The Healers should be reworked? New player perspective.

[Renathras]

For someone who became extremely vitriolic over me not completely reading your response a hot minute ago, it's ironic that you're doing the same thing here on a post that was a fraction the length of yours. We are saying the same thing. You're just trying to correct me with exactly what I said. Some of the ~16-33% who did not select to see more attack actions will be in the category of "indifferent," therefore, the percentage of players who do not want to see more DPS actions is at least the 2-4% who voted to see less attack actions and at most ~16-33% and is most likely somewhere in between.

More like I'm trying to be explicit while you are not.

Your presentation has a slight spin to it which implies states that because only 2-4% want less, we can infer from that (implying) the other 14-18% are ambivalent (a statement you made, even though I directly rejected it in my own personal case), and so wouldn't mind too much if more attack buttons were put into all the Healers. You even say this part in various ways, such as:

...but the other players between the minimum and maximum values might not care either way.

...which I specifically just quoted to you. This is an incorrect interpretation.

In other words, your position SEEMS TO BE:

1) Only 2-4% (depending on Job, but overall probably 3%) want less damage buttons.
2) This must mean the other 18% of the 20% don't want more damage buttons but are fine with more damage buttons.
3) Combined with the ~80% who want more damage actions, this would make an overwhelming 97% that either want more damage buttons or don't mind more damage buttons.

X) The obvious conclusion via this interpretation would be to add more damage buttons to all Healer Jobs, since the amount opposed is an insignificantly small minority

However, this is wrong. The reality is:

1) 2-4% want less damage actions.
2) 18% more do not want more damage actions and some percentage of this, possibly a large one, would be upset with more damage actions. Specifically and explicitly: They are not fine with more damage abilities added to all Healers.
(Because "more attacking actions" was an option, we know that people that DO want more gave that answer, meaning those who did not do not want more attacking actions.)

X) This substantially changes the equation since we cannot claim 97% either want or would accept more damage actions. We can only claim with certainty that 80% would want or accept more damage actions, and some number towards 20% would oppose and be upset. 1/5th or 20% is an entire order of magnitude greater than 1/50th or 2%. The implication here is that we should leave at least one Healer unchanged.

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The nuance in the distinction I'm making and what I'm finding fault with in your post is the difference between 1/50th and 1/5th, which is hardly a minor quibble since the first would suggest giving all healers more damage actions and shrugging off the upset people leaving the game while the latter is sufficient to justify not changing one Healer.

[Shurrikhan]

In other words, your position SEEMS TO BE:

1) Only 2-4% (depending on Job, but overall probably 3%) want less damage buttons.
2) This must mean the other 18% of the 20% don't want more damage buttons but are fine with more damage buttons.
3) Combined with the ~80% who want more damage actions, this would make an overwhelming 97% that either want more damage buttons or don't mind more damage buttons.

X) The obvious conclusion via this interpretation would be to add more damage buttons to all Healer Jobs, since the amount opposed is an insignificantly small minority

However, this is wrong. The reality is:

If I ask you if you want, for example, more money and you answer no, does this mean you would be upset if given more money?

If I ask you, among a small set of possible pathways to improve your quality of life at work, whether a dedicated parking space, fewer on-call hours, improvements to the break room, etc., would be a significant boon for you, are you therefore outright opposed to each pathway you didn't specifically say 'Yes' to?

...is sufficient to justify not changing one Healer.

So we have two ways to interpret the intersection between a bimodal question (More Offensive Actions? [Yes/No]) and its 5 actual sourcing opinions...

1. I want more actions,
2. I want an equal or greater number of actions,
3. I want the same number of actions (no more and no fewer),
4. I want an equal or lesser number of actions, and
5. I want fewer actions

And in the end we cannot quite know which is the most accurate. One perhaps overstates the majority by 21%. The other perhaps overstates the minority by 900%.



I can't say I'm surprised, though, that the latter interpretation is used to subject a job to being cut/kept to a barebone version, per your long-running project, Ren, on the basis of --at absolute most-- an opinion held by only 20% of respondents.

...All while ignoring, as usual, that a job having a decent ceiling does not prevent it from having an enjoyable floor and decent ease of use to the extent necessary to clear nearly all content and fulfill one's unique duties as healer. A job that runs a full gamut (A to Z, so to speak) of gameplay factors, instead of being cropped short at N, still has access to gameplay factors A to M.

[Renathras]

If I ask you if you want, for example, more money and you answer no, does this mean you would be upset if given more money?

