Homogenization and Simplicity in Tank Roles

[Shin96]

I'm sure in your weird doomsayer headcanon is keeping you busy enough, definitely. Tank playerbase is doing fine in game.

Give me statistics or it never happened. Otherwise I count that as anecdotal evidence and you're a conspiracy theorist. See how that works?

I talked to plenty of people inside Discord servers illustrating their gripes with how tanks are. But it's just as useless of an argument to make.

You're on the official forums. If you don't like what you're reading log out and keep crying in your echo-chamber where the roses smell wonderful.

[Nyarlha]

Give me statistics or it never happened. Otherwise I count that as anecdotal evidence and you're a conspiracy theorist. See how that works?

I talked to plenty of people inside Discord servers illustrating their gripes with how tanks are. But it's just as useless of an argument to make.

You're on the official forums. If you don't like what you're reading log out and keep crying in your echo-chamber where the roses smell wonderful.

Countering anecdotal evidence with even more anecdotal evidence, that's cute. Care to take a guess of the % of the playerbase frequenting community Discords (which are obviously totally not echo chambers either themselves)?

[Shin96]

Countering anecdotal evidence with even more anecdotal evidence, that's cute. Care to take a guess of the % of the playerbase frequenting community Discords (which are obviously totally not echo chambers either themselves)?

As I have said my friend, if I were to say that tanks are generally disgruntled because of the statements I heard, that would count as anecdotal evidence. I never claimed that. As for the percentage ruminating Discord server; I wouldn't know and truth be told, saying they're echo chambers is just as useless of an argument to make because your presence is not overreaching. I sincerely doubt you're a scientist discovering data to work with, so we leave it at that.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have some conspiracy theories to make. They won't create themselves.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

As I have said my friend, if I were to say that tanks are generally disgruntled because of the statements I heard, that would count as anecdotal evidence. I never claimed that. As for the percentage ruminating Discord server; I wouldn't know and truth be told, saying they're echo chambers is just as useless of an argument to make because your presence is not overreaching. I sincerely doubt you're a scientist discovering data to work with, so we leave it at that.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have some conspiracy theories to make. They won't create themselves.

At the end of the day, only Square has the statistics that they make decisions based on. Anything we can say is merely speculation.

But there are fan statistics that let you catch a glimpse into the vocal minority the DRK complainers fall themselves into and that the vast majority are at least satisfied, outside of minor gripes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1392521529

TL : DR, Roughly 76% of DRKs are satisfied with the job in SHB. 1/3rd gave it a perfect rating, a little over another 1/3rd only have minor gripes (a sizeable amount of which literally comes down to how DRK is doing in the meta and not job action based.). Another 10% isn't satisfied or dissatisfied, and only 14% have large dissatisfaction. While it's clear from the statistics that DRK & WAR are both more polarized than PLD & GNB are, the complainers on DRK are vastly outnumbered by those satisfied by current DRK's design. if Square's internal statistics produce a similar trend, it's extremely easy to see why they're going in the trend they are. It's appealing to majority.

At the end of the day, unless Square does an official poll anything we say is nothing but speculation based on anecdotal evidence. But in reality, only the people dissatisfied with the job will be speaking out, so going into discords, you'll tend to only hear people voicing gripes. Since those satisfied with the job will just yknow, be playing the job. Or not have anything interesting to add to discussions.

[AziraSyuren]

snip

I take issue with the sample size and lack of clarification on what they mean by high end. Is it a self report? I bet a lot of players would fancy themselves as high-end raiders when all they do is clear weekly.

The fact that high-end tank players are literally more satisfied with their role than any other in the game except casters checks out, though. Tanking is the best it's ever been and it's vindicating to see that that's not even a particularly uncommon opinion.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

I take issue with the sample size and lack of clarification on what they mean by high end. Is it a self report? I bet a lot of players would fancy themselves as high-end raiders when all they do is clear weekly.

