Tanking

I love the overall archetype class design that they're going for, and I know they have said that a tank archetype will be able to tank no matter what secondary class he chooses.
But does anyone know if any other classes if they choose a tank secondary will be able to tank?
For example a rogue/tank being able to do a Dodge evasion type build for tanking. Or a summoner focusing on tanky summons?

Or will the tank primary be the only tanking option?

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Dygz

It's not hard for a Secondary Archetype to tank.
It is unlikely that a Secondary Archetype will replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank.

As long as you understand that, try to see if you can make a Secondary Archetype that can main tank.
Just don't be upset if you can't because the devs do not have the goal of ensuring that you can main tank and their expectation is that Secondary Tanks will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank.
Have fun trying to make that rare build. It's not necessarily impossible. But, the only way to know how possible it is - how close a Secondary Archetype Tank can get to main tank - is for people to give it a try.

That's not the same thing as Secondary Archetype Tanks not being able to tank at all.
If you want to try to push at the edges of the design and see if you can create a build of Secondary Archetype Tank that can main tank - go for it!!!

SirChancelot

That's a huge difference from your

Dygz wrote: »

Uh. No. It's Tank/x that will make viable tanks.

Response that you started with...

But I mean even wow has trouble balancing their tanks. Who's to say that a random X/tank build doesn't turn out better than at least one of the Tank/X primary.

I know they said the goal is to prevent any kind of meta from forming where something feels required. But you know that's what the player base is always going to do... Crunch numbers and determine that a tank/cleric with blah blah blah augments has the best survivability. I feel like having some good tank strength in the x/tank column would help prevent that too...

Dygz

Dygz wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Not enough information on this yet. But there is a lot of speculation about how the augments will work. Tank/tank will be the tankiest tank that ever tanked. But a lot of people think we will see other */tank classes be viable. Though to say at this point till we see the augment system and how far it can be used to"blur" the lines.

Uh. No. It's Tank/x that will make viable tanks.
x/Tank probably will not be able to main tank sufficiently because they won't have Tank abilities; only Tank augments.

It's not a huge difference. It is exactly the same thing.
What do you think probably not means??
If you didn't understand my 1st post on the first page, I made it even clearer in my 2nd and 3rd posts on the first page.

Expect x/Tanks to have augments from the Damage Mitigation School.
That does not mean that x/Tanks will replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank.

Saedu

Rename the "Tank" class to "Guardian" and it will help with all of the people stuck on the idea that only a tank can be a main tank. Of course change the tank/tank to something like "Eternal Guardian" or something cool like that as well.

Let's have classes that can switch roles with meaningful choice in augments that significantly change skills (e.g. reduces damage of an ability while increasing a defensive stat to make the clas tankier).

Dygz

You don't have to reduce the damage of an ability while increasing a defensive stat to make a class tankier.
Expect the Tank augment to increase the defensive stat without reducing the damage from the base ability normally does.
Significantly changing abilities does not mean the Primary combat role changes. How that Primary combat role is played will change significantly.

Blasco

Having tank as a secondary will probably only be good for PvP. If you're a DPS and you need a tank secondary to survive PvE encounters, you're probably standing in the fire too much.

I can't imagine any optimized PvE DPS build including the tank secondary.

Saedu

Dygz wrote: »

You don't have to reduce the damage of an ability while increasing a defensive stat to make a class tankier.

That depends on the degree of change you want the augment to have. Some augments could have smaller benefits only, others could have stronger benefits balanced by negative effects... talk about some awesome meaningful choice with a system like that!!!

Dygz wrote: »

Significantly changing abilities does not mean the Primary combat role changes. How that Primary combat role is played will change significantly.

I'm not looking for your interpretation of what Steven has said in the past.

I understand your position on this topic and I disagree with it. I believe making augments more meaningful... to the degree they have potential to change your primary role... will make for a better game.

