Tools for Tanks in small scale group PvP

One of the least fun things to experience as a tank in PvP is simply being a weak damage dealer with insufficient ability to protect your team mates, and watching your entire group being picked one by one. Being the last man standing on the losing team is a pretty bitter pill when you know that if you were a healer or even just a full damage dealer, you could have been on the winning team. Tanks are unique in their PvE trinity role in that the moment you step into PvP territory, the main tool in your arsenal - building threat - stops to function entirely, as it should, removing agency from other players would be worse than tanks being weak in PvP.

There are scenarios where tanks can be quite good in PvP regardless: 1v1, anything objective based (CTF or hold the ground), and large scale PvP (Javelin should do well there), but this is not this threat. This is small scale group PvP (3-8 people per group) where the only objective is to wipe the other team.

One game I think did tanks justice there was Warhammer Online, where all tanks shared the following two abilities:

Guard - which was a stance that transferred portion of the damage taken from a friendly target to the tank. This was plenty strong (though one had to be careful with it since getting aoe cleaved with the target you are guarding could kill you, and fast), and as far as I remember it didn't have a duration limit (though there was a hefty cooldown so you couldn't swap targets at will). Two healers would still be better protection than a tank and a healer, but the tank could still function as a (weak) damage dealer while guarding, which made quite a difference.

Taunt - on top of forcing the enemy NPC to attack the tank, taunt applied a damage output debuff on the target. This debuff didn't apply if the taunted person was attacking the tank, and it would disappear in few hits when the taunted person attacked the tank. This worked quite well in that it didn't force people to attack the tank (no loss of agency), but it heavily incentivized doing so, at least for a couple of seconds.

I'd be quite happy to see one or both of those appear in AoC in some form. If active Taunt is not a thing in AoC, having threat generating skills apply a stacking damage debuff on the target that you can reset by switching targets to the tank for a while could work just as well.

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Nerror

Neurath wrote: »

Player agency is a bad concept. Every knockdown, every stun, every silence, every fear, every disorient will reduce player agency. A taunt is just another branch of cc. If there are cc locks in the game, the combat will suck either way. If there is a tactical element added and no cc locks, then we might just get good combat (If the Hybrid System is good and there is mobile combat).

Edit: Spelling mistakes.

Hard CC definitely needs to be kept on a very short duration yeah. A couple of seconds at most, with diminishing returns. I don't mind a little hard CC in the game though, but they should definitely disallow any form of stunlocking.

I still shudder sometimes at the CC we saw in the beginning of Dark Age of Camelot. Anyone remember that? You could get mezzed for literally 1½ minute, where you just stood there unable to do anything. And Midgard could AOE stunlock entire raids indefinitely, until that finally got nerfed.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Again, a lot of people have said they don't like the idea, yet no one has said *why* they don't like it.

Two big reasons.

1. It's a game mechanic nightmare. So you stand there with your cleric and an enemy tank taunts you. Great, now you can't target your team mates to heal them, and you can't do anything to the tank either. Or you are a melee class and the tank taunts you from atop a wall or in a hallway from behind the frontline. Awesome, now you can't target anybody else, and you can't get to the tank. Or the same with a ranger or wizard, and the tank just walks out of line of sight, while you stand there like a doofus and can't do anything but get chewed up or attempt to run away.

Sure, you could put all kinds of conditions on the taunt, such as, must keep line of sight or it breaks if the tank moves out of melee range, but that just makes it suck for the tank IMO, and makes it way too situational and easy to avoid by taking a step out of melee range.

2. The first reason ties into the second, which is Player Agency in combat. It's generally bad design to reduce player agency, because it feels bad for the players. A debuff works much better in terms of player agency, because the target retains full control of their character, where a forced target lock removes it. Giving players the choice to react to their circumstances will almost always feel much better than forcing them into a specific action.

To your first point - that is totally invalid if the game opts for an offensive and defensive target, as some players have requested.

Even if the game doesn't go that route, a healer should not be in taunt range of an enemy tank. If you are in that range, then your side has probably already lost.

Also, AoE heals are a thing, so even if the above two were not true, for the second or two that you are forced to target the tank, you could just use an AoE heal, and when it's over you are immune to taunt for a little bit to carry on with healing.

