Fake Tank Solution Proposal

Taleof2Cities · November 2020

nukk3r wrote: »

How about no? You're trying to divide an already divided community even more. If you don't want fake roles, don't PUG.

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

I am not here to impose my solution and definitely not claiming this will solve everything. I've only been playing for about 4 months and do not have the full context of the history of fake roles and the community's opinions. This is more of a proof of concept (POC) that I want to be critiqued on and refined. If ZOS does something, great, if not, no biggie. I just wanted to pick on people's brain on my POC as a newish player.

Although your ideas are well-intentioned and appreciated, @Viewsfrom6ix, the above post is the exact answer for situations with fake tanks, fake healers, and fake DPS.

The group finder only finds you a group ... that's it.

If you need a specific outcome from a dungeon, find a pre-made group instead.

Adding an additional queue will fragment the queue itself ... leading to longer wait times for everyone involved.

madman65 · November 2020

Just make all tanks wear Void Bash shield, simple fix.

Faiza · November 2020

Fake tanks arent the only ones causing wipes.

I know it may be shocking for some to hear, but there are bad tanks, poor healers, and low dps as well.

Thechuckage · November 2020

Part of the problem is there are not set roles for any class.
Take SWTOR for example, melee damage dealer can only que as a DD. The 3 classes on each side that have tank specs can que as tanks, if they are spec'd as a tank. (If anything has changed on this, its been a few years since I've been on)

But with ESO its all a lot more fluid. There are plenty of builds that straddle the line between roles, hybrid builds, solo builds; making a hard and fast rule for what is needed for the que is that more difficult. Esp when someone can fulfil the role with a non-traditional setup.

mochizx · November 2020

NO, THANK YOU. I'd rather have a fake tank than 2 dps that cant do any dmg ( i'm talking about 10K less group dmg)

Liukke · November 2020

Casual queue?
Yah we can give it many names, Casual, Unranked, Classless...I don't mind.
I like that idea and I proposed the same.
Just let people rush a normal dungeon or do a 4DD basegame vet (or even DLC ones if they are good).
Because some people can do it and it's what forces many DDs to go Tank.
DDs have a hard time finding spot in the queue so if you quicken the queue you solve a very good amount of the problem.

Putting restrictions on the normal queue?
Total garbage.
Feels like those grouping for trials asking for set amount of CP...

If you've played enough games you'll realise that numbers mean nothing and there are tons of ways to go around restrictions.
It would just make even harder for people to play properly, worst idea ever.
You can have even 100k DPS because you followed a build like a good boy but then you are a total disaster in terms of dodging attacks, managing resources and, quite important, ressing people.

Numbers
mean
nothing
kids.

Miszou · November 2020

Why not just add a multi-choice option to the group finder to specify the kind of groups you'd be willing to join...?

[x] T H D D
[ ] H D D D
[ ] T D D D
[ ] D D D D

Make the choice available after level 50, so that new players always get the standard T H D D group. "Experienced" people can then decide if they want to run with 4 DD's or whatever.

This will shorten the queue times for your average DPS, while the hotshots can just run 3 (or 4) DD's and get the faster queue that they need.

Viewsfrom6ix · November 2020

Liukke wrote: »

Numbers
mean
nothing
kids.

This is completely false. If you had two random tanks wanting to join you in a trial or dung. One is CP 160 with 15k HP and the other is CP 810 with 40k HP. Every single time the latter would be picked.

This applies to real life. A college GPA is just a number and is not a complete representation of how well an individual preforms at a job. But more times than not the higher number is selected for an internship.

A number shows you have the knowledge and ability of DPSing, healing or tanking.

Viewsfrom6ix · November 2020

I appreciate everyone's response and critique.

At this point, I totally get that the set requirements I proposed has more drawbacks than benefits. I honestly would just like a "No role" option/checkbox for the Group Finder or any variation of this.

FrancisCrawford · November 2020

ArchMikem wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

By the achievement option I mean that you aren't allowed to queue for a harder dungeon unless you've accomplished enough in easier dungeons, perhaps specifically when you were queued in the same role.

That's, actually not a bad idea. Using Achievements earned in Normal would allow you access to Veteran. Though most Achievements are earned by simply one run, and people are carried through all the time. There should be one that requires time spent, multiple runs.

Some thoughts:

Anything role-specific would be an achievement not currently in the game. (Dungeon Healer, Dungeon Blocker, etc. do not suffice.)
Requiring more than one normal clear per dungeon would annoy a lot of people, even if they weren't as extreme in their feelings as @zvavi.
It would be great if there could be an either/or to the rule. E.g., account-wide tanking achievements might earn you some benefit of the doubt on a new tanking character. Or if you've done a lot on a particular character in any role, you might get the benefit of the doubt queuing as a DD.

zvavi · November 2020

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

[*] Requiring more than one normal clear per dungeon would annoy a lot of people, even if they weren't as extreme in their feelings as zvavi.

You have no idea, I was on a top of a building spitting fire into the night when I wrote that. Very extreme feelings.
It will be hard to implement properly without introducing account wide achievement overview.

Liukke · November 2020

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

Liukke wrote: »

Numbers
mean
nothing
kids.

This is completely false. If you had two random tanks wanting to join you in a trial or dung. One is CP 160 with 15k HP and the other is CP 810 with 40k HP. Every single time the latter would be picked.

