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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
You should get a threat boost for being the first one to aggravate the target. Hit him hard? He's gonna remember you better than the rest of the group.
Maybe a "pull aggro" debuff, depending on how hard you hit him or what type of attack, that wears away and doesn't play a big role after 20 seconds. I like having other classes pull to me. I'm not lazy, I swear!
I know I'm not lazy because next comes the fun... er.. hard part. Tanking!
I like single target taunts. AOE taunts should be costly / long CD / class specific, coordination, etc.
Another thought I had about AOE taunts- one class casts some sort of confusion AOE (ground based, debuff based, single target based with more power) and the tank needs to take that moment and use a combo that reacts with the first person's spell for added effect. Maybe the original caster LOSES aggro instead of increasing tank aggro.
Pvp? Only idea I have is give the tank an aura (cd, permanently, activated by another player or two other players doing a spell combo on the tank) for when they get into melee range that forces the target to look at/ target you. I would look at the guy 3ft away about to bash in my noggin! Maybe it dims the enemy's screen or lessens damage done if the target chooses to ignore the tank and continue attacking elsewhere, assuming the tank is close enough and directly engaging the target.
Most of you said yes.
Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
Most of you said throughout the combat.
i say:
!! IT IS MOSTLY A PVP GAME !!
Threat skills = boring ; uncreative
So how do we merge this three topics into the Tank role. To make it suitable for pve, pvp and especally for open world pvp?
As DeadWreckening mentioned:
"At the end of the day the tank role is a support role, so keeping the support handshake from PvE to PvP I think should be the goal IMO."
is it possible to do so without a hugh threat system?
Great Question DeadWreckening, and i say "Yes", it might be possible without threat skills.
However the World bosses and giants have to hit someone right? :
Therefore I agree with Tyranthraxus point of view: "In tanking, it's of course annoying when one loses aggro - but it does feel as though that SHOULD be part of the challenge, of tanking"
As NiKr mentioned: "I think a mechanic of random agro by the mob that tank can "feel" beforehand and has a second or two to get in position and set up a defensive stance in front of the target would be great."
Psym3x found a solution: "What about trying reactive prompts? Let's say you have aggro on the boss but it is about to attack another party member. Right before it lost aggro on you a " ! " appeared above it head for a split second. If you timed your shield bash just right you get a ton of aggro without using taunt."
I guess it is a very good solution, the one who does it get's the aggro.
What about the small monsters?
Looks like TsT990 and Ace1234 wants to outsmart mobs.
TST990: "Most of my dream in terms of playing an MMO that could be the most immersive would be something similar to DnD, where the enemies are controlled by a person who can make intelligent plays ..."
Ace1234: "This way all combatants have full control on who they can target, but there could still be a way to strategize around and manipulate those decisions being made"
And Voeltz might have the solution: "Give mobs a line of sight or field of view that determines what they attack in combination with threat. This will force tanks to actively tank and position themselves in between their allies to defend them and make it harder to maintain agro."
Sounds like a plan Voeltz:)
Here is Roofian`s and Ghostxx`s opinion: "i guess they (tanks) should have many ways to protect their parties other than taunt, specially on pvp where people will know that tanks are not a priority "; "Tanks are a supporting class and need to be given abilities to support their party."
And i like to add Emberstone's thoughts to the mix with this possible solution: "What if you had a "recoil system" where you could have like a tank aura that reduces and absorbes X amount of dmg for anyone inside and apply it as dmg to yourself.
Or a formation skill that blocks dmg for anyone within the formation.
A single target protective spell on an ally that reduces dmg for them and u take it instead.
Just actively blocking hits with your shield."
As a community, we do come up with very good and new idea's. So i say.. throw the old threat mechanics out of the window. The tank will be much more suitable for open pvp without it. Be creative use new ideas. Create something awesome.
Please let me read your opinion's. Maybe you have to add something great?
If NPCs exist then simulated aggression needs to exist. There will be no dungeons without the consideration of NPC threat values.
imo, the ultimate solution will be double use buttons (does X to NPC, Y to Player) or an extra set of "pvp abilities" to toggle between. Possibly synergies have ulterior uses.
I guess I'm just saying that you cannot delete aggression and the manipulation of that in any game that has dungeons.
I don't like this setup because while 'just not bothering to fix it by adding Threat' would absolutely not be any better in PvP, this is a case where I don't want the Perfect to become the enemy of the Good.
Disregarding the concept of 'this is mostly a PvP game', Tanks work in other PvP non-MMO games because the game MODE in which they are tanking is about 'holding objectives' so at some point you MUST move them or engage them.
