New Solution to Long Queues in 4.1Follow

With current HP pools I'd wagger any class should be able to solo MGT, SH, and of course Strat. So, the problem here at hand for some people seems to be that tanks will get better rewards for completing an HC than other classes (ocasionally healers, but I doubt too often). If queue times go down by a significant amount of time, I'd say mission accomplished.

"LF Tank, paying 100g for an HC". Sounds familiar? Well, this is about the same.

I have my doubts about the reduction in queue times for DPSers with this solution, but if it works ... well, problem solved. It used to be argued that the question about the scarcity of tanks was linked to the ratio of tanks/dpsers being a lot different for raids. Whilst 10 man raiding has almost (to my knowledge) killed 25 man raiding, thus offsetting this imbalance to some extent, the scarcity of tanks has not really changed.

My opinion is that the LFG system in its current implementation greatly discourages tanks to use it. I've used it extensively and the amount of rude/pullpullpull/skipskipskip/lolfail people I've been grouped with is surreal. If the system allowed for a karma-squeue system by which idiots could be filtered and dennied the use of LFG for hours, days even, I'd wagger you'd see less of these attitudes and more capable tanks would be inclined to use the LFG system more often. Or not, but the LFG system needs a revamp.

Anyhow, yeah, tanks will get some goodies. If this shortens queue times, it's a good thing.

As others have said, it's going to be interesting to see how much they can really bribe people.

Blizz has been stuck in this interesting position of trying to regulate the behavior of complete strangers in random groups for a while now. There's a lot of people who are more hesitant to tank or heal because, well, they'd prefer to sit in a 45 minute queue rather than put up with the more caustic conditions that can come with being a tank/healer.

Blizz has adjusted the ability to kick people from a group, given rewards to grouping randomly, buffed people to make the encounters more forgiving, and now want to openly bribe people to tank/heal. As much as I'm hopeful this latest round of incentives will help iron out some of the problems, it does feel like this carrot & stick approach is coming up short.

The crux of the problem, in my mind at least, is that some people are just going to be @$$holes in random groups. I can't really think of a way to solve that. Perhaps Blizz needs a random group banhammer.



That still cheeses my bread...

Edited, Apr 7th 2011 12:04pm by someproteinguy

My problem with it (I could care less about the mounts, to be honest) is that it's a slippery slope they're moving out on. A slippery slope and not a solution to the problem itself.

What's next? Hunters are underrepresented in high-end Arena? Let's give them a sparklepony. Not enough Shaman healers in randoms? Give them some extra gold and potions. Not enough Bear tanks? Give them a pet panda (please don't, I've got one and it's the only thing that makes me a unique snowflake these days). Too many Frost Mages in PvP? Cut back on their rewards.

It's not a solution to the problem. There are long-*** queues right now because tanking and healing isn't fun. It isn't desirable. Why isn't it fun and desirable? Well, some might say it's because Blizzard didn't do what they said they would do. For me, I lost the will around the time I realized they'd turned my Tree into a leather-wearing Holy Paladin. And when they turned my Bear into a single target tank, I just gave up.

I know that some people found the new direction interesting, challenging and fun, but to me, and apparently many others, it just killed everything I loved about the game. They obviously failed at making the game more challenging. It's time to fix what they messed up and then wait for people to go back to their preferred roles.

It's like they had a midlife crisis or something.

No...we want to have the cake we worked long & hard for weeks and months to acquire. Hey Blizz, make a mount that's specifically for tanks and healers who deign to queue with us lesser dps players.
A fat. pink. pony. I think would be the perfect identifier.

Wrong. A reasonable definition of a bad tank is not one who is unable to complete it, unless you apply the same definition to a bad DPS. A bad tank is one who is carried through the content, just like a bad DPS and a bad healer.



Well, durr.



It was a reference to the European politics, more precisely Danish politics, in comparison to US politics. Your left-wing makes our right-wing look like left-wing.

Anyway, it's a touchy subject, no doubt. I get how people can say this is win/win, but from where I'm standing, I see two issues: equality being rammed from behind and the core of the problem remaining untouched.

