Healer design is still terrible and I'm tired of apologizing for it.

[Jonathan_Clover]

Doesn't help that Yoshi P fuels this mindset by excusing healer design because "casual players need it" or something.

Which is really sad, because this is him basically saying that casual healers are so stupid that they can't handle anything more than 1 button and a glut of useless, copy paste healing.

I'd be insulted if I wasn't so jaded.

[Semirhage]

Yeah...healer design IS boring. But, all the jobs in FF14 are heading in that direction to be fair. Simplification is happening--and judging by what we've seen so far devs are trying to dumb the game down to basic 1-button spam, 1-2, and/or 1-2-3 button combos for everyone.

This isn't going to get better. Outside of the lore and story, if complexity and detailed character design matter to you then it might be time to move on from this title.

What's even more sad about this is, I don't even need much complexity for satisfaction. Especially in an action-oriented game where opening a skill menu with hundreds of options for your next strategic move isn't feasible. Red Mage is many things, but a bigbrained rocket science job it is not. I find it fun. A lot of other people find it fun. Most people who don't find it fun realize that it's the playstyle they don't like, and seek out a different one; I've never seen someone say "Red Mage is so simple I'm baffled anyone could find that level of braindead fun at all".

You don't need to design a job to play like a grand piano to make it spark those dopamine rushes. Balancing black and white mana while trying not to overwrite procs isn't a hard task. I have never seen an MMO design team talk down to an entire role like they have in XIV; procs and balancing are too hard for you, better make sure you can't fail with Jolt Jolt Jolt Jolt Jolt... I wouldn't say high complexity is on my list of must-haves when it comes to an MMO, because I know the nature of the beast. This healer excrement is...anti-complexity. I've played IDLE games with more interactivity than FF14's healers.

[Anacrusys]

What’s the most sad about it. There was already massive proof that players don’t like dumbing down of their jobs. The FF design team should have known about this. The number one complaint in WoW BFA was that Blizzard pruned down the jobs. The official forums were flooded with complaints about it. BFA came out 11 months before Shadowbringers.

In Shadowlands Blizzard added a ton of new skills, brought back some old ones, the number of hotkeys increased. Job design improved substantially and players were happy with their jobs again. Some major reworks turned out to be excellent as well.

Edit: I found proof of the unpruning this came out right before SL launched.

https://www.wowhead.com/guides/class...-the-unpruning

[RinaShinomiya]

What's even more sad about this is, I don't even need much complexity for satisfaction. Especially in an action-oriented game where opening a skill menu with hundreds of options for your next strategic move isn't feasible. Red Mage is many things, but a bigbrained rocket science job it is not. I find it fun. A lot of other people find it fun. Most people who don't find it fun realize that it's the playstyle they don't like, and seek out a different one; I've never seen someone say "Red Mage is so simple I'm baffled anyone could find that level of braindead fun at all".

You don't need to design a job to play like a grand piano to make it spark those dopamine rushes. Balancing black and white mana while trying not to overwrite procs isn't a hard task. I have never seen an MMO design team talk down to an entire role like they have in XIV; procs and balancing are too hard for you, better make sure you can't fail with Jolt Jolt Jolt Jolt Jolt... I wouldn't say high complexity is on my list of must-haves when it comes to an MMO, because I know the nature of the beast. This healer excrement is...anti-complexity. I've played IDLE games with more interactivity than FF14's healers.

God I couldn't have put it better myself.
RDM is probably the best Job to make that comparison with. Dual Cast isn't a hard mechanic to grasp either but imagine we had a Healer who's designed around the dual cast mechanic and doesn't have any OGCD's but rather strong healing spells on a 5s cast time. We'd have to Glare I > Cure II or Cure I > Glare II(III, since II doesn't exist) or Glare I > Glare II(III). Heals could then feed into a job gauge that returned the "wasted" GCD into Damage, etc etc. Might actually make GCD healing fun again but all the fun ideas are always reserved for DPS and Tank jobs.
On that note I wish they removed Lucid Dreaming and implemented proper MP management into the Job gameplay. Mana management right now feels non existent which is what's supposed to keep GCD healing in check but with so many powerful OGCD abilities Mana ends up being Glare fuel (using WHM terms just for simplicity). Just like fey gauge is now just Fey Union fuel. The healer roles are just a graveyard of wasted potential.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

In the cold was the best solo Duty we ever gotten imho. and not because of the difficulty but because it makes you feel weak and helpless. Story through gameplay is always good to see and honestly if you almost quit over it i'm questioning your ability to push 5 buttons.