To your second point - this is an argument against all forms of CC, in all situations. The only CC that would be less intrusive than a tanks taunt would be a slow.

Turning tanks in to debuff bots in PvP combat would mean their PvP role is completely and totally segregated from their PvE role. This is the key thing to be avoided in my opinion.

Wandering Mist

Neurath wrote: »

Player agency is a bad concept. Every knockdown, every stun, every silence, every fear, every disorient will reduce player agency. A taunt is just another branch of cc. If there are cc locks in the game, the combat will suck either way. If there is a tactical element added and no cc locks, then we might just get good combat (If the Hybrid System is good and there is mobile combat).

Edit: Spelling mistakes.

Every mechanic like that needs to have counterplay. Yes, on it's own CC is bad for the reasons you state (nobody likes to have no control or agency over their character). So to counter it you give players ways to break CC through items or abilities.

Diminishing returns on CC also need to be a thing to stop stun-locking, and Intrepid are well aware of this.

Songcaller

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Every mechanic like that needs to have counterplay. Yes, on it's own CC is bad for the reasons you state (nobody likes to have no control or agency over their character). So to counter it you give players ways to break CC through items or abilities.

Diminishing returns on CC also need to be a thing to stop stun-locking, and Intrepid are well aware of this.

Awesome news

Thanks for the swift response. A Mist never wanders far

Maezriel

@Noaani I disagree about the range b/c as we've seen Tanks will have a way of getting around the battlefield and there's likely to be plenty of times a healer can't be out of range of an enemy such as city sieges and caravans.
Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted

Lastly we don't know if the charge will be an interrupt or CC ability, then you have Javelin, if you make the taunt one you now have 2-3 hard CCs by level 10...that's an insane precedent to set.

Nerror

Noaani wrote: »

To your first point - that is totally invalid if the game opts for an offensive and defensive target, as some players have requested.

And what use does a DPS have for a defensive target? You point is indeed invalid.

As for the CC argument, if the forced target lock only lasts at most 1-2 seconds, sure, ok, that could work, as long as there are diminishing returns and immunity timers as well, just like there should be for other hard CC.

Songcaller

I'm not so certain it can be achieved by level 10. Some of the CCs don't happen until Rank 2 or Rank 3 of a skill. I doubt there will be enough Skill Points (If skill points are a thing) to cover all of the CC Effects by level 10. Of course, you have the base Javelin, the base charge, shock wave (Knockdown) and no current taunt at all.

Edit: Spelling Mistakes.

Nerror

Maezriel wrote: »

Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted

Good point. It makes a difference.

Honshu

Maezriel wrote: »

Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted

Well let's play devil's advocate here; any class ability that deals damage "takes control" from you when it is used to kill your character. But obviously, making characters immortal to avoid that frustration is a silly idea. Yet the lack of internal consistency revealed by reframing your argument like this plainly shows that taking control from you is not in and of itself a bad thing, or even something that should necessarily be avoided.

Dark Age of Camelot had entire support classes built around the concept of impeding enemy players through crowd control, and also supporting their allies by removing that crowd control in turn. Guild Wars 1 had builds that were plainly defined as taking control away from *you* the player, because the person devoted their entire build to interrupting literally every spell you wanted to cast, so you needed to try to adapt to the presence of someone who could quite literally stop you from using any of your character's skills if he wanted to do so. Both these games had significant depth and intrigue to their group combat dynamics that would otherwise be lost if we started down this rabbit hole of "Oh well players will be annoyed by this thing's presence, so we should just remove it."

Don't start down that rabbit hole. It is not a place you want to go.

Maezriel

Honshu wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted

Well let's play devil's advocate here; any class ability that deals damage "takes control" from you when it is used to kill your character. But obviously, making characters immortal to avoid that frustration is a silly idea. Yet the lack of internal consistency revealed by reframing your argument like this plainly shows that taking control from you is not in and of itself a bad thing, or even something that should necessarily be avoided.

