Gunbreaker breaks my heart

[MrKimper]

EX, Savage, and Ultimate basically describe all three difficulty tiers of endgame. Besides that, the other problem is 4 mans have 2 dps, of whom you can't (without a parser) easily tell who is not shouldering their share of the group's damage output. Let alone 8 mans where there are 4 dps, all of whom can hide behind their peers if damage is ever an issue.

While I agree that yes, the game's leveling process could incorporate more dps checks, I also say they would need to officially allow parsers at that point as well.

You have to also keep in mind parsing in dungeons is always hit or miss, some jobs just suck at big pulls, I would like to see an official parser someday. I know it won't happen but I feel it's needed to bridge the gap between more casual players and midcore players.

[kikix12]

Tanking works well enough in games like Overwatch precisely because they have the ability to thwart offenses against their team (via interception paired with their mitigation) despite not necessarily being the most desired target -- certainly not in the long run.

Except those games are shooting games which use large-scale obstacles as shields, alternatively damage redirection. There are also many tanks that cater to the other side of what a "tank" is. As in, hard-hitting, tough characters that don't actually help other members. Except by happening to be in front of them.

Though yes, I did shoehorn this kind of games into what I said wrongly.

When talking about typical MMORPG however, tanking becomes more and more difficult as the distance between the enemy and the target shortens, or as the speed of their attack grows. This is assuming that there's no "accuracy" check simulating manual aiming typical of action titles. At that point it becomes another factor.


Now, don't get me wrong. There are numbers of skills that can work to deal with it (the aforementioned redirection of damage or large obstacle like barriers generation, mainly, but also automated 'blocking' when near someone and similar). There's a large amount of possible crowd control skills that would push, limit movement etc. of enemies making it harder for them to approach the target. But ultimately reality is that tanking in RPG's requires mechanisms that simplify it, otherwise it would require reflexes that are just incredibly rare.


As for the phalanx, I'd say that you should know that if you're to correct that, you should say that the Romans legionaries formation was no longer a phalanx (but derived of one), not latch onto that word and imply I mentioned the Macedonian one.
Especially when searching for Roman Phalanx in Google obviously shows plenty of the relevant content.

[Ilan]

You have to also keep in mind parsing in dungeons is always hit or miss, some jobs just suck at big pulls, I would like to see an official parser someday. I know it won't happen but I feel it's needed to bridge the gap between more casual players and midcore players.

Which jobs do really suck at big pulls? I mean sure some are stronger in aoe scenarios but i can't really think of a class that really sucks when it comes to aoes.
Honestly i'm not sure if a parser would help to close the gap between casual players and midcore players because it would require that the person gives a damn about their dps but sure throw that parser in the game, i'm all in for that.

[Dyvid]

PLEASE, could you make gun breaker job have a dps spec... goddammit.... so annoying. I was so excited to play gun breaker until I found out that it'd be a tank class. T_T

No, you have to tank. See what SE did here, in order to get more tanks, they added a job you really really want.

[Soraki-Muppe]

PLEASE, could you make gun breaker job have a dps spec... goddammit.... so annoying. I was so excited to play gun breaker until I found out that it'd be a tank class. T_T

You no take my new toy away!

[Shurrikhan]

Except those games are shooting games which use large-scale obstacles as shields, alternatively damage redirection. There are also many tanks that cater to the other side of what a "tank" is. As in, hard-hitting, tough characters that don't actually help other members. Except by happening to be in front of them.

I think you'd have to avoid much about the game to come to quite that conclusion. There is no direct damage redirection among the tanks, for instance, but there is huge toolkit potential by which to open up the opportunities of non-tanks (however indirectly) and -- just as importantly -- decent threat, precisely because threat is what creates safety every bit as much as a barrier. A barrier prevents an action, forcibly, by denying lines of attack. Displacement prevents an action, forcibly, by denying lines of attack. Threat, however, prevents the (perceivable) viability of an action, and can ultimately act as either of the former, forcing enemies into ambushes and/or denying them space.

