The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ty_taurus]

Random aside: Suppose for the sake of argument it was possible to do something like ARR where we split healing as a role into two parts that were...actually functional (unlike the Pure/Barrier split which seems to basically be meaningless outside of WHM/WHM comps since everyone else has barriers anyway...)

Where we had one that was a healing focused set of healers, and the other a support/damage focused set.

The former are designed to have powerful and efficient heals with a slimmed down damage kit while the latter are designed to have a more expansive damage suite and dynamic gameplay shifting between support healing and buffing the party vs optimizing their damage potential.

If there was a way to do this where it wouldn't devolve into a meta of 2x supports (let's pretend this is possible), would that not be an interesting and possibly useful change to satisfy everyone?

I get there are a lot of "That's impossible..." what-ifs. But for the sake of argument, let's pretend. As I noted above, on at least some level, this was how healing in ARR worked, and players were (at the time) largely satisfied with this, with many loving both healers despite their individual focuses. Set aside the "impossible" and "ARR wasn't REALLY like that by 2.4 and on..." and so on, just a thought experiment.

We technically have this dynamic now with DNC who's identity revolves around buffs and can also provide very mild sustain. I do play DNC now and enjoy it, but I would rather be playing SGE with the fantasy that it is entirely capable of delivering upon. So in short, I don't think anything would change. You'd get some players who'd accept the DNC identity, but you'd still have a lot of vocal backlash against the healer role for feeling stale in easier content. It would still probably be looked at as inherently flawed by many dedicated healing players. The game would also need to output damage constantly in order to justify the healer role and not have the meta kill it for a 2x support scenario you mentioned, and who knows how that would impact MSQ instance content. You'd probably just have a different game entirely at that point. Perhaps if the frequency of damage was high enough to actually justify healing rotations, it might not be as frowned upon, but it's too difficult to say because the environment would have to be entirely alien to the one we have now.

The reality is, that idea of healer is one that is dying because it was historically very unpopular in older MMOs where healers were HP batteries and little more. Most people don't want to just be a battery or a cheerleader. They want to engage with the gameplay, just from an angle of someone who prioritizes support and needs to make decisions based on the situation their in of when to attack, when to heal, when to support, etc.

Now I know the point of this was for the sake of argument, but I do want to point out that while many of the suggestions several of us have made over the years about the healer role may be a lot for the tepid constitutions the devs seem to have around healer design, that these are suggestions would work within the structure that this game provides. It doesn't require a ground-up rework of the game because we discuss changes that work based on how encounters are designed currently. We need to accept that DPS is a major party of healer gameplay in this game as it has been designed, whether intentional or no, but I also believe that this acceptance can also lead to creating a healer that is meant to appeal to the healer that doesn't like offense--a healer who disguises their DPS contributions through support.

[Renathras]

We technically have this dynamic now with DNC...

True, but that's kind of my point - it's not a Healer Role split. It's a DPS Role split, and it's kind of haphazard. 3/4 Jobs sort of have it and sort of not:

PLD - A Tank with a lot of party healing and mitigation. All the tanks, honestly, have some capacity for party healing and mitigation (WAR does as well), but PLD has the most on-demand between Clemency, an extra raid mitigation, and the rare uses of Cover. No Raise for a "second healer". Its healing is a DPS loss, to the point it's rarely used without condemnation.
DNC - More a buff focus than a healing focus, but with some healing abilities. But its healing abilities weaved within its damage formula but also gated by long CDs preventing any kind of sustained support healing. No Raise for a "second healer".
RDM - Potential for sustained party healing, but the healing is more or less as weak as it can be and not be completely trivial. Best Raising potential in the game. Its healing/Raising is a complete DPS loss, however.
SMN - The only other non-healer with a Raise, but its healing outside of Phoenix once every 2 minutes is less than trivial. Phoenix healing is enough to be significant, but is time gated and cannot be held for situations needed, making it often useless overhealing.

