The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Renathras]

I really can't say how Yoshida actually feels about the topic as he obviously as to respond in a very PR friendly way, but I can't help but feel like he really wants to say something like "will you just stop worrying about that?" And I say that because there's always this really heavy dejected sigh whenever questions about healers come up.

I could be wrong, but I feel it's very likely he thinks of healers like old school MMO player would. Remember Yoshida was playing MMOs when they were just starting out. As well as single player RPGs, where in most of those, the healer was fairly limited on offensive options. In much of the Final Fantasy series original run (discounting the remakes made since Y2K), WHM often had only the offensive spell of Holy or a low damage offensive spell on-par with Fire/Ice/Bolt 1 in damage. Even in FFX-2, the WHM dressphere didn't even have the "Attack" command, instead having Pray. And in Everquest, Clerics (the main healers) never cast offensive spells in most major content, they would literally sit /meditate in battle to regain mana for more heals to cast, and there would be things like Cleric chains where they took turns in a set order sustaining the main tank while others rested to regenerate mana.

I'm not saying Yoshi P wants that, but he's just a bit older than I am and both of us experienced the evolution of healers in videogames in a similar way, so it may be how he kind of thinks of healers as primarily for healing. That would explain his HW era "We balance around healers doing no damage" and even "If you want to be challenged, play Ultimate" and the most recent (not exact quote) "Honestly, what do you guys want? We've tried making changes, but we don't get what it is you want..." statement. He likely thinks that the healing role appeals to players who want to actively heal, seems confused that people who want to DPS would play the role much, but also is worried he can't make healing too stressful or there won't be enough healers.

Part of the problem is like I said in my original post here - that there are a lot of different mentalities of healers asking for conflicting things (some are asking for more damage, some are asking for more healing, some are asking things be left the same, some want a change but aren't exactly sure what) - and so he's getting a lot of conflicting inputs that aren't compatible with each other (outside of a more complex version of my own idea, something like - leave one healer alone, make one do more damage, make one do more healing...and then make bosses sometimes need more healing but the more healing healer be able to handle it so the others don't have to, I guess?) It's a complicated problem to appeal to everyone.

In the simple days of ARR, this is kind of how it worked. WHM was mainly casting heals while SCH was more onto the DPS side of things in Cleric. WHM could use Cleric, but until late ARR and into HW, many didn't. WHM handled the heavy lifting for the healing while SCH supported.

And because of this, both types of healers were happy.

SCH's were able to work in support heals and buffs (Selene, Soil, etc) while mainly being focused on their damage output, shifting to healing dynamically if the needs of the fight demanded it. WHM's mostly stayed out of Cleric and focused on things like keeping HoTs rolling on those needing it and GCD healing the tank and party as necessary. Everyone was happy, because we had a healer that appealed to each of the two types of healer players, and they were both needed for the content so everyone had a spot and a role to play in the group dynamic. Most ARR era SCH's had a blast playing the Job. Likewise, most ARR era WHM's had a blast being healing powerhouses that could heal their team to success. A modern incarnation of that is what I think the game needs.

Post Gordias, as the shift was more towards healers should damage, it started to alienate the healers that liked healing. Over time, enough left that it caused issues with the healing requirements frightening off the more damage/support focused healers who didn't like having to deal with it, leading to the simplification of healing needs to de-stress the role. At the same time, they de-focused on damage. So basically they made everyone angry.

ARR was basically like if instead of a Pure/Barrier split, healers had a Heal/Support split. And honestly, I think that might be _A_ solution. Though I'm not sure these Devs have the knack for making it work in a compelling way.

I don't know for sure, of course, but that's my guess.

I'm not generally opposed to healing leading to DPS. I am generally opposed to DPS leading to healing.

