Aggro/Threat mechanics don't work in PvX

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By that definition, any support class with even just a few debuffs "acts" like a tank. This is exactly why we've been saying that tank should feel more unique.

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Both of those still feel like a bard and a healer feature, rather than a tank one. Tank can reduce attack on the receiving side, while bard reduces it on the outgoing one. And imo healers should deal with healers.

And also, I'd assume bard's reductions and tank's one would stack together, right? So this would trivialize pve to a pretty big extent, which would require Intrepid to overtune mobs' atk stats, which is its own problem.

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30-60ttk was most likely in context of small battles or even 1v1s. In a party vs party or anything bigger, ttk will vary wildly and will also depend on a ton of factors. And a few well-placed taunts could save your mate from getting semi-oneshot, because your healer's animation managed to go off before your mate was popped - which happened cause you redirected a big hit or two.

And the same could apply the other way. The enemy player could've been assist-killed faster, because you managed to taunt the enemy healer's strong single target cast once or twice. Or this was done to your healer and someone on your side died.

General debuffs (especially stack-based ones) would be much slower in their effect and would most likely not prevent the things I mentioned. Or at least they'd prevent them in the later stage of the fight, where the tank might get some attention either way because everyone else is either dead is incapable of proper battle.

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I meant the "reduce incoming/outgoing healing on target", "change incoming healing to dmg on target", "burn mana (in all kinds, shapes and forms)" and all the other interactions between healer classes. I wasn't talking about just "kill the dude" stuff.

Also, tanks being a more viable first stage target would work perfectly with a deeper inter-healer gameplay. Instead of the party's main goal being "just kill their healer and we're good", the pvp approach becomes "reduce their healer's viability, concentrate on the tank and protect our own tank". Add to this some short-range debuffs on the bards that synergize with the healer debuffs or tank's actions and you have yourself a pretty deep interconnected and complex pvp fight.

"Assist-kill the healer before tank manages to stack his taunt" is not that complex imo.

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NiKr wrote: »

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We've already thought about how it'll influence the players. We just came to a different conclusion from yours

As I said before, Forced Target taunt is the 'easy' solution. I have been working on the 'Hard' one for literally years. I have spent way more hours designing/developing/testing the sort of thing you want, @Mag7spy than 'caring about how a Forced Target Taunt works'.

Now, you can conclude that I just 'haven't worked hard enough at it' when I say that even after those years of design I'm still not confident that it would be better, but right now I'm only echoing what NiKr says. It is possible to put much more effort into thinking about this than into the 'posting in this thread' and still come to the same conclusions.

I've been working on this technically 'longer than Ashes has been reasonably well known to the public' and the design still has holes. All you've done so far in this conversation is 'bring up solutions that have already failed to produce Steven's apparent goal'.

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Y'know what, fine, I'm in a 'mental autopilot' mode today anyway.

The first wrong thing here is that in game balance for a properly competitive game, it DOES need to be perfect or as close to perfect as possible. A designer should be able to look at something and go 'within my goals, this is not perfect enough'. Most players can do that, which is why we're foolishly here arguing with you.

Because YOU keep going 'The class kit should achieve the goal and not cause this specific problem we hate!"



So tell me this, are you up for a long conversation about all the details of this? I've got years of data to go through with you if you are.

Or are you going to just go 'well the Devs should solve it, just not in a way that upsets me'.

And one more time just in case you aren't focused on it, and I will repeat this as many times as is necessary:

"I don't even want forced taunt, I just am not willing to ask Developers to try to make an Open World PvX Fantasy Trinity Based MMORPG without it.

Here's the first (flawed) part of my group's design answer:

"The Paladin can put a Mark on a Target. Whenever that Target attacks a target other than the Paladin, the Paladin gets to use an extra melee attack/recharges a resource/lowers a cooldown (depends on which form of the game is being considered). A Target can only have one Mark from one Paladin, and they have an indicator which Paladin applied the Mark to them."

Based on your perspective so far, this + zone control should be enough. Basically, this 'should be able to replace a Taunt'.

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Alright, well I certainly wouldn't want to make you repeat yourself.

If you think of any flaws in that solution, lmk, otherwise let's just assume Intrepid will solve it, and you can count me as 'having provided an alternative'.

Azherae wrote: »

If you think of any flaws in that solution, lmk, otherwise let's just assume Intrepid will solve it, and you can count me as 'having provided an alternative'.

If we assume that the tank has to be close to the marked target, what happens if the target gets pulled/pushed/blinks/dashes outside of the range of the aoe? Would the mark stay? What about the effect? If effect stays, what's the grace period before it's removed?