That's to say, however, that OW's tanks have sole proprietorship over these forms of manipulation -- that's precisely the point. Every "role" in some way manipulates -- through intimidation or feigned weakness, capturing or denying focus -- the position and attention of enemies. Tanks have the eHP and toolkits to push areas that other heroes would be unable to, opening lines of attack against enemy threat, but no role is denied whatever contribution its toolkit would rightly allow. The necessity of one role or another does not exist arbitrarily; it is determined precisely by whatever actions are necessary to win the fights given the time, enemy space, enemy charge, and enemy composition.

I feel like that's ultimately the direction XIV needs to go in if they want their tanks to at all feel like tanks. We should make and take opportunities, via every role in synergy. Tanks have the unique ability to make opportunities otherwise much more easily deniable -- not by rigid mechanic or some gimmick, but by diminished necessary caution (and therein waste of potential throughput) in the context of the actual fight. They do not need, however, to be the only thing an enemy force wishes to attack. Giving tanks passively reduced vulnerability to damage atop the ability to funnel all damage into them just takes away from what tanking ought to be about -- supporting through opportunities granted. Rather than having to know what your team most needs, and when, you simply pay your tax and let the system cover (read: invalidate) the rest. That's not to say that every fight ought to be overly complicated due to doggedly efficient or unique AI, but when the game boils down to just a scripted checklist of enmity and proceed as per striking dummy rotations, etc., the game boils down to a flavorless mush.

As for the phalanx, I'd say that you should know that if you're to correct that, you should say that the Romans legionaries formation was no longer a phalanx (but derived of one), not latch onto that word and imply I mentioned the Macedonian one.
Especially when searching for Roman Phalanx in Google obviously shows plenty of the relevant content.

Except the phalanx was never a name for an interlocking shield technique so much as, very specifically, a unit of long-reach infantry. It's literal meaning as the "fingers" of the army refers no only to its array, but also it's reach. The Romans rarely ever incorporated phalanx into their armies, and certainly never by name except when specifically using Greek (where since conquered by Macedonia) and Macedonian troops. It follows the same pattern as Hussar or Sarissophoroi/Prodromoi. We could metaphorically use either unit's name to describe what they did or was prerequisite to their being effective, but ultimately each was a name for a unit, conventionally sized (even if that convention was to have little convention at all, in the case of the Hussar), of a particular troop type. The pictures that surface in your link are misnomers. They are quite clearly of the Roman Legion (or, Maniple, as in manipular formation), and while there was certainly some derivation -- in the way that all to-be conquerors tend to learn from those who had conquered before, they were also a fundamental departure from the phalanx, favoring versatility and opportunity over fielding reach.

[kikix12]

...decent threat, precisely because threat is what creates safety every bit as much as a barrier.

Threat in RPG games is exactly what enmity is...so on one side you are agreeing with me that enmity can't be used for a right-proper tank, on another you are showing it off as a proper method of accomplishing a "tankiness" in characters.

If we'll remove the idea of enmity as threat and go for ACTUAL threat...we just made a tank that's superior to DPS in every single way...hence why even have DPS?! The only way for tanks to be a greater threat than DPS is by outperforming them in attack. In FPS that works, because you can limit their range, slow them down, slow their attacks down to make them easier to avoid etc. In non-action RPG games it does not, because the only penalty you really can do is extend the cooldowns, but at that time their DPS merely becomes more bursty, but still they end up being lower threat over time. And melee is a very common range in fantasy games to fight at so you can't really depend on decreasing it that much either. Except if you specifically made every melee a tank and non-melee a DPS...but that's not something viable in a game with more than a handful of classes.

Tanks have the eHP and toolkits to push areas that other heroes would be unable to, opening lines of attack against enemy threat, but no role is denied whatever contribution its toolkit would rightly allow.

