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Adventurers in Need: What’s Behind Tanking Problem? - Final Fantasy XIV Columns
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Adventurers in Need: What’s Behind Tanking Problem? - Final Fantasy XIV Columns
Final Fantasy XIV is a traditional kind of MMO. It adheres rigidly to the holy trinity of tank, DPS, and healer, and making it easy enough to jump into.
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Furthermore, if the tank dies and everyone dies, most people tend to blame the tank, I've found.
And then when it comes to soloing, the tank either can't do it or is incredibly slow at it (because killing fast isn't something tanks do).
In games where a tank is so OP that they don't even need a cleric to tank (not necessarily OP for soloing. Just OP for tanking), though, or that are twitch enough that with good skill a tanker doesn't need a cleric, you can really feel like a boss sometimes. ....those games are pretty rare though (and it becomes a balance issue for entirely different reasons when that happens)
Even as a main tank, I did not like running new content outside my guild because of the above.
In endgame tanks main job is to do dmg and hold hate, then secondarily negate damage. Alot of people I know from other mmos simply do not want to play them as gimp dps that can take a punch. So over time they changed to pure dps classes. High Endgame in FFXIV has become 100% focused on dealing LEET DPS, this does not let people really focus on the tanking aspects. So if you cannot focus on being a tank... why play tank over say a mnk or nin.
The larger problem is that the average player can keep up 2, maybe 3 jobs to the current gear tier. The taste of HaterAde learned by so many novice tanks over the past two years means a LOT of folks have concentrated on their DPS or Healer roles, so now trying to properly gear a tank means sacrificing a job. That's a hard sell right now.
Hopefully with the next expansion, a new tank combined with a less-stress way to learn the job will produce a few more people playing that role. I could probably squeeze it in, for example, especially if it's a radical design like a Dancer Tank. But for now, I'm not diverting time into a class just to get treated like dirt if I'm not pitch-perfect. My main was a tank in EQ2 - I've served on the line in the role
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Honestly though, I don't think that it's too bad, as a healer I also have almost instant queues, DPS takes a little more time but it's bearable, if anything you can just queue for PoTD and get an instaQ there.
That is the main reason that I don't enjoy playing tanks, I feel like as a healer I have much more control over a dungeon/boss fight than a tank. Yes, you can pull whatever you what, reposition and set the pace, but after that you pretty much have to pray that your healer is not terrible and actually heal you and your damage dealers know how to play so it doesn't take forever to kill a mob.
Having to deal with the manufactured stress of people who get angry at your unwillingness to pull every single floor of a dungeon in one go, or who have opinions on what the OT should do, or the regular pissing contests in raids with who MTs and OTs...
Yeah, I'll take the casual queue and practically stress-free life of a DPS than having to put up with the expert opinions of every other role in a found party, thanks.
Healing and tanking is already more stressful than it was when I first started playing MMORPGs since there is a premium on rushing. In FFXIV, and WoW as well, healers have to be familiar with the dungeons just like tanks. If you're not precasting your heals, while the tank is rounding up the room, there's a good chance he will die before he even gets back to you. It's no longer a matter of getting through content with everyone alive, but you have to do it at such a brisk pace that not only am I stressing while healing but completely unable to enjoy the actual content. Taking my eyes off the damage classes standing in the red for shits and giggles, or actually taking a breath between pulls, means a wipe and I have to listen to a bunch of crying. Eventually it just stopped being worth it.
Needless to say, I eventually rolled a damage class and never looked back. I don't enjoy damage classes nearly as much, but I enjoy a stress free experience even more.
In my eyes the community is the problem. I stopped playing for this reason. I couldn't enjoy the game when I had two options A:Study for the dungeon or B:Get yelled at for not know it all.
But even in my time Tanks where under immense pressure from the rest of the group, as healer I had my moments in which you wished had a fourth hand and a third eye to keep things going, and got my share of criticism but also my share of compliments, rarely I have seen people give kudos to the tank for a job well done. Sure one expect everybody can pull her weight in a group, but some roles , like the tank mostly, are more stressful and less rewarding most of the time.
I don't think there's really a solution no matter the mechanics to say to someone "Be ready to do a thankless job, be ready to take hard comments at every small error and if you do a job well done don't expect that's recognized"
Myself, I'd only try tanking with a group of friends so I could set my own pace and if I have to learn a place, I'd have a chance to do so without people literally walking over you.
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Current: FFXIV, Wildstar
Retired: UO, FFXI, WoW, LOTRO, VG, AoC.
I would also completely disagree with the writers opinion of the trinity. The tank, healer, damage dealer is a fantastic set up. The proof is out there already - when companies come along with the "we are getting away from the trinity" - and end up with a complete 'we're all dps' mash up.
I feel this article has been written against FFXIV mistakenly. An error in judgement.
It is in fact the well worn comment on the fact that more people like to dps than tank - dressed up as a modern article merely by targeting a popular current game.
Shame on the author, I thought you where better than this. You could have said this about WoW, you could have said this about Rift. Unlikely on the latter however, as you publish so called non-sponsored articles on Rift; written by Rift employees.
A poorly targeted article, written in a blinkered manner, that does nothing to aid the cause of mmorpg.com as an unbiased online magazine.
Tanks also need to have a lot more spatial awareness than the rest, be ready to move bosses around for specific mechanics, be coordinated with the other tank when needing to swap aggro and other crap, and are generally relied on by the rest to lead the group, and let's be honest: most people playing like to just zone out, have fun and mindlessly do the content instead of telling people what to do.
The underlying problem isn't that there aren't enough tanks. The underlying problem is that the grouping system assumes an exact ratio of particular roles, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that players won't universally choose to play roles in the exact ratio that content assumes. If it weren't a lack of tanks, it would be a lack of something else, and then you have exactly the same problem as before, except for the personal experiences of people who only play tanks or only play the "something else" (probably healers).
It's a problem that has been solved by quite a few MMORPGs and in a variety of ways. FFXIV chose to do nothing to solve it. And so you have a game where "grouping" means "waiting in a queue for lengthy amounts of time" for most of the playerbase.
One of the biggest reasons I quit playing as a tank and FF14 in general is that leveling post level 50 is extremely boring and made even more so because it takes forever to kill anything as a tank, yeah the tanks are "solo friendly" but solo leveling as a tank in FF14 is not fun at all
Also, the bad and very insular community is driving away new tanks. Its like people are actively trying to drain any fun that could possibly be had from tanking in this game.
Ive thought about returning for the next expansion but I doubt I will.