Greedy Goblin

Friday, January 15, 2010

The value of JC tokens and tanks

Titanium powder sells for 34-35G on my server. This item is good for one and only thing: buying Dalaran JC token, using 10 of them. So the common logic says that Dalaran JC token worth 350G. That's the number that JCs use to say when some moron insults them for charging fee for "pressing a button lol". However that's incorrect, just like claiming that 1 snowfall ink worth 10 ink of the sea.

You can claim that X worth n*Y only if either:
  • X and Y can be traded both ways, so you can sell and buy them. You can claim that titanium powder worth 35G since you can get powder for 35G and get 35G for powder. However you can't get powder from JC tokens.
  • If the X to Y way is unique, so you can only get Y from X. You can claim that icy pigment worth 0.5 snowfall ink, as you can only use it for crafting snowfall. However you can't claim that titanium ore worth 0.5 titanium bar, since you can use ores for other purposes than smelting and you can get bars from alchemy.
If the transformation is not two-way or unique, you don't have "=". You have only ">=" or "<=" relation. Examples:
  • Ink of the sea >= 0.1 snowfall ink. If the snowfall price would be more than 10x sea, you could just go to Jessica and transform until the increases sea demand and the increased snowfall supply would even out.
  • Titanium powder >= 0.1 JC token. If anyone thinks that powder is cheaper than 0.1 token, he can buy powders (increasing demand, therefore price) until price equalize. Otherwise he can just do the daily for the token. Since it's just 3 minutes, even I don't buy titanium powder, as only above 7K/hour would buying powder be more efficient than doing daily. (3 minutes is available to me as mage. I can port to Dalaran, so I can keep my HS in Howling Fjord where daily quest monsters are literally visible from the inn)
  • Goldthorn >= 0.24 jadefire ink otherwise you could just mill down the difference. But if goldtorn is 3-5G, you can't un-mill jadefire ink bought from Jessica

The post that made huge outrage in the blogosphere claimed that tanks and healers deserves better loot, because they are "more valuable". It was bashed because it had wrong reasoning: they do harder work, so they deserve more reward. It's a social nonsense, "hard work" only gets you more hard work and not rewards. The coal miner definitely does more work than me, but I get much better salary. The reason is simple: I could be a coal miner, but he couldn't be an engineer with PHD. The prices are defined by simple supply and demand, "moral value" is only in the head of the socials.

The same way tank, healer >= DPS, simply because any tank or healer can turn into a DPS at will while the opposite transformation is not available to most DPS. You have to reward them, or they simply transform into DPS. Of course one can claim that they are already properly rewarded by shorter queues and easier PuG raidspots as the DPS queue length depend exactly on the DPS:tank ratio. If someone believes that "tanks are not rewarded enough" simply should stop whining and become a DPS, increasing DPS supply, devaluing DPS.

Of course logic never stopped socials to do stupid things. Uninformed players often sell cheap goldthorn (he farmed for free) and "good souls" often stay tank because "the guild needs it". This case you should not demand rewards but simply do the transformation or wait until the moron gives up.

38 comments:

vvdb said...

It's also relatively easy to show that the JC token isn't worth 350 due to the fact that the main source of dragon's eyes is from those tokens. On my server, Titanium dust is around 25g (and actually sells), while dragon's eye on the ah is 150g. True, you can get the eye from icy prism as well, which slightly reduces it in price, but not by 100g.

Anonymous said...

@vvdb:

The Demand for dragon's eyes is not equal to dust. The dust is more valuable in the same way ore is more valuable compared to bars

Anonymous said...

I never tried to justify my gem cut prices with the price of Titanium Powder for the very same reason. You can't trade them both ways. Instead I always claimed the price of a design to be roughly 4x the value of a Dragon's Eye, 'cause you can actually sell the tokens as Dragon's Eyes on the AH.
This means one design is worth about 4x150=600g on my server, not ~1400g as it would cost if you bought one for Titanium Powders.

Anonymous said...

I think most Titanium dust is bought by Jewelcrafters who want to get more epic cut recipies fast (which is: faster then the 9 months worth of dailies otherwise required to get them all)

The price of Titanium dust on my server, is only related to the price of the broken necklaces which are at 350G, dragon's eyes go for about 100G.

Unknown said...

