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

[SeverianLyonesse]

If so then I have lakefront property in Arizona to sell you.

Random aside, there are many man-made lakefront communities in Arizona.

[ASkellington]

And this is why Trusts are becoming so popular in the west. People get very upset if they can't clear content in the most efficient way to the point it's no longer a game to them.

Not really...?

Optimization of healers is what some people find fun. Myself included.

I find it fun to test my skill as a healer to see how little I can heal. How well I can juggle dpsing and buffing and healing at the same time.

Optimization period is what a lot of people find fun. For dps in particular it is knowing when they can greed and get out of an aoe at the last possible second.
And I'll be the first to admit I find dps and tanks who can do that and very well to be very good. /shrug

[Semirhage]

And this is why Trusts are becoming so popular in the west. People get very upset if they can't clear content in the most efficient way to the point it's no longer a game to them.

This is a rewording of a popular family of opinions I also completely disregard. My rude wording of it goes something like:

"EW GROSS a PARSER? Reading and understanding things is where I draw the line. Only unwashed tryhard nerds think skill in a video game is some sort of goal. Now excuse me, I need to go back to playing this same video game for seven hours a day. Thank god I'm not some geek like one of those people"

Feigning ignorance or proudly announcing at every opportunity that you don't care how skilled people play your job isn't the sick burn you think it is.

[Melorie]

Well possibly because the players always seem to say: "You are forbidden to press any key that doesn't do damage. If you dare to use a gcd heal you are a terrible healer who should quit the game."

Do they? This sounds quite dramatic for me. I pretty much AFK in most of my roulettes, and I've yet to see anyone asking me to do anything. It happened once, and the person said "hey, use your book".

Most people either don't care or don't have the energy for confrontation in this game. Even in this forum, I've been following healers threads for years and this dramatic tone of yours still is far from present.

And this is why Trusts are becoming so popular in the west. People get very upset if they can't clear content in the most efficient way to the point it's no longer a game to them.

Again: do they? Do you even play the game? People barely say hello, let alone ask you anything inside dungeons. You're projecting your own anxiety and saying it's the overall experience of the game when that's far from truth.

[Ixon]

Add another "WHM is terribly designed and Square Enix did it intentionally I don't know what you're complaining about stupid things are fine as long as they aren't new" on top of the pile of "WHM is a horribly designed garbage baby-tier 11111111111 job and here's why that's a good thing" takes.

Stating "I want WHM to be fun, designed to flow well, and have a refreshingly high skill ceiling while not alienating casuals" is the fastest way to summon "how could you possibly ask for something so insane" out of the woodwork. Yeah, I know the request is insane. Sue me, I don't want to water my requests down to a 5 potency bump on Glare because the job would still be embarrassingly, stupidly, horribly designed. There *IS* no excuse. Small Indie Dev Company my foot. Terrible cashgrab Korean MMOs have more engaging healers. PHONE GAMES have more engaging healers. Redesign. It.

Again, unsure if you actually read all of my post or just trigger type on the first message that hurts your feelings, but I agree. WHM is the most dire need of an update compared to the other three healers. Totally for it. However, WHM will NEVER be the most engaging healer. Ever. It was and is designed to be the most straightforward and simplistic healer. So while I am on board with all healers having a more complex dps rotation, understand that this is the direction to not make WHM more than what it's supposed to be. And I can tell you from a business standpoint, the more hyperbole's you use, the less likely anyone will take you seriously because you will just appear to be over-exaggerating.

On the previous posts, I think people are not taking into account the, let's say, ignorance, the community has as a whole when it comes to how things are played. If you go back a few pages and see my historical breakdown of how we got from A to B, you can see the biggest shift was in HW, where dps became the only thing that mattered as ARR DPS checks were rarely actually a thing. With this shift you saw negative and positive shifts from both the tanks and healer. You had tanks in STR accessories in OT stance eating dirt because they could not do it properly, and you saw healers letting their team eat dirt because they couldn't Cleric Stance dance properly. More DPS, but also more deaths and mishaps from those who couldn't handle it. This was a wide-spread issue because rumors spread like wildfire and people usually DON'T want to be the stick in the mud so they will attempt the optimal play even if they don't know how to do it, which can cause more harm than good. This "DPS is everything" shift also started a trend of, when given a choice between damage or something else, people 9 times out of 10 chose damage. You COULD tank in tank stance and clear the run fine, but DAMAGE, and so on with the other roles and jobs as well. So, in the following expansions, SE knowing full well that no matter what choice they gave the players would only pick damage, started removing the choice entirely, because what was the point?

