For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Connor]

I’m not going to pretend I’ve read through every word of these…’arguments’. But I simply don’t get any side lol.

Why does White Mage having ‘similar design philosophy to what it has now’ mean ‘it cannot get any new dps or non-healing abilities ever?’
Based on current design for both encounters and healers I’d estimate White Mage would be more likely to receive new damage abilities if they wanted to ‘keep it mostly the same’. Whether they’re interesting or not is a different matter, but still. I’d assume Renathas isn’t literally saying White Mage should not get any new abilities whatsoever, cuz that would just be weird come expansion time lol

Likewise, why does overlap between certain job capabilities have to be eradicated? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just design the jobs how they want as unique and interesting playstyles?
Any overlap wouldn’t be particularly egregious as long as it was interesting and unique for each involved jobs (i.e Scholar and Astrologian both having party support, White Mage and Sage both being personal dps oriented). And as long as the main mechanics of each job have depth and individuality the overlaps wouldn’t make it feel like you’re playing the same job 4 times over, in my opinion anyway.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say, for example, ‘Astrologian is the buff healer so that immediately precludes Scholar from all future buff or support skills’, ‘Sage is the dps healer so White Mages aren’t allowed to dps’. That wouldn’t make any sense either lol.

As for prescribed job difficulties (i.e ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ jobs), I feel like this is a bit of a redundant concept. Players will always naturally gravitate towards a playstyle that they prefer personally, so trying to prescribe difficulties can just make the choice of jobs feel more rigid and restricted. I’ve always found Bard way easier than Dancer, and while I’m aware it’s like, objectively not lol, it feels that way to me because I’ve played Bard since 1.0 lol. I think the best way for them to deal with this is also to design jobs with an emphasis on the unique and interesting aspects of each job, then allow players themselves decide which ones they find ‘easier’ or ‘harder’. That goes for all jobs though. I also don’t think it’s quite accurate to say that any job should be ‘designed for newer players’ or ‘designed for hardcore raiders’, because again it’s always ultimately going to come down to what the players believes, not what the devs tell them to

Realistically, healer design should end up looking like a ‘4-Healer Model’ where each one brings something unique and interesting to the table. At the same time, said ‘Model’ doesn’t need to be sacrosanct; overlap between job capabilities and complexity/depth for each job can still exist in a model that seeks to emphasise the unique playstyle of each job. Accessibility and Complexity/Depth can coexist lol That’s my opinion anyway

[ASkellington]

Realistically, healer design should end up looking like a ‘4-Healer Model’ where each one brings something unique and interesting to the table. At the same time, said ‘Model’ doesn’t need to be sacrosanct; overlap between job capabilities and complexity/depth for each job can still exist in a model that seeks to emphasise the unique playstyle of each job. Accessibility and Complexity/Depth can coexist lol That’s my opinion anyway

Because Renathras doesn't get your bolded point.

He keeps thinking that we want complexity without accessibility and that we want to gatekeep players when in reality, no.

No one here is arguing all 4 healers should get the same things. Infact I've gone out of my way to say, no they shouldn't. Twice.

The crux of his argument is that healers want more than the crappy loop SE has given us when we have nothing to heal so he'll give 3 healers a better outlook and not all four. Usually leaving WHM behind but he'll sacrifice any one given the oppertunity.

He thinks he's doing the right thing for the however many percent like healers how they are because they'll leave the job like SMN mains and SAM mains when you can't really compare the two. Its admirable when you really stop to think about it, but he's not going about it the wrong way, and he's still failing to offer a good reason as to why WHM or any healer for that matter should stay as it is when as you've said and I'VE said in the past they aren't mutually exclusive.

And because I know he's going to demand where I've ever said that:

I'm more curious as to why he's so against letting WHM even GROW as a healer.

Like, what entirely is so wrong with having a healer designed to be easy to heal with and easy to do damage with when healing is not required?