This applies to real life. A college GPA is just a number and is not a complete representation of how well an individual preforms at a job. But more times than not the higher number is selected for an internship.

A number shows you have the knowledge and ability of DPSing, healing or tanking.

The whole discussion is about dungeons.

Trials are a different world which has different rules but still, if you have 15kHP as a tank it's not CPs fault, I'm sorry :'D that happens because of other problems and if the party leader that sees his tank having 15k should kick him/her immediately, there's no deny of that.

By numbers mean nothing I'm talking about those numbers not related to your vital signs.
CPs don't make the tank necessarily strong or weak (ok, 810CP at least means that the guy tanking can be asleep for a bit but if he's a complete disaster he'll wipe the party anyway) as well as simple DPS on a still dummy can't tell how well you perform with AOEs around you, spawns all over the place and boss mechanics.
Plus if you have two amazing DPSs but with only single target skills they're slowing down the party more than being useful so there's many ways to screw up a group when having good numbers

I do get your point, and you're right, in trials (of course, veteran ones) the bigger the better.

But let's stick to dungeons for now and honestly I've regularly done veteran dungeons with CP160 people like a breeze, even with 4DDs around the CP300 side.
Some require more organization (DLC dungeons) and of course a proper role party but it's in the nature of a random group to fail...as always if I want the perfect buddies I call up a guild or manually look through candidates by asking in zone chat.

For what I can tell, DDs don't have fun faking tank roles...do you think they just want to explode being hit by the boss or doing a dungeon in 1 hour instead of 10 minutes?

It seems like people look at this like "trolls masking as tanks to make other people's lives terrible".
If somebody goes as tank or healer is because they want to play the damn game!
As DD you queue for 30 minutes, if you look for a specific dungeon which is not in pledge it can take hours!
Let's be honest dungeons are easy!
Sometimes you just need some gear from the minibosses, sometimes just the monster helmet...and that takes no effort at all, even with 3DDs and one tank it's totally possible to do DLC vet dungeons...but WE CAN'T

A DD needs to go through that terrible process of queueing...then he finds himself with a tank and a healer which mostly doesn't need, I can slot a ring of pale order and I'm good to go.
All this could take a tenth of the time especially if you consider that there's also the random normal dungeon which is basically a solo passive experience for endgame players (and with the proper class also veteran can be soloed).

That's basically what I'd like to see, just quick and dirty queues for whoever wants to (the Casual queue proposal) while everyone else can stick to the normal queue where hopefully fake tanks will not appear anymore, because they are all having fun in another party which doesn't care if they are faking the role or not

josiahva · November 2020

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

Background:
This idea stemmed from https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/548925/fake-tanking.
Currently group finder (GF) requires one tank, two damage dealers (DD) and one healer. Being a MMO, the game's population has a lot more DDs than tanks and healers combined. This leads to long queue times for DDs (20-40mins queue times and sometimes it lingers over an hour). Tanks have around instant to 5mins queue time and healers have around 5-10mins queue time. Because of the short queue time of tanks and healers, DDs change their role to tank to speed up their queue time.

What is a fake tank?
A tank's role is described as taunting (taking aggro from mobs/boss), basically diverting the damage to himself rather than the group. A bad tank is NOT a fake tank. This means if a DDs with zero attributes in health can still be a tank if they have the correct gears and taunt. A fake tank is a DD (or even a healer) queues as a tank role and has no gear or skills required to be one like having less than 15k hp and no taunt. In optimal and experienced groups, tanks are required to debuff enemy and buff group DPS as well but we are talking about GF here so this is not a necessity but more of a luxury.

Problem:
This game's dungeon difficulty scales from normal base game (T3) to vet base game/normal dlc (T2) to vet dlc (T1). I am generalizing here and not an actual representation of the dungeon's difficulties. T2 and T1 can be very challenging if the tank is not effective at taking aggro and surviving. If the tank doesn't take aggro, the mobs/boss will attack DDs and healer which leads to a wipe. If the tank can't survive, the mobs/boss will attack the DDs and healer which leads to a wipe. You guys get the point. No tank support = dead group.

Fake tanks have caused many failed T2 and T1 dungeon runs and wasted everyone's time. However T3 is the grey area, they are extremely easy and can be done in 5 mins with a half decent 4 DD group but does that mean this is the right thing to do? The community is split on this. One end thinking it is okay to fake tank on T3 dungeons but sometimes people overestimate their abilities and fake tank on T2 and even T1 dungeons. The other end thinks this is harmful to the community and is an exploit of the GF.

Solution:
This idea has been floated around by others, it is the idea of having two types of queues.
Casual = No role requirement queue

Serious = Role required queue (1 tank, 2 DDs, 1 healer)

Casual queue is exactly what you think it means. Anyone can queue without specifying any roles. This will allow the experienced or time limited players to quickly find a dungeon group and do their daily and pledges. Players queuing into casual will go in with the knowledge that they should not expect anything out of the other players as this is a casual queue. Meaning there could be no tank, no healer and bad DDs. Thus they can be prepared to bring self sustain skills/gears. No one should complain if their group is bad because this is the definition of casual queue. For all those DDs that are fake tanking or even fake healing, they can use casual queue because it is basically no different from the current GF.

Serious queue requires roles and will need set requirements met by each player respective to their role. Why? Because that is the only way to enforce it. I'm going to give some starter numbers and requirements only for the purpose of this discussion. It does not represent what I actually think the requirement should be.

