Healers need an overhaul

[KageTokage]

A happy medium where GCD heals aren't almost completely ignorable while also making DPS kits less dull would be ideal to me.

[Semirhage]

I already did though? Either you missed my point or you actually didn't read them.

I already stated:

- I am actually green DPS. I don't like it much, but I'm fully conform to the gaming norm. When I'm in party I will make sure I play to the most efficient as the class/role designed for, regardless of my opinion.

- That the games for years had been designed to ingrain the players base with the green DPS mentality.


I merely mentioned "traditional healing" as my prefer preference, as my wish and dream how the game would be designed. I think people are so vitriol and hostile toward my reference that they just skimped through and press me on stuffs that I had never said. To be clear, if you're in my Algaia run and you spam medica, I would consider you griefing. While I would not initiate the vote kick, I wouldn't blink if the party decide to kick you either. I do not ask people to spam heal in current contents. I wish content would be designed where spamming heal is a necessity.

Is ... that ... clear?

There's a litany of things wrong with the halcyon days of "traditional healing" as it's bizarrely defined by the Sylphie crowd.

First, that's not how "healers" work in the vast majority of RPGs. When's the last time you played something other than an attrition healing model MMO where the goal was to spam healing spells as often as possible? Healing is a means, not an end. You perform that task until it's done, and then you return to doing something productive. If that amount of time is half the fight, then it's half the fight. If it's two GCDs out of an entire 11-minute encounter, then it's two GCDs. Like it or not, there will always be downtime. If there weren't, the role would be the hardest in the game by a country mile. You'd have to play perfectly in order to keep the party alive, and Yoshida is plainly uninterested in doing that (as am I). He wants people who aren't skilled at the role to be able to pick it up. Large windows of downtime aren't some boogeyman people who are actually good at healing invent from thin air. They're the logical outcome to the existence of a skill allowance.

Second, spamming healing spells is boring. This game's healing kits, with VERY few exceptions, aren't interesting at all. They don't interact with one another. They're a hodgepodge of "push health bars rightward" spells. What's the meaningful difference between Druochole and Taurochole? I don't mean the potency difference or the small mitigation on one of them, what's the meaningful difference between them? Oh, they do basically the same thing, and the content in which the game will punish you for choosing one over the other barely exists? Yeah. Afflatus Solace and Tetra? Who cares? Healing in this game for more than a GCD or two at a time boils down to entertainment barely above Medica, Medica, Medica, Medica. It's so engaging I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

What is this ludicrous balking at making the downtime interesting in the slightest? Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare is B O R I N G. It's boring. I'm going to be doing it whether the healing requirements are Expert Roulette levels of pathetic or "so very engaging" like the current savage. Dedicating a few more of my GCDs to dipping into the boring, noninteractive healing kit isn't how you make healing engaging. You create kits that have actual interactivity and choices. But that's the exact opposite of CBU3's design philosophy when it comes to the combat system for the last several expansions, so instead they listen to the crowd screaming "the problem with healers is that they're not HEaLiNg enough!". Yeah, that's the problem. Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare will totally be fixed if I have to throw a Medica 2 in there somewhere. The "DPS healer mentality" isn't something ingrained by the developers, it's how a skilled healer plays in any RPG. Overhealing is stupidity. Performing useful tasks is how you gain skill. This is how logic works, not some spooky "mentality".

Also what's this hilarious BS about "MP management" on WHM? A job would have to have choices in their kits in order for MP management to be interesting at all. There's nothing interesting about Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare whoops I'm out of MP just from making the singular correct choice available to me.

[Rolder50]

First, that's not how "healers" work in the vast majority of RPGs. When's the last time you played something other than an attrition healing model MMO where the goal was to spam healing spells as often as possible? Healing is a means, not an end. You perform that task until it's done, and then you return to doing something productive. If that amount of time is half the fight, then it's half the fight. If it's two GCDs out of an entire 11-minute encounter, then it's two GCDs. Like it or not, there will always be downtime. If there weren't, the role would be the hardest in the game by a country mile. You'd have to play perfectly in order to keep the party alive, and Yoshida is plainly uninterested in doing that (as am I). He wants people who aren't skilled at the role to be able to pick it up. Large windows of downtime aren't some boogeyman people who are actually good at healing invent from thin air. They're the logical outcome to the existence of a skill allowance.

I mean, there's a good example with WoW, both the retail and classic versions. Heck knows I actually enjoy healing in those games because it has that model. In retail it's still more or less expected that you do damage with downtime if mana permits but those occasions are few and far between. Of course it helps that the groups over there are more dynamic, and if you have too many healers for a fight you can have them swap to their DPS spec no problem. Parses are also generally ranked on amount of healing done, rather then damage, which is nice.

[Semirhage]

I mean, there's a good example with WoW, both the retail and classic versions. Heck knows I actually enjoy healing in those games because it has that model. In retail it's still more or less expected that you do damage with downtime if mana permits but those occasions are few and far between. Of course it helps that the groups over there are more dynamic, and if you have too many healers for a fight you can have them swap to their DPS spec no problem. Parses are also generally ranked on amount of healing done, rather then damage, which is nice.

