How would you solve the boring "damage rotation" of the healers?

[Nizzi]

Just play WoW if you want WoW style healing lol

[Thurmnmurmn]

Just play WoW if you want WoW style healing lol

Saying a blanket statement like that in a 52 page thread without replying to anyone means we have no idea who you're talking to/about.

What's wrong with taking inspiration from other games? We wouldn't have FFXIV as it is now if wow didn't exist first to inspire.

[IDontPetLalas]

Saying a blanket statement like that in a 52 page thread without replying to anyone means we have no idea who you're talking to/about.

What's wrong with taking inspiration from other games? We wouldn't have FFXIV as it is now if wow didn't exist first to inspire.

I agree, there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other games and discussing it. I don't object at all if someone say "hey, in game X this healing skill is amazing, why don't we introduce that here". I'm not really a fan of just copy/paste, as you say- maybe it can be improved upon for this game.

However, that's quite different from saying "in game X, I am not expected to do any DPS as a healer, and healers should not have to do so/ be able to do so here". Now we are talking able fundamental differences in game or job views. My reaction in that case is to say- well, fine, discuss as much as you want, but if I wanted that experience, i would play game X, I don't want that experience, so I play this game- I knew that this was the model in this game.

[Thurmnmurmn]

I agree, there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other games and discussing it. I don't object at all if someone say "hey, in game X this healing skill is amazing, why don't we introduce that here". I'm not really a fan of just copy/paste, as you say- maybe it can be improved upon for this game.

However, that's quite different from saying "in game X, I am not expected to do any DPS as a healer, and healers should not have to do so/ be able to do so here". Now we are talking able fundamental differences in game or job views. My reaction in that case is to say- well, fine, discuss as much as you want, but if I wanted that experience, i would play game X, I don't want that experience, so I play this game- I knew that this was the model in this game.

Agreed. That's why I started with "we don't know who you're speaking to"

[ty_taurus]

Saying a blanket statement like that in a 52 page thread without replying to anyone means we have no idea who you're talking to/about.

What's wrong with taking inspiration from other games? We wouldn't have FFXIV as it is now if wow didn't exist first to inspire.

I can't speak to Nizzi's drive for stating that point-blank at this time, but they have repeated that sentiment multiple times, which is a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with and is generally a way of establishing that FFXIV healers should lean into the game's natural emphasis on healer DPS uptime.

Basically, FFXIV has always featured an environment where healers are not passive healbots, but are combat medics designed both by their tools and by the fights themselves to be active participants in battle who are shifting between offense and recovery. This has always been true of XIV's combat design, regardless of whether that was intentional or not. Damage has always been delivered in bursts at intervals rather than continuously across the entire fight. Healing has always functioned as a way to handle this damage in sudden bursts as well, with a heavy emphasis on AoE healing to recover everyone at once. There has always been healing downtime where DPS was both possible and viable--not a threat to the healer's resources, even ARR White Mage who did have a difficult time with MP management in hard fights was still capable of managing their MP well with Ethers.

WoW is the game that features heal by attrition. People are always allowed to prefer that, but that is not what FFXIV has ever been, even at its most complex state. If you can choose between Wendy's and Taco Bell, why would you go to Wendy's and try to order a burrito when you could just go to Taco Bell? Too many people want the healing style of another game in FFXIV, and this appeal to try has created an environment where healers don't have enough offensive gameplay to justify their DPS uptime, and not frequent enough healing to actually create a heal-by-attrition gameplay experience.

We look at "go play another game" as this insensitive, selfish mentality, but at what point does it stop being seen as selfish and start being the logical response to someone trying to demand something that does not exist in the game? What if I start a YouTube channel and start rampaging about how bad FFXIV is because there's no way to collect rings to protect you from being KOed? Would someone telling me to go play Sonic the Hedgehog be considered gatekeeping me then?

[Shougun]

We look at "go play another game" as this insensitive, selfish mentality, but at what point does it stop being seen as selfish and start being the logical response to someone trying to demand something that does not exist in the game? What if I start a YouTube channel and start rampaging about how bad FFXIV is because there's no way to collect rings to protect you from being KOed? Would someone telling me to go play Sonic the Hedgehog be considered gatekeeping me then?

Depending on context sure. If there was a ring job and someone thought it was fun and all you had to come back with was akin to "go play another game". If it was a discussion on how thematically it would be better for X rather than Y simply because Y is service to another game, then no.

