To answer the main question here, I believe that their should be some room for both the traditional Main Tank, Main Tank and Off Tank scenarios and it would interesting to have in larger raid groups for PVE or the PVP sieges the use of 3 or more tanks.
I think that the smallest party should have its main tank obviously. I do play tank and I can say that really love that feeling of "grabbing all the aggro" and everything hitting me. Maybe I can't do much damage, but that feeling of jumping in and being surrounded by a mob or having the bosses attention is awesome. This is the main reason I would play tank. Makes me feel like I'm actually important to the party and its not something that DPS or heals can do like I see in some games where they blurr that line with other roles. I really think that a tank should be the role that grabs the aggro and manages it, controls the fight and positioning of the party and the mobs/bosses, mitigates damage and has mechanics and abilities that make it interesting along with the mobs/bosses that add some complexity and challenge to it.
As you get larger in party size, having fights that require a Main and Off tank is a mechanic that can be really fun. Maybe their are actually 2 bosses in the fight and they have to be positioned apart or together or in some specific orientation and you need two tanks to do this. There might be a mob along with the boss and both have to be tanked separately cause you just can't take that much damage. Maybe the ability of the boss puts debuffs on you and you get stacks and have to swap. Each tank are wanted for various spec reasons, maybe one takes more physical damage and the other can tolerate magic better and the fight mechanic is setup to work this way. There are plenty of fun ways that this is done and fun and I'm sure could be improved or expanded upon. This is what most tanks are likely used to and I think this should be present in the game.
Since AoC can have 8 variations of tank (that's how I interpret the Tank primary class, with its secondary) it could be interesting to see maybe 4-5 tanks in a 40 man or siege battle working together. Again, making fights require the coordination of multiple tanks. Certain fights the secondary class might provide a slight advantage over the others maybe making them the preferred main tank for some fights or phases within a fight that determine who should be main tanking at a certain point. Maybe its the abilities that come with that class combination that drives this or the mob/boss itself. If its a magic casting phase you need the Spell shield tank, if its pure physical you need the Guardian tank for example. Maybe having a certain number of tanks provides and additional group buff or something. In the PVP scenario, maybe when the tank is on the siege point it takes a bit longer to capture or players get a PVP buff of some kind. Lets say in a 250 player siege battle you have 20 tanks on your team. Maybe it takes 3 tanks on a point to provide that buff for all players on it and if another point is being attacked and only has 2 tanks, you need another tank to run over and get them the buff or something so that tanking feels useful in someway in large battles as a unique role other than just fighting.
I do feel like other tanks in the fight would work, but it is important that the tank class maintain a consistent structure to its traditional roots.
I wanted to add this as well for more of the arena kinda of battle for PVP:
There was a game mode in Rift that made tanks valuable in PVP. You had to pick up a Fang of Regulos in the Black Garden. One strategy that worked well was the tank would be the one to pick up the fang. The longer your team held the fang, you would gain points and win. The longer the fang was held, you would begin to take more and more damage. Eventually you will die holding it. However a beefy tank could hold on to this the longest. The team would focus on healing the tank up so they could hold it longer, and fight off the enemy's around him. This made tanks a very useful in this game mode.
I'm sure the design of some PVP fights large or small could incorporate this somehow and be made in such a way that tanks get some PVP love.
Honestly would prefer to move away from the static main tank off tank and see something more interesting where multiple tanks can be effective even more so with utility. It would make game play a lot more interesting than simple tank taunting being healed and DPS. Creating of dynamic encounters with a bit more push and pull will add more potential layers of difficulty as well as make battles feel a tad less monotonous in how you experience the general roll of combat for all players.
If you choose to have an classical Tank than he need his traditional role to fulfill.
But if you think about Threat/taunt skills they are unlogical and useless in pvp in many games.
because of that: how about making a Tank who simply can't Taunt / have no Aggro Skills at all? So there are no skills who didn't work in PVP as they do in PVE.
And now he must be an easy Damage Dealer who is easy to play so he gets aggro by pure Damage. Other classes should make just burst damage and so they can change positions and didn't stay in poisen/fire the whole fight because they get an healer in there Party .
Also he should have some Strong CC skills with a high cooldown. And some skils to protect our Partymember should be also there - Give someone a shield/resistenz against Damage.
But because he should not be overpowerd he need some downgrades:
They should be slow because of there heavy Armor and maybe can't dash like other classes. Also he need something like stamina - because they can't protect the whole day and get exausted.But a cleric could give him some holy spirit to stay lomger on the battlefield.
Something that hasn't been discussed much: Outside of boss/raid situations, how do tanks grind with less DPS?
How big is the Damage advantage that Damage classes have over their trinity counterparts? I ask because the grinding efficiency of DPS classes is the anchor in player's minds that they measure their grinding efficiency against - there are some unavoidable facts that make this messy:
DPS is generally proportional to grinding efficiency
This variation in DPS between damage classes versus tanks/healers * 40 days expected to hit cap = huge differences in how fast classes progress through the game via grinding
Is this aligned with Ashes' vision for how players progress through their game?
Given that grinding will be an essential gameplay element, even in "end-game" working off exp debt, it's something to pay careful attention to.
If unequal progression is intended, then ignore the rest of this post. Otherwise I want to explore design options that help tanks (and healers) keep up with DPS as they progress via grinding:
Option A: Give Tanks and Healers more DPS
Pros:
- Easy to implement, simple
- Easy to balance
Cons:
- Destroys role identity - when everyone is DPS, then nobody specializes in DPS
- Equivalent to nerfing DPS classes
- Encourages solo-play for all content until forced to party
- The balance between DPS advantage and equal grinding efficiency has a dissatisfying equilibrium point. Let me illustrate:
Imagine DPS only has 20% damage advantage over healers and tanks.
> That still translates to tanks/healers taking ~8 more days than DPS classes to hit max level. That's more than a week!
> And yet DPS having a mediocre 20% damage advantage over healers and tanks is hardly satisfying. Imagine a DPS trying to fight a healer? There's no way the DPS wins in this setup. There was a time when League of Legends went through what was named "the tank meta" where tanks were unkillable and tanks could kill everyone else. It was not fun.
Point is, there is no good middle ground here.
There was also a good suggestion in this thread that you could give tanks skills that allow them to switch from being defensive to offensive - but I'd argue that you're losing Tank identity by allowing them to essentially become Fighters at will.
Option B: Make parties the most efficient way to grind
Pros:
- socialization+++
- implies the world is dangerous alone
- room for class identity to shine
Cons:
- spaces that are not party-friendly become deserted
- less room for solo-play, which is needed to prevent social burnout
- complex to design
- not casual friendly
This is my personal favourite simply because the social potential is huge (especially territory claim, dungeon runs etc.) but I recognize that it has some pretty big flaws and puts a huge workload on game design.
Option C: boost Questing
Pros:
- equalizes the playing field (a little - Damage classes still finish quests faster)
- easy to balance
- adds variety to gameplay (kill a bit, talk to npc's a bit, explore a bit, etc.)
- casual friendly
Cons:
- reduces socialization
- limited opportunity to express class identity
- will run out of ideas for inspiring quests - fetch-quest galore is inevitable
- linear - easy for players to optimize, not very interesting the second time
Questing is hard to do well. Especially in MMOs. Please don't over-milk your quest designers, they'll run out of good ideas and we'll all be sad. I'm personally not a fan of growing from talking to NPCs.
Option conditional Bonuses for Tanks/Healers while grinding
Pros:
- preserves role distinction
- easy to balance
Cons:
- artificial solution (but I have some suggestions for an emergent solution below)
- can complicate quest progression
- needs extra design work to mark the conditions for the bonus to apply
I've seen a few games that give healers a passive "+20% bonus exp/drop from killing non-bosses", League of Legends has a few support/jungle-only items that help them keep up with the rest of their team - but these implementations are quite artificial in nature and get tweaked all the time. But there are more emergent solutions:
Enemies who get cc'd by tanks become vulnerable, so they take more damage - allowing tanks to do more damage. This has extra design bonuses: incentive to party up if others can take advantage of vulnerability, creates an extra dimension for mob design because you can play with the level of tolerance that mobs have to different types of cc.
Give healers stronger AoE abilities, but weaker single-target abilities. This lets them keep up in dps if they grind multiple enemies at once, but AoE is less effective against single targets (i.e. bosses) - here Damage classes can shine.
Basically, I think this last option is about finding a way to reward classes for performance within their class identity - instead of just their DPS.
I would suggest to not have a specific tank role but certain support roles (Heal/DM/CC/Buff/Debuff/…) should be able to help the group managing the encounter, which could also mean that someone is acting in a more tank like role without limiting the system. This could also help in pvp as the respective support roles could make the first line of defense more durable no matter who is positioned there.
The mechanics for who gets attacked should be dependent on the enemy you fight. Wild animals should act different than for example a demon and the group should need to react to that.
For example a wild animal might attack the nearest player until it realizes that another player is the one that hurts him most and then try to charge to that player. This might be stopped by another player blocking the path (with buffs so he can survive the charge), a force field, traps or other CC effects. While a demon might be quick to understand who is the most dangerous and vulnerable player which he could attack by teleporting next to him which would need a different kind of reaction from the group.
