Ditch the Tank Stances and fit enmity management into active gameplay

[Shurrikhan]

To condense my opening paragraph in post 22, it seems nonsensical that tanks can hold attention while doing nothing just because they've used a few attacks with the current enormous aggro generation and - nothing that they do, unless you look at the math used by the game, would make me think an enemy would prioritize a tank over someone else.

Again, I just didn't, and still don't, see why what is the case now would constrain what could be or why the above would therefore be relevant to a discussion that's clearly aiming to change what is.

Yes, these are potential issues with a defense based enmity system. However there is a lot of freedom in defining what negated damage means which creates some dials to turn to tweak the system. Say if shields count as negated damage when cast that would provide a method for tanks to generate enmity without any other party member needing to be targeted before them.

Fair, but... at that point you're just looking at something that has already existed: Enmity from sustain (potential) manifested, Enmity from a debuff (as per Flash), and enmity from buffs (barriers, iirc, producing Enmity up-front equal to their barrier value in healing even if not all of that barrier is consumed, while all other buffs produce some small amount of Enmity on activation).

The only really new things then, seem to be that...

1. deliberate Enmity skills on tanks move from more visually aggressive "in[to] your face" skills to debuffs (wherein that Enmity may end up wasting the skills' mitigation potential), perhaps with CC being more commonly available on tanks as a complementary change, and
2. we close the loophole by which scaled non-healing sustain previously generated no Enmity, instead having %DRs, attack denial, etc., produce Enmity based on the sustain it was equivalent to.

Of those, I think the second is a good and perhaps even necessary change.

The first, I just... don't think is necessary once including the second, nor would I think of a on-CD Low Blow as more fitting of an Enmity generator than a Rage of Halone, etc.

The idea is to assume that the CC has some amount of potential value just by being applied to the enemy and this is used as a stand in for damage that the enemy could do, but has not (yet).

Which is essentially Flash without accounting for the sustain provided by the added misses it causes (be that only on miss or as a portion of each attack made more likely to miss).

Again, I just... don't see why that'd be preferable. And if attached to things that would previously deny action altogether, you then have the whiplash of getting instant Enmity based on the relative sustain of denying a mob access to its current squishier target altogether only to then, in the process of providing that Enmity and swapping it to the tank, make the actual sustain provided far less since it can then still reach somewhere where it otherwise wouldn't have.

If a ranged party member could kite an enemy without getting hit that would lower that enemy's damage output more than a tank using defenses to reduce HP lost to hits. Whether or not this strategy works over an entire fight will depend on a number of factors. Can the ranged player do this indefinitely? Does CC take resources from the ranged party member?

That's my point, though: The Ranged doesn't need to CC indefinitely to indefinitely kite, because CC doesn't only work on mobs targeting oneself; anyone could CC the mob chasing the ranged player. At that point, inflating any predictive sustain-based Enmity further just as a matter of action type makes it less likely to actually produce that sustain, essentially nerfing those niche cases. I'd rather have any such nerfs come from more general systems, like...

• the mob apportioning its decisions based on Enmity rather than having only one target it considers, such that it'd still accept spending its resources that would otherwise overcap on a less hated target it can reach than a maximally hated one it can't (even if it might still save tankbusters for them if the Enmity gap is large enough),
• Enmity fading with range, providing players a further way to manipulate mobs,
• etc.

Your point about CC going to waste is an important consideration. It would likely be the case for CC used in the opener to establish aggro, but afterward the CC should have more value being used to negate damage. I tried to elaborate on this:

To be clear, I both noted and, iirc, quoted that point (or, the relevant portion of that paragraph, though I assure you the whole context, too, was read). This part wasn't lost on me.

Visually [given such big and flashy hits from the SAM] I'd expect the SAM to draw as much attention as the WAR.

I'm actually cool with that, or very nearly. I do think the SAM should generate a bit more Enmity over an average minute than the likes of NIN or VPR because of those bigger flashier attacks. (You may remember my suggesting to Carighan that Enmity emphasize big, direct damage hits, or at least the more visually impressive ones, such that {Burst Strike} and {Gnashing Fang + Juglar Rip} might each have the same total potency but Burst Strike would have a fair bit more Enmity.)