Almost, in my experience, all "go play X" is gatekeeping though. As it very often appears as a lazy shutdown of ideas without actually considering anything besides "I heard the name of something else- time to gatekeep!" (hyperbole lol). "You like the glamour log of another game because it's easier to use and can fit almost all visuals in the game? Go play that game!" as if there is no logical reason why you might want a system that has more and is easier to use @_@.

In the context of healing, it's true it might change the whole healing dynamic, but what if they wanted to see that healing dynamic change and then use one they do like as an example? Then ask for that, as they have the right to. You simply respond with if you like X go play Y. Pretty lazy and offers nothing to the conversation given that there is already a large conversation, that you're actively attempting to adjust too, about what would be better for the game. Naturally you're maintaining more structures, but the game has quite a few times threw a system out because it wasn't good enough (sometimes at player's behest). A player can say that too (even though a dev would be wise not to toss everything instantly because someone feels that way, though may end up agreeing too).

That said your post explains why you think it shouldn't be the way of another game, so.. yeah you put effort into the whole conversation . So you're attempting to explain why it wouldn't fit well, so you're not really my point - although just because you explain why it might not fit doesn't mean others can't go "I understand, I still think this method is better".

Primarily though I frequently see the effort you provided here entirely missing from others, while still dismissing entire ideas (ideas that FFXIV / SE clearly often sips upon themselves). Most frequently the case with "go play X" is that it disrupts the quality of the conversation and provides nothing.

[TheDustyOne]

I do think we have to be careful with saying "Just play WoW" because it can come across as dismissive as "Just play a DPS", it's better to explain why WoWs system works there and why it wouldn't work here (availability of AoE heals, responsiveness of actions, focus on burst/attrition, etc.).

I agree largely that if you want WoW style healing it's better to play WoW, FFXIV fights weren't designed for such healing gameplay, and naturally its healers should be designed differently from WoWs. I do at least sympathise with someone who wants to heal more, and large chunks of the game don't have enough bite for healers to feel necessary, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that we're still going to have large amounts of downtime in our fights by design, and we should be able to fill that downtime with something more interesting than Glaroilificosis.

[ty_taurus]

I do think we have to be careful with saying "Just play WoW" because it can come across as dismissive as "Just play a DPS", it's better to explain why WoWs system works there and why it wouldn't work here (availability of AoE heals, responsiveness of actions, focus on burst/attrition, etc.).

I agree largely that if you want WoW style healing it's better to play WoW, FFXIV fights weren't designed for such healing gameplay, and naturally its healers should be designed differently from WoWs. I do at least sympathise with someone who wants to heal more, and large chunks of the game don't have enough bite for healers to feel necessary, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that we're still going to have large amounts of downtime in our fights by design, and we should be able to fill that downtime with something more interesting than Glaroilificosis.

In WoW, damage delivered to party members is done somewhat consistently throughout a fight. There are bursts of damage to heal through, but between those mechanics, you also often have examples of random individual party members suffering chip damage throughout much of the encounter. Healers have AoE healing resources, but they are far more limited and not something any healer can afford to just spam at any given point to resolve any form of damage. Those are resources generally saved for more tight healing windows. Meanwhile, you spend more time using single target healing effects to keep up with the gradual chip damage the party is suffering. You'll naturally spend a lot more time healing when you're healing one person at a time rather than 8 people at once.

A quick disclaimer is that I'm not a WoW player and that description is based on my observations of healer discussion regarding WoW, so take my description with a grain of salt, and if I'm wrong, or if my explanation is lacking detail or nuance, then please feel free to correct me. But as far as I am aware, that is the nature of WoW healing, which naturally would create an environment suited for attrition healing, because there is very often damage in need of healing that can be done through single target means. And it's not just spamming an equivalent of Cure I on each player instead of spamming an equivalent of Glare, but a more intricate involvement of healing resources that help set you up for those instances of burst damage.

In contrast, as I said, FFXIV has always featured party damage separated by long windows of downtime where only the tank is taking damage. Now, there is something to be said about how tank damage has decreased, and tank methods of recovering their own damage has greatly increased, which is one contributing factor to what has disrupted the offense-to-recovery balance FFXIV used to promote as opposed to now, but that is not the same as attrition healing. These are different styles of healer design. Trying to change FFXIV to WoW's model first of all creates a need to completely rework how encounters are designed to accommodate this refocusing of healing engagement. If we just do this with fights moving forward, then it leaves all existing content behind in a state that will not compliment the changes done to the healer kits. For example, making healers far more dependent on single target healing to comprise the volume of their gameplay naturally requires making AoE healing more restrictive and limited in function, but existing harder fights would create a huge conflict for healers in that case because many of them are designed with healing checks that require an abundance of party healing that healers would no longer be capable of performing. So you would be forced to also require all existing fights to ensure that the new healer kits were capable of clearing them, but that is a huge, unrealistic undertaking that would require a gargantuan budget and eat up an equally massive amount of development time. Just look at how much time it took to make the duty support system available for all MSQ dungeons.

