Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Mortex]

If healing was so simple their wouldn’t be so many “bad players” you are disconnected from the majority of the game. Yes it’s easy to make the claim it’s easy to memorize the boss for some people but for others they just learn mechanics not timings/the full pattern of the boss in order.

But bad player are in the every role and I rather have a healer we’re I die in the first 3 mins of a fight then too realize we don’t clear this savage fight because we have 2 dps player that have no clue what they do and I’m still forced to play the entire fight and then wipe too a enrage that is pretty pathetic, because people can’t read guides on how too play the dps job they are on or better wanna be special snowflakes and try to freestyle rotations and get toxic if you ask what the hell they do there. Like people tell as general good behavior rule not to bully people for not doing dmg but Jesus if you see sometimes what numbers they do it’s really hard too stay quiet, like I find it myself really impolite to waste other people’s time and not performing too the best of my ability and expect to get a free carry.

[GrimGale]

Snip

Spot on. Thank you.

Considering the argument that healers that don\\\\'t want to engage in more complex downtime systems don\\\\'t have to, if the Healer job kits includes more DPS or active utility options, I can\\\\'t see why anybody would be against asking Devs for more buttons in that regard.

"Hey, we want a higher skill ceiling. Skill floor is perfectly high as it is."

"Hey, we want the skill ceiling as close to skill floor as possible."

It's like you' re asking people to be forced to play at your level, then you tell them to leave the role when they tell you they are getting bored.

[ty_taurus]

Spot on. Thank you.

Considering the argument that healers that don\\\\'t want to engage in more complex downtime systems don\\\\'t have to, if the Healer job kits includes more DPS or active utility options, I can\\\\'t see why anybody would be against asking Devs for more buttons in that regard.

"Hey, we want a higher skill ceiling. Skill floor is perfectly high as it is."

"Hey, we want the skill ceiling as close to skill floor as possible."

It's like you' re asking people to be forced to play at your level, then you tell them to leave the role when they tell you they are getting bored.

I've had this conversation with someone before. There are people who are content with how healing is currently, which is ultimately fine. No one is required to feel the same frustration a lot of participants on these forums do, but the majority of those players wouldn't really care if the job gained more depth, and others might not even care if it becomes more complex. They just enjoy the role regardless.

Then there are some who get mad at the idea of adding depth because suddenly it means they would have to work harder in order to stay optimized, and that to me is just selfish.

[GrimGale]

I've had this conversation with someone before. There are people who are content with how healing is currently, which is ultimately fine. No one is required to feel the same frustration a lot of participants on these forums do, but the majority of those players wouldn't really care if the job gained more depth, and others might not even care if it becomes more complex. They just enjoy the role regardless.

Then there are some who get mad at the idea of adding depth because suddenly it means they would have to work harder in order to stay optimized, and that to me is just selfish.

Yes. Althought, the way these things are argued here, I wouldn't blame the opposing side for believeing we hold them responsible for our criticisms.

I feel my side, or the side that demands more complexity often tends to both belitle and dismiss players who are happy with the current design, we come across as condescending when adressing the issues and that is ultimately hurting our side of the argument.

I, personally am fine with ease of access. I'm fine with a low skill floor. Even if I hate what it has brought.

I see it as such a wasted opportunity too. I was hoping the prunning of skills would be grounds for new developpements. A new base to build upon as the devs said back in ShB launch. Apparently that is not to be the case. I just don't want healers to become stale as they are.

[ty_taurus]

Yes. Althought, the way these things are argued here, I wouldn't blame the opposing side for believeing we hold them responsible for our criticisms.

I feel my side, or the side that demands more complexity often tends to both belitle and dismiss players who are happy with the current design, we come across as condescending when adressing the issues and that is ultimately hurting our side of the argument.

I, personally am fine with ease of access. I'm fine with a low skill floor. Even if I hate what it has brought.

I see it as such a wasted opportunity too. I was hoping the prunning of skills would be grounds for new developpements. A new base to build upon as the devs said back in ShB launch. Apparently that is not to be the case. I just don't want healers to become stale as they are.