But i did not think this through so might be a bad idea in the end…
Dev Discussion - Tank Participation
Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles, or would you prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting?
In summary: An off-tank has a toolset that allows them to fill several roles that, that when taken individually are not the best in slot, but when taken as a total toolset are capable of full-filling their role better than anyone else.
Their toolset would include:
1.) Superb burst duration damage mitigation
2.)The ability to peel hate by combining many mechanics/toolset options
3.)The ability to manage a secondary objective for a brief duration of time.
The role of an off-tank is to be able to provide meaningful impact to the party without outshining a specialist in that role. This means that an off-tank should be able to do some version of at least one of the following as well as full-filling the above: provide solid dps (but not as much as a specialist), provide solid healing (but not as much as a specialist), provide solid cc (but not as much as a specialist), provide solid party buffs (but not as much as a specialist).
Regarding main tank roles and directly to your question, yes - I would prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting. The best visual I can give of what I could only hope for would be the way the anime Log Horizon depicts their tanks and their tanking toolsets/styles as well as how they are used in both PVP and PVE. They show and use 3/4 tank types (paladin,guardian,monk,samurai), both in small party, raid, and pvp situations. In particular their raid episodes really shows how cooperative and coordinated of an experience I desire and it shows the range of possibilities for tanking styles.
The best tanking experiences I have to date have been in games where raids and parties must decide what type of tank is best for each scenario. Different types of mitigation (absorption, evasion, reflection, recovery,blocking,etc) coupled with different hate/aggro, party protection, and CC mechanics for each type of tank really bring to life limitless possibilities. I would like to experience encounters where multiple types of tanks need to work together and layer their potential to achieve the best result.
I would also like a system where the concept of a rotation doesn't exist for tanks outside of an opening move to solidify the attention of a mob. Both pro-active as well as reactionary skills like shield bashes, covers, walls, elemental damage absorbtion, etc. that have great impact but also consequences for poor timing or poor usage are important to me for tanks to have.
Regarding PvP one thing I loved about archeage was how as a skullknight I was able to literally dive into a group of players, aoe CC them, and draw their attention long enough for the rest of my party to engage and do some serious work. Most other mmo's didn't give this type of flexibility to their pvp tank toolsets.
In Log Horizon, a PvP tank mechanic they used that I thought would be super cool to have implemented in some way was that the tank aggro mechanic did not auto-lock an enemy onto the tank; however, if during it's aggro duration the enemy players chose to attack someone OTHER than the tank, they took heavy damage for choosing a different target.
For me the tradition approach is better, max 2 tanks in raids, in group one tank is enough, there are not lot of people want to play tank, so main and off tank maximum if we talk about PVE. Personally i don't see any reason to have multiple tanks, it will be only harder to find a tanks, and with 8 people group why to have more than one.
In pvp i will let on "commander"/party leader to choice, if the want to have strong front line or back line, maybe i will limit tanks in arenas or bgs, let say arena 1 tank maximum and bg 2? not sure, but definitely there need to be limit
Open world no limits.
But please, i like to play tank, but im pvp player, and often tank are not required in pvp or there are no spot for him, only to carry a flag, i would like to have functionality in pvp, as other said, engage, cc, damage mitigation, something that will create tank useful in pvp, not to be only meat shield. With this i will not need to create pvp alt or tank alt, because i love PVP and i love tanking, but often in all game si played, you cannot be both, you will need another char or completely different set and talents.
For example, add him some shouts that will buff other melees, or some shield that will protect from ranged attack, so you can strategically get near your enemies better, create some types of deflects, so you can shot the spell back to the caster, definitely tank need to have cc and engage and dmg too, because often tanks are ignored totally, because there is no reason to kill them as they are meaty and do zero dmg or cc.
Second thing, please make tank action specific, dodge roll, use block when needed, no passive block, so you will need to have stamina to block incoming big attack, or ranged spells/arrows, this is the best for tanks, as you will interact more than sitting afk on one spot smashing aggro spells, active block (lets say with right mouse button) is best thing for me for tanks, so you not rely on the RNG, but you rely on you skill in blocking and dodging attacks.
Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles, or would you prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting?
I prefer non-traditional. I have enjoyed the non-traditional tank games more. In ArcheAge, the tank was a mage, and the off tank was a high-damage AoE mage. The PvE in that game was abysmal, and I'm unsure if it would even be relevant besides the world boss fights. Guild Wars 1 had many non-traditional tank classes. I loved the 600 monk, or the Ranger/Assassin farming builds. The problem with non-traditional tank games is that plate seems to be useless. Paragons and Warriors in Guild Wars 1 were among the least played classes because they were awful compared to others.
Maybe I would prefer traditional after thinking about it.
I tend to like the idea of a Main Tank and Off-Tank or multiple off-tanks. Though I do like this Idea brought up by Lashing about how Bosses might make some intelligent decisions about who they might prioritize, giving my own example of like a Tree boss wanting to put out the guy casting fire.
I would also love to see situations where you could us a Mage Tank or one of these other tank secondary's, but I have no idea how that will go.
To answer the original question though, I think having both "Traditional Tanking" and "Several Tanking" would be really cool, and perhaps it would have to just depend on what creature(s) you're facing. I would expect most single Big Bosses would just focus on having a Main tank and swapping after you take too many sunders or whatever, but having tanks to round up tons of spawning minions.
Having to have 8 Tanks was a stretch in Vanilla Naxx, most of the time people switched not because they wanted to but because we Had to have 8. 3-4 seems like a sweet spot as far as I can tell, but at the same time I think having different requirements is what spices the world up. As painful as it was to get 8 in Naxx, it was infamous, and it's burned in everyone's brains and long term I see that as a good thing, though you probably don't want most fights to be like that.
I'm also the guy who played a Shaman Tank in Vanilla all the way into 60, I loved the non optimal BattleMage(Enhance/Ele Shaman Hybrid who could toss on a shiled and be tanky) Where I could tank all 60 dungeons (some were rough cuz of silence and stuns), just Corehounds in MC, Some of the AQ40 trash. -- What im getting at is that I never cared to be Main Tank, but I liked these niche offtank situations
If character that chose tank class or archetype would be bigger and can collide with other npc and players so nobody could just go through them wouldn't that be better?
And it would be easier for healers to target them.
Question was about tank participation. Participation in what?
Generally its nice to tank being more active role. Tanks should also have some flexibility to be DPS and some DPS can vice versa. Its not good, if you are too dependent on "main tanks". Maybe sometimes can stack off tanks when lacking main tank? And ofc there is shield wall dream, to make makeshift cover for cone attack or choke point in PVP.
But overall participation in game. Tanks are mitigators, initiators, disruptors. From mechanic blocking in raid encounter to initiating in PVP situation to CC enemies. Maybe you can block enemy cannon ball that is landing top of your ships deck! It would be nice that game tracks participation while doing these things.
In EVE Online, for PVP, game tracked things that didn't do actual damage, like electronic warfare. If some systems track contribution/participation, it would be good, if it tracks also non damaging actions. This could also be used for ie. healing classes.
In my humble opinion, regarding the pve I think there should be at most 2 or 3 tanks, because most people do not like this role and to build a group, especially the dps are going to have to go through many inconveniences , as already happens in other mmorpg.
In the pvp section, well, regarding the number of tanks per group, I think that just a few should be enough due to the same reason as in pve content, they should undoubtedly have a lot of cc in area to do engage, and maybe combine some archetype with group protection although not all support classes have it or in the worst case, if none have it
Tanks are the most critical job in a party. I've seen bad tanks wipe great parties, and good tanks clear hard content with bad parties. No other job has the same level of sway over a party. But tanks get screwed over when it comes to leveling and open world content. So will tanks even have a job earlier game? Level 1 to level 30? Or will "tanks" make dps builds and rush to end game to play their class? I'd much prefer to play a tank from level 1 to max if it was viable.
There's always a shortage of tanks, and I'm sick of seeing people selling "services" as a tank/heal, or whatever. The balance of progression needs to be somewhat equal, between open world and dungeons. In terms of wealth, item, exp progression. Or you'll see tanks selling services in LFG because it'll be the only way they can make coin. So it's hard to say what their role should be without knowing other systems. One way to combat a tank shortage is to have more viable tanks, but then what do those tanks do in raids?
A few ideas:
1. A meat shield tank, could be your MT, backed up by a secondary meat shield tank. Then you could have guard tanks, that pull threat from casters/heals and either soak the damage or bring it back to the MT/OT.
2. There could be a CC style tank that maybe applies stuns, or grapples, but I don't think this would be that viable, since you have casters and other support classes that would be much better at cc, or at least should be in most cases.
3. Tempest Tank. A tank that absorbs magical damage for power, like a lightning rod. You could have this tank produce AOE shields and protect the party from types of damage. Ex. The Tempest Tank, pops an ability that allows it absorb a magical attack, and the result of that is a magical dome like barrier that shields the party from a meteor storm cast by the enemy. The issue is what do they do when they're not doing that, and what does the MT do during this time? To many tanks can mean to few tasks for the tanks, which makes idle time, and is boring to most tank players.
