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Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
mob placement
mob threat selection,
mob movement speed,
mob damage,
mob crowd control,
other mob agro range.
Typically tanks are not called to make too many decisions about these things as they occur passively or on a button press (30% speed reduction on hit) (dps = threat) (20% damage reduction when bleeding) resulting in each encounter having the same feel and outlook.
Where I believe would be an interesting direction to go would be to make these decisions an either/or e.g. speed reduction or more threat, this example would result in a decision where a tank can create more threat but if they loose it a dps might be charged. Alternatively if a speed reduction is chosen if a tank does looses threat it’s going to take the mob a while to get to the dps potentially also reducing damage to the group as a whole through, kiting.
Also these mob management mechanics may have some disadvantages eg an ability which makes a mob immoveable when a melee is in a range creates an aura of oppression reducing dps in a 10yard range.
So relation to your question traditional tank role vs multiple tanks, using the above method of abilities would create benefits to having multiple tanks in groups as additional contol methods and abilities can be used in tandem against mobs. If tanks are just about threat and damage reduction having multiple tanks would provide no overall benefit other than to get through some kind of timed tank swap mechanic. Essentially the tank once swapped is sidelined to the role of poor dps. (One of the reasons I liked Druid tanking in wow is the ability to catweave as this provided a role change)
(I haven’t discussed groupwide and area defensive abilities which tanks should have. Again these may come with an either/or, disadvantage, or even being position based (more tanks would provide a larger area of coverage).
Thanks for all the work you do!
Wilmo
Besides blocking those attacks off-tanks would be focusing on dps making their role very reactive, allowing players to distinguish themselves as good tanks by being able to swiftly react to boss's behavior. This i think would go along nicely with the idea of adaptability of the bosses.
This is especially true when the tank classes are engaging and fun to play. In game where people enjoy the class because of the diversity and support you bring to the group, you will naturally attract more tanks to these roles. I wholeheartedly support the idea of there being more than 1 or 2 tanks for an entire raid group of people.
I think the important question to this is what do you do with all them tanks, girl?
I still really enjoy sort of the traditional style of their role, but I'm not even sure what is meant by several tanks fighting. I am going to assume you mean the viability of several tanks in a fight versus PvE content.
Especially since tanks will be a permanent archetype to a character, I think their viability should extend past being just a solo frontline damage bearer. Even if their overall dps may not be "optimal", I feel like they should still pack a punch along with their utility based kit. A group of players should never feel like having multiple tanks is useless in the majority of circumstances. Exceptions would be like bosses with a specifically designed barrier of difficulty.
Since PvP is so fundamental to AoC, I firmly believe that tanks will need to stray away from the traditional definition of what "threat" would mean. Rather than being just a numerical variable that controls a mob's attention, I would like to see the word "threat" to be taken more literally. A tank should, on average, be the most threatening class in the battlefield. They are in your face, hard to ignore, and crucial to a team's survival.
Personally, I always thought that having one or two tanks for a 40 man raid was a bit extreme, and ultimately
boring. I see it as a symptom of poor design, rather than a problem in and of itself. That is to say, don't make fights that need more tanks for the sake of having more tanks. Make fights that are more interesting and dynamic, and as a result they may or may not need more tanks. I also think that fights designed around more tanks encourage more diverse augment use, rather than simply maximizing damage mitigation/healing output/damage output for every role.
my whole thought process for that below.
Why do we use one/two tanks in the first place?
I think MMOs trended toward a small amount of tanks because heavy specialization worked. Only one tank was needed, so one tank is all they used. And everybody else could forget about any and all defensive measures and focus on only damage.
Then this "how many tanks" problem reveals a bigger issue:
Your augment system allows players to "blur the line" between the holy trinity roles, but with basic raid fight design there's no reason for those lines to be blurred. In fact, normal raid fights punish blurring those lines. You should make reasons for players to pick Tank as a secondary archetype in a raid setting. Make utility truly useful, so that Bards have more important buffs than just ones that increase damage output. Make glass cannon builds feel like a glass cannon, where they fall apart at the slightest misstep and rely on allies to survive.
You can do these things and bring life to your class system by creating more interesting boss fights... Because while PvP easily provides use for varied & hybrid builds, PvE is lacking in that department.
Ultimately that means going away from the current raid boss paradigm, where everything is reliant on damage output and survival is a foregone conclusion. Remember those days when damage dealers had to be careful not to pull aggro? That's sharing the tanks responsibility with the DDs. Do the same with all the damage coming out from the boss. Don't put all the "receiving damage" on the tanks, and don't put all the "healing damage" on the healers. This makes hybridization useful and encourages blurring those holy trinity lines.
