Bring back Aggro, resource management, bring back consequences!

[MerlinCross]

This is a lie. Everyone who tanked in SB knows that agro management wasn't a thing for the MT, it was the OT to voke shirk on cooldown and everyone else managing their own hate with diversion or lucid. Get your head out of the clouds and remember the truth. It was not tank mechanic, it was the party mechanic that they hated to do.

Maybe in extreme content. Oh but I was a bad tank that used my aggro combo so my opinion is already discarded anyway what was I thinking.

What is even truth anyway when people seem to have their own version of it across different modes?

[Shurrikhan]

1. Whether it start at max or 0, whether it regens over time or not, whether it is gained via GCDs or not, at the end of the day, the mechanic is, keep it between 2 values with things that manipulate the value. If you are forced out of the ideal range, you get back in as quick as possible. Trying to adopt this into the existing jobs is not going to work, it has enough complexity to warrant a whole job based around it.

I disagree, but only very mildly. I feel that as long as MP is to be a universal component, we may as well make use of it (though such does mean getting rid of Lucid Dream, scaling MP ticks to GCD speed, and so on). It'd also help balance out the rDPS value of having access to rez / greatly diminish any need for a rez tax, as getting someone back up means that much less burst potential over time available for the rezzer. It's not where I'd choose to use developer resources, unless they were damn near boundless, but any necessarily universal UI component (for the space for an MP bar must always be made, even if the bar need not always be shown) that is not also made a universal mechanic will at the very least be an eyesore.

2. Yes, that is my point. There is no way to do it without numerical values, but I guarantee SE will not put numbers onto enmity that we can see by default, which then means you cannot have a mechanic that requires you to stay a bit ahead of the DPS.

You know what, I probably am overestimating the devs here, given the amount of rather important QoL changes that, despite being desired since ARR, have seen no adjustment outside of modder communities. I concede this point. Sorry for being a bother.

3. Going back and re-reading past posts, it seems I did misunderstand/miss a detail. Neither of us want the old enmity system back, you just want something different to replace it, which then goes into the next points.

Any my apologies for thinking you were purposely strawmanning. Looking back on it, that detail hadn't been repeated for a couple posts.

4. I never said they were, however, I fail to see what adding different mob scripts would actually do? You say they could be frenzied, wary, cocky, etc. but how does that translate into what I have to do differently as a tank to deal with it. What different scenarios could be made? I have already gone with a randomly attacking healer/dps, easy to deal with and if done too much, would get annoying. You could have a mob run away, that would get tiring fast having to chase it down. If you want a boss to have different 'moods' that is just different phases of a fight that might come in a random order (which could be a good thing to have more of). I suspect you have some ideas, I just want to know what they are.

I don't have much time at the moment --I had a long convo with Shougun, I think, and a couple others about this back in the day, but I couldn't seem to locate the old threads. I'll try to give the short of it, but I'll need to situate it within some context first.

Namely, we wouldn't be able to drag-and-drop this upon our current tanks, given current undermechanics. For more shit happening that isn't controlled by tanks' merely existing (and being dps with occasional mitigation skills to press according to schedule) to be fun... tanks would need to be able to skillfully deal with that.

So how do we make tanks able to deal with shit, especially without relying on enmity tools? Well, primarily by making everyone able to perform a degree of tanking at a moment's notice, without need for enmity, which is best done by changing the way attacks work. Consider, for instance, if nearly all attacks were among four types:

• Split-damage/soakables,
• Smart-damage soakables (damage is distributed according to remaining eHP)
• Degradable cleaves (damage is decreased cumulatively by mitigation, and perhaps a further amount per hit, as it moves through its victims), or
• First-intercepted skillshots (it hits whoever's first in its path or emanation)

At that point, you don't actually need to be a Tank to 'tank' (in the sense of defending others); instead, being a Tank would simply give some obvious synergies, such as having a larger hidden/secondary hitbox that'd be supersede other interceptees' if and only if another is hit or reducing the total damage dealt by any soak in which it contributes by its mitigation (probably OP, and should instead work akin to smart-damage soakables, but w/e).

Further, you perhaps give more some Tanks (Paladin, at the very least) to-ally gap-closers, a bit more abundant ability to suppress enemy damage directly (rather than only via diverting attacks to you and then mitigating them), more integral and frequent use of job-thematic ability by which to protect or replenish the party (think Dark Missionary revisions, like Passage of Arms being way more available, Warrior getting a more versatile War Cry mechanic in place of just a dull raid barrier, etc.).

Okay, now we're finally on a trajectory that, at least from the Tank perspective, could deal with more varied mob behaviors.

