Healer Survey:

[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?