits on their skill progression as healers.

By reducing the prominence of DPS abilities in SCH and trying to solve the "fishing for a Balance card" issue in AST, an idea has arisen that you are trying to make healers extremely easy to play and lessen what other players would expect out of healer DPS contributions. Regardless of whether this was your actual intention, this perception of your motives is popular and comes up again and again.

There is, naturally, a desire to make all jobs accessible. That is only good business sense as well as good game development. Hence the old developer notion of lowering the skill floor so more people can jump into something at a basic level of play. The issue is always what to do with the ceiling. If it is too low, ambitious players with more time on their hands and a desire to improve will become bored and frustrated. This has happened to many healer mains in FFXIV with ShB. On the other hand, if the ceiling is incredibly sky high, newer healers or those with issues such as physical or time limitations may feel they will never be any good. I do not envy any developer who has to set a player skill ceiling.

Still, I feel that looking back to my initial point, there is room to bump the skill ceiling for SCH and AST a little for DPS. WHM to me seems fine given the space it is supposed to occupy, but SCH and AST need work. These considerations are especially important if a fourth healer job is currently in development for 6.0. If a small bump in the skill ceiling works well for SCH and AST, then maybe another small one is in order. In this way, you can arrive at something that still has your goal of healer standardization in mind, while also giving a concession to players who crave that higher skill cap. In any case, I respectfully wish you best of luck working with healer changes.