#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[DivineP]

Sadly I'm not going to sit here watching you all heal each other while I spam 11111

[Minali]

Yeah, (some) failure should be an integral part of a challenge-based gaming experience, even on a casual level, or at least not be seen as this terrible thing that needs to be avoided at all costs.

And I don't think anybody can deny that FF14 at its core is a challenge-based game.
(...)
I think the fact that struggling in regular content seems unusual or extraordinary is what creates a problem. Because if the mindset is "this shouldn't happen at all" vs. "failing once or twice is normal for this type of content" then of course struggling "needs" to be fixed and prevented as much as possible from that perspective.

Agreed. I get the feeling it's a bit of a self fulfilling profecy. The dungeons don't require all roles to utilize their toolkit to the fullest -> players don't bother learning their toolkit -> devs see players not playing properly and keeps making dungeons you can breeze through -> players have no necessity to learn -> ...

Considering there are rarely any casuals here, there are a lot of assumptions made for how casuals would react or would complain or would struggle or... whatever else. I might not play casual, I'm somewhere midcore by now, but I used to play a lot more casual, avoid hardcore content, and have shared some time with sprouts. And I wonder if they would be really that opposed to the challenge of learning all their buttons as many forum users assume. I do like this feeling of accomplishment that doesn't come from a good loot roll or a fancy mount but from learning itself. Looking into your job, trying to understand it better with practice, maybe wipe a few times and learn from it, and feel how you are improving. This isn't just a thing for savage levels, it can be fun in casual level too. Because the comparison was made, it's what I like in single player games, too. Sure, Ori for example gets easier if I play it in story mode and/or unlock other skills with time, but you still need to improve your muscle memory, your aim for complex jumps and dashes, your sense of puzzle solving/strategizing in how to get where with what way. And when I managed to climb up that Ginso Tree or escape the ruins under pressure after failing five times, getting a bit further with each attempt, it was a hell of a rewarding feeling after that adrenaline rush, and you still have this core situation in every mode, just in a different degree depending on the player's personal preferences and skill level.

However, it's a core aspect of human thinking to go for the path of least resistance and if there is no incentive to improve because the bare minimum is enough to progress, if there is no intrinsic reward for getting better unless you go into savage and ultimate and run into a brick wall over and over for months, why bother? You can still watch guides and practice on striking dummies and try to git gud with your rotation like I do, but the game doesn't really reward this. Dungeon runs didn't become a lot more fun for me by playing ninja better. I might not feel like dead weight, but I also don't feel like I accomplished anything. I have a lot more sense of accomplishment when I managed to get an undergeared overeager tank through Stone Vigil as a non-instant heal WHM below level 50 than running the level 89 dungeon with my full kit. Do I dread these Stone Vigil runs? Maaaybe, yes, especially als healer because I'm the one who gets the blame for the tank not pressing rampart and running around in starting gear, but at least I am not tempted to ponder about literally anything else but the dungeon I am in because the dungeon doesn't really require my attention once I've run it a few times. I might not like these runs because the job feels very limited and incomplete on level whatsit and I feel like I could do more, but the necessity to press more than 1 1 1 1 makes it a bit more memorable. It's a similar situation with the Lvl 71 dungeon, except it's a bit more fun for me because my toolkit is more versatile at this level and new people tend to be in the latest tomestone gear.

