Healer Survey:

[Renathras]

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I know you would have - not to put too find a point on it, but the question would then better reflect the outcome you want to see.

I'm honestly treating 3 and 4 as one question, as that's how most of the respondents are treating it.

And, as noted, many of the respondents ARE saying what they want - some are saying just 1, 2, or 3 more abilities, some are saying Tank rotation, some are saying DPS rotation, some are saying only a situational ability, some are saying a few more buttons but NOT a rotation (though I think people are often defining "rotation" as "combo", since technically a DoT + Spam has a "rotation" in the sense you have to press them in a cycle... but I think the obvious way to take that is people are thinking combos or similar ability strings, build-up-spender systems like RDM, etc), some are saying they want no changes, or no changes to specific Jobs (WHM and SGE are often mentioned as Jobs that people want left alone - I know you don't like that, but...), and a couple even asked for fewer DPS buttons and for less focus on damage dealing overall.

The answers seem to be splitting into roughly 4/6 camps (6 overall though realistically 4 in a more general sense) of "less", "same", "one or a couple more (situational)", "one or a couple more (rotational)", "Tank rotation", and "DPS Job rotation". Each of these has at least some responses in favor of it. The lower two can PROBABLY be grouped together, and the third and fourth are ARGUABLY the same thing, just how people are asking for them (both seem to be asking for 1-3 more DoTs, just to some individuals that's a rotation and to others it isn't), and then the Tank group is asking for a small rotation, and the final group is asking for a full on DPS rotation.

And too a point, these also seem to be based on people's preferred Job. For example, WHM players seem to largely want WHM to remain unchanged or only have very minor changes while SCH players seem to want a pretty hearty rework.

...kinda like my "4 Healers" proposal.

It'd be interesting to imagine a world where WHM remains the same (maybe has Aero 3/Banish for AOE packs), SCH has several more DoTs with different timers and some interacting abilities like Fester and Bane and Shadow Flare, AST has a simple Tank 1-2-3 and occasional -4 combo, and SGE has a SMN/RDM type rotation and heals with Kardia. That would simultaneously address all the disparate needs of the community. BUT...

After today maybe I'll have some time to finish tabulating what's there (yesterday I did a preliminary run through the main page one then worked out my guidelines and wrote them down for how I'm classifying each answer so that I can have full transparency on that), then actually run the numbers and see what they end up being at that time. Also about 3 days seems a good amount of run time to let new responses trickle off and get a good measure of everyone who has answered.

...and I really want to do that FIRST before making any statements, because I want to see what those percentages are. There are also other considerations, as there are people who want more buffing (and non-damage related buffing - Expedient was mentioned a few times, and a lot of people want Healers to be the ones who own party mitigation) that also have to be factored in, which are important parts of the conversation as well.

[ty_taurus]

I know you would have - not to put too find a point on it, but the question would then better reflect the outcome you want to see.

Actually that's more what your phrasing of the question is doing, painting a skewed outcome unrealistic of this game in order to reflect the outcome you want to see. Let's just be honest about it. No reason to hide that.

EDIT: Actually, never mind. You're right, it's important that we use unrealistic extremes that no one is actually asking for in order to understand what players want and to what lengths, so I propose we add a 5th question:

5. Would you stop playing healer if every healer had no DPS buttons at all and were provided a trust AI to complete MSQ instance battles (all content otherwise remains the same, outgoing damage included). In order to complete any quests that ask you defeat an enemy, you'll need to join a party with at least 1 tank or DPS, or switch to a tank or DPS job.

[Allegor]

5. Would you stop playing healer if every healer had no DPS buttons at all and were provided a trust AI to complete MSQ instance battles (all content otherwise remains the same, outgoing damage included). In order to complete any quests that ask you defeat an enemy, you'll need to join a party with at least 1 tank or DPS, or switch to a tank or DPS job.

I know that's the joke but reading that question filled me with....disgust and anxiety, for lack of a better word. Please don't say such things again lol

[Sebazy]

I know you would have - not to put too find a point on it, but the question would then better reflect the outcome you want to see.

No not really. The problem is how vague the definition of a dps rotation is.

Is it simply 1-2-3? That solves little and I suspect few people will support it irrespective of if they want more or less healer DPS engagement.

Or when you say 'DPS rotation on par with a DPS job', does that mean all the extra goodies that comes with said core rotation? That would be a much bigger change, but as I mentioned in my response, simply dunking a full DPS kit on a healer flat out isn't realistic and anyone with any sense is going to see that. It would just be far too many hotkeys to be manageable and if it doesn't integrate with our existing kit, it's just going to be a disjointed mess.

