FFXIV Healer Strike and the 'How would you fix it?' line

[Qyoon]

The numbers aren't okay but the healer state isn't the main reason why the game is in trouble.
This role is by default less popular so it's not a priority.
As you said you can keep complaining about it, they are not doing anything about it.

The data surely shows the opposit, vast minority complain, but finding a healers to do content isn't hard.
so it's less popular ( as intended) but still enought ( in their metric) to let it go this way. (check 7.2 patchnote).
The fact their main priority is clearly the japanese playerbase doesn't help.

For exemple, when people were not happy with the way their characters looked after 7.0, they communicated about it and fixed it next patch or so, they listened and acted. If people keep complaining for years about how bad the healers are, this means they know and don't care.

And yes it's like that for everything, and not only in the videogame industry.
Companies sticks to their data analysis and monitoring tools.

The fact is some games, when you uninstall them or unsub offers a poll, trying to understand why you leave.
Said companies care and are willing to listen and try to improve, if they don't ask, it means they don't care.

When numbers shows something isn't going well theres two logicial answers. :
- Well, we have to work on improving our game because players don't like it and we need that money.
- Well we are not making enought on that product and don't care, let's close it.

If their decision is the second one, they don't deserve your time and money, because they are not willing to put on the effort to improve your experience as a customer.
If it was the case, they would be talking about it during those hours long stream talking about the future of this game.

Doesn't cost money to say : "Hey look, we are aware healers aren't fine as they are , but trust me we are working on this and that to make it way better in XYZ, because we listened and understand your complains with them right now."

For now it's more like : "Hey we plan this, look here is the next big thing, thank you for playing , you are awesome see you in 6 months."

So as it is right now : Complaining is useless since they don't seem to care about our opinion.
If you are okay with it, pay your sub, play the game, have fun, obviously feel free to complain.
But please stop making people believe it's usefull and will make a change.
It just keep on feeding them with false hope leading to frustration years later.

[Shurrikhan]

This [healer] role is by default less popular so it's not a priority.

The game launched with higher relative popularity among its healers than we see now; most of the drop-off is quite recent. So how is low popularity the "default"?

The numbers aren't okay but the healer state isn't the main reason why the game is in trouble.

No, but it's also one of the areas that'd take the least work to see likely substantial improvement.

The data surely shows the opposit, vast minority complain, but finding a healers to do content isn't hard.

The problem is that this doesn't account at all for the number of players who, say, already swapped off healers and then quit outright because their favorite role being gutted increasingly proved itself not to be temporary.

Yes, whichever role has the least popularity inherently self-corrects its participation somewhat, since it then offers instant queues (even if rarely Adventurer-in-Need bonuses, the role selection for which favors tank even when tanks remains a 2 to 5-minute queue and healers instant), but that does nothing for whether a given existing player will continue to have their reason to play -- that thing that 'hits the spot' for them enough to warrant continue playing XIV over other games, be that between patches or at all.

Focusing solely on queue ratios/times (which, even then, generally shows that things are worse than they used to be) while ignoring dwindling between-patch or even on-patch player numbers (even more obvious of warning signs) in not a good idea.

[Qyoon]

The game launched with higher relative popularity among its healers than we see now; most of the drop-off is quite recent. So how is low popularity the "default"?


No, but it's also one of the areas that'd take the least work to see likely substantial improvement.


The problem is that this doesn't account at all for the number of players who, say, already swapped off healers and then quit outright because their favorite role being gutted increasingly proved itself not to be temporary.

Yes, whichever role has the least popularity inherently self-corrects its participation somewhat, since it then offers instant queues (even if rarely Adventurer-in-Need bonuses, the role selection for which favors tank even when tanks remains a 2 to 5-minute queue and healers instant), but that does nothing for whether a given existing player will continue to have their reason to play -- that thing that 'hits the spot' for them enough to warrant continue playing XIV over other games, be that between patches or at all.

Focusing solely on queue ratios/times (which, even then, generally shows that things are worse than they used to be) while ignoring dwindling between-patch or even on-patch player numbers (even more obvious of warning signs) in not a good idea.

Not saying you are lying, i personally don't know those numbers.
I don't know how low it has to be for SE to decide to do something about it.

To me i don't know if revamping the healers would be as easy as you say, but in my opinion the game definitly needs it.

I don't see massive complains about the healers on the japanese side of the forum, wich is the most likely for the devs to read.
I never had any issue to find healers to do dungeons, while tanks are. (talking about europe on Chaos DC, dunno about the rest.)

The game has a lot of incentives for people to play tanks, while those are also clearly overpowered.
I don't see any of those about the healers, they also rework and balance other jobs a lot.
And again, they are not reworking the healers at all.