Threat Meter

[GrunEQ]

<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif;">Could we have the Threat Meter re-size-able....it is way too large for my tastes.</span></p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif;">Could we have the Threat Meter re-size-able....it is way too large for my tastes.</span></p></blockquote><p>It is.</p>

[victer]

<p>What i would like to see is a threshold of hate after you are already at the top.</p><p>Like if you are tanking right now and are at the top of the list it shows a full bar. But if i taunt again the bar doesnt get any bigger.</p><p>I would like to see the bar maybe change color to show that i am gaining more then enough hate to hold it. This way it gives us a better idea of how close we are to looseing agro... once the new color runs out and the bar is still full red we know we are at the top but are close to looseing it.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I would like to see the bar maybe change color to show that i am gaining more then enough hate to hold it. This way it gives us a better idea of how close we are to looseing agro... once the new color runs out and the bar is still full red we know we are at the top but are close to looseing it.</p></blockquote><p>/sigh</p><p>Would you like the game to automatically push your taunt buttons for you, too? Seriously. That's the problem with things like this, it encourages people to think up (and request) even more ways to dumb down the game. I'm all for having threat be a "visible" mechanic in the logs, but this kind of stuff is over the top. Experienced tanks already know how to guage this, and manage their threat appropriately by such advanced skills as looking at where the mob is facing. Being a good tank needs to be more than staring at your hotbars and using a threat meter to decide what buttons to mash.</p>

[victer]

<p>slow down there big guy.</p><p>Im not a huge fan of the threat bar as i dont see it even beeing needed...</p><p>And i dont care how good of a tank you are or think you are. There is no way that you can be 100% sure you have awsome agro because you dont know what the other people still have to cast and where they are on this list.</p><p>But your right that is one of the things in this game that makes it fun is trying to guess how well you have agro. I would much rather not have a threat bar at all.</p><p>All im saying is if they really do want to implement this sort of thing they might as well make it right.</p>

[GrunEQ]

<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif;">I am not a fan of these changes at all....I wish they would scrap the whole change.  However, if I <strong>have</strong> to have a threat meter I want a smaller one.</span></p>

[Foolsfolly]

<p>Wow...so according to Kordran, all tanks are expected to develop a psychic 6th sense which tells them exactly how much agro they have in relation to the rest of their group. Apparently the reasoning behind this, is because simply being told where you stand would be less fun.</p><p>Personally I'm in favor of giving fighter classes an altered threat meter, which displays the 2nd highest person as 100% and the highest person as some number beyond 100%.</p>

[victer]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Experienced tanks already know how to guage this, and manage their threat appropriately by such advanced skills as looking at where the mob is facing.</p></blockquote><p>I just re-read that and it kinda made me laugh.</p><p>What the heck, oh great experianced tank of all tanks, does where the mobs faceing have to do with knowing where you are in the hate list? If you are on top its faceing you if not it STILL could be faceing you dependind on where the person with hate is. Also factor in the annoying ability from brigs and the like that make the mob turn around to backstab.</p><p>Right now the only way tanks know where hate is is by looking at the implied target and then GUESSING how much "give" they have when they are at the top. Im not agruing that it shouldnt be this way cause it actually puts more responsibility on the tank to make sure he has enough agro for everything. But its still a guessing game.</p>

[Rothgar]

<p><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif;">I am not a fan of these changes at all....I wish they would scrap the whole change.  However, if I <strong>have</strong> to have a threat meter I want a smaller one.</span></p></blockquote><p>You don't <strong>have</strong> to have a threat meter.  Ctrl-T turns it off if you don't want to see it.</p><p>As it is on test, it resizes down pretty small.  If it got much smaller the graphic would look bad and the number would not be as readable.  It would be fairly easy to customize this window to your liking since all of the information is stored in dynamic data.  There's absolutely zero code behind the threat meter window making it easy to incorporate this anywhere else you might want to put it in the UI, like your Player Info window.</p><p>We opted to not show info about other people's hate in the window because we wanted to keep it simple.  It should also be the job of the other players in your group to manage their hate as well.  We didn't want to create a situation where the tank is policing other people's hate by viewing their information.  Let each person learn to manage their own hate.</p>