Something that I think is important to keep in mind is that casual players and hardcore players aren't two opposing forces. A game that's fun for hardcore players can also be fun for casual players, and if your game is fun for casual players but not fun for hardcore players, changing that won't necessarily take away from the casual experience. What that means in my mind is that there's very little reason to not try and have something that appeals to both, and if you already have a game that's fun for casual players, it becomes a lot easier to make your game also appeal to hardcore players because the foundation already exists.

It's important to mention that you can potentially break something for a casual audience, but I would argue that it's fairly easy to identity what will and will not appeal to a casual player base in game design that you're familiar with. For example, what would happen if we added Miasma back into the Scholar's action list--a 24 second DoT spell. How do you think casual and hardcore players would respond?

Personally, I'd strongly wager that hardcore players would be largely happy with that specific decision (though let's be clear that that's not the only thing hardcore players want for SCH. This is just an example using one action). I'd also wager that Casual players would range from either appreciating it or not really caring either way. In other words, there's nothing to lose in that regard. Now in practice, we would want to pay attention to how that fits into hotbar bloat and how that damage fits into SCH's performance.

On the flip side, returning pre-Stormblood Cleric Stance would not be a good example of something to return. Some hardcore players may appreciate it, but it would have an adverse effect on casual players because one of the key factors of old Cleric Stance was punishing you for using it wrong. This is what more casual players don't like--when the game kicks you for making a mistake, especially when that mistake already has natural consequences.

In order words, I believe adding depth and complexity in a way that is approachable and casual friendly is actually quite easy to do. You focus on how to reward players for doing something right rather than punishing them for doing something wrong.

[Elladie]

I know that I have said - possibly ad nauseam - that I continue to enjoy playing my healers, and I do. But yesterday I was informed (in a thread that seems to have been deleted) that I couldn't possibly have been playing SCH for 8 years as I claimed because of my running commentary of healing a level 80 dungeon sounded 'panicked'.

It is very true that people like me assume 'healer haters' on the forums are belittling, criticising and blaming us for their discontent with WHM and SCH, so it was very encouraging to read some more reflective posts here that recognise this.

I utterly and completely agree with the idea that the skill floor should remain as it is whilst endeavours are made to raise the skill ceiling. My own raiding days are long over, but I love this game which I've played since 1.0, and I don't want to be excluded from it because I'm getting old. I turned 60 this year, my reaction times are significantly longer than they used to be, and I have to use a mouse to click skills because of pain in my hands (my fingers can no longer extend across a keyboard). Any substantial rise in the skill floor - or in the difficulty of mandatory content - would exclude me from continuing my journey. I already only do content with friends/level all my jobs with Trusts/Squadrons because I don't want to be screamed at by a random person in a roulette because I took a few seconds too long to react.

It's rare I mess up, actually, because the current healing set-up is fine for me, but I understand that it can be boring for someone playing at a higher level. What upsets me - and often drives me away from the forums - is posters claiming that people like me are the problem. We're not lazy! We're just less competent for whatever reason (older age in my case) I don't doubt that there are a few lazies out there, but I haven't found them to be in the majority. Be that as it may, generalisations about poor play and the reasons for it can be very hurtful. Yoshi P wants the game to be inclusive, and so far he is accomplishing that. Bashing him for it causes the rest of us - the less competent hordes - to feel attacked and defensive. As a few, more reflective posters in this thread have already pointed out.

I enjoy my SCH and WHM. Maybe they are intended to be the 'poor man's' healers and AST and Sage more challenging. I'm cool with that. I have levelled all my jobs, even the ones I don't enjoy (because I want the Amaro mount) but I haven't inflicted my piss-poor SAM on any unsuspecting random, I've levelled it entirely with Squadrons and Trusts. I don't need to play it again once I've finished the last two levels. It's fine not to play a job you don't enjoy. I used to love BLM, it was my main in the Coils part of ARR but I've hated it since HW. So I stopped playing it. If you hate the current iteration of SCH, maybe don't play it? Or encourage a raising of the skill ceiling (as ty_taurus has done) without phrasing it in such a way as to denigrate and belittle a large portion of the healer player base.

