(I was originally going to do a raid recap for the week, but this Call to Arms business makes for a more compelling blog post. Instead, here’s a screenshot from Nef last night and a short diatribe on the news of the day. Recap coming tomorrow.)
I chuckled when I first saw the blue post last night that under-represented roles (read: usually tanks, sometimes healers) were going to be getting incentives to run random dungeons in the LFD. It’s a nice sentiment — recognizing that tanking in LFD sucks and no one wants to do it — and apparently Blizzard thinks greasing some palms will do the trick. I sincerely doubt it.
If you’ve never had the joy of tanking a random pug in LFD, let me assure you, you’re not missing much. It combines all the best worlds of anonymity, no reputation repercussions for poor or asinine play, no sense of responsibility, and a wide pool of random (and usually subpar) talent. All the logical results of any system that combines random folks from random servers and places them in a group for the one and (probably) only time they will ever meet and interact with each other. At that point, the only way you can really tell how the run is going to pan out is through a healthy application of Game Theory.
In my case, I can assure you that this carrot will definitely not compel me to solo queue into the LFD system. While I can’t speak for everyone, I feel exceedingly confident in extrapolating my position across a wide cross-section of the game’s tanks. If we’re not running randoms with random people, it’s not because there isn’t a compelling reward for us to do so, it’s because tanking a random is akin to sticking your hand in a beehive. All Blizzard is telling us now is that there’s some honey in there as well.
So who will answer this Call to Arms? Some pre-existing tanks, sure, but I suspect mostly those that will respond the most will be those who already aren’t turned off from LFD completely, and they’ll be pulled from various dps classes (be they hybrids or pures using a different character). Instead of this new system compelling tanks to return to the system in droves, you’re going to unleash a deluge of horror stories of various dps players in absurd kits and specs attempting to do the dirty work for a free shot at some rewards. I can’t exactly seeing LFD profit from this.
It does suck that dps are inordinately suffering under the burden of insane queue times, but there’s no systemic way to correct it. Tanking and healing are perceived by general populace as less fun, more responsibility, etc. And who would want to take that upon themselves, especially in the LFD environment here fun and responsibility are already rare commodities?
I hope this program works out and it really does foster the creation of a new generation of tanks that can do the job, and as a result the queue times go down, but I don’t have much confidence.
If we really want to instill a way to separate good from frustrating dps, then we need a way to notice dispells, cc, self saves, etc. As long as pure dps tends to be the metric for all, we’ll get people who purely DPS, not team play.
I do tank pugs. Many do fine. When I get dps that do the tank annoyers like pull for me, refuse to cc etc, then I tell the group “This isn’t how I work. I’ll give it ten minutes to clean things up. If they don’t improve I’ll be leaving. I don’t have the gear to plow past bad play.” Most of the time that opens up peer pressure on the bad apples.
Cheers!
You’re very brave to stick with the system. Good luck and enjoy your well earned rewards!
But but Rhidach… Mounts!!!!! and pets!!!!!!.
Usually if I solo queue, I do it as ret while farming something or doing dailies. If I’m tanking it is with guildies or friends.
Tanking with poor players, (not saying low dps or low healing) just causes headaches.
Wait, mounts and pets?! Oh, well, nevermind… that’s all I needed to hop in that queue.
I love how Blizzard says “under-represented roles,” in describing who will be earning these specific rewards from CTA. Why can’t they just say, “Tanks, but sometimes Healers?”
There will be an influx of *terribad* tanks, undergeared and underskilled, who want to farm for the rare mounts & pets, but I agree that they will be primarily DPS who want the insta-queues.
This should mean that those of us queuing as DPS will see shorter queue times as well, for the simple fact there will be fewer of us queuing. There’s not direct ratio, I think, but in theory that should be the case.
I could really care less. I can solo instances to try for the Baron’s mount or the Raven mount AND get all the coin & drops from the runs for myself. I queue once a day for my Valor points. A few shiney items certainly isn’t going to make me go level a tank so I can get “rewarded” for my “efforts.” Last time I checked, Cata Heroics couldn’t be done without DPS.
I don’t tank for randoms.
There is just no way they can make me tank randoms.
No amount of shiny goodness can be placed in a bag that would make me want to subject myself to the random people that love to make the extremely easy job known as tanking extremely difficult.
F no, not today, thank you kindly.
The problem is when people think that PUG = Bad. It’s not true. I main a healer, and alt a tank, and also have three other alts that run heroics. It’s this ridiculous stigma that because the other people likely don’t play a tank or healer that they don’t know what it’s like. Don’t get me wrong – I prefer not to pug as a general rule, admittedly at times because of bad DPS (mostly because of bad tanks, though), but I also don’t always have a choice in the matter.
Beyond that, as I said directly in response to the blog itself, there’s a large number of DPS that need to L2P, too – but this does also go for tanks and healers.
Still, I think this could turn out to be an eye-opener for a lot of people, be it through votekick or otherwise just having to leave heroics because they just can’t cut it. The odds of that happening on a large scale are pretty slim, but one can hope.
