Please Reconsider Splitting Main and Off-Tank Roles Based on Job

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Originally Posted by Mukuku

What you are saying is that in Stormblood although "DRK could maintank", it was effectively "almost exclusively an offtank".

Assuming that's true, it is exactly what some players are concerned about: they don't want to be pigeonholed in a specific tank sub-role depending on their tank job.

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I don't mean to say Stormblood was ideal, and there's more going on right now.
It's just that part of having job identity involves losing things. This is the trade-off of identity, some tanks need to be good at some things and lack some things, so they can not do everything, and specialize in certain aspects. We're also dealing with a new system. Any new system is going to be a trade-off and we have to sacrifice to get one.

So I believe we need to wait and see what they are doing. Most of us want change and identity, and some players are going to find it, or certain aspects unpleasant. I would rather choose to be mt or ot, but what I want even more is changes to a stale system and am willing to wait to get the *complete picture* before asking them to turn back.

I want to chime in here. Its interesting to hear people complaining about becoming off tanks because they find off tanking boring when they havent even seen what their job can do yet. There seems to be this phobia of “Main tank” being the star player and “Off Tank” being on the sidelines. Given, that is how it can feel off tanking on some jobs currently. (Hence why you see tanks fighting over hate in alliance raids).

The reality is, it isnt going to be too much different than what we have now. Sure you can main tank with every job, but hate to break it to you, some jobs are a lot more optimal at main tanking. If you are main tanking as Dark Knight, you are putting a lot more pressure on your healers as there is a common sentiment among healers of having to babysit a Drk. Drk does not have the mitigation or self sustain tools that jobs like War and Pld have. (One of my best friends mains Drk and we have been tanking together for 2 expansions now. And after stress testing have confirmed this with our static).

New system comes out, you will still be able to be a suboptimal main tanking if you want (I would mention reborn mode here but people seem to want to pretend it doesn't exist). I realize this comment might upset some people, but I really think people should stop pulling out the torches and pitchforks until we see what the off tanks can do now. I will be the first to say that if off tanking stays as it is now then I agree with everyone here that this sucks.

BUT! If this leads to job diversity and giving tanks actual identity and uniqueness then I am 100% for this change. We need this desperately and for those of you who feel strongly about wanting to stay main tank, would ask that you take a breath and wait to reserve final judgement until we see what the off tanks can do.

For those saying to give the tanks freedom to switch between main tank and off tank, I am against this as well. As soon as you do that, why cant white mage have a slider to switch between pure healer and shield healer? Once you do that, jobs start losing identity again. When square enix mentioned player freedom, it was for character expression and how to manage your time, not for a job being able to be played however it wants leading to identity crisis and homogenization. You are taking things out of context.

So let’s all wait and see what the other tanks can actually do and if the off tank gameplay looks fun. Otherwise, you are basing your complaint on a title alone, and hate to say it but that just becomes a “No! I’m the Star Player!” complaint with no real substance.

The community has socially designated certain tanks MT or OT in the past, before they started making both tanks do the same thing a lot. I can't see any disadvantage to OTs being MT, since they will have to do it in dungeons anyway.

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Originally Posted by Potchi

BUT! If this leads to job diversity and giving tanks actual identity and uniqueness then I am 100% for this change. We need this desperately and for those of you who feel strongly about wanting to stay main tank, would ask that you take a breath and wait to reserve final judgement until we see what the off tanks can do.

For those saying to give the tanks freedom to switch between main tank and off tank, I am against this as well. As soon as you do that, why cant white mage have a slider to switch between pure healer and shield healer? Once you do that, jobs start losing identity again. When square enix mentioned player freedom, it was for character expression and how to manage your time, not for a job being able to be played however it wants leading to identity crisis and homogenization. You are taking things out of context.

So let’s all wait and see what the other tanks can actually do and if the off tank gameplay looks fun. Otherwise, you are basing your complaint on a title alone, and hate to say it but that just becomes a “No! I’m the Star Player!” complaint with no real substance.

