Paired Threads: What would it take to make Heaker kits "complex/interesting"?

[Renathras]

Well it certainly sounds like you're trying to stir the pot.

No, it does not. And you know better. THIS is the kind of thing that makes this place so toxic.

YOU are allowed to say something that sounds like a "not real healers" argument but get the benefit of the doubt (since you have the right politics here), while I say nothing of the sort and get lambasted for it anyway, etc. But yes, let's get to the actual matter:

But let's stop dancing around the fire and just be upfront.

/sigh

Yes.

Let's.

You think that jobs are fine as-is because most people are content with them, and change is not required.

No.

I do not, and that's not at all an accurate representation of my viewpoint. YOU EVEN KNOW THIS based on my past proposals. You KNOW better than this.

Yet here you are saying something you must know is a lie.

And you get 7 (as of this writing) Likes for saying something that you must know is a lie, and probably most of the people liking your post know is a lie. This is also why I don't trust to the "wisdom of the masses" when it comes to this forum - you guys will upvote a thing that EVERYONE KNOWS is a lie.

When I say - in the post right above this one - that AST and SCH have a major problem with their rotation, AND EVEN PROPOSE CHANGES: How is that saying the Jobs are fine, EXACTLY?

I also frequently have said that Healers are too same-y in a general sense and at least some need to be changed. How is THAT saying they are fine, EXACTLY?

I also have a long history here of complaining about encounter design vs the Healer kits. How is THAT saying they are fine, EXACTLY?

Even the Healer I argue the most shouldn't be changed, WHM, I have said it needs a 60 sec CD partywide mitigation added. THAT IS A CHANGE. Even my most conservative proposals involve changes! And I've made a more extensive change proposal that includes making their GCD heals generate Lilies because I think they can't be realistically used in the current system and I think that is a problem/downside. How is THAT saying it's "fine", EXACTLY?

So in what way ON EARTH do you arrive at "You think that jobs are fine as-is because most people are content with them"?

Putting the rest under HB because I REALLY want you to answer THAT question and you tend to get distracted when I say other stuff you decide you'd rather respond to instead that lets you avoid saying "Oh, okay, maybe I'm wrong about that..." or actually giving an explanation. So answer THAT QUESTION first. Now, as to the rest:

My argument and the argument that many have made elsewhere is that reworking jobs like the healers, or SMN, or other hot topic jobs to appeal to the people who used to play them would either be well received or neutrally received by the vast bulk of players that play them currently, because that's just how gamers are. Unless you break the car, the mass will drive it regardless of its quality.

And I highly disagree. I personally believe Old SMN should be re-added to the game - in that DPS thread I even proposed calling the new one Evoker in honor of the "lesser" Summoner from FF3 and making them both unlock from ACN so players can choose the one they want to play. Hell, if the idea catches on, maybe someday SE could do class splits with some of the other Jobs making a de-facto "spec" system! Butt that said, no, changes like that are not "well received or neutrally received by the vast bulk of players that play them currently". We've seen this in the past.

When SMN was changed, when PLD was changed, when SCH was changed, when AST was changed: It was NOT, in fact, received by the vast majority of players that played the Jobs. And when Jobs are changed and then changed again, that just alienates the second wave of players that took up the Job. They are NEVER well or neutrally received by the vast majority of them. Especially when the changes are huge (which SMN was and changing it back would be), but even when they're relatively minor like SCH. WHM's SB to ShB change was actually a net positive vs those others, and widely received as good, and is the only example of that happening I'm aware of that DIDN'T alienate existing players.

MCH changes, BRD changes (every other expansion, seems like), MNK changes, Kaiten removal - the number of Job changes that were generally well received I can count on one hand, if not one FINGER.

1 out of 8 (or more) isn't a good track record, and that was in a case where the Job was made slightly SIMPLER, not when it was made more complex.

