Square, please make dungeons 5 players.

While the player base for FFXIV has been somewhat solidified in who enjoys playing as a Tank, Healer or DPS, the issue with DPS queues into content is only exacerbated by the influx of players wanting to leveling Red Mage and Samurai.

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/tekitou_m...810b43c8-s.jpg

This was photo was taken from the offical 2016 Eorzean census showing that over half the players of FFXIV play DPS mains.

My suggestion moving forward, implement dungeons around a 5-player meta; it can be the standard Tank/Healer/Two DPS and a +1. This way all roles are covered, and the queue is constantly pulling the +1 from the player that has been waiting the longest no matter what role they play.

I wouldn't mind 5-8 player dungeons, so long as they aren't all that way.

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Originally Posted by tgoodner

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/tekitou_m...810b43c8-s.jpg

This was photo was taken from the offical 2016 Eorzean census showing that over half the players of FFXIV play DPS mains.
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The problem I have is that 1% of the game population is missing. That pie adds up to 99%, so unless the 1% are to good for any of the 3 jobs. It doesn't look right. The ideal ratio should be 50% DPS, 25% Tank, 25% Healer. That would break down to the exact ratio of a group of 4 people in a dungeon. If they need to add more people to a light party the percentage has to break down evenly. Even then it wouldn't solve the problem of folks not doing PUG in duty finder on certain jobs if there is no motivation to do so.

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Originally Posted by Kotemon

The problem I have is that 1% of the game population is missing. That pie adds up to 99%, so unless the 1% are too good for any of the 3 jobs. It doesn't look right. The ideal ratio should be 50% DPS, 25% Tank, 25% Healer. That would break down to the exact ratio of a group of 4 people in a dungeon. If they need to add more people to a light party the percentage has to break down evenly. Even then it wouldn't solve the problem of folks not doing PUG in duty finder on certain jobs if there is no motivation to do so.

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Pie charts like this hardly ever add up to 100%. What probably happened was they rounded to the nearest whole number, instead of giving a number with a decimal. If everything was split evenly into thirds (33%) you'd still come up with 99% because one-third is actually 33.3333333333333333333 into infinity.

Honestly, I don't think upping the party to five in dungeons is the answer. I think splitting the DPS role is. Instead of being 1 tank, 1 healer, and 2 DPS (or 2, 2, 4 in trials and non-alliance raids) it should be 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 melee, and 1 ranged/caster. (and 2, 2, 2, and 2 for trials and the other stuff). I think that would ease up the queue better for 2.x-current content.

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Originally Posted by dynus

I think splitting the DPS role is.

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And how do you think that is going to help the queues? You still have the exact same amount of DPS waiting for a tank/healer. Until these tanks/healers queue up, nothing can move and no groups can be made. You literally only make the situation worse for the more popular kind of DPS, as you halve the amount of slots available to them. The other kind of DPS is still going to wait just as long as now for a healer/tank.

The only solution here is to allow more DPS per tank/healer, because those roles are the bottleneck that prevents groups from being made. Without that bottleneck, queues even for DPS can well be instant, as PotD proves.
Alternately, you gotta make people play more tanks/healers... but good luck with that. Either way, you need to address the bottleneck if you want a better flow.

Square-Enix needs to own up to 2 more DPS was a big mistake.

People are quitting left and right over these queues, they've had enough.

While I agree with the idea, let's look down the line - more DPS in part => party DPS increases by 50% => easier dungeons => dungeons are made harder => tanking (and to a lesser degree healing) becomes harder and requires more competence (since I doubt tanks would get buffed) => even less people would want to play tanks (and healers) => longer queues for DPS.

Just increasing the number of DPS is not the solution.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Square-Enix needs to own up to 2 more DPS was a big mistake.

People are quitting left and right over these queues, they've had enough.

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Good. It will make everyone else ques better.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Square-Enix needs to own up to 2 more DPS was a big mistake.

People are quitting left and right over these queues, they've had enough.