Basically, don't let people go full glass cannon without side effects on their teammates. Make healing the raid a difficult task. Make healing the tank(s) a difficult task. This would make "blurring the lines" with the augment system have value. Fights built like this might end up having more tanks than a traditional raid fight.
I would love to see a situation where tanks are not so rare as to make putting a PvE group together a chore. To accomplish this, tanks will have to be at the very least, not a liability in PvP. Otherwise folks just won't choose to main them in a game with an open world beat-em-up map.
The eight versions of Tank (after level 25) will hopefully feel different enough to hold players invested in that particular fantasy, while not being too disparate in power and ability. (It would be sad to see a player and his mandolin laughed out of the group because he chose to roll an Argent.) Having roughly equal functionality would also avoid having an all-situation meta-chad tank. Please don't let Puh... Pal.. Pala... *shudder!* Please don't let Tank/Cleric be the strongest. P-Please.
For Raids: My hope is that different encounters will have different tank requirements. Why two for every fight? Boring! Having to plan ahead and actually make friends to stack a raid sounds like fun, and the kind of interaction Ashes is looking to promote. The balancing act will be in not requiring more Tank mains than the population has. One of the worst developments in modern MMO's is the disproportionate importance the tank player gets by playing a needed role.
For Dungeons: I'm hoping one tank will be enough for bosses, trash and farm mobs. If world events open a rare boss deep under the dungeon's well explored levels, and that boss pancakes one-tank groups, then the fight would get the same attention a raid boss would. Prepare, bring a good crew, profit.
Some of these issues could be tempered if choosing Tank as a secondary archetype allowed the player to effectively off-tank. It wouldn't take much, a taunt and a defensive CD, some points in mitigation. A Fighter/Tank Dreadnought with points in active block and skills chosen to boost shield sounds like it could be fun to play. (And is my current plan for a Dwarf!) A Bard/Tank Siren than can pull focus mobs out of the pack with charms, effectively tanking them would be an easy fit in a dungeon group, and has the added flavor of being an OT that is not reliant on metal armor and a shield. Rogue/Tank Shadow-Guardian as a dodge tank could certainly work versus physical or melee opponents. (Remember Evasion tanking?!) This would also almost double the amount of classes that could tank to a degree. Well coordinated groups might be able to farm or even clear easier dungeon tiers this way.
Barely Related Rant: I was a little disappointed to not find a "Rage" class anywhere in the list of 64. The "You won't like me when I'm angry" Tank! I know there is no Barbarian, Maurader, Berserker, or Fury in game, and I'd like to register this as a deficiency. RAAARGGGGH! is really fun to play, particularly as a tank or melee. The orcs are civilized and the Py'rei wood elves are the angry ones here, a salute to a change in direction for sure. But wouldn't it be fun if Fighter/Fighter = Rampaging Smasher?
Love everything about this game, super amped to see what comes next, and grateful for such a well designed and good looking vessel to pour some creativity and excitement into!
I prefer a play style that requires your character to fill all roles. They need to be able to take some hits, provide self sustain, and kill their targets. I feel this provides a more engaging experience for everyone, and reduces the development burden on having to balance purely DPS, healing, and tanking roles. This also frees up group play to allow you to play with any and all of your friends. Such as only a single tank, a single healer, and 1 or 2 dps in dungeons, or a main tank, off hand tank, healer, and a but load of DPS for raids. This unnecessarily pigeon holes the player base to "conform" to content rather than build their own experience and take it on how they choose.
The focus in Tanking should be set on: controlling mobs, crowd control, and using aggro to direct the attention of your enemies. Tanks should be rewarded for their quick reactions and map awareness.
Having decent armor and the ability to aggro enemies is what defines the tank as a role. My idea for the role is to focus on armor and other damage mitigation spells to minimize the damage taken from AOE spells and attacks (sweeps, fire breaths...). Single, aimed attacks from a 20m tall creature should (realistically) kill you if you don't avoid them. On the other hand, AOE attacks must force the whole party to pay attention, move and adapt to the situation. A careless player who gets caught by a sweep attack or fire breath, for instance, takes serious damage while getting slowed or knocked. Tanks are generally immune to such effects. This is what sets them apart.
