Originally posted by Homitu

 

I actually couldn't stand when anyone else pulled other than myself because a) as exciting as standing around and waiting is, i'd rather not, and b) as impossible as it seems, 98% of players proved time and again that they didn't know how to pull properly to max exp.  I think it says something that deciding which mob to pull next and when to pull it has to be included in the conversation of exciting, fun things to do in the combat scenario. 

Please don't resort to the "lol ur just bad" retort when someone comes forth and points out some of the reasons he (and others) do not like a particular game.  I actually did bother to give reasons, and didn't just nonsensically bash the game. 

If the game's not challenging, how is it possible that 98% of players didn't know how to even pull properly? And yes, because pulling in XI just happens to be more in depth than in other MMO's it should be included. If you pull at the wrong time or the wrong mob, your party dies. It's not some irrelevant thing.

Which brings me to another point. FFXI's challenge is not simply about doing your job properly, it's about working together as well. If the puller pulls too fast, mages run out of mp. If the DD's deal too much damage, they'll take hate and die. If the healer can't work together with tank, and for example cures the paladin to full hp without letting the paladin cure himself to gain hate, aggro is lost once again and the healer dies. Balancing these things is one hell of a challenge, even though it goes far beyond just spamming abilities over and over again. 

I could only assume that you were bad at playing ranger, since you didn't even include pulling as a part of your job. Now it seems that you're only underestimating the combat system instead, which is understandable; you'd have to look a bit deeper than just the number of abilities in your disposal to realize how exciting the battle system can be, which most people don't bother to do. "The more abilitiies you have, the more exciting the combat is!".. Yeah, right.

And if everybody is a tank, then that would bore down Large Scale grouped PvE boss fights.

If Dragon boss is attacking Paladin (in 20man raid)

And paladin goes down after 10 seconds, then all it takes is just 1(of the remaining 19) to step up to becomae the bosses new focus, and so on so on till ether Boss is dead, or the fight is left with a 1v1 (in which case the group would lose in a 1v1 fight vs PvE raid boss)

No Tanking - really imo its just lame. Plus it takes like 2 guys out of the game basically because they just stand there pressing their skills. People are talking alot about viable options how about:1.) In the case of Big Boss fights, instead how about change it to a strategy/puzzle game where  you have to lure a dragon out of his cave and crush him with a huge ass boulder or bridge of khazad dum style ,  you hide behind natural defenses whilst he uses his KILL Skill and then cast or shoot at him to lure him out they do that in other types of games. 2.) Millions of Minions; instead of the guy tanking a trillion guys why not cause most likely if its a trillion guys they are all 1hit kills oh i dunno use AOE skills or maybe have it so the ai doesnt run up and beat you all at once like Assassins creed or martial arts movies where your surrounded but they attack you one at a time. developers could implement a multi targeting system or stance like in the whitcher, it could work.  thats all my ideas devolopers have to start looking out of the RPG world for inspiration and realise where not all 12years old and retarded.

Originally posted by Sneaky_Andy

No Tanking - really imo its just lame. Plus it takes like 2 guys out of the game basically because they just stand there pressing their skills. People are talking alot about viable options how about:1.) In the case of Big Boss fights, instead how about change it to a strategy/puzzle game where  you have to lure a dragon out of his cave and crush him with a huge ass boulder or bridge of khazad dum style ,  you hide behind natural defenses whilst he uses his KILL Skill and then cast or shoot at him to lure him out they do that in other types of games. 2.) Millions of Minions; instead of the guy tanking a trillion guys why not cause most likely if its a trillion guys they are all 1hit kills oh i dunno use AOE skills or maybe have it so the ai doesnt run up and beat you all at once like Assassins creed or martial arts movies where your surrounded but they attack you one at a time. developers could implement a multi targeting system or stance like in the whitcher, it could work.  thats all my ideas devolopers have to start looking out of the RPG world for inspiration and realise where not all 12years old and retarded.

 

Imo that seems lame. Kiting a Boss to destroy it with items in the zone. What fun is that. And how easy it would be to kite a boss in Large Scaled Grouped PvE. Also this system would give ranged classes more advantages over melee classes.

And fighting many 1hit kill mobs, is lame for a large scale PvE fight (alone).

