Duty Finder for DD

[LineageRazor]

Why not introduce a new tanking class and job rather than introducing more dps? I'm looking at you musketeer and ninja guilds >.>

Let's explore how this would work! Let's take a sample size of 100 players. 10 of them like tanking, and are divided 5 and 5 on WAR and PLD. 10 like healing and are divided 5 and 5 on WHM and SCH. 80 like DD, and are divided 16 each on BLM, SMN, BRD, MNK, and DRG. This leaves us only 10 each of healers and tanks to service 80 DDs - Duty finder sucks for DDs!

We add three new DD jobs and EIGHT new tanking jobs! Surely this will solve the problem!

...Except, we still only have 10 folks interested in tanking. The there is now one each one WAR, PLD, newtank1, newtank2, newtank3, newtank4, newtank5, newtank6, newtank7, and newtank8. The 10 healers are still on WHM and SCH. The DDs have redistributed to 10 each on BLM, SMN, BRD, MNK, DRG, newDD1, newDD2, and newDD3. 10 tanks and healers for 80 DDs. Nothing has changed with the addition of new tanking jobs.

The only way to ease the stress on DD Duty Finder wait times is to get more folks interested in tanking, to actually enjoy the aspects that lots of players find intimidating (leading the run, wrangling stray mobs, high visability as to whether you're sucking at your job or not) or boring (comparatively low DD output, a limit break that's rarely useful).

No, introducing new jobs won't solve the problem. Perhaps a more radical solution, though, might be to allow the duty finder to create non-standard parties in situations where DDs need to wait for ten minutes or more, and then adjust the content so that those groups are viable. Say you wind up in an instance with four DDs, no healer, no tank. Scale mob damage and/or hp down enough that the DDs can reasonably solo mobs in singles or pairs; perhaps also add "healing springs" along the way with a limited number of uses so that DDs can recharge quickly during or after fights.

Heck, in a lot of cases, the mobs might not even need much scaling down; mob packs rarely come in sets of more than three or four; with two DDs holding a mob and the other two ganging up on the third, I could see it still being doable. Speed runs would probably be off the table, but since we're already saving a half hour or more of waiting-for-DF, I don't think there'll be too much complaining on that count. :P The bosses would require a bit more fine-tuning, though, especially accounting for the lack of a healer...

[Lyrinn]

Wall of Text

Except people will switch if new tank classes/jobs are "interesting" enough (subjective to each player). If you enjoy a job's unique mechanics enough, you'll be willing to play it regardless. I'm currently leveling both PLD and WAR. I absolutely hate playing WAR. Does that mean I hate tanking? No (well, ok, just a little), it just means I hate WAR. I like PLD far more than I do WAR and so I'm willing to put up with some of the annoyances that come with playing it. And since I know someone is going to counter with this, this may be anecdotal evidence but it holds about as much weight as your pure speculations do.

[Welsper59]

Except people will switch if new tank classes/jobs are "interesting" enough (subjective to each player). If you enjoy a job's unique mechanics enough, you'll be willing to play it regardless. I'm currently leveling both PLD and WAR. I absolutely hate playing WAR. Does that mean I hate tanking? No (well, ok, just a little), it just means I hate WAR. I like PLD far more than I do WAR and so I'm willing to put up with some of the annoyances that come with playing it. And since I know someone is going to counter with this, this may be anecdotal evidence but it holds about as much weight as your pure speculations do.

That's not exactly true. The majority of people don't fulfill the tank role because of the responsibility it has. The role being fun or not is a very uncommon reason, at least so far as to be the primary reason not to take up the role. You actually have to pay some attention to do it well. I love playing as my PLD, but I refuse to use it in any endgame dungeons with randoms. The interesting portion would sway some, but I'd actually be willing to bet it would still have a result of low tank numbers.

[Lyrinn]

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Majority, yes, but the fact remains that there are some people who don't tank because they find both tank jobs boring. If you play any sort of MOBA, you can observe this phenomenon. For example, in League of Legends, support is the garbage role most people don't want anything to do with. Riot released a character (Thresh, if you do play it) that was considered "fun" by many and the number of supports went up. It's still the least played role, but there are more people willing to play it because of that one character.

[Welsper59]

Majority, yes, but the fact remains that there are some people who don't tank because they find both tank jobs boring. If you play any sort of MOBA, you can observe this phenomenon. For example, in League of Legends, support is the garbage role most people don't want anything to do with. Riot released a character (Thresh, if you do play it) that was considered "fun" by many and the number of supports went up. It's still the least played role, but there are more people willing to play it because of that one character.

Don't get me wrong, I mean I agree that numbers for tank roles in the DF would go up a tad if there were some extra stuff thrown in to make it more interesting (though I lack insight as to how to do that properly). But it doesn't change the responsibility aspect of the role. Being support, for example, is not popular because you don't visually see yourself making things easier/better or see high numbers. But you also don't need to fear the responsibility aspect of it all.

I'll take FFXI support jobs as an example on that. I used to play as a BRD in XI, and absolutely loved the job. They were very rare for a long time, particularly good ones, but the impact they had on groups was ridiculously helpful. You (the BRD) hit like you're swinging pillows, but your songs buff the group enough to make everyone seem like they're gods (exaggeration). You work, essentially, behind the scenes. No truly noticeable responsibilities, despite how big of an impact you can have.

I think we're both on the same page here, just expressing our own outlook on the matter.