A summary of healer issues

[Renathras]

EDIT: Also, isn't this sentence an oxymoron? "Past need not be prologue, especially since "add more attack" is already the opposite direction they've been taking Healers." If the past need not be prologue, then what makes the prospect of going back and adding more DPS options for healers somehow more unreasonable than choosing to leave any or every job in stasis and neither adding nor removing anything from them?

No, that was my point - you can't appeal to the standard in one case (always adding new abilities) while rejecting the standard in another (that they'll switch from NOT adding DPS abilities to Healers [and, in fact, pruning them] to adding DPS abilities to Healers).

In other words, you cannot appeal to the standard of always adding something at the same time as NOT appealing to the standard of not adding DPS abilities.

And while it's true MMOs pretty much always add abilities, they don't always add abilities, exactly. For example, is Holy Shelltron an added ability? TECHNICALLY yes...but in practice, no, it's an upgrade of an existing ability. Was adding a second charge to Divine Benison adding a new ability? TECHNICALLY it was adding a new Trait, so it DID add a change, so to speak, but it didn't add any new ability at all while still changing (slightly) the Job from what it was before.

For example, suppose in 7.0 for WHM, they had Afflatus Misery upgrade into Afflatus Purgation, Aquaveil get a reduced CD to 45 seconds, and Assize get a second charge. Those would absolutely be changes, and Purgation would technically be a new ability...but since it just outright replaces Misery, it would not generally be treated as a new thing, and Aquaveil and Assize would not even be seen as new. Heck, WHM could get that thing I suggested before where every 4th Glare cast gave you a double power Holy (or whatever made it a DPS gain over Glare) and people wouldn't see that as a new ability, even though it actually WOULD change WHM's rotation.

[ty_taurus]

No, that was my point - you can't appeal to the standard in one case (always adding new abilities) while rejecting the standard in another (that they'll switch from NOT adding DPS abilities to Healers [and, in fact, pruning them] to adding DPS abilities to Healers).

In other words, you cannot appeal to the standard of always adding something at the same time as NOT appealing to the standard of not adding DPS abilities.

Except the concept of adding new attack actions to a healer is a minor addition of gameplay that has been done before multiple times. Even in Shadowbringers, White Mage got Afflatus Misery which is an attack action. In Endwalker, Astrologian's Minor Arcana was reverted back to randomly granting an additional healing action or an additional attack action, and was made AoE. That is a normal expectation of gameplay to ask for. Meanwhile, asking for them to not do anything to a job and leave it alone is something that has never been done before and goes against the principles of a live service game.

And while it's true MMOs pretty much always add abilities, they don't always add abilities, exactly. For example, is Holy Shelltron an added ability? TECHNICALLY yes...but in practice, no, it's an upgrade of an existing ability. Was adding a second charge to Divine Benison adding a new ability? TECHNICALLY it was adding a new Trait, so it DID add a change, so to speak, but it didn't add any new ability at all while still changing (slightly) the Job from what it was before.

Yes, those are still new actions. New actions don't necessarily need to be massive sweeping changes to the gameplay or flow of the job. That is not 'no new changes.' If you wanted to emphasize on any job that you don't want whatever is added to make any significant changes to the gameplay feel of that job, then all you had to do was write that in at the bottom. All I was going for with that question was that every job gets a few new actions every expansion; some of those are just upgrades to old actions, and others are new tools entirely. What do you want those to be for the job you're submitting feedback for. I tried to keep my language simple and brief, because if the question is long-winded and wordy, some people won't read it. I'd like to think that players are intelligent enough to recognize these points based on how the question was presented, and it didn't seem to be an issue for anyone. That said, It was also a very new experience for me, and there are definitely ways I want to approach these questions when I do this again after 7.0 releases to do even better at collecting information.

For example, what I'll realistically do next time for that question is not include a write-in 'other' option and just have it as a stand-alone option and specify that players elaborate in the below section, because those write-ins are very poorly displayed in the results page of each survey and do a terrible job at communicating how many players agree with those sentiments because even if two people want the same thing, if it's worded differently, it appears as two separate options.

What I would probably do for the healers, and the other jobs would be adjusted accordingly, would be something like:
- Upgrades to existing actions
- Healing actions
- Attack actions
- Utility/mitigation actions
- Offensive support actions
- Other (specify below)