Why do I feel this way:
1) One of the core design flaws of MMO is the locking in of a player to a single role combined with the significant time investment required to play each character. One of the best ways to mitigate this issue is with choices that can influence the role a class can play (within reason of course as it needs to fit within class fantasy). This provides SIGNIFICANT increases in playability with a single character and can be done without breaking immersion.
2) Flavor only augments are not going to do much to actually change your class playstyle. A tank/x is still using the same core abilities. This doesn't give true variation if tanking styles when compared to MMOs that support multiple tank classes with entire toolkits that are different.
3) Many MMO players want to try out different roles and they don't want to be sub-par hybrids (i.e. trying to do both at the same time and failing at both). Being able to do only one role at a time, but able to do it as well as others in that role is the best way to manage the desire to play multiple roles with class balance.
4) Tanks and Healers tend to be underrepresented in MMOs, especially at the dungeon level. This leads to tanks getting elitist attitudes cause they can easily find other groups and DPS literally begging for groups. The 8-player group size will help with this, but I don't think it will be enough, especially if someone has to commit to being only a tank. Having the ability to switch roles will help with the supply demand. It also makes it so two friends that are tanks can actually group with each other as well (one of them just goes DPS augments/gear for the adventure). This can go the other way for raids as well where you might have too many tanks. If the extra tank can switch over to DPS then that's better than getting sat.
5)There isn't any downside to this so long as there is still class fantasy/emersion maintained (not all classes need to be able to do all 4 roles, but each should be able to do at least 2 and some 3 or 4). The name "Tank" for a class is more empersion breaking than what I'm recommending.
6) Dygz, don't be the destroyer of fun

. You might have interest in only playing one role, but that decision will ruin the game for millions of other potential players. Have some empathy on those of us who want to be able to fill the role gap your group may have. This is only beneficial for you and won't hurt your gameplay in any way

Dygz

I know what you believe.
I'm just making sure people understand that is not the game design and is not a dev goal.

I'm not destroying anyone's fun. My decisions cannot ruin the game for others since i'm not the one implementing features and mechanics

Saedu wrote: »

Flavor only augments are not going to do much to actually change your class playstyle.

According to the game design, that is false.
We'll have to see how well the devs are able to implement the design.

https://youtu.be/ndtjwBxhwtw?t=2180
The active skills stem from your base archetype. So from a design standpoint, even though augments do radically change the way your active skills provide you abilities, there's still a primary focus on the base archetype itself and not the 64 whole classes.
––– Steven

We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are 64 different versions of... radically different classes. There are eight archetypes that have the same chassis but then they have different augments put on top of that to change the performance of that chassis....to make a car analogy.
––– Jeffrey Bard

Azherae

The reason that Ashes only has 8 Classes is (whether through intentional design or convergent evolution) the fact that MMOs, especially fantasy MMOs, always have only 8 or 9 different design archetypes.

"The protected one who takes or avoids the brunt of the damage while holding enemy focus"
"The one that gets close and hits things really hard or fast."
"The one that stays far and hits things really hard and can hit many"
"The one that stays far and hits things really hard focusing on just one."
"The one that heals damage."
"The one that specializes in ranged Damage Over Time"
"The one that uses stealth and positioning to get damage or bonuses."
"The one that openly uses positioning to get buffs and debuffs."
"The one that controls other entities to do a little of all these things."

You can mix and match these, which is probably the point of augments, and games really do try, very often, to mix and match them, and these often result in new 'classes', but because there simply aren't enough other things to even do, that's all it usually is.

If someone told you 'you have 100 points over 6 related sliders, pick which ones you want', it's almost always possible. Everything an MMO developer tells you is just 'their way of putting that fact into words'. They're just moving the sliders (Damage Mitigation, Melee Offensive Output, Ranged Offensive Output - choose DoT, Burst, or Highest Single Target, or take a little of all, which is what nearly all people with this slider will do, Healing, Positioning Bonuses, Pet Control).

