Public Discussion: Community Feedback - Is it being heard?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Jobs have always been adjusted when they have really needed it over time, but the feedback for these probably comes from all directions.

Meanwhile healers…..yeah this is a blatant lie sorry. When you tell an entire role to fuck off and play ultimate if you want said role to be engaging there’s an issue. When hrothgar players waited patiently for 3 years because they were promised race exclusive hairstyles and instead get 6 horrible hairstyles that cut off their ears. I’m sorry. They clearly don’t listen. And instead of apologize, that laugh about it, on stream.

[Jeeqbit]

Meanwhile healers…..yeah this is a blatant lie sorry. When you tell an entire role to fuck off and play ultimate if you want said role to be engaging there’s an issue.

It's definitely not a lie. When tanks were stacking strength, it was changed so that vitality contributed damage, then strength was added to accessories and accessories were locked to classes. Eventually the stats were entirely rebalanced to be the same for all jobs and a tank mastery trait put into the game so that gear manipulation could not adjust damage so much.

When Paladins had a boring rotation, it was adjusted to be one of the most interesting tank rotations of all. When they couldn't block magic, they were adjusted to be able to block magic. When we had to aim blocks and autos, this was adjusted to work in any direction. When everybody stopped playing bard because it had cast times, bard was overhauled to not have them again. When nobody wanted to play Machinist, it was overhauled too. When Warriors had a lack of utility and Shake It Off was useless, it was adjusted to what it is now. When Summoner was attacked for being too busy, it was adjusted to be less busy. When Astrologian's cast times and potencies made it undesirable in Shadowbringers, this was all adjusted. When it was too busy playing cards, this was adjusted as well. I could go on, but job feedback is something they listen to very carefully.

The reason healers do not have busier DPS rotations or a greater need to heal is because they do not want the opposite problem and to overwhelm healers. Healers have always been this way, unlike the problems I listed which started to exist at a certain time and were quickly pointed out as a problem.

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's definitely not a lie. When tanks were stacking strength, it was changed so that vitality contributed damage, then strength was added to accessories and accessories were locked to classes. Eventually the stats were entirely rebalanced to be the same for all jobs and a tank mastery trait put into the game so that gear manipulation could not adjust damage so much.

When Paladins couldn't block magic and had a boring rotation, it was adjusted to be one of the most interesting tank rotations of all. When they couldn't block magic, they were adjusted to be able to block magic. When we had to aim blocks and autos, this was adjusted to work in any direction. When everybody stopped playing bard because it had cast times, bard was overhauled to not have them again. When nobody wanted to play Machinist, it was overhauled too. When Warrior's had a lack of utility and Shake It Off was useless, it was adjusted to what it is now. When Summoner was attacked for being too busy, it was adjusted to be less busy. When Astrologian's cast times and potencies made it undesirable in Shadowbringers, this was all adjusted. When it was too busy playing cards, this was adjusted as well. I could go on, but job feedback is something they listen to very carefully.

The reason healers do not have busier DPS rotations or a greater need to heal is because they do not want the opposite problem and to overwhelm healers. Healers have always been this way, unlike the problems I listed which started to exist at a certain time and were quickly pointed out as a problem.

Healers have not always been this way, what are you on? Literally compare stuff like arr whm or sch to now. There is a very noticeable difference from how healers were to how they are now.

[Gothicshark]

Healers have not always been this way, what are you on? Literally compare stuff like arr whm or sch to now. There is a very noticeable difference from how healers were to how they are now.

I would say you are both correct. Healers have played FFXIV a certain way, but mechanics have been changed to account for some of how Players want to play. Although WHT still needs work, mostly with how the low level heals don't get replaced with new ones, and just become useless button bloat. I also feel this to a smaller degree with BLM, although Endwalker has fixed some of it.

[Nizzi]

Healers have always been this way, unlike the problems I listed which started to exist at a certain time and were quickly pointed out as a problem.

From a guide of Stormblood Scholar, using The Balance's Opener



From The Balance's recommended Scholar opener (swiftcast opener)

There is no war in Ba Sing Se.

[Jeeqbit]

From a guide of Stormblood Scholar, using The Balance's Opener

Those were inherited from the DPS class Arcanist, a problem they obviously weren't happy with so they decided to stop letting it inherit from Arcanist.

A better example would be White Mage in Stormblood, which had 3 DoTs and that was about the busiest it ever got. It's evident that how busy both of them were in Stormblood was seen as a problem by SE and addressed in Shadowbringers like a lot of other issues were.

Just because a lot of people on the forums liked how busy they were doesn't mean that everyone who plays the game liked it and there can be regional differences as well. Even if this is something that SE didn't listen to, it doesn't change all the other things that they did listen to over the years.

[Doragan]

Just because a lot of people on the forums liked how busy they were doesn't mean that everyone who plays the game liked it and there can be regional differences as well. Even if this is something that SE didn't listen to, it doesn't change all the other things that they did listen to over the years.

I do believe all regions were unanimous about this, though. The french forums quite died during ShB due to its feedback not being heard. And yeah, they used to be quite busy.
I think it shows that the dev team just doesn't know when to stop removing things, and really expect the playerbase to adapt every time. Except when it comes to Black Mage, that is.
"Breaking down the healers for building them better" and "but they're focused on balancing the current healers!" my ass. Please. The dev team has eyes. They can read.

