The Healers should be reworked? New player perspective.

[ty_taurus]

Oh I get it. Statistics are irrelevant with a sample size too small if they disagree with you, but if you put out a survey and the results agree with you, it's representative. You'll note that I quite clearly said this thread was representative OF THE FORUMS, which is a small portion of the population. This is normal Renathras, nothing to see here.

Something worth noting as well in regards to survey statistics... According to SurveyMonkey, feedback from about 100 people is enough to get results that are within a +/- 10% margin at least even as a population continues to grow. Over on the general discussion page, the job design feedback forms I've had out have collected about 150 votes from players that aren't just forum frequenters and lurkers, but also people from reddit, tumblr, and twitch. Based on the chart on SurveyMonkey, that would put us somewhere between a +/-10% accuracy range and a +/- 5% accuracy range.

I worked out the average score from 1 to 10 that the healing role has earned as a whole, which has placed it at a 4.85/10. If we stick to the +/- 10% value, that means, at best, the general reception of healers would a 5.85/10, a fairly mediocre score. That, to me, sounds consistent with the amount of upvoting the OP received as well. I don't think the general population may hold the same fervor as the people who post here, but I do think there's enough truth to that post that many would agree with it at least partially.

On a side tangent, that also means the values we have for the desire to see more DPS actions on healers that I shared yesterday indicates that the true percentages across the population of FFXIV players would fall within the following ranges:
WHM - 73.2% - 93.2%
SCH - 74.8% - 94.8%
AST - 56.5% - 76.5%
SGE - 76.3% - 96.3%

[Renathras]

Okay, let me get into it in a bit more details as to why I think this.

1) The forums don't have a dislike button. You mention 240 likes - how many people dislike that post? More? Less? Do you know? No. So we can't really use that as a solid metric since, even WITHIN THIS COMMUNITY of forum goers, we don't know how many hold the contra position.

2) For a poll to be accurate, the sample has to reflect the whole population. You're not just taking any sample of the population. Go to CPAC or the RNC and poll people on some hot button political issue like abortion or gun control and you're VERY LIKELY not to get a representative sample of what the nation as a whole things. Same thing if you went to the DNC instead. Sample bias, self-selection, and getting a representative sample are huge issues for pollsters, which spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to control for and get a good sample. "240 likes" does literally none of those things.

3) We all know most of the playerbase does not use the forums. Many of us didn't even know they existed until we ran across them randomly in a google search or something. More or less everyone here has agreed that the forumgoers are ON AVERAGE much more antagonistic towards the game than the average player is. So we already know the sample is biased (see (2)), and is not an accurate representation of the playerbase.

Even Ty noted, when we started up these surveys, that they would likely lean more to the "Healers are bad/boring, change them" side since that's what the bulk of the sample will be between here and FFXIV_Discussion.

And yet, if your opinion is 'the mainstream', why do so few seem to agree with it?

Even the remove rescue threads get more support than you do.

Why is that?

See (3)

(Also for the record: I don't claim my opinion is mainstream. I've estimated my position is held by somewhere between 25-40% of the playerbase, but there's really no way to know. It's also why I like solutions like the 4 Healer Model since it allows the game to appeal to everyone more or less simultaneously, including my minority.)

You do realize... casual players did precisely as I described when Cleric Stance existed, yes?

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AIN is always tank due to how the system prioritize roles in order.

...

This called statistical averaging. You only need enough of a sample size to make an assessment on the probability of a majority opinion.

...

In the case of online opinions, if the overall sentiment remains vastly one-sided, it suggests mass indifference at best or those opinions are, indeed, widespread even amongst the average playerbase.

Several things in here:

1) Cleric Stance almost tore the community apart, and Gordias/Midas almost ended the game a second time by destroying the raiding community. Yeah, casuals weren't using Cleric. And they were bitched at endlessly over it. Meanwhile, hardcores that used Cleric at a bad time and got their parties killed in casual content (which did happen) were also excoriated over it. HW was arguably the worst time in the game to be a Healer other than being a WHM in SB.

