How is Dragonflight solving shortage of tanks and healers problem?

[Relapses]

This is not a chicken or egg argument. Game design is about controlling how people act. You are saying that game design doesn't address the core thing that game design does. It's not that some other single random game is better. It is that virtually every PvE team based game on the planet is better in this regard.

Come on man. I don't need to tell you that this is an opinion, do I?

I'm really trying not to bring in abstracts like personal preference into this discussion because it's obvious you and I simply prefer different flavors of tank design. My position is simply that the base toxicity problem in WoW is independent from the game design itself and the concerns players have about tanking could largely be overcome if people spent as much time actually playing the game and trying something that might be out of their comfort zone as they do complaining that the role has an unfair level of responsibility.

[NineSpine]

Come on man. I don't need to tell you that this is an opinion, do I?

I'm really trying not to bring in abstracts like personal preference into this discussion because it's obvious you and I simply prefer different flavors of tank design. My position is simply that the base toxicity problem in WoW is independent from the game design itself and the concerns players have about tanking could largely be overcome if people spent as much time actually playing the game and trying something that might be out of their comfort zone as they do complaining that the role has an unfair level of responsibility.

WoW's community is very comparable to the community for lobby based PvP team games like LoL. What makes WoW unique is that it is not that type of game, yet still induces that kind of behavior. You want us to believe, as usual, that WoW lives in a magic bubble where you can just declare "But it's WoW!" and suddenly we are supposed to stop asking "why?" and just trust your personal instincts about these things.

[Relapses]

WoW's community is very comparable to the community for lobby based PvP team games like LoL. What makes WoW unique is that it is not that type of game, yet still induces that kind of behavior. You want us to believe, as usual, that WoW lives in a magic bubble where you can just declare "But it's WoW!" and suddenly we are supposed to stop asking "why?" and just trust your personal instincts about these things.

I don't know about you but I stopped asking why assholes on the internet existed after the third time I got teabagged in a Quake 2 deathmatch. This was 1998.

[NineSpine]

I don't know about you but I stopped asking why assholes on the internet existed after the third time I got teabagged in a Quake 2 deathmatch. This was 1998.

I didn't ask why assholes exist on the internet. I asked why people behave a specific way in specific places and why it is different than how people behave elsewhere. Do try to keep up please, because that was a really sad attempt to dodge the issue.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

You can't just lump all content creators together and act like they do the same thing. Content creators that create guides for high end content do not drive people to the game. That is content that appeals to people who already play. A M+ route guide is completely meaningless to someone who doesn't have a very full understanding of the game. The content creators that drive new people to the game are those that create casually entertainment content that can be appreciated by people who don't understand the game at that level.

This is like saying that what gets someone interested in cars is an instructional video with an advanced breakdown of different engine components. That's crazy. What gets new people interested in cars is Fast and Furious movies or Top Gear.

.

They build engagement lol. And many of the high profile people are RWF first players etc. Also, content for existing players is still good, since it keeps them connected/engaged (possibly more important, since they are your core demo).

This is like really basic marketing stuff though.

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Y
Game designers are just people, and like all people they are prone to biases. Game designers aren't infallible, at any level. When we were making Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, we got to a point where the most well designed characters were the ones that HAPPENED to have a person on the team for whom that was their personal favorite superhero. The characters who didn't have a huge fan on the team ended up feeling pretty bad, and this actually cost us a lot of time.

Oh sure, but this is a general industry trend far beyond wow or individual developers. The point is that engagement is the major goal for anything these days, and content that drives it is what everyone focuses on.

Every major change to the game needs to be filtered through this lens.

[NineSpine]

They build engagement lol. And many of the high profile people are RWF first players etc. Also, content for existing players is still good, since it keeps them connected/engaged (possibly more important, since they are your core demo).

This is like really basic marketing stuff though.

It's really not. The idea that M+ routing videos are what drives wow engagement is one of the most laughable delusions of grandeur I have ever heard.

Oh sure, but this is a general industry trend far beyond wow or individual developers. The point is that engagement is the major goal for anything these days, and content that drives it is what everyone focuses on.

Every major change to the game needs to be filtered through this lens.