I'll say this. I have not played Overwatch, only read the skills of most characters. And from what I remember, what you said is correct only for select few of them. The only universal thing about the tanks in that game is that they are harder to kill solo because all of them have some skill that increases THEIR survivability. Not all of them have skills that increase the survivability of others though.
In case of Wrecking Ball there is the denial with the mines (though I reckon they are not visible to most enemies, so they're more of a DPS thing) and in case of Roadhog there's the hook which relocates enemies to him, which CAN be done to save an ally from an enemy by breaking his line of fire or orientation momentarily.
However Junkrat alone have both of those. Concussion Mine both damages AND relocates enemies. It can also work to both decrease and increase the distance, unlike Roadhogs hook. And that shows that neither the area denial nor "crowd control" skills are limited to tanks. In fact, there are several characters using knockback. And then there's Bastion, which is a DPS with a literal "Tank" mode, with a self-repair (at a price) ability that is more typical of tanks. Not even barriers are actually tank-only. Symmetra have a powerful (seemingly) barrier with infinite range as an ultimate. Again, it's got its downsides (being "ultimate" as the biggest of them), but is a perfectly "tanky" skill.

So yes. Does Overwatch have tanks that work?! Yes. Are they clear-cut for that role?!...No. Their only really unique characteristic is them having more personal survival through one way or another than even most defensive DPS's (well, one could argue that Wraith Form of Reaper is better with its invincibility, though he cannot attack then). And all of that is still in a setting where it is viable to "tank" by standing between who you want to protect and who you want to protect them from. Something that can be done by literally anyone in a pinch with enough success. After all, eating some hits for someone near death as a DPS/Support won't really matter if you're going behind the corner with a healer nearby and both of you will be healed soon enough.

So sorry...but I still say that Overwatch and other shooters are a poor example of how tanks can work in RPG's. Especially non-action RPG's.

The necessity of one role or another does not exist arbitrarily; it is determined precisely by whatever actions are necessary to win the fights given the time, enemy space, enemy charge, and enemy composition.

The necessity or lack of it thereof is not part of the discussion. The poster to which I originally responded was merely asking whether there is an MMO that did "tanking" really, really well. Whether the tanks are mandatory or not is irrelevant here. In most action games (RPG and FPS alike) tanks are completely optional because it comes with the territory. As I said, if a player can avoid any and all damage by quick reflexes and utilizing the minimum defensive skills that just about anyone have in action games (rolls are common in RPG's), someone that "tanks" is never necessary. Just makes it easier to survive for those less skilled.

Except the phalanx was never a name for an interlocking shield technique so much as, very specifically, a unit of long-reach infantry.

Reread what I said in my last post, this time carefully. You latched onto the word phalanx which I agreed with you that I used wrongly. Then I provided reasons why people that don't know history too well and/or are not native English speakers may have done that mistake in the first place, because it's very easy to come across "sources" that are incorrect like that, only for you to state what is at that point obvious...that they are incorrect.

To simplify...What you should have said is not that "While I don't at all think that the Macedonian phalanx is particularly iconic of "tanking", let alone the limit of such a space-making role in real life (...)" but "While I don't at all think that the Roman Legionaries are particularly iconic of "tanking", let alone the limit of such a space-making role in real life (...)"...or however you think of Roman formations and tanking.

[Shurrikhan]

so on one side you are agreeing with me that enmity can't be used for a right-proper tank, on another you are showing it off as a proper method of accomplishing a "tankiness" in characters.

No. MMO "Threat" (Enmity) and actual threat (assessed risk) could scarcely be more different from each other. I mentioned all that I did in the previous post largely because it was seeming more likely that you were conflating the two. To be clear, I do not think XIV will be capable of making a decent tank so long as its enmity system remains a matter of alternate-damage (enmity) rather than even halfway decent AI accounting for threat (risk). At this point I have no idea what you find wrong with the current enmity system, only that it's probably different than what makes it fundamentally flawed in my opinion.

Threat in RPG games is exactly what enmity is....

I explained exactly what I meant by threat -- that it is perceived risk of action, by which to influence enemy behaviors, which is very, very different from anything enemies experience, or tanks are thereby allowed to manipulate.

Enmity is actually a good word for what we do have, which is almost the opposite of actual threat. Enmity is essentially... grudge, an active hostility, lingering longer the "deeper" it is. And here, increasing Grudge apparently makes enemies continue to wail fruitlessly on targets they should know they cannot kill given the conditions thus far, seemingly out of mere spite. Utterly stupid on the part of our enemies, but well labelled.