2) AIN is not always Tank. That's factually untrue. There HAVE been periods where AIN was mostly Healers. It defaults to Tank when all three roles are about equally in need (e.g. Healer isn't the least played, it's about equally played to Tanks) and it's Tank when, obviously, Tanks are the one most in need (e.g. Healer isn't the least played, and is more played vs Tanks). If the AIN is Tank, that means, in one of two ways, that Healers are NOT being vastly underplayed at that time. Though as I've noted, AIN is anecdotal.

3) Statistical averaging requires not JUST a sample size but a REPRESENTATIVE sample. Again, go to the RNC and ask them about abortion. The results of such a poll would absolutely NOT reflect the nation as a whole, even if you have literally thousands of people in your sample size there. Sample SIZE is one part of a good poll, but the other part is REPRESENTATIVE sample. These forums, as we've all more or less agreed, is not a representative sample of the population.

4) "In the case of online opinion" - again, representative sample. Many people posting online are posting BECAUSE they don't like the way the game is. This means you have a sample of people who are driven to express themselves because they don't like things. While that IS actually significant on its own (it means there are people who don't like things, obviously, and a lot of them), it DOESN'T tell us what the whole thinks. What if 30% hated things the way they are? That's a sizeable percentage. Definitely enough people that you should talk to them, listen to them, consider options that make them happy. But...it's also a minority. Meaning if the other 70% would be more angry if you made the changes the 30% want, now you have to ask which is the greater weight on your decision making. A large online block asking for something - if they were all asking for the same thing - is significant, but doesn't tell us as much as you think. We don't even know how many this is. Is it 10,000 or 500,000? Is it 20% or 80%? But SE has their whole internal database of players and a lot of other metrics that we do not have.

Moreover, they AREN'T all asking for the same thing. Many people are advocating for changes like more buffing, changing encounter design, more healing, different types of healing, etc.

Even I'm asking for changes, just not the same changes. So even I may not be representing the majority position if the majority position is no changes/maintaining the status quo.

There is not a case here of a large portion of the population speaking with one voice. We have a cacophony of voices crying out for different things, and it may not even be a majority to begin with, and almost certainly is not a representative sample of the population as a whole.

[Sebazy]

1) Cleric Stance almost tore the community apart, and Gordias/Midas almost ended the game a second time by destroying the raiding community. Yeah, casuals weren't using Cleric. And they were bitched at endlessly over it. Meanwhile, hardcores that used Cleric at a bad time and got their parties killed in casual content (which did happen) were also excoriated over it. HW was arguably the worst time in the game to be a Healer other than being a WHM in SB.

I can agree with the divide over Cleric Stance.

Gordias and Midas didn't destroy the raid scene though. Not at all. A1S and A2S were easy to the point that both fights were cleared with 3.0 AST aka a 7 man clear A3S and A4S just set the bar really quite high. You had to really be on the ball, IMHO you absolutely needed multiple people parsing in the group and you had to be willing to replace people for the good of the group if need be. After I stood down from hardcore raiding partway through the tier (House fire reasons) I later cleared it with a casual to mid-core group precisely because we were willing to make the cuts as needed.

Meanwhile the only issue with Midas was that A6S aka the robots fight probably should have been swapped with A7S. Perhaps dropping from combat between each mini boss might have made it a little more pug friendly but I dunno, it just wasn't a PF friendly fight. Outside of that difficulty spike, the tier was fine. A8S was an incredible fight with the only dig I'll accept being that it was a bit long and complex compared to anything we'd seen prior. It wasn't anything like as unforgiving as A3S/A4S though.

A key thing that you're overlooking here is that hardcore FCs were absolutely flourishing at the time. I'd argue that dedicated raid FCs are in a far worse state now than they were back in early Heavensward. Gordias pulverised pugs and casuals trying to clear savage for sure, but it certainly didn't destroy the raid scene nor even come close. The burst DPS requirements were just too high thanks to the mistakes SE made in how they tuned it.

[IDontPetLalas]

"3) We all know most of the playerbase does not use the forums. Many of us didn't even know they existed until we ran across them randomly in a google search or something. More or less everyone here has agreed that the forumgoers are ON AVERAGE much more antagonistic towards the game than the average player is. So we already know the sample is biased (see (2)), and is not an accurate representation of the playerbase."

