Time to expand a little on my comments about SE needing to hire a healer designer.

[Saefinn]

But what would a difficult healer look like within the current constraints? You can't require more healing, because that's capped by damage. You can't output more damage, or that job will be picked over the others.

You could make one job really clunky and require several button presses to replicate one button on the others, but then players would reject it as weak and nerfed. Imagine a class that requires say 2 oGCDs between each nuke to replicate one glare - why would anyone bother? Or if one healer had really low potencies requiring healing spam, why would anyone take that risk?

As I saw somebody post before, "I'd rather have a 35 potency per tick Bio and a 35 potency per tick Miasma than a 70 potency per tick Biolysis"

I honestly think people would pick what they think is most engaging for them. Whether people will choose a particular healer in a party setup will mostly boil down to balance.

Healer difficulty would be affected by the complexity of the job and that can be either in the heals, in the DPS or both. And we already had this.
In 2.0 WHM was the "easy" healer, its heals were simple, its DPS was simple, it was easier to pick up.
In 2.0 SCH was harder because it was more technical because on the healing side you had to be more proactive and it felt more tactical, which is one of the job aesthetics and you had a lot more in your DPS kit.

And it worked.

AST got added to the mix, which was where we ran into balance problems because AST has to fit both SCH and WHM's roles in the party and SCH got buffed and it became OP.
But AST had its complexity. And it is STILL more complex than SCH or WHM and that's why I play it over SCH or WHM despite being a former SCH main.
And SGE has a 2 button press to do skills SCH/WHM/AST only have 1 button press for because of the Eukrasia mechanic.

IMHO with 4 healers and a split between 2 types of healers, I think they are in a much better position of offer different levels of difficulty and variety whilst maintaining balance. And I get the feeling this is what their vision sort of is, but are still holding back from doing what's needed to achieve it and it seems that's because of accessibility. I think they want to keep all healers accessible. I think they can achieve this and maintain accessibility by putting the complexity and difficulty spikes in the DPS kits and increase healing intensity on content where it matters without killing accessibility. You solve a lot of problems doing this.

[IDontPetLalas]

As I saw somebody post before, "I'd rather have a 35 potency per tick Bio and a 35 potency per tick Miasma than a 70 potency per tick Biolysis"

I honestly think people would pick what they think is most engaging for them. Whether people will choose a particular healer in a party setup will mostly boil down to balance.

Healer difficulty would be affected by the complexity of the job and that can be either in the heals, in the DPS or both. And we already had this.
In 2.0 WHM was the "easy" healer, its heals were simple, its DPS was simple, it was easier to pick up.
In 2.0 SCH was harder because it was more technical because on the healing side you had to be more proactive and it felt more tactical, which is one of the job aesthetics and you had a lot more in your DPS kit.

And it worked.

AST got added to the mix, which was where we ran into balance problems because AST has to fit both SCH and WHM's roles in the party and SCH got buffed and it became OP.
But AST had its complexity. And it is STILL more complex than SCH or WHM and that's why I play it over SCH or WHM despite being a former SCH main.
And SGE has a 2 button press to do skills SCH/WHM/AST only have 1 button press for because of the Eukrasia mechanic.

IMHO with 4 healers and a split between 2 types of healers, I think they are in a much better position of offer different levels of difficulty and variety whilst maintaining balance. And I get the feeling this is what their vision sort of is, but are still holding back from doing what's needed to achieve it and it seems that's because of accessibility. I think they want to keep all healers accessible. I think they can achieve this and maintain accessibility by putting the complexity and difficulty spikes in the DPS kits and increase healing intensity on content where it matters without killing accessibility. You solve a lot of problems doing this.

I'll cut straight to your last paragraph, somehow I can agree with a lot of it although I disagree with how you got there !

I do feel that they want to keep healing >accessible> however as a number of others have previously pointed out they seem to have set the bar for healers extremely low in comparison to other jobs, as if somehow all healers are especially challenged or some monolithic block that wants a particular playstyle. You would think that hundreds of pages of comments would have shown them that it isn't the case.

