03/06/2010

"Gogogo" and being on the other side

Thanks to Shayzani from 2fps for letting me write my first ever guest post. Hurrah!

One of the things I mentioned in said post and that I wanted to talk about in a bit more depth is the issue of "gogogo" people in instances. I'd like to think that I'm a pretty patient and mellow person both in real life and in game, but there's just something about the phrase "gogogo" that makes me see red instantly. In part I guess I simply don't like to be rushed in my leasure time, and from my experience those who constantly push for everyone to go faster tend to expect an absolutely unreasonable pace. I realise that everyone probably has a different idea of what the ideal speed for an instance run should be, but I dare say that for the average pug group rushing from beginning to end without ever getting out of combat is simply asking too much. There will be breaks. Maybe the healer needs to drink up, maybe one of the dps is lagging a bit behind after skinning the dead mobs from the last trash pack before the boss, maybe the tank would just like to pick up his share of the loot too. Maybe someone received a whisper from their guild leader, maybe someone's phone rang. If having to wait even a couple of seconds for that kind of thing to get sorted makes you twitch, you have a problem.

More than anything though, I think it's simply the implied tone of the phrase "gogogo" that gets my goat. I mean, when do you ever shout "Go!" at someone in real life? If you're starting a race maybe, but otherwise it's likely to involve a situation in which you're annoyed with the other person and want them to get a bloody move on already. Saying that kind of thing to your tank every time he hesitates for two seconds just strikes me as utterly inappropriate and rude. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Tam's rant about people overusing the acronym "ffs". Communication skills, people!

Now, the other day something funny happened. I was in a heroic Utgarde Pinnacle run with my mage... and I found myself thinking that the tank was going kind of slow and wishing that he would go faster, seeing as he seemed to spend quite a lot of time between pulls just standing around. And almost as soon as I had that thought I did the mental equivalent of clapping my hands over my mouth and blushing furiously, feeling like I had committed a "gogogo" thought crime.

So, what do you do when you would like your tank to go faster? You could ask politely I suppose, which someone in the party eventually did - though then the shaman healer insisted on starting to pull whole groups with chain lightning to speed things up, which kind of ruined the effect of the initial polite enquiry.

Something still felt off to me however, and after thinking about it some more, I came to the conclusion that it's probably the fact that nine times out of ten, asking the tank to go faster - even if it's done politely - won't actually achieve much beyond making him miserable. I mean, why do people think tanks pull at the speed at which they do? I doubt anyone would make deliberately slow pulls just to waste people's time and piss them off. Neither is a tank very likely to be distracted enough to have forgot what they are supposed to be doing.

Most of the time the tank will pull at the speed at which he does because that's what he's comfortable with and what he considers fun. If he's new, that can be quite slow. The tank in my pug for example definitely exuded a certain aura of newness or at least rustiness, presumably thinking about how to best make each pull whenever he appeared to just be standing still for longer periods of time, and sometimes rounding up the mobs a bit clumsily. But even if the tank is not new there are plenty of reasons for them to want to slow down occasionally. Would I rather pull that group of casters now and struggle to get aggro quickly or wait five more seconds for Avenger's Shield to come off cooldown? Easy one! Or take loot. I'm continually amazed at the amount of tanks who don't seem to loot anything during instances, but that's their choice. Personally I like my sparkles even when I'm tanking, but people already get fidgety if I take even three steps backwards to grab the gold from the mob that ended up dying behind me.

To get to the point, what is it going to achieve if you ask a tank to go faster? The newbie might struggle to keep control while pulling things faster than he can handle, convincing him that he sucks at tanking and should just give up now. Another one might keep going even if important abilities are on cooldown, but the ensuing chaos is unlikely to increase his fun factor either. Or he might decide not to loot even though he wants to, just to speed things up, and then decide to sign as dps next time so he can actually get what he wants. In other words, all you're likely to achieve by putting extra pressure on the tank is that their job becomes less fun and they are less likely to do it again. First off this is hardly desirable considering that tanks are still highly sought-after for groups, and secondly I thought we were all in this to have fun. Don't spoil it for others just for the sake of speed. If you're so pressed for time that two minutes of delay will completely ruin things for you then you shouldn't be signing up for random instances with pugs.

The only situation I can think of where it would really make sense to ask the tank to go faster is if you're say a new healer and you think that the tank is holding back for your sake even though you feel that it's not needed. But even then I'd make sure to point out that that's what I'm thinking and don't pressure them into going faster if they don't want to.

You want them to lead, let them pick the speed. It's the least you can do.

11 comments:

  1. I almost never loot things when I'm tanking. Or when I'm healing... or dpsing either. Its a huge chore to me and it breaks my soul to have to do it. A lot of that comes from never having any bag space ever.

    Also, you can write guest posts for me anytime! =D

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  2. As a fresh druid tank I agree wholeheartedly. The go-go-go effectively takes the fun out of the game for me. And yeah, I don't loot anything but the bosses when i tank. It's THAT bad. And they're wondering why there are so few tanks around...?

