Bring back Aggro, resource management, bring back consequences!

[Shurrikhan]

TL : DR, boss AI has a ton of jank hidden under the hood, likely making a lot of complex interactions effectively impossible.

What I'm asking for, though, doesn't require multiple simultaneous targets any more than is presently the case. It merely requires a greater variety in who is targeted and what tanks can do about it such that being merely at the top of the Enmity table isn't the be-all and end-all of target selection prior to separate "raid mechanics" (or "double-tank busters" alone), and that space gives tanks more to do.

Mobs should at least have an illusion of some small degree of intelligence, and thereby allow for more to be involved in tanking than merely having their stance on and sometimes leading about a cylinder as mechanics fall or, at best, emanate from said cylinder.


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Now, to get the extent of gameplay mentioned before for if I had as much resource as I wanted (i.e., under that pipe-dream heading of "ideally"), that boss/mob/NPC script would also have to be susceptible to change given particular conditions -- able to be manipulated. That's a very separate story from how many enemies a single attack can target, however.

[Mikey_R]

1. A resource which starts at maximum and is regenerated over time is the exact opposite of a resource which starts at 0 at is generated by actions. How did you quote the prior and arrive at the latter?
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2. No, I understood completely. I'm asking, if the default UI is so useless as to make enmity management impossible, what "better" UI solution you'd propose. I had little to no trouble minimizing excess enmity with the default UI.

3. You're strawmanning again. I've not asked for the return of Enmity skills.

4. Mob AI and stuns/interrupts are not mutually exclusive.

What's next? Mobs can't have more than a single AI script because we couldn't then have active mitigation? We can't have involved rotations because then we couldn't make use of Interject? None of these things conflict with each other.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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".

[Lyth]

I mean, dps optimizations are a lot of fun, but they're even more exciting on an actual melee job without training wheels and tank privilege. I think if you want the dps work that tanks do to have equivalent value, you have to seriously step up the mechanics game for tanks. It's the same complaint healers are making with regards to caster dps. Big fish in small pond and all that.

[MerlinCross]

I mean, dps optimizations are a lot of fun, but they're even more exciting on an actual melee job without training wheels and tank privilege. I think if you want the dps work that tanks do to have equivalent value, you have to seriously step up the mechanics game for tanks. It's the same complaint healers are making with regards to caster dps. Big fish in small pond and all that.

This. It's not that we say... want Aggro itself back. Maybe some of us, myself included but... we just want MORE to do.

I can't speak for others but what I would want is; the ability to fail and have to fix it without causing an entire wipe, dying, or dooming the run due to a 5% damage loss from damage down.

Aggro, old aggro, to me did this. Let me be clear, I know it was just a band aid to the bigger issue but when the BLM started to pull hate or the MCH suddenly shot up from Wildfire my thought was "OH GOD I need Aggro combo/bonus" not "OH STUPID DPS didn't hit their anti aggro button". Maybe at the casual level I played at I never expected DPS to do that, or Ninja's to use their own. Much like I still don't expect DPS to use Feint like ever. And usually, if the boss swapped aggro, it wasn't a full on loss if fixed fast enough.

That's just how I remember it, suddenly there's a problem and I need to fix it. Aggro returning would be a band aid fix again but I just want something to get that feeling of "I've messed up but can fix it". I don't get that with Tanks these days, and I barely get that with Healers too.

Side question; is there anything from Shadowbringers onward that takes advantage of Two Tanks that couldn't just be done with a DPS? Like the only thing that comes to mind was Eden Titan but I haven't played the new content.

[baklava151]

Side question; is there anything from Shadowbringers onward that takes advantage of Two Tanks that couldn't just be done with a DPS? Like the only thing that comes to mind was Eden Titan but I haven't played the new content.

The E5S bird

[MerlinCross]

The E5S bird

I've seen the normal fight so if it's what I'm thinking of, wouldn't that just be picking up adds? Riveting gameplay. I mean if there's more, fair enough but I'm trying to think of Tank swaps, or placed double tank buster like O1's Twinbolt that nuked the person closest to MT, I hope the OT is awake enough to be there.

It's still not steller gripping stuff but... look I'll take what they give me these days.

To be fair, I don't know what I expected really. This is yet another thread mostly populated by weird players who don't even touch difficult content, but push for vaguely defined 'depth' to be added around systems they don't actually understand or even interact with regularly.

Also by people that think the solution is clearly to just play the last bit of the game and clear it before they're allowed to talk. Don't forget them.

I admit I'm not an Extreme or Savage raider, not unless I'm doing it with friends cause people seem way too bitter in PFs. But it doesn't seem to fix the problem of tanking for me which is; I'd like smaller things to pay attention to or care about without causing a wipe or mass panic if I mess up. Most the time Extreme just hits harder, faster or more "Don't touch the bad stuff" like juggling buffs/debuffs and placement. I'm sorry given this is old, but did anyone actually find Light Rampant fun?

I hit stance, Rotation, Dance around as needed. If I'm OT, I don't even hit stance. I just do rotation which is the same thing I do as DPS.

I don't know, what do you find fun about tanking in Extremes? Because once you realize the order you need to hit your defenses, all that's left is to push your damage as hard as you can and..., I mean I guess that's fun for enough people but just not for me.

Should Aggro and TP come back? Don't know. Anything they would provide would be a short band-aid solution before the community cracks the new number on "THIS is how you should be hitting your buttons" and we're just back where we started save for maybe a new button press every so often. And when people are always about Uptime, rDPS and the boss designs seemingly based around pushing damage as much as possible; I think any big in depth changes to boss design or tanking gameplay would lead to a riot.

[Undeadfire]

I've seen the normal fight so if it's what I'm thinking of, wouldn't that just be picking up adds? Riveting gameplay. I mean if there's more, fair enough but I'm trying to think of Tank swaps, or placed double tank buster like O1's Twinbolt that nuked the person closest to MT, I hope the OT is awake enough to be there.

The add in E5S attacked whoever had the most Lightning stacks, and did a buster each round, consisting 3x total rounds, at the same time if it reach melee range you're instantly killed. It's the tank version of SCOB Turn 7.

[BarretOblivion]

Originally Dps could pull aggro off a bad tank, not all moves gave enmity and if I remember correctly most of those moves only gave enmity while in tank stance. This added consequences to the game, DPS and healers had to use moves to lower their aggro.

Tanks stance wasn't perfect, and at high-end ARR the meta was to tank without it. However removing it was a terrible plan IMO. Instead they should have made aggro gain more difficult if you weren't stance switching, made tank stance OGCD and then in each expansion they could have focused each tank classes mechanics around their stance and subsequently TP which I'll get onto next.

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.

[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?