#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Sesera]

Didn't you know? This strike is pointless because literally no one is going to join it and it's totally not worth doing because a few people are laughing at it on a random discord server somewhere. But this strike is also incredibly disruptive because won't you think of those poor DPS players sitting in queues? So clearly we should stop this performative nonsense and go back to filling queues like good little sheep because we shouldn't possibly inconvenience the DPS masters who want a fast queue, no sir!

/s (if anyone needs it)

You are the minority most players are casual who like chill healer we have now. They also aren't thinking "man I'm so useless with that war' but rather "cool we didn't die and kept everyone alive I feel good".
Trust exists to bypass if there are no healer.
If by any chance it is almost impossible (which it won't) to get healer for msq trial. You'll get blocked too.

But I'm all for you guys being on a strike. Please be on strike forever.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Lmao thanks for giving the hashtag more exposure. Didn’t even had to try myself.

[ForteNightshade]

This is just wrong. If you look at the datacenters, you'll find that there are more congested servers in JP, in addition to more servers overall than in the NA datacenter. That conveys more need, more necessity.
Also, that website you cited is from 2023, and is not official. It's interesting, but in no way, shape, or form conclusive enough for you to sit there and think you can discredit my point about the game being primarily for a Japanese majority audience, because it is.

If you're going to claim sources are wrong, you ought to bring a shred of evidence as a rebuttal. And no, your word isn't good enough.

Server congestion and sever capacity are two different things. JP started with more worlds under the assumption a JRPG MMO would be more popular in Japan. Turns out, it wasn't. Furthermore, Japan has always preferred a smaller population demographic. Having more doesn't convey a need. It's simply a relic of old perceptions. They aren't going to abruptly close a whole data center. Hence why they try to balance out the population.

It being from 2023 is irrelevant. JP isn't going to see a near 50% population boon in ten months. Lucky Bancho has been doing census updates for over half a decade now using minions, mounts and achievement to come to a reasonably thorough estimation. Keep mind, minions and mounts are always public. It's not perfect but is fairly accurate; certainly more so than what you've provided. Which is absolutely nothing.

This is just not true at all. Mobile gaming is definitely more popular in Japan, but that isn't to say that console or traditional video game platforms (consoles, PC) are struggling there.

I didn't say they were struggling. I said consoles sell significant better in North America than Japan due to the latter having a much higher interest in mobile game. Which is, indeed, the case. The PS5 sold nearly double the amount in North American than in Japan. In fact, the only "console" where both regions were remotely close was the Nintendo DS--a handheld device.

Also, to argue that JRPGs do better in foreign markets than they do in their home one is just conjecture on your part. That's like arguing Fallout New Vegas is more popular than SMT or Persona in Japan, or vice versa. There are exceptions, like FFXVI which did very poorly in Japan but better in the West, but that isn't saying much given that it sold poorly overall due to being an exclusive to the PS5 when more people are still playing on their PS4s or have PCs.

I'm primarily referring to the major titles like Final Fantasy. The larger install base in North America tends to result in higher sales for those specific titles. It's a bit harder to find exact specifics since a lot of games lump everything outside their specific region as "worldwide" but the foreign market for even games like Persona 5 is substantially higher. Regardless, you're once again trying to equate two different things as though they are one and the same. JRPGs doing well or better outside their home market doesn't necessarily mean WRPG will.

[Lyth]

There's been a summary of the main frustrations facing healers on the OP for a while now, although I'm not sure if Gemina formally mentioned having updated it in here.

The primary issue comes down to providing value for effort. If your chosen role doesn't provide impact, you aren't going to want to play it.

Role Erosion
We've seen a progressive erosion of 'support roles' over several expansions now. These roles provide value through player interdependence. FFXIV has had a deliberate design shift to try and eliminate those interdependencies and to turn team-based encounters into eight disconnected but parallel single player experiences.

Tanks have been affected by this in part, simply because self-positioning bosses were introduced to eliminate the dependence that DPS, especially melee, have on tanks (in fairness, I don't trust the average PF tank to be able to position a boss efficiently either). But healers have been hit the hardest, because their role has been eroded entirely. And with the healerless clears posted from the Media Tour, there's a growing perception that healers are not entirely necessary in Dawntrail content. That's an incredibly bad precedent to set at the start of an expansion.