So they stick to their guns and insist on how healing *should be*, I find that harder to accept given all of feedback from people with years in experience healing all types of content in FFXIV as well of their lack of dedicated healer lead designers.

[Silver-Strider]

Scholar is currently pressing two or three buttons to heal as effectively as Astro or WHM. It's called clunky quite often and now that its balanced more or less with the other healers it still gets used. Some people like pressing more buttons for little pay off (BRD Mains lol)

Then they complain when the straight forward class does better than them. "My job is complicated, it should be better" is a common argument.

[ItMe]

Then they complain when the straight forward class does better than them. "My job is complicated, it should be better" is a common argument.

Truth.
And if a job is more complicated without having a higher potential output... it still artificially warps what people actually play. Especially after Thoughts Per Second got the world's first TEA clear by, like, 5 days because they picked jobs that let them focus on the boss instead of bring more mechanically complex jobs that just divide their attention and jeopardize the clear.
It's very difficult to keeo a healthy balance between two jobs, equal in all things, but one has advanced execution.

It's a frustrating damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

[HappyHubris]

Scholar is currently pressing two or three buttons to heal as effectively as Astro or WHM. It's called clunky quite often and now that its balanced more or less with the other healers it still gets used. Some people like pressing more buttons for little pay off (BRD Mains lol)

I feel this in my bow good sir.

[Deceptus]

AST got added to the mix, which was where we ran into balance problems because AST has to fit both SCH and WHM's roles in the party and SCH got buffed and it became OP.

Just for the sake of context, SCH got buffed in that situation shortly after AST was released because AST (Noct) was straight up better than SCH in every single way.

Their Shield spell was:

1) Instant Cast
2) Higher Potency
3) Lower Mana Cost

AST as a job did nothing but cause balancing issues since it was implemented.

Either it was a jack of all trades / master of none who had buffs to compensate for it's shortcomings, or it could do everything the two other healers could do just as well or better and had buffs on top of that.

It wasn't until SE basically neutered Cards and healers in general that they simply became carbon copies of each other with minor job flair.

[Gemina]

Yeah... it's a tall order. Really tall. You're talking about adding another six figure (USD) salary per designer. These new designers would also have to have extensive experience, will have their own demands, have ideas of their own that could potentially clash, fit in with an already tightly knit handful of designers, and come into the #1 mmo currently on the market. I think it goes without saying the level of expectation placed on a new hire.

There is no doubt that the demand on the team has grown along with the game resulting in spaghettification of their resources, but there is a reason why there is a saying, "good help is hard to find." The designers that would best fit these positions are likely already on other projects of their own. There are probably one or two out there who have developed quite the reputation for themselves that SE would take in a heartbeat if they could get them, and would pay whatever they wanted.

IOW, I think it's a bit wishful thinking. It is not out of the realm of possibility, but I would place your faith elsewhere if you believe this is the only way the game will continue to improve. That faith has to be placed in the main people in charge of the various departments wrapped into the development of the game. If it is of any consolation, I truly do believe that if they have the opportunity to add value to the design teams, they will take advantage of that opportunity.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Eh, granted I used to work for Bullfrog and by proxy, EA rather than SE. However, the only way I see a new hire getting that kind of salary would be if they were specifically trying to poach talent from elsewhere in the industry. Whilst that's something I've certainly suggested (Blizzard's hiring out of the Everquest raid scene was hugely successful and I'd wager very good value for money as well), it's just not really a thing I can see SE doing if I'm honest. The more likely option is someone stepping over from a different internal team.

One clarification I will note though, having a fully likeminded design team isn't actually a good thing. You want the broadest range of ideas possible going in. It's then down to having good management to refine these concepts into a more focused form to be implemented into the game itself. This is why I'm of the mind that hiring someone like Mythic in a consultancy manner would be an interesting route to take, effectively buying in ideas and concepts from team with vast experience in the field but yet aren't really in direct competition. This would still give Yoshida and his leads complete creative control but over a far broader well of concepts and ideas.

