Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.
I'm not a huge fan of this, unless it is made absolutely clear which tank you need to be targeting in prder to do full damage.
My preference for taunts in PvP is that they force your target to target you, much as they do on PvE.
I think that the taunt idea with reduced damage makes a bit more sense.
A forced attack would be like a hard cc for a long duration after all and intrepid wants to avoid hard cc as much as possible.
I think that it would be enough, if the tank anc taunted enemy were tethered by a line to show that they are taunted.
We know that people will be able to choose their secondary class at lvl 30, but we dont really know when the lowest level for skill augments would be.
I recall they said it would be earlier on. But i might remember wrong. The augments are ment to be based on the secondary class, so it would seem wierd that the secondary classe first comes at level 30.
I recall they said that some classes will just have a harder time leveling on their own. Plus that warriors won't have stances
Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.
I'm not a huge fan of this, unless it is made absolutely clear which tank you need to be targeting in prder to do full damage.
My preference for taunts in PvP is that they force your target to target you, much as they do on PvE.
I think that the taunt idea with reduced damage makes a bit more sense.
A forced attack would be like a hard cc for a long duration after all and intrepid wants to avoid hard cc as much as possible.
I think that it would be enough, if the tank anc taunted enemy were tethered by a line to show that they are taunted.
The way I see it, either it would be too over powered, or it would have no actual point.
As a DPS (most of the time), if I am going after a healer, and a tank casts a taunt with this damage reduction mechanic on me, it would need to be reducing my damage by a significant amount in order to make me want to not take on this healer, and instead shift over to the nearby tank, which puts me in a situation where I am trying to attack a tank that has a healer ally nearby.
If the debuff is 25%, I'll not even think twice about sticking to the healer. If a tank is unable to convince a single DPS to target the tank instead of the healer, then what is the point of the tank? In order to convince a DPS to target the tank instead of the healer, the DPS needs to think they will be better off trying to kill the tank with a healer healing them than they would be trying to kill the healer first and then the tank (this applies to both 1v2 PvP and *v* PvP).
Anyone that has PvP'd should know fairly well that there is almost no point where it is worth attacking a tank if there is a healer near by rather than taking on the healer first. Even if you halve my damage output, I am still better off trying to take down the healer.
The only time a player would make a conscious decision to target a tank where they are doing full damage over a healer where they are doing half damage is if there is a damage parse going on, and they want to have the highest damage output possible regardless of the outcome of the fight.
However, if I now put my (occasional) guild leader hat on, if my tanks have an ability that is able to flat out reduce the damage of opponents by 35%, you had better bet I'd be maximizing that.
My initial thought is a tank-ball with a healer in the middle. This means opposing players have no real means of targeting the specific tank that has the debuff on them (unless the game provides them with a specific mechanic to do this), and if I have enough tanks in my tank-ball, they will literally be able to drop the DPS output of my opponents by over a third.
Being a debuff and little else, I wouldn't expect it to stack (meaning tanks in my tank-ball can maintain a sense of confusion in the enemy by constantly shifting which tank has each enemy debuffed). It also won't have an immunity period (if it did, it would fall back in to the category of taunts being worthless in PvP).
So to me, having tanks do this is either worthless, or turns tanks in to PvP debuffers. What it doesn't do, in my opinion, is put tanks in control of the battlefield.
On the other hand, if you go the CC route as I said above, the first thing that would happen is that forced targets with a duration on them would have an immunity afterwards (as I would assume almost all CC would).
This in itself makes the tank-ball unworkable.
The other thing you could do is make some taunts simply change the enemies target (including the target of the current spell they are casting), but not force them to maintain that target. This need not have any immunity period to it at all, as it doesn't really need to be classified as a CC spell, as CC needs duration imo.
If a tank proves to be good at taunting me off of the healer every time I am about to land a big spell on them, making that spell hit said tank instead, you had better believe it would then be my choice to try and take out that damn tank.
This makes tanks the masters of the battlefield in PvP, which I'm sure is supposed to be their role.
Just make our taunt in PvP some form of damage debuff on the target but buff their damage against the tank.
i. e. Tank taunts target. Now target gets a -30% dmg done to other targets but a +30% bonus damage to tank. This way tanks won't abuse during 1v1s.
Honestly, since we can use all weapons and armor, if they could make the Tank abilities slightly change in values or mechanics based on the weapon we have equipped I am hoping Tanks can find that middle ground they want between Survivability and DPS. That's all I need really. To not fall off on leveling progression when I don't have or don't want to group up. It's not that I don't expect the tanks to kill faster and progress slower than pure DPS, I do really, it's just I don't want to see tanks killing 1 mob for every 5 DPS' mobs. One of the many factors most players don't play a tank is a arduous task of leveling one. Same with healers. Both classes are vital in games like this so if they make it fun and not monotonous then we may see more!
AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited February 2020
The point of taunts in PvP becoming debuffs is not to make them effective as taunts, and therefore coerce people into attacking tanks. If that was the goal then they’d just go ahead and let the taunt force you to target the tank for a duration. Instead, the point is to make the taunt skill be useful for something. Otherwise it’s a wasted spot in PvP. And honestly, in many (most?) MMOs that’s exactly what a taunt is, just something you never use in PvP because it’s worthless.
Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.
The point of taunts in PvP becoming debuffs is not to make them effective as taunts, and therefore coerce people into attacking tanks. If that was the goal then they’d just go ahead and let the taunt force you to target the tank for a duration. Instead, the point is to make the taunt skill be useful for something. Otherwise it’s a wasted spot in PvP. And honestly, in many (most?) MMOs that’s exactly what a taunt is, just something you never use in PvP because it’s worthless.
Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.
I don't understand this thought process.
I totally agree that if developers do nothing to taunts in PvP, they are effectively useless.
What I don't get is that you seem to be championing giving taunts a purpose - any purpose - over trying to make them have a similar use and function as they have in PvP, which would then in turn give tanks a similar use and function in PvP to what they have in PvE.
i. e. Tank taunts target. Now target gets a -30% dmg done to other targets but a +30% bonus damage to tank. This way tanks won't abuse during 1v1s.
The problem with this is that it would mean any two DPS would beat any tank/healer combination in PvP 100% of the time.
It still leaves tanks effectively useless at controlling the battlefield in PvP, as all they are really able to do is keep one DPS character off of one ally. Not really all that useful in terms of large or small scale PvP.
If this were how it made it to live, I'd probably tell all three of my raid tanks (I won't ever have more than three) to have a DPS or healer alt for when we need to PvP, as tanks are not worth taking.
While leveling solo as a Healer / Tank can and has sometimes been a struggle with some games. These classes tend to level a lot easier and faster with partys / dungeons. (Bigger XP runs)
Main reason is these style of players tend to be smaller due to the learning curve compared to DPS. Not saying DPS doesnt have a curve. You want to be the highest DPS you have some rotations to practice and gear to grind.
But the idea tends to scare people of having to not only focus on the enemy but also your party as well and taking the blame when something goes wrong.
Because of this there are less of these class's which makes queuing or finding a party so much easier than DPS because your always in short supply and needed.
Kinda ran off course there for a second but this actually tend to be a system mechanic trade off with the 3 Holy Trinitys. Solo Grind is Harder. Party Grind is easier. vs DPS even grinding i think.
Some things that did help a little for solo healers are spec trees and being able to switch between.
Example: SWTOR. As a Sith Sorc you could invest in the re-spec perk where you could change between a DPS Sith Sorc or a Healer Sith Sorc on the fly. That way when your out soloing mobs were easier. But while you have a operations que waiting. When you get sent over you just re-spec back into your healing tree.
Honestly not a huge fan of it, but it did make things easier.
The point of taunts in PvP becoming debuffs is not to make them effective as taunts, and therefore coerce people into attacking tanks. If that was the goal then they’d just go ahead and let the taunt force you to target the tank for a duration. Instead, the point is to make the taunt skill be useful for something. Otherwise it’s a wasted spot in PvP. And honestly, in many (most?) MMOs that’s exactly what a taunt is, just something you never use in PvP because it’s worthless.
Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.
I don't understand this thought process.
I totally agree that if developers do nothing to taunts in PvP, they are effectively useless.
What I don't get is that you seem to be championing giving taunts a purpose - any purpose - over trying to make them have a similar use and function as they have in PvP, which would then in turn give tanks a similar use and function in PvP to what they have in PvE.
Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.
WoW implemented diminishing returns on CC like stuns to prevent stunlocking and such, and watering down CC like that means that again you don’t have the same rules in PvP that you do in PvE.
ESO allows you to use CC in PvP but anything “hard” like a root or fear, anything that takes away control (as opposed to a hindrance like a snare) can be broken out of.
The examples are endless. It’s not something that MMOs do, because people don’t like it.
Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.
I just want to check something here.
We are both talking about the same game... right?
Ashes of Creation? The game where players can (and will) literally kill you and take your stuff? The game where a max level character can kill a low level harvester and take a percentage of the materials that player has harvested? The game that asks you to put time and resources in to building up a city, to set up industry in that city, only to then invite other players to tear all of that down?
And you think a 1.2 second force target ability will lead to bad feelings?
Regarding the taunt in pvp, my position is to make it target changing in the 1st place. Not necessarily forcing to attack the tank who uses taunt. You will asks yourselves with such little effect what is the point ?