The first point listed in the OP speaks directly to this. You need clear boundaries set on what a non-healer job is capable of doing to keep themselves and their teammates alive. Ideally, party-wide sustain effects should be the exclusive purview of healers. Self-sustain effects should be limited and insufficient to keep you up indefinitely.

You shouldn't ever see a twenty minute 'clutch save' where the party dies and the tank clumsily heals themself through two vuln stacks to solo the boss on current content. You shouldn't ever see healerless runs on current content. I think the instant that you allow a role to become redundant in current content, then you've failed as a designer. They should be falling over themselves to stop this.

In my mind, this is probably the most immediately achievable goal, simply because it's a numbers balance. None of the tank heals are traited in Dawntrail, unlike the heals on other roles, so you can easily design content such that it completely outscales the self-sustain that they provide in later dungeons. Bloodwhetting also should apply per weaponskill rather than per hit as per its skill description. All these things are easy to change, the dev team just need to stop worrying about pushback and fix it.

Content Design
The fifth point relates to content design. I think healers are probably the hardest role to design content for, because your engagement level drops off rapidly as players' familiarity with content increases. If nobody knows a fight and players are making mistakes, then you potentially have more room to make an impact through clutch saves. That same fight a week later may be completely boring simply because you have nothing to do.

This partially comes down to how predictable and scripted fight design is. It also comes down to the fact that many fights aren't that threatening from an outgoing damage perspective. Your primary worry are mechanic checks which tend to be all or nothing, to which it's more about individual responsibility than it is about role responsibility.

Part of the problem is that most fights are designed from the perspective of someone who plays DPS, which is why DPS jobs are so much fun to optimize in raid content. You really need someone who is passionate about healing to oversee fight design and ask critical questions of each encounter design on how to make the fights more interesting and engaging for healers both during progression and during farm.

I don't think that we'll see this sort of change immediately, but this is the sort of thing that the dev team needs to come out and make a clear and definite statement committing to improving fight design for support jobs over the 7.x patch cycle.

Job Design
Some of the limitations in encounter design stem from job design. It's hard to keep farm content interesting on a job that uses a single button rotation. Likewise, part of the reason why support 'role mechanics' have fallen out of favor is because we have an increasing armament of defensive tools that negate a lot of challenging mechanics.

This isn't just a healer issue either. Invulns can let you delete entire mechanics from the fight, and they have absurdly short recasts (four minutes on Holmgang!) Tank defensives get stronger with every expansion, with multiple burst heals and rolling regens on every action. And in the event that they don't press those buttons, you have instant on-demand counterparts on healer to erase the damage.

There's just a general lack of direction with the job team when it comes to these designs. There's a global power creep when it comes to defensive job actions, combined with progressive homogenization to keep everyone equally competitive. The growing list of defensives leaves less room for interesting and unique rotations. And healer jobs end up feeling less and less distinct from each other over time, outside of each expansion's marginally upgraded sparkle count on the new actions.

Job design is a more fundamental problem with healers. Everyone knows it's an issue, but it keeps getting kicked down the road. They probably need to hire someone to oversee healer design, for one. But they also need to make a conscious effort to make each support job's gameplay feel unique and interesting to play. The next expansion's actions are set, and we're not going to see the changes needed on this front immediately in 7.0, but again, the dev team need to come out and make a statement committing to reworking healer designs and developing their individual gameplay identities, as soon as they are able to.

That's what I think when I read through Gemina's manifesto as a non-healer. I'm sure that someone more closely connected to the healer experience could elaborate more specifically.

Thread Concept
I suppose one more point worth mentioning - it really doesn't matter whether this thread/hashtag is representative of real life industrial action. Healers have been expressing their frustration with the game design direction for several expansions now.

I'd actually go a step further and say that support gameplay across the board has been progressively less satisfying from Stormblood onwards. Tanks have been less impacted because they have eroded into healer functionality in exchange for losing control over fight movement and positioning, but it's still deeply unsatisfying to see the role essentially amount to being a melee dps on training wheels. What I've wanted to see is the dev team make some statements about their vision for these 'support roles', and commit to making them more interesting. But I've given up for a few years now.

