Playing with strangers in online games is one of those things that I've become less and less willing to do over the years. I don't like other people scrutinising me, I don't like other people yelling at me, and I really don't like other people depending on me. And inexplicably, over the last few months, I've grown incredibly fond of playing tanks in FFXIV.
If you've not played FFXIV or a similar MMO, the tank serves as a sort of informal team leader, enemy wrangler, and general protector of everyone else in the party. In a dungeon they're always at the head of the pack, where they're responsible for navigating, setting the pace of progression, and making sure that the enemies of the dungeon stay focused on them (rather than the more vulnerable healers and damage dealers). They're typically themed as armoured in-your-face brawlers, equipped with tools to aggravate enemies and tools to survive the ire that they subsequently bring down on their own heads. In more complicated raids, tanks may have to manipulate enemies in esoteric ways to stop their allies from receiving collateral damage, and may have to coordinate with each other to survive the sum damage of an overwhelmingly dangerous enemy.
You can probably imagine why this role stresses me out. You need to accrue a lot of knowledge to comfortably lead people through the game's myriad dungeons and raids, and even when you do, it's still frequently possible to bite off more than you can chew. People are watching you, depending on you to know where to go and what to do, and if you fail to maintain control over the situation they'll know very quickly, because the rest of the party will start dropping like flies. Tanks aren't self-sufficient—they're typically dependent on healers to keep them hale and hearty—but the better a tank is at surviving, the more time a healer can spend dealing damage and looking after the rest of the party. Conversely, the worse a tank is at surviving, the more a healer will struggle to prop them up, and find themselves stretched thin by the responsibility.
In short, a bunch of strangers are depending on you. And if you screw up, everybody might die.
On paper, it's everything I hate about multiplayer games. In reality, I'm having a great time—and when I walk out at the end, I'm almost always glowing with satisfaction.
The truth is that with enough time, you do build up enough of an encyclopedia of knowledge to lead people confidently through the game's everyday challenges—or at least, muddle through them with minimal incident, picking up on contextual cues along the way. The game is always accruing new players (typically marked by the 🌱 symbol and affectionately referred to as 'sprouts') and there's a tremendously warm, fuzzy feeling in knowing that you've steered them correctly, kept them safe, and maybe even dropped a shield on them when they were about to eat shit. There are so many little things you can do to make your allies' jobs easier, and even if they don't say anything, there's a very good chance they noticed. You don't have to be an expert—I will probably never touch a Savage raid, for instance—but when you lead your hapless band swiftly and safely through a gauntlet of nasties, it sure helps you feel like one.
The other joy of tanking is pushing the envelope. FFXIV is a game of subtle optimisation, and while everyone has their own ways of improving their contribution, the tank is usually the only one putting their own life on the line for it. It's common for tanks interested in speedy completion of a dungeon to try to pull as many enemies as possible into fighting them at once (the 'wall-to-wall' pull), in order to let the damage dealers of the party dispatch them more quickly. This takes a certain level of understanding of your toolkit, your gear, and your own limits—not to mention faith in your healer. I can't overstate the thrill of running through a dungeon, yelling rude words at every monstrosity you pass, watching your health bar start to plummet, and pulling out all the stops to stay alive against the resulting assault.
So maybe I've learned to appreciate the spotlight. It's been a slow process, and I'm still not the best... but you've got to admit, I look great up there.
