my thoughts on how to make tank jobs more engaging

[shao32]

snip

it's ok you welcome ^^

you know i feel the same way, when in the first fanfest they show the trailer and the WoL switch to the last job i was literally euphoric when i saw the sword bcs i knew since the first frame he switch to DRK and my friends was like laughing for my reaction in a good way, i was super excited for the expansion and when i saw the jobs changes specially the DRK ones all my exciment dissapear complety, i never feel so bad for something like this before, i wasn't interested for the expansion anymore but still keep playing hoping that feedback make SE reconsider at least great part of the changes on DRK to make more like it was with the new stuff but nope.

after i complete the story and saw even the story the Wol never used the power of darkness or something similar to get rid of the light my dissapointment for the expansion become greater, yeah the ascian part was nice but the rest? meh, so since them i barely play, i just do my raid days wich right now is almost none since we are in stand by due e cleared everything already and keep my house, i really wanna unsub but i don't wanna leave my friends and someone have to tank in the raid apart of keep my house so for now im supporting the game hoping all this will be fixed at least in 6.0 since they aren't going to do anything around half of the expansion lifetime, they never do anything important at this patches but i have clear if they don't fixed DRK and tanks in general for 6.0 i will abandom the game, they gutted to much everything i loved it wont be wordy spend another 2 years with the depresion the current status is giving me since i wanna play but i can't enjoy it anymore.

[Kabooa]

1.

1. If you're talking about rebalancing them to achieve this, that's fine. You won't see me complaining about gutting their stat bloat and bringing back other modifiers while expanding their kits.

However, you're speaking in vague terms, and while they sound okay, without some hard numbers to illustrate where you think things ideally should end up as well as the concepts that are going to guide it, there's not much to comment on here.

2. They don't do 1/3rd the damage.

3. I didn't say that. At most I'll say we have a good baseline moving forward, in which I hope they diversify them further, remove redundant resources, and bring back some more unique resources.

To me, tanks lose their fun when they stop doing tank things. When positioning doesn't matter, when threat doesn't matter, when mitigation doesn't matter, when gear choice doesn't matter.

4. See 1.

5. That doesn't change no matter where your damage shakes out. No one can recover your lost damage - they can only work harder to meet the minimum, but however much of your cap you're not reaching, they can't push more than their own to get it. It could be 3k, 6k, or 15k. Any part of your cap you aren't reaching is damage the team has lost.

What matters more is where the average amount of that cap is. What's left is what's gained through 'getting better', but you touched on that.

6. How much is "substantial"? Because there's already about 25-35% average increase from a lower end performer to a higher end, and that's fairly consistent among the dps and tanks beyond a couple exceptions.

[Marxam]

if you boil it down to tank fundamentals, their defensive cds is too homogenized. Every tank has 20%/30% cd, a short job exclusive cd, raid wide party aoe, a self heal and an invul. Their enmity rotation is also the same 1-2-3, with some jobs having a separate rotation for dmg/buff or ogcd spamming (i.e. DRK). There used to be greater variety among the tanks which led to unfair bias but every tank had something different to bring to the table. I understand the need to introduce players to tanking but if all they're gonna do is introduce them and not continue beyond that then they failed in their initial intent. No one is gonna play a job that bores them and that's a fact.

They also need to double down on a job's identity and feel. People will play a job if it feels right to them regardless of how poorly the job is implemented. Right now tanks are picked on how much damage they can do because their defensive kit is all the same with only the invuls changing it around. Personally I would like to see dps stances brought back to reward those who want to push themselves further but I know that's never gonna happen after 4.0.

[Lucy_Pyre]

if you boil it down to tank fundamentals, their defensive cds is too homogenized. Every tank has 20%/30% cd, a short job exclusive cd, raid wide party aoe, a self heal and an invul. Their enmity rotation is also the same 1-2-3, with some jobs having a separate rotation for dmg/buff or ogcd spamming (i.e. DRK). There used to be greater variety among the tanks which led to unfair bias but every tank had something different to bring to the table. I understand the need to introduce players to tanking but if all they're gonna do is introduce them and not continue beyond that then they failed in their initial intent. No one is gonna play a job that bores them and that's a fact.

