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

[SeverianLyonesse]

The point the healer vets are making here isn't "boohoo I didn't get a commendation". It's "I notice that every time I go into a 24-man, commendations come flowing in if I play like a Sylphie, and they don't when I play with actual skill". Which is a clue that the wider community seems to believe that terrible Sylphie gameplay is "good" healing, and skillful healing is not.

I don't think that is going to change much. Even if we completely revamped healers with the understanding that they are "combat medics," the fact is that most DPS are smooth-brains, and many likely think that healers would just play DPS if that was what they wanted to do. Which is horrible logic, if only because 1) some of use like to do things *other* than DPS or strictly healing and 2) the game is literally designed so that a quarter of us are *required* to have a healing role--"not every little girl gets to be what they want, the world cannot support that many ballerinas."

And yes, I am implying that Yoshi-P is probably stuck in that rut of thinking as well. But I don't think the casual DPS attitude of total healer-obliviousness is ever going to go away. That is asking too much of the population at large.

[Semirhage]

I don't think that is going to change much. Even if we completely revamped healers with the understanding that they are "combat medics," the fact is that most DPS are smooth-brains, and many likely think that healers would just play DPS if that was what they wanted to do. Which is horrible logic, if only because 1) some of use like to do things *other* than DPS or strictly healing and 2) the game is literally designed so that a quarter of us are *required* to have a healing role--"not every little girl gets to be what they want, the world cannot support that many ballerinas."

And yes, I am implying that Yoshi-P is probably stuck in that rut of thinking as well. But I don't think the casual DPS attitude of total healer-obliviousness is ever going to go away. That is asking too much of the population at large.

It's not going to change; that's been the community's view for a long time. It's also an important, revealing piece of information: if you think about the healing role from the perspective of someone who holds that ignorant, smooth-brained attitude toward healers, pretty much every single design choice Square Enix makes with respect to the role falls into place.

It's why I was explaining that pointing to the commendations and going "hurrrr, why are you complaining about not getting commendations" is a mischaracterization of the argument, because it's not about comms. It's about the community's ignorant attitude toward how skilled healers play. Ixon seems to want all of us to agree that healers aren't going to change, that it's not that bad, that we're all a bunch of dramatic whiners making half of it up.

We've been complaining about this since the last half of HEAVENSWARD. Maybe, just maybe, we know how healers work because we play them, and the people making decisions about them or incredulously snarking at our opinions on them don't.