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We wanted them to strengthen job identity, not wipe the slate clean and create new identities that weren't there before.

Additionally, it doesn't matter to me what the off-tank gameplay looks like whatsoever, the parts of the main tank gameplay that appeal to me are managing the boss' position, and managing my own survival as I take devastating attacks, and these changes seem poised to make this not a part of my optimal kit.

I find it weird how people are thinking that OTs won't be able to MT at all. I think it's fine to make predictions, but saying OT's won't be able to take aggro at all is funny to me because we haven't even seen the OT kits yet and knowing that tank swap mechanics probably aren't going anywhere just points to OT just being a weird naming scheme.

The MT title is really only going to barely restrict the tanks that have counter-attacks, and even then PLD will have ways to counter when not holding aggro. That being said, I actually think designing a tank to be good at everything restricts their design more than if you let it specialize.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

I find it weird how people are thinking that OTs won't be able to MT at all. I think it's fine to make predictions, but saying OT's won't be able to take aggro at all is funny to me because we haven't even seen the OT kits yet and knowing that tank swap mechanics probably aren't going anywhere just points to OT just being a weird naming scheme.

The MT title is really only going to barely restrict the tanks that have counter-attacks, and even then PLD will have ways to counter when not holding aggro. That being said, I actually think designing a tank to be good at everything restricts their design more than if you let it specialize.

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The argument is not that they will not be viable at all: it's that there might be additional friction against jobs that will be newly designed as OTs but want to MT instead, or vice-versa.

How much friction there will be, if any, will depend on the details how this will be implemented. It's true that there is not enough info yet to make a final judgement, but there is definitely enough to raise some early concerns or try to have a discussion. "Don't worry it's not going to be that bad" is also speculation.

I understand the wish to reduce homogenization, but the only way to not make a tank "good at everything" is by making it "bad at something" and doing that brings its own balancing issues.

Also don't get too hung up on the names.

You ever notice how in raids, you have two healers? And they are of two different sub-roles? And notice how in a 4man dungeon, either of those sub-roles works fine? Yeah, that exactly. That exact thing. Just for tanks. Who are also two slots in a raid, and right now use the same sub-role. And they'll have two different sub-roles. And in a 4man dungeon, either of those sub-roles works fine. That.

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Originally Posted by Mukuku

The argument is not that they will not be viable at all: it's that there might be additional friction against jobs that will be newly designed as OTs but want to MT instead, or vice-versa.

How much friction there will be, if any, will depend on the details how this will be implemented. It's true that there is not enough info yet to make a final judgement, but there is definitely enough to raise some early concerns or try to have a discussion. "Don't worry it's not going to be that bad" is also speculation.

I understand the wish to reduce homogenization, but the only way to not make a tank "good at everything" is by making it "bad at something" and doing that brings its own balancing issues.

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Sure me saying all of the concerns are a bit exaggerated is speculation as well, but at least it's based off of things that reinforce it like OTs doing dungeons, tank swaps, etc. I haven't seen much basis on the other speculation from the other perspectives aside from very specific scenarios.

When you make a tank specialize, it will naturally have a weakness to balance it out. No one is purposefully making the tanks worse at something, they are simply letting it go in a direction that allows it to resonate more with specific playstyles and it will naturally be a bit weaker in other scenarios it doesn't specialize in. This split is so they can make different playstyles for the tanks and allow those playstyles to work. Why give PLD a counter-attack if it's gonna be designated as the OT? If the solution is to not have counter-attacks at all, then what about the players who want that playstyle? Also, I'm not sure why someone would look at the new most likely double shield tank, see it has a counter based playstyle, and say "oh man I can't wait to off-tank with that." The only thing I can get behind is a PLD wanting to play OT, but even then that will still likely work considering it still has extremely strong support tools. If anything, you'll need to be more clever on how you'll trigger your counter-attacks.