To make it as crystal clear as possible because it seems like no matter HOW MANY TIMES I have to repeat myself to you, what I want is for WHM to remain a SIMPLE HEALER while ALSO GAINING just as simple dps options so it isn't just a nuke and a DoT.

Same as every other healer.

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

In super simple terms:

We have 4 Healer Jobs, so it makes sense to have each have a bit different rotation and focus, this way to appeal to the most people.

...

So the idea of "4 Healers Model" is that we could change up this to where each plays distinctly from the others, meaning no matter what gameplay you like, you likely have a Healer Job that YOU personally would enjoy the mechanics of.

...


The only constant is that at least one Job remain more or less like it is now (for people that enjoy current healer gameplay) and that at least one change to something to appeal to those that wish for a more complex design and rotation. Taken to the widest form to appeal to the most people, this would likely include one of the Jobs being a dedicated buffer class (probably AST since it's already borderline set up for it), and probably two of the others being different flavors of damage (e.g. one DoT focused and one with no DoTs that's rotation focused instead like RDM or SMN are).

1. Doesn't this already kind of exist already? I mean 3/4 are basically different enough. Sure, could have better rotations.

2. Wouldn't this just stunt the growth of the jobs? There comes a point where you'll unnecessarily restrict what you can do with the design. E.g. where to go with WHM if left as is? How much would you need to rework the other 3 healers so they are satisfying? What are the limits of the design?

[ForsakenRoe]

2. Wouldn't this just stunt the growth of the jobs? There comes a point where you'll unnecessarily restrict what you can do with the design. E.g. where to go with WHM if left as is? How much would you need to rework the other 3 healers so they are satisfying? What are the limits of the design?

Good point, and I'm not sure how often it's come up previously. With something like AST, it has some room to grow in alternate directions, such as getting new ways to aid with damage via buffing allies, maybe it gets a way to give 'negative fate' to enemies to debuff them? But WHM does not have that option. It's 'identity', for lack of a better one, is that it 'heals really strongly via GCDs', and before SGE took the crown, was 'the personal-DPS healer'. So if we were to limit it's growth in terms of it's damage rotation (which is the 'personal DPS' side of the job), it's got no other directions to grow, save for one: more excess healing tools we don't need, which leads to redundancy in the kit. We already have Cure2 and Regen seeing little to no use thanks to Solace, and Rapture effectively deleting Medica 1, adding more tools will just invalidate something else. I've seen suggestions of a Lily spender that applies a HOT. While I can see it fitting thematically with WHM, I can also see it putting Regen in the grave even deeper.

It's silly to limit the directions of growth a job can take. Honestly, that line about 'we didn't really know what to do with SCH' at the pre-EW liveletter? Probably wouldn't have happened if the devs hadn't artificially stunted it's growth potential by removing all of it's DOTs bar one.

[Shurrikhan]

I’m not going to pretend I’ve read through every word of these…’arguments’. But I simply don’t get any side lol.

Why does White Mage having ‘similar design philosophy to what it has now’ mean ‘it cannot get any new dps or non-healing abilities ever?’

So, designing each healer with a target 'camp' or gameplay 'cluster' to which they're meant to appeal, rather than just building up primarily from the job's roots and core, doesn't actually require that any job is left the same. That's a separate addendum that Renathras has assigned atop that.

Likewise, why does overlap between certain job capabilities have to be eradicated? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just design the jobs how they want as unique and interesting playstyles?

This depends on two prior decisions: (1) permitted kit size and (2) whether differentiation in means is also considered (instead of solely the basic categories of their outputs).


The first, the matter of ceilings to complexity / kit size (in terms of consequent nuance, available actions, and thereby its manner of optimizations/interactions, not just/necessarily button count), is pretty self-explanatory:

If the permitted kit size is large, then there's no harm in having some overlap, because there's enough space in the remainder for even the shared portions to feel totally different in practice because of unshared portions differently make use of them. But if the kit is only permitted to be quite small, then overlap leaves might not leave enough room for differentiation.