The only other changes I've seen that were somewhat well received (at least at first) were SMN and maybe MNK's, but they obviously had their detractors. MCH might fit into that camp, but none of those were done without pissing A LOT of people off. Like I say, WHM from SB to ShB, since the only real change was "it doesn't suck anymore and you don't have Aero 3, but you have big nuke lily" was widely received positively. And even now, everyone in this forum is saying it's garbage.

You've made this argument before, and when I countered it and asked you to provide evidence for when a Job was changed that it WAS on the whole received positively or at least neutrally, I don't recall you being able to provide examples. This is yet another thing you believe without supporting evidence and avoided providing any (or admitting you don't have any) when I questioned you on it before...

It's not a good paradigm, anyway, to bank on lethargy as a strategy to encourage change.

You are the odd one out.

Appeal to bandwagon fallacy, really?

So if you're determined to change everyone's mind, then prove your point.

1) I'm not. I'm here as a counterbalance to you guys, and an attempt to present positions and point out things in others' positions that I disagree with - in other words "to have a conversation" and "to present the other side" - nothing more. So that if any Devs read this (lol?) or if people who disagree with you lurk of visit this forum but are terrified to speak against your position seeing how you treat anyone who does, they know they aren't alone and that there is a contra position being held. Though I suspect the Devs are VERY aware of it, it doesn't hurt to do it. I know I can't change any of your minds. I've presented data and facts before and all you do is either collectively ignore it or attack the sources and say it doesn't count in one way or another. What's the point in me gathering and presenting data you're just going to mostly or all discard or say "that doesn't count/matter"? There IS no such point, so it's not my objective.

2) Why must I prove my point and not you? How big and diverse is your sample size, really? How likely tainted by self-selection? We all know that most people who like a thing aren't on forums complaining about it. It tends to be the people upset who speak, which is why forums for games are VERY rarely positive places, because the people with a positive view are playing the thing. If they frequent forums at all, the ones that like the game you can tell by the fluff posts. Few people on FFXIV Reddit are posting how they think the game is great other than super new Sprouts. The other people who like it are posting fluff stuff like memes, humor stuff, or commissions. Only on maint/patch days are they on the forums at all. Yet you're certain that you are correct...but you base this on what? Largely anecdote (people you know) or on self-selection biased samples (the forum posters here). Much as I disagree with you, Ty, I respect your mental acuity. You know what that means and why that makes for a bad sample. Yet you simply accept it, knowing that it's bad.

3) How would you even propose doing this? How about we do it together, the two of us. But we'd need to make it something that we get a huge cross-section of players from that aren't self-selecting. So what do we use? This forum is biased to the hate Healers side. So where do we get a general sample size? Reddit? Not FFXIVdiscussion, but maybe FFXIV subreddit, but people there tend not to take these things seriously. Do we use major discords? Which ones get around that sample bias problem? And what questions would we ask? All three of yours are leading questions. Contrast:

1. Are you dissatisfied with healers currently? If you like them, what do you like about them?
2. Do you believe healers could be worse? If so, what would make them worse?
3. Would you stop playing healers if healers were given DPS Job rotations?

I bet the answers to 1 and 3 would change quite a bit just by changing the wording of the questions (note many of the proposals here are not "a few more offensive spells", and some have even proposed removing healing spells and making them oGCDs only). I do suspect 2 would get you a million answers, either way it's worded. But your questions presuppose Healers aren't good. "Do you believe healers could be better?" is almost always going to be answered with a Yes because ANY role can be made better. "Do you believe DPS could be better?" Literally everyone will say yes because unless a Job is flawlessly PERFECT, it can always be made better.

If you come back with something like "I shouldn't have to do that."

Ah, priming the audience/poisoning the well, I see?

Trying to preemptively avoid having to justify why your position is the default one. Interesting, but I already called that out, so...

Then I genuinely have no idea why you continue to parade your opinion as gospel,

I don't.

because no one believes or agrees with you.

The fact my posts get likes from time to time means that some people do, in fact, believe and/or agree with me. So you're wrong about that. ALSO an appeal to bandwagon fallacy. Are you familiar with the story "The Emperor's New Clothes"? It's a cautionary parable addressing just that fallacy. That just because everyone does a thing (or doesn't) doesn't make them correct. The old "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" "If all your friends did <slavery/fascism/x-phobia> would you?"

