More tanks are required.

[loudent]

Does not really matter if the problem is still the same on the other servers. Cross server would mean the pool with players is bigger so finding a tank during early and late hours increases so the overall wait is lower.

 

That doesn't make sense because with a bigger pool there is also more dps in line waiting for the tank. There is no mathematical way for the*overall* wait time to decrease.

 

However, it would normalize wait times across all serves and that might be a good thing. Imagine if there are dps players that play off prime time and it takes them several hours to "pop" for a group. While someone, at the same time, in a different time zone is playing prime time and pops for a group in 10 minutes.

 

Cross server grouping could mean that everyone pops for a group in 15 minutes. The question is, are you willing to add a few minutes to your wait time to decrease someone else's by more than an hour? Again, the overall wait time has not decreased because for everyone player that decreases their wait time by 105 minutes there are 21 players that have to add 5 minutes.

 

-loudent

[Aryh]

It's been mentioned already, but to me there are two main reasons I don't queue for flashpoints:

 

The responsibility to not screw up and to know the fights. As DPS you just need to stay out of red circles and do sufficient damage and follow the right kill order, while as a tank there are so many more details you have to pay attention to. I enjoy tanking but it takes more concentration.

 

Inconsiderate players. I've recently stopped queuing for low level flashpoints again because so often you have a DPS that charges in first. It annoys me so much if they don't let me do my job. While I tend to make sure that everyone's ready before engaging enemies I am in no way so slow anyone would have to speed things up.

Recently there even was a healer who thought it was a good idea to attack mobs before I do. I don't care whether no one dies, it's just rude towards the tank in my opinion.

 

The responsibility combined with so many inconsiderate players around is the reason why I don't queue and no extra incentive will motivate me to put up with it.

[loudent]

Like I said earlier it does not matter if there is the same problem of shortage on tanks on other servers. It will get the rotation of groups going FASTER if the pool of players is increased..

 

Yes, faster, but there are more players to serve so wait time remains the same. It's a fairly simple exercise to model. Even with a napkin. Just decide on the rate each type of player queues (I.e. every 10 minutes a tank queus, every 8 minutes a healer queues and every 2 minutes a dps queus.

 

go through a few iterations and you'll see the dps time increase each time. You can plot that on a graph

 

Now double all the numbers (every 10 minutes 2 tanks queue etc etc). Go through a few iterations on that and you'll notice the graph is identical.

Edited November 15, 2013 by loudent

[wainot-keel]

I just said people would respond who don't understand what different play times and time zones mean. I was right.

 

The only way that would matter in the least would be if, for example, in one server there are a bunch of sleepless tanks who don't find sleepless dps and healers. Don't know where'd you come up with the idea that could be the case.

[loudent]

The only way that would matter in the least would be if, for example, in one server there are a bunch of sleepless tanks who don't find sleepless dps and healers. Don't know where'd you come up with the idea that could be the case.

 

No, what he's getting at is the people off prime time will get *much* faster queue times while all the DPS on prime time will get slightly longer queue times (I posted about this a few posts above). The overall queue time does not decrease but it is normalized across all the players (i.e. 20 people get 5 minute longer queue times so 1 person can have a 100 minute faster queue time)

[Jeweledleah]

They think if we have cross server we will get bad players in the fp que, like they could be worse than they are now.

 

no. we're going to get even more jerks and idiots and trolls.

 

right now, there are repercussions to trolling. what repercussions you ask?

 

why, inability to find groups. its not enough to discourage some trolls, but its still enough to discourage quite a few people. its an incentive to at least pretend to be decent. which means your ratio of bad pugs to good is going to be manageable (and by bad, i don't mean crappy players - crappy players can be taught. I mean crappy people behaving crappily)

 

larger pool of players = doesn't matter how much of a dick you are, you'll still find groups, so might as well unleash, making grouping less fun for everyone, but especially discouraging even more tanks from queue that are already discouraged.

