If you want to boost Tankers lets do something that makes having multiple Tankers on a team more appealing. Every tank adds a small boost to the damage of their team mates on top of the whole taunt thing.
You guys like numbers with your ideas right give me a sec here...lets say 5.5% boost that would should make a team of 8 Tanks almost as strong as 8 Scrappers before you take crits into effect.
Umbal, I was implying Sorcs are blasters and Rangers are Scrappers... But yeah... Off topic, and I'm much more familiar with 3.5 than 4E, so... I'm just gonna end the discussion there.
3.5's only really effective methods of letting a character Tank are Taunt powers and a few abilities to raise the defenses of characters near you.
NPCs: A Single Method to Greatly Expand Bases
Actually, this keeps bringing me back to what must be the DUMBEST concept that MMOs (and possibly other games before them) have brought into the world - the meat shield. Some bizarro world sense of balance dictates that if a character has enough offence to survive massive damage, then he must have crap defence so he's crippled in that respect and requires other people to do damage for him, who will probably lack defence in return for their offence. While this may be numerically balances, it transforms such "tanks" into unmovable, unmoving objects. In essence, it transforms them into props.
The question of why enemies would choose to beat on the most harmless, least threatening and hardest to kill of the party is one that has never had a good answer. MMOs try to sidestep the issue with the concepts of taunt, hate or aggro, but the bottom line is the same - this forces enemies to lose their senses and attack a target that, really, is not worth attacking in the slightest. The big problem in City of Heroes in particular is that Tankers are not designed to DO, they are designed to BE. A Blaster's contribution, for instance, is active. Keep him from shooting and he's useless. A Tanker's contribution, aggro control aside, is passive. The Tanker's greatest worth is his very basic presence.
Conceptually, this is stupid in a number of ways. In terms of both fiction and common sense, the highest priority in any given fight is given to targets that pose either the most danger to your forces or give the greatest benefit to the enemy. A Tanker does neither. He poses little danger as his offence is very low, and he doesn't benefit the team in any way if a thinking enemy simply chose to ignore him. In fiction, "tanker" style characters don't protect their allies by having their allies hide behind the tanker's back. They protect their allies by fighting and by not allowing the enemies to turn their back to the tanker.
This, of course, introduces the concept that was being discussed here - extra damage to things that turn their back on you. Tankers should be designed such that enemies will WANT to fight them, not just be forced to fight them by the system. If you make it a really bad idea to turn your back on a Tanker because he'll pop your head like a painful zit from behind, you will WANT to fight the Tanker, or look for some way to get past him, which doesn't work if his quarry is close enough to where you have to be within close reach to attack the medic first.
Granted, this would fall to the AI and may be exploitable, especially with two tankers essentially trading trains, but the concept, at least, is sound.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You don't say? |
Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Okay, here's a suggestion but a very basic one:
Give Tankers Vigilance (so that if the team is falling in health then the Tank gets an endurance discount) and give Defenders 'something else'. |
Also, Sam, isn't that essentially what Gauntlet is supposed to be anyway? Active attacking = holding enemies' attention...
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Conceptually, this is stupid in a number of ways. In terms of both fiction and common sense, the highest priority in any given fight is given to targets that pose either the most danger to your forces or give the greatest benefit to the enemy.
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Amendment: I tend to go after whichever targets I think will fall the fastest first, threat level aside, unless there's a huge disparity in their offensive/defensive capabilities. Most people agree: you clear the area of Minions, Lts, and Bosses before tackling the Hero/AV nearby. But Tankers are, well... They fall the slowest, and they're the least threatening.
Take a look at the LRSF. BAB is usually one of the last Heroes that groups take down, and Statesman last (not necesarrily including Manticore and Synapse who don't join the fight because they're landbound). BAB and Statesman are supposed to be the two tanks, but there's no reason to attack them first. They're the least threatening of the bunch until States gets down to 25% health, and they're the hardest to drop due to massive S/L resist.
As a side note: I think Grant Cover as a power is tanker-tastic. It's a simple, clean power that says "You have to go through me first, because I will protect the others."
Here's an idea for tankers: Damage buffs that supress for, say, three seconds, whenever they get attacked (not necessarily hit.) It's clean, I think, and encourages the idea of "Attack me, because if you show me your back I will **** you up." It also means that throwing multiple tanks at a single target would allow a higher damage output to overcome the fact that their taunt purposes don't benefit each other.