I might as well call it now: This is going to end badly.

There, I said it. I'll dig this thread up in a couple of months and we'll see.

I queue as a healer just because I dont want to wait for 45 minutes and dont want a stupid baddie failing easy healing mode while I'm dpsing. So, I just go and queue as healer, take my VPs and be done with it.
If more people that can off-tank/off-heal build a second gear set, the queue time would likely drop. If you go as a tank and grab a bad group, you can just drop and wait for 10 minutes and queue again. Better than wait 45 minutes anyway.

Of course, that leads me to never queue on Fridays nights nor Saturday/Sunday evenings. Too many bad tanks/dpsers.

And, yeah, Blizzard need to change Bear tank. Revamp the hole thing. Because, right now, Druid is one of the best boss tanks (if not THE best), but the worst AoE tank. And by worst I mean by a huge margin.

Yes, I feel this arbitrary "reward" lowers the relative value of the items that some of us farmed or are farming for.

Yes, I think this also devalues the reward for the recipient who didn't work any harder than showing up for it. (Compare the thrill of a Rusted Proto-Drake to a Brewfest Ram)


But that's not my main issue here.

An arbitrary reward system, as described, may encourage more groups, but not better groups.

Waiting 30-50 min in a queue sucks. No doubt. But at least the tank that I get set up with wanted to tank the instance. Now they will more than likely simply want their special reward. This changes the priority for those tanks and healers from wanting a clean run for badgers/points, to only caring about the end boss. The goal is the fastest clear to their goodie bag as possible. Goodbye any possibility of optional bosses. Group wipes (regardless of reason)? Easy enough to bail and queue again after a bio.

Goodbye also to any newly-minted 85 dps'ers who will cause the run to be slightly slower and might need to be taught encounter mechanics. Reward-focused tanks won't care about your problems, scrub.

Or worse, you get people who have no business tanking queuing for the reward and wasting everyone elses time. Blizzard iLevel system doesn't differentiate between item sets. Raid-geared Frost DKs can queue as tanks, swap to their partial "tank" set and sew sorrow and agony for groups without compunction. Again, it's easy enough to bail and re-queue until a badly geared and unskilled tank or healer finds a group that can carry them to their goodie bag.

The above problems already exist. Far as I can see, the goodie bag only amplifies the existent issues by trying to treat the symptom rather than the cause.


What bothers me the most with this though is that Blizzard is re-enforcing the "I want my shiny" mentality as opposed to the "experience the content" mind-set. I was starting to hope that their statement about "smaller patches with new content, more often" philosophy was a sign that they were changing focus slightly to more variety in experience. But this rewards system completely negates that hope.

Dear Blizzard,
More and varied content = more player engagement (and higher player retention rates). If we want purely linear content, we'll play consoles.
kkthx,
- therion

I wouldn't say that DPS is necessarily an easier job, but I certainly don't have to focus on more than the current target and my button mashing as a DPS where as a healer I'm not only responsible to know what the bosses do but also how to keep everyone alive through it.

However, There is a lack of tanks because tanking requires more effort than even either of those. It requires leading through the instance. It requires knowing every boss in and out. It requires making decisions like "can the healer go through one more pull or should I delay a few seconds for mana". It requires knowing "how" to pull groups so that there are no links, and where to stand to make sure DPS can position themselves correctly. It requires going the right way so people aren't whining that they just want the instance over with and no additional bosses.

In short, yes I believe tanks have wayyyy more responsibility and that's the reason there is a lack of them. I don't off spec as a tank for this very reason - it's too much and I don't want to get into a group of people who will hate me because I'm just learning. It discourages new people to try the tanking class and these rewards certainly aren't going to make us want to toss ourselves to the wolves in the RDF - are they mad?

Honestly - it won't solve the problem. They made it bad enough when they nerfed almost every healer class in the name of "challenge", but then they compiled the issue by ruining a lot of tank abilities again in the name of "challenge".

I don't want to necessarily go back to faceroll, but some of the things they did really need to be reversed for people to actively take up these harder roles again. Tanking and Healing were already hard enough.

