#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[AmiableApkallu]

They need to go back and adjust all dungeons level sync, hard sync all stats, boost standard damage, make more damage unavoidable. Boom both tank and healer are more engaging.

It's not only the quantity of damage that could do with some tweaking. It's also the pacing.

Predictable damage can provide only so much engagement. Predictable means it eventually becomes rote.

Crit autos need to make a come back. Random chip damage to random party members. Non-fatal mechanics where the likely outcome is that people avoid some but not all of the outgoing damage. Etc.

[Aravell]

The thing is, "balance so every job is viable" is a giant lie. The reason some jobs are not viable in certain fights in the first place is because of the move towards rigidity over flexibility.

Back in HW, if we had extended movement phases, BRD can choose to drop Minuet or spam Feint for less of a damage loss than simply not attacking. Even as recently as in EW, standard BLM rotation was said to be garbage for TOP p6, so BLM players worked around it with alternate lines.

The reason we have jobs that suck in certain fights rests squarely on the fact that the dev team forced every job into only one correct way of playing, there's no flexibility, there's no creativity, the job either sucks for that fight or it doesn't, so they try and "solve" this problem of their own creation by making the jobs that suck more like the jobs that don't suck.

[Supersnow845]

BLM especially is constantly getting hamstrung by the fact that the devs only design for hard mechanics these days is arena wide marathons and they really just don’t seem to know how to actually deal with casters

It’s like they design every mechanic for melee and tanks which instantly invalidates phys ranged advantage then tries (and often fails) to shove the casters into this design and it just doesn’t work a lot of the time

[Mortex]

with the new alliance raid it would have made sense there since its now instant... and that raid is very busy, wouldnt have much time to stand in spot and cast it

It had a 1 second cast time. Like you could literally slide cast it without any problems or difficulties. This change did like nothing at all.

[Mortex]

Also look at how prevalent that MTTT is starting to become. First we had M1S with raining cats and now we have the ice phase in ex3. Heck even the stack that tries to force the swap with the tethers can still easily be ignored with invulns and of course we have reject authority.

I mean we had that stuff in endwalker also with the PlayStation mech in 2 ultimates and an extreme trial and with “first in line” and “second in line” for top and p8. If they think a new mech is hot s… then it will happen more then once or even close too each other in battle content.

[mallleable]

BLM especially is constantly getting hamstrung by the fact that the devs only design for hard mechanics these days is arena wide marathons and they really just don’t seem to know how to actually deal with casters

It’s like they design every mechanic for melee and tanks which instantly invalidates phys ranged advantage then tries (and often fails) to shove the casters into this design and it just doesn’t work a lot of the time

But that's just kinda how game design works. Impose a bunch of rules on the player, and then put them in a space that tries to contradict the player, but you actually want the player to succeed so you give them the tools to overcome these contradictions. I think it highlights more a problem with phys ranged than it does casters as there isn't anything in the game that tries to contradict how a physical ranged player plays their job unlike every other role. Physical ranged gameplay does not change if you are close to an enemy or far away, running around or standing still, and that's not good game design. There is no challenge.

It's also a healer problem as when there isn't any healing for any reason there isn't really a game for healers to play to fall back on.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it highlights more a problem with phys ranged than it does casters as there isn't anything in the game that tries to contradict how a physical ranged player plays their job unlike every other role. Physical ranged gameplay does not change if you are close to an enemy or far away, running around or standing still, and that's not good game design. There is no challenge.

Given that physical ranged is essentially a purposeful opting-out of that conflict... I would think the content solution to Rangers is just to provide too many mechanics for casters and melee to handle losslessly without them, no? Else, you're going to ultimately need to create for Rangers... some form of the very thing they're defined by the lack of.

We can equally say that casters don't *really* have conflict when their isn't enough damage required (over what would be possible with Rangers or a 3rd/4th Melee), after all.