Again, to me, a bit of passive mitigation bonus for tanks is fine. A tank could be excused for drawing a bit more attention just by being the more physically imposing even before accounting also for being better able to take advantage of certain positional opportunities for Enmity generation (e.g., intercepting a skill-shot that would otherwise have hit someone squishier to get at least the difference in damage done)... but in the range of 20-40% more Enmity, not 1000% more. That excess would allow the tank to frequently enough pull off some less visually imposing skills despite working alongside the likes of DRG and SAM while still leaving those Enmity skills frequently required.

If the tank were trying to hold down the enemy to prevent it from attacking or moving at all, then I'd feel like the tank would certainly be the priority on that enemy's mind.

Sure, but you've already made it a factor for everyone else, too, and anyone/everyone can CC, so why make it a "tank" thing, let alone to the exclusion of discrete Enmity skills by means less likely to be anti-synergetic (less likely to waste the CC and less requiring that the tank has already lost threat / that someone is especially at risk for the tank to generate that Enmity)?

For my part, you just...

1. Have twarted offenses "ghost-check". E.g., when a skillshot is intercepted or an AoE stunned, it looks at who it otherwise would have hit had it continued onward or completed.
2. Using the above, which gives you some actual numbers you can calculate, close the loophole on situational sustain to make it likewise an Enmity generator, allowing for a lot more interestingly contextual Enmity generators in general. (You could even perhaps do similar with other means, such as the more Enmity the mob has on someone, the more Enmity will be generated by sustain that specifically denies the mob's kill of that person.)
3. Give tanks, say, 25% more Enmity generation for all things, including the above, and some new/returned skills that are especially visually distracting for the mobs. Such multiplicatively affects the CC Enmity generated, yes, but doesn't unnecessarily tie deliberate Enmity generators to CC as a matter of course, allowing CC to be used more for when its specifically useful as CC.

If you mean "team activity" you mean "have your dps click on diversion on cd" or "have a NIN" not really a better thing that todays where aggro is a no existent. Also it put tanks on a very strict ranking : WAR > DRK > PLD for aggro.

Agreed here. I wish people wouldn't conflate "Stormblood combat" with the only narrow difference between the two relevant to this thread, which was just Diversion on CD, Shadewalker on CD, an only infrequently relevant Smokescreen, and Tactician and Refresh getting lobotomized before finally being removed.

Also I think there is many "sense" to have about emnity, FFXIV is a video game rules which stand with video games rules, and the core gameplay expect mobs and bosses to focus on very resilient target in order to test them. And hopefully tanks are resilient because many hard content bosses need 2 attacks to kill a non tank player.

That said...

But does this could work in FFXIV ? I don't think so because FFXIV main rule is "ABC", and all gcd action to tanks are offensive one (but clemency, which is nearly never used for this reason), while defensives are only abilities. So to justify having a more dynamic system, to me it would need to create GCD meaningfull defensives actions, and manage to learn tank to use them (and it's not really easy in FFXIV because even heals have hard time casting healing gcd).

So, a few things here:

First, the game launched with and retained some sustain-bearing uses of the GCD until Shadowbringers. We had about as long with that as without.

I'd agree though, that there'd be no point in a dynamic system without deliberate levers to pull on to interact with that. Those can be positional, timing-related (where oGCDs are flexible), and/or via new skills, etc., but there has to be enough agency in whatever form(s).

Also, FFXIV is a MMO where "everybody is a dps"

It used to be an MMO where most everyone was a bit of everything. In ARR, BLMs would AM in to share split-busters with tanks via Mana Wall (100% mitigation against the next Physical Attack only), or could be allowed to take threat in the opener while Covered against autos, full-miti the first tank buster, and then be Provoked off of as they finally Quelling Strikes. BLM parties might mass-DoT and then Sleep(ga), then focus down targets based on remaining DoT times so that the PLD could stay in Sword Oath the whole time. BRDs and SMNs would kite for speedruns and odd-comp leveling dungeons formed over shout chat. MNKs and DRGs didn't actually take that much more damage than a tank would outside of defensive CDs. The difference between a Monk's passive mitigation and a healer's was slightly larger than between a Dragoon and a tank, and so it wasn't uncommon for them to want to peel off the healer (especially since cast-interruption was a very real thing back then).