When this happens I will likely do more solo runs as a tank. Not for the vanity items, as yes it is chessy to get them handed to you. I feel the same way about people going back to get mounts/titles. I've done such runs but only to help others and there is no way I'd use a title that I got when it wasn't current. With the mounts it is different as the druid has flight form which pwns all other mounts and I'm not a fan of huge mounts otherwise.

Anyway, if I got a vanity item as the reward instead of gems/flasks/MOAR GOLD I'd feel cheated. I don't care about vanity items I want gold. I hope they remove the vanity stuff and make the goodie bag, just some extra gold and a occasionally a rare gem or flask. Would also blunt some of the qq from people who are offended that their hard work was trivialized by a tank's goodie bag.

I look at it as being paid to deal with random people. Granted I have had some awesome runs but the ones with at least 1-2 complete d-bags or people who are willfully fail is far greater. Getting a bribe will encourage me to do more runs on my tank when no one I know is wanting to go. Even bringing just 1 friend that to LFD group can be a huge improvement over the fully random group.



The next patch will go a long way to making bear AoE easier. Swipe on shorter CD, and all attacks that had +threat getting better damage/AP scaling and the SD change especially should make bear tanking easier for trash. For bosses we will still be a furry ball of hate and armor.

There shouldn't be an issue of, "well dps is easy, if you want the rewards reroll." This argument is really annoying. There are what like 4 specs out of 30 that are tank. There are 5 healing specs. This leaves 21 dps specs. Let's not forget the pure dps classes. I shouldn't have to reroll a class I don't particularly want to play or don't know how to play to get said rewards. Plus the fact that if you don't have a high level tank/healer class you have to go through and use your time leveling it up, as well as gearing it once leveled.

As for someone mentioning way above that 10 mans have killed 25 mans. Not true. I'm pretty sure there are a ton of guilds doing 25 mans still over 10 mans. Frankly they are more forgiving of a mistake (at least in normal) and they drop more loot per 5 people than 10 man. My guild ended up trying to go 25 man for this reason.

Except the way I read it, you won't get the reward if you have that one friend with you. So rather than encouraging people to do them together, they really are encouraging people to do them solo.

Wouldn't it be funny if it did end up making so many people play healer and tank that there were no DPS anymore?

I'm actually okay with this. As far as I can think of there is no way to make tanking and healing more desirable to people who just don't like it in the first place. I personally love tanking when I have a group that works with me. Gives me a chance to set up pulls so I have and easy time. The people who feel the need to shoot as much as they can after I pull with a low threat move make me hate tanking. I don't want to have to work my butt off fighting my own group members to maintain control in an instance just to get through it. It tires me out and then I queue less.

There are a few basic problems with tanking and why people will never gravitate to the roll in as large numbers as DPS.

-Reason one, you will be considered the leader almost 100% of the time. You're expected to mark, and sum up the CCs for each. You have to set the pace.

-Reason two, you have to fight your own group depending on who you get. It's QUITE often I end up tanking for people who almost seem to be going out of their way to pull extra mobs and do as MUCH DPS as quickly as possible. Causing me to have to work twice as hard to keep everything under control.

-Reason three, you need to pay more attention then anyone else. Since it's your job to keep everything under control you have to watch carefully everything going on around you to make sure you cover for other peoples mistakes of walking too close to another group or pulling threat.

-Reason four, after a while of the expansion being out people judge you by your HP. I've had PLENTY of people leave a group just because I don't have epic gear HP. What's acceptable at first isn't even close to acceptable later and you'll pay for it depending on the people you come across. I've had a healer drop a group after calling me a n00b tank before even the first pull.

-Reason five, people will try to latch on to you and use you for what you can provide. A lot like a mage and their teleports I have random people just invite me to a group while I level and then queue a random dungeon...just so they can get an insta queue. meanwhile I was mistaken in believing that we were going to team up on the quest to get it done without having to wait for a respawn.

These are just for tanking. Healing is a whole other bag of crap thats handed to the player day after day. These things just can't be changed unless they change the game mechanics in general. So I'll take the extra rewards, because at the end of the day...I've earned it. Putting up with all that BS.