DPS Queue Times

[Iscah]

There are also more DPS classes compared to tanks and healers.

3 tanks, 3 healers, 9 DPS (counting summoner/scholar separately)

If everyone plays all the classes evenly, there are just more DPSes relative to the party balance of 1:1:2 slots to fill.

[Fhaerron]

Tank is my main too but I never found it 'annoying' to wait as a DPS. Do you just stand there in limsa 20 mins while waiting? O.o

I'm lvl-ing my BLM, I put sound on max (speakers), put myself in queu and then start to clean up or start on making dinner, etc. I don't really have to make dinner myself since I eat at work but you catch my drill.

Yesterday I did lvl, trial, 50-60, alliance raid and ... main scenario (this was actually a missclick as I wanted to select alliance raid ...).
I was lvl-ing my Magikarp on pokemon yellow on my DS while waiting. It's also a good thing to do while you wait between cutscenes in main scenario.

Just do other things. I sometimes also play on my Switch, or review whatever I studied that day (I study every day after work).

I don't see it as a disadvantage, Yes you have instant queu on tank job but then the stuff I do in between queus on my DPS job I then do when I finish all que's as tank. Time spent do to everything is the same whatever I play DPS or tank.

You're crazy if you just stand there doing nothing ...

[Joe777]

I think you're still painting with too broad a brush. I'd argue DRK specifically stands out as a notoriously made fun of job, look no further than the linkin park music overlay and 'edgelord' title.

For the extremely casual portion of the playerbase I can definitely see the mindset of tanking and healing potentially causing a bit of social anxiety because in a dungeon or non-extreme trial tank and healer mistakes are punished much more heavily (deaths mostly) where as a dps doing an awful job can mostly squeak by without anyone noticing.

This 100% flips in EX primals and Savage or anything with an enrage though, suddenly the pressure is on the dps to perform well enough to keep the group alive and not just the support roles.

Overall I just think you're trying to make some blanket statements here that don't really cover everything. It's very subjective. You might feel that healing has the potential for more 'social issues' but I think it's unfair to portray that as the view of 'many veterans'.

I'm sorry, I'm sure you believe everything you're saying here but I just don't think these beliefs are as widely held as you might think.

The appeal of DRK to new players is in how little they know of what people think of it, as well as how little they care about the meta. This is also what people brand new to the game look at when choosing their beginning class. Naturally, more often than not, they choose a DPS since there is only 2 Tanks and 1 Healer available at first to choose from, but of course those that pick Arcanist can opt for Scholar as they see fit. Opinions change over the course of gameplay after they get to know a job enough, but initially appeal is in job aesthetics, not performance. And personally, I don't have the metahate boner so many others do toward DRK just because it's outdone by PLD and WAR. Far as I'm concerned, it does fine, and DRK is my go-to for tanking.

It is true not everyone turns away from Healer and Tank despite the grief they typically get, and said grief is also situational depending on who you get in PUGs, and yes DPS get their share. It is an ongoing finger-pointing war after all. However, when it comes to easy content people tend to find DPS more laid back as all they have to do is deal damage and let the Tank and Healer worry about covering them. Sure DPS tend to employ their supports and do their rotations and AoEs but not everyone actually bothers when content is easy. Now I can't speak for the Savage community as I, being a casual gamer, don't live in difficult content so I speak from what I do know, as well as what I have heard. Sure it's not entirely factual, but then again what job/role you choose is entirely based on opinion anyway.

You're right in saying that I can't speak for everyone, but when you look around in your server community and on the forums you get a general gist of how many feel. Sure that only accounts for a fraction of the entire playerbase but we can't exactly say those unaccounted for don't feel this way. I'm not trying to tell anyone this is how people feel, I'm just giving reasons DPS jobs tend to be more used than Tanks and Healers and thus result in high queue times. Am I right? Am I wrong? I can't say for sure, I can only speculate. Either way, the fact remains that tons of people play DPS. Even the typical 1/1/2 role ratio is not entirely close to that ratio as there are more DPS players, hence the longer queues.


