Tanking feels unimportant

[BarretOblivion]

And this is where we disagree.

I wish for something more than DPS. Period. Any other responsibility besides raw damage. Now this doesn't mean I want tanks to be impossible to play through the story content, I don't want their damage nerfed into the ground. I just disagree on the priority of our focus; Damage>everything.

Yes I understand how the game is that's the only thing we can actually have control over but I would prefer the game to be changed; just either to move focus away from damage output or move to make the game far more damage focused and streamlined. But this is getting away from the main topic. As a Tank in this expansion, I feel there. I feel just there. I dont' feel like I'm doing damage, I don't feel like I'm tanking, I don't feel any real joy past the first couple fights as a tank. And again, I feel like I could be replaced with Titan Egi.

As for damage, sure fine deal it. I just wish the thought process that cropped up in Heavensward got squished rather than embraced, by both community and dev team.

Welcome to raiding, every MMO I have played is each role finding ways to do their roles optimally in some way so they can do more damage. More damage = faster kill times = more room for mistakes. Shirk more responsiblity for tanks? Best way to do that is more mechanics focused on the tanks.

[Makeda]

The complaints in this thread could be cross posted to every MMO I have played in the last decade.
The problem is industry wide... and it reflects the fact that back in the old days when the differences in the roles were much more extreme casual content was nearly impossible to get into because you couldn't get people to play anything but DPS even on alts because generally most of them wouldn't touch tanks or healers even on an alt and the tanks and healers generally couldn't manage the time away from the main to have an alt of another role...

Making green and blue DPS didn't start in FFXIV. Not sure where it started... but they did it to make fast lugging possible.

It sucks, but it might have been necessary...

[RinaB]

I had no idea my rant would get this many people talking. I've read every post and it's nice to see so many inputs and opinions and I agree with a lot of what I've read. I believe that if they want to keep tanks they way they are they need more tank mechanics in fights and I would really like them to take make hard modes of the current dungeons with said mechanics as well. they don't have to be purely mitigation mechanics either, like i don't know, they've come up with 1000 different aoe ideas I'm sure they could figure out some interesting things for tanks to do and deal with.

[purgatori]

I may not like where tanking is at right now, but it's not because tanking is more accessible. It needs to be more accessible, because it has been an under-subscribed role. If (at least some) DPS-ing jobs are accessible, why should tanking and healing not be on the same level? We already have tiered content for providing more skilful players with a challenge, so I don't think it really helps the game to put a higher skill premium on some roles over others.

[Nedkel]

I may not like where tanking is at right now, but it's not because tanking is more accessible. It needs to be more accessible, because it has been an under-subscribed role. If (at least some) DPS-ing jobs are accessible, why should tanking and healing not be on the same level? We already have tiered content for providing more skilful players with a challenge, so I don't think it really helps the game to put a higher skill premium on some roles over others.

People dont play tanks not because they are too hard, but because they are boring as hell. Simplifying them even further will only make people run away from them, its already too simple...

The rotations are nothing in comparison to dps, but SE pretend tanks are dps with some deffensive stuff so thats how we play. A poor man version of DPS, this is basically the reason why people go away from tank jobs.
Compare BLM gameplay to the warrior, the BLM is the job which everything could change, your rotation could change, your performance could change, there is a ton of way to optimize your gameplay and do mistakes, where warrior is just straight out get buff, IR > spam fell cleave and thats it. There is a reason why people prefer to play any other tank than warrior, which is one of the simpliest job in the game.

[purgatori]

People dont play tanks not because they are too hard, but because they are boring as hell. Simplifying them even further will only make people run away from them, its already too simple...

The rotations are nothing in comparison to dps, but SE pretend tanks are dps with some deffensive stuff so thats how we play. A poor man version of DPS, this is basically the reason why people go away from tank jobs.
Compare BLM gameplay to the warrior, the BLM is the job which everything could change, your rotation could change, your performance could change, there is a ton of way to optimize your gameplay and do mistakes, where warrior is just straight out get buff, IR > spam fell cleave and thats it. There is a reason why people prefer to play any other tank than warrior, which is one of the simpliest job in the game.

Yeah, I think I may have been off-base in saying that tanks need to be more accessible. I was just resisting the OP's assertion that tanks & healers need to be more complex than DPS. I think all three roles should be about the same in terms of complexity/difficulty, while having variation between individual jobs, as well as tiers of content.