NPCs: A Single Method to Greatly Expand Bases
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.........What?
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Originally Posted by Tonality
That leads me to think that maybe, you're not giving tanks enough credit on their damage either.
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That's very well put. I'd say it's smart tactics to attack that which will drop the enemies' offensive capabilities the fastest while retaining as much of your own defensive capability as you can. If this means wiping out lots of weaker units first to take a bite out of incoming damage or focusing on strong units first to cripple your enemies, it still comes to the same question: What is the most dangerous to me right now? And tanks are NOT the most dangerous thing. In fact, even Defenders are more dangerous to the enemy, both buffing and debuffing ones. And it's worse in the case of AVs and elite bosses, because they actually get more dangerous as you fight them. Not only is it best to focus on the most dangerous enemies and ignore the toughest, but actually attacking the toughest makes them more dangerous AND tough, which is still more reason to just ignore them until everyone else is down.|
Originally Posted by CapnGeist
Amendment: I tend to go after whichever targets I think will fall the fastest first, threat level aside, unless there's a huge disparity in their offensive/defensive capabilities. Most people agree: you clear the area of Minions, Lts, and Bosses before tackling the Hero/AV nearby. But Tankers are, well... They fall the slowest, and they're the least threatening.
Take a look at the LRSF. BAB is usually one of the last Heroes that groups take down, and Statesman last (not necesarrily including Manticore and Synapse who don't join the fight because they're landbound). BAB and Statesman are supposed to be the two tanks, but there's no reason to attack them first. They're the least threatening of the bunch until States gets down to 25% health, and they're the hardest to drop due to massive S/L resist. |
I can live with Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers not having any specific system that forces enemies to fight them or take damage, because they have other tools to handle their own output and their role is never to force enemies into a confrontation. Scrappers have decent damage out the gate, Brutes have good damage once they get rolling and Stalkers have hiding and assassination. But Tankers need to be given a better reason to be priority targets than "because the system says so."
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| Here's an idea for tankers: Damage buffs that supress for, say, three seconds, whenever they get attacked (not necessarily hit.) It's clean, I think, and encourages the idea of "Attack me, because if you show me your back I will **** you up." It also means that throwing multiple tanks at a single target would allow a higher damage output to overcome the fact that their taunt purposes don't benefit each other. |
I'd actually split this into several parts, because the point here is to make the tank not just something you have to tag, but something you have to actually attack, so I'd probably split this buff into at least four parts and have each suppress individually, so that he loses some damage when only one enemy out of a group is fighting him, but loses it all when everyone turns their attention. Or perhaps we can make this as inverse Fury - you start out with a full, err... Freedom bar, and each attack by an enemy drops it by a LOT. However, the bar naturally replenishes with time just as Fury drains. So if a Tanker is allowed to sit idly by unattacked, he can muster up some SERIOUS damage, so you WANT to keep attacking him just to keep him suppressed.In this case, it's not because the system says you can only attack this one target. It's because if you don't, that target will kick your *** so hard you'll be wearing your butt cheeks as a hat.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That's an interesting idea, but what would the maximum and minimum buff values be? If the Freedom bar were empty, would the Tanker do equivalent to base tanker damage now, or would it be less? If it the bar was full, would it automatically put the Tanker at the AT damage cap? One problem I can see is tanks not wanting to fight because they'd lose their damage buff. "You guys handle it for awhile. I'm winding up my haymaker." I think any new Tanker inherent should reward the player for doing what the AT was intended to do - get in there and brawl - instead of providing a buff for not doing that.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Or perhaps we can make this as inverse Fury - you start out with a full, err... Freedom bar, and each attack by an enemy drops it by a LOT. However, the bar naturally replenishes with time just as Fury drains. So if a Tanker is allowed to sit idly by unattacked, he can muster up some SERIOUS damage, so you WANT to keep attacking him just to keep him suppressed.
In this case, it's not because the system says you can only attack this one target. It's because if you don't, that target will kick your *** so hard you'll be wearing your butt cheeks as a hat. |
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Which is why I prefer my suggestion. Each power would simply have a flag that deals an additional 15-20% damage to the target if the Tanker is not the current target of that enemy. Checking the target of a target is already possible in game, so the mechanical problems wouldn't be particularly difficult and it wouldn't be represented as a bar or anything like that. It's simply a bonus to base damage (rather than simply +dam). Unless there is another Tanker in the party, there isn't going to be much difference except for the first strikes possibly. If there is, the Tanker that isn't as effective at generating threat is going to see an increase in damage output to make up for lower threat gen.
