A way we can help lower que times.

[Grey_Cain]

Give adventurers in need that choose to que solo very high rewards based on how desperate the duty finder system is for the role needed. For example, more gold, more soldiery, or even special items that can only be earned by doing this.

If they just give more stuff based on how many tanks (or other roles) are needed, it's then able to be abused, as tanks become more likely to wait longer to join a roulette until the reward is up to a level that they actually want.

It would be better to add the Adventurer In Need bonus to every dungeon, raid, and trial, as well as straight up increasing the roulette reward. Rather than doing one dungeon per day per roulette and only getting the reward once, the tank is then free to do multiple runs to help out in multiple dungeons. On top of that, more dungeons are more likely to have Healer In Need and DPS In Need rewards to help out with new tanks that are trying to level up.

[Rex]

Why do you need a greater reward to help someone in need? Doesn't sound like you REALLY want to help....

And like others have said here, that's just unfair if the reward gets any higher.

[SeekerScorpio]

Or maybe, just maybe people can stop playing the easier roles and actually have a desire to take up some responsibility. Adding bigger rewards are band-aid fixes. Quite frankly, it's a society problem than a game problem, people want to be lazy and take the path of least resistance. Look at all the Don't tell me how to play/I play how I want threads, people crying about simplistic rewards at fanfest, and all the unnecessary nerf cry threads, a clear form of self entitled mentality. That excuse of "it's just a game" is a heavily abused line. It's a line I see most lazy people use when they refuse to watch a video for EX and T5+ and/or any form of real criticism (hence the I play how I want mentality).

TLDR more people play tanks and healers without extra rewards. Take the more difficult path for once and as a whole queue times will drop.

[Codek]

They could add a new achievement:

-Tank 1000 dungeons
Reward: Title - Sir Tim Howard

[Souljacker]

I'm not sure it's that simple, really. This game isn't a case of "stop being lazy and bad", it's a case of design issues from the ground up. This is SE's first stab at this kind of grouping, and it shows. Tank classes that barely have any tanking abilities until higher levels, only two classes being able to tank and no new ones on the horizon, there's some design problems present that keeps people from not just playing tank classes, but from playing them inside of instances. I can't tell you how many gladiator\paladins I see roaming FATES because it's just less stress for them than joining an instance, especially at lower levels.


Add that to party sizes just being too small... 4 person parties was a terrible idea, when the standard is 5 and SE's own earlier party size was 6. There would be lower queue times with larger party size.

In short, adding more rewards won't really make more people put on their tank job. Working on tank design so it feels more cohesive from level 1-50 and adding more jobs that tank in interesting ways will lower those queue times. Tall orders, but those are really the only long-term solutions. Anything else is just a bribe that most players will become bored of in a week.

[Eye_Gore]

Well maybe they do need more incentive. In the real world the person in charge gets the better pay, incentives, benefits and so on. A description of tank is that they run the party, decide what to attack, where to go, basically running the show. They are the first one into the fray and setup the mobs for attacks keeping them away from the party. If the party fails the tank most of the time takes the blame, even when its not their fault.

I went into Brayflox for the first time the other day as part of the main story line was a bit of a debocle at first but made it through. At the end I came out with nothing other than exp, big deal I could do that outside of the dungeon in less time it took in there. So why waste my time going back in there again all for nothing. Maybe it was my fault that I didn't jump on any of the loot quickly enough, but sheeze it was like Wal-Mart on black Friday bum rushing the place.

[Ransu]

I was going to post something different but then I came up with a brilliant idea.
Why not make the rewards for adventurers in need "much greater" if they que alone?

For the most part, DPS who que alone for certain things can get really bad que times.
Speaking as a tank though, I would love to help more people get shorter ques even if they are not from my server, but I don't feel the rewards are good enough.

Give adventurers in need that choose to que solo very high rewards based on how desperate the duty finder system is for the role needed. For example, more gold, more soldiery, or even special items that can only be earned by doing this.

If you don't like this idea, maybe take it a step further. Maybe still have the rewards be very high but you can only bring ONE friend to que with you and only also if their role is highly desired. For example.... Two Tanks queing for trials or A tank and healer queing for dungeons.

Because tanks are not spoiled enough as is right?

[Staris]

The incentive is you can insta Q, and people still don't do it.
You snow flake DPS are funny.

If you spent a fraction of the time you have spent in Q leveling a tank.... this wouldn't be an issue.

[Themis]

Long ass post, I apologise. But sometimes, it helps to think about the actual problems rather than just saying there is one.

