What if Tanks were designed like Healers?

[Aravell]

Reply

Maybe you're a kind person, I won't dispute that, I've never met you, but that's irrelevant to the discussion, I'm talking about the air of superiority and high ground you take.

You may have said you were fine with SCH and AST returning to their old kits, but that hasn't always been your position. You've also said that jobs don't need "needless complexity" on occasion when some others have experienced wanting other HW/SB jobs back. I'm also not saying that it's fine to piss off others, but the way you argue is that you seem to care more about the EW players because the HW and SB players have already lost what they had and the EW players would lose it now, that's not right, either care about both equally or none at all.

Get over MYself? Get over what? I've never put myself above others, I've never flexed my ego and knowledge over other people, these are things that you've done.

Just because you show that you empathise with others doesn't mean you actually do care. You also are arguing for your self-interests, note that I never once said that you were selfish, I said you were arguing for your self-interests, if you had no self-interest in this topic, you would have no reason to even be here arguing at all.

I don't think you're some kind of demon, I genuinely do not dislike you at all, I even agree with some of your points in the past.

Look, I've disagreed with Roe and Ty in the past, they never attacked me or vice versa, we've always debated on equal ground, maybe YOU should think long and hard about why people constantly attack you, it's not for your views, it's the way you sometimes elevate yourself to make your argument look better, it's the way you often quote the silent majority to win stalemates. I think it's disgusting that people dogpile you, but you also have to admit that the way you present your argument can be bad. Also, please stop taking the high ground because the current design of the game supports you, it won't always do so, nothing lasts forever.

[Renathras]

And what's wrong with that? Isn't that literally what many of us have been advocating for? Tank-adjacent DPS gameplay that is ultimately optional in 95% of the game that way anyone who doesn't care to use them doesn't have to?

What you've been asking for is generally something required to clear content that people run. Note that far more people run Extremes and Savages now than did then. Not that anyone's asking for Cleric back, but like the changes you propose aren't for use in solo content only, etc.

Modern class design choices inspired by design philosophy from 4.0 (and following a consistent evolution upon that earlier framework) =/= 'copy paste 4.0 exactly, including the parts that were completely nonfunctional'

I know that. Otherwise I wouldn't suggest restoring SCH and AST's kits to SB so often.

I am curious, none of you have a gold or better sub to the forbidden abacus by chance, do you?

Reason I'm asking is, I kind of want to find what the average Savage Healer button presses per minute were back then, but they archived everything prior to ShB. Loaded up Chaos (as per my norms, I like looking at the first fights of tiers as that best gives the best idea of "people have this down and optimized, here's what that looks like"), but then it gave me that message. I was curious how many more non-Stone GCDs WHM was using at the time as compared to today. Kinda sucks the info isn't available, as it would be interesting to compare the Healers directly. Some people here love sharing graphs to show how many Glare/Broil/etc they cast, but it'd be neat to see what that compared to at the time/how much more or less GCD focus was in the kits and how many GCD heals were actually used to break it up at all.

Oh no no not again please not the hot wings analogy again

Much as I love vanilla ice cream, I'm inclined to agree.

Maybe you're a kind person, I won't dispute that, I've never met you, but that's irrelevant to the discussion, I'm talking about the air of superiority and high ground you take.

When it comes, specifically, to this topic, it's not an air. I'm completely open and transparent about what I want and the why of it. I think it's good for the game - and indeed, ANY game - to have variable difficulties. I believe in a Trinity like this, that means at least one from each role being simple, at least one being complex, and any additional entries being somewhere between the two. I think this makes the game most accessible to the most people, has the highest likelihood of every role having at least one playstyle a prospective player or someone's friend/family member they're trying to get to play with them can enjoy, and for people like you, it means at least one, and hopefully more, that you can enjoy.

I've never lied about this. I've never obfuscated or tried to hide or mislead about this. It's legitimately my view.

You may have said you were fine with SCH and AST returning to their old kits, but that hasn't always been your position.

Hm...not sure. I've been posting here for a while and my views have evolved over time.

But also, don't confuse different arguments. Saying Jobs don't need "needless complexity" isn't the same thing as saying not to have different skill levels of Jobs or different playstyles/rotations/etc. In general, I don't like pointless busywork. Like PLD has Goring Blade now for pretty much no reason. They could have just baked that damage into the Conf combo and nothing of value would be lost. Expacion and Circle of Scorn are two buttons, why? You always use them together, at the same time, and they're both even AOE at level cap. At least with Fight or Flight and Requiescat you could ARGUE there MIGHT be some case you'd use FoF at range (like say a disengage) and then charge in and use Requiescat...but would you really? You certainly don't want a GCD between them (Shield Lob? Holy Spirit?) as that would just drift your rotation out of sync with buff windows. There's arguably no reason to have two separate buttons there.

On the other hand, WAR's 1-2-3 -4 makes sense to be AT LEAST two different buttons given the two different effects, and the -2 made sense in the past when the whole thing was branching (1-2-3, 1-4-5), but I dunno. Everyone draws the line a different place.
...which is why different Jobs doing the different things makes sense, as then people can pick the one they vibe with.

but the way you argue is that you seem to care more about the EW players because the HW and SB players have already lost what they had and the EW players would lose it now, that's not right, either care about both equally or none at all.