Dark Age of Camelot had entire support classes built around the concept of impeding enemy players through crowd control, and also supporting their allies by removing that crowd control in turn. Guild Wars 1 had builds that were plainly defined as taking control away from *you* the player, because the person devoted their entire build to interrupting literally every spell you wanted to cast, so you needed to try to adapt to the presence of someone who could quite literally stop you from using any of your character's skills if he wanted to do so. Both these games had significant depth and intrigue to their group combat dynamics that would otherwise be lost if we started down this rabbit hole of "Oh well players will be annoyed by this thing's presence, so we should just remove it."

Don't start down that rabbit hole. It is not a place you want to go.

I swear this happens in every single thread. "Don't force me to target something" does not equate to "Make me immortal b/c death is an inconvenience" There's absolutely no call to be that pedantic and the only reason we would start "down that rabbit hole" is b/c of the sheer number of people on this forum that'll happily argue every. single. punctuation. mark. so long as it delays them from admitting that someone might have a valid counterargument.

CC is a valid and fun way to spice up PvP, however I could easily point out Blizzard's games where you're getting rocked so often that you can barely do anything and there are matches where you might as well get up and make a sandwich b/c even w/ DRs and teammates your character won't be moving for about 2 solid minutes.

Losing control of my character is expected but I do feel losing control of what I do, such as being forced to target something, is one step too far. At the very least if I'm just stunned I have 2 seconds where I can figure out if I need to quickly target a teammate and start spamming a button for as soon as it wears off and you can't even do that if taunt works on players.

Songcaller

I wonder if Bard's Turn Targets to Friends will be useful in PvP. I would assume the Bard could turn a foe to a friend. It would be a very good skill to prevent heals. It could be word play though and until we see Bard in action I can't be certain.

I see Taunt as a minor nuisance. There are two ways it can be implemented: soft lock and hard lock. I doubt The Devs will do hard lock after Wandering Mists input, soft lock however could be simple to implement (If they implement a taunt at all). The issue remains, Tanks with the current skillset can be a nuisance but they won't blister in PvP and they can't force anyone to strike the Tank.

Few people will play Tank in PvP if they are left until last while the rest of the team is killed. Its not a nice experience in any way shape or form.

Edit: Spelling mistakes.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

To your first point - that is totally invalid if the game opts for an offensive and defensive target, as some players have requested.

And what use does a DPS have for a defensive target? You point is indeed invalid.

As for the CC argument, if the forced target lock only lasts at most 1-2 seconds, sure, ok, that could work, as long as there are diminishing returns and immunity timers as well, just like there should be for other hard CC.

What relevance does anything in regards to DPS have to do with the argument that you put forward in regards to healers?

I mean, that isn't he best argument you've got, we both know this. I'm happy to ignore you even mentioned it if you like

As to the rest of your post - obviously taunts would need to be 1 - 2 second duration at most, and have the same restrictions as other forms of CC. Without that, the PvP meta would be a bunch of healers with a ring of tanks around them, and that would be damn near unstoppable.

Obviously, thay would be stupid.

A tank having 4 or 5 taunts that each have 10 - 30 second cooldowns, and durations of 1 or 2 seconds, and leave the target with an immunity to taunts though, that gives tanks the tools to be able to do in PvP what they do in PvE, control the battlefield.

I mean, if I am standing next to a rival tank and attacking his healer, that tank damn well should be able to pull me off of that healer, that is what tanks are for.

I will admit, I am making an assumption that most players - specifically most tanks - would like to see tanks perform the same role in PvE and PvP. Working on this assumption, I've yet to see a better suggestion or implementation anywhere. Like everything, it has its downsides, but those downsides are able to be worked down to being so minute, without detracting from the purpose of the suggestion, that it really is the least bad option.

Noaani

Maezriel wrote: »

@Noaani I disagree about the range b/c as we've seen Tanks will have a way of getting around the battlefield and there's likely to be plenty of times a healer can't be out of range of an enemy such as city sieges and caravans.
Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted

Lastly we don't know if the charge will be an interrupt or CC ability, then you have Javelin, if you make the taunt one you now have 2-3 hard CCs by level 10...that's an insane precedent to set.

I wouldn't look too hard at the list of abilities right now.

No game has ever stuck to its ability list for the last 6 months of development, let alone the last 36 months.

