Quote Originally Posted by Renathras View Post
This is probably accurate. And even if we could outline the problems, could we agree on them?

For example, we all can see that healer KITS vs encounter DESIGN don't mesh. But what's the issue? We'd have to identify that to lead to the solution.

To me, the issue is that encounters have VERY STRICTLY SCRIPTED spikes of big damage, and healers (excepting maybe WHM) have VERY POWERFUL oGCD heals. This leads to a situation where healers are DPSing most of the time, and when damage goes out, they faceroll across high potency oGCDs, heal all the damage (or have ticking HoTs to heal before the next damage spike), then go back to DPSing to maximize their parses. This is how the high end gameplay works, and more modern dungeons (old dungeons deviate from this quite a bit, especially before SB, and lower levels, a lot of Jobs don't have those powerful heals yet)

But what's the solution here?

The high end raiding community thinks the solution is "give healers a dps rotation on par with tanks and damage on par with Ranged". Well, that's _A_ solution.

Another solution would be to nerf oGCDs. Why are your "cheap" heals (oGCDs) more powerful than your "expensive" heals (GCDs)? Shouldn't oGCDs be used for patching up the party and smoothing damage spikes and GCDs be what you use to actually deal with high damage? If you look at it from a risk/reward perspective, "expensive" (in MP and time) heals should be more powerful, not less or approximately equal. And we have so many (again, excepting WHM) that healers can generally cover an entire Extreme or Savage fight with oGCDs if they have a proper "healing plan". Why is this even a thing? Healing without using a single MP on healing or a single GCD on healing? Does that seem like healthy game design? That just makes your healers all DPSers that weave an occasional healing oGCD between their damage rotation - which leads to the demands of giving them a more engaging DPS rotation since they're...basically DPSers at that point.

So even if we CAN identify a general problem, do we even agree on the solution?

So how can we ask the Devs to do so when even we cannot?
Say we nerf oGCDs. Say we increase the frequency of outgoing damage. What are you left with?

Regen, Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure. Oh the whole party took damage. Medica 2, Medica Medica Medica Medica Medica. Say, if you put Regen on hotkey 2, and Cure on hotkey 1, you can still have 211111111111111 gameplay!

Even if you were to go back and fundamentally change how encounter design works, the GCD healing kits aren't interesting either. I like playing healers because I like supporting the party and multitasking. Something healing/support jobs often excel at, in many games across many subgenres. I have always included damage dealing as an integral part of that party support, because damage dealing is a crucial part of the whole goal of every encounter: to make your enemies die. Spending the vast majority of your time spamming healing spells is something I have seen almost never in video games. Because the thing is, if you fail at healing, your party dies. You fail. You can hobble along for a long time with suboptimal damage output, but as a game designer you *need* a larger buffer for healing because the penalty for outright failure is that much higher. And you don't want to scare off all but the most hardcore of top-tier skilled players.

Square could increase healing requirements. They could nerf the strength of oGCDs. They could "force" players to spam GCD heals like healers are "supposed" to do. It would be boring, because the GCD healing kits are boring. It would also drop participation, because the minimum healing you have to do would go up.

I'm not against raising the skill floor so it's too scary for people who don't care about healing to get into it. Yoshida and I clearly disagree there. You and Yoshida clearly disagree there. It's fine to sacrifice some accessibility to make things actually engaging. Where we disagree is that I think "pure healing" is fecking boring. I usually play healers in games, but the few ones that make me drop the role are the ones that turn me into a precious helpless princess whose only option in battle is casting Booboo Kiss 4, and running away if the rest of the party isn't there to carry me around. The best designed healers have a wide spread of tools. Yes, they have more focus on healing spells than any other role, but I'm having fun when I heal the tank, then sleep a bear, then poison a goblin, then put the archer in a bubble to keep him alive a few more rounds, then hit an imp with my staff, then throw a holy blast at a demon, then put a regen on the paladin, then banish a skeleton, then deflect some lightning, then roast the enemy wizard in a pillar of fire.

This is an MMO, not a turn-based game. I realize that the above scenario is far too complex for an MMO kit to offer. But there's a grand canyon of options between that an "NO! I don't play to deal any damage! I play healer to HEAL! It's in the name so that's all it should do! Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure is the peak of gameplay! I don't mind pressing 1111111111111, it's not boring at all!"

Not a chance. I'm never playing a healer designed liked that. Because it's boring. I'm paying attention to one or two health bars and making them go up sometimes when they go down. "Healers should spend most of their time healing" is a mentality that makes absolutely no sense to me, because I've never played a game where that was remotely true. MAYBE 50% of their time if the game's outgoing damage is high.

...and you talk about Yoshi P being dismissive to people...

Pot, meet kettle. <_<

No, I want to play a game. But I don't want to play a game as a damage dealer. You know this, so cut the snark a bit, eh? I'm treating this discussion and people in it in good faith, perhaps you should as well.
I've had this discussion what feels like a million times. Healers are multitasker support classes. I don't play a healer to spam Cure spells like a Trust robot.