We don't have a Healer system with this basis. Although here we could note that other than PLD (for rotational issues), the other three are widely loved classes, and of the people who do love PLD, one of the reasons is because of that support capability. SMN is the most played Caster (and possibly the most played DPS Job), RDM is still very popular, and DNC is the most played Ranged.

I'm not saying it's what would be used for SGE, but SCH and AST having a kind of hybrid support profile would probably be very popular. In effect, isn't this what most of you are asking for already? ARR SCH? Healer Jobs that maintain a DPS rotation and uptime with some damage ability interactions/CDs and such where most healing is done through oGCDs or ability interactions?

This would make the "Support Healers" more fun (rather than stale) in easier content for the players who are bored now, since you'd actually be playing something like DNC or RDM when no healing was needed, shifting more heavily into your healing tools only when the situation demanded it. I don't know DNC that well, but I know RDM decently.

[EDIT to clarify - I mean "A healer/new healer/SGE/SCH, whatever that played like this"]

I would envision something like imagine if RDM had its present day rotation with a few tweaks. Acceleration has a shortish CD (30 sec, maybe) and can be used on heals. Using it on heals generates more Black/White Mana of some set amount (less than if you were using your DPS rotation, but enough to partly refund GCD healing with damage) than their standard non-acceleration amount (which would be as much as Jolt 2) and make them instant cast. Maybe it guarantees procing Stone or Fire Ready (whichever Mana you have less of), the details aren't overly important here. It gains the abilities Vermedica (a simple AOE heal) and Vercure 2 (a larger single target heal). It would also have an AOE oGCD heal with a CD around 60 seconds (Vermedica 2, perhaps), a single target heal like Lustrate/Durchole with a 60 sec CD (Vergrammaton), a second heal that's basically the same thing, but consumes 10/10 or something White/Black Mana (Ver...lustrate?) (so like SCH with non-Energy Drain healing abilities, optimization would be to avoid using it, but it's there if you need spikes of single target emergency healing; RDM also already has something like this in live as a DPS with Enchanted Reprisal as a movement tool but one you generally want to avoid using unless you have to), and probably some kind of oGCD single target barrier, like VerStoneskin as either a Benison or Aquaveil equivalent (every healer has some kind of Aquaveil at this point other than MAYBE SCH depending on how you want to look at Protraction). Finally, healing GCDs don't break the melee/burst combo. If we wanted to, we could make more oGCDs use Mana or add an AOE oGCD that does or something, but this is just a framework.

So your oGCD kit consists of something akin to Physis, Tetra, Lustrate (spamable with Mana), and Divine Benison, along with, of course, Magick Barrier, which is outright (a weaker version of) Temperance right now, backed up by a strong single target spamable GCD backup heal (Vercure 2) and a AOE spamable GCD backup heal (Vermedica). And, of course, Verraise.

The gameplay would consist of performing the rotation just like today, and when your Pure Healer teammate needed more support, you could use your oGCD healing tools for spot or emergency healing, and in crisis situations, you could support with Dualcast 2x Medica or Cure 2 spam.

This would be a lot like ARR SCH with a main focus on DPS upkeep with oGCD healing support, having GCD backup heals for moments of crisis. The GCD heals could also be used with Acceleration to generate Mana, or could be used as Dualcasts at a minor DPS loss. Using it as the lead cast of a 2 spell pair would refund some of the damage lost by generating a Jolt 2's (spell you want to avoid/"consolation prize" rotation ability when you don't have Fire/Stone anyway) worth of mana. Still a damage loss vs Jolt 2 (what with not doing damage), but wouldn't interrupt your rotational flow if you're able to heal in this way - remember that being one of my considerations for the DPS minded healer, that their rotation flow be as little disrupted as necessary by healing needs in a general sense outside of emergencies.

Surely that wouldn't feel stale, especially since you were just mentioning how stylish and fun RDM looks?

It would still probably be looked at as inherently flawed by many dedicated healing players.

That's the point - dedicated healing players would, instead, play the other Healer subrole, let's call it Dedicated Healing (DH vs SH) to avoid confusion with the current "Pure" or "Barrier" names.