4. Tanks that absorb health from enemies, or even allies is a fun thing. Like death/dark/blood knights. Kind of useless against undead though if you're trying to match lore and mechanics.
conclusion:
I'd prefer a traditional role for tanks, but am open to new ideas if they fix the issues with the traditional tanks. So I would like to see some new tank styles, but not 7 new ones. Watching 10 tanks run around in a raid will be chaos, and probably won't be fun, but if it is fun, then it works. A good balance would be keep ratio of tanks needed for raids (at least most raids) the same as it is for parties. If you need one tank in a 5 man party then, plan for 8 tanks for a 40 man raid. I'm more partial to 6 man dungeons and 30 man raids, I think that ratio is better balanced and leaves more room for flexibility.
1. "Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles"
The traditional role of tanks getting mobs' attention, positioning their selves and the mob, and trying to mitigate damage I think is definitely something that works and should stay. However I think the threat system is outdated.
#THE OLD THREAT SYSTEM
I was just running Black Temple in classic Wow last night and I made the mistake of doing too much damage too quick and pulled threat and died. The next attempt I just waited to do damage and it corrected the problem and threat pretty much meant nothing the rest of the fight. This really isn't that interesting of a system as the way to "correct it" was just for me as a dps to sit around and wait, and if the tank gets far enough ahead then the mechanic is just ignored the rest of the fight.
I think the tanks mechanics should be closer to actively keeping up a Debuff rotation and removing the old threat system. Let mobs target players randomly or instinctually for set periods of time instead of the best healers/dps being punished for doing their jobs as well as they possibly can, which just seems like an unfortunate byproduct of the old threat system.
#NEW THREAT SYSTEM
When a tank engages a fight, they should start what I would call the "Debuff Rotation" similar to a dps rotation. As long as this Debuff Rotation is kept up, the mob will target the tank. And if multiple tanks are working in debuff rotations, the boss can randomly or instinctually target different tanks for set periods of time so their wouldn't be a need for a "Main Tank".
An obvious issue with this would be its simplicity by itself, I run my rotation and move around, yada yada. HOWEVER, this would be paired with the new active blocking mechanic that Ashes has. Actively blocking certain mob skills while keeping rotations up can add a depth that was missing before, so let me give an example.
#EXAMPLE
I am a Tank/Rogue, so a Nightshield and I engage a fight. I start with my basic tank ability Anchor Howl (30 second cooldown) which causes the target/s to take reflective damage when attacking units other then myself (which works great in pvp too). This is considered a threat ability and for a mob to attack a target that would reflect its own damage would be the wrong move, so it targets the tank. This lasts for 5-10 seconds. During this time I begin my debuff rotation, stacking the ability called Tarnish that reduces damage done by 1% per stack. Now because of my Rogue augment, Tarnish instead called Lacerate increases poison damage taken by 2% per stack helping my fellow Rogues do more damage and allowing a different tank to stack Tarnish. The debuff every time its applied will stay on for 5 seconds unless the next stack is applied. When Lacerate hits 5 stacks it jumps to 20% poison damage increase for 15 seconds, (which means your poison damage dealers should be coordinating certain abilities with their tanks), and then it falls off and can't be reapplied for 5 seconds. This means debuffs last for 35 seconds at max length. When this happens is when anchor howl should be reapplied, however if you stacked your debuffs too fast, anchor howl would not be off cooldown yet meaning that timing is key. This gives tanks a chance to weave in other abilities and blocks in between stacking debuffs. This is a basic rotation that coordinates some fun with the dps too. However, during all this the Tank with be actively blocking certain attacks that can break the rotation or remove the debuff. The mobs have telegraphed attacks with silences, stuns, and self cleanses that would need to be blocked or stunned. Otherwise this would stop the tank from stacking debuffs making them fall off and lose aggro.
2. "Prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting"
Having extra tanks shouldn't feel like a detriment to the group and here are 2 examples of combating that feeling. Debuffs and splitting damage.
#TANK DEBUFFS
In my example above, having different augments for tanks could help increase the amount of types debuffs the mobs will have on them. I mentioned a Nightshield debuffing the mob to take increased posion damage. Well you could also have a spellshield increasing magic damage taken by the mobs and a Dreadnaught decreasing the damage the mobs are outputting. In this case, this can increase the overall damage and survivability of the group even if the tank itself is not making up for the missing DPS.
#SPLITTING DAMAGE
The other way is splitting damage. As shown in the recent combat showcase, as you swipe your weapon, you hit mobs in an arc, which is how mobs should attack back. However, their damage shouldn't be consistent, it should split itself amongst the targets. If 1 tank is there, a swipe does 2k damage to the tank. If 2 tanks are there, each would take a reduced amount like 1200 per swipe. Having multiple tanks absorbing damage can help with overhealing just 1 target and reduce the chance of a tank getting 1 shot. Of course the mob will still have a direct threat target that will get hit by more single target attacks but the basic attack and aoe damage can be spread out.
This mix of allowing more debuffs on the target and splitting damage making it easier for healers and would never make it feel like having extra tanks is ever a bad thing and makes all the tanks feel more useful whether there's 1 mob or 100. This is a true definition of a "SHIELD WALL"
#CONCLUSION
These are just some concepts that I think would make tanks feel more special and keep the old aspect while creating a whole new dynamic. A Tank meta would be super gone at this point because the more variety of tanks you have the more the group/raid benefits!
I have mostly played wow, and dabbled in a few other MMO's but I feel from my experience Tanking feels better when it is played as a reactive support. I think the harpoon pull is a great example of a good tank build, as tanks need to control position of enemies and themselves.
When it comes to tanking I like having a main tank and off tank but what I would like to see is tank versatility. Mage tanks who mitigate aoe damage, mobile Tanks who primarily hold threat and reduce damage by their position, or use of damage reduction while moving. Kite tanks who primarily control the aggro but at a distance to avoid damage. I think tanking can be made enjoyable by giving it high versatility. For instance when deathknights came out in wow, any spec could tank or dps, but they all filled different roles, they had access to high miditgation and healing, as well as aoe damage reduction with anti-magic zone. Wow has seen mage and warlock tanks as well through shields and regeneration. I think encounters can be fun if the approach to tanking builds off of some viable synergistic tanks with unique mechanics. Perhaps the main tank for the raid needs to be a magic damage tank, or perhaps the offtank needs to be a mobile tank. The main think I hope we don't end up having is that the defacto main tank is the thing everyone throws at every encounter. I would really enjoy having a more flexible approach to how tanks fulfill the main and off tank roles rather than try to remove or limit the system.
I think the question could use some context and specifics, because I think the intent was to ask if players would prefer to have alternative group compositions with more than 1-2 tanks, but without an example of how that would look like in a typical PvE scenario, we can't really imagine. Would the aggro system(if any) be designed in a way to only let a few mobs be held per tank, and that would require more of them?
I think the required number should scale with encounter size, but have some leeway to not have a raid wait on 'exactly 2 more off-tanks' missing else they would wipe.
But since everybody already derailed that conversation to talk about the Tank archetype anyway, let me chime in as well, because the way the Tank will be handled particularly when it comes to larger scale PvP like sieges, will make or break the game for me, and the abilities so far have me concerned. No doubt, there will be new abilities, and existing ones will be shuffled around or even removed, but the current kit did give me a sense of the direction, and I have to say, I can't agree with it, at least, when it comes to PvP. The kit seems like it's only focused on small-scale encounters(if at that), that would break with 20+ people during (for example) a siege. I mean most of them right now are just damage dealing abilities...? Why?
I got the feeling that when a proper kit is ready, it's going to be focused on abilities centered around CC to keep DPS off from the squishies. This is fine, but not enough. A few considerations:
- The game should be designed in a way that incentivizes the enemy(player) to choose to hit the tank - for whatever reason: Break out of a root, break a powerful buff/debuff, etc.
When the enemy sees you have a shield, they will assume you are no threat, and try to avoid you, if there is no incentive to hit the tank, they will just focus on offensive stats. If the kit centers around CC, protective stats most likely won't affect the effectiveness of them either, so again, it sends the message to focus on offense. With tanks, the game should promote going at least a bit defensive, and since you don't have aggro in PvP, you have to find ways to make players want to attack you.
An easy way is with powerful buffs/debuffs that break if the affected enemy hits the tank with direct targeted attacks.
Say you root the enemy in melee range, it lasts 6 sec, but if you hit the tank 3 times, it breaks.
Say you have a 'Taunt' ability that increases the damage done by the tank on the target by 50% for 10 sec, but is broken after 5 direct attacks against the tank.
Say you have an AoE 'Challange' ability that affects every enemy in front of you and causes 50% damage reduction for 10 sec, but is broken after 8 hits(either per enemy based or collective). Bonus if the damage reduction is only applied to allies, NOT the tank themselves.
If there are any active buffs/debuffs of such kind, the game needs clear visuals both for the tank and enemy, so they know how the buffs can be broken.
- You also need abilities to redirect damage onto the tank, not (just) to mitigate, but to redirect the damage caused to allies.
This incentivizes tanks to choose protective stats, to mitigate the indirect damage coming toward them. This is the easiest way to have tanks be viable in PvP.
An example of why this is a must: You have an allied melee DPS. They will voluntarily put themselves in harms way, they are melee, duh. Pulling off the enemy from them, slowing them down, or knocking them back is useless, the only way to help them is if the tank can reduce the damage done to them. CC does not help.