TL;DR version: My beliefs on the reason DPS queues are so long are irrelevant until proven factual as they are speculation and nothing more based on what I see and hear from others. The relevant thing here is so many people play DPS over Tank and Healer that it causes long DPS queue times as a result, regardless of the reason why. Until Tanks and Healers see a surge in usage, this will always be the case. Call my reasoning what you will but it doesn't change the fact DPS usage far outweighs the DPS/Healer/Tank ratio, which is why DPS queue faster into Raids.


P.S. I do not like Linkin Park nor am I an edgelord and I prefer to play DRK over PLD and WAR. Such stereotyping is just plain wrong...

Tank is my main too but I never found it 'annoying' to wait as a DPS. Do you just stand there in limsa 20 mins while waiting? O.o

I'm lvl-ing my BLM, I put sound on max (speakers), put myself in queu and then start to clean up or start on making dinner, etc. I don't really have to make dinner myself since I eat at work but you catch my drill.

Yesterday I did lvl, trial, 50-60, alliance raid and ... main scenario (this was actually a missclick as I wanted to select alliance raid ...).
I was lvl-ing my Magikarp on pokemon yellow on my DS while waiting. It's also a good thing to do while you wait between cutscenes in main scenario.

Just do other things. I sometimes also play on my Switch, or review whatever I studied that day (I study every day after work).

I don't see it as a disadvantage, Yes you have instant queu on tank job but then the stuff I do in between queus on my DPS job I then do when I finish all que's as tank. Time spent do to everything is the same whatever I play DPS or tank.

You're crazy if you just stand there doing nothing ...

I think you take the reasoning behind just waiting for the queue for granted. The more you preoccupy yourself, the more that queue wants to pop on you when you can't get to it in time to proceed. Of course the opposite can be said in that queue times figuratively take longer when you do just wait, but that's just how it is lol

Also I don't do nothing per se, I will occupy myself by wandering around, reading a chat conversation/engaging in one, checking on some things, etc.

[Chocolys]

I'm currently lv61 and the fates around Rhalgr's Reach can be pretty tough especially the bosses. Playing as a Tank before, I don't have much good caster gear and the tomestones needed to get the shire stuff is out of reach (because of the stupid dungeon queues.) I forgot about the hunt bills though. I'll have to look into that. :-)

Do you use your chocobo companion when doing the fates? It helps a lot, especially if you have a healer speced one. A chocobo certainly does not replace a healer but the few heals it gives can make the differnce between stand your ground or run for your life

[Tridus]

I think the variety of dps jobs contributes significantly to the disparity in support v. dps roles, not sure if you're implying otherwise but if so I'd have to call that out. If not ignore this

It doesn't. Not really. We've seen that in multiple games, and here when HW came out. Once the initial shiny new period wears off, people go back to their preferred roles. Adding new tank/healer jobs appeals a lot to people who already play tanks/healers. It does little to nothing to entice people who don't want to do those roles. YoshiP talked about that before, where the overwhelming majority of DRK players were playing tanks before that, and the overwhelming majority of AST players were playing healers before that.

We've seen the same thing in reverse in Stormblood. Outside of the initial new and shiny period, queue times have largely gone back to where they were before SAM & RDM were introduced, and the old order has reasserted itself. Once queue times hit a certain length and the initial shiny period wears off, people largely migrate back to their preferred roles, with the tank & healer players encouraged to do so by not having to wait forever to do anything.

Doing something drastic like increasing group size to 5 would help because you'd get 50% more DPS through the queue for every tank and healer, but that is a HUGE undertaking, to put it kindly. That's the kind of thing you have to decide pretty early on in development and it becomes a nightmare to change it later.

(It's a good thing I like healing and don't hate tanking, because with the play time I have, I'd probably quit if I had to sit in the DPS queue constantly as spending half my time waiting just isn't very fun.)

[GetFoesReqd]

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend what helps me in these times. My perception of queue times was formed around some 60-90 minute nonsense in WoW during its Wrath and Cataclysm expansions. It sucks, but compared to that, 20 minutes pretty much whizzes by, in a game like this with so much side crap to do. But for 14 I will echo the hunts/beast tribes recommendation, that usually gets me through a couple of queues before I'm done. Gathering for Grand company seals is a pretty good time waster too, if you focus on getting HQ's.