Any newly designated OT job will more than likely do fine as MT. If it can't, then dungeons shouldn't exist. Tank swaps shouldn't exist. There's too many things that would go wrong if they really stuck to the idea that the MT MUST keep aggro.

I'm biased because I'm a Main Paladin and I've always enjoyed tanking (in fact, I've never met a tank who likes being called an "Off-Tank"). I've always thought that this type of nomenclature (MT/OT) was a kind of problem that players themselves created, and it's reaching its peak now because nobody wants to be the backup tank. That's why in my group, I always switch with my teammate tank from time to time (so the tanks don't fight and everyone leaves happy).

To be clear, in the beginning we had much more tank swapping and tanks had damage generation modes and enmity generation modes. The swapping was intense and rarely did this nomenclature (MT/OT) really make sense. But then the item level started to rise and this notion of "being the main tank" became more prevalent as if being an OT was a veiled offense, and SE probably followed suit, making swapping less and less present in fights and delegating the second tank to the "thankless task of being number 2 because they don't have the patience to fight for number 1."

Maybe we'll get that back, more mechanics that require more tank rotation and things like that. So being "OT" won't be such a dramatic thing, to the point that it doesn't even exist anymore. Besides, from what I've seen, PLD continues to be an excellent OT (Cover + Counter Attack, Divine Veil, Passage of Arms, Clemency) and I don't see why the other jobs don't have a kit that favors it to be a MT. So it's still too early for anything (although I also hated the use of MT/OT placements on the panel because I've always hated those placements in the first place).

I really think Yoshi P wasn't very successful in marketing some of the changes. Saying that Evolved Mode is "just a different way to play" and then saying that "it's stronger than its alternative" makes no sense at all.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

Sure me saying all of the concerns are a bit exaggerated is speculation as well, but at least it's based off of things that reinforce it like OTs doing dungeons, tank swaps, etc. I haven't seen much basis on the other speculation from the other perspectives aside from very specific scenarios.

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I agree that very likely the goal of the devs is not going to completely relegate tanks into sub-roles, but better make sure they get the feedback that there is concern in the playerbase about that.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

When you make a tank specialize, it will naturally have a weakness to balance it out.

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Specialization always comes at the expense of balance: X being better in a scenario means that Y is worse in that scenario, which means X and Y are not balanced in that scenario. If that scenario matters and the balance is large enough, it's a problem.

Look at some cases: Pandaemonium vs. WAR's holmgang, or the addition of physical damage reduction to DRK's previously purely magical defensives, etc..

Balance is king. Specialization needs to deal with that and to a player base that will mostly chose balance over specialization any day.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

Any newly designated OT job will more than likely do fine as MT. If it can't, then dungeons shouldn't exist. Tank swaps shouldn't exist. There's too many things that would go wrong if they really stuck to the idea that the MT MUST keep aggro.

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Or they may be made irrelevant.

Take dungeons: there is massive imbalance between tanks in dungeons in regards of trash packs. A WAR is on a completely different planet compared to a DRK. The only way that flies is by making the dungeon so easy and streamlined that it doesn't really matter - and still you get the occasional complaint.

If dungeons had e.g. harder hitting large trash packs, or the ability to group even larger packs than today, that imbalance would stop being irrelevant and the devs would have to homogenize tank performance in that area to support such new dungeon design. The fact that the imbalance exists in fact strongly limits what they can do with dungeons.

What you would ideally want is equal balance in different flavours: tanks being able to more or less equally deal with e.g. trash packs, main tanking or whatever, but in different ways. It is of course much easier said than done and that's why homogenization happens.

TL;DR: If the devs want different flavours of tanking jobs, but with both being equally apt I see no issue except the difficulty to achieve such a goal. If instead the different flavours are meant to introduce significant enough imbalance, it's IMHO a losing proposition.