Also, FFXIV is a MMO where "everybody is a dps",

This part, though, isn't particularly relevant. That doesn't change because of a tanks having to actually deal with Enmity, for the simple fact that the relative value of those Enmity skills goes up the more damage the DPS can thereby produce without getting crushed.

In a nutshell, I don't think having a more dynamic aggro system on FXIV would impact the game as much as having better identities, better fight design and an overhaul of healing in the game. You have to choose your battle.

I'd agree, but... the deeper you dive, the more intertwined these things are. Enmity relies on an interesting, fruitful balance of long-term outputs (damage, in any fight ended by killing) and short-term outputs (sustain, again in the aforementioned situations that make up 100% of XIV encounters) across each role. Making it stick actually requires things like fixing healing. And that in turn allows for better identities. And, fully fleshed, Enmity easily could become a way to make many fights far more interestingly varied-but-manipulable.

[Carighan]

CC "as a tank's job" is natural btw.

If you assume a game has no active threat/emnity system (compare early GW2) then the former role of crowd controller (back when CRPGs all built for 6 roles instead of 3) falls to the tank easily. Because that's how you "protect" your team.

Mind you that there are of course other ways of doing this, physically intercepting hits mostly. And I wish FFXIV did more with that. We have line stacks where the tanks go in front, and those tethers, but I cannot - in general I mean, for most attacks - just stand in front of a teammate to take hits for them.

[Shurrikhan]

CC "as a tank's job" is natural btw.

If you assume a game has no active threat/emnity system (compare early GW2) then the former role of crowd controller (back when CRPGs all built for 6 roles instead of 3) falls to the tank easily. Because that's how you "protect" your team.

That's like saying "if you remove A, that which was shared among A, B, and C (and used least, on average, by A) naturally belongs to A."

If there's no way to hold threat, there is no tank, only a sabotage-focused DPS. Crowd-controller is not a tank. It's just a dude with more than average CC casts available per fight.

Of all the things tanks do, never has sleeping/hamstringing/blinding/slowing/charming/rooting/snaring/etc ever been what's unique or iconic to the role.

Though, neither does any part of what they do even have to be uniquely possible for them outside of advantaged threat generation and breadth/depth of defensives, since even if everyone can intercept or thwart attacks, not everyone has the eHP to position themselves so aggressively or for guaranteeing a hit against themselves to be better for the party than the chance of someone else dodging something entirely, let alone having the burst threat to lock enemies occasionally into a certain position without needing a CD to pin them down directly.

Now, CC or mobility or barriers or whatever else might play some part in giving them an, in effect., outsized eHP capacity (since that's not necessarily passive), but the core of a tank is to be the disproportionately threatening, durable entity that helps take and manage space by nature of having the eHP to aggress where others could not and thereby shield directly or indirectly.

[Carighan]

If there's no way to hold threat, there is no tank, only a sabotage-focused DPS. Crowd-controller is not a tank. It's just a dude with more than average CC casts available per fight.

That's an odd way to look at it, because existing implementations both digital and analog would disagree with you there. And it's hard to argue with, well, existence. Now of course, I'll readily agree that probably this role should consistently be called "crowd control" not "tank". This is one of those situations where the waters got very muddled because after WoW dropped the other 3 RPG-roletypes during its beta and reduced to what we now call "the holy trinity", this sadly became the norm for people even [b]thinking[b/] about these types of gameplay role. No longer even considering, as you exemplify, CC, Buffing or Debuffing to be roles. "It's just DPS with more CC". I'd say that's a CC who can do some DPS in their downtime? But it's of course a cultural shift, there's a reason we always say "everyone is a DPS" in Guild Wars 2. Which is wrong (if everyone is DPS, then nobody is, and you ought to state the differentiating parts not the common one), but it's how we think about RPG role types nowadays.
(edit: After all, what is an FFXIV tank but a DPS with more aggro production and eHP? Just DPS though.)