Say you have a single target 'Guard' ability that creates a bond between an allied player and the tank, and 50% of the damage done to the ally is redirected to the tank, if they are within a certain range.
You need a visual indicator between the tank and the guarded player, preferably visible to everyone. For enemies it is useful, because it tells them to try and separate the two players, and for allies it tells them that the guarded player needs less attention, and the tank guarding is busy.
- When it comes to large-scale PvP, the game should also be designed in a way to help tanks create and maintain some semblance of structure - tanks in the front, rest in the back.
Body blocking is a must. Tank line preventing enemy from getting to the back, especially when needing to enter a narrow gateway - like in a siege. The enemy should not be able jump, dash, blink, dodge, whatever past them, however, knockback, knockdowns to break the line should be fair game.
Multiple consecutive dashes as seen in the streams have to go. Flashy, fun as hell, likely only there for stream purposes, but know this: If those dashes remain, sieges will turn into unmanageable chaos, 100%. Might as well have 0 CD on pulls too to counter it, not ideal either...
An elegant example of the benefits a maintained structure could enable:
Say holding up the shield for active blocking would not just protect the tank, but provide protective bonuses for anyone behind them in a cone. Now you are not only protecting yourself, the line, but also protecting those in the back from the enemy ranged DPS. You could call the bonus 'Hold the line'.
All of this just promotes organized teamplay, something that lacks in today's MMOs IMO...
These are the principles IMO that are needed to be considered very early on when making the kits and design the combat to have a robust PvP system, if you have these, you can tweak it to be PvE compatible, but if PvE is a focus like in WoW for example where warriors only play as DPS in PvP, then I don't think large scale PvP will have a future...
Since there are 64 classes, you can choose to diversify some or all of these abilities between the subclasses, like:
Tank/Fighter(Knight): Taunt that gives a damage bonus as long as the enemy doesn't hit them x times
Tank/Cleric(Paladin): Challange that reduces damage done to allies in a radius until tank is hit x times
Tank/Rogue(Nightshield): Taunt that reduces damage by the target enemy until tank is hit x times
Tank/Tank(Guardian): Active block reduces damage done to allies behind the tank in a cone
Tank/Bard(Argent): Damage is split between target ally and the tank if range between them is less than X
Keen-eyed readers might recognize the abilities brought up in the examples, but I don't want to name the game, partly because I don't want people to think I want to copy it. I mentioned those because they work. If Intrepid has other ideas, that's good, I just fear they are not taking large-scale PvP into consideration.
Things like that one ability that makes the tank invulnerable for x sec? That just screams "get off me", quite the opposite of what a tank's role should be: Have the enemy hit the tank at all times, and rely on your own mitigation, and the healers behind you.
I apologize if this has already been discussed and voted on, but I think it should be said if that is not the case.
I think the class title "Tank" needs to be changed.
["From a tank perspective, why did I name the tank "tank"? There's a few reasons: One is that there are obviously elements of the tank role that could be considered as different types of names like, Guardian or Steward or whatever. There's things that you could do that but I feel like tank as a vernacular has become embedded within MMO/fantasy players and they use it interchangeably even if the class name was like Guardian or whatever. I feel even though in that scenario players would still refer to it as a tank like in normal conversation with each other, "Oh we need a tank for this fight."[7] – Steven Sharif"]
I don't believe that because a class will be referred to as something(in this case "Tank") is a reason to call it such. The same could be true for the "Cleric" to just be called "Healer".
You are correct when you say that people will refer to whichever class name as a tank, but you are breaking the 4th wall of the game by including this vernacular essentially as a part of the lore.
How would this be roleplayed?
Tank says -"I'm a tank"
Cleric responds - "A tank of what? Ale?"
Just because the MMO community understands the simple fact that whatever you call your class will be referred to as a tank does not mean you should just bypass that.
Just call them defender or something that the community can agree upon that isn't also an action and archetype.
I like the idea of traditional tank roles, where a tank does almost no dmg and his only task is to literally tank.
But that only works if the dmg is provided by a dd that the other way around is only responsible for the dmg in that composition.
I e.g. would like to play with friends frequently, but they dont like to deal with such a big game and are in general no big fans of the mmorpg genre.
So i play solo a lot but still love the pvp. therefore i would like to be able to fight for my own regardless of the class i chose.
The perfect combat means to me being able to handle 1v2, if not even 1v3 situations in case you are a very skilled player (reaction, kiting based, etc.)
In my opinion it should be possible for healers and tanks to survive a 1v2 or even have killpressure, as long as they are being engaged and play well (defensive)
Regarding chasing, both classes shouldnt be able to chase someone down since they chose supportive classes.
Assasins or dd should be able to win a 1v2 by playing agressively and also being able to take down an enemy by chasing due to higher mobility or less weight.
In regards of a defensive combat, they shouldnt be able to have any kill pressure and also shouldnt be able to survive that way, because they are not supposed to tank or heal.
If you like neither play styles then go for a mix (bruiser/paladin e.g.)!
it combines both advantages and disadvantages from either traditional classes but having both extremes (only agressive / only defensive) balanced.
Every class should be able to have a kill pressure by its own if played with a certain playstyle.
Also to give solo players more support being outnumbered, you could add a small buff for the single player or a small debuff to the multiplayers.
Kinda late to the party I've been so busy this month but my 2cents on Tanking is, as long as it's more active then just click an ability to grab attention. What I mean by more active is more active in protecting the group, weather it's area shielding/blocking projectiles, bouncing to a group member to help them out in some fashion by either granting a buff or absorbing some of the incoming damage on them etc.
Another thing which I know has been mentioned before is that everything a tank has needs to be considered in PVP, even a basic taunt skill (if one is included) needs to have a PVP use, this can be anything from cutting damage the taunted target does to anyone else other then someone who taunted them, or something else that incentivizes another player to target the tank rather then others.
I really enjoyed PVP tanking on ESO. What I worry about most is that in large scale pvp, tanks will just get blown up due to them being the initial push onto enemy positions. They need to be have the options to be durable enough (with certain gear setups and talents) to withstand 20 players hitting them at once. Obviously this comes with trade offs to dmg and cc durations. Some of the best moments I witnessed in ESO was tanks sustaining through upwards of 30 players of damage, to disrupt enemies it what little ways they could.
I really enjoyed PVP tanking on ESO. What I worry about most is that in large scale pvp, tanks will just get blown up due to them being the initial push onto enemy positions. They need to be have the options to be durable enough (with certain gear setups and talents) to withstand 20 players hitting them at once. Obviously this comes with trade offs to dmg and cc durations. Some of the best moments I witnessed in ESO was tanks sustaining through upwards of 30 players of damage, to disrupt enemies it what little ways they could.
Hmm I'm not so sure having a single tank be able to pull that off solo a great thing, probably better if that is a combination effort or even better if we are talking large scale maybe some sort of tank group ability where you combine 4+ tanks to create a "phalanx" or whatever name you want to use that gives them more durability while nearby each other.
I come primarily from WoW and played a Protection Paladin for a long time. I think fundamentally and historically tanking has been exceptionally easy and boring. After reading the user Lashing's long post, I actually think tanking should be more of a support role, rather than one specifically in the face of the enemy generating threat all of the time.
If the tank had abilities like the warrior's 'intervene' to quickly rush to allies in response to boss interaction, along with utility abilities to help mitigate all threat or bolster that particular party member's defensive stats temporarily, or even redirect some portion of damage to themselves (again targeted abilities that require thought, timing, and precision) this would go a long way to making tanking interesting.
I think this type of setup requires that boss fights aren't so 2-dimensional. It shouldn't be a matter of who has more threat and building a class that's easily able to generate more threat than other classes. It should be about mechanical interaction - do something that forces the bosses to target you, or react to changing situations in which the boss WANTS to target particular players and the tank role is designed to protect that player (getting between the boss and player or mitigation skills and the like) rather than specifically hitting the boss. While I do believe that the role of tank should be a player in heavy plate armor and able to take hits better than anyone else, I also think it needs to be SKILL based, and not just face-tanking and taunting. If New World did one thing right, I think it's that tanking did not mean standing in the AoE and easily absorbing it. You still had to dodge most of the attacks and NOT put undue strain on healing. Just because a class is beefy doesn't mean they should be unafraid of incoming damage.
While I think a tank class should still be interested in hitting mobs, and there's always a place for things like 'taunt' I really don't want to see tanking be left to the role of "spam taunt on cooldown and aoe the mobs hard enough to keep threat" like every other game.
Tanking as a role is important but somehow always some of the most shallow gameplay there is to experience. Even classically in WoW, you'd stand in a corner holding agro literally unable to see anything because your camera was jammed into the ground or wall and there was no way to view what's going on but it didn't matter. Your experience of the mechanics and fight were absolute boredom. Later iterations and expansions did improve this, but it all really came back to the same principal of taunt and drag the boss to the right spot.
TLDR: Make tanking more about interacting with your party via skills and mitigation rather than taunting, dragging, and mindlessly spamming threat.
Since my initial input was long, and I've caught up on reading a lot of thoughts I want to echo and summarize points many people are saying and that I agree with:
People seem to favor a mix of traditional and non-traditional roles depending on context.
Tanks need to be able to successfully inititate encounters in pvp and pve.
Tanks should need to work to keep the aggro - whether a hate decay system, party assistance, or something else.
