Serious problems with the Duty Finder

[Poringing]

Let's look at this from a bigger point of view.

How long people (DPS classes) wait in line to enter a dungeon, is related to how many dungeons is cleared per unit time in a particular server/ data center. Do you agree?

500 DPS queued and 1 hour later 50 dungeons are cleared (as there are only 50 angelic tanks). 400 DPS are left in line.
- will be using this as comparison later

500 DPS queued and 1 hour later 100 dungeons are cleared. 300 DPS are left in line.

Simple enough? So to reduce everyone's wait time, we just have to increase the dungeons cleared per unit time. The obvious way to do this is the alleviate the bottleneck, tanks.

So, lets say all the incentives attracted 50 nasty tanks (quit on one wipe or projected to be not speed-running fast enough or just hates humanity in general). They wreck havoc in the duty roulette, but they do get dungeons done eventually. Thus, increasing dungeons cleared per unit time. Returning to the number example I gave:

500 DPS queued, of which 30 became tanks (20 healers became tanks) leaving us at 470 DPS queued. 50 dungeons were cleared by the existing angelic tanks and 15 dungeons are cleared by the new tanks (35 dungeons failed due to "bad apples"). Leaving 340 DPS in line, of which 70 of them are somewhat angry; also 35 tanks and/ or healers who are riding the penalty. Is this better than the leaving 400 DPS in line (but a guaranteed chance of clearing a dungeon when you enter it, someday)? Of course! This means average DPS queue time has gone down, although variance in queue time has gone up. The unfortunate DPSes whose party failed will have to wait double or more <this can be reduced by your suggestion of placing them ahead of queue, somehow>. These unfortunate DPSes are yes, punished due to the action of others; but it is luck of the draw; tomorrow you may be able to one-shot whatever it is.

And there you have it, if you, a DPS became a tank, you will cut everyone's waiting time! And, if you became a tank that leaves dungeons for fun (when you enter duty finder, you have a dungeon clear rate of 10%), you will still be cutting everyone's waiting time, while worsening the community. So from Square Enix's point of view, if they manage to even convince one decent person (or 3 guys having the combined efficiency of one) to change class into tank through mounts and gil, they successfully reduced queue times for DPS. As for increasing penalties, they have to somehow reach a numerical conclusion themselves (they do have a psychologist in the staff lineup, right? right?), if this scares away new tanks or worse, dissuaded existing tanks from using the duty finder, then DPS wait time will increase.