How is Dragonflight solving shortage of tanks and healers problem?

[NineSpine]

I really don't think that healing and tanking are more difficult than DPS at the higher levels.

I don't care about what is the case "At the higher levels". I care about what is the case in the game. There is no reason to limit the discussion to the top fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of players.

And if they're roughly the same at the higher levels of play then I can't imagine much is different the whole way down. I say that as somebody who has played all three roles in M+ above +20s. (I don't raid anymore but I was a CE raider from the end of WotLK through MoP and I played all three roles then as well.) The problem isn't the difficulty of the specs or roles, imo, but rather the availability of players who want to play them.

The availability of players who want to play a role is directly caused by what playing the role looks like.

Some affixes also make tanking or healing more of a chore than needed. (Necrotic, for example, is exceptionally punitive and makes finding tanks an even more arduous process than it is normally. Explosive is also seen as a "healer mechanic" so healers are more difficult to come by on these weeks.) Blizzard can do more to incentivize players to run keys on these weeks with things like reward boxes or extra gear but ultimately that's all they can do.

The idea that all Blizzard, the creators of the game who can make almost literally any change they want, can do is tweak affixes around the edges is so silly that I don't really know how to deal with it. They could nuke those affixes. They could change the entire affix system. All of this is artifice. All of it is changeable.

[Relapses]

I don't care about what is the case "At the higher levels". I care about what is the case in the game. There is no reason to limit the discussion to the top fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of players.

...that'd be why I said "it's the same the whole way down." The relative difficulty of each role isn't higher just because you're doing easier content.

The availability of players who want to play a role is directly caused by what playing the role looks like.

I don't agree with this viewpoint. I think people gravitate towards roles more based on personality factors than anything the role actually entails. And on a broader scale, statistics has more to do with the incidence of tanks and healers than any gameplay factors.

We're probably not ever going to agree on this, though, so it doesn't make much sense to belabor the point. Judging from your comment about tanking in FFXIV I'd surmise you won't be happy with WoW tanking until the role requires even fewer brain cells than it does currently. It's fine that some specs have an innate skill expression requirement, though I personally believe learning a route is not nearly as complicated as players in these discussion boards make it seem. It seems, to me, most of these players are afraid of *gasp* maybe getting criticized by another player than anything else.

[NineSpine]

...that'd be why I said "it's the same the whole way down." The relative difficulty of each role isn't higher just because you're doing easier content.

I don't agree with this viewpoint. I think people gravitate towards roles more based on personality factors than anything the role actually entails. And on a broader scale, statistics has more to do with the incidence of tanks and healers than any gameplay factors.

We're probably not ever going to agree on this, though, so it doesn't make much sense to belabor the point. Judging from your comment about tanking in FFXIV I'd surmise you won't be happy with WoW tanking until the role requires even fewer brain cells than it does currently. It's fine that some specs have an innate skill expression requirement, though I personally believe learning a route is not nearly as complicated as players in these discussion boards make it seem. It seems, to me, most of these players are afraid of *gasp* maybe getting criticized by another player than anything else.

The idea that people gravitate toward roles based on the roles themselves and nothing to do with what playing those roles actually feels like is silly on its face, and easily disproven by the face that other games have different ratios of players doing each role. FF14 has plenty of tanks, and a lesser healer shortage than wow, despite a higher percentage of players needed to tank and heal compared to wow. And that game isn't alone. If the problem is not uniform across similar games, you can't declare that the problem is caused by external factors.

[Itisamuh]

It seems, to me, most of these players are afraid of *gasp* maybe getting criticized by another player than anything else.

That's exactly what the problem is, because that criticism from random players when you're trying to figure things out is very likely to be incredibly rude, and people don't want to deal with that crap. And no figuring out basic routes isn't difficult, but due to the speed running mentality people have, and the fact that tanks are expected to already have them mastered, there's a social pressure there on tanks, and to a lesser extent healers, that damage dealers simply don't have to worry about, unless they screw up majorly or they're grouped with meter snobs.