The main difference between titanium powder/broken necklaces and daily JC tokens is that you can do the daily just once per day. So, if you have gold to invest and want to enter JC market ASAP, instead of doing dailies couple of months, you just buy powder/necklaces to get the 'going cuts' in a week or two.
You just can't farm 1 JC token each 3 minutes, that is why 7k g/hr is just hypothetical.

Sten Düring said...

The tank didn't do anything stupid. He/she said: Give me more loot or find another tank! -- and it worked.

As long as we're talking five-man content the tanks ARE more important.
If a dps drops we kill the content, and I'll get a new dps if I can be bothered. If a healer drops we probably kill the content, but I'll make sure to get a new unless I have a healing dps available.
If I drop you're screwed until you find a new tank.

It's simple supply and demand. I supply -- you demand.

Anonymous said...

The price of titanium powder is high because JC's think they need to have all epic cuts, but this is not true.
If you spam your JC in trade and beg for fee's it has some truth in it, but if you sell gems in the AH you only need 2-3 cuts per gem. As the supply of uncut gems to cut for profit is limited, and the market is limited for each gem too.
Flexebility is good, but at some pointy the cost of beeing able to cut one more type of cardinal ruby when the price for that is high just isn't worth the investment.
Same applies to those who cut for fee's as the extra few costumers just isn't worth the investment, And don't say it pays for itself in the long run, if you cut less than 15 of that gem before the next excpansion it's not worth it.
If JC's knew this the price would be lower, but as for now, enjoy your extra profit's from titanium prospecting.
As far as i know the only time it's worth the current price is for new JC's to get their 2-3 patterns for each gem so they can start making gold.

Anonymous said...

@Sten:

No tanks aren't more important. Yes, there are fewer of them, but that is only because players choose not to be a tank. So there must be reasons why people do not wish to play tanks, such as that it is less fun to play than dps or requires a greater investment in time/gear to do it right. If being a tank was that good, we would all be tanks, right?

Tanks have some benefits, such as immediate pug queues and more status within a party, but you have to realize that these benefits are already in balance with the downsides. Tanks claiming to deserve even more benefits do not understand this.

It's what Gevlon said: if you feel that being a tank is not rewarding enough, change to dps. The fact the most tanks are not doing this, is proof that the tank/healer/dps ratio is already in balance.

Quicksilver said...

Totally agree about your JC tokens statements.

However: about tanks >= dps because tanks can become dps...

well 4 classes can actually switch from dps to tank therefore for these 4 classes: tank = dps

Furthermore, tank cannot just simply switch to dps because of lack of gear. The dedicated dps already have superior gear in order to be more competitive than a freshly respecced tank dps-wannabe.

So, no, you are wrong.

Even more, personally I believe all 3 roles are much fun and I play all 3 on different chars. Variation is always good.

Quicksilver said...

@Sten and Anonimous responding to Sten:

No. There are less tanks in the game because of a lesser demand for tanks FROM the GAME.

Basically people gear up and spec for raids and pvp.
In raids you need 2, max 3 tanks, 5-6 healers and 17 dps. Out of 25 people. So the ratio tank:healer:dps per total in raids is:

0.08 : 0.2 : 0.68

whereas in 5 mans:

0.2 : 0.2 : 0.6

So there you go. This explains the entire situation. There is a much lesser demand in raids for tanks than it is for 5 mans. Whereas for dps and healers it remains pretty much the same.

Which basically means there would be a shortage of tanks in 5 mans because nobody gears up his tank simply just to tank 5 mans....

Sten Düring said...

@Anonymous

Let's put this straight:

If you "need" to finish the task, in this case a five-man heroic, then whatever resource you cannot do without is more important that those that you can do without.

I can solo a lot of the heroics by now. Give me one healer and most of them are done. Give me two dps and there is not a single five-man that cannot be cleared.

Go solo heroic content as a non-tank. The three new ICC-5 aren't possible to complete without a tank, but they're still fourmannable. Agreed, if the lacking member is a healer downing the content becomes a major PITA.

Hence, in order of importance: Tank, healer, dps.


Second:

Why should I take on a less rewarding role? I never said tanking was not rewarding.
On the opposite I started by stating that tanks DO IN FACT tend to get more loot earlier, and that this is not the tank's fault. Ie EXACTLY what Gevlon wrote. If anyone is at fault it's the dps/healers that "allow" the tank to get loot earlier.