As others have said tanks are pretty much here to stay since "someone" has to be to focus of the MoBs attention.

People are arguing about mass tanking too .. well that depends on the game. EQ tanking more than 2 MoBs was pretty much suicide at most points, additional MoBs were CC'd and lined up one at a time. Other games such as DAoC or WAR and AoE tanking is pretty much a staple in the PvE arenas. Its not uncommon in games like that to pull 20+ trash MoBs and AOE them down. Thats just a more *heroic* feeling game I guess where your character is supposed to be more "extraordinary".

Thats just a game degin and has no real baring on the issue or tank Vs no-tank. The bottom line there is that games that give tanks single target skills and DPS mostly single target abilitys promote CC and single target killing. Games that give tanks AoE skills and DPS AoE attacks will prompte AOE target killing. /shrug.

The more intersting point for me is how MMO's will deal with "tanking" in the future.

The "plate-wearing super-healthed ape" to the front game model is getting kinda dull.I would like to see games address tanking in different ways now. I remember OG mages in AC being able (through massive buffing / Debuffing) to tank just about anything. (Exception being the nasty Lugians who threw thier magic rocks :p )

I'd like to see more tanking options in games. You can tank through Mitigation, Avoidance and Absorbing.

Currently tanks are basically given all 3 (to a degree) with other classes getting some here and there.

A skill based game where you could chose your method of defence would be alot more appealing to me. Do I want to tank as a warrior with mitigation? (Wearing heavy armor and a shield) Or as a Barbarian with absorbing? (Massive hit points) Maby as a Kensi or Rogue with avoidance? (Dodging) Maby I'd like to tank as a spell weaver with mitigation? (Debuffing my enemy to mitigate his dmg) or as a spell weaver with avoidance? (Spells like blur / invisibility)

Theres alot of different ways to work a viable tanking formular into a game past the tried and tested "big guy with armor" route.

I dont see tanking as going away since as others have said AI needs a reason for target selection .. if there is no reason for target selection then there is just chaos and everyone needs to be able to do everything. WoW fails in this reguard with threat meters etc which candy coat the game. Threat management is a large part of any group encounter for me and WoW unfortunatly dumbed this down more than any game I've ever played.

In short I'd just like to see game devs. be a little fresher with the way we tank, since for now I dont see the "tank" method going anywhere.

I don't know how possible it would be but I would also prefer a D&D based tanking experience. Let me preface this by saying my D&D experience is limited to PC games, (BG, BG2, IWD, etc.).

Sure, there are tank classes, but there are no easy ways to keep aggro on them. I always had to run my mages around/root/stun, etc as it was hard to focus the boss on the tank.

I think the main problem goes to "bigger is better". Everyone has tons of HP, MP, and skills that you can just spam away without any reservation. In D&D, your spell selection really had to count since each spell was powerful, but limited in use. HP was also a problem as even a good fighter could go down in a few critical hits from a boss. When everyone dies in less than five hits, it really puts a premium on getting the boss killed ASAP, instead of making it a long, drawn out fight.

Also, I would like to see more multiple mob boss fights. Usually, each boss you fight brings along some henchman (unless you’re at the final boss it seems). This would cause even more chaos and require a lot of maneuvering to stay alive.

The final thing would be to actually have bosses be GM controlled and not AI. That would make them so much harder as the strategy you used last time wouldn't be guaranteed to work this time.

I realize most of these would probably never happen, but I think they would lead to short but very challenging boss battles.

TLTR version:
• Short battles
• GM controlled bosses
• Limited spells/HP putting a premium on strategy and killing ASAP.
• More henchmen with bosses.
• Bigger is not always better.

Originally posted by KMiller1984

I don't know how possible it would be but I would also prefer a D&D based tanking experience. Let me preface this by saying my D&D experience is limited to PC games, (BG, BG2, IWD, etc.).

Sure, there are tank classes, but there are no easy ways to keep aggro on them. I always had to run my mages around/root/stun, etc as it was hard to focus the boss on the tank.

I think the main problem goes to "bigger is better". Everyone has tons of HP, MP, and skills that you can just spam away without any reservation. In D&D, your spell selection really had to count since each spell was powerful, but limited in use. HP was also a problem as even a good fighter could go down in a few critical hits from a boss. When everyone dies in less than five hits, it really puts a premium on getting the boss killed ASAP, instead of making it a long, drawn out fight.

