Tanking - Active vs Passive Mitigation

Tanking, love it in theory, hate it in practice.

Only one MMORPG managed to make tanks exciting and fun to play, Tera (excluding brawler).

Active blocking being the main reason it was so fun. Being in a fast paced fight against a boss, looking at its animations and timing blocks at the right time, it feels good and its fun.

I just watched a video of AoC where a tank pulls in a bunch of mobs and stands still and theres just a bunch of combat text saying "evaded", "blocked"... Personally I don't see the appeal in that, its boring.

Im playing FFXIV right now, as a tank and its so not fun... I just stand in front of the boss, doing 1-2-3 combo and pressing each mitigation skill at a time, wow, i increased my defenses by 10%, now i increase my dodge rate by 15%... but im just standing there, getting smacked by a boss.

Another issue is aggro management, there needs to be a certain level of difficulty on keeping aggro, a good DPS needs to challenge the tank and make it hard to keep aggro.

Please, make tanking a fast paced, active and engaging role.

PS: yes, i just posted on the subreddit aswell.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Noaani

Luthienstorm wrote: »

It's a good start but not a good finish

The game is like 3 years away at best.

What we have in terms of classes right now literally is just a start.

Each class is going to have 30+ abilities, each of which are going to have around 28 potential augments, as well as having 3 different ranks - with ranks adding functionality as opposed to just increased strength.

Intrepid have also talked a lot about synergizing with abilities - however things like this won't get developed until much later on in development (look for it in two years).

George_Black

In tera every time a character blocked an attack, the player FELT the impact. Best combat design I have ever seen.

I was playing a warrior (twin swords) and there was one boss, like a giant basilisk (witcher, not harry potter), which I had to off-tank.
My character, while holding block, swords raised, would change his facial expression and feel the pushback with every deflect, as the boss roared, blasting shockwaves.

In comparison, the eso active block feels so unimpactful.
As for mmos that dont have active block, I am sure, all real tank mains wish they did.

SirChancelot

George Black wrote: »

In tera every time a character blocked an attack, the player FELT the impact. Best combat design I have ever seen.

I was playing a warrior (twin swords) and there was one boss, like a giant basilisk (witcher, not harry potter), which I had to off-tank.
My character, while holding block, swords raised, would change his facial expression and feel the pushback with every deflect, as the boss roared, blasting shockwaves.

In comparison, the eso active block feels so unimpactful.
As for mmos that dont have active block, I am sure, all real tank mains wish they did.

I agree that is more exciting than hitting shieldblock for a 40% increase block chance for 6 second... But they also can't take this too far in the other direction like new world where tanking is just me holding my shield up and using my the activate abilities occasionally...

Maybe blocking sharing the same stamina bar as dodging?

Noaani

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

In tera every time a character blocked an attack, the player FELT the impact. Best combat design I have ever seen.

I was playing a warrior (twin swords) and there was one boss, like a giant basilisk (witcher, not harry potter), which I had to off-tank.
My character, while holding block, swords raised, would change his facial expression and feel the pushback with every deflect, as the boss roared, blasting shockwaves.

In comparison, the eso active block feels so unimpactful.
As for mmos that dont have active block, I am sure, all real tank mains wish they did.

I agree that is more exciting than hitting shieldblock for a 40% increase block chance for 6 second... But they also can't take this too far in the other direction like new world where tanking is just me holding my shield up and using my the activate abilities occasionally...

Maybe blocking sharing the same stamina bar as dodging?

It is only "more exciting" because of animations.

This is the only reason people claim you can "feel" the impact.

This isn't something inherent to action combat, it is just something games with action combat generally put more of a focus on due to the inherent lack of depth the combat system has.

They trade depth of a system for animations that make players think they can "feel" an impact - which they obviously actually can't.

SirChancelot

I'm not an animation-whore like Georgy boy, I don't really care about that.
All I'm saying is seeing an attack coming and timing a RMB is more interactive than activating an ability and take % less damage for a set period of time.

But these two approaches are the difference between tab Target and action combat... Which is still a toss up for the game so who knows...

Atama

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

I'm not an animation-whore like Georgy boy, I don't really care about that.
All I'm saying is seeing an attack coming and timing a RMB is more interactive than activating an ability and take % less damage for a set period of time.

But these two approaches are the difference between tab Target and action combat... Which is still a toss up for the game so who knows...

But they aren't. Lord of the Rings Online is a tab-target game and being able to tank requires proper timing to defend against attacks effectively. I remember going through a tutorial in the Moria expansion when they introduced new mobs that required those mechanics. It was very engaging and fun.

Remember, this kind of active defense is all about timing. It doesn't require someone to aim like a first-person shooter. Even the interrupt action in World of Warcraft works the same way; you play a Rogue and see an enemy starting the animation for a huge attack, you use your Kick to interrupt him and prevent the attack. It's effectively the same thing.