That's my point: WoW is an anomaly. Next time you pick up, say, Final Fantasy [fill in the blank], clock how much time you cast healing spells versus doing anything else. Pick up something with the RPG tag from Steam or GoG. It could be Divinity, or Pathfinder, or Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, any Bethesda RPG, Tales game, Witcher, Fable, Dragon Age, you name it. When people play these games, they tend to *get* it. Your characters defeat their enemies and save the day. Sometimes your healer spent a little more time than usual healing. Frequently, they were blasting demons instead. I've never heard of anyone shrieking "NO! Why does Wynne from Dragon Age have dirty attack spells!? She's a HEALer! She should be HEALing! What ever happened to Traditional Real Healing where HEALERS HEALED?" Nobody's said that because that's ridiculous. Everyone -knows- how healers generally work. Until they turn it upside down because they want FF14 to be WoW.

[Midareyukki]

That's my point: WoW is an anomaly. Next time you pick up, say, Final Fantasy [fill in the blank], clock how much time you cast healing spells versus doing anything else. Pick up something with the RPG tag from Steam or GoG. It could be Divinity, or Pathfinder, or Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, any Bethesda RPG, Tales game, Witcher, Fable, Dragon Age, you name it. When people play these games, they tend to *get* it. Your characters defeat their enemies and save the day. Sometimes your healer spent a little more time than usual healing. Frequently, they were blasting demons instead. I've never heard of anyone shrieking "NO! Why does Wynne from Dragon Age have dirty attack spells!? She's a HEALer! She should be HEALing! What ever happened to Traditional Real Healing where HEALERS HEALED?" Nobody's said that because that's ridiculous. Everyone -knows- how healers generally work. Until they turn it upside down because they want FF14 to be WoW.

"Your characters defeat their enemies and save the day."
Dragon Age: Uhhh.... kiiiind of? And then your wolf boyfriend cutely chops off your hand and says 'bye felicia, see you at the apocalypse' while everyone stares at you like you should have dated them instead if you wanted to be fine

The issue isn't just that in traditional games "healers heal". In FF14, White Mages are the quintessential "Healers heal". Yet if you check out White Magic...

The only other times I see full support healers in RPGs as far as I can remember, they've been borderline useless. The only exception is if their repertoire is that strong and brings in more than just an HP refill.

Dedicated healers are few and far between in FF, and when they exist, they exist as a consequence of the design of the game:
- FF3 White Mages and Devouts were dedicated healers with access to Aero and Holy.
- FF5 had White Mage as a dedicated healer with Time Mage able to cast regen. Tactics also had this system but with a few more classes.
The purpose of these two was to eventually replace them. Either with a more freeform mage (Sage/Onion Knight) or to apply their skills to Freelancer and meld them with another jobs' skills.
- Aerith is the quintessential WHM figure but she's got access to offensive magic due to the way Materia works.
- Garnet and Eiko were White Mages but had access to Summons. The same goes for Yuna in 10, though by endgame your Sphere Grid allowed you to do stuff other characters did.
- White Battlemage in the Zodiac Job System allowed for a more traditional path, but even that isn't enough. Halfway through you could take on a second job to add to WHM. Same with the Dressphere system in 10-2, where you could change jobs mid-battle.

The only pure healer that doesn't learn a single offensive skill and isn't "replaced" necessarily are Rosa and Porom from FF4, whose only offensive tool is Holy. They're otherwise just there to keep the party alive.

But it made sense for FF4 to have this. It's a very traditional turn-based RPG with a limited roster. You can't exactly change jobs in this game (DRK Cecil doesn't count), and your party members come and go often. So having a healer around is always valued. But even then, this system shows it doesn't require following such strict rules. FF6 then takes this approach, but gives the healers more variety, showing that pure healers aren't a requirement of these systems at all. And as I said before, even when there ARE dedicated healers, they still do more than refill your HP and revive you.

14 is an MMO even if it's an RPG. It doesn't need to be limited to the design philosophy of old-fashioned single-player games.

[VentVanitas]

Frankly, my problem is not really about healing itself, but more about role indentity. Right now there are so much conflation between roles that it both make it a balancing nightmare and a messy ball of unclear purpose. The Green DPS issue is merely the poster child of the issue, but hardly the only issue. My solution, in full, is actually very radical:

- Take away all party wide buff from DPS. Make them all selfish DPS. They're in charge of their own optimization and no one else. Also, remove stuff like fient and addle.

- Tank should only be in charge of personal defensive cool down, and maybe debuff the boss. They should not be double up duty to party wide mitigation.

- Support classes (p.range) should have the exclusive job as buffing the party, they should be the only one with party wide buffs.

- Remove majority if not all but the most basic self healing (i.e second wind) from all classes.

- Healers should be exclusive in charge of healing and raid wide mitigation.


I feel this way you can amp up the complexity and difficulty for each "role" that is unique to them. Instead of this melting pots "everyone does everything just some better than the others with DPS the only true go to".