The idea that Blizzard should develop content in an obtuse way so that people have to make videos about it to drive engagement is a near-clinical level of delusion. Again, this is like someone designing a car in a way that is difficult to use so that people have to make how to videos because somehow that will make more people buy the car. This is "Maybe we should talk about medication with my psychiatrist" levels of disconnection from reality.

[Gorsameth]

This is a chicken and the egg argument. There's no proof that changing the game design will be the panacea for the social issues inherent to tanking. There's also no firm evidence that the current design somehow forces WoW's playerbase to treat new or learning players like shit. Moreover, I object severely to the notion that one system "working" in another game will magically work for WoW because, again, there's no proof that the gameplay systems are the main driver of the toxicity which players claim they're avoiding.

But we do have some clue, as much is possible without the data that Blizzard itself might have.
We have people that quit running pugs as tank because of added pressure and responsibility that did not exist in the past (timer + routing) and no one saying they never tanked before despite being able to but that tank pugs now because they enjoy the added pressure and responsibility.

Remove people playing tanks, don't add people playing tanks. You end up with less tanks running pugs.

[dexx]

1-1-4 sounds super reasonable at least to try it out for a season or two.

Especially since Blizz has had scaling tech for a long while now. Adjusting a traditional 5 man down to 4 or up to 7 on the fly should be simple.

[Kalisandra]

They could start by removing pure dps at all, let mages and locks be healers, let outlaw rogues and surv hunters tank, no point in having 3 dps specs when at least 2 of them are broken every damn tier.

It wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. The shortage is not in spec able to tank or heal, or in classes being unable to do anything but DPS, but in a lack of players interested in playing in those roles.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

It's really not. The idea that M+ routing videos are what drives wow engagement is one of the most laughable delusions of grandeur I have ever heard.



The idea that Blizzard should develop content in an obtuse way so that people have to make videos about it to drive engagement is a near-clinical level of delusion. Again, this is like someone designing a car in a way that is difficult to use so that people have to make how to videos because somehow that will make more people buy the car. This is "Maybe we should talk about medication with my psychiatrist" levels of disconnection from reality.

That is almost completely unrelated to anything being discussed but it doesn't seem like you are interested in engaging, so be it.

Also telling someone engaging in good faith that they should see a psychiatrist is....uh...

[Tyris Flare]

Who presented an actual idea about the game and I told them it was off limits?

Every thread, every day, you spout your opinions as if they are gospel and can never be questioned.

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The DPS rotation for every healer is complete garbage and often has 0 interaction with anything. If DPS suddenly had to deal minor healing for 50% of the gameplay they would revolt and burn down the forums. Give healers the ability to deal damage with healing, at least the rotation won't be as dull and boring (Nature's Vigil).

Healer dps rotations are usually pretty boring. Hoping maybe talents can eventually help with that if you can spec into more dps abilities, but I'm not sure if that is actually true.

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But we do have some clue, as much is possible without the data that Blizzard itself might have.
We have people that quit running pugs as tank because of added pressure and responsibility that did not exist in the past (timer + routing) and no one saying they never tanked before despite being able to but that tank pugs now because they enjoy the added pressure and responsibility.

Remove people playing tanks, don't add people playing tanks. You end up with less tanks running pugs.

I don't know if routing is the biggest block, I suspect it's part of a bundle of things.

But tanking in old wow was awful, you were completely reliant on your healer and had almost no buttons to do anything. Ugh

[Jastall]

Every thread, every day, you spout your opinions as if they are gospel and can never be questioned.

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Healer dps rotations are usually pretty boring. Hoping maybe talents can eventually help with that if you can spec into more dps abilities, but I'm not sure if that is actually true.

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I don't know if routing is the biggest block, I suspect it's part of a bundle of things.

But tanking in old wow was awful, you were completely reliant on your healer and had almost no buttons to do anything. Ugh

I definitely think routing is part of the issue. While I do think people overexaggerate how quickly players yell at tanks, certainly picking a route that doesn't make much sense is a quick way to get reactions, especially if poor routing leads to deaths/wipes. As well, as a tank I often feel like I need to be more aware of my group's performance than is usual. As DPS I worry about my own thing, as tank I gotta realize pretty quickly how good DPS are at interrupting, how quickly they take down priority mobs, is the healer asleep at the wheels, etc. The baseline effort, awareness and knowledge required for a tank is higher than for the other 2 roles, even if the roles often reverse at the higher end.

