Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Deceptus]

Then there are some who get mad at the idea of adding depth because suddenly it means they would have to work harder in order to stay optimized, and that to me is just selfish.

Straight up it is selfish because everyone should be casting something productive every single GCD.

When healing isn't required, that means damage needs to be cast.

Healers don't get a pass to be lazy and just stand there doing nothing.

[Elladie]

I know that I have said - possibly ad nauseam - that I continue to enjoy playing my healers, and I do. But yesterday I was informed (in a thread that seems to have been deleted) that I couldn't possibly have been playing SCH for 8 years as I claimed because of my running commentary of healing a level 80 dungeon sounded 'panicked'.

It is very true that people like me assume 'healer haters' on the forums are belittling, criticising and blaming us for their discontent with WHM and SCH, so it was very encouraging to read some more reflective posts here that recognise this.

I utterly and completely agree with the idea that the skill floor should remain as it is whilst endeavours are made to raise the skill ceiling. My own raiding days are long over, but I love this game which I've played since 1.0, and I don't want to be excluded from it because I'm getting old. I turned 60 this year, my reaction times are significantly longer than they used to be, and I have to use a mouse to click skills because of pain in my hands (my fingers can no longer extend across a keyboard). Any substantial rise in the skill floor - or in the difficulty of mandatory content - would exclude me from continuing my journey. I already only do content with friends/level all my jobs with Trusts/Squadrons because I don't want to be screamed at by a random person in a roulette because I took a few seconds too long to react.

It's rare I mess up, actually, because the current healing set-up is fine for me, but I understand that it can be boring for someone playing at a higher level. What upsets me - and often drives me away from the forums - is posters claiming that people like me are the problem. We're not lazy! We're just less competent for whatever reason (older age in my case) I don't doubt that there are a few lazies out there, but I haven't found them to be in the majority. Be that as it may, generalisations about poor play and the reasons for it can be very hurtful. Yoshi P wants the game to be inclusive, and so far he is accomplishing that. Bashing him for it causes the rest of us - the less competent hordes - to feel attacked and defensive. As a few, more reflective posters in this thread have already pointed out.

I enjoy my SCH and WHM. Maybe they are intended to be the 'poor man's' healers and AST and Sage more challenging. I'm cool with that. I have levelled all my jobs, even the ones I don't enjoy (because I want the Amaro mount) but I haven't inflicted my piss-poor SAM on any unsuspecting random, I've levelled it entirely with Squadrons and Trusts. I don't need to play it again once I've finished the last two levels. It's fine not to play a job you don't enjoy. I used to love BLM, it was my main in the Coils part of ARR but I've hated it since HW. So I stopped playing it. If you hate the current iteration of SCH, maybe don't play it? Or encourage a raising of the skill ceiling (as ty_taurus has done) without phrasing it in such a way as to denigrate and belittle a large portion of the healer player base.

We're not lazy. We're just not as skilled as you are. And I have no objection to getting my DoTs back either, just so long as you understand my DPS score won't be very impressive

[Aword3213]

snip

Well said. There's nothing wrong with the desire to make the game more inclusive. Community can only grow by being inclusive, not the other way around.

It always bothers me that there're some people who turn their anger towards people who are either adapting to current design, or happy about current design. Their tones are condescending. They belittle anyone who disagree with them. They are quick to dismiss different visions for healers. It's not like people asked for simplified healers and the devs somehow chose indulge them.

It seems to me the devs are trying to put jobs into different skill floor category in each role. There are jobs that are considered easy or entry level. There are jobs that are consider hard, or high skill ceiling. There are also jobs which difficulty lies somewhere between the two. However, it's also not hard to understand where those anger are coming from. Lots of skills got taken away, the removal of cross class skill, and homogenization of jobs. They all happened in 1 expansion. They happened too fast.

Not saying most complaints are without merit. Fairy ghosting issue, the annoying delay from Tactical Deployment, White Mage clipping...etc. Most importantly, the majority of contents do not require much healing, thus making 1 button spam excessive. Some issues should have been addressed long time ago. The biggest problem the game currently has is that the difficulty level for healers fails to satisfy players within all skill bases. It's fine to make healers easy and accessible, but this should not result in 1 button spam for all healers nor more healing tools with no place to use. In my opinion, they should provide more varieties between each healers. For example, WHM mage, as a healer with no raid buffs, should have the most offensive options within the healer role. However, the current information we have on EndWalker keeps me optimistic. We're starting to get interesting healing mechanics in our kits. I'm looking forward to see how it's going to turn out.