[victer]

<p>I definetly dont want to know where every person is on the list.</p><p>All we care about is our hate compared to the 2nd person on the list (if we are on top) and our hate in relation to the person on top (if we are not on top)</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What the heck, oh great experianced tank of all tanks, does where the mobs faceing have to do with knowing where you are in the hate list? If you are on top its faceing you if not it STILL could be faceing you dependind on where the person with hate is. Also factor in the annoying ability from brigs and the like that make the mob turn around to backstab.</p></blockquote><p>Please. Any tank with two spare brain cells turns the mob so that it's facing them, and away from the rest of the group. Likewise, scouts don't want to be facing the mob, both because of positional attacks and the fact that ripostes can kill them (not to mention the frontal AE's that a lot of mobs have). The direction that the mob is facing, in combination with the implied target, is all the information that any tank has needed to run encounters. We've been without a threat meter for 4 years... all this time, have we had some mystical psychic powers that enabled us to divine whether we're in control of the mob or not?</p><p>If you're having problems with managing aggro, then a threat meter isn't going to help you. Look elsewhere.</p>

[victer]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong>The direction that the mob is facing</strong>, <strong>in combination with</strong> the implied target, is all the information that any tank has needed to run encounters.</p></blockquote><p>Dude seriously stop.</p><p>Where the mob is facing has absolutly nothing to do with <strong>who has agro</strong>. The mob will naturally face that person. Its a givin. We were not talking about facing mobs away from other people that is something you learn at lvl 20.</p><p>All you need is implied target. Period. I'm not gonna discuss it anymore.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The direction that the mob is facing, in combination with the implied target, is all the information that any tank has needed to run encounters. We've been without a threat meter for 4 years... all this time, have we had some mystical psychic powers that enabled us to divine whether we're in control of the mob or not?</p></blockquote><p>Item to note: the threat meter isn't for the tank.</p><p>Yes, that's right. The meter isn't there for the tank. He knows whether he has control of the mob or not. It's there for the DPS classes. Prior to this they had no idea how close they were to stealing aggro until the mob turned on them. They could be at the bottom of the hate list or 1 point of damage away from stealing aggro, they couldn't tell the difference. With the threat meter they can see when they're getting too close to stealing aggro for comfort and need to lay in some more dethreat vs. when it's safe to open up with the big guns.</p><p>The tank does get some use from the threat meter, but it's a secondary aid: when he's lost aggro he can see how big a hole he has to dig himself out of to get the mob back. That lets him decide between blowing a hate-position increase and just laying in some heavy taunts, but generally tanks want to avoid getting into a situation where that's useful.</p>

[Vortexelemental]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif;">I am not a fan of these changes at all....I wish they would scrap the whole change.  However, if I <strong>have</strong> to have a threat meter I want a smaller one.</span></p></blockquote><p>You don't <strong>have</strong> to have a threat meter.  Ctrl-T turns it off if you don't want to see it.</p><p>As it is on test, it resizes down pretty small.  If it got much smaller the graphic would look bad and the number would not be as readable.  It would be fairly easy to customize this window to your liking since all of the information is stored in dynamic data.  There's absolutely zero code behind the threat meter window making it easy to incorporate this anywhere else you might want to put it in the UI, like your Player Info window.</p><p>We opted to not show info about other people's hate in the window because we wanted to keep it simple.  It should also be the job of the other players in your group to manage their hate as well.  We didn't want to create a situation where the tank is policing other people's hate by viewing their information.  Let each person learn to manage their own hate.</p></blockquote><p>I honestly believe something like this is necessary with the kind of damage being output at this point, way back when people were not seeing damage with all of the modifiers we have now it was not needed.</p><p>At this point, i would like it to be less of a percent and more of a distance between you and the next person, in reality it seems more useful to other classes to know when to back off than for tanks. I agree with the fact that maybe the bar or number should change color for how much agro you have over the last person.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Victer@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Dude seriously stop.</p><p>Where the mob is facing has absolutly nothing to do with <strong>who has agro</strong>. The mob will naturally face that person. Its a givin. We were not talking about facing mobs away from other people that is something you learn at lvl 20.</p><p>All you need is implied target. Period. I'm not gonna discuss it anymore.</p></blockquote><p>You do realize that saying the direction the mob is facing has "absolutely nothing to do with who has aggro" makes no sense ... because as you point out in your next sentence, the mob naturally faces that person. So it must have something to do with who has aggro, now doesn't it? (And yes, there's ways to force a mob to turn around, but that's temporary and beside the point). All I was saying is that a tank can tell if they've lost control of the mob simply by looking at it... they don't neet a threat meter to tell them that; heck, they don't even need the UI controls to be enabled. Just look at what's right in front of you. If the mob has its back to you and is pounding the crap out of your healer, guess what? You've lost aggro.</p><p>Frankly, this whole discussion, starting with your original post, is ridiculous because it should <strong>all</strong> be obvious to the tank. But heck, I'm not the one posting here, asking for enhancements to the NoobMeter(tm), now am I?</p>

