A question for SCH mains and enjoyers

[Supersnow845]

Me. I have. I think current healer design is embarrassing and horrible and some of the worst class design I've ever seen in a video game, RPG, MMO, or otherwise.

I think "leaving one healer alone" is madness. If I have to give Ren one scrap of validation, it's that he actually "likes" current healer design (I think his enjoyment comes from its utter lack of a skill ceiling more than anything else, but whatever). I cannot square the opinions of people who think current healer design is boring and terrible......and so in conclusion, one healer should be cursed with the current asstastic snoozefest design for....*reasons*, while we fix the other three and call it a day.

I think the current healers do have fans. Those fans are people who don't like trying, don't want to improve, and want to make sure that playstyle is also optimal. A while back, Roe spent a lot of time designing a hypothetical WHM that keeps the Glarespam playstyle at 90% of the job's damage output while providing a rotation of sorts that could eke out another 10% if you wanted to go for it. Ren rejected it outright. Nope. No complexity for its own sake.

That's where I realized that "compromise" means one job *has* to remain boring and terrible, floor to ceiling, spending most of its time spamming one button. This is an argument that the DPS forums wouldn't countenance for a second. WHM is the only job in the game people regularly argue must be designed like crap because Someone Think Of The Sylphies.

Totally fair and understandable

[ty_taurus]

That's where I realized that "compromise" means one job *has* to remain boring and terrible, floor to ceiling, spending most of its time spamming one button. This is an argument that the DPS forums wouldn't countenance for a second. WHM is the only job in the game people regularly argue must be designed like crap because Someone Think Of The Sylphies.

If you did propose that on the DPS forums, you'd just be written off as arguing in bad faith and ignored.

[Renathras]

Yes, actually. Particularly the "he seemed not to like the idea of there being a healer Job that might have an aesthetic he'd like to play that doesn't exist in the changed/more complex state)." statement which is not true.

The specific reason I mentioned that was from a conversation we had where I made several proposals for a new Job to be added that was the "easy/left alone" one, and you saying that wasn't acceptable because you liked them, too. It's also the reason you wouldn't accept SGE even when I noted that it's never been any different than today, so leaving it as it is should be more acceptable than any other healer, when I found it it was your favorite healer and you were unwilling to accept that, even with it being the most damage focused of the healers already. Your position at the time seemed to be you didn't want any new healer added that was not of the complex/high skill ceiling type, and that you didn't want any healers left unchnaged.

But, I'll remove that part fro my post. It changes literally nothing:

The discussion was about people willing to accept leaving one healer AS IT IS NOW. That is, alone and unchanged, not "only minor (to the POV of the person proposing it) changes". So your objection here isn't relevant to the discussion.

And no, that position is NOT inflexible.

Inflexible is demanding all healers change.
The counter inflexible would be demanding all healers do not change at all.

Me being open to 3 changing and only one left the same is both flexible and more flexible than your own position.

Your position, my friend, is actually the inflexible one. I've already changed mine several times to suit yours and seek compromise. And while you have made some changes as well, they're still in service to different forms of the same thing, not actually giving something up to the other side of the argument.

.

In any case, you've proven me right on your position against leaving 1 healer alone, to answer Snow's question, so there's no point in me continuing to belabor the point that Ty does not support leaving even one healer alone.

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And if we're going to do the "Classic" thing, we need to do it for all four healers, not just one.

If you did propose that on the DPS forums, you'd just be written off as arguing in bad faith and ignored.

What are you talking about?

This is an argument frequently seen there (legitimately, not in farce) by people saying they actually like current SMN and think it should remain as it is in the game instead of being reverted or etc. What made your Tank forum post bad faith was because it wasn't serious. You weren't actually supporting the position. You were making it as a jab at a different argument in a different forum. People legitimately say in the Tank forum they like WAR and also PLD and it should remain as it is, and people legitimately say in the DPS forum they like SMN and it should remain how it is. They get a lot of pushback (especially on the SMN one of those arguments), but they're making their arguments because they actually believe it, not to jab at some different argument or position elsewhere.

If you went to the DPS forum and claimed you wanted to make all DPS like SMN, that would be bad faith because we all know you don't. If I went there and said I think SMN should stay how it is, but old SMN's playstyle should be reintroduced in some way (like Green Mage, say), it wouldn't be. Hell, I've made that argument there before. Several times! The difference is I actually mean it. That's what makes it not in bad faith.

Me. I have. I think current healer design is embarrassing and horrible and some of the worst class design I've ever seen in a video game, RPG, MMO, or otherwise.
...

