What is going on with Square Enix and the 14 team?

[Nethereal]

See, this is a more reasonable statement than simply "That's nice".

I'll add that I actually do occasionally do content at Savage/Extreme. Mostly to fill in for my friends' statics when they need an eighth body. I don't care much for playing it regularly, no matter what the role/class.

I actually still feel like Sage has more button engagement than those classes I mentioned before. Although, I'm admittedly not limiting this to merely DPS options.

If you place Eukrasia in an inconvenient spot you'll definitely find some button engagement.

My opinion on sage despite being the only healer I play anymore is strictly speaking the heals are probably the least engaging out of all 4 healers. Because they're all fire & forget, and that's why I play it.
While I do enjoy Krasis and find it to be the second best 86 skill I wouldn't miss it particularly like how I miss Synastry or Neutral sect.

Each individual healing class essentially is an exact carbon copy with the distinction now being if they're regen or shield.
They each have a skill that functions the same if not better than their counterpart that accomplishes the same goal.
You can very easily once you've capped/gotten all 4 healers to 80 put skills on different jobs on the same button and accomplish the same goal just slightly different depending on if you're regen or shield.

A major distinction for heal engagement between all 4 classes though is that SGE is the only class that doesn't have a two part heal in their kit. Everything is fire and forget.
WHM got their additional very recently in the form of the lily change that allows them to blow their lilies early.
AST has always had the ability to pop star and horoscope and with EW they added macrocosmos to this addition.
SCH has seraph and I suppose since deployment tactics exist we can give SGE a pity point by saying pepsis is a thing.

With all that said and done SGE is the only healer that doesn't have an opener. It's amazing that it could get any smaller but SE did it, all you have to do is pop phlegma once all the raid buffs are up.

All in all I play SGE because I still want to play healer & it's the easiest job in the game, even easier than WHM. I like the skills, I don't find them engaging but they get the job done and they're convenient.

Icarus is pretty cool though wanted that on my WHM forever my friends said it would never come.

[AziraSyuren]

Sage has some really cool and creative healing tools, moreso than the other healers. Most of them are really well-designed and a step up from what other healers have.

Most of this sounds and looks great until you realize that "healing tools" means "shit I almost never have to press outside of raids," which completely undermines their design.

[Evogolist]

Some of us have seen what was happening, and talking about it for years. It seems "Endwalker" was aptly named.

I'm not sure what is going on, but it does feel like they have become complacent with the game's success. Apparently, siphoning funds to other projects, moving devs over, etc. Yoshida being "surprised" at negative feedback, gives me the feeling that much of our feedback here simply isn't getting to the devs unless it's a very big issue, but not only that, a lot of players themselves were satisfied enough with the game that they wouldn't speak out.

I hope a lot of this is a wake up call for SE. The playerbase does look to have their limits.

This so much. A lot of us have voiced our concerns and suggestions over the years, just to be met with negativity. I was talking to a friend who also plays XIV and we both agreed that one of the game's biggest issues is that a lot of the content is recycled content, just with a fresh coat of paint thrown on it. It really makes me worry about the future of the game going forward.

Assuming that they'll cap the leveling process at 99, what happens going forward post 7.x? Do we just keep spamming dungeons for tomestones for the next set of higher item level gear? What about our actions/weaponskills/spells? And while I'm sure they're looking into that stuff, how many times are they going to keep pushing out the same recycled, grindy stuff before players get tired of it and finally move on to something else?

[Driavna]

FFXIV has always evolved around being accessible, along side with MSQ as focus and promoting a "great community", so IMO certain part of the players complaining are the ones out of touch. However, we have reached a point that it's getting less fun.

[Recon1o6]

Given how some people seem to be rankled over a checkpoint in ultimate, I wonder how long till folks clear and we'll hear complaints about ult being dumbed down for accessibility.

Everyone whose got to golden bahamut messed up nael at some point after trying to get back to golden, so if the fight is particularly long because of cutscene or just more phases and it ends up at 30m then the checkpoint makes sense from an exhaustion perspective

also surprise! almost all the mechanics seen so far are one shots with little healing. yoshida's go play ultimate again
ph wait we knew that was coming.
never know, phase 3-6 could have more healing required. Tea had j waves and LL i suppose. Everything else just usual 60s spikes in older ults

[Thorio]

I see you main GNB. We're going to have to take away everything you have that does damage except for 4 buttons, 1 will be an AoE, another will have a 45-60 second cool down.
As for the rest... the rest will be mitigation, that does the exact same thing but looks different.

Hope you enjoy your new class and join us healers on our way to increase accessibility.

That's not my experience at all with Astro but hey whatever floats your boat.

[WaxSw]

That's not my experience at all with Astro but hey whatever floats your boat.

Wait til you level it up and see the class for what really is, ironically the early-mid leveling part of healers is the best as people don't know how to properly play them and the illusion of depth is not broken...yet

[Nizzi]

That's not my experience at all with Astro but hey whatever floats your boat.

Looking at your Lodestone, it says you hit level 50 on AST in early 2017 and you're currently level 51, so unless you've got another character, your "experience" with Astro is about 5 years out of date.

[TaleraRistain]

Given how some people seem to be rankled over a checkpoint in ultimate, I wonder how long till folks clear and we'll hear complaints about ult being dumbed down for accessibility.

Everyone whose got to golden bahamut messed up nael at some point after trying to get back to golden, so if the fight is particularly long because of cutscene or just more phases and it ends up at 30m then the checkpoint makes sense from an exhaustion perspective

also surprise! almost all the mechanics seen so far are one shots with little healing. yoshida's go play ultimate again
ph wait we knew that was coming.
never know, phase 3-6 could have more healing required. Tea had j waves and LL i suppose. Everything else just usual 60s spikes in older ults

There's already been a thread

Not my content but from what I've seen from folks I follow on Twitter, the reception is generally positive for the exhaustion aspect as you mentioned.

[Nethereal]

That's not my experience at all with Astro but hey whatever floats your boat.

Understandable. You probably aren't at the level of play where this discussion holds much value to you which is when healer is most fun.