[Laphicet]

However, the current information we have on EndWalker keeps me optimistic. We're starting to get interesting healing mechanics in our kits. I'm looking forward to see how it's going to turn out.

You can have all the interesting healing abilities in the world... it doesn't mean jack shit if you don't need them, or perhaps don't even get to use them due to outgoing damage being so low. Or such abilities being considered a DPS loss compared to just using one of your more basic OGCDs.

[Reiryuu]

It always bothers me that there're some people who turn their anger towards people who are either adapting to current design, or happy about current design. Their tones are condescending. They belittle anyone who disagree with them. They are quick to dismiss different visions for healers. It's not like people asked for simplified healers and the devs somehow chose indulge them.

I don't think people are angry so much about people being happy/content with current design. It's that the same people also seem to be unwilling to allow for complexity above a certain level. The people who are for the more complexity generally, in my understanding, are in the camp of "we can have both cake and cookies" (we can have a low floor and a high ceiling) while those who are content with the current design seem to argue "I'm happy with my cake" but leaving it there implies "but no cookies for anyone." which makes those who want changes frustrated and the argument tends to devolve to "but I want cookies!" "Cookies make you fat!" etc etc.

At least, that's the impression I get a lot from these arguments. I will concede that I could be wrong and I am speaking generally here. I don't mean to say that *EVERYONE* on one side or the other is like this.

[Saefinn]

-snip-

Thanks for this perspective. I know a woman in her 70's who plays and I know she experiences much of what you describe (she only plays DPS roles as a result), though I dare anybody to talk s**t to her because she'll give back double the sass. And I think what you say is important to note, because greater accessibility doesn't just mean "people who are new" or "people who aren't very good".

I'm all for being understanding that not everybody will keep up if I get a more complicated rotation back, because let's face it, good DPS is not required for the vast majority of the content. You can be in a party with a Ninja who doesn't know their rotation, so you can just as easily be in a party with a healer who doesn't properly manage their DPS abilities. I'm not going to bemoan if somebody sticks to their Broil spam.

I think at the end of the day, we're all wanting to have fun with the jobs and roles we like and it's not going to be the same for everyone, so it's about finding that happy medium.

[RobynDaBank]

I'll never understand the fear people have towards differing opinions. It's not like the people in charge of healing - oh wait no, I should say "creatively bankrupt developers who don't know anything about healing" - will read the few 1-like, 3-like posts that sporadically emerge within such threads, and go "he's right! We need to base job design around him and his "kind"!" There's no boogeymen always at the ready to defend, shill and lazily dismiss any wants a veteran has. If this has to be made about "sides" - if you're differentiating between a true player and a "white knight", clearly there are sides - I see more insults towards each other than constructive suggestions outside of "we hate [nuke] spam". In this thread everyone has cooled. In another similar one people are proclaiming they are "bored" and "tired" of "defenses" of bad design. Why ask for a conversation when all that's really wanted is an echo chamber?

[ty_taurus]

I know that I have said - possibly ad nauseam - that I continue to enjoy playing my healers, and I do. But yesterday I was informed (in a thread that seems to have been deleted) that I couldn't possibly have been playing SCH for 8 years as I claimed because of my running commentary of healing a level 80 dungeon sounded 'panicked'.

It is very true that people like me assume 'healer haters' on the forums are belittling, criticising and blaming us for their discontent with WHM and SCH, so it was very encouraging to read some more reflective posts here that recognise this.

I utterly and completely agree with the idea that the skill floor should remain as it is whilst endeavours are made to raise the skill ceiling. My own raiding days are long over, but I love this game which I've played since 1.0, and I don't want to be excluded from it because I'm getting old. I turned 60 this year, my reaction times are significantly longer than they used to be, and I have to use a mouse to click skills because of pain in my hands (my fingers can no longer extend across a keyboard). Any substantial rise in the skill floor - or in the difficulty of mandatory content - would exclude me from continuing my journey. I already only do content with friends/level all my jobs with Trusts/Squadrons because I don't want to be screamed at by a random person in a roulette because I took a few seconds too long to react.

It's rare I mess up, actually, because the current healing set-up is fine for me, but I understand that it can be boring for someone playing at a higher level. What upsets me - and often drives me away from the forums - is posters claiming that people like me are the problem. We're not lazy! We're just less competent for whatever reason (older age in my case) I don't doubt that there are a few lazies out there, but I haven't found them to be in the majority. Be that as it may, generalisations about poor play and the reasons for it can be very hurtful. Yoshi P wants the game to be inclusive, and so far he is accomplishing that. Bashing him for it causes the rest of us - the less competent hordes - to feel attacked and defensive. As a few, more reflective posters in this thread have already pointed out.