Tank:
Min 25k HP

Min 20k Resistance

Have shield slotted

Have taunt skill slotted

Healer:
Min 30k Magicka

Have restoration staff slotted

Have min 3 restoration staff skills slotted

DD requirement is tricky because anyone can do damage, so wait... why do we need requirements for DDs?Simple answer is players queuing into serious queue will want others to be half decent so we can't exclude DD from this. I've done many T2 dungeons as a healer and the DPS of the DDs are just abysmal causing several wipes and a horrible experience. The only method I can think of measuring a requirement for DD is a dummy parse number. Yes, I know a parse number does not represent a player's knowledge of dungeon mechanics and how they play in a real dungeon environment. A dummy parse number DOES represent how well a player knows DPS mechanics and their rotation. In most cases, a player that spends time into knowing their rotation will have at least basic knowledge on dungeon mechanics. My suggestion is for ZOS to add a solo instance of a dummy parse room near the Undaunted Enclaves. This room will contain a 6m trial dummy (basically the 21m dummy but with 6m health) so it isn't intimidating to new players.

DD:
Min 35k DPS on the 6m trial dummy.

Conclusion:
This will solve the two problems. Experienced players wanting to fake tank T3 and T2 dungeons for a quick run. New/experienced players that want a good dungeon run without having to worry about fake roles.

What about the new players that cannot meet the requirement of the serious queue?
IMO, the requirements are quite low and easily achievable at CP 160.

They can use the casual queue and maybe the players are nice enough to not rush through everything

Join a guild, there are PLENTY of beginner friendly guilds that are more than willing to help

Lower the serious queue requirements even more and add a super serious queue with higher requirements.

I get that people can easily switch gears once they are in the dungeon. But if they've already spent the effort and time in meeting the requirements (leveling resto skill line, getting tank gears, getting taunt skill), they have essentially fulfilled that role. This is not an end all and be all solution but I think it will help the case of the fake tank, fake healer and fake/bad DPS problem.

Thanks for reading everyone and I look forward to the discussions.

TLDR:
Have two queues to satisfy everyone. One without roles and one with roles with requirements.

NO.

Quite simply you are again(like most of the others with similar ideas) trying to impose your view of what skills and build a tank should be...its not that black and white. My sap tank doesnt have a shield of ANY type slotted(well, except the group ice staff shield, and that is just a function of the aoe skill) It doesn't stop me from being able to sucessfully tank ANY of the tiers with just that setup...but your requirement that you think is "fair" locks that tank out of a serious group.

The fact of the matter is that EXPERIENCED tanks can run any number of unconventional setups and still survive fine. There are times I have tanked, DPSed, and healed all at the same time while selecting the tank role.

I have another tank that is more DPS focused, he pulls about 25k DPS while tanking...but because of that his max health is 24k, and I run him for quick non-DLC vet pledges and even some of the easier DLC vet dungeons(works fine for things like vCOS, vROM, vWGT, vICP, etc) I know very well not to take that tank into vDOM though, the stone watchers would wreck him quickly...my choice on the content to take him into is based on

As for splitting the queues...that is a terrible idea...or I should say, it is terrible to split the queues to START with. I am not against splitting queues...but the goal is not to reduce the pool size for possible players until you give them a choice AFTER they see wait times for a 1T/1H/2DPS group. For instance...as a DPS if I enter the general queue and see the conventional group wait time for a DPS is 40 minutes, but if I chose to go role-less queue its a 5 minute wait, then its on me whether to wait or not, but to split them off without giving wait time transparency beforehand is a bad idea because it makes the available pool smaller to start with...for instance someone may put up with a role-less queue because they think they are getting in faster...and while that is true, it negatively affects those conventional groups increasing their wait time....if you start with the same pool, then those in a hurry are always going to choose the shortest wait time regardless, so you dont have 100 DPS jumping in the role-less queue and 10 DPS jumping in the conventional queue...instead you have 110 DPS who are just going to choose the shortest wait time, so while 100 may still end up going to the role-less queue for expediency, the pool is still 110 for both queues.

There simply is no practical FAIR way to do what you want to do. You know what would happen if restrictions like that were actually placed? Tanks would stop using group finder entirely and the problem would become WORSE. I mean...if you try to tell me that I can't tank how I want to tank using the group finder...I simply will stop using it entirely. As long as I am doing the job of a tank, you need to stop trying to impose certain ways of tanking on me. Your idea punishes tanks...tanking is ALREADY a thankless job...the less appealing you make it, the more likely I will just stop tanking entirely.

Viewsfrom6ix · November 2020

josiahva wrote: »

NO.

Quite simply you are again(like most of the others with similar ideas) trying to impose your view of what skills and build a tank should be...its not that black and white. My sap tank doesnt have a shield of ANY type slotted(well, except the group ice staff shield, and that is just a function of the aoe skill) It doesn't stop me from being able to sucessfully tank ANY of the tiers with just that setup...but your requirement that you think is "fair" locks that tank out of a serious group.

The fact of the matter is that EXPERIENCED tanks can run any number of unconventional setups and still survive fine. There are times I have tanked, DPSed, and healed all at the same time while selecting the tank role.