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Originally Posted by Godpants
That's an interesting idea, but what would the maximum and minimum buff values be? If the Freedom bar were empty, would the Tanker do equivalent to base tanker damage now, or would it be less? If it the bar was full, would it automatically put the Tanker at the AT damage cap? One problem I can see is tanks not wanting to fight because they'd lose their damage buff. "You guys handle it for awhile. I'm winding up my haymaker." I think any new Tanker inherent should reward the player for doing what the AT was intended to do - get in there and brawl - instead of providing a buff for not doing that.
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We don't need more tanks avoiding aggro...
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Originally Posted by Umbral
Which is why I prefer my suggestion. Each power would simply have a flag that deals an additional 15-20% damage to the target if the Tanker is not the current target of that enemy. Checking the target of a target is already possible in game, so the mechanical problems wouldn't be particularly difficult and it wouldn't be represented as a bar or anything like that. It's simply a bonus to base damage (rather than simply +dam). Unless there is another Tanker in the party, there isn't going to be much difference except for the first strikes possibly. If there is, the Tanker that isn't as effective at generating threat is going to see an increase in damage output to make up for lower threat gen.
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The only way they could avoid it in that case would be to not attack anyways, since Gauntlet would remain.
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Originally Posted by LISAR
We don't need more tanks avoiding aggro...
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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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Which is pretty much the point. Either you're getting threat from Gauntlet or you're getting extra damage from Gauntlet. You're either attack and getting threat and possible bonus damage or you're not attacking and getting... kicked from the team.
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Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
The only way they could avoid it in that case would be to not attack anyways, since Gauntlet would remain.
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Which is what would happen...there are players who always want the most so having a bonus for not being the target would mean they would take powers to reduce threat and avoid attacking when there were no targets looking at someone else so the team could grab aggro again. We already have enough Tanks who won't take alpha lets not give them a reason to be useless.
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Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
The only way they could avoid it in that case would be to not attack anyways, since Gauntlet would remain.
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You really think that a large majority of the player base would really stop attacking as soon as something started attacking them just because they want the damage bonus?|
Originally Posted by LISAR
Which is what would happen...there are players who always want the most so having a bonus for not being the target would mean they would take powers to reduce threat and avoid attacking when there were no targets looking at someone else so the team could grab aggro again. We already have enough Tanks who won't take alpha lets not give them a reason to be useless.
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Recall that it takes the accumulation of double the threat that someone else has in order to steal aggro from them, so as soon as you steal agg from someone else, it's even harder for them to pull agg off of you.
Of course, this is also ignoring the fact that you really believe that people would stop attacking because they want to deal more damage. People already have a problem with incorporating waits into their attack string to use their most powerful attacks as often as possible. I honestly doubt that doing anything of this kind would actually convince people to stop attacking just to get an increase to their damage. The most I can expect is some damage tanks asking for another tanker to pull agg off of them, which is going to be laughable when you start to realize that the tank is now making it harder to keep aggro off of him by dealing more damage.
One of the most important elements of game design is player behaviour, and whenever making a change, a developer has to ask themsleves "how will this effect player behaviour?". I would go so far as to say it turmps (and should trump) mechanics that make 'sense'.
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I can see what you mean with this. It's not a buff for not fighting, as it only drops down when the Tanker is being attacked, not when he attacks, but are we really worried about Tankers sitting idle and not doing anything to build up enough buff? I mean, how does a Tanker LOSE aggro?|
Originally Posted by Godpants
One problem I can see is tanks not wanting to fight because they'd lose their damage buff. "You guys handle it for awhile. I'm winding up my haymaker." I think any new Tanker inherent should reward the player for doing what the AT was intended to do - get in there and brawl - instead of providing a buff for not doing that.
