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

[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.

[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.

[Nizzi]

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.

That's my fault for replying on mobile and evidently not seeing that the quote button wasn't pressed, but I was trying to reply to this post:

Thats a shame, because thats what i would like to see healing become, as of right now its just hitting 1 DPS button and a DoT every 30 seconds, with breaks of healing in between. The extra DPS you get as a healer is your reward for efficiently healing the party and squeezing out some extra DPS before going back to healing. Which would be just as you say, knowing when to heal and when to DPS.

Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with telling people who want how healing works in this game to shift into something like another game does to just go play that game, especially when this has never been that kind of game. I don't see it as being similar to saying "just go play a DPS job" if you want our DPS rotations to be engaging, unless it's an admission that healers aren't supposed to be engaging or fun by design.

I find it fairly ridiculous how many people will do Olympic grade cartwheels around addressing the fact that healers were and still are designed to have more than 2 DPS buttons rotationally in this game, and were designed with things like Cleric Stance and other obligations around a healer doing damage in mind, and instead say we should just radically change how the entire game has been for the past decade in order to make the downtime fun. When I say that Broil spam sucks, the solution to that is naturally to find ways to replace those filler GCDs with other things for me to track, manage - things that SCH used to have with its multiple DoTs, Quickened Aetherflow, etc, not "what if we were like spam healing 90% of the time: then you'd think 1 button spam is really fun!"

We can go back to having things like actual MP management, more pressing need to heal with GCDs in EX and Savage encounters and even casual encounters if they so desired, we can go back to ARR/HW/SB design but that's not going to make 1 DoT 1 button spam fun even if I'm pressing Adlo/Succor more. Those expansions had more DPS buttons and it was more engaging than what we have now. Turning me into a Succorbot isn't going to make me engaged, it's shifting my 1 key for my 2 key and going "look, we solved the issue! You're not spamming Broil anymore! Now you're spamming your Succor (Broil) key!" I don't want to spam 1 button, this is the crux of the issue and the biggest sin of the job designers was turning every healer into this when they were not previously.

It's fine if someone is a person who "doesn't play a healer to DPS" but this just isn't that game, all of the healers fundamentally have to DPS... so the solution to this problem naturally is to find ways to make that engaging and varied for each of the healers, not just radically overhaul the entire game's job and encounter design to suit people who can just play other games where healing is like that and built to be like that, while also keeping the 1 DoT 1 Nuke spam exactly the same. It makes no sense. I would rather this game go back to embracing the healer design it has historically had rather than just becoming like another game to address a stupid hole that they dug themselves into for absolutely no reason and are too stubborn to admit was a bad decision for the health of our role.

So many people don't seem to understand that most of the people saying that our DPS rotations are boring actually like healing in this game and main or want to main the role again. It would be really nice to be able to play with friends without going "uhhh lemme swap off healer so i'm not giving myself carpal tunnel" when they want to do something like maps, alliance raids, deep dungeons or whatever else, and making us have other game style healing in high end content doesn't change that at all. Making our DPS rotations engaging is the only pragmatic solution to the issue of "1 DoT 1 filler is boring".