Tanking should not rely on a rotation, instead they should have lots of reactionary abilities ranging from cc to additional damage mitigation or soaking/redirecting damage to themselves from allies.
There needs to be a impactful reason for tanks in PVP.
Tank Aggro tools used in PvE need to feel impactful and necessary in PvP.
Raid encounters with multiple tanks and various types of tanks is ideal, but no one wants 8 tanks in a raid.
Various content that allows different spec tanks to excel in a way that makes them desireable and weakens the idea of meta build seems to be desired.
Edit: Blanking this comment in favor of everything that was discussed during office hours. We have a great community of tanks here and I really agree with some of the ideas put forth
I used to tank in lineage2 and while it is very straightforward, I still kinda love the concept of it and the differences tanks had in L2.
If anyone remembers Shillen templars and Pheonix knights had offensive party wide buff, in the meantime Eva's templar if I recall right had party wide heals instead, then all of the tanks had party wide defense buffs and much more utility.
My take out of that Tanks shouldn't be just simple punch bags for bosses, but more of a tough to kill utility class aka `Protector` which could react to the situation.
Simple examples: jumping to injured ally and reducing his damage taken/blocking next few attacks or abilities.
I believe such reactionary playstyle would fit way more with the action combat playstyle.
Dev Discussion - Tank Participation
Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles, or would you prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting?
In PvE I would prefer traditional MMORPG tanks: players who deal less damage, have high health and need healers to help them survive.
In PvP, to make them act as tanks, they should be able to absorb most damage done to their team members.
Both these cases can be seen as the tank increases his health pool and becomes a shared buffer health to the entire team. An attunement factor between the tank and the rest of the members could influence how much heath he can build up or absorb when other members take damage.
That attunement could be greater when players are bound to a common special guild crystal. Guilds should research that perk.
And could be increased by support classes: bards or mages.
Maintaining high attunement level during the fight could also be an important mechanic. Or destroying enemy team attunement.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
PVE - Traditional aggro, and crowd control, defence buffs for the raid/party. Main tanks shouldn't do DPS in raids/dungeons.
PVP - Based on the build chosen by the player. Either an indestructible beefy boy with low damage output, or a damage dealer with 20-30% more armor, but 20-30% less damage output than a pure DPS build. Paired with good crowd control skills, and support defensive buffs.
I would love to see variations of both in different dungeons for different bosses.
But there is a caveat here, like all MMOs ashes will probably have a tank shortage compared to DPS roles. I feel like having only one archetype that will be capable of tanking will only make this problem worse. So having content that require 3-5 tanks to work through would be very difficult to even get a party together for.
I feel that ashes could benefit greatly from opening up different class combinations to have the ability to shift roles, rather than have roles predetermined by your primary archetype alone. Maybe if a fighter/tank, mage/tank, or summoner/tank were capable of filling in those roles that multi tank content would be more feasible.
I've asked about it multiple times with no real definitive answer, but I get waiting until A2 to learn more about classes and augments first.
This ^
I'm in this exact same boat too, have asked previously multiple times with no real answer, but as you say, maybe they haven't been ready/able/willing to discuss & decide before this. So hopefully the fact that they're asking means that now is the right time to discuss & that they'll make a decision on this soon and tell us.
I really, REALLY hope they think through tank scarcity. I've played SOOO many MMO's that haven't, and it's been a huge pain in those games. This isn't a new problem to solve, there are many solutions out there.
I would honestly most love it to be as you say, that x/tank classes could off-tank. This would still mean that tank/x classes would be better & more desirable for group content, and near-mandatory (if not actually mandatory) for raid content, but that groups weren't entirely screwed by only 1 in 8 being able to tank.
Plus it would mean that if any player did want their x/tank character to be able to off-tank, they'd still need to have a build/spec/gearset/hotbars and actually know how to play it, in order to do that.
Not to poke the bear even more on this one... But the fact that this needs clarification should point out that it's not a good nomenclature choice for the archetype. 😆
Hehe yes, precisely. Please Intrepid, please, for the love of god, change the name ! Champion, Guardian, Vanguard, Bastion, there's lots of names that would work just fine, but not Tank ... that just makes the game sound silly & cheap.
Nice post SirChancelot, I feel like you really get it :-)
Thanks
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way
Comments
I think that the smallest party should have its main tank obviously. I do play tank and I can say that really love that feeling of "grabbing all the aggro" and everything hitting me. Maybe I can't do much damage, but that feeling of jumping in and being surrounded by a mob or having the bosses attention is awesome. This is the main reason I would play tank. Makes me feel like I'm actually important to the party and its not something that DPS or heals can do like I see in some games where they blurr that line with other roles. I really think that a tank should be the role that grabs the aggro and manages it, controls the fight and positioning of the party and the mobs/bosses, mitigates damage and has mechanics and abilities that make it interesting along with the mobs/bosses that add some complexity and challenge to it.
As you get larger in party size, having fights that require a Main and Off tank is a mechanic that can be really fun. Maybe their are actually 2 bosses in the fight and they have to be positioned apart or together or in some specific orientation and you need two tanks to do this. There might be a mob along with the boss and both have to be tanked separately cause you just can't take that much damage. Maybe the ability of the boss puts debuffs on you and you get stacks and have to swap. Each tank are wanted for various spec reasons, maybe one takes more physical damage and the other can tolerate magic better and the fight mechanic is setup to work this way. There are plenty of fun ways that this is done and fun and I'm sure could be improved or expanded upon. This is what most tanks are likely used to and I think this should be present in the game.
Since AoC can have 8 variations of tank (that's how I interpret the Tank primary class, with its secondary) it could be interesting to see maybe 4-5 tanks in a 40 man or siege battle working together. Again, making fights require the coordination of multiple tanks. Certain fights the secondary class might provide a slight advantage over the others maybe making them the preferred main tank for some fights or phases within a fight that determine who should be main tanking at a certain point. Maybe its the abilities that come with that class combination that drives this or the mob/boss itself. If its a magic casting phase you need the Spell shield tank, if its pure physical you need the Guardian tank for example. Maybe having a certain number of tanks provides and additional group buff or something. In the PVP scenario, maybe when the tank is on the siege point it takes a bit longer to capture or players get a PVP buff of some kind. Lets say in a 250 player siege battle you have 20 tanks on your team. Maybe it takes 3 tanks on a point to provide that buff for all players on it and if another point is being attacked and only has 2 tanks, you need another tank to run over and get them the buff or something so that tanking feels useful in someway in large battles as a unique role other than just fighting.
I do feel like other tanks in the fight would work, but it is important that the tank class maintain a consistent structure to its traditional roots.
I wanted to add this as well for more of the arena kinda of battle for PVP:
There was a game mode in Rift that made tanks valuable in PVP. You had to pick up a Fang of Regulos in the Black Garden. One strategy that worked well was the tank would be the one to pick up the fang. The longer your team held the fang, you would gain points and win. The longer the fang was held, you would begin to take more and more damage. Eventually you will die holding it. However a beefy tank could hold on to this the longest. The team would focus on healing the tank up so they could hold it longer, and fight off the enemy's around him. This made tanks a very useful in this game mode.
I'm sure the design of some PVP fights large or small could incorporate this somehow and be made in such a way that tanks get some PVP love.
But if you think about Threat/taunt skills they are unlogical and useless in pvp in many games.
because of that: how about making a Tank who simply can't Taunt / have no Aggro Skills at all? So there are no skills who didn't work in PVP as they do in PVE.
And now he must be an easy Damage Dealer who is easy to play so he gets aggro by pure Damage. Other classes should make just burst damage and so they can change positions and didn't stay in poisen/fire the whole fight because they get an healer in there Party .
Also he should have some Strong CC skills with a high cooldown. And some skils to protect our Partymember should be also there - Give someone a shield/resistenz against Damage.
But because he should not be overpowerd he need some downgrades:
They should be slow because of there heavy Armor and maybe can't dash like other classes. Also he need something like stamina - because they can't protect the whole day and get exausted.But a cleric could give him some holy spirit to stay lomger on the battlefield.
How big is the Damage advantage that Damage classes have over their trinity counterparts? I ask because the grinding efficiency of DPS classes is the anchor in player's minds that they measure their grinding efficiency against - there are some unavoidable facts that make this messy:
- DPS is generally proportional to grinding efficiency
- This variation in DPS between damage classes versus tanks/healers * 40 days expected to hit cap = huge differences in how fast classes progress through the game via grinding
Is this aligned with Ashes' vision for how players progress through their game?Given that grinding will be an essential gameplay element, even in "end-game" working off exp debt, it's something to pay careful attention to.
If unequal progression is intended, then ignore the rest of this post. Otherwise I want to explore design options that help tanks (and healers) keep up with DPS as they progress via grinding:
Pros:
- Easy to implement, simple
- Easy to balance
Cons:
- Destroys role identity - when everyone is DPS, then nobody specializes in DPS
- Equivalent to nerfing DPS classes
- Encourages solo-play for all content until forced to party
- The balance between DPS advantage and equal grinding efficiency has a dissatisfying equilibrium point. Let me illustrate:
Imagine DPS only has 20% damage advantage over healers and tanks.
> That still translates to tanks/healers taking ~8 more days than DPS classes to hit max level. That's more than a week!