The second depends on whether one looks at the HOW of two jobs performing a given task, rather than just WHAT they are doing.

For instance, if you have a SCH that is able to increasingly manipulate an opponent's offense by destabilizing their aether through foreign mana pooled into them or bolster an ally's defense through much the same, with periodic and buffering effects (flat damage taken/dealt reduction) each behaving in a certain way, you might look at the fact that it uses, among other things, shields and DoTs, and that he can use Broil/Bane or Catalysis/Pulse to consume that pooled MP and say, "Well, he's just DoTing/shielding/nuking." At that point, even if other jobs could perform any of those function in a way that feels completely different, the person looking only at the end result, and evaluating it only categorically, might say then that AST shouldn't be allowed to use shields, DoTs, or nukes, because SCH already claimed that for its own "identity".

Which largely brings us back to the difference between defining, say, AST as the "Cards+Time-Space Magic" job (where that is permitted a variety of outputs and interactions, which wouldn't likely exclude any other job from anything but those specific intersections or unique considerations) or as the "Buffs" job, SCH as the "Galvanization+Aetherpool" jobor as the "Shields job (w/ pet?)", etc.

As for prescribed job difficulties (i.e ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ jobs), I feel like this is a bit of a redundant concept. Players will always naturally gravitate towards a playstyle that they prefer personally, so trying to prescribe difficulties can just make the choice of jobs feel more rigid and restricted.

I wholly agree that trying to prescribe difficulties is ridiculous. I don't think any but Ren, Gemina, and Velkellor have ever suggested specifically aiming for that, though, at least regarding healers. (Though you can find people asking for alternating "easy" jobs per gear class elsewhere, even on the Top Posts page right now...)

Most involved in healer threads on the official forums seem to simply be looking for the likes of "Easy to learn, but plenty thereafter to master, going so far as one wants to go (with this added throughput from mastery being largely excess to requirement, fairly intuitive steps to be taken towards increased mastery, and naturally diminishing returns at each step that inevitably make it still feasible to play all the healer jobs at once rather than being devoted to any single one)."

Personally, I prefer for job design to just keep giving player little tricks and techs they can play with wherever they can be found and would seem likely enjoyable. If it's so ridiculously finnicky that only <10 ms ping players with a perfect sense of timing could max it out, that might not be worth adding, but so long as there's a group that'd enjoy it larger than the difference to performance it'd make... cool; bring it on.

(It's worth noting here that the rewards for complexity inherently decrease as total/cumulative complexity increases. For example, mastering "Transpose lines" is quite literally harder than "keep your GCD rolling" but contributes only ~1% of the latter's contribution, in part because keeping that GCD rolling is the bottleneck for any uptime embonused by mastering Transpose lines. Similarly, knowing whether to start a fight with a double-Solar Blitz with this given party in this particular fight is going to make only a tiny difference compared to deliberate RoF alignments, which in turn are pretty inconsequential compared to even just hitting your CDs on CD, because each new means of reward can essentially only affect the benefits of its prior/more fundamental optimizations. Etc., etc.)

That said, you can have very real difference in difficulty as, on average, perceived across a large, randomized sample size of players. If it takes only a couple considerations to hit 80% of maximum throughput on one job, while such would net only 50% on another or need a few more and more complicated of considerations to reach that 80% performance... then, yeah, on average most players will find the second job more difficult. And if they then perform the same, there's an imbalance.

Easiest way to not have to face that to any significant extent: Just don't arbitrarily cap their skill ceilings or specifically aim to make a particular job "easy". At that point there's enough complexity, then, that subjective assessments of difficulty won't cluster significantly enough to say which job is easier/harder and, more importantly, they'll tend to perform more closely across varying skill levels, instead of one at best build OP for some and UP for others based on some threshold of effort/engagement.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say, for example, ‘Astrologian is the buff healer so that immediately precludes Scholar from all future buff or support skills’, ‘Sage is the dps healer so White Mages aren’t allowed to dps’. That wouldn’t make any sense either lol.

