Are Tanks Obsolete Outside of Operations?

...and when that "bad" tank can't pull off a tank swap when it's needed because he can't overwrite the threat generated by the other tank? This equals a wipe, btw, every time it happens. You know, these ideas might have marginal effect in a simple tank and spank, but where there are mechanics in place that can't be changed by dumbing down tanking, it's not going to make much difference at all, if it makes any difference. None of which addresses the main issue, and the reason some tanks that have posted here why they don't PuG, other players.

This is a delicate area that comes down to general motivation for any player to Queue up, and there are many ways to address it, such as:

• Daily Missions for completing a FP as Tank
• Direct Bribes for Queuing as Tank when Tanks in queue are low (WoW-style)
• Daily/Weekly Rewards for Queuing are still relevant for purchasing gear that exists beyond the FP itself
• Making DPS gear = Tank gear, so you don't gear any faster, you just don't need a double set (ie, a Tank still has to gear up at the same pace as everyone else, but is more excited about the gear they get to do so)

It is an interesting point that a Tank who finishes grinding Gear sooner is done queuing sooner, but IMO that's a very dangerous gamble — basically assuming that the OCD desire to finish gearing is more motivating than the equivalent discouragement of grinding out a boring and uncompelling set of gear for an off-spec.

IMO that kind of "malicious carrot" design is probably doomed to backfire more often than not (burnout / boredom set in first), and it's probably wiser to look at how to make Tanking more fun and appealing so that people want to do it just to do it (like DPS).

Right. Unless BioWare has a motive to deliberately increase queue times (dubious), it is extremely self-defeating to inconvenience Tanks in any way, shape, or form or otherwise place any obstacle to someone considering spec'ing Tank. Let's be clear:

Even if you design Tanking on paper to be so ludicrously tempting that no one would want to play any other role simply because Tank is so pampered,

But your second point is also valid — DPS play DPS because DPS is fun. Therefore, we can assume DPS would still play DPS in FPs even if Com DPS gear had Defense & Shield on it. Thus, again, making Tank fun for more people is an important part of solving any Tanking shortage.

Yeah, that might be better (not where my head is, I leave stat/math stuff to other people). I might swap Absorb to Power and Defense to Crit because my OCD wants the consistent stats and RNG stats grouped together.

Another solution, again, is to simply make DPS stats worthwhile while Tanking and chop the "bland" defensive stats that don't really appeal to people as much as KILL DEATH KILL stats like Power & Crit.

Like 10 years ago I guess it made a lot of sense to ask people to hyper-specialize, rely on friends for DPS support, etc. But in 2014-2015 MMOs it really is pushing it to demand people keep a giant extra set of gear around just for running Tank "sometimes" or DPS "sometimes".

Because the "sometimes" crowd — which has even commented in this thread multiple times — does not want to deal with that, because they're casual-casual, or don't want to invest heavily for "sometimes", etc. However, they also make excellent Queue-fillers since they're usually happy to a do a role if they can do a role (easily).

Be careful, there's a difference between making Tanking much more forgiving for the average player (so they succeed at it and learn to like it) and making Tanking /follow level.

Again, consider DPS & Healing:

• A skilled or dedicated DPS / Healer stands out immediately, shines, and feels pride and reward from excelling at their role.
• However, a mediocre or new DPS / Healer that is making a reasonable effort will still achieve mostly-adequate results, enough to provide positive feedback and encourage them to try it again.
• A skilled or dedicated Tank stands out immediately, shines, and feels pride and reward from excelling at their role.
• (notice the gap where the fourth point should be)

So IMO that shows that you can make Tanking much easier at the low end (ie, "lower the skill floor") without also lowering the skill ceiling to a degree which turns off dedicated players (demonstrated tangibly by how DPS / Heal work).

The low end is Lowest Common Denominator content — content intended for "everyone" and with no tangible barriers to entry.

In current MMO design this is:

• Leveling content
• Matchmade / Queue content

From PUGs up players have enough control over who joins and who doesn't, and do it at a slow enough pace, that I don't see Tank shortages as nearly the same issue (ie, not influencing the extinction rates of the role) nor is it nearly as appropriate to simplify it down (because it's both damaging and unnecessary).

I do not mean any of these terms derisively — I'm using LCD as literally as possible, to indicate content which spreads to include the lowest baseline skill level of players that are willing to hit the Queue button (which is quite a few — SWTOR has a surprisingly small pure-solo population relative to other MMOs if quoted statistics are accurate).

ie, it's not a comment about players as people, simply their competence or motivation about playing PvE in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Leveling doesn't need help, not because leveling queues are "okay" but because it's too much of a designer headache to balance leveling content. Players level too fast, it goes too fast, nobody has a full skill set yet — it's just not the nexus and focus of PvE or PvP.

