How to get people to tank!

[seekified]

It is not optional. As a new GLD I had to go through 5 levels of tank specific training at novice hall to do my first dungeon, which is part of MSQ.
MRDs have to do the same.

Interesting. The MSQ It's Probably Pirates only says to visit the Hall outside Aleport, not to actually complete any of the training. I'm fairly sure my girlfriend didn't have to do it when she started playing this past summer, though she did it later on anyway.

[MistakeNot]

Well, Hall of the Novice is optional and not everyone starts with GLD, though I'm sure the early MRD quests touch on the subject in some way.

Actually they don't. The MRD quests have surprisingly little to do with tanking as such.

[Tint]

Actually they don't. The MRD quests have surprisingly little to do with tanking as such.

i remember how i tried to tank in the solo instances from the MRD quests. the healer was unable to heal me and i died. so i had to let the healer tank to finish the fights...

[RopeDrink]

When it's smooth, it's smooth. When it's not, it's usually the 'tanks fault'. People often try to cover their own mistakes seeing as it's easier to lay blame than it is to raise your hand and say hey, I goofed - which, as a tank (and in person) I have no problem doing. It's not like tank errors aren't noticable, so you'd just be fooling yourself anyway. If I see DPS/Healers pulling ahead of me (three strikes, out), I stop what I'm doing, have a sip of the tea and enjoy the show. As the one who's job it is to make THEIR lives easier, going out of their way to make mine as awkward or as unenjoyable as possible is nonsensical.

What's the cure? None. I'm happy mechanically, and people will be people. You're either a tank or you're not, and no amount of incentives (shorter queue times & higher rewards) will sway most people if they're afraid or simply don't enjoy the masochistic lifestyle.

[ADVSS]

i remember how i tried to tank in the solo instances from the MRD quests. the healer was unable to heal me and i died. so i had to let the healer tank to finish the fights...

going back to arr main quest and even alot of the hw ones where i switched to dps accessories, trying to tank in those instances is suicide. period. Thats another thing that could be improved in general, over time with story mode if it sort of let you do your intended thing and built the party around working with it, not forcing you to be a dps which you find out youre not exactly that much of one. Theres 2 quests in particular in arr was a level 30 ish one about heretics and the dude becoms a dragon. dont bother tanking it. Then theres charibert, forget that fight in hw as a tank, just take off tank stance and dps it as much as your fingers will allow/

both gld and mrd quests do a very poor job of even allowing you to learn your role, at least since after beta they loosened up on some of the rediculous damage you would get from doing those at level. This isnt really that huge of a deal when it comes to dedicated tanking, but early on they do about everything in their power to teach you how not to tank, youll lose quite a few if you dont kill mobs fast

[Culfinrandir]

When it's smooth, it's smooth. When it's not, it's usually the 'tanks fault'.

I think you mean it's usually the healer's fault. ;P

[Dzian]

I'd say both the Hall of the Novice, and the lvl 10 GLD quest both give a decent introduction to tanking. Even in the early dungeons I don't think I have seen any tank who does not have at least some clue on how to play it.

Honestly I disagree with this. I mean yeah hall of the novice kinda very lightly touches it. but the class job quests don't really touch tanking at all.

Been ages since I did the paladin quests but I remember some npc dude did most of the tanking while the quest had my paladin running around doing random other stuff like killing lil ads while some npc tanked the main guys.... if you wanna teach tanking then those roles should be reversed.

You're character should be the one tanking everything while npcs do the killing...
as it is, you the player don't really do any tanking in most of the class / job quests. and thus the quests don't teach tanks anything at all

[Inosaska]

I really think it comes down to how they're playing the game. If they're using a controller tanking increasing becomes unfun to play because its difficult to select targets while on mouse and keyboard its much easier. I just think that a big majority of players that play are using a controller which is much easier to use for playing a healer and dps.

[RopeDrink]

Honestly I disagree with this. I mean yeah hall of the novice kinda very lightly touches it. but the class job quests don't really touch tanking at all.

Been ages since I did the paladin quests but I remember some npc dude did most of the tanking while the quest had my paladin running around doing random other stuff like killing lil ads while some npc tanked the main guys.... if you wanna teach tanking then those roles should be reversed.

You're character should be the one tanking everything while npcs do the killing...
as it is, you the player don't really do any tanking in most of the class / job quests. and thus the quests don't teach tanks anything at all

Thing is, they clearly didn't want the entire chain to have you doing the same tasks per quest - they want to ensure each one is different as they're all treated like individual stories for your class rather than a crash-course in how they work. The whole PLD chain ends with, not one, but two 1v1 duels for example. Before that it is some group killing. Before that it's the 'running around performing tasks while keeping an eye on Elf-Kid'. He can actually be KO'd/Despawn during that fight and then you get all the stray enemies chunking you while you're on 'kill the orb' duty, but it's not like you have to take enemies off him, either (except the ones tied to your objective). Do any of them teach tanking? No, but they weren't designed with that in mind.

HoNovice would be the place for that (with improvements), allowing the Job chains to remain more story centric, whilst the learning facilities remain static, clutter free, and give the opportunity to take each learning step whenever you please, rather than being gaited behind X number of levels per crash-course. It'd be infinitely easier to fix this way for Square compared to tweaking every single Job/Quest section.

[whiteblade89]

I really think it comes down to how they're playing the game. If they're using a controller tanking increasing becomes unfun to play because its difficult to select targets while on mouse and keyboard its much easier. I just think that a big majority of players that play are using a controller which is much easier to use for playing a healer and dps.

Your point about playing with a controller is spot on. I had the same issues when I first started tanking. However there are solutions to this issue. You can change your filters to where you only target mobs, but if you're on PS4, you can hold R2 or L2 (just one, not both) and tap R1 or L1 to easily cycle through mobs. This makes tanking on a controller much much easier because you don't have to worry about accidentally targeting a group member or an NPC. Not sure if it works on PC controllers, but I imagine it probably does.