What is the Japanese reaction to healer changes?

[Billythepancake]

I think it's pretty obvious that over here in the west we're pretty aggravated over what they've done to healers (I personally hate how they did scholar the way they did) but as is usually the case with Japanese devs, they tend to care much more about how their Japanese fanbase feels rather than their western fanbase, so I'm curious, does anyone know how Japan feels about these changes? Anyone able to translate their forums posts or lack thereof if they haven't been talking about it?

[Hatstand]

Based on a quick perusal, my high school Japanese, and some google translate magic, there seems to be some upset, although more focused on quality of life changes than over here, and proportionally less about loss of skills. For example, I saw more people complaining about not being able to tell when their fairy was there than about the loss of SCH’s dps kit, although there were complaints about both.

I haven’t looked into what they’re saying about AST yet.

[Reiryuu]

There has been some dissent, yes. I play on a JP data center and I can definitely tell you that while you do see Tank and DPS as needed players on occasion, you often actually have to wait a significant time for a healer sometimes. Healer and tank seem to go off and on as the job in need-- but from the experience I described just previously, I think the "adventurer in need" code/utility/etc. is not always doing its job correctly. So regardless of what they may be saying, there is definitely a lack of people playing them at the moment.

I can only give some examples of my own experinces, but once I locked in Tank adv. in need for leveling roulette, but I was still 15th or so on the list and the queue took a good 10-15 minutes rather than the quick instant - a few minutes adventurer in need usually has for a wait. I think I did alliance as a DPS "in need" and I was like 49th and still had to wait like 20 mins, so... yeah.... *shrug*

[Iscah]

I think the "adventurer in need" code/utility/etc. is not always doing its job correctly.

Just from observing it, I would guess that it handles requests sequentially and looks for tank, then healer, then DPS, while the simple "role in need" setup doesn't allow for the important element of level - something that gets worse as the maximum increases.

Say the party algorithm handles requests one-by-one, and current top-of-the-pile is a DPS queuing for the Lv79 dungeon.

"Okay, we need a tank. Tank is the adventurer in need!"

...and lots of tanks who are not at Lv79 join the queue. So it keeps asking for a tank until it gets one it can use.

"Now we have a tank, we need a healer. Healer is the adventurer in need!"

And it repeats. And again for DPS if there was only the one player queuing for that dungeon. It doesn't see the growing pile, only the one thing it needs right now.

That's my theory anyway.

Alliance raids and such would have the same problem if they're trying to gather people for a specifically requested Lv70 raid, but people below that level keep queuing instead.

[LetheelSensei]

I'm fluent in Japanese and play on a Japanese server.

I'll go ask around next time I go online, but my impression is that there are less healers around (looking at the queues), but the bulk of the criticism seems to be centered on the White Mage being OP while the Astrologian is too weak and too difficult to use.

With Scholar it's like "well, they simplified it, but at least you can play it" (unlike Astro).

Still, I think there's a lot less dissatisfaction than in the west. That there are fewer healers queuing is more likely due to the fact that you have new DPS and Tank Jobs but no new Healer (which has never happened before), with the fact that Astrologian was drastically reworked for the worse also contributing.

Now, when Stormblood launched, I remember it was the scholar changes that pissed everyone off in Japan... and int the West, too, but more so in Japan, I think.

[Mikhaill]

JP is our only hope for some change.
They will most likely listen to the homefront better than the rest of us.
All of us combined will make a push.

[MOZZYSTAR]

JP is our only hope for some change.
They will most likely listen to the homefront better than the rest of us.
All of us combined will make a push.

I gotta say, if they really do mostly/only consider the remarks of their JP playerbase, it would be nice if they would consider the rest of us considering we're dishing out money just as the JP community is.



Is there a place (like Twitter) that the JP community voice their opinions, or do the forums actually work (for them) in terms of getting their voices heard?

[Billythepancake]

I gotta say, if they really do mostly/only consider the remarks of their JP playerbase, it would be nice if they would consider the rest of us considering we're dishing out money just as the JP community is.

In a fair world, that would be the case, but a LOT of Japanese game devs, or really any Japanese company for that matter, only really cares about their Japanese fan base, though SE, from what I hear, does tend to be better about it than most, hence why I'm interested in what the Japanese fans have to say about all this.

[EaMett]

In a fair world, that would be the case, but a LOT of Japanese game devs, or really any Japanese company for that matter, only really cares about their Japanese fan base, though SE, from what I hear, does tend to be better about it than most, hence why I'm interested in what the Japanese fans have to say about all this.

To be fair there's a language barrier as well. It's pretty easy for any of the design team members, devs, project/product owners/managers to check up on the JP forums in a few minutes. Understanding our English gibberish forum however. So they probably depend way more on some localization teams to pass on our feedback and that is probably done intermittently, in part only, potentially lost, distorted, and eventually passed on to a select few that either acknowledge or ignore it at it's final destination. In other words, we don't and won't be able to weigh in as much as our JP comrades even if they do listen (and they probably do given the game history)

[msoltyspl]

I think it's pretty obvious that over here in the west we're pretty aggravated over what they've done to healers (I personally hate how they did scholar the way they did) but as is usually the case with Japanese devs, they tend to care much more about how their Japanese fanbase feels rather than their western fanbase, so I'm curious, does anyone know how Japan feels about these changes? Anyone able to translate their forums posts or lack thereof if they haven't been talking about it?

Judging by their polls - very, very bad. So there is some hope for SE giving a bit of a fuck. Still how utterly disconnected (and not only in healer context) SE is from the game and its actual problems (like forced MSQ and its fanbois, beyond utterly boring/meaningless gameplay until one's class is capped or at least 70+, some bugs and issues near decade old, and so on) is mindnumbing.

https://files.catbox.moe/gj0uld.png

blue - hate
red - love

The rest in between.