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

[SeverianLyonesse]

I don't think that this is true. Fights are still designed around unavoidable damage, primarily in the form of raidwides.

I accounted for raidwides in that, and really raidwides are just occasional forced heal-checks. The vast majority of mechanics in any raid are still going to be dodging mechs.

I disagree that tanks would be more affected. They definitely are affected, but when you look at the three roles and what their primary objective is, only two of them are consistently performing their role at all times. DPS are always lowering enemy health bars, and Tanks are always drawing enemy attacks away from squishier players (which to some extent also involves positioning). Because damage dealt to players is inconsistent and gets even more infrequent with player skill level, Healers are only required to engage with the core purpose of their job sporadically.

Yes, I think that Tanks have less engagement than DPS and have some downtime here and there mindlessly churning through combos. But they still have positioning and mitigation pops and tank busters and occasionally tank swaps to regularly switch things up. Even accounting for raidwides, Healers get maybe one switchup every minute or two where they can toss a party shield or regen out to recover a raidwide, and then if they want they can toss a ST shield on the tank before a TB. Beyond that the only *consistent* engagement they have are occasional tosses of abilities that directly contribute to the game's two central mechs:

1) Dealing damage (SGE directly with a crippled DPS kit, AST indirectly through party buffs)
2) Dodging damage (SCH's Expedient on a 120s CD)

I always find that healing is at its most enjoyable in PvP games

This healing philosophy might actually work better in a PvP setting. But FFXIV is very PvE heavy and that sort of design just doesn't need or want pure healers.

The other point is that most other games seem to recognize that healers don't have to be obligate casters.

The buffing healer is just a problematic proposition. It's not impossible, and there are hints of that being a logical course of action like with Expedient, but, there are two pretty substantial barriers:

1) It would either mess up the balance of four years of content, or otherwise be level-gated as to be irrelevant for anything past level 90. Neither is very attractive.

2) It would almost require a complete overhaul of all the healers. I think the devs said at one point, I think it was with respect to support and/or healer jobs, was that if they could do or raise enough damage to justify being included, other jobs would be irrelevant and discouraged in the meta. Effectively, if a healer could buff the party to an extent as to justify itself over another DPS, then it would *absolutely* be preferred in party comps over other healers and *probably* be preferred over some other DPS. So opening up the "buffing role" for healers pretty much necessitates giving similar utility to all healers if we want them to stay relevant in content.

[IDontPetLalas]

Devs can be biased, and japan having 3 dcs all for itself (a 4th one coming) and all of them have more worlds than any other dcs kinda proves that atleast imo.

First of all, "devs' don't exist in a vacuum. i wouldn't expect that major decisions are not left to the discretion of a junior dev just out of school in an organization and if if that DID happen, it would end up being checked somewhere down the line before it ever made it into a live patch.

Secondly, from what i understand the 4th DC is going to address specific limitations on the JP servers which we do not have on NA and EU. JP has limitations on the number of server connections per logical server. They currently have somewhere around 11 worlds on a few logical servers. they are going to reduce the number of worlds per server and bump up the number of allowed connections per server. If you look at the new server, Meteor, it is actually drawing in worlds from all of the existing servers in jP.

Finally, there will be a new DC coming to NA, if my memory is correct, somewhere around this summer.

[MintnHoney]

Oh, look, a fun, easy guide on what being a healer means in FFXIV these days!

I feel weirdly exposed.

[ForteNightshade]

Remember that one time they made ALL 24-man loot available to ANYONE that wanted to roll on it? That's because in JP, they NORMALLY don't roll on something unless they actually need it, so having it all available to everyone was not seen as a negative thing(at least this is what I read when people were explaining the change). Look how that worked in NA. It didn't. And was quickly reverted once they figured out the rest of the player base wasn't like that. Same could be said about Baldesion Arsenal.

Actually, JP doesn't operate on a Greed unless you need it system and didn't like this change either. They simply weren't as vocal about it as NA but nobody liked it. Hence why it was reverted back so quickly.

In JP it was far more likely for random players to organically make groups in the instance, in NA it was a somewhat of a disaster, resulting in third parties micro-managing them through discord. Hence why in Bozja the BA equivalent wasn't tied to the instance, but was a queue in system.

What's funny about this is JP's attitude towards portal "snipping" was significantly worse. Premade groups who asked people not to take portals were seen as rude. In fact, people actively sabotaged the WF attempt in JP because of this. So while the pug equivalent of JP was better in a sense, NA actually handled Eureka much better. The reason they abandoned this concept going forward is because it was always a horrendously bad idea that caused problems for everyone.

