I’ve been playing since release and noticed that one of the biggest issues that many of us face is the distinct lack of support class players in comparison to dps class players. Yes this can be somewhat counteracted by finding a static group of players but even then if one of the support players isn’t available it can be difficult to find a replacement.
My suggestion is to encourage players to choose a support class to play in their roster. I often ask why people don’t choose support classes and the most common response is that they don’t like the playstyle or design of the current supports. To get more people choosing a support we need more variety. I think if Artist was released early on the western servers it would of saved a lot of headaches. I also think we need more new support classes to further encourage people to play them.
Please feel free to offer feedback to my suggestion. I’m actually very interested to see if others feel the same way.
I agree that would help a lot although If someone isn’t interested in playing the Bard or Paladin it wouldn’t make any difference in my opinion. I just think having more variety in support options would increase the chance of someone deciding to invest in building a support class.
In their defense Paladin is pretty low maintenance so I can see why they don’t enjoy the Style. Bard feels very fun to play and gives you more options with 3 levels of bubbles to sort of “customize” your supporting style.
Yeah I like the variety of options in Bard’s design and think the aethetic is cool too. I’m personally excited to build an Artist when she comes out as she has one of the most unique animation styles in her skills in my opinion. Really wish she’d come out soon as having another support in our group would help a lot.
I think all classes should be given to us, not just for the artist. We are far behind KR and after the weekly reset there is nothing left to do when everything is finished in 1 day. If there were classes, everyone would have found their main and will try to improve it, or they will try new classes. You already bring Legion Raids vs. every 2 months, this is long enough and I think it’s understandable people prepare their characters for new legions, but it is unreasonable to do the same for classes. Let people play with whatever character they want. I wonder if the class I want will come in this 2-month roadmap.
it is the variety tho and not the investment, if you like a class you will invest in it so you can play it.
Current issue is that both bard and paladin looks and feels fucking awefull and boring af to play which is why im not making character for either of them.
i had a bard but deleted and the time spent on it was so wasted.
I hope we dont have to wait so long for artist to come out, the class has great animations and looks fun to play and i cant wait to pull it up to same ilvl as main when its released.
I think it’s more the support playstyle that players don’t prefer. They rather do damage. Remains to be seen when artist is released if thousands of dps players switch to artist support and driver her to 1475 and beyond.
I agree that more variety would help in both attracting new support players and existing supports who would like to have more high ilvl supports, but do not want duplicates.
And I also agree that party finder does indicate that we need more supports, as I often see groups with 6/8 and 0 supports in.
It also makes learning groups harder to form, as support can often get away with practicing in experienced group without getting instantly kicked, so they are less likely to join practice groups. I would argue that those groups need support the most, so it isn’t as optional for them as those that can dodge most patterns.
I would also like to note that some games, like for example WoW did create additional incentives for healers and tanks to play. I also played a MOBA that would give boost to rewards for playing a class that is currently in high demand (so usually healer/tank).
This could be one of the additional ways for devs to make support class more attractive. Those wouldn’t even have to be boosts to rewards, but as someone suggested previously, something like an extra gold character if one of your 6 is a support.
It is not a “Variety” issue you are dealing here with.
Just check over those troll “Support union” threads. The big majority of replies point that a support can’t carry alone, because they lack dmg and are "Dependant’ on dps players to even progress.
People simply like to see their character do high numbers and feel “Valuable” by appearing as MVP and plenty grow an hernia when seeing the support gets it and come rage here it’s “unfair”.
The issue is a game style one, SGR could release the following 10 classes as supports and you wouldn’t find a significiative increase in support numbers where they are really needed.
I always hear that but that’s only partially true.
I played every WoW expansion from classic to now, and the only problem we had in our raid environment was to find a GOOD healer, healer overall were never the problem.
But the same goes for tanks and DPS.
Right now most of the time you take what you get, but even this is not enough.
In LA it just feels unrewarding to play a support in my opinion. I really want to play support, I played healing classes in literally every mmo I played so far - but paladin is just a no for me and my 1445 bard plays just „ok’ish“ imho. She will be pushed to 1460 but I sincerely have no idea if I want to go any further with her. On the bright side, she’s super fast in clearing chaos dungeons.
I tried Artist on RU, pushed her to 1460, and even with the class engraving on level 2 I had a blast to play her. The unrewarding part still stands (and i have simply no idea how to fix it), but while playing Artist you get at least the reward of good gameplay and really really nice effects and sounds.
quit relying on supports xD. tanking/healing is everyone’s personal responsibility and there is no content that requires any class to be brought to clear. with that said I think the issue goes a little deeper, I have supports i just dont play them because when I do I’m totally reliant on my team, and 9/10 times the team doesn’t play like that haha. its just not a fun experience to me to keep a buff up
A lot of thread like this share the same idea as yours. AGS/SG dont have the solution for this issue just because you cant force someone to play or add a support class in their roster. It is either you to play 6 support class in your roster or just deal with it or play 8man DPS.
I think it’s very true for other games. Just look at the queue times for group finders, it tells a lot about the player base. I bet Artist won’t fix the problem of “fewer Supports” cause most of the artist players are support mains anyway.
And maybe the reason is that people want to compete with others. You can’t compete with others as a support, and the supporting style in Lost Ark is more of a babysitter style than an active “i need to top my group with healing” style. Some will find this rewarding, some won’t. I got both supports, one on 1490 and one on 1430 and i like that, but that’s personal preference. So it is natural that i will play the artist too, and i think that’s what most support players will do.
Just yesterday jumped to a Yoho on a my bard alt, 1500 zerk carrying in exchange for flare/phero. Had this sorceress go and stand in front of the boss to die and then type “Bard???” There I was charging bubbles for atk buff for even faster clearance.
People see a support and just reduce them to a healing pond.
