Potential Solution for Fake Tanks/Healers in Grouping tool

hydrocynus · January 2018

From my understanding, When using the Grouping tool your stats are buffed. This is a way to encourage use of the system and to help accomodate sub optimal groups (i guess).

An interesting alteration to this would be to buff and nerf players depending on the role that they are selected as for the group as opposed to the current base stats buff.

It could look like this: (Numbers selected for example, not intended as balanced, just to illustrate the system)
this bit is important - When grouping as less than a full group:
Tank - 10% to health and 10% to Phys & Spell Restistance, 50% reduction in damage output
Heal - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to healing, 50% reduction in damage output
DPS - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to damage output (cant think what would be a good debuff. Seems drastic to reduce mitigation or healing).

When Grouping as a full group:
Current base stat buff is fine, because the group is put together in the way that the group members wish and there is no randomness to who you are paired with and how they want to play.

Thoughts?

AhPook_Is_Here · January 2018

punish tanks and healers, i love it

IiIHusHIiI · January 2018

what about waiting 20+ min as DPS to join a Random ??? My tank and healer Find a Group Faster thn my Brain Sending Commands to my hand

hydrocynus · January 2018

IiIHusHIiI wrote: »

what about waiting 20+ min as DPS to join a Random ??? My tank and healer Find a Group Faster thn my Brain Sending Commands to my hand

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

punish tanks and healers, i love it

That is not the idea. The idea is to reward them for the roles they are grouping at and limit them in other roles. As a group, the increase in DPS buff will balance the loss in damage from the tank and healer.

hydrocynus · January 2018

IiIHusHIiI wrote: »

what about waiting 20+ min as DPS to join a Random ??? My tank and healer Find a Group Faster thn my Brain Sending Commands to my hand

It is a problem I agree. Why is it a problem? Because tanks and healers are in demand.

But how does that make it ok to queue as a role you can't fulfill and therefore mess with other people.

Alternatively there should be an option for "any player any role" and all those that don't care can group as all roles and only get selected to play with others that have that indicator set.

xaraan · January 2018

I've thought they should only allow the selection of one role period, no more picking healer and dps b/c you throw out a breath of life in between beaming or picking dps and tank b/c you put inner fire on your bar. I still think that, but the idea of giving group specific buffs is great.

The 50% damage loss might be a little high IMO, but some hit to dps would definitely push the support roles to be honest. Specific buffs like that taking the place of the buff you get now for group queuing is a great idea.

And frankly, I don't care about dps having to sit and wait longer and lying about their role to sneak in. That's almost as dirty to me as the zergy faction in pvp asking friends of other factions to queue them into cyrodiil so they can get in faster. (Almost)

Bhaal5 · January 2018

Or create content that actually needs both a tank and a healer? Maybe a good idea, or not

FrancisCrawford · January 2018

xaraan wrote: »

Alternatively there should be an option for "any player any role"

EXCELLENT idea. That should solve a lot of aggravation while requiring very little coding.

xaraan wrote: »

I've thought they should only allow the selection of one role period,

That changes little.

If somebody queues as healer/DPS, how often now are they getting selected as DPS? 1 time in 10? More? Less?

victoriana-blue · January 2018

I like the idea of different group finder buffs for different roles, but the damage reduction is too punishing. I dungeon tank in Bahraha's Curse, and nerfing that damage would nerf my self-healing; it would also disproportionately affect nightblade healers since many of their class heals scale from damage done, and nb healers are already having a rough go of it.

So I'd skip the debuff part. Maybe give dps an extra 1000 spell & weapon penetration to reward them for queuing properly? Ime you're unlikely to hit penetration cap in a pug unless you slot spriggans, and unlike NMG this would benefit both stamina & magicka players.

hydrocynus · January 2018

Sorry yes the numbers in my example may be dramatic. I just thumb sucked stuff In there for sake of the example. I would leave the balance of those actual numbers to ZoS to figure out.

hydrocynus · January 2018

victoriana-blue wrote: »

I like the idea of different group finder buffs for different roles, but the damage reduction is too punishing. I dungeon tank in Bahraha's Curse, and nerfing that damage would nerf my self-healing; it would also disproportionately affect nightblade healers since many of their class heals scale from damage done, and nb healers are already having a rough go of it.

So I'd skip the debuff part. Maybe give dps an extra 1000 spell & weapon penetration to reward them for queuing properly? Ime you're unlikely to hit penetration cap in a pug unless you slot spriggans, and unlike NMG this would benefit both stamina & magicka players.

