The Problem With Healers as a Role Withing FFXIV

[Semirhage]

WHM does seem to have been designed by intention to be less complex than the other healing jobs. Perhaps SE feels that it's important to have one accessible healing job that a large number of players can feel comfortable playing in casual content, lest duty finder queue times get too long.

The gap between skilled and unskilled players in this game is gargantuan. I'm not even saying it to be snobbish, nor am I claiming to be a world first master of my job. I've met fellow players who think the 5.3 trial is too difficult to include in the MSQ. The QTE wasn't even their only concern. Having to remember which element imbued Coruscant Blade for the what, 15 seconds between the imbue and the cast was too hard for a story trial. Not SoS extreme, mind you. Story. The one where the element is a binary choice between fire and ice. A level of object permanence you normally test for in toddlers.

There will never be a skill floor too low for the FFXIV community. I really wish the design team would stop chasing it.

[NobleWinter]

The one where the element is a binary choice between fire and ice. A level of object permanence you normally test for in toddlers.

There will never be a skill floor too low for the FFXIV community. I really wish the design team would stop chasing it.

This made me giggle cause I get this duty a lot in the Trials roulette and for some groups I had to make loud chat macros to get people to survive. It literally tells you the element in the chat box too just in case you forgot. It's amazing how low we have to set the bar for level capped content.

[Absurdity]

There will never be a skill floor too low for the FFXIV community. I really wish the design team would stop chasing it.

I have to keep saying the same thing, designing your content for the lowest common denominator is an exercise in futility.

These people often don't even put the absolute bare minimum effort into actually playing the game, so if you make the content easier to appeal to said people they will simply do even less, creating an endless spiral of the devs nerfing the game and certain players consequently becoming even worse at it, repeat ad infinitum.

[Dearche]

There will never be a skill floor too low for the FFXIV community. I really wish the design team would stop chasing it.

It reminds me of that saying: the moment you make something idiot-proof, they'll invent a better idiot.

[ForteNightshade]

The gap between skilled and unskilled players in this game is gargantuan. I'm not even saying it to be snobbish, nor am I claiming to be a world first master of my job. I've met fellow players who think the 5.3 trial is too difficult to include in the MSQ. The QTE wasn't even their only concern. Having to remember which element imbued Coruscant Blade for the what, 15 seconds between the imbue and the cast was too hard for a story trial. Not SoS extreme, mind you. Story. The one where the element is a binary choice between fire and ice. A level of object permanence you normally test for in toddlers.

There will never be a skill floor too low for the FFXIV community. I really wish the design team would stop chasing it.

Let us never forget the screaming and crying Shinryu caused during his relevancy. I was about to mention a thread decrying it but actually managed to find it. So... enjoy.

The sheer excuses people will make to justify why they can't do better never fails to amuse either. "They don't have the time!" Is always funny since they certainly have the time to complete all the story content, side quests and even farm several relics.

[Dearche]

Let us never forget the screaming and crying Shinryu caused during his relevancy. I was about to mention a thread decrying it but actually managed to find it. So... enjoy.

The sheer excuses people will make to justify why they can't do better never fails to amuse either. "They don't have the time!" Is always funny since they certainly have the time to complete all the story content, side quests and even farm several relics.

Ah, this reminds me of Steps of Faith as well.

That was one trial that went from fun to pants on head retarded in the span of a month or two.

I really wish that SE just made a good way to reset instead of nerfing it to the ground. Maybe have mechanic checkpoints that causes instant wipes if you ignore them.

[Deceptus]

Ah, this reminds me of Steps of Faith as well.

That was one trial that went from fun to pants on head retarded in the span of a month or two.

I really wish that SE just made a good way to reset instead of nerfing it to the ground. Maybe have mechanic checkpoints that causes instant wipes if you ignore them.

Steps of faith was bad because:

1) If you failed you had to wait 10 min or so for the entire scenario to play out before you could try again.

2) And they gated an expansion behind it.

[Semirhage]

Steps of faith was bad because:

1) If you failed you had to wait 10 min or so for the entire scenario to play out before you could try again.

2) And they gated an expansion behind it.

Those important design considerations aside (failing fast is a good thing after all), Steps is another shining example of that skill gulf I was talking about. The boss is -almost- a mobile training dummy. You have to avoid its feet, but there are very few mechanics to look out for. You can use the cannons and the dragonkillers if you want, but the encounter won't end if you miss them. There are some adds, but none of them have complex things to handle. Just fairly basic field mob dodging. The boss itself originally had the same amount of HP as the Avatar, the boss from T8. We were a full patch cycle/raid tier's worth of gear ahead of T8 at the time. So the community essentially complained that they couldn't beat a walking training dummy with almost no mechanics, with the HP of a previous raid tier's penultimate boss, using extra optional damage boosters conveniently available in towers along the way.

Meanwhile parties doing Final Coil were just killing it without touching the cannons or the dragonkillers.

Again, I don't think Steps is a well-designed trial. But it's got that juicy skill gap story right there.

[Gruntler]

Ah, this reminds me of Steps of Faith as well.

That was one trial that went from fun to pants on head retarded in the span of a month or two.

I really wish that SE just made a good way to reset instead of nerfing it to the ground. Maybe have mechanic checkpoints that causes instant wipes if you ignore them.

The problem with Steps of Faith wasn't it's difficulty (it wasn't difficult), it was the fact that once your good players who could teach people got their clear, they would bail upon seeing Steps of Faith. Bailing on content that you didn't want to do was very much the norm in ARR, and we'd find imaginative (and non-imaginative ways) to avoid doing any trial or dungeon that was seen as a pain in the ass. Design decisions today have echoed from what we did.

So, no, it wasn't a skill problem, it was a 'the vets fucked off and left new players high and dry so after a few days it'd take days before you'd get your stupid clear' problem.

If it was as 'fun' as the 'vets' claimed, you'd not have had that problem.

And... this was nerfed before they 'gated an expansion' behind it. They should not fix that trial to appease players who want to 'play it when it was fun' but are clear from their language they didn't actually experience it when it was 'fun.' Players who started

[Shurrikhan]

The problem with Steps of Faith wasn't it's difficulty (it wasn't difficult), it was the fact that once your good players who could teach people got their clear, they would bail upon seeing Steps of Faith. Bailing on content that you didn't want to do was very much the norm in ARR, and we'd find imaginative (and non-imaginative ways) to avoid doing any trial or dungeon that was seen as a pain in the ass. Design decisions today have echoed from what we did.

This. And while I understand it's a more fundamental issue at heart, it's a little sad that there were so few attempts to just, idk, increase the bonus reward from new players, maybe even allowing for partial stacking if 1 new player would be irrelevant while 2 would damn near necessitate wipes. Or, heck, they could have dealt with the fundamental issue with roulettes' non-scaling daily bonuses long ago and we'd have likely have less homogenous content now.