#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Payadopa]

I think this is why we need casual content to be designed in a way that makes healers necessary but not too difficult (e.g. by frequent low-level damage that, if untreated, adds up and exceeds the non-healers self-heals/mit, but can easily be patched up. As a result it woud require you to use more healing instead of your sinlge button damage spell) and perhaps add some casual-specific safety nets into normal mode content (I keep on harping on variant-dungeon style resses but there can be other things too of course) instead of trying to engineer the safety into the kit itself by making it as easy as possible.

Alternatively if that is not possible I still think a better DPS rotation can be a good compromise. Like this the difficulty could stay as is and healers that are still learning/struggling could clear it as they do now, but seasoned healers would at least get more to do than spamming 1.

Imo the game also doesn't do a good job at communication due to its lack of proper tutorials.
If you have a complex kit then it should still be possible to run casual content in a way that doesn't require you to use it optimally at all to clear it.
If this was communicated properly in the game or if it was "common knowledge" in the community (bc I think for many who don't engage in FF14 social media it might not be) then complex kit designs might feel less overwhelming and anxiety-inducing to casual players. They could be assured that they don't need to use of all of it.

It's not that hard to come up with a system to accommodate everyone.
Solo players have trusts. Party people have (harder) group content. If you have a single player duty you can select between very easy UP TO very hard so you have options. There. It's not perfect but it's a start.

This problem has been solved decades ago. Difficulty settings.

[KageTokage]

It's not that hard to come up with a system to accommodate everyone.
Solo players have trusts. Party people have (harder) group content. If you have a single player duty you can select between very easy UP TO very hard so you have options. There. It's not perfect but it's a start.

This problem has been solved decades ago. Difficulty settings.

The problem is certain content like trials, raids, etc still force these differing groups of people together which is going to create friction when you start dealing with situations where individual performance matters.

IE, the Bozja raids are seemingly way above the level of stuff a lot of people are comfortable with judging from the number of times I've ended up with 60-70% of the raid on the floor and it eventually getting to a point where the competent healers just give up on rezzing people because their MP pools can't support it.

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

[Flay_wind]

The problem is certain content like trials, raids, etc still force these differing groups of people together which is going to create friction when you start dealing with situations where individual performance matters.

IE, the Bozja raids are seemingly way above the level of stuff a lot of people are comfortable with judging from the number of times I've ended up with 60-70% of the raid on the floor and it eventually getting to a point where the competent healers just give up on rezzing people because their MP pools can't support it.

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

I think this was EW content design problem in particular.
As many have said before, there's no "midcore" (or however you want to call it) content in EW. There's no large zone where players of different skill levels can gather and do something together. Bozja was great in that regard, some skirmishes, but especially CE used mechanics from the previous fights but made quite a few additions to them, so they are fresh and fun to do and do offer a higher difficulty. All 3 large scale raids i.e. CLL, DRN and Dalriada were very fun on content.
Usually Alliance Raids are harder than regular Dungeons and Trials content (YoshiP himself mentioned that they design Alliance Raid with harder and less noticeable mechanics so even if more casual players make mistakes, better players can still carry them), but the devs overcorrected after Nier complaints way too hard. Bosses have no health and spend way too much time tutorializing before they start mixing mechanics in a half-interesting way, by which point they are dead. Bosses spend way too much time telegraphing one attack. Thaleia is very guilty of this.
EW Extremes were somewhat on a weaker side with the exception of Barbs or Golby.

[ForteNightshade]

I think this was EW content design problem in particular.
As many have said before, there's no "midcore" (or however you want to call it) content in EW. There's no large zone where players of different skill levels can gather and do something together. Bozja was great in that regard, some skirmishes, but especially CE used mechanics from the previous fights but made quite a few additions to them, so they are fresh and fun to do and do offer a higher difficulty. All 3 large scale raids i.e. CLL, DRN and Dalriada were very fun on content.
Usually Alliance Raids are harder than regular Dungeons and Trials content (YoshiP himself mentioned that they design Alliance Raid with harder and less noticeable mechanics so even if more casual players make mistakes, better players can still carry them), but the devs overcorrected after Nier complaints way too hard. Bosses have no health and spend way too much time tutorializing before they start mixing mechanics in a half-interesting way, by which point they are dead. Bosses spend way too much time telegraphing one attack. Thaleia is very guilty of this.
EW Extremes were somewhat on a weaker side with the exception of Barbs or Golby.