Note that I say "generally". If a specific Job was designed that way, I'm okay with it. But it shouldn't be the role. For example, as I've said before, SGE having a rotation like SMN or even RDM minus the melee component would not be a negative in my mind. As long as the Job can still meet fundamental healing requirements even if they mess it up. For example, suppose (for simplicity, I'll use RDM names) SGE had Fire/Stone, Aero/Thunder, Holy/Flare, and Scorch. Just that. 4 Hotbar spaces (Scorch would replace Fire/Stone, Holy and Flare Aero and Thunder, respectively). If they all did the same Kardia 170 healing, this means if you flub your rotation, you're still generating the same healing, thus meeting "the requirement". On the other hand, suppose Fire/Stone generated 100, Aero/Thunder generated 150, Holy/Flare generated 200, and Scorch generated 300. Now if you mess up your rotation, you might not be meeting the minimum healing requirements.

The reason I think this is important is twofold. The first is that whole "scaring off healers" thing that I think we've both acknowledged is a Dev concern. The second is that the pro-DPS healer player should be accommodated (keep in mind I've held to this position, just not for ALL healers) with a Job that isn't punishing them for doing what they want to do. If it was the increasing model and you flubbed your rotation, you'd have to break out the Diagnosis spam or whatever, which would disrupt the SGE player from what they actually enjoy, the damage dealing. Granted, you might have to do this some otherwise, but generally you'd supplement your Kardia healing with oGCDs instead and only fall back on your GCD heals in cases of emergencies. And by that I mean "24 man opening day" not "I messed up my rotation".

...then again, I'm not a DPS minded player and maybe those who are WANT to be punished with their tank dying if they flub their rotation or them being forced into chain hardcast heals if they flub their rotation? But I would think not. I would think they'd want the tank to stay alive so they can try to reset and get their DPS rotation back on track without having to expend a bunch of GCDs on heals.

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Alphinaud vs Red Mage: Let's be fair, anything compared to RDM is going to look less stylish. And I'm not sure comparing a character cinematic to a Job Actions trailer is a good apples-to-apples. For example, contrast the GNB Job actions trailer to Thancred using the Job. RDM is particularly stylish because of backflipping and some flashy cast animations mixed with melee. It's probably one of the most dynamic feeling Jobs in the game to watch played. Alesaie doing RDM just before him doesn't look nearly as dynamic as the RDM Job actions trailer, either.

That said: A lot of this is personal taste, I'd wager. To me, SGE's normal attack is fun to watch. I love the animation and the lasers make me think of the Ghostbusters Proton Packs because of the way there's that little plasma swirl around the axis of the lasers. They're laser pointers for Dosis 1, sure, but Dosis 3 looks amazing to me. The big red X from Toxicon makes me think of Double Down. I think Plegma's the only one I'm not super amazed by, but it's also the one ability in SGE's roster I'd really change (make it 15 or 25y, 6y just feels too short). Holos has a lovely animation, as do Eukrasian Diagnosis and Hamia.

I dunno, I guess we disagree, but I love SGE's animations.

On WHM...not really? Of WHM, SCH, and SGE (the three I play), WHM's main cast is probably the least "umph-y" of the three. SGE's is super cool lasers that have thickness and feel like they have some heft to them. SCH's makes me think of the red plasma turrets from Halo, and the sound effect feels like some "impact" when it hits. WHM's feels a little more like...you know in Dragonball Z how sometimes a fighter will fire off a slew of weak attacks and they always do nothing? Lampshaded in DBZ Abridged when Vegita does it to Perfect Cell who replies "Oh, Prince...when has that EVER worked?" WHM's feels more like that. But it also is the only one that kinda floats in the air as it charges the cast (also Holy), which just looks cool to me. So it evens out. I don't really get tired of any of them, no. It's the same to me as the 1-2-3 rotations on Melee/Tanks/MCH. It's the filler thing you do and it looks cool enough for what it is - your basic attack.

I guess that's my take on it, anyway.