 

I know that after my personal experiences with cross server grouping? no incentive in a world, no gifts, not even random piece of set gear or free cartel coins at the end of the completed flashpoint, will entice me to pug, if this system goes into effect. well maybe if I can get free subscription for tanking 10 random flashpoints a month (yeah, never gonna happen)

[Marmerus]

No, actually it won't rotate groups any faster than they are now. Speed of assembly is limited by available tanks. As soon as a tank enters the queue, the group pops. This is true on ALL servers.

 

If there were tanks complaining of waits in queues, I would buy your argument.

 

I will buy that during extreme off-hours, it might help. So they should code this so that 4 or 5 extra groups can form across all servers during off-hours?

 

Wouldn't a better method be for the DPS who complain of slow queue times to roll a tank and learn to tank and even become better DPS in the process?

You are so wrong.

 

The more players there are the more likely there will be more players in your level range. So the rotation of tanks is going to favor more players and therefor make the rotations faster and better for the majority of the players.

 

If there is no tank that is within the range of the lowest level dps in a party then that group around that range will never find a party. With a bigger pool of tanks and players in general the spread of the level in the party will decrease.

 

It is pretty simple really.

[loudent]

You are so wrong.

 

The more players there are the more likely there will be more players in your level range. So the rotation of tanks is going to favor more players and therefor make the rotations faster and better for the majority of the players.

 

If there is no tank that is within the range of the lowest level dps in a party then that group around that range will never find a party. With a bigger pool of tanks and players in general the spread of the level in the party will decrease.

 

It is pretty simple really.

 

You're missing the other side of the equation. That there are more DPS to serve. Quantity affects nothing but the initial starting point. Its all about Rate of flow.

 

Think of it like a theme park turnstyle entrance. If you open up more entrances and the number of people you serve remains the same then the queue will shorten. However if you open up twice as many turnstyles but double the number of people then the queue time will remain constant (overall queue time. individual experiences will vary)

[Marmerus]

Yes, faster, but there are more players to serve so wait time remains the same. It's a fairly simple exercise to model. Even with a napkin. Just decide on the rate each type of player queues (I.e. every 10 minutes a tank queus, every 8 minutes a healer queues and every 2 minutes a dps queus.

 

go through a few iterations and you'll see the dps time increase each time. You can plot that on a graph

 

Now double all the numbers (every 10 minutes 2 tanks queue etc etc). Go through a few iterations on that and you'll notice the graph is identical.

No it is not that simple. That would be the truth if there was only a single level. But there is a level range when there is a level range you have to take into consideration the levels in the party.

 

For an example a tank could be level 28 and can group up for Mandalorian Raiders and Cademinu while the dps in the party is level level 25 and can only group up for Mandalorian Raiders and Athiss.

This creates a problem with the level range and prevents the party from doing 2 out of 3 dungeons and MIGHT create a problem finding a healer that fits the level range of the dungeons. Could even be that bad that there is a level 23 healer or a level 29 healer. That would make it impossible to group up.

 

With an increase of people it is more likely to find people in your own level range. Blizzard knew this when they introduced the cross server LFG tool. Now the rotations is MUCH faster because you are more likely to find a tank at your own level even though the problem with shortage of tanks still exists.

[PlasmaJohn]

Wouldn't a better method be for the DPS who complain of slow queue times to roll a tank and learn to tank and even become better DPS in the process?

From an endgame perspective my incentive for queuing as a DPS is a shot at gear. How does creating a tank help me gear my DPS? Of course tank gear is so badly optimized that I may as well just roll Need on gear for my DPS...

 

The trouble isn't that there are not enough tanks, there aren't enough tanks willing to use GF. Community issues (the rude and/or incompetent) affect everybody so I don't see that as unique to tanks*. IMO the bigger issue is the atrocious gear optimization that tanks face. It is so bad it's a disincentive to run HM FPs. May as well just PUG SM S&V and TFB instead.

 

* In fact I burned out on GF PUG'ing as a DPS due to a string of primadonna healers and tanks.

[loudent]

No it is not that simple. That would be the truth if there was only a single level. But there is a level range when there is a level range you have to take into consideration the levels in the party

....