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But, anyway, I like Umbra's suggestion better, anyway, provided it's possible.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well, if that's technically possible to judge (and I didn't think that it was, but I'll take your word for it), this would be the ideal implementation. I don't really see this as a big problem of Tankers avoiding aggro, anyway, since a Tanker can have aggro on a bunch of things and just go and aim for what he hasn't aggroed. In a sense, this encourages Tankers to WANT to tank (i.e. hit things that aren't aggroed on them), instead of sitting on their hands and beating on what's under their noses.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Which is why I prefer my suggestion. Each power would simply have a flag that deals an additional 15-20% damage to the target if the Tanker is not the current target of that enemy. Checking the target of a target is already possible in game, so the mechanical problems wouldn't be particularly difficult and it wouldn't be represented as a bar or anything like that. It's simply a bonus to base damage (rather than simply +dam). Unless there is another Tanker in the party, there isn't going to be much difference except for the first strikes possibly. If there is, the Tanker that isn't as effective at generating threat is going to see an increase in damage output to make up for lower threat gen.
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I honestly don't see what a Tanker would gain from not attacking, since he's not going to lose the enemy unless it's to another Tanker or a Scrapper, at which point it doesn't really matter. But to sit and wait for your last taunt to time out and hope that a specific critter will turn away from you... That's not an instinctive reaction to the problem from where I'm sitting. Not as long as Tankers lack Placate.
One other thing concerns me, though, and that's "train-swapping." Imagine the following scenario. You have two tankers on the team, both of whom have a sizable spawn of enemies aggroed on them. What's to prevent them from basically attacking each-other's aggroed enemies basically for a free damage buff? Said enemies won't be as likely to switch targets since one Tanker's taunts are hard to overcome by another, but even if they did... Two Tankers ensures that each of them always has enemies not aggroed to him to attack, essentially giving an unconditional damage buff.
And just to ask - are we thinking of what this will do to help Tankers solo, or is that just not a concern?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Target an enemy and then use a buff power. The power will target that enemy's target. You can do the same thing to target through your target. It shouldn't be too hard to create a function that returns a binary that simply verifies that the target of the target isn't yourself.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, if that's technically possible to judge (and I didn't think that it was, but I'll take your word for it)
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Bonus idea on how this will work, to keep tankers from NOT attacking... Numbers are rough, and not really balanced, but it's an idea.
-You gain a bar, like Fury, which I will for now refer to as "Smash." This is a stupid name, but it works for now.
-Your bar settles at 0 out of combat, slowly decreasing like a Brute's does.
-Your bar increases your damage by a max of 50. Not as strong as a brute's, but your base is higher.
-Whenever you attack, your bar increases by (2.5 x enemies in gauntlet range x cast time).
-Whenever you are attacked, your bar decreases by 2.5.
-Whenever you use Taunt, your bar raises by 10 for each target.
This requires tanks to stay active and close to foes to increase damage output, and taunt frequently. It also means tanks are best when paired with someone with AOE mezzes.
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Alternatively...
-You gain a bar like Fury, which I shall refer to as "Stance."
-The bar settles at 50 when out of combat, raising or lowering to get there.
-You gain a damage modifier equal to (Stance minus 50 x 1%)
-You gain a defense modifier equal to -(50 minus Stance x 0.1%) and a resistance modifier equal to -(50 minus Stance x 0.2%)
-Whenever you attack, your stance increases. (more damage, less def/res)
-Whenever you are attacked, your stance decreases. (More def/res, less damage)
-This should be such that on Solo x1 your stance will pretty much always be about 50.
This forces opponents into a delightfully bad decisions: Don't attack the tank and get pounded by him, or attack the tank and watch him suck it up and take it like a man with +10 defense and +20 resistance while keeping him at -50% damage.
NPCs: A Single Method to Greatly Expand Bases
Okay, my turn to throw something out. I'll keep the Gauntlet name for this inherent, because it's like slapping someone in the face with a big metal glove and in keeping with "The Tanker is an irresistible force combined with an immovable object" blurb from the official web site.
The Tanker has a Gauntlet bar that starts out at 100% and is diminished as enemies attack him. The function of Gauntlet is to convert a portion of the Tanker's damage into unresistable/typeless damage, so even the mightiest opponent would be a fool to ignore a Tanker for long. At full Gauntlet, 30% (suggestions on amount?) of a Tanker's damage is unresistable, and even if Gauntlet is bottomed out, 5% (suggestions again) of a Tank's damage will still get through the toughest armor.
Dar.
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What happens when the tank starts targeting the enemy through his teammates? Can the target chain go through to your target's target's target? How about attacks which don't require targets to fire? What's to stop the tank from dropping his target to get the bonus?