Considering my position is to ensure there's at least one Job for both camps, I can't see how you think I care more about the one than the other?

Just because you show that you empathise with others doesn't mean you actually do care.

This is true.
What means I actually do care is the fact I actually do care.

You also are arguing for your self-interests,

...while also arguing for yours, something you don't reciprocate.

I'm curious, are you saying I should argue AGAINST myself? What I like is something that at least some other people like as well. Should I be arguing against those people, too?

I'm arguing for everyone's interests. In the most general sense, I'm part of everyone, so you could say I'm arguing for my own, but that's like saying if someone solved world hunger, it would be because they wanted to ensure they had food because they want to ensure everyone has food and they're part of everyone.

if you had no self-interest in this topic, you would have no reason to even be here arguing at all.

So your position is I can't argue for the sake of everyone's self-interests because it means arguing for my own?

Or are you saying that's perfectly fine, in which case why bring it up?

You bring it up like it's a negative, biased, or taints my viewpoint, but then say that to be part of the argument, one must be doing so, meaning it's irrelevant to even point it out.

For my part, again, I've made this clear: I'm arguing for there to be something for everyone.

maybe YOU should think long and hard about why people constantly attack you,

I've been around here a bit. I get treated with a double standard - a lot. People will get onto me for doing something, then like the post of someone who they agree with doing the same thing, and if I point out the dissonance, they'll either ignore it, say they aren't the forum police and don't need to comment on everyone doing said wrong thing (despite them feeling the need to do so with me), or they'll handwave some excuse for not doing so. People in the past berated me for my style or word choices or tone, then praised people on their side using the same tone. People did this once in the middle of me calling someone out for theirtone, insisting that only my tone is bad. And keep in mind, we're all talking in text. People like to point out any time I make even a minor error, and some like to bring it up over and over again for months. But even if one of them gets caught in an outright lie, not only does that go to the wayside, not one of them will condemn their fellow for doing so, and they generally will like and upvote the lying post without a moment's hesitation or remorse.

If it was that, then they'd all be calling out each other and reacting to each other they way they do me.

Policing each other the way they try to do to me.

But they don't.

If they did, our conversations here would likely be far more cordial.

the way you often quote the silent majority to win stalemates

This isn't even something I do. For a while I pointed out what types of things the majority of the playerbase did and such, but I don't even do that anymore. Note I use the words "some" or "many", not "most" or "majority", whenever I mention the playerbase. I believe this is fair. If I said "the majority of healer players enjoy current healer gameplay", you'd probably disagree. We don't know for sure, since we don't have statistics, but I would be talking out my backside since I couldn't prove the claim and that's a statistical claim - more than half.

On the other hand, if I say "some healer players enjoy current healer gameplay", that's a factual statement. Some means "more than one", and there are at least a couple besides me that even post here on the forums semi-regularly. While it's trivial, even 3 would be "some", and "many" is really "some arbitrary number greater than 1" (it isn't mathematically defined in that sense; it's more than a few but generally less than most or a majority). And I'm not really even sure how to talk about the topic of "what people want" without using it.

Especially since my opponents are frequently saying what they think the community as a whole wants as well, and have also appealed to a presumed (and unproven) majority. I'll note, in line with norms about this stuff: You haven't been calling them out for it as far as I can tell.

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I also agree that designs can change over time - I said this in one of these posts recently (I think in the "Yoshi P visits the forum" thread, but can't remember for sure).

But note the other side is constantly speaking as if from a high ground position. They act as if changing all the Healers is the baseline of what the game WILL do going forward, and any position in opposition to that, such as leaving one alone, has to be argued. That the burden of proof is of those opposing change, rather than the status quo. I also will point out you don't call them out for this, either...

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I appreciate your post, and I have tried to change how I write here a lot. I try to avoid using ALL CAPS much, despite that being a thing I commonly do on every forum and comments section I've ever used and no one's ever had a problem with it, because the people here said they find it uncomfortable (when I do it, but pretty much only when I do it - the only other case I've seen is someone else who's arguing an even more extreme anti-change position than I has done it; none of them doing it themselves ever generates the hand wringing, mind you). Which is actually a chore since it's more effort to type out [ u ] tags (my go-to in place of caps) and to scrub my posts to get rid of them in most cases. But I put in that extra effort for people (inb4 someone here quotes this to sarcastically mock me for actually making a good faith effort to accommodate them...). As I said, I don't use majority or most, swapping to some or many. When I cite statistics, I present them instead of just giving numbers, and if I calculate things (like percent button use over a period of time), I include the calculations. Note again this isn't something any of them are doing - they will cite things and expect agreement without evidence. I've even reevaluated and altered my entire premise - the idea of the 4 Healers Model was something I came up with in an attempt to bridge the divide and find some kind of common ground that wasn't just "give up everything and quit the game because there's nothing fun to play in it anymore after the changes".

And I've tried many times to strike conciliatory tones. On at least three occasions when people attacked my tone (even while doing the same things they accused me of), I asked what short of just agreeing with them I could do to fix the problem.

