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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
Surely, but I'm actually trying to figure out bases.
In an Reticle Camera only game, I would not want this type of Taunt.
But because Ashes uses terms that people interpret differently, I can't say for certain yet. There are games where you can't 'turn your character around to see their face without stopping movement' (BDO), games where you can do this anytime and the camera control is separate and constant (Monster Hunter) and games where the game is third person but the reticle is always your character's facing direction (Predecessor).
In the first case of game, it depends on implementation, which is where I assume this disconnect comes from.
In the second case, as they say 'skill issue'. I am not claiming that the skill should be required or is fun to use, but it is certainly an intentional design choice with a clear reasoning. I think this might be the type we are talking about but Mag7 does not enjoy playing and considers clunky (but I'm working on finding that out now).
In the third case, I don't mind based on balance, any taunts such as Countess' ult are explicitly meant to do this, there's no ambiguity, there's no "You expect me to do something executionally to counter this effect" (this isn't true for Predecessor specifically because you can do something executionally, but by the time you've done it, the effect has had its purpose, it wouldn't be 'worth it' as an MMO Taunt.
@Mag7spy - please try to bear in mind here that just because I don't find it 'clunky' doesn't mean that I like this or want it implemented. I just realistically know that Steven enjoys certain types of gaming/combat and could easily be completely fine with this implementation instead of relentlessly pursuing some unproven method.
Remember that joke about how you definitely support all the core principles except that one you really don't like?
"You can solve this problem using our hybrid combat system by switching to Tab Target mode or using your Tab Target skills."
There is a big difference on what is optimate and adding "new" things in the game that didn't need to be there that make it worse on both sides. Even more so when there are other solutions for taunts....
But wait we kinda had this in Ashes too...
This idea is you guys I don't see the devs reference taunt will control your action camera with a CD and area effect based on tackling challenging pve content. I've seen far more in terms of wanting a bit faster pace and players having control.
So I don't see any reason why this would be added in the game again when there are other options they can do for tanks.
I don't see them adding new features not needed that purposely make action or tab worse. There will be things that are more of a benefit I'm sure, but not things that directly reduce the experience of one or the other. If you go mostly action for example with skills and your play style it is effectively nerfing those players for a reason not needed.
This is why i said the reserve on the tab element if you were forced into action combat that is going to make player experience feel worse. On both sides it really isn't needed.
We can find better ways for taunt affects and zone control. The aoe protection skill tanks have being one of them.
*edit Players under taunt effects deal even more reduced dmg unless attacking tank(class skill changing how it works) , making players focus the tank more so.
I mentioned one increase tank abilities under taunt effect. So if you are being slowed and do not attack the tank it is increased, when you hit the tank enough times the slow value goes back to normal (this requries tank to be within range of you though)
As i mentioned above during tank skill if you are taunted you do further reduce dmg to other players (plus part of that dmg goes to tank). Meaning if they are near tank effect it becomes more effective to hit the tank so you dont deal as much reduced dmg.
All these have 0 impact on camera with tab or action.
*edit, and ensures for the second one it reads especially well on the battlefield for players with so much going on.
No, those aren't taunts. They don't affect player behaviour enough.
I base this on my studying of games that have these.
Only two things do the job of a taunt. One is easy, one is hard for me personally in design, I can't speak for others. Maybe someone more skilled than me will achieve it. I will be glad to see it and study from them when I meet that person.
But at the moment, forced Target is the only consistent Taunt I have ever seen, and I prefer to give feedback and have discussions based on the current state of the genre/combat in games.
If you believe that AoE or zonal protection is equivalent to a Taunt, there's not much to discuss, though, we'll never agree there.
Well to be fair granted it is 4 people talking it makes it at the top of the page so someone is going to see it lmao. And we moved it from insults back to actual conversation which is good
This is a debuff. Players treat it as a debuff. You don't need to attack the tank if you were close to killing a target. You just keep attacking the target with your reduced damage.
Since the Tank already should have proper damage reduction anyway, it is not better to hit the tank in this situation, it's a noob trap for unskilled players or an 'indicator' for roleplayers.
Or it is so incredibly broken due to the tuning required to make it work, that you get 'Tank Meta'. You know of this from Overwatch/Paladins I assume, and those games don't even have the full version of it.
The reason I care about the difference is that a debuff doesn't make you attack the Tank or make most better players WANT to attack the Tank, whereas a Taunt by my definition should make you really want to attack the Tank no matter what role you are playing
Well we have different view points on this, I view taunt as a debuff that encroaches you to attack the tank. That can be designed and scaled to different length. Also just because a tank isn't being hit does not mean they aren't doing their job when it comes to PvP.
