MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Supersnow845]

Can we please stop talking about satisfaction and all that as if to truly speak for everyone? ... because you can't. There are plenty of reasons for people to be unhappy with one thing or another.

For me, I'm generally happy with healing until I have to deal with someone that throws things off severely. Does the DPS get a little repetitive sometimes, sure (generally on alliance), but adding another button to the mix isn't going to help anything. If they were to add more damage skills, they would still balance out to the same DPS and likely end up as a one-button combo because they're being very conscious of future additions down the road.

Is the fact that healers regularly rank amongst the worst in the job satisfaction surveys enough of “the majority don’t like the healers right now”, SCH has been dead last for like the last 5, 6.0 crashed AST’s ranking and WHM is at best middle of the pack

[Deveryn]

Is the fact that healers regularly rank amongst the worst in the job satisfaction surveys enough of “the majority don’t like the healers right now”, SCH has been dead last for like the last 5, 6.0 crashed AST’s ranking and WHM is at best middle of the pack

A sampling is still just a sampling and I never got to fill one of these out, so I take that with a grain of salt. SCH is actually my favorite.

[Supersnow845]

A sampling is still just a sampling and I never got to fill one of these out, so I take that with a grain of salt. SCH is actually my favorite.

A sampling like the surveys done is far more reliable than “yeah but I like SCH so no problem”, people have not been satisfied with the healers since ShB, surveys, discussions, reddit, the OF’s, I don’t know how much evidence is needed to show that satisfaction with the healer role is plummeting

[HyoMinPark]

Can we please stop talking about satisfaction and all that as if to truly speak for everyone? ... because you can't. There are plenty of reasons for people to be unhappy with one thing or another.

For me, I'm generally happy with healing until I have to deal with someone that throws things off severely. Does the DPS get a little repetitive sometimes, sure (generally on alliance), but adding another button to the mix isn't going to help anything. If they were to add more damage skills, they would still balance out to the same DPS and likely end up as a one-button combo because they're being very conscious of future additions down the road.

Read the healer threads on here and on the discussion Reddit. There’s a lot of similar complaints about healers coming from those who main the role or who have played it for years, not just those who play it casually or whenever they want to mix things up. When you have enough of the same complaints, it is safe to make a statement that healer satisfaction is plummeting.

Adding more buttons makes more difference than you think. I don’t know if you played SCH back when it had more than just Biolysis as its DoT, but it was a lot more engaging than it is now. Having multiple DoTs to manage increased engagement because you were watching those different timers. Even when WHM just had Aero II and Aero III—II was 18s and III was 24s. Again: different timers so you weren’t pressing Stone five hundred million times and have other buttons to press alongside it. And Aero III was versatile in that it could be used in an AOE situation and a single-target one. Now it’s more worth to forsake DoTing and just Holy spam until your eyes bleed in large trash packs.

No one is asking for more DPS as in higher numbers. Healers are asking for more DPS buttons to press because hitting the same one 100+ times in a given fight is boring. The only buttons they seem to be willing to give us are more redundant healing abilities that aren’t even needed in most content because they won’t up the healing requirements. And there is no proof that they’d all be mashed into a single button, either. With the exception of AST, the healers have plenty of space for another DPS button or two. I don’t even fill up two crossbars on any of them but AST—and it could stand to lose a few of its more redundant or useless buttons.

A sampling is still just a sampling and I never got to fill one of these out, so I take that with a grain of salt. SCH is actually my favorite.

Sampling can still be representative. I didn’t fill one out either, but I’m not at all surprised by low healer satisfaction. I’ve shared it for about four years now.

What additional responsibility has been given to DPS?

Well DPS used to have a shared responsibility of managing enmity. But then they didn’t want to press Diversion and got themselves killed by a boss and whined about it, so…

On a less sarcastic note, BRD used to have to manage its MP to optimize and maximize Foe Requiem usages. They even used Refresh to do so. And that was taken away, and now their MP bar sits there unused. Some DPS do still have mitigative responsibilities such as Troubadour, Samba, Tactician, Magic Barrier, Feint, and Addle—but so little content requires active usage of these tools that they’re inconsequential except at the higher level. The physical ranged don’t even need to use their Silence hardly anymore. I don’t think there’s a use where it’s necessary to use it now. Hermes has a silence mechanic in the 87 dungeon, but not silencing his buff doesn’t really make too big of a difference compared to silencing it.

To be honest, with the current state of the game, giving DPS responsibility now would just make them complain more. So many players are conditioned to not need to do more than the bare minimum that adding responsibility to them now after basically removing it would just incite complaints. Not that I think this is a decent reason not to give it to them.

[Packetdancer]

Read the healer threads on here and on the discussion Reddit. There’s a lot of similar complaints about healers coming from those who main the role or who have played it for years, not just those who play it casually or whenever they want to mix things up. When you have enough of the same complaints, it is safe to make a statement that healer satisfaction is plummeting.

Not to say that healer gameplay isn't in a place where it could stand some improvement, but I feel like I ought to chime in here to point out that all of my own past experience has led me to believe firmly that "complaint threads" are the worst possible metric to go by. People who are unhappy with something will run to the internet to vent their spleen over said thing at length (and high volume); people who are happy tend to be a great deal quieter, whether because they're off playing the thing they're happy with... or just because they feel little need to go stick their hand in the meat-grinder that internet discourse can sometimes descend into.