[liveja]

<p><cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Prior to this they had no idea how close they were to stealing aggro until the mob turned on them.</p></blockquote><p>AFAIC, it should have stayed that way.</p>

[Vulkan_NTooki]

<p>Is it possible to parse threat? Does it log all threat in our log file? Like the threat coming from pala's healing spells, does it show in logs too?</p><p>Info is allways useful for min / maxing your group setups and buffs. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Eugam]

<p><cite>Foolsfolly wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wow...so according to Kordran, all tanks are expected to develop a psychic 6th sense which tells them exactly how much agro they have in relation to the rest of their group. Apparently the reasoning behind this, is because simply being told where you stand would be less fun.</p><p>Personally I'm in favor of giving fighter classes an altered threat meter, which displays the 2nd highest person as 100% and the highest person as some number beyond 100%.</p></blockquote><p>Now as you wrote it i wonder how it was possible to play this game the last 4 years...</p><p>The hate meter is one of the worst additions ever tbh. It will open the gap between common and powerplaying people even wider. I predict that the average person wont be able to beat any medium dungeon in the next expansion with a new level cap. Just another step into overkill.</p><p>I cant wait to play with ACT metronome sounds and hate meter. Well, wont happen <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> DEV's honestly, you should go out once in a while and PUG with people in a mix of blue and legendary while wearing the same mix of blue and yellow. Might be an interessting experience. Those people hit a wall allready. Think Guk for example. How is such a person supposed to keep going next levelcap with 3-5 pieces T1 shard gear ?</p>

[Vulkan_NTooki]

