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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
That's overly dramatic, Intrepid is developing the game in the open by choice, community giving feedback is not "mob dictating", and you obviously do care since you've replied to this and the last thread about it.
The fact that people with different backgrounds across 3 years get irked by it, and come with the same explanations as to why, should be a pretty strong sign that something is off.
Interesting statement considering this is the 15th thread at least for this topic.
Personally I hope they keep it. Stevens invited us to join HIS Pathfinder campaign. I think it rude to tell the GM I don't like what you named something is your make believe world. Change it!
Seems a little overly dramatic.
And that's just making my point for me, thank you. Do you have links to all of those? I'm happy to add them to the post on top
Probably cause they aren't even ready to showcase the class yet. The difference between Tank and Cleric/priest is that the Cleric/priest has their base kit decided and the video is already out. They have a kit for tank but it isn't ready yet so why rename the class before even the simplest form is set.
I'm more concerned that there's only one full tank class. They seem to have at least 2 mostly support classes in the Cleric and Bard. Summoner is confirmed to be a sort of Jack of all trades with summons for DPS, support, and tanking, but all the other classes I'm remembering seem to be mainly DPS focused unless your second class is tank and even then I don't see how added tank flavor to a rogue is going to make you a tank unless they go full hog with the tank flavoring and make unique tanks like Dodge tanks or spell barrier tanks.
There just being one pure tank is either a sign that tanking was just a given and they didn't care to actually create a tank beyond filling the holy Trinity which would be why it's just named tank or they are really putting effort into making the class and the subclass versions of it unique and distinct from each other and the name is just cause they haven't settled on the theme for the base tank.
Tank - 1. a large receptacle or storage chamber, especially for liquid or gas.
2. a heavy armored fighting vehicle carrying guns and moving on a continuous articulated metal track.
I have my fingers crossed that when the game comes out and I am discussing it I don't have to say "Hey there, I am currently main tanking as a tank/tank. Like......wtf is that garbage.
I doubt that's the reason. They already know the core design goals and direction of the class, which is enough to pick a name. Implementation is just a matter of how to execute the design vision. Sure, there might be some design changes, but I don't see it deviating from the core of what the class is meant to be.
Like visual particle effects, combat, and dwarves, if they wanted to change the name, they could simply announce the intent to in the future.
However, if you recruit people in an IC basis. Your whole approach would be different. Provided you recruit people you don't know. You could instead ask for a "frontliner" or something along those lines. But the RP there would probably change the entire nature of the run itself.
In short, there's nothing wrong with the current role names.
Ok how about I am a taunt person because that is what I do taunt stuff so my party can stay alive lol or shield barrier because I have a shield and protect people from dying either way it will be up to the person playing that character.................. But I see your point.
No you misunderstood. I never meant that you had authority, I was pointing out that your opinion is not the be all end all. As for proof of a fantasy setting that has characters that say they are a tank, I already explained that. This game is literally pulling from a pathfinder campaign that Steven ran. It is perfectly reasonable for the descriptor "Tank" to be used in a different manner in a fantasy world full of adventurers. Over many, many years of video games, tabletop games, manga, and light novels the term "Tank" has been adapted as the name for the frontline defensive fighters that protect the party from major bodily harm. This is adventuring lingo 101 and not at all weird for someone familiar with this sort of setting.
I am so sorry that you feel the name doesn't fit. However it is quite silly to be this adamant about a class name that your character will never be stuck with since you will always be using an archetype name. Maybe Steven will come out and say it was a placeholder later on, who knows, but until then this is what you get.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
I'm familiar with Pathfinder, and I can tell you that there is no character type in Pathfinder called "Tank", either first or second edition. Is it a meta term used by players to describe characters? Yes. Is it in the source material? No.
Well, if that were true, how come you can't give me one example?
Everyone playing the archetype will be using its name for their base class till level 25. And it's not like it's just me feeling this way given how often it comes up, which it does, because "Tank" is a silly name.
One of these is not like the others:
I think that it speaks leagues more that there's not a definitive reason to re-name the entire combat-role across all genres speaks any louder than the traditional name for the role; *Why* would we re-name the tank role, in the Tank/DPS/Heals, spectrum?
Oh, right.... Because every now and then someone thinks that because Tank roles don't involve actually being in a wheels-and-cannon tank means that we need to re-name the combat-role entirely will somehow stick across all games and all genres?
Dude - the guy keeping the aggro is a Tank! I (and I don't feel it's arrogant to say that 'most' people) don't feel *ANY* need to argue across the Internets that we should instead begin calling the role "Aggro-Farmer Supreme!" - nor any other name you can think of to replace it - simply because actual wheel-and-cannon tanks won't be in the game.
But I'm not arguing about renaming the role? Using tank OOC to describe the role is perfectly fine, I've no problems with it, I've been using the word "tank" as both a noun and verb for years and there is nothing wrong with it as a meta/out of character word.
I'm arguing about renaming the archetype/base class, because "Tank" is not a fantasy term, it's a modern gaming term, and "Tank" is the only of the 8 archetypes/base classes that does that.
