Healer Survey:

[ty_taurus]

I've got zero faith in MrHappy asking anything that Yoshida doesn't want to be asked about. When Zepla is doing a considerably better job of going off script and pushing Yoshida for answers, you know something's wrong.

I don't watch a lot of his content, truthfully. I feel like he tends to be more milquetoast about any given stance on things, and I only say that because it seems like he backpedals on his own thoughts at times, but I don't necessarily disagree with him on everything either. I'm just more curious if it's something that would catch his attention because I'm just curious about how his response to some feedback would be and that it would also potentially add more submissions, and I am curious myself about how more people feel about various jobs. Though that can be a double-edged sword if you have someone influencing the poll as well.

[Nizzi]

I've got zero faith in MrHappy asking anything that Yoshida doesn't want to be asked about. When Zepla is doing a considerably better job of going off script and pushing Yoshida for answers, you know something's wrong.

Mr. Happy actually asked Yoshida about healer DPS during the 6.0 media tour and mentioned that the community calls White Mage "glare mage" because the DPS options are boring; and he even said he wasn't satisfied with Yoshida's answer of "we're happy with the way healers are" and would be asking the question again in the future, for what it's worth.

[Renathras]

So with the new patch on the horizon, something that's interesting is that MrHappy usually takes a look at the general discussion forums around that time. Not gonna lie, I'm a little curious if the job design feedback thread will get noticed if he does, and what knock-on effects that might include. There's still some good discussions going on and submissions are still trickling in a few a day or so depending on the job.

He did one a week or so ago. The "Hot Takes" thread.

Mr. Happy actually asked Yoshida about healer DPS during the 6.0 media tour and mentioned that the community calls White Mage "glare mage" because the DPS options are boring; and he even said he wasn't satisfied with Yoshida's answer of "we're happy with the way healers are" and would be asking the question again in the future, for what it's worth.

Yup.

Just because someone doesn't hate the game doesn't make them a shill.

[Sebazy]

Mr. Happy actually asked Yoshida about healer DPS during the 6.0 media tour and mentioned that the community calls White Mage "glare mage" because the DPS options are boring; and he even said he wasn't satisfied with Yoshida's answer of "we're happy with the way healers are" and would be asking the question again in the future, for what it's worth.

I was referring to the 5.0 tour. Mr Happy sidestepped all of the healer rumblings over the prior leaks and demonstration builds then later explained that he along with all the other influencers were somewhat limited in what they could ask and the replies they could expect.

Just because someone doesn't hate the game doesn't make them a shill.

I never said he was a shill. I said he wouldn't ask Yoshida these sorts of questions because Yoshida won't answer them.

He confirmed as much himself on multiple occasions, make of that what you will.

Zepla's Shadowbringer's interview was good because she appeared to take the preplanned script and threw it out of the window, instead putting Yoshida on the spot with stuff he didn't seem to be prepared for. It made for a much more honest and candid feeling interview TBH.

[Renathras]

I never said he was a shill. I said he wouldn't ask Yoshida these sorts of questions because Yoshida won't answer them.

Ah. I saw you say "that Yoshida doesn't want to be asked about". If you meant "that he knew Yoshida probably wouldn't answer (or answer directly)", then perhaps so. Though I don't think that's as negative as you present it to be, he just doesn't want to waste valuable Q&A time/slots on something that won't get an answer anyway in that case.

I never felt Zepla's was that off the wall, but...

[Sebazy]

I was pissed at him at the time because instead of asking for clarification on the healing situation (Remember, the official forums and reddit were on fire about the impending healer culling for ShB at this point), he asked about things like Egi Glamours

[Renathras]

I was pissed at him at the time because instead of asking for clarification on the healing situation (Remember, the official forums and reddit were on fire about the impending healer culling for ShB at this point), he asked about things like Egi Glamours

"Remember, the official forums and reddit were on fire about..."

Neither I nor anyone I knew playing the game at the time (this would have been late SB) were in the FFXIV subreddit. I didn't know FFXIVDiscussion existed until mid-to-late ShB, and I'm not sure I had posted on the Official Forums or knew they existed back then, either. If I did, I was very uninvolved. The only out-of-game discussion I had on the game was on Disc with my FC.

I also don't think Happy frequents the Official Forums (given his every month or so visit to general to read one thread/comments he thinks is worth laughs) much at all, and I have no idea if he touches Reddit. So it's quite possible he wasn't aware (or was much less aware) of the controversy. I think he generally mains DPS Jobs, too, making him probably less aware, too.

[Sebazy]

I also don't think Happy frequents the Official Forums (given his every month or so visit to general to read one thread/comments he thinks is worth laughs) much at all, and I have no idea if he touches Reddit. So it's quite possible he wasn't aware (or was much less aware) of the controversy. I think he generally mains DPS Jobs, too, making him probably less aware, too.

He was 100% aware of the discourse over it. Again to confirm, he said himself that he didn't ask the question because he wouldn't get an answer out of Yoshida on it. However yes, he isn't a regular healer and as such, he didn't appear to see the extent of the problem beyond 'it's there'.

Of course, we could turn to an FFXIV influencer that's a long time healer main, except of course we don't have one because SE knows precisely how badly that would go despite there being a number of actually pretty good candidates like Momo.

[fulminating]

I don’t really understand how the current state of healers benefits SE. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

[Sebazy]

It makes sense, but only from the perspective of their financing department.

Right now the bulk of the game is exceptionally newbie and casual friendly for healers. Someone completely new to MMOs can come in and competently keep people alive through even Extreme content pretty much from the moment they can do the mechanics or follow the donut. This fits in with Shadowbringer's approach of 'we've got enough new players coming in that we don't need to care about long term retention at the top end'.

The other side of the coin is that to actually 'fix' high end play without crushing the approachability of healing is likely to be a pretty serious task at this point and it only gets worse as time goes on. FFXIV's job design team is tiny and has remained largely consistent from ARR despite how much the game has grown. Thus the move to homogenisation to make balancing more feasible at the expense of diversity. Turning this around would need significant hiring and time, two things that CBU3 have been pretty unwilling to commit to.

I made a thread examining FFXIV's job design team over the years here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ealer-designer.