It's an appeal to a mob rather than an appeal to logic, an argument supporting a position, or an argument about whether a position is right or not. It's an attempt to avoid such arguments. that's why the bandwagon fallacy...is a fallacy.

I don't understand what you think you're going to achieve without proving your point to the people who vehemently fight you.

I reiterate:

1) I'm not. I'm here as a counterbalance to you guys, and an attempt to present positions and point out things in others' positions that I disagree with - in other words "to have a conversation" and "to present the other side" - nothing more. So that if any Devs read this (lol?) or if people who disagree with you lurk of visit this forum but are terrified to speak against your position seeing how you treat anyone who does, they know they aren't alone and that there is a contra position being held. Though I suspect the Devs are VERY aware of it, it doesn't hurt to do it. I know I can't change any of your minds. I've presented data and facts before and all you do is either collectively ignore it or attack the sources and say it doesn't count in one way or another. What's the point in me gathering and presenting data you're just going to mostly or all discard or say "that doesn't count/matter"? There IS no such point, so it's not my objective.

[Renathras]

Though, you know what?

I'm gonna do it anyway. Because now I'm curious... Here are the questions I'm asking.

Are you satisfied/dissatisfied with the healers currently? What do you like/dislike about them?

Do you believe the healers could be better/worse? If so, what would make them better/worse?

Would you stop playing healer if the healers received a few more offensive spells?

Would you stop playing healer if the healers received a DPS rotation on par with a DPS Job (you will still be expected to attend to all your healing duties while also juggling that rotation)?

I think these are fair and neutral versions of the questions, and they can also parse how players feel (for example, many will probably agree to a few more offensive spells but not agree to a rotation). Now we wait, and see what answers come in.

If any at all...

[ty_taurus]

No, it does not. And you know better. THIS is the kind of thing that makes this place so toxic.

What are you talking about? I only said it sounds like you're stirring the pot. I didn't say you were. Those are different things.

This is also why I don't trust to the "wisdom of the masses" when it comes to this forum - you guys will upvote a thing that EVERYONE KNOWS is a lie.

There are two possibilities. Either everyone is lying and everyone's out to get you, or you just aren't delivering the points you think you are. This is not a hive mind scenario. We are not the Borg. Maybe there's a common denominator at play, and that certainly isn't me.

Appeal to bandwagon fallacy, really?

Are you or are not almost always at odds with literally every other person in the thread both on here and on the DPS forums? Because you consistently argue, are told you have an attitude problem by many people over and over again. That may not be the majority of how other people would respond to you anywhere on the planet, but that is how you're received here. My point is that if you are trying to state points that hold water, you should back up your claims with evidence, because you're the one with the outlandish claim in this environment. Otherwise you just seem like someone who hates change for the sake of hating change. Prove to class that adding in more DPS options for every healer would have an adverse affect on player retention rather than a positive one. If the words you speak are as gospel as you treat them, then this shouldn't be a challenge.

[Renathras]

...

"Otherwise you just seem like someone who hates change for the sake of hating change." - My DUDE! Stop. Lying! I JUST GOT DONE TELLING YOU why you're wrong about this. And I'll note YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION.

You did EXACTLY what I said you would - used other parts of my post to avoid answering the question. You know what? I wrote up a post. But I'm just going to cut it out (maybe I'll post it later) and post this again so you might ANSWER IT THIS TIME. Since if I say literally ANYTHING else, you'll address that and ignore this, dodging like Neo. Not this time.

You think that jobs are fine as-is because most people are content with them, and change is not required.

No.

I do not, and that's not at all an accurate representation of my viewpoint. YOU EVEN KNOW THIS based on my past proposals. You KNOW better than this.

...

When I say - in the post right above this one - that AST and SCH have a major problem with their rotation, AND EVEN PROPOSE CHANGES: How is that saying the Jobs are fine, EXACTLY?