Learning is fun, figuring things out together is fun, and helping each other improve is fun, and it's fun when this happens on a casual dungeon as well. Saving these experiences for savage and ultimate runs for the most part keeps casuals from having this kind of fun. I still remember one Lvl 71 run in roulette that started with "Please bear with me, I literally unlocked Sage five minutes ago, I have no clue what my buttons are doing, beyond reading the tooltips." It happened at least two years ago and I still remember it, because it was a super fun run for everyone. I was the tank and the motto of the run is "let's see how hard we can go while the new sage is figuring sage out." One of the other ones knew sage a little and could give advice. We wiped when I got too overeager with a pull just out of habit and it was no big deal, that's part of learning and because the healer was honest to us from the beginning and we knew they weren't playing bad due to that player running a script and watching netflix or something. Did it take longer to finish it? Yeah of course. Did we have more fun doing this? You bet!
However, it also stands out that much because once everyone knows the bare minimum, the dungeon runs are just the same blah. Unless someone messes up or the dungeon has the option for these really really big pulls like the first one in Bardam's or the one in the middle in Shisui, they feel very same-y. There is no need to maybe go a bit above being mediocre and getting practice will all your skills beyond this, because it doesn't change anything. There are nice small moments when the ninja doton, the summoner slipstream and the dark knights salted earth align perfectly and the tank keeps the enemies in it and not next to it, or when a caster or ranged uses LB1 on the trash, but that's the extent of accomplishment you get from having ever looked up what you're doing in group content. Horray...?

I'm fine with the group wiping once or twice, I am fine with playing with people still figuring things out. I am fine with failing a thing and improving by this (unless I get harassed by others over it). And the most complaints I've seen in casual content about this were not from casuals being frustrated about their jobs and their performance but from impatient veterans who wanted to get in and out of the dungeon as fast as possible for their loot minmaxing and killing the bosses while the sprouts were in a cutscene. (And this has gotten a lot worse btw since we got Duty Support, no matter how limited Duty Support is when it comes to teaching. Giving me Overwatch vibes where spending weeks on the training range was required and you'd still get bullied over not playing perfect.)

Tl;dr: I could imagine casuals would actually have a bit more fun with learning, improving and getting better as well, if the game would actually reward people for playing more than mid in casual content. If it requires a wipe, let them wipe. Failing is a part of the learning process after all, in every aspect of life, and gaming is no exception. (Considering we don't even have walks of shame anymore once Dawntrail drops and get straight to the boss arena, it's really not a big bother.)

[KikiTia]

I dunno how I feel about this as a healer main since late SB. I mean, most of these issues apply to casual content, Extreme and upwards is nowhere near like this. Most people I see in this discussion don't seem to care much about the runs where the healer has no clue what they're doing. I know when I'm playing dps/tank I'm grateful that I can keep going with the dungeon even if the healer is new, it's less pressure on them to optimize and it means if they can't heal a boss we don't all have to vote kick them and they have a chance to learn or at worst we can get it over with instead of queueing up again. As a healer it's also nice to know I don't have to focus in all the time and won't get all the shit if people die. I don't know if I'd do group content that would eventually evolve into something like WoW was where you're either perfect or you're useless, because the game is so demanding even in casual content. When I have a bad day I don't want to log in and be told I'm wasting everyone's time because I don't feel like putting in 100%. I think healers are the way they are so they stay accessible to new players. Healing is overwhelming in the beginning, I know from experience, it's nice to have minimal things to think about in a rotation so I can focus more on resource management and decision making. I do wish AST, for instance, had gotten more extensive changes, but I wouldn't say I'm going to quit healing until that changes. This team operates on a strict schedule, with huge demands to maintain quality, functionality, and substance in ALL new content, a fact many people seem happy to overlook. They can't change much until 8.0, which Yoshida has already promised will see a greater emphasis on individuality. I'm sure they hear the feedback, but it will probably take some time to implement as they aren't at liberty to make huge changes on a whim. But if we disrupt queues and force them to make a change early, that will most likely disrupt their work cycle and everyone else who isn't a healer main will suffer for it. So I won't be participating in the healer strike, because I think it's the wrong solution to the problem. It would be different if we were at 8.0 and we still hadn't seen any serious changes, but they've promised us changes down the line and made it clear Dawntrail is group content focused, and that 8.0 will deliver more class flavor. They're receiving more feedback than just on healer design and they have to keep up with all of it at once. We can't expect them to just drop everything and tend to our problems specifically because we're upset now, even if they have plans to address it later.

[Merrigan]

like WoW was where you're either perfect or you're useless, because the game is so demanding even in casual content.