I think you need to debuff though otherwise a high damage dps player would have no issues queuing as tank/ healer and just ignore the buff part.

I do hear you about certain playstyles being affected adversely like NB heals. Not sure how that could be overcome easily to be honest.

hydrocynus · January 2018

The idea is to make it unattractive to group as a healer or a tank if you intend to do damage. That is why I think it would only work if you are made much less effective as a damage dealer if you group as a healer/ tank.

Beardimus · January 2018

I don't think this would stop people queuing as the wrong thing. Honestly.

People that do it just want to get in the queue fast. And this penalties will only make the dungeon take longer, making the problem worse.

Fake Tanks / Healers are onLy a problem if it impacts the groups. On a normal dungeon it hardly matters and in fact 4 DPS will burn thru most mechanics so quick it doesn't matter.

Hard vet content it can cause a problem, but again it depends on the calibre of player. CP690 players can pull it all off. I did a PIG Mazzatun the other night. 4 DPS, one had a frost staff to taunt, one Sorc switched his scamp for a twilight. Did we die yes, ut did we get Vet/Hard Mode done YES.

If their DPS had been hampered we would have failed.

The bigger issue in particular in Normal dungeons is bad DPS. You can solo normal dungeons. Thus one or two good dps is all you need rest is surplus.

The amount of time my healer has joined dungeons and as he's a sorc DPS have said "you better not be a fake healer, we kicked the last one" to then watch the DPS spam light attacks, not block or ward or get out of the red and make it a hard for themselves. Still got it done, but honestly poor DPS is the biggest issue in normal dungeons failing.

I've only seen that by playing all roles

hydrocynus · January 2018

Here's another idea:

If selected as a tank in grouping tool you are penalised damage output massively if you wear less than 5pcs heavy armor or something like that.

hydrocynus · January 2018

Beardimus wrote: »

I don't think this would stop people queuing as the wrong thing. Honestly.

People that do it just want to get in the queue fast. And this penalties will only make the dungeon take longer, making the problem worse.

Fake Tanks / Healers are onLy a problem if it impacts the groups. On a normal dungeon it hardly matters and in fact 4 DPS will burn thru most mechanics so quick it doesn't matter.

Hard vet content it can cause a problem, but again it depends on the calibre of player. CP690 players can pull it all off. I did a PIG Mazzatun the other night. 4 DPS, one had a frost staff to taunt, one Sorc switched his scamp for a twilight. Did we die yes, ut did we get Vet/Hard Mode done YES.

If their DPS had been hampered we would have failed.

The bigger issue in particular in Normal dungeons is bad DPS. You can solo normal dungeons. Thus one or two good dps is all you need rest is surplus.

The amount of time my healer has joined dungeons and as he's a sorc DPS have said "you better not be a fake healer, we kicked the last one" to then watch the DPS spam light attacks, not block or ward or get out of the red and make it a hard for themselves. Still got it done, but honestly poor DPS is the biggest issue in normal dungeons failing.

I've only seen that by playing all roles

You are right on all points. I think a buff to dps roles damage output would counteract the loss from the tank/healer role so total damage is not impacted.

I think the other idea of seperate queue for "any player any role" might be a better and easier implemented solution though.

victoriana-blue · January 2018

hydrocynus wrote: »

The idea is to make it unattractive to group as a healer or a tank if you intend to do damage. That is why I think it would only work if you are made much less effective as a damage dealer if you group as a healer/ tank.

I was coming at it from a different direction: dps want their leet numbers, right? Buffing dps would give them a reason to queue properly, because otherwise they'd be at a disadvantage in the combat metrics/time to kill one-upmanship.

I really like your "any player any role" suggestion. Not only would it speed up the queue for players who don't care about roles, it would be able to separate the players who simply want to burn a dungeon from those who like playing their/playing with support characters. Everybody wins!

Dojohoda · January 2018

But to the original post; that sounds like a cool idea.

RavenSworn · January 2018

I think the problem lies deeper than that. Giving rewards just for using the tank, heals or dps role doesn't solve anything, it just makes it superficial. I think someone said

Bhaal5 wrote: »

Or create content that actually needs both a tank and a healer? Maybe a good idea, or not

This is the issue. It's a dungeon, meant for 4 people but it's a sweetroll through it. When you can have a dps slotting inner fire, spam shields and be able to tank a normal or even a vet dungeon, that's where you get all these fake ctanks. And when you can still finish a dungeon with light attacks and vigor here and there, that's where you get fake dps.

