Would you rather healers get more complex healing kits or more complex DPS kits?

[Katish]

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Except adding dps buttons is a solution, it just only addresses one question, there are other questions to be asked and need fulfillment but that is the easiest one to address as nothing else needs to be adhered to for it to change given it wouldn't really change what we are doing as healers (unless they syngergized them with the kit itself and made them feel good to use), it would just be filling in where the monotonous seams are especially in a fight where you don't expect there to be as much healing, say normal trials or dungeons. Though reiterating,
the role needs to be addressed on all levels. I do agree healing needs to be looked at on higher levels and in fight design but I don't think potency or denying dps skills will help in that endeavor, or even the rate of damage going out (I feel this will have the opposite of the wanted effect and steer people away), in my opinion if we are re-envisioning fight design, the best way to make healers feel good imo is by contributing mechanics that use that high potency or new methods that require shields, preferably separate from healing just the party altogether. (As that moreso becomes a mitigation check)

I'll be speaking a bit more freely here, but: imagine a fight where you have to heal the totems or the platform falls and everyone dies or having to shield to ignore being pushed back into death. It's these mechanics that could potentially bring healers to be more interesting and actually essential in said fights. It's these types of mechanics that you don't see. Mind you, these are just examples but what I am getting at is that imagination is key in fight design, it's just the fights they design now all have borrowed mechanics and none of them in particular take any new design flow.

[Renathras]

Except adding dps buttons is a solution, it just only addresses one question,...

Let me put it a different way:

It's not a comprehensive solution, and it doesn't address the overall problem, or even the present problem (many people aren't bored due to a lack of DPS rotation).

Again, that only works for people who are currently bored with healing and specifically would find a dps rotation to not also be boring. For people that do not particularly enjoy DPS rotations on healers (or in general), that doesn't resolve their boredom. They'd still be bored, but also annoyed in addition to being bored.

That's why I say it isn't a solution, since not only does it fail to address what many people seem to agree is the actual problem (too much healer downtime), but it doesn't even address all the people complaining of boredom, and it would generate frustration and annoyance among many of those people as well as many people who are currently content. Which...doesn't sound like much of a solution as such.

I agree that it's something that sounds easier to do than the actual solutions to the problem, but that doesn't make it a solution, much less an acceptable one. Another easy "solution" would be to give every healer Job a party buff that increases damage by 10%, is a GCD, and has a 7.5 sec duration (such that in 8 man encounters, each healer would have to spend every third GCD refreshing it), and encounter enrages would be based on achieving maximum uptime. That would be a super low hanging fruit - it would be incredibly easy to implement - but I think we can all agree that's not a solution at all. While one could say it's technically a solution, I think we'd all agree that doesn't make it worth considering or a solution that's acceptable.

The problem with mitigation checks is two-fold:

1) It makes barrier healers FAR better than pure healers, destroying the dichotomy. (Granted, I think that dichotomy is stupid and should go away, but the fact remains some healers will have better mitigation than others). You end up having to have an Esuna or Raise type thing where it's just a role action OR every healer has an identical ability that's effectively a role action with different skins in order to ensure they can all address it. WHM in current content couldn't even do such encounters since it only has Temperance as a partywide mitigation and has no partywide shields (having only 2 charges of Benison for individual shields and 1 of Aquaveil for a single target's mitigation). This would force a lot more normalization across the healer kits, leading to even more homogenization as every healer now needs a spamable single target and AOE barrier and at least three AOE/party barriers, one on a 30 sec CD and two on 2 min CDs. This would get us in a worse situation, like as not. Every healer would become a SCH clone, not just SGE.

2) By making it a party affair, it removes agency from healers, which is part of our overall problem right now.

As part of some wider slate of changes, it's possible such things could have a place, but I worry at the homogenization that it would generate. Like in EW, we got "the multi-hit party buster"...and every healer was given a button that deletes that mechanic. While they do work in slightly different ways, WHM and SGE's work more or less identically, and SCH and ASTs work somewhat similarly (something you activate then use a subsequent time in the case of both Seraph/Consolation and Macrocosmos). SCH is the only one with a real different answer to the problem (Recitation+Adlo+Deploy), but the point is we got several different shades of homogenization to deal with this "new" mechanic (which is actually as old as HW since Nidhogg did it first - back then the solution was to realize the fight's real name was "How I learned to love Cure 3").