I have another tank that is more DPS focused, he pulls about 25k DPS while tanking...but because of that his max health is 24k, and I run him for quick non-DLC vet pledges and even some of the easier DLC vet dungeons(works fine for things like vCOS, vROM, vWGT, vICP, etc) I know very well not to take that tank into vDOM though, the stone watchers would wreck him quickly...my choice on the content to take him into is based on

As for splitting the queues...that is a terrible idea...or I should say, it is terrible to split the queues to START with. I am not against splitting queues...but the goal is not to reduce the pool size for possible players until you give them a choice AFTER they see wait times for a 1T/1H/2DPS group. For instance...as a DPS if I enter the general queue and see the conventional group wait time for a DPS is 40 minutes, but if I chose to go role-less queue its a 5 minute wait, then its on me whether to wait or not, but to split them off without giving wait time transparency beforehand is a bad idea because it makes the available pool smaller to start with...for instance someone may put up with a role-less queue because they think they are getting in faster...and while that is true, it negatively affects those conventional groups increasing their wait time....if you start with the same pool, then those in a hurry are always going to choose the shortest wait time regardless, so you dont have 100 DPS jumping in the role-less queue and 10 DPS jumping in the conventional queue...instead you have 110 DPS who are just going to choose the shortest wait time, so while 100 may still end up going to the role-less queue for expediency, the pool is still 110 for both queues.

There simply is no practical FAIR way to do what you want to do. You know what would happen if restrictions like that were actually placed? Tanks would stop using group finder entirely and the problem would become WORSE. I mean...if you try to tell me that I can't tank how I want to tank using the group finder...I simply will stop using it entirely. As long as I am doing the job of a tank, you need to stop trying to impose certain ways of tanking on me. Your idea punishes tanks...tanking is ALREADY a thankless job...the less appealing you make it, the more likely I will just stop tanking entirely.

I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned but you use the word "impose" a few times and not sure why you feel that way. If you've read my post and comments.

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

I am not here to impose my solution and definitely not claiming this will solve everything. I've only been playing for about 4 months and do not have the full context of the history of fake roles and the community's opinions. This is more of a proof of concept (POC) that I want to be critiqued on and refined. If ZOS does something, great, if not, no biggie. I just wanted to pick on people's brain on my POC as a newish player.

Liukke · November 2020

josiahva wrote: »

As for splitting the queues...that is a terrible idea...or I should say, it is terrible to split the queues to START with. I am not against splitting queues...but the goal is not to reduce the pool size for possible players until you give them a choice AFTER they see wait times for a 1T/1H/2DPS group. For instance...as a DPS if I enter the general queue and see the conventional group wait time for a DPS is 40 minutes, but if I chose to go role-less queue its a 5 minute wait, then its on me whether to wait or not, but to split them off without giving wait time transparency beforehand is a bad idea because it makes the available pool smaller to start with...for instance someone may put up with a role-less queue because they think they are getting in faster...and while that is true, it negatively affects those conventional groups increasing their wait time....if you start with the same pool, then those in a hurry are always going to choose the shortest wait time regardless, so you dont have 100 DPS jumping in the role-less queue and 10 DPS jumping in the conventional queue...instead you have 110 DPS who are just going to choose the shortest wait time, so while 100 may still end up going to the role-less queue for expediency, the pool is still 110 for both queues.

There simply is no practical FAIR way to do what you want to do. You know what would happen if restrictions like that were actually placed? Tanks would stop using group finder entirely and the problem would become WORSE. I mean...if you try to tell me that I can't tank how I want to tank using the group finder...I simply will stop using it entirely. As long as I am doing the job of a tank, you need to stop trying to impose certain ways of tanking on me. Your idea punishes tanks...tanking is ALREADY a thankless job...the less appealing you make it, the more likely I will just stop tanking entirely.

Well, having the second queue where those 100 DD can jump means also that the normal queue would get way faster for DDs as well, or at least balanced.
So If I need to do a normal random dungeon I go in the random fast queue but if I'm going to do a veteran one I might choose the normal queue because I'm not so confident of doing it all with DDs/random roles.

You are assuming that with those 100 DDs going in the second queue there are 10 DDs that are still waiting 40 minutes in the normal one...but that would be kinda "solved" by the fact that there's much more space left

josiahva · November 2020

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

josiahva wrote: »

NO.

Quite simply you are again(like most of the others with similar ideas) trying to impose your view of what skills and build a tank should be...its not that black and white. My sap tank doesnt have a shield of ANY type slotted(well, except the group ice staff shield, and that is just a function of the aoe skill) It doesn't stop me from being able to sucessfully tank ANY of the tiers with just that setup...but your requirement that you think is "fair" locks that tank out of a serious group.

The fact of the matter is that EXPERIENCED tanks can run any number of unconventional setups and still survive fine. There are times I have tanked, DPSed, and healed all at the same time while selecting the tank role.

I have another tank that is more DPS focused, he pulls about 25k DPS while tanking...but because of that his max health is 24k, and I run him for quick non-DLC vet pledges and even some of the easier DLC vet dungeons(works fine for things like vCOS, vROM, vWGT, vICP, etc) I know very well not to take that tank into vDOM though, the stone watchers would wreck him quickly...my choice on the content to take him into is based on

As for splitting the queues...that is a terrible idea...or I should say, it is terrible to split the queues to START with. I am not against splitting queues...but the goal is not to reduce the pool size for possible players until you give them a choice AFTER they see wait times for a 1T/1H/2DPS group. For instance...as a DPS if I enter the general queue and see the conventional group wait time for a DPS is 40 minutes, but if I chose to go role-less queue its a 5 minute wait, then its on me whether to wait or not, but to split them off without giving wait time transparency beforehand is a bad idea because it makes the available pool smaller to start with...for instance someone may put up with a role-less queue because they think they are getting in faster...and while that is true, it negatively affects those conventional groups increasing their wait time....if you start with the same pool, then those in a hurry are always going to choose the shortest wait time regardless, so you dont have 100 DPS jumping in the role-less queue and 10 DPS jumping in the conventional queue...instead you have 110 DPS who are just going to choose the shortest wait time, so while 100 may still end up going to the role-less queue for expediency, the pool is still 110 for both queues.