I'm not sure it's that simple, really. This game isn't a case of "stop being lazy and bad", it's a case of design issues from the ground up. This is SE's first stab at this kind of grouping, and it shows. Tank classes that barely have any tanking abilities until higher levels, only two classes being able to tank and no new ones on the horizon, there's some design problems present that keeps people from not just playing tank classes, but from playing them inside of instances. I can't tell you how many gladiator\paladins I see roaming FATES because it's just less stress for them than joining an instance, especially at lower levels.

I have tanked every single 4 man dungeon in the game, on both Paladin and Warrior, at some point. I have had very few issues with handling enmity against any part of them, even the ones before you get decent tanking abilities. Where they may have been issues (I can't recall any specific ones because it's uncommon), it is usually the fault of the damage dealers who insist that 3 comes before 1, or from over aggressive play, particularly from synced down lv50 players. I've also done the low level dungeons as a damage dealer and as a healer class, and have noticed that many tanks do struggle at holding enmity, even when I know that 1 comes before 3 and do my best to help them manage their threat levels.

There is this misinformation floating about, propagated by players like yourself, that tanking is hard/dull/not-important at low levels and I'm fairly sure these players are reading it and thinking to themselves "Oh, then I best no try very hard because there's not much point/it's not fun/it's not possible". I've had lengthy after dungeon chats with a few players who have noticed the same thing (tanks that can't tank well), and I've even brought it up during runs to try offer assistance only to be met with "But Gladiator/Paladin isn't a good tank [without Shield Oath], and that Marauder/Warrior is easier [to tank the many trash mobs]". And it's plain crap.

It requires knowing what you are doing, keeping yourself updated in gear, monitoring the information you have on screen (enmity bars are a big help) and reacting to them before things get out of control. It also helps to communicate with other players to help you out, and if necessary, let them learn the hard way if that fails. All of those can help (and this isn't supposed to be a tank guide).

It's mostly laziness or bad players or players who have given up because they've read something somewhere and they believe it to be gospel truth, and that's my experience of it.

Add that to party sizes just being too small... 4 person parties was a terrible idea, when the standard is 5 and SE's own earlier party size was 6. There would be lower queue times with larger party size.

It doesn't matter if a dungeon is 4 people, 2 people, 6, 8, 20, 300... The content is designed around a specific set up. All this would do is simply allow 2 extra DPS into the same party. But there is a limit to how many instances exist at any given time (have you even noticed how, even with a full party, you need to wait a minute or two sometimes before going into some content?). I don't know enough about how this system is set up to give a definite answer, but if it's set up to also take into account the amount of data being processed, the number of instances available may actually decrease to account for the increase in data processed per instance. So, it may not even change a thing, or it may make things worse.

Basically, there's far more involved that we don't see or know about, to be able to state as fact, that a bigger party size would change anything, let alone reduce queue times.

In short, adding more rewards won't really make more people put on their tank job. Working on tank design so it feels more cohesive from level 1-50 and adding more jobs that tank in interesting ways will lower those queue times. Tall orders, but those are really the only long-term solutions. Anything else is just a bribe that most players will become bored of in a week.

The best way to make any job feel more interesting in the journey from 1 to 50 would be to unlock all of the abilities and skills they have (you can add in the learned skills in the current fashion, this is simply the basic 15 skills you get from your class). It would give any role a lot more to do regardless of their actual level, and all that would change would be the strength of the attack. Maybe some traits can still exist to change how the class plays.

But that directly affects the design policies that exist: in this case, that the game from level 1 to 50 allows you to build upon previous knowledge you have acquired, as you make your way to the end game content where the main part of the game takes place - as expansions are added, the content is likely to continue building on this fact and you can see that from the post-Main Scenario story additions which are all level 50 focused.

It's not that tanks are "dull" to play at early levels, it's that experienced players are used to handling more actions/situations at a time and that losing out on abilities after you have gained them is like a step backwards for them (this is why one suggestion I've read is that we keep the skills, because they would just be weaker - but that would affect content design which is based around having specific abilities available). You could add a tank in that drew it's enmity by performing magic tricks for the enemies, but because you will be limited to a specific set of skills at any given level value, it will still feel "dull" because you have become used to having more things.

[NyneAlexander]

The incentive is you can insta Q, and people still don't do it.
You snow flake DPS are funny.

If you spent a fraction of the time you have spent in Q leveling a tank.... this wouldn't be an issue.

Why does it make us a snowflake dps for wanting to play the job we like within a reasonable time frame? It is still an issue because even by leveling a tank, we're still playing a job that isn't entirely what we'd like to be doing just to circumvent the abhorrent queue times. And please, no speeches about how tanks/healers take on more responsibility in the party dynamic. We hear all about it from almost every tank or healer we come across, as if having that god complex makes you better than anyone else who decides to play a damage dealing job.