Any time I've worked on a game or, really, any product that had a public forum, I could look at the discussions of people complaining... and then look at other metrics, and see that the complaints were often all from a relatively tiny (but very loud) percentage of people.

And I say this having, on occasion, been one of that tiny (but very loud) population myself.

This isn't to say complaint threads should be ignored, of course. It just means that "there are complaint threads" does not necessarily prove "the majority of healers are unhappy", no matter how loud -- or repetitive -- the complaints might be. (It doesn't mean the majority of the healers aren't unhappy either... just that complaint threads are a terrible metric to judge that by one way or the other.)

I think a big part of that is because it didn't used to have a bar to indicate it could be cleansed and when they added it, they didn't make sure the game told you. I can't remember if the Hall was out by then or not. You were just supposed to remember if you could cleanse or not or try it and see if it worked. It was just as annoying as I'm sure you're imagining. Especially when it wasn't consistent.

I do tend to recall that myself, yes. And it's worth noting that the flashing castbar to show something could be interrupted is an addition they made in... I think Shadowbringers? And, like the Esuna bar, it was a much-needed one... albeit one that was only ever detailed/noted in, like, the 5.0 patch notes on the website and literally nowhere else ever.

Both of those -- and various other things -- could stand to be communicated in game somehow.

[Supersnow845]

Not to say that healer gameplay isn't in a place where it could stand some improvement, but I feel like I ought to chime in here to point out that all of my own past experience has led me to believe firmly that "complaint threads" are the worst possible metric to go by. People who are unhappy with something will run to the internet to vent their spleen over said thing at length (and high volume); people who are happy tend to be a great deal quieter, whether because they're off playing the thing they're happy with... or just because they feel little need to go stick their hand in the meat-grinder that internet discourse can sometimes descend into.

Any time I've worked on a game or, really, any product that had a public forum, I could look at the discussions of people complaining... and then look at other metrics, and see that the complaints were often all from a relatively tiny (but very loud) percentage of people.

And I say this having, on occasion, been one of that tiny (but very loud) population myself.

This isn't to say complaint threads should be ignored, of course. It just means that "there are complaint threads" does not necessarily prove "the majority of healers are unhappy", no matter how loud -- or repetitive -- the complaints might be. (It doesn't mean the majority of the healers aren't unhappy either... just that complaint threads are a terrible metric to judge that by one way or the other.)

Can we draw your attention to healer player numbers and healer job satisfaction metrics instead

And even if we leave those out sure people who are unsatisfied are more likely to complain but there are more people complaining that means More people are unsatisfied

[Striker44]

Can we draw your attention to healer player numbers and healer job satisfaction metrics instead

And even if we leave those out sure people who are unsatisfied are more likely to complain but there are more people complaining that means More people are unsatisfied

Out of curiosity, do you have a link to those metrics?

The second part needs to also factor in total population, though. When the overall population is higher, there will likely be a higher pure # of people taking any position simply because there is a higher pure # of people, period. It doesn't mean that group actually represents a larger portion of the population. EW is the most popular expansion yet for FFXIV, and even its late-patch "troughs" are seeing a significantly larger active playerbase than at similar points in prior expansions. More people means there will be more people "unsatisfied," but it also means there will be more people satisfied, too.

[HyoMinPark]

snip

Okay, and? When you see the same complaints over and over again, it is generally safe to say that it is a majority opinion. Keep in mind that, on these forums specifically, a lot of players have been banned from even posting, so how are they to post feedback here? When people complain in droves and there are multiple posts and threads and comments on various social media platforms, I do not consider this to be some “vocal minority”. I see healer complaints in my server’s Novice Network about how gameplay is boring and how all of them play the same. There there are others still who have simply given up.

I really dislike the “vocal minority” argument that people employ to try and discredit valid complaints.

[Striker44]

Okay, and? When you see the same complaints over and over again, it is generally safe to say that it is a majority opinion. Keep in mind that, on these forums specifically, a lot of players have been banned from even posting, so how are they to post feedback here? When people complain in droves and there are multiple posts and threads and comments on various social media platforms, I do not consider this to be some “vocal minority”. I see healer complaints in my server’s Novice Network about how gameplay is boring and how all of them play the same. There there are others still who have simply given up.

I really dislike the “vocal minority” argument that people employ to try and discredit valid complaints.

No, it really isn't. Even in the late-patch "trough," this game still has literally hundreds of thousands of active players. Look at the "complaint" threads on the forums, and you'll see maybe a few dozen people (often showing up repeatedly in the various threads). There is absolutely no way to extrapolate that and somehow claim it must be a majority opinion in anything resembling a legitimate statistical manner. I really dislike seeing people act as if a couple dozen people must somehow be the majority to try and give credit to something that doesn't merit it.

[Bobby66]

At this point in time it really feels like the FFXIV team really only cares about the causal experience. Problem is I think they are taking it too far, making a role welcoming and accessible does not mean making it mind numbly boring.

Tanking is also Zzzz for the most part at least we have a dps rotation unlike healers.