Correction: It was after Ivalice.

Nier was also criticised for being too easy not hard. Yoshida even commented saying they eased the difficulty because Nier players might be coming over to see the raids without having MMO experience. Which really should highlight what their thought process has been the last two expansions. They're treating max level content (80 at the time) as if it's still baby mode. Ironically, Yoshida did say the next raid series (Twelve) would be harder. If you've been around long enough, you should know him saying anything is challenging is often the kiss of death.

[Eorzean_username]

The game does not do enough to train people to handle the stuff they can't easy mode and trivial healing checks are just the tip of the iceberg.

I mean at the end of the day this is always going to be "it", no matter what sort of blow-harding occurs on any "side" of the topic.

Mr. Yoshida himself is on record as basically stating, in so many words, that if he was going to make a game just for his own pleasure, it sure as hell wouldn't be anything remotely like FFXIV. Though he does 459390 different interviews per year, so trying to scrounge-up the exact quote I'm thinking of where he said something along those lines has exhausted my patience with DuckDuckGo.

But the point is, if CBU3 had the will for it, they absolutely could tighten-up FFXIV's loose edges, and make a much more standardised and consistent difficulty-curve across the game, a more firm identity and style for each Job, and a more firm identity for each Role in all levels of content.

It's just that they know damn well that doing so would shrink FFXIV's audiences back towards a more dedicated "gameplay-positive" crowd, and they clearly don't want to ever be "that quirky boutique MMO" ever again. They want to remain "WOW, but Coherent Plot, Horrible Network Response Times, and Catgirls" — certainly not in gameplay refinement, but at least in terms of "pop-culture consciousness".

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Mr. Yoshida maintains a certain outward "friendly dad gamer" persona, because he's a designated "company mascot". But he's also clearly a shrewd and perceptive businessman with a life clearly spent keeping a close eye on the gaming industry, both local and international. He is certainly well-aware of what happened when WOW became overconfident in Cataclysm, and Blizzard's self-proclaimed "rockstars" stopped caring too-much about providing anything to players below the Endgame Dungeon / Raiding tier of content, distorting the entire game dramatically within the space of a single expansion-patch compared to what its fans recognised and expected beforehand.

So none of the CBU3 resistance to course-change on "normal" content and gameplay is surprising — FFXIV isn't an unsettled passion-project like it was in the early days of 1.x emergency-recovery and ARR/HW "finding its footing". Everyone responsible for FFXIV's direction forward knows that they have a well-ensconced cash-cow "formula" that they're now afraid to breathe-on wrong, because most game companies are ultimately designing with something akin to shamanistic prayer and superstition due to their fear of how fickle and volatile the interests of gaming audiences can be.

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All of this is to say that, yes, the game neglects to train people or provide a sanely-presented learning-curve, but it's partially because the game literally doesn't want to, since every bit of mild effort or slight disappointment that gets introduced along the way is another chance for a precious juicy payment source to pout furiously, and then wander-off to one of 342039943092 competitors for time and attention that are still willing to provide "You Win!" in exchange for just flat time-sunk and/or direct monetary investment.

There is no hyperbole intended when I say that the XIV devs wouldn't hesitate to reduce every Job to exactly 3 Actions and 1 Ult if they thought that they'd gain or retain more customers than they'd lose by doing so.

The only reason that there's any tension at all between complexity and simplification remaining in XIV's Job Design is that games rely somewhat on the outsized effect that proselytising and passionate dedicated fans / community-members provide a game as a form of powerful viral advertising and potently sustaining interest / sub-cultural relevancy. Over-simplifying too far runs the risk of driving that dedicated "actually likes playing games" segment away completely.

So market-widening "accessibility" adjustments are done in little nudges, and sips, and nibbles, to try to "boil the frog" to the exact edge of what will be tolerated from as many segments of the audience as possible.

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One could point to all of this and say, "Well, see, exactly, then... complaining and protesting is pointless, you're pining for a game-design that the devs no longer have any willpower to make".

But that's the thing — refer to my point about how much game developers actually fear their audience's fickle attention-spans and mysterious, almost incomprehensible desires and preferences.