On the other hand, while there's certainly optimal route that you can copy-paste from Dratnos and co., not all tanks just follow those. Picking your own packs can be a fun part of both the learning experience as a tank, and making adjustments based on your party on the fly (fewer interrupts = avoid the most dense caster packs in Halls, for instance) can be a valuable and rewarding skill.

Making dungeons very linear for the sake of newer tanks to me kinda feels like forcing aim assist on everyone in an FPS; sure, it's easier to pick up and more inclusive but something is lost in the transition. Still, I do believe getting 100% trash should be doable via a fairly no-frills route, and Blizzard could design things more intuitively or encourage different but clearly optional routing, for example a time-consuming miniboss guarding a small buff which would be particularly useful on Tyra weeks but not always worth it depending on group performance/composition.

[NineSpine]

Every thread, every day, you spout your opinions as if they are gospel and can never be questioned.

So, I never said that. Thanks for agreeing.

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That is almost completely unrelated to anything being discussed but it doesn't seem like you are interested in engaging, so be it.

Also telling someone engaging in good faith that they should see a psychiatrist is....uh...

There is no reasonable way to deal with as unreasonable a claim as saying that M+ routing videos are what drives engagement to WoW, and that making a game obtuse to play is an intentional way to create Youtube content that pulls players in. Presenting in a friendly way an argument that can't be good faith simply because of how disconnected from reality it is, is not actual genuine good faith.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I definitely think routing is part of the issue. While I do think people overexaggerate how quickly players yell at tanks, certainly picking a route that doesn't make much sense is a quick way to get reactions, especially if poor routing leads to deaths/wipes. As well, as a tank I often feel like I need to be more aware of my group's performance than is usual. As DPS I worry about my own thing, as tank I gotta realize pretty quickly how good DPS are at interrupting, how quickly they take down priority mobs, is the healer asleep at the wheels, etc. The baseline effort, awareness and knowledge required for a tank is higher than for the other 2 roles, even if the roles often reverse at the higher end.

On the other hand, while there's certainly optimal route that you can copy-paste from Dratnos and co., not all tanks just follow those. Picking your own packs can be a fun part of both the learning experience as a tank, and making adjustments based on your party on the fly (fewer interrupts = avoid the most dense caster packs in Halls, for instance) can be a valuable and rewarding skill.

Making dungeons very linear for the sake of newer tanks to me kinda feels like forcing aim assist on everyone in an FPS; sure, it's easier to pick up and more inclusive but something is lost in the transition. Still, I do believe getting 100% trash should be doable via a fairly no-frills route, and Blizzard could design things more intuitively or encourage different but clearly optional routing, for example a time-consuming miniboss guarding a small buff which would be particularly useful on Tyra weeks but not always worth it depending on group performance/composition.

I really like this point. completely eliminating routing is definitely losing something along the way, the compromise is just making a no frills ones better.

Some of this is going to be a big challenge with old dungeons though.

[Itisamuh]

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.)

Definitely true on it being a social issue, which is why I think nothing can really be done about it.

[ippollite]

Definitely true on it being a social issue, which is why I think nothing can really be done about it.

Honestly, it can be fixed, but not in a way that most current players would accept or even tolerate. The simple fix is you lower the skill ceiling of playing the role, and raise the skill floor. You make healing and tanking easier and more people will pick it up. Case in point: TBC chain healing spam. My resto shammy loved healing then. Now i log onto her and have so many oh shit buttons that i completely phase out and head straight back to my rogue (without even bothering to learn how to play it). To be clear, the point isnt how trash i am. But that if its pretty simple to play, then people unfamiliar with it will probably check it out. If the spec, or the group content becomes significantly challenging to play, then fewer people want to play it. PARTICULARLY in wow where tolerance of failure is pretty low (and those two roles are so easy to dump on for the groups success or failure).