I’m skeptical whether this will improve LFD queue times at all, as I don’t choose a spec based on LFD needs (maybe other people do), but I think people underestimate how many perfectly good groups actually happen with the Dungeon Finder.
I’ve done about a half dozen pugs in the past couple weeks since hitting 85 on my holy pally alt and I’ve had a competent tank every time.
Yeah, I mostly agree with you re: the system. The bribe will make me queue when I’m bored and have little to do just for a shot at the mounts but otherwise, I don’t see myself chain-running dungeons desperately.
But I do hope this inspires some plate and fur folks to get cracking on that tanking off-spec.
So do I want to run Stratholme another 200 times or do LFD randoms? … Stratholme here I come … the RNG cannot be worse than PUGs
Yes I’ve LFD tanked, usually because my dps wife needs a tank, but it’s hard to maintain any love for the game in PUGs. I routinely skip my daily VPs rather than do an LFD random so it’s hard to see how a mount that I can grind for anyway will convince me.
But the worst part is that this will just make the attitude of tank-hate even worse. I’ve been called a bully-tank because I insisted that having the healer pull was not acceptable. Now PUGs are simply going to assume I’m only there for the reward and be even more obnoxious.
Don’t get me wrong here taking random sucks 90% of the time, but you know what I have become a better tank because of them. No one got to be a good tank with cookie cutter pulls. I have learned where my “oh shit” buttons are because of shit head dps. I have learned how to keep myself alive because of healers in pvp hear. While I don’t love it I will tank randoms from time to time to keep my skills honed.
It’ll get me tanking solo queues for a while, at least until I get my deathcharger on Dammer, as he’s rapidly reaching the wrath style “unwipeable” gear threshold. After that, it’ll really depend on how good the gold is, and how much experience the guild needs.
I sometimes tank the odd random for what ever reason. While I do get some terrible PuGs the majority are bareable. The problem is not the lack of reward but the lack of repercussions as you said Rhid. The best and as I can see it only way to make LFD work well is to include some massive game wide rating system where you could rate the members of your puG and everyone gets teamed up with people around their ranking. Without this there is no need to do your best if your some slacker tool be because you will be carried through and never see them again.
On topic though I do look fowrard to some nice shinys should I que alone when powering out my 7 ransoms in one day.
Couldn´t agree more regarding some sort of repercussion though I have a hard time figuring out how it could be implemented. Any sort of system that involves players voting/grading others will be misused in various obvious ways.
Having the game set some sort of competency rating on players based on gear/ench/gem/played time/DPS/effective CC/damage taken/overheals etc will also suffer since there are too many variables involved, mainly other players. If I´m good at DPS but am teamed up with really good players chances are that I won´t be able to churn out the DPS I am capable of (not sure if this is true since I don´t DPS). If I CC/Hand of Salv etc like a madman it would have to be recognized by such a system to work.
Perhaps if the entire group was rated as a whole with points given for effective cc and such but that would only hinder creative problemsolving making it a matter of play-the-system instead of having fun and solving problems in different ways.
PUGs reflect society, must of the times it works, sometimes it shines, sometimes it sucks. That´s life. If you don´t want to stick your hand into the beehive, stick with guildies but you´ll also miss out on some fun and exciting times along with the frustration. :D
I queue as tank on my paladin all the time for regulars. It’s just stupid easy to hold aggro with a tankadin. I tell the groups at the onset to give me a couple beats to round them up and (surprisingly) they normally do. When I get the crappy group I tolerate it until I can re-queue and then I just drop the group and re-queue. Normally I get a decent group after that.
This really doesn’t work so well for my warrior just because it’s not as stupid easy to hold aoe aggro and I can’t deal with the failtards that peel mobs and then bitch about it, even when I mark. I’m leveling a DK tank off and on and that goes easier than the warrior, but not as easy as the paladin.
I try to tank for guildies when at all possible, but I have no problems at all hitting the queue as tank.
I look forward to any extras I’ll get for doing what I do anyhow.
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple years now, and this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to comment on a post.
I am in the minority here. I was a MT for several years through TBC and Wrath — never super-progressive but still raiding several nights a week with close friends.
Around the time the LFD tool first came out last year, my raid group fell apart. So I found myself xferred to a new server and playing mostly solo. The LFD tool as a tank was awesome! I loved it. I ran hundreds and hundreds of heroics without any experiences that left a sour taste in my mouth.
Then I stopped tanking, until this weekend. I logged onto my 80 Paladin tank and started queuing. It has been great. I probably ran 20 different dungeons between Friday and Saturday, all with random people, and only encountered 1 jerk-off mage. Go figure.
So, I’m all for the incentives from Blizzard. I plan on only leveling my tank through the LFD tool to 85 and then running heroics. I was already looking forward to heroic ZG and ZA, now they are going to throw more rewards.
My two cents. Thanks for the great blog, keep up all the hard work!