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

[Maltothoris]

Quickened Aetherflow in patch 4.05 was such a stroke of unintentional genius. It actively encouraged usage with a decent reward. A shame they couldn't do anything with secret of the lilies 2 the fact that trait was was gated by double proc rng.

[MahthildisMMORPG]

This is effectively what the lead designer of this game told Healers in the latest live letter.

Consider if he had said that about your role (tank / dps) for a second and how you would feel.

Forget the leveling experience, it doesn't matter.

Forget dungeons up to 90, they don't matter.

Forget normal raids, EX's, and Savage, they don't matter.

If you want your job to be engaging, play Ultimate, the hardest content in the game that only a few percentage of actual players do.

Engagement shouldn't be either 0% or 100%. It shouldn't be either braindead easy in 95% of content or pull your hair out in the hardest thing the game offers.

The same basic damage rotation from level 4 to level 90 (A 30s dot and a filler spell) is not acceptable gameplay or game design.

Edit:

Yoshi-P's statement is about as tone deaf as the Lead Designer of WoW flat out saying they didn't want players playing a certain DPS spec. (Language warning)

Background: Instead of properly balancing a certain DPS spec, the WoW devs nuked it to the ground so people would play other things.

Sound familiar?

Being generous about what is and what isn't "engaging", if we're looking at its meaning by face value, Ultimates, PvP, Savage and Deep Dungeons are the only engaging content in this game.

[IDontPetLalas]

Being generous about what is and what isn't "engaging", if we're looking at its meaning by face value, Ultimates, PvP, Savage and Deep Dungeons are the only engaging content in this game.

I'm not sure of what you mean by "if we're looking at its meaning by face value". One point- about the content that you see as engaging, you're not even going to get consensus about some of that list. For example- I don't regard Deep Dungeons as engaging.

There's also some content I would add, such as Bozja CEs. The issue their is that it doesn't age well.

[MahthildisMMORPG]

I'm not sure of what you mean by "if we're looking at its meaning by face value". One point- about the content that you see as engaging, you're not even going to get consensus about some of that list. For example- I don't regard Deep Dungeons as engaging.

There's also some content I would add, such as Bozja CEs. The issue their is that it doesn't age well.

The Deep Dungeon community is huge, and Aether is the main Deep Dungeon server to be. There are several discords for it.
If you never tried to solo deep dungeons or FULLY complete it was a static party, then you probably would have never thought of it as engaging.

Engaging content as in content that always keep you coming back due to the cool rewards, and there's always something new to aim for, something that can be fun, rewarding or fulfilling, possibly has variety in gameplay, gives special rewards that other people don't have, also specific content you can enjoy with others. Something you can chew on every time you can log on and still find enjoyment. Which includes Ocean Fishing as well, forgot to include that.

Deep Dungeons (for Necromancer, Lone Hero, Eureka Orthos titles, max gear cosmetics, mounts, adventurer plates)
Bozja
Eureka
Ultimates
Savage
PvP
Ocean Fishing

[IDontPetLalas]

The Deep Dungeon community is huge, and Aether is the main Deep Dungeon server to be. There are several discords for it.
If you never tried to solo deep dungeons or FULLY complete it was a static party, then you probably would have never thought of it as engaging.

Engaging content as in content that always keep you coming back due to the cool rewards, and there's always something new to aim for, something that can be fun, rewarding or fulfilling, possibly has variety in gameplay, gives special rewards that other people don't have, also specific content you can enjoy with others. Something you can chew on every time you can log on and still find enjoyment. Which includes Ocean Fishing as well, forgot to include that.

Deep Dungeons (for Necromancer, Lone Hero, Eureka Orthos titles, max gear cosmetics, mounts, adventurer plates)
Bozja
Eureka
Ultimates
Savage
PvP
Ocean Fishing

I'm not sure that we're understanding each other. I'm not challenging whether Deep Dungeons are quality content, or whether they aren't popular with a segment of the community.

I picked that as an example. from your list of what you cited as "engaging content" , of what not everyone considers to be engaging content. While I appreciate your listing various ways in which it can be run, personally I don't enjoy it , so no it isn't engaging.

I could also walk down that list and knock off (in my case), for example ocean fishing, and ultimates. So that list shrinks quite quickly.

Was Bozja engaging? Yes, however its lifespan was short. Eureka has its own issues. We can add Blue Mage however to the list.

However, I would say my point is that "engagement" should exist throughout the game. It could be crafting, all modes of dungeons, PvE (all modes), or improved PvP modes. Even in PvP the team has withdrawn maps and it's been years since they've "been working on them" (RW).

However- none of this has to do with the original point of this thread aside from what I just put in bold, so that healers aren't steered to just one level of content that most will likely not ever do.

[Raoabolic]

Was Bozja engaging? Yes, however its lifespan was short

Yeah, I remember when the Savatori fight would pop every five minutes and Lyon was throwing out his notes like it was confetti...
/playdead

[Maltothoris]

Going to be a broken record but getting this back to the page itself

The Deep Dungeon community is huge, and Aether is the main Deep Dungeon server to be. There are several discords for it.
If you never tried to solo deep dungeons or FULLY complete it was a static party, then you probably would have never thought of it as engaging.