In all honesty, I really struggle to place my faith in SE's current situation because I've been there myself. After I left Bullfrog, I went to another studio and immediately got dropped into the world builder team for a World War 2 FPS. Whilst Quakeworld maps were pretty much the thing that got me hired in the first place, tech, metal and lights were pretty much my jam. Words cannot describe how hard it was to motivate myself to churn out bland dreary mud brown maps. To say it was a struggle to stay motivated would be the understatement of the century. Whilst system design and world building are indeed different kettles of fish, they are still both tasks place large demands on a designer's creativity. I can vouch first hand that it's significantly harder to get those creative juices flowing on a task that you just don't have much interest in.

This is largely why I feel the way I do. A designer with a keen interest in the healer role will be a much more efficient & creative worker vs what we appear to have currently and would hopefully avoid the repeated pitfalls and shortcomings that we keep seeing each expansion. However I do agree that the odds of SE pulling their own Tigole out of thin air are extremely slim. Hiring external teams on for consultancy work is a much more common practice and I think this is the more likely route assuming SE ever do decide to tackle this.

Here's hoping they at least try something.

[Gemina]

snip.

I've also worked for a couple of software companies, including the one I am at now. And as far as the salary goes, we are currently amidst worldwide inflation. The cost of everything is going up, while the value of currency continues to drop. Then you're also adding the type of talent you are seeking to bring in. Even if they could manage to get someone south of six figures, it's not going to be by much. Either way you look at it, it is an additional expense.

Then you assume that this dev team would allocate such a resource towards class and encounter design. Much of your post highlights the constraints of adding design member instead of listing reason on how the game would benefit from such a decision. This includes those mundane tasks that are still exceptionally important, especially when being thorough. The other assumption is that the dev team thinks there is anything wrong with their current design. You're talking about adding new members and an increased budget just to make a subset of healers happy who are at wits-end with their ST spam. Meanwhile encounter design is as balanced as it has ever been.

If you're having trouble placing your faith in SE and their management team, then I fear your satisfaction with the game will only continue to decline. I would zoom out and look at the game as a whole in order to restore your faith. There is a ton more going on in this game than just healer gameplay. Caution also has to be taken when consulting with external sources. This could be of benefit, but that value would have to be accessed prior to hiring anybody.

[Ayche]

Truth.
And if a job is more complicated without having a higher potential output... it still artificially warps what people actually play. Especially after Thoughts Per Second got the world's first TEA clear by, like, 5 days because they picked jobs that let them focus on the boss instead of bring more mechanically complex jobs that just divide their attention and jeopardize the clear.
It's very difficult to keeo a healthy balance between two jobs, equal in all things, but one has advanced execution.

It's a frustrating damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Then again, lot of that extremely high-end stuff can be "ignored" because it takes such a small time of the whole life cycle of the game. World First races and such events are the very few and brief moments in FFXIV's lifespan that could be said to be truly competitive, so if those moments fail to stay balanced ... it is not too big of a deal for the game overall.

You gotta have a good illusion of placation. Maybe give this busy job a small potential of doing more damage that rarely happens, but still lingers as a thought in the community mindset. "Ah yes, BLM surely can do the most damage of all casters, but its really hard". Is it true? It doesn't matter, just as long people buy into it and it does not stop people from playing jobs they actually like. Balance design in video games is after all based on feelings and perception, not facts.

Reminds me of the whole worrying over performance in monster hunter in a way. In games where there is basically no real pvp competition, there is no real reason to reward mastery because mastery itself ought to be the reward. Like how the motivation to learn how to play a guitar has to atleast partially come from the pleasure of the mastery over the action since there is no trophy waiting for you after you successfully play a song 100% correctly. Well, unless you play Guitar Hero and you get a digital trophy which is surely very real.