With an increase of people it is more likely to find people in your own level range.

 

Yes but there are more dps in that level range as well. quantity has very little effect (other than smoothing out extremes). It's all about ratios and flow

 

 

Blizzard knew this when they introduced the cross server LFG tool. Now the rotations is MUCH faster because you are more likely to find a tank at your own level even though the problem with shortage of tanks still exists.

 

Not sure what you're talking about, the WOW lfg tool was ALWAYS cross server. DPS queue times are still terrible

 

Here, lets do the math. it's really simple

 

You have two separate servers

at any given level range (or for any particular fp, your choice) you have:

a tank that queues every 10 minutes, a healer queues every 8 minutes and a DPS queues every 3 minutes.

 

So server one

3 minutes in a dps queues

6 minutes in a dps queues

8 minutes in a healer queus

9 minutes in a dps queus

10 minutes in a tank queues

 

server 1 result = 1 dps waited 7 minutes, one dps waited 4 minutes, 1 healer waited 2 minutes and a tank instapopped with 1 dps in the queue.

 

Ok, server two same rates = same results

 

total for all players across server 1 and server 2 = 2 dps waited 7 minutes, 2 dps waited 4 minutes 2 healers waited 2 minutes and 2 tanks instapopped with 2 dps in the queue

 

 

Ok, we're going to merge the server so the values are doubled

 

3 minutes in 2 dps queue

6 minutes in 2 dps queue

8 minutes in 2 healers queue

9 minutes in 2 dps queue

10 minutes in 2 tanks queue

 

combined result with cross server grouping 2 dps waited 7 minutes, 2 dps waited 4 minutes 2 healers waited 2 minutes and 2 tanks instapopped with 2 dps in the queue

 

In other words EXACTLY THE SAME

 

Obviously no two servers are going to have exactly the same queue rate and some will find shorter and some will find longer but it averages out the same. There is no scenario where everybody gets short queues except in non-existant cases where just about every server can't fill a group

Edited November 15, 2013 by loudent

[Starglitter]

Mmm...

 

Some interesting issues over cross-server and gear as reasons for not to tank...

 

I can't see how when you combine for instance 10 servers, where all servers have the same distribution issues, that is DPS players wait for 25 minutes, how could it reduce waiting time; it would seem to me you have the same amount of people waiting for a queue in the same place as opossed to different places.

 

Poor gear choices reason not to tank, I don't think so, all they do is make the tank even more dependent on the healer. Poor gear may make tanking a bit more difficult to pull off in PUGs is possible, yet not a reason to not be a tank, it simply a reason to not PUG.

 

For myself, as I develop my in-game tanking skills, I use FPs as training grounds. I start with the SM 50s, work up to FP 50 HM, and so on. I do let the group know, I am a novice at particular stage and they can decide to boot me, boot themselves, tolerate me, or mentor me. With the current level of politness in the game, I can't say one choice is more prevalent than the other. I had in the past had very loud level 55 DPS demand I be booted because I am not an expert tank in the FP level 50 HM, despite that almost nothing in it could kill me. and amzingly the group agrees to it! Others welcomes me and explains me what to do at each room, and after a battle provides constructive critique - I do learn a lot when that happens.

 

But the aggressive, watch the clock types, really ruined my day, and have successfully made me feel like tankig is simply not worth the abuze, and now I either heal or DPS. Amuzingly I now use my DPS to buy level 72 gear fo rmy tank and transfer it via legecay gear...

 

Sad is it not?

 

Sue

[DarthTHC]

You are so wrong.

 

The more players there are the more likely there will be more players in your level range. So the rotation of tanks is going to favor more players and therefor make the rotations faster and better for the majority of the players.

 

If there is no tank that is within the range of the lowest level dps in a party then that group around that range will never find a party. With a bigger pool of tanks and players in general the spread of the level in the party will decrease.

 

It is pretty simple really.

 

So that's a benefit that has nothing to do with... time zones?

 

Seems like a legit benefit for groups under 55.