Also, I would like to see more multiple mob boss fights. Usually, each boss you fight brings along some henchman (unless you’re at the final boss it seems). This would cause even more chaos and require a lot of maneuvering to stay alive.

The final thing would be to actually have bosses be GM controlled and not AI. That would make them so much harder as the strategy you used last time wouldn't be guaranteed to work this time.

I realize most of these would probably never happen, but I think they would lead to short but very challenging boss battles.

TLTR version:
• Short battles
• GM controlled bosses
• Limited spells/HP putting a premium on strategy and killing ASAP.
• More henchmen with bosses.
• Bigger is not always better.

Having GM control bosses would be a big problem. (Money)

Imagine 2000 players fighting in groups of 20 (100 groups) , in there own instance. That would be 100 GMs needed just for that alone.

Originally posted by tro44_1

You also seem to be pointing out something that WoW also does with its Large Scale Grouped PvE.

And thats making its scripted PvE Boss Fights, immune to Taunts, which adds even more gameplay skill to the game. Tanking system is still needed in thoses cases, but Dps and Healer need to focus on healing without causeing too much hate. (AKA More PvE skill)

No, I'm talking about the complete removal (from the player's perspective) of Threat and Taunt.  The mobs will act in predictable patterns, but those patterns can't be directly influenced by players (or if they can, it's not in the typical "do big damage to get its attention" fashion.)

Left 4 Dead is an example.  Players get almost zero control over which player the zombies are going to go after, yet you have big theatrical battles with zombies, and even some boss zombies that create interesting fights.

RealmLords: "In PVE if nobody is a tank, then everyone is a tank. Someone has to take damage."

The word "tank" only really applies when it's used to differentiate one player from another.

In my L4D example, you don't call anyone a "tank"; it's a useless term because you're not differentiating between players - everyone is taking damage.  So players just don't use the term.

Now you could designate one player in L4D to be your pointman -- your tank -- by having them consistently up front.  And they would take more damage than the other players, no doubt.  And in a MMORPG designed the same way, you probably will have one player whose damage mitigation capabilities are better than the others.  So sure...there'd be a vague concept of "tanking" still, but the concept would be significantly different from what we see in existing games.

Originally posted by Axehilt

 

I did read your post.

It's true that threat is the basis of PVE AI -- after all, the AI has to have some method to decide who to attack.  However it's not necessary for this to be directly controllable by the player.

Imagine a futuristic MMORPG.  You can drive tanks, wear power armor, and fly planes.  The AI enemy has a stronghold.  A big one.  Guarded by 50 AI guards who respawn (until you destroy the base generator.)  They have tanks, planes, and power armor too.  But there's no taunt in this game.  The battle to take that fortress plays out like a real battle would, as a grueling chaotic skirmish.

Oh there's interesting game mechanics in there too, with certain enemies weak to certain types of damage, and certain enemies able to be interrupted as they charge up special attacks, and the special attacks themselves being shot in distinct patterns so that they can be avoided (the dodgeable rockets, the triple-shot, and the slowly-rotating lasers, etc.)  But there's no tank up there taunting the enemies while the rest of your team shoots the one boss mob down.

So there you have large-scale PVE with no true tanking mechanism.  Players will probably call it tanking when they storm the hallways behind their power armored friends, but it's not really tanking (because the AI will shoot at the medics in the back about as often as the average TF2 player shoots at the medics: he'll try most times, but a lot of times he'll be concerned by the big menace clomping towards him.)

  What if your scenario the medic is the tank? If the mob ignores everyone but the medic because healing generates the most aggro then the mechanics of the game would dictate that the healers become the tanks. They would put on the best armor they could and find the most ways to mitigate that incoming damage.  There is always a taunt mechanism. Sometimes its hidden better than other times. It might be called heal 1, or it might be called Major Damage 1 or it might be called Stun 1 or it might even be called Taunt 1. Because pve mobs run on Artificial Intelligence scripts they have to have a sorting mechanism to determine who to attack and when to attack them and how to attack them. Players will eventually figure this routine out to some degree and use it to their advantage to make a tank even in a "tankless" game.

