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

[Sebazy]

I do think it would be neat to see different variations on Healers, like SGE being a Disc Priest was honestly what I was thinking when they announced it. The problem is FFXIV's fight/encounter design and balance don't allow for it well.

Agreed, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record. SE have the absolute perfect job/sacrificial lamb to throw under the experiment bus for this and it boggles my mind that they haven't had the bottle or been willing to put in the effort to at least try it for an expansion.

Take AST, throw it's DPS kit literally in the bin. Let them spend GCDs buffing team mates with some less efficient method of converting that into raw damage as needed for solo/msq content. Drop a 'totem' and throw cards at it to pulse an AoE or something. What matters is having a completely left of field healer that doesn't just slam nukes for the bulk of their GCDs like the rest. If it's really bad, there's 3 more healers for people to fall back on. If it's borderline, tweak it Creator style and see what happens. If it rocks, look at what can be done for another healer like Sadge.

[Payotz]

On the one hand, here's the full list of my proposed skills/changes/stuff for WHM. On the other hand, it's less a 'wall of text' and moreso a barricade so you might need to take a break or two part way through. If nothing else, I think the most important thing is to check the two linked videos, as they demonstrate that even two relatively small changes (shortening Dia duration, adding a 15s GCD) can actually have quite a large shakeup on the rotation, thank in advance

I appreciate this. I'll give it a read over the weekend and if this thread is still alive then, I'll give you my thoughts. If it's not, I'll probably just necro bumb your thread and give you feedback there. Thank you for your ideas.

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Many people do find it fun, interesting, and engaging.

Oh I addressed that in many of my posts, like so:

This would of course, alienate a lot of the core healers that they've gotten from the initial ShB combat overhaul, and that's not really a thing I would wish onto anyone. It sucks to have something you love taken away from you.

Oh I addressed this in my first post. I wouldn't want this to happen cause it would alienate a lot of the healers that do like the healing right now, and is the new core. I know how much it sucks to have something you love taken away from you, so I wouldn't really want that for anyone.

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And no, a more measured solution wouldn't be "high skill floor also the skill ceiling". That's not how that would work.

No that should be how it works. Higher skill floor and high skill ceiling would make the game a lot more engaging, because there is a lot of thought needed for it. Take League of Legends. They've been reworking a lot of the "stat stick" champions over time to be a lot more engaging, raising both the skill floor and raising the skill ceiling by removing point and click abilities and replacing them with skill shots.

The only real danger to this is accessibility, implying that doing the overhaul is a bad idea.

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And for the record "ramp up" healing is a higher skill floor. That's why many games don't do it and just give Healers access to all their heals directly.

Which in turn leads to less focus on healing as a result. Which is the same problem that FFXIV has, alongside many other games.

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I do think it would be neat to see different variations on Healers, like SGE being a Disc Priest was honestly what I was thinking when they announced it. The problem is FFXIV's fight/encounter design and balance don't allow for it well.

...that's what I've been saying this whole entire time? I thought we had a mutual understanding that this was the point you were arguing against.

I don't think they can even do an overhaul, cause that would require them remaking all the fights and content from HW -> EW.

I've seen this argument a lot, but it doesn't make sense. They've done at least 2 major overhauls in healing during the game's history; one during HW (a shift towards more damage focus), another in SB (removal of Cleric), and another in ShB (shifting to the current paradigm of tons of big heals and super slim, even identical, DPS kits), and that's not counting the AST reworks, of which there have been at least two, and the removal of Nocturnal Stance in EW, and about to be another in 7.0.

They didn't redo all existing content either time.

WoW did a major focus shift from Wrath into Cataclysm because of the exact same problem with their healer design in Wrath (people were running 5 man Heroic dungeons with no Healers because Tanks were so OP), and they didn't redesign all prior content to match that paradigm, either.

Moreover, when FFXIV did the stat squish, they effectively retuned all existing content, and for unsync they added the Epic Echo.