Third:

@Gevlon
If the organization (ie a guild) rationally comes to the conclusion that allowing the tanks to progress faster with loot helps the entire guild to complete its tasks faster (downing content), then this is a business desicion.

Said rationale is usually based on the 3/6/16 setup for a 25-man raid.
The raid benefits more from permanently buffing up one of the 3 before one of the 16. As one of the 16 you'd expect lower repair-bills (fewer tank-deaths), less time spent in the instance (in the end more loot per hour for everyone) and fewer weeks spent wiping until the next progression boss is killed (undisputably more loot distributed to the guild).

Everything I wrote under point number three is of course 100% invalid if you don't see a guild as a small business.

Anonymous said...

@Okrane

I think your assumption that people choose their role solely for raiding (or pvp) is flawed. Even if that were true, it remains a fact that people actually do play 5-mans. If the queue for dps players gets long enough, eventually some players will choose to spend their wait time levelling a tank alt, restoring the balance.

Not that with balance I don't mean 1 in 5 will be a tank. It is a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of playing a tank. Given that currently less than 1 in 5 is a tank, I conclude that tanking (in 5-mans) is deemed less attractive than dps-ing.

Gevlon said...

@Sten: don't claim that water "should be" more expensive than diamond, since you need water more than diamond.

The price of diamond is higher, because the supply of water is high. The same way if tanks would be in masses, than they would have to wait in line despite you can't go anywhere without one.

Gearing up the raid tank is BAD business, as he'll overgear the guild and be eligible to apply to a higher guild.

Leeho said...

@Sten
How are you going to allow tanks progress faster with gear? If tank gear drops, it's their without any doubt and special will, if it's dps or healing item, it's of no use for them.
You can make a rule for tier tokens maybe, but they can't take them all at once, as badges are needed to actually purchase tier with tokens, and badges are in very limited supply. Also there are class restrictions on tokens now.
You can maybe use orbs or saronite to make some crafts for tanks. But crafts are available only for 2 slots of gear out of 17.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon, I usually agree with 9/10 out of your opinions but this time something bothered me the most.
I can assure you that the population of tanks is not just a bunch of "good souls" and suckers.
There's tanks who enjoy tanking more than dps (such as me) and they are so experienced that they have automated it in the point that it's not considered a hard thing to do.

Fricassee said...

I understand the comparison when using mediocre dps as your reference.

However, great offensive players are like artists or Stradivarius. I mean, can you make art or build a violin? Sure, but you'll probably never do it as good as them, even with training.

Nielas said...

The titanium powder is merely a shortcut when learning jewelcrafting and as such it is priced accordingly. If JC pattersn were easier to get fast or the powder turn in would be limited it's price would drop. Also its supply is limited by whether it is profitable for someone to prospect titanium rather than turn it into bars.

A lot of people fail to realize that if your group loses/kicks a tank they will be given priority for the next single tank in queue. So while losing a tank can be an inconvenience if you are just doing heroic 5mans it is not usually a big deal. The 20 min wait time the DPS had is a sunk cost and no longer an opportunity cost. So if the tank demands more concessions than are reasonable under standard PuG conventions, he/she really does not have that much bargaining power over a DPS.

Of course if you are doing an instance 'off the beaten path' where there is no stable queue (ie no renewable supply of tanks or healers) then the situation changes and you have to seriously consider if completing the run is worth the aggrevation.

Anonymous said...

As a tank I find the current heroics lacking. I'm overgeared, I'm all I'm doing is help other players gear up their alts. The new 5 heroics are fun, but HOR is least likely Heroic you're going to succeed in as a Pug - I'd rather do with with a healer I know and good dps player I know. Instead of nerfing the heroic, I believe they should have been scaling the mobs with the current gear inflation.
When Wotlk first came out I had 28K health and did maybe 1100 dps as tank in Blue gear. If I had the same stats now as a new 80 I'd be booted from the party so quick I wouldn't even make it out of the loading screen.
Dps players want to be carried through 5-mans by over gear tanks. That's fine, but it discourages new players from tanking.

Also, the dps and healer are either telling you to hurry up; slow down; post dps meter, you're terrible tank, well I want less qq and more pew, pew.

