Is it hate or is it control? [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

View Full Version : Is it hate or is it control?

Baccalarium

06-14-2009, 09:59 PM

I'm not a tank class but I posted <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=447302" target="_blank">this</a> some time back and due to lack of a forum to fit it, it was immediately locked. Hopefully this is a more fitting forum, and those fighters that might consider it for better or worse may do so.I know realism isn't the point, but I think once in a while about tank agro in terms other than taunts. Some post I can't find now had a great analogy as a fighter using mental power to focus the enemies on him, and that seemed plausible for some fighters but not as the entire source of all fighter's abilities.I can see a fighter as one who's physical size and stature allows them to control their opponent. Once you've engaged a fighter you can't just turn and run over to his mage because he'll physically stop you. Think of trying to get past one of the guys on the front line of a football team.I doubt this would ever apply in this game, as its too different than how agro management has evolved, but I'll give it a stab anyway.One might think of this as a root. It could be that the root only applied when the opponent was attempting to move toward the tank. It certainly should not apply after the tank has backed out of close range. The fighter's ability to control a mob this way would likely build hate, and like other roots may leave the mob hitting what it can rather than what it wants to.Since a single fighter seems unlikely to be able to physically control an x4 dragon, perhaps the control effect of multiple fighters together would offer that degree of control. Perhaps if each figher is able to only 30% snare an epic rather than out right root it. But four fighters together would stack and keep the dragon controlled, unable to twist free.In my envisioning of a fighter with physical strength to hold a creature there's still a need for support classes. Its the chanters and bards jobs to bend the will of the lesser creatures to make them attack the fighter. The fighter may be limited to two or three creatures that can be physically engaged and held down (he holds the mage down with one foot while using his sheild and weapons to keep another?) but it takes magic to bend wills of larger numbers. Obviously there's encounters with perma rooted mobs that this doesn't make sense for, and I'm sure other encounters where this sort of mechanic might break the encounter design.How would players deal with tank mobs when they pull them to a wall, and since they can't back away from the mob they're perma rooted other than perhaps trying to slide to the side down the wall.How would scouts deal when the tank takes more risks of letting a mob back away from him if he tries to turn the mob's back to the casters. Like wise scouts would be likely be more vulnerable to enticing a mob to back away from the tank.I recall old board games where your peices excerted a zone of control, and unless a peice was already engaged an enemey peice entering that zone of control would be compelled to stop and deal with opposing peice. I recall stories of tanks being able to physically push mobs into a desired position in other games. The row of sheild bearers or pike men at the front of your formation isn't there to be hated, they are there to stop the opposing force from advancing deeper into your formation. Like I said its just a crazy idea that a fighter ough to be able to be able to control an encounter quite possibly regardless of how hated he is. It probably really has nothing to do with eq2, and seems like if it did it would be too much of a change in mechanics. But since it seemd like there was the possibility of other major changes in mechanics I figured I toss my 2 cents in.

Jgok

06-19-2009, 10:54 PM

What you're talking about seems very similar to the tanking mechanism from The Matrix Online. Once you engage someone in melee combat, they're locked to you unless they can successfully break out of melee. There are abilities designed both for locking opponents to you, and for breaking out of an opponent's lock. Quite useful in PvP, if you can manage to lock a nuker in melee and keep them from casting (assuming you reach them without dying).MxO doesn't have dragons, so no comparison to your control idea for large mobs, but I kind of like the idea of requiring multiple tanks to position a physically large raid mob.

Landiin

06-20-2009, 06:08 PM

Ok I'll tank the head, you tank the tail, and you other two tank the wings.. We got this sucker.. Meh..