The damage that a dungeon mob does has to be tweaked to do a lot more than what overland mob does but not too much that there is a huge learning curve for newer players. I suspect that the new skill advisor is a precursor to a dungeon advisor, or perhaps a tool that can be used by players to 'advise' them in terms of dungeon roles.

While ZoS has to pick up the bulk of the workload in achieving this, we as the community have to change our mindset on how we set the dungeon roles. "Can you run 4 dps through the dungeon? Sure you can! But if you'd want to be in a pre-made for that."

Learning mechanics from a YouTube video is one thing, actually experience it with all the pings and lag and skill level of your group members is another. And you can only do that with just doing it, albeit with a bit of failure now and then.

Sabbathius · January 2018

Don't like it. Depending on dungeon and player skill, a tank and healer can still put out very respectable DPS. Tank and heals doesn't automatically mean *** damage. Especially with heals, since both heals and DPS scale off max resource. If the rest of the group is good at not standing in stupid, and tank is self-sufficient, the healer can just go all-out DPS. Many do. Flat reduction on damage output would punish good play.

As far as solution for fake tanks and healers, some MMOs had a variety of approaches. WoW for example checks your character to see if you are actually a tank. The dungeon finder won't let you queue as tank if you are DPS spec. Because of how the game is designed, it asks you to choose a role. You still have a lot of room to wiggle with your spec, but your role won't change. And the game offers a dual specialization system so you can easily switch between tank/DPS, or tank/heals, or something else. Incidentally, THIS is what ESO needs. Many more people would tank and heal if they could easily switch between that and back to DPS (for vMA or whatever).

ESO could also implement a system similar to WoW's, where you pick a role rather than a bunch of skills. Would also make the game easier to balance, because certain abilities would be locked behind certain roles. As in, you can't choose tank AND have the best heal in the game also. You also wouldn't be able to pick DPS AND have the strongest self-shield in the game. But that's not the spirit of the game, so I can see a lot of folks objecting to something like that. But it would make balancing significantly easier, and eliminate the fake tank/heals issue. The system would also need dual spec, so people can actually complete the game's content by switching to DPS as needed.

SoLooney · January 2018

lol, so punish the dmg output of tanks and healers?

ill pass, i do dailies and motif farms with friends and we only need a tank and 3 dps and we beat all vet hm dungeons. not tryna have our 3rd dps punished

it would discourage fake tanks and healers but it is not the right way to go about things.

the new dungeons for dragon bones looks like it may need a healer but 1 tank and 3 magblades usually heal everything fine, esp if the tank uses good support sets and moves as well

Kerioko · January 2018

Sabbathius wrote: »

And the game offers a dual specialization system so you can easily switch between tank/DPS, or tank/heals, or something else. Incidentally, THIS is what ESO needs. Many more people would tank and heal if they could easily switch between that and back to DPS (for vMA or whatever).

This would be a major improvement. Have different specs that you can save that include different attribute point, CP, and skill selections.
If ZOS wanted to use it to make some money also, they could even tie duel spec into ESO plus, but also allow for crown store buy for those that don't want to sub. Just like character slots, they could even sell more specialization slots for those that like to have one character that can truly do it all with just the flip of a switch.

Huyen · January 2018

Beardimus wrote: »

I don't think this would stop people queuing as the wrong thing. Honestly.

People that do it just want to get in the queue fast. And this penalties will only make the dungeon take longer, making the problem worse.

Fake Tanks / Healers are onLy a problem if it impacts the groups. On a normal dungeon it hardly matters and in fact 4 DPS will burn thru most mechanics so quick it doesn't matter.

Hard vet content it can cause a problem, but again it depends on the calibre of player. CP690 players can pull it all off. I did a PIG Mazzatun the other night. 4 DPS, one had a frost staff to taunt, one Sorc switched his scamp for a twilight. Did we die yes, ut did we get Vet/Hard Mode done YES.

If their DPS had been hampered we would have failed.

The bigger issue in particular in Normal dungeons is bad DPS. You can solo normal dungeons. Thus one or two good dps is all you need rest is surplus.

The amount of time my healer has joined dungeons and as he's a sorc DPS have said "you better not be a fake healer, we kicked the last one" to then watch the DPS spam light attacks, not block or ward or get out of the red and make it a hard for themselves. Still got it done, but honestly poor DPS is the biggest issue in normal dungeons failing.

I've only seen that by playing all roles

The things you sum up in this post are just rubbish. It only applies to decent end-game players who know what they are doing (note: not all cp690 are instantly good players). What about the 70% new / casual players that dont care about meta's and stuff?

