How to make tanks more fun to play (devs please read)

[haseo0730]

Was reading the entire OP, have to say I agree with idea of changing PLD skill names to an appropriate Final Fantasy ones in order to make Paladin more interesting to play. And also about the damage increase and removing some skills from the global cooldown

Good stuff to read =]

[Xandim]

How many hours of gameplay time does someone need to invest into a tank in order to finally be able to use their limit break? It's hundreds of hours of game time you're talking about.

The problem with getting more people to play tanks is tanks are not fun at all until end-game, and even then they got some issues. To get more tanks, pre 50 leveling must be more fun.

As a tank i'd rather never use my LB, because it usually means that shit has hit the fan (and even then a healer should LB) or the fight actually needs a tank's LB, and if we miss that it has high chances of wiping. Besides, what's fun to some might not be to others. I had lots of fun leveling a tank, just because I felt usefull playing as one.

This is less the fault of PLD and more the fault of the devs

Couldn't agree with you more, its totally doable with a MNK / DRG / 2 WARs but then again, when people start doing Ifrit they are probably: using every single skill on their CD or isn't paying attention at all to the boss to actually stun it. So they prefer to have a PLD as stun ho just to be on the safe side. Ifrit IMO is the first fight you really need to pay attention to or you can wipe easily.

[therpgfanatic]

Purple part is doubled. ;p

Interesting read, I think I have to disagree about the mount, if people have to level a job all the way to 50, some might find tanking fun and will stick to it, some might even play it on occasion, I might even do that...

Fixed it, thanks for pointing that out. I must have accidentally copy and pasted the same section twice.

[therpgfanatic]

Not to detract from your ideas, as I feel constructive feedback should be encouraged, but three decades playing MMOs is a little misleading considering MMOs didn't surface until the late 90's (UO '97 / EQ '99) so at most you could have been playing them for 17 years.

Having your friend sit by your side while you played Adventure on the Atari back in '79 doesn't classify as MMO either.

MMOs have been around since the late 70s, beginning with MUD1 in 1978. So they've been around for nearly four decades.

[XNihili]

Was reading the entire OP, have to say I agree with idea of changing PLD skill names to an appropriate Final Fantasy ones in order to make Paladin more interesting to play. And also about the damage increase and removing some skills from the global cooldown

Good stuff to read =]

Don't need to change the skill names. You just need to make a cheesy macro with some witty references to anime/game/whatever and spam it to the party channel (or even the alliance channel) to make the Paladin more interesting to play and annoy the hell of everybody else.

[therpgfanatic]

I read all that just cause I can't sleep but stop caring after you pulled a random name out of thin air. 5% of the player base plays tank as they main. What?

It's not a random number. The number came from one of the developer interviews about the tank shortage issue. I forget where the link was, Google isn't being helpful in refinding it.

[LineageRazor]

People aren't eschewing tanking jobs because they aren't fun. People stay away from tanking jobs because they are stressful. If you derp it up as a DD, folks may not even notice - even if you die, it typically just means DPS slows for a while (which, admittedly, can sometimes mean the difference between a win and a loss). If you screw up as a tank, though, a wipe often soon follows. I don't really see anything on the original post's list of recommended changes that would make tanking a less stressful job...

[therpgfanatic]

Don't need to change the skill names. You just need to make a cheesy macro with some witty references to anime/game/whatever and spam it to the party channel (or even the alliance channel) to make the Paladin more interesting to play and annoy the hell of everybody else.

You're missing the point.

When someone is interested in buying the game, who normally plays a tank in other MMOs and is a diehard fan of Final Fantasy, looks at the tank classes and recognizes none of the ability names, that can be a turn off from buying the game at all. Or at least encourage them to look at Dragoons thinking that perhaps they can tank as a Dragoon.

There are folks who spend hundreds of dollars into cosplay costumes of Final Fantasy characters, making completely faithful recreations. A lot of these people also play MMORPGs. You better believe if you had a character who had some trademark FF attacks there would be some of them that say, "I have to roll a tank for Riot Blade / Omnislash / Renzokuken ".

There are hundreds of videos on YouTube of characters showing off their Dragoon doing nothing but jump attacks on low lv critters. Some of these videos have tens of thousands of views, I'm fairly it is people who want to see what the game has to offer before they buy that are watching them. What I am suggesting is not being ridiculous, it's perfectly sound given that people care deeply about these trademarked and iconic Final Fantasy abilities. It's hard to estimate how many people have been turned off by FF XIV because there isn't enough iconic abilities for the melee classes, instead abilities with wholly original names that could have been in any other MMO.

[Surian]

I hate to say this, but a LOT of Paladin i know simply stopped playing the job after they (unjustly) gave Warrior a near-godlike buff when a slight correction would have been sufficient and gave Paladin nothing except a poop-smeared middle finger.

There's your problem why you have so few tanks now. SE made half of them stop playing.

[Blazer]

I feel like paladin and warrior ARE fun to play. Every WAR I speak to seem to really enjoy the job (if they know what they're doing). I love playing paladin.

I don't think the issue is that "boring" is the reason, but more that people just don't enjoy tanking. It happens.