Mogtalk interview with yoshi p

[RiyahArp]

Hi, I'm a mid-core player who used to raid Savage. I want harder stuff.

If they made it anywhere a challenge for you as healer, it would be too hard for most people. In a 4 man, there is no other alliance healer to rez you, nor could you just have one or two dps sit on the floor and still beat add phases. And honestly, they have tried a bunch of new things, and most were flops. Even the rebalancing; they still haven't made mch playable for most people over 3+ years of balancing.

The point is to make them dungeons meaningful, to make us pay at least a little attention past mashing our given AoE as hard as we can..

If we are talking expert, people won't do them. There's no point to it now with eureka, you cap there much easier than you do running experts. Making them non-trivial doesn't do anything.

And if you made us into healers on that level, people would drop the class. It is not more fun to be spamming heals over spamming dps; its the same thing, but possibly with more margin of error. You'd have to really redesign healers to rely on more than just heals in terms of support abilities, and that's a pretty big undertaking. Most healing classes in other MMOs tend to be heal/support; youd have to fold a lot of what bard or mch does or did in the past into them to make them decent here.

[Granyala]

If we are talking expert, people won't do them. There's no point to it now with eureka, you cap there much easier than you do running experts.

I can run the fate train in Eureka for 3 hours and still not cap. An ex takes 20 minutes and I need 5 to cap.
In terms of tomes/h Eureka doesn't stand a chance.

[KaldeaSahaline]

I don't think players as it is can react much quicker to incoming damage. And ugh, again you are asking healing to be much harder if you do this, if the fights themselves remain at the current level. Healing as it is already has a lot to screw up; just because raiders are bored with it doesn't mean making it harder will help anyone

Firstly - thank you for responding. Secondly, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying to nerf healers outright and leave the content alone. My healing model of less bursty damage, less bursty healing go hand in hand and I actually think it leads not only to EASIER healing, but also DEEPER healing.

I think a post I made to Granyala covers what I was discussing quite well:

In regards to the current healing model - I think it's much more stressful to your average healer because there's no chance for recovery. It's simply press Heal here, or someone dies because incoming damage is so high even if it's slow coming; whereas my model a healer with slower reactions might struggle to top them off, but can at least stabilize them (say keep a tank at a consistent 60% HP). In the event things go awry they can blow significant MP to help get things under control at a cost to their longevity. Something that the DPS can then back up and help cover (assuming encounter design shifted, which under my model it would). I think it gives them more time to make decisions and more options in how to triage various scenarios.

The more cures you add, either builder ones or what have you, the more healers become like DPS if content remains the same. If you made it so you had to chain cure 1-2-3 to proc tetra charges for a tank buster, that's a rotation because the fight generally is static. But with more heals, the stricter your rotation is, since you can miss a stone cast, you can't miss a builder heal.

This is not something I advocated for at all. I don't want a cure rotation (a la healer "combos"). I imagine a builder/spender style as a better rendition of the lily mechanic from WHM. You can accrue the lilies based on casting heals and convert the lilies into either MP, free heals, damage, or some other utility, etc.

You need enrages to make sure dps aren't carried, and you need to make it so no one can be carried, everyone has to be doing their job to proceed. However you also need to make it so people can actually finish the thing in a roulette and won't get kicked en masse either, or wont get annoyed at other players who need to fail the content to learn it. Again, this is Feast, and compared to other modes of pvp it has gone over like a lead balloon.

I think people don't realize what they ask for sometimes.

This response wasn't to me btw. Might be helpful to leave the persons quote info in so they know its them.

Hence why I used air quotes.

My apologies I missed that, but I still think the dynamic concept of DPS check I posted leads to better design compared to the binary example in Fractal HM.

I think I know what you mean and I sympathize but would more time to triage make healing easier? The tough part about healing is making split second decisions.
I casted 2 spells in the wrong order in O6S and as a result the group lived and the tank died (no wipe but I was still pissed about my mistake).

I think it would yes. A good example would be like let's say you did make a bad decision in triage and spent WAY too much MP stabilizing so now you're low on MP (a healer OOM is likely a wipe as you'd be able to sustain only for a little longer and you'd lose access to your more potent expensive heals you may need to correct mistakes). You could then try and correct that decision by focusing on more efficient MP heals or converting lilies into MP/free heals to try and recover.

Compare that paradigm against your O6S example where your mistake just instantly cost someone a death and jeapordized the run because of a single poorly timed heal. It gives you a chance to recover from your mistake. Under my design paradigm it'd also allows other teammates to look at your MP and go crap, I need to be smarter with my defensives, and a tank can say - oh i need to shift to more defensive ability usage to give the healer time to recover. I think it creates a more dynamic experience as well as a more in-depth, but simultaneously easier healing experience.