PVE in general should incentivize players to think ahead, move quickly and position themselves to avoid damage, especially during boss fights. There is nothing more BORING for a tank than a boss fight in which he is forced to stand in one place while taking massive boss hits accompanied by huge heals from his party members, with the most thrilling thing being a well-timed hp boost trinket pop.
*More utility, less massive healing, less RNG, no tunnel vision DPS.
In battles you should have healers, DPS wither it be melee, ranged or magic and then you have the tanks that will use skills to get targets on them or just do CC to control the enemies.
For off-tank roles would be something new and good because if you go some what DPS but then take a tank role as well you might just make something new and be the change in battle.
Many MMOs struggle to attract and maintain tank players because of the associated stresses involved with what a tank does in content. They set the pacing, they're often the result of a group wipe (greedy pulls), they control raid boss behaviors and positioning - these things are an acquired taste and I think if you maintain the holy trinity system, you're going to continue perpetuating the same problem most other MMOs suffer from.
If you allow more flexing, and more aggro control across different people who may not necessarily be geared or skilled in to tanking specifically, you may have an easier time easing people in to that role full time if they wanted to. The issue is that there really is no middle-ground between DPS/Healing and Tanking so theres no way for tentative tank players to get in to tanking if you have a holy trinity system.
I normally am a Protection Pally tank in another particular notable MMO. Raid tanking off and on, as main and off tank since Ice Crown, lots of dungeons, tanking in PVP and general world events or large group events. I haven't read all the replies, but here's my general opinion. I'm also brand spanking new to your game here. The most indepth I've gotten in your systems, lore and material is information for some art concept work I'm doing on a character design.
I like the idea of both. Certainly there is complexity in events, boss fights, technical hurdles and balancing. But from a wholistic perspective, having a variety of encounters that keeps tanks moving and keeps events action oriented and diversified is certainly healthy.
Some things I don't particularly like, which I'm going to comment as a general MMO'ism.
1. Tank rotations: No matter your skill tree, the tank rotation gets very repetitive like most rotations. Often times we are stuck in a particular spot, kiting, or turning the boss in a particular direction. Thats fun and breaks up the button rotation. Where I'm going with this is if you have a main and off tank, and its a scenario where a 3rd tank might be needed cycling in and out. It would be fun to do some DPS, then pick up that 3rd tank rotational, then switch back to DPS. Diversifying the fight scenario, (i.e. off tanking, swaps, and tanks picking up multiple targets helps break up the boredom.)
2. Strategy is set by the 10%, and generally followed by the rest. I don't raid at elite levels, thus I am not a tank who sets the trends. Having more options for tank strategy across the spectrum of events and fights I think keeps things more interesting and allows us as tanks, generally leaders in our groups to figure out strategies that are fun, safe, and beneficial for the group. Where 1 encounter might need your normal tank swap, the next encounter might need a 3rd tank or 3 tank swap (wow!). I think that would mix it up in some capacities and set your system apart.
3. Fragility of strategy, dependent on multiple tanks. What I mean basically is if one of two tanks goes down, its more often then not just a wipe. This is good in some cases as it makes tanks a vital role, but it is very dependent on heals, and from the social perspective is very difficult on tanks who are learning or climbing up the ladder of the tank world in a raid group. There's very little recourse based on the "accepted raid comps" that allows for a fight to continue. Where I always through some improvement could come from is "other tanks" to fill the gap, until you can get your main armor back up and running - the emergency oh shit keep the fight going tank Band-Aid. An example, in classic WOW, I kept several dungeon encounters going after the tank and healer died with my Warlocks tank pet and my ability to do DPS and heal the pet through the remainder of the fight. Additionally as a Warlock with the right pet, seeing my wife and her hunter pet, or being a Ret Pally, or Sword Rogue, in differing scenarios, being able to temporarily off tank something so the main could get topped off is a lot of fun. Also seeing someone smart enough to pick up and off tank an add, till I can move over and assume threat is a lot of fun. It makes the fight feel more team oriented, a lot more action oriented, and as a main tank its really gets me pumped knowing that person's ability to continue in the fight now depends on me squaring my butt away, and picking up their threat so they can return to DPS or whatever the case is.
Not sure if any of this feedback is helpful. But in short, a balanced, healthy spread of both that is scenario appropriate, event or raid appropriate, and level of difficulty appropriate I think is a very healthy thing. You have a huge spread of classes, I am not sure which of those classes can act as "back up tanks" or "off tanks". But I will say this, in open world, when Tanks are pushing forward picking up large groups of players in a valley, or large bosses across an open field. And you see several bundles of people forming around 2, 3, 4 or 5 tanks. Its pretty epic as the Tank rolling in, shield to someones face, gathering up a group holding your own waiting in support to arrive. Thats just epic.
