Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Gaethan_Tessula]

If this class system played a bit like FFV where you have a primary job with a secondary job that would be the best thing ever in an MMO.

That's FF11. FF11 did that, and it's one of the high points of the game. Part of why I still play FF11 to this day.

However, it works in FF11 because 11 is a toolkit game, and not overly concerned with all jobs being balanced roughly equal in all content. FF14 is a rotation game balanced around every job being able to clear every piece of content with (ideally to the devs) a minimum of difference in performance between them (which, imo, ironically makes it easier for some jobs to become strictly superior to others - there's no lateral qualitative differences). BLU would be the closest thing to trying to drop a kit-MMO-esque design into 14, and it's a limited job precisely because that doesn't work well with the rest of FF14's design paradigm.

Trying to drop a subclass system into FF14 would likely just produce highly ossified specs a-la WoW. Even FF11 has meta job/subjob combos for anything remotely relevant at endgame. For a game like 14, I'd rather see every job be made innately fun, rather than leaning on those that are to prop up those that aren't. It's not hard to do. BLU in a healer role basically has ARR-WHM's healing kit, only somehow WORSE (Med-2 equivalent is on a 2 minute cooldown, NO oGCDs, etc.), and yet I find it to be the most fun healer in any sub-savage content even when I have to cut most of the Moonflute burst subkit. Just 1-2 buttons with a frequent upkeep beyond Sonic Boom and Song of Torment makes a ton of difference.

[sharknado]

The game doesn't even require you to equip a job stone, not to mention to play anything correctly even in a level 90 instance so it can't also require healing to be important/active that much.

If healers would have to be quite active with their buttons it would imply either constant unavoidable damage (low ball solution) or tanks under constant fire (so they feel useless and have to just stand there, look angry and wait for heals). People fearing responsibility would stop/not play healers and then mostly the higher percentiles would remain... And sprouts would have a rough time as well. There is no good solution for healing (or tanking) with how the game is right now.

[Deceptus]

Going by what YoshiP's said last night and in Media Tour interviews, the crux of the issue seems to be in the devs feeling pressured they have to have every member in the party to be fully utilizing their kits in order for them to clear their hardest content.
If they add a robust dps kit to Healers, they believe they have to design Ultimates with Healers taking full advantage of it in mind and think that adds too much weight on them for the clear.

In Ultimates right now, healers are spending the majority of their GCD's casting damage so not much would change.

Healers only really get the chance to dps regularly in duties if the party's doing everything well. That requires everyone to know the fight, which in most cases mean the party's farming or running roulettes, and I think it's perfectly fine to be given that extra dps at that point.

Even if everything is going to hell, I'm still able to stabilize with OGCD's, maybe a GCD or two and continue doing damage.

In Ex or Savage content, a few too many deaths and you don't make enrage, and most death is due to not knowing mechanics and being one shot. Nothing healers can affect.

[Gaethan_Tessula]

I actually think stat squish made the casual game fun again. people get hit harder now and healers have more healing to do. Have y’all queued for anything in a while ?
I saw some people die to the stingray in void ark. Truly amazing!

I've been running MINE (min-ilvl, no echo) runs of old EX trials (as well as rarer instances of Coil and Savages) frequently since EW dropped. While some bosses do hit harder again, beyond ARR (because the healer kits simply lack many oGCDs) runs that aren't full of mistakes can still be comfortably healed with a low number of GCD heals. Furthermore, there are still long, long portions of many fights where there's simply no damage outgoing and nothing to heal. That gulf is filled by 1-DoT-1-1-1-1-1-1-etc.

One of the reasons I do MINE content is explicitly because it's often frequented by sprouts, and thus lends the possibility to reexperience "prog" (the only time healing is engaging) on these old fights. Anytime the party is instead filled with veterans grabbing a nostalgia hit, the healing is trivialized.

I've sometimes tried to run as BLU spec'd to a healer loadout to spice things up, but people can be understandably reticent to allow that (because BLU is seen as abnormal, and MINE is often done to recoup a feeling of doing the fight "proper"; because BLU still counts as a DPS for mechanics; etc.)

Adding more dps skills to healer would just make them a dps class. Go play a dps when you’re bored of healing for a day. That’s what I do.

Healers in FF14 had more DPS skills in the past, and were still healers. FF14 Blue mage can take every available healing spell for it currently, still have more DPS buttons than full-job healers, and still heal every fight in the game they can access (including O12S). I've played MMOs with a heavier healing load that gave healers more to do in their (reduced) downtime than FF14 does (FF11, SMT: IMAGINE [though most people offloaded healing duty to their pets], SWtOR).

The devs take care that every DPS job is engaging to play. They also seem to have compromised on tanks by giving them more engaging DPS kits, even as actual aspects of tanking are de-emphasized (aggro management, positioning the boss, actually rotating mitigations instead of just popping a cooldown before a telegraphed buster, etc.). Healers, on the other hand, either have to play Ultimate, be progressing an EX+ fight, or hope that their party bad enough to carry (but not so bad that they cannot clear). Either play the hardest content in the game, babysit the kids, or just don't play. Riveting.

And again, we have a literal in-game example, in the form of BLU, that the game doesn't crack in half when the healer's kit isn't bloated with overhealing.

[Lily_Skye]

This is effectively what the lead designer of this game told Healers in the latest live letter.

Consider if he had said that about your role for a second and how you would feel.

Forget the leveling experience, it doesn't matter.

Forget dungeons up to 90, they don't matter.

Forget normal raids, EX's, and Savage, they don't matter.

If you want your job to be engaging, play Ultimate, the hardest content in the game that only a few percentage of actual players do.

Engagement shouldn't be either 0% or 100%. It shouldn't be either braindead easy in 95% of content or pull your hair out in the hardest thing the game offers.

come to lost ark all the endgame content is hard even the dungeons

[Skiros]

Some people in this thread need to get good. MFW "healing normal raid is stressful" LOL

[Skiros]

Also, I feel like a lot of posters in this thread likely play mostly with statics or friends and as a result, are out of touch with the general player base. Not the devs. The OP has a forum signature that pretty much says this, which is ironic. Just being on these forums almost automatically puts you at a higher level than most players who rarely know they even exist.

Almost every day in my daily roulettes, I STILL encounter healers who dont even want to DPS as things are RIGHT NOW...and this thread clamors for MORE challenge...

so Yoshi P has the data and has the right path going forward here, I believe.

MFW "being on the forums puts you at a higher level".

ROFL

[Minarisweet]

I've been saying this for a while, content shouldn't be either 100% braindead or 100% stressing and draining... Playing other games doesn't make me feel this way and im tired of people making it seem like a me problem, this game definitely has engaging gameplay issues.

[Deceptus]

Some people in this thread need to get good. MFW "healing normal raid is stressful" LOL

There are varying degrees of "skill" but trying to hold everyone back because of the fear of failure never helped anyone.

There's an old Mark Twain quote that comes to mind:

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

Somewhat relevant to the discussion. Telling Healers they can't have engaging gameplay in most facets of the game because of certain player's inability to do certain things.

[Skiros]

If you find all the content boring except Ultimates then why are you playing the game? If you think it is boring because it's not tryhard enough then quit. It's a Final Fantasy game not a FromSoftware game. Final Fantasy has never been a difficult game series or about difficulty.

Casual toxicity spotted