To get back to the OP, yes, they do listen. They were swift to rectify issues like Broil IV's SFX on release. They even finally made blood weapon (and soteria, surprisingly) on a stack system. Misery is just DPS neutral now. They listen to feedback, for sure.
But no, about things like gameplay, balance adjustment, they don't usually care. Not much they could do about SCH, after all. If you want to DPS more while playing a healer, just pick Sage when it releases!
They listen. But if they disagree there's an issue, so they won't do anything about it.

[Nizzi]

Those were inherited from the DPS class Arcanist, a problem they obviously weren't happy with so they decided to stop letting it inherit from Arcanist.

Miasma II was specifically for SCH in Stormblood, and Bio, Bio II and Energy Drain are SCH specific now too. It doesn't have anything to do with SCH inheriting it from Arcanist and it has everything to do with their misguided vision of making every healer have 1 nuke and 1 DoT. Saying "it came from Arcanist" isn't some justification for why Miasma, Miasma II, Bane and Shadow Flare were removed, and having things inherited from Arcanist clearly isn't an issue considering SCH still has Physick, Resurrection, Aetherflow, Energy Drain, Ruin, Ruin II, Bio, Bio II that work like old Arcanist's used to. The difference being that they're SCH only actions, not tied to the Arcanist job anymore (except Ressurection). If they did it for Miasma II in Stormblood, they could've easily done it for Miasma, Shadow Flare and Bane as well.

And if they weren't happy with it... that's tough, I guess? Shouldn't it be the players who are happy with the jobs? I don't really care if a job design team doesn't like how a job in a role plays if the playerbase does. Their all encompassing "vision" for this game is becoming a massive detriment and making it incredibly boring across all jobs to play.

It's evident that how busy both of them were in Stormblood was seen as a problem by SE and addressed in Shadowbringers like a lot of other issues were.

Just because a lot of people on the forums liked how busy they were doesn't mean that everyone who plays the game liked it and there can be regional differences as well. Even if this is something that SE didn't listen to, it doesn't change all the other things that they did listen to over the years.

This is a cop-out. Have you been to the DPS forums lately? SAM mains across JP and NA are both outraged about the loss of Kaiten. Why should we, as players, care that the development team is unhappy with something that we're happy with? Acting as if it's "just people on the forums" is a cop-out too, because even the developers have admitted before that most people just quit and do not bother voicing their feedback. We can entertain the idea that perhaps people didn't like SCH having more than 1 Nuke and 1 DoT in Stormblood, and we can even entertain the idea that it's only "a lot of people on the forums" who liked how healers used to be (even though I see this sentiment all over youtube, reddit, and twitter) but why would they not just tell those people to play something else?

This is where the frustration comes from. They aren't making these changes for us, they're making them for themselves, either to make their work balancing and designing easier or to have the jobs easier to manage, but not for us. If there was truly a massive amount of Scholar players who didn't want its old DoTs to return, you'd see that whenever the idea is raised. You don't, though. You can search the names of SCH's DoTs on Twitter or Reddit and you'll find people saying things like "SCH used to be way more fun" or sad that they were removed. Same for Aero III on WHM. I've also spent a lot of time scouring the JP forums here trying to see if people were asking for SCH's DoTs to be removed during Stormblood, and I haven't been able to find anything. It has nothing to do the players liking it; Yoshida didn't like it, and he admitted as much when he was asked about it going into ShB.

I do not care if Yoshida and his team have a "problem" with jobs being different and fun. I have a problem when they change everything to be the same boring slop and then people on the forum come with ridiculous SE apologism trying to defend every awful change and design decision this company makes. Perhaps if they cared about the players having fun first instead of themselves seeing problem boogeymen where they aren't, we wouldn't be in this state of perpetual discontent within the healer role.

[Jeeqbit]

Miasma II was specifically for SCH in Stormblood

Miasma II was essentially replaced with Art of War and wasn't worth using for single target, so in a way it's still there.

This is a cop-out. Have you been to the DPS forums lately? SAM mains across JP and NA are both outraged about the loss of Kaiten.

I can't keep track of so many forums to be honest. I can see that people were unhappy about Kaiten being removed though.

[Nizzi]

Miasma II was essentially replaced with Art of War and wasn't worth using for single target, so in a way it's still there.

If we're giving credit where credit is due, I personally think Art of War is better for AoE with the MP costs and not having to spam overwrite a DoT, but I still don't like the outright removal of it. If they had such a problem with AoE DoTs being used on ST, they should've done what they did with Thunder on BLM and made them overwrite the other, but it is what it is and I don't particularly feel SCH 'needs' it back considering it was replaced with AoW like you said, and SCH doesn't need Miasma II for weave windows anymore like it did in SB. There is something interesting about having AoE buttons also be good for ST encounters though, but I can understand the desire to keep them separate. That being said, I do have a problem with the removal of Miasma, Shadow Flare and Bane making SCH go from 4 AoE damage buttons to the only job with only 1 in the game. It's very boring, and the return of just those buttons would do wonders for the job.

I can't keep track of so many forums to be honest. I can see that people were unhappy about Kaiten being removed though.

I have no life, which lends well to doing a lot of reading :P