<p><cite>Eugam wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Foolsfolly wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wow...so according to Kordran, all tanks are expected to develop a psychic 6th sense which tells them exactly how much agro they have in relation to the rest of their group. Apparently the reasoning behind this, is because simply being told where you stand would be less fun.</p><p>Personally I'm in favor of giving fighter classes an altered threat meter, which displays the 2nd highest person as 100% and the highest person as some number beyond 100%.</p></blockquote><p>Now as you wrote it i wonder how it was possible to play this game the last 4 years...</p><p>The hate meter is one of the worst additions ever tbh. It will open the gap between common and powerplaying people even wider. I predict that the average person wont be able to beat any medium dungeon in the next expansion with a new level cap. Just another step into overkill.</p><p>I cant wait to play with ACT metronome sounds and hate meter. Well, wont happen <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> DEV's honestly, you should go out once in a while and PUG with people in a mix of blue and legendary while wearing the same mix of blue and yellow. Might be an interessting experience. Those people hit a wall allready. Think Guk for example. How is such a person supposed to keep going next levelcap with 3-5 pieces T1 shard gear ?</p></blockquote><p>Not quite sure what u mean here.. But for the hard zones you gonna need good gear. U can get a full t2 shard set from the easy to moderate instances, and there are still alot of great items from RoK instances that will help ppl dps/survive.</p><p>The instances in TSO have progress built into them. Make sure you are equipped for them before trying them. U have the tools available, going without them will give u a rude awakening.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Vulkan_NTooki wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Is it possible to parse threat? Does it log all threat in our log file? Like the threat coming from pala's healing spells, does it show in logs too?</p></blockquote><p>Currently it's possible, but not complete. Direct threat from taunts and threat procs goes into the logs, as do hate-position changes. Indirect threat from heals and damage doesn't. ACT currently parses the threat info if it's in the logs.</p><p>What I'd like to see is full threat info in the logs, including damage and healing. One of the problems Aeralik seems to be trying to address in GU51 is main tanks holding aggro (or trying to) by sheer DPS, and continuing to try and boost their DPS because they firmly believe that increased damage produces more aggro and better aggro-holding capability than taunts etc.. With full threat info in the logs, it'll be clear from the numbers whether that's true or not. And if the devs truly have made taunts etc. better aggro-generators for tanks than sheer damage, competent tanks will stop focusing inappropriately on damage. Those that don't... will either be given the choice of changing or leaving by their guild and raid leaders, or will just earn reps as poor tanks because everybody else in the group will be able to see it in the parse, just like they can see whether a damage type isn't dishing out the damage they ought to be or a healer's slacking off on needed healing.</p>

[Taharn]

<p>How will the threat meter work in PvP?</p>

[Norrsken]

<p><cite>Taharn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>How will the threat meter work in PvP?</p></blockquote><p>Probably not at all. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Norrsken]

<p>It would be interresting for tanks to actually know a bit about how much they have on the runner up on the hate list. So perhaps let the hate meter go above 100% for tanks? IE, if the runner up is at 80%, the tanks meter woudl say 120%.</p><p>Not that that would make much sense, so just say 80 and 120. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>That would probably also aid the careless DPS whent hey rip aggro and they see how much aggro they need to shed to lose it.</p>

[Kordran]

<p>I'm not even sure how it <em>could</em> be helpful in PvP, it's really just a PvE tool.</p>

[Norrsken]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm not even sure how it <em>could</em> be helpful in PvP, it's really just a PvE tool.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, the only way it would be helpful in pvp is if it told what they had targeted, but the implied targeting window already does that.</p><p>Though, I do see a use for the red hatebar below health and power for pvp. The tanks can easily see when someone in a group on group fight is not targeting them, and who is. Full red bar means them. empty means something else.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It would be interresting for tanks to actually know a bit about how much they have on the runner up on the hate list. So perhaps let the hate meter go above 100% for tanks? IE, if the runner up is at 80%, the tanks meter woudl say 120%.</p><p>Not that that would make much sense, so just say 80 and 120. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>That would probably also aid the careless DPS whent hey rip aggro and they see how much aggro they need to shed to lose it.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure how someone could get 120% hate. At 100%, you're at the top of the mob's threat list. Where can you go beyond there? The threat meter isn't designed to show everyone's relative position on the list, it's showing you how close you are to being the most hated player by the currently targetted mob. The higher you're riding on the threat meter, the great the chance you're going to rip from the tank with a crit and it'd probably be a good time to shed some hate.</p><p>As the tank, I really don't care who's in second or third position on the hate list. I'm busy dealing with the encounter, so I'm not going to play nursemaid to the DPS classes, making comments like "Now, Bob, I see you're at 96% threat, are you using your detaunts?" <strong>It is the responsibility for the DPS classes to manage their own threat, not the tank's</strong>. We're not there to wipe their noses and make sure they're wearing clean underwear. With the threat meter in place, there's going to be very little reason to ever rip from the tank; if they do, the fault lies squarely on the DPS for not paying attention to their threat generation.</p><p>This is one area where you're going to see a shift in how players regard and pick tanks. They're not only going to want tanks with high durability, but also high threat generation so that they can maximize their own DPS. While no DPS class should be ripping from the tank, you'll also find that they will choose to not group with lower TPS tanks because they know that they'll have to constantly slow down and keep their damage output in check, rather than maximize it. Not something that most people who play DPS classes are overly fond of doing. No one wants to drive a Corvette ZR1 that has a governor on it that prevents it from going over 40 mph. The tank in the group will be that governor.</p>