They also need to double down on a job's identity and feel. People will play a job if it feels right to them regardless of how poorly the job is implemented. Right now tanks are picked on how much damage they can do because their defensive kit is all the same with only the invuls changing it around. Personally I would like to see dps stances brought back to reward those who want to push themselves further but I know that's never gonna happen after 4.0.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; stance dancing was stupid. You know what else was stupid? If you got a DPS that just decided to not use Diversion/Tactician/Lucid and ramped up aggro like a maniac, forcing you to use a bunch of extra aggro combos and gut your own damage just because that one DPS was too lazy to do what he was supposed to do. So no, I'd rather not go back to that.

[DWolfwood]

Honestly, this game doesn't accommodate tank identity that well. It's just really difficult to give much separate defensive identity while also keeping things balanced.

They really need to focus on two things for more identity:

1. ability aesthetics - which make the jobs look and feel more unique.

2. dps rotations - fact is every job in this game is a DPS and most buttons you press as any tank are for dps, not defensive CDs.

The sooner people realize what this game is, the happier they'll be. And hopefully the devs realize this sooner too and take it in a new, more self-aware direction instead of all these left over artifacts from 1.x when they made sense.

The materia system for example is complete garbage now and literally just a noob trap, Classes have no purpose now, and there's still TONS of abilities that need to be cleaned up. Like why does PLD still have a GCD stun???

Edit - But yeah, unless you're willing to make certain tanks ideal for certain fights, thus requiring tanks to have multiple tanking jobs leveled for different content, it's just pointless to even try.

[Absurdity]

Like why does PLD still have a GCD stun???

This does actually have a very niche use, PotD and HoH. When you get the debuff that disables abilities PLD is the only job with a working on demand stun (Holy's cast time is simply too long to use it reliably). This doesn't really make Shield Bash super useful in 99% of all content but it atleast has some use.

[Dragonexx]

The materia system for example is complete garbage now and literally just a noob trap, Classes have no purpose now, and there's still TONS of abilities that need to be cleaned up. Like why does PLD still have a GCD stun???

I've found it useful for some add phases. It has situational utility and there's no reason to get rid of that.

[Valic]

I won't go deep in this but I liked the concept that tanks were a great source of aoe damage, moreso than damage dealers. At least, that was one thing I loved about SB's dark knight. Being able to take on several opponents at a time and deal more damage back is a nice high. Taking on an opponent that's strong as heck yourself while a dps can't is also one of those highs that just kinda falls under tanking.

[bundythenoob]

I won't go deep in this but I liked the concept that tanks were a great source of aoe damage, moreso than damage dealers. At least, that was one thing I loved about SB's dark knight. Being able to take on several opponents at a time and deal more damage back is a nice high. Taking on an opponent that's strong as heck yourself while a dps can't is also one of those highs that just kinda falls under tanking.

yes, this is why i firmly believe that abyssal drain should come back as a GCD mana spender, and that stalwart should be moved to lv 40 to help further generate more mana. stalwart feels nice, but not getting it till 72 hurts so much of the leveling process. i still dont understand why every other tank has their aoe combo by lv 40 but only drk has to suffer till 72

[Quor]

Firstly, tank DPS is not an "arbitrary number", when the endgame fights are designed around DPS checks.

It's "arbitrary" in that some people look at it and go "huh, I don't feel like that's enough" despite the fact that there's no basis in it. Putting aside how a person "feels" about a number on fflogs, the fact of the matter is every job can clear all content in game right now without issue, assuming of course the 2/2/4 breakdown is respected. It would be one thing if a specific job were drastically lower both in damage and in the number of people who played it than the other jobs of the same role. That would be a strong indicator that there is something fundamentally at issue with how that job works. As it stands now, tank balance is the best it's been ever and there's a pretty even spread of tanks, at least according to fflogs.

Which brings up another point; fflogs is entirely a voluntary thing. Even with the thousands upon thousands of uploads to fflogs we're only seeing a fraction of the people who play this game. There is an inherent bias involved in uploading logs too. It's rare to find someone who uploads a "bad" log and keeps it public for all the world to see. SE has far more data (accurate, robust data) about job breakdowns, dps being done etc. than the playerbase has access to.