Simple solution: reward the people who run dungeons as healer and tanks (dedicated, not the wanna-be that slot a taunt or a heal) with extra gold or mats or something. Worked wonders in WoW, should work wonders here too. System is simple: the reward is given to players who tank / heal when there is a certain shortage determined by the system.

Another problem is the amount of salt towards players who tank or heal. I tanked and healed before, and I got suprised by the lack of respect. If you guys want more tanks and healers in dungeons, then dont go rushing past them, and solo every damn thing you encounter, but give them time to learn the ropes.

It works two ways in this case: make tanks wanted and needed instead of whining there arent enough, when 90% of the dps dont care anyway.

Apache_Kid · January 2018

We don't need anything like that. We have the kick button. Id rather they just fixed the activity finder so that we didn't have to do 100 ready checks just to get in the dungeon even though all 4 people are hitting the ready check.

Stratti · January 2018

Sabbathius wrote: »

Don't like it. Depending on dungeon and player skill, a tank and healer can still put out very respectable DPS. Tank and heals doesn't automatically mean *** damage. Especially with heals, since both heals and DPS scale off max resource. If the rest of the group is good at not standing in stupid, and tank is self-sufficient, the healer can just go all-out DPS. Many do. Flat reduction on damage output would punish good play.

As far as solution for fake tanks and healers, some MMOs had a variety of approaches. WoW for example checks your character to see if you are actually a tank. The dungeon finder won't let you queue as tank if you are DPS spec. Because of how the game is designed, it asks you to choose a role. You still have a lot of room to wiggle with your spec, but your role won't change. And the game offers a dual specialization system so you can easily switch between tank/DPS, or tank/heals, or something else. Incidentally, THIS is what ESO needs. Many more people would tank and heal if they could easily switch between that and back to DPS (for vMA or whatever).

ESO could also implement a system similar to WoW's, where you pick a role rather than a bunch of skills. Would also make the game easier to balance, because certain abilities would be locked behind certain roles. As in, you can't choose tank AND have the best heal in the game also. You also wouldn't be able to pick DPS AND have the strongest self-shield in the game. But that's not the spirit of the game, so I can see a lot of folks objecting to something like that. But it would make balancing significantly easier, and eliminate the fake tank/heals issue. The system would also need dual spec, so people can actually complete the game's content by switching to DPS as needed.

Sorry to say but it is extremely easy to change between dps and tank... I use alpha gear and push one button to change. The fact is while the content at normal allows for it then it will always happen

Niobium · January 2018

hydrocynus wrote: »

It could look like this: (Numbers selected for example, not intended as balanced, just to illustrate the system)
this bit is important - When grouping as less than a full group:
Tank - 10% to health and 10% to Phys & Spell Restistance, 50% reduction in damage output
Heal - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to healing, 50% reduction in damage output
DPS - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to damage output (cant think what would be a good debuff. Seems drastic to reduce mitigation or healing).

I am a healer running gold Worm/SPC who almost exclusively runs with a tank running gold tank gear. Tank does not need more health, tank is already resistance capped. I do not need more stats nor does my healing output need to be greater.

We also almost exclusively use the Group Finder for vet dungeons.

A 10% damage increase to the pug DPS we almost always get would put them from a whopping 5k to 5.5k. The reason we complete dungeons most of the time is simply because the tank and I can push through it with the DPS we have between us. A 50% damage output reduction for us would essentially stop us completing most of the dungeons or simply force us away from the Group Finder altogether.

While I applaud the fact you want to make the roles more desirable, essentially nerfing half the group is not the way to go about it.

hydrocynus · January 2018

Niobium wrote: »

hydrocynus wrote: »

It could look like this: (Numbers selected for example, not intended as balanced, just to illustrate the system)
this bit is important - When grouping as less than a full group:
Tank - 10% to health and 10% to Phys & Spell Restistance, 50% reduction in damage output
Heal - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to healing, 50% reduction in damage output
DPS - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to damage output (cant think what would be a good debuff. Seems drastic to reduce mitigation or healing).

I am a healer running gold Worm/SPC who almost exclusively runs with a tank running gold tank gear. Tank does not need more health, tank is already resistance capped. I do not need more stats nor does my healing output need to be greater.

We also almost exclusively use the Group Finder for vet dungeons.

A 10% damage increase to the pug DPS we almost always get would put them from a whopping 5k to 5.5k. The reason we complete dungeons most of the time is simply because the tank and I can push through it with the DPS we have between us. A 50% damage output reduction for us would essentially stop us completing most of the dungeons or simply force us away from the Group Finder altogether.