Obviously this is hyperbole a little, but 'classes' are almost always just 'a mask put over a slider preset'. All we have to care about is 'how well the Augments let us move the sliders'.

The car analogy is technically 'they're all vehicles'. Most of them are cars, maybe one is a truck, maybe one is a jetski.

SirChancelot

Dygz
If you interpret those two quotes to mean what you're saying I don't feel like augments are going to change the tank class very much.
have you found any examples of how secondary augments will affect the activated abilities of the tank archetype?

Ventharien

Saedu wrote: »

The problem is more than just the number of "viable tanks". I am a player that likes to tank, dps, and heal. I also like to do it competitvly so i need something that is both fun for my playstyle, but also viable for end game. I don't want to be a liability or sub par for my team. I don't expect to do more than one of these roles at a time, but I require the ability to change between them (perhaps only in towns of people feel there is a need to limit the changing (guess what, there isn't, but I'm willing to compromise) What single class do I pick in AoC for my main?

If @Dygz has his version of AoC the answer is I don't play AoC. I don't like that answer. I'm not asking for anything that is overpowered (I can only do one role at a time). I'm not doing anything that impacts other people's play (you can still choose the role you want).

Dygz... do you hate me? . Why push for a subpar game when this system could be better? I don't think you realize it, but I think this decision could literally alienate millions of players (and therefore less funding for IS to make more content for you so it negatively impacts you). Don't start that "maybe this game isn't for you elitist attitude either." I have a lot of interest in this game, but I see risks like this one where the wrong game decisions could alienate a lot of really great people and not bring any actual benefit to the game.

I recommend archtype impacts your playstyle through what your core abilities actually are. It also drives your initial role in the lower levels. Augments should be powerful enough to modify your abilities to a degree that could change your role through buffs/debuffs. This would give the game so much more. This is true meaningful choice.

Oh and don't answer "alts" to my question about what class to play. I will do alts anyways, but there isn't the same time dedication for an alt vs a main. This game also doesn't look like it is going to be very alt friendly given how grindy it sounds like it may be. That's a separate problem of course.

The problem is, what you are really asking here is, Intrepid, please make my choices not matter. You are asking to do everything, whether or not you are doing them at the same time. Why look for any particular class, when you can do any? And it does heavily impact other peoples play, especially in our current discussion of roles within a group. (Side note: If this is a request you need, the Summoner has already been tapped as a jack of all trades)

In a post after this one, you reference WoW, which throughout it's releases dumbed itself down again, and again and again. They homogenized the classes down to some classes tank, some classes heal some classes dps, and some classes mix. WHICH class you use is almost irrelevant, beyond the tuning that puts one or 2 to the 'meta' for a patch cycle. Having classes not feel unique is not a positive.

As to whether or not augments will just provide flavor, i agree if the augment just makes the sparkles i make have a different color, or get a special animation, i would be dissappointed. I don't think this will be the case. But i also don't think you'll be able to change your role. otherwise, If a tank/rogue and rogue/tank can both survive an encounter, and the rogue/tank does more damage, why would you ever pick the Tank/Rogue? And if Rogue/Tank can't survive an encounter they have failed in their most basic role as a tank. Adding tank should just give you survivability options, maybe you feel rogue is just not working in the big knock down drag out field battles, or just not to your liking, so you add some beef.

Ventharien

Blasco wrote: »

Having tank as a secondary will probably only be good for PvP. If you're a DPS and you need a tank secondary to survive PvE encounters, you're probably standing in the fire too much.

I can't imagine any optimized PvE DPS build including the tank secondary.

That's going to depend on the level of hate management. In a game like retail wow where it is impossible to take aggro from a tank without a taunt like ability, I'd agree with you, as dps just has to avoid the lava and face roll the keyboard in whatever way makes the most ouchies. In systems where Over DPSing is an actual concern, or where bosses often hit the entire raid hard, or fill the area with so much area denial, the group is just going to take some damage, A dps who needs a little less care and attention, or who can pop all their ability and hold some hate on the boss for just a bit off time, perhaps to rez the tank, or clear nasty dots or curses can come in handy.