Any shortcuts in trying to accomplish this, like just changing fight design but not healer design, would end in a half-baked product. Moreover, why should we rework FFXIV's healing flow into WoW's when WoW already exists? Doesn't it make more sense to have two MMOs with different healing styles rather than two that have the same healing style? Not being a healbot was what made me love FFXIV in the beginning. I loved that healing was a dance between managing recovery and having the freedom to go on the offensive, and properly balancing those two states. Losing that because the offensive side of our gameplay has been erased has single-handedly done a massive hit to my love for this game, hence why I may drop FFXIV altogether if Dawntrail does not show improvement. If I wanted WoW's healing model, I'd play WoW. I am not going to tell anyone they cannot play FFXIV. That is their freedom and their choice, but it's silly to come into this game and demand it change to another game. You can not like FFXIV's healer model, but you have to accept that that is how the foundation of the healer role has been designed in this game, and the designers should as well. This fear of rejecting the players who want WoW healing has led to a stifling of the role.

[SweetPete]

The main reason that the dps kit is being focused on is because they deleted a lot of things that masked how often we were mashing the filler button. Old DoTs were much shorter in duration, not to mention that fights back then actually forced healers to heal through mechanics rather than resolve mechanics by running around with the rest of the party and then healing after the mechanic as the boss autoattacks the tank.

AST had the exact same thing we have right now back in SB, 1 DoT and 1 filler, but AST players were kept busy by an in-depth card system which they get to play with for the entire fight instead of saving all cards for a very specific burst window. Shaving away healer mechanics like AST's card system and SCH's fairy control means people are more aware of the fact that they're pushing 1 button 150+ times in one fight. While the healing side of the kit was also simplified and stripped of interactions, people don't notice as much because there's so many OGCD buttons they can press.

If you ask me, the lack of damage buttons/utility is only one aspect of the decay of the healer role. I've mentioned before that the issues plaguing the healer role is multifaceted. This includes lack of kit interaction, lack of resource management, fight design becoming more dance and less attrition, mechanical failure leading to instant death rather than being salvageable, stale kit design that's just pure "heal for x" or "deals x damage", far less inter-party reliance than before. Those are just some of the issues that come to mind for the healer role, I'm probably missing a few more.

Thank you so much. Okay now this makes much sense to me. I am starting to understand why some are feeling bored and disinterested now.

[SweetPete]

The overall message behind wanting more DPS, utility, healing moments, etc. is ultimately "I want to be engaged in the moment-to-moment gameplay". It's all in trying to achieve better engagement while playing healer. All the options have their pros and cons of course, and ideally I think we should have more DPS options, more utility, and higher healing requirements.

The problem with only raising healing requirements is that it adds a lot of potential stress on inexperienced healers, especially if it's done in casual content, as well as frustrating for the other teammates to be paired with a healer who struggles to keep up. They wouldn't be able to increase it high enough to keep experienced healers engaged without also completely blocking out new healers from even starting. It's either too low so skilled players are bored, or it's too high and unskilled players get frustrated.

I think Barbariccia, P10, and Zeromus is about as high as casual content can go, and that still has lots of time between incoming damage.

Utility is nice, but it can often be either niche, subject to long cooldowns (like Expedience being 2 minutes) or entirely fight dependent. We used to have CC be a more common thing in ARR, but moved out of that by HW, CC still has some use in dungeons and deep dungeons at least. A lot of utility is not something you can play around with on a per-GCD basis.

More utility wouldn't be bad though, Expedience is nice and I wouldn't mind seeing each healer get something unique.

DPS however is always going to be useful, it doesn't require that a new healer interact with it if they struggle to keep people alive, skilled healers have something to occupy themselves with when they have nothing to heal, and it only adds to the skill ceiling. The only potential downsides would be tunnel-visioning, which is more of a skill issue than anything else. Adding more DPS options fills that healing downtime with something they frequently interact with helps out a lot with engagement.

Thank you. Also a good response and it’s starting to shift my thoughts a bit on what I thought I knew and understood about the game and healers in general. All I can do is hope the devs can do magical things with the healers that will please every healer main out there.