SE FINALLY ANSWERED THE HEALERS COMMUNITY LONG ANSWERED QUESTION

[ty_taurus]

I don't want to necessarily promote false hope, but I do think there are some key silver linings to the situation.

In regards to Yoshi-P's current response to healer backlash: It really doesn't matter how he feels about it. He would need to maintain a stance that addresses their changes positively. Someone of his position couldn't say "yeah we fucked up, didn't we?" going into their next expansion. They need every response to raise EW up, not tear it down. I'm not saying that he's necessarily unhappy with the healer direct and lying about that, but what I am saying is that he was asked about healer depth multiple times by several different interviewers across the media tour. While I can't say it's a hope worth having, the fact that attention is being brought to those concerns in such a public fashion could inspire more effort trying to address these issues in the future. I don't really foresee healing going fully in the direction that I think most of us would want, but I just hope that makes our concerns more palpable for him and the design team moving forward.

Moreover, there was a particular response regarding their stance that healers aren't going to ever have more complex DPS actions in the future, but that's not necessarily set in stone. I'm reminded of Super Smash Bros. where, when Brawl was released, Sakurai specified that he could never imagine a character from Animal Crossing in the game, yet Villager was added in Super Smash Bros. Wii U/3DS. Again, I don't want to parade the idea that "he'll change his mind, just you wait!" But if these issues continue to be talked about in a more prominent light such as from FFXIV influencers, and Sage's popularity stays strong beyond EW's release and extends throughout the entire expansion, then there's a fair chance we could convince them to nudge healers a little closer to the direction we'd like.

Now, all of this is very optimistic speculation in an area that doesn't exactly inspire optimism, but I think it's worth trying to look at what more positive outcomes may stem from this because it may help us think about how we try and communicate our wants for the role moving forward. In other words, play Sage. Drop WHM and SCH if they're not enough for you. If you have friends who haven't tried Sage but like healing, convince them to level it. This won't literally happen, but imagine a hypothetical scenario where every healer player of level 70 or higher ONLY played Sage. It's a very extreme scenario, but I can't help but be curious about what the response from SE would be.

[Gemina]

In regards to Yoshi-P's current response to healer backlash: It really doesn't matter how he feels about it. He would need to maintain a stance that addresses their changes positively. Someone of his position couldn't say "yeah we fucked up, didn't we?" going into their next expansion. They need every response to raise EW up, not tear it down. I'm not saying that he's necessarily unhappy with the healer direct and lying about that, but what I am saying is that he was asked about healer depth multiple times by several different interviewers across the media tour. While I can't say it's a hope worth having, the fact that attention is being brought to those concerns in such a public fashion could inspire more effort trying to address these issues in the future. I don't really foresee healing going fully in the direction that I think most of us would want, but I just hope that makes our concerns more palpable for him and the design team moving forward.

A couple of things. Yoshida is responsible enough to take accountability when he acknowledges a mistake his team has made which has lead to a lot of disappointment. You saw this when he directly apologized to all SCH mains for their lackluster showcase in the LL. He then went into great length to assure SCH mains that they have not neglected them, and to look forward to EW. Now that's when they acknowledge a eff up. Obviously he's not going to come out directly and say that, but it is a much different response than how he responded to everyone who asked about the healers.

It needs to be understood that the direction they have taken healing is not a mistake, or it is not seen as one by this dev team. It was a deliberate design choice that some healers don't agree with. I emphasize on some, because the healers upset by this design choice is not shared across the entire community, and are in fact, not even the majority of it. Over the years, the healers who do not agree with raising the requirements of them have been ostracized and their views drowned out. Some have even been shamed and told they condone inferior gameplay; so now all you hear for the most part are the frustrations from being bored by the game's advanced healers, as no one dare object or risk the wrath of the pitchfork mob. Meanwhile you have this enormous portion of the healer community who won't touch anything outside NM difficulty.

