Tanks in PVP: How would Hate (aggro) work?

The question is in the title

. In some games I've played in the past, Aggro (and taunt) was purely a PvE affect - will aggro do something in PvP?

What experiences have you guys had in other MMOs on this?

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TheLegend27

Neurath wrote: »

No I'm not trolling, I've played Tank Classes before...but, Hate was for NPC Targets and Taunts were for PvP Targets (And PvE Targets of course). Unless you are talking of a Hate Counter for the Tank which unlocks Higher Tiered Abilities for the Tank to use. These are the only times I've seen Hate/Hatred.

I must kindly ask: did you read the opening comments? I understand (and even admitted from my past experience) Hate tends to be a PvP thing - quite frankly things like "taunt" are useless in PvP in almost every other MMO. I'm trying to get a discussion going on how Hate can be applied in a PvP setting.

Neurath wrote: »

I do agree Taunts should be used in PvP because it adds more depth to the Tank. I'm ambivalent about a Hate/Hatred Counter to Unlock Higher Level Skills because there should be a better way to get DPS from a tank and lastly I still believe Hate is reserved for NPCs because all skills can apply Hate but only certain skills will Taunt. A Tank would be overpowered if all skills apply Hate rather than a limited amount of Taunts.

I agree about the adding depth part here. I understand it's impossible/useless to apply continuous hate in PvP - but something like what was mentioned before "Harsh counter when a taunted/high hate opponent attacks an ally" is pretty cool, don't you think? :P

Daybreak

Wandering Mist wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

My hope in PvP is that abilities with hate gain on them act as short duration forced target abilities in PvP - ranging from 0.5 seconds to maybe 2 seconds for the strongest taunts in the game.

What I'd really like is a taunt like the ability "Anchor Howl" from Log Horizon, which doesn't force an enemy player to attack the tank, but if they attack anyone else they will be hit by a huge counterattack for lots of damage. I think this is far more interesting than straight up forcing the character the attack the tank.

My dude. That is a legit idea.

Kadoozy

I think a system where if the tank taunts someone, they get a big increase in damage mitigation to everyone besides the person they taunt. so that would incentivize the taunted player to attack the tank. There should be something done because tank classes/builds always tend to get the shaft in pvp. It would suck to be locked out of a big part of the game by playing one.

Adlehyde

The problem with taunts in PVP has always been that it does not give a player an incentive to actually attack the target that taunted them. So lets make it have an incentive.

Taunt should work in PVP by putting a big marker over the one who cast it (viewable to the target) and debuffing the target for a set duration so they do reduced damage against any target other than the casting tank, but increased damage against that tank, for a reasonable duration. 2-3 seconds is not a reasonable duration. You might barely notice you were taunted before it fades. I'd say 10-15 seconds could be a reasonable duration, unless combat itself actually only takes that long to kill someone (that'd be WAY too fast imo).

If you do 50% less damage to all targets but the one who taunted you, but also do 50% more damage to the one who taunted you, it might actually effectively work as a taunt. Particularly if it's long enough that the increased damage against the tank means you might actually manage to kill that tank. Hell. make it so that if you do kill the tank while you are taunted, you maintain that 50% damage buff against all targets for an additional duration, maybe another 5-10 seconds. Just enough time to get a few super heavy attacks off on the next closest target you can reasonably reach.

This gives the taunted player options. Do I Ignore the taunt? Do I try to finish this target? How much HP does the tank have? Can I kill him faster? That buff would allow me to faceroll these other 2 people if I do... or do I just run away because holy crap that dude has some serious backup, and I can't kill my main target fast enough anymore.

Imagine this. A rogue is trying to kill a cleric, but they're healing through the damage. They're still whittling their health away, but it's going to take a little bit more time. Here comes Derpy tank. Derpy Tank is lower level and only has 20% of his HP. Derpy tank sees the cleric is struggling against the rogue. Derpy Tank taunts the rogue. The rogue sees Derpy Tank is only at 20% health, so switches targets and just stomps Derpy Tank into the ground in three seconds due to the taunt buff. The rogue now uses this buff (since Derpy Tank died) and one shots the cleric's remaining HP, dashes to a nearby mage, but oh the buff fades after one attack. Still, that opening attack on the mage gave the rogue a good headstart. Thanks Derpy Tank!

Or perhaps in the reverse situation, a tank sees their party member gets ambushed and so quickly taunts the ambusher. The ambusher now has to immediately assess this situation. They have no hope of killing their initial target in a reasonable amount of time, and while that 50% buff will let them easily beat the tank in a 1v1 fight, the initial target was a cleric, who is healing the tank through the damage. What does our ambusher do? risk it for the biscuit or flee for a better target?

