Is there a "Fake Tanking" Problem in the Elder Scrolls Online?
By Andrew | 15 Jul 2022 |
The issue of "fake tanking" (queuing for a random dungeon as a tank, while actually being a DPS character) is one that's been argued about in the ESO community for a long time now. Some players do this a lot to try to speed up their dungeon run, while others do not like fake tanking because they see it as being selfish and detrimental to the enjoyment of the dungeon for the other players. This article is not intended to take sides on the matter, it is simply an overview of the problem and the potential solutions to it.
Why do people Fake Tank in ESO?
A thread recently appeared on the Official ESO Forums, started by someone explaining why they fake tank. Quite a few players responded with reasons why they didn't like it.The most common reason for fake tanking is that it is a way to speed up dungeon runs, and also reduce the queue time, since there is normally an over-abundance of DPS players. This they will end up waiting for longer than tanks or healers.
Many ESO players make a habit of doing a random dungeon each day for the XP and rewards, and there is a bit of an incentive to queue as a fake tank as it tends to speed up the overall experience quite significantly.
The person who posted the above forum thread also mentioned that they felt they were doing people a favor by fake tanking, as they often find that they are doing the majority of the DPS, thus speeding the run up for everyone involved.
Why do some players have a problem with fake tanking?
The opposition to fake tanking obviously varies, different players have different opinions on it. Some players don't mind it at all, some think its fine as long as the fake tank at least uses a taunt, and others think it's completely wrong and that you should only ever queue for tank on a proper tank build.The main opposition to it comes from players who see it as being selfish, because newer players who are in the dungeon do not get a chance to experience it properly as the more experienced "fake tank" player runs ahead aggroing everything and burning down lots of enemies with AOE damage before the less experienced players can even try to make a contribution.
Another reason it gets described as selfish is that fake tanking is effectively a method of jumping the queue while other DPS players have to wait for their turn.
What can be done about Fake Tanking in ESO?
Solutions to this fall under two categories: Things that you can do as a player if you don't like fake tanks in your dungeon runs, and things that Zenimax could do to address the problem.Firstly, as a player you can avoid fake tanks by joining a guild that runs dungeons regularly and find a tank in that guild before queueing. That way you know you are at least going to get a real tank. You could argue that it's not fair that you have to do that just because other players are queueing as the wrong role, but that's just the way it is for the time being while the dungeon finder remains as it is (more on that in a moment). So if you really don't want to be grouped with fake tanks, then this is the best way of just avoiding them entirely.
As for what Zenimax could do about it, this gets a bit more complicated. The prevalence of fake tanking stems from a couple of reasons. Players are incentivized to queue for and complete a random dungeon as quickly as possible so they can get their loot and XP, and then move on. A common counter to criticism of fake tanking is that most players just use the dungeon finder to quickly get these rewards, so its not unreasonable to expect fake tanking.
I think that one way to at least lessen how annoying fake tanking can be for some players is to add a checkbox onto the group finder that will allow players to exclude DLC dungeons from the random dungeon list. This won't remove the fake tanks of course, but it is a lot easier to do non DLC dungeons without a proper tank.
The other draconian solution that I have heard about is the idea of a reputation system, where players can give each other a thumbs up or thumbs down after random dungeons, to de-incentivize things like fake tanking. However this has a lots of potential problems with it. Rating players in this manner sounds quite toxic in itself and is open to abuse and trolling. What if someone gets a bad rating due to mistakes they make when they're a new player, and then they get stuck with it forever, constantly getting vote kicked from dungeons as a result? Players who propose this solution never seem to have an answer for these concerns.
At the end of the day, fake tanking is a consequence of the way the random dungeon system is designed and the large imbalance of queue times between roles. It is controversial, but compared to the commonly proposed "solutions" it might be that it's the lesser evil. You can always make use of the vote kick system, invite friends or guild members to make your own team, or learn to tank yourself to completely remove the problem.
We hope you enjoyed this article about fake tanking in ESO. The Elder Scrolls Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.
by
Andrew
15 Jul 2022
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