Bullying and harassment of healers

[tyrantdragon]

Deer game Masters

I want to make you aware of a situation going on in final fantasy 14 , that is getting out of control

This thing is concerning healers and people playing a healer roll, one of the main roles I main as, so I'm quite familiar with this bullying this harassment and this unfair treatment against healer

There was a healer in the party in The minstrels ballad , Tsukuyomi's Pain

This healer who was , well doing their job ""healing the party""started cussing the healer out insulting her calling her stupid , even telling her to go kill herself because she refused to heal the party , they were even telling her that as a healer you must DPS all the time heal and avoid the damage

Which is wrong a healer is supposed to heal nothing more nothing less that is why the healer roll is called A HEALER

Now I know the child that was insulted because the other player was insulted was a child and left your game service because I informed her parents

You need to cut down on this and stop this unfair behavior that classifies under all guidelines of harassment bullying threatening the things they told her was far beyond uncalled for

Healers need to be restricted to a healing class only when in dungeons
, It is not fair to the healing players especially new healers and veterans , when they have to feel that they have to DPS" which is not their job"and if they don't that they will be bullied and harassed to where they leave the dungeon

I know you cannot stop the bullying

but you can fix the problem at heart by restricting the healers just like world of Warcraft did from dpsing and make them Healing only , otherwise you are encouraging other people to bully healers who refused to DPS just as I do because I understand my job my role my role is a healer not a DPS it is not fair to the healers when they have to fulfill two roles in the fights where they had to heal DPS while everybody else only has one role, tank tank and DPS just DPS only the healer has two rolls and that is unfair allowing for bullying thank you

[tyrantdragon]

And it's even more disheartening to know that I know that those people were reported
the game Masters refuse to do anything
And that was why the parents of that child will not allow that child to ever play final fantasy XIV again

[Connor]

Not sure if this is a serious thread but asking SE to ban DPS on healers is a surefire way to get yourself harassed.

An FFXIV healers primary function is to deal damage. Their secondary function is healing which is done through instant-cast cooldowns. The only thing the healer community wants right now is more DPS

‘Calling out’ a 0 DPS healer is not considered harassment by the GM’s. It’s basically a ‘difference in playstyle’ which means the party were well within their rights to kick the healer the party if they so choose, should their DPS reach 0.

It’s kinda messed up if you ask me but that’s just the way this game is

[Daniolaut]

Harassment of any kind is unacceptable behavior.

"Difference of playstyle" is not listed in the reasons when initiating a vote kick, and since it is common knowledge that this is a reason acceptable from GM's for mistreating others, then it absolutely is Square-Enix's fault for not being clear, or upholding their very clearly defined outlines for harassment.

Improper use of vote kick exactly being one of them, and based on the Terms of Service, "difference of playstyle" absolutely is not listed, so Square-Enix is in fact being selective on whom they do and do not reprimand, and likely due to "money" being the reason.

With that aside.

Healing requires you to do both healing and damage.

Specifically not casting healing spells, or not casting damage spells, is a direct failure to perform the function of the job.

It is absolutely impossible to only heal in a solo situation. It is also absolutely senseless to only do damage actions or to rely solely on "off globals" to heal.

By experience, in numerous pug parties, many many many years and many many articles of content cleared as numerous jobs, refusing to cast a heal, or letting a dps or tank die "because you werent in sacred soil" or any absurd reason "you didnt use reprisal" or simply letting a tank die cause they took too many auto attack critical hits, is 100% the healers fault if casting a spell would have made the difference.

It is the responsibility of the entire party to work together, not just the tanks and dps to work with the healers and the healers do what they want and blame others for not doing something, if they themselves could have done something as well to prevent a death.

Not casting Succor, dropping sacred soil, and being in a pug, and seeing a dps outside of the sacred soil, and still refusing to cast succor, 100% is the healers fault. It is the job of the healer to keep the party alive, just as much as it is the dps job to perform mechanics while keeping an eye on safe areas designated by the healers actions. Yes its a two way street, who would of thought.

In this situation, casting succor ensures 100% everyone lives, and those not in sacred soil will not require as much healing attention later.

This is how FFXIV should be played, and players across the board will see more success.

When everyone does their part, everyone sees more success.

Period.