> And yet DPS having a mediocre 20% damage advantage over healers and tanks is hardly satisfying. Imagine a DPS trying to fight a healer? There's no way the DPS wins in this setup. There was a time when League of Legends went through what was named "the tank meta" where tanks were unkillable and tanks could kill everyone else. It was not fun.
Point is, there is no good middle ground here.
There was also a good suggestion in this thread that you could give tanks skills that allow them to switch from being defensive to offensive - but I'd argue that you're losing Tank identity by allowing them to essentially become Fighters at will.
Pros:
- socialization+++
- implies the world is dangerous alone
- room for class identity to shine
Cons:
- spaces that are not party-friendly become deserted
- less room for solo-play, which is needed to prevent social burnout
- complex to design
- not casual friendly
This is my personal favourite simply because the social potential is huge (especially territory claim, dungeon runs etc.) but I recognize that it has some pretty big flaws and puts a huge workload on game design.
Pros:
- equalizes the playing field (a little - Damage classes still finish quests faster)
- easy to balance
- adds variety to gameplay (kill a bit, talk to npc's a bit, explore a bit, etc.)
- casual friendly
Cons:
- reduces socialization
- limited opportunity to express class identity
- will run out of ideas for inspiring quests - fetch-quest galore is inevitable
- linear - easy for players to optimize, not very interesting the second time
Questing is hard to do well. Especially in MMOs. Please don't over-milk your quest designers, they'll run out of good ideas and we'll all be sad. I'm personally not a fan of growing from talking to NPCs.
Pros:
- preserves role distinction
- easy to balance
Cons:
- artificial solution (but I have some suggestions for an emergent solution below)
- can complicate quest progression
- needs extra design work to mark the conditions for the bonus to apply
I've seen a few games that give healers a passive "+20% bonus exp/drop from killing non-bosses", League of Legends has a few support/jungle-only items that help them keep up with the rest of their team - but these implementations are quite artificial in nature and get tweaked all the time. But there are more emergent solutions:
Basically, I think this last option is about finding a way to reward classes for performance within their class identity - instead of just their DPS.
The mechanics for who gets attacked should be dependent on the enemy you fight. Wild animals should act different than for example a demon and the group should need to react to that.
For example a wild animal might attack the nearest player until it realizes that another player is the one that hurts him most and then try to charge to that player. This might be stopped by another player blocking the path (with buffs so he can survive the charge), a force field, traps or other CC effects. While a demon might be quick to understand who is the most dangerous and vulnerable player which he could attack by teleporting next to him which would need a different kind of reaction from the group.
But i did not think this through so might be a bad idea in the end…
Regarding the role of an off-tank I've gone into detail with my thoughts here: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/353523#Comment_353523
In summary: An off-tank has a toolset that allows them to fill several roles that, that when taken individually are not the best in slot, but when taken as a total toolset are capable of full-filling their role better than anyone else.
Their toolset would include:
1.) Superb burst duration damage mitigation
2.)The ability to peel hate by combining many mechanics/toolset options
3.)The ability to manage a secondary objective for a brief duration of time.
The role of an off-tank is to be able to provide meaningful impact to the party without outshining a specialist in that role. This means that an off-tank should be able to do some version of at least one of the following as well as full-filling the above: provide solid dps (but not as much as a specialist), provide solid healing (but not as much as a specialist), provide solid cc (but not as much as a specialist), provide solid party buffs (but not as much as a specialist).
Regarding main tank roles and directly to your question, yes - I would prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting. The best visual I can give of what I could only hope for would be the way the anime Log Horizon depicts their tanks and their tanking toolsets/styles as well as how they are used in both PVP and PVE. They show and use 3/4 tank types (paladin,guardian,monk,samurai), both in small party, raid, and pvp situations. In particular their raid episodes really shows how cooperative and coordinated of an experience I desire and it shows the range of possibilities for tanking styles.
The best tanking experiences I have to date have been in games where raids and parties must decide what type of tank is best for each scenario. Different types of mitigation (absorption, evasion, reflection, recovery,blocking,etc) coupled with different hate/aggro, party protection, and CC mechanics for each type of tank really bring to life limitless possibilities. I would like to experience encounters where multiple types of tanks need to work together and layer their potential to achieve the best result.
I would also like a system where the concept of a rotation doesn't exist for tanks outside of an opening move to solidify the attention of a mob. Both pro-active as well as reactionary skills like shield bashes, covers, walls, elemental damage absorbtion, etc. that have great impact but also consequences for poor timing or poor usage are important to me for tanks to have.
Regarding PvP one thing I loved about archeage was how as a skullknight I was able to literally dive into a group of players, aoe CC them, and draw their attention long enough for the rest of my party to engage and do some serious work. Most other mmo's didn't give this type of flexibility to their pvp tank toolsets.
In Log Horizon, a PvP tank mechanic they used that I thought would be super cool to have implemented in some way was that the tank aggro mechanic did not auto-lock an enemy onto the tank; however, if during it's aggro duration the enemy players chose to attack someone OTHER than the tank, they took heavy damage for choosing a different target.
In pvp i will let on "commander"/party leader to choice, if the want to have strong front line or back line, maybe i will limit tanks in arenas or bgs, let say arena 1 tank maximum and bg 2? not sure, but definitely there need to be limit
Open world no limits.
But please, i like to play tank, but im pvp player, and often tank are not required in pvp or there are no spot for him, only to carry a flag, i would like to have functionality in pvp, as other said, engage, cc, damage mitigation, something that will create tank useful in pvp, not to be only meat shield. With this i will not need to create pvp alt or tank alt, because i love PVP and i love tanking, but often in all game si played, you cannot be both, you will need another char or completely different set and talents.
For example, add him some shouts that will buff other melees, or some shield that will protect from ranged attack, so you can strategically get near your enemies better, create some types of deflects, so you can shot the spell back to the caster, definitely tank need to have cc and engage and dmg too, because often tanks are ignored totally, because there is no reason to kill them as they are meaty and do zero dmg or cc.
Second thing, please make tank action specific, dodge roll, use block when needed, no passive block, so you will need to have stamina to block incoming big attack, or ranged spells/arrows, this is the best for tanks, as you will interact more than sitting afk on one spot smashing aggro spells, active block (lets say with right mouse button) is best thing for me for tanks, so you not rely on the RNG, but you rely on you skill in blocking and dodging attacks.
I prefer non-traditional. I have enjoyed the non-traditional tank games more. In ArcheAge, the tank was a mage, and the off tank was a high-damage AoE mage. The PvE in that game was abysmal, and I'm unsure if it would even be relevant besides the world boss fights. Guild Wars 1 had many non-traditional tank classes. I loved the 600 monk, or the Ranger/Assassin farming builds. The problem with non-traditional tank games is that plate seems to be useless. Paragons and Warriors in Guild Wars 1 were among the least played classes because they were awful compared to others.
Maybe I would prefer traditional after thinking about it.
I would also love to see situations where you could us a Mage Tank or one of these other tank secondary's, but I have no idea how that will go.
To answer the original question though, I think having both "Traditional Tanking" and "Several Tanking" would be really cool, and perhaps it would have to just depend on what creature(s) you're facing. I would expect most single Big Bosses would just focus on having a Main tank and swapping after you take too many sunders or whatever, but having tanks to round up tons of spawning minions.
Having to have 8 Tanks was a stretch in Vanilla Naxx, most of the time people switched not because they wanted to but because we Had to have 8. 3-4 seems like a sweet spot as far as I can tell, but at the same time I think having different requirements is what spices the world up. As painful as it was to get 8 in Naxx, it was infamous, and it's burned in everyone's brains and long term I see that as a good thing, though you probably don't want most fights to be like that.
I'm also the guy who played a Shaman Tank in Vanilla all the way into 60, I loved the non optimal BattleMage(Enhance/Ele Shaman Hybrid who could toss on a shiled and be tanky) Where I could tank all 60 dungeons (some were rough cuz of silence and stuns), just Corehounds in MC, Some of the AQ40 trash. -- What im getting at is that I never cared to be Main Tank, but I liked these niche offtank situations
And it would be easier for healers to target them.
Generally its nice to tank being more active role. Tanks should also have some flexibility to be DPS and some DPS can vice versa. Its not good, if you are too dependent on "main tanks". Maybe sometimes can stack off tanks when lacking main tank? And ofc there is shield wall dream, to make makeshift cover for cone attack or choke point in PVP.
But overall participation in game. Tanks are mitigators, initiators, disruptors. From mechanic blocking in raid encounter to initiating in PVP situation to CC enemies. Maybe you can block enemy cannon ball that is landing top of your ships deck! It would be nice that game tracks participation while doing these things.
In EVE Online, for PVP, game tracked things that didn't do actual damage, like electronic warfare. If some systems track contribution/participation, it would be good, if it tracks also non damaging actions. This could also be used for ie. healing classes.
In the pvp section, well, regarding the number of tanks per group, I think that just a few should be enough due to the same reason as in pve content, they should undoubtedly have a lot of cc in area to do engage, and maybe combine some archetype with group protection although not all support classes have it or in the worst case, if none have it
There's always a shortage of tanks, and I'm sick of seeing people selling "services" as a tank/heal, or whatever. The balance of progression needs to be somewhat equal, between open world and dungeons. In terms of wealth, item, exp progression. Or you'll see tanks selling services in LFG because it'll be the only way they can make coin. So it's hard to say what their role should be without knowing other systems. One way to combat a tank shortage is to have more viable tanks, but then what do those tanks do in raids?