And there you have it, Supersnow845.

So, can I take it your question of "Has anyone here who doesn’t like current healing ever said that there should be no compromise and that all the healers need to be changed" has been thoroughly answered?

[ty_taurus]

And no, that position is NOT inflexible.

"I will accept anything that isn't this."
"I will accept this and only this, no exceptions."

Your position is quite literally the definition of "inflexible."

And if we're going to do the "Classic" thing, we need to do it for all four healers, not just one.

Why? You're against "If we rework one healer we should rework all healers." Why are you now suddenly open to equality?

And there you have it, Supersnow845.

You noticed that Snow was fine with Sem's take, right?

[ForsakenRoe]

I think the current healers do have fans. Those fans are people who don't like trying, don't want to improve, and want to make sure that playstyle is also optimal. A while back, Roe spent a lot of time designing a hypothetical WHM that keeps the Glarespam playstyle at 90% of the job's damage output while providing a rotation of sorts that could eke out another 10% if you wanted to go for it. Ren rejected it outright. Nope. No complexity for its own sake.

You flatter me, additional stuff though:

- It's 98% if you just 'keep Dia rolling, spam Glare' Admittedly, I did not do all the maths on things like 'prep Misery for raidbuffs' or 'put Quake etc in raidbuffs', it was just a direct comparison of 'Refresh Dia, Spam Glare' training dummy situation on both. Additionally, Cleric Stance coming back was not a part of the design at the time, it was added later, so I guess it'd be 'somewhere between 90% and 95% effectiveness', idk the exact amount but 'crit variance' is a bigger factor regardless. Even then, as I note in the post, CS is the first thing to cut if cuts have to be made

- I have already done the 'compromising' to keep the design more casual friendly, if I had not it'd have even more complexity. Like, you'd think I was designing a Geomancer CasterDPS rotation

- Even after said 'pre-compromising', you can go see how many times that WHM post has 'edit' written, to add something I had later thought of due to feedback from someone. Protect was originally a 'lowbob version of Aquaveil', until Ren's PI suggestion sounded better, and I threw that in because it sounds better. Or how he insisted that 'building the new gauge via damage only is bad', so I added gauge-build values to the healing GCDs too, so you can keep generating even in high-heal moments like Harrowing Hell. Or how I just completely forgot about how to make the new heal and refund for it work in AOE, so I changed it up so that Holy generates gauge, and QTF have AOE falloff.

- Look at how many new 'healer tools' I'm throwing in at the same time! New shielding options! New gauge to spend on powerful heal! New trait that makes Cure 3 feel better to use! Reworking Lilybell to be a more integral part of the healing with a shorter CD! Bringing in the heal% boost of Temperance earlier with Divine Seal! New mit option via Protect/PI! It's like it's clearance day at the 'healer change' supermarket out here, but for some reason only the comparatively smaller number of DPS kit changes were what got focused on. I wonder why

As we interact, we assimilate pieces of how each other thinks if it's sensible. Ren suggests 'what if Protect into PI so WHM can actually have a 60s mit tool', and I assimilate that thinking because 'I agree, WHM should have a 60s mit tool and this sounds like a good way to do it'. In that regard, given enough time, eventually we would come to a consensus on 'this is the exact thing that healers should get' if we were openminded. The issue arises that we are human, and so there's limitations on what we're willing to accept into our line of thinking. For example, at no point am I ever going to accept the idea of WHM being left exactly as it is, because the issue presented is 'the current healer design is not good', and so it doesn't make sense to me that we should leave one healer in the 'not good'

edit:

If you went to the DPS forum and claimed you wanted to make all DPS like SMN, that would be bad faith because we all know you don't. If I went there and said I think SMN should stay how it is, but old SMN's playstyle should be reintroduced in some way (like Green Mage, say), it wouldn't be. Hell, I've made that argument there before. Several times! The difference is I actually mean it. That's what makes it not in bad faith.

You could, but then the question would (rightly) be asked: if SMN loses it's complex playstyle, and the playstyle is given to Green Mage, why could SE not have introduced Green Mage with a simple playstyle and left SMN alone? Or in healer terms, why did every healer have to be kneecapped in SHB, when instead they could have left them alone, rode it out for 2 years, and then added SGE for people who want 'relatively simple'?

[Aravell]

And I'm not even sure I was the one that brought up "echo chamber" in this thread. I think Aravell did...

You did, 3 posts above mine.

