My experience in playing FF14 as a tank in PUGs was self-entitled, ego-centric DPS that insist the entire world has been put in place to make their gaming fun. So they run ahead, never attack specified targets, insist that the only thing that matters is their DPS score and everyone else be damned. They don't care about challenge of holding agro, getting their face pounded in so now it is the healers and the tanks fault if they die and they will most certainly complain and then rage quit. You want to make more people want to play tanks. Get better DPS that don't act like spoiled children and want to actually be part of a team effort and it will solve itself.
I remember so many talking about tanking problems in FFXI but were proven over time to completely ignorant of the game they were playing.Soon Bluemages were tanking,then Monks became the staple tank,neither of which were supposed to be tanks. Then we had classes that totally ignored a tank,example mana burn,SMN parties,smart players soon proved you didn't even need a tank.
The problem with FFXIV lies far deeper than any class or trinity,it lies in the original design that was a RUSHED version of what it should have been.Trying to make any game more solo oriented,completely removes any chance of good grouping for obvious reasons.If the game is easy enough to solo,then guess what,it is really easy to group.So what FFXIV ended up as ,is a sort of solo 3 many group oriented game but because of that,SE made the classes really weak when compared to what classes could do in FFXI.
I said from day 1,FFXIV made a big mistake in direction and that the so called REBORN did not fix any of the real problems.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The trinity is not the problem at all. I played this game as a tank and was doing perfectly fine in dungeons/raids for quite a while. Then I noticed an abrupt shift in the people I was random grouped with. DPS became jerks, often running way ahead of me in the zone as I scrambled to pick up the trash they were pulling. I was told what to do, when to do it and why it wasn't being done well/fast enough, even if the zones were being done perfectly well with no AFKing or deaths. I've tanked plenty across a number of games so seeing random dickhole DPS was not new, it just became so prevalent, that it affected my experience over a period of time. It directly led to me leaving the game and having no interest in tanking for random groups in the future. I'm certain that this negative experience is shared among others and is why people just don't want to bother tanking in general. Nobody logs into a game to be treated like shit, but that's often what you get as a tank.
A large part of the problem is the same problem that exists in many mmorpgs and that is most players prefer the DPS roles simply because they don't want to have to keep the group up or take the damage and set the pace of the dungeons. It has been this way for quite a long time now and is not just a thing that exists in FFXIV at all. Healers and tanks are usually sought after and are the lesser played in most games. While some DPS and healers in FFXIV can be dickish there is still a problem in other games with tanks and healers being played enough
"From the art that’s been released, a good number of people believe Samurai will make a debut. So here’s an idea: rather than making Samurai another two-handed weapon tank like Warrior or Dark Knight, what about setting up it up as a tank similar to Ninja from FFXI? For those who missed XI, Ninjas used ninjutsu to ‘blink tank’, creating shadows that would absorb hits on an otherwise super fragile player. It was unique, and not too far off from what a dodge tank could be without just being the same."
Did you know that the developers for FFXI actually didn't intend for Ninja to be a tank at all? It was just found the Utsusemi was so incredible at the role, and so many people were using it in a tanking role that SE decided to leave it in instead of changing the mechanics of the spell entirely.
I always knew Samurai was coming to XIV, and I always had this vision (if it was going to be a tank that is) that it would be based off FFT's samurai, with it's special class ability "Draw Out". This ability let you "draw out" an ability or abilities from the katana you were wearing at the time, with different abilities based on different katanas. I figured it would be neat to have a system like that.
Also, I speak as a career tank (my only lvl 60s besides crafters are DRK and PLD) when I say that for me it's around 80/20 in regards to the reason I don't queue much... with the 80% being fellow players. As someone said earlier, the sheer amount of animosity you get if you don't do as the party demands, e.g. pull an entire floor cause "Don't worry, we can handle it!" and then you die, puts off quite a few people.