Ultimately just a language thing though, of course.

And yes, I am aware that in FFXIV, CC has never been a thing - and hence naturally discussing who is best at it is absolutely pointless. We have a single mezz-type ability, and even that is ~never used except for a cheese where enemies will not explode on death in deep dungeons. xD
This does not mean "tank" doesn't mean CC-centric. Hero shooters and MOBAs in particular showed this to be a very valid design choice, as did GW1/GW2 for more RPG-y games. I think it comes from the idea that if your tank isn't supposed to just be "I hold aggro" then another interpretation is "I protect my squishy team from danger". Which means that things such as CCing enemies, diverting enemies (physically intercepting attacks or if not possible, this is where holding aggro again finds its place) or putting protecting effects on party members then falls naturally to this archetype.

Could be cool. Better than just having +emnity on some skills instead of on a tank stance, at least.

The whole "I hold aggro"-thing is also a bit pointless insofar that if your blue-icon jobs are supposed to hold aggro, then there's no reason to even make that a scalable gameplay mechanism, as "aggro" (unlike threat) is a binary effect. You either have it or you don't. Which means it might as well be removed and the boss looks at whoever has tank stance on and uses provoke until switched elsewhere. It'd cause no loss of gameplay functionality to do that, in the end. There's a reason why GW2 can have raid fights where anybody can be the tank, you pick up a buff that marks you as "This person is who the boss runs after".
And I mean, SQEX seems to agree to a degree as most newer bosses aim their TBs at the two tank-role targets independent of aggro, and will only care about that if only 0 or 1 tank is alive. hence the OT leaving tank stance off in most fights nowadays.

Would it be better if as the OT I'd at least have to maximize my threat to be able to take aggro as needed? Not really, there's no gameplay difference from a mechanical POV between a combo that maximizes my threat and one that maximizes my damage, and the latter is something FFXIV always asks for, anyways. So it's a natural, shared, optimization direction. At least in the context of this particular game.
Of course, if DPS became less of a focal point, it'd be a very very different proposition. But honestly I - sadly - can't see that happen, as it's a problem that no MMORPG has managed to work on yet without having to rollback any work soon after. It's natural that we want to kill enemies as soon as possible, both for performance-awareness reasons and because the enemy being dead is factually the best way to ensure nobody dies.

[Shurrikhan]

That's like saying "if you remove A, that which was shared among A, B, and C (and used least, on average, by A) naturally belongs to A."

If there's no way to hold threat, there is no tank, only a sabotage-focused DPS. Crowd-controller is not a tank. It's just a dude with more than average CC casts available per fight.

That's an odd way to look at it, because existing implementations both digital and analog would disagree with you there. And it's hard to argue with, well, existence.

Sorry, but... what the heck is this supposed to mean? What "existence" am I being construed as arguing with, digital, analog, quantum, or otherwise?

I'm not arguing with the fact that there were roles that were occasionally considered "crowd-controllers" (though a typical foundational 6-part division of roles would generally go to {Tank/Defender, Striker, Ranger, Caster, and Healer/Support} -- not {Tank, Healer, Damage, Crowd-Controller, +2} or whatever other arrangement that'd specifically push a theme-agnostic capacity like CC into its own "role").

I argued only that...
A. Where such a designation was used, it was about a shit designation about as useful as "DoT guy" in any fight lasting too long for the delayed pay-off time to make a difference, and that
B. No part of there (rarely) being a CCer "role" says that if you removed everything that makes a tank a tank... that then a "Crowd-controller" would be a tank.

Again, Sleep, Repose, Shadowbind, Lethargy, Cripple, Fluid Aura, Low Blow, etc., alone do not a tank make. They make nothing like a tank any more than having a basic damage rotation makes a tank.