While I applaud the fact you want to make the roles more desirable, essentially nerfing half the group is not the way to go about it.

Thanks for that. Sorry. The numbers were really just for example and a thumsuck for illustrative purposes so please don't read too much into the actual numbers but rather the concept.

I would expect that such a solution would be balanced so that the loss in damage from tank and healer is balanced by the gain in damage from the 2 Dds so that overall group efficiency is not lost. A possible example of a solution could be to scale the damage buff to DDs on the cumulative difference in level between tank/ healer and the 2 dds. So in your case where you have 690 tank and healer but cp 10 dds maybe they get a bigger buff than if you group with 2 cp500 dds. Hope that makes sense.

So in that case you explained where you get paired with 2 legolas impersonators who like to use the healer as a human shield (Yes I have been there. I understand what you are taking about ) then you could potentially be better off with this change as they would perform better than currently.

commdt · January 2018

Its much easier now with update 17. If non-DK queues as a tank - he is a fake. If DK queues as non-tank (like DD or heal) - he is a fake.

baratron · January 2018

Speaking as a Healer, I don't think you realise that the Spell Damage stat governs the strength of a player's heals. It should really be called Spell Power.

Merlin13KAGL · January 2018

One thing missed in this is that some wouldn't want the buffs, either. It ends up giving people the impression that their build is stronger than it actually is.

I want three things:

Consistency. If I'm testing a build for whatever role, I want to know how the build works, as is, without any buffs/debuffs I'm not going to normally have. If I get a 10% survivability buff in a queue'd 4-man, I'm getting a 10% survivability debuff everywhere else. No thanks.
People should do their damn job. If your build is reasonable and you are a capable player, you don't require these things. That's kind of the point, to get to where you can stand on your own merit, not requiring bonuses that are not always present.
A rating system that can be used to assure you're in good hands, or to identify newer players (this part's important) that may need more assistance or advice.
- If I've successfully ran (insert content here) ______ many times as my indicated role, safe to say I can probably perform that role.
- If I've tried to BS the group finder and am wasting other peoples' time just so I can queue faster, it should also indicate this.
- For those that say people would artificially inflate their own scores via friends or troll other peoples' scores just to do so, the true net result (only visible after so many runs) would show a pretty clear representation of the actual case.
- With the above, newer doesn't necessarily mean incapable, any more than high CP means capable. This would be intended for those that have ran enough to be considered experienced, and would show whether or not they actually knew what they were doing.

Yes, it would be something to the effect of a 'gear score' for the player, rewarding skilled, successful play in a role, and weeding out those that just want to push their way in line at the detriment of those that get grouped with them.

Yes, the wait is longer as DPS, because there are far more than 2:1 DPS to tank/heals. Either provide the option to knowingly forgo the usual trinity, without the option to change your mind later without disbanding, or expect to wait according to supply and demand.

In either case, all four people should expect to get what they queued for and what each represented themselves as.

idk · January 2018

hydrocynus wrote: »

From my understanding, When using the Grouping tool your stats are buffed. This is a way to encourage use of the system and to help accomodate sub optimal groups (i guess).

An interesting alteration to this would be to buff and nerf players depending on the role that they are selected as for the group as opposed to the current base stats buff.

It could look like this: (Numbers selected for example, not intended as balanced, just to illustrate the system)
this bit is important - When grouping as less than a full group:
Tank - 10% to health and 10% to Phys & Spell Restistance, 50% reduction in damage output
Heal - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to healing, 50% reduction in damage output
DPS - 10% to max base stat, 10% increase to damage output (cant think what would be a good debuff. Seems drastic to reduce mitigation or healing).

When Grouping as a full group:
Current base stat buff is fine, because the group is put together in the way that the group members wish and there is no randomness to who you are paired with and how they want to play.

Thoughts?

This would be a great way to dissuade me from using the grouping tool. Just looking at the nerf to healers, I am often half the groups damage as a healer and yes, still healing. Some times well over half the groups damage. Seems like a very bad idea to nerf the groups damage by as much as OP is suggesting.

Nerfing players is not exactly a wise way to encourage use of the GF. It is also not likely to change anything OP is desiring

One would have to look at the reason the many tanks and many who can tank as a normal tank do not join the GF. Far to often the dps is low and the dungeon takes a long time as a result. It is just easier to form a group from the guild and know the run will go well..

Slurg · January 2018

How would your proposed system punish the DPS players who need a carry and are doing less damage than the tank and healer combined?

This would not make me want to queue as a tank or a healer at all - clearing the dungeon would be painfully slow if I was stuck with low DPS players and could not contribute to damage.