My point is that you can have the same kind of engaging and active gameplay without having to make it into an action combat game.

George_Black

How did we went from a discussion about active blocking instead of passive defence boosts, to talk about tab/action combat?

We are talking about active abilities vs stat modifiers

Noaani

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

All I'm saying is seeing an attack coming and timing a RMB is more interactive than activating an ability and take % less damage for a set period of time.

I actually disagree with this..

I consider how "interactive" a player is with a game in two ways.

The first is how many button presses the player makes. In the scenario you have described above, there is the same number of button presses, so both are equally as interactive as each other.

The second is in how much thought goes in to pressing a button. This is where the disagreement comes in.

In a game where you just block an attack using RMB or some such, you basically just need to observe the attack, and react. In most games, in most situations, there is little more concern for anything else. Most such games give you no reason to consider NOT blocking that attack if you are able.

In a game with an ability that increases your block, or decreases your incoming damage (or what ever) for a set amount of time, you have to observe the attack coming in, but then you also need to consider if this attack is the one you want to blow your cooldown on. If you activate that ability now, it will be unavailable to you for several dozen seconds, or in some cases, several minutes. You usually have a split second to make this decision, but that decision makes these abilities more interactive than simple "RMB to block" mechanics that offer no real decision.

This is probably a summary of what I dislike about action combat in general. It is about observation and reaction, there is no thinking involved (or, if were to be very generous, we could say there is much less thinking involved).

I'll take a combat system where I have to consider if NOW is the right time to block, and blocking at the wrong time can be as deadly as not blocking at all over a game where blocking is something you do against basically every incoming attack you can see.

Tragnar

so the discussion evolved to active mitigation - should it have a cooldown? and should it deal damage?

if it doesnt have a cooldown then you can use it on any incoming attack and if those animations are juicy enough people will claim that they "feel" that they are blocking.

If you slap a cooldown on an active mitigation you actually have to use brain cells to decide when is the time to use it. And even cooldown mitigation can have juicy animations to make you "feel" like you are blocking.

If it deals some base damage nobody will care, if it can deal damage based on how much damage it mitigated then it will be interesting if it has a cooldown - if not you're pressing it every time to the boss metronome sound and visuals and you're back to not using brain cells.

maouw

Here's a trade-off between "active block" and "passive block" that also prevents "hold my shield up 24/7":

using a block skill has a tapering effect the longer the skill is held down

This means someone who holds up their shield when an attack is coming at them gets the maximum effect of the skill
And someone who holds down block all day gets a reduced effect

This could also have interesting augment options.

falcorpix

Holding block 24/7 isnt a problem, just make it cost stamina, plus no one is simply gonna hold block 24/7 as in a PvE scenario they are losing dps/aggro/whatever else they could be doing instead of blocking and in a PvP scenario they would just be a statue.

Noaani

maouw wrote: »

Here's a trade-off between "active block" and "passive block" that also prevents "hold my shield up 24/7":
using a block skill has a tapering effect the longer the skill is held down

This means someone who holds up their shield when an attack is coming at them gets the maximum effect of the skill
And someone who holds down block all day gets a reduced effect

This could also have interesting augment options.

As an idea, this isn't bad. However, I would make one refinement to it.

With it being the longer the skill is held down, this means there is an easy refresh. You simply stop holding the RMB for a second.

What I think would work best (assuming a resource pool system such as stamina is used), is that the act of blocking an attack reduces the damage of that attack by the percentage of that pool you have remaining.

So, if you hold RMB and continuously block, your stamina will go down, reducing the amount of each attack you block. However, in order to get it back up to blocking 100% of an attack, you need to stop blocking long enough for your stamina to replenish.

It is still less of a consideration than using a skill with a cooldown, and so defensive cooldowns should still exist. However, this game is trying to aim at both action and tab combat players, so things need to have a dumbed down version for action players.

Vhaeyne

This might sound crazy, but I think we could actually have both at the same time. Was having an unrelated discussion with a friend earlier about how I would pay 5$ extra to any decent MMO that is man enough to make it so that clicking skills with your mouse does not do anything and only keybinds work... Unrelated, but it got me thinking about this thread.

You could have active block like in Tera where the skill is timed and held without the skill locking the character's movement down or interfering with the GDC. I always bind my mitigation around WASD anyway. So like if I put active block on "C" (left thumb). I could keep my DPS rotation going on my MMO mouse while still being able to move and use passive mitigation as well.

This might seem ridiculous, but it's possible to have a shield up blocking while countering with a one hander. Just make having the active block up burn resources accordingly. Maybe some attacks require an active block and a passive block to mitigate.

I was dicking around with it while tanking a dungeon and I could totally be doing everything I normally do in FFXIV while timing an active block so long as I could bind it to where I needed. I honestly think it would spice things up, and it put me back on team active mitigation. So long as it don't affect my movement or DPS rotation, I am happy.