Each of the three times, they didn't answer. The threads just went silent or reverted to the previous topic. As if the answer was: There is nothing you can do, no tone you can take, that is acceptable if you have an opposed position; any tone will be attacked as a bad tone because you don't have the right belief/viewpoint/ideology for us here.

This is why I can't admit that "the way I present my argument can be bad", because I try many different ways, tones, and arguments. And they all result in the same pattern. And because the people alienated by me are so no matter what I argue for or how. I've even made some arguments identical to theirs, and been attacked for making the very same argument! At best, I will rarely get a "hell has frozen over, I agree with Ren on something for once" before things go exactly back to the way they were before.

I'm honestly not sure what to change, since the constraints you suggest would amount to just not posting/presenting an argument. /shrug The answer to disagreement can't be "The only way we'll like you is if you don't hold a position you hold."

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Broken apart for emphasis and this being the part I really need addressed:

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I'd love to know what I can change, but part of the problem is I have made changes, part of the problem is that people don't care or notice them anyway, part of the problem is the things that are supposedly alienating aren't when they do it (meaning you're asking me to argue with one proverbial hand tied behind my back while my opponents are free not to), part of the problem is the others aren't self-policing so if I'm behaving perfectly and get attacked I have to fend off those attacks without responding to them in kind which is somehow interpreted as a sign of weakness, part of the problem is how much people will upvote and cheer attacks on me (and me specifically) and like and upvote those posts even if they are abject lies, and...I think the biggest biggest biggest part is that even if I do everything right, people will just outright put words into my mouth.

Like I don't make the "you aren't real healers" argument. But Semi will consistently bring it up, even though she was the one that made the statement first. She will call me a Sylphie no matter how many times I point out I cast damage spells whenever I have free GCDs to do so (which is often), no matter how many times I point out Sylphie in the game didn't even do what the insult is meant to say, no matter how many times I point out how hurtful it is, no matter how many times it derails and shuts down conversation and is meant to marginalize and delegitimize me and my views, and no one will ever ask her to stop.

No one.

Ever.

Oh no, they upvote those posts.

If Ty gets mad and starts going on tirades against me, instead of asking him to stop, people will condone it talking about how he's so rational and calm, if he's upset, there must be a good reason for it (even when there's not a good reason for it). But if I get frustrated after yet another day of people dogpiling on me and blow my top, it's "Ren's going on another unhinged tirade rant again". Not once does anyone go "Ren's pretty rational a lot and is often conciliatory, maybe we're pushing him too far?". Not once does anyone come to my aid. If Ty or anyone else got the treatment I got at the level I get it, they'd probably be far less cordial and be in a much more constant state of blowing their tops, yet I show restraint and just get dogpiled on more and more, and then if I do blow my top, even though there are hours/days of posts and evidence leading up to it where anyone can see how I've been mistreated by the group, people then mock me for that and even try to get quotes they can use against me later. No one stops to think they're hurting me, no one comes to my aid, no one asks the others to back off or calm down.

No.

Never.

They like and upvote those posts, point and jeer, join the cruelty, cheer on the cruelty, and don't even think it's cruel - they think it's deserved and that makes it okay.

And like in your post, you say I quoted or appealed to a silent majority...when I neither quoted nor appealed to a silent majority nor even mentioned there being a majority at all or what their views might be.

Before this post, in this thread I've used the word majority twice as far as I can tell from CTRL+F each page. Once was saying I support the majority of healer Jobs (SCH, AST, and one of WHM or SGE) being changed. The other was giving someone (I think you?) a hypothetical about what if the situation were reversed and you were in my shoes here, with the majority opposed to you (and I don't think we're going to disagree on the majority of the common posters here being opposed to me). No where did I mention any "majority" or "silent majority" otherwise.

Yet we now have, what, three of your posts berating me for doing this thing, and one of Roe's supporting you berating me for doing this thing?

...this thing I didn't do?

I've now been berated by two users in four posts for saying something...I didn't say.

And who comes to my defense pointing out "Ren didn't appeal to any majority/silent majority"?

Oh, right. No one.

But the posts berating me for a thing I didn't do?

Likes and upvotes, quote supporting, and another quote reiterating the berating.

...for a thing I didn't do.

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How do I fight that?

How do I change my posts and tone to not have an "air of superiority" when I'm...not talking with one?

How do I change my posts to not appeal to the "silent majority" when I...didn't appeal to the silent majority?

When people are going to interpret tones and words into my posts that were not even in my posts, how do I change my posts to stop them from doing that when they're doing it even if there's nothing in my posts to do so from?

Like, can you find one post in this thread of me mentioning "the majority"? You said I don't give a damn about people who lost the playstyle they preferred in SB, despite me saying I do and consistently arguing for over a year now that they get some of that playstyle back on Jobs so they can enjoy it. What do you base your position that I don't care on, if not my words and actions; as my words and actions have shown that I do care, but your interpretation is that I do not.

How can I counter that?

What change can I make, personally, that will have people stop putting words in my mouth that aren't there, taking out or ignoring words that are in/from my mouth so they can say I don't care/etc, and outright interpreting airs and tones that I don't have?

