Healing is not hard

[Sebazy]

IMO the key difference between Triage heavy gameplay like old WoW and FFXIV in its current incarnation is the power and abundance of AoE heals with huge ranges and very little cost or penalty associated with them.

I’m pretty sure you could comfortably heal any dungeon, 24 man and likely extremes too with only AoE lilys, Medica 1/2, assize, asylum and Cure 3 on your bars. I’m actually not even sure if it would make most stuff any more difficult tbh.

That’s a huge problem and a big part of why healing feels so mindless.

[ForsakenRoe]

The other problem with using old WOW as an example is that it is VERY dependent on class choice. A Shaman would be weaving totem refreshes, downranking spells, deciding between Chain Heal or individual Healing Wave casts based on MP efficiency, etc. Paladin, on the other side of the faction split, would use Rank 1 Flash of Light over and over to heal. Effectively, the equivalent of us spamming Physick, or Cure 1.

We don't just need 'more healing', because that would just lead to us swapping some of our boring Glare casts for equally boring Medica 2 or Regen casts, since they're such strong GCD heals. We probably also don't just need 'more damage moves' because then we feel less like healers. Instead, we need something of both, where the damage leads to healing and the healing leads to damage. Look at SHB Lilies, probably the best received system healers have had in a long time. We can now heal without losing (as much) damage! Now they're damage neutral and many celebrated that too. So we need something in reverse IMO, where we can open up opportunity to do healing, by filling our downtime with damage instead of AFKing or overhealing, to incentivize what the Hall of the Novice says, 'if it's safe to do so, consider throwing some attack spells out to help'.

On the topic of WOW though, the new 'Season' of Classic WOW will be adding quite a few new experimental effects that will allow healers to deal more damage in the downtimes. Things like 'Wrath is 0MP cost, and has a chance to make your Healing Touch instantcast', or Mage being able to heal by converting it's Arcane damage to healing at a 1:1 ratio, or Paladin being able to use things from later expansions like Crusader Strike (the extra MP might allow for Holy Shock to see more use) or Divine Storm. In some sense, I wonder if we can look at this, and see how many people accept these extra tools, versus how many say 'NO, healing should be about standing and waiting for MP5 ticks, cast-cancelling big heals until they're needed, etc'. I've already seen a lot of complaining about how 'mages shouldn't heal this is dumb' but I wonder how it'll go in practice, maybe once people can actually play it they'll come round to it, or maybe they'll say that the 'spirit of vanilla is dead' (as if it wasn't dead already)

[Absurdity]

I would disagree. Even in other MMOs with simple healing spells (e.g., Vanilla WoW), the challenge was in the triage and resource management, without skills being whiz-bang intricate game design capstones. Do you risk a slower, more efficient heal or drop your fast inefficient heal to avoid a tank staying in the death zone? Is your MP consumption sustainable? Are you standing in the optimal place for AoE heals to be effective? How long can you save your emergency cooldowns, in case there is an error? Some of the "simple heals, high skill ceiling" concepts like cancel-casting big slow heals isn't really feasible with FFXIV's engine and game design, but you absolutely will be stimulated if enough incoming damage hits to where healing requires strategic choices.

I agree that FFXIV throws too many tools at healers, and some of these options should be swapped out for mitigation cooldowns. But don't knock triage without trying it.

Ask any Holy Priest that played back in vanilla WoW and they would probably tell you that healing back then was incredibly boring. It consistented mainly of pressing a low rank single target heal every few seconds (or cancelling it halfway because it was no longer necessary) and then standing around doing nothing to let your mana regen. There was very little to consider because if you needed to start spamming Flash Heal it was a matter of seconds before you ran out of mana.
Was there a big emphasis on resource management? Sure, but if it means simply not doing anything I would not consider that an improvement.

Not a great example for good healer gameplay.

Although I'm sure a lot of the "healers are only there to heal" players are the exact kind of people who loved healing in 2004 WoW, since it meant doing nothing for long stretches of time in a fight, the same mindset they now bring into XIV and sandbag every Duty Finder group.