Well, we all know that tanks in many MMOs do not have a single taunting ability, at least they got damaging abilities that generate "threat" in PvE. Why wouldn't they make some sort of mechanic around taunt & threat in pvp ? The threat could build up to a certain point then target switch and finally forcing the opponent to attack for a short duration. If we look at how the game will be, the regular taunt that switch target wouldn't have any uses against a player that builded his character with a lot of action combat abilities. That is why attack forcing a target becomes necessary.
What I find also interesting in this "threat accumulation mechanics" is that it forces the tank to make a choice regarding a focus, since it's not always possible to focus the same target for a long duration in pvp, it would make him take risks and make sort of a gamble.
Adding a bonus-penalty damage with the taunt seems interesting, but subjectively I kinda dislike it. While it seems to give a real reason to focus the tank instead of squishies target. If I played a dps and would get my damages reduced every time because some apes in huge armor shouted at me, it would make me a lot worse than being chain CC.
The execution to a taunt is a lot more simple and there would be a lot less possibilities to counter such effects compared to CC. If we look at how a dps will build its character, it's obvious that he will have a larger attack. It would simply reduce too much of its damages compared to other non-based dmg classes, at least in a % reduction, a flat -X could do the trick. A group of 2 or 3 tank taunts focusing on someone to “permanently” reduce its damages is too cancerous.
So the idea of target changing is more flexible and useful for the tank in its use and is less painful for the opponent (at least in case of tab-targeting), if they give us tools to mark a target with a number and a shortcut the select the marked target, here you you have a "counterplay", and the tank can still make some decent plays forcing the uses of a huge CD on himself.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@Ishka having threat generation in PvP is an interesting idea that I don't think has really been done before. Of course it couldn't work exactly how it does in PvE but you could instead have a special threat meter that builds as a tank attacks an enemy (each enemy would have a separate bar). Once the bar is full the tank can use his taunt to temporarily force the enemy player to attack the tank.
The other way you could do it is similar to how taunts appear in the anime "Log Horizon". A player affected by the spell "Anchor Howl" isn't directly forced to attack the tank but if they attack anyone other than the tank they take extra damage:
I like your variation of the "threat mechanic" but paired with the Anchor Howl from log horizon, it could be the regular use for taunt. And the threat stacking up empower the taunt, forcing the attack for... let's say for 1s or 1.2s as noaani suggested. The "Anchor Howl debuff" would lasts for 3s or 5s dunno how it could impact the pvp.
As long as both of your ideas are in, I would gladely play with such mechanics, as long as the damage is not OP ofc.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.
I just want to check something here.
We are both talking about the same game... right?
Ashes of Creation? The game where players can (and will) literally kill you and take your stuff? The game where a max level character can kill a low level harvester and take a percentage of the materials that player has harvested? The game that asks you to put time and resources in to building up a city, to set up industry in that city, only to then invite other players to tear all of that down?
And you think a 1.2 second force target ability will lead to bad feelings?
If taunt only lasts 1.2 seconds it’s useless and no tank would waste space on their bar.
For something to be worth using, it has to be good enough that if used on a player would piss them off.
I don’t think you have a lot of exposure to PvP across multiple games. Successful MMOs don’t have hard CC against players. People will not play that game. Someone stronger than you attacks you and you die? Okay, then get stronger so next time you win. Someone plays a class that has a ability to prevent you from fighting back (even temporarily)? That’s when people rage quit.
Again, games don’t do this for a reason. You don’t know the mind of gamers. Your ideas don’t work.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.
I just want to check something here.
We are both talking about the same game... right?
Ashes of Creation? The game where players can (and will) literally kill you and take your stuff? The game where a max level character can kill a low level harvester and take a percentage of the materials that player has harvested? The game that asks you to put time and resources in to building up a city, to set up industry in that city, only to then invite other players to tear all of that down?
And you think a 1.2 second force target ability will lead to bad feelings?
If taunt only lasts 1.2 seconds it’s useless and no tank would waste space on their bar.
For something to be worth using, it has to be good enough that if used on a player would piss them off.
I don’t think you have a lot of exposure to PvP across multiple games. Successful MMOs don’t have hard CC against players. People will not play that game. Someone stronger than you attacks you and you die? Okay, then get stronger so next time you win. Someone plays a class that has a ability to prevent you from fighting back (even temporarily)? That’s when people rage quit.
Again, games don’t do this for a reason. You don’t know the mind of gamers. Your ideas don’t work.
I disagree with this. If you have no cc then you have no way of melee classes fighting ranged classes.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.
I just want to check something here.
We are both talking about the same game... right?
Ashes of Creation? The game where players can (and will) literally kill you and take your stuff? The game where a max level character can kill a low level harvester and take a percentage of the materials that player has harvested? The game that asks you to put time and resources in to building up a city, to set up industry in that city, only to then invite other players to tear all of that down?