That said, a genre misnomer ("Threat") does not subvert what threat actually is, nor does a genre-conventional refusal to use any but the shallowest possible AI mean that MMOs can never have decent AI or experience tanking as actually tanking, rather than just damage-sponging and enmity-stacking. A boss's skills are threatening when they will kill you or cost additional resources you'd have been better off using later if you do not dodge or appropriately mitigate them. When you make an attack seemingly insurmountable so that it's not even committed to, that is threat -- threat of wasted resources. And when you lower that threat, baiting the enemy in, and then take advantage of their confidence, that, too, is a use of threat (albeit negatively). None of that has anything to do with stacking an alternate-damage metric, and yet it has far, far more nuance and potential for coordination among a party.

I have not played Overwatch, only read... from what I remember, what you said is correct only for select few of them.

You do realize that makes you definitively uninformed on this particular subject, no? But, I guess your having read a few tooltips better informs you than my having used the actual abilities competitively for up to some 3 years or the experience of anyone else who plays that game extensively? Is that the logic here?

In case of Wrecking Ball there is the denial with the mines (though I reckon they are not visible to most enemies, so they're more of a DPS thing) and in case of Roadhog there's the hook which relocates enemies to him, which CAN be done to save an ally from an enemy by breaking his line of fire or orientation momentarily.

You're going out on a limb of a limb here. The mines are visible, and even if they weren't that wouldn't particularly make them any more or less "a DPS thing". Again, tanking (any time you play against units with intelligence, be they actual players or just decent AI) is about changing the circumstances of a fight, primarily through TTK-, area-, or LoS-denial. Roadhog's Hook moves the fight against a particular enemy from the enemy's zone of control into yours, often enough drawing it behind your shield where you can kill it without risk.

Yes, killing is involved in that, but killing itself is not antithetical to a tank. If you weren't killing things, you generally wouldn't need a tank, either. When fighting enemies not driven by an "Enmity" system or the like, tanks are not damage sponges that see use through merely existing somewhere nearby; they have to control the term of the fight, generally through the same systems as everyone else, just with a toolkit better suited to such actions. You bring tanks to clear a particular objective. In XIV, there's only one: the boss's HP must hit zero before your whole party has been reduced to 0 HP. But even so, or especially so, tanks are inherently about, in XIV's case... killing.

However Junkrat alone have both of those. Concussion Mine both damages AND relocates enemies. It can also work to both decrease and increase the distance, unlike Roadhogs hook. And that shows that neither the area denial nor "crowd control" skills are limited to tanks.

I never said they were limited to tanks. I praised that they weren't. I said only that the tanks in Overwatch -- and I think it wise to include as much among "tanks" in any game -- have unique means of providing it. What they provide is not necessarily unique. How they do so is, and those means, in this case, are synergetic. How does a Junkrat get close enough in the first place to pull an enemy back into his lines? Usually via a tank. How does he have any "lines" to take advantage of all that, rather than they're being dispersed to minimize exposure? A tank. It may be a bit of a "you know it when you see it", but it takes only a bit of seeing tanks dying repeatedly and pointlessly when they try to focus themselves around their "survival skills" rather than a need to force the terms of fights in their party's favor to see that the toolkit, eHP-heavy or not, works towards certain pragmatic ends, even if far more flexibly than your typical MMO tank. And that's the kind of flexibility and pragmatism I'd like to see from tanks in general if we could just get some decent AI and finally have full-fledged PvP, rather than the watered down drivel we have now.

[kikix12]

No. MMO "Threat" (Enmity) and actual threat (assessed risk) could scarcely be more different from each other.

...Eh...Yeah. Everything I said points to me knowing that. I mean, I did write this:

For a "tank" to work, the concept of enmity would need to be completely removed and the enemy should always go after the weakest link in the party, except if opportunity struck.

I mentioned all that I did in the previous post largely because it was seeming more likely that you were conflating the two.

By saying that using enmity in this way is the fundamental problem with "tanks"?! How?!

It is a fact that if there's a guy with 400 health and little defensive means standing next to a guy with 1200 health and defensive skills, the 400 health person is the FIRST target you want to kill, even if his damage is slightly lower. Your concept of threat seems to be skewered if you think otherwise. Though this is only assuming since I literally can not think of any other reason why you would have the slightest inkling of why I would be conflating enmity and threat.

