#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[mallleable]

BLM especially is constantly getting hamstrung by the fact that the devs only design for hard mechanics these days is arena wide marathons and they really just don’t seem to know how to actually deal with casters

It’s like they design every mechanic for melee and tanks which instantly invalidates phys ranged advantage then tries (and often fails) to shove the casters into this design and it just doesn’t work a lot of the time

But that's just kinda how game design works. Impose a bunch of rules on the player, and then put them in a space that tries to contradict the player, but you actually want the player to succeed so you give them the tools to overcome these contradictions. I think it highlights more a problem with phys ranged than it does casters as there isn't anything in the game that tries to contradict how a physical ranged player plays their job unlike every other role. Physical ranged gameplay does not change if you are close to an enemy or far away, running around or standing still, and that's not good game design. There is no challenge.

It's also a healer problem as when there isn't any healing for any reason there isn't really a game for healers to play to fall back on.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it highlights more a problem with phys ranged than it does casters as there isn't anything in the game that tries to contradict how a physical ranged player plays their job unlike every other role. Physical ranged gameplay does not change if you are close to an enemy or far away, running around or standing still, and that's not good game design. There is no challenge.

Given that physical ranged is essentially a purposeful opting-out of that conflict... I would think the content solution to Rangers is just to provide too many mechanics for casters and melee to handle losslessly without them, no? Else, you're going to ultimately need to create for Rangers... some form of the very thing they're defined by the lack of.

We can equally say that casters don't *really* have conflict when their isn't enough damage required (over what would be possible with Rangers or a 3rd/4th Melee), after all.

Else, it all just turns into cognitive load, with Rangers' cognitive load likely coming from mixing together more angularly sensitive actions with mechanics for which they have priority (whether it be a damage + healing linear AoE action that they'd want to fire from a mechanic, through allies, to the enemy or a target position, a "gauss barrel" that's actually just an acceleration disc that they want to set up in between themselves or a target ally and their target, an AoE with damage loss or damage gain per target hit and something they can use to capitalize upon optimizing around that complexity, or whatever else), having especially high role-breadth (supportive actions the optimization of which would require knowledge of how X other jobs interacts with the fight), or having especially deep rotations.

Which... would also seem fine, honestly. You can have multiple broad main types of optimization challenges in a single role. We just shouldn't have the likes of say, SMN at its least constrained giving the same value as BLM at its most.

[Supersnow845]

But that's just kinda how game design works. Impose a bunch of rules on the player, and then put them in a space that tries to contradict the player, but you actually want the player to succeed so you give them the tools to overcome these contradictions. I think it highlights more a problem with phys ranged than it does casters as there isn't anything in the game that tries to contradict how a physical ranged player plays their job unlike every other role. Physical ranged gameplay does not change if you are close to an enemy or far away, running around or standing still, and that's not good game design. There is no challenge.

It's also a healer problem as when there isn't any healing for any reason there isn't really a game for healers to play to fall back on.

The problem is there is nothing that contradicts melee or tanks

The mechanics are being designed around the assumption that the melee roles should be able to solve the mechanic and not the actual downside of their role and that leads to the mechanics heavily biasing large movement which in turn messes up the casters

When was the last time the melee and the off tank actually really struggled with uptime and had to come up with ludicrous dangerous strats to get uptime……..junction shiva?

[mallleable]

The problem is there is nothing that contradicts melee or tanks

The mechanics are being designed around the assumption that the melee roles should be able to solve the mechanic and not the actual downside of their role and that leads to the mechanics heavily biasing large movement which in turn messes up the casters

When was the last time the melee and the off tank actually really struggled with uptime and had to come up with ludicrous dangerous strats to get uptime……..junction shiva?

I did say tries to contradict, I don't think anyone wants to prevent casters or melee from being able to play their jobs. Forcing melees away from an enemy out of max melee range for any period of time -- even just one GCD, is a contradiction of their playstyle. But forcing melees away from an enemy for such extended periods of time to where there are unable to functionally play their job is just as bad as giving melees completely free uptime like in Endwalker. It's a balance, and I think Dawntrail fights have struck a better balance for melees. Same thing for casters, and having to move, and its why casters are given instant spells, why slide casting exists, and why there are 'holes' in mechanics that casters can exploit to minimize movement.

