#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ForsakenRoe]

I always wonder how paranoid people have to be in their day to day life, that when they hear someone say 'we should have a change to healers so they're more fun, in all content levels, for all skill levels of player', they just immediately jump to 'oh no they're going to turn the healers into some hyper-complex quantum mathematics thing I don't want that', like the two extremes are 'one button spam' like now, or 'literally TK Monk rotation'. No in-between state can possibly exist, apparently.

Here's an example of what I'd do to one of the healers, let's take SCH as an example:

Broil IV: 300p
Biolysis, 350p over 30s
Miasmalysis: 340p over 24s
Shadowflare: 320p over 15s

(numbers are examples and not balanced against the hypothetical potencies of other healers)

With that, you could ignore the DOTs entirely, all three of them, and just use Broil instead. Doing that would cost you a total of 560 potency over two minutes. That's right, you'd lose less than one Broil cast worth of damage per minute. The idea that 'if we increase the complexity of the DPS side of healers, it'd exclude casuals' is a long-dead strawman, because it's super easy to design systems in such a way as to 'aid the casuals', either by guiding them towards the 'correct' gameplay, or by reducing the punishment of 'incorrect' gameplay (as this does).

Here's another example. Dia is 70 damage, and then 70 per tick. If you spam it for mobility, you get the first 70 each cast. So, why not boost that to 270, and reduce the DOT tick potency by 20, keeping the total potency the same, but frontloading more of the damage, so that 'spam while moving' is less punishing?

People say 'we have to consider the casual player, and keep things casual-friendly', but I can point to many design elements that SE has put in that are incredibly 'unfriendly' to casual players

[Bobby66]

I always wonder how paranoid people have to be in their day to day life, that when they hear someone say 'we should have a change to healers so they're more fun, in all content levels, for all skill levels of player', they just immediately jump to 'oh no they're going to turn the healers into some hyper-complex quantum mathematics thing I don't want that', like the two extremes are 'one button spam' like now, or 'literally TK Monk rotation'. No in-between state can possibly exist, apparently.

Here's an example of what I'd do to one of the healers, let's take SCH as an example:

Broil IV: 300p
Biolysis, 350p over 30s
Miasmalysis: 340p over 24s
Shadowflare: 320p over 15s

With that, you could ignore the DOTs entirely, all three of them, and just use Broil instead. Doing that would cost you a total of 560 potency over two minutes. That's right, you'd lose less than one Broil cast worth of damage per minute. The idea that 'if we increase the complexity of the DPS side of healers, it'd exclude casuals' is a long-dead strawman, because it's super easy to design systems in such a way as to 'aid the casuals', either by guiding them towards the 'correct' gameplay, or by reducing the punishment of 'incorrect' gameplay (as this does).

Here's another example. Dia is 70 damage, and then 70 per tick. If you spam it for mobility, you get the first 70 each cast. So, why not boost that to 270, and reduce the DOT tick potency by 20, keeping the total potency the same, but frontloading more of the damage, so that 'spam while moving' is less punishing?

People say 'we have to consider the casual player, and keep things casual-friendly', but I can point to many design elements that SE has put in that are incredibly 'unfriendly' to casual players

I think what people are afraid of and to be fair FFXIV community has shown it can become a slave to the numbers just like any community. I think people are afraid of going back to those silly debates and topics of healers and that do damage verse those that done. People that silent kick healers for not doing damage or doing piss poor damage. Maybe I remember a different FFXIV when I played more hardcore back but yeah I could 100% could see a bunch of people shit on others for missing out of 560 potency. Hell, if I was the who I was back then I probably would be one of those people that would say shit. I also be that type of player in WoW. Maybe I have a different pov cause I was one of those toxic elitist when I was younger that expected people to play to a certain level in all forms of content.

From that perspective I can see to a degree maybe why they wish to streamline stuff more. I know you should not throw the baby out with the bathwater but sometimes shitty people do ruin things for everyone else.

Sure it is a strawman, but it is an aspect that Yoshi-P himself has mentioned is what holds him back from giving healers more damage tools even slightly. I do not think we can forget that. Sure some elements are not causal friendly, but for the most part baseline content is fairly causal friendly. Hell you probably could be normal mode content just by doing basic 123 across the board and nothing else.

[Galvuu]

I think what people are afraid of and to be fair FFXIV community has shown it can become a slave to the numbers just like any community. I think people are afraid of going back to those silly debates and topics of healers and that do damage verse those that done. People that silent kick healers for not doing damage or doing piss poor damage.

There are two things being conflated here, and I want to actually address both, because I'm strongly opinionated on them.
One is the statement that "people silent kick healers for doing piss poor damage". Regardless of your job and its theoretical damage ceiling, if you're playing so poorly that it's an active detriment to the party, then kicking that person is well within the party's right.
I've done this myself recently, though all times to dps- be it a RPR that was spamming Harpe in ex2, or a RDM spamming aoe in ex1 (both doing less damage than the healers of their respective parties). This makes the runs unnecessarily long (a clear issue in a farm party), and those two particularly, made it so enrage was a consideration (I was seeing the second Mountain Fire on the party with the RDM consistently). This also goes for a very low dps/0 dps healer- playing like that actively hinders the party. I don't think we need to protect people like that, I think it's fine to expect a minimum out of the people who should be cooperating with you.

The other statement has to do with the general idea that "people optimize the fun out of the game". I never felt this statement ever had much merit to begin with- for one, some people derive fun out of finding the optimal way to do things. The process of finding the best way to go about a problem is very rewarding. Further, some people enjoy the feeling of playing optimally. I feel really hyped when I do a raid and I feel like I played perfectly- "I played that so well". It's a common feeling in many games, just like some people feel really hyped for doing an insane outplay on a mechanically demanding champion in League or something.
Further, people aren't forced to play optimally- "good enough" works. I know most optimal builds for StQ areas, but sometimes I use "meme" action combos that are half-decent for the fun of it. Sometimes I try to cook a different opener as an experiment, knowing full well it's a damage loss. Sometimes I'm legitimately just goofing around. The fact those things aren't optimal doesn't decrease my enjoyment of them- sometimes I have fun figuring out what's best and playing as perfectly as possible afterwards, sometimes I just play to have fun in a random off-job that I only halfway understand. All of this, with the addendum that you shouldn't be doing 0 damage or griefing the party.

People who truly "optimize the fun out of the game" usually are doing content as a chore, and likely have an unhealthy relationship with the game. They don't enjoy the journey to their goal, and gameplay is often the journey. It's doing the fights, it's playing better, it's trying new stuff, not getting the loot-carrot. If the gameplay feels like a chore and all that keeps someone going is that carrot, then no matter how simple or complex, how optimized or not the gameplay is... they likely won't have fun. Especially in XIV, where you throw out most of your gear every 3 months.