I also frequently have said that Healers are too same-y in a general sense and at least some need to be changed. How is THAT saying they are fine, EXACTLY?

I also have a long history here of complaining about encounter design vs the Healer kits. How is THAT saying they are fine, EXACTLY?

Even the Healer I argue the most shouldn't be changed, WHM, I have said it needs a 60 sec CD partywide mitigation added. THAT IS A CHANGE. Even my most conservative proposals involve changes! And I've made a more extensive change proposal that includes making their GCD heals generate Lilies because I think they can't be realistically used in the current system and I think that is a problem/downside. How is THAT saying it's "fine", EXACTLY?

So in what way ON EARTH do you arrive at "You think that jobs are fine as-is because most people are content with them"?

[hb]Putting the rest under HB because I REALLY want you to answer THAT question and you tend to get distracted when I say other stuff you decide you'd rather respond to instead that lets you avoid saying "Oh, okay, maybe I'm wrong about that..." or actually giving an explanation. So answer THAT QUESTION first.

How is me literally proposing and suggesting changes being one who "hates change for the sake of hating change", EXACTLY?

Please, by all means, SHARE WITH THE CLASS how your lying and slandering me somehow is true even though it can't be true.

.

EDIT: Aside, my questions are getting a few nibbles. Success! Well, the early stages, anyway...

Results are still few, but more coming in. One of the biggest complaints doesn't seem to be about Healer damage kits, but rather people complaining about encounter design and feeling like the game should have more healing. Fascinating...

[ASkellington]

Results are still few, but more coming in. One of the biggest complaints doesn't seem to be about Healer damage kits, but rather people complaining about encounter design and feeling like the game should have more healing. Fascinating...

Honestly nothing we haven't said already. Multiple times. The problem is that SE refuses to change encounter design because they think its fine when, no it isn't. For the amount of healing tools I have I expect to use them in all content. I don't. You could delete half my kit and I wouldn't feel a difference.

Where we argue is the solution to the stubbornness of the dev team. You don't want to make healing more of a challenge? Fine. Then if healing is going to be a snoozefest, let me have a interesting dps kit to juggle between damage and healing then.

[RyuDragnier]

Why is it always DoTs... /shakes head

Not everyone likes DoTs, and they're often boring. Some Jobs having them is great, but why does every Healer.......never mind.

I will never cease to be amazed by how people always propose DoTs as the solution to things... Not you specifically, Ryu, just in general, that's been proposed so many times. If the problem is Healers all play the same NOW, then having them all have the same solution of "another DoT" (even if they work differently) makes no sense. If the answer is "Well, if the DoT's work differently, the Healers won't feel so samey", then why not just take the ONE DoT they all have now and make them work differently instead?

WHM's Dia (with a frontloaded damage tick) and SGE's Eukrasia Dosis (being a modifier ability) already work differently. AST and SCH have a basic "place on enemy, does damage" DoT, so those are the ones that really need some window dressing. SCH getting a second DoT that has interplay with Fester and AST's having a shorter duration like 20 sec or something would make them both a bit different.

Anyway, it's whatever, but I'm constantly amazed by how many people propose that same boring solution. I personally hate DoTs in almost all their incarnations, so "more DoTs" I definitely don't agree on as a worthwhile solution. I'd rather a 1-2-3 combo, honestly; Stone, Water, Aero; Quake, Flood, Tornado...

If the goal is to make the Healer Jobs not all feel the same, then the answer would be to give one more DoTs but not to give them all more DoTs, since that just ends up in the same position as now, just with more button bloat and everyone more annoyed.

Because it's the easiest option on the devs and the players without them having to worry about them "being too complex." The devs have been trying to streamline things and simplify them, and DoTs are often the easiest method since you set them once every X seconds and don't have to interact with them again. I'd personally prefer actual buttons for each job like it once was in HW and SB, but I'm having to give a suggestion based on the arbitrary design idea the devs want things at, so sadly that limits what can be thought up or done.

