The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[elioaiko]

It's because when they do pick some questions in regards to concerns of healer community, it's almost always "I want more busywork/heal more" and then the devs do so and people get mad which in turn frustrates the devs.

I really wish they would just ask an endgame, raiding healer to explain the issues bc the "I want more to do" isn't telling them what's wrong. All that tells them is to do the opposite and add arbitrary ways to limit "healing" with just as pointless GCD healing.

They think Medica 2 -> Medica 1 spam is more to do with back to back raidwides.

Whenever people accept that healers don't need need more forced GCD healing spam is boring too.

[Semirhage]

It's because when they do pick some questions in regards to concerns of healer community, it's almost always "I want more busywork/heal more" and then the devs do so and people get mad which in turn frustrates the devs.

I really wish they would just ask an endgame, raiding healer to explain the issues bc the "I want more to do" isn't telling them what's wrong. All that tells them is to do the opposite and add arbitrary ways to limit "healing" with just as pointless GCD healing.

They think Medica 2 -> Medica 1 spam is more to do with back to back raidwides.

Whenever people accept that healers don't need need more forced GCD healing spam is boring too.

They also listen to feedback from the endgame raiders who don't seem to care that much about job engagement, and are "fine" so long as they physically function, can clear things, and they can log in, raid, log out, and not give a crap otherwise.

They're not common from what I've seen, but they exist. To them the healers are all "fine". Spamming Glare a million times is whatever, they don't give a rip about job design.

[ty_taurus]

They also listen to feedback from the endgame raiders who don't seem to care that much about job engagement, and are "fine" so long as they physically function, can clear things, and they can log in, raid, log out, and not give a crap otherwise.

They're not common from what I've seen, but they exist. To them the healers are all "fine". Spamming Glare a million times is whatever, they don't give a rip about job design.

Overall, I'd say the community's views on healer design can be summed up by the following: A handful of players genuinely like the design of healers, a crowd of players hate the design of healers, and the vast majority of players find it inoffensive--fine--and don't really care either way. Most players are more engaged with fight design and don't really care what their job does mechanically as long as they like the look and playing it isn't confusing or overwhelming. So for them, it doesn't really matter how the healers are designed; AST suffers from its gameplay feeling very overwhelming due to the shear amount of single targeting it asks for, and its semi-RNG reliant busy-ness while SCH's reliance on the faerie and tools that cut you off from her feels confusing and unintuitive. Meanwhile SGE isn't far behind WHM in terms of popularity despite being a lot harder for casual healers.

This take can also be seen with NIN. Despite being easily the most challenging DPS to play correctly, it's not particularly unpopular. It's not the most popular DPS either, but it's not avoided like old SMN was, for example despite being just as complex. It's flashier, has style, and its gameplay is far more clear on what you're supposed to do because its tools connect to one another. Old SMN's toolkit, by comparison, felt like a hoarder's garage sale. Just a mess of buttons that have nothing to do with one another and demand a lot of focus from many different directions. I don't think new SMN's popularity is determined by it's ease, but rather, by its style and its flow. That's not to say ease doesn't play a part at all, but job difficulty is not the most important factor that the wider audience cares about. They just want something that looks cool and makes sense to play.

And that's also why I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that overhauling the healers to address the issues that the crowd of displeased players would be an overwhelming success. The largest group of players really won't care what happens to the healers as long as they look cool and it feels clear what you're supposed to do while playing them. The only people that will throw a hissy fit are the players who will get mad that they won't be able to parse purple by simply mashing their glareficoilosis key into a pile of plastic dust and will actually have to try to reach those same values. Anyone who likes parsing because of their performance, or who cares a negative amount about parsing will either be unaffected or genuinely happy, and that's such a more important audience to appease than the me me me freeloaders that will get pissy.