3, 2, 1 Lets Jam!

[ZaqueXIII]

Posting in the forums never goes well, anyways lets have a chat.

So, theres plenty armchair game designers in the forums. Its safe to say that no one from square or the dev team reads these but I know you all will so this is just for us!

This might not be super popular to say but I think tanks should have a good degree of similarity, I say this because healers need it too, as do dps. When I say similar I mean, when you open your tank abilities you should be able to preform you core duties the same as any other tank. All tanks need a basic combo, all tanks need an AOE combo, all tanks need cooldowns. I think its here that we should understand similarities are necessary so with regards to that lets analyze our tanks from some critical points these in my mind break down into
-lvl15(start of instanced dungeons)
-lvl50
-lvl60
-lvl70
-lvl80(all the previous level caps)

At level 15 as a tank I should 100% have the following things without having to consider role actions; my first 2 combo hits, my stance, my ranged pull, my aoe, an offensive cd and a defensive cd.
With all of these every tank has the same base tools allowing them to do their job and these are just foundational stuff that help cement how to tank.

At lvl 50 as a tank I should now have; access to all my personal defensive cooldowns(in my mind each tank should have about 3 long cooldowns of which one is rampart and 2 are mitigation with class flavor), I should have my super cooldown, finalized basic AOE+single target combo and Ideally the first at minimum of my job guage abilities.

At lvl60, we shoukd have the gap closer and the start of a true indiviual resource usage(this is your gnashing fang combo or holy spirt type stuff)

At lvl70, we should have our party protection and co-tank protection abilities

At 80, we get our resource related cooldowns

I think my only hard line points are the similarity at 15 and 50 since that is the point where your job should feel "complete" but can be built off of, and I do think all the points ive said should be true when 80 is reached currently. Of course I have ideas I would like to see but bringing the tanks in line with one another first is crucial and especially early on some tanks feel like they are lacking in certain areas. Feel free to add to this thread what you want. Ill probably add from time to time some brainstormed stuff but I wanted to see how people interpret this, specifically the forums.

[DRKoftheAzure]

This might not be super popular to say but I think tanks should have a good degree of similarity, I say this because healers need it too, as do dps. When I say similar I mean, when you open your tank abilities you should be able to preform you core duties the same as any other tank. All tanks need a basic combo, all tanks need an AOE combo, all tanks need cooldowns.

The reason it's not a popular opinion is because IT IS THE BARE BASIC MINIMUM!!! We want MORE than the BARE BASIC MINIMUM!

[Lyth]

Job balance doesn't matter before max level. The biggest reason for this is that there's so much variability in gear while you're still levelling. Getting a beneficial dungeon drop can produce large changes in your performance. The other, perhaps more salient point is that most people either don't care about how well you optimise for Sastasha Normal, or they lack the knowledge to assess this.

The main goals of the levelling process should be to:
1) Progressively introduce you to the mechanics of the job
2) Allow you to form a decision (hopefully early) about whether it clicks with you or not

Levelling is the tutorial. Core steps in your rotation should be introduced early so that they become second nature. There's no point introducing the "3" in 1-2-3 at level 70+. I know that the dev team likes to introduce these in late as the "new ability" for an expansion, but this fools nobody. (What, you aren't excited to see Malefic 19?) No, adding another combo step that should have been there all along doesn't absolve you from having to come up with a few unique abilities every two years. Hire more than four people to manage 17 jobs, yeah? Oh, you squandered the money from this golden egg into your other (less worthwhile) projects? Thanks.

Likewise, shorter recast abilities should be introduced before longer recast ones. Abilities like Sheltron and even TBN should be introduced before abilities like Rampart and Vengeance, even if only in a self-only form. Knowing that a cooldown will be back up again in a mere 20 seconds time makes you less afraid to press it. It also gives your tanks more agency. Hey, I can do something to stop myself from dying at this part! That's huge.

It's important for tanks to highlight playstyle differences early. If you wait too long to introduce in each job's unique resource system, the player is forced to grind through an unnecessary amount of content to realise that PLD/GNB's current "resource" systems are less interesting than watching paint dry and the real gameplay is a paint-by-numbers rotation. But, hey, spreadsheets might be your thing, I'm not one to judge (I am judging you).

Also, why would anyone want to wait 60+ levels to use a gap closer? I do understand the need for progression (save your big offensive cooldowns and invulns for the very end). Even still nobody wants to slow walk through the first dungeon that they queue for, just because they haven't earned the right to jump from pack to pack by wading through hours of story monologues. Bring out the mobility tools and unique fun stuff for each job early, and add in the big damage moves with long cooldowns as the icing on the cake at the very end of the levelling experience.

If you want to see how to streamline levelling, just look at Warcraft's pre-Shadowlands patch designs. They've pretty much got it down to a science.