How can I write differently to fix that, when people seem more than willing to just insert things into my posts that aren't said? When I can directly quote my actual posts to point out I never said the things they accuse me of saying, and then they'll just say it a second time and their posts get upvotes and agreement quotes. Like, how do I counteract that? Can you hear the desperation on my tone wanting to know how to change so I can just have a cordial conversation that doesn't end with literal days of people dogpiling on me?

It sucks.

It sucks so much.

You see how often it happens. As you say, you think it's bad. You don't call it out when it's happening, though - no one does. No one comes to my defense. No one ever even says "I don't agree with Ren, but this is beyond the pale". It's me against everyone all the time no matter what I do. No matter what I say. No matter how cordial I try to be. No matter how good faith I speak in topics. No matter how researched my positions. No matter how many or few words or how much or little time I devote to making what I feel is a worthwhile argument.

It.
Sucks.
So.
Much.

I'm a nice guy, I want everyone to be happy, and I just want to have nice conversations about a videogame I enjoy. Is that so much to ask? I'm pleading and imploring you to tell me the fix.

I'm not being rhetorical; I want to know the answer so I can do it.

Because no matter what I do, even if I do everything right, people seem more than willing to just invent/make up that I did things wrong, then lie about that, refuse to admit I didn't do it, and they do this to cheers and applause as others join in.

How do I fix that??

Even after reading this heartfelt plea, will anything change? Probably not. My posts won't get upvotes, the ones berating me will. No one will come to my defense, so I have to defend myself while just trying to have a conversation and be decent to people and present my arguments. The posts attacking me will be supported with upvotes and supportive/appreciative quotes, yours adding fuel to that pyre, and nothing will change.

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What can I do, when even not saying something will have people accusing me of saying it?

What can I do, to stop the hostility, the insults, the berating, the scolding, the people derailing threads and blaming me, the people going on unhinged rants against me and being supported instead of called out, the people cheering the attacks on me and making me feel like a garbage and worthless human being for daring to have an independent view - one that just wants something for everyone so everyone can be happy, mind you - about a video game on a forum that's supposed to be for discussion about that video game?

Because it sucks and I just want it to stop.

How do I make it stop?

[Aravell]

Reply

I can appreciate that you've changed from the first time I spoke with you because you didn't immediately say I attacked you, thank you for that.

As for the topic, I'm not saying you can't argue for everyone, I'm not saying you have to be selfish, but you really can't argue for everyone when the "everyone" you're arguing for don't actually agree with your ideas in the first place, that's a losing battle. Best to first pitch your idea and see if people like it. For what it's worth, your SCH rework idea wasn't offensive, although I fundamentally disagree with the idea behind it. I also fundamentally disagree with DoT mage SCH, just because it was that before doesn't mean it has to be that again, I'd much rather see it use stratagems to modify abilities and such, more of a support healer than a poison healer.

I can't speak for the people who continually attack you, perhaps their initial biases stuck, there's no helping that. As for me though, I'm not your enemy, I'm only here for discussion, I'm not here to make enemies, I hope you can understand that. We've had cordial discussions before, I like those, I'd rather have civil debate than see mud slinging everywhere.

[Sebazy]

How do I make it stop?

It's fairly simple:

The big one is to not rise to it if you want to try and keep a sensible discussion going. If you start throwing stones it's an invitation to react in kind. It doesn't matter who throws the first one, ignore the salt, respond with reason, back it up with facts and it's very hard to continue fighting over that. Case in point, in Gaius' deleted quote thread, on page 1 Max's friend/partner/alt trying to call me out over my post commenting on the reshade quote. I didn't bite, I just explained why and how it was an odd comment and paired that with a few reasonable guesses as to how it came about. It pretty much shut down any chance for an aggressive response because I didn't give them a drop of ammo with which to do it. If I'd have taken the bait and responded in an aggressive or combative manner, I'm pretty confident it would have snowballed from there. They post here occasionally so maybe they will let us know in the name of forum science++.

Secondly, try to back up claims with data. If I put my foot down on a point or call someone out over an error or fallacy, I'll be sure to back it up with concise math and logic. There's been times where I've wanted to resub to the logs site just to get old historic data back for some of these debates

Thirdly, in tandem with the first 2, don't be afraid of being wrong. Some of the greatest successes in history came about off the back of previous mistakes. If you put down data and keep things civil, people can correct mistakes in your workings without it needing to become personal. Everyone's going to get stuff wrong at some point or the other. I was hyped for Stormblood PI as I thought it indicated that we were going to get more multi boss/target fights like Oppressor, Kaliya, T1 etc. I think you can guess how much of a mug I felt mere seconds after I stepped into O1S and I was the first to admit it as frankly it was kind of funny how much I missed the mark on that one.

Above all though, if you don't want hostility, don't stoop to it yourself. That's the key.

[ty_taurus]

What you've been asking for is generally something required to clear content that people run. Note that far more people run Extremes and Savages now than did then. Not that anyone's asking for Cleric back, but like the changes you propose aren't for use in solo content only, etc.

