Aggro/Threat mechanics don't work in PvX

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Those seem to mostly complain about the "character being pulled" part, rather than the camera. So even within the niche of a niche of a niche, there doesn't seem to be much complaining about the camera part. I'm sure there must've been at least a few people in the game's history that disliked it, but that's a minority within a minority. And, as you pointed out, we've been talking about a non-char-pull taunt, so Ashes would probably have the same kind of minority complaining about it, while you were trying to argue that the majority would complain.

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And NW barely had a trinity. And had 5-person parties. And had 0 proper supports iirc. While L2 had almost the exact same archetype composition as Ashes will.

Yes, party setups will vary and differ, but tanks would have to be absolutely fucking insanely OP for majority of parties to have 2 tanks in their setup. And imo a CC-based tank that "forces" his enemies to target him (through the usage of said CCs) would be much worse than a tank who can just directly taunt a target but not too much on top of that (outside of obvious protective abilities).

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We have no clue how many people would even play in action mode 100% of their time. Out of all of those, we don't know which class would be the most prominent amongst those people and whether that class would be the main target for a tank (let alone several).

And I know that people get focused in wars, but as I said, a single person doesn't matter in a party-based fight. The party is the unit - not its singular members. If only one member of the party is being singled out by several enemy parties - that means that those parties can be attacked by their enemies at uneven ratios. In my experience this usually leads to failures.

But even in that context, as I've said, in my 12 years of playing a mass pvp game - I've never seen someone being super focused by tanks from several parties. At most it'd be 3 members of one party that have aggro abilities. But even then this would usually be an absolute waste of resources, which led to failures, because if 3/9 of your members are trying to control a single enemy - the remaining 8 enemies are fucking your own party.

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I'm mainly talking about a direct taunt ability. Other skills will probably have aggro values on them for pve, but they wouldn't be "taunts". At least not in pvp.

As for aoes, I've already talked about it. They can be designed and balanced around their pvp applications. Their range could be super small in pvp or their pvp power could be small enough for most classes to resist them with stats (if taunts are based on them), or any other potential solution to your perceived problem with them.

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Yes, the point is to keep the game a hybrid. Solution to problems should come from the whole game, not just from one place. I'd expect some tab problems to be solved with action camera mode, so it'd be only logical to have action problems that can be solved with tab mode.

Just as I approach this discussion a bit too much from the tab perspective, you seem to approach it a bit too much from the action one. Ashes is not an action game. If anything, it's way closer to a tab one and will quite likely have a ton of problems that would be solved through tab mode.

One of those is Fear, which was mentioned in those reddit threads. What is your opinion on fear in action combat? Cause that is literally taunt but in reverse, except even worse. You completely lose control of your character while it runs away from the enemy. I'd imagine that you hate Fear effects as well, if you dislike camera-moving taunts this much, right?

p.s. I'm going to sleep now so will respond tomorrow.

I don't really have anything to add to the stuff above this.

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As I said before, the taunt could have additional effect of "you barely do any dmg to other targets while taunted". Obviously this effect could exist even w/o moving your camera, but then you'd have zero clue as to who you're even supposed to attack. I'd prefer if the camera panned towards the one who taunted me and then gave some form of an indicator above that tank's head.

I'm sure you'd say that it could do so w/o panning the camera, but, considering that action mode will give us a much smaller fov of the battlefield, you'd have to move your camera a lot either way when you get taunted. And I'd prefer if the game helped me find my enemy in a big fight. Though I doubt this would really be a problem for me, cause I'll be playing at full tab zoom out most of the time

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Except it already has a shitton of stuff from L2, so anyone who knows that game will compare the two. Not like there's that many people who even know L2. Open world pvp is an old design. Death penalties is an old design. Long leveling is an old design. No party finder is an old design. And I'm sure there's a few other old designs that I'm forgetting right now.

Ashes will be called "an old mmo" whether you like it or not. Well, unless they literally change all of that shit

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And just as fear has to be properly balanced so as to not be seen as op - the taunt will be too. Also, you like to say that you'll be taunted by 20 tanks in all kinds of directions. What about 20 fear-having classes from 20 directions then? I'd assume either mage or bard will have direct fear debuffs. And I'm almost sure that any party will have AT LEAST a mage and a bard. Most likely several of either or even of both. At that point each party will, potentially, have several fear-having classes that can properly stagger their casts and have you running all over the place w/o a single shred of character control.