And you think a 1.2 second force target ability will lead to bad feelings?
If taunt only lasts 1.2 seconds it’s useless and no tank would waste space on their bar.
For something to be worth using, it has to be good enough that if used on a player would piss them off.
I don’t think you have a lot of exposure to PvP across multiple games. Successful MMOs don’t have hard CC against players. People will not play that game. Someone stronger than you attacks you and you die? Okay, then get stronger so next time you win. Someone plays a class that has a ability to prevent you from fighting back (even temporarily)? That’s when people rage quit.
Again, games don’t do this for a reason. You don’t know the mind of gamers. Your ideas don’t work.
I disagree with this. If you have no cc then you have no way of melee classes fighting ranged classes.
I never said there is no CC. No lasting, hard CC. But there are snares, short term stuns, all kinds of CC. You just can’t have the same options against PCs that you have against NPCs.
Remember, I’m not expressing my opinion of how things should be. I’m expressing what they are. I’m describing what you will find in MMOs. Are you suggesting that right now, melee classes can’t PvP against ranged classes? (I’m sure in some games there’s an imbalance.)
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.
I just want to check something here.
We are both talking about the same game... right?
Ashes of Creation? The game where players can (and will) literally kill you and take your stuff? The game where a max level character can kill a low level harvester and take a percentage of the materials that player has harvested? The game that asks you to put time and resources in to building up a city, to set up industry in that city, only to then invite other players to tear all of that down?
And you think a 1.2 second force target ability will lead to bad feelings?
If taunt only lasts 1.2 seconds it’s useless and no tank would waste space on their bar.
For something to be worth using, it has to be good enough that if used on a player would piss them off.
I don’t think you have a lot of exposure to PvP across multiple games. Successful MMOs don’t have hard CC against players. People will not play that game. Someone stronger than you attacks you and you die? Okay, then get stronger so next time you win. Someone plays a class that has a ability to prevent you from fighting back (even temporarily)? That’s when people rage quit.
Again, games don’t do this for a reason. You don’t know the mind of gamers. Your ideas don’t work.
I disagree with this. If you have no cc then you have no way of melee classes fighting ranged classes.
I never said there is no CC. No lasting, hard CC. But there are snares, short term stuns, all kinds of CC. You just can’t have the same options against PCs that you have against NPCs.
Remember, I’m not expressing my opinion of how things should be. I’m expressing what they are. I’m describing what you will find in MMOs. Are you suggesting that right now, melee classes can’t PvP against ranged classes? (I’m sure in some games there’s an imbalance.)
Right, before you said "MMOs don't have hard cc against players" which you are now changing to "no long lasting hard cc". Nobody is expecting to be able to stun-lock another player to death as that would indeed be poor game design. But there still needs to be some forms of hard cc in limited amounts otherwise melee fighters will just get kited to death by ranged players with no chance of fighting back.
Most online games use diminishing returns to combat this, as well as giving players ways of breaking cc on themselves.
What about a taunt effect in a X meter radius where any enemy attacking a ally see his damages redirect to the tank for 5 sec with each sec 20% less damages starting with 120%
It make it interesting to cast but you have to think went to us it , if to much enemy you may die ,ect
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Most online games use diminishing returns to combat this, as well as giving players ways of breaking cc on themselves.
Yes, you’re repeating what I said previously. As a matter of fact, I referenced WoW doing the former and ESO doing the latter. The point is that you have to treat CC different in PvE than in PvP; or at the very least MMO designers live by that philosophy.
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VirtekMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
A lot of good ideas and references since I posted last, lol. Can't even quote or reference them all.
But yeah, SWTOR and Wildstar both had systems where tanks would reduce opponent damage when taunted, unless that tank was attacked. It felt great to be a tank in those situations!
I'm a huge fan of that.
As for the original post intent:
One thing to keep in mind is that Intrepid has stated that they want to make groups much more attractive. Solo play while trying to level may not be anything to worry about unless you are actually trying to solo.
If you're trying to solo, you probably don't care about group content as much. If you don't care about group content as much, you probably don't care as much about hitting max level as quickly as possible, so leveling speed shouldn't matter as much. Slow leveling may even be preferable for the stability of fewer deaths.
That's a lot of "probably" in there, but just a random thought process I went through...
If taunt only lasts 1.2 seconds it’s useless and no tank would waste space on their bar.
Any tank that knows how DPS classes work would.
The only assumption to make is that the mechanics are designed around the notion of the current spell being cast landing on the tank that taunts you. I agree it would be pointless without this - but this is kind of the point of the whole thing, and so is how it should be designed.
From there, if you are playing a game with a fair amount of cooldowns rather than stupid mechanics like resource building (aka, 1, 1, 1, 2 mechanics), then it should be really obvious how a tank can essentially keep a healer alive in the face of a three or four DPS classes, making those DPS classes specifically want to take that tank out, even though that tank would then have an unmolested healer healing them.
