A summary of healer issues

[ForsakenRoe]

Rather I quickly learned that the bean counters in finance were the true development leads, not any of us on the top floor.

Just had the brainworm of 'what if Bean Counter was a job in FFXIV'. You'd have a bunch of skills with properties (like BLU), elements, additional effects, etc. You have two phases, one where you press a button to cast a simple GCD to restore your MP to full. The other is the main meat of the job though, you press the button to start the phase, and the job gauge gives you your orders: do this element, or this status effect, or both, etc. So you have to 'mix' a combo of attacks, like a NIN mudra of sorts, that fulfills the conditions. The more conditions met, the more damage that attack does. But every Bean Counter knows, you can't go over budget, so your total can go as close to 10000mp cost as you like, but if you go over, the project is considered a failure due to financial mismanagement (and the higher ups are angry)

maybe next April Fools eh

[Sebazy]

It was only after that - oddly, AFTER my admission of being wrong - that you and others really pounced.

Again, to make it clear. I pounced because you fudged the numbers. I clearly gave exact numbers in my initial response. If you had have updated your post at least somewhat in line with them, I'd have had nothing more to say on the matter. Rather it was the manner in which you tried to downplay the difference that invited the response especially given how frequently you swing around your subjective/objective bat etc.

Fun fact, when I first saw the post I actually initially expected it to be correct. My head cannon was that T+3DPS wouldn't be at that much of an advantage in Dead Ends due to a lack of gear inflation likely putting more pressure on the Warrior's cooldowns and HP. It was the one dungeon I couldn't merrily tank on WHM due to Peacekeeper eventually one shotting me. The other dungeons that made me realise that something was wrong with your numbers though. Alzadaal's legacy is an absolute face roll for example. Healer or no healer, there's absolutely no need to hold back there with BiS gear as the trash melts and the bosses barely tickle.

[ty_taurus]

What makes you think I took it as an attack? I never said I took it as one (a certain SOMEONE'S insistence to the contrary). I'm not even sure why you thought I took it as an attack. I said "Ugh, HOWEVER, so we can ruin this otherwise feel good moment..." not "There you go again, attacking me". I wasn't accusing you of making an attack. I just was enjoying your SGE proposal and then saw you say that and was curious why you were going that line of argument instead.

I never said it was an attack nor that I felt it was an attack (because I didn't think or feel either), I only said it was just ruining an otherwise feel good moment

I mean, saying that you feel I was ruining a feel good moment doesn't exactly make it seem like you saw that post as something pleasant or cordial, nor did expressing doubt that I had made the "what do you want to see more of" question mandatory in an attempt to make the question seem less bias against someone who wants little-to-no adjustments. Quite literally, my thought process was "if I don't make it mandatory, then it's not going to calculate how many people explicitly don't want xyz, because it's going to calculate the percentages based on who voted at least something, not of everyone who hits submit on the whole survey." Like, if I take a look at the white mage survey right now, it lists that 81% of the 116 votes want to see more attacking actions. If I had not made the question mandatory, and a chunk of players who don't want any particular changes didn't vote at all, then that number might read as something like 90% or whatever, which is misleading.

I don't want to include an option for "nothing" because that isn't realistic for a new expansion on a live service game. New attack actions, or the option for mobility actions even, may not be the most likely, especially depending on to what degree, but they are not unrealistic requests. I stand by that the wording of the question right now is not misleading or trying to weight responses toward a specific answer, as the bottom question to fill out what you want to see specifically allows you to specify to what extent you want to see new actions, and you have the option of "other" where you can fill in something like "new spell effects" or "upgrades for existing actions." Having said that, though, the next time I do these surveys, as I mentioned earlier, I will add a checkbox for "upgrades for existing actions" as that will help communicate that information far better than the "other" option. I didn't realize when I made the surveys how unhelpful the "other" option is in terms of collecting information since I haven't used google forms like this before. The information could be clearer, but it's not inherently bias toward any specific response.

The irony to me is that if their goal is to make things totally accessible, they've gone completely the wrong way about it.

While I do agree Cleric was a cancer and some of the DPS kits were probably a bit more than they should be, the most confusing thing for new healers that I've noticed is that they don't know the difference between GCDs and oGCDs, as the game doesn't explain it at all. The convoluted way some actions work with other actions or not ("healing actions" vs "healing magic" boosting effects, for example), is another one.