Tanks are never very good in FFXIV. For the most part they try, and I can see them trying, but the majority always get either too far from the me (the healer) no matter how fast I run, they agro EVERYTHING and die, or they agro NOTHING and everyone else dies. I watch my DPS bunnies get popped because no matter how much health I throw at them, the tank just cant agro anything. It really is, however, the sheer lack of skill in FFXIV players that makes tanking grievous for those o-so-wanna-be "heroes" who need to just do their damned job. BUT like any good healer I tried my hand at tanking also, if only to understand what problems THEY faced that I might not have known about.
When I tried tanking, we did fine, until either the DPS agro'd past me or the healer just flat out stopped healing. I watched the struggle as the imbalanced hate-pull system continued to fail. After using "flash" two dozen times on a single pack of mobs I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. So I tried it with other players. It worked fine. No downside in that dungeon. So I tried many more times. The only correlation with the FAILED dungeons were over powered DPS players running around way too much acting like they were just grinding mobs.
So then I started to look at the various job types that those same players had. Nearly all of the OP DPS players had the tank classes maxed out. So there it was, the clear explanation, these dungeon breaking DPS players were so used to either grinding or doing all the tanking themselves, they simply didn't know how to play a dungeon as anything other than a tank. The lack of skill, lack of attention, and lack of acceptance of their new role had, in fact, destroyed their ability to play in a team.
These are the same players that talk smack during dungeons, agro everyone in the game field, and then offer nothing but childish nonsense when spoken to. These players are not going away, these players are never going to lack the money to buy all of the new things, and most of them are actually below the contractually obliged age limit introduced in the EULA.
But we should really just blame Canada.
We are all in agreement right?
Right?
P.S. Stop assuming we're not game designers. It is very hurtful and VERY patronizing.
i have a 50 pld , 50 war and 60 DRK , and tanked a lot , however i stoped tanking why?
dungeons : are easy but not knowing the tank mechanics make me nervous , while leveling it was ok , but at max ugh...
trials : this one are the hardes for tanks , not know a mechanic is usually wipe ><
raids : never tanked a raid (outside Coil undersized so faceroll ....)
tanks in FFXIV have to deal with mechanics that no1 has to deal , and avoid others , isnt "hard" once u know what to do , but .....
Never mained a tank , itsnt that bad to be hones , Drk / war dps in offesnive stances is good , Pld got a boost even ....so doing quests and fates ect isnt slow and boring , is faster as dps but tanks can surive a lot ....and self heal
My problem with tanking in this game was the Ai flat out lied to me.
The enmity icon says I have aggro but click the mob and it has its attention on the healer. Tabbing to targets in this game is and always has been a shit show of epic levels and the two aspects combined made tanking pure lottery.
I would not play a tank for all the tea in China simply because too much rest on their shoulders. They have to know the dungeon well, they must know exactly how many to pull and how to hold the mobs and all this while the stupid DPS try to ruin it at every encounter. I play healers which have no where near the responsibility the tank has. DPS are not even able to do simple things like staying back and not running ahead and they are mostly played by obnoxious players from my experience. Of course not saying there are no obnoxious healers or tanks but the one silver lining is that you can kick the DPS and they get replaced immediately but not the tank.
In a way it is inevitable that games have evolved to make it so every class is responsible for their own healing and losing aggro and not allowing one class to tank has also alleviated the responsibility placed on the poor tank.
I cannot agree with this article. I do not recognize the shortage of tanks in the game. Playing on the Phoenix server there is no shortage of good tanks.
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.
You literally are the only dissenting post in this thread, every other poster agrees with OP.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Don't agree with SE bad design decisions. In fact, this is one of the most stable mmo's available in terms of continuity of design.
Taking away all the FF lore: It's a standard Tank/Heal/Dps - group & raid format.
- In any game of this format you should have a look at the guides on youtube etc before diving in to a dungeon or raid. This really doesn't take long and there are a ton of them out there. If you really haven't got time to look at a 10 minute guide, then I'd suggest you've nowhere near the time to actually run dungeons, never mind raids.
So what this 'behind the problem' article boils down to is this:
1. Players - not only tanks - healers & dps, need to know what they're doing in the specific instance. I know, shock horror here guys. Now is this particular to this one game? No, it's standard dungeon/raid practice. So why label it as an FFXIV problem?