From a "fun factor", its options, options to change strategy and options to keep what will inevitably repetitive gameplay become fun because there are options for that traditional tank / off-tank swap. As well as the scenario where we bring in a 3rd, or 4th tank because of the change in the fight set ups.
This is all off the cuff. I hope its helpful feedback. Thanks for reading if anyone does.
Rah!
Sailing Vessel Outlaw King
https://eagle1studios.artstation.com/
Please don't create the situation where we have to put tanks on the bench to bring a couple extra dps because its "more effective". It sucks for tank players.
Armor (str) Tank, (Knight, paladin) yes, there's still a place for this.
Weapons (dex) tank, Light armor, but using weapons to deflect, redirect, debilitate (blind, poison, hamstring, etc), acrobatics.
Arcane (int/wis/chr) tank - static: enchanted armors & shield, protection spells; active: Flashing bang spells, dazzle, fear, paralysis, charm
Agent Tank - (Hunters/Druids/Warlocks) commands pets to tank for him, or becomes the beast tank.
As a side note, it would also be fun if DPS could specify sub-targets especially on bosses, like eyes, ears, nose, feet/knees, hands during a fight to gain a specific effect: blind, deafen, defeat tracking, slow/pin down, disarm respectively.
What would happen if you link 8 mob types to augments from each class combination to create unique interactions which functionally speaking results in units 'being tanked' ?
Imagine a fight with too many creatures to handle and you can temporarily 'tank' one specific type of mobs of a creature type. Each way would involve gameplay mechanic unique to their classcombination and a degree of skill required to make it feel less boring than the average off-tanking or CCing of MMO's of the past.
Fights could be tailored to need atleast X/total groups off-tanked to not overwhelm the main tank(s) and X could be scaled to the difficulty system.
Tank primary class
It should be fun and intense to tank. It should require paying attention and doing the right things at the right times to keep everyone safe. It should involve the relative position of a boss to the tank and preferably or at the very least in some fights, also involve the positioning of the party.
Different secondary class combinations could have unique tanking styles through the augmentation of abilities. For example, one tank could have a slowing aura while another has extra AoE debuff and another has cooldown reduction on an interrupt. Class combinations could have gearsets which, with a high enough set bonus, would enhance their unique tanking style.
Devs can later add new playstyles through releasing new gear sets to match new content they designed.
For my every tank must be usefull and unique. All tanks should has similar basic ""traits"": bigger HP pool, more mitigation than other classes(but NOT drastically), more effective deffencive stances, pools, taunts, but lack of damage type passives.
If talks about uniquenes/diversity there is many variations:
- Different gear focus: some tanks could get more bonuses from plate armor, others from leather or cloth(evasion/deflection variant); some tanks has block bonus from shield, while other has parry bonus from dual wield weapon or quarterstaff etc.
- Different "nature" of skills/mechanics: physical, arcane(elemental/spiritual), nature, holy, hybrid and even psychic. Cuz of many skills with dif. types tanks should differ by mobility, DPS, damage reduction methods, range of abilities, lvl of aggresiveness etc.
- "Mass coverage" lvl of diff. CC/taunts/debuffs
- Dif. stats orientation(included some unique stats appeared by certain class mechanics).
-"Safeguard" ability style and effectiveness - some could generate aura around him/herself/ others could summons static - zone oriented banners or connical deffence skill aka "raise shields/shieldwall" ; it could be single target damage redirection skill and,of course, more unique variants(ex. tanks could form/shape "force"field/DRedirection zone by using Teleport or charge skills with closed path).
PVP side:
-DPS should not drastically different from DD classes, but such architype should not have powerful ressistance /armor reduction debuffs
-Taunts must work in PVP as debuffs and Target Change skill, BUT DDclasses also should have sort of DEtaunt skills (as it was ex. in EQ2).
-Pulls(mass/single) should be very unpleasant skill in pvp(esp. in crowd vs crowd situation) with some mobility debuff effect
-Most of debuffs should be oriented on lowering DPS/HPS/atk. mov. spd, enemy heal/dmg redirection.