Niraada

Could make hate/aggro act as a temporary scaling debuff towards attacks against the Tank's group for those affected?

eg. Tank taunts, applies Hatred to Enemy Fighter. Enemy Fighter attacks the Friendly Mage from the Tank's group, but due to Hatred, a portion of Enemy Fighter's damage could be mitigated or even redirected to the Tank.

I would lean more towards redirecting a portion of damage received by allies from enemies with Hatred stacks towards the tank over direct mitigation, personally.

Then, simply have Hatred fall off with time, or with damage dealt to the Hatred's origin (the Tank).

With a system like this in play, if you really want to blow up that Tank's Friendly Mage, you can still do it, but the Tank will be soaking up a portion of your damage, potentially allowing the Mage an opportunity to escape.

That said, I wouldn't want to see a system where a Tank could maintain such a debuff on more than two people tops, and definitely not have a situation where more than one Tank could apply Hatred to the same target.

I think it'd likely be really technically challenging to implement a system like that though, and I'm sure rife with potential for abuse of the mechanic if not considered very carefully (which I have not).

Rasterranger

I think the best system would be hatred allowing a portion of the enemy damage being redirected to the tank. Like a rogue attacks a mage but only 50% of it goes to the mage and the other 50% goes to the tank. Make it a stacking de buff to force focusing vs spreading out the affect. Like each stack redirects 5% damage to the tank with a maximum of 10 stacks for a total of 50% damage redirection. If 2 tanks taunt the same target it will still stack to 50% damage reduction but each tank will take 25% of the damage. Every attack a taunted target does to the tank wipes a stack.

Tanks who have applied hatred to you would have a red aura around their character model until all the stacks they applied were removed. Threat removal abilities like a fade would wipe all stacks and make it incapable to be taunted for a certain duration after using the ability.

This system keeps the damage from disappearing into the void like a shield and makes it more of a tank ability. Has good counter play, and keeps healing/support relevant. Tanks become a lightning rod for damage which the healers can than heal. This would make healing more manageable for healers in large siege fights by limiting the number of people they would potentially have to heal. I think a system like this creates a very nice symbiotic relationship between tanks and support in pvp.

Songcaller

TheLegend27 wrote: »

I must kindly ask: did you read the opening comments? I understand (and even admitted from my past experience) Hate tends to be a PvP thing - quite frankly things like "taunt" are useless in PvP in almost every other MMO. I'm trying to get a discussion going on how Hate can be applied in a PvP setting.

I agree about the adding depth part here. I understand it's impossible/useless to apply continuous hate in PvP - but something like what was mentioned before "Harsh counter when a taunted/high hate opponent attacks an ally" is pretty cool, don't you think? :P

Yes, I did read the OP and the OP states the question was the title...In my experience hatred is a passive boon while taunt/irritate is an active boon. Passive boons were based on PvE and active boons were based on PvP. It is true Taunt does not have the same effect in PvE and PvP in most games. It is also true I would appreciate a large roll for Taunt in Ashes, however, there will be 8 'tanks' or more and each will have a different style.

I would hope some 'tanks' will also be DPS. I wouldn't be against the Guardian harnessing deflective blows and harsh counters but I do not think all 'tanks' should have the same arsenal or the same purpose.

Edit: By same purpose I mean in PvP. Diverse uses would be preferred to cater to different modes of PvP. I understand all Tank/X Classes can tank in PvE. Again though I digress and don't feel like expanding the PvE Focus more than the PvP and PvX possibilities.

maouw

Wandering Mist wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

My hope in PvP is that abilities with hate gain on them act as short duration forced target abilities in PvP - ranging from 0.5 seconds to maybe 2 seconds for the strongest taunts in the game.

What I'd really like is a taunt like the ability "Anchor Howl" from Log Horizon, which doesn't force an enemy player to attack the tank, but if they attack anyone else they will be hit by a huge counterattack for lots of damage. I think this is far more interesting than straight up forcing the character the attack the tank.

The problem with this is that - unless there is an automated way to target - it would be difficult to tell which tank it is that cast it on you. If there are 5 tanks that are in range of you, you waste seconds figuring out which one you are able to attack.

Would make the PvP meta to just charge the enemy with tanks to confuse them as to who they can and can not attack.

You can solve that with a simple visual cue like a line of light that links the 2 players together or something along those lines.

Ooh, I like this idea a lot - but instead of a line of sight link, make it a tunnel vision visual effect:
The taunted's screen goes dimmer except for the tank who stands out like a sore thumb - I'd say give the taunted a 10% rage damage bonus against the tank - so people have incentive to react to a taunt.

