#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Alice_Rivers]

You're right. Self-healing makes healers redundant. So, Square Enix needs to severely curtail it.

It's much more reasonable than removing four jobs from the game.

Reasonable maybe, I don't think I share your faith in SE though. When I look at the options they can A: Buff all the tanks to WAR level, thereby delighting all the tank players who love WAR, and remove healers entirely thus removing in one go the only group that has consistently complained about their role for years. Or B: They reduce tanks self healing such that healers are actually useful, probably make most healers happy, and spark outrage from the aforementioned tank players.

If I were a developer with SE's apparent track record, I'd happily choose option A.

[Connor]

Reasonable maybe, I don't think I share your faith in SE though. When I look at the options they can A: Buff all the tanks to WAR level, thereby delighting all the tank players who love WAR, and remove healers entirely thus removing in one go the only group that has consistently complained about their role for years. Or B: They reduce tanks self healing such that healers are actually useful, probably make most healers happy, and spark outrage from the aforementioned tank players.

If I were a developer with SE's apparent track record, I'd happily choose option A.

Square Enix: “Sorry best we can do is Option C - do a complete 180 no-scope on random abilities for absolutely no reason then claim we were addressing feedback whilst either changing absolutely nothing or actively making things worse”.

[Sharawiwi]

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There is the need to be a walling content, it is not okay for people to not be able to heal (or not be able to tank) a W2W pull at level 100, and if they refuse to improve, they can spend 40 minutes in a dungeon, at this point it's a choice.

Even back in EW you could do every 90 dungeons as GNB with 3 DPS.

SE can't have the cake and eat it, either they cater the whole game experience to laid back players who purposefully refuse to improve (countless examples in the thread of disabled/low playtime/beginner/etc. players who all have found ways to be efficient and are not to be used as an excuse) and they see high/middle end players leaving (I did, I know plenty did too and I regularly see "average" players discussing how bored they are, all anecdotal evidences yes).

Or they prevent lowest end players from some of the content (Expert dailies or fights, Savage and Ultimate), thus enriching the experience of everyone else, while still allowing them 98% of the game (between the amount of DoL & DoE jobs, blue and yellow quests, relics, and countless other things, they still have endless content to do).

[Connor]

SE can't have the cake and eat it, either they cater the whole game experience to laid back players who purposefully refuse to improve (countless examples in the thread of disabled/low playtime/beginner/etc. players who all have found ways to be efficient and are not to be used as an excuse) and they see high/middle end players leaving (I did, I know plenty did too and I regularly see "average" players discussing how bored they are, all anecdotal evidences

Unfortunately all prior evidence suggests this is their exact intention and that there’s very little chance of them changing that overall.

Basically they couldn’t give any less of a shit about how the gameplay is for players at ‘endgame’ as long as they’re still able to rope in new ones who don’t know how shit things get. Then by the time they reach lv100 and leave because the game gradually becomes more and more mind-numbing, they’ve already been replaced by 10 new players who have yet to experience “Have fun for about a week then the content difficulty completely falls apart and go back to being bored for 6 months’

[Aravell]

Unfortunately all prior evidence suggests this is their exact intention and that there’s very little chance of them changing that overall.

Basically they couldn’t give any less of a shit about how the gameplay is for players at ‘endgame’ as long as they’re still able to rope in new ones who don’t know how shit things get. Then by the time they reach lv100 and leave because the game gradually becomes more and more mind-numbing, they’ve already been replaced by 10 new players who have yet to experience “Have fun for about a week then the content difficulty completely falls apart and go back to being bored for 6 months’

Well unfortunately for them, new players are finite. Also, if a lot of veteran players speak up and say the game is going in a bad direction, that further stifles growth.

Completely catering to new, fresh players and completely ignoring veterans will not end well for them because endless churn does not keep games alive, you do need a core happy playerbase so the new players see a healthy community.

The current XIV community is far from healthy, it's basically tearing itself apart at this point.

[ApolloGenX]

I don't think hobbling self healing will make spamming heals any more fun. Healing in this game is boring and almost unnecessary.

How about just let everyone have fun like warriors instead of forcing an artificial need for healers?

If everything is burst and dodge, no need for sustained healers. You could probably make encounters require controllers, too.... doesn't mean it would be any fun.

Maybe we shouldn't confuse "needed" with "fun"... right now healing is just bout neither.

[Kes13a]

Unfortunately all prior evidence suggests this is their exact intention and that there’s very little chance of them changing that overall.

