Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Miste]

WARNING: These are all my feelings, experiences, and opinions. I am not speaking for anyone but myself. If you agree, then we have something in common, if you disagree then that is fine too.



Dear SE,

I have been playing since FFXIV 1.0 until now. I supported 1.0 and thus have achieved Legacy status on my account and played 1.0 even though it had a lot of problems.

I supported SE and your development teams during this rocky time and have continued to support SE through the entirety of FFXIV's life so far. 1.0 all the way until 5.0.

I have never cancelled my subscription in all these years. Not even once.

This is not a "I'm threatening to cancel my sub thread", but an honest opinion and feedback on why I am questioning whether or not I should personally support FFXIV anymore.

I have always chosen healers as my main role. I enjoy healing, and I always have. I also even supported FFXI, your first MMO, and also played White Mage there too for the time I played it.

I loved FFXIV. I really did. It may be past tense now sadly because after hearing there is no new healer in 5.0 my hype has pretty much died.

No new healer is not a new development by any means. There was no new healer in 4.0 either, BUT I do understand why. Making new jobs is difficult for development teams, there is a lot of planning and work that needs to go into them to make sure they are a success and a good fun job to play.

3.0 was a good testament that three jobs all at once was likely too much for the FFXIV team to handle and you also admitted as such and that you would likely never do three new jobs at once for an expansion again. AST at release was simply not tuned well and despite me loving AST a lot of other players would not let you play it in their groups due to how weak and undertuned it was. It was a very rocky start, but in time AST got so that people would actually accept it into parties for hard content, but I digress.

I also understand that DPS in most MMOs are more widely played by the player base, so when 4.0 came and there was no new healer, well, that is okay by me. DPS jobs are a big attraction and we just got AST in HW so that seems fine. Ever since then I was looking forward to the new exciting healer I assumed would be coming in 5.0.

Yes, assuming is bad, but when you wait 4 years for a new job in your favourite role it seems totally reasonable to expect one by then in my opinion, and I never in my wildest dreams thought the FFXIV team would ignore their fans who love the healer role for such a long stretch of time. I know I am not the only one...since I have seen others waiting patiently for a new healer job and a lot of people were thinking Dancer might be it.

Sure, I was in the camp hoping Dancer would be a healer, I would have loved it, is it okay as a DPS? Yes, in my opinion Dancer would have worked as a Healer or as a support DPS, so it ended up inside my expectations.

So, okay, Dancer is a ranged DPS, but then......where is the new healer that healers have been patiently waiting 4 years for? If not Dancer then...surely another job would suit healer then? For me it all boils down to simply healer getting a new job like other roles have the privilege of getting...no matter what job it ends up being.

Now, finally, we are months away from 5.0 and the final fanfest is concluding...and it has been confirmed that there is indeed no new healer for 5.0 as per this interview: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...no_new_healer/


So we come to this set of facts which honestly makes me really sad that the FFXIV dev team even considered doing this.

Since 4.0, DPS have now gotten Three new jobs added to their role.
Since 4.0, Tank has now gotten One new job added to their role.

Since 4.0, Healers have now gotten Zero new jobs added to their role.

Since they have skipped 5.0 now and have confirmed there is no new healer....if they don't add any healer during 5.0 It will become 6 years at the end of Shadowbringers that healer fans would have been waiting to get a new job for their favourite role, and are getting ignored even though they are just as much fans of this game as the rest.

I am not demanding that my favourite role get equal treatment as DPS jobs do, since again, I understand that DPS jobs are more popular in MMOs usually and I wanted FFXIV to do well since I loved it, but this ratio of 3:0 in 6 years has crossed beyond what I consider reasonable, and in the end even if they add a healer in 6.0 they will likely add a DPS alongside it and it will be a ratio of 4:1.

In my opinion this looks like the FFXIV team is ignoring their fans who enjoy healers and chose healing as their primary role, love, and focus in FFXIV.


