Healers need an overhaul

[Yeastyloins]

I disagree. But just as I prefer sweet desserts and my spouse prefers savory ones, what I find enjoyable in FFXIV may not be what you find enjoyable.

The central conceit of most of the "healing is broken" advocates is that other people play the game and enjoy the game for the same reasons they do. And that conceit is demonstrably false: Even among these critics, it's explicit that within their ranks are people who prefer diametrically opposite kinds of healing (e.g., no-DPS healing versus complex-DPS-kit healing).

Yet these complainers insist that healing is broken as an objective fact, instead of just being their subjective opinion. This delusion and the tendency to hyperbole that it creates is in my opinion the primary reason that SE should not and probably will not listen to these complaints.

If the critics can't understand why I find running SGE or SCH fun even though they don't, their opinion on what's wrong and how to fix it has no utility, because SE isn't making the game just for them (or for me, but I'm not complaining).

But rather than even try to understand why I enjoy it, many of these critics instead accuse me of being incompetent or trolling, or whatever, none of which accusations have any basis in fact. Others do everything they can to silence me -- no doubt afraid that other people will see what I say is true. This attitude is yet another reason why SE should not and probably will not pay any attention to these critics, because an MMO requires compromise and accommodation of differences in the player base, and these critics have demonstrated that they are not disposed to do that.

Have you healed a savage tier when it was current? For example, like did you do P1s-P4s before 6.1 came out? This isn't going to be a "wow you casual rat, go do some real content" type response but rather I am asking this in order to get your perspective of your experience. How you play healers (or any job) in normal content vs harder content can vary and can highlight strengths and weaknesses of designs.

[Silverbane]

Have you healed a savage tier when it was current?

Why do you think that question is relevant?
After all, how much of the subscriber base of FFXIV subscribers don't do savage tier content when it's current?
Not much, right?

Someone posted that end-game content like savage is just a sop thrown to a small number of players to give them something to do until the next content release. If that's the case, then SE making the business decision to keep the vast majority of the subscribers happy by not optimizing the combat system for content that only a small percentage of the player base even attempt can't really be argued with.

So players doing savage and ultimate get to do it with a battle system optimized for casuals, because profitability trumps everything in game design. I submit that if players who want to run savage can't find a way to enjoy doing it with a casuals-optimized kit, this isn't the game for them: you can't get chateaubriand at Red Robin, so if that's what you gotta have, go to another restaurant.

But to answer your question: years ago, I was a member of static and we cleared some harder end-game content. However, because being in a static was more scheduling hassle, drama, and time commitment than it was worth to me, I'm not doing that anymore. So because trying to clear savage content without being in a static impresses me as masochistic, I don't.

But then, I'm also not insisting that SE make changes. I'm happy with things as they are now, I was happy with things as they were in the past, and I'll be happy with whatever SE does in the future ... or I'll find another game to play. Maybe that's just a skillset I have that some others here lack: finding ways to enjoy the games I choose to play, without insisting that the games change to please me.

[IDontPetLalas]

Why do you think that question is relevant?
After all, how much of the subscriber base of FFXIV subscribers don't do savage tier content when it's current?
Not much, right?

Someone posted that end-game content like savage is just a sop thrown to a small number of players to give them something to do until the next content release. If that's the case, then SE making the business decision to keep the vast majority of the subscribers happy by not optimizing the combat system for content that only a small percentage of the player base even attempt can't really be argued with.

So players doing savage and ultimate get to do it with a battle system optimized for casuals, because profitability trumps everything in game design. I submit that if players who want to run savage can't find a way to enjoy doing it with a casuals-optimized kit, this isn't the game for them: you can't get chateaubriand at Red Robin, so if that's what you gotta have, go to another restaurant.

But to answer your question: years ago, I was a member of static and we cleared some harder end-game content. However, because being in a static was more scheduling hassle, drama, and time commitment than it was worth to me, I'm not doing that anymore. So because trying to clear savage content without being in a static impresses me as masochistic, I don't.

But then, I'm also not insisting that SE make changes. I'm happy with things as they are now, I was happy with things as they were in the past, and I'll be happy with whatever SE does in the future ... or I'll find another game to play. Maybe that's just a skillset I have that some others here lack: finding ways to enjoy the games I choose to play, without insisting that the games change to please me.

I read that last line and i couldn't help think about these customers a few years ago - see https://www.ladbible.com/news/ryanai...ilets-20220215 . i wouldn't call that a skillset necessarily, more of a coping mechanism, or at its worst- in some games - thankfully we are not at that point Stockholm syndrome.

[Martynek]

Maybe that's just a skillset I have that some others here lack: finding ways to enjoy the games I choose to play, without insisting that the games change to please me.

The game used to appeal to us, back in... well, up until 2019, at the latest. Earlier depending on who you ask.
Then we had people demanding that the game changed to please them. Something which you're treating as utterly unreasonable, but oh, it's all okay, all wonderful when it's to your benefit, isn't it!
And so the game we enjoyed got ruined to appeal to a far less invested demographic. Naturally, few of them actually stayed around, and of the ones who did stay around, even less of them decided to stay in the healing role after realising how utterly vapid it is.
We aren't asking for everything in the game to be the exact same way it used to be. You can have a nice, simple, easy brain white mage. It would just be nice if we could put together a raid group without making a quarter of the group suffer.