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

[Ixon]

What hyperbole? Which part was hyperbolic? I've *played* horrible free grinder MMOs with more engaging healer design. I've objected to this BS for years. I've been polite. I've been patient. I've authored multi paragraph essays on what works and doesn't work with the kit. Square says "lol play Ultimate" to every one of these approaches. They don't care. They've shown they don't care. I'm no longer interested in pretending the game of polite begging for an extra damage spell or two is going to cut it; healer design is embarrassing trash in FFXIV.

"It's never going to be the most engaging"

Miss. Me. With. This. Crap. Until I'm blue in the face: WHM is the only job in the game that players have this mental block. There's always hesitation, always "well maybe fun, but definitely never the most fun no way". It's the only job in the game where people defend this pablum, even when they admit it needs fixing, there's always "well fix it but not TOO much, WHM needs to suck at least a little, it's like a fundamental law!"

"Dancer will never be the most engaging ranged job. It was designed to work for beginners, get over it"

"Warrior is the tank for beginners, I don't know what you expected"

Yeah, I'm aware Square holds this opinion. This opinion blows. Hard. And it's a huge part of the reason why the whole role sucks. Because it's balanced around a job that "has" to suck. You agree with me up to the point of "but WHM has to be awful though", then it's all shrugs. "WHM is designed to be the worst healer" is an asinine opinion for a role designer to hold.

You are confusing "not engaging/simple" with "not fun". For instance, WAR is very, very simples, and not all that engaging when compared to DRK and GNB right? However it's still FUN. At no point at all, did I say WHM had to be unfun or awful. You misconstrued what I am saying and fabricate what you want to hear. All I said was WHM will forever be designed to be simple. You won't win that fight as it's core to it's identity even historically throughout Final Fantasy titles. The dream in general on a design basis is to have jobs whose PLAYSTYLE appeals to a fraction of the playerbase. Some people enjoy the simpler, slower paced jobs compared to the higher paced, more engaging jobs. It is a terrible design choice to make every job as engaging as every other job, and better to have some resemblance of identity and playstyle that differentiates itself from another job. I'll say it again cause you miss it a lot, WHM needs work, WHM has room to improve, but it won't ever become more than what it was always designed to be. It doesn't matter if it's your favorite or not. I like AST or MCH the most aesthetically, but because I never enjoyed it's playstyle, I don't play it.

[ASkellington]

You are confusing "not engaging/simple" with "not fun". For instance, WAR is very, very simples, and not all that engaging when compared to DRK and GNB right? However it's still FUN. At no point at all, did I say WHM had to be unfun or awful. You misconstrued what I am saying and fabricate what you want to hear. All I said was WHM will forever be designed to be simple. You won't win that fight as it's core to it's identity even historically throughout Final Fantasy titles. The dream in general on a design basis is to have jobs whose PLAYSTYLE appeals to a fraction of the playerbase. Some people enjoy the simpler, slower paced jobs compared to the higher paced, more engaging jobs. It is a terrible design choice to make every job as engaging as every other job, and better to have some resemblance of identity and playstyle that differentiates itself from another job. I'll say it again cause you miss it a lot, WHM needs work, WHM has room to improve, but it won't ever become more than what it was always designed to be. It doesn't matter if it's your favorite or not. I like AST or MCH the most aesthetically, but because I never enjoyed it's playstyle, I don't play it.

Yes and no and I think I can finally voice properly WHY.

Healer isn't engaging because all healer has is healing. No buffs outside of bland clones with AST and Chain Strat. This would be ok if healing in fights, if fight design let the healer part be engaging. They do not, have not and will not so long as SE wants it to be accessible.

That's fine... but you need to give us something else instead. Either make healing engaging in content or redesign the kits so we have something else to engage us.

So yes, actually. Healing isn't fun because it isn't engaging because they made it unengaging on the healing parts of a fight and didn't give us something else to replace it.

[Minarisweet]

Yes and no and I think I can finally voice properly WHY.

Healer isn't engaging because all healer has is healing. No buffs outside of bland clones with AST and Chain Strat. This would be ok if healing in fights, if fight design let the healer part be engaging. They do not, have not and will not so long as SE wants it to be accessible.

That's fine... but you need to give us something else instead. Either make healing engaging in content or redesign the kits so we have something else to engage us.

So yes, actually. Healing isn't fun because it isn't engaging because they made it unengaging on the healing parts of a fight and didn't give us something else to replace it.

Even if you voice it very appropiately the devs don't care and the people that disagree because they can't relate won't care either, even the people that play healer don't care much because most healer mains currently play something else or they just don't play the game after beating msq... Fun can't be explained and a lot of healer mains are not having fun and others don't play it much or just play it cuz they need to fill in.

[WaxSw]

Even if you voice it very appropiately the devs don't care and the people that disagree because they can't relate won't care either, even the people that play healer don't care much because most healer mains currently play something else or they just don't play the game after beating msq... Fun can't be explained and a lot of healer mains are not having fun and others don't play it much or just play it cuz they need to fill in.

Even if they dont listen now, they may eventually as long as we keep complaining, one thing is certain the problems won't ever get fixed if no one speaks about them.

