A question for SCH mains and enjoyers

[Renathras]

Your position is quite literally the definition of "inflexible."

My initial position: Don't change any of the healers/don't make them more complex.
My second proposal: How about we change 2 to more complex and keep 2? Works with the Pure/Barrier split.
My third proposal: Okay, how about we just leave 1 the same? WHM makes the most sense.
My fourth proposal: Okay, how about SGE as the 1 we leave the same? There's a decent argument for that.
My fifth proposal: Okay, how about we leave 1 the same, and you can pick it, even the one I like the least, AST?
My sixth proposal: Okay, so I get nothing? You won't leave me even one? Okay, how about we add a new healer to be near one we already have (I suggested Druid vs White Mage with Druid being the complex elementalist dps rotation), where it can be a "complex version" and the 1 can remain unchanged as the simple one and you get all 4 of the rest and IN EFFECT also get a complex version of the one we don't change?
My seventh propsal: Okay, so you want all the existing healers (aesthetics was the argument at the time, somehow not satisfied with Druid, even though that's what people are proposing for their WHM change suggestions... <_<), so how about we give you all 4 we have and make the added/new one the simple one, even though that makes the least logical sense?
My seventh proposal: Okay, so you really want NONE to be where I can enjoy them? Alright...so here's a proposal for SCH, already arguably the most complex, to get a LITTLE more complex but MOSTLY stay the same, and you get all the rest. How's that?

VS:

Your initial position: All the healers must change to be more complex. They need something to do during downtime. They need complex DPS rotations.
Your second (final up until now) position after a lot of debates/discussions: Okay, so some people don't like doing damage. How about all healers must change to be more complex. They need something to do during down time. 3 get complex DPS rotations and 1 gets a complex buffing rotation.

...and that's also been your FINAL position. Until the post above where you suggest "White Mage Classic", your position has been unyielding across, what, a year and a half of us having these back and forths? My friend, your position meets the definition of "inflexible" far better than my own. Case in point:

Why? You're against "If we rework one healer we should rework all healers." Why are you now suddenly open to equality?

Why? Because you've introduced a new concept - that we can have two versions of healer Jobs. That solves the problem entirely. Just have two versions of each. Up until this point, I've held that isn't an option since FFXIV doesn't have specs or options for this. But if you're introducing it as an option, we can run with it. (I don't think it's realistic, I doubt that the Devs will make two versions of one Job like this, but if it IS, there's no reason to limit it to one Job

"open to equality"? This isn't an equality argument. You've opened up a new avenue of discussion where both sides can have access to all healers. Why WOULDN'T we do this for all four Jobs if we can do it for one?

Additionally: It's also interesting to me you are unwilling to allow an added/new Job to be simple OR to copy an existing Job (WHM) to a new one and let that be "the complex version of it" (Druid), but you ARE willing to make a COPY of a Job - but ONLY one and attack me for suggesting otherwise - so that it's only allowed if you still have access to that same Job in a complex version. But while implementing this new functionality (two versions of the same Job), you don't want to extend the franchise.

It's like I said before - you want (selfishly?) all the healer Jobs to be where you will enjoy playing them and you don't want any to be where you do not. So much so that you aren't willing to leave any simple, nor to add any new Jobs that are simple, nor to add a new Job to be a complex copy of an existing one. You're only willing for one to be simple (now, after over a year of this back and forth) if and only if it's only one Job AND it has a complex copy.

I'm sorry, you meet the definition of inflexible far better than I do.

You noticed that Snow was fine with Sem's take, right?

Irrelevant.

Snow didn't ask the question "Will I/Snow agree with someone's reason for not wanting even 1 healer to stay the same?"

Snow asked the question "Who, if anyone, is opposed to 1 healer staying the same and the other 3 changing?