Or force the player camera to be locked to the tank for the duration of the taunt

Xenotor

Wandering Mist wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

My hope in PvP is that abilities with hate gain on them act as short duration forced target abilities in PvP - ranging from 0.5 seconds to maybe 2 seconds for the strongest taunts in the game.

What I'd really like is a taunt like the ability "Anchor Howl" from Log Horizon, which doesn't force an enemy player to attack the tank, but if they attack anyone else they will be hit by a huge counterattack for lots of damage. I think this is far more interesting than straight up forcing the character the attack the tank.

Ah Log horizon.

I see you are a men of culture as well.

On topic there were quit a few good ideas.
Personally id love a combination of a few.

Suggestion:
Tank uses Taunt on Z people.(lets say 5 as an example)
These 5 deal X% less dmg on everyone else for Y seconds.
These 5 auto target the tank.
If they chose to ignore the tank and attack someone else or buff/heal someone else, then the Tank gets a X% dmg boost against said player but only for a single hit.
Once the tank does even the smallest amount of dmg then the taunt de-buff expires.
(dmg increase does not work on dots applied before the taunt)

If the 5 attack the tank then the de-buff expires as well.
Again they only need a single hit no matter the dmg and Dots don't count if applied beforehand .

EDIT:
I forgot that if more then 1 tank uses taunt only the first one counts.

Sathrago

Quick little suggestion. Make taunting effects/ a skill that slows the target down if they move away from the tank. The further you go the slower you get. There could be other tools like creating a ring centered on the tank that a single creature cannot leave until the duration is up or they get the debuff cleansed.

Im personally not a fan of tanks doing massive amounts of damage but counters like the log horizon suggestion I can get behind.

ataulfos

would be nice to have diferent kinds of taunt tho, like a charm that ahri in league do so the target atleast for a short duration turn back and start hittining u and maybe another kind of taunt in aoe that force everyone who use or is using an skill or auto atack or long range auto attack to aim the tank, that way u have more variety in terms of the augments of the same taunt maybe or work as duel mode where u dont let the enemy scape for the duration of the spell or maybe give reduction damage to allys and get more damage from the enemy taunted, idk but for what im prety sure is taht we have to think outside of the box so we can get fresh stuffs from this game, and later on balance all this new kinds of mechanics even a camera lock and distorsion of sight would help in large scale batles

ThatFaithGuy

TheLegend27 wrote: »

The question is in the title . In some games I've played in the past, Aggro (and taunt) was purely a PvE affect - will aggro do something in PvP?

What experiences have you guys had in other MMOs on this?

There are a lot of different thoughts on how tanks should work in PvP. I think a flat debuff to damage dealt to other players is far too strong, while things like changing your target would both not work (due to the option to play action combat) and be simply inconvenient.

I could see the idea of perhaps the opposite effect happening: Tank taunts, as the tank generates Hate on a player that player is given a damage buff against the tank. Of course, there would need to be significant balance work for this, but realistically this is probably the best option since we don't want to make tanks the best DPS debuffers in the game but we don't want to make tanks worthless trash that are just there to stand around being fat and have large hp pools and die last because they're annoying to kill.

This would also incentivize strong communication in group play and could be a differing factor in small scale battles...

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but it's a thought. Any experience where the tank taunting/generating hate has debuffed my DPS feels like garbage, and fighting against the targetting system would just oppose fun...

maouw

I'd like to bring up League of Legend's old Poppy design.

Does anyone remember it?
Basically, Poppy could target an enemy and that enemy and Poppy were immune to all external damage, except attacks and skills they used against each other.
Basically a forced 1v1.

Poppy is designed to play a frontline tank role. The biggest problem with this skill was that as soon as Poppy did this, her target would just flee knowing it was pointless to fight 1v1 (if they could, then Poppy made a bad decision) and the enemy team would ignore her knowing they couldn't do any damage to her, making her very ineffective at tanking.

I think the lesson here for AoC is that there is 0 incentive to attack a tank.
So a taunt must either:

force the target to make involuntary actions (like Rammus' taunt)
have an obvious reason to attack the tank when taunted

Tacualeon

Wandering Mist wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

My hope in PvP is that abilities with hate gain on them act as short duration forced target abilities in PvP - ranging from 0.5 seconds to maybe 2 seconds for the strongest taunts in the game.

What I'd really like is a taunt like the ability "Anchor Howl" from Log Horizon, which doesn't force an enemy player to attack the tank, but if they attack anyone else they will be hit by a huge counterattack for lots of damage. I think this is far more interesting than straight up forcing the character the attack the tank.

This sounds interesting.