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  3. I think you're right - there's no easy way to tell a tank to speed up. I have occasionally committed goggogogo thought crimes myself but I've tried to do anything about it, other than feel slightly bad about it.

    gogogogogogo plz? :P

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  4. Yes, there're people (I wouldn't call them people but jerks) who "yell gogogogo" in real life: think of drivers who start honking the same millisecond the disk gets green.
    I haven't done much tanking at level 80, either with my good geared or freshly dinged tanks, but I'm seeing a worst trend that the gogogoers: the pullers. Specially shamans using chain lightning. The problem is if I apply the rule "you spank it, you tank it", that will cost more in time and resources (he'll die, less dps, getting the group/boss down takes more time, you have to resurrect the jerk after or wait for corpse run...) and the rest of people who hasn't caused any trouble will be unhappier.

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  5. I REALLY dislike the "gogogo" people as well. I'm not sure what they're thinking when they do it, because as you pointed out, the RL equivalent would be them screaming in some poor old granny's face in the grocery check out line, because she's not sprinting out of the store with her groceries.

    That's not to say that it isn't frustrating when you have to wait behind granny as she writes her check slowly (who writes checks anymore these days?!) but she's an old lady and they move a little slower. It's how things are.

    If you are the tank, you run the show as far as I'm concerned. You set the pace. If you decide we're doing an optional boss, well... there's not much else we can do to stop you. It's a few more minutes, nbd. If you are choosing to play an important (and stressful, imo!) role, then you should certainly be allowed to play it as you prefer... which is to say, at your pace. If you're new and need a few seconds to figure out a pull, as the healer, I am no problem with this.

    Not only because I am the healer either. I tried out tanking on a DK tank a while back and I got totally scared off by all the "gogogogo" people. I was the tank that was standing there contemplating a group of mobs, picking which one to focus on first. I was the one standing and considering whether or not I could handle that other group. I was the one waiting for cooldowns and losing a mob every now and then because I am not super pro at this whole tanking thing.

    So I've been on the other side. If someone wants to step up and be the tank, I'll get behind them. Literally.

    (I apologize for Wall of Text and slight off-topicness)

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  6. When people tell me to gogogo as a tank, I /sleep and go grab a drink, take a bio break, maybe call my mom and ask her how the whole family is doing, maybe take the dog for a walk around the block or maybe even the whole neighborhood, and then come back and requeue with whoever's left. You don't freaking push me when I'm tanking. Period.

    Now, if I'm healing and I see that my tank requires little to no healing and there aren't any serious threat issues, then I'll whisper the guy and let him know with something like, "you're insanely easy to heal, I'm not even having to work to keep you up. If you'd like to go for bigger pulls then feel free to do so. If you're not comfortable with that then no problem."

    If I'm DPS then regardless of what's going on with either the tank or heals, I consider myself to have absolutely no say in the matter. I'm there to kill crap, but the tank sets the pace so long as he's not mana-starving the healer.

    I'm open to the suggestion of going a bit faster or pulling a few more mobs when I'm tanking, but only if that comes from my healer. If they're bored and wanting me to go bigger, then I'll kick it up a notch. If they say bigger again, then I'll keep on kicking it up so long as we're all on the same page and able to handle the situation.

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  7. /agrees with Larisa
    The gogogo factor is why I no longer tank. It makes it too stressful. It wouldn't be so bad if they said gogogo and then waited to see if I complied. Too often dps say gogogo and promptly start pulling. It's hard enough to get and keep aggro when you're new to tanking, even harder when the dps pulls for you and you have to try and build threat over theirs.

    If I ever go back to tanking I'll do it like Psynister. You want me to gogogo? Ok /afk.

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  8. I agree with Psynister. The Tank sets the pace their comfortable with, and it's up to the Healer to tell them to slow down "Getting low on Mana here" or kick it up a notch.

    As for DPS wanting to GoGoGo! I suggest they privately and POLITELY whisper the Healer that if they're comfortable with the Tank making bigger Pulls that they, the Healer, not the DPS! talk to the Tank about it.

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  9. Yeah, I am inclined to dig in when people yell "gogogo". I've even seen people macro it so you get it five times in rapid succession. Why someone can think that is likely to convince someone is beyond me.

    I'll do big pulls and go pretty quickly if I'm comfortable with the healer but no way I'm doing that off the bat with an entirely unknown group.

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  10. I think that the tank should pull at his (her as well, ofc) own speed. But the speed of the tank is determined, to a certain extent, by the resources of the healer and the skills of the DPS. In a pug, the tank has to try a few pulls before he can work out how fast to go - (GS is a clue, but not actually conclusive evidence for this) If the healer is uber-confident and says in party chat "let's make this is a quick run, don't hold back for me" then this is a good cue to accelerate as fast as the tank wants to go.

    It is never acceptable for DPS to pull (intentionally). Big-fat-bottom pulls and ooops pulls are where the fun is. But hunter-redirect-you-were-too-slow ones are *grrrr*.. ditto rogue-tricks-shall-I-tank-for-you ones.

    I am just as impatient. But there are manners. If I want to pull, I should re-rell tank. right?

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  11. As a tank, I completely agree that the healer is in the best position to talk about pace. I don't think any tank would take offence to a healer making suggestions...after all, usually if the healer wants you to go faster it's because you're doing a good job at your current pace.

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