[snakebam]

From an endgame perspective my incentive for queuing as a DPS is a shot at gear. How does creating a tank help me gear my DPS? Of course tank gear is so badly optimized that I may as well just roll Need on gear for my DPS...

 

It might not be as efficient as finding a guild, do ops and forget FP's but the comms you get with you'r tank can buy dps gear. Rip the mods and put them in legacy gear (very cheap at any reputation vendor) and mail it to you'r dps char. That's what i do for my healer alt because the comms cap is low.

[Mallorik]

I prefer to look at way to get tanks into the GF, quit bringing up cross server. You really don't want those people in this thread, the good ideas people have been coming up with in here will never see the light of day.

[Dmnqwk]

If you want to encourage more tanks, you need to start penalising dps.

 

Tanking is a bit of responsibility in that you're expected to maintain aggro on everything from dps and healers. You're often the first one dead and always the first one CCed which reduces your enjoyment. You make up for it by getting control back in other ways, either running fast, charging others, kicking people etc

 

There's no real effective way to improve the numbers of tanks except by making other players suffer, so let's consider the following:

 

1) Any non-tank who takes direct damage (not AoE) suffers a 50% movement penalty and cannot attack for 3 seconds. This would seriously reduce the fun of dps because pulling any mob would see them suffer for it.

It would also cause them to resent tanks even more, but wouldn't actually get them to go tank.

 

2) All mobs in a flashpoint cannot be attacked except once attacked by a tank. They can still shoot players who then get a 6 second period before the mob is activated (to prevent tanks dropping mid pull or stealthing just to kill dps).

 

Both of these suggestions would not encourage more people to tank. They would reduce the fun for DPS, but it wouldn't bring more tanks into the game. The only way to encourage more tanks is to create a system where tanks can rate dps. DPS who get rated up, get queued quicker. DPS who receive negative marks are moved down (and players who queue as a tank receive positive marks for all their dps characters!) This suggestion would not reduce the fun for DPS, it would only allow tanks some recompense to effectively pick and choose nicer dps, which in turn would make the dps nicer.

 

Or they just need to start making flashpoints with 8 players including 1 tank 5 dps and 2 healers heh.

[Mallorik]

If you want to encourage more tanks, you need to start penalising dps.

 

Tanking is a bit of responsibility in that you're expected to maintain aggro on everything from dps and healers. You're often the first one dead and always the first one CCed which reduces your enjoyment. You make up for it by getting control back in other ways, either running fast, charging others, kicking people etc

 

There's no real effective way to improve the numbers of tanks except by making other players suffer, so let's consider the following:

 

1) Any non-tank who takes direct damage (not AoE) suffers a 50% movement penalty and cannot attack for 3 seconds. This would seriously reduce the fun of dps because pulling any mob would see them suffer for it.

It would also cause them to resent tanks even more, but wouldn't actually get them to go tank.

 

2) All mobs in a flashpoint cannot be attacked except once attacked by a tank. They can still shoot players who then get a 6 second period before the mob is activated (to prevent tanks dropping mid pull or stealthing just to kill dps).

 

Both of these suggestions would not encourage more people to tank. They would reduce the fun for DPS, but it wouldn't bring more tanks into the game. The only way to encourage more tanks is to create a system where tanks can rate dps. DPS who get rated up, get queued quicker. DPS who receive negative marks are moved down (and players who queue as a tank receive positive marks for all their dps characters!) This suggestion would not reduce the fun for DPS, it would only allow tanks some recompense to effectively pick and choose nicer dps, which in turn would make the dps nicer.

 

Or they just need to start making flashpoints with 8 players including 1 tank 5 dps and 2 healers heh.

 

I don't think they would help the problem a lot but I like the first idea lol. The 8 player thing is a no brainer, cant believe they made this game with 4 player groups and didn't see this coming.

[Warsong]

what we need is the ability to dual spec without a class......IE Vanguard DPS and then have Vanguard Tank spec

[lichoniespi]

 

1) Any non-tank who takes direct damage (not AoE) suffers a 50% movement penalty and cannot attack for 3 seconds. This would seriously reduce the fun of dps because pulling any mob would see them suffer for it.