Moreover, there was a particular response regarding their stance that healers aren't going to ever have more complex DPS actions in the future, but that's not necessarily set in stone. I'm reminded of Super Smash Bros. where, when Brawl was released, Sakurai specified that he could never imagine a character from Animal Crossing in the game, yet Villager was added in Super Smash Bros. Wii U/3DS. Again, I don't want to parade the idea that "he'll change his mind, just you wait!" But if these issues continue to be talked about in a more prominent light such as from FFXIV influencers, and Sage's popularity stays strong beyond EW's release and extends throughout the entire expansion, then there's a fair chance we could convince them to nudge healers a little closer to the direction we'd like.

Now, all of this is very optimistic speculation in an area that doesn't exactly inspire optimism, but I think it's worth trying to look at what more positive outcomes may stem from this because it may help us think about how we try and communicate our wants for the role moving forward. In other words, play Sage. Drop WHM and SCH if they're not enough for you. If you have friends who haven't tried Sage but like healing, convince them to level it. This won't literally happen, but imagine a hypothetical scenario where every healer player of level 70 or higher ONLY played Sage. It's a very extreme scenario, but I can't help but be curious about what the response from SE would be.

What I just mentioned about all the healers who stay away from content EX and above is reason enough for them to not raise the skill floor by giving healers additional responsibility. This is why every once in a while they release a dungeon, NM raid, or wall boss in an alliance raid that is a bit more spicy than the rest to see how players do. What do you think it means if they latter go in an nerf one or more of these encounters, especially well after additional ilvs are released? A boss like Cid in Orbonne could be considered a trial of the playerbase, and guess what? We failed it. And you want to raise the skill bar? SE has yet to release an Alliance Raid we wipe to since Orbonne.

Here is another way to look at it, and this is most certainly how Yoshida does: If you raise the skill floor, what do you think happens to all the players residing on that floor currently? Sure, all the healers who stay above ground will benefit and thrive, but it comes at the cost of exclusion. However this dev team has to be indiscriminate of skill level when it involves decisions that affect the game on a global scale. You need to zoom out. Way the eff out. Those players on the current skill floor are also paying subscribers and have to be accounted for.

I'm not bringing all this up to smash hope before it can even sprout, but rather to broaden the perspective so suggestions on how to improve healer gameplay can go beyond the unsolvable puzzle it has been thus far. If you keep trying to solve a puzzle the same way, you will never get anywhere. Try another path.

I think if there is something to truly take from these interviews, it should be that Yoshida cares about each and every one of you. This is also something he does indiscriminately. So if you are aware now that his ear is open, you should know it has always been open. Be mindful of your suggestions. Try to be pleasant and inclusive, and it is totally ok to voice what you disapprove of and provide criticism. However anyone who chooses to berate the team, attack others who disagree, and rattle off like a broken record should not be surprised if hey are not listened to, or "ignored" as I see tossed around a lot.

What this team wants now is feedback from all the healers after getting their hands dirty with EW, especially those who try Sage. Why do you think he's telling you to go an play Sage?

[ty_taurus]

A couple of things. Yoshida is responsible enough to take accountability when he acknowledges a mistake his team has made which has lead to a lot of disappointment. You saw this when he directly apologized to all SCH mains for their lackluster showcase in the LL. He then went into great length to assure SCH mains that they have not neglected them, and to look forward to EW. Now that's when they acknowledge a eff up. Obviously he's not going to come out directly and say that, but it is a much different response than how he responded to everyone who asked about the healers.

My interpretation about that response was he realized that the SCH’s section of the job actions trailer was poorly executed. Even if not much changes, they still want the job to look cool. An example would be something like MCH where very little is changing, but they still show off things like the Automaton Queen, Flamethrower, Auto Crossbow, Ricochet… i.e. things that look cool. SCH admittedly have very little interesting looking actions these days, but they could’ve at least used things like Fey Union, Scared Soil, or Summon Seraph. It also just didn’t even showcase the sprint buff well at all.