We're not lazy. We're just not as skilled as you are. And I have no objection to getting my DoTs back either, just so long as you understand my DPS score won't be very impressive

[Deceptus]

Then there are some who get mad at the idea of adding depth because suddenly it means they would have to work harder in order to stay optimized, and that to me is just selfish.

Straight up it is selfish because everyone should be casting something productive every single GCD.

When healing isn't required, that means damage needs to be cast.

Healers don't get a pass to be lazy and just stand there doing nothing.

[Shin96]

They ain't gonna do jackshit about it. They got their new playerbase. As long as they generate enough money to pay their bills - the trend shall continue, much to its dismay.

From a case to case analysis, this is one huge flop of a choice. Veterans and long-time fans are the bread and butter of every MMO. It's no wonder people tune in on streams by people with exceptional skill; because it's more entertaining. Nobody wants to see a person spamming 1-2, 1-2 ad nauseam, unless they're talented by keeping viewers hooked. Now translate this by multiplying this scenario a thousand times. By the time you reach the next expansion people are severely burned out.

In the same way, all of this is a spectacle. Previous systems of difficulty and role designs is what led this game to its success; what you are seeing is them piggybacking on historical content because new players don't mind having more content to distract them. As long as this facade and charade keeps going, they won't even notice. What I mean by that is the homogenization of healers and tanks as well. There will undoubdetly come a point where someone falls in love with their job only to have it screwed up entirely for the sake of the ever-so wise majority.

You guys need to keep fighting. Healers are the ones that have to put up with everyone's mistakes. Disrespecting a healer is like disrespecting your mother for telling you not to do stupid shit. If they want you gone, they must be delusional to think the queues will fix themselves. I thought pressing 1-2-3 is bad as a DRK main, but 1-2 sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

[RobynDaBank]

I'll never understand the fear people have towards differing opinions. It's not like the people in charge of healing - oh wait no, I should say "creatively bankrupt developers who don't know anything about healing" - will read the few 1-like, 3-like posts that sporadically emerge within such threads, and go "he's right! We need to base job design around him and his "kind"!" There's no boogeymen always at the ready to defend, shill and lazily dismiss any wants a veteran has. If this has to be made about "sides" - if you're differentiating between a true player and a "white knight", clearly there are sides - I see more insults towards each other than constructive suggestions outside of "we hate [nuke] spam". In this thread everyone has cooled. In another similar one people are proclaiming they are "bored" and "tired" of "defenses" of bad design. Why ask for a conversation when all that's really wanted is an echo chamber?

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Well, I guess that's one way to deal with server congestion.

As usual, I will reserve judgement until I can get my hands on the actual job but my healer journey through the game goes something like this:

HW - Scholar is my preferred healer because I enjoyed the damage mitigation over pure healing the class offered. Pretty much ignored pet because it was there to heal me. Adlo was my base heal (didn't even have physick on my bar).

SB - Higher mp costs made it so I can't run that build, also confusing stuff was added to the pet (which I still ignored) but after two expansions I finally memorized AST cards and liked the changed to the draw system (plus AST still has shields like SCH so..yay) so I switched to using primarily AST for this expac.

ShB - Wow. Have to memorize cards again? Ugh. Scholar has even more confusing pet stuff? Looks like you're it, WHM. Lillies are awesome! *Spams overheals*

From this journey you can probably tell that I'm not a healer main (BLM main, actually) but I'm sure for actual healer mains, this is a more profound struggle.

But to address the bigger issue here, its obvious that DoT is becoming window dressing and not the focal part of any one job. Any changes to the base class (ACN) pretty much have to be reflected by both SCH and SMN and the weeping over SMN changes is loud indeed. I'm actually excited by them but others... Not so much.

This happens every expac. People see changes to their job and are immediately incensed but somehow during the next expac people either get over it, switch to a new role/job/class or quit. And SE has already guaranteed that for every healer who quits, someone playing Sage will be there to fill the gap. Perhaps not as good as a vet healer but yes.