I feel like a Tank doing these same things in Ashes will be very successful at their role, particularly if their healer has some methods of self protection that will wear out the opponent just as much the opponent wears themselves out trying to bring down the tank.
Speaking ONLY in the context of MMOs, refusing to use the 'Threat' system is not a problem for TANKS, it is a problem for the massive number of ways it allows players to exploit the behaviour of mobs to make them easier. We are VERY used to having Tanks in these games. We are SO used to them that we often forget why Threat is there and why the role flows this way, to the point where some games just ditched it I think.
They are there so that 4 DPS just 'going full blast on their rotation from moment one' actually are putting themselves in SOME danger.
Threat is there so that your mage UberGlassCannon2026lol does not just drop all their mana rapid-fire on the mob while "SuperMegaWallGuy" just 'makes sure to pull the mobs first'. Add as many bot-clones of UberGlassCannon2026lol as are required.
Sure, we could make a DIFFERENT way that the mobs 'react to having meteors dropped on them', but Threat Meters force players to 'exploit' things in a way that the Devs can predict, track with numbers, and tweak much more easily.
And this is why I believe in Threat Meters in MMOs while absolutely supporting the idea that Tanks should be designed as 'strong at holding objectives and positional protection'.
You have a great point there.
I am awear that threat mechanics must exist. Of course there is no way around. And as i mentioned, for big world boss monsters I like the so called "reactive prompts" from Psym3x. For smaller monsters the idea of "line of sight" mechanic from Voeltz. However i despite the use of taunt skills. I guess a second pvp set would work fine. However what do you do If you play pve and get involved in a pvp fight. Can you change your skill set on the spot? would it be fair to other classes, having a second instant skilline? Do you need to skill your pvp skills with your limited use of skillpoints as well?.
What i do really like is your idea with double use buttons. Would be interesting to see how this works out.
As I mentioned in my earlier post; most games are afraid to use threat mechanics/skills for pvp (becoming OP) and make tanks so useless. Keep in mind they're still weak as they sacrificed offensive stats/abilities for defensive stats/abilities. With Ashes of Creation, I hope they will use them for pvp purposes and balance it thru testing. Another reason why it can work in AoC, is their diminishing returns on stuns to avoid stun locking. This will help a lot to prevent these skills becoming out of control and therefore making tanks OP.
What if the taunt skill was more of an aura. Imagine there are 5 skeletons attacking a player. A tank runs up, does an AOE stun, root, etc. The attacked player tosses part one of a synergy (maybe confusion, maybe something to make them magically nervous) as he moves away. The tank pops the second bit of the synergy (short lasting aura) and the attacked player loses some threat.
That SAME aura in PVP could have different status effects if hitting an aggressive player while in a PVE fight. Extra blind, auto target. Maybe confusion makes the player target random things for a few seconds. Maybe the tank aura forces less dmg output unless targeting the tank.
Skill points would be the issue if you can't use the same skills for all PvX. Possibly a second set of skill points to hone your abilities "if they damage a player."
Just spit balling, here.
Make threat generation and maintaining that threat challenging instead of just spamming taunts or just have the first to engage be the tank. And don't be afraid to add hard threat switch mechanics to keep tanks on their toes. Would be fun to have some mobs switch to hard targeting a healer or something so the tank has to work to get that threat back onto themselves.
If you want to call it threat, make it something players will perceive as a threat, not only mindless mobs scripted to see it that way. If the players can ignore it, the mobs should ignore it too. Tanks generating artificial threat is an outdated mechanic, it should go the way of the avian Tulnars.
Defensive characters have their place. Protector type characters have their place. But there are more engaging mechanics and ways to fill these roles than pressing an "attack me" button.
High defensive stance with low damage and low mobility but can switch to a med def and progressively increasing damage stance if ignored and thus becoming a real threat by the sheer exponential damage.
Intercept skills, magical walls/shields to protect other party members.
Mobility CC to prevent targets to move freely.
Or make taunts work on players to everyone's annoyance.
Lets say tanks have a resource, you can call it what you like "stride", "confidence", "momentum"... Whenever tanks generate threat they gain this momentum, and when they take damage they lose this momentum proportionately.
High momentum would make tanks do substantially more damage even perhaps increase the length of CCs or other buffs (subject to balance). But this momentum could easily be reduced by doing damage to the tank.
This would create a real threat system for the tank in PvP if you dont damage the tank enough its damage will creep up and start to give the opposing group an advantage.