He seemed to be apologizing more that he didn’t oversee the trailer more meticulously to ensure that the SCH looked better and displayed their new capstone more effectively, but followed up by saying that SCH will still be fun to play, or at least that’s what they say.

For the record, I don’t necessarily think the healer changes are a fuck up, at least not universally. I was more just using that as a hyperbolic example of the other extreme. Because if he actually did feel like they fucked up healing, hypothetically, he would still need to promote it as a positive direct for the role.

It needs to be understood that the direction they have taken healing is not a mistake, or it is not seen as one by this dev team. It was a deliberate design choice that some healers don't agree with. I emphasize on some, because the healers upset by this design choice is not shared across the entire community, and are in fact, not even the majority of it.

So what? It’s clear that there’s a fairly significant chunk of the player base that is upset. It’s bubbled to the surface so much so that influencers who don’t care at all about healing asked legitimate questions on behalf of their fans who do play healer. We’ve had back and forths before and you keep taking this stance of “us vs them” in regards to casual players and experienced players. We are not your enemy. We are not trying to ruin your casual experience.

Over the years, the healers who do not agree with raising the requirements of them have been ostracized and their views drowned out. Some have even been shamed and told they condone inferior gameplay; so now all you hear for the most part are the frustrations from being bored by the game's advanced healers, as no one dare object or risk the wrath of the pitchfork mob. Meanwhile you have this enormous portion of the healer community who won't touch anything outside NM difficulty.

We need to break this down a little because there’s an important distinction between healers that try and struggle vs the section of healers that were demanding the role change so that healers never DPSed and would outright refuse to DPS in any content no matter the circumstances. The later were basically selfish players who wanted to play a different game with FFXIV’s aesthetic, because that’s not how FFIXIV is designed, and it will never be that way.

For the healers that would try and have a difficult time, I get that. There are changes that I think were really good in Stormblood to make their experience easier, such as removing Cleric Stance. I firmly believe Cleric Stance was terrible because it was a system based on punishment. If you don’t use it, your punished because you can’t DPS. When you do use it, if you mess up your timing, then your healing is punished and you could have the team killed because you forgot to press a button, or because your latency prevented it from being turned off.

And guess what, the people who were complaining about healing being too hard largely stopped. Stormblood’s addressing of that issue was perfectly fine. There was no reason to further cauterized the healed wound with what Shadowbringers did specifically to SCH. Yeah WHM lost Aero III too, but SCH was basically disemboweled to resolve issues that no one was complaining about.

What I just mentioned about all the healers who stay away from content EX and above is reason enough for them to not raise the skill floor by giving healers additional responsibility. This is why every once in a while they release a dungeon, NM raid, or wall boss in an alliance raid that is a bit more spicy than the rest to see how players do. What do you think it means if they latter go in an nerf one or more of these encounters, especially well after additional ilvs are released? A boss like Cid in Orbonne could be considered a trial of the playerbase, and guess what? We failed it. And you want to raise the skill bar? SE has yet to release an Alliance Raid we wipe to since Orbonne.

Here is another way to look at it, and this is most certainly how Yoshida does: If you raise the skill floor, what do you think happens to all the players residing on that floor currently? Sure, all the healers who stay above ground will benefit and thrive, but it comes at the cost of exclusion. However this dev team has to be indiscriminate of skill level when it involves decisions that affect the game on a global scale. You need to zoom out. Way the eff out. Those players on the current skill floor are also paying subscribers and have to be accounted for.

I don’t understand how we’ve specifically talked about this before, yet you keep bringing up this skill floor debate. How can I make it any clearer that…

WE. DON’T. WANT. TO. RAISE. THE. SKILL. FLOOR.

At this point, I’m inclined to believe one of three things: either you don’t understand the difference between a skill floor and a skill ceiling, you’re misunderstanding the difference between then, or you’re just intentionally ignoring what we’ve been saying in order to paint a narrative. If it’s the former two, please tell me. I will be more than happy to find you a number of examples and explain in greater detail what they are to help you understand what we’re talking about.