Again, just like in ARR where dedicated healing players didn't enjoy SCH and so played WHM, under this model, they wouldn't play the Support Healer unless they wanted that playstyle. In ARR, if a dedicated healer picked up SCH, they either adapted to or it swapped back to WHM when they realized Adlo wasn't Cure 2 and Succor wasn't Medica.

...I also find it a bit confusing you're arguing against this. Isn't this what you were asking all healers to become? o.O

The game would also need to output damage constantly in order to justify the healer role and not have the meta kill it for a 2x support scenario you mentioned,

P5-P8S say hai. Not trying to be snarky, just a smidge of humor. We just saw this, so it's clearly not a "change" here, it's what we have right now. It's also what we had in ARR and HW. I think you said before you'd been playing since then as well. Do you remember back when boss autos were actually dangerous AND could occasionally crit? That makes P5S's bleed look tame since at least it's anticipated and controlled.

and who knows how that would impact MSQ instance content.

It wouldn't. As you guys are fond of saying in your idea to change all the healers, MSQ would remain unchanged for the casual player so Healers not into that could play as they do today. No reason to change that.

Likewise, in casual 2 healer content, 2x Supports would work entirely fine. For example, in 24 mans now, you don't need a Pure and Barrier healer. You arguably could probably solo heal all those fights if your party members are avoiding avoidable damage. So for the purposes of ques - 24 mans, leveling dungeons, and so on - there would be no healer shortage even if the Sustain Healers were unpopular (they wouldn't be, btw), since the game could just grab Support Healers to slot in and have no problems.

You'd probably just have a different game entirely at that point.

P5-8S are in this game right here. And again, ARR and HW. I'm not sure it would be "different game entirely" nor "entirely alien" since it's both been this game in the past and is arguably this game this tier.

The reality is, that idea of healer is one that is dying because it was historically very unpopular in older MMOs

Not really. While it's true that some less players want to play them (hence splitting the role so you only need half as many), healers were traditionally more played than Tanks, and still are in a lot of games. Even in FFXIV, Tanks and Healers are roughly equivalent in number of players, and this is with the healing model being unsatisfying for many. So it's never been historically very unpopular, and has often been more popular than Tank. Still arguably is except in games that allow for a Support role. Note also that Support is something a lot of players enjoy, despite games not having it as a fleshed out role.

Non-scientific, but in polls of the Pantheon community, the split is roughly 18% Tanks, 22% healers, 30% Support, and 30% Damage players. Not exact, but Healers are a bit more than Tanks, and the DPS players split. In many games (no Support role), those players are forced into one of the other three roles, and tend to play either Healer or something like DNC/RDM and find themselves dissatisfied because it's not QUITE what they like best, instead preferring something like a Mesmer/Enchanter/Bard (Everquest type, not FFXIV type). Which is to say, there are a lot of players that genuinely want that playstyle and are kind of just left in the cold.

It turns out a significant amount of people kind of DO want to be a party cheerleader, just a lot of them want to be a different type of cheerleader.

Moreover, I don't think Dedicated Healers are nearly the vanishing base of players you do. I know players who ONLY play healers in games, and they don't DPS. You guys talk all the time about how many 0 DPS Sylphies you run into in all your dungeon and Party Finder Raids, right? Someone earlier said she ran into a healer that ran away from the enemies so they didn't damage any with Assize. Clearly there are a lot of these players (by your collective anecdotes) rather than it being a dying or vanishing playeerbase. If it was vanishing as you say, then you guys wouldn't have all those stories of the 0 DPS healers, right?

They want to engage with the gameplay, just from an angle of someone who prioritizes support and needs to make decisions based on the situation their in of when to attack, when to heal, when to support, etc.

