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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Could we consider changing direction from "mindless button spam" to "meaningful decision making"?
sunaurus
Member, Alpha Two
Let me preface this by saying I fully understand that the game is in Alpha and things are still in development etc, but I feel the need to ask for this now solely based on the latest tank changes. I feel like the archetype is going in the wrong direction at the moment.
We already know from the start of phase 1 that tank always needed a lot of button spam:
1. We currently have no real UI for getting an overview of what is aggroed to our party, and who has aggro, so we are forced to constantly mindlessly spam TAB to get a clear picture.
2. In typical gameplay, our longer cooldowns will generally just get used as soon as they are ready, as that reduces overall healing required the most for the group. There aren't that many times when you actually need to save your cooldowns for anything.
With the latest changes, the button spam has gotten even much worse - now we are not only spamming TAB, we are also spamming our Grit key. This is button spam is extremely tedious and unfun, and there is no real skill to it, even a monkey could do it. I only have one other tank left in my guild at this point, everybody else has re-rolled to other archetypes.
What if instead of this approach of building tanks around constant mindless micro, we actually introduced choices and actual skill checks into our rotation? Here are some examples:
1. Activating Grit could consume some kind of proc, perhaps from just a normal weapon combo, but the same proc could alternatively also be consumed by some kind of high damage skill instead. Meaning, every time you get the proc, you have to make a choice - do you want to use it for defense, or damage output?
2. Give us skills/stances/auras/whatever to give an increase to different types of damage reduction individually, however, make us choose the correct one for any given moment. Big magic damage being cast and we hit the physical mitigation button? Tough luck, magic mitigation is now unavailable and we take full damage because we made the wrong decision.
3. Make well-timed blocks more meaningful. Currently, timing blocks is not super important, you can just hold it until you have stamina, and the benefits you get from it are also not that great. A more timing-based element with a higher reward would make blocking feel far better to use as tanks.
I'm sure there are many other approaches, but the core idea is that the current button spam really isn't a great direction, and I hope it can change!
We already know from the start of phase 1 that tank always needed a lot of button spam:
1. We currently have no real UI for getting an overview of what is aggroed to our party, and who has aggro, so we are forced to constantly mindlessly spam TAB to get a clear picture.
2. In typical gameplay, our longer cooldowns will generally just get used as soon as they are ready, as that reduces overall healing required the most for the group. There aren't that many times when you actually need to save your cooldowns for anything.
With the latest changes, the button spam has gotten even much worse - now we are not only spamming TAB, we are also spamming our Grit key. This is button spam is extremely tedious and unfun, and there is no real skill to it, even a monkey could do it. I only have one other tank left in my guild at this point, everybody else has re-rolled to other archetypes.
What if instead of this approach of building tanks around constant mindless micro, we actually introduced choices and actual skill checks into our rotation? Here are some examples:
1. Activating Grit could consume some kind of proc, perhaps from just a normal weapon combo, but the same proc could alternatively also be consumed by some kind of high damage skill instead. Meaning, every time you get the proc, you have to make a choice - do you want to use it for defense, or damage output?
2. Give us skills/stances/auras/whatever to give an increase to different types of damage reduction individually, however, make us choose the correct one for any given moment. Big magic damage being cast and we hit the physical mitigation button? Tough luck, magic mitigation is now unavailable and we take full damage because we made the wrong decision.
3. Make well-timed blocks more meaningful. Currently, timing blocks is not super important, you can just hold it until you have stamina, and the benefits you get from it are also not that great. A more timing-based element with a higher reward would make blocking feel far better to use as tanks.
I'm sure there are many other approaches, but the core idea is that the current button spam really isn't a great direction, and I hope it can change!
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Comments
I do like the step taken in the last update towards more active mitigation. A better customizable UI that allows us to better track important buffs and debuffs and an intuitive way to see what I have aggro on would help alot.
Every worth their salt MMORPG game designer should be obliged to play as all tank archetypes in RoR before attempting to create their own tank fantasy.
https://wiki.returnofreckoning.com/Careers
Blown past falling sands…
Take a look at that or the EQ2 Guardian/Berserker/SK/Pally or the Rift Pally/VK trees or the GW2 Guardian
This tank is by far the worst that I've ever played for PVE and PVP. I was quite enjoying it until the Grit spam, courage mechanic rework and magical mitigation was halved. The only thing that does work well right now is holding agro but that is down to intimidating aura only - no need to cast anything else
This tank also need to be renamed. Tank is the role, not the class/archtype
When I started tanking content in groups I had to ask myself "When would I ever want to press Active Block?"
Trying to incorporate the idea into practice I began realizing that the answer to the previous question was "Never."
Having thought about it, and asked around, I found that Active Block actively hinders your gameplay, and makes things unneccessarily dangerous. Having no stamina to dodge out of AoE and tank-busters is lethal. Not being able to swing my weapon hinders my resource generation. Using a skill cancels the Active Block.
Instead we could have one or more skills that throw up your shield and would be a great way to keep a type of active blocking in the game for tanks.
Reflect is great and I enjoy using it on or near cooldown - having another skill or two in a similar vein might be much more beneficial than the Active Block (WIP) system being tested.
I can imagine a skill that throws a shield up for, let's say, 3 seconds that stays up for the duration. Costing mana and generating small amounts of Courage based off amount blocked.
This would remove the anti-synergistic mechanics of the current Active Block, and let us spec into fun things for the block in question.
Agreed, but not in intent. Active blocking in its current form is a huge hindrance to tanks and can get us killed. But that's also why I (amongst many) yearn for reasons to incentivize us to do it. In its current form, its not a worthwhile thing to do, but its fun to do. It feels fantastic to have an active means of reducing damage. I for one would rather see the mechanic persist, but aided to be more beneficial.
Things like:
- Good timing on blocks removing or reducing stamina cost, or even increasing the damage reduced.
- Granting a followup attack after successfully blocking an attack
- Reflecting damage from blocked attacks, or applying crowd control effects
- Active or passive skill that reduces the stamina cost of blocking
- Blocking giving i frames?
Don't get me wrong, I love Reflect. It's arguably my favorite tank skill, on a class that I adore in spite of its flaws. I love quick time effects and skills of this nature, and it feels at home on a tank. However, blocking as a mechanic exists, and id rather see it used in a positive way than ignored or band-aid fixed.
Not only that but also, we're tanks. Our instincts should be to block instead of dodge tank busters. That's basically the entire class fantasy. I'd rather us get skills to let us face tank busters head on instead of just dodging as the only option.