Quote Originally Posted by Kabooa View Post
I'll explain it quite simply.

I am a player with over a decade of MMO healing experience in more demanding games than this, and I don't play healers in this game as my main class. I play them competently enough - I can clear any of the savage tiers on them, with or without echo, just like I can with any other job in this game. If I whipped myself back into shape, I'd probably be just fine on them in ultimates too.

Should my feedback be preferred over someone else's? If someone mains healer, but doesn't touch beyond extreme, is their feedback more or less valuable than mine?
I personally think that healing experience in other MMOs is irrelevant when it comes to providing feedback for the way healers function in this game. I don’t play other MMOs, but based on what I’ve read, the functionality of the role in FFXIV is different than it is in other games. If the survey was something along the lines of “what do you think we could add to the healing role to increase engagement”, then perhaps this experience would work in your favor. You could bring in what other games did with regards to healing and healing design and offer suggestions.

However, when it comes to the functionality of healers strictly in FFXIV, I think you need more experience in FFXIV. I don’t think experience in WoW or TERA or any other game will really help all that much if there is a lack in understanding when it comes to FFXIV healers.

Should you start playing healers, gain an understanding of them, and clear higher-end content on them, then I would say your feedback could be useful in polls regarding the healers and healing in FFXIV. Especially if we were to talk about things like FFXIV healer design and engagement. Experience matters depending on the context. If the survey was to ask about healing from a Savage or Ultimate perspective, then I wouldn’t say that the feedback of healers that don’t do that content is as important here compared to healers that participate in the content.

Who decides where we put the thresh hold for what feedback matters and what doesn't?
This is determined by the poll and its scope: questions and topics contained within would determine which feedback matters and which would be consider irrelevant to the premise being explored. Just like any research would be. Ultimately, the surveys would be a research study for the developers with regards to playerbase thoughts. You want data relevant to the research questions you are asking; you don’t want data that is extraneous or irrelevant.

Using Kaiten specifically, Kaiten is not a Casual vs Hardcore, Skilled vs Non, End-game vs Housing enthusiast issue. Kaiten is an issue of GAMEFEEL, which has nothing to do with clearing ultimates, savages, or any of that.

So why should any one Samurai's opinion on Kaiten be worth less than another? Does the 4 year Samurai casual not get a say in how their class plays if a sweaty, hardcore, week 1 ultimate Samurai says "No Kaiten is fine"?
I’m not going to provide answers based on Kaiten specifically because I don’t feel qualified to provide that. I’m not sure if you’re being rhetorical here, or if you want me to actively provide answers that I’m not qualified to give. However, I think that SAMs that don’t have an understanding or grasp on the job—I am talking about those hyper causal ones that barely know the rotation, play it freestyle, etc.—do not really have that much of a say. They aren’t playing the job correctly, so how much should they be considered when it comes to design? Especially over those that do have an understanding and can perform at an above average level or higher?

Once we say "Their feedback doesn't matter", it's only a matter of time until neither does yours, because most of us are far closer to the average player than we think.
My feedback already doesn’t matter for a lot of things in this game—I’ve already listed some examples in my replies in this thread where my feedback would be meaningless. And I am perfectly fine with that. I think my feedback is more valuable when it comes to healer gameplay and design versus something like tanks, casters, or melee gameplay/design; and that is because I play healers in all types of content and have invested time and effort into optimizing them. I might not be 100th percentile uber speedkill levels of perfect, but I don’t think I’m bad at them.

It seems like this is more of an issue of some people simply not accepting that it is okay to not have meaningful feedback on certain aspects of this game. I think everyone can have a voice—but not in regards to everything. And I think some just want their voices to be heard everywhere regardless if said voice is actually constructive or meaningful.