Also, I consider altering who I am targeting to be much less invasive than altering whether I can move or not, less invasive than pulling me to a location I didnt opt to travel to, less invasive than preventing me from being able to cast anything, less invasive than stopping the cast I have already initiated.

Really, the only CC that I consider less invasive than a target change is a slow.

Maezriel

Noaani wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

@Noaani I disagree about the range b/c as we've seen Tanks will have a way of getting around the battlefield and there's likely to be plenty of times a healer can't be out of range of an enemy such as city sieges and caravans.
Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted

Lastly we don't know if the charge will be an interrupt or CC ability, then you have Javelin, if you make the taunt one you now have 2-3 hard CCs by level 10...that's an insane precedent to set.

I wouldn't look too hard at the list of abilities right now.

No game has ever stuck to its ability list for the last 6 months of development, let alone the last 36 months.

Also, I consider altering who I am targeting to be much less invasive than altering whether I can move or not, less invasive than pulling me to a location I didnt opt to travel to, more I casive than preventing me from being able to cast anything, more invasive than stopping the cast I have already initiated.

Really, the only CC that I consider less invasive than a target change is a slow.

Of for sure I expect the abilities to change, especially since it's not even been decided as to whether or not we'll have the hybrid combat or full tab.

Songcaller

We won't get full tab. It'll be hybrid or full action (Like APOC).

Honshu

Maezriel wrote: »

I swear this happens in every single thread. "Don't force me to target something" does not equate to "Make me immortal b/c death is an inconvenience" There's absolutely no call to be that pedantic and the only reason we would start "down that rabbit hole" is b/c of the sheer number of people on this forum that'll happily argue every. single. punctuation. mark. so long as it delays them from admitting that someone might have a valid counterargument.

"[X] should be removed because it is something that interferes with your control of your character" was literally the basis given for your argument against a taunt mechanic. I am illustrating the folly of following that mentality by giving what is plainly an absurd example, by using the same argument. Until you can differentiate the reason one should advocate for one but not the other, you don't have a counterargument, you have a game design theory that revolves entirely on what you "feel" is good, rather than what is actually healthy for the game in a way you can coherently argue for. Calling attention to that stupid mentality is not pedantic, it is demanding something beyond intellectual laziness from you.

Noaani

Neurath wrote: »

We won't get full tab. It'll be hybrid or full action (Like APOC).

Steven has specifically said if hybrid doesn't work, they will default to tab.

Percimes

Players agency...
/sigh
What about mob agency? Mobs have feelings too.

Sure, taunts have be a tanking tool for a long time, but it's still a lazy mechanic. A more active way of tanking in PvE would translate well into PvP. In a game with both PvE and PvP, the closer the mobs and players are treated, the less likely you are to have classes/specs that excel in one and suck in the other.

Maezriel

Honshu wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

I swear this happens in every single thread. "Don't force me to target something" does not equate to "Make me immortal b/c death is an inconvenience" There's absolutely no call to be that pedantic and the only reason we would start "down that rabbit hole" is b/c of the sheer number of people on this forum that'll happily argue every. single. punctuation. mark. so long as it delays them from admitting that someone might have a valid counterargument.

"[X] should be removed because it is something that interferes with your control of your character" was literally the basis given for your argument against a taunt mechanic. I am illustrating the folly of following that mentality by giving what is plainly an absurd example, by using the same argument. Until you can differentiate the reason one should advocate for one but not the other, you don't have a counterargument, you have a game design theory that revolves entirely on what you "feel" is good, rather than what is actually healthy for the game in a way you can coherently argue for. Calling attention to that stupid mentality is not pedantic, it is demanding something beyond intellectual laziness from you.

Want to talk about intellectual laziness? You could have asked me to elaborate, you could have just provided your counter argument, you could have simply said you disagree. Instead you yeeted my comment to a purposefully ridiculous level for the sole purpose of feeling superior and to try and insult me.

I never said I was against CC or loss of control of my character, but control over who I have targeted which is control over what I'm doing on my UI and saying "death does that" is pedantic as hell and does absolutely nothing to further the discussion.