Fun can't be explained true but there are some indicators that can help to measure it, right now the healer dedicated forums have for example an ongoing over 100 page thread about healers quitting healing, something unique that neither the dps forum nor the tank forum have and at least tell us there is "something" wrong, there are already logs showing how healers are spamming their nuke hundreds of times, more than any other action in their kit by a wide margin, unless cookie clicker is their idea of good gameplay that also shows there is "something" wrong. Fun can't be explained but if the devs can't see there is something wrong with their design it is because they either lack the experience to do it (which would a be problem because they are the devs) or outright refuse to do it and in both scenarios they need to be called out.

[Deceptus]

Even if they dont listen now, they may eventually as long as we keep complaining, one thing is certain the problems won't ever get fixed if no one speaks about them.

We have for years and the problem has only gotten worse. And when we bring up very specific examples of what is wrong with healing:

• Eden's Gate Sepulture (savage) was also cleared without healers when it was current content.
• The ultimate coil of bahamut was cleared without healers or dps
• The first two extreme fights being completed without healers.
• The first and second normal raid solod by all the tanks except Dark Knight
• A group of 8 warriors killed the first and second savage fight without healers

Our question gets misconstrued and then We're told "Go Play Ultimate" when Ultimate content doesn't even require healers.

Savage content doesn't require healers.

EX content doesn't require healers.

Dungeon content doesn't require healers.

[ForteNightshade]

We have for years and the problem has only gotten worse. And when we bring up very specific examples of what is wrong with healing:

So have Dark Knights and they're finally addressing Living Dead after six years. Granted, I suspect that largely has to do with Sage being horribly equip to heal it in dungeons, which has prompted even JP to be more vocal. But does show if we never stop complaining, they'll eventually cave. Maybe.

I think the argument needs to shift a bit. When Yoshida has an out, he will take it during any Q&A. Or the question will be mistranslated due to a poor summary. Both happened during the LL this go around. Instead of highlighting fights where people aren't even bringing a healer, which the devs can dismiss by citing higher ilvl, being synced down or the tier is tuned larger. We should focus on healers only have a single button, thus making them boring to play.

None of this is to say I'm okay with the healing state, by the way. I'd love if healers actually had to, you know, heal. Alas, it seems the devs are too concerned with little Timmy and Julie struggling. So we have to find something else to focus on first. And I'd rather they address the horrendously boring one button spam on healers first.

[Semirhage]

You are confusing "not engaging/simple" with "not fun". For instance, WAR is very, very simples, and not all that engaging when compared to DRK and GNB right? However it's still FUN. At no point at all, did I say WHM had to be unfun or awful. You misconstrued what I am saying and fabricate what you want to hear. All I said was WHM will forever be designed to be simple. You won't win that fight as it's core to it's identity even historically throughout Final Fantasy titles. The dream in general on a design basis is to have jobs whose PLAYSTYLE appeals to a fraction of the playerbase. Some people enjoy the simpler, slower paced jobs compared to the higher paced, more engaging jobs. It is a terrible design choice to make every job as engaging as every other job, and better to have some resemblance of identity and playstyle that differentiates itself from another job. I'll say it again cause you miss it a lot, WHM needs work, WHM has room to improve, but it won't ever become more than what it was always designed to be. It doesn't matter if it's your favorite or not. I like AST or MCH the most aesthetically, but because I never enjoyed it's playstyle, I don't play it.

I argue against WHM's "yay crayola" job design for a bunch of reasons, engagement chief among them, but it's not the only consideration I have there. I'm sure we both know that HURRR 1111111111111 is wretched, horrible game design. And I won't stop complaining until it gets a LOT less babymode than that.

The other chief reason I argue against it is role balance. Healer role meta, barring a single minor patch or two, has pretty much been "lol not WHM" for years and years and years. And this isn't an accident. The reason it's "lol not WHM" is because WHM is the worst at everything. If not that, it's at least a strong contender in the categories it doesn't get an F in. The DPS role has this idea the right way around: you get utility, or you get personal output. Tinker upward and downward as you please. In many ways, that utility makes up for personal output- in most patches, you don't feel like you're actively gimping your party when you play a RDM, because the extra stuff you can do on the side like the occasional pull-squeaking Vercure, or spamming Verraise, or your party buff is useful enough that you don't feel like a crappy Roseart drawing of a BLM.

The healer role says screw that; WHM gets no utility, garbage damage output compared to its peers, and nothing engaging to manage in its downtime. It's a shell of a job. It has nothing going for it. SOMETHING has to give here. Why the hell have the job exist at all if it's just "worse fill in the blank" at everything? It excels at nothing. It's even been a worse healer than Astro for years, and raw HPS output is a garbage fake "advantage" that it's been touted to have for a long time.

WHM needs to be nuked from orbit. Being "the crappy one" isn't an identity. Its oversimplicity is one of the many contributing factors to this. I'm tired of enjoying the aesthetic of WHM only to be told by the dev team that LOL 11111111111111 is an "identity". Because if the healer role ever gets out of this rut it's in, the Cassandra in me sees the other three healers getting deluxe makeovers, and WHM remains boring and stupid because "it's supposed to be" or "because people like SiMpL". And I'd rather it not happen that way.