Successful MMOs don’t have hard CC against players.
A force target is not a hard CC.
You are able to move at will, you are able to cast at will, all you are not able to do is change your target. Hell, if you are a class with a good amount of AoE, it is arguable as to whether a forced target would have any effect on you at all in large scale PvP.
A snare, root or stun is far more invasive on your options in play than a force target ability is. If Ashes has these abilities, there is literally no argument at all against a force target ability of similar duration.
Someone plays a class that has a ability to prevent you from fighting back (even temporarily)? That’s when people rage quit.
Again, this ability is quite literally exactly NOT this.
It isn't preventing you from fighting at all. Not even a little bit. It is, however, forcing you to fight a specific enemy for a specific amount of time. It wouldn't take long before people realize that this is actually how PvP in this game works - you want to kill the tank first. In a game where the meta of PvP is to kill the tank because of taunts, there is no need for the tank to actually use that taunt - the simple idea that the tank "could" taunt you to take your big nuke off of that healer is enough for you to want to take out that tank first.
This turns mass PvP from "kill the weak first", to an actual fight between groups where killing the tanks (with healers healing them) is the key to over all victory.
Any player that would quit a game over this kind of PvP would quit a game like Ashes regardless.
With this game being a hybrid action/tab-targetting, I wonder how taunts would work then. Maybe AoE taunt?
They had hard CC's back in Dark Age of Camelot which helped control zergs and prevented you from AoEing everything in sight. That game is still around. It may not be the most popular game out now but it definitely set the stage for future MMOs. The mesmerize ability was great but if that target suffered any damage it would break and further mez abilities would suffer diminishing returns on the duration. They later added CC breaks through realm rank abilities iirc. It's been two decades for me lol
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Look, I didn’t design the MMOs that have determined these things. You keep arguing with me like I’m proposing this stuff as my own idea. I’m not. I wouldn’t mind if taunts worked the same in PvE and PvP. (I usually play tanks so I think it would be cool.) I’m explaining what games have done and why, and coming at this from that perspective. Everything you’re arguing is “old man shouting at the clouds” stuff. You don’t even understand what I’m saying.
Look, I didn’t design the MMOs that have determined these things. You keep arguing with me like I’m proposing this stuff as my own idea. I’m not. I wouldn’t mind if taunts worked the same in PvE and PvP. (I usually play tanks so I think it would be cool.) I’m explaining what games have done and why, and coming at this from that perspective. Everything you’re arguing is “old man shouting at the clouds” stuff. You don’t even understand what I’m saying.
Thing is, my suggestion is also straight from an MMORPG.
Not one well known for its PvP, but still PvP in an MMO that is done this way.
I don't think I ever saw a complaint about the mechanics of it even once, in many, many years - which is why I find your line of querry with it odd.
I mean, I totally agree that being CC'd is not fun. It is not fun because you have significatly less control over your character, and the more control a particular type of CC takes from you, the more hated it is.
Since my suggestion ONLY takes targeting away from you, and leaves everything else as it, it barely even classifies as CC at all.
I am not arguing with you on how other games have dealt with CC in PvP at all. I am arguing with you in classifying a target lock as CC at all.
Edit: while you may fancy yourself as a more experienced PvP player, and I'd only somewhat disagree with you (as opposed to all out disagreeing), you should maybe take into considerarion that I have played a game with the mechanic in question for years, and you seem unaware that a game even has this mechanic.
@Gimlog I think the aoe taunt is not necessary, you could do it the way Aion does it, as a templar you cast a spell onto an ally, and all damages inflicted to that ally is redirected to the templar within 25 meters.
I like the reduced damages every 1s, but the spell in itself is too short, I think 10s ~ + and damages reduced by 10% each sec is better, capped at 50% damage reduction (still starting at 120% damages).
@Ishka what I prefer about a AoE is the risk you take by using it , us it on to much enemy and you maybe in trouble but choose the right time and you change the battle.
I do agree for 10sec 10% reduction per sec.
It's even better because it create a window of 3sec where the enemy would want to us powerful abilities, by baiting them you take of the risk they us it on your teammates. I love it !
If I understood correctly, the way it works is that more than protecting one target, the taunt redirects all the damages done by the oponnent no matter their targets ?
Or does it works like some sort of durable aoe where all the damages done to an ally in this zone is redirected to the tank ?
The hope of this forum post is to give our developers our voiced opinions on tanks and healers. I don't expect tanks and healers to be able to solo at the same speed as a pure dps class but to also not be forgotten in the same instance. The benefit of Intrepid Studios being actual gamers is that they understand what our concerns are and hopefully know how to address them in the most fair way possible. It was just my fear with previous games that tanks and healers were going to be designed for a specific purpose and not be viable in all aspects of the game. This type of problem in design always leads to these class types being in demand, constantly. I am sure most of you that mainly play dps have experienced long wait times in dungeon queues due to the low supply of tanks and healers out there.