I've never really cared for WHM as a CNJ/Druid. I get it's lore accurate, but it's kind of meh to me. So Quake/Tornado/Flood probably wouldn't inherently have me like them better. Besides which, I feel like those are more AOE spells than single target ones. I'm not saying I would hate it, but I'm more saying I'd probably not like it any better, per se. I'd feel pretty neutral towards it. I think WHM spells should be more Light focused. As we learned in ShB, Umbral is kind of like the "higher order" form of those spells. So Earth, Ice (not Wind), and Stone upgrading to Light makes sense in the same way Fire, Thunder, and Aero (not Blizzard) upgrading to Darkness would make sense. It would honestly feel a bit weird if WHM were to go back to more "base" elemental magics after touching the higher magic Umbral spells. Though if it WERE to do so, the high order ones (Quake, Tornado, Flood) would make more sense than just more Stone/Aero.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your proposals, but having Cure 2 and Medica just become instant cast once every 20 seconds (Lilies - I don't think the Devs want to move that back to 30 because that means 90 sec for 3 instead of 60 sec for 3, which breaks the written by thee hand of God on tablets of stone 2 min burst window system... <_< ) Just ignore Solace and Rapture, unless we're just doing that for the animations, I guess. If it's the same button, it's not like it matters to me either way. But in practice...this would be the same as WHM today, just with a little better button economy, I suppose. In theory, it would be a nerf (someone thinking they'll need to use two Cure 2s might have time to cast one but need the second to be instant for a movement mechanic and this system would nerf that...but I think that's a super edge case we don't really need to worry about.)

I was trying to think of more frequently cast buttons, though, to break up the Glarespam - since I think we've identified the unbroken spam as the thing that people most dislike. This proposed change wouldn't alter that, as you'd just be casting Solace and Rapture as you do now, and Misery at the same frequency. You'd be freeing up two buttons, but...

I get you're thinking use Water/Banish to get it back to 60 seconds, but that still seems to go against the Dev intention. I'm not sure of any other Job that has its burst only line up only by doing something specific like that (that is, their burst BUFFs), though rotation gets into some gray area, I suppose. The problem, though, you note - having to save an oGCD to use if you need to heal then. I think the Devs' intention with healers is that they never have to do that. That is, that your DPS spells don't push healing. It's why they didn't give healers a combo before (when spells were all hard-coded to break combos) because they didn't want someone getting "locked in" and not healing because of it. For example, how if I'm on RDM and you die during my melee combo...you're just gonna have to wait until my melee combo's done before you get a raise outside of some extremely extraordinary situation (e.g. 6 people are dead but me and the tank but healer LB3 is ready).

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Though I am a bit curious how "heals generate Misery would be hard for casuals because they'd need to (needlessly?) cast heals to fit more Misery into burst windows) would be too difficult, but stack and charge mechanics on spells wouldn't be?

In a strict sense, it would be little different than today (casuals not saving Misery for buff windows), it would just be less punishing to use GCD heals, which may break up the monotony of casting nukespam. Not to mention some other animations are nice to see. I outright love Eukrasian Diagnosis' animation. Would love to cast it more and it not be so detrimental to optimal play. Honestly, they should probably just remove Solace and Rapture in this scenario to encourage Cure 2 and Medica use, but at the end of the day, the result would be the same. Well, except you could use Misery more often, I suppose. I suppose you could flip the script and make Misery like Toxicon where it only needs one stack and only needs to do 2x Glare's worth of damage since that wouldn't put as much pressure on getting it into a buff window, but honestly, no idea.

I think that'd actually be all the more harmful to, especially, the 70+%, as it'd be taking something at least somewhat intuitive (don't GCD heal if you don't need to) and replacing it with optimally wasting heals in cycles to be readied for Cards and, to their caps in preparation for sync with 2-minute damage buffs.

Would it?

Consider you'd still be getting 1 Misery per 60 sec natively from Lilies, and that's literally how Lilies are used now. I'm not sure this would really change anything in that sense. If anything, it would make it more casual friendly since the people using more hardcast heals would refund that damage with Miseries. Super-casuals aren't thinking in terms of optimal, so they wouldn't be thinking "I should heal now when it's not needed so I can Misery in the buff window". So it wouldn't change their gameplay at all. This is actually a change that would MARGINALLY allow for a SLIGHTLY increased skill ceiling under very specific situations (a non-casual doing high end content where Misery drifted getting it back on-track) while not harming casuals and being such a niche case for optimization that the mid-core wouldn't be disadvantaged. I think it's one of those "more dps buttons/rotation" changes that doesn't cause a problem.