I agree, though the apt analogy would probably be more like "AST is the buff healer, so only they should have more than one type/form of buff" or "Sage is the DPS healer, so only they are allowed more than a very basic number of/interactions among offensive actions (i.e., so few as to be visually/mentally unobtrusive even to those who would rather just Malefic Spam)". A "Buffer healer" and a "healer with a single (type of) buff", and a "DPS healer" and a "Healer with (any) DPS", are quite different, after all. No one's asked to treat any category quite so broadly or with quite such mutual exclusion.

[Renathras]

None among "healers should play differently from each other", "healers should play differently from other roles", or "healers should have distinct identities", etc. are unique to your "model".

The only ultimate difference is that one model restricts what each job is allowed, in order to guide it towards a specific camp, while the other simply says "Whatever seems to especially fit the job and build out its core mechanics/theme, go for it... and then tweak and polish thereafter for deeper and/or broader appeal to the playerbase as is possible, be that via a bit more contrast here, a bit more highlighting of unique aspects there, etc., etc."

No.

That's not the way ANY of this works. This is why we can't have productive discussions.

Full stop no. My argument has always been all healers.

Full stop no.

2) Your argument is to say, for the 25% that want more complexity/depth in dps and healing, they get all four healer Jobs, and let's say screw the other 75% and leave just ZERO healers for them when that wasn't what anyone wanted in the first place.

Your solution is unacceptable.

EDIT:

Your model is not an improvement. Its gatekeeping. IN the traditional sense. You're literally gatekeeping all four healer's designs to suck, and you're gatekeeping healers who enjoy current healing. You are literally telling them "great, you can play MSQ and you aren't allowed to do anything else because we want the jobs to be convoluted and clunky and DPS because we like DPSing better. You want to play a healer, go play another GAME because no healer Job in FFXIV will be allowed to be fun." You just don't want to admit it or just can't see it that way.

Pick whichever is more accurate.

(Btw, this isn't me trying to be snarky. This is me showing you what you sound like.)

.

As always, my solution accommodates the most people. Your idea of "fun" isn't. Your idea of "better" isn't. YOU are literally writing off 75% of the community (by your example numbers) and telling them to screw off and go play another GAME while my idea means that both they and you can play this one. That makes your model worse in every way.

Why does White Mage having ‘similar design philosophy to what it has now’ mean ‘it cannot get any new dps or non-healing abilities ever?’
Based on current design for both encounters and healers I’d estimate White Mage would be more likely to receive new damage abilities if they wanted to ‘keep it mostly the same’. Whether they’re interesting or not is a different matter, but still. I’d assume Renathas isn’t literally saying White Mage should not get any new abilities whatsoever, cuz that would just be weird come expansion time lol

Correct. Upgrades, new effects added to abilities, etc, would all still exist.

I'm with you on the 4-Healer Model.

Some nuance can exist within the Jobs - as it already does. I think this is the major sticking point. I recognize the Jobs already have complexity/depth while others reject the notion outright and hyperbolize that Healers are 1 button Jobs that don't do anything else.

I also agree with you that the concepts of easy and hard are subjective. I've long found GNB easier to play than old PLD, DRK, or WAR, though I'm not sure why.

Because Renathras doesn't get your bolded point.

False.

I get it, you don't.

Maybe you should stop telling people what people who aren't you are thinking?

He keeps thinking that we want complexity without accessibility and that we want to gatekeep players when in reality, no.

Some of the people on your side have literally said before that people should not be able to play as they do currently and clear Savages OR even Extremes. Yes, that is gatekeeping. The idea of it being accessible "in MSQ 4 mans" is not actual accessibility.

The crux of his argument is that [U]healers want more than the crappy loop SE has given

...do you GENUINELY not realize that some people find Healers enjoyable to play right now? That "crappy loop" is your SUBJECTIVE take and not one universally shared?

...but he'll sacrifice any one given the oppertunity.