There simply is no practical FAIR way to do what you want to do. You know what would happen if restrictions like that were actually placed? Tanks would stop using group finder entirely and the problem would become WORSE. I mean...if you try to tell me that I can't tank how I want to tank using the group finder...I simply will stop using it entirely. As long as I am doing the job of a tank, you need to stop trying to impose certain ways of tanking on me. Your idea punishes tanks...tanking is ALREADY a thankless job...the less appealing you make it, the more likely I will just stop tanking entirely.

I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned but you use the word "impose" a few times and not sure why you feel that way. If you've read my post and comments.

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

I am not here to impose my solution and definitely not claiming this will solve everything. I've only been playing for about 4 months and do not have the full context of the history of fake roles and the community's opinions. This is more of a proof of concept (POC) that I want to be critiqued on and refined. If ZOS does something, great, if not, no biggie. I just wanted to pick on people's brain on my POC as a newish player.

Quite simply because setting requirements imposes limitations. Its using force(in this case in the form of requirements) to accomplish your goals. You can liken it to someone like Trump using eminent domain laws to force someone to sell him property.(this is just an example of people using government force to accomplish their goals, except instead of government, you want to use ZOS)

As I have said from the beginning, the only way you are going to get what you expect out of a group is to run with a pre-made group...running with random people will inevitably expose you to all kinds of different playstyles and skill levels....imposing restrictions to roles will not accomplish what you seek, it will just reduce the number of people willing to jump through hoops so they can play a caricature of a character to some pre-defined standard. To be honest, the restrictions you are suggesting are not difficult to meet, but they do certainly limit you in what you can do and how you can play.

The problem with these restrictions is that there is simply no reason to impose them when you ALREADY have the tools at your disposal. If someone is not performing their role, vote to kick...if others agree with you, it goes through, if others do not agree with you, you are free to leave the group...beyond that, you have the other tools of your social contacts in game to put together whatever type of group you want....these are not difficult tools to apply and there is no valid excuse for not using them, then complaining that pugs are bad. Pugs are what they are, groups of random people of varying levels of skill running a variety of setups(maybe they are testing out the viability of some magicka/stamina hybrid, or maybe they are testing out some set they wanted to try, etc etc)

An example: I got Elden Hollow 1 as my random vet dungeon yesterday....now, EH1 is my LEAST favorite dungeon in the game...it has an annoying entrance, bad gear, easy mobs and bosses, AND annoying fear CC...there is nothing enjoyable about that dungeon to me(but at least it was the pledge), I was tanking, and the leader of the group was a DPS with 1600CP...he immediately started running ahead and pulling mobs before me(strike #1) then not stopping and burning them down but continuing to run ahead and pull more mobs(strike #2) leaving me to deal with the mess he left behind to try to get in under control. I don't tolerate DPS messing up my pulls...at all, 2 strikes is all it takes for me to vote to kick...which I did....I gave the others 30 seconds to confirm or deny...nothing. I then left the group...no sweat off my back, there was no reason for me to tolerate that behavior...just as there is no reason for people to tolerate fake-tanking. People are scared to kick fake-tanks because the queue times for replacements are long...but what they fail to recognize is that they aren't losing anything kicking a fake-tank...they ALREADY don't have a tank...its not like you can't do these dungeons without a tank...I will often continue on doing a dungeon, vet DLC or not if a DPS or healer drops(or a tank if I happen to be playing DPS at the time)...I find them more fun when we complete them with 2 or 3 people than the full 4...for that matter, if it would let me, I would continue on solo when a group falls apart while waiting for replacements...group finder is a tool to increase your skill in sub-optimal situations...whether those situations are bad DPS, fake-tanking, lack of healing, or a less-than-full group.

People try to use group finder as some type of pledge-finishing tool and think it can fill that purpose....it can't and never will.

deleted221106-002999 · November 2020

There isn't a problem with group finder/fake roles that cannot be solved already with existing options:

vote-kick
leave
pre-form your own group

The RANDOM group finder does exactly that (other issues aside) - creates a RANDOM group for a RANDOM dungeon.

Any of these proposed convoluted 'solutions' to the non-problem would block non-standard builds as @zvavi has cogently illustrated. By extension pre-formed groups would have to not only switch their role(s) - a trivial step for, for example, a 4 dd/dps setup ( I see these form a fair bit in undaunted pledge-giver zones on both pc-eu/na) - but would also need to change their build(s) to conform to whatever arbitrary standard of the moment existed. Even with add-ons it would not be trivial; and for those platforms without access to add-ons for fast gear swaps...ugh.

And, in fairness, zos would probably break the group finder (and some unrelated game aspect, too) in trying to implement anything like this with a ~6 month turnaround to get a fix - during which time, naturally, the whole definition of 'standard tank' would likely have changed several times.