Dygz

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

If you interpret those two quotes to mean what you're saying I don't feel like augments are going to change the tank class very much.
have you found any examples of how secondary augments will affect the activated abilities of the tank archetype?

I know you don't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnoHtzaQeMs&t=3071s
"When you pick Cleric as a secondary class, two of the augments (Schools) are Life and Death. Choosing Life augments, on certain skills, will have the ability to both potentially impact others to a degree, and give them life-giving benefits, to a degree through you skills, and also provide healing benefits to yourself through your skills, as well.
So any class that's going to choose Cleric as a secondary class will have the ability to pick from those augments (Schools) to influence their skills to affect the Life of others around you and yourself.

It (augments) changes the primary abilities to some degree. And that degree depends on the augment that is applied to it. So, yes, you only get active skills from your primary class and that ability could look totally different after the augment is applied. It really depends on what the augment is."
---Steven

https://discord.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/739365922246098987
"Some cleric augments applied to certain skills will indirectly provide the ability to heal others. These will not replace the need for a cleric archetype."
---Steven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x55xkOprpUo&t=9616s
"We have our eight base archetypes; and the trinity is a pretty strong influence with regards to the eight base classes. However the area in which we actually begin to play with that line between the trinity is in the secondary classes that you can pick. That's where we begin to blend those spaces and allow people a little bit of influence over their role and whether or not they fit perfectly within a particular category within the trinity."
---Steven

RocketFarmer

I think tank in PVP will have to rely more on stuns, interrupts, and CC versus hate/taunt because players don’t follow hate/taunts.

An option might be a taunt that’s a debuff on a target that attacks someone other than the tank. But the opponent still has a choice on who they attack.

Ventharien

RocketFarmer wrote: »

I think tank in PVP will have to rely more on stuns, interrupts, and CC versus hate/taunt because players don’t follow hate/taunts.

An option might be a taunt that’s a debuff on a target that attacks someone other than the tank. But the opponent still has a choice on who they attack.

Depends on if they add that secondary effect for pvp. I've seen it work well. Other then that they are perfect for hold the objective type assignments, So they definitely have a place.

Dygz

Javelin Rank 3 not only pulls the target in but also stuns. Which effectively acts as a taunt.
I'm sure there will be a variety of stun augments.
We'll have to see if there is a Stun School for Secondary Tank.

Novachrono

Feels like tank as a main right now can tank and kill at the same time xD
Jokes aside, Imo , Tank/x should have more threat than a x/tank.
it shouldnt be possible or fair to have both dmg and tank a dragon at the same time.

RocketFarmer

I get the feeling they know that tank may be a little overpowered until they put in the diminishing returns for some of their abilities.

I know a lot of people who would rather quit a game or just avoid PVP than go through an endless stun chain where they are essentially helpless. That can take the player skill out of PVP pretty quickly. So they may also need some good counters to get the player skill back.

That said I am sure there will be some tank killer builds to counter a lot of this. With the whole rock, paper, scissors thing. Anyone know of the contender yet?

Dygz

No way to know because we probably only have about 1/5 of the abilities for Tank, Cleric and Mage.
And we have no clue at all what the abilities for Rogue, Bard, Summoner and Fighter will be.

maouw

RocketFarmer wrote: »

I get the feeling they know that tank may be a little overpowered until they put in the diminishing returns for some of their abilities.

I know a lot of people who would rather quit a game or just avoid PVP than go through an endless stun chain where they are essentially helpless. That can take the player skill out of PVP pretty quickly. So they may also need some good counters to get the player skill back.

That said I am sure there will be some tank killer builds to counter a lot of this. With the whole rock, paper, scissors thing. Anyone know of the contender yet?

If Tanks have lots of single-target cc, I think summoner could do well as anti-tank, though they'd be vulnerable to AoE.

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