When it came to healers specifically, I am of the opinion that SE did NOT fully accept that healers were also responsible for damage till ShB. As counter intuitive as it sounds, I fully believe that the devs fully did not design healers in mind to be DPSing during high end encounters(excluding Ultimates), and had given healers more complex dps rotations to include Cleric Stance for mostly solo content and the like. I can already feel the blood boiling of healers reading this, but it makes sense. It was stated multiple times when it was originally asked "should healers contribute DPS to a fight?" that the answer was "healer DPS is not factored into the DPS checks". So coming from HW, when you have OT stance MT's and Cleric-as-much-as-possible healers, in their mind it made sense originally, to take away the Cleric Stance first as you will always have an OT in 99% of situations, but may not always have a let's say an Off Healer. Then after SB when you still had OT stance Tanks, they took that away going into ShB. However, because there was a portion of players who only wanted to heal and did not like the idea of being a green DPS on top of healers having generally the most responsibility in most fights on top of SE finally accepting that healers are going to DPS no matter if they could functionally do it or not, they stripped the healers DPS abilities to bare minimum. I'm not saying it was the best move, but it made sense to SE and makes sense looking at the trend from then to now.

Here in EW we have two major conflicting issues as to how the healers are now. The first is SE has accepted that healers are going to DPS during a fight, however to not have the issue that existed in HW, healers have gutted DPS kits. The second issue is due to the power creep of tanks and healers getting stronger and better tools, healers have not only less to heal, but almost zero reason to GCD heal. These two things have led to healers feeling the most boring that they have ever felt. In my mind, I believe that the most feasible solution is to reduce/combine healer abilities while also reducing tank sustainability, to have healers feel more like healers, while also filling in that space with more DPS options for healers to alleviate their boredom. The only thing we have to keep in mind as players when making suggestions is the direction the game is going. SE does not want a repeat of HW, so we can't go back that far, and I assume they still want to have the game resemble SOME form of the trinity, even though it hardly exists. I would hope this could be something in 6.1, as I feel there is more than enough data to support this change, but I believe Yoshi-P stated that they might be hesitant to make major changes till after the first Ultimate. I don't agree with that, but I believe that is what they are going to do.

[Semirhage]

Again, unsure if you actually read all of my post or just trigger type on the first message that hurts your feelings, but I agree. WHM is the most dire need of an update compared to the other three healers. Totally for it. However, WHM will NEVER be the most engaging healer. Ever. It was and is designed to be the most straightforward and simplistic healer. So while I am on board with all healers having a more complex dps rotation, understand that this is the direction to not make WHM more than what it's supposed to be. And I can tell you from a business standpoint, the more hyperbole's you use, the less likely anyone will take you seriously because you will just appear to be over-exaggerating

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.

[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.

[Ixon]

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.

I completely agree.

Here in EW we have two major conflicting issues as to how the healers are now. The first is SE has accepted that healers are going to DPS during a fight, however to not have the issue that existed in HW, healers have gutted DPS kits. The second issue is due to the power creep of tanks and healers getting stronger and better tools, healers have not only less to heal, but almost zero reason to GCD heal. These two things have led to healers feeling the most boring that they have ever felt. In my mind, I believe that the most feasible solution is to reduce/combine healer abilities while also reducing tank sustainability, to have healers feel more like healers, while also filling in that space with more DPS options for healers to alleviate their boredom. The only thing we have to keep in mind as players when making suggestions is the direction the game is going. SE does not want a repeat of HW, so we can't go back that far, and I assume they still want to have the game resemble SOME form of the trinity, even though it hardly exists. I would hope this could be something in 6.1, as I feel there is more than enough data to support this change, but I believe Yoshi-P stated that they might be hesitant to make major changes till after the first Ultimate. I don't agree with that, but I believe that is what they are going to do.

[ASkellington]

I completely agree.

Now if only we can get the devs to.