I see you did not at all mention that tanks are just fat DPS and your only change to them was removing party wide mitigation. So you're fine with the majority of a tank's kit being dedicated to DPS? Because you realise that it's stupid to have a tank with ~3-ish attacks and everything else being dedicated to aggro or mitigation, right? So why are healers so special that green DPS is considered problematic and conflates identity between roles when blue DPS isn't given the same treatment?

They're never going to change fight design to suddenly require healers to dedicated most of their time to healing. That's never been the way the game has worked at any point. DPS has always been everyone's responsibility. Suddenly amping up healing requirements would not change this.

[Raven2014]

That's my point: WoW is an anomaly. Next time you pick up, say, Final Fantasy [fill in the blank], clock how much time you cast healing spells versus doing anything else. Pick up something with the RPG tag from Steam or GoG. It could be Divinity, or Pathfinder, or Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, any Bethesda RPG, Tales game, Witcher, Fable, Dragon Age, you name it. When people play these games, they tend to *get* it. Your characters defeat their enemies and save the day. Sometimes your healer spent a little more time than usual healing. Frequently, they were blasting demons instead. I've never heard of anyone shrieking "NO! Why does Wynne from Dragon Age have dirty attack spells!? She's a HEALer! She should be HEALing! What ever happened to Traditional Real Healing where HEALERS HEALED?" Nobody's said that because that's ridiculous. Everyone -knows- how healers generally work. Until they turn it upside down because they want FF14 to be WoW.

First, RPG and MMORPG are two distinct gene. You dismiss WoW (an actual MMO) as a anomoly, yet using a bunch of single player to make your case ... how does that even make sense?

Second, WoW is definitely not an anomaly. If anything, it is the NORM in that regard. Start War Old Republic use it. Tera is meme for it over-exposure armor but generally considered having the best combat system in MMO use it. The healing in Tera is a battle in itself, and that's not because they have to DPS. While I won't say FF14 is the exception when it comes to green DPS, its model is definitely on the minority side among all the relevant MMO.

Also the irony is in almost half of those games (the D&D style ones), healers main purpose is a buff bots, heal second, and DPS is a distant third only useful late game with a min/max build. I enjoy those games a lot. Path 1 + 2 together clocked in 1000h for me on steam. But no, keep those healers away from my MMO please.


On unrelated note: my observation on this forum about WoW is it seems to be like a certain ex-president. Both the people who hate it and love it seem can't help but let it live rent free in their head. It's always funny seeing two sides gaslighting each other over it.

[Raven2014]

I see you did not at all mention that tanks are just fat DPS and your only change to them was removing party wide mitigation. So you're fine with the majority of a tank's kit being dedicated to DPS?

I said green DPS is the poster child of the problem, not the only part of the problem, or did you miss that part? If you want to remove DPS ability from tank, I will support you with both hand and feet. In fact, if anything your inquiry just simply illutraste my point in that everything in this game is funneling into DPS as the one and single metric that matter. Just like Piety is ignored on healer, the fact that battledance is also a hot potato stat despite it's supposed to be a tank stat further show the disconnect between class design and fight design.

Because you realise that it's stupid to have a tank with ~3-ish attacks and everything else being dedicated to aggro or mitigation, right? So why are healers so special that green DPS is considered problematic and conflates identity between roles when blue DPS isn't given the same treatment?

Read above, the only thing I realize is the battle for tank having unique identity were also fought and lose after they remove stance and aggro management. When I talk to a tank these days, if they don't mention the class the thing they focus on would make them almost indistinguishable from a DPS.

That's exactly my issue with class design, every other role are stripped of its identity to eventually merge into the only one thing that matter, DPS. Blue DPS or Green DPS, same difference to me.

[Zebraoracle]

Man this just makes me miss healing in Guild Wars 1...

Generally, outside of some weird creative build, healers didn't do much damage other than auto attacking. However, healing was WILD in that game, there were so many creative tools to do it. Shoot, monks in particular, with their protection skill set, didn't even focus on healing so much as they focused on buffing allies with damage prevention stuff. Pure healing monks had to come up with builds to let them keep blasting their heals (so if your skills didn't work together, you were gonna be fairly useless). Ritualists had interesting healing tools, especially summoning spirits that healed or prevented damage. And then you had wonky builds where an elementalist would take a bunch of monk protection spells and do extremely well because of a specific elementalist skill, or necromancer support builds that healed both health and energy (mp/mana/etc). GOSH that was a fun time, that game was truly ahead of its time.

[EaMett]

I don't understand how FFXIV went from having some of the most fun healing gameplay a couple of expansions ago, to the absolute worst. I feel like a proper post-mortem would need to be done within SE to figure out what led them down this odd path.
I'm also going to add that the constant mashing of the single DPS button also takes its toll on input devices. It's less of an issue on controllers since these behaviors are tested for, but keyboards take a real beating. 1 gets hit 99% more than any other key. I've already had to replace keys/switches multiple times (at least I'm fortunate enough that it's an option on my laptop). Others might not be so lucky.