Wasn't Yoshi-P's response to why Blood Weapon did NOT receive the same rework as Delirium(to be charged based instead of on a timer) was because he said he didn't see it mentioned on the forums?

Which was either a blatant lie or whoever handles sending that feedback to the dev team failed to do so because JP has been complaining about Blood Weapon nearly as much as NA.

[Ixon]

Snip

Fair enough. Most what I and others hear is rumor through the grapevine. Though it still does seem that more changes or actions are done more in response of JP than NA. And while I can't pull up specific links of instances, I know a common knowledge among veteran players is something is less likely to change unless it's also popular on the JP forums. Of course that could just be salty players being salty, but I know that has been the general thought of things, with a few occasions leaning into it.

[Semirhage]

I've long joked that Japanese companies hate money. There's some cultural disconnect there that has to do with artificial scarcity, collectibles, etc. If you pay attention to scenarios where a Japanese company is told, "you can make a lot of money if you do X, which requires almost no effort or extra production from you, and probably less money if you keep something limited release or Japanese-exclusive", and you'll find that they go with the exclusive Japanese release more often than you'd think.

See: Nintendo bizarrely pulling a Disney time vault on their old N64 titles on Switch, the statue emotes, the ability to make a very cushy six figure salary as a personal shopper in Japan because so many companies absolutely refuse to do foreign shipping; you can commission one of these people to go out buying stuff for you instead.

[Gemina]

Oh, look, a fun, easy guide on what being a healer means in FFXIV these days!

I feel weirdly exposed.

Fun, and easy? Sure. But a little difficult to value a content creator who assures her viewers they can "fap to her guilt free" because she was born sometime in the 90's.

However, there is no exposition to be had. The state of healing isn't some anomaly in the combat system. The state of healing is a steadfast stance from the devs that they have a clear cut vision of how they want healing to be. On one extreme end of the spectrum, you have those who want heads on pikes for the crime of shoehorning healing into what it is. On the other, you have an entirely complacent set of players who just don't give a crap, and ignore any valid criticism towards the state of healing. Personally, I don't consider either of these subset of players to care about healing at all, but do find value from certain privileges that the healing role brings such as faster queue times, increased sustainability for self and party; and yes, to be able to sit on your thumbs from time to time. You're not going to find these healers in EX or Savage, let alone Ultimate.

Somewhere in the middle you have players who might not see eye to eye on everything, but understand and do care about FFXIV, healing in FFXIV, and the healers in FFXIV. Videos from content creators like Lucy Pyre might be lighthearted and fun, but they also get the echoes stirring all over again. Views take priority over any kind of genuine solicitude.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Oh, look, a fun, easy guide on what being a healer means in FFXIV these days!

I feel weirdly exposed.

"You're just here because the Duty Finder said you have to be."

That phrase killed me.

[AnotherPerson]

Oh, look, a fun, easy guide on what being a healer means in FFXIV these days!

I feel weirdly exposed.

I don't know which phrase hurt me more

"I know that you're still in A Realm Reborn and your single target rotation doesn't change from level 45 to 90, but they told me to tell you to queue for Ultimate"
"So you just died and watched the tank carry the party from 80% of the boss' HP like it was nothing"
"Now you're just here because the Duty Finder here says you have to be"
"I want to say thank you, you are doing a job not many people want"
"Even though several of your job skills are useless enough to never get touched"
"Even though your toolkit works against itself"
"Even though you have too much healing when everything is going well and not enough healing when more than 2 people make a mistake"

This video literally summarized reoccurring problems with the healer toolkit for multiple expansions in 5 minutes or less. I had a good laugh on that video, self depreciating as it is.

[ForteNightshade]

Fair enough. Most what I and others hear is rumor through the grapevine. Though it still does seem that more changes or actions are done more in response of JP than NA. And while I can't pull up specific links of instances, I know a common knowledge among veteran players is something is less likely to change unless it's also popular on the JP forums. Of course that could just be salty players being salty, but I know that has been the general thought of things, with a few occasions leaning into it.

Of that I don't disagree. Which is frustrating when this is not only a global game but NA's population alone is double JP's nowadays. When you factor in EU, who often have a similar opinion, it's a tad ridiculous for them to continuously prioritize JP complaints—especially when it comes to ping. JP largely doesn't have ping issues whereas NA does.