It's weird they leave those things in that are unintuitive, that the game doesn't explain, and that make a MASSIVE difference in the output of the player - if you follow ABC and weave oGCDs instead of casting them stand alone as if they were separate abilities, you already will easily get a Blue or better in general content like 4 mans or 24 mans where you're being compared against the whole player base; not to mention DoTs, which are something that new/average players often let fall off and forget to refresh, or worse, spam multiple times - while supposedly trying to make things more accommodating and accessible.

Something that MrHappy has talked about many times to my knowledge is wanting a "Hall of the Intermediate" that could better teach players the nuances of combat like the difference between GCDs and OGCDs, and I agree with that. I think that would be a very positive change. Take a page out of more modern gaming tutorials like Hi-Fi Rush, and have the player control an NPC like how we do during certain MSQ instances that are either a tank, healer, melee, ranged, or caster depending on what is selected by the player, and not only would the game teach you things like the difference between GCD and OGCD actions and weaving, but you can get into more nuance things like on healers how your standard heals are great for emergencies, but cooldowns you get throughout the course of the game will improve your ability to heal while conserving MP and freeing up your GCD for other purposes. Melee would teach you how to read an enemy's hitbox for positionals--how you can see on their hitbox if positionals matter and where to identify what the flank is and the rear (also what the word "flank" means because not everyone seems to actually know). Tanks learn about cleaves and the importance of facing players away as well as interject. Ranged also learn about interject, and Caster teaches you that slidecasting is a thing. The game gives you a set of tools on this NPC character and has you use them in a specific way to see how things flow and then has you try it out on you in your job synched up to level 50, and points to specific actions it wants you to use.

Then, in order to encourage people to do the hall of the novice and hall of the intermediate, I think they could attach a mount to completing the hall of the intermediate on all roles, and also, whenever mogtome events roll around, you're rewarded for redoing 1 role in the hall of the intermediate with a large sum of mogtomes, like 30-50 tomes to get you started on the event, depending on how long the hall of the intermediate ends up taking. This encourages players to also refresh their memory and polish their understanding of gameplay nuance without forcing them to do it.

[ty_taurus]

Again, to make it clear. I pounced because you fudged the numbers. I clearly gave exact numbers in my initial response. If you had have updated your post at least somewhat in line with them, I'd have had nothing more to say on the matter. Rather it was the manner in which you tried to downplay the difference that invited the response especially given how frequently you swing around your subjective/objective bat etc.

Fun fact, when I first saw the post I actually initially expected it to be correct. My head cannon was that T+3DPS wouldn't be at that much of an advantage in Dead Ends due to a lack of gear inflation likely putting more pressure on the Warrior's cooldowns and HP. It was the one dungeon I couldn't merrily tank on WHM due to Peacekeeper eventually one shotting me. The other dungeons that made me realise that something was wrong with your numbers though. Alzadaal's legacy is an absolute face roll for example. Healer or no healer, there's absolutely no need to hold back there with BiS gear as the trash melts and the bosses barely tickle.

I recall Xenosys Vex doing a blind run of Alzadaal's without a healer (Vulgar language warning). This was when 6.1 came out of course, but what's wild is the party cleared with no wipes and in 13 minutes without a healer. The fact that you can skip the second spinning around phase is huge because that's 30 seconds where you can't do anything at all skipped if you drop the healer for a DPS. Honestly, even if the clear time wasn't much different other than that one mechanic, the fact that you don't have to do that very long and annoying mechanic a second time is a major plus in my mind. Had to farm that dungeon way too long for the triple triad card well into 6.3, and I couldn't find anyone to farm it with me so had to just rely on the DF or go in as a healer myself to try and speed the runs up as fast as possible.

[AmiableApkallu]

Something that MrHappy has talked about many times to my knowledge is wanting a "Hall of the Intermediate" that could better teach players the nuances of combat like the difference between GCDs and OGCDs, and I agree with that. I think that would be a very positive change. Take a page out of more modern gaming tutorials like Hi-Fi Rush, and have the player control an NPC like how we do during certain MSQ instances that are either a tank, healer, melee, ranged, or caster depending on what is selected by the player, and not only would the game teach you things like the difference between GCD and OGCD actions and weaving, but you can get into more nuance things like on healers how your standard heals are great for emergencies, but cooldowns you get throughout the course of the game will improve your ability to heal while conserving MP and freeing up your GCD for other purposes. Melee would teach you how to read an enemy's hitbox for positionals--how you can see on their hitbox if positionals matter and where to identify what the flank is and the rear (also what the word "flank" means because not everyone seems to actually know). Tanks learn about cleaves and the importance of facing players away as well as interject. Ranged also learn about interject, and Caster teaches you that slidecasting is a thing. The game gives you a set of tools on this NPC character and has you use them in a specific way to see how things flow and then has you try it out on you in your job synched up to level 50, and points to specific actions it wants you to use.