Here's to hoping tanks and healers will get the same attention to detail and dynamic design that dps classes will receive!
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I think that the taunt idea with reduced damage makes a bit more sense.
A forced attack would be like a hard cc for a long duration after all and intrepid wants to avoid hard cc as much as possible.
I think that it would be enough, if the tank anc taunted enemy were tethered by a line to show that they are taunted.
I recall they said it would be earlier on. But i might remember wrong. The augments are ment to be based on the secondary class, so it would seem wierd that the secondary classe first comes at level 30.
I recall they said that some classes will just have a harder time leveling on their own. Plus that warriors won't have stances
As a DPS (most of the time), if I am going after a healer, and a tank casts a taunt with this damage reduction mechanic on me, it would need to be reducing my damage by a significant amount in order to make me want to not take on this healer, and instead shift over to the nearby tank, which puts me in a situation where I am trying to attack a tank that has a healer ally nearby.
If the debuff is 25%, I'll not even think twice about sticking to the healer. If a tank is unable to convince a single DPS to target the tank instead of the healer, then what is the point of the tank? In order to convince a DPS to target the tank instead of the healer, the DPS needs to think they will be better off trying to kill the tank with a healer healing them than they would be trying to kill the healer first and then the tank (this applies to both 1v2 PvP and *v* PvP).
Anyone that has PvP'd should know fairly well that there is almost no point where it is worth attacking a tank if there is a healer near by rather than taking on the healer first. Even if you halve my damage output, I am still better off trying to take down the healer.
The only time a player would make a conscious decision to target a tank where they are doing full damage over a healer where they are doing half damage is if there is a damage parse going on, and they want to have the highest damage output possible regardless of the outcome of the fight.
However, if I now put my (occasional) guild leader hat on, if my tanks have an ability that is able to flat out reduce the damage of opponents by 35%, you had better bet I'd be maximizing that.
My initial thought is a tank-ball with a healer in the middle. This means opposing players have no real means of targeting the specific tank that has the debuff on them (unless the game provides them with a specific mechanic to do this), and if I have enough tanks in my tank-ball, they will literally be able to drop the DPS output of my opponents by over a third.
Being a debuff and little else, I wouldn't expect it to stack (meaning tanks in my tank-ball can maintain a sense of confusion in the enemy by constantly shifting which tank has each enemy debuffed). It also won't have an immunity period (if it did, it would fall back in to the category of taunts being worthless in PvP).
So to me, having tanks do this is either worthless, or turns tanks in to PvP debuffers. What it doesn't do, in my opinion, is put tanks in control of the battlefield.
On the other hand, if you go the CC route as I said above, the first thing that would happen is that forced targets with a duration on them would have an immunity afterwards (as I would assume almost all CC would).
This in itself makes the tank-ball unworkable.
The other thing you could do is make some taunts simply change the enemies target (including the target of the current spell they are casting), but not force them to maintain that target. This need not have any immunity period to it at all, as it doesn't really need to be classified as a CC spell, as CC needs duration imo.
If a tank proves to be good at taunting me off of the healer every time I am about to land a big spell on them, making that spell hit said tank instead, you had better believe it would then be my choice to try and take out that damn tank.
This makes tanks the masters of the battlefield in PvP, which I'm sure is supposed to be their role.
i. e. Tank taunts target. Now target gets a -30% dmg done to other targets but a +30% bonus damage to tank. This way tanks won't abuse during 1v1s.
Honestly, since we can use all weapons and armor, if they could make the Tank abilities slightly change in values or mechanics based on the weapon we have equipped I am hoping Tanks can find that middle ground they want between Survivability and DPS. That's all I need really. To not fall off on leveling progression when I don't have or don't want to group up. It's not that I don't expect the tanks to kill faster and progress slower than pure DPS, I do really, it's just I don't want to see tanks killing 1 mob for every 5 DPS' mobs. One of the many factors most players don't play a tank is a arduous task of leveling one. Same with healers. Both classes are vital in games like this so if they make it fun and not monotonous then we may see more!
Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.
I don't understand this thought process.
I totally agree that if developers do nothing to taunts in PvP, they are effectively useless.
What I don't get is that you seem to be championing giving taunts a purpose - any purpose - over trying to make them have a similar use and function as they have in PvP, which would then in turn give tanks a similar use and function in PvP to what they have in PvE. The problem with this is that it would mean any two DPS would beat any tank/healer combination in PvP 100% of the time.
It still leaves tanks effectively useless at controlling the battlefield in PvP, as all they are really able to do is keep one DPS character off of one ally. Not really all that useful in terms of large or small scale PvP.
