Helare shortage in PF: what would bring you back?

[Renathras]

People were and still are bored of healing. The newest raid tier has shown to be a lot of fun to actually heal from the feedback I've seen.

But that's my point - if the new tier is "a lot of fun", it can't be BORING at the same time. See what I'm saying? Either it's a lot of fun OR it's boring. Generally speaking, things that are a lot of fun AREN'T simultaneously boring to the person who is feeling fun from it. The only way it can be both harder/more fun to heal AND more boring to a person is if said person doesn't like healing. Like if content is more fun to heal but a player is playing BLM, or even RDM with Vercure that they aren't using, then it might be boring to them.

The issue is that PF specifically is getting frustrated due to parties hitting walls and not progressing. It is about the game leaving the players unprepared.

Except PF groups had to use mitigation in P1S and P2S, meaning they were "prepared" for it - by the game. It's only the meta chasing parse thing that has convinced un-prepared people.

Now that those things are required, it's pushing people out of their comfort zone, which is something the community would gradually get used to if we maintain this demand for healing.

But how's that work when healers quit?

People wanting to use their GCDs for damage is not the issue.

Except it IS when they're more focused on DPS burst weaves than on mitigation weaves.

and trying to break from the muscle memory

...which is a result from the parse meta game.

is making it tougher on healers to keep up with the damage while still trying to optimize their DPS, because their DPS is also required in order to beat the enrage.

This sounds awful close to an argument from the Sylphie side of the table, just forewarned. That is, that healer DPS being calculated into Enrages and healers being expected to DPS while healing is a negative thing. (I know you didn't intend it that way, but the argument is not far from it.)

People wanting to maximize the value of their heals so they can maximize their DPS contributions is not the evil that you think it is.

I never have said it's evil. I have said it's resulted in a lot of bad play and perverse incentives being called good play when it really isn't, it was only allowed by bad game/encounter design.

but its other players blaming you when its not your fault that is driving people away right now.

It's probably also making healing "less boring" that is driving people away right now. We don't have any solid poling on this, but players are citing what you said above (being blamed) AND players are also citing the higher healing requirements (being harder) AND people are also (in organized groups/statics that don't have the first problem) citing it being boring - though this group largely hasn't quit healing, they just don't PF in the first place since they have Statics.

And people are also upvoting comments about healing still being boring in spite of these healing requires.

Which, again, makes no logical sense. Well, unless we're talking about static healers.

What percentage of the FFXIV playerbase is 400, btw? What's 400/3,000,000 * 100%?

.

My point is, they've made healing "less boring" and people are quitting in droves. The argument "healing is boring and causing a shortage" no longer adds up. It seems that making healing "less boring" has CAUSED a shortage, not the other way around.

Which also dovetails with what I said: If the people wanting "less boring" healing don't quickly step into the gap and put their money where their mouth was, if there are continued PF healer shortages, then SE is likely to revert the changes, not continue forward with them. So if you want healing being "less boring", those who feel that way, anyway, you collectively have to step up and fill those empty PF healer slots. People who don't want "more exciting" healing sure aren't going to do it for you.

[Risvertasashi]

My point is, they've made healing "less boring" and people are quitting in droves. The argument "healing is boring and causing a shortage" no longer adds up. It seems that making healing "less boring" has CAUSED a shortage, not the other way around.

Which also dovetails with what I said: If the people wanting "less boring" healing don't quickly step into the gap and put their money where their mouth was, if there are continued PF healer shortages, then SE is likely to revert the changes, not continue forward with them. So if you want healing being "less boring", those who feel that way, anyway, you collectively have to step up and fill those empty PF healer slots. People who don't want "more exciting" healing sure aren't going to do it for you.

As has been said - you have to look at why people think healing is boring or otherwise unsatisfying. And when you look at that, you'll see SE's adjustments and what players were complaining about doesn't line up.

Don't blame players here.

Unfortunately, based on the healer shortage and P8S being overtuned, I legitimately worry the next tier will be substantially easier. I just can't see the devs looking at the current landscape and finally concluding it's their healer design which is flawed. Nope. It's just too hard.

But, yeah, probably... Oh well.

[ForteNightshade]

But that's my point - if the new tier is "a lot of fun", it can't be BORING at the same time. See what I'm saying? Either it's a lot of fun OR it's boring. Generally speaking, things that are a lot of fun AREN'T simultaneously boring to the person who is feeling fun from it. The only way it can be both harder/more fun to heal AND more boring to a person is if said person doesn't like healing. Like if content is more fun to heal but a player is playing BLM, or even RDM with Vercure that they aren't using, then it might be boring to them.