"New mechanic(s)" isn't really an answer if we're all just given a homogenized reskin button to answer it effectively the same. Fair?

In any case, I agree - as I said - that the solution needs to be holistic. But as I say with trying to decide how many doors your house will need and where you want to put them before you've even seen the floor play, designing around a dps rotation before we even know how much downtime we'd have from encounter and overall Job kit redesigns doesn't really work well.

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The point we all agree on:

Healers need more to heal.

So any solution needs to start there first and foremost, since I don't think there are any/many players today saying "Healers have plenty to heal and don't need any more healing at all". Thus it sounds to me like the best thing to use as the foundation of any solution is the thing everyone agrees needs to be solved.

Mao mentioned this in another thread but Mao thinkings might be good idea to mention it here too. Mao prefaces what Mao abouts to say with disclaimer that Mao in no way is expert on healing matters likes many people here. Mao thinkings biggest problem lies with fight design and fact that tanks nearly self-sufficients. Thems can do it all. Tankings, healings, DPS. Mao thinkings this not good game design. Mao nots sure how fix this but unless something is done, healers gonna be fifth wheel.

Nah, you're absolutely right, Mao.

Encounters don't do a lot of damage, meaning healers have little to heal, and Tank (DPSers, too, but definitely Tanks) have so much sustain and mitigation that healers are either unneeded or much less needed in general content than they should be to have a dedicated 25% of all party spots.

Encounters need a refresh/redesign around requiring more healing (not necessarily harsher, just more frequent and necessary), and Tank/DPS kits need to be reworked so they can't be all in ones. In ShB, if PLD wanted to become the party healer, they more or less had to stop DPSing. In EW, WAR can keep DPSing while healing themselves and someone else, then throw out a Shake It Off to fully top off the rest of the party after shielding them from the next raidwide anyway, all as oGCD weaves as it continues doing full 100% damage vs if it wasn't doing any healing at all.

Something's not right with that.

[lulunami]

Healers had more DPS buttons back then during A Realm Reborn (2.0) than they do now. Even the controversial Cleric Stance button that could wipe raids. Despite that, healers still did not spend all their time spamming Stone and Ruin. Twintania used multiple damaging auto-attacks during tank busters at inopportune server tick intervals. Playing more cautious and prioritizing survival to see the next mechanic was more important, especially with Twister memes.

There is just a lack of interesting decision making for healers nowadays. oGCD heals deleting boss mechanics means you just spam 1 dps button 95 percent of the time.

They can make healer DPS kits more complex because they already were in the past. Nobody complained about the complexity back then.

[ty_taurus]

You can add more offensive spells and abilities to creates a small, but interesting offensive gameplay loop for all healers, which addresses solo content as well as healing downtime.

You can prune the bloated healing action library and create a smaller, yet also more interactive library of healing actions that are both easier for less experienced players to keep track of and more compelling for skilled players to take advantage of.

You can gradually increase healing requirements from fights of all difficulty modes to try and create more reasons to heal without making it too difficult for the game's target audience to stay in control of.

All of these are independent solutions that, on their own, can improve the situation to some degree, but you cannot solve the problem of one only by addressing the other. Adding more DPS will not change the lack of healing gameplay, nor will it increase the opportunities for healers to engage with healing. Pruning and revamping heals will not fill the gaping hole in healer gameplay when healing isn't needed, nor can it increase how frequently you'll need to heal either; if you weaken healing throughput in an attempt to create a greater need to heal, you risk making old extreme and savage content considerable harder, or even impossible if you don't have the throughput to keep up with that. Increasing the frequency of healing required, but it's not plausible to do this enough to justify the current healing kit bloat, nor can it be enough to eliminate healing downtime as an issue. Resolving one concern and not the others can certainly help, but it won't relieve the role of all of its issues, and may not be enough for some people who have left the role, nor enough to keep some people who are considering leaving the role.

Naturally, the best solution is to address all angles if the issue. That's a pretty daunting task that would require a lot of work. I believe it was Aravell who mentioned how starting with DPS could work to help alleviate some of the tension in the meantime, provided that other changes were also along the way. If they came out and addressed the concerns while providing a roadmap for how they plan to address them, I could be entirely content with that if I agree with their projected endstate.

[Renathras]

I think we're almost all saying the same thing, so not sure the contention.