Except it's not required to clear the content that people run. The changes would have the largest effect on early raiders--players that are capable of clearing multiple brand new savage fights in the first week of their release. Moreover, taking potency out of your filler spell and placing in into a a few other actions actually helps the less experienced player, because it's your filler spell that you lose casts of the more you panic heal or overheal with your GCD. It means there's less consequence for healing defensively and cautiously as more of your damage is filtered through other tools with limited uses that are easier to maintain, like Phlegma with charges. Your statement was about how there were people who used Cleric only for soloing, meaning they were doing literally no damage at all outside of soloing, and still managed to clear everything shy of savage, even extremes, which is a more radical outcome than the suggestions that have been made in the past--an optimizable set of tools that not everyone might try to optimize--to which I mean, use their other DPS buttons when it's convenient to them and thus getting a fair chunk of their overall potential damage.

And the thing is, our arguments are not about making every healer equivalent to a level 90 ninja at all. Time and time again, many of us have agreed that at least one healer, typically white mage, can be a simple and forgiving healer, but can do so while still feeling like there are choices to make and optimizable elements with its damage. Roe's white mage concept is simple. My white mage concept is simple. You may not agree, but that does not sound rational to me. It sounds rigid and unyielding.

Considering my position is to ensure there's at least one Job for both camps, I can't see how you think I care more about the one than the other.

Except your position is that what we have now is the only way a simple job can exist, insisting than one water droplet more of interactivity, decision making, or opportunity for DPS optimization takes any of the presented healers from manageable and playable to a wall that will curb all novice and learning healers from ever having a chance of clearing extreme or savage for the rest of the game's lifespan, which is unreasonable. And in the other thread, you yourself stated how leaving 1 healer alone would likely end in failure because that one job's inability to keep up with the other 3 would likely result in SE either curb stomping the other three back into this mess we have now, or forcibly bringing up the 4th one anyway. Instead of fighting everyone constantly on that what we have now is the only healer design that could ever be described as "simple," why don't you try working with the rest of us to come up with a cordially agreed-upon take on a white mage, or any healer, that provides enough satisfying gameplay elements for our argument while being approachable enough for your perspective on how approachable a job needs to be for the lowest common denominator?

Much as I love vanilla ice cream, I'm inclined to agree.

Actually, I was referring to plain ice cream. Vanilla is a flavor. Plain is just milk.

[ForsakenRoe]

why don't you try working with the rest of us to come up with a cordially agreed-upon take on a white mage, or any healer, that provides enough satisfying gameplay elements for our argument while being approachable enough for your perspective on how approachable a job needs to be for the lowest common denominator?

To play devil's advocate, he did do this, I don't remember exactly which thread, but I remember us coming to an agreed position that 'something following the design choices of 4.0' would potentially be the way forward for WHM, to keep it simple yet adding something to it. It was where the idea of 'Protect as a 60s mit for WHM, which evolves into PI' was born, so that's how I remember it happened

[Renathras]

To play devil's advocate, he did do this, I don't remember exactly which thread, but I remember us coming to an agreed position that 'something following the design choices of 4.0' would potentially be the way forward for WHM, to keep it simple yet adding something to it. It was where the idea of 'Protect as a 60s mit for WHM, which evolves into PI' was born, so that's how I remember it happened

Also did it with SCH, which was generally well received despite being not much more complex than the current one, and arguably simplifying some elements - a few simplifications and a few combinations - of its healing kit, while smoothing some of the clunk and dissonances in the kit - Dissipation and shifting Energy Drain over to using Faerie Gauge as well as retooling Aetherpact into a mini-Lustrate - while slightly increasing its DPS kit in both rotation complexity and things to track/manage, and making DPS uptime more rewarding with Energy Drains: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Proposal-SCH

Above all though,

if you don't want hostility, don't stoop to it yourself. That's the key.

I do try. There is a lot I don't respond to, and some stuff I get a lot more emotional about that I just choose not to reply to or come back some other time to reply to. As I said, there's a lot of flack and harassment I get here. Even in entirely neutral posts or entirely neutral things. Even when people agree with me, they do it grudgingly in a "hell has frozen over, for once I agree" way.

The problem with this is, when people attack me like that, they don't go away or calm down if I don't contest them. They just keep doing it well after I've signaled I'm not going to respond in-kind and that I want to disengage from the topic. They will keep doing it until they can get a rise out of me. The only ways to stop this are either to give them the rise OR for other community members to come to my defense. The latter never happens, so it's either I respond in-kind, or I just have to deal with constant harassment that doesn't stop.

Perhaps you can see why that isn't a very viable option?

I should also note, I'm generally not the one who starts throwing the stones, either. I don't like calling people out as liars, so I only do it after repeated and egregious lies. I don't like calling people names or stooping to their level, so same thing. If the forum members aren't self-policing and aren't willing to help out with this, it just doesn't work. When people are openly lying about someone, and no one contests the lie, then that makes the lie stand as if it were truth. And the worst is when I point out using evidence the lie and don't call the person any names, their post still is the one that gets upvotes and quotes in support of it.

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As for your third point: The problem is, people here aren't willing to let things go, most won't admit they were wrong, people seem to like going over my posts with a fine toothed comb to find some i not dotted or t not crossed, and then use that as a cudgel to beat me with and demand I say I was wrong. Beating someone and demanding they admit defeat isn't a good way to get them to do so, and it's certainly not cordial, especially if the mistakes were not intended/bad faith, and double-especially if the person wasn't actually wrong about a thing, they just didn't explain it well enough or estimate something correctly.