When tanks or dps "risk uptime" and take a vulnerability debuff or healers refuse to cast a "hard cast" and people end up dying are equal problems. Neither should be selfish or greedy, and should perform the proper functions first.

This isnt to say in a static situation you wipe 1 million times cause you all choose to be risky but clear all 4 savage fights in a week. Thats entirely those players choice to play how ever they want. But in a pug situation, with newer players or people still learning, everyone should work together to reduce as many chances for error, and this does include healers casting healing spells, and dps prioritizing mechanics.

I have never once in all these years come across a party whom performed all mechanics, and prioritized teamwork, and failed a duty. Not once. I have, on the other hand, failed countless duties because healers would not cast spells, or other players risking uptime.

[Daniolaut]

Since I know sometimes too many words can be tough for some...


Harassment = bad. Do not do it. Period.

Failure party:

Tank talking to healer " did you cast succor?"
Healer: "no"
Healer to Tank "did you use reprisal?"
Tank: "no"
DPS to Healer "did you cast medica?"
Healer "no"
Healer to dps "were you in asylum?"
DPS "no"

Successful party

Tank: "I used reprisal, and mitigated the tank buster"
DPS: "I stood in Sacred Soil and Asylum, and used feint, and dodged mechanics"
Other DPS "I used Troubadour, and helped the healers with The Warden's Paean to save them an esuna cast"
Healer: "I precast succor at least 5 seconds before damage was supposed to go out and had sacred soil out 5 seconds before damage as well"
Other healer: "I dropped Asylum, and cast medica to 100% Ensure everyone was 100% topped off"
Everyone (including healers): "and we all helped by dealing damage when it was 100% safe to do so.

[Enkidoh]

The 'healers=DPS with healing'/'healers should only heal' arguement has been going around for years and sadly will never really be resolved unless SE removes (or at least significantly nerfs) DPS spells like Holy, which they will not do. My personal opinion is that in a party situation a healer should be specifically healing, but, if everyone is okay HP wise and there are no heavy hitting attacks/tankbusters occuring then definetely throw in a Holy or a Stone II where you can, and keep the Aero debuff up.

But things can go south rapidly even when you think you're in control of the situation while you're still casting that DPS spell and a second or two can make all the difference between keeping the tank alive (and by extension, the rest of the party) or causing a wipe because you were too busy trying to DPS and couldn't get your rapid heal off fast enough. And speaking as a tank I definetely appreciate healers who are on the ball keeping me healed and not priotizing DPS over healing (the amount of times I've died or nearly died because a healer was too busy throwing DPS around and ignoring their healing duties I've lost count of).

Of course we're all different and the meta unfortunately very much preferences DPS over healing simply to get slightly faster through a battle/dungeon, but alas this arguement will remain for as long as the game is active and will never have a resolution.

[Curisu]

Please show me the rule that says that healers only have to heal.
What are you doing 80% of a fight when nothing need to be healed?
Everyone trys to not get hit with mechanics so that you don't have unnecessary dmg to heal, what are you doing for the next 10 gcds of time until the next unavoidable aoe dmg?
Healers can reach the same dmg as a tank, in savage content, were the incoming dmg is far higher then any dungeon.

I already kicked healers out of a dungeon because they were only casting heals and standing the rest of the time around doing nothing.
I tryed to explain them that we don't have to be on 100% hp all the time and that they could use the given dmg spells.
Well, they had the same, wrong, understanding of a FFxiv healer as OP. So I kicked them with the explanation that we don't want to carry a lazy player while everyone else use everything given to make the run easyer and faster and that by using all of my skills (pld) we can finish the last boss with tank CDs and DPS heals/potions without a healer

[FF14Xanz]

The concept of a "healer that only heals" is a bad idea in general.
What do you do when nobody is taking damage and your other healer is keeping the main tank topped off? /dance i guess?

As a healer you should be doing damage and healing,
As a tank you should be doing damage and mitigating damage,
As a dps you should be doing damage and anything else you can to make other people's jobs easier.

The main difference between the roles is what is optimized first, healers optimize their healing placements to DPS more often, tanks optimize their mitigation usage so they take less damage over the course of a fight to help healers dps more, DPS optimize their rotations in conjunction with mechanics to put out the most dps while taking the least damage to...help healers dps more.