Tanks do none of that.

But you said that you see fear as aids as well, so I think the main issue here is not that taunt is clunky, but just the fact that you dislike these kinds of mechanics by default. Others don't seem to do that. That's it. So unless Intrepid make a dev discussion about the "you lose control of your character" mechanics (btw @Vaknar please do) - we won't know how many people agree with you on this.

So on this point I don't see any reason to continue this discussion (personally speaking). I'm sure Noaani can entertain you for a few more pages though

Wait you play games in 'Attack In Camera Direction' mode in Action MMOs?

That explains so much.

Change the setting to 'Attack In Character Facing Mode' to solve the problem, Mag.

EDIT: Nvm, I knew BDO kinda didn't have this setting but turns out that New World doesn't have it either so I'll just assume most games Mag plays don't have it.

Mag7 for your data, a lot of other games have 'attack in direction character is facing' as a setting you can use and players of those games build up a specific skill related to spatial awareness where they can fluidly adjust the camera to keep it on their target while moving in the direction they want in a gradient.

For an example, see recent Monster Hunter games, where the character attacks in their facing direction and the player controls the Camera separately.

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That's a question for Noaani, not me. I'm done with this convo I want taunts in Ashes because I'm gonna be a tank. You don't want them because they feel clunky/oldschool/bad/etc to you. I see no way for us to come to an understanding on this point.

NiKr wrote: »

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That's a question for Noaani, not me. I'm done with this convo I want taunts in Ashes because I'm gonna be a tank. You don't want them because they feel clunky/oldschool/bad/etc to you. I see no way for us to come to an understanding on this point.

I, too, don't know why you're still writing, Mag. It's not that people don't understand your points, it's that no one here agrees with them. It wouldn't matter how much more you typed if no one in the conversation agrees.

But we're definitely not 'misunderstanding' you.

I think Azherae was talking about 8-directional-based combat design. Instead of just "you always attack forward", you can hit in any of the 8 directions (the combos of wasd that is) while your camera is directed onto one point. Genshin works this way (an action combat game), Star Rail works this way (action combat in the overworld) and multiple other action combat games have this. And I'm assuming some games even have this as an option, as Azherae said.

Oh, and this doesn't require any button presses or anything, you just gotta have enough skill to adjust to the changes of your surroundings on the fly. But I'm sure you'll still consider it clunky.

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Ok I think there might be something akin to progress here.

In some games I play, the direction of the character's movement is entirely separate from the camera facing except when aiming reticle based shots (which pause the character and snap their facing to the camera facing).

I always move the camera to face whatever I want to attack anyway, and then when I want to make an attack at the camera position I press... W and the attack button. Or I tap W and press the attack button. Or if it is reticle based and 'snaps to facing' then I just press the attack.

I entirely agree that if I am moving let's say 'diagonal backward strafe' away from a Ranger with my camera on that Ranger, and I then get taunted by a Tank directly on the other side of me from that Ranger, and my camera spins, I will, for about 12 frames minimum, end up moving diagonally away from the tank and therefore slightly closer to the Ranger. My camera view will now be on the Tank. I probably still know where the ranger is and I switch to pressing diagonal forward for some Diagonal Progression toward the Tank to maintain my direction.

I can no longer attack the Ranger with my reticle-targeted ranged abilities unless I reorient myself. I must now move the camera 180 while blending the movement of my character to counter the camera movement. I consider this still having control of my character, but definitely not my camera (since I'm just resetting a change anyway, I am reasserting control relative to my goal).

From what I understand, the part you have the problem with is the 12 frames, not the 'blending of camera movement with direction changes to retain the direction you are moving while doing the 180 camera turn'.

Is that right?

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I've mainly played Genshin for the past 3 years. It's an action combat game with 8-directional combat. And it moves my camera when I come close to a place of interest (usually a quest spot) or if some event has just occurred and the game wants me to pay attention to it right away.

And I'm completely fine with this mechanic. And would like if tank taunts did the same in Ashes

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What I think is that Ashes will utterly fail to attract any kind of "normal" player. At this point in time I truly believe that. I've watched several doomer videos about the state of mmos (and gaming in general) and I saw quite a few people thinking that Ashes will somehow save the genre. I'm 95% sure it will not only fail at doing that, but will also get shit on by the majority of current gamers.

