Shortage of tanks a myth - thoughts?

[KarmaCha]

I agree. I have an i114 tank. I don't use it in DF because I'm tired of DPS treating me like their slave. You have long queue times because your peers are jerks, and make people like myself heal instead.

[Lewtskie]

My very first 50 was WAR, and I had fun taking it to 50, wasn't a bad journey but post 50 it dropped off real quick. It could be that I had some real good luck and never came across severely bad apples until then, but on 50 things just got messy. Admittedly I can be a bit timid about runs and so I've never done a speed run, not taking it slow, but definitely not trying to grab everything in the damn room. People weren't happy, never were. Even had situations where DPS would initiate shit ahead of me. Over time I just kept getting more and more nervous about everything and eventually too timid to run any higher tier content. In the end I switched to DPS and main'd them since. At this point I can't even think were to attempt picking back up my WAR so it now only lives on in my retainer.

Tanking mechanics are interesting and lively, but with critical teammates bearing down with snarky remarks or worse it makes some people nervous and everything more difficult than it needs to be.

[Shyluv]

First time I did garuda story as WHM, I did one very small mistake and got myself killed which slowly brought down the rest of the party. The DRG of the group said "..." But that was it. We tried again and got a little further, but again I died and then so did the rest. This time the DRG said, "you are a shitty healer. Worst I've ever seen in any MMO. You should really stop playing. Just leave so we can get a better healer than you." And I did leave.

I loved WHM too much to fully stop healing. And I still go as WHM to pretty much everything. I leveled BLM as a back up. I have no idea why I leveled SCH/SMN.

So I haven't seen very many healers be mean to tanks, but I have seen a lot of DPS do so.

And I've gotten grief from both tanks and DPS.

[Eidolon]

Tanks aren't rare. There's too many of us for the amount of endgame offered. <_< All of you should go switch to heals/DPS so I can be the last of our kind o/

In all seriousness, I believe in the leveling game, there is a clear lack of tanks. 1-50 there's really not enough tank/heals to go around, though this might be due moreso to the ratio of tanks:healers that are leveling...

However, in end game, it tends to be much easier to find good tanks. So I think the "Myth" as you said ends at 50.

[AlternativeOne]

Someone complains about something every time. Even though my war is i115 I Haven't tanked much of anything. So im not as good as some of the tanks Ive healed. Im certain I dont suck though. Instead of offering advice or telling what they feel is wrong they just bitch and whine like punks. So unless Im farming poetics or chasing a piece of gear for my tank im not tanking anything. I feel tanking is the toughest roll in the game and having people complain is annoying since they really don't have any responsibility in a fight except to dodge which most people cant even do. Thats my perspective as a i130 blm, and i126 whm so i see it from every angle. Im definitely discouraged from tanking stuff.

[AskaRay]

The only time I was ever directly yelled at by anyone while tanking was first time doing Tam Tara as tank...and it was pretty clear that the DPS in question was there to troll only.

I once got yelled at by a SMN while healing because I let the tank die, since I blew my rez on the DPS that had been raised by the SMN two seconds faster than me... but we talked (I literally forgot SMN could raise at all.....) and it was all right in the end.

Personally I never try to be mean to anyone in DF, even tanks, unless they're going at it first (I'm only human, even though you want to be the bigger person in those situations we all have off days). I don't like to tank in DF though... tanking makes me nervous and I don't really like having the attention of all the monsters. I also don't like being yelled at. If I suck, tell me why, I can try to improve. Name calling/etc is unnecessary. I've seen tanks take shit that was undeserved (and some that was, but, ahem) and I don't particularly want to experience it.

[KisaiTenshi]

No offense, but your system is inherantly bad because:
1) It forces people to do it, or else "Risk marking yourself down"
2) Anything that inconveniences players will naturally see them just leaving it to the natural answers (Your idea of hitting esca)E
3) It should NEVER be forced on a player.

I don't mind an optional survey/option at the end. Optional is good. I always select "No" on optional surveys. But like I said, the moment you try and -force- it on me? That's when I'll just put everything was ****.

I like the current system of commendations. People will gravitate towards whatever they usually gravitate towards. Exceptional play, and some people might give you -extra- coms. But never forced. Never.

I didn't say it was forced, I said if you hit cancel, it just auto-scores as average. If a duty was awful, people would certainly go to town and mark down the bad actors. Likewise if it was exceptional and mark up the good ones. Whatever the average score is, is what you rated yourself.

To go back to my CSR example, the other site I worked for used to have positive and negative feedback, everyone had 98% or better feedback because people were outright terrified of being marked down. Literately, if you had 97.9% you were at risk of having your account suspended. People also knowingly bought feedback (RMT >_>) by buying downloadables from Chinese pirates. Then they removed negative feedback entirely because bad actors were using it as a way to hold each other hostage and was actively chasing people off the platform.

You don't make the score visible, because that causes retaliation. You only use it to weight the DF so that good players get faster queues by being matched together, and trolls get lumped together and either shape up or quit. As this thread has demonstrated, the game would be better of people would have some patience.

The only reason why it would not make good sense to implement it as is, is that it would take too long to do without knowing the difference between a "good" player and a "bad" player based only on numbers. People who only play with their friends/static using PF would never be given surveys.

[elemental10]

The myth is very real, mate. But at a much smaller scale than you think it is.

The amount of people who harass tanks/healers are not much. Say, in at least 10 runs I do in low-level duty roulette, I'd get all smooth runs on a good day and at max 2 runs that went bad because DPS.

The proportions is blown out of control because the tanks/healers/people that get harassed tells their side of the story and automatically blame the general community for being toxic.

The myth is real, yes. But ask the average tank/healer how many times have they actually get harassed and how many times have runs gone smooth? I bet most of them will say a lot of their runs are actually smooth and only a few them turned sour.

[Canadane]

I don't consider someone who's simply leveled, or even half-heartedly geared a tank class to be "a tank" in any way what so ever.
To be a tank, you need to actually use it, abuse it, love it, hate it, ride with it. You have the prestige, the responsibility, the leadership, the ability to be the target of everyones hate (and you thought you only needed a mobs enmity!) and walk it off like it's nothing.

In this sense, the shortage of tanks continues to be an issue and is overall real. Unfortunately, it takes a certain kind of person to be a tank (this also applies to healers), and there isn't much you can do to get people to change over to one. Even Dark Knight tanks will go through the same trials of their peers all other tanks end up going through.

[KarmaCha]

It depends on how good you are at your job. No one ever complains when I heal, and a lot of the times I'm doing DPS on par with the others.

But when I tank it's another story. Sometimes I can't keep up with the over healing, the stray mobs, or DPS grabbing things ahead of me. I get overwhelmed and then I die and someone, sometimes, patronizes me and makes me feel inadequate. The problem lies in how transparent the tank and healer roles faults are. When a tank or a healer make a mistake, you know it. But no one calls out the BLM doing 250 DPS in i130, who is slowing the run down more than anyone. Half the player base can't parse, most of the other half won't admit to it in party chat. So nothing gets said.

There is immense pressure on tanks to play how the party wants but there is almost no pressure on DPS to play efficiently, let alone their best. If the tables were turned and DF DPS had to wear their mistakes on their faces, people would be a lot more respectful to one another.