What might be interesting though is that the last point above has a clear flip side: The more challenging, the fewer people willing to take it up, then the more valuable those players become. Again, back to TBC (pre dual spec), there was a significant cost to locking yourself into tank and healing roles. So fewer people were willing to take it up (leading to massive dps wait times to key up). And therein lies the orchid in the manure. As dps get more frustrated, and as heals and tanking gets put on an even higher pedestal (this thread bemoaning how they seem to be disappearing for example), all creates a social pressure to switch into the healer/tanking role.

So honestly, i dont think they'll intervene. Instead they'll continue regarding it as a player problem with a player based solution. "PVP happened", so to speak.

[Soriz]

FWIW I have played a tank pretty much since TBC due to the shortage and enjoyed the ease of finding groups more than the gameplay it's self. Going into Dragonflight I will no longer be tanking so another one out of the pool.

As the game evolves more and more mechanics are being added and as I get older I have less time to be a perfectionist at the game and more casual. I noticed at the start of mythic+ there was a huge spike in abuse from players that put me off bothering to play as much as a tank due to the demand on me being perfect. If I screw up once it's basically personal attacks for the rest of the dungeon until I leave the group.

It's got to the point where I have to disable party chat entirely to avoid abuse when I do something wrong or don't make the perfect pull to the pixel as I don't really research the best routes to take as I don't do mythic+ competitive and it's mostly lower keys. Either way, enough is enough and I just want to play casually now in my own way as groups are just so unwelcome and regardless of how much thick skin you have, it wears you down over the years.

[Scrysis]

That statement is wildly wrong. At the extreme, you can go into LFR as a dps who has literally never played the game before and doesn’t know what buttons do, and you will still clear it. Can’t do that as a tank.

In normal raiding it’s less extreme, but after the first week or two you’re never going to hit an enrage so dps is irrelevant. Again, tanks not know mechanics means a wipe.

Heroic the gaps starts to close, but it really only fully closes once you get to mythic bosses where there’s a dps race.

Similar dynamics exist in dungeons.

This is accurate.

There are skills required of a pug tank as well that makes it harder than running with a set group and means routes are more dynamic. Maybe someone pulls an extra pack by accident - it’s up to you to adjust (and by the way, there’s not time to stop and explain during the dungeon when other dps are criticizing you for timing being off).

Certain groups are way better than others as far as coordination. Healers play differently - some are very aggressive at doing dps, which as a tank means you need to be more conservative, and others mostly just heal. As you go higher, “the route” that worked at +15 is too conservative for +17, and dps get mad at that too.

So pugging isn’t just about following “the route” - it’s about having a sense of place and making judgement calls that no other role is expected to have to do. And dps have no idea what’s going through your head and again, there’s no way to explain, so they just get mad at the tank.

Some healer classes are very poor at dps, and others are very good. Blizzard doesn't fine tune healer dps as closely as the dps of actual dps players because that's not their assigned role. Most healers would prefer to heal as that's the role they selected and the game they want to play, which is a more dynamic and tactical type of gameplay. They're frequently limited by the tank and group, however, so dps is not always a good indicator of a good healer.

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

Explosive is explicitly NOT a healer mechanic (Grievous is the healer affix); it's a dps responsibility mechanic. Good healers can recover if one explosive orb goes off every once in a while and there aren't any really severe aoe mechanics happening simultaneously. But having more than one orb go off at a time will wipe a group. You could try to argue that healers should try to dps the orb instead, and while that's a nifty idea, a healer choosing to dps an orb rather than a dps has the potential of wiping the group by not healing. One dps player swapping to take out orbs, on the other hand, won't directly cause a wipe (And if you wipe to a timer because one dps had to stop every now and then for orbs, then the group's dps is way too low). I HATE explosive because none of the dps actually want to take charge of the orbs, and if no one does them, the run is a no-go. I've been in groups where the tank had to take out orbs because the dps wouldn't.

