The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ty_taurus]

On a small tangent, I noticed something interesting while rewatching Log Horizon. For anyone that doesn't know, Log Horizon is an isekai anime about being trapped in an MMO--similar in concept to SAO but written by someone that actually knows what games are.

Basically, there's a group of kids that are inexperienced at gaming who learn and grow over the course of the story, and in the first season, there's an arc where they're training to become better at fighting. During that, when a raid event happens, the kids are fighting while some of the main characters are recovering MP, and the main characters are talking about how the kids have grown and how they get better. When talking about Serara, who is a healer, they specifically say "She used to only think about healing, but now she's actually using her offensive spells and remembering to summon her companion."

So I want to point that this anime indirectly compared sylphies to a child who doesn't understand how to play video games.

[ForsakenRoe]

I've been playing Other MMO and if I were to list 'every talent or skill for a healer class, that has an effect on the RDPS of the group' it'd be an essay of it's own. I think Disc Priest alone might actually have more entries than all four healers in FF combined, it's honestly sad that this is what some people not only accept as 'good design', but actively fight to preserve. Even 'a different, third button to press every 6th GCD to replace Glare' is anathema to them, it's mindboggling

Decided to put my theory to the proof, with a twist: 'It's cheating to use Disc Priest for the example, it's designed around doing damage to heal!' would presumably come up as the excuse from the sylphies, their 'copium'. So I did it with Holy Priest, which many people seem to say is the 'i play healer to heal' spec of the game. Unless they want to move the goalposts and try to argue that Resto Druid is the real 'healer should heal' spec or something. So, unless I missed something (i'm very tired), every ability or talent in both this game and Other MMO, that either incentivizes doing damage in some way, or increases the RDPS of the group in some way (ie, giving a buff to an ally that makes them do more damage):





Of course, you can't take every listed talent, there's a limited number of points. But the comparison holds: four whole classes, vs one single spec, with all these choices it can make. The supposedly 'least DPS centric' spec, from what I understand. It's kinda sad when it's laid out like this, isn't it? If Holy Priest is the 'vanilla ice cream' of that game, I guess it makes our classes just plain ice by comparison

[Payadopa]

I wish there was more finesse in execution when it comes to skills. That's why I liked the time aspect of AST. Earthly Star or Macrocosm at least require timing. Too many abilities are just press button -> see HP go up. And now we just press Assize or whatever on CD. Bores me out of my mind. Along with the fact that we have no MP management. Might as well slap a charge on raise and delete that bar as well like with TP. Honestly, XIV can't afford to become more easy outside of current raids (where I actually enjoy healing).

[Semirhage]

I don't think anyone was complaining about how 'complex' the DPS rotation was for healers in HW or SB, they were complaining that WHM was garbo because the Lily system back then was garbo, and AST buffs were 'quite good'. So if SE had just reworked the Lily system to be SHB Lilies, but kept the SB design of healers for their damage rotations (multiple DOTs, cards having varied effects, etc), and actually done their job of balancing potencies, noone would have any issues. They have boiled healers down to one nuke, one DOT, SGE vs SCH is Phlegma vs Chain Strat, and they STILL can't get the damage balance right. How much more are they going to push healers through the belt-sanding machine before they realize they will never balance them, so long as raidbuffs exist? What are they gonna do next, remove Chain Strat because people still can't align it with everyone else's buffs?

I would! *raises hand*. But that's because I think Stormblood WHM's damage rotation wasn't that great, and I think Endwalker healer design (including lilies!) is terrible.

[EpicOverlord85]

I just want my SCH dot abilities and bane back.

[Renathras]

End of the day, there are different groups of people. So any solution is going to anger a lot of them. Some want to do more damage while others want to do more healing, some want to do more of both while others think the system is fine as it is today, some want to do less healing, some want to do less damage, some would rather cast buffs on party members. The conversation is also strongly weighted by Savage raiders and ignoring something like 70% of the playerbase that...doesn't.

Needless to say, you aren't going to please everyone.

My personal solution is to realize we have four healers and have one each focus on the different groups. The only problem with this is you have the people that want to play a SPECIFIC healer but also have the specific playstyle on it. For example, if you gave SCH its SB kit back with all the DoTs and damage abilities like Shadowflare, Bane, etc but left SGE alone for the people that like the current playstyle, you'd have some SGE's complaining that THEY aren't getting the "fun" kit. Meanwhile, you'd have some SCH's complaining that their Job got "the short end of the stick" by being "stuck" with a bunch of damage spells they didn't want, didn't ask for, and now have to work around and use, and thus is less "fun" for them.