A few ideas:
1. A meat shield tank, could be your MT, backed up by a secondary meat shield tank. Then you could have guard tanks, that pull threat from casters/heals and either soak the damage or bring it back to the MT/OT.
2. There could be a CC style tank that maybe applies stuns, or grapples, but I don't think this would be that viable, since you have casters and other support classes that would be much better at cc, or at least should be in most cases.
3. Tempest Tank. A tank that absorbs magical damage for power, like a lightning rod. You could have this tank produce AOE shields and protect the party from types of damage. Ex. The Tempest Tank, pops an ability that allows it absorb a magical attack, and the result of that is a magical dome like barrier that shields the party from a meteor storm cast by the enemy. The issue is what do they do when they're not doing that, and what does the MT do during this time? To many tanks can mean to few tasks for the tanks, which makes idle time, and is boring to most tank players.
4. Tanks that absorb health from enemies, or even allies is a fun thing. Like death/dark/blood knights. Kind of useless against undead though if you're trying to match lore and mechanics.
conclusion:
I'd prefer a traditional role for tanks, but am open to new ideas if they fix the issues with the traditional tanks. So I would like to see some new tank styles, but not 7 new ones. Watching 10 tanks run around in a raid will be chaos, and probably won't be fun, but if it is fun, then it works. A good balance would be keep ratio of tanks needed for raids (at least most raids) the same as it is for parties. If you need one tank in a 5 man party then, plan for 8 tanks for a 40 man raid. I'm more partial to 6 man dungeons and 30 man raids, I think that ratio is better balanced and leaves more room for flexibility.
good luck!
1. "Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles"
The traditional role of tanks getting mobs' attention, positioning their selves and the mob, and trying to mitigate damage I think is definitely something that works and should stay. However I think the threat system is outdated.
#THE OLD THREAT SYSTEM
I was just running Black Temple in classic Wow last night and I made the mistake of doing too much damage too quick and pulled threat and died. The next attempt I just waited to do damage and it corrected the problem and threat pretty much meant nothing the rest of the fight. This really isn't that interesting of a system as the way to "correct it" was just for me as a dps to sit around and wait, and if the tank gets far enough ahead then the mechanic is just ignored the rest of the fight.
I think the tanks mechanics should be closer to actively keeping up a Debuff rotation and removing the old threat system. Let mobs target players randomly or instinctually for set periods of time instead of the best healers/dps being punished for doing their jobs as well as they possibly can, which just seems like an unfortunate byproduct of the old threat system.
#NEW THREAT SYSTEM
When a tank engages a fight, they should start what I would call the "Debuff Rotation" similar to a dps rotation. As long as this Debuff Rotation is kept up, the mob will target the tank. And if multiple tanks are working in debuff rotations, the boss can randomly or instinctually target different tanks for set periods of time so their wouldn't be a need for a "Main Tank".
An obvious issue with this would be its simplicity by itself, I run my rotation and move around, yada yada. HOWEVER, this would be paired with the new active blocking mechanic that Ashes has. Actively blocking certain mob skills while keeping rotations up can add a depth that was missing before, so let me give an example.
#EXAMPLE
I am a Tank/Rogue, so a Nightshield and I engage a fight. I start with my basic tank ability Anchor Howl (30 second cooldown) which causes the target/s to take reflective damage when attacking units other then myself (which works great in pvp too). This is considered a threat ability and for a mob to attack a target that would reflect its own damage would be the wrong move, so it targets the tank. This lasts for 5-10 seconds. During this time I begin my debuff rotation, stacking the ability called Tarnish that reduces damage done by 1% per stack. Now because of my Rogue augment, Tarnish instead called Lacerate increases poison damage taken by 2% per stack helping my fellow Rogues do more damage and allowing a different tank to stack Tarnish. The debuff every time its applied will stay on for 5 seconds unless the next stack is applied. When Lacerate hits 5 stacks it jumps to 20% poison damage increase for 15 seconds, (which means your poison damage dealers should be coordinating certain abilities with their tanks), and then it falls off and can't be reapplied for 5 seconds. This means debuffs last for 35 seconds at max length. When this happens is when anchor howl should be reapplied, however if you stacked your debuffs too fast, anchor howl would not be off cooldown yet meaning that timing is key. This gives tanks a chance to weave in other abilities and blocks in between stacking debuffs. This is a basic rotation that coordinates some fun with the dps too. However, during all this the Tank with be actively blocking certain attacks that can break the rotation or remove the debuff. The mobs have telegraphed attacks with silences, stuns, and self cleanses that would need to be blocked or stunned. Otherwise this would stop the tank from stacking debuffs making them fall off and lose aggro.
2. "Prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting"
Having extra tanks shouldn't feel like a detriment to the group and here are 2 examples of combating that feeling. Debuffs and splitting damage.
#TANK DEBUFFS
In my example above, having different augments for tanks could help increase the amount of types debuffs the mobs will have on them. I mentioned a Nightshield debuffing the mob to take increased posion damage. Well you could also have a spellshield increasing magic damage taken by the mobs and a Dreadnaught decreasing the damage the mobs are outputting. In this case, this can increase the overall damage and survivability of the group even if the tank itself is not making up for the missing DPS.
#SPLITTING DAMAGE
The other way is splitting damage. As shown in the recent combat showcase, as you swipe your weapon, you hit mobs in an arc, which is how mobs should attack back. However, their damage shouldn't be consistent, it should split itself amongst the targets. If 1 tank is there, a swipe does 2k damage to the tank. If 2 tanks are there, each would take a reduced amount like 1200 per swipe. Having multiple tanks absorbing damage can help with overhealing just 1 target and reduce the chance of a tank getting 1 shot. Of course the mob will still have a direct threat target that will get hit by more single target attacks but the basic attack and aoe damage can be spread out.
This mix of allowing more debuffs on the target and splitting damage making it easier for healers and would never make it feel like having extra tanks is ever a bad thing and makes all the tanks feel more useful whether there's 1 mob or 100. This is a true definition of a "SHIELD WALL"
#CONCLUSION
These are just some concepts that I think would make tanks feel more special and keep the old aspect while creating a whole new dynamic. A Tank meta would be super gone at this point because the more variety of tanks you have the more the group/raid benefits!
I'd love to hear anyone's feedback!
When it comes to tanking I like having a main tank and off tank but what I would like to see is tank versatility. Mage tanks who mitigate aoe damage, mobile Tanks who primarily hold threat and reduce damage by their position, or use of damage reduction while moving. Kite tanks who primarily control the aggro but at a distance to avoid damage. I think tanking can be made enjoyable by giving it high versatility. For instance when deathknights came out in wow, any spec could tank or dps, but they all filled different roles, they had access to high miditgation and healing, as well as aoe damage reduction with anti-magic zone. Wow has seen mage and warlock tanks as well through shields and regeneration. I think encounters can be fun if the approach to tanking builds off of some viable synergistic tanks with unique mechanics. Perhaps the main tank for the raid needs to be a magic damage tank, or perhaps the offtank needs to be a mobile tank. The main think I hope we don't end up having is that the defacto main tank is the thing everyone throws at every encounter. I would really enjoy having a more flexible approach to how tanks fulfill the main and off tank roles rather than try to remove or limit the system.
I think the required number should scale with encounter size, but have some leeway to not have a raid wait on 'exactly 2 more off-tanks' missing else they would wipe.
But since everybody already derailed that conversation to talk about the Tank archetype anyway, let me chime in as well, because the way the Tank will be handled particularly when it comes to larger scale PvP like sieges, will make or break the game for me, and the abilities so far have me concerned. No doubt, there will be new abilities, and existing ones will be shuffled around or even removed, but the current kit did give me a sense of the direction, and I have to say, I can't agree with it, at least, when it comes to PvP. The kit seems like it's only focused on small-scale encounters(if at that), that would break with 20+ people during (for example) a siege. I mean most of them right now are just damage dealing abilities...? Why?
I got the feeling that when a proper kit is ready, it's going to be focused on abilities centered around CC to keep DPS off from the squishies. This is fine, but not enough. A few considerations:
- The game should be designed in a way that incentivizes the enemy(player) to choose to hit the tank - for whatever reason: Break out of a root, break a powerful buff/debuff, etc.
When the enemy sees you have a shield, they will assume you are no threat, and try to avoid you, if there is no incentive to hit the tank, they will just focus on offensive stats. If the kit centers around CC, protective stats most likely won't affect the effectiveness of them either, so again, it sends the message to focus on offense. With tanks, the game should promote going at least a bit defensive, and since you don't have aggro in PvP, you have to find ways to make players want to attack you.
An easy way is with powerful buffs/debuffs that break if the affected enemy hits the tank with direct targeted attacks.
Say you root the enemy in melee range, it lasts 6 sec, but if you hit the tank 3 times, it breaks.
Say you have a 'Taunt' ability that increases the damage done by the tank on the target by 50% for 10 sec, but is broken after 5 direct attacks against the tank.