If this were how it made it to live, I'd probably tell all three of my raid tanks (I won't ever have more than three) to have a DPS or healer alt for when we need to PvP, as tanks are not worth taking.
While leveling solo as a Healer / Tank can and has sometimes been a struggle with some games. These classes tend to level a lot easier and faster with partys / dungeons. (Bigger XP runs)
Main reason is these style of players tend to be smaller due to the learning curve compared to DPS. Not saying DPS doesnt have a curve. You want to be the highest DPS you have some rotations to practice and gear to grind.
But the idea tends to scare people of having to not only focus on the enemy but also your party as well and taking the blame when something goes wrong.
Because of this there are less of these class's which makes queuing or finding a party so much easier than DPS because your always in short supply and needed.
Kinda ran off course there for a second but this actually tend to be a system mechanic trade off with the 3 Holy Trinitys. Solo Grind is Harder. Party Grind is easier. vs DPS even grinding i think.
Some things that did help a little for solo healers are spec trees and being able to switch between.
Example: SWTOR. As a Sith Sorc you could invest in the re-spec perk where you could change between a DPS Sith Sorc or a Healer Sith Sorc on the fly. That way when your out soloing mobs were easier. But while you have a operations que waiting. When you get sent over you just re-spec back into your healing tree.
Honestly not a huge fan of it, but it did make things easier.
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WoW implemented diminishing returns on CC like stuns to prevent stunlocking and such, and watering down CC like that means that again you don’t have the same rules in PvP that you do in PvE.
ESO allows you to use CC in PvP but anything “hard” like a root or fear, anything that takes away control (as opposed to a hindrance like a snare) can be broken out of.
The examples are endless. It’s not something that MMOs do, because people don’t like it.
We are both talking about the same game... right?
Ashes of Creation? The game where players can (and will) literally kill you and take your stuff? The game where a max level character can kill a low level harvester and take a percentage of the materials that player has harvested? The game that asks you to put time and resources in to building up a city, to set up industry in that city, only to then invite other players to tear all of that down?
And you think a 1.2 second force target ability will lead to bad feelings?
Well, we all know that tanks in many MMOs do not have a single taunting ability, at least they got damaging abilities that generate "threat" in PvE. Why wouldn't they make some sort of mechanic around taunt & threat in pvp ? The threat could build up to a certain point then target switch and finally forcing the opponent to attack for a short duration. If we look at how the game will be, the regular taunt that switch target wouldn't have any uses against a player that builded his character with a lot of action combat abilities. That is why attack forcing a target becomes necessary.
What I find also interesting in this "threat accumulation mechanics" is that it forces the tank to make a choice regarding a focus, since it's not always possible to focus the same target for a long duration in pvp, it would make him take risks and make sort of a gamble.
Adding a bonus-penalty damage with the taunt seems interesting, but subjectively I kinda dislike it. While it seems to give a real reason to focus the tank instead of squishies target. If I played a dps and would get my damages reduced every time because some apes in huge armor shouted at me, it would make me a lot worse than being chain CC.
The execution to a taunt is a lot more simple and there would be a lot less possibilities to counter such effects compared to CC. If we look at how a dps will build its character, it's obvious that he will have a larger attack. It would simply reduce too much of its damages compared to other non-based dmg classes, at least in a % reduction, a flat -X could do the trick. A group of 2 or 3 tank taunts focusing on someone to “permanently” reduce its damages is too cancerous.
So the idea of target changing is more flexible and useful for the tank in its use and is less painful for the opponent (at least in case of tab-targeting), if they give us tools to mark a target with a number and a shortcut the select the marked target, here you you have a "counterplay", and the tank can still make some decent plays forcing the uses of a huge CD on himself.
The other way you could do it is similar to how taunts appear in the anime "Log Horizon". A player affected by the spell "Anchor Howl" isn't directly forced to attack the tank but if they attack anyone other than the tank they take extra damage:
https://log-horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Anchor_Howl
As long as both of your ideas are in, I would gladely play with such mechanics, as long as the damage is not OP ofc.
For something to be worth using, it has to be good enough that if used on a player would piss them off.
I don’t think you have a lot of exposure to PvP across multiple games. Successful MMOs don’t have hard CC against players. People will not play that game. Someone stronger than you attacks you and you die? Okay, then get stronger so next time you win. Someone plays a class that has a ability to prevent you from fighting back (even temporarily)? That’s when people rage quit.
Again, games don’t do this for a reason. You don’t know the mind of gamers. Your ideas don’t work.
I disagree with this. If you have no cc then you have no way of melee classes fighting ranged classes.
