An idea to help roulette queue times

[Arrius]

Frankly I have no idea what SE were thinking relasing 2 DPS classes at once, while DK and AST didn't fix the problem long term I still remember when I was levelling my DK and I saw Adventurer in need DPS.

Honestly this is not an easy fix but it's the only one that will sort out the issue long term.

And that shows that even throwing out new tanks and healers won't change a thing about what is in demand on Roulettes, as playing a DPS is the most fun role with the least responsibility.
So, yeah - Wanna play the 'most fun role' in the dungeon, like the other ~60% of players? Then you have to wait.

[Zojha]

Unfortunately there is nothing simple about this suggestion[...]

Actually, adding DPS to a party is very simple: You just up the HP of the mobs. It's possible to do that with a blanket script - You essentially just give the mobs the Echo buff, rather than the players, if there are additional DPS in the group. In a good code, it would be a non-issue. In SE's spaghetti code, it might not be as trivial, but I doubt it would be impossible.

Adding tanks and healers is hard: Aggro is binary, hence why offtanks are usually just DPS until that one gimmick they are needed for happens. Similarly, inflating incoming damage for healers is not a sustainable concept, at some point people just flat die before a cast can go off.

As for how lasting the fix would be, that depends entirely on how the role ratio develops. The basic issue is that the ratio at which roles are preferably played does not equal the ratio the game demands for groups. Whenever the two fail to meet, queues ensue. If as a result from bearable queues more people start to play DPS, then the ratio would shift again and you'd need to add even more slots until either an equilibrium is reached or literally everyone is playing DPS, in which case you'd need to start questioning the trinity as such (Which, at that point, would likely no longer be controversial, as everyone would already be playing DPS anyway).

The main issue with that arises in less populated content - When you up the player count, it requires more players to play at all. Hence, simply retroactively adjusting every dungeon one by one to be fixed on a 5 man party isn't a good idea in the first place, you want to keep the option for groups to start with less DPS and thus less players in case there aren't any waiting in line. It's why the 24 man frontline option is still valuable, even if it isn't played much right now. Dynamically adjusting it is the way to go.

Attempting to make tanks and healers appealing can in theory fix the issue as well. In practice, people try it out, realize a tank is still a tank, get sad that such a cool class got "wasted" by giving it to tanks and then roll a DPS again. Gee, just looking at the popular first names in that census thread makes me think DRK was perfect for popularity in the western market and it still didn't manage to produce a lasting effect.

[Dortharl]

Actually, adding DPS to a party is very simple: You just up the HP of the mobs.

It's really not as simple as just increasing HP of mobs since you aren't taking into consideration any mechanics these mobs might have which have been designed with 4 players in mind. I can think of a number of dungeon bosses which have mechanics which rely on having 4 member parties.


And to clarify my point on making Tank classes more desirable I'm not suggesting only creating new tank jobs, my suggestion was to make tank / healer roles more desirable that includes existing tank / Healer jobs. Otherwise all that will happen is existing Tanks / Healers will re-roll to the new jobs as was the case with DRK / ASTs

[Zojha]

I can think of a number of dungeon bosses which have mechanics which rely on having 4 member parties.

I can't think of many where it would be an issue. Lemme recap... Sastasha, Tam-Tara, Copperbell, Halatali, Toto-Rak, Haukke, Brayflox, Quarn, Cutter's Cry, Stone Vigil and Dzemael are all fine, Aurum Vale would need another fruit spawn. Wanderer's Palace, Pharos Sirius, Amdapor Keep, Brayflox HM, Quarn HM, Wanderer's Palace HM, Amdapor Keep HM, Lost City of Amdapor, Keeper of the Lake, Hullbreaker, Tam-Tara HM, Haukke HM... those would all be fine as well. Halatali HM would need a fifth orb, Stone Vigil HM a 5th cannon. Dusk Vigil, Sohm Al, Aery, Vault and Gubal also work, Aetherochemical needs that 5th Rift at the end. HW endgame dungeons look similar.
Yeah, overall, I don't think it's a big issue. I mean, dungeon difficulty might slightly vary as you have to dodge one more or less AoE, but dungeon difficulty isn't exactly high in the first place, so I don't think that matters much. Charibert is the only one I could think of where people might cry because of the additional Heavensflame drop - apparently, some people already have major issues with him as is.

That aside: Yes, I get that. Hence why I said - In the end, people notice a tank is still a tank, the core gameplay of the role remains, no matter how cool the job seems. And it has to remain, because it's what defines the role. You get aggro, you get hit and you mitigate, the specifics of that have changed through the expansions (And more importantly, over the different games that offer the role), but that core remains. DRK was nice and active and very DPS focused especially in the STR meta, the line to a regular DPS was highly blurred. Similar goes for WAR. Their off-tank gameplay was largely on par with that of a regular DPS, the issue was that they still had to actually tank in light parties.
To make it more appealing, you essentially need to make a tank less of a tank. And worse - to appeal to DPS players, and you have to appeal to DPS players because your tank and healer players are already playing those roles, you essentially need to offer them a better DPS job than they can get from DPS jobs.

The underlying issue with the approach is that the people you are trying to make tanking/healing more appealing for are people who don't really care about tanking/healing in the first place. You will have to compromise the core of what the role is to achieve something with it, which in turn is likely to alienate your existing playerbase of those roles, a lot.

[ffchampion]

They need to add something to the previous things. I only ever do Expert Roulette as my Tank/DPS. The cluster is great from leveling. but i have no need to do any of the others. Doing Expert every day i'll hit the cap

[Dortharl]

...

Changing Tank / Healer roles so that are more appealing may well alienate some of the current players who choose those roles but it is the only long term fix to the issue, as I have said in my early posts even if they were to add one more dps to dungeons this would only be a stop-gap, one that would require extensive re balancing and some re-design of existing content.

I don't envy SE as someone who both Tanked and Healed to max level I gave up healing because for me it was completely uninteresting once you had the basics down there was wasn't really anywhere to go. I'm getting bored of Tanking for the same reason, it's strange because I am yet to bored of playing my BLM despite that being my main and the job I play the most. I think SE really struggle to make Tanking and Healing roles interesting and engaging to the same degree as they are with DPS roles.