Sorry, wut ?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I dunno how I feel about this as a healer main since late SB. I mean, most of these issues apply to casual content, Extreme and upwards is nowhere near like this. Most people I see in this discussion don't seem to care much about the runs where the healer has no clue what they're doing. I know when I'm playing dps/tank I'm grateful that I can keep going with the dungeon even if the healer is new, it's less pressure on them to optimize and it means if they can't heal a boss we don't all have to vote kick them and they have a chance to learn or at worst we can get it over with instead of queueing up again. As a healer it's also nice to know I don't have to focus in all the time and won't get all the shit if people die. I don't know if I'd do group content that would eventually evolve into something like WoW was where you're either perfect or you're useless, because the game is so demanding even in casual content. When I have a bad day I don't want to log in and be told I'm wasting everyone's time because I don't feel like putting in 100%. I think healers are the way they are so they stay accessible to new players. Healing is overwhelming in the beginning, I know from experience, it's nice to have minimal things to think about in a rotation so I can focus more on resource management and decision making. I do wish AST, for instance, had gotten more extensive changes, but I wouldn't say I'm going to quit healing until that changes. This team operates on a strict schedule, with huge demands to maintain quality, functionality, and substance in ALL new content, a fact many people seem happy to overlook. They can't change much until 8.0, which Yoshida has already promised will see a greater emphasis on individuality. I'm sure they hear the feedback, but it will probably take some time to implement as they aren't at liberty to make huge changes on a whim. But if we disrupt queues and force them to make a change early, that will most likely disrupt their work cycle and everyone else who isn't a healer main will suffer for it. So I won't be participating in the healer strike, because I think it's the wrong solution to the problem. It would be different if we were at 8.0 and we still hadn't seen any serious changes, but they've promised us changes down the line and made it clear Dawntrail is group content focused, and that 8.0 will deliver more class flavor. They're receiving more feedback than just on healer design and they have to keep up with all of it at once. We can't expect them to just drop everything and tend to our problems specifically because we're upset now, even if they have plans to address it later.

Healers being accessible is fine. But stopping right there with very little to grow as a player is where the fault lies at on all healers.

[SamLeens]

For what it's worth, the healer forum does not like the idea of combos for filler dps. That's why short CD skills, procs or DoTs are more popular options there. Really the unifying issue is the fact that "healing downtime" is too extensive and what people absolutely despise is the repetition of the nuke usage.

That's why you get the "1, 1, 1, 1" thing constantly being critisized.

Thank you very much for the clarification. Helps me a lot to understand it better.

[Hellebore_Ghrian]

As an aside, please stop harping on about casuals. The term means nothing, and is used as a synonym for "bad player"... And it seems to be used quite often by people who don't even realise that the whole of today's playerbase could be described as 'casual' by older videogame standards.

Yes I totally agree, instead of 'casual', maybe they should say 'lazy'. Bad should be for ppl who can't get something done by doing their best, so for those who don't even want to try, 'lazy' should be better.

Right? That's what you mean?

[undull1]

+1, I wont be touching healer from now on.

Make healers more GCD heal focused with some ogcd damage skills to optimise around.
Get rid of lucid dreaming and make the MP system actually matter.
Fix the hilariously broken ilvl sync that turns every duty into mindless slogging.

I play this game to have fun but hard content bores me to tears as it's too prog unfriendly with convoluted instant party wipes and soft-fails.

Let me actually play the game that was advertised and not this watered down imitation.

[DivineP]

+1, I wont be touching healer from now on.

Make healers more GCD heal focused with some ogcd damage skills to optimise around.
Get rid of lucid dreaming and make the MP system actually matter.
Fix the hilariously broken ilvl sync that turns every duty into mindless slogging.

I play this game to have fun but hard content bores me to tears as it's too prog unfriendly with convoluted instant party wipes and soft-fails.

Let me actually play the game that was advertised and not this watered down imitation.

Yes! Agreed. I feel the same way too. It's such a shame, the game was very engaging mant moons ago. I mean look at Osborne release to aglaia now. Ooof

[DivineP]

I think they need to dial ot back abit. ' do I need to dps? Do i need to heal? ' 'where do I place my card? ' ' do i need my earthly star here?' ATM it's just 11111111qq