Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[GeminiReed]

No one is entitled to a group.

If you're speaking narrowly about PF, sure.

All players absolutely are entitled to dungeon and trial groups when the story mandates it. Unless and until the MSQ gets decoupled from instances then those instances have to be able to be completed by the lowest common denominator. Not everybody aspires to challenging content nor should they feel pressured to do so. By the same token they are not entitled to your company so you are free to take the leaver penalty when they don't meet your standards.

In my experience with other MMO's healers are only required to DPS in the highest tier content and nobody expects them to do so anywhere else. Seems to me that Square is trying to convince the XIV community to realign to that attitude. If that's true then I agree with Saefinn that they're going about it all wrong.

[Deceptus]

If you're speaking narrowly about PF, sure.

All players absolutely are entitled to dungeon and trial groups when the story mandates it. Unless and until the MSQ gets decoupled from instances then those instances have to be able to be completed by the lowest common denominator. Not everybody aspires to challenging content nor should they feel pressured to do so. By the same token they are not entitled to your company so you are free to take the leaver penalty when they don't meet your standards.

And the DF exists for that reason. You don't "start a group" in the DF, you just queue for it.

I was speaking about the PF.

[Saefinn]

And the DF exists for that reason. You don't "start a group" in the DF, you just queue for it.

I was speaking about the PF.

I suppose for all the arguments i make that the DF is a roulette, you'll get players of all shapes and sizes, experience and skill, it's fair the arguments for the PF are "it's your party, you decide the requirements you want to work with".

[Crushnight]

If you're speaking narrowly about PF, sure.

All players absolutely are entitled to dungeon and trial groups when the story mandates it. Unless and until the MSQ gets decoupled from instances then those instances have to be able to be completed by the lowest common denominator. Not everybody aspires to challenging content nor should they feel pressured to do so. By the same token they are not entitled to your company so you are free to take the leaver penalty when they don't meet your standards.

In my experience with other MMO's healers are only required to DPS in the highest tier content and nobody expects them to do so anywhere else. Seems to me that Square is trying to convince the XIV community to realign to that attitude. If that's true then I agree with Saefinn that they're going about it all wrong.

Except everything the devs do to counter this attitude backfires on them.

Devs: We removed Cleric Stance dancing
Community: now healers have no problems of being stuck in dps mode when needing to heal so then they can freely dps more

Devs: Reduced dps abilities to barest minimum while boosting number of healing abilities, that'll get them to focus healing
Community: We are dpsing more than ever before and we are now more bored for it

Devs: why won't you focus more on healing
Community: Healing has a hard cap anymore than necessary is redundant and better time is spent on dps, look at how you design your own game because don't think you know why we play healers the way we do.

Devs: La la la can't hear you
Community: >_>

Obviously the sentiment isn't shared by everyone but it is how a good number of healers feel so do forgive the broad term community but couldn't think how best put that side.

[Crushnight]

No joke in HW when you had to stance dance with Cleric, I was way way more forgiving to healers who only healed because for all I know they were scared that if they put Cleric on they'd kill the party(most times they wouldn't but that fear was a reasonable one at the time).

Cue SB and by removing Cleric Stance dancing, my expectations went up, a pure healer was now a lazy healer in my book rather than a cautious healer, the devs design altered my view point on healers, by making things more accessible I expected more at a lower skill ceiling.

Along came ShB and made things even easier so now if I don't see a single dps spell in my lv80 dungeons in the 1st 5 minutes(this goes up to the 1st boss usually and is very good to tell what type of people you are dealing with), vote kick, I will not tolerate pure healers in any content past 70(you have trusts for that playstyle use them if you want to be lazy), if kick doesn't go through I leave.

The devs design changed my attitude into the opposite of what they want so yea the devs have no clue how to design healers to fit their goals for healers almost like they have no real understanding and just looking at data.

[Morningstar1337]

The solo content isn't really affecting this. Even if you make it so all healer & tank attacks only have 10 potency or decrease the dps needed to clear dungeons/raids, everyone would still be spamming their attacks as much as possible while only using just enough healing/mitigation to keep everyone alive; Because more dps = faster fights and faster fights = less opportunities to make mistakes/ larger buffer to not fail fights due to mistakes.

That's the thing the solo content is likely the (initial) reason why healers have attacks at all and the only way to enforce pure healer mentality is to outright remove them for the reasons you stated. Thus the devs are cornered by the way the quests work.

[Hazama999]

Revamp the quest system such that healers resolve every instance of conflict through an intricately designed diplomacy system with multiple branching paths.
Engage in a mental chess match with murderous chinchillas in Coerthas as you bargain for your life.

;]

[Dyvid]

That's the thing the solo content is likely the (initial) reason why healers have attacks at all and the only way to enforce pure healer mentality is to outright remove them for the reasons you stated. Thus the devs are cornered by the way the quests work.

Not really though, WHM attack spells date back to 1.0 and SCH inherited their skill set from ACN. A lot of the quest have a tank type character that you can heal during battle.

The truth is this game isn't designed around a pure healing situation, rather it about dodging telegraphed damage mechanics.

[IDontPetLalas]

You know I have never played a game where healers (even in heal spec) had no damage spells at all. If I read your comment correctly, and you're suggesting that "pure healer mentality" means removing all attacks spells- well never seen that in any game and I would find that unplayable.

That need across games was was various reasons- solo content (questing or grinding), PVP and was often done by allowing healers to run different specs to have a lot of flexibility in their skills. In this game, well I'm definitely in the "healers should heal and DPS" camp.

[Anhra]

Many problems in regards to skills and preferences could easily be solved if all Jobs had something akin to skilltrees which would allow customisation. Not only would that keep things fresh, it could also fix (in my point of view) the rock-paper-healer minigame we call PvP here.