Not saying I'm right or wrong, just how I feel.

To be frank though: I do not trust our developers to make it right.

I know I am egocentric here, but I'd hate for FF to try the same, fail and ruin what I enjoy the most about this game.

This is a great point. You can say to me, I really think you have some good ideas and you might be on to something conceptually, but I just don't think they can implement it well enough to be worth the trouble.

So, I mean, I think having a DPS check like they added in dungeons is a good thing. Maybe the next ones are tuned a bit tighter, but it's a step in the right direction. By itself it can't exactly solve the problem.

I love DPS checks. I think they should be more widespread. What I don't really care for are binary DPS checks (i.e. pass/fail).

A good example could have been like the first boss in Fractal HM. Instead of all his bits being active from the get go, they could be periodic spawns. The first one spawns, tank grabs it (and boss obv) and then the DPS/tank/healer kill it. When the boss casts his wall laser move, it revives the current number of bits dead. If any are alive - they also maybe shoot a laser across the direction they're facing (making the follow up mechanic harder). Then this layers on with more bits each time, thus more lasers and more tank damage. Eventually getting overwhelmed.

It forces every single player to adjust. Tank has to grab progressively more adds and position intelligently if the DPS fail, the DPS has to know AOE thresholds or use CDs responsibly and switch targets, healer has to know when to help DPS and when to focus on healing due to incoming tank damage, and the space in which you have to mechanics gets smaller if the checks are failed. Nothing hard wipes you, you get slowly overwhelmed forcing dynamic responsibility.

So something like Halicarnassus in Haukke Manor [Hard]? Once you've killed her adds, she has a 'timer' (or her timer starts the second you engage her. So ~6 minutes to kill her) until she uses Fatal Allure (not slow cast) on someone in the party, which will first instantly kill them and then the party because the player killed probably had 100% HP (you can probably survive it if the claimed player had 10% HP. Have never tested this and I have no idea if she will follow up with another Fatal Allure).

It's been a veritable minute since I've been in there. I remember adds spawning and she does something based on their remaining HP. I think she, and what you're describing sounds very pass/fail.

See just above for my response to @Tridus for an example of a different type of DPS check.

You know, considering how much the raiding community complained over relatively minor changes to monk or drk, and continue to note balance changes that constantly affect the meta, your faith that SE somehow can promote more healing without error is pretty funny. I mean, from lilies to pvp to eureka we pretty much have SE making questionable changes in the eyes of the playerbase, and you really want them to start touching the core of one or even more of the roles?

Riyah - just like I said to Granyala - if you said Kald, you have some good ideas and I think XYZ, but I'm just not confident they can implement it in a meaningful or good manner. If you obviously don't think my ideas are fine that's all well and good too.

[Tridus]

A good example could have been like the first boss in Fractal HM. Instead of all his bits being active from the get go, they could be periodic spawns. The first one spawns, tank grabs it (and boss obv) and then the DPS/tank/healer kill it. When the boss casts his wall laser move, it revives the current number of bits dead. If any are alive - they also maybe shoot a laser across the direction they're facing (making the follow up mechanic harder). Then this layers on with more bits each time, thus more lasers and more tank damage. Eventually getting overwhelmed.

Great idea.

[RiyahArp]

(1)Firstly - thank you for responding. Secondly, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying to nerf healers outright and leave the content alone. My healing model of less bursty damage, less bursty healing go hand in hand and I actually think it leads not only to EASIER healing, but also DEEPER healing...

(2)In regards to the current healing model - I think it's much more stressful to your average healer because there's no chance for recovery. It's simply press Heal here, or someone dies because incoming damage is so high even if it's slow coming; whereas my model a healer with slower reactions might struggle to top them off, but can at least stabilize them (say keep a tank at a consistent 60% HP). In the event things go awry they can blow significant MP to help get things under control at a cost to their longevity. Something that the DPS can then back up and help cover (assuming encounter design shifted, which under my model it would). I think it gives them more time to make decisions and more options in how to triage various scenarios.

(3)This is not something I advocated for at all. I don't want a cure rotation (a la healer "combos"). I imagine a builder/spender style as a better rendition of the lily mechanic from WHM. You can accrue the lilies based on casting heals and convert the lilies into either MP, free heals, damage, or some other utility, etc...

(4)...Riyah - just like I said to Granyala - if you said Kald, you have some good ideas and I think XYZ, but I'm just not confident they can implement it in a meaningful or good manner. If you obviously don't think my ideas are fine that's all well and good too.