Make your unhappiness clear, and loudly — and, preferably, coherently — enough, and it will plant that seed of doubt in the developers's minds.

"Oh no... have we gone too far? Might this entire gingerbread-house begin to crack and crumble soon? Will we soon begin to lose more than we gain or retain? Perhaps we must reconsider..."

That doesn't mean that 100% of all complaints will ever be addressed, because again, from the perspective of the creators, it's a balancing-act that ultimately just centers on what benefits the health of the company the most. However, it does mean that there's a chance that some portion of the feedback will actually be actioned — perhaps in horrible, horrible ways that were never intended, but actioned nonetheless.

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I mean, think about it.

Would we really be seeing even such "complexity" (lol) as "POM → Glare 4" and "Psyche" introduced into Healer "rotations" if the last 5 years had been totally silent?

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that Mr. Yoshida and CBU3 would be perfectly-content to just keep offering "High Broil 3: Revengeance", "Emergency Emergency Tactics", and "Seraphism-ism" until the end of time.

As insipid and inadequate as updates like "Baneful Impaction" seem right now, I still think that they're a sign that the dissatisfaction is in the periphery of the developers's minds, and they're just struggling to figure out how to address that dissatisfaction without provoking and enraging the monster that they've created by going soft-ball on the lower end of content and Role Design for too many years in a row.

ie, NO, REDDIT / YOUTUBE / TWITTER / TWITCH, I AM NOT CALLING CASUAL PLAYERS MONSTERS, I am just saying that the developers must absolutely know the sheer inconceivable shite-storm that they will provoke if they attempt to adjust-up any of the push-back or resistance that Job Design or Content Design provides.

So they're "sweating", because they've now lodged themselves between a new sort of exotically low-effort "proudly casual" base on one side, that views FFXIV as their safe-space from any sort of performance demands whatsoever (since content is so slack that other people can just infinitely carry-them through), and an increasingly-irate and exasperated portion of the "alternative casual" and up base, which is tired of needing to keep a dose of Narcan on-hand when trying to remain conscious through half the game's cooperative content.

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TLDR
There's a lot of tangible reasons that the game, nowadays, very intentionally doesn't bother trying to hold players to any sort of performance standard until suddenly slamming you into EX / Savage / Criterion like a moose on a windshield.

But I think that continuing to express dissatisfaction with it — preferably in a coherent, well-organised, and reasonably-diplomatic manner — is still productive, and will still influence the developers... even if it's slow, or their response is incomplete compared to what would ideally be desired (the exact specifications of which will fluctuate wildly from player to player, anyway).

[Loggos]

[HB]

TLDR
There's a lot of tangible reasons that the game, nowadays, very intentionally doesn't bother trying to hold players to any sort of performance standard until suddenly slamming you into EX / Savage / Criterion like a moose on a windshield.

But I think that continuing to express dissatisfaction with it — preferably in a coherent, well-organised, and reasonably-diplomatic manner — is still productive, and will still influence the developers... even if it's slow, or their response is incomplete compared to what would ideally be desired (the exact specifications of which will fluctuate wildly from player to player, anyway).

I completely agree with this but I think it's also really sad because games like Elden Ring have shown how popular and "mainstream" the "overcoming hard challenges" type of gameplay can be.

There is obviously also a huge self-selection effect at play but the game's impressive growth compared to older Soulsborne titles could indicate that far more people are willing to try content that requires you to fail and learn if they are eased into it.

(And the funny thing is that ER doesn't even make it easy for new players. You have a lot more tools to make the game easier for you as you play but the beginning is still really tough for newbies.)

Now imagine a game that actually slowly introduces their players to increasing difficulties step by step and teaches you to gradually get more comfortable with harder content. If done right I really think this could work.

I'm not advocating for FF to adopt ER levels of difficulty of course. But I wonder if it's not just a problem of "what" (difficulty) but als of "how". As in, how your initial encounter with content that challenges your current skill level goes and how organically you can progress on that difficulty curve.

I wonder if proper game design could successfully utilise the psychology behind positive difficulty (having a good balance of rewards and frustration, with the scales tipped in such a way that the frustration doesn't become so big you want to quit but instead motivates you, while the rewards are fulfilling enough to generate a strong pull and intrinsic motivation themselves).