Jgok

06-21-2009, 10:08 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ok I'll tank the head, you tank the tail, and you other two tank the wings.. We got this sucker.. Meh..</blockquote>Rather than tanking specific locations, think of it as "push" against the mob. Say there's a mob that tries to sideslip around the MT, so you need two OTs in the frontal arc, one on either side of the MT, to keep the mob from sidling around the MT to get the rest of the raid in his frontal AE. Or maybe there's a mob that has to be pushed into a corner, so you put your MT on the front, and have three tanks on one side of the mob shield-bashing and kicking to shove him overThere are other ways to create fights that need more tanks, of course...A fight where the mob periodically changes tactics, requiring different tanks for each segment of the fight. For the first part of the fight, he's throwing out divine and disease damage while fearing the tank. You'll want a crusader for that. For the second part of the fight (he ran out of power or whatever), he's a standard heavy hitter, tankable by a Berserker or Guardian. For the third segment, he starts doing strikethroughs that ignore all mitigation, requiring an avoidance tank.Similar to the above, a triple-mob linked encounter where each mob uses one of those tactics.Another that would be simple to design is a mob that randomly switches between the four raidmembers with the highest hate, and has a frontal AE. You need four tanks sitting in front of the mob, all generating aggro, and all doing the actual job of a tank.To make that one even more interesting, have the mob's aggro table look for the highest-hate member in each group, rather than the four with the highest overall hate. That way, each group would have to be balanced to give the tanks the buffs they need, and you wouldn't end up with the standard "DPS group" and "MT group" raid layout you've got right now.There's plenty of possibilities that can make raid encounters more interesting while also expanding certain tank roles. I'd like to see ALL of them used.

Tommara

07-31-2009, 01:33 AM

I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to think that the original EQ mechanics had it right (talking about the first 3 years, I quit playing after that, so don't know what happened after the first 3 years).Taunt was weak. A dps-er who grabbed aggro was treated as a fool who deserved to die for being a fool for expecting to divert precious healing resources. Easier to res them than heal them.Healers and chanters were protected by multiple people, like those with taunt, heal, stun, root, and snare. Those abilities exist in EQ2, but dps parsers penalize them for using them, since people judge them on dps. Instead of the fact that they held a mob rooted/trapped, stunned, etc., which might actually be more useful than dps sometimes. One of the things I miss the most is the ability to control how many mobs are pulled on a pull, via snare/feign death or harmony. Snare/feign death involved pulling a group of mobs, snaring one, then feigning death. The mobs would wander back to their original positions, but the snared one was slower, allowing another tank to grab it, and take it back to the group.Harmony reduced the aggro range between "linked" mobs. Mobs weren't locked into hard-coded links like they are in EQ2, but rather, mobs that were social would come to the aid of their friends if they were nearby. Harmony reduced the range at which they could detect an attact on their friends.Made things a lot more interesting than the "there can be only one" attitude towards tanks in EQ2, and the attitude that it's ok to cater to the desires of dps to top dps parsers, even if they might could have done something more useful, like take a mob or two out of play for awhile.

Morghus

07-31-2009, 02:26 AM

<cite>Tommara wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to think that the original EQ mechanics had it right (talking about the first 3 years, I quit playing after that, so don't know what happened after the first 3 years).Probably got more complicated. much as our own raid encounters did.Taunt was weak. A dps-er who grabbed aggro was treated as a fool who deserved to die for being a fool for expecting to divert precious healing resources. Easier to res them than heal them.The way raid encounters work nowdays, that line of thinking is no longer entirely valid due to the proliferation of fights that require high single/aoe dps, and fights where each and every single death can heal the enemy for several %. Avatars for example are fights that absolutely must end quickly or you wipe regardless of how well you were doing once you pass a certain time limit. The raid encounters in this current tier are simply disastrous if allowed to last long.Healers and chanters were protected by multiple people, like those with taunt, heal, stun, root, and snare. Those abilities exist in EQ2, but dps parsers penalize them for using them, since people judge them on dps. Instead of the fact that they held a mob rooted/trapped, stunned, etc., which might actually be more useful than dps sometimes. Moot since stuns and the like were purposefully made to not work on epics very early on after the game was released. It would apparently 'trivialize' the encounter's scrips.Snares actually do work somewhat but arent too useful since epics have an insanely quick run speed by default and their effects usually hit everyone no matter where they are in the zone.One of the things I miss the most is the ability to control how many mobs are pulled on a pull, via snare/feign death or harmony. Snare/feign death involved pulling a group of mobs, snaring one, then feigning death. The mobs would wander back to their original positions, but the snared one was slower, allowing another tank to grab it, and take it back to the group.Harmony reduced the aggro range between "linked" mobs. Mobs weren't locked into hard-coded links like they are in EQ2, but rather, mobs that were social would come to the aid of their friends if they were nearby. Harmony reduced the range at which they could detect an attact on their friends.Made things a lot more interesting than the "there can be only one" attitude towards tanks in EQ2, and the attitude that it's ok to cater to the desires of dps to top dps parsers, even if they might could have done something more useful, like take a mob or two out of play for awhile.Pretty sure this was purposefully changed quite some time ago as well. I remember with a brawler it was possible to do that very thing somewhat by pulling an encounter, killing the encounter members then feigning death. At first it was made so you got lesser rewards for doing that but later I think they just made it so you cant do it at all.</blockquote>

