Have we given up on SCH?

[Saefinn]

Snip

Historically SE have left any major changes to expansions rather than in the patch cycles. Meaning if we are looking at meaningful changes after "wiping the slate clean" then we'd expect to see them in 6.0. I don't mean to come off as rude when I say this, but people keep moving the goalpost on this one. At the media tour it was like "wait and see until you get to actually play it", we play it and then it's like "wait until you try it in Shadowbringers content", we play it in Shadowbringers content, "wait until end game, that's where the jobs are balanced", we play it at endgame, "it's a clean slate, wait for later patches". I've tried to enjoy Scholar, because it is my baby, but I've struggled.

But I don't think homogenisation is a clean slate, but a way of dumbing the roles down and making balance easier and also approachable to new players. Arguably they could still do this with a tiered system, it works for casters, RDM is easy (and still fun, it was my main DPS in SB and I am getting it to 80 at the moment), BLM has more to manage and less mobility and SMN has a more complicated rotation newbies might find harder to understand.

The thing is, they already have a great foundation for making healers fun and arguably don't need a clean slate or to homogenise them. One of the main issues here is that their main balance philosophy is to patch weaknesses instead of making strengths worthwhile over said weaknesses. It's why 2.0 SCH and WHM worked together. As soon as they patched SCH's weakness, SCH became OP and also made WHM's identity as "the healiest heal" redundant (an identity they've continued to give WHM since without giving them something else). To make it less OP, they've weakened what made it fun and strong, instead of giving it its weakness back. And then they based AST's design over this relationship and to be able to swap beween heal styles, which they inadvertently made redundant by patching SCH's weakness. So it put WHM in a bad place back then, but WHM, SCH and AST were still fun to play (though I didn't like being OP). Though understandably this was the first of issues where WHM seemingly started to be loved less by the devs.

If we need to look at SE's history, we only need to look at White Mage, who have had problems for a long time in terms of how the job plays and over-and-over they've not addressed the issues, we're talking over -years- and with over that time they've taken away more and more from WHM at first mostly, but all healers overall. And in that time, they've not really taken on people's feedback with WHM. Even now, we have silence and no acknowledgement that they consider the problems with healers as problems.

They've acknowledged problems with the DPS jobs and said they were going to do something and are delivering on them in 5.1. Historically MNK and MCH were DPS's that they ignored for ages, so fairdoes, they have addressed them in 5.0, but they also acknowledged issues with both prior to this.

I think if they went as far as to communicate that they're at least aware of the problem and are working on it, they'd have a bit more faith from people in the healer communities, something they've done with other roles. At the moment the extent of acknowledgement is that "no" they won't change AST's card and they'll update SCH's tooltips.
This was why my question for one of the "asks" was over better communication, I wasn't rude to them because I know overall the dev team does a fantastic job (and I expressed that), which is why it's even more frustrating healers feel so bad. I've changed jobs to enjoy the content.

[Gemina]

Historically SE have left any major changes to expansions rather than in the patch cycles. Meaning if we are looking at meaningful changes after "wiping the slate clean" then we'd expect to see them in 6.0.

Well yeah. If major overhauls is what qualifies as "meaningful changes", then you're going to be waiting a long time. When I speak of historic in terms of SE, I'm talking about how some jobs are horrendous when a new expansion is released, but SE will take in player feedback and make changes within reason. This expansion has already seen SCH getting Energy Drain back, Hagakure was returned to SAM, healing potencies were fixed for AST, damage potencies adjusted for NIN, among others. These 'less than meaningful' changes have improved these four jobs greatly.

I don't mean to come off as rude when I say this, but people keep moving the goalpost on this one. At the media tour it was like "wait and see until you get to actually play it", we play it and then it's like "wait until you try it in Shadowbringers content", we play it in Shadowbringers content, "wait until end game, that's where the jobs are balanced", we play it at endgame, "it's a clean slate, wait for later patches". I've tried to enjoy Scholar, because it is my baby, but I've struggled.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but goal post moving is the way of things. It doesn't mean we should be content with it, but goal post moving at the very least means that the issue is still being addressed and worked on, instead of being complacent. It's better that the goal posts move, than stay in the same position. This is true even for jobs that players are happy with. Just because something is good, doesn't mean it can't be improved; and just because something is 'bad', doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

But I don't think homogenisation is a clean slate, but a way of dumbing the roles down and making balance easier and also approachable to new players.

This is exactly how I would define a "clean slate" in terms of mmos.