I'm not bringing all this up to smash hope before it can even sprout, but rather to broaden the perspective so suggestions on how to improve healer gameplay can go beyond the unsolvable puzzle it has been thus far. If you keep trying to solve a puzzle the same way, you will never get anywhere. Try another path.

I think if there is something to truly take from these interviews, it should be that Yoshida cares about each and every one of you. This is also something he does indiscriminately. So if you are aware now that his ear is open, you should know it has always been open. Be mindful of your suggestions. Try to be pleasant and inclusive, and it is totally ok to voice what you disapprove of and provide criticism. However anyone who chooses to berate the team, attack others who disagree, and rattle off like a broken record should not be surprised if hey are not listened to, or "ignored" as I see tossed around a lot.

I agree here. Criticism is important because it helps us improve and identify problems where we don’t see them. I totally understand the frustration and passion a lot of experienced healers have on the topic, but there are times where some people (not all) cross a line into defaming the team when people are likely working 60+ hour weeks to make this game a reality.

What this team wants now is feedback from all the healers after getting their hands dirty with EW, especially those who try Sage. Why do you think he's telling you to go an play Sage?

I think there are absolutely things we can talk about and criticize now, but this is also true. I’m speaking generally now, but when EW comes out, play Sage. Ignore the healers you think aren’t developed enough even if it’s a job you love. You’ll do more good for SCH leaving it alone and showing the team in numbers that SCH players are leaving the job than you will digging your heels in the sand and pouting about it. That said, I can’t tell you what to play as that’s each person’s individual decisions, but know that actions speak louder than words, especially when money is involved. And if Sage isn’t enough, continue to bring that up.

[Gemina]

My interpretation about that response was he realized that the SCH’s section of the job actions trailer was poorly executed. Even if not much changes, they still want the job to look cool. An example would be something like MCH where very little is changing, but they still show off things like the Automaton Queen, Flamethrower, Auto Crossbow, Ricochet… i.e. things that look cool. SCH admittedly have very little interesting looking actions these days, but they could’ve at least used things like Fey Union, Scared Soil, or Summon Seraph. It also just didn’t even showcase the sprint buff well at all.

He seemed to be apologizing more that he didn’t oversee the trailer more meticulously to ensure that the SCH looked better and displayed their new capstone more effectively, but followed up by saying that SCH will still be fun to play, or at least that’s what they say.

It's water under the bridge at this point. We will have to wait until 7.0 to truly see how Yoshi decides to redeem this error for SCH. It's really far off, but I will be watching the SCH trailer VERY closely in 7.0, as will a lot of other people.

So what? It’s clear that there’s a fairly significant chunk of the player base that is upset. It’s bubbled to the surface so much so that influencers who don’t care at all about healing asked legitimate questions on behalf of their fans who do play healer. We’ve had back and forths before and you keep taking this stance of “us vs them” in regards to casual players and experienced players. We are not your enemy. We are not trying to ruin your casual experience.

The versus is actually the players who are upset, and the devs. The casuals get caught up in this crossfire. But as much as you want to express that you are not an enemy to the casual players, the devs are not your enemy. They are not trying to ruin your experience.

We need to break this down a little because there’s an important distinction between healers that try and struggle vs the section of healers that were demanding the role change so that healers never DPSed and would outright refuse to DPS in any content no matter the circumstances. The later were basically selfish players who wanted to play a different game with FFXIV’s aesthetic, because that’s not how FFIXIV is designed, and it will never be that way.

For the healers that would try and have a difficult time, I get that. There are changes that I think were really good in Stormblood to make their experience easier, such as removing Cleric Stance. I firmly believe Cleric Stance was terrible because it was a system based on punishment. If you don’t use it, your punished because you can’t DPS. When you do use it, if you mess up your timing, then your healing is punished and you could have the team killed because you forgot to press a button, or because your latency prevented it from being turned off.

I am well aware of the many 'types' of healers. Again, when it comes to encounter and job design, the devs have to indiscriminately take the whole playerbase into account.

