Has anyone quit healing?

[Hellebore_Ghrian]

If we're talking Survey, this was posted on Reddit the other day; https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...er_job_survey/

It's more of a general survey and not specific to healing, but hey.

Maybe this should have its own subject to have more visibility.

[LeonKeyh]

nothing short of a survey will do. enjoyment is qualitative, and the other measures are quantitative and theyre also affected by other variables.

True, but the real question is, "Does the enjoyment of people actually matter?" I mean, yes, it should matter, it's a video game. But it's fairly easy as a company to get stuck in the same mindset that Blizzard did with WoW.

If they made a change to healers, and more people play healers, those people stick around in the game longer than average. It would be really easy to say that the change was a success. Enjoyment is a really difficult metric to figure out because people don't answer surveys the same. You and I could both enjoy healing the same "amount" and I might give it a 5 because I realize that's "average" and you might give it a 7 because we as a society largely see:

<6 - Trash
7 - Below Average
8 - Average
9 - Above Average
10 - Excellent

[IDontPetLalas]

perhaps, but theres so many variables that muddy the picture. every party on duty finder *must* have a healer for instance, and even if its possible to clear with nonstandard comps the huge majority of people will use 2 healers for almost anything on PF that isnt a complete faceroll. adventurer in need is infamous for being wrong. subs are affected by so many factors that unsubbing because of healers alone would be practically impossible to point out. levels also dont mean much from the amount of people who just level things once for completion, etc.

i do wonder what quantitative metric could work for gauging healer enjoyment. queue times? PF fill times? perhaps something like luckybancho's main weapon ilvl? but the devs would have to be tracking every players armory chest for that to work, since just scanning lodestone pages like luckybancho is extremely prone to getting things wrong.

Well, I wouldn't say that it would *muddy* the picture, all of the other roles are also required as well. So it's more a question (and what you call muddying is maybe my just saying yes, some of that needs to be considered) A population survey looks at things like how many people are specific levels in a levels in a certain role, and may extend that to have completed certain content, have logged in since whatever time period under that role, have whatever gear equipped, etc, etc. So that population survey would then indicate some of the factors you just mentioned , since you'd see how many healers are likely just levelled and left in low gear and never run through anything. Then you'd want to look at trends- over time, and between healing jobs.

Survey on the other hand - you have to be quite careful on what the intent of the survey is and the wording, both to make the questions clear, and - depending on the type of the survey - not to introduce bias.So even if you ask what looks to be a simple question like "is your main healing job a healer"- often you'll see a definition added such as - "where a main is the job that you're on at least ......amount of time" to improve the quality of the survey results (hopefully).

[IDontPetLalas]

True, but the real question is, "Does the enjoyment of people actually matter?" I mean, yes, it should matter, it's a video game. But it's fairly easy as a company to get stuck in the same mindset that Blizzard did with WoW.

If they made a change to healers, and more people play healers, those people stick around in the game longer than average. It would be really easy to say that the change was a success. Enjoyment is a really difficult metric to figure out because people don't answer surveys the same. You and I could both enjoy healing the same "amount" and I might give it a 5 because I realize that's "average" and you might give it a 7 because we as a society largely see:

<6 - Trash
7 - Below Average
8 - Average
9 - Above Average
10 - Excellent

Wlll, enjoyment can still be measure- people measure usability all of the time. Think about what makes a job enjoyable, and you can come up with questions.

Not saying mine are good, but some could be related to the job actions-let's say sometimes people complain that they don't feel more powerful as they level, sometimes people complain that they aren't challenged enough in a lot of content . So you could ask someone if they enjoyed levelling, did you feel that you grew and improved, that it got more interesting, your skills got more fun to use (1-10) . You could ask, do you feel that when you run content, you really need to know how to use your skills and you feel rewarded or you could just hit anything and it wouldn't make a difference (1-10) 10 for challenging 1 for any button will do, in fact my cat hits my skills for me.
Again ,

[Renathras]

....

I think some of this falls to different definitions.

For example, when I'm calling out personal attacks, in reply to a poster saying they weren't happening, it's not an emotive outburst on my part. I'm noting them specifically because the post I quoted indicated they don't occur.

As for the "not everyone in groups" - that's valid; yes, every group has their bad actors. But because EVERY group has their bad actors, pointing out the actions of the bad actors isn't something we Humans tend to do in vacuum. People tend to do it to draw a guilt by association with those who are NOT said bad actors. If we run with the base premise that every group has black sheep who make everyone else in the group look bad despite having little in common with the majority of the group, those black sheep more or less cancel out across groups. There's no clear metric determining that one or another has more, and even if there were, it isn't relevant when talking to the members that aren't said black sheep.

