Are Tanks Obsolete Outside of Operations?

The problem with this is that it's much more dangerous than you think to convert someone's MMO experience into a completely solo experience.

There is a significant difference between running light / forgiving content with 3 or 7 or 15 other people, and running it alone as a single-player game, similar to why playing Battlefield against bots is much less compelling than playing it with friends.

BioWare still has to sell a multiplayer experience here, even to people too intimidated or shy to skill up to the point of hand-PUG'd multiplayer. I know that sounds weird, but it's a very, very valid concern for MMO designers.

For many players, being grouped with other people that are "forced" to play with you by a CPU matchmaking system is an incredible relief and the only way they'll do it. But they enjoy being in groups once they are.

Why is that?

If the whole reason for making it easy and forgiving was to make people more willing to tank, and thus lower queue times...with solo versions having no queue times, they could be made more challenging. Or have various levels of challenge.

Because MMOs are terrible games without player interaction.

Not at all. Every MMO I've played has been considerably more enjoyable without player interaction. (And that goes double for SWTOR, with its heavy story element.)

I'd rather play AoC than almost any single-player game out there, because I'm a Conan fan and the sights, sounds, etc., are awesome. Same for SWTOR as a Star Wars game.

Granted, they might have been even more enjoyable if they had been built from the ground up as single-player games. But that doesn't change the fact that even as they are, they're more fun without player interaction than with it.

The fact that you dislike player interaction, yet are still drawn to a genre centered entirely around the goal of player interaction, is not in fact a statement about the general need for MMOs to support and encourage player interaction.

It is acceptable, in fact extremely positive, if an MMO also supports shy or independent players that would prefer to do their own thing in isolation. At some point, though, it needs to both encourage and justify interacting with other players or it just becomes a single-player game with worse everything.

Adding solo queueable content (??) is a good way to very quickly bore and burn-out the playerbase, similar to releasing an FPS that can only be played against bots. Of course there will be people who are happy with it, but those people would also be happy with just questing and dailies — you're targeting an audience that doesn't really exist.

What we're worried about here is how to target queuable content for people that want to group with other players and interact, but don't have the skill or confidence or whatever to do "serious" PUG+ content.

This is the audience that gets frustrated and discouraged by Tank-dependent queue times, and this is the audience that will influence the gradual erosion of Tank as a trinity role.

That's the thing, though. Are you sure they want to group with other players and interact? I think it would be an interesting experiment...take some piece of content that has always been group-only, make a solo version, and see if more people run that version, or fewer.

It just doesn't strike me as plausible that there would be a significant number of people who really want to group, but just don't have the confidence to even try it. I have pretty much no interest in grouping, but I like the daily/weekly comm reward for flashpoints, so I tank and heal for those. And though I'm sure I'm not the greatest ever at either role, I've gotten no complaints. If I can do that...I can't imagine there are large numbers of people who actually want to group for its own sake but are too scared to try it.

And it seems like the scarcity of tanks and healers could be evidence of the lack of general interest in group-interactive play. Maybe I'm being unfair to damage-dealers (never played one), but it seems like compared to tanks and healers, they're much less concerned with / aware of the group overall. And that's what most people want to play.

But I will say, even though I wish everything in SWTOR were solo-able, I actually have come to enjoy tanking in a group. Healing...I'm willing to do, but if I couldn't field-respec out of it as soon as the flashpoint was over, I probably wouldn't be. But tanking is pretty awesome. For me, it's all about being the center of attention of massive bad guys (or massive hordes of little bad guys). And when you do that force leap and the damage-dealers behind you all start firing...it's like igniting a box of fireworks. But, evidently very few people feel the way I do on that.

Basically, playing a tank, there's an excitement to group play that you just couldn't get playing solo, even with a party of NPCs. Maybe same thing for healing...for people who like healing. For damage-dealing, it doesn't seem like that's the case, nearly as much. You shoot stuff, and...yeah. You could do that by yourself. So it seems like people who are really interested in grouping are the people who are interested in tanking and healing. And so I think if people were interested in group play for the sake of group play, there wouldn't be a shortage of tanks. But there is.

Anyway, on the off chance that Bioware doesn't decide to make everything solo-able, the next best thing would be, yeah, one set of gear for tanks. Tanking and damage-dealing use the same stat. That, I really would like. Healers get to do it!

Tank is one of six options for a trooper.

Bottom line is the best dps companion is the melee dps specialist and it is totally broken for troopers.

Pushback on Jorgan is less of an issue if you're a tank but no pushback at all is what he should have.

My main currently is still my Assassin tank, and although I'm comfortable enough to take on pretty much everything with regards to dailies and H2 weeklies, when it comes to the group content, the above is pretty much the reason I don't do groups. I may feel comfortable enough with a role when doing solo content, it's a whole different ball game with group content.

First of all, I'm not one to tell others what to do, most of them don't seem to want to listen anyways when listening to/reading stories from others. And it is totally not me...so not going to even think about that.