I will agree on the first point - although we do not *know* that most of the playerbase doesn't use the forums, it's a fairly safe assumption given the size of the playerbase. However stating that *they are much more antagonistic towards the game than the average player"- hold on there.

First of all, what does "antagonistic towards the game" even mean? If someone expresses that they don't favour some recent job design change, would you consider that "antagonistic"? What if the person states that the current housing system is poorly designed , they can never win the lottery- when will it be improved- would that be "antagonistic" or not representative of the "average player" - whomever that is?

[AnotherPerson]

Okay, let me get into it in a bit more details as to why I think this.

1) The forums don't have a dislike button. You mention 240 likes - how many people dislike that post? More? Less? Do you know? No. So we can't really use that as a solid metric since, even WITHIN THIS COMMUNITY of forum goers, we don't know how many hold the contra position.

2) For a poll to be accurate, the sample has to reflect the whole population. You're not just taking any sample of the population. Go to CPAC or the RNC and poll people on some hot button political issue like abortion or gun control and you're VERY LIKELY not to get a representative sample of what the nation as a whole things. Same thing if you went to the DNC instead. Sample bias, self-selection, and getting a representative sample are huge issues for pollsters, which spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to control for and get a good sample. "240 likes" does literally none of those things.

3) We all know most of the playerbase does not use the forums. Many of us didn't even know they existed until we ran across them randomly in a google search or something. More or less everyone here has agreed that the forumgoers are ON AVERAGE much more antagonistic towards the game than the average player is. So we already know the sample is biased (see (2)), and is not an accurate representation of the playerbase.

Even Ty noted, when we started up these surveys, that they would likely lean more to the "Healers are bad/boring, change them" side since that's what the bulk of the sample will be between here and FFXIV_Discussion.

Forums doesn't need a dislike button in this case for something like this to work -- If someone does not favor OP's post, a following post countering OP's argument in the same thread will be made and people will upvote that like crazy if the majority disagrees with the OP. There has been many precedents of this happening if you look all over the forums. It happens a lot more often than you think in General Discussion threads as well when the trolls show up. Just look at the thread about rescue, you can clearly see if people don't agree with the OP, they'll upvote comments against OP's suggestion. This is pretty much the "Dislike" method.

I'm confused on what accuracy you are still missing for these samples. Haven't you and ty said you were posting the poll on alternate forms of social media? It has been in the forums, on reddit, twitter, tumblr, and twitch. That's pretty much as diverse set of group you can get. If the results from all those collective sources still resulted in a negative review to a job... that's pretty damning to me.
I only bring this up because you say many people posting online don't like the way the game is when they vote on the polls, yet the feedback and results from other jobs have proven otherwise. Have you looked at casters or melee results? Other than SMN, the ratings for those jobs are sky high. People will still vote regardless as long as they play the job - whether people love the job or hate it surprisingly has no bearing. Otherwise, there wouldn't be such a positive reception towards these jobs (With BLM reaching over 70% consensus saying no rework is necessary no less!). It's actually more surprising that these jobs are still rated as high as they are, which only proves the results aren't skewed to negativity but are actually unbiased opinions from people who play those jobs.

The only thing I can think that can truly improve the data is spreading the poll to Discord servers. I've seen and met a surprising number of players, from casual, to RPers, to hardcore raiders, large swathes of FCs, etc. on discord. If any biases still exist in this data, having them also contribute to the poll can definitely remove any remaining biases for these jobs by drastically increasing the sample size of all types of players who play that job.

[Renathras]

First of all, what does "antagonistic towards the game" even mean?

In simple terms, most people that think everything is fine as it is aren't coming to the forums to discuss how much they love everything as it is and want it to stay as it is - they're in the game, paying the game. I didn't think I even would need to say this, but it's pretty well accepted overall that people that frequent game feedback and discussion forums tend to be the people with some complaints. That's not true of everyone (though it seems to be here on these forums - even FFXIV_Discussion says that the Official English forum is toxic and filled with complainers; and that's saying a lot considering so is FFXIV_Discussion!), but often is true of the bulk of posts, particularly the most active posters, in a given forum of this type.

