Aggro/Threat mechanics don't work in PvX

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Make a game with no taunt skill then.

Ashes doesn't have one so far.

FFXI only has one of them and most endgame tanking doesn't even require it.

The only problem with making a Tank with no Taunt skill is that then people ask you 'wait how does this work in PvE then?' or they go 'what's the point of a person who just soaks damage when you can avoid them anyway'.

I think your answer to this is 'more CC'.

Tanks should not be a CC bot.

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So when you say "taunt should make his kit better", what exactly do you envision? Cause I think that's what's been missing in this discussion.

Mine is mainly

• several ways to defend singular and multiple targets
• few reposition abilities that target other players (push, pull, etc)
• a few reflective abilities (self/party buffs included)
• a variety of attacking skills with aggro effects
• a singular and an aoe taunt

Those all together would comprise roughly 30 abilities (especially if we have a few general self buffs on top). To me these seem unique enough to create a truly tank archetype and I would expect only small general similarities on other archetypes (smth like "bards give a def buff too" or "mage has repositioning too, but it's self-targeted").

What do you have in mind, that would make tank unique and which would be then made better through taunt?

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I've already given an example of how I see the taunt working. A 10s debuff that pulls your camera (and retabs you) on cast and then every 5 secs (so 3 times overall), with a 1-2s-long effect. The pve part of it would come from how much aggro it generates per effect application, which can be balanced completely separately from pvp. And this would also turn the mob around towards the tank, if the mob was on someone else, but if the aggro application wasn't high enough to outpace the dps - the mob would then turn back around to their previous target (and then get turned around on the next effect application of the taunt).

This would also add some flow to the pve (and potentially pvp at high skill play), where dpses might get backstab augments or just use their backstab abilities on each mob turn, while the overall aggro system would allow for a more random switching of mob aggro (at least in some encounters).

in other words, a pvp taunt would only control your camera for 3-6 seconds out of its 10s continuation. The effect itself would be slow enough to allow you to adjust your movement to it (and not to be as jarring as a 180° snap turn).

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Could you try this one again? Parser failed.

I can mock up a really specific example situation if you like, I have a lot of them left over from design discussions on exactly this for my own.

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Alright, thanks, that's a difference in experience. I actually don't play that many games that have multiple or easily accessible Taunts, I'm really curious to see if Ashes turns out to be another game that just doesn't really have one.

Note that I'm not suggesting that Ashes should be that way. Whatever works for them/the playerbase. I do prefer my games without Taunts but I feel that Ashes is already designed around having them for whatever reason Steven decided, and it's designed in a way that makes it hard to 'turn back now'.

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I feel like you're mistaking taunting for aggroing. Or maybe in your experience the two's meanings have been diluted too much.

In my experience a "taunt" is a high value aggro skill. It equals a ton of dps w/o doing said dps. And then a lot of other tank skills just have an additional aggro effect, but their main effect would be smth else and the aggro value would be fairly low. Iirc you were present in the thread where I went over all of this before.

The tank would have several skills that would generate aggro for them, but it would only have 2 proper taunts (single and aoe). And depending on the balancing, those taunts might have longer CDs. My idea's single taunt would have a 10s cd, because the effect is 10s, and the power balancing of the skill would come from the amount of aggro it generates per effect application. So it would still be strong in pve, but you wouldn't be able to just cast it on several dudes within just a few seconds in pvp.

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But what exactly would make those people attack you? Your annoyance factor would have to be through the roof for people to choose you as their main target. And non-taunt annoyance would definitely be very hard to balance.

As for decreasing healer's output, I could maybe see that as a tank ability, though I'd prefer it to be a healer's job, to vary up the gameplay of that archetype.

Also, as I said before, L2's tanks did exactly what you proposed there with taunts single target heals would usually be more optimal (due to high costs of party heals), so if an enemy tank aggroed you when you were trying to heal your mate - you'd miss that heal and your mate might die. And if you don't pay enough attention during the fight - that might just lead to your party losing.

The same thing would apply in action part of the game as well, if Intrepid manage to design some action-targeted heals. Well, that is if the camera move is implemented.

This is why we've been saying that forced targeting/camera works quite well as a mechanic. It can be applied to different situations on different classes, while also being unique (unlike a plain CC or debuff or super strong dps).

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Unless we can cut CDs in half or more (which would bring its own huge balancing issues), my idea could have 15s cd w/o really impacting the taunting frequency. And even with 50% cd, that's still barely 2 people aggroed at the same time.

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Those would have to be some pretty frequent disruptions then and the only ones I can come up with would be either stuns (potentially mini-stuns) or silences. And if the tank can cast either of those often enough to strongly disrupt healers (or anyone else for that matter) - to me that sounds kinda op.

And just to make it perfectly clear, cause I'm not sure if I did, the taunt debuff that I had in mind wouldn't control you over the course of the whole 10s. You'll still be able to retarget to whoever you want or spin your camera to whatever other direction. You'd just need to pay more attention and be more careful, if you're the target of a tank. And this would be doubly true if abilities will go off at the end of the animation, rather than the start. The taunt would just retab you to the tank and/or pan your camera/reticle to him every 5 secs.

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I see what's happening here, now that I've factored this back to New World and the other things I know you play.

You see 'time' as a win condition factor because of the game types in the majority in your experience.

We see 'resources used to do damage' as the win condition factors. If you can just 'pause and not spend energy' the condition isn't a loss for you. In your experience it is valid zone control. In mine it definitely isn't.

Also the whole 'when you are fighting, not taking action is not going to get you to win' comes from the same position. But there are definitely many games where not taking action will lead to you winning.

You can correct me on this and I'll go back to trying to occasionally work out your reasonings, since if it isn't your primary experience, I'm back to 'not understanding why you believe this'. Oh well.

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It is 3 times. Once on cast and then 2 times throughout the 10s of the duration.

And I know you said that even one would be bad, but after the first application I'd see it as a skill check (even if I wasn't a tank). You have your preferred target and then the tank aggroes you and you know that the aggro will reapply and change your camera if you don't have the tank in direct view. So now, if you want to keep fighting your preferred target - you gotta keep your preferred target in between you and the tank at all times.

And now you're fighting 2 people, you gotta use your positioning and move prediction to not get annoyed by the tank. To me this would be peak of action combat. "Tank reduces dmg" is the most tab targety design ever, even if it's in an aura around the tank (cause tab games have auras too).