[Norrsken]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It would be interresting for tanks to actually know a bit about how much they have on the runner up on the hate list. So perhaps let the hate meter go above 100% for tanks? IE, if the runner up is at 80%, the tanks meter woudl say 120%.</p><p>Not that that would make much sense, so just say 80 and 120. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>That would probably also aid the careless DPS whent hey rip aggro and they see how much aggro they need to shed to lose it.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure how someone could get 120% hate. At 100%, you're at the top of the mob's threat list. Where can you go beyond there? The threat meter isn't designed to show everyone's relative position on the list, it's showing you how close you are to being the most hated player by the currently targetted mob. The higher you're riding on the threat meter, the great the chance you're going to rip from the tank with a crit and it'd probably be a good time to shed some hate.</p><p>As the tank, I really don't care who's in second or third position on the hate list. I'm busy dealing with the encounter, so I'm not going to play nursemaid to the DPS classes, making comments like "Now, Bob, I see you're at 96% threat, are you using your detaunts?" <strong>It is the responsibility for the DPS classes to manage their own threat, not the tank's</strong>. We're not there to wipe their noses and make sure they're wearing clean underwear. With the threat meter in place, there's going to be very little reason to ever rip from the tank; if they do, the fault lies squarely on the DPS for not paying attention to their threat generation.</p><p>This is one area where you're going to see a shift in how players regard and pick tanks. They're not only going to want tanks with high durability, but also high threat generation so that they can maximize their own DPS. While no DPS class should be ripping from the tank, you'll also find that they will choose to not group with lower TPS tanks because they know that they'll have to constantly slow down and keep their damage output in check, rather than maximize it. Not something that most people who play DPS classes are overly fond of doing. No one wants to drive a Corvette ZR1 that has a governor on it that prevents it from going over 40 mph. The tank in the group will be that governor.</p></blockquote><p>Methinks you need to re-read my post.</p><p>As a tank, I am highly interrested in how far above I am to the second in line on the hate list. Nowhere did I say I was in the least interrested in WHO it was, just how far ahead I am, to gauge what to do next and be prepared for next, just for handling the encounter. It yields more information to me as a tank on what I can and cannot do. If Im with a bunch of low performance scrubs then I might just pop over in off stance and tank/spank like that instead (as an example).</p><p>And for me, most of the time the actual handling is to kick the mob in the face, run to where I want it to be, turn it around and go to town.Very few encounters in this game differs from that, and on those few, the actual preassure on the tank to "handle it" isnt very big at all.</p><p>If I dont get that information the hate window is completely useless to me as a tank. To me, when a mob is standing by me and beating me up is even more clear of an indication that I am at the top of the hate list than a puny window reading 100% and with some codeartishy graphics.</p><p>I also clarified that the numbers should be 80 and 120 without %, because it wouldnt make much sense with the %. Not without jumping through some serious logical hoops.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As a tank, I am highly interrested in how far above I am to the second in line on the hate list. Nowhere did I say I was in the least interrested in WHO it was, just how far ahead I am, to gauge what to do next and be prepared for next, just for handling the encounter. It yields more information to me as a tank on what I can and cannot do. If Im with a bunch of low performance scrubs then I might just pop over in off stance and tank/spank like that instead (as an example).</p></blockquote><p>To each his own, I guess. When I'm tanking, I'm concerned about controlling the encounter, watching for adds and making sure the mob sticks to me. If damage output is low, there's a variety of obvious indicators, along with the ACT parse. Generally speaking, I would say that if overall DPS is low because the tank's TPS is low, find a better tank; otherwise, find better DPS.</p><p>The consequence of threat logging is that everyone will be clear on where exactly the suck is. The solution is to either play better, or call home.</p>