Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[Saefinn]

The self-centered one is you and tanks who behave as you describe. This is a team game, not a you game. You are not the only human being here. Everyone else is not here JUST to do what you want. If I want to run ahead then I'm going to run ahead because I am not your pet or your slave or an AI. Deal with it.

Absolutely this is a team game.
You know what also is a team game? Football/Soccer.
If your defender is running ahead to get the ball on the other side of the pitch so they can score a goal the manager is likely to be like "what are you playing at?"
Team games sometimes have structure and roles for players to fill so the team can work together and fulfil those roles and help ensure a successful game. MMO's like this work to a role-defined structure.

In our "team" we all have roles and each of those roles are defined so there's more cohesion in a team and how they run content so content can go more smoothly, without unnecessary wipes and without there being a free-for-all. Anybody who decides to say "screw that I'll do whatever I like screw everybody else" is not a team player.

A tank is there to take the aggro of any enemies and take hits for everybody else. Therefore it is the tank that does the pulling. The tank decides how many things they're confident or happy tanking. If they're a team player, they'll consider their healer in this equation. Because it's not just about how many enemies they're comfortable tanking but how many the healer can heal through. Of course, to an extent people can step out of their roles to help out in another way, like Red Mage rezzing or throwing vercures (when needed), Ranged Physical offering an AoE shield, Paladins casting Clemency and healers & tanks DPSing. But pulling for the tank sadly is not helping anybody.

A DPSing pulling for them is screwing with that and making them pull more than they (or the healer) might not be happy or confident with. Yes, unfortunately it does mean it's down to a mix of the tank and healer to control the pace of a dungeon, which makes sense as they're tasked with keeping everybody alive.

My philosophy is if the DPS is doing that on purpose and if I know the healer and I'm tanking, I'll let the DPS get away with 1 pull and ask them kindly not to, beyond that, they keep their aggro, after all they wanna tank? I'll let them tank.

[Katie_Kitty]

A DPSing pulling for them is screwing with that.

Not in the slightest. All you have to do is hit the mobs with an AoE and guess what? You now have hate. The very fact that people are in this thread right now saying "if you do then I'm not taking the mobs off you" demonstrates how trivial it would be to get hate back and yet they threaten not to anyway.

Why? Because of ego. Nothing more. I play a tank too you know and if someone else has hate when I get to the mobs oh well just hit them with my AoE and keep moving. Problem solved.

None of this is hard to do.

[Saefinn]

Not in the slightest. All you have to do is hit the mobs with an AoE and guess what? You now have hate. The very fact that people are in this thread right now saying "if you do then I'm not taking the mobs off you" demonstrates how trivial it would be to get hate back and yet they threaten not to anyway.

Why? Because of ego. Nothing more. I play a tank too you know and if someone else has hate when I get to the mobs oh well just hit them with my AoE and keep moving. Problem solved.

None of this is hard to do.

Because there are varying levels of experience and skill in this game and what we may not find "hard" can be hard for some. EG: as a healer main for years, on the healer side I've seen a lot of people trip up on things that are 100% obvious to me. So with anything, I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt, rather than assume because it's easy for me that it's easy for everyone.

Especially as some people are also less confident, less skilled, less reactive or are learning and yeah, putting them into panic mode because suddenly mobs is not cool, even if they end up handling it.

EG: The other day I did a medium pull in Brayflox, I could pull bigger absolutely fine because well, it's Brayflox, a DPS accidentally aggro'd more mobs, I pulled hate off of them and then suddenly it was too many mobs for the healer to handle and we wiped. So it's not *JUST* about the tank. If the DPS did it on purpose, I'd probably have told them they shouldn't be doing that. I pull based on what I think the healer can handle. Or if I've not tanked in forever, based on getting back in the rhythm of it, because I tank much less than I heal or DPS.

However, I've been in parties where the healer has ran ahead and I've been perfectly okay with that because I know it means the healer is fine with me pulling more and thus I pull more.

And in cases where the tank or healer can handle it, it's not even necessarily ego for those who can tank more, it can be just be the tank is not as quick as the DPS to pull (I've had that) or that tank is rusty, half asleep, not as focused etc. Thus it can get very annoying when somebody else is just pulling out of the blue.

If for any reason you're not liking the pace? Just ask if they're able to pull more or if they're happy with you pulling for them. If they're not, then it's luck of the draw in a PUG or in a roulette because you can't control what level of confidence or experience a person has in your group.

But I'll have the courtesy to first ask if I don't want people pulling for me if they're doing that, just as when I'm healing I'll ask if the tank can do full pulls for me. That's the beauty of "communication". Because a good team communicates with each other. As part of the same emphasis on communication, I see another player struggling, I'll pitch in to offer any advice to help so things go more smoothly and a lot of time people appreciate the help.

[Kleeya]

Absolutely this is a team game.
You know what also is a team game? Football/Soccer.
If your defender is running ahead to get the ball on the other side of the pitch so they can score a goal the manager is likely to be like "what are you playing at?"

Uh, what ? In soccer you dont have to keep your position at all. It is fine even if the goalkeeper leaves it, his goal becoming without any defense at all, so that he can run all the way through the field, take the ball and score, saving the day in the process.