I think regardless of framing or actual 'strike action', what matters is that this gets the discussion out there and gets people openly talking about it before the expansion launch. For whatever reason, the dev team seem to be averse to running into direct confrontation and controversy with the playerbase. But this wound has festered and must be let. The developers just need to have it out, be honest about what they are willing (or not willing) to fix, and let players decide for themselves if they still want to invest in the development team's vision for their chosen roles going forward.

[Telkira]

So then why are you wasting your time on it? I'll ask again (because you didn't answer), what are you trying to get out of this? How do you physically benefit from being really nasty and abrasive about this? What are you walking away from this conversation having obtained?

Because this whole thing, as a concept, was so hilarious and ridiculous that I just had to make my voice heard. I was originally going to try and be polite and point out the sheer impracticality behind it all, but then I saw other people trying to do the exact same but going nowhere, combined with this wretched and awful sense of self-righteousness spiced with ignorance and a general lack of focus, compounded by there not being any plan.

Like I said before, it's almost hyperbolic.

You're still really angry no one agreed with your tirade about localization I guess?

What's funny is that the Haurchefant issue was admitted as a mistake by the devs, who straight-up admitted fault apologized following actual backlash from upset fans who felt like the game was censored and did not remain consistent across versions.

You will not see a developer acknowledgement of whatever this 'strike' seeks to do.

At most, you'll see the mechanics get adjusted, if anything, but no acknowledgement. I trust the gameplay designers and balance guys know more about what's appropriate for this game than a literal handful of redditors and forum users, especially those who think a strike is a good idea.

That hashtag is literal clown makeup that will soon be wiped off.

[OliviaLugria]

In other words, you're going to deliberately negatively impact their game experience as your bargaining chip to try to force SE into giving you something you want that but that does not benefit them.

Wait... so are we making a difference in the ques or not?

Many feel, justifiably so, that they're not being heard, so they're gonna make sure everyone knows. I don't think it's wrong to dissuade new players from chossing any other job outside healer when they'll be more engaged, clear the content faster, and have a feeling of progression. If a content creator wants to comment that's up to them. We can't force them to spread the word. Advertising alt parties in pf isn't some crazy act of defiance either. It's just a more fun and efficient way to run content.

I will say... if frontlines taught me anything, is that a small dedicated group can cause a heck of a lot of discourse. I was dreading this expansion, but now I'm giddy with excitement as I try to clear all of its content without any healers.

[Aravell]

Snip

Strike or not, we are players who are choosing not to play a role, as is our right. If other players are inconvenienced by this choice? Well, they won't, didn't you see how many people are adopting a "Bye, no one will miss you" attitude in this very thread? Clearly they don't need us to queue, so I don't know why you're here claiming we're disrupting anyone.

Also, "not reacting positively" is very different from "being an arse". Some people are clearly dipping into the latter category. Are you saying it's ok to be rude to people and then justify it with "Well, you can hardly expect me to react positively!"?

You are the minority

Hmm yes, the "yOu ArE tHe MiNoRiTy" argument, my favourite. Clearly this is a very provable argument considering that everyone likes to use it? Surely you have the hard data to back you up, hmm?

And now you're going to either not reply or deflect with "SE has the data".

[Eorzean_username]

It is both surprising and hilarious to me that the mere suggestion of Healers deciding to stop playing their boring Role just to enable other people's queue-pops has been sufficient to actually terrify a, hmm... "certain segment" of player into a frothing panic, stomping in here and trying every last tactic that they can to put a stop to this largely-symbolic protest...

...by using most of the same flailing irrationality as an ex-boyfriend furiously trying to prevent you from leaving by changing-tactic every 10 messages, obviously having no actual plan or sincere belief about anything, but just hoping that something, anything, will frighten / guilt / shame / intimidate you into agreeing not to go away.

It's like... kids... calm down.

Your Summoner, Pictomancer, Viper, and Dancer queues for Porta Decumana and Crystal Tower will still pop... eventually.

That's because you're working to actively organize a strike. A strike is a deliberate denial of services/products to those who rely on those services/products in an attempt to get an employer to make concessions to those striking.