Random Heroic players tend to believe they are Gods and the other 4 memebers of the party are new ebay account holders with need their unique leadership skill to finish Nexus while being told their dps/tank/healing is terrible. The problem is the other 4 players also think they know everything.

Unknown said...

"I can assure you that the population of tanks is not just a bunch of "good souls" and suckers."

What you are missing is that there are people out there that stick doing something they don't want to do, and/or are not being rewarded enough to do, simply because "The guild needs it".

I personally think tanks (and healers) are rewarded well enough as is. We have shorter Queue times, if Tank/healer gear drops it is almost always obviously tank/healer gear, and we have little competition (or none if it's a 5 man). Every so often there is a piece that could be DPS or tank/healer, and we roll with every one else.

Sure, there is some iffy points (bear tanks have to fight all the leather DPS for gear), and some hard and fast points ("look, it's HEALER PLATE, there is only one plate healer in the game!").

Guthammer said...

Actually, Gelvon, you are wrong.

If part of the "payment" of being a tank, the RDF is at a 0 lower bound--just like interest rates.

You can't get a queue faster than "instant" though the demand for tanks would, by all observations, drive queue times negative.

So tanks are being under compensated by the RDF. There is another market distortion caused by "government" (read dev) policy--which is the under employment of tanks at about 50% for 25 man content.

I just don't see how you compensate tanks more without the long term result being they queue less.

Anonymous said...

You can't compare the one-time 350g cost of a powder-token to the cost of a Dragon's Eye.

When you're collecting patterns, the extra tokens may mean getting that pattern weeks or months earlier, and the daily sales from that early pattern will cumulatively exceed the price of 3-4 Dragon's Eyes. Powder and Tokens produce future income for those willing to pay extra for them upfront.

The Eyes being sold in the AH are from JCs that have their patterns and don't need tokens anymore, or from JCs that think think 100g/day is a lot of money.

Anonymous said...

All this argument about how much a tank/healer/dps 'should' be worth is stupid. The true value could very easily be determined by using a market-based matchmaking system for LFD. Here is how it works:

I select my desired role and make a gold bid for the heroic I want to run. The bid can be positive or negative and it represents how much I am willing to pay or be paid to run the heroic with a group. The LFD system then attempts to assemble a group for me that stays within budget (ie, the sum of the bids for the five people in the group is the smallest non-negative number possible). My bid is set aside and after killing the last boss everybody is paid (I explain this more below).

If you enter a higher bid, the LFD system has more flexibility in finding group members for you and you get a group sooner. If you enter a lower bid, you will not spend as much but you may have to wait. Negative bids are an extreme example of this, though for tanks the wait may not be long if enough players are willing to pay for your services.

Poor tanks would be willing to tank more to earn gold. Wealthy dps would be able to pay for the short queues they want. Prices (ie, rewards/costs) would not be imposed by Blizzard but instead would be set by players as supply and demand ebb and flow. For those that like the current LFD system, simply bid 0 and nothing changes.

For a goblin that does not enjoy the AH, I think this has a lot of potential.

Payment scheme:
Let the five bids total up to T.
Suppose your bid was B.
Then your share will be X where B + X = T/5.
Notice that you will never pay more than your bid amount but that if there is sufficient demand you may get more money back than your bid amount! In other words, the worst case is known in advance and there is a chance that you may experience a windfall.

Kaaterina said...

The fact that the 'market' for tanks is in balance does not mean that it's a good balance.

The tank population is in balance for 25 man raids.

I'm a raiding tank (albeit on a break, but regardless). I can go to raids just fine because of my gear+knowledge.

I can also go to 5 mans. But I don't. There's nothing I want from there. Higher rewards would give me a reason to go there. As such, 1 heroic/day is enough. (and actually prefer joining midway through the instance, as well as skipping optional bosses, as long as the healer agrees. DpS can whine all they want)

Tanks overgear content faster to meet the balance at the highest tier. Without extra incentives to join past content, the balance is bad.

Well, either that, or require more tanks in 25 mans.