(arcane oriented tanks also could have sort of resourse draining debuffs and mezz, ""berserk'" type - "fear"(demoralization) type of skills+ some tanks could also has a mass ANTI-invisibility skills)
-"Safeguard" skill (single target) could provide part of deff. stats(armor/defflection/evasion or dodge cost reducion, range/block effect. HP regen etc.). "Safeguard" mass/single could be applied on each other, BUT single targ. could be removed by enemy with certain spells/skills. Mb some unique Safeguard could also provide specific. deffences (mind control, buff removing/stealing skills etc.).
1. Why It doesnt have to be an either or scenario
2. Whether the traditional mechanic is good design or not compared to an alternative option
1. If the goal is to change up the amount of tanks on the field- then regardless of what the mechanic is, you can still make the meta of team composition have to adapt based on what they are fighting against. For the same reason that classes and counters exist, and why group fights require you to increase your numbers to level the playing field- the team strategy can be required to change based on what your team can beat and what it cannot, but that requires making things that can beat certain strategies. There might be some enemies where you only need one traditional style tank, but others where that strategy will get overwhelmed unless you have several.
And additionally, to that same point of being able to have both scenarios coexist- if using a traditional style tank is made to be proactive and requires skill in order to actually perform its role, then there will be more room for error and thus incentive to have several tanks available because of the higher risk of losing them. That can exist with or without the traditional role depending on the design and execution of it.
So as far as the question of whether you have a traditional style tank vs having several tanks- I think that if the goal is simply to have more tanks on the field then you can design it to require several traditional style tanks depending on the encounter, which makes the question irrelevant at that point. But im going to assume the question is more a matter of should it be designed to require "less" tanks because of their traditional style of design
2. Take skill level out of it for a moment, and assume a high skill level, in order to just look at the traditional mechanic itself and whether it is good design compared to not having it- as long as it the mechanic allows for the tank to be effective at performing the role, and is fun, then it doesnt matter how it is done.
You could either
A) have the traditional style, but make it fun rather than just clicking a button to activate something as crucial to the fight as that
Or
B)Create as fun of a mechanic as you can think of that will still allow the tank to be as effective in its role as it needs to be.
As long as that is the philosophy then we don't need to automatically gravitate toward a specific more familiar mechanic.
Which of these that can be pulled off the best is ultimately based on your design ability- however if it were me, i think its a lot easier to balance something than to add fun to something that is not. So I would lean toward not having a traditional style, and instead thinking of other mechanics that can allow the tank to do its job in a fun and unique way, and then focus on making those tools effective/or at least as effective as clicking a button to generate threat.
I think that inspiration could be drawn from a pvp scenario, and how you would go about protecting a teammate as a tank, against a thinking opponent, and implementing some pve mechanics based on that. You would constantly be planning out how to intercept an enemy that is trying to attack your teammate, which puts pressure on your teammate- which means you may lose some of that support- which would make you then have to worry about also keeping yourself alive. Then again, a threat mechanic could work in pvp as well if implemented correctly. So I think it depends on what you can do to make it as fun as possible while also maintaining the effectiveness of the role, which could manifest itself through the mechanics in many ways.
A couple more points
1. think if a mechanic is for PvE only, then it shouldnt be required for the core role/design of the class to function. Whatver you decide to do, i think a PvE only mechanic should either be an additional aspect to the class, or replaced by a different "horizontal" mechanic, so the class can be viable in PvP as well.
2. Also, I love the approach the devs are taking for class design where you can blurr the lines between class roles. This is very relevant to the tank and how it should perform in my opinion. I think that because damage/defense/sustainability is so basic to how fights work, it makes you feel helpless when you have no relevant tools from one of those areas to adapt to your current threat and have a form of counterplay- this puts the control in the players hands and how well they can use their tools available to them. Because of this I think allowing the classes to be flexible in their ability to (to a certain extent) to tank damage, fully sustain themselves and deliver damage is a great approach to take, but varying the degrees of this to create advantageous/disadvantageous matchups that are still managable. I think the relevance of the team's class composition comes when you want your overall team to further specialize in specific trinity areas or change your team's "spread" of their total stat composition within the trinity, to deal with different kinds of matchups that have varied trinity spreads of their own.
3. I think the question really focuses on the symptoms and not the core issue. This is causing a lot of the players' responses to lean toward certain opinions that may not solve the root problem and to rule out certain options uneccessarily, just because they may have had a very bad experience in a past game that may have had off tanks/tradtional tanks/non-traditional tanks- when all or some of those options might have worked just fine if the root issue is addressed.