[Gorsameth]

It seems, to me, most of these players are afraid of *gasp* maybe getting criticized by another player than anything else.

Shockingly many people play video games for fun, and not to be yelled at by some random on the internet.

[Relapses]

That's exactly what the problem is, because that criticism from random players when you're trying to figure things out is very likely to be incredibly rude, and people don't want to deal with that crap. And no figuring out basic routes isn't difficult, but due to the speed running mentality people have, and the fact that tanks are expected to already have them mastered, there's a social pressure there on tanks, and to a lesser extent healers, that damage dealers simply don't have to worry about, unless they screw up majorly or they're grouped with meter snobs.

There's a report system and a social contract in place to filter out people who are overly rude. And because of the iterative scaling nature of M+, routing is completely meaningless until you get to higher keys where even the DPS role has responsibility. Like I said, this issue is grossly overstated on message boards where people love to pretend that one time some guy called them a windowlicker in a +2 Plaguefall for not using an MDI speedroute has given them emotional wounds which required years of therapy to fix. If people would spend a third of the time they do bitching about why they can't do something just... fucking doing it, I think 95% of this community's problems would vanish.

[Peacemoon]

I’m not sure there is much they can do other than add bigger dungeon groups that still only require 1 tank. (Remember some classic dungeons could go with 10 people?).

Maybe flexi dungeons 5-10?

[Relapses]

Shockingly many people play video games for fun, and not to be yelled at by some random on the internet.

Ah yes, the mysterious universal definition of fun in a video game rears its head again. I can really only counter this with my personal experience in WoW: I have fun by challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone every once and awhile. Sometimes I fail because I am sadly a fallible human being prone to making mistakes. But that's okay, I learn from my mistakes and rarely make the same mistake again the next time I attempt it. If in this process of learning somebody wants to be an ass about it then I do this thing where I right click their name and add them to my ignore list.

[Itisamuh]

There's a report system and a social contract in place to filter out people who are overly rude. And because of the iterative scaling nature of M+, routing is completely meaningless until you get to higher keys where even the DPS role has responsibility. Like I said, this issue is grossly overstated on message boards where people love to pretend that one time some guy called them a windowlicker in a +2 Plaguefall for not using an MDI speedroute has given them emotional wounds which required years of therapy to fix. If people would spend a third of the time they do bitching about why they can't do something just... fucking doing it, I think 95% of this community's problems would vanish.

I've seen people get absolutely roasted or even vote kicked for not being perfect in raid finder, or heroic and even normal dungeons and I don't even do that type of content very often at all. If someone who's done them as infrequently as me has seen it often enough over the years to consider it common, I'd say it's likely a bigger problem than you think it is. Generally those doing mythic dungeons or organized raids already know what they're doing more or less, it's the entry level where people who don't want to put up with the nonsense while trying to learn are weeded out. Reporting doesn't do anything to help in the moment either, so that doesn't relieve the social pressure at all. And while I generally don't care what anyone thinks either, I won't deny that a bad enough experience doesn't make one want to repeat it.

[Relapses]

I've seen people get absolutely roasted or even vote kicked for not being perfect in raid finder, or heroic and even normal dungeons and I don't even do that type of content very often at all. If someone who's done them as infrequently as me has seen it often enough over the years to consider it common, I'd say it's likely a bigger problem than you think it is. Generally those doing mythic dungeons or organized raids already know what they're doing more or less, it's the entry level where people who don't want to put up with the nonsense while trying to learn are weeded out. Reporting doesn't do anything to help in the moment either, so that doesn't relieve the social pressure at all. And while I generally don't care what anyone thinks either, I won't deny that a bad enough experience doesn't make one want to repeat it.

I'm not denying toxicity exists. I've seen more than my fair share of it at every level of play in this game. But it's still a social issue and not a game issue. Blizzard does seem to be doing their part by actually following up and banning people who repeatedly breech the social contract.