I am actually pretty concerned with the upcoming philosophy "arms warrior should be able to equip shield and tank heroics". This means that heroics will have to be nerfed to the lowest possible denominator, ie. arms tank. As such, for proper tanks, the heroic content will be entirely trivial from the get-go (never mind later tiers). Trivial content for 'proper tanks' = all people will want a 'proper' tank for facerolling = 'arms tanks' will be denied spots = the same problem as now with retadedly easy heroics. Great, a vicious circle.

A better solution would be either heighten rewards for tanks in 5 mans, or more tanks required for 25 mans.(Encounters like Fathom Lord, Leotheras, Lady Deathwhisper) Making tanking easier cannot be done (where the axis of good-bad DpS is subjected to fuzzy logic, the axis of good-bad tank is pretty much boolean. Either you're a good tank or you're dead. There's no room for fuziness.)


@Anon with the market idea.

Absolutely awesome suggestion. I would so love if it was implemented

Tegoelf said...

@Fricassee:

the problem with that logic is that you simply don't need that much DPS to meet the minimum requirements for a 5 man (if geared pallys and DK's are soloing the content then you don't need that much dps) however an incompetent tank, and I am talking about the horror story tanks I hear about from the dps I end up grouped with will ruin a group. no matter how good your dps is.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

tanks and healers just got a huge bonus -- the cross server LFG system.

If there is anybody that this system is unfair to it is really *good* DPS players. A DPS that does a lot of damage, doesn't pull aggro except when it is correct to do so (like off the healer), avoids all avoidable damage, does interrupts and CC correctly, knows how to CC/kite/aggro-trade when the shit hits the fan, and generally takes care of little things is worth just as much as a tank or healer. Ok, not quite as much, because a really good tank/healer can make up for 3 crap dps, but it takes 3 really good dps to cover for a bad tank or healer, and the tank and healer can only be so bad.

But still, what I remember is that when I was raiding regularly in BC on my mage, and people on the server knew my name and recognized my guild, I was in demand for pugs and never had trouble getting spots. It was almost as easy then as it later was at 80 on my druid who could take any role.

But after letting my mage lay fallow in wrath for a while, it became difficult to find groups, because my name was no longer known. I was just another dps, much like I had been as a new 70 (when it was also harder to get into pugs).

Under the new LFG system, there is no distinction between the guy who everybody knew would do nothing stupid, pour out damage and have a shot at kiting the boss to death when the tank dies at 5%, and joe-random DPS.

But tanks. Holy shit. I thought it was easy to get a pug on my druid before, but I was always willing to heal, tank or dps. Now, I would queue as tank only and never wait more than 5 minutes for a group. And no whispering or advertising, just click "enter queue" and voila.

It's so easy, I'm becoming a tankadonna, and zoning out when idiot DPS make the first pull, and tell everybody what to do.

Anonymous said...

On the issue of tanks;

I have blogged about the fact that the dual spec system really hurt DPS - every class can now DPS whenever they want effectively, but not every class can tank. Good DPS is however another story, but still, that dual spec change really hurt us.

As far as being stuck without a tank. Last night, while leveling my mage for the undergeared project, I ran the Scarlet Monastery Libary with a PuG. Our tank threatened us with the "give him better loots" argument. We kicked him and just for good measure we ran most of the instance without a tank. It worked fine. Put out enough DPS, have ahealer who can group heal, and you can do it.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

I like your bid scheme, but note that entering a zero bid under that LFG matching algorithm is *not* the same as using the current system. Under the current system, everybody will always eventually get to the front of the line and into a group. Somebody who bids zero under your matching system will not necessarily *ever* get into a group if the supply of people in their role is always greater than the demand at a higher bid than what you bid.

Inotherwords, the market can price you out of a group under a bidding scheme. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the QQ!

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon
Your point on the tank might apply for a better guild usually doesn't apply when you consider the costs for them.

The tank first needs to consider where is his current guild's ranking at, as it will limit the number of guilds that is "better" then his.

Secondly, he needs to know are the better guilds recruiting a tank, and if their raiding times matches his. And as we all know most high end guilds already has numbers of tanks and offtanks and dps main spec tanks to do the job for them.

Even if they are actively recruiting one the tank needs to know how long would it take to get him back to the raider position. Most guilds have a one month trial phase and during that time, you will not be able to gear up or actively join their raids.

So in the end, applying for a better guild might not always be the best idea if your guild is on the top 10 rankings(Depends on server, again).