Don't use a biased example. If I ask you if you want more vanilla ice cream, and you say no, does that mean you want more vanilla ice cream? We agree the answer is no.

Does that mean you wouldn't mind more vanilla ice cream?

You are saying it MUST mean you wouldn't mind vanilla ice cream, and Ty is suggesting it means MOST PEOPLE by that are saying they wouldn't mind more. He's citing people aren't saying that they want LESS ice cream, so that must mean they're fine with more even if they don't outright want more.

But what if you would mind? What if you like chocolate (party buffing) or strawberry (movement options) and genuinely can't stand the taste of vanilla (more damage buttons)?
Alternatively, what if you've just eaten two scoops of vanilla (feel you have plenty of attack buttons to satisfy you) and are sated right now and don't want more ice cream in a general sense, or perhaps wouldn't mind a different flavor but don't want more vanilla specifically?

According to you, ALL of those people wouldn't mind more vanilla, even when at least some, and probably most, very likely would.

Your interpretation is that we can assume everyone who didn't say they DON'T want less ice cream MUST either want more vanilla or be okay with more vanilla, even though there was a question specifically asking if people wanted more vanilla and these people did not say they wanted more.

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The problem is that we need more nuanced question AND answer options in order to parse what that distinction is.

That is the only way to know what these other people think. Otherwise you're just putting words in their mouth to get a higher support in a survey whose questions and sample/respondents already lean in your favor. That's the thing, this survey already is (mostly) tilted as much as it could be in your favor without blatantly putting a fat thumb on the scale and forcing the result to you, and you're still determined to insist your position is even more supported when the reality is that it is less.

What we DO know is that only 79.X% of the survey respondents asked for more attacking options, even though everyone had the option to ask for more if they wanted them. We also know that some people answering that option didn't want MORE attack abilities, they just wanted them at earlier levels (Misery was often cited as something people want WHM to get earlier than it does). And we know that ~20% do not want more attack actions, with 2-4% wanting less.

We do NOT know that the 20% would be fine or wouldn't mind. That we do not know, and cannot know based on the way the poll was set up. So they cannot be cited as supporting or being ambivalent to a position that you didn't poll them on "are you ambivalent?", and which they had the opportunity to say they supported and they did not do so. You cannot even assume ambivalence - as I said, I did not answer less attacking abilities (I think we have about the right amount) - and I'm clearly not ambivalent. So we know that at least one person in that category is NOT ambivalent/would be fine with more damage abilities. And as none of you are likely in that camp (I'd wager you all said more attack options), you cannot authoritatively speak to the feelings of this group in any way, whereas I'm actually a representative/member of it.

Since the survey did not ask a question to allow us to know that, you can't assume it. The only thing you can assume/know is that 80% want more dps actions and 20% do not.

Moreover, even if they WERE all ambivalent - and I stress again they are not - that doesn't mean you should give them more and them just accept it. That's some kind of passive aggressive toxic thing to do to people. "Oh, you didn't say you DIDN'T want this beer, so I'm giving you this beer, even though you said you wanted a soda, because _I_ wanted a beer and didn't want to drink alone..."

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Additionally - it's not "at absolute most...20%". 20% is at absolute least (well, 16%). Given that the survey is from a sample biased to be pro-more attack, it means the general community population will be more anti-damage than this survey, whatever the survey number happens to be. 16% is the lowest we can say don't want more damage actions, which is 1/5th of the total, and again, enough to make the argument to ensure they have a Healer Job that suits their playstyle.

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Finally, it's not "barebones" or any other insults you want to give it. Some people DON'T LIKE dps rotations. The people who don't like DPS rotations tend to play Jobs that do not have DPS rotations. It's like if you don't like buffing party members, you don't play AST or DNC or BRD, because their gameplay is based on buffing, or how if you don't like drawing agro and Tanking, you don't play a Tank.

This should not be a hard concept to understand, yet so many people on these forums seem to have some kind of mental block preventing them from accessing this ridiculously simple concept:

Many people do not want a dps rotation, which is why they do not play a DPS Job. If they wanted a DPS rotation, they could play a DPS Job. There are SOME Healers who ALSO want a DPS rotation, but there are many who do not. This isn't being lazy, it's not being braindead, it's not any of the insulting words you want to apply to it. All it is is people who like something you do not and don't like something that you do. My position is that they should have the option to play their way and be optimal and you should have the option to play your way and be optimal. Your position is that ONLY you should be able to play the way you want, and other people either should be forced to play your way or should suffer. That's not a good position to hold by any metric. It's a very very BAD position.