2. FFXIV has some dungeons and raids that are a challenge. Yep, 'fraid so. Not only for one class, but all of them.
Darn unfair that - making a multi-class challenge in an mmo. So let's give it a tag of being a problem for a single class in a single game. Normally it's blame the healer, but let's leave that for another miscued article later on.
3. Because the dungeons/raids offer a challenge, it means the whole trinity set up is flawed, mmm. Not because some dps guys decide to do the manikin challenge in several aoe's. No, it's the system. Fancy having the boss putting damage areas where group characters are positioned.
4. Article OP - It's not about a single class in a single game. It never has been.
FFXIV dungeons/raids (together with several other mmo's) offer a great challenge for all classes.
- whether it's the tank positioning the boss / interrupting damage.
- the dps guys knowing when to break off from the boss to kill various other targets or move to safe positions for area wide boss mechanics.
- or healers not only repairing health, but anticipating mechanics, removing debuffs.
etc etc.
Look here - this is a typical FFXIV dungeon. A pretty straightforward one, but it still requires all classes to know what's going on.
Not a tank problem, not a dps problem, not a healer problem - a standard mmo group challenge.
There is no mystery to this one....people are buttholes. That is why there is a shortage of tanks. Tanks are the most abused class in any MMO. Everything gets blamed on the tank. And if you did not spend an hour studying the encounter prior to queuing prepare to get booted from the group or verbally abused for the next 30 minutes or so. The MMO community caused this problem.
There is no personal reward for playing a tank. They are traditionally underpowered in solo and pvp play. The expectation is that you will stand there while others dictate the pace. A well played tank merely survives. A poorly played tank can survive with great teammates. What is the personal reward or recognition?
Tanks are never very good in FFXIV. For the most part they try, and I can see them trying, but the majority always get either too far from the me (the healer) no matter how fast I run, they agro EVERYTHING and die, or they agro NOTHING and everyone else dies. I watch my DPS bunnies get popped because no matter how much health I throw at them, the tank just cant agro anything. It really is, however, the sheer lack of skill in FFXIV players that makes tanking grievous for those o-so-wanna-be "heroes" who need to just do their damned job. BUT like any good healer I tried my hand at tanking also, if only to understand what problems THEY faced that I might not have known about.
When I tried tanking, we did fine, until either the DPS agro'd past me or the healer just flat out stopped healing. I watched the struggle as the imbalanced hate-pull system continued to fail. After using "flash" two dozen times on a single pack of mobs I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. So I tried it with other players. It worked fine. No downside in that dungeon. So I tried many more times. The only correlation with the FAILED dungeons were over powered DPS players running around way too much acting like they were just grinding mobs.
So then I started to look at the various job types that those same players had. Nearly all of the OP DPS players had the tank classes maxed out. So there it was, the clear explanation, these dungeon breaking DPS players were so used to either grinding or doing all the tanking themselves, they simply didn't know how to play a dungeon as anything other than a tank. The lack of skill, lack of attention, and lack of acceptance of their new role had, in fact, destroyed their ability to play in a team.
These are the same players that talk smack during dungeons, agro everyone in the game field, and then offer nothing but childish nonsense when spoken to. These players are not going away, these players are never going to lack the money to buy all of the new things, and most of them are actually below the contractually obliged age limit introduced in the EULA.
But we should really just blame Canada.
We are all in agreement right?
Right?
P.S. Stop assuming we're not game designers. It is very hurtful and VERY patronizing.
First you blame tanks. Then you blame other players when you try a tank... This is why I stopped playing tanks. Look in the mirror if you want to blame someone.
Reading thru this thread , it seems to me that most of the problems for the Tanks and the other classes , is to simply get involved with a good Free Company , would fix most of the problems people are referencing here , There are many good Free Company in FF14 , and usually very helpful with running Dungeons ..and getting geared , Also most of them run training runs , So join a FC make some friends dont be ass or treat people like one and most problems ive seen here are solved
I rolled a sea wolf gld yesterday because of this article. Leveling is more fun w dps but why fight my calling. Always been a meat shield...no need to stop now. It would be nice if mmos would give some bonuses to tanks for leveling, but thats why they call it a grind. It is nice the rewards that games like WoW and FFXIV offer for randoms but people who like tanking are going to q up eventually anyway. See ya in the pug runs
Like Grakulen said above, the default party size should have been at least five.
