TOP cleared with no healers

[WaxSw]

In science, what you're doing is known as "violation of ceteris paribus". "ceteris paribus" means "all other things held constant" (or close to). If you want to compare two things directly, you try to do this. The problem is, if other things WEREN'T held constant, you have to factor in those effects. From SB to ShB, Tanks were made far easier to play, especially WAR. Further, a new and very cool, very hyped Tank Job was added, and one that has a strong appeal to Melee DPS players. This saw an explosion in Tank players, with many former DPS players shifting their main to Tank.

I'm gonna stop you here because as someone who works in a scientific field I can tell you all your arguments do not apply to that and let me explain you why. When we work in an experiment we usually have a really hard time isolating variables, what we tend to do is analyze their impact and see if their contribution can be discarded (this is why in a lot of theories Taylor's expansion does not go past the 3rd term). The arguments that you propose fall as either negligible or incomplete because:

-Easiness to use was increased for tanks, but also for healers and by a lot. If easiness to use alone was an independent parameter that was ignored it should have affected both populations equally but while tanks saw an increase healers didn't. This means that there is a factor underlying that is unique to the roles that changes the contribution of the easy factor, its not "easiness to use" its "easiness to use(x)", or, as I said, "There is something wrong (with healers)".

-The whole rambling about dps migrating to tanks and GNB's introduction shoudn't have any impact in the healer population as the players atracted to a melee gameplay were never going to play healers and dps moving to tank jobs shoudn't have any effect on the healer population. (Given Z constant and Z=A+B+C, if A'=A+N and B'=B-N Z=A'+B'+C' => C=C')

-SGE having a lesser impact than GNB for tanks is a valid argument, but still doesn't explain why this decrease started to be appreciated in Shb and still woudn't explain the decrease in percentage of population as new jobs tend to be neutral/positive for the population

-SCH lobotomized and WHM blooming while the % decreases only serves to further prove that easiness to use alone is not a valid argument.

None of the arguments you propose show that something key has been ignored, at best they show that there is something wrong with healers but that was already acknowledged

[Renathras]

I'm gonna stop you here because as someone who works in a scientific field

Good, so am I.

Tell me, in what scientific field can you say a thing is true using one data point and not even defining the specific term you're saying is true?

That's right, none of them.

You didn't define "shortage", you simply said there was one. When asked for data, you didn't define the term, and you presented a single data point. You ACTED like this was multiple data points (since it's across servers), but it's at a single point in time, so it doesn't establish a trend that we can compare with historic values. Perhaps worse, you used the wildly divergent data of the 1-59 set to strengthen your case, even though it's extremely obvious why that shouldn't be used and why it doesn't support your argument.

As I said, what if the Healer percentage now is greater than it was in ShB or SB? While you might still say that's a shortage (a term you didn't define), it would imply the problem isn't new and may be resolving itself.

As for your counters:

1) Easiness to use isn't the same for all things - recall that Healers were also made easier to use in SB with the removal of Cleric and having their second single target DoTs all removed. If your argument is sound, we should have seen a decline in Healers then (we did, btw, from the data I found, but you didn't look up or present any such data to support this argument, and it has alternative inputs, like RDM appealing to Support players, as I mentioned before). I also didn't say "easiness to use alone" was what caused everything. I was pointing out you can't see the increase in Tanks and decrease in Healers as a result of Healer changes. Especially since one Healer, WHM, didn't change much and was extremely popular. While SCH's reduced DPS kit and AST's simplified buffing kit are part of that - which I did not say they were not - that isn't the complete picture you want it to be.

2) No, it doesn't have an impact on the Healer population directly. Which is why I didn't argue that it did. Your argument was "...they were easier to find than tanks so now them being so low in % of population should show there is something wrong." There are two pieces to this argument. The FIRST is Tanks became easier to find than Healers. Me showing WHY Tank numbers increased and that it had nothing to do with Healers diffuses that first part of the argument. This leaves the second part, that Healers are now "so low in % of population", something you didn't prove, since to prove this you'd need to show they were a lower percent AFTER THE CHANGE than BEFORE THE CHANGE, something you showing a single datapoint from 2023 does not do. And, again, I've used the wayback machine and gotten those numbers before for the Healer forum a few months ago. SB was, in fact, the time in the game's life with the least Healer players, not ShB. What changed was ShB saw A LOT OF NEW PLAYERS, and they picked up Tanks and DPS Jobs, but even so, the percentage of Healers increased. I have not compared the ShB to EW numbers, but showing that there were more Healer players in ShB than in SB and that SB was the lowest percentage of Healer players in the game's history as of last year already defeats your argument that the ShB changes were responsible for a drop in Healers. Also, calling an argument a "whole rambling thing" isn't an argument, it's an attempt to ridicule and be dismissive of something that actually hurts your argument.

3) We agree on SGE, so...all I'll say here is, again, the decrease was in SB, not ShB. ShB saw an increase in Healers over SB. I might have to see if I can find that thread in the Healer forum again...