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If people don't have patience is one thing, however blaming SE for people not being creative is just a joke. There are ways to compensate for the queues here are some ideas that I've implemented.

IF your in a FC, hello I'm sure they would be able to help...I don't know maybe a tank healer rotation? ( Common sense unless players are anti social and want to play solo. )

Create a group, ask your friends? ( hopefully people have made friends over the years that still play if not go out there and start making some contacts. )

Hire a mercenary ( yes people do ask for compensation or are willing to be a Mercenary )

Do something else while you wait. SQ ect ( Tired of seeing peoples gear breaking...the minimum they could do is raise some DoH to repair gear in Dungeons )

Play a handheld or other game, I still play FFXI while I wait and normally get in within 30 min so it's a nice way to pass the time.

Other wiser people should really realize that they are NOT special, no one takes priority we all pay our fees.

Now then for the 5 dungeon idea, Would be nice if content was bit harder. I love how they made new dungeons to test people mechanic wise and hopefully people learn from it. So far Diadem would be the closest thing to it at this point, being can go in with min of 2 or turn it into a raid. That is of course if FC allows their members airship access ..... Yet from what I've experienced in FC most restrict their members use unless they are part of the founding team or close friends with FC leader. Sad but true.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Square-Enix needs to own up to 2 more DPS was a big mistake.

People are quitting left and right over these queues, they've had enough.

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If it's any consolation, even as a tank, spamming PotD is better experience than spamming instant-queue dungeons with a less than optimal group.

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Originally Posted by dynus

Honestly, I don't think upping the party to five in dungeons is the answer. I think splitting the DPS role is. Instead of being 1 tank, 1 healer, and 2 DPS (or 2, 2, 4 in trials and non-alliance raids) it should be 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 melee, and 1 ranged/caster. (and 2, 2, 2, and 2 for trials and the other stuff). I think that would ease up the queue better for 2.x-current content.

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How would that not make the issue worse, if anything?...

On topic:

As Zohja said, reducing the bottleneck allows for faster queues; simple as that. That can be done by increasing the proportion of people interested in tanking (and to lesser extent, healing), or by adjusting the compositions to what's there. Personally, I'd just as much like to be able to see 3 DPS and 1 tank or healer comps as 1/3/1 comps in dungeons. Sadly, SE has gone out of their way to ensure that such things are impossible by stripping the game of most CC as of level 50.

To me, the key is compositional scaling. Want to keep 2 healers busy alongside 1 tank and 2 DPS? So be it. There's now more damage. Want to roll tankless? Alright, better be on the ball with CC, kiting, threat swaps, focus targeting, and environmental damage.

They've already tried to get people to tank more. Bigger rewards, special mounts. What else can they do to get people to try tanking? Automatic weapon drops everytime they do a dungeon? A complete set of gear for that dungeon? That's not fair to the other roles. And I say this as someone who's currently maining a tank role.

Is my suggestion perfect? No. I'll admit that. But I don't see how it'd make it worse. A group will move a little faster while another group will be pretty much the same.

I would like to see five party dungeons, but the content from 2.0 to current would be way too easy with that. Not with a complete dungeon overhaul. Otherwise, it won't be fun. Even then, I'm not sure they could. The 8 member party dungeons at the end of ARR was too easy.

Making dungeons 5 player won't help. Making more tank/ healer classes won't help. Blizzard has done all these things. WoW has 6 tanks and 6 healers and 5 player dungeons. And the dps queues are just as bad there as here, if not worse. This is a player problem, the solution has to come from players. Not berating your tanks/ healers is a good start.

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Originally Posted by Saerydoth

This is a player problem, the solution has to come from players.

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No, it is not a player problem, it is a design problem and that is fairly easy to prove. Imagine for a moment the game was designed without the trinity while keeping the playerbase constant. Would the problem persist? No, because there would no longer be a role bottleneck. Therefore, it cannot logically be a player problem, as the same players do not create the same problem under a different design.

