The State of Homogenization: A New (Healer) Player's Perspective

[Kuritzkale]

Wow.. that didn't take long to be said... is this the new lazy buzz phrase of argument on these forums lately?

New? Most FFXIV players can't even imagine what the game would be like if it were different from how it is now because they're new and 99% of coverage of ff14 is positive to an outrageous degree that is IMO completely unjustified, or if they're not new they're so bought into EVERYTHING the dev team does because in their eyes they can do no wrong, even though they've shown quite a bit recently (and in the past) that they change stuff for the worse regularly, or in general just seem disconnected from what players actually want, and just push for more homogenization (see: hissatsu kaiten removal, trick attack/mug change, everything they've done with healers/most jobs in general since shadowbringers)

[AngeliouxRein]

New? Most FFXIV players can't even imagine what the game would be like if it were different from how it is now because they're new and 99% of coverage of ff14 is positive to an outrageous degree that is IMO completely unjustified, or if they're not new they're so bought into EVERYTHING the dev team does because in their eyes they can do no wrong, even though they've shown quite a bit recently (and in the past) that they change stuff for the worse regularly, or in general just seem disconnected from what players actually want, and just push for more homogenization (see: hissatsu kaiten removal, trick attack/mug change, everything they've done with healers/most jobs in general since shadowbringers)

It truly is like a colt religion of the almighty SE with Yoshi as their savior leader. I get the game is blowing up enough to where it's often the most tweeted game and all but wow... it just impresses me everytime I see that strong level of dismissal as if they never had something to be passionate about in life and be able to criticize it so it can continue to improve...

It's got to be a discord group that is telling each other to say this on the forums to rile people up, right? RIGHT?

[Poporito_Popoto]

New? Most FFXIV players can't even imagine what the game would be like if it were different from how it is now because they're new and 99% of coverage of ff14 is positive to an outrageous degree that is IMO completely unjustified, or if they're not new they're so bought into EVERYTHING the dev team does because in their eyes they can do no wrong, even though they've shown quite a bit recently (and in the past) that they change stuff for the worse regularly, or in general just seem disconnected from what players actually want, and just push for more homogenization (see: hissatsu kaiten removal, trick attack/mug change, everything they've done with healers/most jobs in general since shadowbringers)

Or they either simply like the changes or don't care and continue to support it.

[Maltothoris]

If you find healing boring, you should play and experience Savage/Ultimate

Tell me then, why should we be bored in 95 percent of the content then? It’s such an asinine argument to be making especially since savage and ultimate still fall under their fight design meaning that the fights and the damage done in those fights are scripted.

[Payadopa]

Healing was the same (it was spam 1 button for damage except on SCH), most of the AST cards were useless or sub-optimal so you were shuffling them like you do now when the symbol is wrong, the choice of fairy was mostly pointless because you just choose the best one.

Keep your 'suboptimal' to yourself, please.
I'm not playing that game. I don't approach my gaming experience with an excel spreadsheet. And I never thought I'd say this, but I enjoy PvP. And you know why? Because I actually feel like I have an identity. If SE starts to homogenise PvP I'm out. lol

[Kozh]

It’s unfortunate you didn’t get to experience healing pre-Shb. Healing used to be so fun, AST was amazing, we had all the cards and time magic and 2 sects

Having the knowledge of how AST operates back in pre-ShB is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I had fun back then and fond memories of that time; a curse because seeing how gutted the job is now (same cards, no time magic) just make me want to lie down in a ditch.

[Striker44]

That's weird (or normal). My perspective as a healer is entirely different. My main healer is SCH, and I'm using plenty of buttons. And I notice quite the difference between healing as SCH and healing as WHM. One relies on shields and has more AoE heals. The other has big single-target heals including the "oh ****" Benediction.

Personally, I love the idea of classes being easy to learn, with the "difficulty" becoming finding those select ways to master it that give you the slight bump you might need for something like EX, but where you're able to just engage with pretty much any regular ole' content you want. And if it means anything to you, I've been playing since 2015.

