Five Tanks, One Boss - mechanics

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I mean, we'll literally have 5-party raids in the game. And Intrepid intend to make the "one of each" party composition to be at least somewhat optimal, so there's a high chance that those parties will each have a tank. So what do those 4 remaining tanks do during the fight if only one tank can be truly involved with the boss. It's not like a tank is good at dps and I definitely don't fucking want full raid bosses to be CCable.

And as Nerror said, just controlling adds is shite. So what do you suggest those tanks do?

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Same, I want formations, I want synergistic abilities (outside of just "I do this and you repeat the same action, which will result in some CC or whatever")

And those abilities definitely could have links to boss mechanics or stages, to make the whole process a bit easier on the more casual crowd (not like I think they'd ever even see a raid boss though ). But as a tank myself, I definitely want a better gameplay than controlling some rando adds during a raid.

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Or completely change the main gameplay loop of a tank, as I've been promoting for the past several days

The abilities like that forcefield from the showcase indicate that we might get that kind of gameplay in Ashes. And if raids are designed with such abilities in mind, those 4 tanks could properly support the raid through tanking. It just wouldn't quite be the super classic form of tanking.

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What is the core goal of a tank? Is it not to redirect incoming damage from its mates onto itself? And if the bard had that kind of ability, yes I'd see it as a tank ability on a bard which would effectively let the bard to tank damage.

As Azherae said in a few different threads, FF11 kinda did this already by people just playing in a way where particular builds could serve as "tanks" during farming. So it's not like I'm suggesting something completely revolutionary and never done before. I'd just like to see a game designed with this in mind rather than just letting people do it when it might not even be the optimal gameplay style.

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That's why I didn't call them tanks directly. I said that it's a tank ability on a non-tank class that allows that class to play the role of a tank (at least to some extent).

And I'd definitely like if the bard or even the healer had a similar ability which would also synergize with some of the tank's abilities.

To me it's about how much of that role you fill. A mage that does a shitton of damage and keeps permanent threat because of it can be "a tank", if it has enough hp/def to sustain incoming dmg. The same could be applied to a healer who agggros stuff with his heals and has enough mana to keep that up throughout the farm.

But "tanking" would still be a smaller part of the class' impact on the whole process. Mage would still be a dps, the healer would still mainly heal (unless all partymates manage to completely dodge any and all dmg).

And the tank itself would also have several smaller roles that it plays. Def buffs could be seen as a bard role, any dmg-based taunting abilities would relate to a dps role, CCs could be a yet other role (depending on which archetype Intrepid decide to make the most CCing).

So pretty much as you said yourself, the roles are fluid. And that's not even considering all the potential augments that will push that fluidity ever further. Which is why I say that tank could be taken in more directions that just "threat holding", while upholding the idea of concentrating incoming dmg onto the tank itself.

And as for position holding part of tanking. That comes down to the overall design of the game. Do classes need the target to stay in one place? Does the location even support that? Does the boss have mechanics where position control would benefit the players? And what about the rng-based difficulty relating to aggro switching or to movement and ability patterns in mobs or any other rng-based mechanic that would make position control completely useless.

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But Ashes will have augments that will blur the lines between archetypes, so it won't be as strict as EQ.

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We've already seen that you can move with attacks, so it's not like the classes with a more limited range couldn't just keep up. That movement would be part of the skill requirement for max dps output.

And backstabbing control could fall under the broader aggro control mechanics. You mentioned in one of the threads that EQ had items that moved you on the threat list and tank ability that moved you up one spot. What if Ashes had similar effects on different archetypes (especially those who're positionally challenged), but instead of moving them on the list, the effects would redirect the aggro or remove all aggro for a quick moment, or flip the aggro (making the target turn around towards anyone at their back), etc etc etc.

L2's epic bosses aggroed randomly quite often, but that didn't stop the dagger classes from backstabbing them, and L2's combat was completely rooted. I know that you'll say that the pve probably suffered because of that, but Ashes is also not L2 so they can design the game with that kind of gameplay in mind.

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Nope, just to the bigger gameplay style. If you have more movement in the game - you can afford to move more between attacks. And imo the game should make you move more.

Though there is a possibility that in the end the majority of abilities will be castable on the run or at least have a directional part to them, so that you move with your attack instead of being fully planted.

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I meaaan, I don't need to imagine. I lived that in L2 Though yeah, collision wasn't a thing there. But imo seeing a boss stand in one place and ~20 people wailing on his ass in a clumped mess is not much better. And that's exactly how it'll look if tanks can hold the boss in place. Both ways won't look good so I wouldn't judge either one purely on that.

But you do bring up an interesting point, how exactly do Intrepid plan to address this interaction. An overworld boss with potential hundreds of people trying to kill him would be an absolute mess, no matter if it's stationary or not. I hadn't really thought about it before.

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Couldn't this be said about a moving target too though? Just design it properly and it'll be fun

Make boss abilities hit the first 5 people on the hate list, e.g. a boss that has tentacles, or a flock of overpowered ravens that get in each others' way if they all try to attack one target.

Make boss abilities spread damage amongst nearby people on first hit, then do AoE no-limit aura damage on all still within range.

Give the boss powerful single target debuffs that are not easily cleansed or that limit healing on a target, silence them, or make their cooldowns longer for a certain amount of time (force tank swaps).

Have the boss more likely to do slower AoE if multiple people on their upper half of their hate list are in the range of it (preferably conal).

Actually give tanks more 'wall' or 'protect person' style abilities, but with long cooldowns.

Give Tanks minor 'Roadblock' abilities so that a boss literally cannot charge past them, but also give the boss massive knockback style CC, meaning you need at least two tanks for this (one will get knocked back, the other then Roadblocks to prevent the mob maybe going after them).

Similar to above, give bosses the ability to Fling a nearby target at a different one for damage. In Soviet Verra, Tank Busters You. Still another tank swap mechanic really, but less so, as it doesn't absolutely require it, since the point would then be to use targeted ranged AoE on the Tank anyway.

Give Bosses 'Charm' or 'Dominate Will', which is functionally another 'force Tank Swap CC'.

These are the things I know Ashes can use, while not losing the game's identity, and without immediately opening the larger holes in design that come from open world PvX Raid level bosses. Less effective in 16-man but given the thread title that's probably not being considered here.

Some of this has the benefit of also making one bring one healer per tank in MOST games. In Ashes I'd expect more like 1.5 healers per Tank, presumably some of the Summoners will help since that'd be 'safer' to do in a PvX situation, so still back to the '5 of each Archetype per Raid'.