Tank entitlement vs group entitlement

[Keddera_StormMoon]

I'm not a fan of the mindless big pull - there are always going to be just certain groups where I will never big pull either because there are large mobs that are a pain to control or certain stuff just hits too hard. I'm a healer main, so I'm mindful of the stress I'm putting on my healer.

Now, if the group as a whole politely requests larger pulls, I will likely give it a try. The key word being "Politely".

[kidalutz]

As a tank and healer myself When tanking I will always bite a small pull first to see how my PuG handles it if it's smooth and easy, I'll pull more. If it's grating and people aren't even trying to AoE or move out of stuff, or the healers overfocused on damage to the point that my health drops into danger levels with a CD Popped to the point that I gotta clemency myself twice in a row? You're darn straight they aren't going to get big pulls out of me.

I wont claim all tanks do this TBH since I heal more often than tank I rarely ever get a Tank that even tries to mitigate or move (Looking at you DRK Not all of you but most I've gotten stuck healing are culprit)

I also pop potions and do what I can to stay alive but I'll be honest theres alot of bad healers out there too all it takes is a couple of times of a healer or two trying to push out that one last damage spell while the tanks self heal is busted and CDs recharging and that's all she wrote. Newer tanks are gunshy from that point on.

Myself I dont really care one way or another I know Tanks and Healers come in good and dren varieties.

As to the kicking bit *shrug* I think that premades should stay out of roulette and go with PF instead.

[SenorPatty]

Hey,

Earlier today within discord a group of us got into an disagreement around tank entitlement vs group entitlement, which inherently holds more value. What started this conversation within our discord is that group of players within our discord removed a tank that refused to do larger pulls despite the group offering encouragement, and telling them not to worry if things go south that they have their back. The tank refused, so the three removed the tank from the group.

Reason the debate started within the discord was because certain people felt that they were in the wrong that tanks inherently set the pace of the run no one else end of story. The provided reasons that removing someone for not doing large pulls is selfish since it will overall not speed up the group. When I posed the question why does a tank deserve special treatment over any other role? If the group wants to do the large pulls the tank should at the very least try. If this go south so be they can adjust after.

It strikes me as odd since I know for a fact the same group of people that were upset about the removal of the tank refusing to try something new with larger pull despite the group in question telling them that they will be fine and they will support them through it. Have in the past removed dps for refusing to AoE, or healers that do not feel like doing damage and just stand around between downtime.

I am autistic so I tend to have a black and white view on many things, and they did point this out that I am missing the context but no one was able to show me within the context how the tank role is granted a certain level of entitlement that say a dps that refuses to aoe is granted.

So long story short, why is it that a tank role itself seems to be granted a greater degree of entitlement over say three other people in the group. Should the three cater to the desires of the tank simply because they are the tank, or were people right in saying that the tank role itself sets the pace end of the story. Overall just confused since for longest I have been told everything is a group effort enmity control, dos, but pace seems to be a different beast for some. Pace is considered a group effort in the sense that it is expected for DPS to AoE, yet if the overall group is capable of larger pulls and the tank says otherwise then in that case the tank is correct is dictating the pace, but I thought pace was a collective effort.

Agonizes for the spelling and grammatical mistakes.

The following excludes tanks who can mass pull but just won't because they're intentionally and behaviorally trolls. Yes they exist and they just want to watch the whole world burn.

Thought I should put a TL;DR here: A tank's past experiences may prevent him/her, in the form of a mental roadblock, to mass pull and the game's social rules and the way dgns were designed may make us feel like tanks have greater entitlement

There's not a real right or wrong to this. There are so many factors to consider: the duty in question, the group skill levels, the gear (things awkward when people show up in a i250+ instance with i100 gear) and so on. To answer the bolded, there is one factual aspect to the answer: they're the least played role in the game and what does that have to do with group entitlement? It's not as much about the entitlement and rather the consequences that aspect brings about. Socially - when it comes to mmorpgs - the tank role is the most criticized role. In this game where most content can be done with only one tank, when that person falls, things fall apart fast. In older games, a tank dying meant that a more robust dps, like the equivalent of a drg, could come and substitute for a bit until the tank was back up and running but in this one, unless you're doing 8man or 24man content, the greater the amount of enemies that are being pulled, the closer to a wipe you get if the tank dies. This might be one of the things at the very least that troubles people who are inexperienced at tanking in this game or just have not gained enough skills to be confident in their "mass pull game".

So going back over the greater entitlement tanks issue, with what I've said above, tanks usually have to deal with three immidate concerns, which might as well be a checklist:

-Do I know this place inside out?

-Can I trust my party members to play decently?

-Am I confident enough in myself to do it?

Although not asked out loud and they're in no particular order, I feel that this is more or less what tanks fall back to in order to determine if they're going to mass pull. If I were to take myself as an example, since I'm up to date with all the dgn content, I don't need to checklist the first question. This is turns bolsters my confidence and in regards to the 3rd question, having gone through much "trial by fire" situations in mass pulls, I'm usually very confident to initiate the mass pulls. But question #2 was, for a very long time, a big, BIG obstacle to me when I first started learning the ropes. It is not as much as my trust in my party member's skill level that I go by but rather their behavior. There is a lot of party behaviour I can say with utmost confidence would not only deter me from tanking but even if I did, I would probably relegate to the safest tanking playstyle possible: the one pack at a time pull. In my opinion, I firmly believe that question #2 makes or break tanks and unless you tank for a very long time like I did and learn to shrug off the most banal and unbelievable playstyles you'll ever encounter, there is a fair chance that up and coming tanks may just withdraw into their own playstyles, even if it doesn't agree or make sense to do so just to ensure maximum survival and clear rate.

