Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
So, partly agreed, but a few things here:

There could, especially if one realistically isn't perfectly able to access exactly how much damage has been dealt to them and by whom with each attack taken, be a difference in how you instinctively allocate your attention between someone basically unknown or at least out of sight stabbing you with a spear from behind and someone yelling in your face and taking up a large portion of your vision while stabbing you with a spear for an equally damaging attack.


That yelling in the enemy's face to hold their attention, thereby giving better access to back attacks and drawing counterattacks onto yourself... is, if indirectly, disrupting their offense, or at least their offensive potential, since the tank is more resistant to attack than non-tanks. From the party's perspective, relative to not having a tank, each skill used that directs the enemy's attacks onto the tank... is suppressive. The only reason it wouldn't really feel like that right now is because tanks have effectively infinite Enmity so long as they don't go afk (with increasingly long durations thereof required) or die.
Yeah the mechanics might be an attempt to abstract that entire attention grabbing process but it goes too far in its abstraction to be believable. It's not just tanks radiating a flood of enmity in the same way that the Sun is bright enough to light an entirely solar system, it's that in game causality is backwards. Tanks don't have to get in anyone's face because they somehow force their targets to face them with only the tiniest amount of effort.

Finally, if getting enemy's to attack you relied on how much suppression you do, then (A) if calculated in terms of final damage nullification, it'd be least on attacks already against you, and (B) unless we're still riding high passive Enmity modifiers, DPS would start off with higher enmity than you... which together mean you'd be required to run around peeling enemies off your individual high-Enmity (high output) allies, and in this case not even by being an ostensible threat to them, but merely by sapping the strength from their attacks against others.

That seems like it'd be an even less thematic experience, even before getting to the whole disordered and allies-dependent (with the party and especially tank being punished the more dps their DPS do) nature of it.
Point A isn't a problem. It's just the reality that the tank isn't interesting to hit by nature of being a tank, outside of actions taken. If you're trying to get past an obstacle, why bash your head against the toughest wall instead of finding a crack to hammer away at?

On point B, the use of modifiers would be fine. Some raw enmity gain on actions may also make sense, especially CC. Holmgang for instance is a forced duel. You are chaining yourself to your adversary and making it impossible or at least very difficult to focus on anyone else. That could theoretically be infinite damage suppression. If enmity were generated this way tank openers would involve throwing out lots of CC and party defense initially. Binds, slows, party shields, etc to make attacking anyone but them futile. In addition they would be attacking the target of their CC, making them a threat directly through damage and through supporting the 3-7 other party members contributing damage.