But given how abjectly selfish and antagonistic people in here have been to the idea, I'm leaning more and more towards you just shouldn't get anything at all at this point. If you so oppose letting people who like gameplay now continue to experience it, then I'm ready to say "So you get nothing. You LOSE. Good DAY, sir." https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8rVY26lZItM

The status quo is Healer Jobs as they are now. THAT is the baseline position from which we bargain and seek compromise.

The status quo IS NOT that all the Healer Jobs get changed to have more DPS and I have to argue a case to save one of them from being butchered by you guys.

The status quo - what happens if no compromise is reached - is that NOTHING CHANGES. And YOU have to make the case to change ANY of the Healers, and have to make the case in absolute terms for changing all of them. You don't get to rest on your position as the default and the onus on me to oppose it. The onus is on you to make the case that each and every Healer MUST change, and that the game will be horrible or bad or everyone will leave if even ONE Healer does not: A case no one has made rationally (calling something "braindead" is not a case, even if it were true, which it isn't).

People HAVE made a case for why SOME Healers should be changed, which is why I agree on that point. People have NOT made a case for why ALL of them MUST be changed. Again, calling something "braindead", "barebones", "baby", "meme", "Sylphie", or so on is not making a case.

But at this point, I'm on the verge of holding the opinion that if you're unwilling to share the pool, and you're going to fight with other people over who gets to use the pool, then perhaps YOU get kicked out of the pool, not everyone else swimming happily who is willing to share with you.

[fulminating]

How do you know it’s biased one way or the other if at all? Surely such omniscience would be better used on lottery tickets.

[Shurrikhan]

The status quo is Healer Jobs as they are now. THAT is the baseline position from which we bargain and seek compromise.

Nice arbitrary point of delineation there, especially given that the "status quo" you're using as if it were a moral high ground... took 4 expansions of changes to reach, with a hefty portion of those larger changes being unrequested and widely despised, especially since ShB.

What would be, at each of those points, your warrant for... taking from those who did, for instance, prefer the old Cards system to arrive nearer to this new status quo? In reducing 5 DPS skills to 3? In so reducing healing requirements? In shifting healing increasingly just towards oGCDs?

What? "It just is, so deal with it now"? That's the equivalent of a thief demanding that not a cent be given back because the status quo now features that money in his pocket instead.

So why should this single point in time be uniquely protected and disproportionately weighted, especially when so many of the warrants against those more controversial changes still apply today?

But at this point, I'm on the verge of holding the opinion that if you're unwilling to share the pool, and you're going to fight with other people over who gets to use the pool, then perhaps YOU get kicked out of the pool, not everyone else swimming happily who is willing to share with you.

So sayeth... the beneficiary of, already, multiple evictions from said pool / having pissed in the water enough that so many felt compelled to leave.

I wonder why it is that so many who allege to speak for a "silent majority" completely forget also any majority silenced by having the game changed towards they can't find worth continuing to play.

The only thing you can assume/know is that 80% want more dps actions and 20% do not.

We know that 80% clicked the button to ask for more damage buttons, and 20% did not. That is all.

There was not button for No. There was no button for indifferent. One simply clicked off any among the 5 options per "Which of the following [one] would like to see in the future for White Mage? (Check all that apply.)" Those options, by the way, were shared almost identically across all jobs regardless of role.

What you're concluding is an interpretation (more than likely biased) of the data's findings, but not the findings themselves. Ironic, given your complaints and your agreement otherwise that more response options would be required to reach more specific conclusions.

_________________


EDIT [For those not familiar with the surveys]:

The WHM survey, by way of example. There was a near-identical one for each job.

[ForsakenRoe]

Man I don't get why people are getting worked up over the difference between if the 'didn't say either way' people means they want more or less or exactly the same, because the overwhelming majority (80%+) said they do want more. Countries decide their future with less of a majority than we see here

What? "It just is, so deal with it now"? That's the equivalent of a thief demanding that not a cent be given back because the status quo now features that money in his pocket instead.

Ironically seems to be the MO of the current leading party in my country. Bastards blew like 44billion on PPE contracts for the pandemic, giving it to friends and donors to the party, and now we're stuck with a bunch of useless, not up to code PPE that couldn't be used, and they refuse to do any investigations into where the money went or get it back. And they spent like 50x the amount other countries did on our 'test and trace' system, which has been found by independent investigation to be, not just 'useless', but 'if it had not existed at all, we'd actually be better off', THAT bad. The mere thought of 'disabled benefits fraud' sends them into hysterics though, gotta immediately stamp that out. The people most fervently in favor of 'the status quo', defending it with so much zeal almost, are the ones who have a vested interest in it, because it benefits them in some way to keep it

sorry politics pisses me off more and more recently, back to complaining about funny holy magic man and his lack of holy magic attacks

The status quo is Healer Jobs HW BRD with cast times, as they are now. THAT is the baseline position from which we bargain and seek compromise.