If we need to look at SE's history, we only need to look at White Mage, who have had problems for a long time in terms of how the job plays and over-and-over they've not addressed the issues, we're talking over -years- and with over that time they've taken away more and more from WHM at first mostly, but all healers overall. And in that time, they've not really taken on people's feedback with WHM. Even now, we have silence and no acknowledgement that they consider the problems with healers as problems.

There was next to nothing wrong with WHM until AST was implemented into the game. The over-tuning of AST to make it viable and kick WHM right out of the meta was probably the biggest indicator of the devs not knowing what they were doing when it came to healers. We can keep revisiting this for the sake of having something to talk about, or we can move forward to the here and now. The devs nuked SoTL2, got rid of CD reduction that was the previous lily system, and made WHM better. By all accounts, I would say they listened. However, if players were saying, "Please don't take away SCH DPS skills!" Then they most certainly did not. SCH as far as being able to meet healing requirements while keeping up steady damage really has not changed (this is how the devs see things). You just have less buttons to push to accomplish this now (this is how players see things).

They've acknowledged problems with the DPS jobs and said they were going to do something and are delivering on them in 5.1. Historically MNK and MCH were DPS's that they ignored for ages, so fairdoes, they have addressed them in 5.0, but they also acknowledged issues with both prior to this.

Again with the ignored. Listen, nothing gets ignored in this business. Consumer demand is what drives sales and that is what pays their bills. It's a daunting task to create something from your vision and shape it in a way that is marketable. Now even though nothing gets ignored, not everything gets heard. That is something to really take in. The dev team is not obligated to share information. What is actually communicated between a developer and consumer is serious business. That seriously needs to be understood. If you were to actually know what we hear in comparison to what is going on over there, you would likely be blown away.

Patience.

[Billythepancake]

Patience.

At what point do we get to stop being patient? When they finally remove every DPS ability? when healers have to literally stand still and do nothing in fights? Like, I don't understand that mentality of "just keep taking the punches, they'll MAYBE stop and pat you on the head a year or two down the line" as for any major changes coming? That's not happening until 6.0, the biggest changes we're going to get this expac is potency adjustments, MAYBE if they're feeling REALLY spicy they might change a timer or two. Anything that would actually change how the classes feel and would genuinely make them fun to play again? lol.

[Saefinn]

Well yeah. If major overhauls is what qualifies as "meaningful changes" -snip-

Not just major overhauls, but general design changes. SE don't tend to do them in patch cycles.

To make healers more interesting again. They'd either have to revert changes, which they're unlikely to do. They've already said "no" to AST's.

Or rework some of the design and add in new things to replace what's lost. This isn't something they tend to do until an expansion. Whilst I accept it is possible, but we are still very much in the dark.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but goal post moving is the way of things. -snip-

I don't mean dev shifting goal posts. Goal post shifting is what people do when the point of their argument hasn't been proven when a goal post set is hit, so they move the goal post and tend to ad infinitum. From what I hear from WHM's, this is the exact experience they had with 4.0 and are still having (and to an extent 3.0).

I have been guilty of the "wait and see" mentality. There comes a point when you're Sisyphus pushing his rock.

This is exactly how I would define a "clean slate" in terms of mmos.

Nothing has indicated this and I've not seen it on MMO's. If this is what they're doing, they'd say something? They normally do when they acknowledge there's a problem.

Again with the ignored. Listen, nothing gets ignored in this business. Consumer demand is what drives sales and that is what pays their bills. -snip-

I feel a lot of people underestimate what consumer demands means. Sure consumer demand drives sales and pays bills, but there is plenty of wiggle room. I worked for years in the consumer facing side of a business with millions of customers globally. I can say that yes, they get ignored. Even people who say we've lost a customer come back. The mentality is often they can't please everybody, so they won't. If it's going to impact sales, then they're more likely to listen. That is, if we're talking business. It's a bigger issue for smaller businesses with smaller customer bases.


I was also in the community when 1.0 was in BETA and watched as an FFXI player as complaints came to the forums. Again, people were like "it's only BETA, wait until launch" and "the point is for feedback, they'll fix it for release", but didn't and it was only after financial failure that they listened.

But these days, I'm a developer, not in the game industry, but ecommerce. So I know that even what seems like a simple straight forward thing, might not be and things take time and resource. I can appreciate this.

But this is where communication helps us a great deal. We don't have to go into depth or detail. It curbs complaints. And SE does this already. When they've acknowledged something is a problem, they usually tell us, so the silence is more of an indicator they don't recognise it as such than "maybe they're working on it in quiet".