(1) I don't see this, and it's hard to argue in one breath healing is more meaningful, while somehow being easier than the current system. Again, the more priority you place on cures over optional DPS, the harder it will be. You're arguing maybe for a different kind of difficulty, and that would have to change a lot more than just healers to be implemented. I think you believe its easier, but it may very well be the same difficulty or worse, because triage just pushes the wipe ten minutes down the line instead of it happening in 60 seconds.

(2) This puts more of a burden on healers to fix mistakes, ironically. Part of the "bam, your dead!" model means DPS need to know they can't rely on the healer too much to ignore mechanics. And also, if this style of play leads to longer fights, you still have more stress; hard fights generally are at a decent sweet spot in time to where you aren't getting exhausted healing over the long term.

(3) Well, the thing is that if you want say 70-30% heals, you are essentially asking people to cast cure as much as stone in a fight, so you would just swap the boredom. Rotations tend to make that somewhat more interesting and probably would end up being made.

(4) The point was not for you specifically, it's more an observation that modest changes people dislike intensely...so then why are people confident they'd be ok with intensive changes? Even good ideas can be poorly implemented, and the devs simply are not going to implement in toto any suggestions here, except in a general way or modest way. I think a lot of these points should be argued for the next game SE makes, unless we are ok with SE constantly changing the base mechanics of this game every expansion, or even more frequently.

[Tridus]

(2) This puts more of a burden on healers to fix mistakes, ironically. Part of the "bam, your dead!" model means DPS need to know they can't rely on the healer too much to ignore mechanics. And also, if this style of play leads to longer fights, you still have more stress; hard fights generally are at a decent sweet spot in time to where you aren't getting exhausted healing over the long term.

Part of the appeal of healing is that you can save people. It's in the name of the role. Removing that with overly frequent one shots puts the burden on DPS but removes that aspect of the healer's identity.

Some one shots are good variety in fights. Too many means there's little a healer can do to sway an outcome by doing something exceptional and saving someone who should have died. An example is Hashmal's extreme edge. That rarely one shots people these days damage wise, they usually die from the DoT tick. That means that while it's the target's fault if they die, a healer who sees it fast enough and is in range can save them from that death. That's better than just "oh here's 2 million damage you die instantly" because it's clear both who made the mistake and also gives the healer an opportunity to intervene.

To me, that's far more compelling healer gameplay than "nothing to do, spam another Stone".

(3) Well, the thing is that if you want say 70-30% heals, you are essentially asking people to cast cure as much as stone in a fight, so you would just swap the boredom. Rotations tend to make that somewhat more interesting and probably would end up being made.

Except that Cure does things like Freecure and Lilies. Freecure used to matter but doesn't because MP is a joke now, and Lilies are irrelevant because of what they do. If those things were relevant resources, Cure healing has more going on mechanically than Stone spam does. Plus, I'm probably also using Regen, Tetra, Asylum, etc.

[Granyala]

I think it would yes. A good example would be like let's say you did make a bad decision in triage and spent WAY too much MP stabilizing so now you'relow on MP (a healer OOM is likely a wipe as you'd be able to sustain only for a little longer and you'd lose access to your more potent expensive heals you may need to correct mistakes). You could then try and correct that decision by focusing on more efficient MP heals or converting lilies into MP/free heals to try and recover.

Compare that paradigm against your O6S example where your mistake just instantly cost someone a death and jeapordized the run because of a single poorly timed heal. It gives you a chance to recover from your mistake. Under my design paradigm it'd also allows other teammates to look at your MP and go crap, I need to be smarter with my defensives, and a tank can say - oh i need to shift to more defensive ability usage to give the healer time to recover. I think it creates a more dynamic experience as well as a more in-depth, but simultaneously easier healing experience.

Not saying I'm right or wrong, just how I feel.

Well this is how the healing of old worked. We were powerful but ultimately severely mana constrained. Remember the buff that makes cure 2 cost no mana? When I dinged 50 back in ARR I needed to watch that and use it. Nowadays we can spam our most powerful heals indefinitely and add damage to boot. Outside of combat rezzes, mana might as well not exist.

I would like the ability to go into overdrive at a significant cost if sth happens, right now we are in perma overdrive and the encounters are balanced around that. That's where the "cast a wrong heal and s/o dies" comes from.

I do think your concept has it's allures and would bring us back to the elder days where mana and choosing the right tool for the right job mattered a lot more than it does now.
4 people of your 8 hurt? Spam AoE and DPS, even if there were the time to bring them up with efficient single target heals, DPS time is far more valuable and no one gives a rats ass about the overheal on the other 4.