Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[ItMe]

I can only speak for myself but to be honest... the only way they could make healing engaging in this game, is to have a revamp of how damage works. For a game that exposes the player to so many fantastical settings and encounters, damage is painfully binary and boring. Your number is either low or high. That's it. Perhaps having different types of damage that require different actions? This would likely require a complete re-structuring from the ground up.

Idk... Complicate things a little bit. That's where my engagement comes from.

Were you around when this game had damage for each of the different elements?
And if so, what did you think of that?

[RyuDragnier]

I can only speak for myself but to be honest... the only way they could make healing engaging in this game, is to have a revamp of how damage works. For a game that exposes the player to so many fantastical settings and encounters, damage is painfully binary and boring. Your number is either low or high. That's it. Perhaps having different types of damage that require different actions? This would likely require a complete re-structuring from the ground up.

Idk... Complicate things a little bit. That's where my engagement comes from.

They could add more attacks to enemies that are a bit instant, like attacks that hit everybody without a cast time. Things that you have to heal through and watch out for simply because they happen so fast. Or more DoTs that you cannot remove with Esuna, so you're forced to heal through them.

[Loki]

They could add more attacks to enemies that are a bit instant, like attacks that hit everybody without a cast time. Things that you have to heal through and watch out for simply because they happen so fast. Or more DoTs that you cannot remove with Esuna, so you're forced to heal through them.

In each "solution" they will have to change healers gameplay cause ok i 'm not against the fact to use Esuna often or something else but give us the way to aoe it or spread it, i'm already bored to cast my single target DoT on 10 mobs during big pulls so if i have to cast Esuna on each party member regularly it won't fix the main trouble which is Healers gameplay is became too borring since 5.0 release

[Gobio]

Imagine being DPS and all dps has cure 1 and a regen, and boss jumped off screen constantly, like every few seconds, and you must abandon your DPS rotation and spam cure 1 / regen...

That is why there is no meaning healing mechanics...

[Anhra]

I also think that besides reducing overall damage output from Jobs, which becomes more and more with every incoming large Patch (which makes revisiting old content even easier to cheese thanks to overmelding and overall stats), every single non-healer Job has way too much self sustainment for themselves which is amusingly high enough, that you don't even need a healer for pretty much any Dungeon up to at least Ala Mhigo (even E4S has been cleared by a chinese team of 7 SMN's and a PLD). I think a good way to fix this would be to remove skills such as second wind, bloodbath, all the tank healing skills except for PLD and DRK (PLD being self explainable and DRK because of his focus on lifesteal) and put more focus on Healing Potions.

"But Anhra, that would just be too much of a grind for self sustainment!"
Why yes, you're playing a MMO in case you have forgotten and the grindstone is a key element in that genre.

[Absurdity]

I also think that besides reducing overall damage output from Jobs, which becomes more and more with every incoming large Patch (which makes revisiting old content even easier to cheese thanks to overmelding and overall stats), every single non-healer Job has way too much self sustainment for themselves which is amusingly high enough, that you don't even need a healer for pretty much any Dungeon up to at least Ala Mhigo (even E4S has been cleared by a chinese team of 7 SMN's and a PLD). I think a good way to fix this would be to remove skills such as second wind, bloodbath, all the tank healing skills except for PLD and DRK (PLD being self explainable and DRK because of his focus on lifesteal) and put more focus on Healing Potions.

"But Anhra, that would just be too much of a grind for self sustainment!"
Why yes, you're playing a MMO in case you have forgotten and the grindstone is a key element in that genre.

The thing is, it would not just be a grind but also a pointless change that does nothing but make solo content slightly more of a chore.

The self sustain is probably the least of the issues. Sure, you might not need a healer for dungeons but you didn't need one in Stormblood or Heavensward either, dungeon difficulty has been a joke for a long time and is intended to be one anyway.

In the more difficult content you do not plan around Second Wind or Bloodbath, just like you don't plan around random blocks or parries, so whether or not they exist changes nothing about healer gameplay.