I think the root issue is making the tank gameplay as fun as possible, in as many different ways as possible, to provide and varied experience for different tank players who enjoy different styles of tanking, while still allowing for each style to be done in a fun way. I think this would satisfy the most people- regardless of how that manifests itself, in terms of the type of tank styles that are available and how many are in the group at one time.
So to summarize:
When asking about whether having less traditional style tanks is better than having more tanks of a different style- I think there are probably better mechanics that could probably accomplish the same goal as the traditional style, which in and of itself would be more fun, while also allowing for more room to have more players of that particular class through creating a skillgap with the given mechanic, and thus greater risk to having less tanks. I Think this would be a better option compared to the alternative of having a traditional tank style and just scaling the difficulty up to get more tanks on the field, but in doing so having a potentially inferior tanking mechanic as part of the gameplay. And whichever is chosen, it needs to translate between both PvE and PvP.
These points are very individualistic. My experience was completely different.
Taking 1st argument as an example to WoW:
When I started dungeons/raids as damage dealer, the tank looked like a god to me - going solo near a boss and doing his part to stack his skills while everyone looks and waits in anticipation...will he succeed or will the whole raid wipe?..
This! Right there felt amazing and exactly the spotlight the tank deserves. Again - I (as a DPS) was appreciating the fact that tank has the knowledge of his hero and tries to engage a successful pull.
About the 2nd argument:
I totally am fine with not learning what the tank learns from a success/miss of a pulled boss. It's his time to shine and learn the individual boss pull mechanics. The pressure of successful pull from the whole raid is totally deserved.
Take for example a scenario from current WoW:
- the mechanics of the boss are written in the game itself so you know them even before the raid...
- anyone with gear, talents and few skill clicks could tank...because, hey, the threat will be transferred.
- add the fact that the skills on the screen "keybind bar" flash to indicate what to press (you don't need to memorize and think anymore! yay!)
So by taking your argument as a bad example - yes, you do not learn almost anything from that, because it is designed that way.To summarize, I just wanted to share a different experience I had with tanks.
To answer the main topic question: I prefer the idea of 2 tanks.
It's strange to have a 1 strong tank and 1 weak tank. The weaker tank already can't do damage so what's the point not having him as a real tank too. It also eliminates the need of a damage dealer to switch for a fight to off-tank and roll on both items (damage and tank).
It also improves the class distribution - bigger % of players will be a tank.
First time on these forums, I usually do not participate in forums but this months Dev Update prompted me to do so, as I too enjoy tanking but see what it has become over the years in main stream MMO's.
Firstly, I have to agree with Lashing's post, a lot of what he brought up rings true. Too narrow it down to a some key points...
1. Being able to hold threat is important, both as a main tank and off-tank, but it need not be for the whole fight. I shouldn't be able to go afk and never loose threat or die.
2. Tanking in large groups should be more engaging than just a taunt swap with the other main tank. I don't dislike taunt swapping, but there should be other mechanics as well to go along with it.
3. Tanking looses a lot of its fun because you are generally just standing in one spot or slowly kiting a boss. It is also difficult to measure your success/improvement as a tank over DPS who min/max numbers. Having multiple tanks with engaging encounters during the fight is a much needed breathe of fresh air. Creating that teamwork amongst tanks and having our own shield wall as a "tank team" to both tank the boss and whatever the encounter tosses at us. I think of being able to interlock shields as a human meat shield for example "Hold the line!!!" would be very cool, and I'm sure you can expand on this.
Anyway, overall I think it's a good thing to expand the combat experience as you suggest. The risk is worth the reward, you may not get it right 100% off the bat, but I bet with some community feedback to fix issues and some creative imagination this could change the way we view tanking in the MMO genre. Be bold, be creative, good things will happen.
Elazzar
I am especially interested in skillbuild variety (assuming people can't just respec at will before each fight, and choice of build actually means something), so that differently built tanks would work better for different encounters.
As always, the game becomes homogenous if everyone can do everything, and variety brings colour. For every build, there better be some encounters that build is entirely unsuited for. Perhaps, some (not all) can be worked around with a party change - get a shaman instead of a priest, or get a bard with that one skill, or find a rogue who maxed out damage debuffs instead of sneaking (haha good luck on that one), or, you know, get a Tank who actually has an anti-DoT build instead of the meta shield-based one. But important part is that you can't just slap any random "Tank" into your party and go on with a standard routine - you have to give it a thought. And that there's more to a Tank build than some one-dimentional "Tankiness" level akin to AP.