At the risk of taking us to the unproductive place we were a few pages ago - I think here you're stating your own opinion as if it is shared by everyone. You say "They want to engage with the gameplay". Two issues with this are (1) Dedicated Healers ARE engaging with the gameplay, they just aren't engaging with a DPS rotation and (b) why is "They"? I get that "They" includes you, but are you of the mind that you can speak for the entire healing playerbase across all of gaming? Is that not a bold claim?

that these are suggestions would work within the structure that this game provides.

Ahem...

...many are not. For example, your two concepts (particularly the first one) above would not work with the current game encounter design and party structure as we have it today.

Moreover, what I proposed actually would work just fine. For non-Savage content, it would be irrelevant. For Savage content, you could probably brute force it just like people were able to get a single healer Ultimate clear. Dedicated players could probably 2x Support Healer it if the party as a whole made some modifications (DPS with more healing/mitigation utility) and played well (no taking avoidable damage at all), while the majority would opt for taking one of each healer. It would be no different than P5S if you had one Healer focused on healing all the bleeds while the other Healer focused on DPS, shifting to support healing during the heavy damage phases.

The game is already working like this in the current tier, and did in 6.1 (selfish WHM's forcing their co-healer to do 80+% of the healing is a perversion of this idea, and it literally worked - people hated it because it wasn't intended and designed for)

So I'm confused why you're saying this idea would require a "ground-up rework of the game" considering both of the previous raid tiers (both in the EW expansion) have had examples of this in the live game (clearly it hasn't required a total rework!), and the game also has this as the roots of what we have today, being the way healing worked in ARR and arguably HW...

I'm a bit confused how you're thinking it requires entire reworks when it's already what we have in live?

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We don't "need to accept that DPS is a major part(y) of healer gameplay". Again, at the risk of before, that's what you need me to accept for your position to be the default and have precedence. (In other words, for your position to win "by default".) But there's no actual reason or necessity to do so. Current encounter design and healer gameplay shows we do not, in fact, need to accept that.

But besides that, this WAS a thought experiment. A "what if" and "how would it work if we did it"?

You will never appeal to Healers that don't like offense if you're presenting them with a choice of do more offense or be a worse player. Forcing them into casting non-healing support is only a marginal solution, as it will only appeal to a few, and will mostly appeal to Support players (from the Tank/Heal/Support/Damage paradigm), not to Heal players. In other words, it will appeal to players like you more than to players like me.

Imagine in reverse if we had a system where all your damage spells were treated by the community as a Paladin casting Clemency - you being bad. That you're only to use them in very niche cases. Surely you can realize you would find Healing very un-appealing in a game design where you were told to not cast DPS spells in group play and that they were just for doing solo instances. I'm not sure how you think the reverse is going to appeal to people who are your mirror. Can you explain this?

That is, I think you don't understand people that disagree with you like me. You seem to think my mindset is "I don't want to damage the enemy personally", or think that I/we want to play as a pacifist. Like I think it was Sem who said the Healer ran away from the enemy pack to not accidentally hit them with Assize. While I won't say NO ONE plays that way, I'll say that's not the majority of us on the other side. As I've expressed before, what I don't like are damage rotations and upkeep buttons/CDs. Like take RDM. I don't mind Jolt/Stone/Fire/Aero/Thunder/Holy/Flare/Scorch/Resolution, per se. I don't like being stuck in a rigid damage rotation while trying to heal. I also don't like abilities I need to use on CD or line up. It's why I hate DoTs and having to upkeep them, and on SCH often forget Chain Strat. My mind just isn't in that space.

Conversely, it's why I don't mind dealing damage (one-button Glarespam/Dosispam/etc) because I have no aversion to hurting the enemy. I have an aversion to something distracting me from party healthbars. It's also why I'm okay with charge CD direct damage abilities (like Phlegma) because I can use them in a wide span without a performance loss. I have a 40 second window to use Plegma in as opposed to Dia where I have a single GCD I must use it on or suffer a performance loss. It's the lack of flexibility that I had issue with in both your WHM change proposals, especially the first because of the length and rigidity in the burst window.

In short: It's not harming the enemy I/we have an aversion to, it's being locked in a rigid damage rotation or damage rotation that steals mental focus away from the fight and healing needs of the party.