There are people who want to discredit everything a person says, meaning if that person admits wrong even once, they will never let it go. I still get people posting from time to time about the 1T/3D thing and trying to say nothing I say can ever be believed and I don't know anything I'm talking about, even though I corrected that post like 4 times to try and get it right, and even if it has literally nothing to do with the current topic of discussion - like housing availability or whatever. Making changes to try to get correct wasn't seen as admirable, it was seen as showing weakness that should and would be exploited from now on.

In general, I do hold the position in life it's better to fear being wrong than fear being perceived as being wrong, and I do try to abandon positions that are untenable. But here, admitting even once you're wrong isn't met with respect, it's met with scorn and abuse.

In that same thread (the Mods do exist, I suppose?), I pointed out to Semi that my quote was clipped to remove me saying the correct thing (well, something passingly correct), and she instead redoubled her efforts to justify her position against me, as die another poster who has followed me through three threads to attack me on that point, despite me, in all three, saying I want to disengage and not participate in her feud with me.

What you're saying does sound nice...but it doesn't seem to actually work very well here...

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Oh, and as for the data - not that I always get it right (the 1T/3D thread with FFL weirdness, for example) but I do try to use data. I have done it a lot less of late, though. Care to guess why?

Because every time I would do so, someone would attack the data, even if they had no alternate data available. People still side-attack the Wayback Machine Healer numbers data, despite proposing no alternative and not actually proving the data's wrong itself. When I use Lucky Bnacho numbers, those aren't good enough. When I do a survey on Reddit, that's not good enough (Ty's is, though; it showed the "right" result, of course).

It's hard for me to justify spending hours looking for and presenting data if it's going to just be dismissed out of hand.

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The problem ultimately comes back to how other people are behaving, not just me, and that other people's bad behavior isn't called out, nor my defense not come to. Instead, other people's bad behavior is upvoted and quoted with agreeable support. People can say in posts now and again "I don't think it's right when people dogpile on you, Ren", but the problem is, they aren't saying that when the dogpiles are happening, and to the people doing the dogpiles. So it's like seeing someone be raped in a mall, not doing anything about it (the bystander effect), seeing it happen multiple times, still not doing anything about it, occasionally commenting on how the rape victim shouldn't dress the way they are, but coming to the victim years later and saying "I don't think it was right that you were raped in the mall"...but you really shouldn't be dressed that way. Especially when other people were taking pictures and posting them to social media of the rape and getting likes and retweets on the pictures.

Not to make light of rape victims, but the point, I hope, is clear; good behavior cannot be demanded of only one person. A forum is kinda like a society, and when the society isn't policing its bad actors and is only policing the people who start swinging after they've been hit several times, saying to the person being hit "You could just not throw any punches" isn't really the best answer.

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Going to try...

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1) There's a fantastic post in a General Discussion thread (a couple of them) I'd like you to read:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...76#post6275276
And:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6276018

I'd encourage you to not read them as something that needs to be argued against, but just sit and read them and think about what they're saying and how people feel. The particularly salient part, if you can only read it and nothing else, is this:

It's really not about just "able to clear normal content" vs. "not able to clear normal content"; that's oversimplifying the issue. People want to feel like they're playing "correctly", not "scraping by because it doesn't matter anyway".

I think this is something you fundamentally misunderstand about your solutions that are "you can just play badly and still manage" and why that really isn't a non-rigid, flexible, accommodating solution.

Note: The second is responding to this post with this TOP example - https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...12#post6275212 - but the post itself is good in its own right, pointing out that not everyone enjoys that kind of thinking/gameplay, and particularly this line that:

I really need to stress that "Oh, it's okay, you can suck and still clear content!" is actually not a satisfying "compromise" to a lot of players.

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2) I assume you mean DoTs on the potencies? The problem is that rewards DoT upkeep, which isn't a skill a lot of people are good with. Some people are very good with it, mind you, but some people are not. And as I've pointed out, the UI is pretty terrible about helping with this, especially since I can't seem to find a way to have my Focus Target show only my debuffs on the boss. If you let Dia fall off for 15 seconds, was that a gain or loss over a Glare cast? It's technically a bigger loss. And what if you have two DoTs? What's the single worst feeling thing to do on a BRD? Realize too late you didn't refresh your DoTs with Iron Jaws. Even if they're only down for a second, it's a pretty terrible feeling.

So this is a case of perception vs reality, but what you're saying is mathematically correct...but in perception, it feels terrible.

When when it comes to Job design and enjoyment, feeling is extremely important. It's like the person in the posts I linked said, if you have two Jobs where one has a lower damage cap but people can consistently reach it, people will probably tend to play that class more because it feels better to do well on a Job and reach its cap (to many people) than it does to do higher damage while doing the rotation imperfectly. Especially since many people don't run DPS meters and so can't really tell if they're doing 5% more damage than the lower cap Job anyway.

Note that I have pointed to abilities like Plegma (if not in melee range) as things that I support and prefer.