Because right now I think FF14 does a terrible job at dealing with those underlying psychological mechanisms, often making it a lot more stressful for casual players to even consider harder content.

Naturally you will never win everybody over to try harder things but I still think there is a lot of room for improvement in FF14's current game design and communication to make increasing difficulty exciting for inexperienced players without risking losing them or pushing casuals out.

[Turtledeluxe]

I completely agree with this but I think it's also really sad because games like Elden Ring have shown how popular and "mainstream" the "overcoming hard challenges" type of gameplay can be.

There is obviously also a huge self-selection effect at play but the game's impressive growth compared to older Soulsborne titles could indicate that far more people are willing to try content that requires you to fail and learn if they are eased into it.

(And the funny thing is that ER doesn't even make it easy for new players. You have a lot more tools to make the game easier for you as you play but the beginning is still really tough for newbies.)

Now imagine a game that actually slowly introduces their players to increasing difficulties step by step and teaches you to gradually get more comfortable with harder content. If done right I really think this could work.

I'm not advocating for FF to adopt ER levels of difficulty of course. But I wonder if it's not just a problem of "what" (difficulty) but als of "how". As in, how your initial encounter with content that challenges your current skill level goes and how organically you can progress on that difficulty curve.

I wonder if proper game design could successfully utilise the psychology behind positive difficulty (having a good balance of rewards and frustration, with the scales tipped in such a way that the frustration doesn't become so big you want to quit but instead motivates you, while the rewards are fulfilling enough to generate a strong pull and intrinsic motivation themselves).

Because right now I think FF14 does a terrible job at dealing with those underlying psychological mechanisms, often making it a lot more stressful for casual players to even consider harder content.

Naturally you will never win everybody over to try harder things but I still think there is a lot of room for improvement in FF14's current game design and communication to make increasing difficulty exciting for inexperienced players without risking losing them or pushing casuals out.

Elden Ring caters to lots of different gamers because it's just straight forward enough that anyone can get it, but it's diverse enough that build crafters can get very creative and challenge runners can really sink their teeth in. If it's too hard, there are tools in the game to get help. It's hard for an MMO to replicate this kind of game on a mechanical level but it's worth considering conceptually. A lot of MMOs, including XIV, undo a lot of the things (like killing job complexity) basically because of endgame, to be as nonspecific and non accusatory as possible. Jobs are not being simplified (in general) because of ultra casual players. It is to make it so nothing non-standard and non predictable exists for the sake of endgame.

[Loggos]

Elden Ring caters to lots of different gamers because it's just straight forward enough that anyone can get it, but it's diverse enough that build crafters can get very creative and challenge runners can really sink their teeth in. If it's too hard, there are tools in the game to get help. It's hard for an MMO to replicate this kind of game on a mechanical level but it's worth considering conceptually. A lot of MMOs, including XIV, undo a lot of the things (like killing job complexity) basically because of endgame, to be as nonspecific and non accusatory as possible. Jobs are not being simplified (in general) because of ultra casual players. It is to make it so nothing non-standard and non predictable exists for the sake of endgame.

Yeah I completely agree with you. I also don't think it's possible to really translate Elden Ring into FF14. I just think it's an interesting counterpoint to the prevaling narrative of many gaming companies that games with inbuilt failure mechanisms can't be popular.

(I do think the way you write about how ER manages to cater to different players is a very good description. It sounds like the game managed to implement a bit of that "theme park" mentality, that FF14 strives for, quite successfully.)

I think FF14 can definitely go its own path in the way it approaches things and as you say make it suitable for an MMO on a conceptual level.

As mentioned above for me that means having a proper difficulty curve and guiding inexperienced players through this curve to give them positive exposure to challenges instead of associating them with fear and avoidance.
Both of which are currently completely lacking imo.

[Turtledeluxe]

Yeah I completely agree with you. I also don't think it's possible to really translate Elden Ring into FF14. I just think it's an interesting counterpoint to the prevaling narrative of many gaming companies that games with inbuilt failure mechanisms can't be popular.

(I do think the way you write about how ER manages to cater to different players is a very good description. It sounds like the game managed to implement a bit of that "theme park" mentality, that FF14 strives for, quite successfully.)