I answered the question. This is you trying to move the goal posts, a common thing here (someone else just did it in another thread and I noted it there as well). A case of "Here's a debate topic. Oh no, Ren offered a correct rebuttal to it. How about we just bring up a new topic, pretend that was the topic all along, pretend the other topic wasn't under discussion, and say his rebuttal doesn't address this new topic?"

My rebuttal wasn't to whether or not Snow was fine with Sem's take.

My rebuttal/answer was to the question of who is opposed to leaving 1 healer the same. That remains unchanged, since even your latest proposal isn't keeping one Job the same, it's making a copy of one Job (but only one), something never done in the game before, so that you can change all 4.

.

And you know what the messed up thing is?

I MIGHT even be willing to accept that. It would be really stupid - no other Job in the game has two versions OF THE SAME JOB; the closest to that concept is BLU - and there's no reason to do it - we have the option of just not changing it OR as I suggested before adding a new Job to be the "complex" WHM (Druid seems the most likely alternative, though it could also be Shaman or Elementalist or even Geomancer as a healer). It's the dumbest possible solution/compromise. But I wouldn't even oppose the idea outright.

Because UNLIKE you, I've shown extraordinary flexibility.

You could, but then the question would (rightly) be asked: if SMN loses it's complex playstyle, and the playstyle is given to Green Mage, why could SE not have introduced Green Mage with a simple playstyle and left SMN alone? Or in healer terms, why did every healer have to be kneecapped in SHB, when instead they could have left them alone, rode it out for 2 years, and then added SGE for people who want 'relatively simple'?

I mean, I've addressed this before. Literally. In the DPS forum. In a thread on this topic.

As I said then (similar to the Druid argument above), I think they should have added current SMN as branching from Arcanist but with a new Job stone of Evoker, calling on FF history (I think it was FF3?) where Evoker was kind of a "junior Summoner", kind of like Sage was a "higher level Red Mage". Evoker was a more simple and lower level version. This would have allowed both to co-exist.

Alternatively, introducing Green Mage as the DoT mage would have been an intelligent alternative considering old SMN to most people didn't play like a SMN. That's been something even people that liked SMN frequently said prior to EW (where it became vogue to rag on new SMN and praise old SMN to the high heavens). Old SMN has been derided as "discount WoW Warlock" for years. People have long pointed out that poisons and DoTs aren't thematically Summoner traits. And before EW went live, when people just saw visuals of the new SMN animations, people were remarking then that it FELT and LOOKED like a proper Summoner.

On the other hand, Green Mage has long been a status effect Caster, so it thematically fits for a DoT mage and makes more sense. Green Mage as the "simple playstyle" doesn't make any sense as a DoT mage, since DoTs are generally not simple/casual friendly (as I've pointed out many times before), and GRM would more be suited as a complex/technical Job with debuff and buff maintenance. So if they were going to do a simple Summoner, Evoker makes sense, Green Mage as a simple Job really does not.

Note that I supported either option, though - a new Job OR if the old one was reworked...another new Job to maintain that playstyle. Both positions I hold related to Healers as well. Both positions rejected here. So take from that what you will.

I think the current healers do have fans. Those fans are people who don't like trying, don't want to improve, and want to make sure that playstyle is also optimal. A while back, Roe spent a lot of time designing a hypothetical WHM that keeps the Glarespam playstyle at 90% of the job's damage output while providing a rotation of sorts that could eke out another 10% if you wanted to go for it. Ren rejected it outright. Nope. No complexity for its own sake.

Semi, I think my biggest problem with you - and why I'm sometimes flippant in responses - isn't that you disagree with me, isn't that you're unpleasant to me. It's that you outright lie.