If the tank id debuffing people making them take reduce dmg as a group with their skill, they are protecting people. In PvP if players need to spend more time hitting their allies and realize if they kill the tank they can kill the others faster. That job has been done in the tank being designed to agro players and have them attack them (naturally).
So if you don't agree that is taunting I guess that would be you, i view what motives players naturally to do things. If that makes players attack the tank, than I view that as they are being taunted and tank fulling their role in what they need to do and having a impact on the battlefield.
Forced taunt(camera control) is a PvE skill, you are simply trying to force it to work in PvP again not in a good way.
Effective if you wanted taunt to work the same you could look at people 30 meters away and taunt random people every 15 seconds (or less) messing up the flow of their gameplay. As well as using aoe taunts and kiting people people around. Group would be kiting then all oft hem would be turning their backs when they get aoe taunted having camera control taken from tons of players.
I'm sorry butt hat is not fun in a mmorpg, taunt wasn't designed for PvP, it was designed around PvE content. If ashes is going to have hard content and won't use aggro as a means to hold mob attention to a high enough degree. They will have to have taunts of equal power to that content for PvE, hence taunts will be designed around that. Which means they off the bat would be more affective is camera controlling a lot of players not in a good way that reduces the experience. When another approach can be taken.
It's fun for me, so we're back to 'you claiming that what I find fun isn't fun for you'. We understand that already. We can go back to 'agreeing to disagree' now, ya?
No matter how 'wild' our perspective is, it's a common enough one that a basic parse of WoW Tank threads brings it up.
Just gotta figure out if Lead Combat/Archetype designer agrees with you, or agrees with NiKr. Not much we can do to expand the discussion from here since the temp camera thing didn't work out/wasn't relevant. We've just got too many strong fundamental biases towards each other's viewpoints/personalities to have any discussion on this one.
I do think you should make your case a bit better if you want to help Intrepid though. NiKr could too. I can't really contribute because I don't handle this in this way, design wise, so if Intrepid says 'we couldn't find a better answer so we put in the Forced Target' I'll just go 'Understandable, have a nice day' and play on.
It all depends at the end of the day on balance and how devs want to approach it. There is a lot to consider between skills and itemization on the tank.
1. What does the kill time become on allies with a 50% dmg reduction.
2. What other skills does the tank have that can slow enemies down and zone control the area
3. What are secondary item effects having on the fight
4. What is the healing effectiveness on players with that level of dmg reduction, does it make them impossible to die, what is the healing effectiveness on the tank.
5. What are the movement skills like on the classes and ways to avoid dmg and their own cc
6. What is the kill time vrs players under the buff vrs the time on the tank.
Tons more as well but some off the top of my head that have a big impact on the balance and what the numbers will mean. i'm going to focus on point 6 though. Lets say at 50% dmg reduction and low ball and say their kill time is 65% of the tank. If they are protection 4 other members they would have had to kill the tank about 2.5 times over and than fighting the tank as well would be like 3.5*. If they killed the tank first the other members would be a lot more squishy and faster to kill as long as none of them were tanks.
So this comes tot heir balance and what they feel is effective and makes sense, they might only need 30-40%, maybe the kill times will be faster and 60% is better. Depends on their balance and their aim and player kill times.
Yeah, I just don't really know how at this point. My main point so far is "tank should have same protective tools in both pve and pvp. Taunt is one of those tools".
And as for the forced camera move - I already pinged Vaknar with a suggestion to have a dev discussion on those kinds of mechanics (fear is probably the other biggest one of this kind).
From a design perspective this makes no sense because your goal is always to kill the enemy that is likely to kill you or prevent your objective.
Killing the Tank is not priority because usually the Tank is least likely to kill you. This is why people complain about Tank space/strength in PvP, and why only noobs try to kill the Tank still in games without a 'point' to contest like Overwatch.
The only way to make this work is the "If you don't respond to my Taunt I will suddenly become the most likely to kill you'' type effect.
That effect is very hard to build.
There are currently no games where you can have multiple Tanks with an AoE damage reduction that doesn't result in the balance problem. BDO couldn't even manage this when Protected Area was on Mages and had to nerf it.
Damage redirection to Tank is good but not a reason to attack the Tank, this does not work even in games with low healing.
The thing that 'depends on balance' here is 'which way it fails/which way players play around it'. I would never ask a developer to go through the nightmare of trying to balance a Tauntless Tank with the goal of having people desire to attack them first in an open world game. I'd be setting them up to fail and just giving them the choice of which way they fail in.
