Famitsu Interview: Tuning encounters for healing

[EaMett]

Before I say anything else, I just want to say that this is the first time in about 4 years (maybe 2nd if you count them adding sch ED back) that the devs have communicated over acknowledging feedback that we've made in this forum. So I'm really happy about that. I don't think they ignore us but I've complained here many times over the lack of communication with our community, so this is a big win in and of itself.

Now about what was said.

I was asked to prog this savage tier as a healer and yes, it did feel a little more heal intensive than previous tiers, especially the last 2 turns. This provided a little excitement in the first week, though everything went back to mind-numbingly boring after people had better gear.
Unfortunately this internew proves that yoship really has no clue when it comes to healera.

This has been my experience overall.
E9s and E10s were nothing out of the ordinary.
E11s did feel like extra healing was required.. But only the first 2ish weeks. After that it was business as usual in terms of healing requirements on a 3rd floor.
E12s gaia was pretty lackluster in terms of heals. Both week one and now. E12s gate boss on the other hand is the only one that got good treatment. I feel like the healing on that fight is right where it should be for a savage difficulty encounter. Week one you had to be on your toes with healing and still dish out substantial dps. Even BiS you still need to be meticulous with healing in a few phases. With that said, and I must insist on this, you still spend the vast vast vast vast vast vast (you get my drift) majority of your time hitting your 1 &1/2 dps spell. So even something that I would consider a well-balanced encounter when it comes to healing still doesn't solve the issue most people have been complaining about.

Side note, I wouldn't blame y.p too much on the healing, he plays a BLM and doesn't seem to be a master healer. He can't be a pro at everything especially considering the average player must have more free time in a week than he has in a month.

Sorry but, he should be getting feedback from people who do know. You can and should expect the spokesperson for the game to be fully aware of healer ins and outs when announcing an expansion including a healer. Like the person above said, they just don't seem to have anyone.

I haven't been into savage this tier on account of irl things, but a general boost to healing requirements over all duties not just savage would be welcomed.

Nothing much has changed, FYI. The problem is that increased damage output is not the solution. It has never been and them addressing it as is, is a pretty good sign that they are still pretty disconnected from the role.
Why do I say this? Because they will never push the healing up to ultimate fight levels for savage content. Most of their playerbase can't handle that level of healing requirements. And ultimate level fights don't require you to heal much in the first place. You're still hitting one button for 70-80% of an encounter.

In other words, the healing cap they won't go over is too low to make a sizeable difference in the amount of downtime healers have. So they need to focus on what we do during that downtime.


A few things from that interview (emphasis is mine):

I feel that it will depend mostly on player skill. Recently I’ve received feedback saying “There’s nothing much to do for healing” from the healers so we’ve increased the attack intensity on Eden Promise Savage, and made sure the damage received is tuned as tight as it can be.

Not promising (no pun intended)

For example, in the case of Scholar, they will be able to utilize fairy to heal and put up barriers when in combat.

I hope this is a translation quirk. I never know with this team.
I also fail to see how the fairy will feel different from direct skills with the current pet setup. So here's to hoping that they give us pet control back.

[Absurdity]

Before I say anything else, I just want to say that this is the first time in about 4 years (maybe 2nd if you count them adding sch ED back) that the devs have communicated over acknowledging feedback that we've made in this forum. So I'm really happy about that. I don't think they ignore us but I've complained here many times over the lack of communication with our community, so this is a big win in and of itself.

I wouldn't bet on that. We do know that even the japanese community is dissatisfied with healers in their current state, so it could be just as likely that they have the same complaints as us and SE noticed those.

[Thoosa]

Would it be hard for them to program something to scale with your gear? So for example as you get better gear, you can kill the boss faster, but the incoming damage and mitigation scales with you, so it still feels like it did at minimum ilevel?

[Genz]

"healers say they're bored so we'll increase damage", usual simplistic view from Yoshi :|

He's not wrong ; just trapped in his own shallow game where healing has become some kind of side-activity because of the focus on one-shot.

If they want to make healing relevant : Ban one-shots, and start over from there.
Or, commit to what you're doing and transform healers to "green dps". It would be stupid but at least the jobs would be slightly less boring to play.

As shown by some answers in this topics ("don't use better gear", "sync gear"), FFXIV trying to keep a RPG paint-coat is becoming more and more ridiculous, since part of its players base don't care or don't understand it.

[Ultimatecalibur]

"healers say they're bored so we'll increase damage", usual simplistic view from Yoshi :|

He's not wrong ; just trapped in his own shallow game where healing has become some kind of side-activity because of the focus on one-shot.

If they want to make healing relevant : Ban one-shots, and start over from there.

It is not the number of one-shot mechanics that is the problem but the amount of avoidable damage. There is a big difference when properly performing mechanics decreases damage by 25%, 50% and 90%

[Risvertasashi]

"healers say they're bored so we'll increase damage", usual simplistic view from Yoshi :|

He's not wrong ; just trapped in his own shallow game where healing has become some kind of side-activity because of the focus on one-shot.

This is pretty much how I've felt too.

Someone earlier commented it's more of a mitigation check. Lots of planning around mitigation. Which isn't bad, but... I think I agree, the emphasis on attacks that can oneshot or otherwise kill through burst damage don't really do as much as a more frequent (but not necessarily extremely hard hitting) need for healing could do.

[DrWho2010]

seems like savage is tuned to the minimum item level to be a challenge. of course the more geared you are the easier it's going to be. if you find it's too easy, then you'll have to start making your own challenges i guess.

[Adeacia]

I see it in every mmo. Players proceed to do everything they possibly can to make the fights as easy as they can possibly get, then they complain that they are too easy.

How about bosses use skills like players? They have the normal mechanics that they do, then they use 2 raidbusters between every mech with only 1 second between the busters? Lets get crazy!

[Absurdity]

I see it in every mmo. Players proceed to do everything they possibly can to make the fights as easy as they can possibly get, then they complain that they are too easy.

How about bosses use skills like players? They have the normal mechanics that they do, then they use 2 raidbusters between every mech with only 1 second between the busters? Lets get crazy!

So after "just use bad gear lol" you jump to "just heal 90k damage in 1 second lol"

Got any more of those sensible design ideas?

[Kabooa]

In this article, Mr. Yoshida's comments have been edited in no small measure to ensure readability. Please note that the content and order of Mr. Yoshida's remarks may differ from the actual exchanges.

Oh boy, can't wait to read this.