Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[ASkellington]

Also, I'm going to straight up ask: Are people even happy with WHM the way it is?

No. Short answer, but I don't play WHM extensively like I do AST. I cannot comment on its problems accurately and I'm not going to be disrespectful to my fellow WHM healer mains by commenting on things I do not wholly know.

[StriderShinryu]

I mean, it's literally all we want. We just want our role to be able to be engaging so we don't feel like when there's downtime, it's mindless 1-2 button spam. The only other time we really are engaged is when we actually do have to heal damage, which is what a healer role is for. I'm hoping that the EN Community Team is bothering to connect the dots here with the JP Team considering Healers may become rare yet again because of this. SGE brought plenty of people into the Healer role alone just because it looked more unique and engaging, but once the 'shiny new job' effects wore off people realized it's the same damage set-up.

Also, I'm going to straight up ask: Are people even happy with WHM the way it is?

For sure. I give the developers a lot of credit for a lot of things, and I think they deserve it. But in this instance particularly it really does feel like the developers have it wrong or at least have a strange aversion to coming forward to the players about why "we" have it wrong. There's just no actual discussion going on. Maybe the developers do have reasons for being so stubborn on healers but, if they do, they need to engage with the community on it.

As I've said before elsewhere, the one thing I do absolutely slam the developers on is lack of meaningful two way communication. They're great at talking "at" us with frequent, straight forward updates and multiple many hour long live streams through out the year every single year. It's great and I bet the players of most live service games would kill for that. But they're terrible at actually talking "to" us. I get that the language barrier is an issue but there are multiple people at the top who at least understand some English (including Yoshida himself), and there's supposedly a whole English community engagement team to bridge the gaps anyway. Right now we're just hoping for a question to be asked in the one or two times a year we get to ask it even if we know that the response to issues like this (or other major ongoing problems like the Viera/Hroth headgear issue) is, at best, going to be a dismissive "We hear you and thanks for the question."

[AngeliouxRein]

Snip…

Also, I'm going to straight up ask: Are people even happy with WHM the way it is?

Well, back then, in game conversation wise, people would hope for more water and wind type of abilities whenever we would get close to a new expansion launch. Otherwise, it seems like WHM mains like the job simple but at the same time and for awhile, have been asking for more things to do. I never really cared for WHM myself so I can’t say much on it except things I would have liked to see added that would actually get me to play it more but eh…

As for communication, it honestly feels like they do just announce things and not really talk to us, mostly. At the last live letter, it felt like the only time they were actually talking with us was when they asked for our opinion on housing lottery. Even then, there’s a chance they were mainly looking at JP comments throughout the entire thing.. But even with that said, JP players have also been frustrated and feeling like they too are being ignored. I don’t know... It feels half bad lol. They listen but at the same time there are many voices. So whatever they do seems to be them trying to meet all those opinions in the center but for healers specifically, they keep shying away from at least meeting us in the middle. AST and SCH changes is what destroyed me the most. SCH could’ve easily kept two dots and bane… and miasma 2, shadow flare… or just give it interesting fairy abilities…

For AST, I would’ve love to see new styles of buffs or the animations of the cards upgraded. Something like if we pulled bole and had to target the grown so a tree would sprout up and add defense buffs to anyone near while at the same time causing a defense down buff on any enemies near it… something epic like that..

[Mapleine]

I just don't get what he really wants. Told we shouldn't have to heal much, told we shouldn't have to DPS, he seems jammed up on where to take healing sometimes

I'd actually be totally fine with the base of the game being reclassified to DPS first, for easier queues (and to accept reality on how we're all playing) but that will require giving us the buttons to do it. I don't see the game ever shifting to a GCD focused healing game, esp with controllers in play so lets just accept where we are and gimmie some fireballs I can throw.

[Jirah]

For devs that are so closely aware of the community, they are still incredibly tone deaf to them.

I’m not even joking that this fever focus on ultimate and there disregard to everything content wise will be the death of me

[AlereRaeder]

I don't see the game ever shifting to a GCD focused healing game, esp with controllers in play so lets just accept where we are and gimmie some fireballs I can throw.

This was confusing because GCD healing is the easiest to do on controller, I'm implying you meant opposite. oGCD healing is tougher because it requires more inputs from the player on the pad. I wouldn't mind having to GCD heal personally. Makes me feel more like a healer when I have to commit to one of those buttons instead of a "random bullshit go" oGCD heal.

