Tanking and Threat systems. Making it more than a simple aggro table.

Lash

Why are threat systems often removed from other MMOs? Personally I think it comes down to them being too simple without enough interactions. They do not get the design they need to be good and it leads players to disliking the system. I do not want to see Ashes fall into the same path of trying to make threat management a thing and then removing it when players do not like it.


A few basic issues I feel existing threat systems have.

-Tanking often comes down to dealing damage or using +threat abilities to hold threat/aggro
-DPS players do not like waiting to deal damage.
-Threat management is not interactive or is too binary.
-You learn almost nothing from dying to a miss pulled boss.


Tank players interacting with threat/aggro. Thinking about threat in a more logical way.

-To solve the issue of players not wanting to wait or not being willing to wait to deal damage I believe it should be easy for a tank to get initial threat/aggro. When you first pull, the mob would not be aware of what the biggest threat to it is so it would just hit the tank that is in its face. As a mob gets lower life it would reassess who is actually the biggest threat to it. Meaning a mob at 50% life would view dps players as a better target to hit than the tank.

-Would a mob know who to direct their anger towards if they step into a trap that it did not see anyone place? Is this mob even smart enough to realize what the healer is doing?

-Mobs with tendencies or weaknesses that cause changes in threat. For example a mob that particularly hates healers or one that dislikes fire damage. This would make it so not every scenario you face as a tank is the same. In some fights you would need to focus your attention on protecting the Healer while in others you might have to protect the mage.


Giving a tank the tools to manage the threat of their party.

-Like how a healer manages the health of their party, I believe a tank should manage the threat of their party. This would take a robust UI for displaying threat and skills to interact with it.

-The tank should know if a DPS/Healer is going to pull threat and be able to react to that happening with various skills. Examples listed below for how this could work.


Tanking abilities that are more interactive or interesting then a +threat mod on a damage ability.

-I feel there is a large design space around threat abilities that is not being utilized in many games. I feel these abilities should focus on protecting your team or tricking your foes into attacking you instead as a tank. Here are a few examples of abilities I think could work.

-Illusion ability
-At least one of the secondary archetypes might use some kind of illusions. It could be an interesting threat ability to simply make a target ally look like the tank to trick the mob. This would have dual purpose in that it might also have a use in PvP.

-Targeted Aoe threat reduction
-A more simple idea where you can drop a ground targeted circle under an ally that reduces their threat generation. This could be a nice ability that requires communication with your team. For example letting a dps know you have your ability up to save them so they can pop off on damage. As a ground targeted spell the ally would need more awareness to stay in the circle and the tank would need awareness to not waste it because the target has to move. A small damage reduction would give it some utility in PvP.

-Shield wall
-A magical shield wall that blocks projectiles and generates bonus threat for every attack blocked. This would serve as both a way to protect your team and it would encourage properly timing your ability to maximize threat generation.

-Redirecting healing
-An ability that absorbs the healing the tank is receiving and allows them to press the button again after a few seconds to release the stored healing. This gives you an overhealing interaction and gives the tank all the healing threat instead of the healer.

-Elemental conversion
-Allows the tank to temporarily convert allied elemental damage into a new type before the target takes the damage. This would give the tank some interaction with mob threat tendencies and weaknesses.

-Pocket sand
-Temporarily blind the target to make them not realize where attacks are coming from. Allies generate no threat while the target is blinded.



This is not to say that DPS should not have to manage threat in any way. There is room for communication that allows a tank to help the dps deal more damage instead of just pulling aggro and dying. Giving the tank the responsibility over the entire group while making the other players personally responsible for their threat I think is the best way to do a threat system. If you do not give the tank enough tools to interact with threat you might as well not even have the system in the game. This is also outside a CC system that would also help you manage threat in a more binary way,

What do you all think they should do with the tanking system. Do you have more ideas for abilities you might like to see? This is only my own opinion and I could be way off on what people would like.

McShave

I definitely agree that we need a more complex threat system than tanks just having +threat on abilities, and you have many good ideas in your post. I hope Intrepid reads and takes note.

I would like to see some way of threat generation that is not just based on how much damage you do. Maybe threat generation can be done by amount of damage mitigated/ evaded/ absorbed. We also know that tanks will be a more CC focused archetype, so maybe CC abilities can generate more threat than damage abilities.

I think there should be a note on boss fight complexity as well. Tank & Spank is always a bad boss fight design. I would like for casters to have to be careful when they use certain abilities, and melee have to be aware of their position.