I don’t understand how we’ve specifically talked about this before, yet you keep bringing up this skill floor debate. How can I make it any clearer that…

WE. DON’T. WANT. TO. RAISE. THE. SKILL. FLOOR.

At this point, I’m inclined to believe one of three things: either you don’t understand the difference between a skill floor and a skill ceiling, you’re misunderstanding the difference between then, or you’re just intentionally ignoring what we’ve been saying in order to paint a narrative. If it’s the former two, please tell me. I will be more than happy to find you a number of examples and explain in greater detail what they are to help you understand what we’re talking about.

If you feel I am not getting the point, you are free to elaborate. However, I am not saying you are trying to raise the skill floor. I am saying this is what happens by giving healers additional responsibility; and you are giving healers additional responsibility by adding more offensive skills. I am not sure how I can make that any more clear for you. Do you think the devs don't give healers more offensive skills out of pure spite? That they literally just want to punish healers for playing the job optimally, and pamper the casuals? Is that what you think? Before you answer that...

You’ll do more good for SCH leaving it alone and showing the team in numbers that SCH players are leaving the job than you will digging your heels in the sand and pouting about it. That said, I can’t tell you what to play as that’s each person’s individual decisions, but know that actions speak louder than words, especially when money is involved. And if Sage isn’t enough, continue to bring that up.

And there's that defeatist attitude again. You need to take a look around and see who is actually pouting here. You can bench your SCH or whichever healer you're not satisfied with, but understand the position it puts you in. It's not one of power. It isn't one where you're free to express your discontentment anymore, because you're not actually putting any time into playing the job in EW. All you can do is hope others jump off the cliff with you in protest. How confident are you in all these 'upset' healers joining in your boycott?

Regardless of your view, Yoshi is asking you to play the jobs, so why would you think doing the opposite is the best way to get to him?

[Sebazy]

You can bench your SCH or whichever healer you're not satisfied with, but understand the position it puts you in. It's not one of power. It isn't one where you're free to express your discontentment anymore, because you're not actually putting any time into playing the job in EW. All you can do is hope others jump off the cliff with you in protest. How confident are you in all these 'upset' healers joining in your boycott?

Regardless of your view, Yoshi is asking you to play the jobs, so why would you think doing the opposite is the best way to get to him?

The unfortunate fact is that it's been visibly demonstrated time and time again that at least as far as healers go, SE only really seem to pay attention to clear rates of various levels of content.

I've stated this before but incase it's been missed:

AST was absolutely nowhere in Gordias and rightfully got extensively buffed and adjusted to make it competitive. Any proper QA should have highlighted that it was just not equipped to deal with Gordias Savage.

It was handily the equal of WHM for Midas but Noct wasn't competitive with SCH. SE didn't seem to understand this, merely seeing that it's usage was still down resulting in a completely misguided series of buffs that saw it relegate WHM to the bench for Creator.

Meanwhile concerns had been raised over WHM's long term competitiveness vs SCH and AST throughout Heavensward. These were completely ignored. When patch 3.4 came along and AST made WHM functionally obsolete in Savage WHM still saw good usage in more casual content and thus nothing was changed despite all the complaining here and elsewhere. Patch 3.5 rolled out and people literally started excluding WHMs from PFs for extremes and sometimes even lower tier content. SE finally reacted by plugging some of WHM's issues with the SB kit.

Deltascape saw SCH have it's first turn on the bench, it promptly got a wide range of buffs, fixes and abilities. Again, any experienced healers on the QA team should have highlighted that this iteration of SCH was going to be dead on arrival (and should have flagged up AST's hefty QoL regression as well).

I wonder if a part of Yoshida's reasoning that healer's are currently 'fine' is that these days, healer clear rates are all fairly well balanced now. I don't think they are invested enough in the healer role to actually sit down and look first hand at how dire the gameplay is especially in casual content. Rather they are just getting random test teams from SE's pool, potentially with little experience of the game and going with them for feedback.

