#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Chasingstars]

The 2 min meta just speaks to a larger problem, one that is equal parts developer and community made.

There are so many tick boxes every job needs to clear to be acceptable:

- Must deal X damage
- Must fit into 2 min buff windows
- Must not require any external influence, i.e. must be self-contained
- Must take x damage from mechanics
- Must be able to stun/interrupt/etc.
- Must have x amount of healing throughput

Every job needs to fit into these square holes so all fights work for every job evenly for everyone in DF and PF so noone gets the feelsbads, and this is the result. Healers feel this so acutely because while Tanks have basically the same defensive kits thrown into the randomiser, and DPS have unique ways to reach target X damage number, healers fundamentally all need to be able to do everything at this stage.

Healers all have shields, regens, % mits, oGCD single target heals, oGCD AOE heals, 1 spam single target attack, 1 spam aoe attack, 1 DoT. AST is the most unique, given it has actual nuance in its delay-based spell usage, and stands out as the most involved healer, but when you need to ensure there are no holes in a job's gameplay, you end up with husks of identity. I mapped out SCH and SGE's spells/actions back on launch and it was legitimately appalling how every part of SCH's kit was basicall just jumbled up into SGE's and packaged as a fresh job.

When you stifle creativity with arbitrary rules and restrictions (again, this is both dev and community made problems) then you end up with absolutely no space to innovate. I don't envy their jobs whatsoever, because there will be fallout no matter which way the pendulum goes, but I know there was a time when things weren't like this.

Which I think is the more, funny, part about the mess. All these strange design decisions are from player requests over the years that the devs granted. Why is healer the way it is? Because players asked for it years ago. Why the 2 min meta? Players asked for it. Job homogenization? Players asked for it along with balance. Sure the devs contributed, I won't deny that, they after all implemented such changes, yet its like getting a wish from a genie.

[Isala]

Which I think is the more, funny, part about the mess. All these strange design decisions are from player requests over the years that the devs granted. Why is healer the way it is? Because players asked for it years ago. Why the 2 min meta? Players asked for it. Job homogenization? Players asked for it along with balance. Sure the devs contributed, I won't deny that, they after all implemented such changes, yet its like getting a wish from a genie.

I keep seeing this, but WHO? Who asked for this? I've yet to see any response to these changes that was received positively in my decade of playing this game. I have yet to see anyone, anywhere, not on the forums, not on the subreddit, not on twitter, ANYWHERE, asking for the boneheaded changes they've been making since SHB.

[Supersnow845]

I keep seeing this, but WHO? Who asked for this? I've yet to see any response to these changes that was received positively in my decade of playing this game. I have yet to see anyone, anywhere, not on the forums, not on the subreddit, not on twitter, ANYWHERE, asking for the boneheaded changes they've been making since SHB.

I can’t find much evidence of actual people asking for the post ShB changes (though I have seen many people who support anything just by nature of it being in the game) but that poster is 100% correct that a lot of the decisions we now realise were mistakes were borne from the devs taking suggestions too far from the HW and SB era

There were complaints about cleric stance and DPS complexity in HW and SB that led to the modern healers, there were complaints about buff alignment in ShB after they removed damage types that led to the two minute meta. People do complain when the jobs are unbalanced

Square has a horrible tendency to use a hammer for a job that requires a nail file but all of the changes that player listed were born from actual complaints, even misguided ones.

[Chasingstars]

I can’t find much evidence of actual people asking for the post ShB changes (though I have seen many people who support anything just by nature of it being in the game) but that poster is 100% correct that a lot of the decisions we now realise were mistakes were borne from the devs taking suggestions too far from the HW and SB era

There were complaints about cleric stance and DPS complexity in HW and SB that led to the modern healers, there were complaints about buff alignment in ShB after they removed damage types that led to the two minute meta. People do complain when the jobs are unbalanced

Square has a horrible tendency to use a hammer for a job that requires a nail file but all of the changes that player listed were born from actual complaints, even misguided ones.

Yep. Part of me is wondering if healers who strike now are just wishing to play the equivalent of Heavensward Classic. Where there were more dps checks and heal checks, more job complexity, enmity management, where savage and extreme were considered hard even for the better raiders.

[Ritsugamesh]

I can’t find much evidence of actual people asking for the post ShB changes (though I have seen many people who support anything just by nature of it being in the game) but that poster is 100% correct that a lot of the decisions we now realise were mistakes were borne from the devs taking suggestions too far from the HW and SB era

There were complaints about cleric stance and DPS complexity in HW and SB that led to the modern healers, there were complaints about buff alignment in ShB after they removed damage types that led to the two minute meta. People do complain when the jobs are unbalanced

Square has a horrible tendency to use a hammer for a job that requires a nail file but all of the changes that player listed were born from actual complaints, even misguided ones.

