Replace AoE target cap with Total Damage cap

I play mostly as a tank, and in large groups (7+) the target cap makes things very hard to do my job and hold aggro when people mess up and pull extra spawns. I've played WoW as well, and they came up with an idea that's similar, but more realistic, in which you can still hit as many targets as you want, but the effectiveness goes down for larger groups.

In essence, you'd be replacing the hard cap on how many mobs you can hit with a cap on how much total damage or duration AoE abilities can do. Say you have a power that can hit 10 mobs at once (ex. Fireball)... it will do X amount of damage to every target up to 10 targets. Now, say it hits more than 10 targets, you would take the amount of damage that it would have done to just 10 targets, and divide it up to the actual number of targets that it hits -- (X * 10) / # of Targets. This can be divided up with duration as well for Holds, Disorients, Immobs, Taunts, etc.

Example:

Fireball on 1 target: 50 damage
Fireball on 10 targets: 50 damage to each target (500 damage total)
Fireball on 20 targets: (50 damage * 10 target cap) / 20 actual targets = 25 damage each
Fireball on 50 targets: (50 damage * 10 target cap) / 50 actual targets = 10 damage each


I would think that this would be a preferable change to the current situation. Tanks could do their jobs more effectively while any AoE abilities are not as effective towards extraordinarily large groups of mobs (which was the whole point of the Target Cap in the first place). This would still force tanks to limit the number of mobs that they collect at any given time as it would take more time to dispatch them.

Sounds very interesting. I could see how as something expands out to more targets, it would have less effect as it gets wider. I have a few items since I am not sure on the mechanics.

First, would this make it more difficult on AOE use since they are putting out less damage with higher number of targets? In other words, we use to be able to take X amount of targets really fast (higher damage), but now we have aggro with 30 targets, does it take 3X as long? Are we in more danger? For taunt, would taunt be diluted so much that by 30 targets the aggro now is on the damagers?

Also, from the list above, 1 target and 10 targets have the same damage per target (assuming 2-8 would be the same). What happens with higher ranked mobs like AVs and GMs? Would they be one target counting for damage output still as the number of mobs around them shrinks?

Any thought on making AOEs radius dependent in that the closer to the center the higher the damage output? As mobs get further from the center the less the damage. This way you could have more mobs, but damage becomes less effective. I am guessing that the collisions of the mobs and their tight packing might prevent this from being used (like in the garbage bin days).

Would be awesome (it would make AOE more fun), but the aggro cap would have to be dealt with somehow to make it work.

Ehhh...

Can't really say I'm for it.

And if I'm reading this right:

See my Guides and Tutorials

In essence, this way of doing things would change the "hard caps" into "soft caps". There would be no "this is how many things you can taunt or damage", but it would change to "after this amount of targets, the damage or duration will lower".

Bear in mind that there are already "target caps" out there for all the powers already... I'm just saying to make them "soft caps" to where they *will* affect more mobs, but damage and secondary effects get lowered after those caps are reached. To those that play regularly and don't push limits, this should have virtually no effect what so ever, but in the grand scheme of things it will make people pay attention to how many mobs they aggro at once instead of packing the whole map into a dumpster (like they used to back in the day).

This is basically meant to remove some of the limits of what characters can do while at the same time making the players aware that pulling more than a certain amount will be dangerous.

However, you are missing the point that damage is factored into the Threat calculations. Already, some sets have difficulty holding aggro, and damage is a good way to help cover for that. Lowering Tanker AoE damage if there are more than ten mobs around them would make it even harder for those sets to hold aggro.

I get the theme of it, I just can't say that I'm for it.

That might work for tankers...
But my Fire/Fire Blaster gives this a big ol' "Hell freaking no!"
I like my Inferno doing *ahem* OVER 900!! to whole mobs. Theres naff all point me hitting more things if it also leaves them all alive. This is why I keep getting dissapointed with Dual Pistols non-nuke; I have to go through all that, and there still tends to be one or two still alive to wail on me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The only way that this could be acceptable is if there was a way that you could dynamically choose whether you wanted to effect the fewer number of people more, or the entire mob less. For example, it's more useful for the control sets to be able to lock down part of the mob for longer than all of it for shorter in most situations.

This would massively change the dynamic of the game, especially since, as Alpha pointed out, there are certain powers that were designed as final buttons. They were too powerful when there was no target/aggro cap, but that was changed in a way that preserved the "final strike" nature of the powers. If this were implemented those sorts of powers should have their recharge reduced at the least, probably the endurance crash as well.

That's just one example of a large change to power levels of certain sets and powers that this proposal would have. And personally I dislike the nature of the changes. I would prefer to simply end half of a mob than annoy all of it. Feels more powerful and (as tired as I usually find the description) more super.

Perhaps I'm not explaining this well enough... powers already have a set "target cap" that they can hit and that's it. This proposal is not intended in the least to be a massive global nerf to AoE, but to change those "hard target caps" into "soft target caps".

This wiki page shows basically the target cap limits of powers already in game... http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Limits

So my example above with 10 targets is changed for all current limits...
- AoE debuffs, ranged cones, and melee AoE (PBAoE): 10 targets
- Large PBAoE (nukes): 16 targets
- Ranged AoE: 16 targets
- Melee Cone AoE: 5 targets
- Taunt AoE (including Gauntlet): 5 targets

So in all reality, if the team is playing normally and pulling 1 group at a time, this will have absolutely NO effect. Even mistakingly pulling an extra mob or two won't affect things very much either.

In the case of a nuke doing 900 damage per mob, here's how it would go...

16 targets or less - Normal damage of 900 dmg/mob
More than 16 targets - (900 dmg/mob * 16 soft cap) / # of targets
-- (900 * 16) / 18 = 800 dmg/mob

Or in the case of control...

16 targets or less - Normal duration of 1 min/mob
More than 16 targets - (1 min/mob * 16 soft cap) / # of targets
-- (1 min * 16) / 18 = 53 seconds

If there's only 1 or 2 more than the soft cap it will still do a considerable amount of damage, however, if the tank purposely pulled 3-4 groups it will be diluted quite a bit, thus making it undesirable to pull more than a safe amount yet still leaving the ability to do so. Now the Melee Cone cap I happen to agree with, but that's beside the point. This makes pulling more than 1 group of mobs undesirable, but not impossible (as it is now).

Wouldn't this have the opposite effect that you intend, then? If it becomes a detriment to have larger groups (as the Tanker, you wouldn't even want to herd to the aggro limit because otherwise your damage per enemy takes a hit), then you'd see people pulling smaller and smaller groups, to keep the numbers down, versus herding up large amounts of mobs.

Considering that mobs do heal back damage over time, it's better to do a lot of damage to 10 enemies than it is to do 5/8ths the damage to 16. Also, as a Tanker, that means that I'd be generating only 5/8ths the Threat on those 16 mobs than I'd generate one the 10 I would have hit. Meanwhile, the Blaster is still generating 100% of his aggro when he throws out that Fireball.