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3) As to Cleric - when encounters were tuned both officially and unofficially to assume 0 Healer DPS, something were all pretty sure is no longer true. Recall that many ARR fights didn't even have Enrage timers, meaning they weren't exactly tuned to require DPS at all other than the soft enrage mechanics. Can you imagine 7.X where no Extreme fight had an Enrage? Content and encounters would have go be designed and tuned differently, something you have opposed when I've suggested a far less radical redesign (having more frequent, but smaller in magnitude, unavoidable damage to heal), so would I be right in assuming you'd oppose elimination of Enrages, which is a far more radical change? And recall that in ARR, there was only one tier of Savage, and a very small sliver of the community actually did it. (Of course, the argument goes that the normals were Savage level difficulty and the one Savage was basically an Ultimate, but...)

[I think this may be an aside since neither of us are asking for Cleric to come back, but that's more what would need to be done to make that level of distinction Healer play viable.]

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4) I know you aren't asking for every healer to be a level 90 NIN. But what I seem unable to explain to you is that your argument is asking for none to be level 90 WHM. And I happen to like level 90 WHM. And see (1) for why "you can still play like you can and be suboptimal" isn't a great compromise.

What I can't understand is what's so wrong with having a gradient across the four Jobs. On a scale of 0-10, you're willing to allow 7s, 8s, and 9s in addition to 10s, but not 1s or even 3s or 4s. So you'll allow a gradient, but only one that is on the high end. It's like a food place that only has Large and Extra Large drinks when someone wants a Medium for themselves, a Small for their partner, and a Child size/Extra Small for their toddler. To my way of thinking, we have 4 and arguably could have 5 Healer Jobs (AST stances). To me, a system that has, say, SGE as a 9 or 10 with a BLM-like rotation that just happens to heal as you go, Nocturnal AST at a 7-8 with preplanning, spreading, and altering duration of abilities, SCH at a 4-6 with basically the redesign I proposed, Diurnal AST at a 2-4 still being AST but with a more accessible and reactive kit, and WHM being a 1 where it is right now. And nothing is a 0 (theoretical 0 would be "legitimate autoplay", like if SCH had two Faeires you summoned at once, one healed the party completely on its own and one did optimal damage completely on its own, and your only buttons were "Summon Eos" and "Summon Selene" and they were automatically summoned when you entered the Job so you'd have to actively dismiss them to get rid of them and the Faeries persist and do their thing even if the player is KOd, so you could just die at the start of the fight and still contribute full optimal damage and healing - a 0 is "literally, not figuratively, plays itself", since that's how I'd define "literally 0 skill or interaction required" in the most extreme case possible. Compared to that, btw, WHM is probably a 3 as it stands currently...)

To me, that doesn't sound very rigid, as it sounds the opposite of rigid. It sounds far less unyielding to me than "7, 8, 9, and 10 only; you can play as a 4, but you'll be doing poorly" does.

Maybe it's because you think what I'd call 5 is 1 and so to you, you're saying 1 5 and 10 or something, but clearly we disagree on what the low end of the scale is. It's like you're measuring in Celcius and I'm measuring in Kelvin, and you're insisting that 0 C is the lowest temperature a scale should read while I'm pointing out there are another 273 degrees that you're ignoring, and you retort that Absolute Zero is braindead and no one should want it anyway, and that the boiling point of liquid nitrogen should be sufficiently cool for anyone who wants something colder than 0C, but they also don't get to use it anywhere but in a laboratory.

Okay, tortured attempt at a comparison aside, that probably is it: We're measuring with different scales, with mine extending farther on the bottom end than yours (and possibly on the top end, as I haven't seen you support a BLM level of play). But either way, I just can't understand why my scale is seen by you as more rigid and unyielding when, as far as I can tell, mine's even wider than yours. Where your scale from 1-10 (expanded) is probably that you want Jobs to be a 6-7-8-9, Mine goes from 1 (WHM) to 10 (BLM-like SGE), and I just don't understand how that's more rigid and unyielding by any definition.

Maybe another part is you think that "you're allowed to play poorly" adds flexibility, but, again, see (1). It does not.

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5) My position isn't that what we have now is the only way a simple Job can exist, though.

What my position is, is that what we have now is a good level for the simpliest Job of the new paradigm spectrum. What WHM is now, for example, is a good "1", or what a "1" would make sense to be. I'm not saying there can't be a "2" or "3" as well. I'm not saying there can't be other things that are still simple - my SCH rework, as I said in that thread, is still fairly simple while still being more complex than current SCH and, indeed, than any of the current Healers are, DPS rotation-wise. I would rate it as a "3" from 1-5 or as a "4" from 0-10.

That is, I'm not saying "WHM is the only way a simple Job can exist". I'm saying "WHM makes sense to me as the simplest Job of the post-change system". Those are two pretty different statements. I...also want to point out - respectfully and cordially - that it's a bit hyperbole on your part - respectfully - to say that I think that "one water droplet more of interactivity" will make things completely unplayable. Again, my SCH rework adds at least several "water droplets" of more interactivity, and even my WHM suggestions (I've had several, but offhand, one was to make Dia get Thundercloud procs, and another was to make the main rotation mirror PLD sorta in that every 1-2-3 [1-1-1] of Glare casts, you get a Holy cast like how PLD does its main 1-2-3 combo and then gets a Holy Spirit), which are also at least one droplet more, if not several droplets more.

