General rant for the tanks out there who are being driven off the server.

[Dantes]

INCOMING!!! a your mom

[Calamitous Oeuvre]

OP: Tuvasa.....fromt the CT group a couple days ago....is that you!

[Ripcord]

This game has an enclopedia of rules and mechanics. If everyone knew everything, this post would be pointless - but that's just not the case. The difficulty curve is steeper then mt everest. My point is you have to feel people out for a while before barking orders in an attempt to better the group, and by the same token you have to have a level of forgiveness towards those that would benefit from your aedvice, willingly or not. Everyone has an ego and it seems really easy to bruise in the first 5 min of a group of randoms. Let it ride for a half dozen pulls and then subltely add sugustions. Its such a complex and interesting dynamic that this community of old eq nerds has developed in to, embrace it, because before you know it a car will pull up with dice in the mirror and at first I thought yo this cab was rare but naa forget it yo holmes to bel-air!

[frefaln]

^ That was the funniest self-derailment I've read in a while. I won't admit exactly how many episodes of FP I watched on Nick @ Nite, but it was more than a couple.

[Ripcord]

Omg ur young

[frefaln]

Nick @ Nite man, that's a whole different ballgame than Nickelodeon! (sort of)

And I'm ancient by P99 standards... when I watch most of the shows on Nick @ Nite (Roseanne, Cosby, etc.), I remember seeing a lot of those eps when they originally aired. Okay, now I'm depressed.

[Leokaiser]

I remember my first berating on Live. It took me days to solo my Paladin to level 6 or so - my first character on my first MMO... soon to join my first group.

"Oh wow, a camp full of Orcs, and the 'consider' thing says they'll kill me easily" I think to myself as I settle in with my group at Orc1; srs bznz! So, I'm killing stuff with my new friends and everything is going great and... oh no! The big green killing machine is attacking me! I'm wearing cloth and I'm not even aware of the concept of a 'tank' at this point - all I know is that I'm dying fast.

So, I can a) take it in the face and fall down like a Italian football player or b) do the only thing that seems reasonable to keep myself alive... run around in a circle until someone saves my ass. Obviously, my choice of option 'b' places me in the 'newb' category.

Now the group's tank is faced with an option. Does he a) realise that I'm new to the game and politely inform me that running won't stop me taking damage, and if I stand still it makes it easier for him to taunt the mob, or b) turn on caps lock and say "NEVER RUN AROUND WHEN IM TRYING TO TAUNT THE FUKCING MOB YOU FUCKING NOOB!"?

If you are that tank, which answer to you think would place you in the 'fucktastic douchebag' category?

Thankfully, another player in the group sent me a tell explaining my error with slightly more palatable language. I would have become a better player either way, but I left that camp, my first group, with one player on my friends list and one on my ignore list.

Tone is everything.

[Thorjorkill]

Originally Posted by frefaln [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice post OP, and as someone who tanked for years on Live I'm always encouraged to see people understanding/sharing the basic mechanics of an EQ group. And you are spot on.

I joined P99 a few weeks ago and was about 18 levels into a paladin, and I was quickly reminded of why I got burnt out on tanking on Live back in the day. Simply put, there is an engregious amount of ignorance, impatience, and immaturity out there. If you want to be a truly successful tank on P99 you're going to have to 1) simply accept the chaos that goes on around you, or 2) be an outspoken instruction-giver and risk getting a rep for being "bossy". Either way, you not only have to deal with your weighted workload but you often have to work against your own group members. You're screwed two different ways.

Since I don't have the energy for 50+ levels of that nonsense, I scrapped the pally and rolled a rogue. As luck would have it, my tanking experience has already made me a much better rogue than I would've been — because I know exactly what the tank's going through. For instance, when a paladin's tanking I actually wait to see that Flash of Light has landed before I go ape-shit with backstab. In other words, I actually pay attention to messages and group mechanics. Novel idea, eh?

The OP mentioned a tank pulling "occasionally", but I was always expected to pull since joining P99. And that's fine, I kinda like it. But I'll say this, I cannot believe how many people on P99 simply cannot sit still for one moment. If there aren't sparkles and battle spam they start going emo/schizophrenic. It's not just impatience but also ignorance, for it never seems to dawn on people that chaotic chain-pulling is not a guarantee that XP rate will increase. In fact, unless the group is just the right mixture and they're working together beautifully, it'll often have the opposite result. Think about it... if you're pulling DPS off the mob to chain-pull, the current mob dies later, the tank takes more damage, the healer's mana drains faster, and the tank will need to work harder to engulf aggro. And for what? A .04% increase in XP rate, if that? And all that's negated when the healer finally screams for a med break. Oh, the irony of impatience resulting in slower XP.

As much as I bashed SoE in the past, the original devs knew what they were doing. The dynamics of a group are very well designed and implemented, it's up to the players to not be impatient jackasses and actually let the well-oiled machine function as intended. If DPS classes would learn that pulling aggro isn't an accomplishment on their part (it's not hard) and would actually let the tank be the healer's sole target, they'd see that everything, including XP rate, goes so much more smoothly.

Chaotic chain pulling levels 9 thru 30 is what turns a tanking class into a TANK. There is no better way to seperate the men from the boys, and make someone truly ready to start tanking CT/MM/GUK. I want a tank to be able to save my ass in LGUK, so when I'm chain pulling crocs on you in oasis, you have 60% health, the healer has 50% mana, and I pull another croc to you, don't whine, because if you can't handle something minor like this without pissing your pants screaming for your room mates druid to help you, then you should be playing a freegin squishy class.

People are right, no one should be powerleveling some noob plate wearer past level 19 - just makes for bad shit happening later in game.

[Thorjorkill]

Originally Posted by jilena [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pull faster nubs.

Right On!

[Ihealyou]

I didn't read this thread, but heal better.