The State of Homogenization: A New (Healer) Player's Perspective

[Poporito_Popoto]

New? Most FFXIV players can't even imagine what the game would be like if it were different from how it is now because they're new and 99% of coverage of ff14 is positive to an outrageous degree that is IMO completely unjustified, or if they're not new they're so bought into EVERYTHING the dev team does because in their eyes they can do no wrong, even though they've shown quite a bit recently (and in the past) that they change stuff for the worse regularly, or in general just seem disconnected from what players actually want, and just push for more homogenization (see: hissatsu kaiten removal, trick attack/mug change, everything they've done with healers/most jobs in general since shadowbringers)

Or they either simply like the changes or don't care and continue to support it.

[Allegor]

It’s unfortunate you didn’t get to experience healing pre-Shb. Healing used to be so fun, AST was amazing, we had all the cards and time magic and 2 sects. SCH actually had 2 diff fairies entirely, not just in looks. More dps, just far more interesting all over. They have really gutted healers bad and healer community has been screaming on deaf ears for years to no avail. Devs have ignored them entirely and continue to butcher the jobs and the game to the point it’s not fun or interesting to even new people. Are they too dumb to realize they are killing the game? Do they just not care and only care about the money? We don’t know? But as long-term players SO MANY of us share your frustration.

To put the situation in a nutshell, healers are designed to appeal to people who, for the most part, don't even want to play a healer in an attempt to drawing more people to the role, without realizing - or perhaps caring - that veteran healers, those who actually like to play healers, are simultaneously leaving - they're not expanding the healer population, just.... cycling through it?

[AetherStar_26]

If you find healing boring, you should play and experience Savage/Ultimate content as a healer. If the devs didn't simplify healing, it would lead to a very large pool of players being very ineffective at healing to the point that ppl probably wouldnt be able to complete normal mode content reliably

[Maltothoris]

If you find healing boring, you should play and experience Savage/Ultimate

Tell me then, why should we be bored in 95 percent of the content then? It’s such an asinine argument to be making especially since savage and ultimate still fall under their fight design meaning that the fights and the damage done in those fights are scripted.

[Payadopa]

Healing was the same (it was spam 1 button for damage except on SCH), most of the AST cards were useless or sub-optimal so you were shuffling them like you do now when the symbol is wrong, the choice of fairy was mostly pointless because you just choose the best one.

Keep your 'suboptimal' to yourself, please.
I'm not playing that game. I don't approach my gaming experience with an excel spreadsheet. And I never thought I'd say this, but I enjoy PvP. And you know why? Because I actually feel like I have an identity. If SE starts to homogenise PvP I'm out. lol

[Recon1o6]

If you find healing boring, you should play and experience Savage/Ultimate content as a healer. If the devs didn't simplify healing, it would lead to a very large pool of players being very ineffective at healing to the point that ppl probably wouldnt be able to complete normal mode content reliably

Plenty of healers do that and guess what?

Pressing Dosis for 200 times a fight is just as boring in savage as it is in normal content.

[ASkellington]

If you find healing boring, you should play and experience Savage/Ultimate content as a healer. If the devs didn't simplify healing, it would lead to a very large pool of players being very ineffective at healing to the point that ppl probably wouldnt be able to complete normal mode content reliably

Go click on to the second quote I have in my signature and read that whole post. That is my response.

Also this:

My response to "go do ultimate" is,

okay, so when do healers get to automatically start at the level cap of each expansion since it seems you do not want us to enjoy the other 90% of the game?

I have done the MSQ as a CNJ to WHM to AST when I got to HW and stayed AST all the way to EW. It is boring. Doing solo duties when you only have 2 abilities (4, now I guess with the occasional Lord of Crowns and ES) is beyond tedious. And unlike ESO where they get to have the excuse of "play magical dps until group content" CNJ doesn't get to do that until 15.

Saying to "play dps to get to MSQ" doesn't wholly disregard the fact that if I want to play a healer I got to level it. Y'know. Dungeon content? Or Deep Dungeon content? Or Fates? All of which are boring on healer if you have a competent group.

Bottom line is no class in this game should only find fun at the highest tiers of difficulty.

Healer as a role needs to be fixed whether the devs like it or not. We have 2 dps options for the most part for 86 levels and not enough damage being dealt because SE doesn't want to stress out healers to make our 8-10 healing buttons worth a damn.

[Elesh]

Wow.. that didn't take long to be said... is this the new lazy buzz phrase of argument on these forums lately?

Not meaning to be dismissive or tell him 'just go away and never ask for change'... but the game is what it is. They're never going to make this game Lost Ark. It's just not going to happen. The devs are very clearly content with the type of combat design they have(and they have an audience of players who appreciate what it is)... and trying to get them to reinvent the wheel to turn this game into something it isn't is futile.

Sometimes the best decision you can make is to recognize when what a game is... isn't right for you and move on. And if a game's fundamental combat design from the ground up is really that boring to you... maybe that's the lesson you should take away from it.

Edit: And to be clear, I am not saying that no changes should be made to healing. I've said on-stream as well as in other posts recently on the forums that I'd love if they added a little bit of extra variance to the moment to moment gameplay of healing. But... they're never going to make this game into what other MMOs do for combat. Because that's not what this game is. It's going to be rotational, it's going to be fairly - to use the most polite term - stable. Because that's how they keep things balanced. The variance in this game is not primarily in the moment to moment act of playing your class but in interacting with the mechanics of the boss. And that's an acquired taste that not everyone is going to like. And if you don't... you're not wrong for not liking it... but the game may not be right for you.

[Kuritzkale]

they're never going to make this game into what other MMOs do for combat. Because that's not what this game is. It's going to be rotational, it's going to be fairly - to use the most polite term - stable. Because that's how they keep things balanced. The variance in this game is not primarily in the moment to moment act of playing your class but in interacting with the mechanics of the boss. And that's an acquired taste that not everyone is going to like. And if you don't... you're not wrong for not liking it... but the game may not be right for you.

Nobody is asking the devs to turn this game into something it isn't. Nobody is asking for the game to not be "rotational", they're asking for the game to be more like what it once was, before shadowbringers (and then endwalker) completely gutted multiple jobs and entire roles. And if not that, at least some variety in gameplay. There can be difficult and easy jobs, and they don't have to take jobs that WERE complex and took some thinking to use properly and turn them braindead (like summoner). And I don't know how you can say variance in gameplay in ff14 is supposed to be from interacting with the mechanics of bosses, because the VAST MAJORITY of the content in this game is braindead easy, and there are jobs (really just BLM atm) that show that the devs CAN make variance in gameplay come from the moment to moment act of playing your job.

[SieyaM]

Healing was the same (it was spam 1 button for damage except on SCH), most of the AST cards were useless or sub-optimal so you were shuffling them like you do now when the symbol is wrong, the choice of fairy was mostly pointless because you just choose the best one.

Selene's Fey Wind may have not been good but what I wouldn't give for an AoE esuna again.