[Absurdity]

*snip*

This speaks to me on a spiritual level...I like spreadsheets though.

[ZaqueXIII]

Job balance doesn't matter before max level...


...Also, why would anyone want to wait 60+ levels to use a gap closer?...

I agree job balance shouldn't matter until max level many of these thresholds have been MAX level at some point. So then what are we balancing for? lvl99 ok, then why do we care if they are balanced now? Each job should feel like it is complete at any point that would be considered MAX level, Gap closers are a luxury that no one cared had in ARR and only the dark knight had in Heavensward, now come Shadowbringers it has been decided that this is a mandatory tank ability but unlike some other mandatory tank abilities and paladin doesn't get theirs until 70+ so I guess to more directly address your question paladins would for the sake of retroactive balance.

[ADVSS]

I have to agree that the flavors being added in earlier than later, would make things a lot better. Gap closers when dps get them(pre 50 maybe a full aoe rotation by 50 wouldnt hurt either)

[Lyth]

The numerical value of "Max Level" is irrelevant. Warcraft just squished their level 120 characters down to level 50. You can do this as much as you like. The only reason why games historically pushed the numbers upward is to give players a sense of 'progression' as they go from one expansion to the next. The trade off is that the levelling process looks progressively more intimidating to new players.

What matters is that when you're done with the 'tutorial', jobs are able to perform their role on an equal footing. Note that this doesn't mean identical. It also doesn't mean that you have to do all things equally well.

All tanks need positioning tools. A ranged pull action is one of these. Gap closers are another. Not every gap closer needs to be Plunge. A draw in effect that pulls a mob towards you is a gap closer. A jump to target location (Shukuchi) is a gap closer. A move that propels you forward (or even backward - Elusive Jump) a fixed distance is a gap closer. Mob movement is such an intrinsic part of tanking that movement tools should be introduced early (much earlier than your average dps job, in fact). The reason why this game was so slow to introduce them is because the game developers don't seem to have the slightest clue on what makes for interesting tanking. That's why our raid content is the functional equivalent of a rail shooter, where the bosses position themselves and occasionally perform a five minute tankbuster cast to force you invuln-swap so that your co-tank doesn't die of boredom. (I know that the main reason for this lack of tank agency is because mobs can't execute actions and move at the same time, but that's a 1.x problem that they should sat down and sorted out sometime over the past seven years or so).

[ZaqueXIII]

I guess in all fairness based on your point, my view is that the 'tutorial' should end at 50 even though we currently are at 80. Beyond that, although my initial argument was rather cut and paste with generic abilities I think that even those abilities can be manipulated based on job identity. In fact, your mentioning of a draw in effect as a means of gap closer is pretty enlightening, to be honest, back when I started playing around the time of through the maelstrom I thought that Holmgang's purpose was to pull enemies to you and used it as such. It's something that warriors and marauders in the game use constantly of drawing in and chaining opponents and yet it has not been implemented as a player ability. Food for thought if naught else, thanks for the contribution!

[Lyth]

...

The reason why Holmgang's draw in effect was removed was because mobs have to be stationary in order to activate abilities. The draw-in effect could be used to forcibly reposition a mob by using Holmgang and then jumping away from the mob. This forced mob movement interrupts cast abilities, including ones that were intended to be uninterruptable. A historic but niche example of this was using Holmgang to interrupt Dreadwash on Leviathan Ex. No other action in the game can.

This limitation is also the reason why a lot of the fight designs changed towards a linear timeline where boss movement is fairly strictly controlled by the game designers. Prior to Stormblood, you apparently could prevent ability activation and phase transitions by simply spinning the boss very quickly. I can appreciate that they needed to quickly fix a game-breaking bug. But it seems to me that they've had about three years since to address this. Mobs still stutterstep even when using 'instant' abilities. It's astounding how clunky mob movement in this game is even compared to circa 2004 MMOs. Warcraft is a hundred times more fluid, and it feels like you're actually tanking. This should be their number one priority to fix, because it really takes the joy out of tanking.

They've had seven years since 1.x. If they can't fix it by next expansion, I don't have faith that they ever will.

[Absurdity]

Mobs still stutterstep even when using 'instant' abilities. It's astounding how clunky mob movement in this game is even compared to circa 2004 MMOs. Warcraft is a hundred times more fluid, and it feels like you're actually tanking. This should be their number one priority to fix, because it really takes the joy out of tanking.

Gunbreaker only made this issue even more glaring, there's nothing worse than being in your Gnashing combo and having to move a boss or add that moves like someone is kicking a heavy trashcan towards you.


You eventually get used to it but that's exactly the issue, you have to get used to the boss stuttering like a broken engine so you don't accidently mess up your combo while performing one of the most basic tank functions.