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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.
IDEA for tanking in PvP
LuciFury
Member, Alpha Two
What if taunting players made them do slightly increased damage to the tank and substantially less damage to others for the duration. Instead of forcing players to attack the tank rather, allow the players the opportunity to "mess up" or try and "burst down" the tank. I think freedom is always the best option because it allows people to reward and/or punish themselves
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-ability to cast a buff on an ally that creates a link either sharing the dmg or taking it entirely for a short duration.
The difference is that healer heals after the damage. The tank should do it before.
I think that is the general idea, this suggestion is a way to accomplish that goal
But I also don't mind the temporarily forced movement when it's an impactful cooldown. FFXIV(it's the primary game I play) has these ultimate abilities (in their PVP modes) that are big AOE impact that take a good bit to charge up. The Dancer class has something that "charms" which essentially forces anyone in the AOE to slowly walk towards the Dancer for a few seconds, while another class has something that's like fear where it does the opposite and makes the targets slowly walk away. It essentially works as a temporary stun while also only slightly impacting the position of the player. From my own experience this "forced" movement doesn't really feel that bad as it's still necessary for the rest of the person's party to capitalize on it and it doesn't happen that incredibly often that it's unbearable. For that reason I don't mind the "look at me" kind of skills in relation to tank PVP since you don't want their normal aggro PvE skills to be useless.
Also depending on the class I wouldn't mind obscuring vision methods or increasing the tanks damage. So like the Nightshield might use a skill that essentially fogs out the other person's field of view except in a cone directed at the tank for a few seconds. The player could still swing their skills at the other targets but they'd have a greater chance of missing since it'd be harder to see them.
Or like a Knight might gain a buff in their damage/reduce their cooldowns when they use their aggro skills if their enemy is attacking a nearby party member.
and... just like tanking in every other pvp game taunting is useless in PvP. The entire basis of AoC is that taunts and threat should be useful in PvP.
I would prefer no forced movements and rather punished movements. Another example of such a thing is a hemorrhage strike or bleed that inflicts massive damage if the target moves after for a set duration. I dont like forced ANYTHING I prefer "suggested" mechanisms
We're doing one next week on Nodes! https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/56269/office-hours-village-node-discussion-tues-sept-19-2023-at-11am-pdt#latest
excellent! Thank you for the info! I am new here and I am a tank enthusiast, but I am also scared to play tank because I am a PvP player first and no game has done it right IMO
Exactly this was done in warhammer online
What I came up with when thinking about your question is this:
Generally in PVP there are objectives, its either TDM, CTF, King of the hill etc etc.
There needs to be a new PVP mode called Raid vs Raid that has a point awarding system such that it favors how a PVE raid would work.
Say in RVR killing the tank nets X amount of points, where X amount of points makes it the smart play to go after and the ultimate goal of the raid.
DPS only get certain windows to target healers and other DPS etc. Essentially make it so that the point awarding system incentivizes the outcome of what we want, which is tanks tanking damage for their team, healers healing the DPS and DPS trying to use their CDs to stun lock/silence/blind tanks into being less effective.
You can break this up into phases where if its 10v10 and neither tank is going down and DPS and Heals are doing what they should be doing, then a phase change happens where maybe at random 2 DPS and heals from each time are able to go into a 2v2 scenario and whoever comes out of that alive comes back into the fight while the others enter a re-spawn timer longer than what the winners get. There would have to be a winning feature with this though, like long cool downs reset, a special boon granted to team mates etc.
It would almost need to be Overwatch style with a few tweaks to give the classes a reason to perform their duties.
I think its doable, it just needs a new frame of thinking.
I don't think that a complicated system like you propose is needed. After all, when you have a complex system, you also bring the opportunity to come up with some way to game the system, right?
What I came up with when thinking about your question is this:
Generally in PVP there are objectives, its either TDM, CTF, King of the hill etc etc.
There needs to be a new PVP mode called Raid vs Raid that has a point awarding system such that it favors how a PVE raid would work.
Say in RVR killing the tank nets X amount of points, where X amount of points makes it the smart play to go after and the ultimate goal of the raid.
killing healers and DPS net you lower amounts of points and at the end of the game time whoever has the most points or whoever has completed which tasks are assigned in the match wins.
Back filling in this would almost have to be necessary due to the nature of the game. Similar to how overwatch works.
DPS only get certain windows to target healers and other DPS etc. Essentially make it so that the point awarding system incentivizes the outcome of what we want, which is tanks tanking damage for their team, healers healing the DPS and DPS trying to use their CDs to stun lock/silence/blind tanks into being less effective.
You can break this up into phases where if its 10v10 and neither tank is going down and DPS and Heals are doing what they should be doing, then a phase change happens where maybe at random 2 DPS and heals from each time are able to go into a 2v2 scenario and whoever comes out of that alive comes back into the fight while the others enter a re-spawn timer longer than what the winners get. There would have to be a winning feature with this though, like long cool downs reset, a special boon granted to team mates etc.
It would almost need to be Overwatch style with a few tweaks to give the classes a reason to perform their duties.
I think its doable, it just needs a new frame of thinking.