I've already seen a lot of complaining about how 'mages shouldn't heal this is dumb' but I wonder how it'll go in practice, maybe once people can actually play it they'll come round to it, or maybe they'll say that the 'spirit of vanilla is dead' (as if it wasn't dead already)

I'm not surprised, because while healing in vanilla was incredibly bland it came with one important thing, power.
Healers were always needed but, just like in XIV, barely anyone wanted to play them. So the people who mained a healer had a significant amount of pull since if they left the raid would simply grind to a halt.
Mages, or really any dps, being able to heal encroaches on their territory and how dare this dps class with proper gameplay outside of spamming Lesser Heal rank 3 try to take MY job?

[HappyHubris]

Ask any Holy Priest that played back in vanilla WoW and they would probably tell you that healing back then was incredibly boring. It consistented mainly of pressing a low rank single target heal every few seconds (or cancelling it halfway because it was no longer necessary) and then standing around doing nothing to let your mana regen. There was very little to consider because if you needed to start spamming Flash Heal it was a matter of seconds before you ran out of mana.
Was there a big emphasis on resource management? Sure, but if it means simply not doing anything I would not consider that an improvement.

Not a great example for good healer gameplay.

Although I'm sure a lot of the "healers are only there to heal" players are the exact kind of people who loved healing in 2004 WoW, since it meant doing nothing for long stretches of time in a fight, the same mindset they now bring into XIV and sandbag every Duty Finder group.

If you ever got beyond Molten Core you'd find yourself quite occupied with interesting mechanics, efficiency, and throughout. You're also overstating the downtime. You would sneak in a bit of Regen here or there, but MP5 gear and intelligent spell choices allowed for great uptime. There was a drumbeat of constant tank damage that added urgency to the role, and with management as an actual resource you needed to adapt on the fly to healer deaths and resource levels.

Whereas right now in FFXIV you have way more downtime; you're just spamming your 1 key. But it's still healing downtime without anything engaging to do. At least cancel-casting requires skill and focus.

It's amusing to see people say "classic WoW was boring for healers" when they're spamming glare or even just cut out for healerless clears. People are way too proud to spam one key.

[Renathras]

The other problem with using old WOW as an example is that it is VERY dependent on class choice. A Shaman would be weaving totem refreshes, downranking spells, deciding between Chain Heal or individual Healing Wave casts based on MP efficiency, etc. Paladin, on the other side of the faction split, would use Rank 1 Flash of Light over and over to heal. Effectively, the equivalent of us spamming Physick, or Cure 1.

We don't just need 'more healing', because that would just lead to us swapping some of our boring Glare casts for equally boring Medica 2 or Regen casts, since they're such strong GCD heals. We probably also don't just need 'more damage moves' because then we feel less like healers. Instead, we need something of both, where the damage leads to healing and the healing leads to damage. Look at SHB Lilies, probably the best received system healers have had in a long time. We can now heal without losing (as much) damage! Now they're damage neutral and many celebrated that too. So we need something in reverse IMO, where we can open up opportunity to do healing, by filling our downtime with damage instead of AFKing or overhealing, to incentivize what the Hall of the Novice says, 'if it's safe to do so, consider throwing some attack spells out to help'.

On the topic of WOW though, the new 'Season' of Classic WOW will be adding quite a few new experimental effects that will allow healers to deal more damage in the downtimes. Things like 'Wrath is 0MP cost, and has a chance to make your Healing Touch instantcast', or Mage being able to heal by converting it's Arcane damage to healing at a 1:1 ratio, or Paladin being able to use things from later expansions like Crusader Strike (the extra MP might allow for Holy Shock to see more use) or Divine Storm. In some sense, I wonder if we can look at this, and see how many people accept these extra tools, versus how many say 'NO, healing should be about standing and waiting for MP5 ticks, cast-cancelling big heals until they're needed, etc'. I've already seen a lot of complaining about how 'mages shouldn't heal this is dumb' but I wonder how it'll go in practice, maybe once people can actually play it they'll come round to it, or maybe they'll say that the 'spirit of vanilla is dead' (as if it wasn't dead already)

I know people hate me mentioning it, but this sounds a lot like the 4 healers model idea. Healadin being what we have now, Shaman (and others) being what we need some of, and all coexisting in the same game.

I don't think the answer is just making healing and damage feed into each other, personally, though I submit that could be PART of the solution (e.g. one healer working that way would be nice)

[IDontPetLalas]

So Ren

Interesting, what I took away from ForsakenRoe (below) is not your 2 year old model. In seems that WOW has recognized that it is no longer 2004 and they need to adapt.

