#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Katish]

Hello again.
I posted what I noticed from yesterday's communication in my own way on the Japanese forum, and received some responses.
The first thing they are thinking about is what kind of player base you guys are thinking about; there is a huge difference from very casual players to those playing high difficulty contents.

Hello, thank you for relaying the Japanese view points, I think most of us that go to discuss the healer situation over there, do not necessarily mean to be rude. It is to gauge Japanese opinion with our own opinion, I assume there is just a translation error going on, maybe because of the translation tools, I don't know. English is hard to gauge whether someone is being rude unless otherwise obvious or made apparent, as English typically does not carry any formal expression in its volume, it does have polite phrases, but the language doesn't change to meet a "polite" form. Though parallel to that ideology, lots of opinions on the English forum have gotten outright ignored by the developers for years, not just a few years either, so there might be some that are smitten (disheartened), and I believe justifiable so. We have seen the other roles encroach upon the Healer role, without any exchange for them doing so. Example, shake it off from warrior is able to cover multiple mechanics, effectively leaving the healer role to basically only spam one button (glare, broil, malefic, dosis with the occasional DoT skill and off cooldown skill such as (Afflatus, Phelgma, Energy Drain, etc)), while that job also sees that it gains a proper rotation. A lot of us find that to be unfair to the healer role, that they get to cover our role while we remain only doing the later...this not limited to dungeons but also: extremes, savages, ultimates. It has gotten really bad to the point where they effectively replaced us, that is the opinion shared among the forum...or at least some of us. Even casual players have seen this problem in varying degrees, making their experience, well, less fun.

Again thank you for seeing the time and visiting the English forum.

[Rayplicant]

After browsing this thread I just feel bad for the devs lol

I don't think the healer role is the main issue. It's a much broader issue with player skill levels being all over the place. You have high level players who have no problem doing a dungeon without a healer but you also have players who really struggle with even simple dungeon content or players who ask you to "slow down" and pull one pack at a time in a dungeon. If you don't comply things can turn toxic pretty fast which is exactly what the dev's do not want (leads to more tickets, and upset player base). Terrible experiences in dungeons can easily lead to loss in subscribers/player base.

I also think a lot of you see content creators or high skill level players who breeze through content and think "well that isn't right! you shouldn't be able to do that!" meanwhile a lot of you probably can't perform at the same level. Just seeing that something is POSSIBLE doesn't mean that it is broken or imbalanced.

The healing role in particular has the highest variation in skill out of any role. A competent healer can drag a terrible group through content kicking and screaming. A bad healer drags down a group and slows clear rates more than any other role and can be very annoying to the rest of the group (especially when there is often unavoidable raid wide aoe dmg etc).

The issue is player skill. The game needs to teach people better how to play the game and their specific roles. In particular the healing role. Many players who main healer don't even know what a rotation is. Hall of the novice is great but it is not nearly enough and is completely skippable content. Mentor network is often full of misinformation and people just looking to boost their ego and not actually attempt to help other players to learn. The systems to teach players have not been working for a very long time.

I see the changes to tanks and dps having more self-sustain a direct response to this skill gap. It is not a perfect solution but it is easier to implement than to expect the community to self-correct or teach new players how to properly heal. This is not an issue that is fixable over night; it will take a long time. I think the biggest issue with the game during the last two expansions has been the complete lack of midcore content.

Content is either extremely easy or extremely difficult/punishing. Bridging the gap between normal content and Savage content is a much more glaring issue in my opinion and the solution is not clear.

[Rehayem]

Please ignore the trolls, we have to keep feedback constructive otherwise mods will shut down this thread.

[Supersnow845]

After browsing this thread I just feel bad for the devs lol

I don't think the healer role is the main issue. It's a much broader issue with player skill levels being all over the place. You have high level players who have no problem doing a dungeon without a healer but you also have players who really struggle with even simple dungeon content or players who ask you to "slow down" and pull one pack at a time in a dungeon. If you don't comply things can turn toxic pretty fast which is exactly what the dev's do not want (leads to more tickets, and upset player base). Terrible experiences in dungeons can easily lead to loss in subscribers/player base.

I also think a lot of you see content creators or high skill level players who breeze through content and think "well that isn't right! you shouldn't be able to do that!" meanwhile a lot of you probably can't perform at the same level. Just seeing that something is POSSIBLE doesn't mean that it is broken or imbalanced.