[Mithron]

Remember when Yoshi said DPS queues wouldn't be a problem even though they're adding only two new DPS to expansion?

[Renato]

I'm lvl-ing my BLM, I put sound on max (speakers), put myself in queu and then start to clean up or start on making dinner, etc. I don't really have to make dinner myself since I eat at work but you catch my drill.
I was lvl-ing my Magikarp on pokemon yellow on my DS while waiting. It's also a good thing to do while you wait between cutscenes in main scenario.
Just do other things. I sometimes also play on my Switch, or review whatever I studied that day (I study every day after work).

And I totally get that...I usually do find something to watch on Youtube or attempt to do beast quests, FATES, etc. But that's

[Dortharl]

Remember when Yoshi said DPS queues wouldn't be a problem even though they're adding only two new DPS to expansion?

As a tank main that switched to SAM, all I can say is oops.

[MoroMurasaki]

It doesn't. Not really. We've seen that in multiple games, and here when HW came out. Once the initial shiny new period wears off, people go back to their preferred roles. Adding new tank/healer jobs appeals a lot to people who already play tanks/healers. It does little to nothing to entice people who don't want to do those roles. YoshiP talked about that before, where the overwhelming majority of DRK players were playing tanks before that, and the overwhelming majority of AST players were playing healers before that.


We've seen the same thing in reverse in Stormblood. Outside of the initial new and shiny period, queue times have largely gone back to where they were before SAM & RDM were introduced, and the old order has reasserted itself. Once queue times hit a certain length and the initial shiny period wears off, people largely migrate back to their preferred roles, with the tank & healer players encouraged to do so by not having to wait forever to do anything.

Doing something drastic like increasing group size to 5 would help because you'd get 50% more DPS through the queue for every tank and healer, but that is a HUGE undertaking, to put it kindly. That's the kind of thing you have to decide pretty early on in development and it becomes a nightmare to change it later.

(It's a good thing I like healing and don't hate tanking, because with the play time I have, I'd probably quit if I had to sit in the DPS queue constantly as spending half my time waiting just isn't very fun.)

You know if you ever wanna go DPS main I will keep you healer-queued up so you aren't waiting :P

That aside... no? I'll elaborate. I don't think I spent enough time on my prior post. When I say 'variety' it isn't just that there are more dps but rather the actual variety offered by dps gameplay.

The variety of dps roles isn't just that there are nine of them instead of 3 tanks and 3 healers it's that they all offer different gameplay. They've got definition to them that you just don't find with tanks and healers. All tanks have a threat combo, an AoE enmity generator on GCD, a ST ranged enmity generator, an immunity, tank stance, dps stance... there is serious homoginization here. All healers have a basic ST heal, stronger ST heal, basic AoE heal, stronger AoE heal, Raise not to mention almost always taking the same role actions with little exception. Let's not look too hard at AST/WHM in particular because we all know what a cookie cutter that is.

I understand why these similaraties in support roles exist but it doesn't change the fact that it contributes to them feeling very similar overall and especially when compared to their DPS brethren who rarely share anything apart from role actions and for melee the presence of combos (except MNK).

In my opinion (as someome who still consideres themselves a healer main) DPS roles in general were designed with distinct identities in mind and then had potency tweaks to bring their dps more or less in line with each other where as tanks and especially healers were designed around their utilities and core skillset and then separated at some points by little more than aesthetics.

The reason I enjoy dpsing now is that each time I do it the experience still feels fresh, probably because I've banged healer reflex memory into my skull through leveling them each to 70. There is a reason Cure/Physick/Benefic all share a button for me and for most healers. For someone who doesn't enjoy the actual healing gameplay I'd wager (much like me with tanking) the thought of leveling another job through basically the same routine seems at best daunting and at worst boring. I am quite sure this contributes in a meaningful way to the dps queue times.

Also I'm very much in favor of 5 man dungeons and I don't think it would take as much tweaking as some people think either. Obviously we would need to increase enemy HP proportionally but there are plenty of dungeons where no actual mechs would need altering.