"So we need something in reverse IMO, where we can open up opportunity to do healing, by filling our downtime with damage instead of AFKing or overhealing, to incentivize what the Hall of the Novice says, 'if it's safe to do so, consider throwing some attack spells out to help'.

On the topic of WOW though, the new 'Season' of Classic WOW will be adding quite a few new experimental effects that will allow healers to deal more damage in the downtimes. "

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

IMO the key difference between Triage heavy gameplay like old WoW and FFXIV in its current incarnation is the power and abundance of AoE heals with huge ranges and very little cost or penalty associated with them.

I’m pretty sure you could comfortably heal any dungeon, 24 man and likely extremes too with only AoE lilys, Medica 1/2, assize, asylum and Cure 3 on your bars. I’m actually not even sure if it would make most stuff any more difficult tbh.

That’s a huge problem and a big part of why healing feels so mindless.

I've said somewhere before but I got really far with just Medica 2, lilies, assize and asylum (yes, not even cure 3). I had to force myself to learn to use every other healing action in the game even if that means over healing.

[Renathras]

So Ren...

The model seems to have all types of healers, from melee to buffer to throughput, dps, no dps, etc. WoW has options because it doesn't have a rigid combat and class system (to the level FFXIV does), which allows for a lot more variance. It also has more than 4 healer classes. Even in Vanilla, it had 5 (only 4 per faction) which became 5 outright in BC when BE Paladins and Draenei Shaman were allowed. Then it added yet more after that (Mists added Monk, Dragonflight added the dragonkin one).

But the important thing is that they were largely allowed to be distinct, even Disc and Holy Priest branching from the same class and sharing a number of abilities (before they were eventually more split up in Cataclysm) were, though granted Disc was a poor performer until...Wrath?

Experimental effects being added is fine, but note what it's NOT doing: FORCING those experimental effects on everyone. It's keeping the old base models in tact alongside the experimental changes. The players are given the option to incorporate them OR NOT.

[IDontPetLalas]

The model seems to have all types of healers, from melee to buffer to throughput, dps, no dps, etc. WoW has options because it doesn't have a rigid combat and class system (to the level FFXIV does), which allows for a lot more variance. It also has more than 4 healer classes. Even in Vanilla, it had 5 (only 4 per faction) which became 5 outright in BC when BE Paladins and Draenei Shaman were allowed. Then it added yet more after that (Mists added Monk, Dragonflight added the dragonkin one).

But the important thing is that they were largely allowed to be distinct, even Disc and Holy Priest branching from the same class and sharing a number of abilities (before they were eventually more split up in Cataclysm) were, though granted Disc was a poor performer until...Wrath?

Experimental effects being added is fine, but note what it's NOT doing: FORCING those experimental effects on everyone. It's keeping the old base models in tact alongside the experimental changes. The players are given the option to incorporate them OR NOT.

So I understand what you're trying to explain regarding WOW, in a perfect world, I would wish that FFXIV had a test server so that we could provide feedback to Square before job design changes go live. We don't have that. Even better, I would want us to be able to see job changes before they go into development- don't have that either.

So- given that we have neither of the above, the point has been made, quite a few times, if we are addressing specifically DPS abilities in casual content - healer contribution is optional, no once can or will force anyone to use them, content can be completed without it, so the point is moot. If we then address more difficult content, a number of posts have been made, in exhaustive details, pointing out that it is quite possible add some additional skill (s) and the difference between a sub-optimal and optimal healer, in terms of DPS, is so minor in terms of overall group DPS , it again does not prevent content from being completed (i.e. beating enrage) .


Going back to our analogy :
if you're happy chugging along in your Prius in the slow lane on the highway, by all means, you'll get to your destination. However you're free to speed up, take the middle lane and get there a bit faster.

[Renathras]

Honestly, I get no test server - datamining and spoilers and all that.

...but it would be nice if they'd show us proposed Job changes in advance. I know they stopped doing it because the community were areses about it, so it's yet another "this is why we don't have nice things" situation, but I really would like more of a heads up.

.

That isn't our analogy. As I already told you, the analogy wasn't about speed, it was about which type of vehicle you like.