4) Yes, it shows that your argument is not valid, I agree. I don't think that's what you intended to say... It suggests that the easiness definitely did not HURT. I would argue what it shows is that Healer players that wanted something more complex left the role, not that the role itself was harmed as there were ample people playing it at the time.

5) They show that the problem isn't limited to Healers. Which is my entire argument.

EDIT:

...it's hard to say now but maybe clerics and chanter = 50% of the DPS population- that's a very rough estimate and it would depend upon the expansion,

Right, but this includes the DPS build as well as the healer ones, does it not? Which would include them as DPS.

It'd be like classifying Paladins in WoW as "Healers" even though two of their specs are a DPS and a Tank. Given, I have no idea how you could parse that out of Aion, but you said yourself that people brought Chanters as Healers and Clerics as DPSers.

[WaxSw]

Good, so am I.

Tell me, in what scientific field can you say a thing is true using one data point and not even defining the specific term you're saying is true?

That is wild series of assumptions you're doing here.

-"You didn't define "shortage", because I never once mentioned shortage, I said that the percentage of healer decreased, that does not need any kind of explanation for anyone with a minimal knowledge of basic math. I suggest you to read again because I think you're a bit confused at which comment you're replying.

You ACTED like this was multiple data points (since it's across servers), but it's at a single point in time, so it doesn't establish a trend that we can compare with historic values. Perhaps worse, you used the wildly divergent data of the 1-59 set to strengthen your case, even though it's extremely obvious why that shouldn't be used and why it doesn't support your argument.

Once again, read my comment again, you're a bit confused. You're assuming I'm using data sets I'm not using, in fact I tend to ignore anything below lv90. I talked from my own experience on top of that, not a scientific approach but I'm not planning on publishing a paper about "the scarcity of healers and how the pure healing in an obsolete model".

If you want some data I used to get to my conclussions is how in the 53 TOP PF parties I joined in the last week of april-first of may in 36/53 the last slot to be filled was the healer (pure healer to be precise), or how the amount of recruitment posts for statics searching for a healer is closer to the 40-50% (depending on the day) compared to the expected 25%

As I said, what if the Healer percentage now is greater than it was in ShB or SB? While you might still say that's a shortage (a term you didn't define), it would imply the problem isn't new and may be resolving itself.

I did not once use shortage, so one more time, make sure you're really reading what I'm saying. "What if the healer percentage was greater?" The fact that the "green river" meme (a JP meme that showed how all the PFs were lacking healers) was created recently and even reached Yoshi-P seems to already show that is not the case at least at max level, otherwise it would have happened previously. Its not numerical data of course but its an appreciation done by several people that already may guide us to discard unlikely scenarios.


1) "If your argument is sound, we should have seen a decline in Healers then" My argument is not that, my argument is that easiness to use is not an independent parameter that we can use to measure the growth of job alone. That said easiness is not a constant E but more of a function F(x,y,t) depending on each role and as such it can't be used to explain the growth of a role alone without previous defining the x,y,t parameters of the role, which is the thing I say that is wrong. I of course did not define it because a proper analysis of those factors can't be done without data that is not public.

I didn't attribute the increase of tanks as result of Healer changes, only the decrease of the healer population. It may not be an only factor but denying that there were a non insignificant subset of players that left the role due to that reason would be straight up lying when we have multiple sources (yes anecdotical data, but we can't truly work with something else unless we go back to the past and do polls) of people leaving the role from that same reason, especially among the AST and SCH community whose changes were mostly disliked.

I would like to see the data you're using tough, I feel there are some key factors ignored

2) The thing is... DPS didn't really decrease in number through the expansion so the migration effect was either non significant or compensated or a mix of both. I would like to see the data you're using tough to get to those conclussions because I fear there are a few factors you are ignoring (weapon ilv for example, important to know the real players of a job)

3) Sure, go ahead and show the data please.

4)"It suggests that the easiness definitely did not HURT." And thats not what I said, go to 1 and read again. I'm not saying that easiness hurt and I never said it once so don't start twisting arguments.

5) Did I say the problem was ONLY the healers? They are a MAJOR part of it but not the only issue

[GaiusDrakon]

Good, so am I.

Tell me, in what scientific field can you say a thing is true using one data point and not even defining the specific term you're saying is true?

Anyone who actually believes this is beyond hope

Dear college freshman, you are not in any scientific field.

You're "/sighing" despite making a bunch of baseless nonsense you provided zero evidence for but still stated as fact. What even is this?

He's an actual meme lol, a fountain of disinformation

He has now mostly resorted to copying people's criticisms and sending it right back at people. Call him casual, he'll call you casual right back. Describe his arguments as gish gallop, he'll say yours is as well right back.

It's so middle-school no one can really believe he's in any scientific field.

[Renathras]

...

For the love of god, man, propose already!