So - respectfully - that isn't a...fair...representation of my position.

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6) I didn't sate that leaving 1 alone would result in that. I believe that was Roe's argument. I was only countering that by saying if that was true, all it would indicate is that making Jobs more complex doesn't work. And that even in this hypothetical, that would only result if the playerbase complained about "having to do more work and not do more damage" (I still contend that was happening in SB and was at least part of the reason for the ShB changes - as I've said before, players said "We shouldn't have to do more work and not be rewarded with more damage!" and SE pulled out the Monkey's Paw and said "Ohhhh, you want to lighten the load, do you?" <monkey's paw curls> "Excellent idea!" <throws out DPS abilities> "Now you don't have to do more work and not be rewarded any more!") [And yes, that was a Great Mouse Detective quote of Rattagan before he throws the bat off the little dirigible.]

It was a hypothetical and countering another hypothetical, and based on assumption of if the playerbase complains loudly and long enough.

...to be fair, that last point probably is a pretty good assumption. But in any case, it wasn't me stating something inevitable. And even if it was: Again, that would just suggest we shouldn't be changing any, not the opposite.

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7) As Roe pointed out: I have.

I think I have with WHM several times, SCH once which was well received generally, and I'm pretty sure I've thrown out at least one semi-simple SGE suggestion, and probably several, as well as a medium difficulty SGE suggestion that was based on RDM.

And even though I don't feel qualified to do so since I play it so little and don't have the mindset of people who enjoy it - which is a big deal, I don't want to step on the toes of people who love AST, and it is the one Healer Job I don't consistently play and hold a "Ask those people what they want because I'm genuinely not a player that enjoys AST's gameplay but don't want to take away from it from those who do" - I still tried my hand on at least one AST rework, namely making Cards GCDs and damage neutral, as well as proposing changes to make them more enjoyable in different kind of gameplay, like increasing card effects when used on themselves or agreeing with whoever suggested that they should be able to stack on themselves, etc.

So...I feel like I have done what you asked. One case it was decently received, the rest were all rebuffed outright.

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8) I prefer vanilla ice cream to milk flavored ice cream.

A 1, not a 0.

[ty_taurus]

I think this is something you fundamentally misunderstand about your solutions that are "you can just play badly and still manage" and why that really isn't a non-rigid, flexible, accommodating solution.

But I'm not actually arguing that the average player intentionally play poorly. I'm saying that players can do what is comfortable for them, whether that's optimal or not. The average player doesn't do things like drop their GCD or sit on cooldowns and think "dammit! I'm losing damage." That's not how I looked at my own performance back during ARR and HW when I was not a midcore player and would regularly stop casting altogether to play my cards, or might not reapply DoTs until I needed to reapply all of them as SCH. I wasn't measuring my performance up to what is possible of my job, I was just doing my best and enjoying beating content like extremes or some of the coils. Whether or not the average player is able to use 2 or 3 new DPS spells as optimally as humanly possible is not going to make or break a community of players. The only reason intentionally not using DPS ever came up was as a bargaining chip specifically for you and select few who seem repulsed by the prospect of additional DPS buttons at all, regardless of how easy or challenging they are to use.

I've also tried before to argue the concept of a healer that spends their GCDs setting up and activating party-wide buffs instead of attacking, and in order to stay competitive with the other healers, generates personal damage indirectly as a consequence of setting up your buffs. That way there could be a healer whos engagement stemmed from the experience of supporting most of the time and attacking as little as possible, and that seems to me like a great way to create a healer specifically for players who want to master and perfect their job without having that optimization having to come from attacking enemies, but as you mention at the bottom, was pretty much rejected outright.

To me, that doesn't sound very rigid, as it sounds the opposite of rigid. It sounds far less unyielding to me than "7, 8, 9, and 10 only; you can play as a 4, but you'll be doing poorly" does.

If we say that Ninja is a 10 in this example, I cannot agree that WHM with 2-3 additional attack spells makes it jump from a 1 to a 7. I would generously describe 2-3 extra spells as a 4. It would be more accurate to say that what I'd like to see would be something around a 4|5|5|6 spread to a 4|6|6|8 spread. The 4 should still bring value that the other healers do not have, and the DPS should still offer some opportunities to get extra damage out of using the right things at the right time, but it's overall straightforward and forgiving on the healing side.

7) As Roe pointed out: I have

That's fair; however, the reason why I don't recall this very well is you've made several posts in the past about different interpretations of each of the healers, often with different "what if"s attached, including "what if we make WHM complex and leave [this healer] in a state like this instead?" There's nothing wrong with making theorycrafts like that, but because the reasoning behind those different takes would change based on the topic, I don't feel that I have a strong understanding of what you'd collectively be content with or what was just experimental to see what people respond to. Something like having Holy buffed after every third Glare is certainly a fine step in a better direction, and I am always on board to give uses to buttons that are currently restricted to AoE only.

If we were to say that is 1 additional action of DPS variety, what if anything would you be willing to add to that?