Second, I've never played group content, in any game. It just ain't my thing. This is basically my first mmo that I stuck with simply because of the story content giving me something to do on my own.So I'm totally clueless when it comes to group tactics.

Third, since the group content (FPs') that follows on the regular class stories, also has a story element, I hate to spoil that 'first time' feeling by watching videos, as so often gets suggested, to 'learn the tactics', sadly that is the last thing you can learn from them because although they show what happens, they don't ever explain when to use attack x or y or z. and not being a diehard MMO gamer, I still goof from time to time on my own. Would hate for that to happen in a group.

So basically, it's indeed the unforgiving narrow margin of error you have as tank in group content and an extreme lack of experience in group mechanics that's keeping me playing mostly solo.

Yes. That's why they're playing this game. The ones that truly don't never even bother queueing, but they're a sizeable minority which really doesn't affect this discussion. I believe the vast majority of MMO players are in the middle group — socially-positive, but not extremely dedicated or motivated.

The problem here is that you can't separate out more people running it because they don't group anyway (thus it's just another solo Mission for them) and the people running it simply because it's easier than any other version of group content (which it would have to be).

If you made a solo FP which was as difficult as soloing an on-level Heroic 4 or getting Endless 30 PG in WoW or otherwise a significant accomplishment, it would see little interest or completion rate. People already get flustered defeating Class Story bosses that ask you to interrupt or move out of a circle.

That is exactly the case, though. Also that tried it and don't have the confidence to ever do it again. The ability to queue anonymously and keep your head down, eyes to the floor, and follow along with the group opens up content to a significant additional number of players.

Tank is the role that really can't do that, which is why Tank is a problem spot for queue times. If we lived in a magical world where everyone was like "First time Tanking this? No problem! We'll take it slow. A few wipes? No problem! I'm sure you'll figure it out" ... yeah, maybe.

That is very unrealistic though. And I can't really blame people. Repairs cost money, and wipes/explaining everything costs playtime. It's just not fun to hold a truly oblivious Tank's hand, while an oblivious DPS or Healer can usually pull you through if they press buttons.

Right, this is part of the "Bribery" part. You can lure more Tanks into the queue by bribing them, and you can likewise lure more players into Tanking by bribing that role specifically.

WoW basically gives Tanks a free Cartel Pack if they queue for matchmade content, in addition to the normal bribes of Commendations & gear drops. It's enough to motivate many more players to sniff around and contemplate the role.

It's not, because the fact we have long queue times is specifically because there's a huge line of DPS waiting for a smaller number of Healers and much smaller number of Tanks. If no one but Tanks & Heals was interest in group play, you'd be waiting in queue for a few DPS to trickle in.

That is correct, most people want to press button, see lazers, and have fun while keeping their head down and not being blamed for things. This is why you design the DPS role to be so forgiving — a good DPS stands out, but a bad DPS is "okay" if they can follow basic instructions.

You end up in a similar situation if you open the low end of the Tank skillfloor. Like DPS, a bad one becomes "adequate" with a little nudging, while a good one is still a godsend to your group.

Interestingly, Healing appeals to a certain kind of personality which is attracted to MMOs so there's usually much less issue with Healer quantity, even though it's a very demanding role.

DPS like what group content provides, including the ability to kill stuff without stressing about their own survival, the challenge of interacting with mechanics, the excitement of the spectacle, etc.

Keep in mind many players don't see "DPS" as some incredible role. It's more of just "playing" — it's their normal playing state, it's the natural default role of gaming. Tank & Heal are weird side-jobs.

But you're correct that Tanking & Healing especially aren't the same without other players. This is partially why it would be so damaging to eliminate queued cooperative Trinity content — you'd be dealing a huge blow to casual Tanks & Healers. (you may deem that acceptable)

Addressed above. The shortage exists because so many DPS enter the queue. That's kind of evidence that a lot of DPS want to play in a group — they're waiting in line for the necessary backup to survive doing so.

You're not wrong for exploring this line of thought — it's a very valid option in a huge list of solutions to a very complex problem.

Again, this is a topic very dear to my heart because I love Tanking and I love cooperative play and I love queueing and meeting all sorts of random people, so it touches on many of the things I love about MMOs as a genre.

That's why I'm nutter about discussing it. Let me go over what you're proposing in a little more detail in the next post to split this a bit conceptually.

Sorry for the snip job, but really, this pretty much says it all. You want us to do what WoW is doing, even though what WoW has done failed?

Training is the answer to this dilemma, but ti's not the tanks that need to be trained. You can do whatever you want to with gear/stats, it's not going to fix the root of the problem: Players that think they don't need the class, until their crap blows up in their face, and then it's the tank's fault. I can't tank stupid, so I don't even try. When they start fussing, I remind them that they claimed they didn't need me to tank. No amount of bribery or gear "fixing" is going to fix that. Any solution to the tanking dilemma is going to have to include a method to overcome human nature, and frankly, that's impossible. Until some dps players come to realize that they are part of the problem, there is no solution.