It would also cause them to resent tanks even more, but wouldn't actually get them to go tank.

 

2) All mobs in a flashpoint cannot be attacked except once attacked by a tank. They can still shoot players who then get a 6 second period before the mob is activated (to prevent tanks dropping mid pull or stealthing just to kill dps).

 

It is so bad it hurts eyes. You are not making playing tank more fun, but only sinking some fun from dps-> less players will play at all.

 

Sometimes there is a transh in FP (maybe just the easier one) which just dont need to be tanked, and dps can take it. Or there is so many trashy minions that the fastest way to deal with it is to everyone fire his aoe. And auto heal after encounter or have healer fire some heal.

 

The most important problem with playing tank/healer is that its harder to level up, since dps minions are not very good at dps. And a lot of leveling are easy encounters, so its just slower.

What should be done is: allow some faster respecing from dps setup to tank setup, aka dual specing. So players could do story quests as dps, and switch to party mode when in fp. This is the propore way to make game more interesting for everyone.

[Icebergy]

Yes but there are more dps in that level range as well. quantity has very little effect (other than smoothing out extremes). It's all about ratios and flow

 

 

 

 

Not sure what you're talking about, the WOW lfg tool was ALWAYS cross server. DPS queue times are still terrible

 

Here, lets do the math. it's really simple

 

You have two separate servers

at any given level range (or for any particular fp, your choice) you have:

a tank that queues every 10 minutes, a healer queues every 8 minutes and a DPS queues every 3 minutes.

 

So server one

3 minutes in a dps queues

6 minutes in a dps queues

8 minutes in a healer queus

9 minutes in a dps queus

10 minutes in a tank queues

 

server 1 result = 1 dps waited 7 minutes, one dps waited 4 minutes, 1 healer waited 2 minutes and a tank instapopped with 1 dps in the queue.

 

Ok, server two same rates = same results

 

total for all players across server 1 and server 2 = 2 dps waited 7 minutes, 2 dps waited 4 minutes 2 healers waited 2 minutes and 2 tanks instapopped with 2 dps in the queue

 

 

Ok, we're going to merge the server so the values are doubled

 

3 minutes in 2 dps queue

6 minutes in 2 dps queue

8 minutes in 2 healers queue

9 minutes in 2 dps queue

10 minutes in 2 tanks queue

 

combined result with cross server grouping 2 dps waited 7 minutes, 2 dps waited 4 minutes 2 healers waited 2 minutes and 2 tanks instapopped with 2 dps in the queue

 

In other words EXACTLY THE SAME

 

Obviously no two servers are going to have exactly the same queue rate and some will find shorter and some will find longer but it averages out the same. There is no scenario where everybody gets short queues except in non-existant cases where just about every server can't fill a group

 

No it wouldn't be the same, because many tanks, myself included, will not queue in a cross server queue. You deal with enough idiot DPS as is, I will not torture myself dealing with people from other servers who think they can do whatever they want because we most likely will not see each other again.

[Jeweledleah]

Mmm...

 

 

Poor gear choices reason not to tank, I don't think so, all they do is make the tank even more dependent on the healer. Poor gear may make tanking a bit more difficult to pull off in PUGs is possible, yet not a reason to not be a tank, it simply a reason to not PUG.

 

 

But the aggressive, watch the clock types, really ruined my day, and have successfully made me feel like tankig is simply not worth the abuze, and now I either heal or DPS. Amuzingly I now use my DPS to buy level 72 gear fo rmy tank and transfer it via legecay gear...

 

Sad is it not?

 

Sue

 

just quoting for most relevant parts. at least they describe my personal reasoning for not pugging as a tank anymore and what I started doing as a solution (except, I buy gear on my healers). I still play my tanks with people i know (and people they know).

 

cross server queue will not fix these issues. it will exacerbate them

 

P.S. dungeon finder in WoW WAS server only at first. they implemented cross server functionality few months later.