So the challenge becomes when is it effecient to do damage to the tank to stop its dps from creeping up to where it become an issue.
Of course this would require numbers balancing as far as how quickly this momentum builds and drops off after what damage (a flat amount of post mitigation damage = what amount of momentum lost? Maybe % health loss based?)
Perhaps higher threshholds of momentum take a lot of threat generation to reach but fall off with relatively little damage taken by the tank compared to the lower threshholds.
Whatever the case this momentum would need to be balanced to incentivise players to want to consciously target a tank that is generating threat and hence momentum off them, to keep the tank in check, without the momentum system turning tanks into better DPS, but that is just a matter of balancing.
So actions that produce threat in PvE also raise the momentum of the tank, giving these threat generating actions some value in a PvP context.
This momentum level should be obviously dispalyed visually. So the "threat" of the tank can be easily assesed for PvP.
In this system 'Tanks become DDs over time'.
What would be the cap/downside to having multiple Tanks, therefore, in your perception?
Cool concept but there would need to be a give and take to this. Just allowing a tank to turn into a wreckingball over time basically turns them into a mini raid boss if you don't have enough damage on them. Tanks aren't meant to deal high damage imo, they're meant to control an area or fight with CC and soaking up damage.
Example:
Shout (used on monster): "Increase threat by 500/700/1000"
Shout (used on player): "Debuff - damage dealt to all players that does not include the caster is reduced by 15%/20%/30%. Duration 3s/4s/5s"
I hate spec'ing into threat skills and them not having any use PvP. By making threat act like a damage debuff, it forces the player to either attack the tank, or attack others with reduced damage. Regarding AoE damage, perhaps as long as the Tank is included in the effect, it doesn't have the damage reduced.
This person 100% is not a main tank and probably never played a tank in an MMORPG.
as a tank starting off in a more offensive stance building threat, through damage, but at the same time this threat is opening up the tanks second stance that’s a more team damage soak. So as the mobs you are fighting start to toss more AOE attacks, or random attacks you can put out some type of pulse bubble, or quick shield stance that allows you to intercept and disrupt these attacks.
This would allow you as a tank to do damage but always be ready to switch to your damage soak stance so you would always be balancing your threat, offensive attacks and making decisions about when to focus on defending while trying to hold the mobs you’re fighting. The two stances would clearly have different move sets and this style would also require a real interaction between all group players. When to pour on the damage, when to heavily focus on threat.
I also would like to see the tanks build up command shouts. These types of shouts could do things like buff healing, increase dmg output, raise resistance’s to types of damage. They would be powerful short duration buff’s so they would need to be built up as a secondary mechanic. Either dmg, or dmg taken or more interestingly you could have these buff’s burn threat. I’m not a designer so it would have to be worked out.
My overall feeling on this type of system is that as someone who has tanked in a lot of games, this would add heavy interaction in the tank roles and would allow a tank to become an effective CC class (ad it is) but also adding damage input and at the same time allowing you to make choices as the group battle leader that can be very important and impactful to the outcome of fights.
This person 100% is not a main tank and probably never played a tank in an MMORPG. [/quote]
Good Morning Mr. Liniker,
Alpha One tester; guild leader and representiv of the Guilda Nova Ordem.
This is a discussion session about two questions:
1.Do you enjoy holding threat as a prevalent part of combat?
2. Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
And I think we are all on the same page here. What I tried to do is adding in a simple topic to consider. A topic to discuss, shareing thoughts. However I do not see any value in your statement. Please describe in more detail what you want to get at.
Of course I do played tank in the past. Mostly in Tera, ElderScrollOnline, GuildWars2 ("tank"), BlackDesertOnline. I tried Wow out as well, but i disliked the numbers of taunt skills. And that is the statement i wanna point out. Yes, threat mechanics need to exist. However there might be a solution to avoid a number of taunt skills without loosing the thrill of binding enemies to you.
So please tell us more what you think about this in detail. You played the Alpha already. What suits the pvx the most without being boring
Tanking is my primary class in every MMO.
something I'm not seeing being mentioned enough--please do not make threat generation based ONLY off of damage and/or skill effects.
I would like to see each type of enemies have their own unique threat generation system. Then for each sub-type creature to have a "focused threat" where if "player class x" is within attackable range, they'll always switch and focus on that player until that player can put some distance outside melee range.
I would like Threat to be based on positioning and distance from target. Creatures should not be able to walk through a line of tanks like they don't exist to just head charge straight to the healer. Group Formations really need to have some play in this.