CC is not "naturally the job of a tank". It's just one tool used by everyone that a tank will occasionally, by nature of what else it's used to tracking and where it tends to be positioned, make slightly more pivotal benefit of than most (though often still not quite so much as supports unless specifically having to make specific angular space for others).

Now of course, I'll readily agree that probably this role should consistently be called "crowd control" not "tank".

Then why treat it as a natural progression of a tank? They're two separate things.

This is one of those situations where the waters got very muddled because after WoW dropped the other 3 RPG-roletypes during its beta and reduced to what we now call "the holy trinity", this sadly became the norm for people even [b]thinking[b/] about these types of gameplay role. No longer even considering, as you exemplify, CC, Buffing or Debuffing to be roles.

Not really, no. Again, we had generally Tank (big eHP, high threat), Striker (some threat control, some direct manipulation, good damage), Ranger (could reach shit others couldn't, could kite if needed, could reduce party damage taken by nature of staying out of AoEs or baiting them away), Scout (traps guy, weakness-finder, sometime-initiator), Caster (specialty capacities via varied spells despite otherwise lower versatility), and Healer (heals, shields, sustaining-buffs, etc.), with buffs slightly more often found on the Healer (-> Support) but far from always.

Since WoW launched with considerable utility and distinction across those roles, it maintained it just fine, with some DPS being a hell of a lot more durable yet also at more risk than others, with some having more direct control and others less frequent but complex influences, etc.. What you're referring to here is simply dungeon-finder (duty-finder here); the differences between scouts, rangers, strikers, and casters were retained in WoW itself.

People did think about those roles; they just weren't bound to them beyond their actual difference in use (i.e., the points where a Cat being able to shapeshift into a Bear might offer more than a Rogue or the Rogue would offer a new route by way of Pickpocket, etc.).

No longer even considering, as you exemplify, CC, Buffing or Debuffing to be roles. "It's just DPS with more CC".

That has nothing to do with the alleged "reduction" of roles from 6 to 3. The original 6 didn't turn CC into its own role; instead, every role did CC (and/or created the same net effect as CC), each in different ways. Nor have buffing or debuffing ever made a cohesive role cluster. Support in a 3-part setup, yes. Striker in a 6-part, yes. Tank in either, yes. But not debuffer or buffer, because those don't actually take any unique approach to combat as a whole, only add a constraint to outputs otherwise perfectly average across and agnostic to an actual Caster/Ranger/Scout/Striker/Tank/Healer kit.

And yes, I am aware that in FFXIV, CC has never been a thing

It was a thing early on. You presumably joined after that time, is all.

The first level-cap dungeon's speed run cheese was originally 4 SMNs because of that, even if BRD/WHM/PLD/BLM was close despite being more intuitive.

And yes, I am aware that in FFXIV, CC has never been a thing

CC is not limited to mezzes. And atop them, we still even have binds, heavy, stun, and interrupt even after having lost pacify, silence, pull-ins, and knockbacks.

Which means that things such as CCing enemies, diverting enemies (physically intercepting attacks or if not possible, this is where holding aggro again finds its place) or putting protecting effects on party members then falls naturally to this archetype.

I'm literally the guy who was insisting on the ability to directly intercept or divert enemies? This isn't mutually exclusive to Enmity being a thing.

I merely pointed out that there's no reason to make CC tanks-only or to treat it as mutually exclusive with Enmity skills by more typical (less wasteful) means. You can have interception, suppression, CC, AND enmity-focused skills alike.

The whole "I hold aggro"-thing is also a bit pointless insofar that if your blue-icon jobs are supposed to hold aggro, then there's no reason to even make that a scalable gameplay mechanism, as "aggro" (unlike threat) is a binary effect. You either have it or you don't. Which means it might as well be removed and the boss looks at whoever has tank stance on and uses provoke until switched elsewhere.

This makes no more sense than "your kit has a DoT or it doesn't, so we should just have that tick automatically as long as you're a job with it and opened combat". It's still a rotational factor at minimum.

