DPS Queue Times

[Jijifli]

There is a point. To stop those people that play paladin, warrior and/or dark knight from going to DPS to spice up their game time or quitting altogether. This alone is worth it.

If we'd use the logic you and Tridus use, we shouldn't have ever gotten Samurai or Red Mage. What was the point?! If someone wanted a DPS, they had DPS to choose from already. Melee, magic, ranged. All grounds covered.
However, what you conveniently ignore is the fact that these classes add a different way of achieving the same thing, even if the differences are not all that large since ultimately you do the same thing anyway. Use several skills in a more or less specific order and follow them with cooldowns at appropriate times.

My question still stands: If we bring a new tank, will DPS and Healers change to play that tank, enough of them to improve the queue times. Now that time has passed, the queue time's for dps are back to where they were in HW around this time, despite getting 2 dps jobs and nothing else.

As for the "achieving same things in different ways" that's maybe a reason why people don't like the tank options, because the basic bare bones effective playstyle is pressing 1-2-3 for all the tanks. Maybe if we had more interesting tanks people would start doing it more.

Also, DPS are popular because they have the least responsibility. BOTH tanks and healers have to deal with harassment over things they had no control over. My main is an AST, and my alt is a DRK, so I get it enough as it is. I can't say what a DPS did wrong though in chance of being called an elitist parser. I had an FC member actually reported and talked to because he made his shield invisible on his PLD. I can see why people wouldn't want to play a role that gets treatment like that.

[kikix12]

My question still stands: If we bring a new tank, will DPS and Healers change to play that tank, enough of them to improve the queue times.

I won't bother discussing this in depth since no matter what I will say it won't change your opinion, if for no reason then just because developers claim that it didn't change a thing. The fact that they used a single instance and not particularly attractive outside of the lore as the source for that data no one cares about. I assure you if it was Warrior that was added while Dark Knight and Paladin would have been already in the game, the results of that "study" would have been different.


However, you're asking about players starting to play tanks over DPS. But I'm talking about the other way around. There ARE players that moved AWAY from tanking and healing TO DPS with Samurai and Red Mage. And as DPS are typically more attractive to players in general outside of the queue times, these players that move are much more likely to stay a DPS unlike those that try a new tank or healer.

It doesn't matter how many people you pull in into tanking and healing if these players won't cover for those that STOP tanking and healing. Either moving to DPS or quitting cause they're bored having only 3 classes they might like (and in healers case, three very similar classes to boot) when DPS have nine and prospects are for DPS being catered to while tanks/healers not.

Now that time has passed, the queue time's for dps are back to where they were in HW around this time, despite getting 2 dps jobs and nothing else.

And how many times did that happen?! Once. Do you know what qualifies as research?! Doing the same thing over and over again and comparing all the results.

Things that are based on players preferences, moods and personal availability/situation are muddled up even more. You say that the queues are the same as they were in heavensward around the same time, but why?! You don't know. And I'm sure that the developers don't pry deep enough either.

There are many reasons why such a thing could have occurred. More DPS players leaving the game than tanks/healers. More of the tanking/healing group players buying the game and starting to play. More DPS players taking a break from the game than for tanks and healers.

Since there are more DPS players than tanks AND healers combined, all those "more DPS" is statistically the scenario for whatever we're discussing. If 10% of every jobs mains would take a break, far more DPS would go on a break than tanks and healers combined, not only because it's 10% out of nine classes instead of six, but more importantly because those nine classes in total have more individual people than tanks and healers combined.

For all we know, if there would be a tank and a healer, the queues could have been BETTER at this time. Hence there is no sufficient data to amount to anything more than hearsay or speculations. And it's the same for developers, except their guesses are more educated and have a higher chance of being correct. It's just that there are too many variables to accurately pin-point a single cause as the major 'player'.

As for the "achieving same things in different ways" that's maybe a reason why people don't like the tank options, because the basic bare bones effective playstyle is pressing 1-2-3 for all the tanks. Maybe if we had more interesting tanks people would start doing it more.