So, according to FFXIV's team they used the same reasoning there was no new healers in 4.0: balance issues. In my opinion I feel like they gave up on healers for awhile now.

They have had 4 years to do something about healer issues or implement changes or fixes needed to make sure that healer would also be able to get new jobs like the other roles get. So that the players who support this game who love the healer role wouldn't be left out for so long. If healing needs a rework for us to get new healer jobs then...do it?

I think this is plenty enough time...and even if they spend so much time balancing the three we have...as soon as they add the fourth there may be balancing issues again! It is just how it goes with MMOs....every other MMO I have played they all struggle with balancing constantly...so why is the FFXIV team delaying the inevitable? In my opinion their reasoning seems like an excuse. You can't develop a MMO and avoid struggling with balancing almost constantly.

My main questions is...if healers needed work in order for us to get a new job for the role, then why did the FFXIV team spend time and resources on making BLU? Why not hold off on side content like "limited jobs" for later, like sometime in 5.0, and actually deal with the main game roles, battle system, and balance? (People who enjoy BLU this isn't like an attack on you or anything, if you enjoy BLU that is great, but I wanted to ask a serious question on why FFXIV's team is prioritizing their development work in such a way. I personally don't agree with their decisions at this point in time considering what has happened.)

Like it seems to me FFXIV's team had a choice there, they could have used that time and resource to make sure healer's don't get left out for 6 years, or make side content that is probably even more niche than the subset of players who main healers, and obviously I feel like they definitely made the wrong choice.

If healers needed adjustments in order to get the same opportunity for new jobs to be added to their role like the other roles get, then I feel like that should have been prioritized over side content that could have just been added a bit later.


I feel like I don't want to quit, I loved this game, and I haven't really had much complaints about anything so far until now, but this feels like a pretty bad slight towards your loyal fans that love and main healers who also support your game, and I honestly for the first time am really questioning whether or not I should continue and it really sucks.

So I hope you take the time to at least read this feedback, and thank you for your time and consideration about this.

(and sorry about the wall of text)

Sincerely,

A Healer

[BiddyBatnana]

I'm a DPS.

[cicatriz313]

Not. Your. Blog.

[Miste]

Not. Your. Blog.

Why would I post feedback to SE on a blog? They won't see it there

[Endeleon]

Not. Your. Blog.

People post responses to SE about FF14 developments on the official FF14 forum? WOW what a concept.

[Sevrenichi]

New healer never ever.

[Aramina]

New healer never ever.

Oddly, I would be fine with this. If they said "Three healers are all we are ever going to be able to manage." I wouldn't LIKE it, but it is what it is. It's the maybe next time.... no not yet... maybe next time..... that is tiresome.

[Doozer]

Not. Your. Blog.

Not your blog either, get off your high horse. I'm certain you know what forums are for, so I'm not going to waste time explaining it to you.

And @ OP: I feel you. I've mained AST since like a year into HW, and I'm just so tired of being forgotten as a healer (and being stepped on by other players) that I'm just dropping the role entirely. Catch me being a Career Dragoon for the rest of my days or something. At least then I'd be praised for not dying every 20 seconds like DRGs usually do.

[Dawntracker]

I am also a healer and cant wait to see the new skills and adjustments to my favorite jobs.

[Skivvy]

I am also a healer and cant wait to see the new skills and adjustments to my favorite jobs.

These are my thoughts as well. I love me some WHM and have been a WHM main since XI days. I have both of the other healers at 70 as well, but neither of them either really did it for me. So a part of me was looking forward to a new healer, but now that that isn't the case, I'm quite OK with it. On a personal level, I think there was probably a good chance that I would have leveled it, but then reverted back to my trusty WHM when all was said and done. So at this point I'm looking forward to see how they are tweaking the job.

If/when a new healer comes out, I'll definitely check it out (and maybe my assumption above will be wrong), but for now it's something I'm not really even thinking about.