The "Tank" : a bright invention back in the day I have grown to hate!

I ended up thinking too long about this post only to realize that the base premises/context is lacking so I don't actually have an issue. So my feedback to Intrepid instead:

OP is right, but since only the most simplistic games don't have a reasonable model for why the Tank is attacked, I don't see any reason to change what a Tank is from what I am imagining you will make, having come from one of the less simplistic games.

I'll complain if the 'commitment to simplicity' is obvious. Given the level of polish of everything else, I'd be surprised if it was.

Just giving my perspective that I don't share the concerns or experience that this post uses for context, so I'm fine and eagerly awaiting what I'm used to from the Class design team.

I want tank to be a wall between their mates and the incoming damage.

If all ranged attacks are projectile-based, the tank should be able to stand between the attacker and the victim and stop the projectile.

The tank should have a "switch target" ability where the tank shield slams into one of its mates (pushing them aside, cause we got inertia and body collision) and change their melee attacker's target to the tank.

The "wallness" of the tank should come in the form of different buffs (against melees, creatures, magic and arrows) and tank should also have counterdebuffs to those, so that every party would want to have a tank, so that they could counter "the enemy wall".

The threat would be generated by blocking mob attacks with your wall. This makes sense both in pvp and in pve. If all/most of your attacks are getting blocked by something - you'd obviously want to remove that obstacle.

And different classes would obviously specialize the tank in different types of gameplay:

• tank/tank would obviously just be a thicker wall
• tank/warrior could have retaliation mechanics (so a dps in a way)
• tank/rogue could have a debuffs and CC lean, so their protection weakens the attacker
• tank/ranger could have heightened mobility and a parry mechanic (that could synergize with other classes to boost dps)
• tank/mage could have deeper mana gameplay (remove enemy mana on a protected attack; restore mana on the defended mate; move hp/mp around with abilities so that you have higher ability output or a thicker wall; etc)
• tank/summoner could have a widespread wall, that siphons damage onto him, so he can protect more mates at the same time but takes way more damage in the process
• tank/bard could buff the protected mates with def/dps stuff, but the wall itself would be thinner
• tank/cleric would obviously hold his own hp longer and support the defended mate. As a counter balance this would probably require high mana consumption

This is what I would prefer, as a tank main. A super active gameplay that requires me to pay constant attention to the entire battlefield and each one of my partymates, instead of just yelling curses at a mob or getting kited by players while I try to CC them.

All one has to do is look to the other genres where tanks exist to see why 'threat' doesn't matter one way or the other anyway.

It's that Threat values are a way of approximating what the sanest strategy is in PvE FOR the mobs, in a good game.

Sure, a lot of less good games copied the base idea and just went 'ok I guess we should have a meter to make sure the mob attacks a threat space'.

But it's irrelevant anyway. If you make mobs go for Clerics, you'll get Clerics in plate armor and the mobs will still be 'dumb'. No matter what you make a mob react to, it's arbitrary. If you take away 'Mob targets specific area/direction/enemy' you're back to the types of games that most people here don't like.

In a battle, a certain person becomes 'the objective' that you want dead, and in any sensible game that person is 'not easy to get to and kill' anyway. The Tank's only job is 'make sure that other person doesn't die'. If Tanks are good at 'making sure the Objective doesn't die', then the Tank must be killed before the objective is killed.

Tanks are technically a 'weaker' class in games when it comes to this because they don't have all the crazy tools that other classes have for avoiding dying. The thing that makes a Tank a Tank is that they don't need these, they just 'passively' don't die, and usually don't have too many strong adaptations around this.

Almost every class in these games can 'be spec'd to not die', often 'more effectively' than a Tank, Tanks just don't die while ALSO preventing other people from dying. The thing a Tank 'does' otherwise is increase the efficiency of healing magic and that's it. That's why we got them. That's where Tanks 'come from'. As soon as a game contains 'healing' someone is going to try to maximize their MP/Survivability Ratio, and whatever does that will usually become the new Tank.

Might as well just let us have the Trinity for all the people who don't play other Genres and don't want to have to understand the underlying principles that led to MMOs even having Tanks. PvP can be dealt with the other way. Tanks have stuff that blocks your advance or knocks you back, and take damage for people close to them. Done.