Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[GrimGale]

Maple syrup Sage.

[Shin96]

The likely scenario right now is simply that they abandoned those principles because they became inconvenient, now that XIV is doing very well and doesn't have to desperately win people's trust back like it was the case in 2.0

I think what's even more likely than that is their corporate overlords told them: "Reach this number by the time of the next expansion." So the developers are doing exactly that.

You don't dismiss players by telling them flat out there is no compromise. The willingness to listen in response means critically laying out why something doesn't work.

What's happening here is essentially they just used their loyal fanbase to spread word far enough so they can market this game the way they're doing it now. They never cared. As you say, it started becoming inconvenient.

Perhaps they did at some point, but now their priorities lie elsewhere.

[QooEr]

There's no way anyone can ask the majority individually, but their dismissal is very contradictory. A realistic statement would have been: "We are aware of this issue and will consider further action in the future".

the sad thing is, people wont move to canada. not enough people anways. as much as i think current healer design is orders of magnitude worse than before, even if i stopped playing healer i probably wouldnt stop playing the game, because the game is more than the healers. and even if i DID stop playing the game, new players are coming in droves.

I could stop playing healers myself, but im always seeing new players (mostly friends who just got into xiv) start by playing healer, and sticking with the role because its newbie friendly and the queue times are comfy. I have one sprout friend in particular that thinks current whm is lame, read the hw/sb actions and thought they were so much cooler, but theyre still playing whm simply because thats the job theyve leveled the most and they dont want to start from scratch just to continue playing something else that might be better. now multiply that by however thousands of new players there are. i dont exactly know what metrics the devs use but until healers are literally unplayable theyre likely to not notice anything.


that said ill gladly keep playing the healers which i think have some semblance of good direction, mainly ast and sage, instead of the ones which i think are awfully designed. hopefully seeing higher numbers on more involved healer design will nudge them to that direction.

[Shin96]

...

I had to think about how to approach this post, or rather how to explain the developers choice of deliberately changing their design philosophy.

Currently, healers and tanks alike, even DPS's to an extend, are designed from a point of 1-10. That means our developers are creating jobs and mechanics associated around them with people of lower skill in mind. This will scale up with content in difficulty, as more mechanics and movement is involved. Say, your satisfaction with a job in easy content is surprisingly low. That is 1. because you enjoy content through the scope of your job, and 2. there simply isn't enough mechanics involved in dungeons and other content to make up for the lack of job actions to occupy you. As a healer, being forced to press 1-2 ad nauseam, while being heavily underwhelmed by the lack of engaging mechanics inside content, will wear you down.

The reason why pressing 1-1-1-1 or 1-2 works in other games like FPS games is essentially because you are occupied by a multitude of different processes. Your attention is being drawn away from the complexity of your class, because the brain cannot deal with 5-10 things happening at a time. The player input has to be drastically lowered as a result.

There will be a point when the amount of new players and influx will hit a plateu. The reason I showed this particular image associated with a panel held by Square Enix is simple. Right now, the common perception of this game is that they care deeply. As I like to analyze trends and see patterns emerging across, eventually once, there will be a dent in growth. Companies rely heavily on public perception to pitch their products and maximize their profits.

As long-time fans will become even more vocal over time, the perception that our developers care so much will start to crumble. The silent ones leave. Since they cannot manage the same numbers as they did previously, they will be hard-pressed to make a decision. The growth has ultimately stopped, and what's left are different factions; all asking for changes. It is impossible to satisfy them all. Increasingly, the company will put them under pressure for the lack of income growth. It's easy to see where all of this will lead.

[BooPoo]

I had to think about how to approach this post, or rather how to explain the developers choice of deliberately changing their design philosophy.

Currently, healers and tanks alike, even DPS's to an extend, are designed from a point of 1-10. That means our developers are creating jobs and mechanics associated around them with people of lower skill in mind. This will scale up with content in difficulty, as more mechanics and movement is involved. Say, your satisfaction with a job in easy content is surprisingly low. That is 1. because you enjoy content through the scope of your job, and 2. there simply isn't enough mechanics involved in dungeons and other content to make up for the lack of job actions to occupy you. As a healer, being forced to press 1-2 ad nauseam, while being heavily underwhelmed by the lack of engaging mechanics inside content, will wear you down.

The reason why pressing 1-1-1-1 or 1-2 works in other games like FPS games is essentially because you are occupied by a multitude of different processes. Your attention is being drawn away from the complexity of your class, because the brain cannot deal with 5-10 things happening at a time. The player input has to be drastically lowered as a result.

There will be a point when the amount of new players and influx will hit a plateu. The reason I showed this particular image associated with a panel held by Square Enix is simple. Right now, the common perception of this game is that they care deeply. As I like to analyze trends and see patterns emerging across, eventually once, there will be a dent in growth. Companies rely heavily on public perception to pitch their products and maximize their profits.

As long-time fans will become even more vocal over time, the perception that our developers care so much will start to crumble. The silent ones leave. Since they cannot manage the same numbers as they did previously, they will be hard-pressed to make a decision. The growth has ultimately stopped, and what's left are different factions; all asking for changes. It is impossible to satisfy them all. Increasingly, the company will put them under pressure for the lack of income growth. It's easy to see where all of this will lead.

