Homogenization and Simplicity in Tank Roles

[Yagrush]

(I struggled whether to put this in General or on tank, but since I've seen this a lot with tank jobs and I'm a tank main I'll put it here)

This is not gonna be thread to discuss how homogenization and the slow simplification of some tank job's rotation is displayed in the game so far. It should be pretty clear to most that this has been happening over the past few years.

I just wanted to ask you guys, genuinely, what are the chances that we will see battle system changes in this liveletter that steers us away from homogenization/simplicity rather than staying the same or keep heading towards this direction?

I really, really hope that they realize that there's such a thing as too much homogenization and that they don't end up making the jobs feel bland.

What do you guys think?

[FoxCh40s]

(I struggled whether to put this in General or on tank, but since I've seen this a lot with tank jobs and I'm a tank main I'll put it here)

This is not gonna be thread to discuss how homogenization and the slow simplification of some tank job's rotation is displayed in the game so far. It should be pretty clear to most that this has been happening over the past few years.

I just wanted to ask you guys, genuinely, what are the chances that we will see battle system changes in this liveletter that steers us away from homogenization/simplicity rather than staying the same or keep heading towards this direction?

I really, really hope that they realize that there's such a thing as too much homogenization and that they don't end up making the jobs feel bland.

What do you guys think?

Got some news for ya from the Healer department.; it's gonna get worse.

They will always simplify Tanks if it means they have more time to work on Dps. They give very little to few shits about how tanks feel to play other than does it function.

[ItMe]

I just wanted to ask you guys, genuinely, what are the chances that we will see battle system changes in this liveletter that steers us away from [...] this direction?

I don't think the live letter will give us much/enough info on battle system changes beyond vague things that may or may not pan out.
Heck, in the live letter we shouldn't expect to see more the new attack animations. We'll have little to know idea what kits will actually be like, let alone the battle system.
You'll probably wanna wait for the media tour they'll start sometime after the live letter.

[shao32]

short answer? none probably, and maybe can get worse.
I have my espectactions below to minimun at this point, even when some ppl asked due the healers getting regen vs shields healers if we are going to have something similar to tanks Yoship say there is no plans to something like that, the chances are pretty low but are pretty sure they aren't going to do that.
Yeah i know im pessimistic and im actually preparing myself to quit the game depending of what they say this saturday but i can't help it, the dev team has been bad with Tanks progressively making tanking and my fav job DRK worse each expansion so i would be extremly surprised if they actually do something good for the role without recurring to the most cheaper changes/reworks/oversimplifications we are so used at this point. I want to have faith, i would love to see the suffering of this last 2 years was at the end worthy to endure but you know im just tired at this point.

[Sazuzaki]

With the influx of new players, one can hope they won't dumb down every class further. But I have low hopes for healers, and the curse of derplander is probably gonna make PLD the next WAR clone. I wouldn't be surprised if PLD lost skills like Shield Bash and Cover. Though very situational, it adds so much flavor to job. And don't get me started on the clutch potential of Cover! It just needs more range.

[Shin96]

The homogenization will only but persist. Judging by the massive influx of newer players across all servers they will have to feed into the lowest common denominator.

In my opinion, the developers seem to believe that Tank players are heavily handicapped. Everything is too easy, drop in and out, so to speak. The current Tank gameplay would suit an old person picking up a game for the first time, not an experienced gamer. There also was the removal of enmity, a system which I personally liked because I had to play optimally to do a decent amount of damage, nowdays this is practically expect and you're nothing but a blue DPS.

[Lyth]

The reason why some people liked the previous system of tank stances is because created an inflated view of how good you were. The simple act of turning it off made you automatically perform better than half of the tanks doing content without any real effort exerted. Now it mainly depends on how you execute your rotation and your uptime.

[Absurdity]

The reason why some people liked the previous system of tank stances is because created an inflated view of how good you were. The simple act of turning it off made you automatically perform better than half of the tanks doing content without any real effort exerted. Now it mainly depends on how you execute your rotation and your uptime.

That's nonsense and you know it. Simply switching from your tank into your dps stance did absolutely nothing for your performance if you couldn't execute your rotation correctly...besides making you lose aggro on the boss.

Even with all the enmity manipulation that your party had, if you only pressed random buttons you would quickly lose the boss to a half competent dps player.


Were the stances the greatest thing ever? Obviously not, warrior basically had the only good one. They did however reward you for actually playing your tank correctly by being able to pump out significantly more damage while also tanking, 20% is no joke.

[Kaixern]

Whenever it's about tanks or healer, i don't have that much faith for the future unfortunately.

There are only two main points which are being constantly focused nowadays on those roles (from what i've seen) :

And it's either, do the visuals of the class look nice and is it effective/viable (which are of course important).
But when it comes to the gameplay, the fun, the synergy, the depth, this either doesn't exist or just keep getting erased (just my view).

At first sight it would seem like everyone here is pessimistic/negative or whatever on the subject, but in the end it's just people (tank and healers mains for the most part) that are used to the state of those roles, and rather that pretending it's okay, be honest with it.

I'm sure even if SE cuts more of the gameplay and identity of the classes people will still play those and say they are good, but for those informations related to homogenization, as stated higher in the posts, we will maybe have to wait the media tour.

(But honestly please stop butchering those classes, i view myself as a casual and i still like depth and complexity, i don't want to keep bashing my head on the keyboard, or having to go for high parse runs in order to expect maybe having fun with my class, it's the equivalent of the meme saying "after 100 hours of playing the story it gets better". The classes should be fun and interesting to play from the start, as well as the joy from discovering all the gameplay subtilities from them in the long run, but as i said before, only my opinion, and sorry for the slight post deviation)

[Shin96]

At first sight it would seem like everyone here is pessimistic/negative or whatever on the subject, but in the end it's just people (tank and healers mains for the most part) that are used to the state of those roles, and rather that pretending it's okay, be honest with it.

It's hard to be positive when the developers have already decided where Tanks and Healers will go. I think it's safe to say that they won't change direction, because regardless of wether these changes were popular or not, I think the sheer success of 5.0 has proven that the Tank and Healer changes remained unchallenged among the community.

Tanks and Healers share responsiblity and your casual gamer (god forgive me for using this term) wants to have nothing to do with it. They'd rather avoid any complications by simply turning on the Tank stance and let that do the work for them. From a Tank main perspective, that player isn't supposed to play Tank but due to these changes they can be a blue DPS with instant auto aggro. No effort or work is required, and all of this culminates to a lack of purpose.