Taunt is the equivalent of challenging someone to a 1v1 duel like in medieval times.
Berserkers, guardian and champions were your bodyguards/lawyers.

maouw wrote: »

I'd like to bring up League of Legend's old Poppy design.

Does anyone remember it?
Basically, Poppy could target an enemy and that enemy and Poppy were immune to all external damage, except attacks and skills they used against each other.
Basically a forced 1v1.

Poppy is designed to play a frontline tank role. The biggest problem with this skill was that as soon as Poppy did this, her target would just flee knowing it was pointless to fight 1v1 (if they could, then Poppy made a bad decision) and the enemy team would ignore her knowing they couldn't do any damage to her, making her very ineffective at tanking.

I think the lesson here for AoC is that there is 0 incentive to attack a tank.
So a taunt must either:
force the target to make involuntary actions (like Rammus' taunt)

have an obvious reason to attack the tank when taunted

A tank should control people for your sake.
That Poppy's ultimate is more of a vanguard ofensive tanky melee kind of skill imo.

Tacualeon

maouw wrote: »

I'd like to bring up League of Legend's old Poppy design.

Does anyone remember it?
Basically, Poppy could target an enemy and that enemy and Poppy were immune to all external damage, except attacks and skills they used against each other.
Basically a forced 1v1.

Poppy is designed to play a frontline tank role. The biggest problem with this skill was that as soon as Poppy did this, her target would just flee knowing it was pointless to fight 1v1 (if they could, then Poppy made a bad decision) and the enemy team would ignore her knowing they couldn't do any damage to her, making her very ineffective at tanking.

I think the lesson here for AoC is that there is 0 incentive to attack a tank.
So a taunt must either:
force the target to make involuntary actions (like Rammus' taunt)

have an obvious reason to attack the tank when taunted

A tank should control people for your sake.
That Poppy's ultimate was more of a ofensive berserker stereoid that forced 1v1.

Might sound technically the same until you are a squishy mage and the Poppy character abandons you to go killing weaklings.

Making yourself invincible doesn't necesarily help friends survive or help you control the battlefield.

Killing them before they can kill us VS Controling them so we can kill them.

Warth

It doesn't aggro/hate is a purely pve oriented mechanic.

Tacualeon

Just act like a know-it-all, cocky and play emotes on their dead body.
No further taunt needed.

Warth wrote: »

It doesn't aggro/hate is a purely pve oriented mechanic.

You can still act know-it-all, cocky and thrash talk. Works like a charm.

Damokles

A taunt couldcause the taunted enemies to deal less damage to other people then the tank.

Example:
The Tank uses an AoE taunt and hits 3 enemy players. All those 3 players now get a taunt debuff, that decreases any damage to targets OTHER then the tank to be reduced by 25%.

They could still attack others, but it wouldnt be as effective as normal.

Nerror

The tank in AOC currently has enough of the right skills (as seen on the wiki) that if enemies in PvP are ignoring you as a tank, you are likely playing it wrong.

A tank is a specific type of support class. The tank already has damage mitigation on allies and CC abilities on the skill list. We know it can do AE knockdowns, slows and pull people in. The tank can also place walls that stun and physically separate groups. The tank can break CC on itself, forcing the opposing team to deal with it if it acts like an offensive player going for the enemy squishies.

The tank, IMO, doesn't need further damage debuffs on enemies based on a conversion of PvE aggro to a PvP system.

I also think trying to force a PvE mechanic like hate/taunt into a PvP one that removes player agency is a bad solution. It's likely to either be too heavy-handed or pointless, depending on the situation. A forced target lock in PvP is either pointless if the player is in action combat mode and is hitting whatever is in front anyway, or completely OP, if the targeted player is in tab-target mode but can't reach the tank because of player collision or whatnot. In other words, either it does nothing or it's a complete shutdown, based on the combat style the targeted player has chosen.

I hope the second level of the current skill called "Hatred" simply doesn't function in PvP, or it has a different effect. A short duration damage debuff would be ok. Just a few seconds at most, giving the tank or his team mates time to throw a heal or CC or something.

Tacualeon

Damokles wrote: »

A taunt couldcause the taunted enemies to deal less damage to other people then the tank.

Example:
The Tank uses an AoE taunt and hits 3 enemy players. All those 3 players now get a taunt debuff, that decreases any damage to targets OTHER then the tank to be reduced by 25%.

They could still attack others, but it wouldnt be as effective as normal.

I like this.
I also propose forcing enemies to target the tank for a split-second.

For those of you that played Wow, feign death from Hunter and it's application.

An enemy is casting a spell toward a friend, you taunt that enemy and you just bought 1-2 seconds in which the enemy have to re-adquire the target and start casting again.

We could have the taunt working both for pve and pvp.

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