The only thing not agreed on is that some people think adding more DPS actions is a functional stopgap while others do not. Notably, the people who think it is all are people who want it/would be the part of the community served by it.

I think it was Roe who said in the healing forums she was uneasy about something to the effect of (paraphrase) "Just slap a 1-2-3 rotation on all the healers", because her fear was we may only get one bite at this apple and didn't want to waste it on something that would be unfulfilling.

So perhaps you can understand why people that don't enjoy DPSing don't want our potential only one shot to fix the problem being wasted on "more offensive spells" since we COULD be stuck with whatever the one-time change is, and that would be worse than what we have now. For people who do not enjoy DPS rotations, what we have now is preferable to a solution where we get more DPS actions and then the Devs rest on their laurels.

[tearagion]

That is an idiotic frame of mind. Even more idiotic is using it to persistently stamp your feet at the mere mention of healers having even as many damage abilities as they did before. The developers aren't a genie in a lamp other people are going to waste your precious single wish for healers on, and they aren't stupid enough to pick a single point of feedback to consider.

[Renathras]

That is an idiotic frame of mind. Even more idiotic is using it to persistently stamp your feet at the mere mention of healers having even as many damage abilities as they did before. The developers aren't a genie in a lamp other people are going to waste your precious single wish for healers on, and they aren't stupid enough to pick a single point of feedback to consider.

...we were having a good conversation.

Regardless, I'm hardly the only one that has voiced such a concern (albeit other people in the opposite direction).

And I haven't "stamped my feet at the mere mention of healers having even as many damage abilities as they did before". Please stop with the personal attacks that are ALSO lies. I've repeatedly suggested, for example, that SCH have all of its lost SB abilities back. That's hardly "stamped my feet at the mere mention of". "But WHM!!!", so? If I'm saying absolutely to do it on a Job, I'm not stamping my feet at the mere mention of it.

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Anyway, it's also not an "idiotic frame of mind" to think that some tacked on DPS buttons would NOT be fun. I didn't find them fun when we had 2 more DoTs before, either. Some people do, some people don't. I was one of the ones that didn't. So why wouldn't I advocate against them? When I say I like EW WHM's damage rotation, I genuinely mean it. I like Misery and 30 sec Dia WAY better than what they had before in the form of 24 sec Aero 3 and 18 sec Aero 2. I don't like DoTs in general, and every healer's been slapped with them, and shorter is worse, since that means having to engage more often with a thing I already dislike. It's like on Casters, the reason I liked RDM from the time it was introduced more than SMN or BLM was because it had a more fun and dynamic rotation and didn't have the stupid DoTs.

I know I would not personally enjoy it, and I think it's fair for a person to say "I wouldn't like X, and so I'll advocate against X". And I've been more than fair pointing out I recognize some people do enjoy such things, and so it'd be nice if we had a healer Job or two that did them, as long as there was a way to escape them for players that didn't enjoy that. I'll note this is more accommodation than has ever been offered in reverse.

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Regardless, if I think it's a bad idea, that's feedback, which is what the forum is for. Should I not offer my perspective on issues while everyone else gets to? Why not?

I think everyone should get to express their ideas and their concerns, including with other offered ideas. Everyone else has that same right. The Devs have said before what they look for is people to tell them what is and isn't fun for them, and why. That's what they want from us here (insomuch as they read any of this), and that's all I and the others here (who aren't personally attacking me or each other) are doing in this discussion.

EDIT:

And I should note, for the most part, we all agree that encounter design and healing kits/potencies (of healers AND tanks/DPSers) all needs to be looked at.

It makes sense to advocate for the things that everyone agrees need to be addressed have top priority in being the focus of changes.

If two (or more) sides recognize a problem, and they agree on part of the solution, it makes sense to move on the parts that can be agreed on first since that's something everyone recognizes as a good idea.

Everyone agrees encounter design and healing kits need to be looked at and worked on. NOT everyone agrees on more DPS actions being something they want or that would be good for the game or for all healer Jobs.

[TheDustyOne]

This made me laugh entirely too much (despite the elements of truth), because of thinking of the first time I heard various healers on VC and how shocked various people were when they turned out to be guys. One of my best friends used to rant at me all the time about how he always had to say "yes, I'm a guy"

Remember; MMORPG really stands for Many Men Online Role-Playing Girls.

Not that I'm one to talk.