If you want to suggest that a PvP Taunt mechanic could be a small interrupt or even a daze as you're "feared" or something then sure, but I personally dislike the idea of the game forcing who I have targeted. I even further said that if we have 3 hard CCs by level 10 then that says a lot for how CC heavy the game could be and went even further to demonstrate that Blizzard goes far too hard into heavy CC.

CC is very hard to balance b/c it absolutely feels like garbage to be in a fight and your only counter is to stand up and walk away from your pc.

Honshu

You'll forgive me if I skip the butthurt nonsense, I have neither the time nor the patience to back and forth over it.

Maezriel wrote: »

CC is very hard to balance b/c it absolutely feels like garbage to be in a fight and your only counter is to stand up and walk away from your pc.

The most crowd control heavy game I have ever played was Dark Age of Camelot, where you could be mezed for literally upwards of 1-2 minutes. However, I never minded this, because this raw and intimidating sounding number was involved in a rather complex system of binary checks that made it so things had to line up very well for your attacker to keep you mezzed that long.

Magic resists; more magic resistance = less time mezzed. There were magic resistance debuffs; if applied to you, you could reasonably assume focus fire or a mezmerization spell was coming, allowing you time to break line of sight, or otherwise position yourself in a beneficial fashion.

Mez removal spells; one of the support class abilities included a spell that would straight up eliminate mezmerization effects on your target. Consequently, there was extreme value in not getting "caught out" away from supportive backliners, where you might be mezzed and left in no-man's land while the battle raged on. In addition, there was a fairly long CD ability you could use to purge yourself of CC if you truly needed to be free of it right that moment.

Protective periods; after recovering from a crowd control effect, you were immune to that type of CC for a period of time dependent on how long the base effect of the CC was. For instance, getting stunned for 9 seconds meant you were sitting there for 9 seconds, sure, but once it was over, you were immune to stuns for about 45 seconds. This, interestingly, resulted in there being value in abilities that stunned for shorter periods of time, because they could be applied more frequently over the course of a fight, since they resulted in shorter protective periods.

Damage; except for stuns, all crowd control effects (roots & mez) were removed upon taking damage. This rewarded coordinated group tactics over uncoordinated zerg tactics; 800 people could be fought off by 8 if the 8 could apply an AoE mez and the 800 didn't have a supportive crew ready and able to remove the crowd control.

All these intertwining systems and more combined to make crowd control very powerful but also very fragile. It was a scalpel for use by coordinated groups to precisely cut enemies off from one another, and its presence made the game far better, not worse. In fact, haphazardly applied CC was a *bad thing* because it gave enemies protection from it for what could be the entire rest of the fight!

I say all this because even though "you lost control of your character," the presence of these mechanics actually helped make the game feel *more* tactical and interesting, not less.

You have to rationalize a better reason than "loss of control = badwrong because no control =

" to justify game design. The goal behind good game design should be to invite interesting and meaningful choices. A series of unfavorable situations where the resultant player state is "lost control of their character" unironically describes death just as much as being crowd controlled. And as illustrated in many other games, including Dark Age of Camelot, the issues posed by the potential of crowd control can be the basis of very interesting and tactical choices in a game.

And that, after all, is what this is all about. Concocting a system where there are interesting choices to be made.

Percimes wrote: »

Sure, taunts have be a tanking tool for a long time, but it's still a lazy mechanic. A more active way of tanking in PvE would translate well into PvP. In a game with both PvE and PvP, the closer the mobs and players are treated, the less likely you are to have classes/specs that excel in one and suck in the other.

Honestly, I liked the way Warhammer Online handled it; taunting a player means the tank gets a damage bonus to that player for a short period of time, or until the taunted player hits the tank a couple times. Likewise, I enjoy the notion @Maciej posed; as a Tank attacks a target, he gains a buff that lets him deal more damage to that target; as he is attacked by that target, he loses the buffs that give him extra damage, roughly evening out to no damage bonus as long as the enemy target keeps his full attention on the Tank.

I'm personally always interested in ways to smooth that jarring gameplay jump from PvE to PvP effects. I don't like "PvE only" effects, because as others have mentioned, it creates a stronger divide between PvE and PvP, which should be avoided in AoC because one of its goals is to draw both types of players into a common world. The fewer gameplay differences there are between those worlds, the more readily and easily players will be able to engage with both sorts of content.

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