Are Tanks Obsolete Outside of Operations?

This is the problem. I love Tanking, but while I'm having "fun", a thousand players aren't since there's 1 of me and 997 of them still waiting in queue.

Right now the approach has been to segregate "Tankless" content and keep Tanking basically the same, because they don't want to offend / disappoint dedicated Tanks who appreciate how it is.

That's reasonable, unfortunately it's not going to save the role, because that vocal and proud minority is still a minority. Any time you add a Tank requirement, queue times skyrocket.

It is a legitimate observation that even if you relaxed all other penalties, Tanks would still be in shorter supply due to what it asks of people (leadership, etc). But that's a huge step forward — shorter supply is a huge improvement over the current situation.

Going back to looking at WoW again — I'm using this example because it's an MMO that once adhered to a very strict Tank design like SWTOR does, and has since gradually relaxed it to the point of DPS-that-holds-aggro — queues are still held up by Tanks. So, yes, Tanks will always be the minority it seems.

However, the relaxation of gear penalization, rotation penalization, rotations made more engaging/interesting, Threat made more forgiving, etc. has changed queue times. Sometimes you're actually sitting around waiting for a Healer. At odd hours of morning, sometimes you're waiting for DPS!

It does make Tanking more appealing to people, and even the 'bad' Tanks can be made to work with less effort since there's fewer errors that need to be corrected. There is a noticeable improvement of interest.

Ideally I would like a world where Tanking remains deep and complex and archaic and full of details to figure out and tactical organization to handle. I would also like a world where I can Tank for like 50x the groups I actually manage to Tank for.

Reality is different, though, and again — while I'm having fun, a lot of people are staring at their queues in disgust and logging out. You can either:

• Remove Tanking (Tacticals approach)
• Bribe Tanking (WoW approach #1... doesn't work as well as you might hope)
• Forcibly create more Tanks by making the role more appealing, forgiving, and easier to get into (WoW approach #2... definitely getting results)

Option #3 disappoints and upsets "classic" Tanks. Some of them even quit — after WoW put in Active Mitigation, I didn't tank for about 6 months I was so irritated with the design ("I want to hold Threat, not play a stupid defensive rotation").

Overall, though, the queue gains more than it loses. And grognards like me wander around until we realize, eg, I loved Warrior tanking pre-AM, but hate it now — instead I love Monk tanking under the new system. I still love Tanking, though.

What do you think it would take to copy & paste FPs and HMs and retune them for a new GF-friendly 6-player level, thereby doubling the number of available DPS slots from 2 to 4? That might even leave room for mentoring off-tanks and off-heals. Just thinking out loud ...

I really want a respec for this.

Tanks cant be a true hybrid like for example Sentinel which can heal and do damage, Guardian "fixed" is ugly the best respec goes only to "moderate dps" with no heal option, the middle tree for Guardian is also severely lacking.

Of interest to me would be the notes / thoughts from the developers who designed the original game, specfically any discussion around optimal group size and why they settled on a base 4 person group size.

I've played MMOs for years now, and the issue in forming groups in trinity style MMOs has always been finding enough tanks (and to limited extent healers).

Yet somehow in trying to build a better MMO, the original dev team decided to make the base group size smaller, and thus SWTOR requires more tanks to cover the player base than any other trinity based MMO.

I doubt something so core to the game as group size could be reasonably changed at this point for existing content, though i wonder if it would be possible to create new content with a larger group size.

A large part of the beta group size discussion was exactly about that ... group size. It was ordained that grouping up 4 players would take less time than grouping up 5 or 6 players. We brought up the ratio notion but there were too many things going on for them to consider it.

I think your premise about SWTOR's 4-player system requiring more tanks to cover a random grouping tool's player base is sound. My guess is that the newer tactical FPs are a first crack at addressing this. I'd be interested to see trinity flashpoint vs. tactical flashpoint Group Finder analytics.

A harsh reality is that more tanks are not on the way. At least not enough to make a difference. If tactical FPs don't solve the problem, then they'll probably have to go back to the trinity system and increase flashpoint party size (or at least add another tier that operates with increased party size) thereby adding more dps slots.

The catch with the trinity system and something you touched on: DPS types would have a shorter wait time getting into a group; but groups won't get into flashpoints any faster because the tank population still controls how fast groups form up. So really, the only way to solve this without tactical flashpoints is to grow more tanks.

Okay ... so how do we grow more tanks?

We don't put accuracy and alacrity on their token gear. For starters.

So much this.

BW fix the bad itemizations for tanks. Comm gear plain sucks.

It's not just the comm gear, it's the token drops as well.

Case in point: Shadow tank DF gloves. You need to get them because you want the set bonus but then they kick you in the gonads by placing a +accuracy enhancement in them.

Yep, again: Tanking automatically is less appealing to people because of the mindset and actions required.

If devs want to increase Tank populations, the first thing they have to do is make Tanking very generous and tempting for anyone curious.

That means making it easy and rewarding (not tedious and disappointing) to gear a Tank, for starters.

Basically, you have to remember that even if you gave people a full Rating (whatever) Tank set for free the moment they hit level 55 — many players still wouldn't Tank after realizing what's required of them.

So Step #1 is to make sure anyone curious about Tanking, is given every opportunity and encouragement to do it. The current system rewards proud diehards that are insane (hi) and discourages just about everyone else.

WoW's system of "Hey, you know what? Just wear whatever you've got and switch to your Tank stance, we'll make sure all those DPS stats gain a defensive benefit." is tacky and obnoxious to classic MMO die-hards... but... it also works, since more people are Tanking now than I've ever seen before in that game (plus several other changes, ofc).

Tanking can either evolve with the times and become a looser, more appealing role... or... it can go extinct.

Nope, I have 2 so far, and plan to roll another in the not so distant future. My favorite game? Watching people that claim we don't need a tank in a FP die over and over because they're putting out big numbers damage wise, but dying as soon as they get hit. This is especially hilarious in HMs or Ops. I'm just glad I was on my Jugg, and not my Mara when Malgus managed to one shot the rest my group in FE. I stuck it out and beat him, my Mara would have died, and my Mara has better gear.