Been seeing a lot of doomsaying in forums/in-game lately

[Jeeqbit]

What happened this thread turned into a battle between if healers are needed or not and reasons to justify healing being boring because people ran stuff in the past with out healers?

Healers are boring, people are not enjoying healing, the content doesn't fit the niche of requiring healers all the time. These are problems. Why would anyone sweep this to the side and say it's fine people did things with out healers before.

We are not necessarily saying that it's fine that it happened before, but we should remember that there were all-tank or all-DPS runs of content even in Heavensward. The reason there is so much hype about it recently is that more people have found out that it's possible and started trying it more than they normally would. Maybe it just requires less skill to do it because at level 90 PLD has strong heals as a natural part of its rotation. When I say skill, I mean knowing your buttons and using them to save yourself instead of just doing your rotation and now a novice PLD could survive with a dead healer without even trying.

[Kes13a]

If there are a lot of unhappy people then something needs to be addressed.

Like, I'm sorry but... Unhappy people on this scale isn't just a coincidence. It isn't a "loud niche" or clique. People are welcome to argue whether or not said unhappiness is being expressed constructively but this isn't something I believe can be handwaved away.

on the forum scale?

there is a very small percentage, in any game, that complain on the games forums. if it is a large scale of people, you see massive complaints in game, where the playerbase usually is.

am I saying there are no problems? am I saying that people are not complaining? no to both.. just saying that I dont see the "scale" that you are meaning. you have been around long enough, and have posted enough, that I am sure you are aware of this.

there are issues with the game, but there is not a SIGNIFICANT number of the player base posting on the forums. just the usual numbers of posters.... so, if thats the scale you are talking about... you may need to revise your idea of what constitutes "large scale"

[KizuyaKatogami]

Oh I'm not ignorant. I do more content than you and it's not what I'm seeing but keep pushing your agenda. Healers need to heal in the duties I'm in including myself.

You do more content than me? Lemme see those receipts then because unless you’ve cleared every Ultimate you haven’t done more content than me. “Healers need to heal” yet most content currently can be done with no healers or only one. Even things like savage and ultimate require nothing more than ogcd healing most of the time and there is physical evidence to show that in any fight whether it be in savage or ultimate, healers are pressing their 1 dps buttons about 90% of the time.

[TaleraRistain]

there is a very small percentage, in any game, that complain on the games forums. if it is a large scale of people, you see massive complaints in game, where the playerbase usually is.

Exactly this. When we had login problems with Endwalker? EVERYONE on my server was constantly talking about it in shout chat, comparing numbers on getting in, etc. The forums here were on fire and so was the game.

[IdowhatIwant]

Problem is that if the devs listen to the really small hardcore playerbase all the time then the other players get annoyed and complain. And it saddens me to tell you that but raiders ain't paying the bills here. Casuals do and especially those casuals which leave much money in the cashshop.

The game will never be perfect for every single player so if you are really unhappy then unsub and play a game that has a better focus on the content you enjoy, for example if you like raiding just go and play world of warcraft. There is no reason to cry for changes when you are obviously the minority and there is no need for the devs to change the game just to keep some few players, who just turn the game on once every 4 months to raid one evening, happy.

And we saw what the focus on raiding does to a game. WoW is struggling to keep casuals playing without the use of fomo tactics and stupid borrowed power systems that are just gigantic timesinks. They don't get that most gamers are indeed casuals and completely ignoring them leads to exactly what you fear for XIV with raiders, except that XIV does really well...like really really well.

And no i don't deny that XIV has problems, every game has problems. The thing is that a problem =/= denying a games core philosophy. If a game is basically made for casuals and a casual playstyle then it is really silly to jump into that game and scream for a change that is not needed nor wanted by the majority. Just play something else.

The whole argument of raiders are the minority gets so old. Ultimates, have higher clear rates than WoW mythic + raids. The savage content on JP in EW has been completed by 46% of players on some JP servers. The highest in NA is 22%, keep in mind, this is just completion based off owning the p4s mount, not participation. So I am not sure where you are getting that raiders are the minority, only NA players strive for all this weird casual style gameplay, because people in NA are weirdos in general. Yoshi P is actually a fan of harder content which he has stated in the past. Learn to look at data, a very LARGE portion of the JP community does the more hardcore content. So to say it is only a minority you are pretty much denying the existence of the JP community.

Balancing the types of content is far more important than focusing on a select group, as not matter what when you focus on a select group of players, you alienate another portion of players. Whether or not that playbase is a minority or majority, when you begin to alienate player communities it causes nothing but problems.

We are not necessarily saying that it's fine that it happened before, but we should remember that there were all-tank or all-DPS runs of content even in Heavensward. The reason there is so much hype about it recently is that more people have found out that it's possible and started trying it more than they normally would-snip

I don't think more people found it is possible, it's just with tank healing it is even easier now. It doesn't really change the fact though that these things should not have been happening as often as they were in current content.

[Semirhage]

Healers are boring because...

Some say its because they only have 3 dps buttons. Some say its because they only need oGCDs to heal. Some say its because they are "homogenized". Some say its because healing requirements are too little.

How do you fix each of these in a meaningful way?

Make encounters have higher auto-attack damage on tanks, more frequent raidwides, harder hitting raidwides, targeted single player hits (missiles from A1S, A11s mechanics, that thing from T10). But if you do these, then that's less chances for healers to do damage, which means they don't need more DPS skills.

I find tanks boring too. They get more DPS abilities than mitigation and, well, tank role type abilities every expansion. I quit maining a tank in Stormblood because of this, having tanked all 3 tiers of Coil and 2 tiers of Alexander.

