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.

[Saefinn]

I feel like for those who are contented with the changes should have had a 4th healer with those design philosophies. Give them what they want, let us keep what we want.


But I guess my frustration, particularly with the quote at the start of the thread, is not even so much it's a sign they're not listening to healer complaints here but it's that they misunderstand how to achieve the goal they've allegedly set out to do.

On the one hand they want people to focus healing more.

On the other hand none of their changes make people focus on healing more, if anything, they DPS more.

The 5.4 change, whilst makes energy drain less useful, it is still better than not using energy. And without energy drain we end up with lots of unused stacks.

If they want to solve both problems, then the healing requirement needs to go up.

[Risvertasashi]

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:

--snip for brevity--

Well, they originally tried to remove ED. And when the community called for it to be added back, a number of us predicted that this would mean SCHs would want to dump all their aetherflow into damage and leave as much healing as possible to their cohealers.

A prediction that played out as envisioned.

Now there's less pressure to do that, and SCHs gained additional potency overall on top of that.

As far as the whole DPS vs healing thing, healer DPS isn't going anywhere. Deleting cleric stance opened the flood gates and the devs have also commented that they know people enjoy DPSing on healers, so, I really don't think they're going to backtrack on that.

[Kyeria]

I just wish we could see a fundamental shift in healing. ( While I realize it's probably not possible based on the games current combat design ) I'd like to focus more on healing, buffing, debuffs, and curing status ailments.
It would be neat to see healers being more focused on healing and support related tasks than pumping out DPS. ( Not that I'm opposed to DPS )

If they want to continue down the path of DPS I'm fine with that as well...but it would be nice for our DPS options to be more engaging and fun than 2 buttons.