[Ixon]

snip

Every role has a "crayola" job, healers don't get a free pass. Most non buff/non top DPS jobs usually fall out of meta in competent, well orchestrated groups, again, no role is getting a free pass. Plus, unless you are going for the top colors or even if you are, meta doesn't mean jack to 99% of players. WHM held it's meta for a lot longer than most of you get credit for in ShB. Go check the top speedkills, they are still there for a decent amount compared to other jobs in other roles with no/less utility/damage. WHM is great for prog as it's straightforward and simple kit allows you to focus more on mechanics than pre-timing heals and their high aDPS akin to SGE is better when your group isn't as sync'd trying to learn a fight. Many World First groups of this savage tier had a WHM. Plus it's the only healer with Bene, making it psuedo mandatory for groups with a DRK.

WHM's simplistic, easy to grasp, kit has it's place in the healer role. Just as simpler tanks and simpler DPS also have their place. This DOES NOT mean the job HAS to be bad, nor does it mean you have to agree with the direction the dev team is taking with your job or role. I am fully aware and in agreement that the healers need adjusting starting with WHM then AST then SCH then SGE. Some people do enjoy the direction since ShB and some don't, and that's fine, that's their opinion. However, when the majority of people here are midcore healers at best(lot's of blues and greens from people complain about an ez pz role), echo chambering "111111111" without providing legitimate suggestions other than "more dps" not backed by any sort of proof as to why those changes would be beneficial to ALL players, from starting out casuals to hardcore veterans, all this just falls on deaf ears. This thread was in a good, productive, "here is what should change and why it should change and why it's healthy for all players" like a few pages ago, what happened?

[Shurrikhan]

Every role has a "crayola" job, healers don't get a free pass.

"The problem is widespread. Surely, despite frequent suggestions as to how to mitigate it, this is proof that the problem cannot be addressed, and thus we should stop talking about it."

Most non buff/non top DPS jobs usually fall out of meta in competent, well orchestrated groups, again, no role is getting a free pass.

Yet this has no bearing even on world first groups, who plenty often just take whatever the hell they enjoy, and the percentage difference between a top-3 performer and a given job has always been far more relevant than the lower job's rank. A 2% difference, for instance, falls within the deviation frequently seen by the same player in the same fight and in nearly the same party, regardless of whether that 'mere' 98% of the top job's theoretical performance would make the given job the "worst" in the game.

I'll agree that "echo chambering '11111111' without legitimate suggestions" or the like isn't great, but this kind of blasé dismissal is notably worse.

A problem being widespread doesn't make it any less a problem; it merely shifts the tenor of how we ought to address it. That there will always be a last place, similarly, doesn't excuse large performance gaps.

________________

Finally, I'll agree that some jobs ought to have a lower barrier to moderate competency (say, being able to solo-heal most Extremes, but not necessarily with great optimization) than others, but that doesn't mean the true ceiling of the job need also be any lower. (That said, I also feel that the relative simplicity of WHM is often overstated, especially given its current underperformance under typical conditions.)

[Reiryuu]

WHM's simplistic, easy to grasp, kit has it's place in the healer role. Just as simpler tanks and simpler DPS also have their place. This DOES NOT mean the job HAS to be bad, nor does it mean you have to agree with the direction the dev team is taking with your job or role. I am fully aware and in agreement that the healers need adjusting starting with WHM then AST then SCH then SGE. Some people do enjoy the direction since ShB and some don't, and that's fine, that's their opinion. However, when the majority of people here are midcore healers at best(lot's of blues and greens from people complain about an ez pz role), echo chambering "111111111" without providing legitimate suggestions other than "more dps" not backed by any sort of proof as to why those changes would be beneficial to ALL players, from starting out casuals to hardcore veterans, all this just falls on deaf ears. This thread was in a good, productive, "here is what should change and why it should change and why it's healthy for all players" like a few pages ago, what happened?

Healers have been giving suggestions for years. Pages upon pages of it. All ignored and dismissed. They listened.... a little in the 3.X series, but after 4.0 it was pretty much brushed off and the role has been going downhill since. It's been a cycle. Healers start commenting and giving suggestions on job action trailer... white knights say "wait till media tour" ... same feedback because all the predictions turned out to be warrented... "wait till launch" still no changes and it's just as people thought it would be... "wait till X.1 patch" still nothing.... "well, wait till next expansion"... repeat... repeat... repeat...

The feedback tends to be 11111 because adding a damage spell or something seems to be the only real thing SE might actually do because they have dismissed just about everything else especially for WHM... for... reasons... *shrug* WHM mains have asked for utility since AST was introduced and we've been basically told "not happening." So... yeah...

Edit... funny thing is... techincally WHM has always been made fun of for this... Everyone used to joke that "WHM out there throwin' their rocks at the mobs lul" since all our main dps spell was Stone... then they're like "Oh, we'll make sure you're not throwing rocks anymore!" when ShB came out... only... they just changed it from rocks to light balls... -__-;