#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Connor]

Given how long players have been raising these issues I honestly think most would even be happy with a ‘we are working on the issue around healers’ at least like once lol. I mean, I would be at least.

Instead the closest we’ve ever had to acknowledgement was developers telling healers to play ultimates if they’re ‘bored’

[Kacho_Nacho]

This always reminds me of the hilariously out of touch Scholar change in the middle of Shadowbringers, where they nerfed Energy Drain from 150 down to 100 potency with the explanation that Scholar players were focusing on DPS too much...
And then you looked at actual Scholar logs and saw that they were doing more healing than their co-healer almost every time.

Exactly! This fear healers are focusing on dps rather than health bars is so deeply entrenched that it affects all CBU3's decision making about healers, even when the data doesn't support their conclusions. In short, the devs are in an ivory tower and only listening to themselves rather than the feedback the game and its players are providing them.

Ultimately, that's why so many healers are unhappy. Years of feedback have been discounted because of Yoshi and his team made up their minds before listening to even one message from someone who actually plays a healer in the game.

[Aurora428]

Ultimately if they are unable or unwilling to make the actual act of healing the party interesting, they have to give healers better DPS buttons.

I don't necessarily agree that the healer role should become damage focused, but the fact of the matter is that it is and if they aren't changing that it may as well not be one button spam.

[Isala]

Given how long players have been raising these issues I honestly think most would even be happy with a ‘we are working on the issue around healers’ at least like once lol. I mean, I would be at least.

Instead the closest we’ve ever had to acknowledgement was developers telling healers to play ultimates if they’re ‘bored’

Jokes on them, I played other games since I was bored... Literally took all of Endwalker off, because healers were still in the dumpster for enjoyability, which is super depressing as an ARR veteran.

[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.

[Rolder50]

Ultimately if they are unable or unwilling to make the actual act of healing the party interesting, they have to give healers better DPS buttons.

I don't necessarily agree that the healer role should become damage focused, but the fact of the matter is that it is and if they aren't changing that it may as well not be one button spam.

Wouldn't even be difficult to get a good start going. Take the new 1-2 minute dps buttons, give them a shorter cooldown so they are regularly usable (adjust potency of course), and give some kind of proc like thundercloud for the dot or something else along those lines, and boom that'd be enough for them to show they care.

[PercibelTheren]

Given how long players have been raising these issues I honestly think most would even be happy with a ‘we are working on the issue around healers’ at least like once lol. I mean, I would be at least.

Instead the closest we’ve ever had to acknowledgement was developers telling healers to play ultimates if they’re ‘bored’

This is something I wish we had more of for all cases, really. Just acknowledge the feedback, even if it's "we hear you guys but we don't agree, our vision for the game is different".

[RaevusAstra]

Soo... whats the goal here? Acknowledgment from devs? I mean ultimately what could the devs do to fix/bandaid healers at this very moment? Meaning no new skills, only adjustments to the current kits. Gotta keep in mind their dev process takes them ages to get anything major done especially if blindsided them and didnt plan ahead; planning>development>testing>art/animation/sound>translations>update...

I think that the discourse should show the devs the state the game is in when it comes to job disparities, and hopefully have the devs thinking about where to go next. I know that they're deliberating the "more dps" vs. "more healing" discourse, and they really need to come up with a greater solution than the players have/can come up with that accomplishes making healing more engaging. I know going one way or the other is just gonna swing the pendulum back to people unsatisfied one way or another.

My personal take is that they should create a new mechanic only healers can do, or expand fight design to diversify buffs/debuffs that healers have to cleanse to protect their party. They could have multiple different types of esunas that could cleanse different debuffs, they could have offensive esunas for boss buffs, or they could attach cleansing effects to existing healer abilities. And they could reward you for successful cleanses, with stuff like reduced cooldowns, or increased cleanse stacks, or a shield/heal after a cleanse. And they can add that to bosses going from 8.0 and also retroactively if need be. Cleansing is something only a healer (and BRD for some reason....) can do, so there's a possibility that one solution is leaning into that more.

The one thing I don't want them to do is make a change at the detriment of any other roles. Healers being unengaging is not the fault of Tank or DPS players, and the fun of feeling invincible as a Warrior in trash packs doesn't need to conflict with healers needing to feel more useful.

[Turtledeluxe]

This is something I wish we had more of for all cases, really. Just acknowledge the feedback, even if it's "we hear you guys but we don't agree, our vision for the game is different".

I was thinking transparency would help as well. Like a "we see you want more DPS options, but no because x".There's too much looking at statements from years ago, or vague "we are thinking about jobs",, or player theories They should talk about healers honestly and openly, even if they think players won't be thrilled with the answer.

[rawker]

At this point of the game, there will be some jobs who needs some nerfing.