Tank and heal shortage

[eschaton]

The tank shortage is becoming more serious as it influences all queues. The game could benefit from making people want to tank more. Maybe give them more shiny armor pieces

[KiriA500]

The tank shortage is becoming more serious as it influences all queues. The game could benefit from making people want to tank more. Maybe give them more shiny armor pieces

Square-Enix can't magically make people not lose their minds when a tank does something wrong, so unfortunately, tanks will always be in short supply.

[Kinseykinz]

The tank shortage is becoming more serious as it influences all queues. The game could benefit from making people want to tank more. Maybe give them more shiny armor pieces

Actually, all they'd need to do is make it logical for a DD role (s) to become the 'puller' and allow tanks to position themselves to grab/aggro the mobs and hold them in position. It's not the job that turns people off as much as the job+the constant pace-setting for the group+ added responsibility. So if SE could figure out a way to make it so a DD was the logical 'puller' then all the sudden, a DD and not the tanks would be responsible for setting the group pace through trash mobs...AND lessen some of the tanks responsibility while giving the DD a little more of the group shared responsibility.

(IE, give tanks a move that + increases their DD/DEF or EMN if they pull mobs off a teammate...and maybe give select DD's (doesn't have to be every dd) a +attack/skill speed/acc or -emn bonus for holding hate/swapping their hate with another party member.

This of course, is just an idea...but the main reason many players opt to NOT tank/heal=added pressure/knowledge needed or more responsibility. If SE could figure out a way to take some of the tanks NON role-specific pressures away, then maybe, more people who enjoy the gameplay of tank...but not the pressure of being the 'leader'/'pacesetter' would play the role.

Shiny armor won't work.
Shorter Queues afterall doesn't work...all this does is allow some 'abusive' players a way to abuse the system (Spamming withdraw for the 'fast queue'), tarnishing the good name of many tanks in the process....AND turning even more people off to the role (people who think...I don't wanna be associated with those kind of players)
Better 'Player in Need' rewards don't work well either.

So basically, bribes won't work...SE needs to look at the mechanics/party responsibilitys and make adjustments there...and even then, people either like to heal or they don't...same is true with tanking. Not everyone likes giving up personal damage output for defense...just like not everyone likes to do an epic battle without throwing out a single attack spell or move, all while keeping their party alive (healing) or taking max damage to their face without falling through mitigation and sheer will (tanking).

[Duelle]

So basically, bribes won't work...SE needs to look at the mechanics/party responsibilitys and make adjustments there...and even then, people either like to heal or they don't...same is true with tanking. Not everyone likes giving up personal damage output for defense...just like not everyone likes to do an epic battle without throwing out a single attack spell or move, all while keeping their party alive (healing) or taking max damage to their face without falling through mitigation and sheer will (tanking).

The problem is a combination of responsibility and aesthetics. You can give more tank variety to fix the latter (BST and SAM as tanks would be very different from WAR and PLD), but the former will be a main deterrent from tanking for some for a while.

And making needlessly complicated mechanics won't do the trick.