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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-25-2011 @ 6:17PM
Faroth said...
I think a large part of the problem is simply that players don't like carrying the weight of responsibility for other people's actions.
In Wrath the queue times for randoms were 15-20 minutes for a DPS, 30-45 from time to time, on my server. Now I hear they are 30-45 min at least. Obviously something has changed. Has the role of tanking changed? Not really.
However, the fact that tanks can no longer run into a group of 5 mobs, hit two abilities and then take a nap while DPS goes full bore AoE has changed. And it's not the tank that's doing anything different in terms of their role, it's that DPS can no longer go crazy for the highest numbers they can get.
So now we have tanks needing to tank less than 5 mobs at a time while others are CC'd. Yet if something goes wrong and that hunter is blasting away on an off target mob instead of the one the tank is focusing on and that causes a wipe, the burden falls on the tank as players, not the game, blame them for not doing their job. Nobody wants to be responsible for the stupidity of others. You can't change their play style, you can't MAKE them stop trying to obliterate whatever they want. But you'll often be blamed if they do and you don't handle it.
I think it's not the tanking role, it's the shift from BC to Wrath and now to Cataclysm. Wrath made things easy in heroics for various reasons and not just "because of poor design" or "easy mode" necessarily. Cataclysm tried to reach back towards BC and Classic for 5 mans, but may have overshot the mark.
If Blizzard can pull the game back to a sweet spot between BC's Heroic difficulty and Wrath's Heroic "easy-mode" difficulty, I think they'll find a balance that makes tanking an enjoyable role again.
I've tanked heroics, I tanked in Wrath, I just got to 85 on my tank in Cataclysm. I know a lot of people who enjoy tanking. They like handling the mob, keeping it off others, knowing when to use their tools to help a healer, etc. The idea of removing tanking would be greatly opposed by many players.
The idea of adding more tanking options? Perhaps.
Reply
8-25-2011 @ 10:37PM
DarkWalker said...
"""I think a large part of the problem is simply that players don't like carrying the weight of responsibility for other people's actions."""
You said everything. Find a way to put the blame squarely with whoever deserves it, and you will most likely find less clueless players failing, and more players willing to try the roles with more responsibility.
I sometimes joke that every attack that does avoidable damage should also add an effect that turns the character bright pink and puts a neon "fail" sign above their heads. While a joke, it's only half a joke. It would, at least, make players realize how much (and when) they are failing.
8-25-2011 @ 11:33PM
Bodrake said...
You have pretty much hit the nail on the head, Faroth.
The introduction of the LFD tool a year after Wrath launched and a year before Cata launched led to a huge uptick of PUGs in heroic dungeons. Combine that with the perfect storm of healers being able to keep the whole party alive without breaking a sweat, tanks holding aggro right from the start of every fight, huge damage from AoE, and no CC required. And then remember that all the players got to experience this situation for a full year.
Then the Cata Dev team decided to roll back each and every one of those items, and to top it off they made sure that even normal dungeons had some tricky fights. Players who had been able to see all the content of Wrath for a full year were now effectively held back from PUGing dungeons, and if you can't even PUG a dungeon, what chance do you have in a raid?
The lack of tanks is just one symptom of the real root cause - the Cata Devs abandoned the very large pool of casual players that had been created in the last year of Wrath. That large pool of casuals has been voting with their wallets ever since. It is obvious that they believe the answer is to provide grindy quest hubs like Firelands and Darkmoon Island. I honestly believe that in order to fix this problem, they are going to just have to embrace the fact that the majority of players want a short queue for a quick and easy dungeon run. Although they may be loath to admit it, easier tanking and easier healing are the only smart decisions for their business.