DPS Queue Times

[MoroMurasaki]

Also the reason DPS queues are so long compared to Tanks and Healers is because so many people play DPS over the other 2, and not because there are so many DPS job choices.

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

[Joe777]

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's half appeal and half wanting to be DPS. Appeal is especially true to new players. However, many veterans prefer to avoid tanking and healing altogether due to "social issues". Overall, the quantity of people preferring DPS over Tank and/or Healer is bigger than both Tanks and Healers combined. I could be exaggerating as I don't have exact figures or anything, but then again who truly does? Either way, DPS tends to be more appealing in both coolness factor and function over Healers and Tanks. The only true candidate against the coolness factor is Dark Knight, which is usually a player's reason to hurry to Heavensward.

[MoroMurasaki]

It's half appeal and half wanting to be DPS. Appeal is especially true to new players. However, many veterans prefer to avoid tanking and healing altogether due to "social issues". Overall, the quantity of people preferring DPS over Tank and/or Healer is bigger than both Tanks and Healers combined. I could be exaggerating as I don't have exact figures or anything, but then again who truly does? Either way, DPS tends to be more appealing in both coolness factor and function over Healers and Tanks. The only true candidate against the coolness factor is Dark Knight, which is usually a player's reason to hurry to Heavensward.

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.

[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.

[Alacran]

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.

Hey! I represent that remark!

In all seriousness, every game with the trinity mechanic suffers from the Tank/ Healer stigma. It's not only that DPS are deigned to be more fun to play, they are more fun to play because they are not loaded with the responsibilities the others seem to be saddled with. Speaking as merely a casual i cannot say for certain, but i have seldom heard of Healers DPS being integral for completion in everything from pug dungeon runs to endgame progression. The same could be said for the DPS meta minded push for Tanks to do their jobs out of defense stances to push higher DPS for faster completion. Both are not things tailored to the roles but have now seemed to have become expected, regardless of the fine line between success and failure that comes from risk/reward game play styles.

Some do not want and cannot thrive in that situation, couple this with the current imbalance of the shear numbers DPS to other roles and the issue was certain to come yet again to a head (something that was certainly not helped with Samurai being made a DPS).

What ever is released next (job wise) must contend with many issues right out of the gate, and how the community will dictate how it is used in content.

Leveling advice? Make a play list of videos/ music on repeat and Palace of The Dead until you're sick of it... Then do it again a million times. You'll hate it but you'll be level 70 and have no idea what your doing with your job like many others.

"~Crawling in my skin..."

[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.)

[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.

[Tridus]

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

And lose our regular game of "who is going to get stuck DPSing this expert?"

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.

That wraps around to the "can they even add another healer?" thread. And yes, that's a problem. Fundamentally, a DPS job has to be able to put out X DPS in personal DPS and group utility to be viable. How it does that isn't relevant. So you can come up with distinct playstyles more easily.

Healing is not that. Putting out X HPS is meaningless, because healing requirements in this game are bursty. You need a big shield and lots of burst healing at one moment, and then little to nothing for a while. That means any healer they add MUST have that burst potential in order to be viable, which immediately kills concepts like a healer that does steady healing via damage dealing (because most of it would be overheal and you'd need to have a way to burst heal). They only really have three cast speeds on spells: instant, GCD length, and "Raise". So without changing that, concepts that play with spell speed for fast & small/slow & large heals don't work.

Tanks are similar in that they all need a certain amount of on demand mitigation due to how encounters are designed, they all need threat builders, etc. There might be a bit more room for variety there, but in general these two roles have requirements far more specific in nature than "do damage". That greatly narrows the options for making them unique. AST is the shining example of the problem, but I don't think it's easily fixable without changing how encounters are designed and opening up more spell cast time options, among other things.

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.

Yep.

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.

That'd be why PLD is the only tank I have past 30. I have no incentive to go do those ARR dungeons again on the other two.

But if you look at other games, the same imbalances exist even where the tanks & healers are more distinct, like WoW was. Fundamentally, the people who actually want to do those roles are a clear minority. Making another job doesn't change that. You cannot take someone who doesn't want to be responsible for keeping the party alive and get them to play a healing class, no matter how many of them you add. The roles are not balanced on responsibility, how publicly obvious your failures are (ESPECIALLY in a game that bans parsers), and how much you have to pay attention to what the rest of the group is doing. No amount of classes will change that imbalance, and that's a major factor for a lot of people.

In a trinity game, it's a problem that is very hard to solve.

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.

Tuning every encounter in the game to account for the DPS and more people on mechanics is the obvious cost. While it's substantial, it's not the biggest hurdle. There are two other major things:

1. Anywhere in the code where someone made the assumption that a party size is X (4/8) is suspect, becauase if they used a hardcoded number instead of a constant for the maximum, increasing it will break and probably cause a crash bug. That includes many places in the UI, network code, and so on. Much of that code will be very old, likely from 2.0 and possibly from 1.0 if it was carried forward. Going through all of that is a big deal.

2. Network load. While it looks like you're simply adding one person to a group of 4, or a 25% increase, what you're actually doing is far more impactful on the network. When the server is talking to clients in a party, it has to tell every client what every other client is doing, in addition to various system statuses and what the NPCs are doing. System status/NPCs are fixed cost, they don't change based on party size. The cost to tell a client about the other clients is exponential with party size, and for simplicity purpose we're leaving out the server having to tell your client about itself:

in a party of 2, the server tells 2 clients what 1 client is doing, for a total cost of 2*1 = 2
in a party of 3, the server tells 3 clients what 2 clients are doing for a total cost of 3*2=6
in a party of 4, the server tells 4 clients what 3 clients are doing for a total cost of 4*3=12
in a party of 5, the server tells 5 clients what 4 clients are doing for a total cost of 5*4=20

in a party of 8, the server tells 8 clients what 7 clients are doing for a total cost of 8*7=56
in a party of 10, the server tells 10 clients what 9 clients are doing for a total cost of 3*2=90

in a party of 24, the server tells 24 clients what 23 clients are doing for a total cost of 24*23=552 (these numbers being so large is why Alliance raids tend to be janky with things like raid wide damage taking so long to hit everyone, as the server works its way through each person and tells every client. It's also why world zones are limited to a certain size, because 1000 people showing up at the same FATE would create overwhelming load, although there's various techniques to mitigate this)
in a party of 30, the server tells 30 clients what 29 clients are doing for a total cost of 30*29=870


As you can see, boosting party sizes significantly increases the cost of keeping clients in sync on what the other clients are doing. That's a manageable thing, of course, but it's a much bigger deal than simply having the encounter design team boost the HP on everything and call it a day. You also have to multiply those increases by all the groups playing, which won't particularly change because the number of tanks & healers likely won't change a ton (it may go down a bit if queue times decrease). Total load goes up as a result of the change.

As a programmer, I'd argue that the encounter design is the easiest part. While it's certainly a major undertaking, it's fundamentally data manipulation primarily and is a known workload quantity that doesn't impact anything else the same way the network load changes do.