Tommara

08-03-2009, 04:50 AM

Thanks for the info, but it doesn't change my opinion about what is broken, but rather re-inforces it.The worst of what you what reported is:The way raid encounters work nowdays, that line of thinking is no longer entirely valid due to the proliferation of fights that require high single/aoe dps, and fights where each and every single death can heal the enemy for several %. Avatars for example are fights that absolutely must end quickly or you wipe regardless of how well you were doing once you pass a certain time limit. The raid encounters in this current tier are simply disastrous if allowed to last long.I still maintain that my "line of thinking" is valid. Which is that a dps-er who grabs aggro is a fool, and no precious healing resources should be diverted to them. The fact that the game mechanics rewards these fools for penalizing the group for allowing them to die is immaterial - I'm bemoaning the fact that it should not be that way, and your report simply reinforces my opinion that EQ2 mechanics are broken.And btw, I'm a ranger, who knows for a fact that if I decide to cut loose and be stupid, there's not a darn thing that a tank or healer could do to prevent me from being killed.

Xalmat

08-03-2009, 12:32 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ok I'll tank the head, you tank the tail, and you other two tank the wings.. We got this sucker.. Meh..</blockquote><a href="http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20010416" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20010416</a>

Nulgara

08-03-2009, 05:47 PM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tommara wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to think that the original EQ mechanics had it right (talking about the first 3 years, I quit playing after that, so don't know what happened after the first 3 years).Probably got more complicated. much as our own raid encounters did.Taunt was weak. A dps-er who grabbed aggro was treated as a fool who deserved to die for being a fool for expecting to divert precious healing resources. Easier to res them than heal them.The way raid encounters work nowdays, that line of thinking is no longer entirely valid due to the proliferation of fights that require high single/aoe dps, and fights where each and every single death can heal the enemy for several %. Avatars for example are fights that absolutely must end quickly or you wipe regardless of how well you were doing once you pass a certain time limit. The raid encounters in this current tier are simply disastrous if allowed to last long.Healers and chanters were protected by multiple people, like those with taunt, heal, stun, root, and snare. Those abilities exist in EQ2, but dps parsers penalize them for using them, since people judge them on dps. Instead of the fact that they held a mob rooted/trapped, stunned, etc., which might actually be more useful than dps sometimes. Moot since stuns and the like were purposefully made to not work on epics very early on after the game was released. It would apparently 'trivialize' the encounter's scrips.Snares actually do work somewhat but arent too useful since epics have an insanely quick run speed by default and their effects usually hit everyone no matter where they are in the zone.One of the things I miss the most is the ability to control how many mobs are pulled on a pull, via snare/feign death or harmony. Snare/feign death involved pulling a group of mobs, snaring one, then feigning death. The mobs would wander back to their original positions, but the snared one was slower, allowing another tank to grab it, and take it back to the group.Harmony reduced the aggro range between "linked" mobs. Mobs weren't locked into hard-coded links like they are in EQ2, but rather, mobs that were social would come to the aid of their friends if they were nearby. Harmony reduced the range at which they could detect an attact on their friends.Made things a lot more interesting than the "there can be only one" attitude towards tanks in EQ2, and the attitude that it's ok to cater to the desires of dps to top dps parsers, even if they might could have done something more useful, like take a mob or two out of play for awhile.Pretty sure this was purposefully changed quite some time ago as well. I remember with a brawler it was possible to do that very thing somewhat by pulling an encounter, killing the encounter members then feigning death. At first it was made so you got lesser rewards for doing that but later I think they just made it so you cant do it at all.