Role Tutorials are the answer, not roleless buffs.

Instead of dumbing the game down into DPS only alerts where support roles are being made redundant, why can't the devs instead focus on actually putting information in game that TEACHES players how to play a role? The answer to the problem of new players failing alerts because of lack of roles and knowledge isn't to passively bypass that knowledge, the answer is to give them that knowledge.

Instead of castrating the idea of teamwork with roleless buffs, the game should organically guide and show players how engaging and satisfying it can be. There is a far healthier alternative to gutting the team play dynamic that makes this game so fun and that is simply providing in game tutorials on roles, instead of writing off the idea of a cohesive group based on players who know no better, failing to do things they've never been taught.

Interactive tutorials

This is something this game has needed for years. Doubt it will do what you expect it to though. It's pretty much universal across mmo's that people flock away from "support" classes / roles.

If every new player in healer role knew simply to wear healer gear, spec resto and keep an eye on health bars the success rate of blind queue alerts would be phenomenally higher.

If every new player in tank role knew simply to wear tank gear, spec health/dom and use superpowers to aggro the success rate of blind queue alerts would be phenomenally higher.

If every new player in controller role knew simply to wear controller gear and what instant power dump and cc effects were the success rate of blind queue alerts would phenomenally higher.

These absolutely essential basics for survival are extremely poorly messaged throughout the game if at all. I strongly believe if players were shown this early on we'd have a lot more playing support and we'd be able to get much more engaging content where we rely on each other not an auto buff while we race through as quickly as possible.

I agree with the idea of adding tutorials (especially trolls) but this is assuming that people WANT to play as a support role IMO.

I think it would be helpful to find a way to make roles more attractive.

Nobody wants to play support after dpsing their way to level 30. I know I didn't, but as all of us who enjoy support know, it can be a much more fulfilling experience than just hitting stuff. The more people that get shown this and the earlier it happens the better. It could also display the benefits of playing in a role solo which gives more choice in play style. Point being people mostly DPS and stick with it because it's all they know from the start.

That's simply not the case. People do not want to play support roles. They just dont. Still think the tutorials are a good idea though.

Went ahead and fixed that for you.

Nah this is true of pretty much any mmo. Almost Always a shortage of tanks / healers.

I've said it a couple threads and the developers have already decided to buff it so my opinion on the subject ranks about as high North Korea's view of Sony.

Role-less buffs were born from a day pre-mega sever where there many smaller servers and finding a group in LFG chat was excruciating and group finder could take upwards of four hours for an alert, only to have someone leave the instance right away.

Role-less buffs are as ancient as the PS3 and about 50 times more worthless.

They are DCUO training wheels or welfare and as toxic as they are unattractive.

Look, if you have a great group of players, fully decked out in end game gear, so many skill points your fingers ache from placing them, and real mechanical knowledge of almost every piece of content in the game and you want to take four DPS into an alert or six or seven into a raid, great. But, you should earn it and I mean really earn it not having training wheels slapped on it.

I detested roles-less buffs when I took time away a couple of years ago and it will be one of the reasons I take another break shortly after I get to play with water powers for awhile.

I know there is a reason the developers leave this crap mechanic in the game but for the life of me I cant think of it.

With my re-sub to DCUO I am currently subbed to five and while a small sample size the only MMO with any trouble finding a healer or tank and in the case of DCUO a controller is DCUO. Any other game one shout and done and usually telling others they were to slow.

Tutorials didn't work out well last time when it came to 'teaching' players how to, well, play (people were too stupid to know how to activate and use their movement modes they couldn't even progress past the first mini-boss, and that was even after the DEVs put in a trampoline for Acros and giant steps for Speedsters!)

One of the worst mistakes the initial DEVs made with this game, was making DPS a sub-group of the real roles

Tutorial will not encourage people to play support roles.

The current role distribution is all less than the reasonable state for an MMO.

It only makes sense to buff roleless buffs. If 90%+ of the population are DPS only players then it only makes sense to make it where majority of the players can complete content.

There are no benefits to playing a support role in a alert. And even in a raid there is no benefit other than a faster queue which at the same time can be manipulated by most players

We had someone bring a friend into our league yesterday. He had an equal mix of dps, troll, and pvp gear on. I facepalmed so hard.

Also a prime example of what you speak of was a thread I saw the other day. Guy came to forums to ask some questions (kudos to him for reaching out for help) and one of them was "I do not understand roles AT ALL." he literaly had zero clue as to support/dps, what was what and the point of doing anything other then attacking anything that moved.

I would hazard a guess that for every 1 person that is willing to come to the forums and seek out help, there is 10 more that just blindly trek on hoping to figure it out (or worse yet go to YouTube to see the latest "beast" rotation)

the main function for roleless buff is for people to be able to play alert without having to wait for a support role... before the day of roleless buff, you have to wait forever to que up for alert cause you need to get a tank, controller and a healer, and everyone pretty much have to stop playing the game when either of those role disconnect..

you can que up alert fairly quickly now days is because of roleless buff.. without it, you'll spend more time building your team then playing the damn game.. and you better hope non of the support role disconnected cause it'll pretty much mean game over unless you rather wait forever for another player to fit the role..

This^ is how i feel when reading some of the stuff people say about the roleless buff.

support is all I play. other them solo or duos. really don't like to DPS. have a tank heal troll. DPS are a dime a dozen.

As much as I would love to see role specific tutorials, I have no faith ALL players would utilize them.

the...so called lack of heal, tank and troll. is the making of the roleless buff. get rid of it. and they will make a return. see how easy that was...??? all dps. what a bore the game would be. as now, even worse like that. nerf this power. nerf that power. I cant be top DPS. BLA...BLA...BLA...

Tutorial would be a good idea to have in the game.

But...
A) playing roles is beyond most players even if you show them how

B) it would not fix how there is NOT the same amount of Tanks, Healers or Trolls.

So sadly..... even with a good role tutorial..... the roleless buff would still be much needed.