Secondly, you said "all tanks can beat all content, they work perfectly well". Okay, every job in the game can beat all content, so in your context they all work perfectly well. So we never need to make any changes to any job right? Because they're all so perfect.

Quit it with the sophistry. I've talked about what changes can be done to tanks a number of times before; I won't repeat myself. Check my post history, because I've been making suggestions for years.

Why can't you compare DPS between different roles and expansions in a game that is centered around DPS?

Exactly what Kabooa said.

Who are you to tell people how to enjoy the game? The whole fun of end game content is to gauge yourself against others and try to become the best. Humans are naturally competitive, take that away and endgame will just become boring. You are just straight up WRONG about tank/DPS damage ratios being similar to SB. Have you ever looked at aDPS, which is the proper comparison you should be looking at. Tanks are now doing 10-15% less damage compared to DPS than they were in SB, and that gap is growing by tier. How is it fun playing as a tank, knowing that your contribution compared to the other players in your team is so paltry, when you have as much or more responsibility.

Again, as Kabooa said, fun is subjective. Furthermore, if you're playing a tank to deal damage, then honestly, you're playing the wrong role. The last thing this game needs is further watering down of any difference that exists between the roles. Tank gameplay should focus around tank-centric things first with dps being a secondary objective. It would still be important to do your combos correctly of course, but it wouldn't be the primary focus. But hey, let's up the ante a bit. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is? Take a tank job of your choosing and come up with some ideas for how you can make it more complex, but also how you can do it in a way that will be unique, i.e. you don't step on any DPS toes by doing what they're doing already. That means stuff like a fast GCD-focused approach (MNK) or proc-based priority approach (BRD) are out, because that would be boring. Obviously the same applies to all the other jobs. Oh, also, you can't add anything to it that will make it a lock as far as raid spots go. The last thing we want is to return to the old days where 5-6 jobs formed the core "meta" group that became the norm.

I don't buy the tanks are tanks and shouldn't do damage argument. Maybe in other games it's true but not in this one. This game is designed around doing as much damage as possible at all times.

I never once said they shouldn't do damage, so I'll thank you not to put words into my mouth. I said that they're focus should not be damage. Furthermore, this game is most definitely not about dealing the most damage all the time. It's about correctly using the tools you have - ALL of them - to push past the challenges thrown at you by the content. A tank who levels up doing nothing but dealing as much damage as possible - to the point where they ignore anything that doesn't deal damage - won't make it to the level cap. Because they'll never beat their job quests that actively require them to position differently, use cooldowns, hold aggro and all of that, you know, TANK stuff.

1. since DPS checks are calculated based on the percent roles output, what would be the harm in simply raising the amount of tank DPS needed to compensate for the changes to their kits that would allow a GOOD tank to output MORE damage? why keep the bar so low? it might "not matter" if ONLY the numbers changed, but that's why the required output from roles would be tweaked as well to compensate for the new potential damage tank jobs would have.

What you're suggesting is essentially a Sisiphyean approach; you're saying to take tanks and give them more damage, but then to increase the damage demanded of tanks while also increasing their damage complexity somehow. In short, tanks will have to work harder for the same result. Nothing practical will change; fights will still take the same amount of time to clear. All that changes is that the dps number for tanks on fflogs is higher now. Kill times will remain the same. That's a really difficult thing to sell. You want to tell the entire tank playerbase that they have to work harder for the same result that they were getting before? That's not just counterintuitive, it's outright bad game design. Difficult things should result in a reward commensurate with the effort it takes to successfully overcome them. The result of further complexity should be greater reward. Working harder for "more" damage only to get the same result? Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

2. we aren't comparing the damage potential between different trinity roles because we are making them compete.
we're comparing damage potential between different trinity roles because we're saying that tanks shouldnt have to be damage sponges that only do 1/3 of the potential damage despite having to work just as hard as their other role counterparts.