However, a tightly integrated DPS rotation kit that empowers and drives our healing throughput at the same time? Hell yeah sign me up for that. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Warhammer Online's Warrior Priest class was perhaps the finest MMO healer ever penned and it absolutely burns me that SE haven't had the initiative to copy that concept and adapt it to FFXIV. It would solve the lack of healer engagement in casual content.

[Renathras]

Snark.

/sigh

Actually, the one thing I regret in the questions is using your wording for question 3. I don't think there should be a "would you stop playing healer if..." question, since things have to be PRETTY extreme to get people to stop playing entirely. Very few people will say that, but we shouldn't be asking, essentially "what would make you quit the game". We should be asking players "what do you want" not "what will you tolerate".

I know your argument that you want proven is that people will TOLERATE it, as if that's a good thing, but it really isn't. It shouldn't be a matter of seeing how far we can push and abuse players and them not quit. We should be seeing what they actually want.

We probably could ask the question "Would you stop playing Healer if every Healer had the same rotations they have right now". That's not an extreme position. "Would you stop playing Healer if every Healer had only one damage ability", That's the extreme position. "no DPS at all and did trust AI for MSQ"? That's your equivalent to a DPS rotation? Good god, man! Get some perspective.

No not really. The problem is how vague the definition of a dps rotation is.

Is it simply 1-2-3? That solves little and I suspect few people will support it irrespective of if they want more or less healer DPS engagement.

Strictly speaking, it means "like any of the DPS Jobs". Granted, there's some spread there, but generally we'd be talking 8+ buttons focused on damage that need to be used in a fairly set order to do good damage. SMN is the low end of that, and has a rotation somewhat equivalent in overall complexity to Tank rotations. Some people even have said this, and "Tank or SMN rotation" is something people tend to be saying that they wouldn't mind WHILE saying they don't want a DPS Job level rotation. So people seem to get the point and be answering with "I wouldn't want THAT, but I would want THIS" which is what I'm actually looking at.

I do think it's funny how many people point to SMN as being like the Tanks, but at least people seem to understand the spirit of the question and are answering it.

If someone's saying "I don't want a DPS Job rotation but I want a Tank level rotation", I'm marking them down for Tank level rotation.

I've even pointed out (so I won't yet again) the 6 categories answers are falling into.

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In Ty's case, specifically, I think it was to generate a specific answer. He wants a question as I said above to be "what will you tolerate" not "what do you want", which is the reason for his original question wording. I'm much more interested in what people want, but the question exists for what will they tolerate.

Moreover, question 3 already achieves this purpose. If the claim truly is "just a few more damage buttons", then that's covered under question 3. Note I didn't include "no damage buttons", "fewer damage buttons", or "the same amount of damage buttons as today", either. So I'm not picking favorites.

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As for your example, I've never played Warhammer Online, but I vaguely remember the RIFT Chloromancer being somewhat fun, though I never did high end content with it. I think that's how SGE should have been designed. Despite people saying how the Tanks all have the same playstyle, most people recognize that GNB is more involved than the other three with a lot of extra DPS rotational abilities. Admittedly, more when it came out (the Gnashing Fang combo used too be 3 separate buttons, for example), but the idea seemed to be a fairly obvious "Make a Melee DPS, remove a few of the extra oGCDs we'd have on a DPS and put Tank oGCDs in their place." I feel like, at one point in development, they were probably thinking about something like that for SGE but changed their mind part-way through. Abilities like Soteria and to a point Pepsis and Zoe and Krasis make more sense when you're thinking from the perspective of "We'll be doing a DPS rotation and just have some Healer oGCDs and backup GCD heals in case of emergencies."

At some point, it seems like they decided to back off of so much reliance on Kardia and a damage rotation and slim it down, with Toxicon and Plegma being vestigial hints at something else that once was.

FFXIV's combat system is too rigid is the problem.

They could give SGE a BLM rotation with just Kardia splash healing and some oGCD supplemental heals but balance it to do the same damage as WHM, and the playerbase would have a conniption. FFXIV's combat system and balance is finely enough tuned (not perfectly balanced - as all things... - but still pretty finely balanced compared to something like WoW) and works under fairly tight Enrage checks (in entry level gear) and stuff, so they run into the problem that they can't allow Healers that put in "more work" to do more damage, but then if they put in a Healer Job that feels like it has to work harder for the same outcome, fewer people play it (this is being cited a lot in the survey about why people don't play AST over WHM), and the people playing it start demanding more damage output because they're doing more work/effort (even if they literally asked to be given that "more work" to do), so SE is damned if they do and damned if they don't.

It's why I think Misshapen Chair hit the nail on the head in his video where he said people need to just accept that the reward for doing "more work" is you "have fun and aren't bored to tears", and to "stop crying about a whole 2% dps variance". And yet the players will do so, and SE knows they will do so. It's probably why AST is going to get semi-lobotomized because it's the least played.