I think there's been a push and pull from both sides for a while. It's an unfortunate truth that those who are happy aren't engaging in discourse about these issues, and those that aren't are. On a personal level, I've played since (yes the dreaded 1.0) and the vast majority of changes that we've weathered were completely out of the blue. This is across the board - TP changes, MP changes, aggro changes, loss of things like boss stat resist downs (int debuffs, etc. and who would fit them into their rotation), jobs being gutted (SCH DPS RIP), loss of Cleric Stance - the list goes on. I'm not saying these were good, bad, or anything in between, but that I was on-board with the vision of the game at 2.0 and played within the confines.

The fact that the devs do show they listen to feedback is positive in many senses, but I do also think that a vision for a game should be upheld and this is where the problem lies. They have not seemingly had a north star for any aspect of the game, even down to the story, outside of not wanting to enrage the playerbase. I feel this has just created an unhealthy relationship where creativity is out the window and everything is shaved to the softest corners and least objectionable output. Dungeons are a fine-tuned data output to say 'this is how long people accept, this the number of trash they accept, this is the number of bosses they accept' - it's actually insane when you think about it. Nobody should be developing a game under that pretence. I could extend this to almost every system in the game - the gear, the MSQ, the patch releases

The MOBA scene wouldn't respect League of Legends if they removed ults because people didn't like how powerful they were - it's part of the game, deal with it or don't. It really boggles my mind.

[Shurrikhan]

I can’t find much evidence of actual people asking for the post ShB changes (though I have seen many people who support anything just by nature of it being in the game) but that poster is 100% correct that a lot of the decisions we now realise were mistakes were borne from the devs taking suggestions too far from the HW and SB era

There were complaints about cleric stance and DPS complexity in HW and SB that led to the modern healers, there were complaints about buff alignment in ShB after they removed damage types that led to the two minute meta. People do complain when the jobs are unbalanced

Square has a horrible tendency to use a hammer for a job that requires a nail file but all of the changes that player listed were born from actual complaints, even misguided ones.

Or, yet more often, they prefer reductive solutions over additive ones. "Why teach players how to use X when you could just largely or wholly prune X, thereby reducing the difference?" so to speak.

And among the player base itself, even, there are oddities in comprehension. It shouldn't need to be stated, for instance, that if A player asks to nerf or deemphasize Leaden Fist while Monk as a whole is barely at (or even below) a fair balance point, they're not asking for a net nerf to Monk. It should be obvious when one asks for shorter durations on DoTs, they are not asking for their damage to fall below that of a spammable filler (with only mobility then being of any value) and thereby to further nerf healer DPS overall. Etc., etc. Yet, sometimes players here are just as (seemingly actively) neglectful of scope, context, and likely intent of a given suggestion/request as the devs.
___________________

Ideally, a developer would look at, say, a complaint purely about the "clunkiness" of Cleric Stance, i.e....

• that the lack of queuing functionality on turning the skill off paired with queuing in turning it back on, along with the latency and packet loss more common further from the data centers' locations, causes frequent doubling,
• that it having a cooldown of 2 GCDs only if at no spell speed and causing drift or in effect a longer cooldown at more spell speed, and
• that it necessitates a primary stat loss for either Scholar or Summoner if playing both unless spending Grand Company consumables and reallocating level up attribute points every time you swap)

...and determine first which system issues are not unique to Cleric Stance, fix those, and, if deciding ultimately to remove Cleric Stance, roadmap replacements for its cognitive load in terms of weave space and its impact on uptime (as favored sub-GCD-cast-time spells, such as Regen or Cure II before toggling it on and DoTs before turning it off -- though the last was negligible in Japan), etc. But alas.

[Post]

I like to point out they tackle the same problem from multiple angles, also.

Game's too hard in Gordias? Simplify the job design AND loosen the damage tuning.

Positionals got melee players down? Remove em AND add True North. Make certain enemies all assflank. Make assflank a new temporary condition.

People can't bank enough gap closers cuz they deal damage? Add charges to em AND remove their damage components.

Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and

Enmity tools causing headaches for some players? Remove enmity tools, also make tanks generate shitloads of enmity. Also, make heals over time generate 0 enmity. Also, remove adds that have aggro tables from boss fights.

Ground targeted abilities harder to use than target-centered ones? Make it so double tapping the action executes it and limit your ground target cursor range to actual range of the spell. Also, remove most ground targeted abilities except for a few and make them humongous so it defeats the purpose of them being ground targeted.