I think FF14 can definitely go its own path in the way it approaches things and as you say make it suitable for an MMO on a conceptual level.

As mentioned above for me that means having a proper difficulty curve and guiding inexperienced players through this curve to give them positive exposure to challenges instead of associating them with fear and avoidance.
Both of which are currently completely lacking imo.

Definitely agree. There's something off about the progression of difficulty in this game. It isn't non existent because there are outliers I can think of (exploratory zones come to mind, and I really like those), especially with select trials across the game or even particular alliance raids. I guess I wish we saw a bit more of that in the game overall, especially since rapid gear progression trivializes much of the content so fast anyway. Elden Ring doesn't have that problem because it is single player (so its way easier to lay out progression) and also because I think the devs trust the player more, while SE is hung up on metrics and studies.

[Malackai]

As a WHM main since ARR (dint really raid in ARR) did some some savage tries in HW but nothing serious back then (the group I was with was very laidback).
I am not a pro raider by any means (the whole 'colour' thingie isn't really my thing to begin with) Did some casual raiding in SB as well but dint really start with the last Omega Tier proper.

Even I am pretty disappointed on how my class WHM has ended up through the years same with other healers

In general we keep getting the whole healers should heal yet with every expansion we heal less and less in general. Especially after the first few weeks.

And now with EW having done the raids and the new Deep dungeon everything seems to be so mitigation heavy based or insta-kill mechanics if you get hit
or worse one person fails a group mechanic everyone just dies instantly so whats the point of healing then?

The recovery rate has gone a bit as well in EW raids.
The amount of times I just resigned and sighed during raids when a cohealer disconnected and I was sitting there after topping people of and popping wings and still
watching the whole raid just go boom because I wasn't able to mitigate properly.
or dealing with disconnects/deaths in general before certain mechanics goes out and hearing the people just sigh in annoyance (because it was one of those instant raid wipe mechanics) has been increasing a lot in EW.

I miss the times where me and the cohealer where able to just grit our teeth and where able to at least salvage a try that was going down so far south and recover(sure we would have hit enraged or maybe died a bit later but at least it felt a bit more rewarding in general) and in some cases we were able to recover and continue.

The whole pure/shield split isn't helping either tbh. Frankly at this point I rather just see healers become both but just with an unique play style per healer.

Or worse case go back to the old AST with a shield/regen sect and add those 'sects' to the other healers as well so people can pick to be a shield or regen healer and just pick the healer they enjoy playing with interesting playstyles per healer
I would not mind having a choice to have a shield mode instead of being a 'pure/regen' healer (we had protect back then and stoneskin just add reflects and shell or something as extra shield spells)

Frankly I am also still baffled that nothing new has been added to the lilly system since SHB
Why not make the new "glare" a lilly spell then atleast? still not a perfect solution but at least it would have been something I guess...
Also the same with the mitigation on top of the mitigation cool-down spell why is the new shield thing added to the wings? its... just.. I cant.
I have a lilly system... Why not make additions to that?

Also I am getting a bit tired of people going just wait till expansion is released it will be different just you watch.
It was just an old build will be tuned. You don't know yet how the new skills gonna work out or how it will change your game play. I have been hearing those same remarks since SB and up till now it never made a difference.

I remember WHM In SB telling after the media tour the lilly system was borked/clunky and because it was based on casting cure of all things... (chance to add lilly) and cure 2(adding a lilly)... no one listened
guess what when SB was released we still told it was borked as we expected and it got changed and tuned a bit they even overhauled it in ShB...

Sometimes you don't need to play first to see that somethings are a bad idea...

I don't need to play DT first to see that I am gonna be stuck with the same old again like I have pretty much been been since SB.

I can understand why Healers are reaching a breaking point for some it has been 6+ years now. Only to be told once again we look at it next expansion while the expansion being released is making things even more plain and guess for some people less complex and more boring.

Think I have mentioned this before but ever since I saw the Kuribu boss and seeing the reverse mechanic that boss had I am still sad they haven't dabbled in to that for the WHM Job it could have spiced things up a bit no need for extra dps buttons or anything because its just converts certain current healing spells to damage/dots instead (cleric but better.)
Would help to make MSQ fate farming and questing less dull as well.