And no, Enmity doesn't have to be binary. That's how it's been used in XIV thus far, yes, but it could as easily apportion the decision weights of a mob's available attacks, making any such gradation of actions from that mob.

And I mean, SQEX seems to agree to a degree as most newer bosses aim their TBs at the two tank-role targets independent of aggro, and will only care about that if only 0 or 1 tank is alive. hence the OT leaving tank stance off in most fights nowadays.

Why should we care whether the SQEX agrees? We're in this thread (and most people are on the forums in general) because SQEX's decisions leave much to be desired.

Would it be better if as the OT I'd at least have to maximize my threat to be able to take aggro as needed? Not really, there's no gameplay difference from a mechanical POV between a combo that maximizes my threat and one that maximizes my damage

That's because there presently ARE NO ENMITY-MAXIMIZING ACTIONS. When there was, however, they provided at least as much gameplay as any other use of alternative combos (e.g., Storm's Eye, old Goring Blade, Gnashing Fang) until they were neutered by being treated multiplicatively under excessively strong stance modifiers. Which you can call negligible if you like (though by that warrant, the game is basically just a rote chain of buttons or, XIV-combo-condensed, 1 rotational ST button per job, and I don't understand why one would defend that), but it is literally something.

Of course, if DPS became less of a focal point, it'd be a very very different proposition.

DPS being the focal point makes zero difference. You cannot do DPS if you're dead. Your DPS cannot do DPS if they are dead. The more damage healers do, the more each GCD of healer damage saved via an at-cost tank sustain GCD is worth. The more damage DPS do, the more value each time the tank saves their ass is worth.

Flash dealt no damage in Stormblood. Did that stop it being used? Not remotely, because Total Ecclipse in turn had no Enmity modifier, while Flash reduced average damage from attacks not guaranteed to hit by ~20% and, more importantly, put out hugely more Enmity, which meant less healer GCDs wasted on healing non-tanks, less relative uptime lost to DPS dying, etc., the rDPS of which was far greater than the PLD's own DPS loss.

It's precisely because of DPS requirements that you use non-DPS skills -- because the rDPS gain is still higher and the only thing that could ever differentiate personal DPS from raid DPS is Enmity (and single-target buffs).

The effects pertinent here are solely the relative tuning of Enmity modifiers given whatever decay systems, etc., may exist, such that Enmity skills necessary use is enough to feel worth having as part of one's kit. When you only have to do a few combos at the start of an encounter and can forget about the Enmity combo thereafter, yeah, that feels wasteful. So just don't go out of your way to cripple those skills' use in that way, and you're good; they're at least as engaging as any other alt-combo.

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Summary

• Roles should include also some sense of how position, eHP, range, feature sets, etc., come together into a cohesive approach to combat (and often even a distinct silhouette, so to speak), not merely "has DoTs", "has CC", etc.
  
  
• CC, being agnostic to the above (part of how each role manages its capacities, each generally in different ways), is not sufficient to comprise a role just by having more CC than most other tanks/strikers/rangers/scouts/casters/healers.
  
  
• Enmity doesn't have to be binary. All that's fundamental to it is that it's a tabled value that other outputs carry some amount of and which can be modified (given an amplifier, suppressor, a match-up, match-down, doubling, halving, flat increase, flat decrease, constant decay, constant marginal decay, or whatever else). It can be made a granular weight for all decisions just as easily as it can be an absolute toggle for a certain set of decisions.
  
  
• Because CC already has its own purpose (the CC), it makes little sense to make that a core of tank Enmity generation. It would wastefully DR enemies early and either oversaturate threat via awkward optimizations or be dependent on such interactions just for tanking to function.
  
  
• Enmity skills when well-tuned and given some constraint on excess margining provide at least as much gameplay interest as any other alt-combo, but usually more. Just as debuffs have more skill-expression possible than a mere buff and a durationed buff combo more than a mere flat alternator, Enmity actions/combos (again, if not ludicrously poorly-tuned or lacking any margin-reduction) provide a higher ceiling than debuff combos in turn.