At that point, what comes after that is what happens when you can't even meet in the middle of the road? Although an update regarding the rules of playstyle differences emerged some time ago, neither side (if they were speaking to one another civilly) is inherently right or wrong. There are no rules supporting majority or minority. All that's left is negotiations purely based on many gameplay precedences:

-Tanks have mass pulled before successfully, so it should be done

-Healers have kept mass pulling groups alive before, so it should be done

-Dps have killed mobs quickly enough to avoid the above running out of resources, so it should be done.

All the while forgetting at times that these precedences are contingent on all three roles reaching the needed skill levels to pull those off. When a tank has not reached this, or cannot meet the questions that I've asked above, then things breakdown and one side must submit: either the rest of the party goes along with it or the tank is excluded. Either way, the impact that both situation has makes the playerbase really feel like the tank has the greater sense of entitlement because the moment he/she's gone, most of the time, there's no moving forward. If the trio that's left goes on to kill each pack at time to make headway, then they ultimately ended up doing the very thing they did not want the tank to do. And if they end up at a boss, most of the time, they can't go further because the game was designed so that bosses will wipe a tankless party.

Hence, the "factual" aspect of why a tank has greater entitlement than the rest of the party.

[cicatriz313]

I mean, telling people not to boot people is kinda the same as telling people to pull more, telling someone how to play. I've heard of plenty of people booting for "playstyle differences" so, kinda just do what you think is right kinda situation.

Edit: If it is indeed the majority of a party vs just the tank, why should 3 people be inconvenienced in the pf to "find what they want" rather than the tank who obviously is in need of hand holding?

[Physic]

I mean, telling people not to boot people is kinda the same as telling people to pull more, telling someone how to play. I've heard of plenty of people booting for "playstyle differences" so, kinda just do what you think is right kinda situation.

Edit: If it is indeed the majority of a party vs just the tank, why should 3 people be inconvenienced in the pf to "find what they want" rather than the tank who obviously is in need of hand holding?

what i am saying is its not about what the majority wants, its about what is a fair expectation for the content.

the expectation will vary depending on the content, and what you agreed to going into the content.

[cicatriz313]

what i am saying is its not about what the majority wants, its about what is a fair expectation for the content.

the expectation will vary depending on the content, and what you agreed to going into the content.

I dunno about you, but maybe 85% of dungeon runs I've been in in the past like.. 3 years have been pulling to the wall aoe grinds. Like so much so that it's a complaint people have about the design of the game. So if it's all about fair expectation, we should expect people to do the norm, not be terrible. But of course that's not what you're saying.

[Fland]

what i am saying is its not about what the majority wants, its about what is a fair expectation for the content.

the expectation will vary depending on the content, and what you agreed to going into the content.

The expectation also includes the possibility of getting paired with other people who might kick us out, for whatever reasons (from not the liking the way we play to pure trolling).
I'm not saying it's right or the norm, just that it's better to go with that in mind so we'll get less upset and move on.

[hydralus]

Also I'd like to add it's odd that people are playing an RPG (and a final fantasy one, no less) without an interest in their stats and their character's abilities. I thought RPG players liked to read and test things out to break the game as much as they could?

[SenorPatty]

Also I'd like to add it's odd that people are playing an RPG (and a final fantasy one, no less) without an interest in their stats and their character's abilities. I thought RPG players liked to read and test things out to break the game as much as they could?

Single player rpgs provide the most optimal environment to do all this at no one's expense. MMOs do not.


I could go in-depth but I feel like this short and direct answer covers all the bases.

[Baxcel]

As a tank main i do small pulls only, and ill tell you why. I generally only run with my partner who is a healer main, I know he's easily stressed an can be distracted because he likes to help out with dps too. So i pull smaller so its less stress on us both, and so he gets to feel less like a walking benifect.

Now i have a rule I use when people who ain't the tank try an pull more mobs into a group were already fighting. That rule is, you pull it you tank it till im ready for it. I tell my healer to let them die if they have to, he usually won't cause he's nice lol, but that's my rule.

The reason for my rule is due to a run on the dungeon "The Burn". It being our first time in the dungeon, we were taking our time with single group pulls, working our way to the boss with a random Bard and a random Redmage.
The redmage being a, you guessed it, mentor decided to not say anything an started pulling more mobs. Over an over again, despite me telling him to stop that he wasn't the tank.

We luckily finish with minimal wipes only one on the boss, cause this was blind, first time threw for us. And because i let him tank a few mobs he pulled, never let him die, just get down to about 10%hp and took aggro, trying teach him lesson, he runs for the exit, saying. "Tank an healer you suck. Bard your ok." And bolts out..

So no i won't run by your set pace. Ill run by that's good for me and my healer, and I you kick me, your waiting for a new healer. And if you wanna pull extra, be perpared to hold that aggro because ill get to it when im ready.