[Zakuyia]

Bring Back Astro CARDS THE DAMN CARDS WERE THE PINNACLE PEAK OF ASTRO GAME PLAY..... sadly people were saying it was too hard to memorize them. Like bruh I spent 3 hours studying and understanding those cards and man the game play was goat. I get Balance was popular = DPS Damage but dang is it too hard to make Astro like the mage equivalent of Bard in terms of fun buffs that do more than just Boost ( chosen DPS here or Favoritism here) Like if Yoshi-P said he was bringing back old astro but fixing and tunning cards and they removed the TP card and switch it with a debuff card towards enemies, I think I would faint on the spot. Astro is my main healer being complex made it fun now its kinda a bit boring since im mainly fighting RNG between Range / Melee dps.

[Renathras]

...

The prevailing view right now seems to be "Abyssos was a good step and we want more of that, but the problem is we Healers had to rely on the DPS for party mitigation and that was really hit or miss in PF, so the more healing was great, we just need mit abilities moved from DPS to Healers, since Healers will get blame/more suffering if DPSers don't use them right now and we'd rather be in charge of the whole kit an kabootle ourselves."

Relatively few seem to want more damage buttons as their preferred solution, and some outright REALLY don't want any more at all. Almost NONE want a full on DPS rotation (people answer the question differently, so some interpret this as "DPS Job like SAM or DRG" while others interpret it as "a rotation to maintain"), so answers are kind of all over the place. But the short answer seems to be that MOST people don't want more of a rotation. Even people that want more damage buttons seem to want them to not be a rotation, such as SCH having more DoTs or WHM having Aero 3 for AOE pulls but having its single-target rotation unchanged.

So far, the results seem to be more or less in agreement with what I've said for a while about rough percentages of players and what they want (like where I once said about 20-25% would like a simple Healer like WHM while about number would be neutral, and about 40%ish would like something like SB SCH), which was the impetus behind my "four healers"/"make 2/3 more complex and 2/1 keep simple, probably WHM and maybe SGE"...and overall, something vaguely in that ballpark seems to be emerging. Likewise, the viewpoint of what the problem is seems to agree with what I've long said - oGCD heals are too powerful and encounters need more of a focus on healing, especially sustained healing, and GCD healing use that needs to be seen as not a warcrime.

For all the insistence I've got the wrong of it, it seems with a broader sample of the player base, I do not. But the results are still preliminary. Should be interesting to see when more come in. Though I'm trying to think of the right way to classify the answers. I love the questions being open ended and so the respondents can really say what they want and how they want it, but classifying it more precisely is going to be a bit of a challenge. But I think it's worthwhile...

Because it's the easiest option on the devs and the players without them having to worry about them "being too complex." The devs have been trying to streamline things and simplify them, and DoTs are often the easiest method since you set them once every X seconds and don't have to interact with them again. I'd personally prefer actual buttons for each job like it once was in HW and SB, but I'm having to give a suggestion based on the arbitrary design idea the devs want things at, so sadly that limits what can be thought up or done.

I do get that, but I kind of disagree. I find 1-2-3 easier to maintain than DoT every 30 seconds. I'm MUCH more prone to forgetting about my DoT and noticing it's fallen off SOME TIME after it's fallen off (could be 1 sec, could be 15, I don't know!) than I am to forget 2 comes after 1. Especially now that spellcasting doesn't break combos anymore (hit 1-2 on PLD then cast Clemency. Now look at your -3 button. It's still good to go!)

I feel like DoTs are actually harder/higher skill ceiling than a 1-2-3 since they're easy to forget if you don't have a third party tool reminding you of them. And I've yet to find a satisfactory way to track them. I'd love to have my Focus Target be only my buffs/debuffs, because sometimes I need to know other people's debufs on the target (e.g. see if Chain is up to time Misery), so I can't just check "only show my buffs/debuffs" since it robs me of that critical information. But if I had a bar that only showed my DoT, it'd be far more visible when it's fallen off. Ideally, having Focus Target only show mine and the target bar show all would be my solution, but you can't do this with the native client/HUD as far as I can tell, and I don't break TOS to use add-ons. The only time I've found DoT upkeep not more challenging than 1-2-3s...is when it's part of the 1-2-3, like Old PLD's rotation. There was really no way TO miss it unless you just did the wrong combo for some reason.