So in most cases your tank will not leave if he understands the costs to change his guild. Thus gearing him up will not always be a bad business decision.

Halmotors said...

I stay tank mainly because I enjoy the nonexistent queue times available to me, not because of any misconceived notion that I'm 'worth more'. If my performance isn't up to snuff, and I can and most likely will be replaced in a matter of minutes. No single part of a group can finish the dungeon on their own; the problem is that the different roles don't appreciate what the others bring to the group, with the exception of the tank/healer.

The tank thinks the DPS are dime a dozen scrubs, and in most cases, they are. The healer thinks the DPs are a mass of drooling idiots because they can't move off of a differently colored patch on the floor. The DPS think the tank is a pompous, controlling ass (and yes, a good bunch act like their shit doesn't stink), and they tend to think the healer is stuck up.

The healer and tank have a more congruent understanding with each other. The tank keeps the bad stuff away from the healer, and the healer keeps the bad stuff from killing the tank. The DPS, to them, is just there for flavor.

That being said, I don't foresee this ever being resolved as an issue in the near future. So long as tanking remains even moderately difficult to get into (gear requirements, etc.), there will be an overabundance of DPS and a small supply of tanks and healers.

With the role changes upcoming in Cataclysm, I expect to see it start to even out.

Anonymous said...

So what happens when the majority of Tanks have all the gear that they want from triumph emblems, The small number of tanks doing randoms will get smaller with most tanks only needing to run one random a day for the frost emblems, hopfully for dps more people will chance their arm tanking or 15min waits will turn into 30 min waits

Sten Düring said...

@Gevlon

You make me disappointed.

I'm not stating that anything "should" be more expensive than anything else. I'm stating that tanks are more important than the other classes. There's a world of difference.

Is more expensive has no 100% correlation to is more important.

The way the game is programmed tanks are more important. Simple. Bad design or not, I don't care.

You don't pump a combat res to a dps dying in a raid. Druids are told to hold on until a healer or WORST case a tank goes down. More important again.

"Gearing up guild tank is bad business" because what??? You're starting to sound like people complaining I undercut them too much because it's "bad business".

If I tank well I'm one resource out of three in a 25 man raid. If you dps well you're one resource out of 16.

Make me unhappy and you lost 33% of one vital resource. Make you unhappy and you lost 6.3:ish% of one vital resource. Add to the problem that my being a tank had a decreased percentage of me being a performance-retard in the guild compared to a dps to begin with.

Do the math, suck it up and don't join the M&S club.

Anonymous said...

Great post. You have basically pointed out a great, succinct argument about M&S-ideas like socialism: if we pay the engineer the same as a coal miner (or better yet, an easier job like bartender or waitress), why would I go get a PhD when I could just hang out at the bar serving drinks and making 6 figures? Granted we need DPS (coal miners) just like we need tanks/heals but the value of the "product" (whether dps/heals/tanking or coal/engineering services) is determined by basic economics, not the labour put into it.

Anonymous said...

Re Tanks & coal miners:
I like
In the bestselling book Freakanomics Dr Levitt wrote:

"... when there are a lot of people willing and able to do a job, that job generally doesn't pay well. This is one of 4 meaningful factors that determine a wage. The others are the specialized skills a job requires, the unpleasantness of a job, and the demand for services the job fulfills."
...
"The delicate balance between these two factors help explain why, for instance, the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect. It may not seem as though she should. The architect would appear to be more skilled (as the word is usually defined) and better educated (again, as usually defined.) But little girls don't dream of becoming prostitutes, so the supply of potential prostitutes is relatively small. Their skills, while not necessarily "specialized," are practiced in a very specialized context. The job is unpleasant and forbidding in at least two significant ways, the likelihood of violence and the lost opportunity of having a stable family life. As for demand? Let's just say that an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa."




BTW, I wouldn't overplay the PhD; his analysis of online dating sites showed that for women a college education was about as effective as having blond hair.

Zan said...

The idea of "rewarding them so they won't turn into DPS" amuses me. Thanks for sharing Gevlon.

I read the linked article on WoM and both here and there I keep seeing people saying the reward for being a tank / healer is having faster queue times with the random dungeon finder.

Having been working on gearing out my twin DK tanks, I can say that the 'faster queue' times may not be as rewarding as one might think.