...And for that, we need new tanks...you know. People have been complaining about tanks and healers having their core kit pretty much copy/pasted since I started playing this game about fourteen months ago. And there were added balance issues on top of that. Square Enix needs to get out of the "comfort zone" and put some work into variety among tanks and healers. But they follow the yells of the DPS crowds and spend more time creating engaging DPS classes while tanks and healers are an afterthought. And you expect the population to be even remotely balanced?! What classes changed gameplay-wise with stormblood the most?! DPS. Summoner, bard, machinist and black mage are completely different from what they were. And tanks?!...Yeah. They just lost tools and had potency changes, and that's the biggest change. Of course, there came new skills, but those are a given. Then there are the latched-on gauges, which really, matter only for a warrior (the most DPS'y of the tanks...). They feel forced on dark knight and paladin, and feel more like just another form of cooldown than anything.

[Jijifli]

Snippy

You are right, people moved from tanking and healing to dps for RDM and SAM. New jobs aren't always the cause though. I dropped ast for a time in 3.1 simply because I was getting runs so painfully slow that the total run time was somehow faster for me to go BLM and wait a queue than go AST or WAR and get instantly. People change for all kinds of reasons.

Also, the dps doing different things doesn't mean there's more variety to a player. I HATE playing MCH and I can somewhat take Bard. I HATE playing SMN. Looking at healers, I don't like WHM. I like Diurnal AST, but I can't stand WHM's boring playstyle. I actually like how all 3 tanks play, but I hate playing them unless I'm in a party with people I know. It's not just about the playstyle.

Also, technically it happened twice. One time they released both a new tank and healer, as well as what's still apprently the least played dps (MCH) and after some time the queue's went back to normal. Same here, 2 brand new super hyped dps jobs, some time passes, queue's back to normal. They already saw what happened with DRK, which in case you forgot, already had it's niche of being the magical tank that made it get taken into raid over Paladin since Paladin had less magical mitigation than Dark Knight, plus less dps. So not only did the tank % not really change by the end of the day, but having just that type of uniqueness in mitigation caused Paladin to get pushed out. Kind of like how Samurai's are saying the same thing right now.

Also, BLM barely changed. They got Foul and a super swiftcast. Their rotation stayed roughly the same, just instead you fill the downtime with Foul instead of standing there doing nothing, and you get 2 more Fire IV's that I've seen BLM's complain about the existence of since it came out since your entire rotation circles around this button. Paladin gets to be a spellcaster and Warrior gets useful aoe utility.

If you WANT to give an idea of a brand new type of tank that isn't a dodge tank that makes or breaks the game, please help out. I always here dodge tank even though that'd destroy balance even moreso than it is right now.

[kikix12]

Also, BLM barely changed. They got Foul and a super swiftcast. Their rotation stayed roughly the same, just instead you fill the downtime with Foul instead of standing there doing nothing, and you get 2 more Fire IV's that I've seen BLM's complain about the existence of since it came out since your entire rotation circles around this button. Paladin gets to be a spellcaster and Warrior gets useful aoe utility.

I don't count the skills/traits past 60, since they are additions, not changes. Hence paladins spellcasting, warriors new shiny toys and black mages foul/'superswiftcast' don't matter.
In black mages case, I honestly didn't really check up on it that much. I did play it twice, and that at lvl50, so I honestly cannot really go by anything more than the snips I remember from the change logs. Guess I remembered wrong. Though, didn't their thunder line change entirely for one?! Well, no matter. There are still at least two (and probably more) DPS that were changed far more than any of the tanks/healers.

If you WANT to give an idea of a brand new type of tank that isn't a dodge tank that makes or breaks the game, please help out. I always here dodge tank even though that'd destroy balance even moreso than it is right now.

I tried doing that for healer, dancer, making skills and all, posting a thread. Majority of responses were about how it won't work because it's different than what we have now. I realize that the developers wouldn't care one bit bout one players ideas on a forum, especially Japanese developers on english section of the forum, but I did it for discussion with other players, for fun. But what's fun if the class itself is not even discussed, just dismissed for doing the same thing differently, or having strong support focus and being compared to astrologian despite being completely different from it?!

So yeah, I won't bother with that anymore.