In other words, you're going to deliberately negatively impact their game experience as your bargaining chip to try to force SE into giving you something you want that but that does not benefit them.

Are you for real?

This is a video game.

That I pay money.

To a company.

To play.

In my free time.

After working all day.

If I don't want to spam Art of War 2 for 20 minutes while you get to actually enjoy your Role / Job, I am in no way obligated to do it, nor is it immoral for me to choose not to, and/or communicate with others who feel the same way.

Like, really... stop trying to make Healers feel like they're Nestle Corporation buying-up rights to drinking-water sources just because they're tired of their role feeling like garbage to play.

[AnotherPerson]

That's because you're working to actively organize a strike. A strike is a deliberate denial of services/products to those who rely on those services/products in an attempt to get an employer to make concessions to those striking.

In other words, you're going to deliberately negatively impact their game experience as your bargaining chip to try to force SE into giving you something you want that but that does not benefit them.

Did you really expect them to react positively?

That's why I said earlier that a strike is the wrong way to do this. You'll be getting a lot more hostility from the general player base than sympathy if common knowledge of the strike spreads in game and enough players stop queueing as healers to mess with queue times.

I can't even call this a strike. I've been following this thread and it's so tame and doesn't have any of the intentions of a normal strike, lol. People will still queue regardless if they wanted to do their dailies unless there's something that makes players disgusted about queueing in as a healer. This is just people venting and calling it a 'strike' from dissatisfaction, but they're not doing it with malicious intentions to harm to everyone else. Just doing it in the sense to get their voices heard. After all, if they're not queueing in as a healer and playing as a DPS/tank, they're subjecting themselves to the same problem as everyone else (and that's assuming the queue times will be visibly impacted). It's clear to me everyone who participates in the strike still enjoys the game and hopes it can be better since they're still actively playing the game.

Now if they really wanted to affect people's queues and result in mutual destruction, I can think of many more effective ways in doing so. I'm just very glad that isn't the purpose of this 'strike' thread in itself because that would be a very bad way to handle the situation.

And from a bystander's perspective on the entire thread, the whole entire purpose of this thread revealed to me that people who react aggressively negatively are usually the ones who aren't impacted by the healer changes, and are there to denounce players who are taking away whatever healing agency they gained, their 'clearing agency' (RIP teamwork and holy trinity), and 'mess with their queue times'. They never cared about the healer problem in the first place and were never here for a discussion. There's no point in talking to them about it honestly, so it's already an "healers" vs "non-healers" situation for those who want to preserve the status quo versus those who are so fed up with it that they made a strike.

There are plenty of people who think it's a bit of a stretch to join a 'strike' in the industrial sense (and that's a valid judgement because this strike thread is not that kind of strike), but there's also some people I know who also agree with the strike's intentions after seeing firsthand how ugly people have become against healers. I agree with the intents of the strike. The accessibility have gotten far too out of hand and is frankly unhealthy to maintain a game with healers in this state.

[Supersnow845]

I have still yet to have someone explain to me in a clear and non rude way what are we actually supposed to do

We’ve done everything the devs constantly tell us to do. There is enough feedback on the healer forums to make 1000 MMO’s. We have tried to plead our case. We have tried to garner support on different listening posts to varying degrees of success yet the devs are completely silent. Paralysed in this half half mantra that nobody enjoys

Many people have come on here and said “I rarely or never post on the forums but I have become sick of this problem as well”, the copy of the post on the mainsub trended towards positive after the initial deluge of poor responses and the discussion sub post was basically “supportive nihilism”. At the very least this is getting people to talk. I know at least one YouTuber who is planning on researching a video on this.

If the hashtag was “walk away from healers” would people still oppose it so strongly. Sure there are other healers who may fill our spots and I don’t doubt that but also the tanks and DPS aren’t proverbially entitled to have us fill their queues. The playerbase isn’t being used as a bargaining chip because that relies on the assumption I play healer to fill others queues, I play healer because I enjoy the concept of healing.

If someone who opposes this so strongly has an actual valid path forward for us that doesn’t amount to a veiled way to say “shut up and deal with it” I’d genuinely like to know