Else, it all just turns into cognitive load, with Rangers' cognitive load likely coming from mixing together more angularly sensitive actions with mechanics for which they have priority (whether it be a damage + healing linear AoE action that they'd want to fire from a mechanic, through allies, to the enemy or a target position, a "gauss barrel" that's actually just an acceleration disc that they want to set up in between themselves or a target ally and their target, an AoE with damage loss or damage gain per target hit and something they can use to capitalize upon optimizing around that complexity, or whatever else), having especially high role-breadth (supportive actions the optimization of which would require knowledge of how X other jobs interacts with the fight), or having especially deep rotations.

Which... would also seem fine, honestly. You can have multiple broad main types of optimization challenges in a single role. We just shouldn't have the likes of say, SMN at its least constrained giving the same value as BLM at its most.

[Supersnow845]

But that's just kinda how game design works. Impose a bunch of rules on the player, and then put them in a space that tries to contradict the player, but you actually want the player to succeed so you give them the tools to overcome these contradictions. I think it highlights more a problem with phys ranged than it does casters as there isn't anything in the game that tries to contradict how a physical ranged player plays their job unlike every other role. Physical ranged gameplay does not change if you are close to an enemy or far away, running around or standing still, and that's not good game design. There is no challenge.

It's also a healer problem as when there isn't any healing for any reason there isn't really a game for healers to play to fall back on.

The problem is there is nothing that contradicts melee or tanks

The mechanics are being designed around the assumption that the melee roles should be able to solve the mechanic and not the actual downside of their role and that leads to the mechanics heavily biasing large movement which in turn messes up the casters

When was the last time the melee and the off tank actually really struggled with uptime and had to come up with ludicrous dangerous strats to get uptime……..junction shiva?

[mallleable]

The problem is there is nothing that contradicts melee or tanks

The mechanics are being designed around the assumption that the melee roles should be able to solve the mechanic and not the actual downside of their role and that leads to the mechanics heavily biasing large movement which in turn messes up the casters

When was the last time the melee and the off tank actually really struggled with uptime and had to come up with ludicrous dangerous strats to get uptime……..junction shiva?

I did say tries to contradict, I don't think anyone wants to prevent casters or melee from being able to play their jobs. Forcing melees away from an enemy out of max melee range for any period of time -- even just one GCD, is a contradiction of their playstyle. But forcing melees away from an enemy for such extended periods of time to where there are unable to functionally play their job is just as bad as giving melees completely free uptime like in Endwalker. It's a balance, and I think Dawntrail fights have struck a better balance for melees. Same thing for casters, and having to move, and its why casters are given instant spells, why slide casting exists, and why there are 'holes' in mechanics that casters can exploit to minimize movement.

It's just, like, how games are designed. We want a push, and pull between players, and the game, and not for things to be one-sided in either direction. Even the most 'brutally difficult' games try to maintain this balance unless they're trying to make some kind of artistic statement which I don't think XIV is.

[Supersnow845]

I did say tries to contradict, I don't think anyone wants to prevent casters or melee from being able to play their jobs. Forcing melees away from an enemy out of max melee range for any period of time -- even just one GCD, is a contradiction of their playstyle. But forcing melees away from an enemy for such extended periods of time to where there are unable to functionally play their job is just as bad as giving melees completely free uptime like in Endwalker. It's a balance, and I think Dawntrail fights have struck a better balance for melees. Same thing for casters, and having to move, and its why casters are given instant spells, why slide casting exists, and why there are 'holes' in mechanics that casters can exploit to minimize movement.

It's just, like, how games are designed. We want a push, and pull between players, and the game, and not for things to be one-sided in either direction. Even the most 'brutally difficult' games try to maintain this balance unless they're trying to make some kind of artistic statement which I don't think XIV is.

But for casters removing their casts and giving them instants as compensation is basically the same thing as forcing melee out for extended periods of time

I’m playing a caster because I want to cast