Mindblowingly new-old idea-question that would reduce queue times for DD's

[Steeled]

Parties are small because it's exponentially harder to find a party of size X+1 than X. WoW has a party size of 5, and tanks are still the limiting factor in their group finder. EQ1 has a party size of 6, and getting the tank is again still the bottleneck. Putting more DPS slots just makes more people play as DPS, since the tank role is either too hard or irrelevent (e.g. the tank on Anantaboga could be a trained monkey) depending on which game you're playing and nobody likes either of those two roles.

You contradict yourself.

It is not exponentially harder to find 3 dps rather than 2 so a 6 man party party modeled and 1 tank 1 healer is not even 25% harder to find people for. It just...isn't.

[Ralemont]

Parties are small because it's exponentially harder to find a party of size X+1 than X. WoW has a party size of 5, and tanks are still the limiting factor in their group finder. EQ1 has a party size of 6, and getting the tank is again still the bottleneck. Putting more DPS slots just makes more people play as DPS, since the tank role is either too hard or irrelevent (e.g. the tank on Anantaboga could be a trained monkey) depending on which game you're playing and nobody likes either of those two roles.

Think of it in terms of cheeseburgers. You have 10 buns, 10 slices of cheese, 35 patties. With this you can make 10 double cheeseburgers...or 10 triple cheeseburgers. In the latter scenario you have the same amount of sandwiches made, but instead of having 15 patties sitting around not being eaten, now you only have 5.

[CianaIezuborn]

Think of it in terms of cheeseburgers. You have 10 buns, 10 slices of cheese, 35 patties. With this you can make 10 double cheeseburgers...or 10 triple cheeseburgers. In the latter scenario you have the same amount of sandwiches made, but instead of having 15 patties sitting around not being eaten, now you only have 5.

This analogy works great for dead pieces of meat, not so much for people.

People that came to this game intending to tank rolled a tank.

People that switched to a tank at a later point were likely either:
1. Tired of long queues
2. Tired of bad tanks
3. Pressured into tanking by FC mates/friends

Larger group sizes aren't going to do much for this. I've tanked in games with 4/5/6 man groups and it's always quick groups for tanks, medium speed for heals, and slow groups for dps.

Small groups fill faster (I don't think anyone can argue it's faster to pull 4 people together than 6 people). They require a bigger percentage of responsibility from each member, especially dps. They're also better for smaller sets of friends and guilds.

It doesn't matter how large a force you're trying to put together, if you're smart about it you'll always gather the pivot roles first then fill in with the less key positions(usually dps) after filling those roles.

[Ralemont]

This analogy works great for dead pieces of meat, not so much for people.

People that came to this game intending to tank rolled a tank.

Larger group sizes aren't going to do much for this. I've tanked in games with 4/5/6 man groups and it's always quick groups for tanks, medium speed for heals, and slow groups for dps.

Small groups fill faster (I don't think anyone can argue it's faster to pull 4 people together than 6 people). They require a bigger percentage of responsibility from each member, especially dps. They're also better for smaller sets of friends and guilds.

Small groups (4) are going to fill no faster than larger groups (6) if you're adding 2 DPS slots and there are a backlog of queue'd DPS, which was the point of the analogy. The analogy works with a set population for all three roles, and shows how expanding the party can satisfy a larger % of the population.

The only party that could possibly see longer gather time is the last one if the DPS population gets exhausted, which I'm pretty sure isn't going to happen even with a 4:1:1 ratio.

[CianaIezuborn]

Small groups (4) are going to fill no faster than larger groups (6) if you're adding 2 DPS slots and there are a backlog of queue'd DPS, which was the point of the analogy. The analogy works with a set population for all three roles, and shows how expanding the party can satisfy a larger % of the population.

The only party that could possibly see longer gather time is the last one if the DPS population gets exhausted, which I'm pretty sure isn't going to happen even with a 4:1:1 ratio.

And my argument is that a large influence on how many people switch from dps to tanks/heals is based on scarcity of tanks/heals.

