Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Turtledeluxe]

In the end, the general simplification is because they want more people to play the role (this happened to tanks too) and the homogenisation of toolkits is likely for balance purposes. I think the simplification of the role isn't doing a good job of drawing players into the healer role as we've had some newer players make threads saying that they just got healer to max and found it intensely boring, but if we want healers to be fixed, the dev team has to see that what they're doing isn't working and is putting more people off than it is drawing people in.

It's interesting to think about "drawing in DPS players" to tanks and healers because that goes back to the question of whether these roles were/were not being filled in duty finder or wherever. It's hard to argue without any data. If that were the case I'd also wonder what drove the philosophy behind simplifying vs some other approach-- like is it a resources issue or a creative constraint? It's also interesting to think about whether further homogenisation and simplification are even avoidable given that this is a game that is predicated on pushing every player to play every job/most jobs instead of maining the job they like, and that job pool keeps expanding. I'm definitely interested to see what's happening with DRG and the new jobs-- I've said before I think that will give us the indication of where the game is going long term. It's not because I want to be doom and gloom, but moreso because imo this game is too deep in its life cycle to course correct in any significant way. Every year it doesn't course correct makes it more resource intensive to revolutionize any given part of the game. Even with the graphics update for example--- it's easier to go back and update 10 years of content vs 15. I'm sure it would be easier to look at jobs and rotations with less jobs and even less levels. There's more inherent risk as well because more competing games release over time and they need their core base to stay subscribed. So we may just be stuck in this direction, unfortunately.

[Aravell]

It's interesting to think about "drawing in DPS players" to tanks and healers because that goes back to the question of whether these roles were/were not being filled in duty finder or wherever. It's hard to argue without any data. If that were the case I'd also wonder what drove the philosophy behind simplifying vs some other approach-- like is it a resources issue or a creative constraint? It's also interesting to think about whether further homogenisation and simplification are even avoidable given that this is a game that is predicated on pushing every player to play every job/most jobs instead of maining the job they like, and that job pool keeps expanding. I'm definitely interested to see what's happening with DRG and the new jobs-- I've said before I think that will give us the indication of where the game is going long term. It's not because I want to be doom and gloom, but moreso because imo this game is too deep in its life cycle to course correct in any significant way. Every year it doesn't course correct makes it more resource intensive to revolutionize any given part of the game. Even with the graphics update for example--- it's easier to go back and update 10 years of content vs 15. I'm sure it would be easier to look at jobs and rotations with less jobs and even less levels. There's more inherent risk as well because more competing games release over time and they need their core base to stay subscribed. So we may just be stuck in this direction, unfortunately.

The dev team wanting to coax people from the DPS role into tanking or healing is just my guess, we obviously cannot know for sure as only the dev team knows the reasoning for what they're doing. I'm just saying that it looks like what they're doing because of how they've been emphasising accessibility and how Yoshi P asked people to give healers a try. Although, my bigger concern at the moment is that they lack a vision of their own. You mentioned the things they're doing to jobs and attribute it to their vision for the game, but what if it isn't?

Notice how when people ask Yoshi P about any changes recently, he usually replies that the changes are due to player feedback. Now, he could be deflecting so the playerbase blames each other instead of going after him, that is a possibility. But what if they just have no clear vision of their own? What if they just do what they think the playerbase is asking for and just get confused when people react badly to it? That might be a prospect more scary than them just wanting to simplify the game as their vision.