I did learn that in this Captain Tsubasa anime. And since FF14 is anime themed too... XD

[Avidria]

Not in the slightest. All you have to do is hit the mobs with an AoE and guess what? You now have hate. The very fact that people are in this thread right now saying "if you do then I'm not taking the mobs off you" demonstrates how trivial it would be to get hate back and yet they threaten not to anyway.

Why? Because of ego. Nothing more. I play a tank too you know and if someone else has hate when I get to the mobs oh well just hit them with my AoE and keep moving. Problem solved.

None of this is hard to do.

It's not hard, but it's freaking annoying. I already don't like tanking, I don't need some impatient dps running off and grabbing extra crap regardless of whether I and/or the healer can handle it. I don't need them making me run all over the place to pick up crap either, because you know what else I see all the freaking time? Somebody grabs extra crap, on purpose or by accident, and then either stays off in Narnia so I have to run across the room to get it off, or runs around in circles with it so I have to freaking run across the room AFTER THEM to pull it off.

It's annoying. It makes it take longer to group the mobs up. It probably pisses off melee too, depending on how much of a cluster it actually makes things. You're not speeding anything up by charging off ahead of the tank, you're just making things messier and more annoying to deal with.

[Saefinn]

Uh, what ? In soccer you dont have to keep your position at all. It is fine even if the goalkeeper leaves it, his goal becoming without any defense at all, so that he can run all the way through the field, take the ball and score, saving the day in the process.

I did learn that in this Captain Tsubasa anime. And since FF14 is anime themed too... XD

It's a loose analogy (and heck, still leaves room for doing things outside of their role if it means a better game or helps in some way, eg. PLD's healing, healers DPSing etc). But in the analogy if the defender is giving up their position as a defender to fulfil the role of the striker because they decided "screw this, I'm doing what I want" then the manager is likely to have a stern word with the player. Or in the case of when I played football/soccer at school, it'd be all the other kids yelling, "what the hell are you doing!? You left us open! You idiot!". Though where the analogy I guess really doesn't work, you can get away with breaking form and still have a fun game, whereas here it can kill the experience (unless I guess you're with friends and are in on the chaos). Though, I'm not a big sports guy, so probably using sports as an analogy is a bold move, but is how I remember it during PE lessons back at school.

[KaleShibata]

It's a loose analogy (and heck, still leaves room for doing things outside of their role if it means a better game or helps in some way, eg. PLD's healing, healers DPSing etc). But in the analogy if the defender is giving up their position as a defender to fulfil the role of the striker because they decided "screw this, I'm doing what I want" then the manager is likely to have a stern word with the player. Or in the case of when I played football/soccer at school, it'd be all the other kids yelling, "what the hell are you doing!? You left us open! You idiot!". Though where the analogy I guess really doesn't work, you can get away with breaking form and still have a fun game, whereas here it can kill the experience (unless I guess you're with friends and are in on the chaos). Though, I'm not a big sports guy, so probably using sports as an analogy is a bold move, but is how I remember it during PE lessons back at school.

actually this is a pretty accurate way of describing it. just because you can because its a faceroll doesn't mean it doesn't have the potential to fatally backfire. don't break the group up, if a healers already settled and in position don't ruin their gameplan by bringing back more shit. as a person who has played every role i can see the annoyances that generates doing whatever you like. sure it might be fun to just throw yourself out there but not everyone knows how to handle that situation. if that person is the healer congratulations you just opened yourself to being reported for greifing if you were the dps responsible.

but the sports analogy is a perfectly good representation of what this arguement basicly is. one person thinking they can do whatever they want, and literally everyone else yelling at them to have patience and actually play like a teammate instead of a superhero.

[Allegor]

As a little newbie tank, DPS who pull big and ahead were literally the cause of my tanxiety. Doesn't help the targeting UI isn't exactly the best, so many times I couldn't notice right away when one or two mob escaped my aoe and start butchering the healer because I myself already had the world and their dog over me.

Ib4 "git gud"....then people complain why their dime a dozen role queue takes forever.

To be entirely fair though, it's not something that happened often...but when it happened, ho boy I always took a break after it.

[Liam_Harper]

Not in the slightest. All you have to do is hit the mobs with an AoE and guess what? You now have hate.

Normally yes, an AoE in the middle of the pack and you have plenty of emnity. However, when the mobs are scattered all over the place, one chasing your healer, another whacking your ranged while your dps who sprinted ahead and pulled is running around in circles expecting you to pull the pack off him, it's a different matter.

[Coletergeist]

The self-centered one is you and tanks who behave as you describe. This is a team game, not a you game. You are not the only human being here. Everyone else is not here JUST to do what you want. If I want to run ahead then I'm going to run ahead because I am not your pet or your slave or an AI. Deal with it.

Ya know, I'm new to this game in general, and VERY new to *wanting* to be a tank...but always disheartened to do so because of people with this mindset. I want to try to be a good tank (I want to be a Dark Knight because their aesthetic matches what I'm looking for), but LEARN whilst doing so, without being pushed down and being told I suck, or even feel like I suck at doing something. This sort of thinking dissuades those of us like me that simply just want to have a fun time playing a game as it's intended...a game to play and have fun.

Also, yeah...you're absolutely right, this is a "team" game! Good to know you know that!