Like in an ideal world yes I'd love to see Tanking queue populations also increase significantly from 1-54 but honestly that's got to be a much lower priority that fixing it first at 55, where the population crashes together and piles up and where balance has a much more stable environment and variables to work with.


All of this is correct. Bluntly, all leveling FPs are Tactical FPs already.

However, that's a slightly flippant assessment — unlike pure Tacticals, runs do go noticeably smoother in leveling FPs with a dedicated Tank that knows what they're doing.

Part of this is damage tuning, and part of this is simply player inexperience in the newbie range inflating the difficulty of what "should" be Tactical fluff for 4x experienced players. ie, for 4x inexperienced players, having 1 durable person for Heals to focus on is a huge relief.

A good example is General Ortol — which comes to mind because my leveling healers usually have to deal with a Dead Tank within 1 flame jet cycle.

Healing a DPS through Ortol's melee at level 27-30 is actually extremely nerve-wracking because their Health will spike up and down non-stop, especially if they're a 'squishier' DPS like a Sorc or Sniper. A less-experienced Healer will simply wipe it due to not having the necessary pre-cast / resource-management instincts.

So, leveling FPs are weird — they kind of hybridize between Tactical and Normal difficulty depending on the overall skill balance of the group, vs. True Tacticals where difficulty is mostly determined solely by the ability of the group to follow along with an episode of Sesame Street.


Juggs are actually very powerful even at low levels, I never had any Aggro issues when leveling my now-main Jug. Smash is just The End™ for threat followed by tabbing around a bit.

If all else fails, Threatening Scream. Even massively spread pulls like that irritating one in Boarding Party with like 15 mobs spread 40 meters apart that someone always aggros is trivialized with stuff like Threat Scream + Saber Reflect + LOS.

But that kind of goes back to the topic — Tanking right now is very forgiving and fun if you think like a Tank. I know what pulls to LOS, when to run ahead while DPS finishes stuff off and start locking down next aggro, what mob specifically to save Saber Throw for while playing Connect-the-Dots, etc.

But I'm abnormal. While I'm having tons of fun John Maddening Jugg Aggro techniques, a lot of other Jugs are just deer-in-headlights while their Healer drowns in a hail of blaster fire.

Is it okay for lots of other players to not have fun because a minority that think like me are having fun?

That's really not an easy question.

As WoW's former designer @Ghostcrawler pointed out (paraphrasing): "The Threat Game is fun for dedicated Tanks, and not fun for absolutely everyone else."

What you're describing is a situation where players aren't following instructions: "Don't cause Threat when the other Tank needs to grab the mob".

This is a tactical issue. It's about obeying simple instructions and learning the fight. You can find similar examples in every single possible mechanic and not just exclusive to the Tanking role.

ie, it's irrelevant to this discussion because it's not discouraging Tanks from being born and it's not affecting queue times.

It's kind of like saying that Ranged DPS should be removed because of the following group experience:

"Please stand UNDER Savrak. No, UNDER him. NO, UNDER HIM, AS IN BELOW HIM."

If there were no RDPS then no one wouldn't be under him and therefore no one would deal with the headache of not being under him. Right?

Here is the current solution to a Tank Swap:

• Taunt off the other Tank (who has the same Threat bonus you do)
• If necessary, instruct other Tank to sit on their thumb for a count of 10 before resuming their attacks.

Here is the solution to a Tank Swap if there was a Matchmade Threat Bolster:

• Taunt off the other Tank (who has the same Threat bonus you do)
• If necessary, instruct other Tank to sit on their thumb for a count of 10 before resuming their attacks.

If you do design a tactic that matchmade random strangers can't wrap their head around, you are designing a tactic that's too complicated for random matchmade content and should tone it down or otherwise telegraph what to do better.

The mechanic exist in Ops now, Toth and Zorn(?) jump immediately to mind, and if one tank just stops, they're going to lose aggro to the dps. If you bolster the ability to gain aggro, then a tank that's already good at aggro is going to generate more aggro than the "bad" tank in you example. Since the swap is based on a specific mechanic in the fight, you can't have one tank do nothing, and the "good" tank can't hold both mobs, since they'll be too strong to fight, and wipe the group. With these kinds of things going on, you can't just redesign a class and expect that it's going to work for every situation in the game. Especially not the way you're going about it. You've already pointed out that tanks in WoW are falling asleep while tanking, and over the long haul, that's worse for the game than doing nothing, since it will cost a lot of money to "fix" it, and then it's broken anyway.