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Originally Posted by Umbral
Target an enemy and then use a buff power. The power will target that enemy's target. You can do the same thing to target through your target. It shouldn't be too hard to create a function that returns a binary that simply verifies that the target of the target isn't yourself.
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We are agreeing to disagree then.|
Originally Posted by CapnGeist
I've never needed Taunt to tank....Taunt makes it easier to get aggro, sure, but it's entirely unnecesarry if you know what you're doing.
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I'm sure you think you are really Tanking without Taunt.
The fact that you think you were Tanking with a Brute without Taunt makes it clear to me what's going on.
If you don't have Taunt and you are actually chasing enemies around, you are the exception to the rule.
I'm not really sure where all these ranged attacks are coming from that have enough agro control to keep the agro.
You may be doing what passes as Tanking in other games, but a Tank with Taunt can out Tank any Tank without it.
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When it comes down to it, it always seems to me that Tanks that post in the forums tend to want to shrug off the definition of the archetype and, instead, be one man teams. Virtually every suggestion can be negated by the fact that a team mate can provide what the Tank says that Tanks need. Need more damage, get a Blaster or a Scrapper.. Need more control, get a controller. Need more heals/buffs/debufs, get a Controller or a Defender.
....and...Tanks are always TRYING to defend the fact that they don't need Taunt. Well, guess what, the other hero Archetypes can't get Taunt.
So maybe it's time to play a different archetype -or- learn to work as part of a team and let your allies do their job instead of trying to do it for them.
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The statement you're quoting was evidence that it's possible for the game to determine target of target. It was never meant to be an indication of how the system would operate. The suggestion is that whenever a power deals damage to a target, it would first check if that target has the tank targeted. If it does, the extra damage is applied. Pseudo-pets would not benefit from this effect for obvious reasons.
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Originally Posted by Shadow State
What happens when the tank starts targeting the enemy through his teammates? Can the target chain go through to your target's target's target? How about attacks which don't require targets to fire? What's to stop the tank from dropping his target to get the bonus?
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I liked the idea someone else posted quite a while back, to let Gauntlet boost damage in a very specific way. Create a flag that makes tankers do better damage to an enemy that is flagged as taunted on them. Say, 25% more damage to a *single* enemy that they have taunted onto them. In the case of AoE Taunts, only the main target (not the splash targets) would be flagged as the one to take more damage. (So if I taunt the AV and another 4 targets around him get taunted, only the AV is flagged). In the case of PBAoE taunt effects (like Footstomp) no target would get flagged. When I use an ST attack and gauntlet causes it to taunt 4 others, only the one I actually attacked would get this flag.
This would encourage tanks to focus on who they are fighting, instead of just randomly tossing attacks around to keep aggro. It would also help soloing, because everything they fight would take more damage because it'd be flagged until the tank kills it. It also encourages players to take taunt, because it allows them to flag a target from range before they even attack once.
Multiple tanks would benefit as well, because damage would increase against any target flagged, even if not on them. So the main tank has the AV's aggro and has put the flag on him, then the backup tank will do more damage to the AV, plus be able to flag another particulary tough target to help take them down fast. (Like a tough boss that spawned with the AV and is killing squishies)
It would also help maintain threat/aggro, because part of the threat equation is based on how much damage you do (which is why scrappers with strong taunt auras can take aggro off a tank with a weaker aura, like an invuln scrap peeling aggro off of a willpower tank who isn't using taunt). By being able to dish out more damage against the foe you are trying to keep on you, you'll actually have an easier time keeping that foe on you.
It's not overpowered because it's still boosting off of lower base damage, and it only works against a single target, so it won't make tanks into farmers (anymore than some builds already are, at least) and it makes more than one tank good, because the non-main tank won't feel redundant and underpowered.
Okay, here's a suggestion but a very basic one:
Give Tankers Vigilance (so that if the team is falling in health then the Tank gets an endurance discount) and give Defenders 'something else'.
The something else bit is beyond me and is covered a million times over in other threads.
I'm sure a lot of Tanks could gain a lot from Vigilance (plus it makes more sense for a Tank than a Defender - if the team is falling in Health then at least the Tank will have its endurance protected/bolstered, whereas Defenders are generally there to defend the team and so Vigilance makes very little sense for them).
Oh and if Vigilance was kept with the same criteria (i.e. Health low = endurance discount) then why not give Defenders a recharge rate reduction and make any powers with an interrupt time, uninterruptable? Just a lame thought.