Maybe you forgot, but I even made a proposal - me, the guy that doesn't want complex things - for a SCH rework that would make it MORE COMPLICATED (not a lot, but more than it is now), allowing that if that was changed that way, it would probably still be pretty acceptable to people like me (not perfect, but "There are levels of existence we are willing to accept." -Architect, The Matrix 2). I even bumped it just recently to see if people still like the overall idea:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Proposal-SCH

...so stop lying and saying I reject all complexity. While I think complexity isn't always good, is often bad, that over-complexity IS bad unless it's just a single case people can avoid (e.g. BLM), and that simplicity can be good (as long as it's not ALL options so there's NO alternative, as is the case presently with Healers); I'm not against any and all complexity, and there are even some more complexity versions of things I'm willing to accept. That I don't want the same level of complexity as you is not a rejection of all complexity. Hell, I've even said you can change 3 out of 4 of the Healers; and even [b]4 out of 4[/i] if one of them (my SCH example) was kept relatively simple.

You've given nothing.

And you won't.

You outright reject any and all compromises. While Ty has at least bent a slight bit, like a person giving an almost-but-not-quite-imperceptible nod, you have been the very spirit of inflexibility in any form.

And I will say - yet again - "boring and terrible" is, to me, what you're asking for. Jobs staying the same as they are today is them staying "dynamic and enjoyable". But you're incapable of seeing that other people think and see things differently than you do.

You did, 3 posts above mine.
...
I'm not so petty that I'd call you out on something you never even said.

To the first: That's why I said "not even sure" instead of "I didn't". I didn't feel like digging back through the thread to see, but I wasn't sure and so didn't want to make a hard statement. Maybe you can see where I typed "not even sure" instead of an absolute statement?

To the second: Honestly, I don't GENERALLY consider you petty (though some of your comments here have been...); I actually consider you one of the more reasonable and approachable people here. It's one reason I actually engage with you in-depth. Contrast my remarks to Semi, which are more dismissive, because I know she's just unwilling to do anything but hate at this point and I can't change that intransigence and it's so caustic there's no way to really have a productive conversation with her. Though I honestly thought you were referencing me talking about it in General, not here.

Though one thing I'll note: No one has actually given a good rebuttal to the point - that outside of my posts (and just recently, Deo and Snow bring it up, though Snow almost immediately "agreeing" with Semi thus shooting it down again), this forum is of a mind on this topic, hence the echo chamber argument seems to be correct. In all this dancing about the issue to catch me in an argument of bad faith or Ty shifting the goalposts or Semi calling me names is the fact that all of that supports the premise of this being an echo chamber as an accurate appraisal.

I honestly don't think it so absurd to say if I wasn't posting here, there wouldn't be any major disagreement. And other than 1 or 2 posts randomly from the people that pop in for a few days then never return, there wouldn't be any posts representing the casual viewpoint at all. I know no one wants to hear that, but as I said before, show me anyone else representing the opposed side. Snow has been posting a lot here recently, but wasn't before, and seemed to hold my side for all of one post before agreeing with Semi. Deo kind of comes and goes, but her post yesterday presenting my own (a prior version of) position...in a post trying to oppose/call me out, amusingly enough...is also a new thing/one-off, and was only posted in response to me being here. If I left this forum, what would you guys really be disagreeing on, other than of SCH or SGE was the worst SCH? Who would be really presenting an argument for casual players here? Hm...I just don't see it.

...

That's fair. I knew your position was more nuanced with most here. And one thing I've been consistent on is that fights should have more consistent outgoing damage (the damage doesn't have to be as big if it's consistent; consistent means that you can't just use oGCDs for everything, and making damage more even also means Jobs with less mitigation aren't as penalized/relatively weak options for a party slot).

I'd like to ask if you still think my SCH idea has merit, as you said before? I remember your big concern was not having Lustrate, but I pointed out that was why I moved it to Aetherpact. I don't remember if you replied after that or saw that, since it was already in the proposal and addressed that particular concern.

This is also the thread we talked about Energy Drain being so pathetically weak (my calculations were that it would shorten fights by on average less than 15 seconds, and that would be if used for all AF, all Dissipation, and in maximum damage raid buffs, food, pots, and BiS damage optimized gear), with the average probably being a lot less.