(Emphasis mine.)

This "Hall of the Intermediate" would work great for DPS and Tanks. Their reward for this knowledge is more damage, more cool animations from hitting buttons more often, that sort of thing.

For healers, their reward for this knowledge is that good heal work that Yoshi-P mentioned once and... more time to spend mashing 11111?

[ForsakenRoe]

You know, originally I thought it would be hard to conceptualize more different types of attacks for Sage that aren't just more of the same lasers over and over, but scrolling through that FF8 video, there are really great animations where you could take inspiration...

Was just on a bit of a tokusatsu memory lane, and had a thought, idk if there's room for a 'single target melee range' skill in your design anywhere, but I thought this would be pretty cool, just punch an idiot (with a noulith instead of a plastic bee). Alternatively, one of the 'line aoe attacks' could be the four nouliths aligning into a spear sort of formation, and then Wyrmwind Thrust style throw 'em through the enemy. I know they're meant to be like, delicate medical equipment, but it'd be great if they had a more physical application too

God tokusatsu has like, so many ideas for animations to take inspiration from, its such a rabbithole

[ty_taurus]

Here's another really interest discussion point.... Here's a video from Xenosys that is very worth watching. For the record, he's not exactly my favorite creator. I think he's very abrasive at times, but this is still a very solid discussion point about the importance of change and evolution in an MMO, and I am in full agreement with his points about this expansion. This video is also 10 months old now. It was from the beginning of EW, and already there's talk of the expansion feeling stale, because it doesn't really feel different at the same time.

This is kinda where I was going when I brought up the importance of adding and changing actions with each new expansion.

[ForsakenRoe]

Like, don't fix what isn't broken and all that, but the 8.4 raid will give item level 920 (assuming no squish). The fact I can tell you that number, with about 3 mins of simple math, being able to predict a raid tier's item level reward four years from now, is probably a telling sign that they're sticking too close to the 'established pattern'

Next expansion we'll get grade 11 and 12 materia, and they'll be functionally identical to 9/10. Alternatively, we could have something like High Materia, which you can only have ONE of per job, and you can only meld it on the weapon (they're unique to each job, unless you want to remeld your chest every time you want to omnitank). And these High Materia (make like 4 of them per job) have unique effects on your skills, ala traits. Nothing too crazy, just 'the heal from Sheltron is increased by 150 (total goes from 1000 to 1600)', or 'the Gauge cost of Cover is reduced to 0', or 'the base% mitigation of Intervention is increased from 10% to 15%', idk. I could probably come up with 3 or 4 of these for each job, and keep them to being 'not throughput focused' because if one of them is 'X move does more damage' then that one's the insta-locked one, no deviation allowed. With them all being small utility/defensive/etc stuff as above, then the choice becomes 'do you want these effects, or do you want 36 more crit', and some people probably would want the tiny crit boost, but a lot of people would go for a unique effect, because it might allow for better DPS gains than that crit boost. Like, maybe the ones for SGE can be 'Kardia heals are reduced from 170 to 100, but each Kardia proc triggered now applies a Haima layer for 100 potency (stacks up to 5)', 'Kardia's potency increased from 170 to 250', and 'Pneuma has 2 charges'. Pretty bad ideas I know, I'm not really putting thought into them, but they'd give you choices between stabilizing the tank a bit more (good for a big selfheal machine like a WAR), adding more flat throughput to Kardia (synergises with DRK more, also has synergy with Soteria/Krasis), or more access to burst healing on demand with a second Pneuma charge (good for those enrage damage-spams like Curtain Call). Actually, instead of Materia, it'd work better as a talent tree on the soul crystal that we can respec at will (outside of combat), but that'd take more engine work

TLDR they play it so unbelievably safe it loops around to being a risky strategy again, and it might be starting to show

[ty_taurus]