Now, why would I even want that, though, in general? Primarily, because I see Tanks as a role whose purpose is to increase the ratio of party damage done to party damage taken through leveraging (at least momentarily) above-average eHP and/or threat to manipulate enemies, and I want to do more with that. Secondly, because I want there to be content that isn't a set DDR experience. I want variety not just in fights, but within a given fight, at least across certain content types. That means there need to be factors by which to generate alternate events. I'm not looking for "smarter AI" (which just leads to us getting the absolute poorest showing out of our on-paper capacities as they kick our asses with a given set of stats and abilities finally well utilized), but simply at least a pretense of our fighting an enemy, rather than striking dummy, and the variance that ought to contain.

The (bareness of the) current enmity system basically forbids that, which is why I want to revise it. Let's put it this way: no matter what changes we might imagine have, in the enemy's mind, occurred over the fight, the enmity calculations will remain exactly the same. Even if, after a whole few lines of monologuing, two ASTs instantly heal the whole party back from 1 HP to full in just over a GCD's time, nothing would change. Even if the healers, repeatedly, leave all but the tanks at just enough HP to survive the next raid-wide, nothing would change. There are no thresholds under which a fight can differ based on player behavior. Now, while I'd be as pissed as anyone if the boss left the nearly dead party to slowly regen the first time around only to, without any warning, decide simply to finish them off the next time, but that's where you utilize those kind of clues and make use of your tanks not just as people who go 123 while aiming the enemy out, but actually have to thwart the enemy's offenses. If there are times when the boss will go for the most wounded target, or attempt to just maximize damage across all your squishies, that introduces new considerations to tanking -- especially regarding positioning and use of defensive CDs.

Now, the far end of that pipedream even involves actually turning the enemy into something like a player, with a given body of characteristics, skills and resources and certain thresholds (unknown to it) that may unlock further buffs, skills, and resources such that you'd want to have a Paladin especially earn its hatred for a time until it attempts to unleash a party-wipe skill focused solely on that PLD (who Hallows it) while your Warrior soaks lighter cleaves for a flanking group, sharing lifesteal buffs based on proximity before taking the higher part of the mob's attention when it realizes it may die --putting it into a panic so it burns defensive resources when you're actually overextended anyways-- etc., etc. But, for the start it's just a matter of giving tanks more to do and shaking up fights a bit, giving us some further reason for our actions beyond just "heal everyone to at least Y amount by time X:XX" or "hold at least one point of Enmity above any non-tank".

[Superskull85]

Aside from HP, modern-day resources have largely become specific to the job you are playing. In general, this is because each job wants to use resources in different ways making it hard to maintain a statically typed resource. MP is also effectively trending its way out of the battle system too.

Considering that in it's peak MP was used by: PLD, DRK, BRD, SMN, BLM, and healers. It lost BRD with the changes to its songs but gained RDM. However, BLM effectively doesn't use MP since it innately levels itself out. PLD barely used (and uses) it, and DRK just siphons it and innately levels it like BLM. RDM for most of its lifespan hardly worried about MP unless it became a raise turret. In its DoT peak, SMN was left as the only damage dealing job that made thoughtful and careful use of MP over a long period. Healers (mostly to this day) are much like BLM in that their job auto levels their MP using their job mechanics (there are outliers, yes).

In the modern game, PLD really doesn't need to worry about MP at all unless for some reason it needs to become a holy healer turret. DRK and BLM auto-level their MP usage. Healers, in general, have MP management tools in place that sustain them (again, some outliers). This leaves RDM and SMN, but as long as Lucid Dreaming is used frequently their MP usage is much like BLM. On death, only healers will majorly struggle coming back to full usefulness for their role solely due to MP. Even when RDM and SMN become raise turrets that will not cut them off from doing damage due to low MP, they simply can no longer continue as a raise turret.

I may be oversimplifying and stretching some points, but the main takeaway is that jobs are moving away from statically typed resources to dynamically typed resources that are specific to their job. This is very evident based on the continued explosion of job gauges and resources. So, instead of bringing back the staticness of TP and aggro, perhaps suggest ideas that are more specific to the jobs these resources used to affect and make them rewarding for that job's system.

No one really cares for the TP system because it worked the same way for all tanks, melee DPS, and ranged physical DPS. It restricted them all equally too. Aggro was a function of specific combos but also relied on other party members doing something that only benefited the performance of a tank (which also included melee DPS and ranged physical DPS casting "aggro shrouds" on others). Instead, maybe a PLD has to use various oaths for future attacks (alongside sword oaths). Or maybe increased aggro is a result of using a Fell Cleave on WAR. For resource management in general, Square Enix could easily keep developing the specific job resources already in place and expand them to more actions with increased benefits and rewards for that specific job.

I can easily see MP removed in a future X.0 release replacing it with more burden on job-specific resources.

[deadman1204]

Honestly, most tanks are too bad to handle that.
Its still not uncommon to die as a healer because the tanks can't do agro. Lets not even get into their inability to manage their damage pulling half the damage and then just afking hoping the healer fixes everything.