NO!

GOOD GOD this is what's frustrating.

I'm not "sacrificing" one. I'm SACRIFICING THREE. I'm SAVING one from you! What you want is the sacrifice. What you want is the suck. What you want is the crappy loop. What YOU want is the shit gameplay that I'd hate to be subjected to. I'm not "sacrificing" one healer to save three. I'm SACRIFICING three TO SAVE ONE. And YOU get all three. AND THAT'S NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU.

Its admirable when you really stop to think about it,

At least you get this right...

...but he's not going about it the wrong way, and he's still failing to offer a good reason as to why WHM or any healer for that matter should stay as it is when as you've said and I'VE said in the past they aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm going to ignore "failing to offer a good reason" as I've done so dozens of times, you just don't want to accept it. Moving on from THAT to mutually exclusive:

The problem is, it is.

Unless the complex and simple forms HAVE THE SAME OUTPUT, it's mutually exclusive because there will be some content that the latter cannot clear otherwise. Therein lies the problem. That's why one should be spared being turned into a shitty worse DPS and allowed to remain NOT shitty like healers today are NOT shitty and are fun and enjoyable to play. And there's no way you guys would accept the same output. You think "more work should be more rewarding", and the "reward" isn't "more fun" it's "greater output in either damage, healing, utility or some combination". That's not equal, and thus is mutually exclusive. And, if someone points this out, they get accused of being lazy or "wanting a pink parse" - because we all know belittling and insulting people is the highest form or civilized discussion and disproves the opponent's position, right? Oh, wait, no it's not...

Hell, you've seen MY WHM and SGE proposals, have you not?

In both cases I made the DPS rotation more engaging, and I did it without even adding another DPS button (or button at all) for WHM, and actually DECREASING the total number of abilities on SCH!

WHM: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Mage-eddition
Note that this would be a more complex DPS rotation but doesn't add a single new spell to the roster to do so.

SCH: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Proposal-SCH
This idea actually adds a lot of complexity, but pays for it by simplifying and merging abilities, reducing clunk, and streamlining systems to make it not punishing at the same time.

[Shurrikhan]

You are literally telling them "great, you can play MSQ and you aren't allowed to do anything else because we want the jobs to be convoluted and clunky and DPS because we like DPSing better.

Having room for further mastery atop and consequent to an intuitive, accessible, and satisfying base =/= "convoluted and clunky".

Being able to clear even Savage even when playing with only that small initial portion of one's kit =/= "aren't allowed to do anything else [but MSQ]".

Spending less than 84% of GCDs on a single button, and not being bored to tears while facing low healing requirements =/= wanting to replace or overwhelm what few complexities remain to healer with "moar DPSing".

As always, my solution accommodates the most people. Your idea of "fun" isn't. Your idea of "better" isn't. YOU are literally writing off 75% of the community

That number of players who detests any increase to complexity sure does bounce around a lot.

Just a couple pages ago it was a minority whose negative desires (what they want others NOT to have) must be placated even if it'd affect a larger share of the jobs than they themselves hold (and regardless of being able to meet all their positive desires [what they, themselves, want to be able to engage with] without going out of their way to limit what positive desires others can meet).

And now it's... 75%?

And no, in no way has Skel's "example numbers" given this impression. You're take is inverted, at best. That 75% of healers would be turned off by any increase to downtime complexity on WHM is your latest shart, nothing more.

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

The problem is, it is.

Unless the complex and simple forms HAVE THE SAME OUTPUT, it's mutually exclusive because there will be some content that the latter cannot clear otherwise. Therein lies the problem. That's why one should be spared being turned into a shitty worse DPS and allowed to remain NOT shitty like healers today are NOT shitty and are fun and enjoyable to play. And there's no way you guys would accept the same output. You think "more work should be more rewarding", and the "reward" isn't "more fun" it's "greater output in either damage, healing, utility or some combination". That's not equal, and thus is mutually exclusive. And, if someone points this out, they get accused of being lazy or "wanting a pink parse" - because we all know belittling and insulting people is the highest form or civilized discussion and disproves the opponent's position, right? Oh, wait, no it's not...

