Know Your Class

Back in the G+ days I wrote a long post about how the 4 party system works in RPGs that have dungeon play.

I was explaining mainly about what the different roles do individually and why it’s important for them all to work together towards the goal of clearing the dungeon.

No one class can do it alone and they all have strengths and weaknesses.

I can tell people who have never cleared a dungeon with strangers before … and who could benefit from the experience.

I have been playing online games since Meridian59, which was the first ever 3D MMO in 1996. I played WoW during it’s first beta and these days I still play FFXIV on and off.

What I learned – especially from FFXIV – is that leveling (playing as) a tank made me a much better healer.

The relationship between the tank and the healer is very important and understanding how the tank works, and how other classes work, helps a great deal when you have to organize how you heal 3 other people.

I also learned that people who play tanks have a bloated and unrealistic sense of self importance. Tanks do nothing but take damage … they are a giant shield that taunts enemies and the boss while other classes do damage. Tanks do some damage but they are not the primary damage dealers. They take punishment and hold focus and the healer keeps them healed.

The healer, who has to keep everyone – and themselves – healed as well, is always the most important member of any party.

When the party fails, they tended to blame the healer since they are responsible for keeping everyone alive. But as I became better at being a healer and less intimated by idiots and more confident in my skills, I realized that the healer is not responsible for fixing everyone else’s mistakes.

i.e. People who don’t know their class well, people who stand in the middle of AOE (area of effect) damage from bosses, tanks who think they don’t have to dodge attacks, etc …

Yeah, not my job.

If the party wipes because I refuse to spend the entire run healing through everyone’s mistakes because they believe my job is to heal them through every stupid decision, then they wipe.

In my reality everyone knows their job and the jobs of others and in the process of clearing dungeons you work together, not just do whatever you feel like doing and expecting the healer will heal you because you can’t do your job.

My job is healing and mitigating damage, not babysitting selfish morons.

In the real world I think that people fall into the 4 party system in more ways than they realize or are willing to admit … and, as I take a similar role in the real world as I do in dungeons, my same rules apply:

• Know your role and RESPECT other people’s roles.
• Know how to work with others towards accomplishing several small tasks (dungeon play, trash enemies, and mid-bosses) and one large task (final boss fight).
• Be accountable and unselfish and know how to listen.

Some people have a support role, some people TAKE damage, some people DO damage, and some people just heal everyone else.

No role is unimportant but some are more vital than others.

In a revolution everyone has different roles and not all are meant to be damage dealers or human shields. Some are support and some are healers.

Healers heal and mitigate inevitable damage and sometimes heal others through honest mistakes, but they don’t fix headstrong mistakes and selfishness.

In MMOs we say: Know Your Class

The means know what you do best and where your skills are most needed. Know where you can best assist everyone who are working towards the same goal.

Know your strengths and know your weaknesses and know everyone else’s too so that you can help mitigate damage in addition to dealing your own.

Don’t rely on the healer to fix your mistakes. Don’t put yourself in harms way expecting others to help because your selfishness is what drags the entire group down.

I can always tell people who game and people who don’t.

I can’t always tell people who have worked in a party system, especially one with strangers, and who hasn’t.

I can tell people who know their class and know their role and who doesn’t.

I can tell people who understand that they are support and people who wish they were tanks and vice versa.

I can recognize people who don’t know how to communicate or how to listen to instructions to accomplish a large task that involves others.

People who tank are very different from people who play support and there are people who enjoy doing both.

There are also people who hate support roles and think they are boring and not important and don’t respect people who choose them.

There are also people who think tanks are overrated and people who play them have too much ego and self importance when all they do is stand there and take punishment.

I can tell a lot about people by the roles they play and the roles they avoid.

It takes a lot to take punishment for others and play a protective role that ensures no one gets hurt.

It takes a lot to play a support role where you may not do much that is noticeable by others and doesn’t get enough thanks or recognition.

It takes a lot to make yourself responsible for the well being and survival of everyone around you while at the same time making sure you stay alive the whole time to do that.

Everyone has a role and everyone is there to accomplish the same goal.

People who play MMORPGs are a different breed and in many ways they are better and more evolved than most others because of the psychological and sociological skills that are needed to work with others, make friends with others, and even work together with people you don’t like in order to accomplish one task.

I can always tell the people who know their role and know how they can fit into a greater plan in their own way without argument and with respect to everyone else’s role.

There are many of us who are all trying to accomplish the same task. There are many of us who all want to take down the final boss. There are many of us who all what to get through this dungeon alive.

We all have different roles.

We all have different positions on the battlefield.

We all have different strengths and weaknesses.

Know your class.
Respect everyone else’s.

Learn to listen.
Learn to be unselfish.
Learn to be accountable.

And if you don’t already … learn to game.