To me that seems like the biggest potential flaw so far. The biggest annoyance for the enemy with this mechanic would most likely be "the entire tank's party get incoming damage reduced by big % per hit from the marked target not against tank". The mark would then go on the highest enemy dps most of the time, to maximize its usefulness. And unless the aura's aoe is high or the grace period is long - the dps will just move or get moved away from the tank, at which point the tank either gets immobilized somehow or his Mark is just on CD so the enemy dps gets some good shots against anyone else.

Pretty much any other boost to the tank wouldn't have enough annoyance (unless we're making an OP tank). This also disregards any buffer/healer-type class, so tank's role gets reduced somewhat, but I'd be willing to be ok with that considering that main goal is to just decrease incoming damage to your party (even if stopping buffer/healer accomplishes that in the long run).

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If you think of any flaws in that solution, lmk, otherwise let's just assume Intrepid will solve it, and you can count me as 'having provided an alternative'.

If we assume that the tank has to be close to the marked target, what happens if the target gets pulled/pushed/blinks/dashes outside of the range of the aoe? Would the mark stay? What about the effect? If effect stays, what's the grace period before it's removed?

To me that seems like the biggest potential flaw so far. The biggest annoyance for the enemy with this mechanic would most likely be "the entire tank's party get incoming damage reduced by big % per hit from the marked target not against tank". The mark would then go on the highest enemy dps most of the time, to maximize its usefulness. And unless the aura's aoe is high or the grace period is long - the dps will just move or get moved away from the tank, at which point the tank either gets immobilized somehow or his Mark is just on CD so the enemy dps gets some good shots against anyone else.

Pretty much any other boost to the tank wouldn't have enough annoyance (unless we're making an OP tank). This also disregards any buffer/healer-type class, so tank's role gets reduced somewhat, but I'd be willing to be ok with that considering that main goal is to just decrease incoming damage to your party (even if stopping buffer/healer accomplishes that in the long run).

You're ruining a good thing here my dude.

I'm on Mag's side now. Clearly the rest of the design will handle all that.

Isn't it best for a designer to be able to feel the positive vibes from someone believing in them and supporting them as long as the design sounds alright to that person?

You're not embracing the spirit here.

An alternative to something that 'people don't like' was offered. Shouldn't we trust/believe that it will work if balance is right? And who needs perfect balance anyway?

I'm sure if there are flaws, either the designer (me) will solve them or Mag will think of a way to assist. Just trust me.

My bad for ruining the

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If only there were some sort of resource that an attacker could run out of when facing a target with too much defenses to be brought down before it ran out...

That might help a bit, I guess.

But alas, if BDO has taught me anything, it's that this sort of thing can't exist.

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Oh, agreed. I think we all understand that there are plenty of ways to approach a problem.

Explaining the details or specifics of the problem or the solutions just seems overly specific.

Except when it comes to Forced Taunts of course, which are clearly not a way to approach the problem and the specifics of which don't matter.

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Yeah like I said, this sort of thing can't exist, your experience proves it.

So yeah, ultra-defensive Tanks never have the potential to counter anything. They're also not one of the ways you can actually approach this and still have good gameplay in the type of MMO you're talking about. It's a shame, but it is what it is.

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Indeed. Console no less. I'm one of those people.

Also it can be noted that in our design space, the Mark doesn't expire based on most ranges, you can have that Mark on you while quite far from the Paladin. It's not an Aura. It's not a damage debuff. It's just 'The Paladin will do more things if you try to ignore them while Marked'. What matters here is the rest of the kit. The 'more things'.

And the Mark isn't really meant to limit movement abilities either. All it does is empower the Paladin if the Marked target attacks someone else or attempts to disengage from that Paladin (depending on the game, TableTop is more forgiving than 3D MOBA type battle simulations).

Obviously we just choose the most balanced form of empowering the Paladin based on the game type it's being applied to, so no worries there.

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I don't want to argue with you. If you prefer to believe that I choose to play games on PC when I have a PS5, please continue to assume that.

For everyone else... I have a gaming laptop and a PS5 and I prefer to game on the PS5 whenever I have the option.

As I said. I'm one of those people.

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Unless we have a very shallow buff/debuff pool of abilities, any slow/root debuff will be probably cleansable by a specific cleanse of their type and by a general one. And considering that we're talking about the highest dpser of your party - you're definitely spending your cleanse CD on him if it means more dps against the enemy.

Also, I'd imagine that forced movement will go through roots. As in, if you get rooted but then someone else pushes you - you'll move, while still remaining in roots. I could be wrong in that assumption, though this would yet again make the game shallower than I'd like it to be.

Oh, and any full immobilization (stun/anchor/etc) would obviously prevent dps in the first place, so its coupling with the Mark wouldn't really matter.

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I mean, is that not the very problem we've been trying to solve here this entire time? Your top of the line tank didn't deserve enough attention to make someone spend most of their resources on you rather than your mates.

Or did I misread/misunderstood what you wrote?