If you make every fight in the game a routine tank and spank to allow "bad" tanks to get better, you're doing the same thing, making tanking boring for the people that are already proficient at it, thusly removing the desire to queue for those that already do. You see, the skill balance is already in place. The game and classes were designed around them. Throwing a monkey wrench in the works to "dumb it down" doesn't fix the current issue. The current issue isn't so much "good" tanks or "bad" tanks, but bad behavior by a subset of players, and it doesn't matter what you do to tank classes, it's not going to fix player behavior. As it stands right now, a guilded "bad" tank that's willing to learn is better served by joining a guild and off tanking to learn the mechanics of the fights until they are confident enough to take the main role, and then you have the former main tank in the off tank role to help keep them on track.

Since that is the case, GF gets the shaft for tanks, since they're busy working where the criticism is constructive, instead of "you're bad and added to my ignore list because (insert whatever here)". It's a hell of a lot less stressful on people trying to learn, and encourages more "social" play than being flamed every fight for not doing what somebody else thought you were going to do/thinks you should do/didn't taunt their stupid off them. This is the problem, more than anything else. I leveled 3 tanks to 55 as tanks, w/out ever going into GF for groups. If they changed the gear structure now, aside from costing me more money, it's not going to change my thoughts about GF. Too many MMOs as a tank to think bribes are going to fix anyone not playing the class.

Perhaps not the best example. T&Z are tanked far apart (so AOE taunts aren't a problem), and since the swaps are handled specifically by taunts, even the "bad" threat tank will be fine, particularly with taunt fluffing (as long as you leave your 15s CD taunt open when he's near the jump HP level.

We've successfully run T&Z (back in the day) with our main tank running his fresh alt in terrible gear, and with overgeared dps that kept pulling threat. Despite this, taunt fluffing kept everything under control.

I don't think you read what I actually wrote. I said Tanks were falling asleep in Wow until they gave Tanks a new focus and emphasis which then remedied the problem and now keeps Tanks more awake than they ever were in the past.

#2 — about Tank swaps. You don't seem to be understanding what I'm saying.


If your concern is "BAD PEOPLE IN MY QUEUES WILL PERFORM WORSE THAN MY FRIENDS IN GUILD GROUPS "...

I don't understand people who say that faster gearing for tanks means they're not going to queue as much.

It makes no sense. Primarly because it's not the gear that drives me but the achievement. I've been overgeared on both tanks for months now and I still do flashpoints because I "need" bonus bosses for achievement. At times I take a day or two off because of people I have met in the GF the day before. It really is that simple. What annoys me and makes flashpoints tiresome are the people.

KDY Academy graduates with 100% in Red Reaper and CWG and 0% in operations telling me how to tank, where to stand and how to skip. Rude and abusive people. Random 'tards that shouldn't be among the general population. Don't get me wrong, they *do* make for some funny stories but the general derpidity gets old really fast.

I know what you're talking about (everyone knows what you're talking about). This particular issue is unsolvable, though.

Or, well, it "is" solvable but would require — barring time machines to make significant alterations to the evolution of MMO content design — an unbelievable number of changes and attempts at engineering the playerbase's perceptions and behaviors and skill and dedication and...

I'm sympathetic to the optimistic crowd that would prefer a utopian solution where everyone is uplifted to "our" (note the dangerous word) level.

I'm of a more realistic perspective where it's more efficient to everyone involved to accept that the Queue is, and always will be, an untamed wilderness where you can get anything and everything (including a sword in box) and you have very little control over this (Ignore Lists have upper limits, etc).

If we just relax and think of Queued content as something low-pressure and snacky where people can show up and press buttons, DPS hit things, Healers fix bars, and Tanks magnetically-attract everything in a 60 kilometer radius and laugh it off because they have the power of Greyskull... everyone would probably be happier.

ie, I think part of the frustration here is that we're trying to make Queued content into something idealized which is really asking too much of it given the double request that it also be egalitarian and open to anyone who can click the icon.

Pretty much this. Also some of them remind me of my main's journey through FPs when this game was released. Learning all the FPs as a group. I still remember all the wipes in False Emperor. It sure was a learning process for us all. Fun times.

I can tell you that despite the overall tactical nature of the new FPs, if you get people who are fresh 55s, an all DPS or DPS and a heal team can suffer on those boss fights, especially the ones where most of the floor becomes a single giant AoE.

Tanks aren't obsolete, but about the time I hit 55 on my tanks I came almost to the point of having enough of random group content. Rarely do I tank anything without at least a few guildies present. Even 55HMs can turn into a huge pain. As for Ops, it's more not wanting to deal with the quitters who can't put up with a few deaths when there are people new to the Ops in there.

For the Czerka Tacticals, though, there's nothing sweeter than three DPS and a heal for zero downtime, or four DPS for minimal downtime. A tank would just slow it all down. Tanks aren't obsolete there, but rarely missed. It will be nice to see them actually implement HM versions of KDY and Assault on Korriban/Tython, might give those a go; the SMs have put me to sleep.