I for one have no ideas how to improve the jobs. I admit that. But I also regonise that Square has the expertise to tweak and change the jobs to be more engageing and rewarding. IMO the jobs have lot of actions that could be repurposed/changed. Also possible comboing healing could be a possible solution? Adding DPS is just the easiest solution atm. I have no idea if that's worth it. I'll still say SGE needs way more DPS actions.

It is possible to do simple job with a high skill ceiling so I have no idea why you seem to be so against possibly rising it. More engagement can mean more than DPS or pure healing.

I like DNC because I can see myself doing more than just waiting to make a difference. I'm an actual participant who contributes to the fight. As RDM I'm kind of off support. Healers generally have only some of that engagement. I still main healer!

DPS and tank jobs have differences in how they peform so why shouldn't healers? In their case it's just damage. I understand it might seem unfair.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm going to ignore "failing to offer a good reason" as I've done so dozens of times, you just don't want to accept it. Moving on from THAT to mutually exclusive:

The problem is, it is.

Unless the complex and simple forms HAVE THE SAME OUTPUT, it's mutually exclusive because there will be some content that the latter cannot clear otherwise.

Even clearing Ultimate does not require the complete/fully optimized use of even the current kit (outside of specific checks, that optimization just allows you to pick up DPS slack even there), so there is no evidence of this.

For any additional ceiling to kick current healers out of content simply through those additions, two things would have to BOTH be true:

1. the additional effort ceiling must not come with any increase to throughput ceiling (i.e., the changes would have to specifically be a net nerf);
2. content currently would need to require complete optimization of the existing kit (else there slack would remain within the portions of cognitive load you already okay-ed), and/or...
   the newly available optimizations (whatever new complexities they may carry) must somehow be more rewarding than the existing optimizations (healing minimization, GCD uptime, hitting your CDs, etc.), thus obliging players to shift their attention.

However...

1. That's not what's been suggested, and
2. That is not the case even across most Ultimates, and it would be largely impossible for new optimizations to be more rewarding than the fundamentals we have now, especially relative to their effort required for each bit of additional contribution.

healers today are NOT shitty and are fun and enjoyable to play

And that difference in premise is probably why it is so difficult to see eye to eye with you.

You think "more work should be more rewarding", and the "reward" isn't "more fun" it's "greater output in either damage, healing, utility or some combination". That's not equal, and thus is mutually exclusive.

Job/person A: Person A lives to their comfort level off ~$100/day, and is willing to do up to 8 hours work. In that time, s/he does 4 tasks that total to $200 value. Gets $200.
Job/person B: Person A lives to their comfort level off ~$100/day, and is willing to do up to 4 hours work. In that time, s/he does 2 tasks that total to $120 value. Gets $200.

This is what you insist is equality, that those who are only willing to engage minimally with combat should have the same reward as those who wish to engage fully with it, despite both being able to clear nearly all combat content regardless (and those unwilling to do more than the bare basics generally having no interest in Ultimate anyways). It's not. What you've been suggesting is quite the opposite of equality. It's purposely excluding any value, no matter how inherently lower-value for its being excessive, above a certain point arbitrated by your personal preference / what you imagine would somehow be held in consensus among from a theoretical camp that may or may not exist, may be between 10% and 75% of the total healer population, and is opposed to increased skill and output ceilings, no matter how excess-to-requirement they/their additional output may be.

Alas,

Accessibility and Complexity/Depth can coexist lol

I guess they can't if a person already meeting requirements while using less than their existing kit detests that there may become even more to their kit that they could, just as now, not use... while others might use it to have even a bit more output that is likewise merely excess-to-requirement. Who knew?

[SargeTheSeagull]

I love how Ren keeps making these super min-max arguments despite the fact he seemingly doesn’t do savage