The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Semirhage]

It's because when they do pick some questions in regards to concerns of healer community, it's almost always "I want more busywork/heal more" and then the devs do so and people get mad which in turn frustrates the devs.

I really wish they would just ask an endgame, raiding healer to explain the issues bc the "I want more to do" isn't telling them what's wrong. All that tells them is to do the opposite and add arbitrary ways to limit "healing" with just as pointless GCD healing.

They think Medica 2 -> Medica 1 spam is more to do with back to back raidwides.

Whenever people accept that healers don't need need more forced GCD healing spam is boring too.

They also listen to feedback from the endgame raiders who don't seem to care that much about job engagement, and are "fine" so long as they physically function, can clear things, and they can log in, raid, log out, and not give a crap otherwise.

They're not common from what I've seen, but they exist. To them the healers are all "fine". Spamming Glare a million times is whatever, they don't give a rip about job design.

[ty_taurus]

They also listen to feedback from the endgame raiders who don't seem to care that much about job engagement, and are "fine" so long as they physically function, can clear things, and they can log in, raid, log out, and not give a crap otherwise.

They're not common from what I've seen, but they exist. To them the healers are all "fine". Spamming Glare a million times is whatever, they don't give a rip about job design.

Overall, I'd say the community's views on healer design can be summed up by the following: A handful of players genuinely like the design of healers, a crowd of players hate the design of healers, and the vast majority of players find it inoffensive--fine--and don't really care either way. Most players are more engaged with fight design and don't really care what their job does mechanically as long as they like the look and playing it isn't confusing or overwhelming. So for them, it doesn't really matter how the healers are designed; AST suffers from its gameplay feeling very overwhelming due to the shear amount of single targeting it asks for, and its semi-RNG reliant busy-ness while SCH's reliance on the faerie and tools that cut you off from her feels confusing and unintuitive. Meanwhile SGE isn't far behind WHM in terms of popularity despite being a lot harder for casual healers.

This take can also be seen with NIN. Despite being easily the most challenging DPS to play correctly, it's not particularly unpopular. It's not the most popular DPS either, but it's not avoided like old SMN was, for example despite being just as complex. It's flashier, has style, and its gameplay is far more clear on what you're supposed to do because its tools connect to one another. Old SMN's toolkit, by comparison, felt like a hoarder's garage sale. Just a mess of buttons that have nothing to do with one another and demand a lot of focus from many different directions. I don't think new SMN's popularity is determined by it's ease, but rather, by its style and its flow. That's not to say ease doesn't play a part at all, but job difficulty is not the most important factor that the wider audience cares about. They just want something that looks cool and makes sense to play.

And that's also why I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that overhauling the healers to address the issues that the crowd of displeased players would be an overwhelming success. The largest group of players really won't care what happens to the healers as long as they look cool and it feels clear what you're supposed to do while playing them. The only people that will throw a hissy fit are the players who will get mad that they won't be able to parse purple by simply mashing their glareficoilosis key into a pile of plastic dust and will actually have to try to reach those same values. Anyone who likes parsing because of their performance, or who cares a negative amount about parsing will either be unaffected or genuinely happy, and that's such a more important audience to appease than the me me me freeloaders that will get pissy.

[elioaiko]

They also listen to feedback from the endgame raiders who don't seem to care that much about job engagement, and are "fine" so long as they physically function, can clear things, and they can log in, raid, log out, and not give a crap otherwise.

They're not common from what I've seen, but they exist. To them the healers are all "fine". Spamming Glare a million times is whatever, they don't give a rip about job design.

And that's a tragedy. I realized that to some, even on the higher end of the gaming spectrum in FFXIV, do not care about how fun a job is to play rather than being functionally fine.

I guess a good example of this is AST's card system. Before ShB, people can say that while it had its fair share of issues and problems, that it was indeed more intricate and exciting to play both casual and hardcore. The devs changing cards to all be dmg buffs due to raiders wanting a more consistent way to buff allies. This is become a point of contention and people hated it, blaming raiders for sucking the fun out of the job.

I guess to me, we should ask for more fun gameplay loops rather than true balance. For one, balance has been pretty skewed for awhile. I'd rather have a job that feels different to play rather than WHM with cards, WHM with cards or WHM with laser beams.

[Semirhage]

I guess to me, we should ask for more fun gameplay loops rather than true balance. For one, balance has been pretty skewed for awhile. I'd rather have a job that feels different to play rather than WHM with cards, WHM with cards or WHM with laser beams.

I'd agree about 80% of the way, if only "asking for fun over balance" didn't nearly always translate on the forums to "AST and SCH should be fun to play and WHM sucking is a price we should all be willing to pay for it".