There's no denying that in the eyes of a sprout, healing in this game is exhilarating before you've started down that haunted optimisation path.

[Gemina]

The unfortunate fact is that it's been visibly demonstrated time and time again that at least as far as healers go, SE only really seem to pay attention to clear rates of various levels of content...

... I wonder if a part of Yoshida's reasoning that healer's are currently 'fine' is that these days, healer clear rates are all fairly well balanced now. I don't think they are invested enough in the healer role to actually sit down and look first hand at how dire the gameplay is especially in casual content. Rather they are just getting random test teams from SE's pool, potentially with little experience of the game and going with them for feedback.

While all of this is valid from an observational standpoint, the reasoning is still inductive. It's based on the impression that everyone is dissatisfied with the current state of healers. It should go without saying that not all players are dissatisfied with the healer status quo. I wouldn't take that to mean that I don't believe there's a disconnect, but I also wouldn't be so quick to believe that having a healer oriented person on this design team would magically 'fix' things.

I can't even pretend to know Yoshida's reasoning behind any of his decisions. I can only try to make sense of them in my own mind. I do know that he values the views and experiences of his dev team, and the playerbase both. I know he can't greenlight every suggestion tossed at him, and has to make educated and informed decisions when it comes to what makes it into game as each one becomes a huge commitment on his part. Take that into mind when it comes to current healer design, and the decision to go down this road that was made years ago, as well as the health of this game long term.

As you pointed out in the portion of your post I omitted, there were a lot of problems back in the days of Gordias, Midas, even into Deltascape. It really was a cluster of nonsense, and the leap frogging of healers from patch to patch was among the most cumbersome. Those days are gone now though for the most part now, so why wouldn't they think it's fine? They don't think it's "fine" though. That's a bad business motto to have. Nevertheless that giant storm that was present back then has dissipated.

The current, and I stress the very delicate balance being maintained was costly for all three roles. As observant as you have expressed to be, you should be well aware that Tanks and even DPS jobs all took a huge hit in terms of versatility and complexity. Things like tank stance swapping and enmity shedders were big parts of the gameplay of those two roles respectively, and many were displeased that they just nuked it. I wouldn't think for even one moment that Yoshida is not aware of the negative response to this from the game's more advanced players. FFXIV could not have the success it does if he was that level of disconnected from the players and dev team.

My own observations is that Yoshi understands that he's human, and that moving away from 3.x gameplay was costly but necessary. He is aware of the discontent, and I'm sure he's not happy about it. I also believe he's aware that these players feel punished, and punishing those you care for can be one of the most painful experiences anyone can go through. I see this written all over his face when he knows he has to deliver disappointing news.

The man is not infallible. This team has made a TON of mistakes along the way. Yoshi knows this too. It's been a learning process, and they are still learning and adapting on their end as well. This should be seen as huge positive on everyone's behalf.

[Sebazy]

That's pretty fair reasoning and I can't really argue with it. At this stage I'm slightly jealous of your optimism in Yoshida's team tbh

As you pointed out in the portion of your post I omitted, there were a lot of problems back in the days of Gordias, Midas, even into Deltascape. It really was a cluster of nonsense, and the leap frogging of healers from patch to patch was among the most cumbersome. Those days are gone now though for the most part now, so why wouldn't they think it's fine? They don't think it's "fine" though. That's a bad business motto to have. Nevertheless that giant storm that was present back then has dissipated.

I will interject here though.

I think it's actually the opposite. They absolutely think the current status quo is fine and at least from where I'm sitting, it looks like they intend to continue treading water with the same overall grand formula that they've had since the end of Creator because it's still successful.

Dumbing down the overall game doesn't please us as the vocal minority but it seems to be doing wonders for the overall player base especially as we are supposed to be in the pre patch blues stage yet it's routine to see server queues.

