Healers Exist for DPS fun only?

[FoxCh40s]

Thoughts?

I'm starting to get the feeling, even going to tanks, that the other two roles besides DPS exist to solely and completely facilitate their fun.

Ours and tanks, starting in ShB, is second thought.

[NobleWinter]

This title made me think you meant that healers exist only to do dps becuase that's what makes healers fun. I thought it was a bold new take on how enjoyable our current dps kits are. I would have to say for the actual topic tho that all the roles were intended initially to be fun. You can see from the way the classes were designed in ARR that every role had some complexity. Even WHM had Stoneskin, Cleric Stance, and a lot of utility in fluid Aura plus actually had to be careful with managing MP and enmity. The delay on Benediction as their only instant heal said a lot about how high the expectations were for a skilled healer. You needed to be able to predict and time your cast for the majority of the fight and your only emergency skill still needed foresight to be effective. It was way more complex than what we have now where you can oGCD your way thru almost anything and never once look at your mp as WHM. The problem seems to be that over time the developers realized that high stakes roles like healing and tanking were inevitably going to cause wipes by unskilled players being terrible and instead of creating exhuastive tutorials and training missions for these roles they decided to lower the skill ceiling. Bad players are still bad one nerf after another tho and we ended up here with one dps button and a ton of redundant healing skills. As long as the focus is catering to terrible players instead of creating better players we're going to continue this downward spiral in design. Nowhere in the game is a tank swap ever explained. No healer missions require you to use Surecast, Swiftcast, or Rescue. Slidecasting is not only possible but required to optimize and also never acknowledged. Im still shocked we arent told to always be casting as a general rule. Sadly I only expect the skill ceiling to comtinue to fall.

[Aluja89]

This title made me think you meant that healers exist only to do dps becuase that's what makes healers fun. I thought it was a bold new take on how enjoyable our current dps kits are. I would have to say for the actual topic tho that all the roles were intended initially to be fun. You can see from the way the classes were designed in ARR that every role had some complexity. Even WHM had Stoneskin, Cleric Stance, and a lot of utility in fluid Aura plus actually had to be careful with managing MP and enmity. The delay on Benediction as their only instant heal said a lot about how high the expectations were for a skilled healer. You needed to be able to predict and time your cast for the majority of the fight and your only emergency skill still needed foresight to be effective. It was way more complex than what we have now where you can oGCD your way thru almost anything and never once look at your mp as WHM. The problem seems to be that over time the developers realized that high stakes roles like healing and tanking were inevitably going to cause wipes by unskilled players being terrible and instead of creating exhuastive tutorials and training missions for these roles they decided to lower the skill ceiling. Bad players are still bad one nerf after another tho and we ended up here with one dps button and a ton of redundant healing skills. As long as the focus is catering to terrible players instead of creating better players we're going to continue this downward spiral in design.

Making things easier is always and I mean ALWAYS the worst option one can decide to go through with. Players will just put in less effort and still cause wipes while also pushing away those who enjoyed the role.

So yeah I agree, mandatory tutorials are a must instead of hand holding terrible players.

[Teno]

With Shadowbringers it definitely feels like it, although the reason is probably that what they want healers to do is disconnected from what players want and what's truly happening in game.

[Brandedblade]

This whole thread reeks of bitter paranoia.

[ForteNightshade]

This whole thread reeks of bitter paranoia.

Not entirely. It's been pretty apparent they put far greater emphasis on the DPS jobs than tanks and healers. Now I don't necessarily think it's to facilitate more for DPS players but rather a misguided perception people aren't playing tanks and healers due to them being too difficult. Everything about Shadowbringers' design seems to follow this assumption: that if only the roles were more approachable, people will want to play them.

To the surprise of absolutely no one except the dev team, that didn't work. Many people who dislike playing tank and healers weren't necessarily intimated by the role but simply dislike the added responsibility. Or they prefer just focusing on their damage and more robust rotation than managing health bars and CDs. Meanwhile, the players who actually liked these roles felt slighted—with several moving on.

One of my core complaints with Shadowbringers is the dev team seemed to prioritize getting new players to try out different jobs instead of making their existing playerbase happy.

[Laphicet]

This whole thread reeks of bitter paranoia.

The healer slide in the job action liveletter leading up to ShB was skipped over hastily, and healers weren't mentioned at all during that presentation, as well as only having one side compared to the few for tanks and the numerous for DPS.

Healer criticisms were ignored during 5.0.0, and despite a QA being filled with questions on healers at the time, they refused to answer any healer questions and instead chose to talk about inane shit like if the Exarch actually made those sandwiches the WoL gets during the MSQ.

The healer forums have been a dumpster fire for two years and full of complaints about these changes, even on JP and ESPECIALLY on NA. It got so bad on NA that JP players started pointing it out to the devs how much of a shitfest it was, to no avail.

Every change made this expac for healers has served to dumb them down further, and is done under the pretense of "encouraging healing", revealing a complete misunderstanding on how the devs think healers should play.

Healers have gotten repetitive gear designs this whole expac, robe after robe after robe after robe, most of them shit, too. The variety of previous expacs is gone and is lost in a sea of feminine robes and priest outfits.

The myriad complaints have basically been ignored entirely, for TWO YEARS, and then when they finally announce a new healer the devs said they struggled to develop for it and are basically winging it. And then the Job trailer is just Benefic, Asp. Benefic, Malefic, and Gravity with a full cast-time. The VERY BASIC ROOT OF A CURRENT HEALER KIT AND THE SHIT THAT EVERYONE IS SICK OF, just another 111111111111111 class by that showcase.

It's no wonder people expect poor understanding at best and maliciousness at worst. Leaning toward maliciousness with how the devs ignore all the criticism and even go against the criticism by telling players to "focus on healing" in patch notes, in complete contrast with how their own game plays.

[ItMe]

Thoughts?

I'm starting to get the feeling, even going to tanks, that the other two roles besides DPS exist to solely and completely facilitate their fun.

Ours and tanks, starting in ShB, is second thought.

I'm not sure I follow, how are those roles there for the DPSes fun?
What those roles do doesn't make the DPS perform differently. They're not changing DPS gameplay.
Do you mean they facilitate DPS fun because those two roles stand more firmly between the party and a wipe?
That they're there to keep the party up so the DPS can keep pushing buttons?

Because a good tank/healer can only do so much to stop you from dying to that mechanic you just botched.

[Laphicet]

I'm not sure I follow, how are those roles there for the DPSes fun?
What those roles do doesn't make the DPS perform differently. They're not changing DPS gameplay.
Do you mean they facilitate DPS fun because those two roles stand more firmly between the party and a wipe?
That they're there to keep the party up so the DPS can keep pushing buttons?

Because a good tank/healer can only do so much to stop you from dying to that mechanic you just botched.

They mean the last part, that healers are being designed to just be there to babysit the DPS to make sure they don't die. In other words, Solely existing to facilitate the fun of the DPS and fill queues.

[Kabooa]

They mean the last part, that healers are being designed to just be there to babysit the DPS to make sure they don't die. In other words, Solely existing to facilitate the fun of the DPS and fill queues.

What a weird take, given that healers primarily interact with tanks.