[fulminating]

I'd agree about 80% of the way, if only "asking for fun over balance" didn't nearly always translate on the forums to "AST and SCH should be fun to play and WHM sucking is a price we should all be willing to pay for it".

Ast and sch should be fun to play. White mage needs redesigned to be fun because it's made for a non-existent game, and no amount of papering over those cracks will address the fundamental issue. This is not remotely helped by all healers being made to fit the white mage mold, when everything is WHM+, WHM alone can only feel lacking.

[elioaiko]

Ast and sch should be fun to play. White mage needs redesigned to be fun because it's made for a non-existent game, and no amount of papering over those cracks will address the fundamental issue. This is not remotely helped by all healers being made to fit the white mage mold, when everything is WHM+, WHM alone can only feel lacking.

They should and they were! They just needed to commit to it and redesign WHM to actually fit the game's design. They could have easily rewarded balancing drawing aether from the earth to fuel the heal/damage with nukes or stacked healing.

It's sad how the devs just think that one button spam is okay for combat that relies on meeting a dps check.

[Semirhage]

Ast and sch should be fun to play. White mage needs redesigned to be fun because it's made for a non-existent game, and no amount of papering over those cracks will address the fundamental issue. This is not remotely helped by all healers being made to fit the white mage mold, when everything is WHM+, WHM alone can only feel lacking.

I agree. Which is why I continue to narrow my eyes whenever I see the suggestion that WHM is "nearly perfect", "just a few tweaks away from being really great", etc. I've seen that take aaaaaaaall throughout Shadowbringers and Endwalker thus far, and I couldn't disagree more. If current healer design is boring and embarrassing, it's boring and embarrassing no matter which three-letter acronym describes it.

My somewhat less popular take for the fictional landscape after all of the healers are "fixed" is that AST and SCH have been meta for a brief, fleeting ten straight years. It's okay to not be the most powerful, most fun, most flexible, best healers in the game for five minutes.

[Desna]

So summing up what I'm seeing across many threads beyond just this one.

1) Healers are suffering an identity crisis where they're all feeling lacking in a firm commitment by design to actual roles in the game. Healer, Tank, DPS are starting to bleed into each other instead of staying distinct identities.

2) Pure Healers (WHM, AST) are showing a lack of interest by the designers because healers as a role have no representation on the design teams, the designers don't Main healers, don't appreciate them or what they do and have even now reached a point where they have the game set so raids can function without a healer at all, content can be cleared without a healer so the whole ROLE has been disenfranchised and that's producing Healer mains scrambling to play TWO roles (Healer and DPS) at the same time to stay relevant and useful. This causes ridiculous amounts of confusion and frustration among the people Maining Healers.

This disenfranchisement has resulted in the jobs becoming hodge podge messes of buffed and nerfed skills that are outdated for current gameplay and clunky poorly designed functions in the classes that make them even more confusing and less enjoyable to play because of the clutch grinding playstyle they require to get through a raid or dungeon. Buffing and nerfing is not fixing. Some skill sets are just in need of updates so they work better.

In a nutshell, for our beloved designers. Please...restore class/role integrity and identity. Make a role (Healer, Tank, DPS) distinct and make sure it is NEEDED and can not be left behind in current content. Do not ask a role to fill another role on top of it's own because then...we end up where we are now...with Healers pulling their hair out trying to be DPS AND Healers at the same time and everyone upset because...that just can never work out well, there is no way to balance it without making healing classes god-like overpowered and OP classes are BORING, unchallenging and always always fail in every MMORPG that lets them coast along for long. Distinct roles...please...quit muddying the waters. Hire some healer mains, not just raiders either, find some people who run those roulettes and MAIN Healers and play them more often than anything else. Get Healers represented on your design team. Stop saying you should and you need to....do it, show us, your fan base and loyal players...that you're going to give more than lipservice to this. If you really cared? You should have DONE it by now, this problem isn't getting better. You have teams running without healers now and it never should have reached that point.

[Bobby66]

Issue I have noticed is for some reason the community as a whole in FFXIV is deathly afraid of raising the skill ceiling.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Issue I have noticed is for some reason the community as a whole in FFXIV is deathly afraid of raising the skill ceiling.

Yo, I’m highly insecure if that co-WHM can heal and GLARE nonstop. The latter shouldn’t be allowed!! They are healer, like me!! I should be able to get my savage glam by spamming Medica II to oblivion!!! It’s my god-given right!! We should be equal! I also don’t like that SCH who let their Eos & regens heal passively!! That’s cheating!!

/s