The status quo IS NOT that all the Healer Jobs HW BRD with cast times get changed to have more DPS gameplay similar to the version in ARR people came to enjoy, and I have to argue a case to save one of them the cast time gameplay from being butchered by you guys.

The status quo - what happens if no compromise is reached - is that NOTHING CHANGES. And YOU have to make the case to change ANY of the Healers cast time BRD, and have to make the case in absolute terms for changing all of them. You don't get to rest on your position as the default and the onus on me to oppose it. The onus is on you to make the case that each and every Healer BRD MUST change, and that the game will be horrible or bad or everyone will leave if even ONE Healer does not BRD continues to have gameplay that was hamfistedly forced onto it to keep parity with the new MCH

And yet BRD did get such a backlash, an outcry, a mass exodus as we have heard there is from healers because of this tier, that it DID get changed, completely, for SB. The 'status quo' for MCH was that you'd need a PHD to do its rotation right, lining up when you overheat, holding all your stuff for Wildfire, and all to do middling damage because you got nerfed by 10% because you had the audacity to play in a group that didn't have a DRG. They changed it in SHB to actually use technology instead of just being 'funny gymnastics man with gun'. It still has the stupid flips but they're not the main focus of the class now

I redid part of my WHM idea so that the 'new gauge' could also be charged by healing, because you didn't want people to be forced into doing damage to use the cool new toy. I added one new damage button (and reworked one to be pressed a bit more often), and by contrast added two buttons that would be mitigation related, as well as like four 'lower level versions' of healing or mitigation related skills. I balanced the potencies so that ignoring all the new stuff would be 98% of the efficiency of the 'optimal new rotation', to minimize the chance that someone who 'doesn't want to use the new stuff and would prefer to just use Glare and Dia like now' would be the sole cause of an enrage in Savage. I have changed so many things about this design over time to 'compromise' with the hypothetical casual. And I know for a fact that others who have made theorycraft stuff like this have 'compromised' and bent their designs to be more inclusive for the hypothetical casual player than the designer intended. The hypothetical casual who may well be good enough at the game that they can keep up with a more complex design (as with the OP example). I was 'a casual' when I started in HW, my only experience healing in an MMO before this was like two LFR runs of Hellfire Citadel back in WOD. I learned my way through the Cleric Stance, the 'you can't use Deploy right after Adlo or it does it in the wrong order and misses', the horrendous MP costs for WHM, the Dissipation eating your fairy and not giving it back. And if I could learn this stuff, others could too, and it should frankly be considered an insult for one of these casual players, just starting the game, to listen to someone like you trying to say what they do and do not have the potential to achieve. If I were still 'a casual' I'd be hella mad if someone told me that 'we need to make the classes easier so you don't get overwhelmed'. Imagine telling someone new to the game 'yes, people used to be able to keep up with three DOTs on SCH in raids, but we removed them so you wouldn't get overwhelmed, now you only have one to worry about', how patronizing, how demeaning can you get?

I'm sorry but you got asked by Ty 'if you think your position is the majority, make a survey and get concrete data'. You botched it, then Ty made a survey and gets actual data. And your response to that data is either 'its biased' (which your survey of reddit somehow wouldn't be), or trying to wrangle the numbers to sound less destructive to your case. No matter how you slice it, 80+% of respondents on Ty's survey have said they would want more damage options on WHM. And I've been trying to get it spread more places. The fact that a lot of people are just too dismissive of this kind of thing ('it wont change anything why bother') is not a factor. If those non-voters really do support your view, that we shouldn't have more damage options, you'd better find a way to reach them, get them to fill out the survey, and swing the numbers back in your favor, because everywhere I've managed to get more people to answer it seems to have just doubled down on the 'more attacks' angle. Almost like there's a prevailing opinion. Well, aside from the 'why bother-ism'. You'd think that after EW's story people'd think twice about what change they can bring about, but nope, I guess it's just a work of fiction.

But at this point, I'm on the verge of holding the opinion that if you're unwilling to share the pool, and you're going to fight with other people over who gets to use the pool, then perhaps YOU get kicked out of the pool, not everyone else swimming happily who is willing to share with you.