The difference is, my posts aren't bad faith/ulterior motive, they're just in opposition to the echo chamber here, but are serious propositions and attempts at compromise or raising points to that end. Your post wasn't a serious proposition at all, it was trying to prove a point.

I'm not so petty that I'd call you out on something you never even said.

[Sebazy]

Sebezy is a bit more muted, but seems to also hold that they should all be changed,

To clarify my stance on this:

My position on WHM is somewhat of a sliding scale depending on how much SE are willing to ramp up group wide and especially tank damage taken. If we are stuck at tanks practically self sustaining themselves and casual content dishing out barely an aoe a minute for the foreseeable then IMO WHM needs a significant rethink.

If SE are willing to increase the frequency of AoEs, add a dash of unpredictability and importantly, make it so bosses are steamrolling tanks like they used to, then WHM doesn't need nearly so much work. It's kit is synergistic and simply makes sense. I'd be happy with something as simple as a Thundercloud style proc on the nuke to pep up the still inevitable downtime as long I wasn't spending the majority of time in end game content with that being the only thing to 'need' to keep an eye on.

SCH needs to die in a fire. Either lean back into it's pet aesthetic using the 2 distinct GCDs as a means to combat the monotony and importance of Broils or ditch the pet altogether and drop the tank. I made this suggestion for a SCH rework some 5 years ago and IMO it still holds up pretty well today: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-revamp-theory.

AST is somewhere in between, it has a ton of interesting abilities, but it also has a huge quantity of bloat and needless fluff. IMO going back to old school cards and allowing Draw to use a GCD when it's on cooldown allows us to streamline the card system and encourage a more consistent stream of cards going out vs the flurry for a few seconds followed by 2 minutes of near nothing that we have now. If % based balance really is that impossible for SE to tune correctly, simply adding flat potency to the next few attacks from a player is an easy way to get around the scaling problems. That one's for free Yoshida

[Renathras]

Your position is quite literally the definition of "inflexible."

My initial position: Don't change any of the healers/don't make them more complex.
My second proposal: How about we change 2 to more complex and keep 2? Works with the Pure/Barrier split.
My third proposal: Okay, how about we just leave 1 the same? WHM makes the most sense.
My fourth proposal: Okay, how about SGE as the 1 we leave the same? There's a decent argument for that.
My fifth proposal: Okay, how about we leave 1 the same, and you can pick it, even the one I like the least, AST?
My sixth proposal: Okay, so I get nothing? You won't leave me even one? Okay, how about we add a new healer to be near one we already have (I suggested Druid vs White Mage with Druid being the complex elementalist dps rotation), where it can be a "complex version" and the 1 can remain unchanged as the simple one and you get all 4 of the rest and IN EFFECT also get a complex version of the one we don't change?
My seventh propsal: Okay, so you want all the existing healers (aesthetics was the argument at the time, somehow not satisfied with Druid, even though that's what people are proposing for their WHM change suggestions... <_<), so how about we give you all 4 we have and make the added/new one the simple one, even though that makes the least logical sense?
My seventh proposal: Okay, so you really want NONE to be where I can enjoy them? Alright...so here's a proposal for SCH, already arguably the most complex, to get a LITTLE more complex but MOSTLY stay the same, and you get all the rest. How's that?

VS:

Your initial position: All the healers must change to be more complex. They need something to do during downtime. They need complex DPS rotations.
Your second (final up until now) position after a lot of debates/discussions: Okay, so some people don't like doing damage. How about all healers must change to be more complex. They need something to do during down time. 3 get complex DPS rotations and 1 gets a complex buffing rotation.

...and that's also been your FINAL position. Until the post above where you suggest "White Mage Classic", your position has been unyielding across, what, a year and a half of us having these back and forths? My friend, your position meets the definition of "inflexible" far better than my own. Case in point:

Why? You're against "If we rework one healer we should rework all healers." Why are you now suddenly open to equality?

Why? Because you've introduced a new concept - that we can have two versions of healer Jobs. That solves the problem entirely. Just have two versions of each. Up until this point, I've held that isn't an option since FFXIV doesn't have specs or options for this. But if you're introducing it as an option, we can run with it. (I don't think it's realistic, I doubt that the Devs will make two versions of one Job like this, but if it IS, there's no reason to limit it to one Job

"open to equality"? This isn't an equality argument. You've opened up a new avenue of discussion where both sides can have access to all healers. Why WOULDN'T we do this for all four Jobs if we can do it for one?

