Raising healing requirements for newer content alone won't also improve older content

[MellowMink]

There's increasingly what I feel is a focus on an incomplete solution in a lot of developer responses and some thread replies, so I want to make a thread specifically bringing attention to that: One common response I see to many healers wanting more DPS options so that their frequent downtime is less repetitive and boring is that developers are supposedly trying to raise healing requirements for newer expansion content as an alternative solution. The supposed idea is that if DPS attacks are only rarely able to be used due to stricter healing requirements, then there not being many options wouldn't be a problem; however, I disagree with this working for multiple reasons:

1. We've been told this would be improved for Shadowbringers, but that hasn't been the case for a majority of the expansion's release. Trying isn't the same as successfully doing.
2. The director himself has stated that he's aware that downtime inevitably increases as player item levels improve, which usually happens pretty quickly after each new patch. How can you consistently ensure the same amount of downtime for the life of the content, unless you force minimum item levels the whole time, thus making newer gear and weapons less valuable?
3. This won't solve repetition issues with content that only requires you to take care of yourself, such as beast tribe quests, main scenario mobs, and unsynced solo instances

But okay, let's say that newer Endwalker content will somehow avoid all of these issues; I'm skeptical that this will be the case, but for the sake of my next point, let's just assume that it somehow does. That ignores a major part of these conversations that I feel is often overlooked...

Raising healing requirements for newer content alone will not also improve the gameplay for A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers content, which will still be about 80% of the game's total content. This is especially true when helping newer players, doing roulettes, playing through New Game Plus, participating in large-scale instances like Eureka or Bozja, running older content in Party Finder, finishing older beast tribe quests, and more. I do not believe that most active healers have ceased ever doing any content that isn't from a current expansion.

Unless the development team is also going back into base game and past expansion content and retroactively updating healing requirements for all their battles, I don't see how an answer that we shouldn't worry about excessive DPS repetition because healing requirements will be improved only for newer content fully addresses the issue of healers being bored while trying to optimize output damage when healing becomes rarely needed. I sincerely feel like this pretty basic thing is either overlooked or ignored in the few higher-up responses we see to questions of wanting more DPS options for healers, and I hope that's more actively thought of in future discussions.

[Sebazy]

At this point, I'm honestly not really sure anything can be done for older content, it'd be a massive undertaking to go back and retune it and honestly, I'm not even sure that it would be productive to do so.

My reasoning is that this game has had a really peculiar difficulty curve that in many regards is literally the reverse of what common sense states it should be.

At the risk of preaching about early ARR a bit too frequently.... One thing 2.0 did particularly well was ramp up the difficulty as dungeons progressed, it also used earlier content as training wheels to prepare the player for what was to come further down the line. A few examples:

Brayflox was arguably the first dungeon where you actually had to be alert. Bad player positioning could get you swamped with adds whereas bad boss positioning would make a boss significantly more challenging or potentially even force a wipe. It was the training wheels version of Aurum Vale.

And then you've got my favourite, Amdapor Keep, Psyche Flayer and Anantaboga demonstrated mechanics that would later be used in Garuda Hard, whereas Demon Wall was a simplified training ground for Titan HM. Anantaboga even had an enrage of sorts! In a Dungeon!

At the time, AK was a step up over Wanderers and prior dungeons and really was the preparation step towards Hard Mode primals which in turn were the gate keepers for Coil.

Compare that to what we have now. A mish mash of levelling dungeons with the occasional random difficulty spike often out of the blue (routinely right in the first pull for whatever reason) which leads into an endgame of mindless content where even if you can get yourself killed fairly easily, the risk of complete failure just isn't there anymore. And then you crash into Extreme primals. Hard.

There's just no preparation step before that anymore and I'm of the mind that if 'levelling' content mostly gets trivialised, that's a worthwhile sacrifice if it means that the game gets some semblance of a difficulty curve back. It doesn't need to ramp up into a souls like. It just needs to be enough to push players into thinking about their personal contribution to the team.

You just can't tune a game around portions of a player base that doesn't really care if they are dead weight because they'll get their loot anyway.

[Saefinn]

I think there's only two ways they can alleviate this:

1. Retune stats for older content to be balanced in the way they were intended and compensate the iLevel difference and level difference (maybe stat caps)
2. Give us better DPS options because that's all we are going to be doing anyway.

After clearing Titan Savage my group decided to do Cape Westwind min iLevel synced for fun and the healing experience was more intensive, I think when you play some of this content at a level it was intended it's more engaging.

I don't think it will be perfect as I think encounter design plays it's part too, but I think it would ease the problem. And I think it'll be good for newer people too because they get to enjoy the content as it was intended instead of just face rolling stuff like it's insignificant

[edit]

And despite having pushed a lot for option 2, I think I'd actually prefer option one in this content (well, actually both, but I know it's not going to happen) and I don't think it would be a bad thing whether you're doing the first time or as part of a roulette, because when you're doing something for the first time, it improves your experience if you're doing the content as it was intended and get the full experience.

And if you're doing it in a roulette, in each of the roulettes you still get on-content stuff and people who're not highly geared. So does it matter if other instances take just as long? Especially if they adjust the rewards to compensate (eg. exp in a levelling roulette) like they do between Castrum and Prae in MSQ roulette.

And imagine doing mechanics in Labyrinth of the the Ancients again or doing the door mechanics at the end of City of Amdapor (which you can just heal through now) and so on. I feel like facerolls are what undersizing is for.

So it'd be more than just a benefit to healers but to other roles. And the bonus is if the end result is that your healers are focusing on healing more and avoiding letting health drop as much (where a certain percentage is still enough to survive an AoE or tank buster) then the issue of people dying due to healers DPSing would be alleviated. It won't be solved, but then it won't be solved because people will strive for optimal play, but at least they're less likely to tunnel vision and be a little more on their toes.

