Aggro/Threat mechanics don't work in PvX

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It worked quite nice in an mmo that had exactly the big fights that Ashes wants to have in the almost exact pvp Ashes wants to have.

The action camera movement could be changed for "your attacks don't do shit unless they're aimed at the taunter", which would make people pay attention to their targeting and overall surroundings. The taunt would still force your target onto the tank, but it just wouldn't move your camera.

As for the "omg there's 20 fucking tanks taunting me", as one of the local "I've been in hundreds vs hundreds pvps" people - that is pretty much never a situation. You're never special enough to be aggroed by over 2-3 tanks (usually not even 2). This is mainly the case because in party-based mmos a single player is not as powerful as in smth like BDO, where it's a bunch of special guys running in a ball of people (correct me if I'm wrong here).

I've played on both sides of the interaction and usually the classes with aggro would concentrate on healers to prevent them from making targeted heals or on high dps dudes to, obviously, tank the dmg. Each party would usually have 1-2 healers and 3 dpsers, while only having ~2 (maaaybe 3) classes with aggro. So, if you're even a bit good with math you can see that even in a party vs party situation you don't have enough aggroers to taunt all the valuable targets.

As for the aoe aggro stuff. Iirc L2's aoe aggro didn't work on players, so it was just a pve skill. But even if Ashes decided to make it pvx - you can just have differing ranges between the pvp and the pve effects. In pvp it could be a super small aoe, which would make people pay even more attention to their surroundings (to avoid the tank), while also making the aoe taunt weaker in effect because any non-ranged class would be able to hit both the tank and their preferred target (and those attacks could be unmitigated to make the aoe taunt even weaker if needed).

In other words, there are ways to keep the tank a TANK and not make him a fucking warrior in a can. If I wanted just to be a warrior - I'd play a fighter, but I want to be a tank. And tank got to be able to do those 3 things Azherae mentioned. Slowing people down in an aura or limiting their movement with a few icicles is not really tanking. What Axe does is tanking though. And you know what he does? A fucking taunt that MAKES the enemies attack you

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Will Ashes not have stuns? Especially aoe ones? Or any alternatives to stuns (L2 had the magical alternative in the form of an Anchor). Do we not have sleep? Aoe too btw.

All of those are (would be) abilities that completely remove your control of your character. Taunt does not. It just forces you to pay attention to what you're doing. The tank would just force your target, so if you don't look at who you're hitting - the tank succeeded in his goal of preventing dmg to their party. If you did pay attention - you're now not doing any dmg - so yet again tank succeeded. You were not rooted, you were not forced to attack, you weren't forced to do shit really. You were redirected really, either in your attack vector or the movement one.

Taunt would only force you to attack the tank if Ashes had auto-attacking. But, lucky you, Ashes doesn't have that. L2 did have auto-attacks, which is why your char would be forced to move towards the tank (cause the system had a forced "I want to attack this target" input).

NiKr wrote: »

The action camera movement could be changed for "your attacks don't do shit unless they're aimed at the taunter", which would make people pay attention to their targeting and overall surroundings. The taunt would still force your target onto the tank, but it just wouldn't move your camera.

Damn, now that I think about it, I'd even want this for pve as well. The mob/boss can still attack others with their action attacks, but the dmg is hella mitigated. And ideally the AI would instead try to do non-damaging abilities and/or just move around if they had some special auras or similar effects. Add some taunt-resistant design to mobs (especially humanoid ones) and you have yourself pve that's close to pvp, all while the tank has the exact same role throughout the pvx gameplay.

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Ok, I'm gonna say this so you can see it properly

TAUNT DOES NOT MOVE YOUR CHARACTER

Literally the only thing it does is change your tab target to the tank. That is it. Ffs, Mag.

Also, like I've said already I played a game that did move you (ASHES WOULD NOT BTW), and it was fine. I know you'll say that "it was an old game, and ashes is a new one" BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHY ASHES WOULDN'T BE MOVING YOU.

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Unless I completely misread everyone else, I don't think anyone else is talking about action camera (or your character) moving. So I'm almost sure that, once again, the arguments in this thread came from a misunderstanding between you and others.

Ashes won't be an action game. We have a tab target and we can move our camera freely if we want. And from what I've seen everyone was talking about taunt changing your tab target.

I just double checked and the only mention of the action camera moving came from one Noaani message where it was a general suggestion for what could be done. The other close one was RazThemun, but they used "focus" on and then talked about targeting, so I don't think they were talking about your camera actually moving.

But instead of quoting that one comment, you addressed people in general, suggesting that several posters implied that your camera would be moved. And I'd assume that Azherae's response came from the part of your comment that said people would dislike forced targeting, while that was the case in other games and people were fine with it. Then it classically derailed to some random shit, so that's whatever.

As for Noaani's idea itself, I'd have to see it in action to decide whether I dislike it in terms of gameplay application, but right now as I imagine it I'd be ok with it and see it, as Noaani put it, "being tanked".

As for why I quoted you. I quoted your response to me. And what I said in the comment you responded to still stands. I don't remember if we've seen whether we can move your action camera while stunned/slept/anchored/etc. Because if we can completely redirect our character while fully disabled, that brings its own balancing issues (or at least difficulties) to the game. And if we can't - it's the same as someone controlling our camera.

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Then it just goes to show how weak it was, cause I don't even remember using it in pvp

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Clarity isn't something YOU get to unilaterally decide about your posts. Your readers decide if you're being clear and then they tell you if you're not. And then you get to decide whether it's worth it for you to try and be clear, or whether you are capable. Which it seems you've decided you're not.

For whatever it's worth, you're not clear to me either.