Replacing "damage" with "support/buffs" tends to lead to the same result. It's why I don't find AST appealing (well, also the aesthetic, but the playstyle), and would only find it slightly more appealing if the Cards were GCDs, but not much more.

I'm just curious about how you're so certain of what other people think or how they'd react to changes... I agree that many players have the same focus and interest that you do. If I didn't think so, I would never have proposed changing any of the healers at all. I'm just confused why you are so resistant to see that the opposite is also true. Dedicated Healers (players) are no more dying than Support Healers are, for example. I'm just confused about how you're so certain of these things, as I've seen no data to really support it anywhere, and anecdotally, I'm hardly alone in how I think. Hell, as I noted, I purple/blue in 24 mans. That means around 3/4ths of Healers in FFXIV in general content (not high end raiders) dps less than I do.

.

But anyway, the point of the thought experiment was to see if you would like a Support/Damage-Hybrid Healer as a playstyle or not.

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EDIT: And it's a bit ironic to me you guys are against that kind of Healer since...imo, I'd find a RDM Healer Job that played more or less as I described RDM above and slotted into the second Healer slot as...dare I say I would find it fun to play?

[ty_taurus]

We don't "need to accept that DPS is a major part(y) of healer gameplay". Again, at the risk of before, that's what you need me to accept for your position to be the default and have precedence. (In other words, for your position to win "by default".) But there's no actual reason or necessity to do so. Current encounter design and healer gameplay shows we do not, in fact, need to accept that.

Accepting that DPS is a part of healing in this game doesn't necessarily translate to DPS rotations like what gets discussed. It just means accepting that DPS will always be the metric that is used to determine what actions a healer takes. What action either directly or indirectly yields the most damage? Even when you heal, you're making this decision either intentionally or unintentionally. Reviving a DPS? That's more damage than hitting Glare. Esuna-ing the Slow off the BLM? That damage the BLM is losing is probably worth more than your Glares. Using Medica II? Ideally, it's because the regen gained will result in less Glares lost than perhaps Cure III. This is even true of old Final Fantasies. There's not a prize for topping off the party. You're trying to not lose people so you can continue the battle and win the fight. Many players actually try not to heal in battle and instead heal after battle in older turn based RPGs, because all healing in battle does is slow everything down unless it's preventing KOs. An example of where this is accepted was in the buff to Afflatus Misery. It means accepting that players would not use lily healing for any other reason than being forced to as the reward of misery was not a reward, but a consolation prize.

[Renathras]

Accepting that DPS is a part of healing in this game doesn't necessarily translate to DPS rotations like what gets discussed. It just means accepting that DPS will always be the metric that is used to determine what actions a healer takes. What action either directly or indirectly yields the most damage? Even when you heal, you're making this decision either intentionally or unintentionally. Reviving a DPS? That's more damage than hitting Glare. Esuna-ing the Slow off the BLM? That damage the BLM is losing is probably worth more than your Glares. Using Medica II? Ideally, it's because the regen gained will result in less Glares lost than perhaps Cure III. This is even true of old Final Fantasies. There's not a prize for topping off the party. You're trying to not lose people so you can continue the battle and win the fight. Many players actually try not to heal in battle and instead heal after battle in older turn based RPGs, because all healing in battle does is slow everything down unless it's preventing KOs. An example of where this is accepted was in the buff to Afflatus Misery. It means accepting that players would not use lily healing for any other reason than being forced to as the reward of misery was not a reward, but a consolation prize.

I don't disagree that many people play this way. However, many do not.

Ask Jonny Casual if he's thinking about the difference between a lost Glare or a dead DPS doing more damage than him when he casts Cure 2 or Raise and he will look at you in utter confusion. "When someone's dead, I Raise them. That's what healers do. When someone's damaged, I heal them so their health bar isn't as empty and they aren't as likely to die. That's what healers do."

