Game Director Letter – February 2014 Discussion

[Bibik]

Aye, elitism as it best. Even at some points they stalking devs with self-made conclusions. Awesome.

[Areana]

Really, no one can present any legitimate argument why a soldier should be competitive in dps with actual dps classes, pve or pvp.

I think it's OK if they can't tank and dps at the same time. When there are encounters where you need less tanks than you have, it is a good thing that you can turn a tank into a damage dealer. I do indeed stop and take pause when I see how much damage my and other's DT can dish out while tanking.

[-Deukalion-]

I think it's OK if they can't tank and dps at the same time. When there are encounters where you need less tanks than you have, it is a good thing that you can turn a tank into a damage dealer. I do indeed stop and take pause when I see how much damage my and other's DT can dish out while tanking.

This doesnt sound right. it isn't like dps can turn into tanks when they need to?

[Areana]

There are people who don't want to do both. I met a Conq once who just didn't want to tank. We confirmed him for raids as a tank and he was pissed.

For people like that I think Conq is the wrong class. People who only want to deal damage need a class that can only do that.

On the other hand having classes that are able to fulfill different roles is good for people's setup to be able to adapt to different encounters in a given group/raid.

So, question is, where is the line? How many and which classes should be able to switch their role? How many shouldn't?

Those questions are answered by Funcom and the result is that right now we have Conqs and DTs to be able to switch roles between tank and dps and healers who can very much vary between dps and support/heal. Actually I haven't often felt the need to change much at that situation.

[-Deukalion-]

There are people who don't want to do both. I met a Conq once who just didn't want to tank. We confirmed him for raids as a tank and he was pissed.

For people like that I think Conq is the wrong class. People who only want to deal damage need a class that can only do that.

On the other hand having classes that are able to fulfill different roles is good for people's setup to be able to adapt to different encounters in a given group/raid.

So, question is, where is the line? How many and which classes should be able to switch their role? How many shouldn't?

Those questions are answered by Funcom and the result is that right now we have Conqs and DTs to be able to switch roles between tank and dps and healers who can very much vary between dps and support/heal. Actually I haven't often felt the need to change much at that situation.

I can understand that classes may switch their focus a bit. like tanks doing dps instead of tanking, healers doing dps instead of good healing. However this should come at a cost. Pure DPS classes should be very much superior to damage output of tanks or healers because they are specialised DPS. DPS cant go into tank mode when hell breaks lose.

[Areana]

DPS cant go into tank mode when hell breaks lose.

This is what I agree on. Soldiers shouldn't be able to do both at the same time, or to switch between dps and tank infight by just pushing one button for that matter.

What I meant is that it should require a spec switch if you want to change your role between dps and tank. But if you've switched to dps you should be a viable damage dealer with all streanghts (damage) and weaknesses (squishy) a damage dealer has.

[-Deukalion-]

BUT dps cant spec into tank. Why should tanks be more versatile then pure dps classes?

[Suctum]

This is what I agree on. Soldiers shouldn't be able to do both at the same time, or to switch between dps and tank infight by just pushing one button for that matter.

What I meant is that it should require a spec switch if you want to change your role between dps and tank. But if you've switched to dps you should be a viable damage dealer with all streanghts (damage) and weaknesses (squishy) a damage dealer has.

Still wrong. And that's the problem with the current AoC player. You all want to be all things, but you want that to only pertain to certain classes or archetypes. Maybe because I'm older, I'm expecting people to play classes for their intended roles, maybe younger players buy into that GW2 crap of "no roles", but whatever.

A tank can DPS, but why should their damage ever be near or close to a regular DPS class. It should not, no matter the spec. That's the problem, you all don't play tanks to tank, you play tanks because until recently (which the changes from TL still are not finalized) you could be both a dps and a tank, and maybe your own healer, all at the same time. Why should a raid have 7 or 8 tanks? People enjoy tanking that much? BS. It's because those classes (Dt/Conq) are OP as anything and people know it. They can make every mistake possible and still finish encounters with enough AA and gear. The fact Funcom has allowed it for so long means it has turned into a culture in AoC to place class expectations and balance around ridiculously OP abilities and classes.

What's happening now is that Funcom is finally fixing the problem, and not only rebalancing classes but changing the culture. Adding flexability to a raid is gearing out multiple classes so you can swap, not having one class that can fill 2 or 3 roles as an equal to the classes it's replacing, simply because it's OP.

[AngryBarb]

When I rolled a DT I did so because i wanted to try and be a tank, my first 2 chars was a barb and a tos, so I was not looking for another dps class. I chose the dT because my m8 was already playing a guard and neither him or me knew how the other tanks was and as we understood at that time was that the conq was probably an off tank (yes we were nabs).

So I chose a DT since it's description sounded interesting (a priest tank) and I knew that Dt's were tanking as main tanks as well as the guard.
So, I have no problem with Funcom possibly changing the DT into a more tankish char, but it does make me wonder why we have 3 tank classes...
i mean, Guard is obviously the classic tank (meat shield) and the conq has the battle ress and formations which makes him a tank/support char.

But these days with all the aa's and powerful epic gear available to all 3 tank classes, it seems to me that there is not much difference (the 3 tank classes can all be maintanks, and can do great dps. Well, I guess the guard needs a buff to do great dps).

So. I enjoy my dt, I do fairly well with S/B, it's 99% T4 geared now, but it does feel slightly redundant IF it becomes more like a Guard

[Areana]

Suctum, I think you misunderstand me. My main is a Guardian, a class that can't do both and a class I chose because I wanted to tank. Guardians being OP in PvP wasn't part of that decision as I do PvP so rarely, that I am only PvP 2 despite having created that toon back in 2008. So I think I'm the wrong person to quote with your kind of -- for the lack of a better word -- ranting.

Concerning raids, this is something you have to sort out in your own raid. We only confirm 6 soldiers for a raid and we don't take soldiers in who can't tank. When more soldiers apply the rest has to stay at home and come on the next day/week.

Still you have bosses like Zodiac that is doable with just one tank (we still have two in case of an emergency but people claim to solotank it and I believe them). What should the rest of the soldiers do? Relog to a damage dealer? Stand around and feel useless? For us, relogging is not an option as we want to clear all of T4 in 3h (this week we even managed to do a Full clear in 2h15) and we can't do that if we have people relog all the time.

So the only option left is to have them go on a dps spec. I agree that it's over the top if soldiers can surpass rogues or mages at a same equipment and skill level. But if they are sub par damage dealers when they switched to a dps spec they will feel and be (!) less useful again and this doesn't contribute to people's fun in raids.

I can understand that you are against GW2's "no roles" approach of things. I would't want AoC to go that road either because I would fear a certain lack of diversity. The other extreme would lead to situations like I described with Zodiac. So right now we have some kind of an in between of these extremes and I don't find that so bad.

So in the end, to conclude that conversation that is going on for a page now, I can only offer you an agreement to disagree .