And then there's the whole thing about PvP vs PvE focused builds, which, ideally, are also a trade-off - can't be great at all at once, need to pick which you want to be better at, and by how much. And of course, Tank's role in PvP should still revolve around tanking (i.e. absorbing damage, negating damage to oneself, taking on the biggest hits, shielding allies, acting as frontline, being the first to go on the minefield... you get the idea), and not suddenly change into a slightly chonkier and slightly weaker DPS.
Also, if we are talking action-combat tanking - some kind of small directional shield to catch bursty shots flying towards your squishy allies could be fun to play with in a full 3D world.
PS: Sacrifice Crusaders in Ragnarok Online were good fun, with the Sacrifice skill allowing you to link your health to a nearby ally, and take on a percentage of the damage dealt to them. To be fair, all of the Crusader skill tree was pretty fun and thematic.
Raids
Given 40 person raids, and 8 classes with 8 subclasses, we might expect 5 primary tanks, with another 4-5 offtanks (classes with tank as subspec).
I wonder if this would be too many - tank players are generally in short supply, and it can be hard to recruit / persuade people to reroll to tank. It would also be hard for encounters to consistently provide interesting things for 5 tanks to be doing.
I think designing raids for 3 main tanks (tank as primary class) could work. Design the subclasses to have different niches - e.g. Guardian is best for dealing with hard hitting single targets, Knight has the highest single target threat output, Spellshield has the best magic mitigation, Warden is best at picking up multiple targets etc. This would require tanks to be able to respec between sub-specs to allow the raid team to be tailored to specific raids (see my thoughts on this below).
Off-tanks would be other classes with tank as their secondary class. They would provide swing roles, tanking when needed.
Dungeons
What level of specialisation will be needed to tank in dungeons? Will a tank class be required? Or could a fighter with secondary tank class do it?
I think one main tank, with situations where other players pick up mobs is the best idea. I would suggest allowing classes with a secondary tank class to tank dungeons if they have decent gear. This would help mitigate the tank shortages often found in MMOs - although it must be balanced by making the tank class better at the role, so people prefer to have a 'proper' tank.
Respec
I find it fun to build out characters for specific encounters / content. Collecting different gear sets, and unlocking new builds is a fun side to progression. It feels rewarding to unlock new aspects of a charachter, especially if there are class-fantasy quest lines, abilities to learn, and cool items to get. However, it feels terrible to be taxed to swap between builds (see Shadowlands covenant/soulbinds as an example). One good solution is the Final Fantasy class system where you level up individual classes, then can swap at will (requiring a visit to a class trainer / town is fine). Could Ashes have you level up a Fighter to say level 30, then start quests to unlock the eight subclasses, each of which has its own level. (I might want to level up as a Highsword initially to 50, then level up the other subclasses afterwards). This would require investment to unlock respeccing, allow players to experience the full range of class fantasy questlines, provide a long tail to progression, and avoid ongoing friction to chosing builds for different content.
Since pvp will require a lot of tanks between sieges and open world formation play. I feel like it's necessary to allow/require 3-5+ tanks to be useful in pve as well or else people won't want to play tank because they are useless in pve. Then there are too many tanks on a server because of the pvp needs. I am mainly wanting to avoid the scenario where there are only 2 tanks needed for any raid group, so any extra tanks would be more or less useless.
I would also like to see the other classes that are X+tank be able to assist in these encounters without replacing a pure tank type, but still provide some kind of utility that lets them fill gaps. For instance if you need 4 tanks to properly deal with an encounter, but one of your tanks dies or gets separated from the group. You could then have a X+tank class fill that gap in some capacity as a temporary replacement.
What I mean: we saw a lot of tanks in different games (aggro/target based like in wow or la2, party guardians who blocks dmage projectiles like in Tera on even in latest Archage/BDO with walls/shields that are blocking projectiles, or some combined approaches) but we have no any idea on what the model is expected here. Initial combat system was allowing only something similar to wow/la2/archeage. But now, when its more like a Tera/BDO it can use both ways: agro-target and placement-blocking gameplay (or combination of those 2 archetypes).
So to give an answer we should know the general vision of a "tank". Whats his role: be an edge of an attack OR be the guardian of the party?