A midcore player (who isn't REALLY trying to optimize or parse) will probably mention the DPS difference, but it's more an aside than anything. They aren't actively thinking, when choosing to Raise or not "Would my Glare potency be more or less than this dead player's?" It's not a part of their active decision making process. (It probably isn't for most hardcore players, either, they've just internalized the decision.)

The buff to Misery wasn't "players would not use lily healing for any other reason". It was "high end raiders trying to maximize their parse or clear tight Enrages would not use lily healing for any other reason". And it wasn't even true of all high end raiders. People were using Lilies before the change. Some where just complaining about it. A lot.

I think part of the problem with the language barrier here is you are accurately describing a portion of the player base and gamers in a more general sense. The problem isn't that you aren't accurately describing that part (Double negative, but the point is, the part you're describing you are describing correctly). The problem is you aren't accurately describing them/us all as a whole. You're describing a part and then extrapolating that part's view onto the whole, leading to confusion and a difficulty to understand and reconcile the disconnect when you run into someone that is from the part you aren't accurately describing. It also seems to cause you to believe the part you're describing is either the whole or at least such an overwhelming majority as to be functionally equivalent (in terms of how the game should be designed), when we don't actually have evidence to support that and, at the very least (again, the Lucky Bancho numbers: https://i.imgur.com/t6eJLaj.png ) have evidence showing a significant portion of the player base (at the very least a large minority) doesn't fit into that.

[ty_taurus]

I don't disagree that many people play this way. However, many do not.

Ask Jonny Casual if he's thinking about the difference between a lost Glare or a dead DPS doing more damage than him when he casts Cure 2 or Raise and he will look at you in utter confusion. "When someone's dead, I Raise them. That's what healers do. When someone's damaged, I heal them so their health bar isn't as empty and they aren't as likely to die. That's what healers do."

The buff to Misery wasn't "players would not use lily healing for any other reason". It was "high end raiders trying to maximize their parse or clear tight Enrages would not use lily healing for any other reason". And it wasn't even true of all high end raiders. People were using Lilies before the change. Some where just complaining about it. A lot.

I think part of the problem with the language barrier here is you are accurately describing a portion of the player base and gamers in a more general sense. The problem isn't that you aren't accurately describing that part. The problem is you aren't accurately describing them/us all as a whole. You're describing a part and then extrapolating that part's view onto the whole, leading to confusion and a difficulty to understand and reconcile the disconnect when you run into someone that is from the part you aren't accurately describing. It also seems to cause you to believe the part you're describing is either the whole or at least such an overwhelming majority as to be functionally equivalent (in terms of how the game should be designed), when we don't actually have evidence to support that and, at the very least (again, the Lucky Bancho numbers: https://i.imgur.com/t6eJLaj.png ) have evidence showing a significant portion of the player base (at the very least a large minority) doesn't fit into that.

There are 3 realities about gamers that game designers need to understand and recognize:

1. There will always be a community of gamers that will discover the fasted road to victory, or the most efficient way to play. This community will seek out and attain "perfection."
2. There will always be many more who follow that community of gamers to reach the highest level of play; a few will reach that, but most will fall short somewhere along that road.
3. There will always be some gamers who are unaware of or who do not care about seeking "perfection" and will play whatever way feels most natural to them.

Good game design seeks to create an environment where all players who are interested in the particular genre can feel satisfied with the provided experience. Not all decisions that can be made in respects to how DPS determines healer gameplay along that road to max efficiency are inherently harmful to those in the group that are unaware or do not care, such as the example of Afflatus Misery. Making Misery DPS neutral may not have mattered at all to Jonny Casual, but what it did do is provide a QoL improvement to the WHM experience for those who seek perfection and those who obtain perfection both from a raiding perspective as well as a casual perspective, because now instances of afflatus healing and misery can be used in easier content comfortably.

And even if someone is not consciously thinking about the choices that yield the most damage as a healer, their actions are still supporting that regardless. Not every choice will be the "right" choice per say, but people are not healing their allies because every time you restore their HP, a star is obtained, and whomever has the most stars at the end of the fight wins.