On a sidenote, I was exposed to Lucy Pyre's idea to merge Cure II and Medica with the Afflatus abilities if there's a lily available. For culling buttons, because the afflatus skills are essentially moot when you have no lilies available anyways. And also making the Afflatus abilities oGCD. Afflatus on oGCD will make WHM as loose as SCH, easily increasing personal DPS because of the freedom.

I'm a Divine Benison enjoyer, I don't see why players dislike the ability aside from it's duration and potency. It's essentially 500 health potency for free. It could essentially be called Stoneskin and "identity seeking players" would be happier. Also bring back Aero III, and/or Cleric Stance as a buff for WHM :eyes:

[Jirah]

I firmly believe this culling of content and lack of engagement is due to it being easier and faster to develop for and making the routine cycle more manageable. And they will never say this as it’ll be a death sentence for the game to announce its reduction to all, the influx of new players from WOW did not help them either making them a comfy blanket and doubling down on their accessibility rather than complexity and diversity. So much so that they advertised 0.002% content as the only content that’s “engaging”

[AlereRaeder]

I firmly believe this culling of content and lack of engagement is due to it being easier and faster to develop for and making the routine cycle more manageable. And they will never say this as it’ll be a death sentence for the game to announce its reduction to all, the influx of new players from WOW did not help them either making them a comfy blanket and doubling down on their accessibility rather than complexity and diversity. So much so that they advertised 0.002% content as the only content that’s “engaging”

It isn't so simple tho, the original "Prog Mage" AKA the "Pure Healer" was the White Mage for example. Even then, players would avoid White Mage altogether because AST/SCH brought much in SB. I'm a WHM main and I used AST in SB raids.

Homogenization came with ShB, which Yoshida said in an interview why. Not only healer homogenization came with that but also the removal of synergistic actions like Disembowel. You'd be discontent in a group without a dragoon as a brd/mch, never top parse; moreover, the removal of enmity combos and tank stuff. I wouldn't mind having skills back, but SE is too cautious.

Instead of looking at it negatively, look at it positively and progressively. Everything was done for the better of the game. Sucks AST can't give a 10% dmg buff on a SAM for +60 seconds anymore, or SCH can't stay in Cleric Stance because WHM + Fairy have all the healing covered. Shit like that just creates tension

[RinaShinomiya]

Yoshida's explanation was bad then and is still bad now. Basically he identified the problem that AST & SCH like each other too much and instead of bringing WHM up to their level he simply nerfed them down to WHM level. And the problem still persists, WHM hasn't been meta since early HW(?)

Not to mentioned the SCH & WHM meme from that interview has been ran into the ground. WHM doesn't heal more than SCH, WHM overheals more than Scholar. And now we have this fantastic Role that presses 1 button 120+ times to get anything done because they couldn't be bothered overhauling WHM to be competetive.

[ForteNightshade]

It isn't so simple tho, the original "Prog Mage" AKA the "Pure Healer" was the White Mage for example. Even then, players would avoid White Mage altogether because AST/SCH brought much in SB. I'm a WHM main and I used AST in SB raids.

Homogenization came with ShB, which Yoshida said in an interview why. Not only healer homogenization came with that but also the removal of synergistic actions like Disembowel. You'd be discontent in a group without a dragoon as a brd/mch, never top parse; moreover, the removal of enmity combos and tank stuff. I wouldn't mind having skills back, but SE is too cautious.

Instead of looking at it negatively, look at it positively and progressively. Everything was done for the better of the game. Sucks AST can't give a 10% dmg buff on a SAM for +60 seconds anymore, or SCH can't stay in Cleric Stance because WHM + Fairy have all the healing covered. Shit like that just creates tension

You're making an apples to oranges comparison here.

The current Healer design has no relation to how horrendously balanced old weapon type debuffs were. "Everything was done for the better of the game" is completely nonsense. It was done for the small section of players who can't be bothered to read their tooltips and get upset when they can't be carried through content. Healer gameplay is a shell of itself and has seen nothing but massively criticism since Shadowbringers. You cite White Mage and the Healer Homogenization but what actually saved the job was FFlogs changing their formula. Previously, pDPS (personal damage) determined your rank placement and parse. Therefore, selfish jobs like White Mage were a detriment to your numbers, and thus, excluded at the higher end. Were they have not changed to rDPS (raid damage), White Mage would remain very much where it was in Stormblood.