Healers are designed for a completely different game. They need a core redesign from the ground up. So what if the incidence of outgoing damage is increased? Heck, double it. Great, now I'm spending 80% of my time spamming my one boring damage button over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again instead of 90. The problem is that FFXIV is a game that has the patina of a trinity MMO, but in reality over the years it's evolved to be a game that's only designed by DPS mains to be fun for DPS mains, and maybe there's some tanking and healing for chopped liver over there to do.

People who don't main healer jobs don't get how easy healing is in most content. Do you have any idea how much healing would need to increase to decrease the "chances" healers have to deal damage? Damage dealing windows are so unbelievably more common than healing windows that healers are gimped boring DPS jobs. They're Dancers except the damage rotation is 111111111111111111 and they have ten copies of Curing Waltz that don't interact with one another at all. Healer kits are REALLY badly designed. Their heals don't interact. Their damage doesn't interact. Buttons just do what they say on the skill, with barely any synergy. There are too many oGCDs, and the GCDs are boring too. There's basically no utility to manage outside AST's cards. You're designed like a crap DPS job for people too stupid to maintain an actual rotation, because the people designing your job think slapping another AOE gigaheal on your class every single expansion is "good enough".

This has been building for a long time, and there isn't an easy solution.

[hagare]

Rule#1 You don't come to the forums if you're okay.

is that why you keep necroing years old dead threads? xD

[Nethereal]

they have ten copies of Curing Waltz that don't interact with one another at all. Healer kits are REALLY badly designed. Their heals don't interact. Their damage doesn't interact. Buttons just do what they say on the skill, with barely any synergy. There are too many oGCDs, and the GCDs are boring too. There's basically no utility to manage outside AST's cards. You're designed like a crap DPS job for people too stupid to maintain an actual rotation, because the people designing your job think slapping another AOE gigaheal on your class every single expansion is "good enough".

I've been dulled over the years from this games healing that sometimes I forget that healing abilities in games with good healing actually interact with each other.

[JanVanding]

Ahh I see people saw the YouTube video and are calling the sky falling.

I'll repost here what I put in the Reddit thread.

"Games' too easy"

Meanwhile DSW.

If anything, I think there's a lot to be said about Simplifying kits so they can focus more resources into mechanics and making the more difficult content to challenge the player base.

The less time you spend looking at your hot bar is more time you can dedicate to looking at mechanics on the screen.

It's on the Dev team to find a balance where kits are still rewarding, flavourful and fun to use but not cut back to total over-simplification that they're dull to play and not at all rewarding.

sometimes they'll get it right (MNK) sometimes they won't (SMN) and that's why we provide feedback.

Edit: He also comes off as a bit of an elitist and suffering from Rose Tinted glasses.

Accuracy Sucked

Cleric Stance wasn't some wonderful cooldown, it was annoying and as someone that played WHM in ARR, I'm glad it's gone.

Failing a pull and having to stand and wait for your cooldowns wasn't good for the long term health of the game, at all

Savage didn't become supremely easier suddenly, we just going to ignore God Kefka, Omega and Final Omega?, players became better and markers came in which made it easier.

Edit 2: Furthermore, several of those games he mentioned about having "High skill ceilings" have considerably less buttons, let's take the Souls' series for example.


What gives the Souls' series its difficulty? The extremely punishing fights, the fights are designed to be hard and challenge you to gain a basic level of consistency with the simple kit you are given (high skill floor) yet it's the subtle adjustments with that simple kit that make the skill ceiling. It's called "Complex Simplicity".

It was a bad faith argument taking small parts of a fact and distorting them to fit a narrative.

It was a bad video, designed to get clicks and create outrage.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Ahh I see people saw the YouTube video and are calling the sky falling.

I'll repost here what I put in the Reddit thread.

"Games' too easy"

Meanwhile DSW.

If anything, I think there's a lot to be said about Simplifying kits so they can focus more resources into mechanics and making the more difficult content to challenge the player base.

The less time you spend looking at your hot bar is more time you can dedicate to looking at mechanics on the screen.

It's on the Dev team to find a balance where kits are still rewarding, flavourful and fun to use but not cut back to total over-simplification that they're dull to play and not at all rewarding.

sometimes they'll get it right (MNK) sometimes they won't (SMN) and that's why we provide feedback.

Edit: He also comes off as a bit of an elitist and suffering from Rose Tinted glasses.

Accuracy Sucked

Cleric Stance wasn't some wonderful cooldown, it was annoying and as someone that played WHM in ARR, I'm glad it's gone.

Failing a pull and having to stand and wait for your cooldowns wasn't good for the long term health of the game, at all

Savage didn't become supremely easier suddenly, we just going to ignore God Kefka, Omega and Final Omega?, players became better and markers came in which made it easier.

Edit 2: Furthermore, several of those games he mentioned about having "High skill ceilings" have considerably less buttons, let's take the Souls' series for example.


What gives the Souls' series its difficulty? The extremely punishing fights, the fights are designed to be hard and challenge you to gain a basic level of consistency with the simple kit you are given (high skill floor) yet it's the subtle adjustments with that simple kit that make the skill ceiling. It's called "Complex Simplicity".

It was a bad faith argument taking small parts of a fact and distorting them to fit a narrative.

It was a bad video, designed to get clicks and create outrage.

One small piece of content that gets an update once a year isn’t enough lol. People want more difficult mid core content. As it is right now jobs are objectively getting simplified but the problem is more in depth right now. It’s jobs skill floor and ceiling behind brought down as opposed to what it could be which is skill floor gets brought down but skill ceiling is increased. The devs are being lazy and giving changes no one asks for and just butchering jobs.