Nightmare.

bmnoble · November 2020

They should just up the group size limit in normal dungeons eg:

So in normal you would get 1 tank 1 healer and 4 DD.

Keep Vet as it is for those looking for a challenge.

VaranisArano · November 2020

bmnoble wrote: »

They should just up the group size limit in normal dungeons eg:

So in normal you would get 1 tank 1 healer and 4 DD.

Keep Vet as it is for those looking for a challenge.

Because we really need to steamroll through Fungal Grotto 1 even faster...

Kurat · November 2020

Any kind of queue splitting only makes both queues longer and fake roles don't disappear. Its fine as it currently is. If you are "serious " and looking for guaranteed clear and maybe going for achievements then play with premade group. No need for separate queue for that. And casuals already have gf.

Also wanted to point out OP suggested dps requirements. 35k self buffed on 6 mil easy to achieve at cp160 !!! Lmao, NOT

bmnoble · November 2020

VaranisArano wrote: »

bmnoble wrote: »

They should just up the group size limit in normal dungeons eg:

So in normal you would get 1 tank 1 healer and 4 DD.

Keep Vet as it is for those looking for a challenge.

Because we really need to steamroll through Fungal Grotto 1 even faster...

Yep because clearly that is the only normal dungeon that people could possibly ever want to queue for.

FG1 is one of the beginner dungeons of course its going to be easy even a group of level 10 players who have a rough idea of what they are doing are going to get through it easy enough.

My idea is about reducing the queue times for damage dealers, by increasing the number of damage dealers in a group.

It solves one of the main problems tanks have with the group finder, getting stuck with damage dealers that struggle to do enough damage to clear the dungeon, its fine if its one the group can carry them but if you get bad luck and its both and if its a harder normal dungeon, like a DLC one a lot of tanks and healers will just leave rather than wasting an hour in a normal dungeon.

Even if you get 4 lousy damage dealers, with a tank and healer to support them you should be able to clear the normal dungeons without too many problems.

While keeping Vet the same as it is for those that want the challenge.

It solves the fake roles problem by doubling the number of damage dealers getting into normal dungeons reducing queue times for those looking to get their daily random normal and pledges done quickly.

Simply if the queue times for Damage dealers become more reasonable, they are less likely to queue for a fake role.

Thechuckage · November 2020

Miszou wrote: »

Why not just add a multi-choice option to the group finder to specify the kind of group you'd be willing to join...?

[x] T H D D
[ ] H D D D
[ ] T D D D
[ ] D D D D

Make the choice available after level 50, so that new players always get the standard T H D D group. "Experienced" people can then decide if they want to run with 4 DD's or whatever.

This will shorten the queue times for your average DPS, while the hotshots can just run 3 (or 4) DD's and get the faster queue that they need.

That is one of the better ideas I've seen. On paper.
In regards to Zos pulling off an industry standard LFG tool, well when that happens, your idea would be lovely.

Hotdog_23 · November 2020

The queue is broken enough that adding any requirements to it would completely break it I am afraid.

My vote is leave it alone and just continue to deal with fake roles the same way we have for years.

Be safe and have fun

katanagirl1 · November 2020

Fake tanks (dps) queueing as tanks always make me angry. I wait in the queue for a long time and these guys just don’t want to stand in line like the rest of us.

Normal dungeons you can get through with them, though they run from the bosses and make dps difficult. You put down your aoes and then you have to run somewhere else and do it again. It’s not fair but easier to suffer through and get on with it.

I usually get a competent group when I queue for vet, but unless I need a vet helm I would rather complete on normal for a quicker run.

A premade group is not an option for me. I am in a guild with 500 active players who are kicked for inactivity after 10 days, yet I can never get anyone to queue with me when I need to run a pledge. I used to type in guild text chat, even offering gold to help me get a vet helm, with no response, but now I just queue up the dungeon finder and hope for the best.

I can only guess that it is because I do not have a dedicated group and run dungeons every day that I cannot get guildies to help me.

zvavi · November 2020

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I can only guess that it is because I do not have a dedicated group and run dungeons every day that I cannot get guildies to help me.

Join a different guild.

idk · November 2020

OMG, the threads created from failed groups that used the no role required group will be hilarious. It would be entertaining to read about how bad those groups are. It is one thing for skilled players who know the content to roll without the trinity but lesser skilled and knowledgable players doing vet DLC dungeons without support would not look pretty.

Then we have the role requirements for the other type of queue suggested are not a new suggestion. We have pointed out time and time again why such a requirement will not work. The basic requirement for a tank is to have a taunt, nothing more. So Zos can require a player to have a taunt unlocked and can even require them to have it slotted to queue as a tank. The fake tank can swap it out after they get into a group or just not use it.

LashanW · November 2020

stefj68 wrote: »

solution would be to make 6 person group... 1 tank - 1 heal - 4 dps... so queing as dps wont take 1h averyage, but closer to 10min max... and people will stop fake tanking!

Reworking 40+ dungeons that were originally designed for 4 man groups to account for the added number of players sounds like a LOT of work.

idk wrote: »

The basic requirement for a tank is to have a taunt, nothing more. So Zos can require a player to have a taunt unlocked and can even require them to have it slotted to queue as a tank. The fake tank can swap it out after they get into a group or just not use it.

I'd like an "enrage" mechanic from dungeon bosses as a solution. Just an idea.

