Famitsu Interview: Tuning encounters for healing

[tikiwiki]

From a recent Famitsu interview:



These forums have seen some discussion on time spent healing vs time spent DPSing, and wider discussions of healing design philosophy. So, I'd like to open discussion around this interview comment and the most recent raid tier.

Have you healed Eden's Promise Savage?

Does it feel like the healing experience you want? Are there any particular parts of healing Eden's Promise Savage that you like, or don't like?

damage on tanks is a joke and aoe had some work needed week one but quickly became the same as other tiers im bored out of my mind and hoping my week doesn't go for too long specially with ultimate cancelled

[NobleWinter]

I see so many people talking about how healing should be accesible but that actually sounds ridiculous to me. Healing is the most burdensome responsibility in the game. You can completely revert train wrecks and turn abysmal mechanic failures into clears so gatekeeping the role to people who are competent enough to press more than one dps button seems logical. Healing should be a badge of pride. Why would you want to make healing "seem" accessible with incredibly brain dead skill kits just to have a healer fail you in every way possible when it comes time to step up. I leveled Healers first, tanks second, and now Im on my last two dps and the amount of frustration I feel watching healers cast repose on things that cant be put to sleep, or spamming cure and physick when no one even needs health, while refusing to use Esuna for anything just to wipe on bosses repeatedly I never died to before becuase the healer is the first one dead is maddening. I NEED less accessibility to this role. People are using jump potions and switching from Summoner to Scholar and making me miserable. Reading tooltips and not standing in aoes is a bare minimum we can expect from people but for whatever reason we keep lowering the bar for healing and accepting worse and worse players becuase it should be "accesible" even if it means ruining the enjoyment for the parties they are sabotaging. Bringing veteran healers back with skill kits they enjoy that new healers can grow into is what we need. I been healing since ARR and no healer has ever had a kit that was mind boggling. Im not asking for rocket science just Scholar in Heavensward levels of engagement.

[LiddyGhu]

From a recent Famitsu interview:



These forums have seen some discussion on time spent healing vs time spent DPSing, and wider discussions of healing design philosophy. So, I'd like to open discussion around this interview comment and the most recent raid tier.

Have you healed Eden's Promise Savage?

Does it feel like the healing experience you want? Are there any particular parts of healing Eden's Promise Savage that you like, or don't like?

I suppose I can give my two cents.
As a Scholar, this was the percentage of my actions on average in each fight in this savage tier that were purely DPS. This includes Broil, Ruin II, Biolysis, Energy Drain, and Chain Stratagem. It discludes embrace and seraphic veil, which are automatic actions.
e: I would like to note that this is NOT from a particularly intricately optimized standpoint. The percentages can be even higher than this.
Cloud of Darkness: 76.68%
Shadowkeeper 81.38%
Fatebreaker: 74.17%
Promise: 71.92%
Oracle: 69.90%

If you asked me, I *would* be satisfied if over 50% of my actions within those percentages were not entirely Broil III. However, because that actually *is* the case, it's unsatisfactory. I would be more satisfied if one of two things happened;
plan A: Raise the encounter damage frequency [as opposed to intensity]
plan B: Increase the amount of actions that are unrelated to healing, thereby reducing the amount of actions that are Broil III
plan C: Reduce healing throughput significantly, while also significantly reducing MP costs for healing actions.

Out of these plans, plan C is the most reliable but most unwanted.
Plan B seems to be the most feasible while not making players angry.
Plan A would be the most satisfactory for players who actually play healers to, you know, heal.

My issue with the interview comment is that the *intensity* of damage- that is, requiring shields and mitigation to survive- is not the issue, but the *frequency* of damage that is the issue as long as they have no intention of reducing the power of healing actions further. I want to play a healer to heal, but if there is only one thing to heal every 25 seconds and the GCD is 2.5, it's way too boring to stand around and wait for it. This doesn't have much to do with player skill at all.

I am of the opinion that we need to urge the developers to play Healers for a while so that they can see why we want to take more damage or to have more DPS related buttons.

[Flay_wind]

I think one of the things they could do is to make incoming damage to be for the most part gravity based. Say flat X number + large % of the max HP (like 70% or so). On the week one/min Ilvl that would leave you with 15% hp left. As you get better gear, flat damage value would affect you less, but the value % of your max HP would increase and the damage the party and tank take is still significant.

[Semirhage]

This overreaction and taking what I'm saying out of context is exactly what I would expect from the typical 'bored' healer whom is so easily offended that they immediately go on the defensive instead of seeing where the other person is coming from. I recommend this video if you're lost:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZewXLUwEjXo

Not only is having only one button to spam not the problem, adding DPS skills isn't the solution. If this is your thought process, have fun chasing your tail.

Having one button to spam is one of several problems, and if you can't see that it's because you pretend to care about "everyone's" concerns but in reality only come down on the side of the Sylphies.

I'm well aware of the modern practice of bellyaching about "gatekeeping", and how it comes from genuine concern for meanie old timers being too grumpy with newbies just as often as it comes from disingenuous hacks who don't give a crap about the hobby they're invading, and would rather it transform into something that suits their needs to the exclusion of said veterans.

[FoxCh40s]

Having one button to spam is one of several problems, and if you can't see that it's because you pretend to care about "everyone's" concerns but in reality only come down on the side of the Sylphies.

I'm well aware of the modern practice of bellyaching about "gatekeeping", and how it comes from genuine concern for meanie old timers being too grumpy with newbies just as often as it comes from disingenuous hacks who don't give a crap about the hobby they're invading, and would rather it transform into something that suits their needs to the exclusion of said veterans.