Please don't make me go look for the the swimming lesson story again, I don't want to have to go find it or type it out

[GrimGale]

The healing skill floor is keeping your party alive.

The healing skill ceiling is keeping your party alive while doing as much damage as you can.

[fulminating]

The healing skill floor is keeping your party alive.

The healing skill ceiling is keeping your party alive while doing as much damage as you can.

It's tragic that the healer's presence isn't required to reach the skill floor in a lot of content and people still try to baby healers

[Tigore]

@ForsakenRoe The ideas look pretty good from your link. Doesn't look too complex in the grand scheme of things since it looks more designed to cut maybe half the Glare and Holy spam. The Quake spell might be a point of contention since it looks like Tornado would be used first for the DoT then Flood because it's that 15s cooldown equivalent that always does more damage. This could be fixed by extending the cooldown timer just for Flood and not Fluid Aura / Banish. We might see Quake used when players are fresh for a dungeon in gear, but it will likely not happen with how fast AoE enemies melt nowadays. Bosses might present a different problem where we might not generate enough Nature Gauge to even get to Quake. For Wall to Walls, we Dia DoT the first pack while giving the tank Regen to get a jump start, but we don't really have that for a boss pull.

[ForsakenRoe]

@ForsakenRoe The ideas look pretty good from your link. Doesn't look too complex in the grand scheme of things since it looks more designed to cut maybe half the Glare and Holy spam. The Quake spell might be a point of contention since it looks like Tornado would be used first for the DoT then Flood because it's that 15s cooldown equivalent that always does more damage. This could be fixed by extending the cooldown timer just for Flood and not Fluid Aura / Banish. We might see Quake used when players are fresh for a dungeon in gear, but it will likely not happen with how fast AoE enemies melt nowadays. Bosses might present a different problem where we might not generate enough Nature Gauge to even get to Quake. For Wall to Walls, we Dia DoT the first pack while giving the tank Regen to get a jump start, but we don't really have that for a boss pull.

IDK if it is mentioned anywhere on the post (if not i'll add a note), but Rage/Ire/Wrath (the buffs that upgrade Glare/Dia/Banish for one cast) don't have a time limit. If you mean 'it might feel bad if you have Flood prepped, and Banish's CD is also ready, as you would want to get Banish out to get the timer ticking', Flood replaces the next Banish, not 'is in addition to', so you just wait till the next time you need to cast Banish and get the +100p bonus then. If you mean 'I just used Banish, then healed, then the Raidbuff window came up and now I won't be able to get Flood into the raidbuffs' then that sounds like some optimization which was the entire point of the idea

Also you word it like you have to choose which of Quake, Tornado, Flood you want, you don't. One cast of 'Blessing of the Elementals' gives one stack of each of the three buffs, that is, one Quake, one Tornado AND one Flood empowerment. The three empowerments (more specifically, their potencies) totaled together add up to exactly one Glare worth of damage. It's intended to be a way for the heal to be GCD, feel good to use despite being a GCD, and also be damage neutral in a less 'crit reliant' way than Misery currently is. The order isn't relevant for anyone besides hyper-optimization. You're right that under normal circumstances, you'd go T/F/Q (in a raidbuff window for example), but what if the Dia dot still has 6 seconds left on it? Clipping it'd be a waste, since you have two GCDs you can spare with Q and F. What if you have a moment coming in 4 sec where you need to move? Q first (it has a cast time), then use F and T as mobility even before having to rely on Lily-burning. As for gauge build speed, I estimate that you'd be getting around 60 per min, so you can use the AOE heal once per minute-ish, with some leeway for 'had to run, skipped a GCD'. In a sense, it makes the heal a sort of WHM themed Earthly Star competitor. And if worst comes to worst, we can start the instance with 100 gauge like how PLD does now.

Half the time we're able to use Lilies just to prep a Misery, so this gauge would potentially be overcapped at times. I have tried to design it in such a way that, unlike the gain sac-Lilies-get-Misery-in-raidbuffs presents, purposely 'wasting' this would be as little of a DPS gain as possible, while still A: feeling good to use normally (ie when healing is actually required), and B: still being at least a tiny gain because some people love them some optimizations

Thanks for having a look though, appreciated, ps pls watch the demo video of the rotation if you haven't, it's hard to explain just how big a change to the rotation it would actually be, even though it's only 'add one button, shorten DOT duration'. It's still super simple and easy to understand, but it's a lot more engaging, though that might be because I had to MacGyver it and click the Banish button with my mouse