For my own part, I have to say that I definitely find both tanking and healing to be boring, with an additional layer of stress to boot, in ShB, and it's really only some of the DPS jobs that are consistently fun to play. I'm not sure how other holy-trinity MMO's get around this, if they get around this, but if it weren't for the insta-pops & 'adventurer in need' bonuses, I wouldn't bother tanking, and I only levelled a healer so I could do all of ShB's role quests.

I'd be interested to hear how this situation could be fixed, but I really don't think making 2/3 roles more demanding than the most popular one will help.

[Yorumi]

I'd be interested to hear how this situation could be fixed, but I really don't think making 2/3 roles more demanding than the most popular one will help.

every mmo has a shortage of tanks and healers. It’s a combination of people being scared to play them and also that dps numbers are much more visible. People love to see big numbers.

One fix is just to have the games use bigger parties. Somewhere along the line these games got the idea that the problem with queues was bigger parties and so they reduced them to the bare minimum. Problem is that’s the exact wrong thing to do. Larger parties create a better ratio of dps to tanks and healers. Imagine if dungeon parties in this game were 8 members(1 tank, 1 healer, 6dps). You’d have 3 times as many dps as tanks and healers. Notice how it’s alliance raids that always have dps in need.

They’re never going to change the overall distribution of roles that people choose. They’re better off acknowledging the ratio and building systems around it.

[Maeka]

every mmo has a shortage of tanks and healers. It’s a combination of people being scared to play them and also that dps numbers are much more visible. People love to see big numbers.

One fix is just to have the games use bigger parties. Somewhere along the line these games got the idea that the problem with queues was bigger parties and so they reduced them to the bare minimum. Problem is that’s the exact wrong thing to do. Larger parties create a better ratio of dps to tanks and healers. Imagine if dungeon parties in this game were 8 members(1 tank, 1 healer, 6dps). You’d have 3 times as many dps as tanks and healers. Notice how it’s alliance raids that always have dps in need.

They’re never going to change the overall distribution of roles that people choose. They’re better off acknowledging the ratio and building systems around it.

Also has to do with the amount of expectations and pressure that people place on them.

Tanks are expected to know the dungeon and the fights before even stepping into it for the first time, tanks are expected to know the layout of a dungeon (at least back before dungeons became linear) and exactly which trash should be pulled, which trash could be skipped safely, and now with linear dungeons, tanks are expected to know exactly how many groups of mobs you pull with each pull.

There are a lot of people who are in such a ridiculous hurry that if you, the tank pulls single groups, a DPS in a royal hurry will run forward and grab the next pack whether you want it or not, or sometimes even healers will do the same.

And then the boss fights. Some of them are not intuitive to just read what they do, though a lot of leveling dungeon bosses are these days, but some of them aren't and that could give people pause.

Contrast that with a DPS where.... as long as you don't stand in crap and you obey the occasional (1) mark on enemies, you're fine. You just kill whatever the tank grabs, just AoE the crap out of everything and single-target the bosses and that's really all you need to care about. It's a lot less mental work and very little if any pressure/expectations on your part.

I started FFXIV playing a PLD. I stopped playing PLD because I got tired of people expecting me to know a dungeon before I even stepped foot in it. So I switched to WHM because I don't want 15-20 minute queues for dungeons.

But lately, I don't really like the whole speedrunning community seeping into normal average random duty finder dungeons so I dunno. Kinda wish SE would put more barriers in dungeons to keep the pulls at 2 groups max.

[FirstnameLastname]

Also has to do with the amount of expectations and pressure that people place on them.

Tanks are expected to know the dungeon and the fights before even stepping into it for the first time, tanks are expected to know the layout of a dungeon (at least back before dungeons became linear) and exactly which trash should be pulled, which trash could be skipped safely, and now with linear dungeons, tanks are expected to know exactly how many groups of mobs you pull with each pull.

Uuh, no?

No idea where you come up with all that nonsense but is not the case.

[Casualty]

But lately, I don't really like the whole speedrunning community seeping into normal average random duty finder dungeons so I dunno. Kinda wish SE would put more barriers in dungeons to keep the pulls at 2 groups max.

Please no. No more linear gated hallways. This is part of what makes dungeons so dull. Give us room to wander or take different routes. Give us the opportunity to over pull and potentially fail. Let's see a modicum of challenge in all content.