[fungihoujo]

Tanking's kinda a pain- enemies pop up out of nowhere after the pull regularly, and you have ranged mobs all spread out a lot of the time, forcing tanks to run around getting threat.

 

That's not all though- on my healer, I can dps in almost the exact same gear- perhaps switch around a few stats for complete optimization, but the stats are generally about the same. My PT's tank set is utterly different from her dps set though- meaning tanks at all levels are forced to get two full sets of gear- and balance out their stats to be survivable.

 

Which is the last point- you notice a poorly geared tank far sooner than a poorly geared healer, and you prob won't notice a dps at all- of course, a dps is also most likely to have great gear, since normal levelling is most ideal with dps gear.

 

That's not really something avoidable- you can't make tank gear free, and it'd likely be a pain trying to keep it fair while having no tank stats at all.

 

But I think it's a reason- at least for me, I generally don't feel the drive to gather up a second set for tanking.

[LadyKohastFel]

Wouldn't a better method be for the DPS who complain of slow queue times to roll a tank and learn to tank and even become better DPS in the process?

 

I did , I rolled a juggernaut, an assassin , a powertech and a guardian to learn tanking from a variety of perspectives , I also have a sorcerer healer and a operative healer , It is largely because of doing this that I became so aware of the large difference in the queue times, and it doesn't help me gear up as a DPS , the way it stands now my mercenary was geared from running S&V & TFB SM and my sniper is getting her gear from stuff I buy off the GTN or shuttle over to her on legacy gear from the excess of elite and ultimate comms my other characters earn.

 

I made this topic because it occurred to me that a new player who only has a single character that is a DPS faces an uphill battle to get geared up and learn how to play their class in a group environment (which is vastly different to the style of play used for soloing).

Edited November 16, 2013 by LadyKohastFel

[lordofdamornin]

I did , I rolled a juggernaut, an assassin , a powertech and a guardian to learn tanking from a variety of perspectives , I also have a sorcerer healer and a operative healer , It is largely because of doing this that I became so aware of the large difference in the queue times, and it doesn't help me gear up as a DPS , the way it stands now my mercenary was geared from running S&V & TFB SM and my sniper is getting her gear from stuff I buy off the GTN or shuttle over to her on legacy gear from the excess of elite and ultimate comms my other characters earn.

 

I made this topic because it occurred to me that a new player who only has a single character that is a DPS faces an uphill battle to get geared up and learn how to play their class in a group environment (which is vastly different to the style of play used for soloing).

 

The simple fact of the matter is that tanking is a thankless, thankless JOB. I enjoy it, and while GOGOGONOOB dps don't bother me in the least, they are a huge reason you don't see more tanks. Job + ungrateful selfish douchebags = few tanks in the queue.

 

Honestly, instead of worrying about new dps players (or, quite frankly, any dps players), who you should be worrying about/thinking about is the new player who is also trying to learn how to tank.

 

That's who I feel bad for, and it's really sad that people are so selfish and horrible that there is even a need to feel bad for any tank, let alone a new one. I have yet to queue for a flashpoint on my Juggernaut since coming back to the game for this very reason - I just put WoW back on the shelf after reaching the goals that I had, and I have a sour taste in my mouth from tanking in LFR, and I am afraid it's no different here.

 

Judging from the crap in General on the Fleet, I'm probably right. Someone tell me that I'm wrong, but only if it's the truth.

 

More tanks is better for everyone in the game, OP, but that can't and won't happen until the people in these games start treating people better - and there is nothing any developer can do (including tanking changes) that will change this.

 

Riôt

[dancezwithnubz]

my $0.02.

 

my first 55 is a Juggernaut Tank and i'm not quite into end-game content yet.

 

why?

 

good tank gear is so freaking hard to come by.

 

sure, I instapop in FPs, but what's the point when there's this endless procession of sweet dps gear and the few, the oh so very few, tank gear drops invariably get ninja'd out from under me.

 

i have to deal with bloody, bloody marauders who can't wait that extra 8sec for me to heal-up between fights. or idiot AoE Sorks who can't help themselves and wake up every creep that gets c/c'd.