Players treat tanks who aren't fully geared like crap. Overzealous DPS in full welfare epics thinking they're hot shit charging in to pulls before I've had a chance to fully get agro on an AOE pack and then engaging in verbally abusive behavior when they die to their own stupid.

A tank's reward of more instances sooner simply means that the tank is going to deal with a higher ratio of assholes, bads, and abuse per hour.

I honestly think that people in the random heroics system lack the same discipline as raiders do (or that the people are disregarding that discipline), their newfound welfare epics empower them to hit things harder, and they totally want to prove how awesome they are.

I can tank TotC10 for some really killer DPS and have no troubles, but tanking HAN for a pug is hard and I get textually screamed at by the dps who started AOEing before I could get solid threat.

I've taken to queuing as DPS on my tanks because then I don't have to deal with the abuse. I'm actually a little afraid of tanking heroics.

I think the abuse is part of why there's a tank shortage, or at least why young tanks wind up going DPS.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

Yeah, tanks take a lot of abuse, I have decided I don't give a shit, but I think that's part of what it takes to be a good tank.

The biggest thing is that not only do you get shit for every mistake, you get shit from people who have no clue every time anything goes wrong, even when they are making the mistakes.

But I just let it roll off and call them on their bullshit. They think I'm bossy or an asshole, so be it.

Anonymous said...

The point is you can buy a jc token for 250-350 gold.

This is irrelevant to how much JC patterns cost.

However the price of dragon's eyes is relevant to how much JC patterns cost. If you buy a patter for 4 tokens you just spent 500-600G on that pattern. Which means you have to sell/cut a lot of epic gems to make up for the cost you just sunk into the pattern. Even more cuts need to be made if you consider the opportunity cost of the time spent in selling gems or cuts vs the time spent selling 4 dragon's eyes.

Unknown said...

In regards to the tank shortage there is 1 thing bliz could do to improve the situation for tanks. Give them automatic leadership and the power to boot anyone at anytime from the random group.

My main is a warrior tank. I love tanking and the 3 secs q’s. Only 1 thing annoys me and thats dps that ‘help’ me by pulling for me. And doing other similar things. Im not slow. I go fast, set the pace and push people a little. But every now and again there is some moron who does this. It also makes things harder to tank (having to pick mobs up after people, and warrior aoe is not the best), creates the risk of wipes and it really makes things unenjoyable for me. Overall it usually slows things down. People who do this and say things like “gogogogo” are what stop me from Queing more often.

Honestly, if you want more people to que as tanks, don’t give them better gear, let them boot randoms with ease.

Anonymous said...

Couple points here

DPS is already at next to no value.
If I queue as tank, I see the demand for tanks immediately (I have three 80 tank, none takes more than 3 seconds to end queue)
Blizz recognize that the bulk of people in the game play DPS. These people pay $15 like others, but only they have to be unsatisfied by waiting for queue.
You don't reward the tank because his job is harder, blizz reward the tank to increase the tank population, to make the bulk of their player happier.
When I DPS, I have five toons that can do 4k-7k overall in AOE fest heroic... but I still wait 15 minutes or more for dungeon. It pissed me off enough to change both my warr PVP spec and DK single target spec to tank for my frost badges and even buy titansteel destroyer and some blue BOE for DK to tank with, to save me the time to do dungeons.
However, if every person provided 1-2 tank, there would be not this problem with tank population, so obviously not everyone is providing (or willing to provide) tank for dungeons. If blizz increase the reward for person with tank icon when dungeon is done (like 50 gold extra or an extra triumph) you would have many more people attempting to supply tank, for good or bad.
Also, if you are a good tank well geared, you can request in trade some pay for queueing with DPS, many dps willing to pay 30g to get their dungeon done fast. This is already extra reward. Maybe Blizz can put in "tip the tank" option, where you (DPS) click the tip the tank option (15g or whatever) to be matched with tanks that will tank for tips. If you don't click the tip the tank option you wait the full time for the tank that doesn't take tips. Even blizz could divide by gearscore, if you're under 4500 (some random number) you can't tank for tips. I would run a couple extra dungeon once in a while on one of my tank for extra 15g per DPS.

If blizz offer BM hunter and demo warlock with additional tanking talent, I would respec those toon to tank my dungeon also and would provide tank that way too!