Let's just consider the posts here. Other than me and MAYBE Osmand, how many people are posting here saying the game is good right now? You can argue that you think it's bad, but you'd think with a game this big, there'd be a decent amount saying they like it. Yet only 1 and some change here saying that vs 10-20 routinely hating on it, alongside some less frequent posters saying the same. Clearly, the bulk of people here posting don't like healing in the game right now, but surely with ALL the casual healers that play, it's more than TWO people that think it's good, right?

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority posting here are people who do not like the game as it currently exists. But that doesn't mean that the whole community feels that way, or feels strongly about it. Hence why this forum is a poor sample.

We can see this in a lot of ways, too. Like how these forums HATE SMN, while the community as a whole seems to like the Job considering how many play it and how widely it's supported in general circles and stats.

I can agree with the divide over Cleric Stance.

Gordias and Midas didn't destroy the raid scene though. Not at all. A1S and A2S were easy to the point that both fights were cleared with 3.0 AST aka a 7 man clear A3S and A4S just set the bar really quite high. You had to really be on the ball, IMHO you absolutely needed multiple people parsing in the group and you had to be willing to replace people for the good of the group if need be. After I stood down from hardcore raiding partway through the tier (House fire reasons) I later cleared it with a casual to mid-core group precisely because we were willing to make the cuts as needed.

Meanwhile the only issue with Midas was that A6S aka the robots fight probably should have been swapped with A7S. Perhaps dropping from combat between each mini boss might have made it a little more pug friendly but I dunno, it just wasn't a PF friendly fight. Outside of that difficulty spike, the tier was fine. A8S was an incredible fight with the only dig I'll accept being that it was a bit long and complex compared to anything we'd seen prior. It wasn't anything like as unforgiving as A3S/A4S though.

A key thing that you're overlooking here is that hardcore FCs were absolutely flourishing at the time. I'd argue that dedicated raid FCs are in a far worse state now than they were back in early Heavensward. Gordias pulverised pugs and casuals trying to clear savage for sure, but it certainly didn't destroy the raid scene nor even come close. The burst DPS requirements were just too high thanks to the mistakes SE made in how they tuned it.

HARDcore were. Midcore wasn't. PUG wasn't. Even the lighter end of the hardcore weren't (mostly due to burnout). Recruiting was difficult, getting people to even try Savage once the horror stories came out was difficult. Raid groups disbanded and had to merge, etc. It was pretty bad at the time for much of the raiding community and did almost break the game a second time. Healers were hard to come by. Tanks were near impossible to come by. And several Jobs weren't just undertuned but were borderline non-viable.

Yes, the ultra 1% was flourishing, but no one else was.

Contrast with now where we have the opposite situation. The hardcore ultra raiders are the ones getting bored and burned out (even in Ultimate), but community engagement with Savage is the highest it's ever been.

[Renathras]

Forums doesn't need a dislike button in this case for something like this to work -- If someone does not favor OP's post, a following post countering OP's argument in the same thread will be made and people will upvote that like crazy if the majority disagrees with the OP.

Can you show me a single case on this forum where this has ever happened?

Follow-up posts are often not voted on much, and if they're passed the 3rd page or so, often get entirely overlooked. YES, you have to have a dislike button for the like count to have any meaning since you have no way to judge those who approve vs those who do not. It doesn't happen often. Even in the General Discussion threads, if a post is passed the second or third page, it tends not to get voted on nearly as much as the OP of a thread does. Moreover, it's horribly inconsistent. Several posts may disagree with the OP, but they all get different amounts of likes. Which number is the one we use? You can see that with the Rescue thread and how all these different posts both supporting and opposing the OP are getting wildly different amounts of likes. And again, that's ignoring the self-selection bias.

And that's just a start, as it doesn't solve the other issues such as selection bias (the people who frequent forums vs the community at large) and so on.