I flipping loathe the MMO culture where people are constantly jumping around or jumping THROUGH you just to break that Line of sight for a moment, when you're engaged in combat it should feel sticky and definitely take a moment to get out of melee engagement.
Early morning rant over
Heard/Read this kind of statement pretty often now.
When implemented in the simplest way, yes, I agree with you, not much fun.
But when adding the need to decide between threat-generating skills and mitigation-/avoidance-improving skills for example it already 'adds something'.
I totally agree now... scroll up, I edited my comment.. lol
> Type of damage - that the Tank class excels in (and for PvP damages their armour more)
> Shield tokens - if a tank places skulls of defeated mobs of same type being attacked on his shield then he get +aggro per hit
> Aggro related CC skill - such as 'enrage' where mob DPS increases but cannot switch target for some seconds, used to tactically hold aggro when he gets it.
> Aggro related debuff - such as 'blinkered' causing mob chance to hit or dps drop aghainst other targets.
> CC - such as 'narrow path' launched from tank on which the mob is restricted for a time so can only attack tank (unless path positioned badly or mob wants to flee). Other players should not cross this line!
> CC - wall (tank should be on one side, everyone else on the other)
> [other creative gameplay mechanics]
Most of the above can be made to work in PvP too and IMO are a lot more interesting than solely trying to fiddle a hidden 'aggro' number. I am not against an aggro number, some of my ideas above even need it, but it should be a minimal thing to allow novel gameplay. Otherwise AoC Tank would be just another MMO tank.
Many of the posters in this thread have tanked before and stated what they like already. If they get what they like, they won't get anything novel. Similarly I'm trying to get my kids to eat cabbage.
In answer to the OP; threat mechanics should be throughout the entirety of combat.
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Skill rotation should be able to swap out threat generating skills so tank swaps are easy without leaving the tank unable to do much when they are off tanking, great tanking should be measured by how well you handle boss mechanics positioning add management and making good calls, not if you have the very best gear to pull enough DPS to keep up with your overpowered DPS
Its a question of numbers balancing.
I'm not suggesting they become raid bosses or even have damage that would match a damage dealer, just that when they have high momentum they do more damage than they would usually as a tank, to where the tanks opponents may want to drop some damage on the tank to prevent this (it may be a fairly small amount of damage to drop the tanks momentum relative to the time in cooldown rotations it would take the tank to get to high enough to be very concerning)
So you might have to really ignore the tank for it to become a larger threat.
It could also be that a tank does say at base line 0.8x damage than you might expect a tank to do, then with max momentum they can do 1.4x damage, but realisticly the tank will sit at 1.0x damage given the way cool downs and the threshholds work (unless they get focussed where they may dip below)
Some of the tanks active mitigation tools might also give a protection effect to their momentum bar. Lets say a skill give 40% damage mitigation, but provides 80% reduction in momentum lost for a brief period. (subject to tuning)
Alternatively if you dont like the idea of tanks doing more damage momentum's buff could instead grant CC duration or cooldown reduction, or even greater level of mitigation to whatever ally protection tools the tank has.
The point is to paint a real target on the tanks back temporaily - when they activate skills that would be used for threat generation in PvE, creating a psuedo taunt. Because if you dont drop some amount of damage on them (subject to balance) the tank self buffs in some way, a buff they lose when they take x amount of damage.
Some of my above reply is relavant to your first statement.
As to your question...
Well this system comes paired with 2 assumptions on my behalf as to what a tank is: Tanks are melee and tanks have middling mobility. I expect a tank to have intitation tools but not to be inescapable.
So first of all tanks may have to maintain a close-ish distance to generate momentum, even melee distance for a lot of methods. Second no tank while being actively damaged can maintain a very high threshhold of momentum. Momentum on net will be somewhat harder to build then to lose. Especially at higher threshholds where perhaps the largest benifits to the tank reside. Tanks will have to use cooldowns anyway for the chance to build said momentum, or land auto attacks. It doesnt just build over time for free.
So the regular ranged skirmishing or one dps simply switching focus temporaily to a high momentum tank may have them performing close to the tanks base line i.e. not high momentum. In which case one party still have a team composition of just tanks or tank heavy.
(Highlighting the need for momentum to be visually obvious especially at higher levels)
Also I feel generaly in large scale group pvp range tends to have a strong natural advantage. As melee characters will generally be in range of one opponent while putting themselves in the range of a dozen.