This is always a problem in every game, the only solution is to tank/heal yourself or get a friend to tank/heal.

Edit: I'm also assuming you're putting together a group yourself. I'll concede that queue times would most likely drop for dps if there were more slots per tank/healer in an auto-filled group.

[MageBlack]

I like the solution they are looking into. They are providing a reward bonus for queueing up as a role that is currently in short supply (easy to find out from the dev side of things). as long as the reward is decent, like Tomestones or gil then i think it will be a nice help.



EDIT:

There is a precedence for party's over 4 people. I think FFVI had at least 5, then there is the FF Tactics games which this already seems to take a lot of inspiration from. At this point though, they would need to retool the entire game to work with a different sized party. Even if it is a good idea, I think that ship has sailed my friend.

Changing the ratios is not a good fix IMO. What they need to do is have more methods to encourage people to make Tanks/Healers. More Tank classes would be nice. 2 tank classes and 2 healer classes for the 4-5 DPS...

[Kazamoto]

While the argument about having to rebalance current content for differing party sizes is valid.

4-person -> 6-person
8-person -> 12-person
24-person -> 24-person!!!

Would it not be easier to do now, rather than when more content is added. There are only a few events that need to be adjusted now, as compared to how it would be later.

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Also, think about MMO-Archtypes..

Tank- I want to protect my friends.
Healer- I want to heal and restore my friends.
DD- I wanna kill stuff.

Which group do you think players gravitate towards more easily?

While yes, there will always be a tank/healer bottleneck, a larger party allows more along for the ride per run.

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Rather than a cheeseburger, think of an instance like a bus for a field trip.

The bus requires a driver, and a teacher to lead the trip.
Then students.

Currently we have a bus with seating for 4.
If we had seating for 6, more students could go per bus.

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With the arguments about needing super-powered healers and tanks because of the additional dps output.

Why?

Every player has their own hate bar, and should be managing it. Just because there are 2 more people with hate bars does not mean the tank has to work any harder.

This would apply some to fights where everyone is hit (like titan), so it could put more stain on healers, but in runs like these, perhaps run with an extra healer like people do now, with 3/8 being healers.

And my argument is that a large influence on how many people switch from dps to tanks/heals is based on scarcity of tanks/heals.

This is always a problem in every game, the only solution is to tank/heal yourself or get a friend to tank/heal.

Edit: I'm also assuming you're putting together a group yourself. I'll concede that queue times would most likely drop for dps if there were more slots per tank/healer in an auto-filled group.

It is for those people in DF that this was written for, and this is proof that there is more than one solution.

[Pandastirfry]

Rather than a cheeseburger, think of an instance like a bus for a field trip.

The bus requires a driver, and a teacher to lead the trip.
Then students.

Currently we have a bus with seating for 4.
If we had seating for 6, more students could go per bus.

There is a problem with this analogy. If drivers or chaparonnes are in short supply then it doesn't matter how many seats the bus has, it's still not going anywhere.

Basically, I've played tons of MMOs with varying minimum party sizes and DFs, and everyone of them Tanks have near instant queues, healers range from near instant to at worst 10-15 mins, and DPS is can be at best 30 mins to well over an hour . Party sizes a little does little to nothing , it's all player demographics. Invariably DPS out numbers the other roles by orders of magnitude.

[zdub303]

On top of this I would really like to see the DF be more intelligent when queueing for fights.

For instance: Titan/Praetorium is clearly specifically designed for only a single tank, the DF should be preprogrammed to not fill groups for dungeons/trials like this with 2 tanks.

Each listing on the DF should put parties together based on what the actual content was designed to have, not simply a generic 2x(1:1:2) party layout.

In the case of say, a 12 man titan, it should still be more like 1 tank, 3 healers, 8 dps instead of 2 tanks 2 healers 8 dps which is what would happen in this 6 man scenario.

[ashikenshin]

roll a tank, farm tokens and use the tokens you farmed for your dps
???
profit