But I won't waste time trying to explain it with words, so here are the actual numbers. For simplicity's sake, let's ignore the defensive skills of the "tank" right now.

If we have "DPS" with 80 dps and "tank" with 100 dps (higher 'threat'), with the DPS having 600HP and tank having 1200HP, let's compare how much problem they will cause depending on who you attack to kill first. Let's assume the opponents have a nice, 150 damage total per second.

Killing the DPS takes 4sec. Killing the tank takes 8sec. If you kill the DPS first, the damage you will receive is 4*80 and 12*100 for a total of 1520. If you kill the tank first, you will receive 8*100 and 12*80 for a total of 1760 damage. And we're talking about a tank that not only have 100% as much HP but also 25% damage more, which is a pretty significant increase. 25% more damage does, indeed, make him a bigger "threat", especially with it taking twice as long to take him down. But that's exactly why you do not go after him first. The actual, bigger threat is the weaker character...because leaving him alive for after ironically will result in bigger damage to you.

This will be greatly modified by all sorts of things. Healing (it's natural that one should go for healers first), the barriers they employ, their health, methods (or lack of them thereof) of avoiding them and such. For example a barrier that can protect both at once will make no difference (cause you still need to take it down), but a strong enough barrier that can protect only one person will shift the "threat" to the tank if it will protect the DPS. Similarly the cooldown of the barrier will matter. If killing the DPS first will let the tank use the barrier effectively twice, while killing the tank first will let him use it only once, it may be possible for the tank to become better target for attack first.

That being said, I won't try to make actual calculations for individual tanks and DPS. I didn't even use the actual numbers. But my purpose was literally just to prove that the "weaker" character CAN and WILL in certain circumstances be a bigger "threat", or higher priority target if you prefer. I mean...it's pretty common to kill healers first in just about any competitive game, while healers usually are the less tanky or destructive characters...

At this point I have no idea what you find wrong with the current enmity system, only that it's probably different than what makes it fundamentally flawed in my opinion.

The enmity system is flawed because no one with half a brain would waste their time attacking the person that have the most enmity which, in this game, is actually the person of lowest priority to attack. Heck. There is not a single instance where attacking the tank can be better than attacking literally anyone else first since tanks survival ability is far higher while their damage is significantly lower. And while the healers have MP and are alive, they are virtually impossible to kill. So the game makes the literally worst decision it should. As such, tanks don't actually "tank", they don't need to. The enemies tank themselves. It's exactly what I've been doing with monsters as a GM in pen and paper RPG's. Cause you know...It's bad to kill at least one PC with every encounter, especially one that is a staple example for lvl1 characters...in a heroic fantasy setting...

That said, a genre misnomer ("Threat") does not subvert what threat actually is, nor does a genre-conventional refusal to use any but the shallowest possible AI mean that MMOs can never have decent AI or experience tanking as actually tanking, rather than just damage-sponging and enmity-stacking.

1) There are MMORPG's with threat being based purely on damage/healing done. With no "tanking" skills that generate empty stacks of it. Well, if I remember it right. It's not always that "threat" is used incorrectly.

2) Though I did not play it and no longer remember its name, there was a game advertised for their AI not depending on the concept of "enmity". How true it is...I don't know. Just saying this cause saying "never" is...not necessarily correct.

You do realize that makes you definitively uninformed on this particular subject, no? But, I guess your having read a few tooltips better informs you than my having used the actual abilities competitively for up to some 3 years or the experience of anyone else who plays that game extensively? Is that the logic here?

That depends on what you are arguing. I absolutely cannot say how the game plays out in practice. In the first place, it depends on such variables like players skill, health, state of mind and such to such a point that it's literally impossible to predict with high enough accuracy. You can meet a "Mercy" that you never seem to be able to kill that single-handedly led to your team losing with her healing and boosts...only to come across another one that just doesn't seem to be able to make a difference. Solely on the players skills.