Me personally, I think they should make the harder one and if people complain, just tell them "This is what was asked for, and if it's not for you, then don't play that Job". Because I think there are players that want a DPS Caster "support healer". Many may want it to do DPS Caster levels of damage, but tough luck, wrong game, play Pantheon when it comes out or something, I guess? Let the people that want to push DPS buttons more have their fun, since there absolutely are some that just want that and would be content with not doing any more damage than WHM since they'd be having fun anyway.

SE just doesn't want to deal with the conniption fit of "I have to do so much more work so I should be rewarded with more damage", so they simply avoid the whole thing. And as many people as say they'd be happy just to have that DPS rotation, SE knows good and well that these forums would explode with people complaining about how their "more work" wasn't being "rewarded".

It's the same reason I think Roe's wrong about the more DPS buttons for all Healers and people who don't want to can just "not use them". Either the damage gap will be big enough those people would be harassed and possibly fail Enrage checks, or the additional damage would have to be so minimal for pressing the extra buttons that the people doing it would then complain their more work isn't being rewarded enough.

[Sebazy]

It's why I think Misshapen Chair hit the nail on the head in his video where he said people need to just accept that the reward for doing "more work" is you "have fun and aren't bored to tears", and to "stop crying about a whole 2% dps variance". And yet the players will do so, and SE knows they will do so. It's probably why AST is going to get semi-lobotomized because it's the least played.

Sorry to nitpick on a particular point, but I'm falling asleep :P

I could be out of touch here, but I don't really think that the 2% damage variance is the issue with AST, and it's certainly not it's healing kit as that's top tier.

The problem is the complexity and APM load it faces during it's 2 minute burst window coupled with how punishing it is not only for you, but for your entire group if/when you mess up as it cost you not one but two burst windows so you could get back in alignment with the group. I cannot stress enough, doing ASTs 2 minute burst sequence is somewhat demanding in casual content like 24 mans... However in Savage and upwards? It's a whole different level, mostly because you have to do said burst sequence whilst also watching mechanics and often running around and repositioning as well. P4S part 1 was the absolute poster child for this. Curtain Call forced you to run large distances whilst also having to watch both the arena and the rest of your group around you and yes, our 2 minute burst was slap bang right in the middle of both curtain calls.

I really don't think I can emphasise how unenjoyable a combination that burst window with that mechanic was for me. And that was 1 out of many examples.

I'd merrily play AST again if it wasn't dogpiling all of it's oGCDs and targeting stuff into such a tight little window every 2 minutes. But as is, my opinion and seemingly that of many others is that it's just miserable to play for hours at a time in high end content, hugely unrewarding in casual content if you haven't got people worth buffing and downright bad in solo content.

[ty_taurus]

I know your argument that you want proven is that people will TOLERATE it, as if that's a good thing, but it really isn't. It shouldn't be a matter of seeing how far we can push and abuse players and them not quit. We should be seeing what they actually want.

We probably could ask the question "Would you stop playing Healer if every Healer had the same rotations they have right now". That's not an extreme position. "Would you stop playing Healer if every Healer had only one damage ability", That's the extreme position. "no DPS at all and did trust AI for MSQ"? That's your equivalent to a DPS rotation? Good god, man! Get some perspective.

And you believe "would you stop playing healer if they had an average of about 29 actions related to DPS (the average amount of hotbar actions on the DPS jobs) AND still have around 13-15 more actions for healing and mitigation" is a question that "has perspective"?

[Renathras]

I could be out of touch here, but I don't really think that the 2% damage variance is the issue with AST, and it's certainly not it's healing kit as that's top tier.

Oh no, it's not talking about AST.

It's saying "Suppose we gave SGE a BLM level rotation and it healed with just oGCDs and Kardia. But also did the same damage and healing of WHM. Many players would play it (because they want more DPS rotation), but then complain that they aren't being rewarded with a higher output.

I think SE just doesn't want to deal with that.

And you believe "would you stop playing healer if they had an average of about 29 actions related to DPS (the average amount of hotbar actions on the DPS jobs) AND still have around 13-15 more actions for healing and mitigation" is a question that "has perspective"?

No, that question wouldn't "have perspective".

...which is why that wasn't the question asked. Drop the hyperbole, please.

"BUT THIS IS WHAT DPS JOB ROTATION MEANS!!!"

No, DPS Job rotation means what I said above, 8+ abilities related to damage, with a timing and sequence they must be used in to do good damage. You REALLY need to stop approaching anything anyone opposed to you says with "What's the WORST possible way I can interpret this..."

EDIT:

It's still quite early on the surveys over from general, but here are some results from them so far...

Have you only posted these here, or also on Reddit?

Also, how do these compare to other role results so far?