I do think there could be more options put in place for players to learn but players by and large do not like to admit they're learning and almost all players will choose the path of least resistance when it's made available to them so it's a hard thing for the developers to address. (ie, you just get your first +2... do you spend 40 minutes filling waiting for people who are new or do you pick up the overgeared player who just wants an easy VP farm? 99% of players will choose the latter which results in the player learning almost nothing while the instance is auto-completed.)

[Ashana Darkmoon]

The idea that people gravitate toward roles based on the roles themselves and nothing to do with what playing those roles actually feels like is silly on its face, and easily disproven by the face that other games have different ratios of players doing each role. FF14 has plenty of tanks, and a lesser healer shortage than wow, despite a higher percentage of players needed to tank and heal compared to wow. And that game isn't alone. If the problem is not uniform across similar games, you can't declare that the problem is caused by external factors.

Healers and tanks being rare is common in every game that has ever existed I feel like. It can be better or worse but it never goes away

Anyway I mostly think some solutions are worst than the disease. Destroying routes would ruin the interesting part of the game for a lot of people. Simplifying routes with fewer dumb skips and weird packs would be great, though. Like, people should be able to W key through the dungeon and get 100%. Elite players could maybe be able to walk around certain packs and pull something else (or pull them together). Basically the opposite of the Motherlode, which is one of the worst ever made for this. You had to death run at the end lol

I do think personality plays a big part though. I healed for the first few expansion because it was a passive role and helped you get groups. And anecdotally, i have known tons of tanks and healers that play them (frankly) because they are really bad at dps. Being a horrible tank or healer ruins keys, but being a mediocre one is almost always more than enough, while mediocre DPS have their mediocrity displayed on the meters for all to see. It's often very easy to "hide" in raids especially as a bad healer

[Celement]

It's a tricky problem to solve. In early content dps is the trivial role with healing being harder and tanking being hardest.

It inverses hard with tanking being utterly trivial high end with healers being the middle man and dps being the most challenging role.

It leads to this odd bottle neck were low keys dps are over abundance but in very high keys the hardest roles to fill ( At least at the level dps comp matters quite far past 20 this season)

[Ashana Darkmoon]

It's a tricky problem to solve. In early content dps is the trivial role with healing being harder and tanking being hardest.

It inverses hard with tanking being utterly trivial high end with healers being the middle man and dps being the most challenging role.

It leads to this odd bottle neck were low keys dps are over abundance but in very high keys the hardest roles to fill ( At least at the level dps comp matters quite far past 20 this season)

I think a lot of people don't get this experience because it's not in their "social circle." Like doing keys with a bunch of folks doing 110% tank dps and thinking that's good/normal, and the one time you pug a guy who does 250% it's "oh that's gear" when he's a whopping 5 ilvls ahead or something.

But yeah I guess for me off the top of my head it would be:

1) the 100% W-key dungeon route, where skips, alt-routes, and weird pulls can happen but aren't necessary
2) Change the ratio of avoidable/unavoidable damage so that in keys with bad control it doesn't seem like healing is impossible, while in keys with perfect control the healer still has to heal and not dps 100% of the time.
3) healers/tanks being able to spec for more damage at a cost of survivability/throughput (we seem to be getting this with talents)
4) tank snap agro being better across all specs. Miserable experience for newer tanks
5) for raids esp, tanking needs to be more engaging

[NineSpine]

Healers and tanks being rare is common in every game that has ever existed I feel like. It can be better or worse but it never goes away

Anyway I mostly think some solutions are worst than the disease. Destroying routes would ruin the interesting part of the game for a lot of people. Simplifying routes with fewer dumb skips and weird packs would be great, though. Like, people should be able to W key through the dungeon and get 100%. Elite players could maybe be able to walk around certain packs and pull something else (or pull them together). Basically the opposite of the Motherlode, which is one of the worst ever made for this. You had to death run at the end lol

I do think personality plays a big part though. I healed for the first few expansion because it was a passive role and helped you get groups. And anecdotally, i have known tons of tanks and healers that play them (frankly) because they are really bad at dps. Being a horrible tank or healer ruins keys, but being a mediocre one is almost always more than enough, while mediocre DPS have their mediocrity displayed on the meters for all to see. It's often very easy to "hide" in raids especially as a bad healer

Routes are not interesting for 99.999% of players. Routing is solved immediately by a couple of dozen people who then instruct everyone else what to do. There is very, very, very little value in systems that are solved by a handful of people and then everyone else just has to copy them.