Additionally: It's also interesting to me you are unwilling to allow an added/new Job to be simple OR to copy an existing Job (WHM) to a new one and let that be "the complex version of it" (Druid), but you ARE willing to make a COPY of a Job - but ONLY one and attack me for suggesting otherwise - so that it's only allowed if you still have access to that same Job in a complex version. But while implementing this new functionality (two versions of the same Job), you don't want to extend the franchise.

It's like I said before - you want (selfishly?) all the healer Jobs to be where you will enjoy playing them and you don't want any to be where you do not. So much so that you aren't willing to leave any simple, nor to add any new Jobs that are simple, nor to add a new Job to be a complex copy of an existing one. You're only willing for one to be simple (now, after over a year of this back and forth) if and only if it's only one Job AND it has a complex copy.

I'm sorry, you meet the definition of inflexible far better than I do.

You noticed that Snow was fine with Sem's take, right?

Irrelevant.

Snow didn't ask the question "Will I/Snow agree with someone's reason for not wanting even 1 healer to stay the same?"

Snow asked the question "Who, if anyone, is opposed to 1 healer staying the same and the other 3 changing?

I answered the question. This is you trying to move the goal posts, a common thing here (someone else just did it in another thread and I noted it there as well). A case of "Here's a debate topic. Oh no, Ren offered a correct rebuttal to it. How about we just bring up a new topic, pretend that was the topic all along, pretend the other topic wasn't under discussion, and say his rebuttal doesn't address this new topic?"

My rebuttal wasn't to whether or not Snow was fine with Sem's take.

My rebuttal/answer was to the question of who is opposed to leaving 1 healer the same. That remains unchanged, since even your latest proposal isn't keeping one Job the same, it's making a copy of one Job (but only one), something never done in the game before, so that you can change all 4.

.

And you know what the messed up thing is?

I MIGHT even be willing to accept that. It would be really stupid - no other Job in the game has two versions OF THE SAME JOB; the closest to that concept is BLU - and there's no reason to do it - we have the option of just not changing it OR as I suggested before adding a new Job to be the "complex" WHM (Druid seems the most likely alternative, though it could also be Shaman or Elementalist or even Geomancer as a healer). It's the dumbest possible solution/compromise. But I wouldn't even oppose the idea outright.

Because UNLIKE you, I've shown extraordinary flexibility.

You could, but then the question would (rightly) be asked: if SMN loses it's complex playstyle, and the playstyle is given to Green Mage, why could SE not have introduced Green Mage with a simple playstyle and left SMN alone? Or in healer terms, why did every healer have to be kneecapped in SHB, when instead they could have left them alone, rode it out for 2 years, and then added SGE for people who want 'relatively simple'?

I mean, I've addressed this before. Literally. In the DPS forum. In a thread on this topic.

As I said then (similar to the Druid argument above), I think they should have added current SMN as branching from Arcanist but with a new Job stone of Evoker, calling on FF history (I think it was FF3?) where Evoker was kind of a "junior Summoner", kind of like Sage was a "higher level Red Mage". Evoker was a more simple and lower level version. This would have allowed both to co-exist.

Alternatively, introducing Green Mage as the DoT mage would have been an intelligent alternative considering old SMN to most people didn't play like a SMN. That's been something even people that liked SMN frequently said prior to EW (where it became vogue to rag on new SMN and praise old SMN to the high heavens). Old SMN has been derided as "discount WoW Warlock" for years. People have long pointed out that poisons and DoTs aren't thematically Summoner traits. And before EW went live, when people just saw visuals of the new SMN animations, people were remarking then that it FELT and LOOKED like a proper Summoner.

On the other hand, Green Mage has long been a status effect Caster, so it thematically fits for a DoT mage and makes more sense. Green Mage as the "simple playstyle" doesn't make any sense as a DoT mage, since DoTs are generally not simple/casual friendly (as I've pointed out many times before), and GRM would more be suited as a complex/technical Job with debuff and buff maintenance. So if they were going to do a simple Summoner, Evoker makes sense, Green Mage as a simple Job really does not.

Note that I supported either option, though - a new Job OR if the old one was reworked...another new Job to maintain that playstyle. Both positions I hold related to Healers as well. Both positions rejected here. So take from that what you will.

I think the current healers do have fans. Those fans are people who don't like trying, don't want to improve, and want to make sure that playstyle is also optimal. A while back, Roe spent a lot of time designing a hypothetical WHM that keeps the Glarespam playstyle at 90% of the job's damage output while providing a rotation of sorts that could eke out another 10% if you wanted to go for it. Ren rejected it outright. Nope. No complexity for its own sake.