Of course to fully understand what I am saying you have to understand my definition of tank. Its the person who designs their character to take a majority of the hits from mobs with a better than average ability to take those hits and live. Some games with weak tanking abilities might require two people to fulfill this role by causing a mob to bounce between them. The only way to not have a tank in a game is to make sure there are zero ways a person can tank. IE no armor, no damage mitigation and no crowd control.

Also in your example I would probably say the person driving the tank would in fact be a tank so to speak, as a tanks primary purpose is to have heavier than normal armor while carrying a big gun, otherwise if all you wanted on the tank was the gun and the armor is useless then it would be more efficient to simply build a mobile rocket launcher type system or mobile turret or mobile artillery with no armor.

I still say my point holds that unless you have a game in which everything can die in less than 4 hits you will always have a tank. Just how good the tank is and how effective the tank is will depend on the specific system.

It's simple.

Have you played Left 4 Dead?  Zombies go for brains.   Female brains, veteran brains, office worker brains, or jackass brains, they don't frickin care.  They just want brains.  They usually go for whoevers right out there in front of them.  But they're zombies.  They don't have a "hate list".  They don't hate anybody, they just want brains!

Same deal in my futuristic MMORPG. The AI is straightforward in its attacks, often attacking whoever's closest and in line of sight.  The majority of targeting is a mix of randomly divvying up AIs amongst the human targets, and ensuring targets that make sense are chosen (based on proximity and LOS).

So no, the medic does not go on a hate list by healing.  At most there's a "I saw that player heal someone" boolean which provides a slight one-time increase to the probability the NPC will attack that player.

Obviously we're talking about the removal of the "threat game", so we're commiting to replacing that fun minigame with something of equal or greater fun.  In my game I think it'd be appropriate to make a series of overlapping patterns which can be mixed in interesting ways (different types of enemy troops, each of which can have different equipment loadouts.)  Basically the abilities and equipment of the enemies, and how you act and react to them, become the stars of the s

So is there "tanking"?  If you want to stretch the definition to encompass a mechanic which is significantly different from existing hate list systems, sure there's a tank.  But for every fight in a hallway where things are easily controlled and you keep your Power Armor Dude up front soaking up damage there are 2 more fights where you're ambushed from all directions and simply have to make the best of the situation while under fire.

Bosses would switch targets frequently as a function of the unique ways they'd engaged players (with one foe jetpacking into the air towards clumps of players, and another using a trident pattern of rocket fire, and another cloaking to backstab a random player.)

Is there a "taunt"?  Not at all.  But games were fun long before the idea of letting players exploit the AI's stupidity as a minigame, and this game would survive on the merits of having interesting enemy types to fight against, and interesting things to do within the level (like fighting your way into the generator room -- or sneaking in -- and blowing it to hurt their ability to bring reinforcements.)

Originally posted by Axehilt

It's simple.

Have you played Left 4 Dead?  Zombies go for brains.   Female brains, veteran brains, office worker brains, or jackass brains, they don't frickin care.  They just want brains.  They usually go for whoevers right out there in front of them.  But they're zombies.  They don't have a "hate list".  They don't hate anybody, they just want brains!

Same deal in my futuristic MMORPG. The AI is straightforward in its attacks, often attacking whoever's closest and in line of sight.  The majority of targeting is a mix of randomly divvying up AIs amongst the human targets, and ensuring targets that make sense are chosen (based on proximity and LOS).

In this case tanking become real simple. You have the person you want to tank go in first and aggro everything. There is a way for an intelligent person to use any AI scenario and make a character use the AI rules to create a form of taunt and a way to tank. In fact the scenario you described is the absolute easiest unless you remove all forms of ranged combat. Then all you have to do is max out whatever range abilities you have for a majority of your team, run someone in there who can best take the hits to aggro everything while the rest of your team focus fires the idiotic zombies who will not aggro them because they do not recognize any meaningfull threat assesments. Meanwhile the medic sits off to one side pinging things with their gun waiting for the "tank" to get damage. When it comes time you have another tank run in to attact the attention of the zombeis while the first tank runs out to get healed.

Er, have you played L4D?   Yeah the guy in front is the target of perhaps 20-40% more incoming zombies, but everyone else is still constantly targeted.

There's no "run up there and aggro everything" in L4D so it seems like you either haven't played it or you're deliberately not seeing my point...