[dev1058] Say no to the hate meter.

[Tsuga]

Tsuga, I think you're completely missing the point we're trying to get across. This hate meter has NOTHING to do with tanking, period. It directly affects everyone but the tank. The only way it affects tanking is that everyone else will now know exactly where the line is between pulling hate or not pulling hate. This means that the tank now knows that he will never lose hate. However, I guarantee you that even after this is implemented tanks will still spam hate generating abilities. Why? Because they still raise their enmity with those abilities, which in turn lowers everyone else's enmity, which lets them do what they're supposed to do, without pulling hate. It's what tanks do, no one is saying this will make playing a tank easier/different.

The reason they're implementing this is so everyone else in the party knows where they stand in terms of enmity, and to adjust their actions accordingly so that they don't take hate.

People have been playing without a hate meter for years with no complaints. It doesn't take a genius to know how to control hate. But it's still much more fun to judge your enmity yourself rather than having something tell you. Again, I'm not talking about tanks. I'm referring to everyone else in the party.

With that out of the way...

You make 2 good PROs, although they are still purely speculation, Weapon Skills and BRs. If what you suggest is really something they plan to do then yes, I can see how having a hate meter will add strategy to a battle. Because then there's a real tactical reason for us to see what our enmity is at. If this is what the battle team has planned for us then I would support a hate meter. I think incorporating enmity levels into Weapons Skill/BR parameters is a great a idea. Although I think it will be a long time before we see anything like this. We're going to have to wait for more info from the devs to discuss this a little more though, I think.

The rest of your PROs all seem to revolve around tanking and avoiding pulling aggro. These are things that any competent party should be able to control just fine without a meter.

If they want to make enmity play a role in which Weapons Skills and BRs we use then by all means, give us the meter. But if it's only to help us manage hate, there's no need for it.

They're introducing a new battle system. While my points were merely ideas and speculation based on no fact, we DO know that this system is changing. I'd rather see what the hate meter offers for this new system, that sit here and bitch about something that we know practically nothing about. This game will never evolve if everyone chews out the devs when a new, potentially game evolving feature gets announced. If anything we should be throwing ideas out there for the devs to make good use of the hate meter, rather than just saying "keep it the same, I like not knowing when I'm gonna get my face chewed off by a peiste".

I understand what YOU are saying, but the OP and a lot of the other people in this thread seem to think that tanking requires some ounce of skill that would be negated by a hate meter. It doesn't, and it won't be. Mages are still going to cure the tank when they need to, they will just know whether or not they will be getting aggro after doing so. If mages didn't do this, they would be ousted from the party, and there would really be no reason for partying to begin with. The hate meter won't turn everyone in to a bunch of cowards that fear aggro, if anything it will prepare the party even more for preventing aggro from leaving the tank. Saying this is a problem is moot, because like you said, the tanks will likely STILL "voke, cure cure cure, voke cure cure cure" the way they do now. The hate meter will simply be a tool to reference when they should time their vokes between dealing damage/tossing cures.