Semi, I think my biggest problem with you - and why I'm sometimes flippant in responses - isn't that you disagree with me, isn't that you're unpleasant to me. It's that you outright lie.

Maybe you forgot, but I even made a proposal - me, the guy that doesn't want complex things - for a SCH rework that would make it MORE COMPLICATED (not a lot, but more than it is now), allowing that if that was changed that way, it would probably still be pretty acceptable to people like me (not perfect, but "There are levels of existence we are willing to accept." -Architect, The Matrix 2). I even bumped it just recently to see if people still like the overall idea:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Proposal-SCH

...so stop lying and saying I reject all complexity. While I think complexity isn't always good, is often bad, that over-complexity IS bad unless it's just a single case people can avoid (e.g. BLM), and that simplicity can be good (as long as it's not ALL options so there's NO alternative, as is the case presently with Healers); I'm not against any and all complexity, and there are even some more complexity versions of things I'm willing to accept. That I don't want the same level of complexity as you is not a rejection of all complexity. Hell, I've even said you can change 3 out of 4 of the Healers; and even [b]4 out of 4[/i] if one of them (my SCH example) was kept relatively simple.

You've given nothing.

And you won't.

You outright reject any and all compromises. While Ty has at least bent a slight bit, like a person giving an almost-but-not-quite-imperceptible nod, you have been the very spirit of inflexibility in any form.

And I will say - yet again - "boring and terrible" is, to me, what you're asking for. Jobs staying the same as they are today is them staying "dynamic and enjoyable". But you're incapable of seeing that other people think and see things differently than you do.

You did, 3 posts above mine.
...
I'm not so petty that I'd call you out on something you never even said.

To the first: That's why I said "not even sure" instead of "I didn't". I didn't feel like digging back through the thread to see, but I wasn't sure and so didn't want to make a hard statement. Maybe you can see where I typed "not even sure" instead of an absolute statement?

To the second: Honestly, I don't GENERALLY consider you petty (though some of your comments here have been...); I actually consider you one of the more reasonable and approachable people here. It's one reason I actually engage with you in-depth. Contrast my remarks to Semi, which are more dismissive, because I know she's just unwilling to do anything but hate at this point and I can't change that intransigence and it's so caustic there's no way to really have a productive conversation with her. Though I honestly thought you were referencing me talking about it in General, not here.

Though one thing I'll note: No one has actually given a good rebuttal to the point - that outside of my posts (and just recently, Deo and Snow bring it up, though Snow almost immediately "agreeing" with Semi thus shooting it down again), this forum is of a mind on this topic, hence the echo chamber argument seems to be correct. In all this dancing about the issue to catch me in an argument of bad faith or Ty shifting the goalposts or Semi calling me names is the fact that all of that supports the premise of this being an echo chamber as an accurate appraisal.

I honestly don't think it so absurd to say if I wasn't posting here, there wouldn't be any major disagreement. And other than 1 or 2 posts randomly from the people that pop in for a few days then never return, there wouldn't be any posts representing the casual viewpoint at all. I know no one wants to hear that, but as I said before, show me anyone else representing the opposed side. Snow has been posting a lot here recently, but wasn't before, and seemed to hold my side for all of one post before agreeing with Semi. Deo kind of comes and goes, but her post yesterday presenting my own (a prior version of) position...in a post trying to oppose/call me out, amusingly enough...is also a new thing/one-off, and was only posted in response to me being here. If I left this forum, what would you guys really be disagreeing on, other than of SCH or SGE was the worst SCH? Who would be really presenting an argument for casual players here? Hm...I just don't see it.

...

That's fair. I knew your position was more nuanced with most here. And one thing I've been consistent on is that fights should have more consistent outgoing damage (the damage doesn't have to be as big if it's consistent; consistent means that you can't just use oGCDs for everything, and making damage more even also means Jobs with less mitigation aren't as penalized/relatively weak options for a party slot).

I'd like to ask if you still think my SCH idea has merit, as you said before? I remember your big concern was not having Lustrate, but I pointed out that was why I moved it to Aetherpact. I don't remember if you replied after that or saw that, since it was already in the proposal and addressed that particular concern.

This is also the thread we talked about Energy Drain being so pathetically weak (my calculations were that it would shorten fights by on average less than 15 seconds, and that would be if used for all AF, all Dissipation, and in maximum damage raid buffs, food, pots, and BiS damage optimized gear), with the average probably being a lot less.