It's just, like, how games are designed. We want a push, and pull between players, and the game, and not for things to be one-sided in either direction. Even the most 'brutally difficult' games try to maintain this balance unless they're trying to make some kind of artistic statement which I don't think XIV is.

[Supersnow845]

I did say tries to contradict, I don't think anyone wants to prevent casters or melee from being able to play their jobs. Forcing melees away from an enemy out of max melee range for any period of time -- even just one GCD, is a contradiction of their playstyle. But forcing melees away from an enemy for such extended periods of time to where there are unable to functionally play their job is just as bad as giving melees completely free uptime like in Endwalker. It's a balance, and I think Dawntrail fights have struck a better balance for melees. Same thing for casters, and having to move, and its why casters are given instant spells, why slide casting exists, and why there are 'holes' in mechanics that casters can exploit to minimize movement.

It's just, like, how games are designed. We want a push, and pull between players, and the game, and not for things to be one-sided in either direction. Even the most 'brutally difficult' games try to maintain this balance unless they're trying to make some kind of artistic statement which I don't think XIV is.

But for casters removing their casts and giving them instants as compensation is basically the same thing as forcing melee out for extended periods of time

I’m playing a caster because I want to cast

[mallleable]

But for casters removing their casts and giving them instants as compensation is basically the same thing as forcing melee out for extended periods of time

I’m playing a caster because I want to cast

Is it really though? A spell with cast time of 0 seconds is still is still a spell, right-? Cast times can go in either direction except for negative numbers, but zero is a valid number. I don't think instant spells or abilities to remove cast times are going away or should be removed. Saying casters should only cast only constricts fight design, and mage design even further, and is just a very Sylphie mindset to have about mages.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Is it really though? A spell with cast time of 0 seconds is still is still a spell, right-? Cast times can go in either direction except for negative numbers, but zero is a valid number. I don't think instant spells or abilities to remove cast times are going away or should be removed. Saying casters should only cast only constricts fight design, and mage design even further, and is just a very Sylphie mindset to have about mages.

The last thing I want to see is turning mages into sparkly archer when we have traditional archer. Blizzard spells are... Ice Arrows. Fire spells are... Fire Arrows. Bio spells are... Poison Arrows.

That's not a mage/caster. That's a skin (VFX) on an archer lol.

EDIT: That's how we ended up with 3-4cast/minute SMN Lmao.

[mallleable]

The last thing I want to see is turning mages into sparkly archer when we have traditional archer. Blizzard spells are... Ice Arrows. Fire spells are... Fire Arrows. Bio spells are... Poison Arrows.

That's not a mage/caster. That's a skin (VFX) on an archer lol.

Funny you mention archer because I've been begging for a while now to give BRD, and MCH walking casts like they do in PVP. They feel like a good aiming mechanic, and I don't think having all instant ranged GCDs works for physical ranged.

But this is a healer thread so uhh healers are still kinda bad, please fix.

[AmiableApkallu]

A spell with cast time of 0 seconds is still is still a spell, right-?

In a game that almost never cares about damage types, an offensive spell with no cast time is functionally the same as a ranged weaponskill.

A non-zero cast time is just about the only readily-available avenue left to meaningfully differentiate "mage" and "spell" from all the weapon-wielding jobs and actions.

(Unless you think buffs that make a distinction between healing spells and healing actions to be meaningful and not clunk.)

[ForsakenRoe]

In a game that almost never cares about damage types, an offensive spell with no cast time is functionally the same as a ranged weaponskill.

A non-zero cast time is just about the only readily-available avenue left to meaningfully differentiate "mage" and "spell" from all the weapon-wielding jobs and actions.

(Unless you think buffs that make a distinction between healing spells and healing actions to be meaningful and not clunk.)

The distinction between 'zero-cast-time spell' and 'ranged weaponskill' effectively boils down to 'does it break through the Physical Stoneskin or the Magical Stoneskin of Cloud of Darkness in WOD' ever since they removed things like 'Brotherhood affects Physical damage only' or 'Contagion affects Magical damage only', or my personal favourite, 'Embolden affects Physical damage only, except for the RDM who used it, in which case it affects their Magic damage only (even though they have Physical damage actions in their kit)'

The difference between an action that buffs 'healing magic' and one that buffs 'healing actions' is an annoying quirk of how the tooltips are worded, but I wouldn't call it clunk per se, I think it's fine to keep but it could definitely do with a better tutorial/explanation about the difference between 'healing magic' and 'healing actions'