The map was confusing, there was no clear objectives, you couldn't fight anything, and finding heal packs etc was basically impossible.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

You are insane. The healing alone on ps2 literally pushed me and my co healer to our limits. I HAD TO EVEN LEARN HOW TO USE MITIGATION before aoes like illumination.

SCH/"Barrier" Healers has to mitigate raidwides, what a surprise indeed... /shrug

Better learn to press those mitigation buttons now than never, right? At least you learned something: mitigation is an important part. Despite that, that heal requirement is still pretty chill compared to p3s and (I believe) p4s.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Game keeps catering to the casual players. They decided healers can't even handle two dots while making all content very predictable. And the casual players love it because they dont bother optimizing it.
With that said, I would love to heal more when it is actually needed. The most fun, besides ultimates, is when shit goes south in alliance raids. When I actually have to utilize my kit.

I disagree, if you guys want to see more stuff happen to healer kits, then they need to make it so that it "CANT" be optimized. Optimization is the death of the healer class because you are basically playing a dps, bisewell just play dps by that point if you have to do the same work. If they turn healer into a 123 fast blade riot blade halone combo then sure I'll play it but if they turn it into some 10-15 button opener nonsense that savage raiders want to use to optimize dps that has multiple variations depending on fight etc then I will quite literally just stop healing since its not worth it.

[ASkellington]

The map was confusing, there was no clear objectives, you couldn't fight anything, and finding heal packs etc was basically impossible.

Finding health packets was easy to do. Enough so that it annoyed me. I didn't need nor want that many and quite frankly they made finding what I was looking for harder to do so.

You couldn't fight anything because you weren't supposed to. You were supposed to stealth around.

The instance wasn't impossible to do. Hell I could've probably done it within the given time limit on normal if I wanted to. I didn't because I got frustrated and wanted to be done with the thing. It wasn't fun wandering around getting literally everything else but what I wanted to find.

(Also, it is still incredibly stupid you can't pick up the battery before you find the machine. There is no changing my mind on that.) The lack of direction is nothing new. There are several MSQ quests who've done that. Just as there are plenty of role play quests. They aren't hard. I just hate them and wish it was an option to ignore what I find incredibly unfun game play.

[ASkellington]

I disagree, if you guys want to see more stuff happen to healer kits, then they need to make it so that it "CANT" be optimized. Optimization is the death of the healer class because you are basically playing a dps, bisewell just play dps by that point if you have to do the same work. If they turn healer into a 123 fast blade riot blade halone combo then sure I'll play it but if they turn it into some 10-15 button opener nonsense that savage raiders want to use to optimize dps that has multiple variations depending on fight etc then I will quite literally just stop healing since its not worth it.

No one here is asking for a 15 button opener.

Also no, the death of a healer class isn't optimization. You're supposed to optimize your healing. You're supposed to know how strong every one of your heals are and use that knowledge to make sure you don't run out of mana and that you have CDs for a true emergency.

The death of healing in this game is that we don't really need to manage our mana or cool downs. Half our abilities cost 0 and they aren't balanced by having 0 cost with long cool downs. This means that piety is a joke of a stat. And it also means we can use the same oGCDs for the same situations making our very strong healing tools redundant.

Why use Celestial Intersection on a Tank Buster when Exaltation is up? Why use Collective Unconciousness when Celestial Opposition is up? Why use Neutral Sect when you don't need the extra healing or shielding at all? Etc. Etc.

"But things can go south." To which I say: "you can't heal through stupid".

[Semirhage]

Guys, as fun as it is to interact on occasion, remember that Fuzzy's a troll. Maintaining the same bog-standard Sylphie straw arguments for months, calling anything that takes more than two seconds of attention "impossible", it's all bait. Not even peak Sylphie is that Sylphie.