So if you mention such members of groups, I'm going to be running with the assumption you mean to imply that the group as a whole is inclined towards such, or has a greater prevalence of them than other groups, as there's really no reason for you to mention them otherwise, I would think. Saying "A few people in this thread are..." is different than saying "People in this camp/group are..." as the former implies rogue individuals while the latter implies some inference about the group as a whole. Agreed?

It's why I try - I don't always SUCCEED, but I do try - to avoid such comparisons and stick to the arguments people make.

EDIT:

As to a few of the other points:

BLUE you can get with fight knowledge. Purple is more based on gear. A SMN as my "emergency DPS alt" sitting around 580 that I ran Aglaia on. Despite understanding the rotation and the fights, and optimizing as needed (e.g. using Titan on Thall's Balls), my parses were generally going to be in the blue range. There's no more fight knowledge or optimization to conduct at that point (though I suppose I could res people less) that will get that to purple. To get to purple, I would need more gear. Purple parses are more gear than skill. Orange parses require both, and sometimes (for classes that have little optimization/low skill ceiling), luck - e.g. Crits. NOTE: This is NOT me saying that purple parses require no SKILL. It's more me saying that a purple parse is a blue parsing person with more gear and GENERALLY a better/less prone to mistakes group. In the case of healers doing Savage/Ultimate levels of content, also having co-healer oGCD plans and competent group use of lining up burst buffs.

EASY content is anything normal. Extremes and often the first 1-2 fights of a Savage tier are mid-core/medium difficulty, not "easy". The 3rd and 4th fights of a Savage tier and Ultimates are generally hard. You're the first person I've ever seen classify Savages into the "easy" tier of content. (NOTE: I've seen people SAY Savages are easy before - usually before being "corrected" by other replies to their posts - but never seen them classified as an easy tier of content...) "Easy" in FFXIV is all normal content, which consists of any MSQ or side story content that is NOT an Extreme, Savage, or Ultimate.

You're bringng up 24 mans as content people are being "carried" through? Why on Earth? 24 mans have long been considered loot pinatas that exist for story and spectacle. When the word "carried" is used, I think most people are talking about Savages and Ultimates. Using 24 mans would be like complaining someone was "carried" through Sastasha normal.

Hard disagree with the "false equivalency". Both cases are an individual saying "If you don't like X play style, you can always just stick to doing only Y content". That is a true parity, and you aren't going to get away with dismissing it as false here.

.

To the last: Which is why I prefer a system that actually does accommodate all types, so everyone can play together. Years ago I played WoW with a casual friends and family group. Everyone knew, irl, someone else in the group and we played together. Some were non-gamers just playing with their significant other while some were pretty hardcore min-maxers. And we kind of made it work. Even cleared some 10 man raids with 9 people. The main issue is that some people just couldn't deal with complex rotations and would have low DPS, but everyone in the group was actually really good at understanding and engaging fight mechanics. We didn't have a meta comp - people just played what they wanted -and we made it work. For the players who couldn't deal with complex rotations, most of them went healer. But because the game allowed for both the complex and the braindead, we were all able to play together, clear content together, and have fun together.

...if you're curious, I was one of the tanks.

Me personally, I prefer systems that let people play and clear content together not that drive people apart.

Hell, even if we went with the gradient system I've proposed, I'd probably end up playing on whatever the medium tier healer is in the end. Especially if there was one with no infernal DoTs! For example, if they made SGE's damage kit RDM-lite, I'd gravitate to that in an instant over SCH having 5-7 DoTs, and probably be a WHM/SGE dual main instead of WHM/SCH as I am now (I upkeep both a pure and barrier healer so I can flex as need be)

I just also know that some people need something more like today to be able to play. And I don't mind that in any way. I have no problem with a person who isn't as good as me being in my FC/party and clearing content alongside me, nor about doing content with someone more skilled as long as I feel I'm contributing meaningfully and not holding my group back. Which is, btw, the reason I never even set foot in a Savage before this tier - I genuinely felt I would cause wipes and waste everyone in the party's time. It took a good deal of prodding from friends telling me Erik isn't really harder than HydEx for me to finally venture into PF for a practice party and go from there. A repeat of my experience getting into Extremes at the start of ShB. Even now, I tend to clear stuff first on WHM if I can and then I'll shift to SCH/SGE after that (though I sometimes do get my first clears on SCH - it's just such a powerful healer and I am really familiar with its overall kit, even if I despise Dissipation...)

I think that's a good system overall. The fight mechanics are complex enough really REALLY bad players won't be able to clear Savages or many Extremes (there are enough "personal responsibility" mechanics to cause wipes in Savages if you don't know the fight, and even in Extremes, there's generally one or two "soft-personal responsibility", like how you can cleave people with Ice or the role-cleaves in HydEx and cause wipes that way that aren't just you dying) outside of some cheese strategies (that people pay millions for carries using) anyway. At some level, you have to know the fight. So that already demands a baseline level of competence.