As much as I agree healers need improvements I think the amount of healer players is still very very far from being able to make an impact. Also gotta count the ones who like the current design, have no complaint whatsoever, or simply don't care. Online forums are echo chambers and neither you or I know exactly how many of the actual healer players would go on protest for some changes that will happen only once an expansion.

You have to understand the people who come on official forums and participate in these discussions like you and me probably make up a negligible portion of the playerbase. Most players don't take part in optimizations, hardcore content, parsing etc. They are okay as long as the story is good, music is beautiful and contents are accessible (aka low skill floor). And SE seems to be able to do just that for the past few years.

[Saefinn]

Lol what about Sage then. If everyone needs to heal 70% of the time but sage either:

1. Can both heal and DPS during that time, then it becomes the only choice of healers.

2. Needs to focus on spamming GCD healing abilities during 70% of the time. It invalidates half of Sage's kit but most importantly, destroys Sage's identity as a healer that heals by damaging enemies.

I don't see that as a good solution for a large group of players that want green DPS tbf.

Well yes, they stripped SCH a chunk of its identity, made WHM's identity redundant and watered down AST's, so what's one more, eh? I mean, heck healers don't use much of their kit most of the time anyway, so welcome to the healer experience?

Putting he facetiousness aside, in actuality, no, you wouldn't need to change how SGE heals. Because SGE's DPS kits heals people, so in a way this is where SGE ends up just adding a layer to this, if you're DPSing an enemy to heal somebody that I would say that doesn't count as downtime and counts as healing uptime. It's when you're DPSing to DPS that it is downtime. With SGE this becomes harder to measure.


However, I already acknowledged this method doesn't respect the game's design. But I state it is 'a' solution (and in the context of the "healers heal" argument, this would better fit those desires), but I do not think that it is the right solution but it is a better solution than twiddling thumbs and may result in interesting healing play. But if you want to make healers engaging with their current design, that's how you're gonna do it. And I think if people are enjoying playing their healer job, they're more amenable to that change and compromise and less likely to complain. But there are problems that I listed with this approach (and is not an exhaustive list).

Breaking up the downtime with a variety of DPS-related moves is really the most sensible way to go. Because the only thing that will change is how many abilities are available to us in our downtime and how our rDPS is balanced.

[Shin96]

As much as I agree healers need improvements I think the amount of healer players is still very very far from being able to make an impact. Also gotta count the ones who like the current design, have no complaint whatsoever, or simply don't care.

You have to understand the people who come on official forums and participate in these discussions like you and me probably make up a negligible portion of the playerbase. Most players don't take part in optimizations, hardcore content, parsing etc. They are okay as long as the story is good, music is beautiful and contents are accessible (aka low skill floor). And SE seems to be able to do just that for the past few years.

It's correct that they manage to satisfy people that come for the story and music, or FF themes. But they like to deliberately excuse job and role design decisions around those players in mind. Holding back players because others cannot manage to accomplish the same results is a terrible idea. One man's frustration can make up for a thousand, and the silent majority do not set trends. As I have said, all of these choices are made by the developers themselves.

They should introduce optional difficulties. If most players are unable to play at an efficent pace, it makes sense to accommodate them this way. If they are bothered by pressing more than 1-2 buttons, I don't see what's hard by giving them the option to do that. I just don't want to be treated the same way honestly.

[BooPoo]

Putting he facetiousness aside, in actuality, no, you wouldn't need to change how SGE heals. Because SGE's DPS kits heals people, so in a way this is where SGE ends up just adding a layer to this, if you're DPSing an enemy to heal somebody that I would say that doesn't count as downtime and counts as healing uptime. It's when you're DPSing to DPS that it is downtime. With SGE this becomes harder to measure.

Not meaning to disapprove of your final solution, I very much want it, but just want to add another reason against upping healer uptime to 90%:

Assuming no changes to healer kits, if healers have 90% uptime but sage is the only one that's able to consistently output damage during it (aside from Assize, Star etc. since those are like 400 pot per minute) then it becomes way too OP. Sorry but I can't fathom how SGE can exist in a world where everyone needs to be a curebot with balance in mind.

[BooPoo]

It's correct that they manage to satisfy people that come for the story and music, or FF themes. But they like to deliberately excuse job and role design decisions around those players in mind. Holding back players because others cannot manage to accomplish the same results is a terrible idea. One man's frustration can make up for a thousand, and the silent majority do not set trends. As I have said, all of these choices are made by the developers themselves.

They should introduce optional difficulties. If most players are unable to play at an efficent pace, it makes sense to accommodate them this way. If they are bothered by pressing more than 1-2 buttons, I don't see what's hard by giving them the option to do that. I just don't want to be treated the same way honestly.

I agree they should add ultimates beyond every savage content as long as it only drops better glamour to avoid FOMO for 99% of the playerbase.

[Shurrikhan]

I agree they should add ultimates beyond every savage content as long as it only drops better glamour to avoid FOMO for 99% of the playerbase.

Isn't that also going to be the most relevant reward for that same 99% of the playerbase.

Not getting something only useful to Ultimate is hardly going to be missed by those not doing Ultimate. But glowing more? That unites people.