The only healing that actually has a noticeable impact would be warrior's Nascent Flash and it's cooldown is also too low and it's healing too varied to really take it into account when planning out your oGCD usage on certain mechanics, besides being the only thing warrior has going for it atm.

[Anhra]

The thing is, it would not just be a grind but also a pointless change that does nothing but make solo content slightly more of a chore.

The self sustain is probably the least of the issues. Sure, you might not need a healer for dungeons but you didn't need one in Stormblood or Heavensward either, dungeon difficulty has been a joke for a long time and is intended to be one anyway.

In the more difficult content you do not plan around Second Wind or Bloodbath, just like you don't plan around random blocks or parries, so whether or not they exist changes nothing about healer gameplay.

The only healing that actually has a noticeable impact would be warrior's Nascent Flash and it's cooldown is also too low and it's healing too varied to really take it into account when planning out your oGCD usage on certain mechanics, besides being the only thing warrior has going for it atm.

It might be a smaller problem compared to others, but it still does it's contribution towards the big picture that is the current healer, and the excuse of "it has always been like that in dungeon's" doesn't mean it should stay this way just for convenience's sake. As Saefinn already said, most of the time, you'll be doing DPS inside a dungeon, and dungeons are something every single player does. Removing those self sustain Skills might not be able to fix the problem in one go, but it tilts towards the desired outcome by one step, which might turn that 70% DPS & 30% healing maybe into something like 50% DPS and 50% healing.

And i dont think that investing a few Gil's into Potions which any NPC could sell in low quality could be any issue. If you want something stronger, then you better be ready to invest into Alchemy.

[Absurdity]

It might be a smaller problem compared to others, but it still does it's contribution towards the big picture that is the current healer, and the excuse of "it has always been like that in dungeon's" doesn't mean it should stay this way just for convenience's sake. As Saefinn already said, most of the time, you'll be doing DPS inside a dungeon, and dungeons are something every single player does. Removing those self sustain Skills might not be able to fix the problem in one go, but it tilts towards the desired outcome by one step, which might turn that 70% DPS & 30% healing maybe into something like 50% DPS and 50% healing.

And i dont think that investing a few Gil's into Potions which any NPC could sell in low quality could be any issue. If you want something stronger, then you better be ready to invest into Alchemy.

Well, let me rephrase that then to make it more clear. It won't do a single thing to change the way you heal in dungeons. I have not even once considered someone's selfheal in dungeons, mainly because you never know if randoms even have it on their hotbar...yes, even random warriors. It will have 0 influence because it already does not matter.


The only way to make healers actually change the way they approach dungeons would be to significantly increase damage taken from mechanics and SE doesn't want to do that because it could alienate the people who already struggle in those faceroll dungeons for one reason or another.

[Saefinn]

By direction, I meant simplifying things.

If they don't require more healing but provides less DPS abilities, to me, that's not necessarily about wanting you to DPS less, but about something else, like making the role potentially easier to pick up due to simplification of the mechanics (powerful healing spells and simple DPS abilities).

The direction I stated is the one they've eluded to in their comments about healers and healing changes. A direction that if achieved would be in contradiction of the one you state, because it'd be less simple than it is now.

However, in terms of keeping things simple. Most of the suggestions I have made about healer roles over time has respected the low skill floor of healing in this game and only asks that the skill ceiling be raised for experienced healers to feel like they're doing something.

And adding to healer bloat if anything means that it is more of a hurdle for new healers because it's more to learn because they have to learn what each spell is for and how it works in their kit. I mean yes, once over that hurdles, it's not complicated because of how efficient the skills are.

So I don't think simplicity was their aim, but rather a means to an end with the DPS side. Because it is seems they misunderstand the balance I mentioned before.

[linayar]

So I don't think simplicity was their aim, but rather a means to an end with the DPS side. Because it is seems they misunderstand the balance I mentioned before.

The thing is, that misunderstanding, if it exists, should be easy to realize and fix (in my opinion), so I don't think that is the case.