Further, it is not up to the players to solve the issue. It is up to SE. It is their job to create an enjoyable experience for their players - they are their paying customers after all - and telling people to play something they don't enjoy just so their design works out runs counter to that. That's like telling a customer that wants an apple to just buy milk instead. And just like in real life, it can happen that apples are sold out and you need to wait for the next delivery - but if apples are consistently being sold out, the company will take notice and order more apples from their suppliers (or in this case, open up more DPS slots for groups).

That said, I personally doubt that one additional DPS slot would solve the issue right away. It helps, but it might not suffice. We don't know how skewed the ratio actually is and the important thing is to get as close to that ratio as possible. It's not 100% possible, because group size is a discreet ratio, whereas the player ratio is fluid. But the closer you get, the less wait time total.

That aside, you can also create more content without the design that causes the problem in the first place. You can go super wild here - Falling boulders, spike traps, swinging blades, platforming sequences, action time sequences, priority spells that need to be stunned and the entire repertoire of regular dungeon and raid mechanics that have some way to be avoided. Tethers of all kinds, stack mechanics, spread mechanics, meteors, divebombs, gaze attacks, telegraphs, boulder blocks, clock positions, plume baits, add priority, positioning puzzles... everything goes, as long as performing it right leads to no damage being taken.

One dungeon that's all mechanics and no tank&spank per patch would help funnel DPS off the regular dungeons. PotD fails in that regard, because it's built like a trinity dungeon - mobs still have autoattacks, you still take unavoidable damage. It facilitates its lack of role requirement by simply making that damage low, rather than compensating its lack with engaging mechanics. And that's just plain boring.

So its not a player problem because if they made a different game we wouldnt have this issue? I started playing this game knowing it had defined roles that we werent really going to be breaking out of, and i chose to main DPS because i dont enjoy healing or tanking. I knew(and have seen time and again since) that put me at a disadvantage in certain situations, but stuck with it anyway because if im not going to enjoy myself why bother to play at all. In a sense, im part of the problem. But ive also looked at the tank and healer boards, and read some of the absolute garbage that those people have to put up with sometimes. Ive heard from several friends who will only tank/heal for people they know because the randoms arent worth it(whether its not knowing how to play your class, sabotaging a fight, abusive behavior/language, or whatever else). Every person who stops queing as tank/healer because of bad behavior only makes the problem worse for the DPS in line. So you cant say the players bear no responsibility for the way things are. We got here because the devs made this system, but its gotten worse because of the way we treat each other.

If anything, 5 player dungeons should have two healers. That way they can scale the content difficulty up without having to worry about solo healer strain.

That chart should be much different now with how many have jumped ship from tanks and healers because SE failed to balance them for this expansion.

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Originally Posted by dynus

They've already tried to get people to tank more. Bigger rewards, special mounts. What else can they do to get people to try tanking? Automatic weapon drops everytime they do a dungeon? A complete set of gear for that dungeon? That's not fair to the other roles. And I say this as someone who's currently maining a tank role.

Is my suggestion perfect? No. I'll admit that. But I don't see how it'd make it worse. A group will move a little faster while another group will be pretty much the same.

I would like to see five party dungeons, but the content from 2.0 to current would be way too easy with that. Not with a complete dungeon overhaul. Otherwise, it won't be fun. Even then, I'm not sure they could. The 8 member party dungeons at the end of ARR was too easy.

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I feel that the "big" rewards they offer are miniscule, especially once you are a higher level and you have to run low level content in the daily roulette for the small bonus of like 40k experience. Just running a single level 50+ dungeon already makes it insignificant for anything more then the daily roulette. The way I see it, they have to scale dungeon rewards with even low level dungeons offering experience equal to mobs at their level and maybe even small amounts of tomestone (mainly due to lower level dungeons being shorter in length). They could also allow experience gained over the level cap to be transferred in some way, but that would be a nightmare to deal with.