That is, optimizing players wouldn't cast Cure2/Medica when not needed for Misery during burst windows, since you can't stack Misery. If you have a full bloom on the Blood Lily right now and cast Solace/Rapture, it's wasted (as far as generating Misery goes). And if you're in the buff window, casting Misery (that you've built up before the window) then Cure 2 3x then Misery would be identical in DPS to casting Misery + Glare x4. So there'd be no optimization there other than if you need to heal during the buff window, you could do so and (if you did so 3x) have enough time in the buff window to refund that damage as opposed to now if you had to do it, you'd be missing out on one Glare's worth of damage.

But, again, this is something only very high end players would even play around with, and it would be damage neutral vs just playing exactly as you play today. It just would allow you more flexibility with healing. So I think it would be a good change as it doesn't hurt the casuals or mid-core, and it gives the high end something to REALLY wring out just that little bit more optimization if they genuinely want to, but that is damage neutral vs the more midcore player.

Honestly, it'd work better with WHM since it's designed more for GCD healing. SGE with Toxicon would be nice (not sure broken or not...), but you guys are correct in that it has oGCD healing and WHM is kind of just mimicking that with Lilies + Misery.

I think the problem is the Devs, as we all seem to agree, don't see "lost damage GCD" in the way the playerbase does. They don't see GCDs as a resource/meta-resource. Misery just turned out to be a happy accident, it seems. Does explain why it took them so long to make it damage neutral. They didn't get that was the calculation players were actively making.

They STILL seem not to, exactly.

What makes WHM simple is it doesn't need to pay attention to what the enemy is doing as much as the other healers.

We're mostly discussing their damage rotations. I think there's at least implicit acknowledgement that their healing kits are at least marginally different (other than maybe SCH/SGE). The questions are more specifically about the damage kits and trying to nail down what exactly makes "fun" and what can be done there without major impacts on the downstream playerbase that may disagree.

Why are the devs so laser focused on any tiny issue the community might have with Tanks and DPS but completely ignore the healer side unless we're too loud to ignore?

I honestly and genuinely think it's because they don't know what to do for sure with healers. Everything they do pisses people off, so they're trying to ride the line of "What seems to minorly piss everyone off but majorly piss off as few people as possible". More damage upsets people. More healing requirements upsets people. Fewer buttons upsets people. More buttons upsets people.

They know that making healing too stressful crashes the number of healers. They know that making healers to damage focused crashes the number of healers. But they know that not making them damage enough also crashes the number of healers. So they're trying to ride that line and thread the needle between. And as much as people say they aren't doing a good job...they kind of are for what they're working with. The question is if they should continue to try and maintain this paradigm or not. It's the entire reason for my suggestion, since if they favor one or the other camp, the number of healers will crash (again). So for any major change, it would need to favor both at the same time, I think. We either have the current "split the difference" model or we can genuinely split into two types of healers.

And, honestly, if we had "healing focused" and "support damage focused" healers, that would probably actually MAKE SENSE in the game where the Pure/Barrier split did not...

Indeed, as I described above, this is largely the way ARR played, in both casual and more hardcore settings, but especially 8/24 man settings where the WHM's often did the bulk of healing while the SCH's were support and damage focused, able to dynamically swap to healing when the WHM's needed more help and then back to damage as the situation allowed.

Tanks and DPS the only real (global, not Job specific) issues are that people don't really like the 2 min window, but it has some proponents and is more an expansion level rework anyway. Though even there, they don't make everyone happy. SMN's rework, Kaiten's removal, MCH going 3 major patches without any really needed changes, and the PLD rework are all examples. But they seem to have a clearer vision there. With healers, it's like they want the "healers are for healing" model, but the encounter design and Job design doesn't really make sense for that. So it's this awkward place with "Do you want us to do what you say or what us to do what your tools and encounters implicitly say we should?"