Edit: To use a more visceral example, if Gimli during the battle of Helm's Deep said "I'm going to tank these orcs over there", it would be as appropriate for him as if he just invoked the script, the director, or the camera. It's not wrong because the audience doesn't know what camera, director, script, or tanking is, it's wrong because it breaks the 4th wall and makes the whole world you are watching less real.
Mage= Is short hand for Magic User. It does not come from the latin Magus directly. Magus became magician. Magician became magic user. Magic user became mage. Which I would argue is that a modern gaming term because I believe it was not used before 1970s fantasy games.
With the exception of cleric, bard, and rouge. All of the archetypes tell you exactly what they do in their name.
Tank only doesn't make sense because in English when we were trying to figure out what to call the armored vehicles we now call tanks. Nothing sounded right. Tank caught on because they looked like the kind of tanks that were used for storage early in production. The Germans however just used the word panzer which means armor. I don't know if the equivalent sentence to something like "We need more armors on the front line." sounds off in German, but in English we must have agreed it was confusing or sounded off.
In any case. It could be worst. It could be called "Armor". Which works as a fantasy term, and sounds awful as a class name.
What bugs me more is that a Mage can become a Magician.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Then why call them "Tanks"? It makes no sense whatsoever.
I vote to change Clerics to "Healers" and Fighters to "Melee DPS" so everything makes sense okay???
You might have to add Ranger to that list too, since the etymology is about ranging over an area, not being a ranged combatant (especially since rangers don't have to be ranged, the most iconic D&D ranger certainly isn't).
But yes, you are right. The class roles do typically describe what the character does, but all of them do so using appropriate terminology, and "Defender" would be such a term here (although Reddit seems to prefer "Guardian" with subsequent renaming of current "Guardian" to "Juggernaut").
Re: mage/magic user, I can't tell whether it came from D&D or fantasy novels first, but, unlike tank, both mage and magic user appeared in fantasy novels around the time the (TT)RPG were born.
Between all editions of D&D and Pathfinder, the only time we got strictly defined combat roles that are recognisable to MMO audience was 4th edition of D&D, and even then WoTC named them appropriately to the setting: defender, striker, leader, and controller.
Who knows, maybe there is some galaxy brained lore reason they are called tanks in AOC, and we just have not gotten to see it yet. My money is still on the idea that intrepid thinks this is funny, and will keep the joke going as long as people keep getting upset.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
It's possible, but I wish someone would just come out and say it. Like with UI addons and damage meters, Intrepid's decision not to include them might be controversial (for the record, I'm happy without addons), but at least we know why they are doing what they are doing because Steven explained in every interview he was asked about it. As far as I can tell, and I've looked at every thread, either here or Reddit, and asked on Discord, there has never been any official response wrt Tank as a name.
The only explanation people brought up back in 2017 was that Tank was never going to be the name of the class since you'd pick your second archetype, but we now know (since July 2020) that this is not the case till level 25.
Class archetypes are meant to be descriptive. As long as the name of the archetypes are immediately clear and obvious as to what the strength of the archetype is, then it doesn't matter.
Tank is probably the best descriptor for the archetype that Intrepid envisions, because it refers specifically to defensive capacity. Warrior, barbarian, or other names are not as clear. Why should a "warrior" or "barbarian" focus on defense anyway?
You can refer to yourself as your actual class name, which is not generalized as the archetype name. You don't have to refer to yourself as your primary archetype name.
Can a Fighter tank? Can a Mage be a healer like in Dragon Age? How about Bard? Is rogue a DPS archetype, or is it more of a skill-based character (scouting, lock picking, disarming traps) as it used to be historically? Those are all ambiguous names.
This was already addressed multiple times. You can't just provide one example of an alternative name and go "see, all other names are ambiguous". Defender would not be ambiguous at all.
You only have the primary archetype till level 25. Class name should be a word that can be used either by NPCs in scripted quest dialogues (don't know if that will be commonplace in AoC, but it certainly happens in games), or by PCs when people are roleplaying that doesn't break the 4th wall.
so if I go and link you an anime, manga, light novel, or homebrew tabletop campaign where the term tank is used in a setting similar to a pathfinder game I win? Do you really want to take this bet? Because I'm literally running a 5th edition dnd game where this happens quite often in character, in the world, and no one has an issue with it. So that's all I need to disprove you, right? Or are you going to give some stupid excuse saying my homebrew campaign is less valid than Steven's?
Tread carefully~
Again, tank is a general and descriptive term for the characters adventurer class. Like hey, clerics are devout religious figures that draw power from a god to grant blessings or woes. It's the same for the term tank. Hey, tanks are defensive focused figures that prevent an enemy's attacks from harming their friends or contractors in various ways.
In regards to your comparison, you start getting better results if you are more specific. Try medieval fantasy tank and you will undoubtably start getting fully armored humanoids as well as rolling fortresses and different types of medieval styled mechanical tanks. Sure it's not as prominent as the rest butit still has a presence that you cannot disregard.