I can see it in L2 being a lot older tab based game though modern wise that wouldn't hold up people will not like it, even more sow hen you are talking about action camera. Also a taunt designed for hard pve content is different than a pvp focused mmorpg.
My view point and expectations for older mmorpgs and much different than modern ones. Best example is Throne and liberty bases for me feels ( i haven't played it i can be wrong) like a older mmorpg, and everyone looks at it and based on what they see view it as a 20 year old mmorpg. The reason for the backlash is because they felt it was going to be a modern mmorpg in feeling and play style.
Oh, actually that's my misunderstanding (technically me trying to temper my arrogance).
I'm used to my own group 'defining what they want and then handing it off to me to handle the details', and that causes me to offend people online by assuming they would do the same so I explicitly avoid doing it.
I think your tendency is closer to theirs though.
So I rescind that comment, this isn't some point you 'need to make', I expect you'll be happy as long as they get something working and don't end up with the usual 'weak PvP Tank'.
Mag you can ignore my comments about making your case better too, because the 'levels' of conversation happening here aren't aligned. NiKr wants the same thing as you but 'is willing to accept the easy solution'. I 'want the same thing as you but I don't see the things you say as realistic or solutions' (and personally don't have a problem with the easy solution).
Which raises a better question...
At what point, in 'Dev Hours' would you be willing to give up and accept the Forced Target taunt? Basically, how many hours of balance do the Devs have to do to avoid this, for you? (assuming you care at all). Because I think you understand that balancing this isn't easy, at least.
Also, it's very unfair to mobs that they're playing a tab game, while players are playing an action one. It's only fair to equalize those
Protected area was broken do to balance and the fact you did like 0 dmg to everyone including the mage. It doesn't match in this case because you will do dmg to the tank, and less dmg to their allies.
Killing the tank would allow you to more easily kill the healers and the dmg dealers not allowing them to have as much dmg reduction (while clearly seeing where the tank is and targeting him). So by default the dmg dealers can be more confident in their dmg and healers with heals because they have the protection leading tot he tank protecting his team and being a direct link to more dmg being done.
BDO with wizards and witches protection, plus their teleport and having 0 weakness was the issue with that skill. In a scenario in AoC a tank shouldn't be teleporting around the map every second, combat should feel more tactical than the BDO sporadic combat.
Also a tank isn't a taunt bot that should not be the purpose of the play style. Pressings a button and having something attack you it not not exactly peak fun gameplay with what the core of the class of its identity should be. What is fun is the other elements, you just design the game in ways to bring out use of those elements with the tank.
The purpose of taunt is to aggro mobs to makes ure they attack you and not your team. Would you agree in a mmo focused around PvP, their taunt will not need as much strength or tools to deal with compared to a mmorpg focused on hard pve content?
So I'd definitely prefer if AoC's tanks had their own individuality, that would work in a pvx setting. Whether that comes in the way of pve feeling like pvp or all tank abilities working in the same way in both - I wouldn't really care either way, as long as it works.
Seems the conversation isn't gonna happen. Alright.
Conversation?
Tank kit should work and be fun, have taunt increase the power of their kit and further build their identity (not from the taunt but their other skills). Meaning the core of the kit is more powerful and fun under taunt. Or the easier way is just have effects stronger when you are near players as a normal passive buff that doesn't require managing taunted enemies, etc. That would be the most easy solution. Or you do both under different classes.
This issue doesn't seem like that big a deal (dev time) to solve as the time in designing the rest of the kit to be fun and interesting is where the bulk of it will be going regaurdless.
Cause so far I feel like what you're imagining for the tank gameplay is just bard gameplay, but with just a bit more thicqness on the character.
Its a serious question though, because it shows an imbalance based on how they plan to use taunt (id rather no taunt tbh though).
Do you make pve tanking easier to manage for tanks with less effort involved and complexity? Do you give access to tanks a stronger version of taunt that is not balanced for pvp, as it works the same for tackling more complex pve content.
Support they added in BDO was shai but it is kind of a meme, for wars and such people were all wizards and wtiches as they had buffs, prtoection, aoe big dmg, pets, everything. broken dumb class.
Played mmorpgs with bard type classes but its so long ago I don't remember them well tbh. That isn't what I'm imagining though, bards would be more aoe buffs, debuffs, etc in aoc. I'm not viewing the tank just giving buffs to his team but I could make a version that relate to that easily. The protection skill I'm directly reference the tank ability they showed and talking about how augments could work.