Luthienstorm

Noaani wrote: »

Luthienstorm wrote: »

It's a good start but not a good finish

The game is like 3 years away at best.

What we have in terms of classes right now literally is just a start.

Each class is going to have 30+ abilities, each of which are going to have around 28 potential augments, as well as having 3 different ranks - with ranks adding functionality as opposed to just increased strength.

Intrepid have also talked a lot about synergizing with abilities - however things like this won't get developed until much later on in development (look for it in two years).

How combat works...affects stats...so it affects items, crafting, encounter design, and more. Combat doesn't need to be fully polished. But it needs to be 90% before these other systems can be polished or created well. So...no...it needs to be solidified much sooner.

In addition...this game needs to come out before Archeage 2...or I think it's going to take a big hit to player base.

Noaani

Luthienstorm wrote: »

In addition...this game needs to come out before Archeage 2...or I think it's going to take a big hit to player base.

What will cause Ashes to lose players is releasing before it is ready.

If Archeage 2 is released first, and then Ashes releases after but is better, people will leave Archeage 2 and play Ashes.

George_Black

People need to stop derailling the topics with useless posts. How about that?
(Ima wait and see for the mandatory cliche quote)

Vhaeyne

Luthienstorm wrote: »

In addition...this game needs to come out before Archeage 2...or I think it's going to take a big hit to player base.

ArcheAge 1 took a lot of the stuff that made Lineage2 great and replaced it with Korean p2w. Many western players liked old-school Korean MMORPGs for the "Korean grind". Korean MMORPGs have moved away from that and replaced it with things we consider p2w that are more culturally accepted in Korea. I would be extremely skeptical about ArcheAge 2 being something western players would want.

Ashes is trying to put some of that old school Korean grind back into the genre. This will fill some of that void left in the market. I don't think the grind in Ashes will be as bad as anything we have seen in old-school MMORPGs, but I do think there will be a fair bit of grind in Ashes. Grind that can not be accelerated with RMT... which is something I don't trust ArcheAge 2 not to have.

Boanergese

Vhaeyne wrote: »

There is a little more to tanking in FFXIV/WOW than your rotation and your tank CDs.

FFXIV/WOW both have active blocking, where you have to pay attention to the boss animations and react accordingly.

In addition, you have to worry about maintaining high uptime and good positioning of the bosses. Doing tank swaps correctly, parsing well, keeping aggro, and doing mechanics.

If tanking in these games is not hard enough for you, I would expect that you are not challenging yourself and just doing the easy content.

If there is no challenge for you, then I look forward to seeing you clear world firsts. While the rest of us unwashed mortals have to put effort into learning and practicing fights.

All that said, I do expect Ashes to be much more random than FFXIV/WOW because that is the nature of open world bosses. Much of the time you will be PvPing while you deal with the bosses anyway. It's not like PvP is going to magically stop for the bosses.

So, if dealing with all the normal MMO boss stuff is not enough for you, then add rogues coming out of stealth with a sneak attack timed with the tank buster to your list of things to worry about. Should be plenty reactionary.

I agree if you have done mythic raid tanking in world of warcraft there is a lot for the tank to do for the raid to succeed. You have to watch your fellow tanks stacks to swap properly to help the healers and make sure your co-tank doesn't die. You have to use your big mitigation ability to not die to a 1 shot ability. In some fights a healer may have to put a second mitigation ability on you. Additionally, a great tank will position of the boss correctly so it doesn't hit the raid with damage and so the melee can attack it. I remember one raid where the tank had to dodge right or left to avoid the attack by looking at the bosses' arms. If you were late, you died, the raid wiped and everyone was upset at you. If you noticed when they showed the Ice dragon in this game, it had a cold breath attack that could hit the raid. I don't think that I need to manually raise my shield every time to block. That would be tedious for a tank. I do agree that managing agro is important, but a dps shouldn't be able to pull threat from the tank if the tank is using their abilities correctly. Gear should not be an issue. Having been a tank, healer, and dps in the past; dps don't want to have to slow down or alter their rotations. Since we are allowed to have 40 players it would be could if we needed 3 or 4 tanks for a raid instead of just two.

I saw for the one dragon that did poison that the tank could soak up the poison areas to help melee and then be healed by the healer. I think having different roles besides a meat shield could be fun. Perhaps tank 1 attacks the boss. Tank 2 then taunts and repositions the boss to held drop stacks. Tank 3 tanks a secondary mini boss around the field or picks of add groups. Tank 4 soaks up poison clouds and then picks up other add groups or mini bosses. This could give the developers a lot of choices for raids. It could also make it so Tanks 1 and 2 have to coordinate over voice chat and Tanks 3 and 4 have to coordinate their responsibilities for the raid to succeed.

Child Item