And that's the real crux of the matter -- personal responsibility. Because both tanks and healers are support roles, a lot of poor players have leaned on them to make up for their own mistakes. But in M+, that doesn't work. As the keys get higher, personal responsibility becomes more and more important. Players that learned to ignore mechanics or not step out of fire for a few seconds because the healer would heal them are suddenly one-shot by those mechanics. Dps that ignored interrupts, stuns, and CC in favor of doing more damage used to be bolstered by the tank just eating the damage and the healer healing it. But doing the same thing in M+ now
causes wipes because not interrupting results in the tank taking fatal amounts of damage. So what you're seeing is the result of shitty dps players who don't want to take responsibility taking things out on tanks and healers, and then getting mad that the tanks and healers aren't interested in taking that kind of shit any more. That's not going to stop if you have three dps in a group or 5 dps in a group.

You want more tanks and healers for M+? This is how you do it:

1) Find a way to make route options more visible so tanks don't have to guess, and then be stressed out by the other players when they guessed "wrong."

2) Make pack percentage more easily noticeable and have percentage "break points" for when you're transitioning to a different part of a dungeon. Example: In Halls of Atonement, there is a much more limited number enemies once you enter the church, and almost none when you go through the portal. If you have a suggested percentage before you enter the church, you make it easier on the tank to figure out how much and what they might want to pull.

3) Spread out dps utility. Seriously. If I have a choice between a warrior and a warlock, I'm going to bring the warlock. Normally, I would bring the better player, but that's not always apparent when you're looking for people queuing in the finder. Hell, I'm going to always look for a warlock since they're super tanky, bring cookies, gateways, and ranged dps (you warlocks need to pay your dev more; they do an awesome job for you). Mages are another easy bet. You get biscuit tables and hero. Sure, warriors have that shout, but I never see them use it in dungeons. Why would I want to take them?

4) DPS -- be team players. There's a reason why tanks and healers are more common in higher M+ keys. Dps got to those higher levels by thinking less about pew-pew, and more about the group's success. I, like many people, do M+ a couple dungeons at a time. If I see dps that go out of their way to help the group out while maintaining a decent level (a.k.a - you don't have to be top, but you're reasonably ahead of the tank) of dps and having a good attitude, I'm going to ask them if they want to do a few more keys. This can be things like putting down darkness for demon hunters during heavy damage, or hunters putting on turtle and taking solo soaks, or players slowing adds, or dps DKs gripping in ranged casters for the tank to get threat on. Are you low health and the group is in trouble? Use your personals! Healers notice this! Use interrupts and stuns! Healers AND tanks notice this! AND WE TALK. Healers and tanks 100% gossip about dps. This is doubly true when talking about healers and tanks that pair up for keys.

[Nymrohd]

While that wouldn't necessarily help with tank/healer shortage, they really need to make an effort to keep their damage output more reasonably balanced. I enjoyed Ashen Hallow but I am fully aware how broken that shit was.

[Relapses]

This is accurate.



Some healer classes are very poor at dps, and others are very good. Blizzard doesn't fine tune healer dps as closely as the dps of actual dps players because that's not their assigned role. Most healers would prefer to heal as that's the role they selected and the game they want to play, which is a more dynamic and tactical type of gameplay. They're frequently limited by the tank and group, however, so dps is not always a good indicator of a good healer.



Explosive is explicitly NOT a healer mechanic (Grievous is the healer affix); it's a dps responsibility mechanic. Good healers can recover if one explosive orb goes off every once in a while and there aren't any really severe aoe mechanics happening simultaneously. But having more than one orb go off at a time will wipe a group. You could try to argue that healers should try to dps the orb instead, and while that's a nifty idea, a healer choosing to dps an orb rather than a dps has the potential of wiping the group by not healing. One dps player swapping to take out orbs, on the other hand, won't directly cause a wipe (And if you wipe to a timer because one dps had to stop every now and then for orbs, then the group's dps is way too low). I HATE explosive because none of the dps actually want to take charge of the orbs, and if no one does them, the run is a no-go. I've been in groups where the tank had to take out orbs because the dps wouldn't.

/shrug

As a R Shaman I always tell my group not to worry about Explosive since Frost Shocking them is incredibly easy and I can do my entire heal/DPS rotation while still killing every single one of them. If I can remove an entire affix from a key as a healer then I consider that, by nature, a healer affix.