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As to the polls, they were posted here. And I think cross posted on Reddit, unless Ty posted them in other places. Neither are likely representative of the game's playerbase overall. And even with such a negative bias, Healers still got an "average" rating of around 5. Getting a resounding "average" from a hostile demographic isn't "pretty damning".

The only Job that got a SUPER positive result was Black Mage...which is among the least played (and presumably least enjoyed) by the playerbase at large. THAT is what is pretty damning as far as the poll results go. If the Job that is among, if not THE, least played, LIKELY due to being the least enjoyed by the playerbase at large, is also the highest rated here, that kind of indicates a disjoint with the poll results vs the playerbase as a whole. The Jobs that got high marks - let's say above a 7 - are:

WAR, GNB, NIN, DRG, RPR, DNC, BLM (the ONLY Job to get above an 8), RDM.

Of those, three are generally among the higher played Jobs (WAR, DNC, and RDM), and the highest rated by far in the poll, is also among the least played. Something I even noted in the thread itself about BLM, specifically, is that the only people voting on it seemed to be BLM mains or something.

PLD, DRK, MNK, SAM, BRD, MCH, SMN, and all the Healers are rated below this level.

Including the other most played Jobs in the game, WHM and SMN, which are ranked super low. WHM is ranked lower than most of the other Healers (aside from AST) despite being the most played by far (it's somewhat strange to think people who hate the Job and like the others better somehow all choose to play the one they hate, especially since WHM isn't meta by any stretch), and SMN lower than the other Casters (and, indeed, ALL Jobs), despite being widely regarded positively by the non-forum community and being the most played of the Casters. While some people do play it who hate it (because unlike WHM, it IS meta), there are a lot of people around the community that seem to really like it.

Indeed, the SMN/BLM disconnect in the poll vs what all we know about the community at large is pretty stark.

I dunno, strikes me as a really odd result that's pretty disjointed from everything we know about how the playerbase at large feels about the Job, which has me wondering about how well the rest of the poll does or doesn't capture the sentiment of the majority.

Whether this is true or not is hard to say, but I find it VERY strange to believe that most players love BLM, much less love it so much more than every other Job, when it's still the least played, despite it ARGUABLY being meta AND being the only viable 2 Caster comp member.

Believe what you wish, but I do not believe this poll is solidly representative of the playerbase as a whole. /shrug

I'm not really sure how to get the poll to a wider audience, though. And, as I noted before, having players pick and choose which ones to respond to (instead of having it as a full poll of all Jobs where players rate them all) leads to some strange artifacts in the data. BLM is probably the biggest example of this.

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EDIT: However, I don't think that makes it useless.

The long form answers and feed back about what specific systems people dislike are probably more useful - again, players are good at spotting problems.

But the rating system is already weird (1-10 not 0-10, among other things), and seems to in some cases mesh with what we suspect of the community as a whole, but in other cases, completely conflict with it.

[Silver-Strider]

Can you show me a single case on this forum where this has ever happened?

Here's 1

Here's Another

Here's a decisive one where the whole front page is going strong

[ty_taurus]

Here's another example, a thread from the healer forums back during Heavensward. Note the paradigm shift between the healer forums then and the healer forums now.

The forums are not exclusively a place people seek out to complain. Forums and online environments for discussion are also places people gravitate toward when they're passionate about something. That's how a fandom works. It only leans negative now because the last few expansions have been a point of negative reception by the dedicated healer community, but that's not to say that everyone who ever visits the forums agrees either. Lurkers are a thing, and who knows how many lurkers these threads get, and who actually likes posts. I certainly believe that the general view of the audience that frequents the forums leans more negative than the overall community, but by how much? I can't quantify that. I've said before, most people who get invested in games are very tolerant. It's very possible that the general audience would be happy with many of the changes proposed here, but don't find the current healers a big enough problem to really care either way. That's a very normal response for your typical gamer.

The best thing you can do is gather information from different sources, because you'll never be able to poll information from every player anyway.

[fulminating]

Who cares if the only people voting on it are black mage mains? It’s not like every job has to be for everyone. That’s exactly what the complainant about homogenisation is.