[MellowMink]

I think there's only two ways they can alleviate this:

1. Retune stats for older content to be balanced in the way they were intended and compensate the iLevel difference and level difference (maybe stat caps)
2. Give us better DPS options because that's all we are going to be doing anyway.

I do feel like giving us more varied DPS options will extremely likely be the easier solution for the development team to implement; I was just addressing some insufficient arguments that specifically focused on healing requirements for Endwalker content by pointing out that improved requirements for said newer content wouldn't alone solve problems with a significant majority of the existing content, the latter of which currently includes the base game and three humungous expansions.

Minimum item levels also seem to be pretty inconsistently enforced across different Duty Finder instances, so increasing the number of instances that enforce them could be worth looking at too, but there's also the need for higher-leveled weapons and gear to feel like they offer an impactful reward to players who put the lengthy time into earning them outside of field or unsynced Party Finder content. There are definitely lots of things to consider.

Ultimately, adding more DPS variety seems like the easier option that will also raise the skill ceiling without necessarily raising the skill floor for casual content. Updating healer requirements across the entire game could still be a technically possible option, but also a dramatically harder one that would still have inherent design limitations to account for like improved item levels and solo content mobs.

[Melorie]

When I play, I do a lot of roulettes to kill time, I agree with this. I really find it ridiculous that I can almost afk through 60-70 and even 80 content or barely need to heal them. Specially counting all the MSQ content that a new player will have to go through.

I get that things eventually get stomped but still, I don't see the other jobs being able to afk or simply spam 1 button through these duties. So for me, simply ramping up healer requirements for current things (something I doubt SE will do, but who knows), barely fix the problem, unless you pay your sub to do expert (that are even easier than leveling dungeons nowadays?? wtf) or run the same 2-3 fights over and over again, you're bound to be doing older content.

[Deceptus]

I think there's only two ways they can alleviate this:

1. Retune stats for older content to be balanced in the way they were intended and compensate the iLevel difference and level difference (maybe stat caps)
2. Give us better DPS options because that's all we are going to be doing anyway.

After clearing Titan Savage my group decided to do Cape Westwind min iLevel synced for fun and the healing experience was more intensive, I think when you play some of this content at a level it was intended it's more engaging.

I don't think it will be perfect as I think encounter design plays it's part too, but I think it would ease the problem. And I think it'll be good for newer people too because they get to enjoy the content as it was intended instead of just face rolling stuff like it's insignificant

That's supposed to be the point of the ilvl sync and the min ilvl Cape Westwind you did shows that it does indeed work as intended.

The problem is that the developers let the ilvl go so high from the minimum that it's not working. It really shouldn't be allowed to be more than 5-10 ilvls from the min.

The ARR raids are supposed to be ilvl 70 and you're synced to 120/130. That's almost double where you are supposed to be. THAT'S why people blast through it.

[Saefinn]

That's supposed to be the point of the ilvl sync and the min ilvl Cape Westwind you did shows that it does indeed work as intended.

The problem is that the developers let the ilvl go so high from the minimum that it's not working. It really shouldn't be allowed to be more than 5-10 ilvls from the min.

The ARR raids are supposed to be ilvl 70 and you're synced to 120/130. That's almost double where you are supposed to be. THAT'S why people blast through it.

Agreed and to be where we were doing it first time we were probably closer to iLevel 45 because it's a level 49 story trial. I would happily welcome a tighter iLevel cap (and if necessary too, a stat cap) and then we get the content as it was intended. I'm really hoping they resolve that because Yoshi P has acknowledged iLevel difference are an issue, but how he recognises it as an issue and what they're willing to do as a result of course is the important part.

And I think it would be really sensible if they did, especially with the influx for new players, I imagine ploughing through this stuff as a new player is underwhelming and lacks the impact it once had. Imagine getting Labyrinth of the Ancient in Alliance Roulettes and having to actually do the mechanics.

[HappyHubris]

Agreed and to be where we were doing it first time we were probably closer to iLevel 45 because it's a level 49 story trial. I would happily welcome a tighter iLevel cap (and if necessary too, a stat cap) and then we get the content as it was intended. I'm really hoping they resolve that because Yoshi P has acknowledged iLevel difference are an issue, but how he recognises it as an issue and what they're willing to do as a result of course is the important part.

And I think it would be really sensible if they did, especially with the influx for new players, I imagine ploughing through this stuff as a new player is underwhelming and lacks the impact it once had. Imagine getting Labyrinth of the Ancient in Alliance Roulettes and having to actually do the mechanics.

S-E's golden rule seems to be "low skill floor," so while we might see content go from utterly trivial to rather trivial, it will still be trivial.

The very last thing they want is someone getting Labyrinth on their roulette and flat out failing to clear.

[Saefinn]

S-E's golden rule seems to be "low skill floor," so while we might see content go from utterly trivial to rather trivial, it will still be trivial.

The very last thing they want is someone getting Labyrinth on their roulette and flat out failing to clear.

I mean, yes, they are going for a low skill floor, but shouldn't content work as it was intended? The great advantage of how ARR was balanced was that it started you at a low skill level and gradually built you up, it doesn't do that anymore because of how it's balanced. If they rebalanced it, by the time people are level 50 they'll have increased in skill and would be able to clear that content. This can then help them be better prepared for later content too. And then they also get to experience the game. And the people I see having issues with wipes in LoTA is people who get it in a roulette. People still wipe to World of Darkness because failing mechanics there can still be deadly and I don't think it would be much different. When things are a faceroll nobody really learns anything.

[currentlemon]

snip

Which is why I am in favor of nerfing max item level. Not just for ARR content, but across the board. If done, this would help healers a bit (in my opinion).