The fact that high-end tank players are literally more satisfied with their role than any other in the game except casters checks out, though. Tanking is the best it's ever been and it's vindicating to see that that's not even a particularly uncommon opinion.

In the absence of official statistics, fan statistics is all we can go off of. Hence why I said it lets people catch a glimpse since its an interesting insight even with a limited sample size. It was a google form people filled out, and one of the tabs was a dropdown indicating if you were high end or casual.

There was also similar surveys done near the beginning of 5.0 asking people what they thought about the updates SHB did to their job coming from SB which give similar results, where DRK sits at a 70% positive rating: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=991492593
And a JP one of the same survey that was done which also reports DRK at about ~74%-ish satisfaction. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...dark_red_most/

The sample sizes aren't amazing, but there's a clear trend emerging across them. For every 1 person that has issues with new DRK, there's 3 that are satisfied with it. Hence why I made the observation that if Square's internal statistics are showing anything even remotely similar to this, it shows a clear bias in favor of moving ahead with current DRK design.

[Mindiori]

Hah. Anyone happy with the current state of 'challenge' cough, with tanking - or infact anything - must be really setting the low bar on thick. Braindead is braindead. Whatever your sample size.

[FoxCh40s]

Hah. Anyone happy with the current state of 'challenge' cough, with tanking - or infact anything - must be really setting the low bar on thick. Braindead is braindead. Whatever your sample size.

Like at this point, it's just pattern recognition. It's the like the same 8 mechanics over and over, just renamed and repackaged.

[Shin96]

The problem is lies also within the design philosophy in this game.

Why reward a bad player when they play to the worst of their abilities? People adore this aspect of equality, but it also leads to the stagnation of skill and therefore comes the self-fullfilling prophecy: as standards increasingly lower over time, it eventually bleeds into other aspects in the game. This is why you will find fervent advocates for lowering the skill ceiling for almost anything. It's a statement you set that you can be coerced as a developer. Why should I give my best when player B plays worse than someone that has never played an MMO? You would think it's the developers setting the bar for expectations, but alas, it's the majority, the playerbase that is dictating the future of where the game is going. Does that have to be a bad thing? No, in its self-contained reality it's logical even, given they want to maximize profits. But comes with a price to pay, which is the degradation of content by people that have absolutely zero idea of what interesting and engaging gameplay looks like.

Now for difficulty. Hitting the same enemy 100 times is not difficulty. It's the equivalent of setting the difficulty on the highest possible scale, but ultimately fails to deliever critical components which define the progress and value of choosing a challenge. It's called high-risk, high-reward. That means if I decide to take on this challenge, my rewards will increase significantly. What the game currently does however, is in stark contrast to this philosophy. It doesn't matter if an awfully bad Red Mage ignores using their AoE rotation, or if your Summoner plays their job perfectly. The results are always the same, and apart from the timer you won't even be able to tell, unless it's a painfully slow experience.

With that said, the standards should be set high. A good player is worth a 100 bad players, effectively the only contradicting point against this is the fact 100 players are financially more worth than 1 player. Which do you choose? Money or the slow death and degradation of everything else? The fact of the matter is, greed is the end of all. You cannot please everyone.

[RinaB]

I've been tanking for 3 years and I can't do it anymore. The live letter killed any hopes I had of a bit more identity and complexity to the role and I'd rather be in long queue times then play this boring hollow shell of a role. I will not heal either as this face roll design for tanks attracted a lot of "interesting" folks to the role and every run is nothing but a painful chore of carrying. It's a double edge sword for devs because they want to minimize the tank shortage but they're doing this at the expense of everyone else.

The good tank players quit the role because it's too boring and dry and the influx of new tanks make the content much harder then it needs to be. As I've been leveling my SAM this week I have never wiped so many times in 70 to 80 dungeons in my life. Long story short I would rather the skill ceiling for tanks be much higher (which results in fewer players) and wait longer then get the wipe fest that is current tanks. Dumbing down anything is never a good way to go and the result is making mediocrity the standard.