It's not at all an unrealistic idea as it's already been done in various ways multiple times, both with and without changing prior encounters.

[Renathras]

Agreed, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record. SE have the absolute perfect job/sacrificial lamb to throw under the experiment bus for this and it boggles my mind that they haven't had the bottle or been willing to put in the effort to at least try it for an expansion.

Take AST, throw it's DPS kit literally in the bin. Let them spend GCDs buffing team mates with some less efficient method of converting that into raw damage as needed for solo/msq content. Drop a 'totem' and throw cards at it to pulse an AoE or something. What matters is having a completely left of field healer that doesn't just slam nukes for the bulk of their GCDs like the rest. If it's really bad, there's 3 more healers for people to fall back on. If it's borderline, tweak it Creator style and see what happens. If it rocks, look at what can be done for another healer like Sadge.

Somewhat agreed. I've been making this argument (or one very similar; not 1 but 3) for months now.

No that should be how it works. Higher skill floor and high skill ceiling would make the game a lot more engaging, because there is a lot of thought needed for it. Take League of Legends. They've been reworking a lot of the "stat stick" champions over time to be a lot more engaging, raising both the skill floor and raising the skill ceiling by removing point and click abilities and replacing them with skill shots.

The only real danger to this is accessibility, implying that doing the overhaul is a bad idea.

Again, "to you". What you might consider skill floor/ceiling others might NOT consider fun or engaging. Personally, I've never liked the more complex classes in League of Legends. Many people don't. The most played Jobs in FFXIV also happened to be the simplest ones in each role. The reason for that isn't because "people are lazy" as the Sylphie-haters will tell you. It's because not everyone wants or enjoys hypercomplex things. Just like not every DPSer in this game plays BLM, not everyone likes that sort of gameplay; many people like current gameplay.

My answer to this, for a while, has been "We have 4 Healer Jobs, we should make them different so they appeal to different types of players."

Misshapen Chair did a video a few months back where his conclusion was basically "Leave WHM alone for people that like healing now, give SGE its SB kit back, give AST Nocturnal stance back and its SB cards back, and make SGE into a galaxy brain DPS rotation thing and see if people embrace it or not; and everyone can play the one they want and not demand to be 'rewarded' with more damage, as 'having fun and not being bored' is your reward, so shut up about a measly 2% DPS difference".

...he was a bit more vulgar, mind you, but I pretty much agree. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/sbWubxOTUWU?t=672
"Healing In FFXIV Is Not Fun"

Right around that timestamp. The whole video's worth a watch, too.

...that's what I've been saying this whole entire time? I thought we had a mutual understanding that this was the point you were arguing against.

No, I'm against a total and complete overhaul of healing and all Healer Jobs. I highly support some (but not all) Healer Jobs to be adjusted to be more distinct and engage players that enjoy different playstyles. It's been my position for over a year now.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

If healers are made too complicated then it would drive more away from Healing. A lot of players don't Heal even when it's not too hard to Heal in FF14.

[Payotz]

Again, "to you". What you might consider skill floor/ceiling others might NOT consider fun or engaging. Personally, I've never liked the more complex classes in League of Legends. Many people don't. The most played Jobs in FFXIV also happened to be the simplest ones in each role. The reason for that isn't because "people are lazy" as the Sylphie-haters will tell you. It's because not everyone wants or enjoys hypercomplex things. Just like not every DPSer in this game plays BLM, not everyone likes that sort of gameplay; many people like current gameplay.

Oh I don't disagree with that at all. Simply put, the core playerbase has been replaced by the people who DO like the current healer design. It's kinda what I've said here:

I don't think they can even do an overhaul, cause that would require them remaking all the fights and content from HW -> EW. I honestly don't really know what they can do other than to preserve the game state from ARR -> EW and try and make kits that function differently 7.0 onwards. This would of course, alienate a lot of the core healers that they've gotten from the initial ShB combat overhaul, and that's not really a thing I would wish onto anyone. It sucks to have something you love taken away from you.