However, what I can discuss, is the theory behind something. That's what we're talking about. The "feeling" of something being "a tank". The concept of a tank in games is as subjective as possible. The only universal part to it is "tough, defense-minded individual". But that does not mean that any defense-minded individual feels like a tank or seems to be a tank. FFXIV is a good proof of that. The tanks feel as nothing than more buff DPS simply with a higher ratio of defensive skills than the other DPS. That's why we have this discussion in the first place, right?!

Then there's numbers. One needs not play something to do math. But that's something for a more in-depth discussion than what we have here, hence why I didn't get into the actual math of Overwatch. But I can tell you that if there's enough information about the games combat system, it's entirely possible to use math to say accurately how combat, statistically, will turn out when you minimize the variables related to humans. Every person does that to a lesser or greater degree when actively playing games. If one of the characters in your team doesn't seem to deal that much damage, you bench him for another (not talking about Overwatch here, or even Final Fantasy XIV, just general RPG). If you have a choice between two skills and both deal damage, you pick based on what promises higher pay-off. When playing a game with skill speed system where powerful skills give you longer delay to next action...it's possible to compare it with a faster, weaker skill that may turn out more damaging in the end.

Ultimately there are things for which you need to play a game to know, there are things you don't need to play a game to know. The things that I've been discussing did mostly involve the things that a game needs not be played for. I did play other FPS games, even other competitive shooting games, so I can tell how the prevalence of ranged attacks in comparison to melee affects the game, for example. I don't need to play Overwatch for it.

The mines are visible, and even if they weren't that wouldn't particularly make them any more or less "a DPS thing".

So...they are becoming less DPS and more an area denial. Not that it actually changes anything, you know?! Does the mine field help your team members survive more?! Not directly. If the enemy cannot pass through it without dying, then they need to go around or above it. Or...shoot past it, depending on where you actually set them up. Junkrat have bouncing ammo I believe, so a good one can even ignore them to a point where they make no difference as anything more than covering the back for tactical retreat. And sorry to say...but that's what "support" does, not a tank.

Again, tanking (any time you play against units with intelligence, be they actual players or just decent AI) is about changing the circumstances of a fight, primarily through TTK-, area-, or LoS-denial. Roadhog's Hook moves the fight against a particular enemy from the enemy's zone of control into yours, often enough drawing it behind your shield where you can kill it without risk.

And this is where we clearly differ. Other than the line of sight denial, the time to kill is a "dps" thing, while area-denial is a widely understood support thing. Neither is what I consider strictly "tanking" (although area denial is at least relevant to it).

As I see it, tanking is a process of mitigating the opponents existing threat, rather than preventing it in the first place. That's why the name is reminiscent of a "tank"...which is basically armor that prevents you from being hurt even when you are being shot at. Denying line of sight matches that, since that's basically what a real tank does. And that's actually the primary method of "tanking" as far as I can acknowledge it. Area denial is part of the tanking kit...when it denies the opponent from attacking your ally without first taking care of you. So in a tight corridor standing between your ally and your enemy, it's certainly a "tank" skill. But leaving caltrops while you're going your merry way somewhere else have nothing to do with tanking. It's a supportive skill, a typical crowd control skill that in RPG games would work on tricky characters like rogues or ninja. Neither of them ever brings "tanks" to mind.

Yes, killing is involved in that, but killing itself is not antithetical to a tank.

I never said it is. But killing does not affect whether a tank is a tank or not at all. A tank is supposed to prevent attacks done at allies. A healer is supposed to prevent allies from being killed when successfully attacked. A DPS is supposed to prevent the attacks from ever coming by eliminating the threat in the first place. In case of support characters (DPS, healers or tanks), there's also the aspect of preventing the threat from being generated without actually eliminating it. This involves invisibility, making skills unusable, all sorts of debuffs or preventing people from getting into preferential position to attack given ally (or any ally at all). This is something every "category" can do, but as such, it does not define any of them.


As for the rest, I won't comment on it. At the crux of our differences is simply the way we see what the tanks are supposed to do...so there's no point in that.

PS: I didn't and won't talk about PvP in Final Fantasy XIV. I have zero idea about it currently since I didn't even read the tooltips.

[Windwalker]

Im happy its a tank, we need more tanks, not less, too many dps. Tanking is not hard tho, just rush into monsters, gather them togheter and murder, easy.