Besides that, they could fix the queues pretty easily. All you have to do is add a tomestone bonus (whatever the top tier tomestone is at the time) for the adventurer in need. Problem solved.
What can FFXIV (or any game) do to make tanking more appealing? Nothing, other than get rid of the trinity mechanic. As noted by another poster, this is not a game design problem (assuming the game is going to use the trinity mechanic), this is a player behavior problem. Anyone who says there is not generally a shortage of tanks in games that rely on the trinity mechanic is either lying or never PUGs.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I really don't see an issue in this. Other than PLD getting their tank stance late which I hope they fix. I do not notice tanks causing any problems of any kind. I also have been in thousands of parties where there was a new tank...very rarely is there a big issue.
If players suck it's because they're stupid and/or they suck regardless of job. There is no tank problem in FFXIV, someone just needed something to write about.
My main problem with the MMO Tank model is that they do crap for damage. It's not as fun just taking hits as it is to do damage. Watching someone else do damage is equally un-fun for me.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
watch a 10 minute video on a dungeon before playing it? the whole purpose of playing a dungeon new is the excitement and the element of surprise.
also. the defence mechanic in games is also broken in most games that i have played. they just dont make it even for people that has more defence than attack. you still die fast by a dps warrior. but you cant do any damage on him. balance is just off. and most games nowdays make it their duty to make people with more defence hit 0 damage.
Comments
I remember so many talking about tanking problems in FFXI but were proven over time to completely ignorant of the game they were playing.Soon Bluemages were tanking,then Monks became the staple tank,neither of which were supposed to be tanks.
Then we had classes that totally ignored a tank,example mana burn,SMN parties,smart players soon proved you didn't even need a tank.
The problem with FFXIV lies far deeper than any class or trinity,it lies in the original design that was a RUSHED version of what it should have been.Trying to make any game more solo oriented,completely removes any chance of good grouping for obvious reasons.If the game is easy enough to solo,then guess what,it is really easy to group.So what FFXIV ended up as ,is a sort of solo 3 many group oriented game but because of that,SE made the classes really weak when compared to what classes could do in FFXI.
I said from day 1,FFXIV made a big mistake in direction and that the so called REBORN did not fix any of the real problems.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Did you know that the developers for FFXI actually didn't intend for Ninja to be a tank at all? It was just found the Utsusemi was so incredible at the role, and so many people were using it in a tanking role that SE decided to leave it in instead of changing the mechanics of the spell entirely.
I always knew Samurai was coming to XIV, and I always had this vision (if it was going to be a tank that is) that it would be based off FFT's samurai, with it's special class ability "Draw Out". This ability let you "draw out" an ability or abilities from the katana you were wearing at the time, with different abilities based on different katanas. I figured it would be neat to have a system like that.
Also, I speak as a career tank (my only lvl 60s besides crafters are DRK and PLD) when I say that for me it's around 80/20 in regards to the reason I don't queue much... with the 80% being fellow players. As someone said earlier, the sheer amount of animosity you get if you don't do as the party demands, e.g. pull an entire floor cause "Don't worry, we can handle it!" and then you die, puts off quite a few people.
When I tried tanking, we did fine, until either the DPS agro'd past me or the healer just flat out stopped healing. I watched the struggle as the imbalanced hate-pull system continued to fail. After using "flash" two dozen times on a single pack of mobs I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. So I tried it with other players. It worked fine. No downside in that dungeon. So I tried many more times. The only correlation with the FAILED dungeons were over powered DPS players running around way too much acting like they were just grinding mobs.
So then I started to look at the various job types that those same players had. Nearly all of the OP DPS players had the tank classes maxed out. So there it was, the clear explanation, these dungeon breaking DPS players were so used to either grinding or doing all the tanking themselves, they simply didn't know how to play a dungeon as anything other than a tank. The lack of skill, lack of attention, and lack of acceptance of their new role had, in fact, destroyed their ability to play in a team.