The healing role in particular has the highest variation in skill out of any role. A competent healer can drag a terrible group through content kicking and screaming. A bad healer drags down a group and slows clear rates more than any other role and can be very annoying to the rest of the group (especially when there is often unavoidable raid wide aoe dmg etc).

The issue is player skill. The game needs to teach people better how to play the game and their specific roles. In particular the healing role. Many players who main healer don't even know what a rotation is. Hall of the novice is great but it is not nearly enough and is completely skippable content. Mentor network is often full of misinformation and people just looking to boost their ego and not actually attempt to help other players to learn. The systems to teach players have not been working for a very long time.

I see the changes to tanks and dps having more self-sustain a direct response to this skill gap. It is not a perfect solution but it is easier to implement than to expect the community to self-correct or teach new players how to properly heal. This is not an issue that is fixable over night; it will take a long time. I think the biggest issue with the game during the last two expansions has been the complete lack of midcore content.

Content is either extremely easy or extremely difficult/punishing. Bridging the gap between normal content and Savage content is a much more glaring issue in my opinion and the solution is not clear.

So the devs refuse to update old systems to better teach players how to play healer and offer content to actually bridge the gap between cure 1 spammer and competent healer and instead “fix” the problem by making the healer near redundant and then I’m also supposed to feel sorry for the devs for digging their own hole

[Kazmarek]

I can't speak for all Tank players (and I hope you'll forgive my choice of words) but that's an utterly paranoiac and insane way of thinking. Unless you weren't serious of course.

Tanks have tools to reduce the amount of damage they take and thus their chances of dying (and wiping the group), they simply use them, trying to be as efficient for the group as they can be (as all party members should).

Now, I can agree that some of these tools are borderline overpowered, if not completely, but I very much doubt the whole "Tanks using cooldowns is a way to assert dominance on puny weak useless healers."

Yeah I don't really view it as "lol I'm gonna assert dominance over everyone here," I view it more as "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." Warrior, in its current form, is perfect for this. I'm sure confirmation bias plays a big role in my line of thinking, but it seems like every time I try to not play tank in something, I should've gone tank. Can't dps because then the tank is gonna do single pulls and the healer's just gonna stand there doing literally nothing. Can't heal because then the tank is gonna do single pulls and the reaper's not gonna apply their death's design debuff and the bard's not gonna use songs or dots. So, tank it is.

I can play warrior, I can pull to the wall, I don't have to care about my healer or dps because I can solo the entire dungeon. Sure, it's gonna take awhile, but at least I know I can do it. So... sticking with what others have said, my bad experiences in the past have shaped my way of thinking here, "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." I'm not really with the healer strike, simply because I don't play healer (outside of warrior lol) but I'm certainly not against it, either. It's good to see people actually trying to do something and actually trying to enact change. I highly doubt it'll actually go anywhere, but I respect it nonetheless.

[WeakestZenosEnjoyer]

I doubt it. For one thing, every job has to be able to clear the solo content of the MSQ in a reasonable amount of time and with only a modest level of skill.

This is literally what Brilliant Conviction does. We don't need the tank kit to solo dungeons to get through the solo fights at the end of ARR and healers don't need to match melee DPS damage output to get through that one Endwalker DPS check with the stupid orbs.

[Loggos]

I doubt it. For one thing, every job has to be able to clear the solo content of the MSQ in a reasonable amount of time and with only a modest level of skill. So "tanks" and "healers" need to have decent DPS, and DPS needs some survivability. Unless you want the kit for a job to change radically when you enter multi-player content, this inescapably leads to the roles of the trinity becoming less distinct.

Alolalo Island (sp?) is an interesting example. The kit is modified, of course, but I found clear times didn't vary much based on which role I or my spouse used (or between solo and group runs). Clear times do vary by class in other content of course: in a ridiculous example, I can't match the 7 second clear time we can get for Howling Eye Extreme on a pair of unsynced WARs when we do it on other classes, but that's a way-off-the-norms case.

Hm tbh I don't agree with this because if you want to commit to a trinity system then I don't think that solo content should be able hold group content "hostage" like this. If solo content is the weak link then I'd rather have solo content be adapted than group-based classes having to be molded in a way to accomodate the occasional solo duty in the MSQ. In the end the foundation of this MMO is still group play. Even in trusts you still play with an NPC party. So in the context of a trinity design I think orienting class design towards group content should take precedence.