Remember, I’m not expressing my opinion of how things should be. I’m expressing what they are. I’m describing what you will find in MMOs. Are you suggesting that right now, melee classes can’t PvP against ranged classes? (I’m sure in some games there’s an imbalance.)
Right, before you said "MMOs don't have hard cc against players" which you are now changing to "no long lasting hard cc". Nobody is expecting to be able to stun-lock another player to death as that would indeed be poor game design. But there still needs to be some forms of hard cc in limited amounts otherwise melee fighters will just get kited to death by ranged players with no chance of fighting back.
Most online games use diminishing returns to combat this, as well as giving players ways of breaking cc on themselves.
It make it interesting to cast but you have to think went to us it , if to much enemy you may die ,ect
But yeah, SWTOR and Wildstar both had systems where tanks would reduce opponent damage when taunted, unless that tank was attacked. It felt great to be a tank in those situations!
I'm a huge fan of that.
As for the original post intent:
One thing to keep in mind is that Intrepid has stated that they want to make groups much more attractive. Solo play while trying to level may not be anything to worry about unless you are actually trying to solo.
If you're trying to solo, you probably don't care about group content as much. If you don't care about group content as much, you probably don't care as much about hitting max level as quickly as possible, so leveling speed shouldn't matter as much. Slow leveling may even be preferable for the stability of fewer deaths.
That's a lot of "probably" in there, but just a random thought process I went through...
The only assumption to make is that the mechanics are designed around the notion of the current spell being cast landing on the tank that taunts you. I agree it would be pointless without this - but this is kind of the point of the whole thing, and so is how it should be designed.
From there, if you are playing a game with a fair amount of cooldowns rather than stupid mechanics like resource building (aka, 1, 1, 1, 2 mechanics), then it should be really obvious how a tank can essentially keep a healer alive in the face of a three or four DPS classes, making those DPS classes specifically want to take that tank out, even though that tank would then have an unmolested healer healing them. A force target is not a hard CC.
You are able to move at will, you are able to cast at will, all you are not able to do is change your target. Hell, if you are a class with a good amount of AoE, it is arguable as to whether a forced target would have any effect on you at all in large scale PvP.
A snare, root or stun is far more invasive on your options in play than a force target ability is. If Ashes has these abilities, there is literally no argument at all against a force target ability of similar duration.
Again, this ability is quite literally exactly NOT this.
It isn't preventing you from fighting at all. Not even a little bit. It is, however, forcing you to fight a specific enemy for a specific amount of time. It wouldn't take long before people realize that this is actually how PvP in this game works - you want to kill the tank first. In a game where the meta of PvP is to kill the tank because of taunts, there is no need for the tank to actually use that taunt - the simple idea that the tank "could" taunt you to take your big nuke off of that healer is enough for you to want to take out that tank first.
This turns mass PvP from "kill the weak first", to an actual fight between groups where killing the tanks (with healers healing them) is the key to over all victory.
Any player that would quit a game over this kind of PvP would quit a game like Ashes regardless.
They had hard CC's back in Dark Age of Camelot which helped control zergs and prevented you from AoEing everything in sight. That game is still around. It may not be the most popular game out now but it definitely set the stage for future MMOs. The mesmerize ability was great but if that target suffered any damage it would break and further mez abilities would suffer diminishing returns on the duration. They later added CC breaks through realm rank abilities iirc. It's been two decades for me lol
Thing is, my suggestion is also straight from an MMORPG.
Not one well known for its PvP, but still PvP in an MMO that is done this way.
I don't think I ever saw a complaint about the mechanics of it even once, in many, many years - which is why I find your line of querry with it odd.
I mean, I totally agree that being CC'd is not fun. It is not fun because you have significatly less control over your character, and the more control a particular type of CC takes from you, the more hated it is.
Since my suggestion ONLY takes targeting away from you, and leaves everything else as it, it barely even classifies as CC at all.
I am not arguing with you on how other games have dealt with CC in PvP at all. I am arguing with you in classifying a target lock as CC at all.
Edit: while you may fancy yourself as a more experienced PvP player, and I'd only somewhat disagree with you (as opposed to all out disagreeing), you should maybe take into considerarion that I have played a game with the mechanic in question for years, and you seem unaware that a game even has this mechanic.
I like the reduced damages every 1s, but the spell in itself is too short, I think 10s ~ + and damages reduced by 10% each sec is better, capped at 50% damage reduction (still starting at 120% damages).
I do agree for 10sec 10% reduction per sec.
It's even better because it create a window of 3sec where the enemy would want to us powerful abilities, by baiting them you take of the risk they us it on your teammates. I love it !
Or does it works like some sort of durable aoe where all the damages done to an ally in this zone is redirected to the tank ?
Thought what the better way to have the effect of a taunt without CC players
Here's to hoping tanks and healers will get the same attention to detail and dynamic design that dps classes will receive!
Cheers