Like, don't fix what isn't broken and all that, but the 8.4 raid will give item level 920 (assuming no squish). The fact I can tell you that number, with about 3 mins of simple math, being able to predict a raid tier's item level reward four years from now, is probably a telling sign that they're sticking too close to the 'established pattern'

Next expansion we'll get grade 11 and 12 materia, and they'll be functionally identical to 9/10. Alternatively, we could have something like High Materia, which you can only have ONE of per job, and you can only meld it on the weapon (they're unique to each job, unless you want to remeld your chest every time you want to omnitank). And these High Materia (make like 4 of them per job) have unique effects on your skills, ala traits. Nothing too crazy, just 'the heal from Sheltron is increased by 150 (total goes from 1000 to 1600)', or 'the Gauge cost of Cover is reduced to 0', or 'the base% mitigation of Intervention is increased from 10% to 15%', idk. I could probably come up with 3 or 4 of these for each job, and keep them to being 'not throughput focused' because if one of them is 'X move does more damage' then that one's the insta-locked one, no deviation allowed. With them all being small utility/defensive/etc stuff as above, then the choice becomes 'do you want these effects, or do you want 36 more crit', and some people probably would want the tiny crit boost, but a lot of people would go for a unique effect, because it might allow for better DPS gains than that crit boost. Like, maybe the ones for SGE can be 'Kardia heals are reduced from 170 to 100, but each Kardia proc triggered now applies a Haima layer for 100 potency (stacks up to 5)', 'Kardia's potency increased from 170 to 250', and 'Pneuma has 2 charges'. Pretty bad ideas I know, I'm not really putting thought into them, but they'd give you choices between stabilizing the tank a bit more (good for a big selfheal machine like a WAR), adding more flat throughput to Kardia (synergises with DRK more, also has synergy with Soteria/Krasis), or more access to burst healing on demand with a second Pneuma charge (good for those enrage damage-spams like Curtain Call). Actually, instead of Materia, it'd work better as a talent tree on the soul crystal that we can respec at will (outside of combat), but that'd take more engine work

TLDR they play it so unbelievably safe it loops around to being a risky strategy again, and it might be starting to show

You know, I was actually thinking about something similar with Genshin's constellations in mind. In Genshin, getting duplicates of a character unlocks new perks that are generally flat upgrades to your character.

Here are some images of what that looks like:

What if instead of getting 1 new action or trait at levels 92, 94, 96, 98, and 100, you instead have something like this, but instead of 1 option, each level is associated with two similar perks, and you have to choose only 1 of them. The menu would look kinda like this:


Each side would have a theme. For White Mage, this could be the Astral path and the Umbral path. The top two icons linked are what you get at level 92. So let's say those effects look like this:

Umbral Path: Mhachi Light
Increases the potency of Glare III by 10, increases the potency of Afflatus Misery by 40, and increases the potency of Dia's damage over time effect by 5.

Astral Path: Floral Force
Decreases the potency of Glare III by 10 and the potency of Afflatus Misery by 40, and unlocks the use of the action Tempest.

Tempest: Deals unaspected damage to the target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 510 for the first enemy and 40% less for all remaining enemies. Each time a lily is added to the Healing Gauge, enables 1 use of Tempest.

The Umbral Path is easier and offers a smaller damage variance based on performance while the Astral Path creates more room to optimize and thus has a slightly higher high but also a lower low, and your performance makes a bigger difference. The difference in these two options, if my math is correct, is the Umbral Path is a potential gain of 340 damage per minute if every GCD is used on damage or lily heals while the Astral path is a gain of 360 per minute if every GCD is used on damage or lily heals, but also gets a little more out of buffs this way as well. The difference is small, but the player has an easier path or a harder path. This kind of system would hopefully allow the design team to give healers a more aggressive route without worrying about scaring away the novice healers since they can just take the easy road.

[AmiableApkallu]

Here's another really interest discussion point.... Here's a video from Xenosys that is very worth watching. ...

This is kinda where I was going when I brought up the importance of adding and changing actions with each new expansion.

Taking that video in a different direction...

I'm reminded of my first days, starting in the post-ShB era, coming from the single-player games in the franchise, when I looked at jobs like CNJ/WHM, THM/BLM, and RDM, and wondered: Don't elemental affinities make these jobs all sorts of weird/complicated/hard to play? And I thought, challenge accepted.

I was quite disappointed to learn that the elements were just flavor text.

Balance and viability are worthy goals, but hasn't something been lost along the way?