I enjoy my SCH and WHM. Maybe they are intended to be the 'poor man's' healers and AST and Sage more challenging. I'm cool with that. I have levelled all my jobs, even the ones I don't enjoy (because I want the Amaro mount) but I haven't inflicted my piss-poor SAM on any unsuspecting random, I've levelled it entirely with Squadrons and Trusts. I don't need to play it again once I've finished the last two levels. It's fine not to play a job you don't enjoy. I used to love BLM, it was my main in the Coils part of ARR but I've hated it since HW. So I stopped playing it. If you hate the current iteration of SCH, maybe don't play it? Or encourage a raising of the skill ceiling (as ty_taurus has done) without phrasing it in such a way as to denigrate and belittle a large portion of the healer player base.

We're not lazy. We're just not as skilled as you are. And I have no objection to getting my DoTs back either, just so long as you understand my DPS score won't be very impressive

Really great input. Thank you for sharing.

The funny thing is, I feel like most people who are playing healer in the game are probably content with it, but also wouldn't really care if the skill ceiling increased. They'd either adjust to that or continue cruising on casually. I just feel like those players are largely not here. There are a few content players who'd have no problem with the jobs changing to gain that depth and identity the chunk of us here keep talking about, but generally speaking, if you don't have a problem either way, you probably don't feel compelled to check the forums to begin with. People are 10 times more likely to spread information on a negative experience than a positive experience.

Of those that do make it on here who do like the current healer kits, it feels like a fair chunk of them approach these topics with a condescending attitude. "Well I'm perfectly happy with the healers as they are so why can't you be?" "If you hate healing so much then why do you keep playing this game?" "Don't you get that the point of healing is to heal?" That boils my blood because it's incredibly entitled.

The point most of us are trying to make is wanting the healers to improve in a way that makes them fun for everyone, not taking the fun away from casuals to give that fun to the hardcore players. Often times a game's biggest critics are also its biggest fans. A lot of us are hard on healer design because we love this game. To be fair to both sides though, I also think some of us can be way too disrespectful to casual players, and also to Yoshi-P and the design team. That doesn't mean don't criticize the game or the team's priorities, but there are definitely a few who take it too far. I get that a lot of us have a searing passion for wanting this game to be better, but we really need to chill out a little too.

Throwing a temper tantrum isn't magically going to make your criticism heard.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Well, I guess that's one way to deal with server congestion.

As usual, I will reserve judgement until I can get my hands on the actual job but my healer journey through the game goes something like this:

HW - Scholar is my preferred healer because I enjoyed the damage mitigation over pure healing the class offered. Pretty much ignored pet because it was there to heal me. Adlo was my base heal (didn't even have physick on my bar).

SB - Higher mp costs made it so I can't run that build, also confusing stuff was added to the pet (which I still ignored) but after two expansions I finally memorized AST cards and liked the changed to the draw system (plus AST still has shields like SCH so..yay) so I switched to using primarily AST for this expac.

ShB - Wow. Have to memorize cards again? Ugh. Scholar has even more confusing pet stuff? Looks like you're it, WHM. Lillies are awesome! *Spams overheals*

From this journey you can probably tell that I'm not a healer main (BLM main, actually) but I'm sure for actual healer mains, this is a more profound struggle.

But to address the bigger issue here, its obvious that DoT is becoming window dressing and not the focal part of any one job. Any changes to the base class (ACN) pretty much have to be reflected by both SCH and SMN and the weeping over SMN changes is loud indeed. I'm actually excited by them but others... Not so much.

This happens every expac. People see changes to their job and are immediately incensed but somehow during the next expac people either get over it, switch to a new role/job/class or quit. And SE has already guaranteed that for every healer who quits, someone playing Sage will be there to fill the gap. Perhaps not as good as a vet healer but yes.

[Shin96]

At the end of the day the problem is very simple. The developers just don't have healer designers in their team, or at least ones that understand what seperates someone with that mindset.

Blaming the casuals is what everyone likes to do - myself included. But we're missing the point; the developers have chosen the direction of where things are going. I'm still baffled they haven't hired any designers that know what makes healers or tanks fun to play. There's alot of people going around thinking pressing 1-2 is fine as long as you're healing a target. Or how tanking is faceroll, put on a stance and play exactly like a DPS.

These developers for a lack of better word, have no idea what healers should play like. So instead of hiring people that do know, they outright tell everyone things will stay the way they are. I understand why alot of people are in awe. They have no logical reasoning. Why not hire developers that can fix this problem? That's the more important question here.