I don't know how many people truly think MSQ solo duties are all that fun anyways (or at least on par with the much more common group content). I think healers struggling in solo content should be tackled differently. For example by adding extra skills as you can do in variant dungeons. A DPS in a solo duty could get a heal button like the pvp recuperate skill and healers could get an extra dps button. Is this the pinnacle of game design and fun? Definitely not. But I'd rather have group content be fun than the rather rare solo duties that often feel kind of forced/contrived anyway.

Or you could also take a bit of an eccentric route and use PVP classes for solo content including pvp actions like recuperate, purify and guard. With pvp classes you already have kits that make every class a viable dps with survivability readily available while being relatively simple. So you wouldn't have to develop anything new. It could also be a nice advertisment for pvp because people would be exposed to its gameplay flavour within the MSQ and might have their interest piqued.

I'd actually really enjoy it if the pvp kit design was appreciated and applicable in some limited contend beyond pvp since I do think they are really well executed. Certain solo content (with the necessary adaptations) could be a good place for this.

[Aravell]

The issue is player skill.

So if the issue is the player skill gap, how does removing fail states fix this in any way?

If a healer is bad and they get carried through content while they're on the floor, they will remain bad. You can't force improvement by taking away friction.

If a healer is failing, the tank should be able to support the healer, yes. But if the healer is dead on the floor, the tank should not be able to survive infinitely, that would be indicative of imbalance in between roles. The tank should be able to survive a while after the healer dies and maybe eke out a win through their own skill, but the tank should not be able to solo 75% of a boss.

[Post]

I doubt it. For one thing, every job has to be able to clear the solo content of the MSQ in a reasonable amount of time and with only a modest level of skill. So "tanks" and "healers" need to have decent DPS, and DPS needs some survivability. Unless you want the kit for a job to change radically when you enter multi-player content, this inescapably leads to the roles of the trinity becoming less distinct.

This more or less had been solved by HW, with the introduction of 'easy' and 'very easy' modes, as well as the super Echo you get for every solo duty at every point in the game now that was introduced in StB. It grants a permanent HP regen that becomes more potent at lower total HP%. So, healers don't even need to heal themselves in solo duties, thanks to this, and even DPS that get hit by a bunch of avoidable stuff and don't know about their survival tools do just fine as long as they don't take hits back to back to back.

What is almost universally absent from solo duties are overall enrage DPS checks, like the kind that start counting down from the moment you pull a boss. You only see phase-based ones in solo duties, often constructed in a way that makes it difficult to fail, with the notable exceptions like 4.55's on certain jobs, though again that usually has more to do with a player's gear and the fact that they've yet been tested alone by the game in this way.

Anyways, solo duties can and should be tweaked on a case by case basis, and because they're solo, the devs are free to do as much behind the scenes as they like. There's no reason that 4.0 AST level 61 solo Zenos needs to have the same HP total as level 61 solo SAM Zenos, or that he needs to hit as weakly as he does for 61 solo WAR Zenos. And in all of that, that poor AST only has Combust 2 and Malefic 2 to spam, and buffs to raise their own damage by 6% (I'm sure they totally feel the impact of that, thus reinforcing how much they'll feel the impact of their central mechanic in a party that still might not have any specifically melee or ranged dps to buff for 90% of the game).

They already do this partially for Duty Support NPC scaling. They also irrevocably changed many old encounters so their duty AI could handle it rather than making versions of those encounters for their solo mode. A solo mode that doesn't even allow you to take 1 or 2 friends in case you don't have a group of 4 for some reason, by the way.

There are approaches to complaints that exist that may resolve them without outright removing things, such as the healer role, from the game.

[PercibelTheren]

Why do people hyperfocus on bad healers they have gotten over the years and argue that’s a reason tanks should be able to do the healers role for them

Why does nobody remember the garbage tanks or the garbage DPS they get and say that’s why the healers should do those jobs

Maybe because a bad healer is more immediately noticeable to people who aren't as observant? A bad tank not using their mits will just get carried by the healer in the vast majority of cases. Failed a tank swap? You get a rez. A bad DPS in normal content just means the fight takes longer. A bad healer not healing or using Esuna to cleanse Doom means people die and everyone notices it.