Indeed, I'd honestly argue that tanks are the role with the least responsibility (ironically...) in most encounters. As long as they're actually hitting CDs at vaguely the right times and not cleaving or dragging tethers into the party, groups can clear content. If you have healers that are just REALLY bad at healing (and some...somehow are, despite all our tools), people will just be dying too much to clear anything.

.

But anyway, lots of words, I'm sure you won't agree to any of them. Though I do think part of our disagreement comes from how we define terms...

[Renathras]

What would constitute proof that players like or dislike healing? Population? Numbers? Is there some sort of metric we could use to see what the general response from the player base is in regards to Healer design?

Basically:

nothing short of a survey will do. enjoyment is qualitative, and the other measures are quantitative and theyre also affected by other variables.

That.

No matter the thing in life, the people who DISlike it are pretty much always going to be vocal, and often VERY vocal about it. This gives an outsized perception weight to their voices. In reality, the majority of people have a "go along to get along" mentality and are content with whatever they have. If they weren't, they'd (in something like a video game where you can just do so) leave quietly without saying a word. This is why MMOs tend to have that "if you're quitting" questionnaire when you cancel subs, so they can see why people are leaving and consider options to address those things. There actually ARE people somewhere that read that feedback and compare it to everyone else.

But in general, the majority of any given thing is either enjoying it or finding it acceptable. This goes for almost everything in life.

But yeah, outside of a major survey that is either open ended questions OR an extensive multiple choice system (e.g. not just a "Do you like X? Yes/No" kind of thing), there's no real way to be sure other than noting how few people, as a percentage of the playerbase, are even on these forums to begin with.

[Renathras]

If we're talking Survey, this was posted on Reddit the other day; https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...er_job_survey/

It's more of a general survey and not specific to healing, but hey.

Well, that was kind of interesting. I agree with some of the commenters there that some things could use some more parsing (e.g. people that have cleared Extremes/some Savage but not the full tier) and some questions are a bit ambiguous (how does one define Job familiarity or difficulty? Sure, part of that is subjective, but for the results to really be meaningful, it might pay to have a bit more nuance there...), but I am still interested to see what the results will ultimately be.

[Absurdity]

Job familiarity is a bit too vague imo, it should have some kind of objective criteria. Since the game basically never tells you if you're playing a job correctly someone could think they're very familiar with a job, when in reality they have no idea what they're doing.

[Risvertasashi]

When I first switched off healers for my mains, I wondered how long it would last. Would I be back after a single raid tier, or perhaps miss it so much I wouldn't even make it through one tier? That even sort of happened, but mostly because my group for the first attempt-to-switch tier had kind of bad healers so I went "let me handle this." After that particular pressure was removed, however... can't really say I've had the desire to return since.

Not because I don't miss it generally, however. I still google now and then, just in the chance there's a game with good healing that I've somehow missed. Maybe healers will have decent impact in AOC? Haven't looked at it that closely. Or maybe I'll just have to keep hoping for some future game to scratch the itch...

Then the recent posts caught my eye that use of healing actions is trending downwards, not upwards. Guess it only makes sense, with SE giving other classes more and more sustain. At this point, it's feeling closer and closer to like I'm playing one of those MMOs that doesn't even have healers in name... which in turn, further sours the appeal of returning to jobs (even though I did get some enjoyment out of Sage's flavor and aesthetics) that are doing less and less in favor of putting out crap damage... Well. Here's to dreams.

[Nethereal]

good stuff

Surprisingly I agree with your entire post except for 2 issues.

I've created, kicked, left FCs, and co-lead with about 20 statics in ffxiv alone and I can tell you there is nothing in this game worth losing friends over for a clear.
I much more prefer groups stay friend groups first, raid groups second as long as they started out that way.
If they started out as a raid group first and know what they signed up for then that's that.

The only thing I'm going to dispute is:

I'm noting them specifically because the post I quoted indicated they don't occur.

If this was talking about the quote you used from me, I never denied people in "my camp" used ad hominems nor was I trying to indicate they didn't.

And the only thing I'm actually curious about is this:

Hard disagree with the "false equivalency". Both cases are an individual saying "If you don't like X play style, you can always just stick to doing only Y content". That is a true parity, and you aren't going to get away with dismissing it as false here.

Why do you consider someone saying: "If you don't like it you can just go play in the corner."
comparable to: "We're going to change the system to more accommodate everyone, it should only lightly effect the group already having fun if at all."

Other than that I got nothing.