You're trying to force a mutual exclusivity that doesn't necessarily exist. I can, indeed, be simultaneously entertained by other fights of a given encounter like its fight design or mechanical divisively while still having the role I'm playing (in this case, healers) boring. In fact, that often happens with tanks.

Take P1S, for example. I enjoyed running it for logs but if asked to rank the fight itself compared to other Savage encounters, it'd be near the bottom. My fun came from an entirely different metric.

Except PF groups had to use mitigation in P1S and P2S, meaning they were "prepared" for it - by the game. It's only the meta chasing parse thing that has convinced un-prepared people.

Not to the same extent they do now. Heavy Hand did next to nothing while we Invuln cheesed Pitless Flail. Even Double Impact only necessitated a single CD if both tanks were stacked, though we usually invuln cheesed that too.

The big difference with the current tier is tanks only throwing up a single CD like they would previously aren't mitigation the subsequent bleed which ticks based on the damage you take. Invulns are even worse. A Warrior who think they'll be clever and Holmgang Toxic Crunch will get absolutely shredded even with Bloodwhetting. They're now taking autos, on top of a bleed which has zero damage reduction applied to it and they're at 1HP. That isn't fun to heal because it inevitably results in panic spamming just to compensate for poor mitigation choices.

Let's not get started on the raid wides, many of which are lethal without mitigation. Something that WHM lacks.

Except it IS when they're more focused on DPS burst weaves than on mitigation weaves.

...which is a result from the parse meta game.

You're cherry picking here. Taurus' immediate sentence after explains this. Healers are used to throwing out a single oGCD and it being enough. In every tier prior, this was the case. Breaking away from that muscle memory takes time. Just like how tanks are having to learn their invulns kinda suck right now.

There were going to be growing pains. Unfortunately, a lot of tanks and DPS aren't being patient with healers having to learn through those pains. Hence why healers are getting fed up.

A damage meta which Square Enix has unintentionally encouraged for years because they're literally made everything else not matter. Suddenly upping the healing and mitigation requirements after three years will take some adjustment time.

This sounds awful close to an argument from the Sylphie side of the table, just forewarned. That is, that healer DPS being calculated into Enrages and healers being expected to DPS while healing is a negative thing. (I know you didn't intend it that way, but the argument is not far from it.)

... how?

The Syphie argument is healers not wanting to contribute any damage whatsoever and to pointlessly heal when it isn't necessary. Healers struggling to optimize their damage output due to the upswing in outgoing damage this tier isn't remotely the opposite of that.

I can only assume you mean to imply healers don't want to heal. Hence the mention of it being a negative. Which is also incorrect. Healers aren't necessarily upset with the additional healing requirements but with their team putting all of the damage reduction burden on them while ignoring their own shortcomings. Say a DRK dies despite having thrown up TBN, Dark Mind and Rampart. They have ample reason to criticise healing. They did their job. Conversely, let's say that same DRK only use Dark Mind... on the physical Toxic Crunch. Guess who they're still blaming?

My point is, they've made healing "less boring" and people are quitting in droves. The argument "healing is boring and causing a shortage" no longer adds up. It seems that making healing "less boring" has CAUSED a shortage, not the other way around.

Which also dovetails with what I said: If the people wanting "less boring" healing don't quickly step into the gap and put their money where their mouth was, if there are continued PF healer shortages, then SE is likely to revert the changes, not continue forward with them. So if you want healing being "less boring", those who feel that way, anyway, you collectively have to step up and fill those empty PF healer slots. People who don't want "more exciting" healing sure aren't going to do it for you.

People are putting their money where their mouth is. Something that hasn't been brought up is Yoshida's infamous response to healer criticism: "Just do Ultimate then." That alone likely caused its own exodus of the role from fed up players who are tired of their feedback being ignored.

As someone else put it, healers take the brunt of the blame for non-mechanical mistakes and their "reward" for being in a good group is spamming a single button 200+ times.

They were always bored even last tier, but it has started to reach a boiling point because the dev team isn't listening. I'd go so far as to argument even if healing is brought back down to Asphodelos or even easier, it won't increase the number healers. In many ways, Sage being the shiny new toy inflated the numbers and now that the shine as worn off, people are finding it more fun to play jobs with an actual rotation to fall back on.

For myself, I still enjoy healing but my enjoyment shouldn't come from how little I can avoid doing my actual job and slidecasting. That's actually what I'm looking forward to practicing in P7S. Not the outgoing damage because I'll have a plan for that but figuring out how to slidecast through Purgation without losing casts.

That's the sad state of healers. If your group is good, you spam one button. If not, you get blamed for their mistakes.