The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ForsakenRoe]

Right now, they know how to play their class and are able to clear content and enjoy doing so.
You wish to change their class so they no longer know their class and can no longer clear content unless they also abandon the gameplay they prefer for one you prefer.

Again, SE adds new skills in expansion, this 'changes their class so they no longer know their class and can no longer clear content', unless they learn the new rotations. Which they do. This applies to everyone except healers, because apparently we can only handle 'new skill' if it is a direct trait upgrade of the old one. If DPS can adapt to rotation changes, Tanks can adapt to rotation changes, Healers can adapt too.

Pick pretty much any game from... ever. In the vast majority, if someone is not good enough to get past something, a boss fight or hard platforming section or whatever, they can either improve or give up. Crash Bandicoot games don't fill in the bottomless pits if you die to them 3 times, until the whole level is idiotproofed. Elden Ring doesn't reduce damage over and over until bosses do chip damage to you. You either get better stats, get better at the game, or play something else more your skill level. Or in a few cases, you just get indirectly mocked for it, like 'you have unlocked easy mode' in DMC3. And yeh, the 'skill level asked of player' in FFXIV has dropped over the years, and maybe some people got used to that, or don't know anything else. That's a bad thing. We saw this tier, when the healing required was 'a bit higher than usual', people couldn't handle it. Because they're so used to training wheels mode healing, they can't handle it when the game rolls it's sleeves up.

I saw people suggest that they should jack the healing required up so more constant healing is needed. That's how we fix healers, to make them more engaging, make them heal more! Setting aside the fact that this has been shown, by this tier, to be a very controversial and probably role-killing decision, it would also either necessitate reworking 10 years of old content that doesn't fit that model, or just leaving it to rot. Having it as 5 Expansions of old style healing, where players learn that healing moments are few and far between, and DPS time is plentiful, then going into eg: 8.0 story and BAM suddenly everyone's dying around them because 'we're in sustained healing time now, rev up those medicas', what's the point of what they learned in the old content?

I've seen videos and tweets of people with physical disabilities, overcoming those disabilities, clearing Savages and even Ultimates. So if THEY are determined enough to IRL Limit Break and achieve these levels of proficiency, I don't get why FFXIV should have this 'nodding bird' mode where players can just 1111111111111 their way through 'challenge content' like Savage.

I've seen some people say they purposely die in solo instances, so they can select Very Easy mode and obliterate it without challenge. They're within their rights to, but like... Damn, they should just go watch a movie, if they don't want gameplay with their game

The problem I have here is it's not unlike what ShB lilies were, which effectively means it's a system meant to be avoided as much as possible rather than something to look forward to. As a general rule of thumb, I think it's far more satisfying to make healing optimization more about generating resources necessary to access DPS neutral healing, and the concept regarding healing into damage conversion is more about creating a moment where you want to store healing to gain a burst in DPS.

It's not that partial refund systems have no value, because they do, but the vast majority of the game doesn't really support it, and it doesn't feel good to resort to. I don't want to keep adding tools that are niche in hard content and basically unusable everywhere else. We need more stuff that's consistently usable across all content.

If some players got their way, it'd see use in all content, cos apparently they want more HPS required in all content. Which, y'know, this tier showed is a very bad idea. I'd love to see an April Fools version of the game where Sastasha's last boss slapped like the Living Liquid in TEA though. I could keep up with it sure, but the majority would get rolled out like pizza dough, which is why I don't advocate for that solution

First off, no. You aren't also looking out for us at the same time. Any and all WHM's who want depth in their class are being told to "go play another class". That is not fair when they can also be given extra dps buttons with 0 issue.

Second, "you wish to change their class so they no longer how to play and can no longer clear content"? What do you think happens when we go from one expansion to the next? We got new skills added. Over the course of the expansion they'll learn. It isn't like we're asking for this in a midpatch. I had to relearn the seals system and how to use Exaltation, Macrocomos and the stupidness that is the area of Earthly Star.

Are you telling me that if in 7.0 WHM's get Aero 3 and another dps button people can't learn how to use that too? Cause that's what that line is reading as.

Also, SAM literally had Kaiten removed and were forced to learn their class. It didn't stop people from adapting even if they didn't like it. It won't stop people from learning WHM if they want to.

That AST point is super relevant. Going from 4.0 to 5.0, we had to forget all of the effects like +Damage, +Crit, +Defense, and instead relearn the effects completely, as 'Lunar seal, Ranged', 'Lunar Seal, Melee', 'Solar Seal, Ranged', etc. And we did. If we could handle learning those effects changing, we can handle an extra GCD or two in our filler.