Say it louder for the people in the back.

[Irenia]

Having one button to spam is one of several problems, and if you can't see that it's because you pretend to care about "everyone's" concerns but in reality only come down on the side of the Sylphies.

I'm well aware of the modern practice of bellyaching about "gatekeeping", and how it comes from genuine concern for meanie old timers being too grumpy with newbies just as often as it comes from disingenuous hacks who don't give a crap about the hobby they're invading, and would rather it transform into something that suits their needs to the exclusion of said veterans.

This is something I've been thinking about, but, well, the sylphies have their likes and dislikes and generally there is no malice in them. So why are dissenting opinions gatekept?

You claim that there is a "hobby" they are "invading", but whose hobby is it? When it comes to FF14, it's not the sylphie's. It's not the veteran's. It's Square's. And to the veteran, the fact that SE doesn't listen to them is frustrating. Trust me, I feel that with healers right now.

So this form of gatekeeping, from what I can tell, is a way for veterans to influence how the actual owners of the hobby by controlling the opinions that they receive. This is distinct from small scale gatekeeping where players may filter others to join their group, but those denied are still encouraged to find their own group within the hobby. This hobby level gatekeeping attempts to filter opinions, so that the owners will act only on the veteran's. Some level of conformity is enforced.

But all decisions ride on the dev team, not the sylphies, nor the veterans. And I will quit this game before I blame the sylphies for the dev team's decisions.

[Dogempire]

Snip.

When one side gets the kind of changes they want it's pretty understandable for them to want to keep the other side out of the discussion so that they can keep the changes that they enjoy instead of getting things reverted back, not that I condone it, but it is what it is.

The Sylphies enjoy their easy to play healing and emphasis on doing healing instead of damage, while the veterans find this easy accessibility boring and seek further challenge beyond keeping hp bars up, and both sides have valid opinions, which is why it's important to continue to have these discussions instead of shutting one side out permanently.

That being said, the problem lies with SE and their sweeping changes to healers across the board, what was once a healthy selection of healers with varying degrees of rotational and healing kit difficulty has basically been scaled back so that you'll have an easy time healing regardless of skill level and job choice.

Shadowbringers has been amazing story-wise but in terms of job design it's the most boring and uninspired expansion, and it ultimately comes down to lack of player choice and lack of skill expression. It's not just an issue with healers, remember when ranged dps had actual support skills, or when tanks could play more risky and stay in dps stance the entire fight? Heck I remember having to level white mage to get stoneskin and thaumaturge for swiftcast even though I was only interested in Scholar.

All the jobs are very samey, and the same design flaw extends to healers, they're all easy to optimize, too accessible to the point where it leaves out any element of danger or difficulty when it comes to boss encounters or raids. It's really created an element of monotony when it comes to battle content because so little can go wrong except for people dying, which again isn't too much of an issue since it's not like healers have any mp management issues. Heck tanks don't even need to think twice about their aggro anymore, they just blue dps with either the boss autoing them or not autoing them.

Hopefully come Endwalker they address the issue of making encounters too easy, and add more elements of uncertainty across all jobs and roles like resource strains or harder emnity management, something more to think about beyond the typical tank and spank while spamming your damage buttons. I kind of doubt it and expect healers to be the same difficulty or maybe even easier, but I can hope.

[Ultimatecalibur]

All the jobs are very samey, and the same design flaw extends to healers, they're all easy to optimize, too accessible to the point where it leaves out any element of danger or difficulty when it comes to boss encounters or raids. It's really created an element of monotony when it comes to battle content because so little can go wrong except for people dying, which again isn't too much of an issue since it's not like healers have any mp management issues.

The easy of optimization and high accessibility is due more to flawed fight design than flawed kit design. More complex kits would not really make fights harder to optimize nor make fights more engaging.

Consider these things:

• When was the last time using Esuna to cleanse and manage Debuffs was important in high end content?
• When was the last time a Tank needed constant healing to survive through a mechanic and could not insure they had an invuln or a large number of cooldowns ready for it?
• When was the last time the threat of a random Crit meant that a Healer should ensure that everyone be topped off to survive?
• When was the last time a Healer had to deal with mechanics that reduced their range or forced them to heal at extreme ranges?
• When was the last time a Healer had to heal targets with reduced healing received debuffs on them?

Modern Fights tend to lack mechanics that actually test healers.

Heck tanks don't even need to think twice about their aggro anymore, they just blue dps with either the boss autoing them or not autoing them.

Not needing to think twice about aggro is fine. Aggro management was never really an intended part of the tank gameplay from the start of 2.0. "Aggro management" only really became a thing when tanks discovered methods of getting significant dps gains with little chance of losing hate due to unintended interactions of various factors. The lack of the need to manage boss position and facing, manage adds, manage mitigation cooldown use and utilize stuns, interrupts and "protect other" cooldowns are bigger factors in making the tanks feel like blue dps.

[ForteNightshade]

The easy of optimization and high accessibility is due more to flawed fight design than flawed kit design. More complex kits would not really make fights harder to optimize nor make fights more engaging.

While I agree with your overall assessment. A bland fight design can be overcome with a fun job kit. What hurt Shadowbringers more than anything is the jobs themselves were dumbed down alongside encounters being simpler. That combination made many fights this expansion feel boring. If at least one aspect retained more complexity, you'd see far less complaining.