Say you have an AoE 'Challange' ability that affects every enemy in front of you and causes 50% damage reduction for 10 sec, but is broken after 8 hits(either per enemy based or collective). Bonus if the damage reduction is only applied to allies, NOT the tank themselves.
If there are any active buffs/debuffs of such kind, the game needs clear visuals both for the tank and enemy, so they know how the buffs can be broken.
- You also need abilities to redirect damage onto the tank, not (just) to mitigate, but to redirect the damage caused to allies.
This incentivizes tanks to choose protective stats, to mitigate the indirect damage coming toward them. This is the easiest way to have tanks be viable in PvP.
An example of why this is a must: You have an allied melee DPS. They will voluntarily put themselves in harms way, they are melee, duh. Pulling off the enemy from them, slowing them down, or knocking them back is useless, the only way to help them is if the tank can reduce the damage done to them. CC does not help.
Say you have a single target 'Guard' ability that creates a bond between an allied player and the tank, and 50% of the damage done to the ally is redirected to the tank, if they are within a certain range.
You need a visual indicator between the tank and the guarded player, preferably visible to everyone. For enemies it is useful, because it tells them to try and separate the two players, and for allies it tells them that the guarded player needs less attention, and the tank guarding is busy.
- When it comes to large-scale PvP, the game should also be designed in a way to help tanks create and maintain some semblance of structure - tanks in the front, rest in the back.
Body blocking is a must. Tank line preventing enemy from getting to the back, especially when needing to enter a narrow gateway - like in a siege. The enemy should not be able jump, dash, blink, dodge, whatever past them, however, knockback, knockdowns to break the line should be fair game.
Multiple consecutive dashes as seen in the streams have to go. Flashy, fun as hell, likely only there for stream purposes, but know this: If those dashes remain, sieges will turn into unmanageable chaos, 100%. Might as well have 0 CD on pulls too to counter it, not ideal either...
An elegant example of the benefits a maintained structure could enable:
Say holding up the shield for active blocking would not just protect the tank, but provide protective bonuses for anyone behind them in a cone. Now you are not only protecting yourself, the line, but also protecting those in the back from the enemy ranged DPS. You could call the bonus 'Hold the line'.
All of this just promotes organized teamplay, something that lacks in today's MMOs IMO...
These are the principles IMO that are needed to be considered very early on when making the kits and design the combat to have a robust PvP system, if you have these, you can tweak it to be PvE compatible, but if PvE is a focus like in WoW for example where warriors only play as DPS in PvP, then I don't think large scale PvP will have a future...
Since there are 64 classes, you can choose to diversify some or all of these abilities between the subclasses, like:
Tank/Fighter(Knight): Taunt that gives a damage bonus as long as the enemy doesn't hit them x times
Tank/Cleric(Paladin): Challange that reduces damage done to allies in a radius until tank is hit x times
Tank/Rogue(Nightshield): Taunt that reduces damage by the target enemy until tank is hit x times
Tank/Tank(Guardian): Active block reduces damage done to allies behind the tank in a cone
Tank/Bard(Argent): Damage is split between target ally and the tank if range between them is less than X
Keen-eyed readers might recognize the abilities brought up in the examples, but I don't want to name the game, partly because I don't want people to think I want to copy it. I mentioned those because they work. If Intrepid has other ideas, that's good, I just fear they are not taking large-scale PvP into consideration.
Things like that one ability that makes the tank invulnerable for x sec? That just screams "get off me", quite the opposite of what a tank's role should be: Have the enemy hit the tank at all times, and rely on your own mitigation, and the healers behind you.
I think the class title "Tank" needs to be changed.
["From a tank perspective, why did I name the tank "tank"? There's a few reasons: One is that there are obviously elements of the tank role that could be considered as different types of names like, Guardian or Steward or whatever. There's things that you could do that but I feel like tank as a vernacular has become embedded within MMO/fantasy players and they use it interchangeably even if the class name was like Guardian or whatever. I feel even though in that scenario players would still refer to it as a tank like in normal conversation with each other, "Oh we need a tank for this fight."[7] – Steven Sharif"]
I don't believe that because a class will be referred to as something(in this case "Tank") is a reason to call it such. The same could be true for the "Cleric" to just be called "Healer".
You are correct when you say that people will refer to whichever class name as a tank, but you are breaking the 4th wall of the game by including this vernacular essentially as a part of the lore.
How would this be roleplayed?
Tank says -"I'm a tank"
Cleric responds - "A tank of what? Ale?"
Just because the MMO community understands the simple fact that whatever you call your class will be referred to as a tank does not mean you should just bypass that.
Just call them defender or something that the community can agree upon that isn't also an action and archetype.
But that only works if the dmg is provided by a dd that the other way around is only responsible for the dmg in that composition.
I e.g. would like to play with friends frequently, but they dont like to deal with such a big game and are in general no big fans of the mmorpg genre.
So i play solo a lot but still love the pvp. therefore i would like to be able to fight for my own regardless of the class i chose.
The perfect combat means to me being able to handle 1v2, if not even 1v3 situations in case you are a very skilled player (reaction, kiting based, etc.)
In my opinion it should be possible for healers and tanks to survive a 1v2 or even have killpressure, as long as they are being engaged and play well (defensive)
Regarding chasing, both classes shouldnt be able to chase someone down since they chose supportive classes.
Assasins or dd should be able to win a 1v2 by playing agressively and also being able to take down an enemy by chasing due to higher mobility or less weight.
In regards of a defensive combat, they shouldnt be able to have any kill pressure and also shouldnt be able to survive that way, because they are not supposed to tank or heal.
If you like neither play styles then go for a mix (bruiser/paladin e.g.)!
it combines both advantages and disadvantages from either traditional classes but having both extremes (only agressive / only defensive) balanced.
Every class should be able to have a kill pressure by its own if played with a certain playstyle.
Also to give solo players more support being outnumbered, you could add a small buff for the single player or a small debuff to the multiplayers.
Another thing which I know has been mentioned before is that everything a tank has needs to be considered in PVP, even a basic taunt skill (if one is included) needs to have a PVP use, this can be anything from cutting damage the taunted target does to anyone else other then someone who taunted them, or something else that incentivizes another player to target the tank rather then others.
If the tank had abilities like the warrior's 'intervene' to quickly rush to allies in response to boss interaction, along with utility abilities to help mitigate all threat or bolster that particular party member's defensive stats temporarily, or even redirect some portion of damage to themselves (again targeted abilities that require thought, timing, and precision) this would go a long way to making tanking interesting.
I think this type of setup requires that boss fights aren't so 2-dimensional. It shouldn't be a matter of who has more threat and building a class that's easily able to generate more threat than other classes. It should be about mechanical interaction - do something that forces the bosses to target you, or react to changing situations in which the boss WANTS to target particular players and the tank role is designed to protect that player (getting between the boss and player or mitigation skills and the like) rather than specifically hitting the boss. While I do believe that the role of tank should be a player in heavy plate armor and able to take hits better than anyone else, I also think it needs to be SKILL based, and not just face-tanking and taunting. If New World did one thing right, I think it's that tanking did not mean standing in the AoE and easily absorbing it. You still had to dodge most of the attacks and NOT put undue strain on healing. Just because a class is beefy doesn't mean they should be unafraid of incoming damage.
While I think a tank class should still be interested in hitting mobs, and there's always a place for things like 'taunt' I really don't want to see tanking be left to the role of "spam taunt on cooldown and aoe the mobs hard enough to keep threat" like every other game.
Tanking as a role is important but somehow always some of the most shallow gameplay there is to experience. Even classically in WoW, you'd stand in a corner holding agro literally unable to see anything because your camera was jammed into the ground or wall and there was no way to view what's going on but it didn't matter. Your experience of the mechanics and fight were absolute boredom. Later iterations and expansions did improve this, but it all really came back to the same principal of taunt and drag the boss to the right spot.
TLDR: Make tanking more about interacting with your party via skills and mitigation rather than taunting, dragging, and mindlessly spamming threat.
ShoddySlayer
If anyone remembers Shillen templars and Pheonix knights had offensive party wide buff, in the meantime Eva's templar if I recall right had party wide heals instead, then all of the tanks had party wide defense buffs and much more utility.
My take out of that Tanks shouldn't be just simple punch bags for bosses, but more of a tough to kill utility class aka `Protector` which could react to the situation.
Simple examples: jumping to injured ally and reducing his damage taken/blocking next few attacks or abilities.
I believe such reactionary playstyle would fit way more with the action combat playstyle.
In PvE I would prefer traditional MMORPG tanks: players who deal less damage, have high health and need healers to help them survive.
In PvP, to make them act as tanks, they should be able to absorb most damage done to their team members.
Both these cases can be seen as the tank increases his health pool and becomes a shared buffer health to the entire team. An attunement factor between the tank and the rest of the members could influence how much heath he can build up or absorb when other members take damage.
That attunement could be greater when players are bound to a common special guild crystal. Guilds should research that perk.
And could be increased by support classes: bards or mages.
Maintaining high attunement level during the fight could also be an important mechanic. Or destroying enemy team attunement.
PVP - Based on the build chosen by the player. Either an indestructible beefy boy with low damage output, or a damage dealer with 20-30% more armor, but 20-30% less damage output than a pure DPS build. Paired with good crowd control skills, and support defensive buffs.
Thanks
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way