As for his own opinions, it's frustrating that he has been proven wrong and has had to back down on his own statements right from 2.0 with Warriors. But they still strike me as having an air of arrogance to their views on the healer roles that seems to be blinding them to the core of the issue that's causing all of this. He might have mildly touched on healer DPS vs healing, but he still doesn't seem to understand that those aren't actually the problem here.

It's the fact that so much of our gameplay time is all piled up on a single button. Until he understands and acknowledges that, I can't see anything changing.

[CrimsonGunner]

Regardless of your view, Yoshi is asking you to play the jobs, so why would you think doing the opposite is the best way to get to him?

cause doing that stuff got healers nothing? cause he basically said he heard the complains and will do nothing ?

those are pretty good reasons not to listen at this point tbh from an individual view point. you are trying to sound optimistic but in reality that method has been tried and tried again has it not?
healers asked that on higher content, stuff will get better and hit more frequently to use more heals, it was not heard.
they asked that the kit will be simple but with depth and meaning, no respond and now it was said no.
healers asked small QoL fixes for current expansion at least so the jobs wont be as cluncky, sch mains never got their wish, Ast mains needed to wait until 5.1/5.2 to get mana filler in draw when it was a simple hotfix.

can you really say that is the best way to make a message and it will be heard at this point?

[Gemina]

cause doing that stuff got healers nothing? cause he basically said he heard the complains and will do nothing ?

those are pretty good reasons not to listen at this point tbh from an individual view point. you are trying to sound optimistic but in reality that method has been tried and tried again has it not?
healers asked that on higher content, stuff will get better and hit more frequently to use more heals, it was not heard.
they asked that the kit will be simple but with depth and meaning, no respond and now it was said no.
healers asked small QoL fixes for current expansion at least so the jobs wont be as cluncky, sch mains never got their wish, Ast mains needed to wait until 5.1/5.2 to get mana filler in draw when it was a simple hotfix.

can you really say that is the best way to make a message and it will be heard at this point?

What I'm saying is what message do you want to send that hasn't already been heard? Not giving you what you want doesn't mean your message has not got across. Other than that, my last post goes into great detail about why you also shouldn't feel ignored.

Now don't take that mean that I think, or the team thinks everything is "fine". I think that is a HUGE misconception being tossed around. But I also think that a lot of frustration stems from a problem some players have that are not shared by the dev team, or the dev team has made the decision to go another direction much to the chagrin of some of the playerbase.

I am optimistic about healer changes in the future, but in a way that lines up with the direction the team has decided to go. This is what allowed me to foresee just about everything that has changed about AST going into EW, and I am very excited to play that job. That is coming from someone who outright HATED it and everything about it in late HW into SB. I am not going to create hope and expectation based on principles the dev team has abandoned, and I bring up AST because it was a job that I very much wanted to enjoy since its inception. While I still have to actually play it in EW, it's adaptation and reasonable expectation has lead to this point in time.

IOW, if you keep asking for something like more DoTs to return to SCH; I won't say it will never happen, but you've kind of set yourself up for disappointment when it doesn't. I would also say that it makes it more difficult for issues that they will be willing to look at to be heard while the ones that they won't are echoed so loudly. I'm not spouting that as fact, just saying that for me personally from a management perspective, it can be difficult to become aware there's an issue with the copy machine when everyone is complaining that the vending machine keeps ripping people off.

[Semirhage]

What I'm saying is what message do you want to send that hasn't already been heard? Not giving you what you want doesn't mean your message has not got across. Other than that, my last post goes into great detail about why you also shouldn't feel ignored.

It's not frequent, but every single time Yoshi talks about healers? The way he talks about them is the way some of my friends who have vaguely heard there's a role named healer somewhere out there, but have never leveled one do. Healers, uh, like casting really big heals right? So if you wanna have fun healing then just cast big heals! And maybe if you can find time to do it, occasionally do damage.

The Yoshi in the interviews isn't someone I'd say gets the idea that we spend well over 50% of our time spamming one button over and over again in harder content. He talks about healers like someone who's never played one and doesn't really care about their gameplay loop. I have never gotten the impression the devs "understand" our concerns.