MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[ForteNightshade]

I see no untruths here. Like, I get it. Literally all jobs that aren't tanks and healers are there, in a large part (but not completely) to move the queue for the DPS majority. Tanking/Healing jobs can't be "hard" because they have external difficulties at the community level ("Pull faster"/"Heal me while I pull faster"). It's the reality we live in by logging into a trinity MMORPG. WoW hasn't escaped it (and when they try it's a mess. See: discipline priests), FFXIV can't escape it. By default, folks DPS. It's low responsibility, high fun. And FFXIV can lean into this because, well... another job is just a button away. Someone will find fun in healing, and a low barrier to entry will assure that more people discover that fun that's there. Making it "more engaging" makes it less approachable, and, well, we're back at the square one of that being bad for business.

Correction: FFXIV chooses not to escape it.

You can make the healing role more engaging without increasing its difficulty. Hence why most healer mains nowadays are asking for a more robust DPS kit comparable to tanks. These buttons will largely go ignored by the pure healers who panic at the slightest bit of damage taken but will improve the overall gameplay for everyone else. Alas, the dev team has refused to entertain the idea out of fear players will make it mandatory. In other words, they're choosing to make healers boring as sin for anyone below average to accommodate a portion of the playerbase who watches Netflix on the side. The irony is their dumbing down of healers hasn't accomplishment their set objective: increasing the overall healer population. Healers and tanks alike have been in constant demand, especially healers despite them being made easier and easier. It stands to reason the boring gameplay has pushed out as many—debatably more—than has brought in.

As for your prior remark about tackling higher-end content if you want a challenge per Yoshida's statement. Said higher-end content; all the way up to Ultimate, changes nothing about healer gameplay. You will still press one button well over 100 times; more than every other ability in your arsenal combined. On a purely anecdotal level, I've been learning how to SGE in Savage and cleared P1-3S while only pressing five GCD heals between all three fights. All of them were in P3S. The requirements are simply far too low at all levels of difficulty. Put bluntly, you aren't a healer in FFXIV. You're a gimped DPS who occasionally heals.

[Omedon]

the dev team has refused to entertain the idea out of fear players will make it mandatory.

Translation: They know how MMOs end up working out.

[ForteNightshade]

Translation: They know how MMOs end up working out.

Evidently not considering the healer population hasn't budged in years despite their constant dumbing down. The dev team is not infallible here. After all, this is the same team which openly admitted they didn't balance Bard and Machinist around the piercing debuff yet were baffled why both were incredibly overpowered.

Regardless, even if we do take that at face value. You're essentially justifying them having a boring gameplay for 1/3 of the playerbase because a portion want to watch Netflix. That's a terrible philosophy.

[Supersnow845]

Evidently not considering the healer population hasn't budged in years despite their constant dumbing down. The dev team is not infallible here. After all, this is the same team which openly admitted they didn't balance Bard and Machinist around the piercing debuff yet were baffled why both were incredibly overpowered.

Regardless, even if we do take that at face value. You're essentially justifying them having a boring gameplay for 1/3 of the playerbase because a portion want to watch Netflix. That's a terrible philosophy.

Seriously why does the community have this grand illusion that the healer rework worked when it hasn’t budged the healing population at all (if anything as a proportion it’s shrunk) all it’s done is just flushed job satisfaction down the toilet