If a taunt is not applied on the bosses in the first 5-10 seconds they would enrage (gaining a big damage shield and doing very high dmg to everyone). Application of a taunt would remove this enraged state if tank was late for some reason. It would also discourage other roles from running ahead by themselves and engaging the bosses before tank can catch up. If your group can kill the boss in less than 10 seconds fake tanking shouldn't be much of a problem anyway.
However players must be made aware of this effect, by showing a notification window when you queue for tank for the first time in your character as well as properly saying this in death recap, should the players die to an enraged boss.

Of course there'd be cases that need adjustments, such as tank disconnecting or tank leaving the group (other 3 players shouldn't be blocked from progressing the dungeon in such cases).

Firstmep · November 2020

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

Background:
This idea stemmed from https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/548925/fake-tanking.
Currently group finder (GF) requires one tank, two damage dealers (DD) and one healer. Being a MMO, the game's population has a lot more DDs than tanks and healers combined. This leads to long queue times for DDs (20-40mins queue times and sometimes it lingers over an hour). Tanks have around instant to 5mins queue time and healers have around 5-10mins queue time. Because of the short queue time of tanks and healers, DDs change their role to tank to speed up their queue time.

What is a fake tank?
A tank's role is described as taunting (taking aggro from mobs/boss), basically diverting the damage to himself rather than the group. A bad tank is NOT a fake tank. This means if a DDs with zero attributes in health can still be a tank if they have the correct gears and taunt. A fake tank is a DD (or even a healer) queues as a tank role and has no gear or skills required to be one like having less than 15k hp and no taunt. In optimal and experienced groups, tanks are required to debuff enemy and buff group DPS as well but we are talking about GF here so this is not a necessity but more of a luxury.

Problem:
This game's dungeon difficulty scales from normal base game (T3) to vet base game/normal dlc (T2) to vet dlc (T1). I am generalizing here and not an actual representation of the dungeon's difficulties. T2 and T1 can be very challenging if the tank is not effective at taking aggro and surviving. If the tank doesn't take aggro, the mobs/boss will attack DDs and healer which leads to a wipe. If the tank can't survive, the mobs/boss will attack the DDs and healer which leads to a wipe. You guys get the point. No tank support = dead group.

Fake tanks have caused many failed T2 and T1 dungeon runs and wasted everyone's time. However T3 is the grey area, they are extremely easy and can be done in 5 mins with a half decent 4 DD group but does that mean this is the right thing to do? The community is split on this. One end thinking it is okay to fake tank on T3 dungeons but sometimes people overestimate their abilities and fake tank on T2 and even T1 dungeons. The other end thinks this is harmful to the community and is an exploit of the GF.

Solution:
This idea has been floated around by others, it is the idea of having two types of queues.
Casual = No role requirement queue

Serious = Role required queue (1 tank, 2 DDs, 1 healer)

Casual queue is exactly what you think it means. Anyone can queue without specifying any roles. This will allow the experienced or time limited players to quickly find a dungeon group and do their daily and pledges. Players queuing into casual will go in with the knowledge that they should not expect anything out of the other players as this is a casual queue. Meaning there could be no tank, no healer and bad DDs. Thus they can be prepared to bring self sustain skills/gears. No one should complain if their group is bad because this is the definition of casual queue. For all those DDs that are fake tanking or even fake healing, they can use casual queue because it is basically no different from the current GF.

Serious queue requires roles and will need set requirements met by each player respective to their role. Why? Because that is the only way to enforce it. I'm going to give some starter numbers and requirements only for the purpose of this discussion. It does not represent what I actually think the requirement should be.

Tank:
Min 25k HP

Min 20k Resistance

Have shield slotted

Have taunt skill slotted

Healer:
Min 30k Magicka

Have restoration staff slotted

Have min 3 restoration staff skills slotted

DD requirement is tricky because anyone can do damage, so wait... why do we need requirements for DDs?Simple answer is players queuing into serious queue will want others to be half decent so we can't exclude DD from this. I've done many T2 dungeons as a healer and the DPS of the DDs are just abysmal causing several wipes and a horrible experience. The only method I can think of measuring a requirement for DD is a dummy parse number. Yes, I know a parse number does not represent a player's knowledge of dungeon mechanics and how they play in a real dungeon environment. A dummy parse number DOES represent how well a player knows DPS mechanics and their rotation. In most cases, a player that spends time into knowing their rotation will have at least basic knowledge on dungeon mechanics. My suggestion is for ZOS to add a solo instance of a dummy parse room near the Undaunted Enclaves. This room will contain a 6m trial dummy (basically the 21m dummy but with 6m health) so it isn't intimidating to new players.

DD:
Min 35k DPS on the 6m trial dummy.

Conclusion:
This will solve the two problems. Experienced players wanting to fake tank T3 and T2 dungeons for a quick run. New/experienced players that want a good dungeon run without having to worry about fake roles.

What about the new players that cannot meet the requirement of the serious queue?
IMO, the requirements are quite low and easily achievable at CP 160.

They can use the casual queue and maybe the players are nice enough to not rush through everything

Join a guild, there are PLENTY of beginner friendly guilds that are more than willing to help

Lower the serious queue requirements even more and add a super serious queue with higher requirements.

I get that people can easily switch gears once they are in the dungeon. But if they've already spent the effort and time in meeting the requirements (leveling resto skill line, getting tank gears, getting taunt skill), they have essentially fulfilled that role. This is not an end all and be all solution but I think it will help the case of the fake tank, fake healer and fake/bad DPS problem.