[ASkellington]

snip

Okay... and nothing that hasn't already been expressed by the healing community since Shb:

Damage is too low, oGCDs are too powerful, encounter design doesn't make use of the healing tool kit, too much focus on mitigation checks and little to no proper heal checks, kits feeling same-y across FOUR SUPPOSIVELY DIFFERENT healers.

What I want to know are these questions:

1. SE seems to be refusing the request for higher amounts of healing even in EX and savage content where they belong. They keep saying that they will and haven't, only giving mitigation checks instead of outright heal checks. If they aren't going to make our bloated healing kits more worth while (by giving us more to heal) consistently in even endgame content, what else other than extra damage buttons can they do to improve the quality of healers in this game?
   
2. When we have down time (nothing to heal), what can be added to healers to make it less boring?

If the answers to both of those isn't extra damage buttons, what is your alternative then, because I haven't seen a good one yet. I would also like to add that there is no way to make down time 0. Easier content is going to have higher amounts of it for more experienced players and even in EX and Savage, if you don't have it at the start, you're going to have it by the time everyone else is geared.

Down time play is apart of the healing experience. It isn't going anywhere especially as FFXIV isn't WoW and doesn't have anywhere near close the amount of healing uptime that WoW has currently or even in the past. Large amounts of down time is tied to the encounter design sure, but our down time is still boring for mid to hardcore players and should equally be addressed.

[Renathras]

...

/sigh

If that were the case, I wouldn't be routinely attacked here for being wrong - which I am, let's be honest - since I hold those same positions. I do agree on paper it appears that we all agree, but clearly we do not, so you can't wave it away as "Well, we all are saying that exact same thing", when that isn't the case, as so am I.

Where we differ is in our solutions, and what the wider community thinks.

My position isn't everyone's - I'm not the one claiming my position is the one held by everyone - may not even be the majority. But it's not isolated to me and is, at worst, a sizeable minority.

The most commonly cited answer SO FAR is "More damage like Abyssos is the solution, as long as mitigation is handled by Healers alone and we aren't forced to roll the dice and hope we get DPSers in our parties that will do it". That seems to be the majority position, or the plurality solution, that those threads are showing.

1. Isn't true, as Abyssos DOES require higher amounts of healing and/or mitigation. Ex4 ALSO required more healing than a typical Extreme. So on both points you're wrong on that point. (also, kind of an Either-Or fallacy there, though not QUITE since you do ask the question with there being a potential third solution, you're just expressing doubt it exists)

2. The solution most people seem to be proposing is there shouldn't be downtime with nothing to heal, so the answer there would be healing.

You haven't seen a good one? I've seen others...are you sure you're looking?

.

Again, the main solution now seems to be "More healing required/more Abyssos is good, just move mitigation to Healers instead of giving it to DPS". While you might accept that solution, the posters in this forum have largely been opposed to it.

...because I've proposed it or variations of it QUITE A FEW TIMES up until now, and let's just say "disagreement" occurred.

.

I've said for a while there are bridges for agreement. My attempts to propose them have been rebuffed at every turn, with the position of the majority here being I'm an isolated case with whom no one agrees. I think the data is showing that claim to be false. At best, you could say my position is held by a sizeable minority of the player base. My proposal for 1 simple Healer, 1 moderate Healer, and 2 complex Healers was based on this breakdown, and often rejected based on the belief no one holds my position. But if it turns out 25-50% DO?

It also defeats Ty's statements above that "literally" no one agreed with me. At the very least, we can put that one to bed as debunked. Even if the data isn't great or the majority don't agree with me, that there are some that do means that there are, in fact, people who agree with me, proving false the claim that none do.