Some context of what I meant by these 2 "roles":
"be an edge of an attack" - typical wow/l2/Archeage tanks. When you're initialyzing an attack. Generating some aggro and then just doing a brain dead rotations to keep aggro high and from time to time overpulling some mobs (as result gameplay becomes rutine and joke... like in Archeage when 1 tank gains some aggro for Kraken and then you literally smashing this ugly octopus with cannons and he just dont care.... because somehow this dumb N-tailed creature think that smal thing in water is more dangerous than a few ships with cannons lol). What we have at the end is a typical cycle: tank died - its a healer failure; healer died - its a tank failure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And the only way to mitigate this rutine - make more challanges: more mobs/more bosses/more aggro generation from DDs/need of kite just because game designer desided that or need more tanks again just because gamedesigner desided that.
"be the guardian of the party" - is something similar to Guardian class (not sure exact name in english for this class) in Terra. Where mobs/bosses can perform AOE attacks and the only way to save party - stand in front of party to capture all the damage in shield (ofc some nerds can say that in Terra tanks were also aggro based and pretty similar, yes... but "non target" forced tanks become more agile and party was trying to stand behind tank which was forcing more "defencive" gameplay for tanks... and by tanks i mean tanks, not warriors with evasion build).
But since everyone are making suggesstions, heres mine:
It can be something in between from 2 ways I described above... where aggro can be based not on a damage, but lets say "mob's prefferences". Example: some mobs are hate fire, so if tank will use fire sword - mob will threat a tank as a target #1 no matter even if there will be an OP DD who'll be smashing this mob with lightnings. But what if tank uses iron sword without fire element and RDDs are fire based. in this case mob will try to chase RDD... So what we can do with this - we can use "party defence" strategy where tank will stand in between mob and fire mage... so mob will threat tank as an obstacle that must be eliminated. As result it will force cooperate to make a proper position gameplay.
But what if you're a milie DD and mob decided that you're a threat to be eliminated. There are multiple ways:
- fight until low HP, then move behind tank, so tank will become an obstacle and mob will start eliminating that obstacle and in the meantime healler can recover your HP.
- tank should have some tools to CC mob or prevent his attacks over meelie teammate
- it can be strategy/random based. If 2MDD and Tank are fighting agains mob, then every X seconds or % of HP mob should make a roll on whos the next target of this 3 close range targets (RDD behind tanks so no need to count). So when roll happens and one of MDDs becomes a target - he should reposition behind tank. So mob will switch his target back to tank and MDD can engage in battale again.
- or you should plan your fight better
*but its a pretty raw idea
p.s. sorry for bad english
Having the possibility to go for one by yourself.
Speaking of Tank as the main archetype.
PvE:
I think agro should be a passive skill by default when choosing tank. It should be generated automatically when you hit an enemy and the longer you keep hitting the more agro you generate and the area you attract mobs also increases. If your attack is interrupted, it resets.
Giving the tank a motivation other than just getting hit and raising the shield, giving space to more control skills, making agro generation not a skill in the skill tree.
Giving the tank a visual aid from your party regarding agro and thus being able to warn and control the situation.
PvP:
PvP is a bit more complex.
It can be done like agro, the more attacking players are around, the more the defense percentage increases:
1 player: 6%.
2 players: 12%.
3+ players: 26%.
Also giving the option in the form of active ability to sacrifice defense or life to get attack damage, but never more than a dps, but enough to annoy and make you become a target.
What can not be is that the tanke can give buffs to others, that's what the bard is for.
However if we want to move away from the modern ideology or back off the trinity ideology, then lets actually make tanks great again. (like the classic ideology of a tank) The MMO community would have to go back to needing, a CC guy, a buffer/ debuffer, puller, damage dealer (DD or DPS whatever you want to call it) the absolute animal DPS guy who pretends to be a tank but in reality is just running around helping the tank and moving the flow of the raid. This is a more fun way to play because you didn't need a dedicated tank, or you could be missing a healer if your DD could smash a group quick. You could balance the group a lot easier based off strengths and weaknesses of your group based on who was or was not online.
MMOs have been simplified to the point where people have tried to compute some magical optimum number of DPS, certain number of healers, and 1 or 2 tanks.. To me its incredibly boring playing an MMO by the numbers but its a very simple way to do it and MOST people like it. Ultimately, if the game designers decide to use trinity, stick to trinity and leave it at that. K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) If you want to back off trinity and go back to the golden ages of MMOs, we need the option to make a dedicated class to DDers, tanks, healers, CC, buffers, debuffers, pullers. Slow down combat so the team has time to work out their rotations as a TEAM. I also think this is a million times better for PVP as well. Just my opinion though.