</blockquote></blockquote>sure raids got more complicated but the basic mechanics didnt change. a monk coudl still rip one mob out of a herd of mobs using fd/snare/harmony combos.quote - The way raid encounters work nowdays, that line of thinking is no longer entirely valid due to the proliferation of fights that require high single/aoe dps, and fights where each and every single death can heal the enemy for several %. Avatars for example are fights that absolutely must end quickly or you wipe regardless of how well you were doing once you pass a certain time limit. The raid encounters in this current tier are simply disastrous if allowed to last long.yes there are mobs which absolutely must be burned fast. but on fights like that mximum hate is put on the tank to make sure he has that sucker locked down as well as possible. but groups arent always designed for max hate on tank and 95% of the time 95% of dps'ers dont bother de-agroing cause they think it is entirely the tanks job to maintain the mob. they dont care if their actions wipe the group, they wine and complain every tiem they rip agro off a tank and then instead of accepting the responsibility for their own actions sit around and blame the tank for not being able to hold the agro, makes me wonder sometimes if those morons even know how many rescues get burned trying to get agro back cause [Removed for Content] number 1 hit sniper shot on the pull. its funny though you ask a dps'er and they will tell you its the tanks job to worry about agro, you ask a tank they say its the groups job to maintain agro. and trust me soe didnt add a ahte meter ot the ui jsut for tanks to use.Stuns/mezzes/roots and such not being usable on epics in eq2 is the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas form soe. its a wonder why control classes do so much dps these days, soe screwed themsleves over by making half their spells not owrk on epics so had to give them something.I too miss the Art of the Pull. in EQ1 it truely was an artform pulling epics apart in raids. in eq2 there is no secret you target mob bunch of other mobs get a ring and walla aint nothing you can do about it they are all coming with you to spank your healer.EQ2 needs some serious changes in agro/hate/control, and jsut the general fun factor of the end game. mobs getting crazy immunities players getting nonstop massive increases in dps with each expansion. soon there will be no point in even bothering to master in-combat utility spells cause everything will be immune anyway. it is far out of hand and soe trapped themselves with their own ideas, cause now they dont have many options. to fix the stupidity woudl require nerfing a huge part of the game nerfing gear nerfing dps nerfing all thsoe things eq2 players care abotu so much. that magic extdps number on the parse is way more important to most then actually having fun. not sure about you guys but i dont log in to stare at ACT and get laughed at after fights cause you parse low but you rezzed 3 people passed out 57 hearts and summoned 7 pets cause soe doesnt have a clue on how ot make a decent pet.so yeah i think your entire line of thinking is valid multiple tank encounters would actually be fun using differnet classes to do different things to the mob in relation to positioning woudl be a blast. the FUN factor form tanking and pulling in eq1 is most definately absent in this game. all eq2 has become lately is a parse competition. its sad really but at least all guild groups are still fun cause we dont care if player a parses 10k if the mobs dead we won which is hwo it used ot be in eq1 and something eq2 has gotten away from more and more every day since t6 was released.