I posted a comment below with some ideas, is there a way to bring these up in a refined thread for this topic?
The best mmo that has tank, healer, dps and has massive battle sieges and open pvp. Hundred vs hundred fights IS Warhammer online (or Return of reckoning now) without a question.
Just by the nature of the trinity system and big fights AOC is GOING and NEED to have several similar things implemented.
I think AOC devs should definetly look into what makes warhammer online the best pvp mmo experience for so many people, if they are not already doing so.
Here are a little video showing one tank class in warhammer.
For those unfamiliar with the game I can tell you a little bit what he does in this fight.
First off hes putting a slow on one of them so they can't catch up to his teammates.
Secondly he channels the "hold the line" ability wich makes him and teamates behind him take less damage.
Thirdly he roots an enemy and himself at the same time so that his teamates and partner can secure the kill and make sure he can't get away.
And lasty he slowes another player again making sure he can't get away either.
All this while he also guarding (taking a part of his damage) a melee dps with him. The one with a G above his head.
I think alot of this is going to be a bit similar to how big battles is going to work and how the tank is going to be used in AOC also. I personally think this is a GREAT point of reference to build upon and take inspiration from.
This is the class hes playing https://builder.returnofreckoning.com/career/knight-of-the-blazing-sun
And about the taunt suggestion. Warhammer have something similar. Aoe taunt = makes enemy players deal less damage to everone exept you(the tank) until they damage you three times or the debuff runs out (15 sec).
perhaps in an instanced battleground or something? I am a an avid open world PvPer... My suggestion is to address tanking overall without forcing the players hands, rather guiding them as freedom is key in any open world game.
I am disappointed that I was never aware of Warhammer the MMO, when I hear Warhammer I always think console game. It seems like these guys perhaps shared the same TANK frustrations that I do!
The healer has two ways to heal: targeting directly a player or casting an AoE. I don't really like AoEs.
Probably for tanks AoEs make more sense but I still don't like them.
I would prefer a solution where the tank really blocks the incoming damage by being between the attacker and the player he tries to protect.
You could bodyguard your teammate, taking 100% of all damage they receive, reduce the damage taken of your teammates, stun and CC your opponents while dealing a medium amount of damage to them.
Ashes could definitely do something similar.
This is kinda done in three ways:
1. Soaking damage/cc that could've been used against teammates
2. Peeling "diving" -kind of enemies (charging warriors, assassins) off said squishies
3. Bogging enemies down into combat near them, away from teammates and into a good spot, allowing casters to maybe concentrate aoe there.
For 1. we have seen some tools in the tank showcase like the grit system.
For 2. the tank should have some kind of a zoning ability, possibly to knock enemies back and keeping them from getting behind them towards the backline. These would probably be used more as a reaction to an immediate threat, and would also include hard CC effects like stuns and why not even disarms.
3. Is where I feel taunts in PvP would come to play. After you've made contact with an enemy with some kind of a smack-to-the-face stun and stopped them from going at your backline, I feel taunt is what would be good next. So here goes:
Taunting in PvP would taunt enemies in an aoe around or in front of you. When they move towards you, they gain bonus movespeed (and possibly dmg or attack speed bonuses if not too unbalanced). When they move away from you, they move much slower than normal. This way they will not be rooted in place attacking you, but rather free to try and move away from aoe spells if they can, but at a much slower speed. This movement slow would also make it much harder for melee enemies to initiate on your backline.
If we play around with player choice a bit more regarding the effects, why not have the taunt debuff timer decrease a bit while the taunted enemy is damaging or attacking the tank?
This would result in the taunted enemy having to decide if they want to attack the tank, getting out of the taunt debuff sooner, while simultaneously letting the tank soak their damage, or do something else and remain in the debuff longer.
I liked that kinda Buff in WoW, when You could overtake (i think it was ... ) 30% of the Damage that your Ally takes for him, if you blessed him with a certain kind of Paladin Buff before.
If for Example a genuine "Tank" gets as Sub/Second-Class "Cleric" or so -> meaning giving the Tank some kind of Holy/Paladin-kind of Vibe,
why not let Tanks who "have" this Second-Class, have this cool Buff they can quickly cast on every Ally they want -> ensuring that part of the Damage this Ally takes, is transfered over to them instead ?
It would be sweet for the Tank - and HELLA annoying for enemy hostile Player that gives his best to go around the Tank and attack the Tank's Allies.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
It was extremely effective mitigation, but the issue was that tanks didn't like the idea of taking damage, haha. I never saw the set in pvp unless I ran it myself.
Maybe something along those lines but a smaller buff with a lower downside, so that tanks still feel tanky.
This was one of my suggestions I made in a video about 2 months ago inspired by a set in the elder scrolls online named vangaurds challenge. “Taunting a player causes them to deal 35% less damage to other players, but 35% more to you as long as you remain within 28 meters”
Taunts or threats use in true pvx scenarios is important. Many suggestions as well as the quote from Steven on making tanks viable in PvP included in video below. Hope it helps progress this post and brings our concerns back to light. (Apologies if not allowed)
I knew a few guys that permanently wore this set. Couldn’t kill the tank because the healer he was tethered too couldn’t die.