There are incredible players who can even solo heal the hardest content in this game while STILL doing damage, there's no excuse besides laziness and/or stubborness for a healer to not be doing ANY damage and people have every right to tell you to step it up.

Telling someone to kill themselves should be insta-banned though. That's not constructive or a supportive mentality and your friend probably learned nothing other than to not listen to anything those people said regardless if they were right about anything.

Unfortunately i believe most if not all of the in-game GMs are inactive due to current real world events and the ones that are active if there are any, are unable to process the amount of reports being filed by the big influx of players currently staying at home playing FFXIV for the same reason.

[AnimaAnimus]

Healers are not routinely bullied anymore than any other role. Let's just call that flat lie out first and foremost.

This is why we need more direction for new players, so they understand their actual role. Anyone who comes into this game and ignores half of their skills simply because they don't want to use them because it does not align with how they feel the role should be played or it is not how it was played in that completely different game made by that completely different company, is going to have a pretty rough time if they ever play with anyone outside their small group of friends who may be ok with them literally doing nothing. I think kicking someone for not making use of their toolkit is perfectly acceptable. This also why songless bards and dotless smn get kicked from pts.

Now there are certain ways it should be handled, but if you are not making use of your toolkit and spending 80-90% of your time standing there doing absolutely nothing or healing every time anyone loses just a few percent health, you are a drain on the party and they have every right to kick you. And if repeated wipes are involved tempers are obviously going to flare because you are wasting 3-23 other ppls time.

But let's be real here for a moment, more often than not, harassment complaints are a case of someone getting extremely insulted someone else dared to comment on their preferred play style and blow it out of proportion and claim the other person went on an unholy rant. FFXIV has a fairly decent playerbase for an mmo, so the ppl who really get nasty are few and far between, but you can hit the people who are triggered extremely easily by throwing a stone in any random direction. Not saying this is the case here, but after 10 years of playing this game and only witnessing a handful of actual horrible behavior, I am always skeptical of these claims. It's way way way more often someone having a meltdown over getting actual legit advice in a extremely cordial manner.

Let me also say, this game is T for Teen, let's not use the old meme "Won't somebody think of the children". When small kids come into spaces meant for an older crowd, their parents or their friends have no leg to stand on crying about how smalls kids were mistreated. We don't know who is playing a character and we have reason to not expect a child. So if you are letting kids play games meant for a YA and an adult crowd, anything they face, is on you.

[Ovenmitts]

This healer who was , well doing their job ""healing the party""started cussing the healer out insulting her calling her stupid , even telling her to go kill herself because she refused to heal the party , they were even telling her that as a healer you must DPS all the time heal and avoid the damage

This is some pretty obvious bait. For the people that become actual victims to this stupidity, I will say this. There is a very clear distinction between harassment and critique.

Let's say a healer queues the duty finder. Said healer has so far never done any content with pugs, so you could consider this a culture shock. Said healer decides to only heal and stands around when no damage is going out (which would be often, let's be real). One of the party mates gets annoyed, so when there is a break/clear/wipe, they ask the healer "Why were you just standing there doing nothing?" This is not harassment. This is a literal question which would either get an answer or silence. "You could do something besides just stand there you know" also is not harassment even if it is worded cheekily. If the team decides to kick the healer for weighing them down, based on the response or not, that would also not be harassment. That is a difference in playstyle. If anything, it helped the healer in this example save time since they probably wouldn't get along with those kinds of players anyway.

However, if they resort to name-calling, smack talking, threats, posting of FFlogs of all things to shame them, then that healer has every right to report the jerk or jerks responsible to a GM for harassment and very well may get them banned for a few days. They deserve it and a strike on their account may sort them out since these things are apparently permanent. I don't care if this is the internet. Telling someone to off themselves is not right in the real world and it shouldn't be considered "normal" for the virtual world either. The FFXIV community is better than this, so I encourage everyone that is put on the receiving end of that kind of idiocy to not be scared and report the incident. It is complete anonymity. The harasser has no way of knowing you were the one that reported them. Give the details of when it happened, speak your side of the story to the GM, and move on with your life. It can be hard to swallow when someone is mean to you but they are not worth your time.