Troubling sign for 6.0

[PondHollow]

A popular live fan translation (in the Discord channel associated with the subreddit) of the last liveletter, before the release of 5.4, included this little remark:

The dev team wants you to use Aetherflow more on healing. To compensate on the nerf they buffed the DoTs.

Ostensibly, since this is a small net change regardless of one's playstyle, it wasn't something they had been planning in advance longer than other typical small changes.

So sometime between 5.2 and 5.35, probably concurrent with early work on 6.0, someone on the normally-4-member battle system design team decided that Energy Drain was being used too much. And that this healer class should heal more. Is that a decent deduction?

We can't predict what decisions will be made, and we are certainly not privy to what has been decided already, but this reinforces the ideas SE has been pushing for the whole expansion. It's not proof of anything, but it's evidence.

When I read all these threads about what people would like changed, and design ideas for the new healer, they really seem not on the same train of thought as the paradigm the designers are actually pushing. As inconceivable as it is to some, the Energy Drain touch-up and the reasoning behind it support the possibility that doubling down on the Sylphie healing model might be much more likely than an alternative.

[ItMe]

I highly recommend that instead of starting another thread about the state of healers, that you contribute to the ones that exist.

SQEX has shown in the past that they're inclined to take note of what we're saying, not if there are many threads on a topic, but if there are a few threads that are very robust.

[Semirhage]

I think after contributing to the several hundred page thread complaining about lilies and the "pure healer" design saw the devs just double down on "pure healers", they don't really listen to us at all whether the threads are long or short. Post away. Shout into the void. It'll be cathartic, but it's not going to accomplish anything.

[Gemina]

I think after contributing to the several hundred page thread complaining about lilies and the "pure healer" design saw the devs just double down on "pure healers", they don't really listen to us at all whether the threads are long or short. Post away. Shout into the void. It'll be cathartic, but it's not going to accomplish anything.

Exactamundo.

However, not listening and a non-compliancy are not the same thing. It's erroneous to think the devs don't listen as their respond to player demand is everywhere to be found in the game. Saying, "the devs don't listen" because they don't 180 the healing situation, or some other isolated gripe when they put a considerable amount of effort to make the game enjoyable by a wide audience is basically seen as privileged, self-entitled rants.

In short, they do listen but would be hard pressed to go through countless pages of what can be boiled down to, "We want to damage more, and heal less." By doubling down on the pure healer, what they are saying without actually saying it is, "Well go play a DPS job then." The devs can just as easily say that the playerbase doesn't care to listen to them, and they would be equally erroneous in doing so.

[ItMe]

^ Well put.

[Semirhage]

Exactamundo.

However, not listening and a non-compliancy are not the same thing. It's erroneous to think the devs don't listen as their respond to player demand is everywhere to be found in the game. Saying, "the devs don't listen" because they don't 180 the healing situation, or some other isolated gripe when they put a considerable amount of effort to make the game enjoyable by a wide audience is basically seen as privileged, self-entitled rants.

In short, they do listen but would be hard pressed to go through countless pages of what can be boiled down to, "We want to damage more, and heal less."

If that's what they're reading out of the threads here, then they're not great at comprehension. "Why do you think making DPS kits more and more boring will force us to spam overheals?" is hardly "I don't wanna heal", but good lord do the anti-DPS healers (and the devs) think "Practice eventually gives you a lot of downtime" means "I hate healing".

[Gemina]

If that's what they're reading out of the threads here, then they're not great at comprehension. "Why do you think making DPS kits more and more boring will force us to spam overheals?" is hardly "I don't wanna heal", but good lord do the anti-DPS healers (and the devs) think "Practice eventually gives you a lot of downtime" means "I hate healing".

It's not an constriction of comprehension. If there is a failure to comprehend, it's on the playerbase side as many just refuse to accept that this is how healers are. That's why I've been telling healer mains as of late to ship in or ship out. I don't have a crystal ball, but nothing is indicating to me that the winds of change are blowing in the green-DPS favor anytime soon, including 6.0.

The other part to this is a failure to acknowledge the dichotomy that is the healer community, as there is this whole other side that is perfectly content with how healing currently is. And it's not like these healers are inferior either, they still DPS because as we all know, there is no complex rotation to DPS. They just have to spam one of two buttons when they don't have to heal; the mentality is still seen as such though, and I personally don't find a justification for it.

AST is basically SEs answer to those who want a little more to do while healing, but their DPS is also one of two buttons. I do think the devs will give in a little bit, and give healers AoE variants to their DoTs. I also think there might be a chance they allow job gauges to be a resource for an offensive ability, but that's a far stretch.

[Liam_Harper]

It is troubling. 6.0 is definitely being worked on right now and they still have no Healer Designer and a mentality that blind healbotting is the way to go. Chances are the 4th healer is already partly made and follows this design pattern.

In short, they do listen but would be hard pressed to go through countless pages of what can be boiled down to, "We want to damage more, and heal less."

That's complete nonsense. The majority of posts boil down to "we want something more engaging to do during our downtime". No one wants to heal less, we have barely anything to heal as it is, but even if you significantly increased damage intake we'd still have downtime, especially with better gear, and dealing damage is a good way to fill that. We'd prefer if the devs acknowledged this was a thing and made dealing damage a little more interesting.

The only issue I see with feedback is that so much of it is conflicting. Everyone has these crazy "full healer rework" ideas, most of which aren't viable at whatsoever, would feel horrible to play, or would involve restructuring the entire combat design and all old encounters along with the role itself. Then you have a wide range of opinions from "delete oGCD's", "I want to heal 100% of the time", "I want to spam debuffs all fight", "I want 1, 2, 3 combos and 10 DoTs", "nerf all healing so I have to spam Medica 10 times to heal a raidwide" and so on, sometimes ending in arguments among ourselves. Which isn't surprising that the devs just look at the mess, feel we have no idea what we want and just continue with the current model since healer participation is still fine.

Healers definitely need change but I feel we should be making realistic tweaks and reworks to what we have and fixing flaws, adding a few dps tools and making gameplay smoother and flow better, rather than letting our imaginations run wild.

[Kabooa]

Healers definitely need change but I feel we should be making realistic tweaks and reworks to what we have and fixing flaws, adding a few dps tools and making gameplay smoother and flow better, rather than letting our imaginations run wild.

Can the DPS tools not just be "more dots"?

DoTs with nothing else going really are no better than spamming Glare. You just have Glare 2 on a 30 second cooldown.

[Gemina]

That's complete nonsense. The majority of posts boil down to "we want something more engaging to do during our downtime". No one wants to heal less, we have barely anything to heal as it is, but even if you significantly increased damage intake we'd still have downtime, especially with better gear, and dealing damage is a good way to fill that. We'd prefer if the devs acknowledged this was a thing and made dealing damage a little more interesting.

How so? This statement is basically what gives that impression. When processing thoughts on how to fill downtime, you immediately default to causing damage. Of course, the argument of content design being the reason for this will be the rebuttal towards that, but this is a deadend. It does not solve the puzzle on how to make healing enjoyable for everyone. And when this dev team consistently comes out with content that takes us by surprise such as G-warrior back in 5.3, and new mechanics each patch that give players something to think about for a few days until the knowledge becomes widespread, I know they can do better. They just have to give healers the time and resources they deserve.

Increasing the healing requirement is also not the answer, and I've covered that. Each of these possible solutions only serve to loop the problem. The dev team is going to have to come up with something different to circumvent a perpetual and very difficult issue.