So there's no way to make everyone happy. At this point, we should just understand that and realize the solution that makes the MOST people happy is to have each of the four healers have a different focus and playstyle. e.g. WHM on GCD healing and simple damage, SCH on oGCD healing and plate spinning damage, SGE really flexing Kardia and functioning like a WoW Disc Priest to work damage dealing that generates party heals through maintaining a strong damage rotation, and AST as probably a healer specializing in casting buffs on the party continuously while weaving in damage during "buff downtime". Then players can migrate to the Job that fits their personal style the best, and if they REALLY liked a Job's aesthetic that they don't necessarily enjoy the playstyle, ask themselves which of the two is more important to them and be willing to go with that even with the downsides to them.

Many would grumble if it wasn't their preferred Job, but right now, everyone just about is grumbling, so that would probably still be an improvement.

[ForsakenRoe]

Then players can migrate to the Job that fits their personal style the best, and if they REALLY liked a Job's aesthetic that they don't necessarily enjoy the playstyle, ask themselves which of the two is more important to them and be willing to go with that even with the downsides to them.

That's one of the biggest problems with the game: onetrickers. People who insist 'I want to play as X class for the aesthetic/lore/whatever, but I hate the rotation' so much, that the rotation gets changed for them and ostracizes the people who originally enjoyed the class. Biggest offender was DRK in SB. Some people enjoyed it for what it was, like me. Not as much as HW DRK, but we accept our children's imperfections all the same. But enough people complained about 'Dark Arts spam' that it was just completely removed, and job reworked into basically a carboncopy of WAR. Now the people who enjoyed old DRK have no home (GNB just doesn't hit the same), and the people who complained about DRK have two classes they can play basically identically, DRK and WAR.

As for the people who'd feel like they got the 'short end of the stick' by getting more buttons to press, first of all, it's a weird stance to take considering we keep getting new buttons anyway, just they're for healing we don't need all that much instead of for damage. But it's also a matter of tuning and balance. If, for example, we look at SCH, Broil is 295 and Biolysis is 700, over double. Why does the DOT have to be double? What if, we make SCH have 3 DOTs, Biolysis, Miasma, Shadowflare. Biolysis could be 30s, 40 per tick, for a total of 400p. Miasma could be 24s, 45 per tick, for a total of 360p. Shadowflare could be 15s ground AOE, 75 per tick, total of 375. All are slight increases over Broil's 295, but the amount they're an increase BY is a lot less punishing, if you drop their timers for a tick or two. We aim for perfect uptime on DOTs, yes, but we can also reduce the punishment of dropping them with number balancing super easily.

Also why are all the DOTs 30s, making them have different durations to the other healers would help a lot, like if SGE's was 18s so we're pressing eukrasia more often maybe it'd feel at least slightly more interesting

[Rilifane]

Also why are all the DOTs 30s, making them have different durations to the other healers would help a lot, like if SGE's was 18s so we're pressing eukrasia more often maybe it'd feel at least slightly more interesting

That's something that SE seems stubborn on for some reason. Give us buttons but make us press these buttons only once every 30s or less.
It's not even about the amount of buttons but how often we press them and under which circumstances. A skill could be incredibly well designed and interesting but if you slap a 3min cooldown on it, it is still something you only use once every 3min tops.
Just with shorter dot duration our rotation would look different. Nevermind things like dots with different durations, lower cooldown on some skills or incorporating already existing skills like Toxikon into our regular rotation as well. The less impact a single button has, the less punishing it is to mess up the timing.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]Also why are all the DOTs 30s, making them have different durations to the other healers would help a lot, like if SGE's was 18s so we're pressing eukrasia more often maybe it'd feel at least slightly more interesting

*cries in old Aero II 18s duration*

[Deceptus]

End of the day, there are different groups of people. So any solution is going to anger a lot of them. Some want to do more damage while others want to do more healing, some want to do more of both while others think the system is fine as it is today, some want to do less healing, some want to do less damage, some would rather cast buffs on party members. The conversation is also strongly weighted by Savage raiders and ignoring something like 70% of the playerbase that...doesn't.

Needless to say, you aren't going to please everyone.

And you don't have to please everyone, but you can try to and the FFXIV devs aren't trying in the healer design aspect. Here's the thing:

The people who don't want to DPS never will, adding more DPS options affects them in zero ways. They're happy where they're at.

Adding more DPS / Support actions for the people who want them will make them happier.

So you either

1) Stay where we are now and a sizeable portion of the healer base is unhappy with the current design

or

2) Improve the base healer gameplay to make it more engaging for the veteran players.

Might it be stressful for the non-dps healers? No, because they don't DPS anyway. And harassment is against the TOS so anyone complaining they're not DPSing is an easy report.

As for the people who'd feel like they got the 'short end of the stick' by getting more buttons to press, first of all, it's a weird stance to take

The legitimate complaint is having to press more buttons for the same output as other jobs.

Old school DRK and their Dark Arts Spam, or old DRG's/SMN and their 30 buttons to do middling dps, MCH/DNC/BRD in general.