That is the epitome of a personal opinion. It's also fundamentally flawed; you're only seeing the contribution of a tank through the lens of how much damage that tank deals. This is flawed because it ignores the very real contributions a tank makes by performing tank stuff correctly. Again, everyone who has played this game as a non-tank knows very keenly the difference that exists between a good tank and a bad tank. You cannot compare damage between the different roles because they fundamentally do different things. It's folly. It'd be like looking at how any DPS gets 1-shot by a tank buster and complaining that the DPS aren't as tanky as the tanks. Well, no duh. Of course they're not as tanky as the tanks. That's what having defined roles means; each role is confined within it's own set of boundaries, and these boundaries both describe what they are good at and what they are limited by. DPS can do great damage, sure, but their damage will be exactly zero without a good tank to hold the bosses attention and a good healer to keep everyone alive. Keeping the roles distinct (i.e. different) is what allows you to give them unique flavor and feel. This is why I (and others) advocate against further blurring of the lines between things; the answer to tanks as they are now isn't to make them even more like a DPS, it's to re-commit to them being tanks.

3. fun is subjective yes, but what does that have to do with anything? your baseline of "tanks are fun because they are balanced" is definitely different from other tank players, or else why would there be so many threads complaining about tanks not feeling fun anymore?

I have never said "tanks are fun because they are balanced." I have used tank balance as a point about why increasing tank damage just "because it feels bad" is a terrible idea. Tanks are fun because of the tank stuff they do and the unique way they each feel. That uniqueness is rather hard to find nowadays compared to HW or SB, but it's still there. But you won't create uniqueness between the tanks by turning each of them into a pseudo-DPS. I can empathize with those who don't find tanks fun or interesting; they certainly aren't as fun or interesting as they once were. But the way to bring that back and make them fun and interesting again is not by turning them into a ghetto DPS.

4. STB was indeed padded, and there was definitely a number of positive changes done in SHB, but that does not excuse the gutting of gameplay variance between the 3 tanks. nobody is pretending that SHB was 100% bad, they just want gameplay variance and complexity to return to roles who were already doing well

I feel and think exactly the same way. Personally, I really miss that old DRK aoe pull feedback loop you could create with DA+AB, Quietus, Blood Price and TBN. Man that was fun. Losing that in ShB sucked, but in return we got a better TBN, DA spam was removed and DRK gained some fun oGCD weaving to make up for it. Imo that's an overall gain, but I still think they could do better. DRK is too close to how WAR is now, and while I don't think DRK damage should be buffed, I do think it's ripe for a review of how it plays. I have no idea how to go about doing that though and even if I did I'm tired of making suggestions.

The issue I have is the one I highlighted in your first point; adding meaningless complexity simply for the sake of saying "it's complex!" isn't the way to go. If you don't reward greater complexity with an equally greater reward, then all you've done is create busy work.

5. even if our contribution isnt only damage, the last 6 or so years of this game have shown that DPS is king, and if Square has no intentions of changing their encounter design, then isn't damage going to remain our biggest contributor?

Again, you ignore the very real and very important contributor to a team that a tank brings by doing their tank job properly. Go into a PF E7S and tell everyone you're going to invuln the buster but also that you can't be bothered to move because you don't want to risk your uptime. You'll be kicked before you so much as unsheathe your weapon. Dps is important, yes, but it is entirely reliant on proper healer and tank execution for it's importance. Up until a fight is learned back-to-front by the tanks and healers, dps is irrelevant.

6. we arent asking for more damage in the form of potency bumps. we are asking for our kits to be tweaked so that skill can once again change how much damage a player can dish out. if a new tank is only capable of pushing out the minimum DPS required for clears, why shouldnt a veteran be allowed to push out a substantial amount to show others that they've mastered their job? im also not saying to leave healers out, if anything they deserve the bump if tanks get one too

Again, complexity for the sake of being complex isn't the way to go. Your suggestion would have tank damage go up while tank combos became more complex yet ultimately it would yield the same result as we're getting now. Fights would take the same amount of time, and the bigger numbers that tanks would have on fflogs would be just that; bigger numbers. Nothing would be gained except tanks would now be expected to push an additional number of arbitrary buttons in order to get the same end result they were getting before the changes.