[ForsakenRoe]

I think it was Roe who said in the healing forums she was uneasy about something to the effect of (paraphrase) "Just slap a 1-2-3 rotation on all the healers", because her fear was we may only get one bite at this apple and didn't want to waste it on something that would be unfulfilling.

I think that was in response to specifically someone saying 'oh you want more damage buttons to press? OK just give healers a 123 combo, then they have to press 3 buttons instead of one, that solves the issue right?' No, it wouldn't solve the issue, and my fear is that SE would do it, want to wait 2 years to 'collect data' or whatever, then when the complaints come in about how 'healer still sucks' (with no additional detail on why it sucks), they go 'well we tried what they were asking for ('more damage buttons') and it didn't stop the complaining, so let's just not do anything further, since they will complain anyway'. It's the same thing as Abyssos, people asked for 'more healing', and we got 'more healing'. But where some people were hoping to go from 'a raidwide every minute' to 'a raidwide every 40s' for example, Abyssos instead went with 'a raidwide every minute, also there's a bleed that totals up to the full damage of the raidwide again attached'. Yes it's 'more healing' but in an unsatisfying way

I'd also be uneasy about 'just decrease the time between raidwides by 25%' or 'add a ground DOT effect that constantly ticks for 5% of your max HP per tick', because they are equally as boring a 'solution' as the 1-2-3. They raise the healing required, sure, but even in the unlikely chance that they manage to make us dip into GCD healing, something like the permanent DOT would just mean we do full Medica2 uptime and it's dealt with. And that's not enough to make the role fun either. At least with a 15s damage spell (instead of the 15s HOT duration on M2) there's potential for kit interactivity, like idk 'using this 15s CD attack reduces the CD on Tetragrammaton by 2 seconds' or something

Naturally, the best solution is to address all angles if the issue. That's a pretty daunting task that would require a lot of work. I believe it was Aravell who mentioned how starting with DPS could work to help alleviate some of the tension in the meantime, provided that other changes were also along the way. If they came out and addressed the concerns while providing a roadmap for how they plan to address them, I could be entirely content with that if I agree with their projected endstate.

And the largest amount of work is 'getting SE to acknowledge the problem exists in the first place'

[IDontPetLalas]

Snip
All of these are independent solutions that, on their own, can improve the situation to some degree, but you cannot solve the problem of one only by addressing the other. Adding more DPS will not change the lack of healing gameplay, nor will it increase the opportunities for healers to engage with healing. Pruning and revamping heals will not fill the gaping hole in healer gameplay when healing isn't needed, nor can it increase how frequently you'll need to heal either; if you weaken healing throughput in an attempt to create a greater need to heal, you risk making old extreme and savage content considerable harder, or even impossible if you don't have the throughput to keep up with that. Increasing the frequency of healing required, but it's not plausible to do this enough to justify the current healing kit bloat, nor can it be enough to eliminate healing downtime as an issue. Resolving one concern and not the others can certainly help, but it won't relieve the role of all of its issues, and may not be enough for some people who have left the role, nor enough to keep some people who are considering leaving the role.

Naturally, the best solution is to address all angles if the issue. That's a pretty daunting task that would require a lot of work. I believe it was Aravell who mentioned how starting with DPS could work to help alleviate some of the tension in the meantime, provided that other changes were also along the way. If they came out and addressed the concerns while providing a roadmap for how they plan to address them, I could be entirely content with that if I agree with their projected endstate.

Absolutely agree

That is an idiotic frame of mind. Even more idiotic is using it to persistently stamp your feet at the mere mention of healers having even as many damage abilities as they did before. The developers aren't a genie in a lamp other people are going to waste your precious single wish for healers on, and they aren't stupid enough to pick a single point of feedback to consider.

Unfortunately, while I agree with your last statement- i.e. I seriously doubt that the dev team is going to only incorporate a single segment or point of view for their design changes (unless the interns are in charge again) - well it's yet again more justification against adding them. No, "we all agree that encounter design and healing kits/potencies (of healers AND tanks/DPSers) is not within the scope of this discussion. Does he even realize how large that is? Rather it should start with want we want with healers. Yes, it impacts other jobs, and encounters- however that is a much broader topic, and I would rather that we get some changes in a shorter amount of time, planned out- in other words- a roadmap- than some pie in the sky - let us change all of the encounters jobs, etc, which would would delivered in ?? Years???