I think this often results in them over-correcting the problems, sometimes removing a system entirely. It's like each individual solution is often enough, but they're bundled together so players never really have a chance to assess each fix individually, and they're always going to get pushback removing either because now players are acclimated to it no longer being a concern, especially ones that particularly didn't like whatever the removed issue was.

[IDontPetLalas]

I like to point out they tackle the same problem from multiple angles, also.

Game's too hard in Gordias? Simplify the job design AND loosen the damage tuning.

Positionals got melee players down? Remove em AND add True North. Make certain enemies all assflank. Make assflank a new temporary condition.

People can't bank enough gap closers cuz they deal damage? Add charges to em AND remove their damage components.

Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and

Enmity tools causing headaches for some players? Remove enmity tools, also make tanks generate shitloads of enmity. Also, make heals over time generate 0 enmity. Also, remove adds that have aggro tables from boss fights.

Ground targeted abilities harder to use than target-centered ones? Make it so double tapping the action executes it and limit your ground target cursor range to actual range of the spell. Also, remove most ground targeted abilities except for a few and make them humongous so it defeats the purpose of them being ground targeted.

I think this often results in them over-correcting the problems, sometimes removing a system entirely. It's like each individual solution is often enough, but they're bundled together so players never really have a chance to assess each fix individually, and they're always going to get pushback removing either because now players are acclimated to it no longer being a concern, especially ones that particularly didn't like whatever the removed issue was.

Not only that but in order to fix a problem you need to ensure that it is actually a problem. If I look at the first sentence in this paragraph "Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and"

My first reaction is "no, that's not a problem that I reported" that's actually a desired behaviour.

However I would grant them the benefit of the doubt if they would at least provide some reasoning for the "fixes" that you listed, and explained the context, healer experience, etc. There's a lot of investigation that should have been done. maybe evening having a designer who really was invested in healer design.

[Isala]

I like to point out they tackle the same problem from multiple angles, also.

Game's too hard in Gordias? Simplify the job design AND loosen the damage tuning.

Positionals got melee players down? Remove em AND add True North. Make certain enemies all assflank. Make assflank a new temporary condition.

People can't bank enough gap closers cuz they deal damage? Add charges to em AND remove their damage components.

Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and

Enmity tools causing headaches for some players? Remove enmity tools, also make tanks generate shitloads of enmity. Also, make heals over time generate 0 enmity. Also, remove adds that have aggro tables from boss fights.

Ground targeted abilities harder to use than target-centered ones? Make it so double tapping the action executes it and limit your ground target cursor range to actual range of the spell. Also, remove most ground targeted abilities except for a few and make them humongous so it defeats the purpose of them being ground targeted.

I think this often results in them over-correcting the problems, sometimes removing a system entirely. It's like each individual solution is often enough, but they're bundled together so players never really have a chance to assess each fix individually, and they're always going to get pushback removing either because now players are acclimated to it no longer being a concern, especially ones that particularly didn't like whatever the removed issue was.

Worst part is, outside of the ground targetted AoEs being annoying, literally every single one of those complaints can be boiled down to "skill issue"... AoEs aren't because of the difference between M+KB and Controller. Having accessibility to deal with that is a GOOD thing, not removing skill from doing it.

[Ruruura]

Translation: "I like playing FF14 with cheat codes! Stop taking away my tank privilege!"

I should not have to, but i will explain myself because this type of argument is getting boring..

What is being said, is twofold:

1) The healing problem in FFXIV goes way beyond just tanks being able to heal themselves, and focusing exclusively on that like many posters here, is silly.

2) Like you said yourself at the moment we are little more than blue DPS with a lot of self-sustain, and that self-sustain is literally the only thing that makes us feel like the resilent chonkers we are supposed to be.

If that has to be removed for the sake of healers, then it is only fair that further tank oriented changes /redesigns happen so that tanks can recover our chonky resilient defensive class fantasy, and the FEAR is that they are going to do nothing of such.

We are not saying :

"screw the healers, leave us as is and healers be darned"

We are saying:

"If you guys are coming for our self healing this better come with something in exchange to make up for it and make tanks feel the way they should again"

And i do not think i can be blamed for being extremely worried about Squenix halfassing the solution because there are a lot of precedents of it.

And because this game is entirely based around DPS and not the defense that tanks are meant to represent, so i do not see them changing that anytime soon.

So what are we to do, just become pure and LITERAL blue DPS so healers have more fun? Is that what you want? I do not think that is fair either lmao.