Quote Originally Posted by Renathras View Post
That's the answer to your question: It's from a time when agro management was actually serious business, AOE rotations were extremely rarely used (and many times, classes might only have a single AOE button and it be very resource intensive to use), and that's when role responsibilities were established in the primordial before times of early MMOs. And such is the power of inertia that it still stands to this day.
But not every player has been playing MMOs since the dawn of the genre. I certainly haven't. etiquette established in the dawn of early MMOs is as irrelevant to modern society as the social norms of 100 years ago is to today. Any social norms we should expect of players should come from the experience of playing the game now. So if we're trying to say that there is a common, silent understanding of how the game should be played, and it's about whether or not that understanding is respected or not, I would say that it's more understood that AoEs are for multiple enemies moreso than DPS aren't supposed to face tank enemies. And the reason I say this is because not only is there nothing in solo gameplay of FFXIV that teaches DPS players that they aren't supposed to tank enemies, but you could argue the opposite. When solo, DPS are always face-tanking enemies, particularly in solo duties. When the game throws you into a solo instance fight, it expects you to tank your own set of enemies. You aren't provided with a tank if you are a healer or DPS, you just deal with it. So if we're going to say that it's understandable that someone can reach level 90 and not know how to use an AoE button, then it's even more understandable that someone can reach level 90 and not realize that they shouldn't face-tank enemies as DPS.