And I'm saying this even in the context of Intrepid somehow pulling off the best possible combat in the entire genre (which I'm 70% sure they won't be able to do). Just today Asmon did a reaction to LA's current state and said "people put up with the shitty design of the game due to its cool combat" (which afaik also applies to BDO). But even that "putting up" is kinda dwindling, cause over 90% of players have left the game. I'm almost sure that Ashes will be in the same spot, even if they somehow manage to counter any and all bots.

So with all that being said, I really don't think that forced camera movement will somehow be the biggest reason for people to leave the game. I'm sure there'd be at least a few people that do, but nowhere near majority.

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I personally don't want to be a glorified bard when I play a tank. And I expect bards to be the main CC-having archetype. Tank's goal is to prevent his party from taking damage. That comes in the way of defensive actions (usually that's buffs, but I've been a loud proponent of action-based directional blocks of incoming dmg) and redirection of damage. In pve redirection comes from aggroing mobs, which in turn leads to tanks having multiple abilities with aggroing effects and a direct taunt whose whole purpose is to interact with the mob's vector of attacks.

And I'd prefer if that taunt wasn't just a pve tool, because I want to use everything I have in pvp as well. I wanna cast a taunt on a player and go "look at me, I am your target now"

Azherae wrote: »

Is that right?

Btw, does Predecessor have fear-type effects? Cause I'd be interested in seeing how they work there, if they do. @Mag7spy same question for smite as well, cause I forgot to ask this when we were talking about those 2 games.

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I am not talking about temp player camera, why are you bringing it up?

I don't see what temp player camera has to do with this conversation.

Is this because you are talking about 'Playing Ashes primarily in Action Reticle mode' and don't want this effect because it would be troublesome then? I don't think it's unreasonable to have effects that one counters by 'entering Tab Target mode' in a hybrid game.

Azherae wrote: »

Is this because you are talking about 'Playing Ashes primarily in Action Reticle mode' and don't want this effect because it would be troublesome then? I don't think it's unreasonable to have effects that one counters by 'entering Tab Target mode' in a hybrid game.

I've brought that up before. Mag disagrees with this position.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Is that right?

Btw, does Predecessor have fear-type effects? Cause I'd be interested in seeing how they work there, if they do. @Mag7spy same question for smite as well, cause I forgot to ask this when we were talking about those 2 games.

None that I'm aware of, but remember that Knockback can replace it for faster paced games. So as example, playing Sevarog, I would consider 'induce fear and cause your opponent to run under your tower' to be similar to what I do now, huge knockup-knockback to put them there personally by my own positioning.

I can see the distinction though.

Predecessor normally does that by forcing it another way, their newest character is one you'd like.

Greystone's Ultimate heals him and makes him immune and invincible but unable to attack for a bit, but then does AoE damage around him. The almost universal best response is to run away from him as fast as possible before the AoE goes off. You can't hurt him, and most builds certainly do 'fear' getting caught in that AoE unnecessarily.

But a ranged character outside of the range of it wouldn't move, so there's that nuance. Etc.

I do not expect that this effect would make it into the game because it doesn't generally have CC that lasts longer than usually 80 frames maximum (Sevarog's Colossal Blow previously mentioned, Countess' ult previously discussed) and 80f of 'runs away from target' isn't that meaningful in higher mobility games unless the effect can force the character to use movement skills too.

It might be cool as a "This thing makes you run away from them and also gives you a movespeed buff while doing it'.

SMITE may have some.

Azherae wrote: »

Greystone's Ultimate heals him and makes him immune and invincible but unable to attack for a bit, but then does AoE damage around him. The almost universal best response is to run away from him as fast as possible before the AoE goes off. You can't hurt him, and most builds certainly do 'fear' getting caught in that AoE unnecessarily.

I feel like this is the kind of stuff that Mag wants for tanks (but in reverse of course). Smth that doesn't directly influence the player, but kinda "makes" them take an action that the attacker wants.

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But I feel like they'll inevitably exist, due to the hybrid nature of the system. If only one mode is more optimal to use - those who prefer the other mode will complain that the game is unfair to them. So the only fair thing would be to design the system in a way where people have to use both modes throughout their gameplay.