If the tanks role is to absorb damage -- large parts of their kit generally revolving around this, then the tank needs to project "threat" in a real sense, for players to want to damage it over other targets in a group situation. My proposed momentum system is just one way to add to that mix of threat only on a temporary basis too.
"I see that groups second tank is starting to build momentum after going largely untouched for 3 rotations time next to our front line, I need to drop a single rotation on it now so the momentum of this fight doesnt shift"
Anyway fun theory crafting.
For people who prefer to play the tanking role, do you enjoy holding threat as a prevalent part of combat?
I would think it essential in some way any class other then a Guardian that does mix with the tank have some way to mitigate support as well instead of directly soaking anything. Even parts of crowd control can be essentially tanking by diverting damage. Things like a spell shield i might expect to be able to help tank/support from a afar while never in melee range and the spellstone i'd expect mitigation of some kind via more direct melee role with spells instead of a shield itself.
Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
I think for a more dynamic encounter throughout would be better. I do not think we need to limit choice of tank-style from threat mechanic. With so many hybrid options the damage vs threat vs tankiness can be exchanged via whatever hybrid association is played as well as with stat choice/personal character build beyond the class choices.
Extra Thoughts:
I would like to see a proper shield wall for pvp and even pve that tanks can put up and interlock that blocks people walking through as well as temporary mitigation for however many seconds.
Not specifically a fan of how flashy(FX) all the movements are. Hope to see a choice in visual excitement from attacks to clean the screen on incessant flashing, possibly to totally disable. Sounds can also be used to tell what spells/skills are cast. It's distracting and i think it looks confusing. Also seizure and or headache material.
Also a caster tank would be cool. I know I've always wanted to play a mage-tank who might not do as much dps as a mage or caster. To me "Tank" is just a loose term for a class that can hold/mitigate/control the aggro of mob(s). It doesn't need a shield or melee weapon as a process and is sincerely missed by alot of players in alot of MMO's.
Current threat Gen looks too weak. However i do like the DnD type roll chance on fails for threat.
Secondary tank classes i am interested to see if they can actually step up and support for a short while.
Last side-note non-tank related:
I truly hope you distinguish those oakbane bosses more they all just meld together. No variety.
That being said, I think there's more to be concerned about as far as tanking goes. Much of this boils down to the fact that we have one core tanking class in the game called "Tank" that will play almost the same way, even with different augments. Essentially, if I make a tank and augment it with mage talents, rogue talents, or ranger talents, I'm still playing a tank. I might just have a handful of abilities that deal slightly different types of damage with slightly different combat effects and slightly different visual effects. Unless these augments really feel like a near-class-overhaul, then the tank will, at its core, always play in fairly similar ways no matter how it's augmented.
As someone who hasn’t experienced a game with only one tanking class before, I think it's going to take a lot of effort making gameplay with a single class in the role feel fun and accessible but also challenging and rewarding enough to attract the same (or, preferably, a more balanced) ratio of tanks to DPS which one would find in other games that offer different tanking fantasies with their own unique playstyles. Multiple tanking classes in other games often have their own unique energy pools that regenerate in different ways, entirely different ability sets, they wear different gear types, they bring different utilities to the party, and they engage with single target / multi target in different ways. Beyond that, their classes each have their own history, culture, and aesthetic representation in the game, giving tanks of different classes a fully immersive class fantasy within the world. This allows the role to attract a wider variety of players than just saying, "Here's our tank class. You wear plate armor, hit stuff with melee weapons, and there are a few abilities that might work differently depending on which secondary archetype you take up halfway through your leveling experience."
Thankfully, the gameplay in Ashes seems to be serious enough of a challenge to the point where it will attract far more players willing to take up leadership roles, which tanking certainly is, than other current MMOs. With this in mind, I think the only thing left will be to ensure that there a wide enough variety of tanking playstyles to attract anyone who would potentially be interested in the role.
Should other classes be able to mitigate their threat levels? Sure, some small abilities to drop their threat, especially for healers who are usually second in line to threat generation.
It's best to look at other MMORPGs and see their tank layout. WOW, ESO, and FFXIV namely.
WOW's threat is pretty basic (Post vanilla/BC), and tanks seem to hold it relatively well without much issue.
ESO's tanking is kind of bonkers. Almost any type of class can tank w/ the right abilities slotted and passives.
FFXIV's tanking is pretty solid, you press the buttons in order of succession and you will maintain threat, you can even swap to a heavier DPS rotation if you know you'll maintain threat throughout.
I enjoy'd XIV's tanking layout the most tbh, with ESO being the least enjoyed, it felt too random to me and erratic.
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