No this is dumb, its really hard to design an enemey to be a challenge and kill a party of 5 there is to much utility involved with another dps in the party for a dungeon boss. All fights are balanced off the min i level sync settings which means they would need to adjust every single dungeon for this. Will never happen

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Originally Posted by Saerydoth

Making dungeons 5 player won't help. Making more tank/ healer classes won't help. Blizzard has done all these things. WoW has 6 tanks and 6 healers and 5 player dungeons. And the dps queues are just as bad there as here, if not worse. This is a player problem, the solution has to come from players. Not berating your tanks/ healers is a good start.

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I would also like to add that tanks are often seen as the 'default leader' of a group, and not everyone enjoys herding cats. Not sure what the issue with being a healer is. I enjoyed it in other games, so I am bias I guess /shrug.

It's the very nature of the roles that steer some people away from pugs. Doing those roles among people you play with on a regular basis vs doing them for a random group of maybe good maybe derpy player is almost night and day.

You know their capabilities and weaknesses and how they will react if the encounter goes tits up.

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Originally Posted by topdogbehemoth

I would also like to add that tanks are often seen as the 'default leader' of a group, and not everyone enjoys herding cats. Not sure what the issue with being a healer is. I enjoyed it in other games, so I am bias I guess /shrug.

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The tank screws with the healer because the DPS screwed with the tank so the healer screws with everyone. Its a vicious cycle.

I think the best solution to this would be to make the runs 5 players but add a 5th support group to the mix. Yoshi has commented that bard and mech are "support classes" but that is not a thing if they make it a thing we can have 1 tank 1 healer 2 dps and 1 support. This would take alot of work to add and change but would have benfits. It would set this mmo apart from others and give the dev team new ways to add classes.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

No, it is not a player problem, it is a design problem and that is fairly easy to prove. Imagine for a moment the game was designed without the trinity while keeping the playerbase constant. Would the problem persist? No, because there would no longer be a role bottleneck. Therefore, it cannot logically be a player problem, as the same players do not create the same problem under a different design.

Further, it is not up to the players to solve the issue. It is up to SE. It is their job to create an enjoyable experience for their players - they are their paying customers after all - and telling people to play something they don't enjoy just so their design works out runs counter to that. That's like telling a customer that wants an apple to just buy milk instead. And just like in real life, it can happen that apples are sold out and you need to wait for the next delivery - but if apples are consistently being sold out, the company will take notice and order more apples from their suppliers (or in this case, open up more DPS slots for groups).

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You're essentially saying that this would be fixed if they completely changed the game... That's just silly.

That'd be like me saying I don't like Call of Duty because it's a first person shooter, it'd be better if they made it as an arcade style shoot-em-up (an exaggerated example but the point is there). Anyone with half a brain would tell me maybe I should have actually read about the game before buying. I wouldn't expect Activision to change the whole vision of their game just because it doesn't fit me.

Yes SE has to cater to players, but they also need to follow their vision, and they went with Trinity. To change that would fundamentally change the whole game into another one, and then the people who joined the game with the expectation of trinity would be up in arms.

You're saying it's like telling a customer that wants to buy an apple to buy milk instead, except your customer is trying to buy an apple in a dairy-only store. The store has never stocked apples (apples being non-trinity dungeon/raid content), but you're expecting to sell it and redesign its own inventory and delivery structure around you. That's just ridiculous.

If they do 5-man dungeons, they could always just make the 5th slot a wildcard.

While I understand what you're saying the chart doesn't really help your point. dungeons are current at

1 tank (25%)
1 healer (25%)
2 Dps (50%)

the chart is suggesting that the current setup is about as ideal as possible

Dear SE IF, big if, you do decide to add an extra DPS Please Please add a higher level of difficulty. Example a random NM that will actually keep us on our toes ( maybe 10 levels above us ). While not many people appreciate or see how the Team DPS chart works and somehow feel that 15-20 min is still too much for a run ( specially if they are well geared and don't just fate / PotD grind and actually know their job ) or perhaps maybe, just maybe make a extreme version of dungeons were 5 may be required ( with a xp / tome penalty if 5 man ) that would be great. Thank you.

P.S. Love the game hate how people nerf good things.