Famitsu Interview: Tuning encounters for healing

[Dogempire]

So if you really want to get into SE's headspace, ask "what is the cheap and practical solution to feedback," and their adjustments make a lot more sense.

It's kind of unfortunate because simply upping rotational complexity across the board for all healers would go a long way towards reducing boredom, as would making MP more scarce so that MP management becomes a bigger issue and piety and efficient resource usage become important, but that's just not going to happen.

Things could change in Endwalker, but so far SE has just been lazy at solving balance issues, choosing to delete skills, simplify anything complex, and homogenize jobs across the board instead of taking the time to look at every job carefully and consider what it actually needs.

Heck they completely gutted the support aspect of ranged dps and so far they're just happily sitting on the bones of the role they killed. What's to say they're not going to add healers to that pile of bones next?

[Liam_Harper]

"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"

As much as I enjoy Savage... it's fine to increase damage in these but, that's not the only content where it should be adressed.

The other issue is there isn't much to do for healing because of the frequency of incoming damage, not just the intensity. Making raidwides hit extremely hard doesn't change much besides adding in a GCD or two and letting HoT's do their work as usual. The long stretches of downtime where there is no unavoidable damage still exist.

[GrimGale]

It's kind of unfortunate because simply upping rotational complexity across the board for all healers would go a long way towards reducing boredom, as would making MP more scarce so that MP management becomes a bigger issue and piety and efficient resource usage become important, but that's just not going to happen.

Things could change in Endwalker, but so far SE has just been lazy at solving balance issues, choosing to delete skills, simplify anything complex, and homogenize jobs across the board instead of taking the time to look at every job carefully and consider what it actually needs.

Heck they completely gutted the support aspect of ranged dps and so far they're just happily sitting on the bones of the role they killed. What's to say they're not going to add healers to that pile of bones next?

To this I keep asking myself the question: After all those new healing actions they have added, what can they possibly give us that is new that we don't have yet? Each healer already has several healing oGCDs, GCDs, instant, AoE, single target strong and weak, what other healing ability could they possibly give us that is unique and useful. The only avenue left is to give healers either more DPS tools or some form of utility.

That or deleting/upgrading Healing actions into more "poweful" versions with a new coat of paint.

[Raminax]

Well, considering White Mages got the abomination that is 4.0 Plenary Indulgence, I'm sure that Square Enix are more than capable of giving us quirky heals that are useful approximately never. But hey, look at all the choices we have to fill up HP bars!

[Semirhage]

Having more than one button to press 75+% of the time is "gatekeeping"?

Having one button to press 75+% of the time "gatekept" me out of the role. Oh but thank god I made way for a hundred Medica 2 spammers; that's what was really missing from the role.

[Satarn]

You guys do realize that same/similar words can mean different things depending on the context and field they're used in, right? Many acronyms sound like words that mean something totally different. Languages also evolve constantly and words gain completely new meanings due to slangs and such. The brought up acronym is generally what people refer to when they use the word in the context of MMOs and it has little to do with for example act of metagaming in tabletop rpgs, just like an MMO "tank" can have absolutely nothing to do with an armored war vehicle. It might've been a backronym originally, but it doesn't change that that's what it is used as these days.

Anyways meaning was the point here, not etymology which is rather off-topic. Regardless of what you want to argue the word comes from, the meta is not affected by what a healer's dps kit looks like, but rather what said kit's overall output is and people asking for more complexity are doing so due to concern with engagement, not effectiveness.

[Ultimatecalibur]

You guys do realize that same/similar words can mean different things depending on the context and field they're used in, right? Many acronyms sound like words that mean something totally different. Languages also evolve constantly and words gain completely new meanings due to slangs and such. The brought up acronym is generally what people refer to when they use the word in the context of MMOs and it has little to do with for example act of metagaming in tabletop rpgs, just like an MMO "tank" can have absolutely nothing to do with an armored war vehicle. It might've been a backronym originally, but it doesn't change that that's what it is used as these days.

Wrong. The term "Meta" is directly referring to metagaming. A Meta comp is short for the metagame optimal composition. Those whom have confused it for the backcronym are mimic things they hear from knowledgeable individuals without understand what they are talking about and often using the term properly in an unintentionally manner. The term "tank" is also a direct reference to the armored combat vehicle as the classes/jobs of that role are mimicing the battlefield effects of that class of vehicles. Ranged DpS (casters and physical) are sometimes called "artillery" for similar reasons.

Anyways meaning was the point here, not etymology which is rather off-topic. Regardless of what you want to argue the word comes from, the meta is not affected by what a healer's dps kit looks like, but rather what said kit's overall output is and people asking for more complexity are doing so due to concern with engagement, not effectiveness.

Actually the meta can and is influenced by what a healer's kit looks like. Classes, Jobs and Characters all shift around metagame tier lists based on relative complexity and output. In many cases choices that theoretically will have higher output will be considered low tier in the metagame due to having a relative complexity that is far higher that the alternatives for little to no gain.

[Absurdity]

Actually the meta can and is influenced by what a healer's kit looks like. Classes, Jobs and Characters all shift around metagame tier lists based on relative complexity and output. In many cases choices that theoretically will have higher output will be considered low tier in the metagame due to having a relative complexity that is far higher that the alternatives for little to no gain.

This would be the case if one of the healers were more complex for little to no gain, from what I've seen however people are asking for all healers to be more complex, not just 1 or 2.
It also depends heavily on how we define "little gain". A difference of 500 dps, roughly the difference between a warrior's dps and gnb/pld, is arguably not much but both gnb and pld are part of the meta comp for speedruns and warrior is...well, not.

[Ultimatecalibur]

This would be the case if one of the healers were more complex for little to no gain, from what I've seen however people are asking for all healers to be more complex, not just 1 or 2.
It also depends heavily on how we define "little gain".

That was more a metapoint about the metagame. As an example, a theoretic class that required you to keep 5 plates with different slow down rates constantly spinning would end up lower on a tier list than one that only required you to regularly toss and catch a ball 1 handed if the different difficulty causes output on the first class to vary between 90% and 110% the second's theoretical while the second only varies between 95% and 100% it's theoretical at similar player skill levels.

A difference of 500 dps, roughly the difference between a warrior's dps and gnb/pld, is arguably not much but both gnb and pld are part of the meta comp for speedruns and warrior is...well, not.

All 4 tanks have a similar complexity so the lower performing tanks end up lower on the meta tier list. Similarly, if they had varying difficulty but similar outputs the difficult jobs would end up lower on the list.

[Absurdity]

All 4 tanks have a similar complexity so the lower performing tanks end up lower on the meta tier list. Similarly, if they had varying difficulty but similar outputs the difficult jobs would end up lower on the list.

I wish that were the case. Warrior is simply significantly less complex than either Paladin or Gunbreaker, can't say much about Dark Knight since I tend to forget about it just as frequently as SE does. Those 500 dps and WAR's burst being on a 90 second timer are more likely the cause that it isn't very high on the tier list.