Thanks for reading everyone and I look forward to the discussions.

TLDR:
Have two queues to satisfy everyone. One without roles and one with roles with requirements.

Takes 2 seconds on pc to circumvent your system with any addon that can change gear and skill load outs on the fly.
The solution to fake tanking is to find your own group, or kick the fake tank.
A lot of people that fake queue as tank do it save time, and trust me they will go to serious lengths to do that.
Tanking is not a popular role in any mmo, sadly this likely won't ever change, hence the fake roles.
One solution could be to disallow ppl on ur ignore list to be put in the same grp as you, that way at least you could make sure you don't meet the same fake tanks again.
Apart from that, with how the games skill system works there is no easy fix.

As a general rule, if a dungeon is too difficult for you to carry any grp thru, you shouldn't use the group finder for it.

Maybe some sort of a wow-like lfg listing system could help for people to find groups for more difficult content, but in general you are better off making your own group.

VaranisArano · November 2020

bmnoble wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

bmnoble wrote: »

They should just up the group size limit in normal dungeons eg:

So in normal you would get 1 tank 1 healer and 4 DD.

Keep Vet as it is for those looking for a challenge.

Because we really need to steamroll through Fungal Grotto 1 even faster...

Yep because clearly that is the only normal dungeon that people could possibly ever want to queue for.

FG1 is one of the beginner dungeons of course its going to be easy even a group of level 10 players who have a rough idea of what they are doing are going to get through it easy enough.

My idea is about reducing the queue times for damage dealers, by increasing the number of damage dealers in a group.

It solves one of the main problems tanks have with the group finder, getting stuck with damage dealers that struggle to do enough damage to clear the dungeon, its fine if its one the group can carry them but if you get bad luck and its both and if its a harder normal dungeon, like a DLC one a lot of tanks and healers will just leave rather than wasting an hour in a normal dungeon.

Even if you get 4 lousy damage dealers, with a tank and healer to support them you should be able to clear the normal dungeons without too many problems.

While keeping Vet the same as it is for those that want the challenge.

It solves the fake roles problem by doubling the number of damage dealers getting into normal dungeons reducing queue times for those looking to get their daily random normal and pledges done quickly.

Simply if the queue times for Damage dealers become more reasonable, they are less likely to queue for a fake role.

How much harder than FG 1 are most of the dungeons when you add two more DDs but don't adjust any of the bosses or mob packs to compensate for the power creep?

Okay, Crypt of Hearts 1's overlapping circles mechanic will get harder. I'm sure there's a fewer other mechanics that require coordination that will get harder.

But every boss and every mob pack that just requires straight DPS will get steamroll easy when you add two more DDs, unless we're talking pitifully bad levels of DPS to begin with. The easier dungeons just get absolutely trivialized, and the harder dungeons get quicker and easier.

And lets not worry that players who run normals will get a skewed idea of what the dungeon is like on Vet, so it really will be a challenge as new players face it with only four players for the first time, instead of theoretically doing the same thing as before, only harder. Normals won't serve as a stepping stone to Vet content anymore - you'll only be widening that experience gap.

But I see that easy peasy normals are your goal here. You want your pledges and daily random done quick and easy. I gotta wonder if this is related to the transmute crystal changes - do we really need to make the daily random normal even easier by just throwing two more DDs at it?

At least its a slightly clever way of asking ZOS to nerf all their normal dungeons, I'll give you that much.

idk · November 2020

LashanW wrote: »

idk wrote: »

The basic requirement for a tank is to have a taunt, nothing more. So Zos can require a player to have a taunt unlocked and can even require them to have it slotted to queue as a tank. The fake tank can swap it out after they get into a group or just not use it.

I'd like an "enrage" mechanic from dungeon bosses as a solution. Just an idea.

If a taunt is not applied on the bosses in the first 5-10 seconds they would enrage (gaining a big damage shield and doing very high dmg to everyone). Application of a taunt would remove this enraged state if tank was late for some reason. It would also discourage other roles from running ahead by themselves and engaging the bosses before tank can catch up. If your group can kill the boss in less than 10 seconds fake tanking shouldn't be much of a problem anyway.
However players must be made aware of this effect, by showing a notification window when you queue for tank for the first time in your character as well as properly saying this in death recap, should the players die to an enraged boss.

Of course there'd be cases that need adjustments, such as tank disconnecting or tank leaving the group (other 3 players shouldn't be blocked from progressing the dungeon in such cases).

So you want Zos to add mechanics to the fight that would force everyone to run a perfect trinity even when they are skilled enough to clear the content without a perfect trinity.

There are many fights where a tank is virtually useless. Much of Direfrost Keep and especially the last boss do not need a tank. Drodda pretty much ignores the taunt. Spindleclutch II final boss does not need a tank. At least two bosses in Darkshade II, including the Engine Guardian, do not need a tank. What is a tank going to do with the Engin Guardian? Nothing in Vaults of Madness requires a tank. I have cleared VoM dozens of times with just four DPS.

I am speaking exclusively of vet HM. I could list more but I think I have made my point that there are many fights that the taunt is useless (especially if the undaunted taunt) and a great many where it is virtually useless.

As a result, forcing everyone to use a taunt does not make sense.

Edit: BTW, I usually tank so I am fairly aware of when I am useless as a tank.