[Rehayem]

When I started playing FFXIV during ShB 5.05 patch, I was excited to play SCH the most. Little did I know I'd be broiling 99% of my time as healer. I had hoped for more dps variety, but who needs that, amirite.

[Packetdancer]

My thought on Wildstar is they wanted to capture the segment of players that liked big time sinks or coordination efforts like guild attunement. they wanted the people who sunk 8-10 hour days into EQ and WoW, and liked the challenging of herding cats into a 54 man, or bigger, raid where the challenges were much more organizational/tactical then "skill". This is a niche market for sure, but certainly existed during Wildstar's launch time

That's more or less accurate.

Don't get me wrong, I was demonstrably very fond of the game; I still get asked periodically "are you the same Packetdancer from WildStar?" I nearly took a job at Carbine. I still am friends with some of the devs. It's the only game made after I left the game development industry as my day job where I'm in the credits. But I think they made two really big mistakes.

First... I don't actually think the action-based combat system was the wrong choice, but I do think the way they scaled it up over the level range was; the game didn't have a skill curve so much as a skill cliff. The early levels were relatively easy and accessible, but after a certain point it ramped up so abruptly that a lot of people slammed into a wall like Wile E. Coyote trying to chase the Roadrunner through a painted tunnel. ("Meep meep! Pthb." *WHAM*) As it also didn't provide a ton of things to help folks get past that sudden dramatic increase, many folks got frustrated and left. A smoother ramping up might have led to less frustration and more player retention. (Whether or not it would've been a significant amount more retention, I don't know. But I don't think a smoother difficulty curve would have made player retention worse.)

Second, the devs were predominantly veterans of the original WoW team or the Everquest and Everquest 2 teams, and when they heard a lot of raiders talk about missing the old days and wanting meaty content that required huge parties and a lot of organization... I feel like they took that very, very seriously, and tried to recapture the feel of those early days of MMO raiding. But as a result, that was basically the only endgame that existed at launch. Which meant folks more interested in other endgame activities wandered off... and it turned out that no matter how loud a lot of old-school raiders were about missing the old days, many had little things like "jobs" and "families" and "social lives" now, and did not actually want to put in the massive amount of effort required to tackle those types of endgame content any longer.

And I suspect that's part of the reason that Square-Enix tries to simplify/streamline the primary content. Because no matter how vocal folks are here on the forums, I strongly suspect we're a fairly small portion of the playerbase. And much as I really wish I had a more interesting DPS rotation (or, y'know, enough DPS button variety for something to count as a "rotation" in the first place) as a healer, I also strongly suspect that making the combat more complex would alienate many players. And no matter how it sounds here in the forums, I genuinely wonder if the vocal few here would be enough to keep the game going indefinitely were they to reverse course... or whether it'd be a situation where, a few years from now, players were reminiscing about their much-lamented MMO's demise and holding an impromptu wake on Twitter.

(As is happening for WildStar right now.)

[Elesh]

<snip>
And I suspect that's part of the reason that Square-Enix tries to simplify/streamline the primary content. Because no matter how vocal folks are here on the forums, I strongly suspect we're a fairly small portion of the playerbase. And much as I really wish I had a more interesting DPS rotation (or, y'know, enough DPS button variety for something to count as a "rotation" in the first place) as a healer, I also strongly suspect that making the combat more complex would alienate many players. And no matter how it sounds here in the forums, I genuinely wonder if the vocal few here would be enough to keep the game going indefinitely were they to reverse course... or whether it'd be a situation where, a few years from now, players were reminiscing about their much-lamented MMO's demise and holding an impromptu wake on Twitter.

(As is happening for WildStar right now.)

Agreed. And while I do think there's a bit of a middle ground they could make to add a tiny bit of skill expression, I also appreciate what we have and want it to keep going so... lol