That's why I don't think an actual true overhaul could happen. The ship has sailed. SE has been cultivating a core playerbase that prefer this type of casual, light "healing" gameplay for about 4-5 years and chasing away all the other parts of the community. There is no way I can advocate for alienating even that considering they spend a lot more money on the mogstation than the ones who just raidlog all day.

No, I'm against a total and complete overhaul of healing and all Healer Jobs. I highly support some (but not all) Healer Jobs to be adjusted to be more distinct and engage players that enjoy different playstyles. It's been my position for over a year now.

Oh then this is where I would disagree. You are one of the core players and it's clear that you are the target audience for these changes.
I don't think there's any point of discussion any longer because simply put, we just simply disagree.

[MisterNublet]

If healers are made too complicated then it would drive more away from Healing. A lot of players don't Heal even when it's not too hard to Heal in FF14.

It goes both ways. If healers are too easy, then it also drives people away.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

It goes both ways. If healers are too easy, then it also drives people away.

Well, what benefits the game more?

[MisterNublet]

Well, what benefits the game more?

Both.

Why does it have to be one or the other?

[ForteNightshade]

When group A has members asking for a thing and group B has no members asking for a thing AND the thing doesn't actually benefit group B, trying to say it was done for group B and not admitting it was done at all for group A is kind of missing something.

As I said to you - that you didn't read - the midcore is who it was done for. Not "casuals". "casuals" doing Praetorium don't need buff alignment and may not even be using buffs. Same for "casuals" in Lapis Manalis or "casuals" RPing in Limsa or "casuals" farming NMs in Eureka. Those people aren't who these changes were for.

Says the person who still is missing the point themselves. You're so close too. One more time, from the top!

Per your example, Group B not asking for a change and the change being made for them aren't mutually exclusive.

You are correct something is missing. That something is the dev team perceiving their was a problem to begin with and attempting to fix it based on the assumption players who weren't utilizing buffs correctly were only doing so because they were confused when to use them. Therefore, making everything lineup would seemingly fix this perceived problem. We've seen them do this time and again in various forms. Kaiten is a prime example. Yoshida was criticised on the actual stream from JP of all demographics for that change because nobody asked for it. Nor did they like the Ninja changes accompanying it. Once again, the dev team perceived Kaiten was an issue for casual players and essentially fixed a problem that never really existed .

No mate. Your argument just wasn't good to begin with. But keep insisting I never read it. Like I said, whether you want to attribute the changes to "casuals" or "midcore" despite the fact both can raid, which you seemingly ignored, the perception from the dev team is what matters here. And it doesn't change literally anything I said. To summarize it for you, the dev team created a solution to a problem they believed existed based on players not utilizing buffs correctly and overcorrected without making adjustments to crit variance or considering the impact of larger potency abilities, which created an even bigger problem than the one they attempted to fix that didn't even exist

All this circles back to your original post trying to put blame on the raid community. That's it. You blamed raiders instead of the dev team. If you want to call them midcore instead, well, we're back to semantics again because midcore players aren't struggling with buffs. You're conflating things... again. The whole purpose of these changes is to try and incentivize casual players to give raiding a shot and to make the barrier of entry easier.

[GaiusDrakon]

Someone, somewhere, will "judge" them for not being perfect because they're dirty evil elitist casual-hating raiders.

And then the insecurity that's behind their entire position neatly reveals itself. Every time.

Exactly.

It's funny because they are also a curebot. They casted a lot of healing casts, sure... but both DPS and HPS are of a certain color... I'll leave people to see what it is themselves lol.

They can talk about being a real healer all they want but typically these curebots aren't healing efficiently and cleanly either. If you put them into something like o8s with old SB toolkits and tell them healer DPS doesn't matter they probably can't handle it.