[Nymrohd]

Destroying routes would ruin the interesting part of the game for a lot of people. Simplifying routes with fewer dumb skips and weird packs would be great, though.

I have to ask. Given that routes are almost entirely decided outside actually gameplay by people on an addon, what exactly are we protecting?

My suggestion remains the same.
Design a linear path with almost no complications that goes from boss to boss. Allow for patrols or for very large rooms to have additional packs that you need to seriously fuck up to pull. Have the main linear path NOT reach you 100%. Allow for enough side rooms/patrols/additional packs so that groups can choose to pull extras to clear the dungeon (and so that the dungeon makes sense in the context of an RPG). NEVER implement a seasonal affix like Reaping or Prideful ever again.

[Relapses]

I have to ask. Given that routes are almost entirely decided outside actually gameplay by people on an addon, what exactly are we protecting?

My suggestion remains the same.
Design a linear path with almost no complications that goes from boss to boss. Allow for patrols or for very large rooms to have additional packs that you need to seriously fuck up to pull. Have the main linear path NOT reach you 100%. Allow for enough side rooms/patrols/additional packs so that groups can choose to pull extras to clear the dungeon (and so that the dungeon makes sense in the context of an RPG). NEVER implement a seasonal affix like Reaping or Prideful ever again.

You just described Halls of Attonement... which was probably one of the best dungeons in SL. I think the bigger underlying problem is that the people who make dungeons aren't the same people in charge of balancing M+ so it always seems unnecessarily punishing whenever a dungeon has a bunch of narrow corridors (or is on a fucking train).

[Skavee]

If there would be a tank class that also has ranged dps spec, I'd definitely do more tanking in m+ and stick to DPS in raids.

Yes! there actually is one class and I really tried. The whole animal and nature fantasy of druid is just not for me as much as I tried to get attached to it.

I'd love for tank with warlock,mage or sp kind of DPS spec to be in game.

[Nymrohd]

You just described Halls of Attonement... which was probably one of the best dungeons in SL. I think the bigger underlying problem is that the people who make dungeons aren't the same people in charge of balancing M+ so it always seems unnecessarily punishing whenever a dungeon has a bunch of narrow corridors (or is on a fucking train).

I definitely did not describe Halls of Atonement. Halls of Atonement has a vast space with no clear linear path to the boss requiring very specific choices in pulls from the tank, followed by the staircase were you can easily pull additional packs.

[Vampyrr]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/blizzar...l-valor-329249
https://www.wowhead.com/news/raid-an...eason-1-329285
https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/top...onflight-beta/

so open world primal even gear is now 359

- - - Updated - - -



I use to play a game where there are no set roles. Everyone is a dps and whoever does the most dps gets the aggro. Every class has talents and abilities to avoid damage like CC, dodge, dash forward, side, and backward and each attack you do also heals you a little bit. All abilities are the instant cast. It was very fun as you can to swap tanks sometimes so you have to slow down dps and let other tank as your defense is on CD (yes there is a CD for dodge and all that stuff). Really created a good group experience coz you can't just keep dps and try to be tops dps coz if you do you will end up dead.

I feel like this could only be done well if you remove specs and have each class just be a one spec thing. WoW isn't really designed that way so I do not think they can pull that off.

[Nymrohd]

As someone who ran halls of atonement a lot early on, there were definitely lots of different strategies - this was also a great example of a dungeon where the path changes and gets more aggressive as you go higher up the chain because there are so many casters. Advanced groups get off interrupts so you can be very aggressive, but less advanced ones don’t and tank deaths are common.

Yeah which is why I got confused. I was describing an almost linear dungeon and HoA is anything but.