Increase DF speeds by setting weekly lockouts per role

[Shadowkept]

Your scenario is very probable though I haven't seen any such conversation in my FC (usually just rants about long ques). However, I am asking do you disagree that adding more DPS to the current party makeup by increasing party size would decrease the que for DPS? Because that is my point. Do you think we'd see the reverse where tanks/healers are forced to wait in que for enough DPS if the party makeup was 3 or 4 DPS for every one tank/healer. It seems on Balmung (and I don't know anyway to prove this) that you can que for ST far faster than 4 man content, and I am talking about the time it takes the que to match 8 people together not the time it takes people to be smart enough, aware enough, our just at their keyboard to click the button to enter. BTW census slide #36 breaks the role distribution down w/o DoL and DoH as 13% Healer, 19% tank, 68% DPS. So why do tanks and healers a combined 32% get the same party representations (2 slots) and the 68% DPS (2 slots).

[Zarzak]

Would have to triple the cost of everything. Or make the caps 150. Otherwise people would be full geared in like 3 weeks.

[Einheri]

Your scenario is very probable though I haven't seen any such conversation in my FC (usually just rants about long ques). However, I am asking do you disagree that adding more DPS to the current party makeup by increasing party size would decrease the que for DPS? Because that is my point. Do you think we'd see the reverse where tanks/healers are forced to wait in que for enough DPS if the party makeup was 3 or 4 DPS for every one tank/healer. It seems on Balmung (and I don't know anyway to prove this) that you can que for ST far faster than 4 man content, and I am talking about the time it takes the que to match 8 people together not the time it takes people to be smart enough, aware enough, our just at their keyboard to click the button to enter. BTW census slide #36 breaks the role distribution down w/o DoL and DoH as 13% Healer, 19% tank, 68% DPS. So why do tanks and healers a combined 32% get the same party representations (2 slots) and the 68% DPS (2 slots).

The only way to help DF ques for dps is to increase the ratio of tanks and a lesser extant healers to dps.

So with the same break down we used last time

100 players but 5 person make up
21 tanks
55 dps
24 healers

so now the DPS decide the que times. you can have 18 grps with 3 dps and 1 tank and healer. 3 tanks would have to wait in que and with 1 dps and 6 healers. Now healers would have the longest que.

As long as DPS population doesn't also increase this would work. It would be a lot more feasible then forcing or trying to get people to play a style they do not enjoy for what ever reason. It would take a fundamental design change in how they balance and set up encounters for grps. Which is very possible in the future. I would think 4.0 before 3.0 but that's only my opinion.

I think what a lot of players would like is a Support role being added as the 5th spot in a grp. I am personally on the fence about the support role. In rift the 5th spot is for support but its only useful for a short period before players out gear content and the support role is relegated to a dps for speed. Crowd control quickly gets tossed aside for aoe clears. WoW used to have a heavy reliance on CC in TBC, would take forever to get gprs because you had to take a mage and or rogue. They bailed on that design in Wrath for aoe rush. Bring the player not the class yada yada

I also find in general support means dps/heals more then debuff/buff bots. As buffers/debuffers need to bring enough to be more useful then a full fledged healer or dps. Lore Masters and Burglars in lotro were good examples. Burgs could force fellowship maneuvers (think QTE Limitbreaks) and CC. Lore master did some healing debuffing mana restoring and battle rez. You wouldn't go on a raid with out either but small grps could do without.

So besides limited time span of usefulness of support roles, you also have to worry about their population. they tend to be the hardest thing to find cause they aren't really great at anything and you basically have to play one for the sake of you friends/guild.

Thoughts Ideas corrections addendum?

[Delorean]

Mwuah, I disagree on the notion that the same applies to DPS classes.

In DF? Probably not.

Personality of the player can determine enjoyment from tanking as much or more then mechics/playstyle, hell even dps.

Sure. But clearly, a large majority of the playerbase strongly prefers healing or damage dealing over tanking.

If a dd and tank played exactly the same, did the same damage had the same resposibiltys in a fight the only difference being that one got punched in the face while the other didn't. The latter will still be more popular.

I'll put it this way - a tank has no responsibility that any decent player does not have.

It is not exclusive to the role of tanking to have good knowledge of enemy pathing and kiting or to use a strong defensive cooldown when taking heavy damage.

The only difference between a melee DPS and a Tank is that one has more health than the other and is outfitted with defensive and high threat abilities. If you can play a melee dps very well, then you can undoubtedly play a tank pretty well - the transition is pretty seamless.

But I think that when people look at tanks, all that they see is this non-contributing class. Like, it doesn't bring anything to a group (i'm mostly talking about light party content here), how could it be fun to play?

and it's like, you know what crosses my mind right before I click Join? That I'm 95% sure that I am a better DPS than the players I am going to get grouped with. That, I could get a fast queue as a tank but what is even the point if the dungeon takes twice as long to clear? I could queue as a tank, and have spent most of my time in FFXIV clearing content as a tank, but I just chose to queue as a DPS. Why?

I just don't feel like I can make enough difference as a tank unless the tank is moving slower than a tortoise with a sprain. That, tanking is easy enough that I will make the most effective contribution to a group by playing a DPS.

[Sapphic]

If it hasn't been said, your idea forces people to level and play classes they may not want or feel comfortable playing. It also screws over the tanks & healers who do Queue up to help, which isn't uncommon. Your system would mean that I only tank/heal for friends, FC mates and/or charge for my services.

I mostly tank and heal roulettes, depending on Role bonus. But I use the tomestones I get from them to gear up my main job, MNK. With system OP is suggesting, I would have to use MNK to get poetics to gear up my MNK thus taking another tank/healer out of the pool. Also, those main tank will gear up in a few weeks from poetics, then stop running roulettes with tank but instead DPS, also if they run coil they will be taking drops from there so less weeks farming poetics in roulette.

In the end even less tanks will que in roulette.

[chitokai]

a weekly lockout per job would be amazing, would be a lot of work to program for the Tomes though so i don't think it'll happen anytime soon

[Alukah]

a weekly lockout per job would be amazing, would be a lot of work to program for the Tomes though so i don't think it'll happen anytime soon

Any change to the currency system wont happen until the expansion

Even if it's a system different to what OP proposes, I do hope by the time the expansion hits they review gear acquisition through tomes and the armory system. Dark Knight being a magic tank will use a completely different set of gear and the gunner job could follow the same path, making it even harder.