Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Absurdity]

While I understand they WANT a pure healer role, it literally can't be done in an MMO because healers have to be able to complete the MSQ as well as other jobs.

And you need damage to do that. Sometimes a decent amount of it.

But I guess that's why SE implemented that "easy" mode of the MSQ fights.

Let's disregard the fact that you need damage spells to get any solo content done.


Their own encounter design DOES NOT WORK with their idea of "pure healers", simple as that.
Unless they want people to literally stand there for 60-80% of a fight and DO NOTHING.

Now someone is gonna say "but what if they increase healing requirements in savage?".
That still leaves you with the remaining 90% of content where you DO NOTHING for over half of the fights.

[ForteNightshade]

Their own encounter design DOES NOT WORK with their idea of "pure healers", simple as that.
Unless they want people to literally stand there for 60-80% of a fight and DO NOTHING..

I think that's exactly what they want. Or more specifically, they design encounters for the types of players who take several seconds mulling over what heals to use or those who mistake Cure III for being an upgrade over Cure II. Basically, they're focused more on the lowest common denominator. Which is why there's such a massive divide since any healer half way decent ends up extremely bored spamming Glare.

[Absurdity]

I think that's exactly what they want. Or more specifically, they design encounters for the types of players who take several seconds mulling over what heals to use or those who mistake Cure III for being an upgrade over Cure II. Basically, they're focused more on the lowest common denominator. Which is why there's such a massive divide since any healer half way decent ends up extremely bored spamming Glare.

Well, if it continues that way then quite a few people will eventually look for a game that doesn't insult their intelligence.
If you try to design everything for the lowest common denominator you run the risk of it becoming an endless cycle.

Player doesn't put any effort in -> game gets simpler to appeal to them -> player notices and puts even less effort in, because why should they? -> repeat.

At some point you simply have to let people fail.

[Gemina]

Pretty much.. In the majority of content I barely have to heal. My OGCD cover most everything. Literally no point in casting things like cure 2, unless the group is really failing miserably doing mechanics. Most of them are completely worthless. Most of my WHM gameplay is pressing 1 over and over and over, literally.

OGCD healing is still healing. I don't approve that they are our primary resource for heals, but it is what it is. Content still has a healing requirement, and even with the rotation being 1,1,1, healers are still tunnel visioning.

Also, WHM has the closest to any DPS mechanic with PoM. While this is a marginal boost to DPS, you still want to get nothing but Glares inside its window. If you use any other GCD during this window such as reappying a DoT, or tossing out a regen, it is a DPS loss.

While I understand they WANT a pure healer role, it literally can't be done in an MMO because healers have to be able to complete the MSQ as well as other jobs.

And you need damage to do that. Sometimes a decent amount of it.

But I guess that's why SE implemented that "easy" mode of the MSQ fights.

If you want look at pure healer like completely devoid of any offense, then you are right and SE will never obtain that. But I also think they know that, and it doesn't mean that they can't strip healers down to the bare minimum of offense. And there is still more they can take away (PoM for WHM, all damage for Energy Drain, etc.)

All we have to do is look at what has happened to healers over the coarse of the last couple of expansions. It is quite easy to see that they are not adding offensive skills. Nothing is pointing at any indication that this direction is changing.

[Morningstar1337]

While I understand they WANT a pure healer role, it literally can't be done in an MMO because healers have to be able to complete the MSQ as well as other jobs.

And you need damage to do that. Sometimes a decent amount of it.

That's more on the quest design end if anything, It is technically possible that if the devs put in enough manhours back in 2.0 we'd have quest that required healing existing targets rather than damage for Healers specifically

[LalaRu]

...you won't change any of these because the playerbase at large wouldn't be able to handle it...

Seems a legit reason.
You know, between all raiders playing FF, there is some casual now and then, here and there.

Appealing hardcore raiders, casual players, and everything in the middle at the same time, is just not possible and thinking it can be done is quite foolish. Best course of action is doing things that are the best for the majority, and best for the game itself.

Yes, errors can happen and happened in the past (story locked inside savage [Coil], noct sect made useless [AST rewamp], too much hard MSQ battles [Steps of Faith]) but nothing has left unaccounted and things so far have been corrected.

So far, devs done a great job giving us a game that still rocks hard even after 10 years. I will be very careful before going all out yelling about them doing everything wrong.

[QooEr]

I'm not sure why you seem to think that "almost no need to heal at all" and "cure spam" are the only two options. I still remember how back in Stormblood Medica II was worth keeping up a lot of the time, I used strategically timed Cure IIIs to heal the party half a second after a boss's big AoE attack landed, and Medica I was a useful AoE heal when the party was more spread out. Now I mostly use Afflatus Rapture and Assize. Medica II is still occasionally useful if both of those are in cooldown. Medica I and Cure III have all but joined Cure I in the button bloat category.

ikr? its like people already forgot what healing used to be like in the past.

[Recon1o6]

Healers are bored

Where's our playstyle and identity variation? Gone
Where's the dps buttons we used to have and effectively switch between throughout every other year? Gone
Where's the strategic healing and higher incoming output players have been asking for years about? still waiting...

We are not curebots! From legacy to shb healers did dps and healing and it was held as a gold standard for healers to the point other mmos were copying it.
Trying to force us into being curebots without upping healing requirements is just making people angry and bored. Its why healers are the lowest played roles this expansion

look at all these damn threads
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Forums-as-well.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-the-ground-up
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-healer-issues

[Semirhage]

I'm not sure why you seem to think that "almost no need to heal at all" and "cure spam" are the only two options.

They're not. But Cure spamming *is* the playstyle consequence of the "pssssh just gut oGCD heals and force us to spend the majority of your GCDs healing" suggestion gestalt that's made its rounds on the forums. I mean, think about it: your oGCDs are mostly destroyed, and Medica 2 is already ticking. You're spamming something here, whether it's Cure/2, Medica, or Cure 3.

Healer GCDs quickly hit a dead-end spammy non-rotation after exhausting a few fire and forget spells in both halves of their kits, and it'll become quickly apparent if design spends too much time forcing you to lean on either one. That's the caution I personally give to anyone who thinks swapping an 80% damage uptime for 80% healing will "fix" things.

[tdb]

They're not. But Cure spamming *is* the playstyle consequence of the "pssssh just gut oGCD heals and force us to spend the majority of your GCDs healing" suggestion gestalt that's made its rounds on the forums. I mean, think about it: your oGCDs are mostly destroyed, and Medica 2 is already ticking. You're spamming something here, whether it's Cure/2, Medica, or Cure 3.

Healer GCDs quickly hit a dead-end spammy non-rotation after exhausting a few fire and forget spells in both halves of their kits, and it'll become quickly apparent if design spends too much time forcing you to lean on either one. That's the caution I personally give to anyone who thinks swapping an 80% damage uptime for 80% healing will "fix" things.

So give healers an actual rotation for their GCD heals. Combos and procs that actually matter and are worth using. A lot of DPS and tank classes have resources which accumulate through the use of abilities and are used for more powerful attacks, why can't healers have something similar? WHM's lilies accumulate completely passively, SCH fills their gauge with a single button dedicated to that purpose. AST's cards are the most engaging healer class mechanic but honestly the buffs seem fairly inconsequential.