Engaging content as in content that always keep you coming back due to the cool rewards, and there's always something new to aim for, something that can be fun, rewarding or fulfilling, possibly has variety in gameplay, gives special rewards that other people don't have, also specific content you can enjoy with others. Something you can chew on every time you can log on and still find enjoyment. Which includes Ocean Fishing as well, forgot to include that.

Deep Dungeons (for Necromancer, Lone Hero, Eureka Orthos titles, max gear cosmetics, mounts, adventurer plates)
Bozja
Eureka
Ultimates
Savage
PvP
Ocean Fishing

Admittedly its on our perspective but for healers its the gameplay loop. Even going into most of these, our core loop is spamming our nuke with the occasional dot every 30 seconds. Sometimes there will be parts where we have to gcd heal but for the most part if we look at the timelines of the fights we can generally plan around them. This is more prominent in Ultimate and savage.

Deep Dungeons could be more engaging but it would most certainly could get less and less the more floors you get farther in and the tank has to pull less and less to account for the damage from the mobs.

[IcarusAvery]

Part of the issue with any discussion of healer complexity is fundamentally just the massive disconnect between the high-end players, the low-end players, and the average players. Each group has *wildly* different needs (doubly so for controller vs keyboard & mouse on top of skill difference) and the game needs to be balanced so that the game is playable for as many players as possible.

High-end players want more complexity, more responsibility. The low-end players need to be able to clear MSQ content, normal raids, and alliance raids with trusts or randoms without much hardship. Those of average skill might want a bit more complexity, but also more in the way of options for "oh FUCK" options in the event of a fuck-up. Players on keyboard & mouse generally are okay with having more buttons than players on controller would be, while players on controller are okay with fewer buttons than KB&M players would want. Ultimately, CBU3 balances jobs so that they're playable for the most people in the most content, at the cost of being less tuned for any individual group.

The "obvious" solution would be to utilize the job system to its fullest advantage here - we have four healers, it's not unreasonable to aim them at different skill levels, but then comes the issue of, if Healer A does healing and DPSing just as well as Healer B but with way less difficulty, why would anyone play Healer B? Not to mention, CBU3 really doesn't want to lock anyone out of any story content - DSR having as deep a narrative as it does is frankly shocking to me, and honestly I'm surprised they never made a Dragonsong Reprise (Normal) to appease those who got annoyed at a plotline being locked behind an ultimate - so having any job or any role be difficult enough that a low-end player won't be able to see its job/role quest or do the MSQ with that job is basically out of the question. It'd also be kind of a problem to make such a change now, because there are low-end and average skill players who only really play healers, and if you suddenly ramp up the complexity of a job where these players will be below the skill floor, you've essentially told them "go level another job and hope we don't change that."

I don't envy the position CBU3 is in. There's not really a good solution here to make everyone happy, but when you're developing a big MMO that's also aimed at a crowd that doesn't typically play MMOs, you're kinda stuck between a rock and a fandom place.

[ty_taurus]

High-end players want more complexity, more responsibility. The low-end players need to be able to clear MSQ content, normal raids, and alliance raids with trusts or randoms without much hardship. Those of average skill might want a bit more complexity, but also more in the way of options for "oh FUCK" options in the event of a fuck-up. Players on keyboard & mouse generally are okay with having more buttons than players on controller would be, while players on controller are okay with fewer buttons than KB&M players would want. Ultimately, CBU3 balances jobs so that they're playable for the most people in the most content, at the cost of being less tuned for any individual group.

But that isn't necessarily true, though. There have been many ongoing conversations over on the healer forums where the high-end players that want more complexity have actively discussed ways to do so such that it does not affect the bottom level player, or actually makes the game easier to the novice, not harder. Things like making basic GCD healings like Cure II and Medica cost no MP, reducing the pressure on players to maintain DPS uptime to achieve similar levels of DPS output, reworking Phoenix Downs to allow non-healers to revive outside of high-end duties so that there's less pressure on healers to not fail mechanics or, revamping the UI for things like Esuna-able debuffs so that newer players can actually recognize when a debuff can be removed with Esuna, and more. Talks of wanting more depth and complexity enter into the equation largely with DPS in mind, something that is not required of healers in 95% of the game's content, and is not an issue for the low-end player base because they are not pressured to hit enrages. For literally years, the high-end players have been fighting for a raised ceiling that does not raise the floor.

[Aravell]

I don't envy the position CBU3 is in. There's not really a good solution here to make everyone happy, but when you're developing a big MMO that's also aimed at a crowd that doesn't typically play MMOs, you're kinda stuck between a rock and a fandom place.

There is a solution to make everyone happy.

Keep the skill floor we have now and raise the ceiling.

The players on the lower-end are already comfortable with what we have now, that's not an issue. What is an issue is that the higher-end players, or even the above average players, have nothing to strive for. There is no ceiling, so to speak. We just want a higher ceiling, none of us want to raise the floor higher than people can reach.