These are the same players that talk smack during dungeons, agro everyone in the game field, and then offer nothing but childish nonsense when spoken to. These players are not going away, these players are never going to lack the money to buy all of the new things, and most of them are actually below the contractually obliged age limit introduced in the EULA.
But we should really just blame Canada.
We are all in agreement right?
Right?
P.S. Stop assuming we're not game designers. It is very hurtful and VERY patronizing.
dungeons : are easy but not knowing the tank mechanics make me nervous , while leveling it was ok , but at max ugh...
trials : this one are the hardes for tanks , not know a mechanic is usually wipe ><
raids : never tanked a raid (outside Coil undersized so faceroll ....)
tanks in FFXIV have to deal with mechanics that no1 has to deal , and avoid others , isnt "hard" once u know what to do , but .....
Never mained a tank , itsnt that bad to be hones , Drk / war dps in offesnive stances is good , Pld got a boost even ....so doing quests and fates ect isnt slow and boring , is faster as dps but tanks can surive a lot ....and self heal
The enmity icon says I have aggro but click the mob and it has its attention on the healer. Tabbing to targets in this game is and always has been a shit show of epic levels and the two aspects combined made tanking pure lottery.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
In a way it is inevitable that games have evolved to make it so every class is responsible for their own healing and losing aggro and not allowing one class to tank has also alleviated the responsibility placed on the poor tank.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Taking away all the FF lore: It's a standard Tank/Heal/Dps - group & raid format.
- In any game of this format you should have a look at the guides on youtube etc before diving in to a dungeon or raid. This really doesn't take long and there are a ton of them out there. If you really haven't got time to look at a 10 minute guide, then I'd suggest you've nowhere near the time to actually run dungeons, never mind raids.
So what this 'behind the problem' article boils down to is this:
1. Players - not only tanks - healers & dps, need to know what they're doing in the specific instance. I know, shock horror here guys. Now is this particular to this one game? No, it's standard dungeon/raid practice. So why label it as an FFXIV problem?
2. FFXIV has some dungeons and raids that are a challenge. Yep, 'fraid so. Not only for one class, but all of them.
Darn unfair that - making a multi-class challenge in an mmo. So let's give it a tag of being a problem for a single class in a single game. Normally it's blame the healer, but let's leave that for another miscued article later on.
3. Because the dungeons/raids offer a challenge, it means the whole trinity set up is flawed, mmm. Not because some dps guys decide to do the manikin challenge in several aoe's. No, it's the system. Fancy having the boss putting damage areas where group characters are positioned.
4. Article OP - It's not about a single class in a single game. It never has been.
FFXIV dungeons/raids (together with several other mmo's) offer a great challenge for all classes.
- whether it's the tank positioning the boss / interrupting damage.
- the dps guys knowing when to break off from the boss to kill various other targets or move to safe positions for area wide boss mechanics.
- or healers not only repairing health, but anticipating mechanics, removing debuffs. etc etc.
Look here - this is a typical FFXIV dungeon. A pretty straightforward one, but it still requires all classes to know what's going on.
Not a tank problem, not a dps problem, not a healer problem - a standard mmo group challenge.
Dude....there is a shortage of tanks in EVERY MMO. Why do you think a tank gets insta-queues while dps has to wait 30-60 minutes?
First you blame tanks. Then you blame other players when you try a tank... This is why I stopped playing tanks. Look in the mirror if you want to blame someone.
Besides that, they could fix the queues pretty easily. All you have to do is add a tomestone bonus (whatever the top tier tomestone is at the time) for the adventurer in need. Problem solved.
Got to be server dependent then, as this is my main mmo and I don't see this waiting that you mention.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If players suck it's because they're stupid and/or they suck regardless of job. There is no tank problem in FFXIV, someone just needed something to write about.
-signed-
A 1.0 Veteran
also. the defence mechanic in games is also broken in most games that i have played. they just dont make it even for people that has more defence than attack. you still die fast by a dps warrior. but you cant do any damage on him. balance is just off. and most games nowdays make it their duty to make people with more defence hit 0 damage.