[Arohk]

Aggro management is an outdated and annoying mechanic, no thanks.

[MerlinCross]

Aggro management is an outdated and annoying mechanic, no thanks.

I’ll take it over feeling like a target dummy could do my work. Just program in it to do defense CD at these points and let it go.

Like you don’t need to give me aggro just give me something to worry about that doesn’t ruin the run. Savage isn’t the answer here anymore than it is over on the healers being bored.

I asked this before; what enjoyment do people get out of tanking these days, I’m curious cause it seems I’m just missing something here.

[Haventale]

I started playing in 4.2 so that’s my point of reference. I still prefer pretty much everything about how gameplay/jobs worked in SB.

I remember when they announced they were removing TP I was like, well, okay… but why aren’t they removing MP too then? It’s literally the exact same thing? And I still feel that way. If they’re going to remove and/or decrease resource management across the board like they did with ShB, then why not just get rid of MP as well? It’s a pointless resource now.

Literally the only two jobs in the game now that actually have to at least sort of manage their MP are DRK and BLM, both of which could easily have their own custom job gauges to maintain.

PLD just uses it to do a combo that never conflicts with anything, this has nothing to manage. Or to spam a heal that should only ever be used if all healers and raisers are dead in dungeon content. Again, if it was really important they could have their own custom joh gauge, like a Spirit Energy or something.

Everyone else just pushes Lucid Dreaming if they get to half MP. That’s not difficult. It requires no thought, and no consequence, it’s just a single fix-all button you press sometimes. It’s not compelling in any way, it’s just boring. Why have a resource bar that only 3 out of 19 jobs even have to think about?

Tanking was certainly much more fun back then as well. I really liked the tank stances. It was a good way to make tanking accessible but still allow players to improve themselves. Newer or less skilled players could simply stay in defensive stance. While damage stance would allow more experienced players to be rewarded with a higher damage output for being able to better manage their aggro. On top of all that, the removal of tank stance is what gutted WAR to be the in the miserable state it is in now. Tanking was just better back then. I found everything about the game more fun back then.

[ForteNightshade]

Maybe in extreme content. Oh but I was a bad tank that used my aggro combo so my opinion is already discarded anyway what was I thinking.

What is even truth anyway when people seem to have their own version of it across different modes?

That's the issue though. Using your aggro combo usually meant you were noticeably undergeared relative to your DPS, the party wasn't using their aggro tools or you lacked a Ninja. It was almost never a tank specific mechanic they thought about. Even if you did have to aggro combo, I don't see how that radically changes anything. You use the combo once, maybe twice in the entire fight and never think about it again.

More often than not, it caused many DPS deaths as they refused to press Diversion as "aggro is a tank's job!!!!!" I don't miss that whining for a second.

Tanking was certainly much more fun back then as well. I really liked the tank stances. It was a good way to make tanking accessible but still allow players to improve themselves. Newer or less skilled players could simply stay in defensive stance. While damage stance would allow more experienced players to be rewarded with a higher damage output for being able to better manage their aggro. On top of all that, the removal of tank stance is what gutted WAR to be the in the miserable state it is in now. Tanking was just better back then. I found everything about the game more fun back then.

The problem was it never actually functioned like a reward but rather a punishment due to FF being a damage centric game above all else. There was never any tangible benefit to sitting in tank stance throughout the fight but there was a massive detriment. You were throwing away upwards 1,000+ damage for basically nothing. For perspective sake, tank stance was the equivalent of permanent Weakness. Now the trade off was supposed to be that taking less damage meant things were easier but that isn't how encounters are designed. None of the Stormblood fights did remotely enough damage to warrant using it outside of a very brief aggro grab—if that. Even Ultimate didn't require it, though UCoB certain made a more convincing argument than Savage ever did.

Put simply, tank stance only punished inexperienced players with a massive damage penalty.

Furthermore, Warrior wasn't gutted because tank stances were removed. You never touched Inner Beast outside one day prog. Warrior has essentially been the same job since the 4.2 rework introduced Inner Release.

[Shurrikhan]

I can easily see MP removed in a future X.0 release replacing it with more burden on job-specific resources.

If it does, I'd hardly mind outside of the simply fact that yet more information will likely be excluded from our party UI.

With Stormblood release: Does my SCH have AF left? No idea.

Following this: Can my other healer even hard-rez? No idea.

[AziraSyuren]

I’ll take it over feeling like a target dummy could do my work. Just program in it to do defense CD at these points and let it go.

Like you don’t need to give me aggro just give me something to worry about that doesn’t ruin the run. Savage isn’t the answer here anymore than it is over on the healers being bored.

I asked this before; what enjoyment do people get out of tanking these days, I’m curious cause it seems I’m just missing something here.

I just like being a tank. It's not that complicated. I don't need mechanics that vanish at higher levels of play to have fun. Being able to maintain control of a situation is fun enough on its own.