Morghus

08-06-2009, 04:43 AM

<cite>Nulgara@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>yes there are mobs which absolutely must be burned fast. but on fights like that mximum hate is put on the tank to make sure he has that sucker locked down as well as possible. but groups arent always designed for max hate on tank and 95% of the time 95% of dps'ers dont bother de-agroing cause they think it is entirely the tanks job to maintain the mob. they dont care if their actions wipe the group, they wine and complain every tiem they rip agro off a tank and then instead of accepting the responsibility for their own actions sit around and blame the tank for not being able to hold the agro, makes me wonder sometimes if those morons even know how many rescues get burned trying to get agro back cause [Removed for Content] number 1 hit sniper shot on the pull. its funny though you ask a dps'er and they will tell you its the tanks job to worry about agro, you ask a tank they say its the groups job to maintain agro. and trust me soe didnt add a ahte meter ot the ui jsut for tanks to use.Mechanics really dont support that sort of thing with the massive scaleing things have gone through. We have dps/hybrid classes pumping out over 4000 damage with a single attack in quick succession, and deaggros that only reduce hate by around 2000 at the most on 20s+ reuse timers. Sometimes, it is utterly impossible to stop pulling aggro if the tank cannot handle it even with 30%+ hate decrease on a sorceror and hate gains/transfers on the tank. Heck my greatest deaggro comes from an item, my class given deaggros either RAISE my hate, decrease it by 1%, or get resisted.That of course is not to say it is entirely the fault of the tanks or the dpsers, as the current difficult raids have many different effects that interfere with both dpsing and tanking. Effects in general that are never seen in the solo or heroic game really. Target locks preventing people from switching their target are quite troublesome, as are other numerous effects forcing tanks to swap places with other tanks due to special fail condition effects that need to be removed, not to mention mem-wiping enemies and enemies immune to target-locks.Stuns/mezzes/roots and such not being usable on epics in eq2 is the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas form soe. its a wonder why control classes do so much dps these days, soe screwed themsleves over by making half their spells not owrk on epics so had to give them something.The only actual raid fight I can think of that is recent that allowed Stuns/etc to work was Nexona on her adds. Nowdays, it's all about the script and dealing with it. I'm sure many people have seen what the devs think about us interrupting raid mob abilities, they quickly nerfed the ability to do so and in some cases make ertain AOEs unmodifiable with things like traumatic swipe.I too miss the Art of the Pull. in EQ1 it truely was an artform pulling epics apart in raids. in eq2 there is no secret you target mob bunch of other mobs get a ring and walla aint nothing you can do about it they are all coming with you to spank your healer.I dont quite see how this would work in the current raid design, would people just get worse loot by seperating out adds in certain cases? The fight with Gynok Moltor for example is almost 90% based upon successfully handling his adds and him at the same time, each of whom are named epics with their own abilities.Or Tyrannus and virtually all names beyond in difficulty who have adds to constantly deal with.EQ2 needs some serious changes in agro/hate/control, and jsut the general fun factor of the end game. mobs getting crazy immunities players getting nonstop massive increases in dps with each expansion. soon there will be no point in even bothering to master in-combat utility spells cause everything will be immune anyway. it is far out of hand and soe trapped themselves with their own ideas, cause now they dont have many options. to fix the stupidity woudl require nerfing a huge part of the game nerfing gear nerfing dps nerfing all thsoe things eq2 players care abotu so much. that magic extdps number on the parse is way more important to most then actually having fun. not sure about you guys but i dont log in to stare at ACT and get laughed at after fights cause you parse low but you rezzed 3 people passed out 57 hearts and summoned 7 pets cause soe doesnt have a clue on how ot make a decent pet.It's too late for that, player gear is already going to possibly suffer degradation by nearly as much as 66% in the next expansion when one reaches level 90. In some cases it may not be enough of a decrease and even so the decrease in general will just upset people, not to mention the plethora of content that will have to be adjusted to take into account lowered player ability. It just seems like far too large of an undertaking that will simply end up like the first iteration of the fighter revamp-scrapped and simply wasted time.so yeah i think your entire line of thinking is valid multiple tank encounters would actually be fun using differnet classes to do different things to the mob in relation to positioning woudl be a blast. the FUN factor form tanking and pulling in eq1 is most definately absent in this game. all eq2 has become lately is a parse competition. its sad really but at least all guild groups are still fun cause we dont care if player a parses 10k if the mobs dead we won which is hwo it used ot be in eq1 and something eq2 has gotten away from more and more every day since t6 was released.Some fights like Zarrakon and Trakanon are largely based upon proper positioning, otherwise everyone standing behind the dragon is tail-lashed into oblivion. Even without dps parsers though, it probably would not be difficult to single out some people for bad dps, it would just make it easier for them to ride other's success so to speak. The more difficult raid encounters simply require large amounts of dps due to the massive amount of effects attatched to the encounter.Boss enemies are routinely exceeding 15 million hit points or more with cases where if adds are dying too slow, either the tank/raid gets more opportunities to have fail conditions land, or in the case of fights with continuous adds the raid force will simply be overwhelmed. Unlike the original everquest raid encounters, even the hardest ones rarely last for much more than 5 minutes but the many different things that can go wrong in such a short span of time make prolonging the fights unthinkable. In many cases a single group repeatedly dying, or a key tank or healer dying means an unrecoverable near instant wipe if the other fail conditions are not triggered.The Avatar battles, for an extreme example have an obvious penalty if you are unable to kill them quickly enough. If a certain time limit is passed during one of those fights they apply an effect called "Battle Weary" on the raid that halves pretty much everything on the raid, if the battle goes on longer than that it is applied again and even the simplest of attacks will kill the raid regardless of how well they were doing previously simply because the encounter did not die fast enough.The current mechanics of raids simply dont support the change in style.</blockquote>