Basically they couldn’t give any less of a shit about how the gameplay is for players at ‘endgame’ as long as they’re still able to rope in new ones who don’t know how shit things get. Then by the time they reach lv100 and leave because the game gradually becomes more and more mind-numbing, they’ve already been replaced by 10 new players who have yet to experience “Have fun for about a week then the content difficulty completely falls apart and go back to being bored for 6 months’

I had a thought this morning and while true, I do not think this is the only bad choice they have made. For several expansions they have increased the solo playability. so while they have also made content for their target demographic of barely mobile corpses with free cash, they also needed to add the ability to solo everything except the actual mmo content. so now you have people healing, who dont care about the rest of the party because they are npc's, tanks who dont care for the same reason. (whether they are or not)

the current steaming pile of gameplay is due to them trying to shoehorn in the single player experience. who cares if a tank is invincible? because it doesnt matter in a solo game. who cares if self sustain negates healers? because those things are needed for solo play.

I do not think that any issues can be resolved as long as SE continues to solo out the mmorpg experience of the game. yeah, you should be able to progress if you never want to group up... but the game should not be balanced around that. and many of their changes seem to be leaning in that kind of direction, solo play. why bother trying to add things for group play, groups are... "stressful" and require responsibility. all about "the friends we made along the way" is nice in the story, but doesnt hold any water in their game design philosophy.

[ForsakenRoe]

I don't think Tanks will be happy about losing their self-sustain capabilities. But they also do need to lose them for the health of the healer role. So, a middleground solution could be this: All selfhealing on Tanks, is replaced by barrier effects.

So, a WAR has Bloodwhetting, Equilibrium, Storm's Path (lol) and Shake it Off. Bloodwhetting can apply a layered shield (ala Panhaima) to the WAR each time it delivers an attack, with a short duration (say, 6s). Thus, hitting 10 enemies with an AOE still gives a crazy amount of EHP (by applying 10 layers of shield per attack), but it doesn't magically fix the WAR's wounds. Instead, it 'protects' the WAR (which is the tank's 'thing', protection instead of healing). Equilibrium could have its Healing portion still, but the HOT trait can be changed to a layered shield (5 stacks of 300p, for example), or it could have the initial hit also be a shield too, for way more defensive capability. Shake it Off is, from the level you get it, to level 85, more total healing than CURE 3. How does that make sense? It gained the HOT effect due to 'SIO struggling to find effectiveness in protecting the party from damage over time effects'. So, if that 500p HOT were instead converted to 5 stacks of 100p shields, it'd still 'help the party against DOTs', but without taking the healer's job away from them as much.

Then, of course, Souleater/Storm's Path/PLD spells would apply a barrier to the tank instead of a heal. GNB already kinda does this with Brutal Shell (being half healing and half barrier) and it opens up the design option for more interesting interactions between said shield and other actions. For example, GNB's Brutal Shell can be given to an ally by using Heart of Stone/Corundum on that ally

[ApolloGenX]

I don't think Tanks will be happy about losing their self-sustain capabilities. But they also do need to lose them for the health of the healer role. So, a middleground solution could be this: All selfhealing on Tanks, is replaced by barrier effects.

So, a WAR has Bloodwhetting, Equilibrium, Storm's Path (lol) and Shake it Off. Bloodwhetting can apply a layered shield (ala Panhaima) to the WAR each time it delivers an attack, with a short duration (say, 6s). Thus, hitting 10 enemies with an AOE still gives a crazy amount of EHP (by applying 10 layers of shield per attack), but it doesn't magically fix the WAR's wounds. Instead, it 'protects' the WAR (which is the tank's 'thing', protection instead of healing). Equilibrium could have its Healing portion still, but the HOT trait can be changed to a layered shield (5 stacks of 300p, for example), or it could have the initial hit also be a shield too, for way more defensive capability. Shake it Off is, from the level you get it, to level 85, more total healing than CURE 3. How does that make sense? It gained the HOT effect due to 'SIO struggling to find effectiveness in protecting the party from damage over time effects'. So, if that 500p HOT were instead converted to 5 stacks of 100p shields, it'd still 'help the party against DOTs', but without taking the healer's job away from them as much.

Then, of course, Souleater/Storm's Path/PLD spells would apply a barrier to the tank instead of a heal. GNB already kinda does this with Brutal Shell (being half healing and half barrier) and it opens up the design option for more interesting interactions between said shield and other actions. For example, GNB's Brutal Shell can be given to an ally by using Heart of Stone/Corundum on that ally

Or, I dunno it could be heal over time while healers get ... I dunno reactive heals, smart heals, shields, a diverse set of fun to use tools instead of heal or barrier?

Prayer of Mending is the most fun healing spell I have ever used. This game just doesn't support fun healing. I had a blast healing on bloodmage in Vanguard... that was a disaster of a game... still nothing here comes close.

[Kes13a]

Or, I dunno it could be heal over time while healers get ... I dunno reactive heals, smart heals, shields, a diverse set of fun to use tools instead of heal or barrier?

Prayer of Mending is the most fun healing spell I have ever used. This game just doesn't support fun healing. I had a blast healing on bloodmage in Vanguard... that was a disaster of a game... still nothing here comes close.

yeah, Vanguard was fun, too bad SOE had it.