Hey all, whats the thoughts on a NPC Tank class that has the taunt ability? I would imagine this to be executed in a way that forces your offensive target to be stuck on the taunting NPC for a period of time, maybe 5 - 10 seconds or so to potenitally disrupt the groups tactical attack on a particular NPC. Maybe a group is trying to burn the cleric and the warrior NPC taunts a player off the Cleric NPC for a period of time.
Not sure if that would be hard to implement but i think it would add an interesting element to the game.
Beefcake said:Many games have this. I would assume Pantheon would, especially on boss mobs with adds.
But, I have no real information.
I would be happy with it. I think NPCs should be able to do anything players can, even Kiting.
Cool beef, cheers for the info, I hadnt noticed it on some MMOs i have played besides bosses! Havent played many past the early stages of the games before i was bored ... keep coming back to EQ haha!
I can think of several raid encounters where adds would taunt you off your target in EQ2. I'm sure there where dungeon instances of it also.
One that sticks in my mind would be Gnorbl the Playful in Lyceum of Abhorrence (Kingdom of Sky expac) He had adds that taunted people off target, and if you killed those adds it would heal him, plus other undesirable effects.
Oh the missery and agony of that encounter, people just couldn't watch there target windows. He's at 20% nope...he's at 80% now...sigh
I think NPC's taunting our characters sounds great. As does death-touching, snaring, rooting, mezzing, stunning, silencing, charming, blinding, paralyzing, disarming, fearing, poisoning, exposing, confusing, sleeping, resisting, dodging, parrying, absorbing, riposting, warping, draining, hexing, reflecting, summoning, burning, freezing, shocking, cursing, and ... rezzing(as a pet until encounter resets). Same mob does all of these at random to any character that moves, does damage to it or dies (limited to warping/rezzing). He also quad attacks with 25% on hit stoneskin proc.
Call it the Dream Crusher.
It worked well in EQ2.
It also translates well to PvP. In PvP, detaunt can also be implemented with the opposite function. The player targeting you will lose their target when hit with a detaunt. Sometimes it makes you untargetable by that player for a duration, and other abilities will instead just drop their target and they can immediately retarget you. Both have their uses.
Very much like the idea of mobs taunting players. Should at least turn you towards the taunting npc, and change your target. Maybe certain abilities (on cool down) can even lock your target on them for a few seconds as well.
Also like the idea of taunt working in pvp (as it did in EQ2).
I can definitely see this related to the dispositions. An immersive world requires intelligent inhabitants. Although, I think this one in particular should be relatively uncommon or there should be some way to resist it. But anyway, I like it when mobs use a lot of the same strategies that we use against them. Dynamic combat is much more satisfying.
I would love to see "taunting" be taken in a different direction. I would like to see tanks have an ability more like the trooper in SW:TOR or Scorpion from mortal combat than like the french man from Monty Python's Holy Grail. Physically moving the MoB to the tank or the tank to the MoB would be much better imho.
Nimryl said:Not keen on the idea myself. I haven't seen this type of mechanic myself.. but seems abit pointless... so you get pulled off your target for abit? How is that engaging? Plus if your tanking the tank mob, it's use would have to be unsuede by aggro to have any real desired strategy effect.. or it'd need to be something ranged (which seems silly/half-baked).. It just sounds more of an annoyance than actually something engaging when you can just stop attacking altogether if you really needed. *shrugs*
They could easily just make it so that you can't turn off auto-attack while you are taunted. You must attack them and cannot change targets until the effect expires. I agree that it would sometimes be annoying - almost like a stun. Which is why it should either be rare or even better, there should be some sort of counterplay, such as having the willpower to resist the taunt. It is engaging because it is something additional that you have to take into consideration. If you don't compensate for it, it could really mess you up when you're trying to take down an important caster or healer, but instead are forced to futilely beat on the meat shield for a little while. In its simplest form, it could just mean that if you know you are going to be facing a taunting mob, then you should equip some extra Wisdom gear to increase your chances of resisting the taunt. That would be a good application of situational gear. Even that is strategy. :)
oneADseven said:I think NPC's taunting our characters sounds great. As does death-touching, snaring, rooting, mezzing, stunning, silencing, charming, blinding, paralyzing, disarming, fearing, poisoning, exposing, confusing, sleeping, resisting, dodging, parrying, absorbing, riposting, warping, draining, hexing, reflecting, summoning, burning, freezing, shocking, cursing, and ... rezzing(as a pet until encounter resets). Same mob does all of these at random to any character that moves, does damage to it or dies (limited to warping/rezzing). He also quad attacks with 25% on hit stoneskin proc.
Call it the Dream Crusher.
If it has stats, we can kill it.
Nimryl said:Not keen on the idea myself. I haven't seen this type of mechanic myself.. but seems abit pointless... so you get pulled off your target for abit? How is that engaging? Plus if your tanking the tank mob, it's use would have to be unsuede by aggro to have any real desired strategy effect.. or it'd need to be something ranged (which seems silly/half-baked).. It just sounds more of an annoyance than actually something engaging when you can just stop attacking altogether if you really needed. *shrugs*
This actually holds a lot of potential, assuming the taunt forces you into attacking the enemy via auto attack and locks out abilities for x seconds. If it hits a caster or heaven forbid your healer then you are in trouble. If it hits the healer you'd likely want to do your best to stunlock/slow the mob.
They could also pair some mobs/bosses together where one is a heavy dps and the other is a tank. It wouldn't be too out of line to have it where the tank mob taunts a random player at the same time that the DPS mob picks a random target to focus and is possibly even an enraged mob immune to CC. If your tank gets taunted away you could be in real trouble, which would give place to the off-tank designation for classes such as Monk, to pick up the slack temporarily.
Iksar said:Nimryl said:Not keen on the idea myself. I haven't seen this type of mechanic myself.. but seems abit pointless... so you get pulled off your target for abit? How is that engaging? Plus if your tanking the tank mob, it's use would have to be unsuede by aggro to have any real desired strategy effect.. or it'd need to be something ranged (which seems silly/half-baked).. It just sounds more of an annoyance than actually something engaging when you can just stop attacking altogether if you really needed. *shrugs*
This actually holds a lot of potential, assuming the taunt forces you into attacking the enemy via auto attack and locks out abilities for x seconds. If it hits a caster or heaven forbid your healer then you are in trouble. If it hits the healer you'd likely want to do your best to stunlock/slow the mob.
They could also pair some mobs/bosses together where one is a heavy dps and the other is a tank. It wouldn't be too out of line to have it where the tank mob taunts a random player at the same time that the DPS mob picks a random target to focus and is possibly even an enraged mob immune to CC. If your tank gets taunted away you could be in real trouble, which would give place to the off-tank designation for classes such as Monk, to pick up the slack temporarily.
I agree. I like where this is going.
I never really enjoyed being taunted ... I just look at it as a CC/Impairment mechanic like all of the others. With there being an emphasis on situational gear, I would imagine the more impairments there are, the more situational gear there will be to counter them. I can't remember what game it was in but I remember having a piece of armor that had a clicky effect that put a small DoT on yourself. Most would figure ... what the hell? Well, it was used to counter the sleep mechanic (which makes me think it was either FFXI or maybe one of the offline games) because if you take any damage while sleeping it wakes you up. Players would purposely use that item and cast the DoT on themself to get around the sleep mechanic. As long as there is a way to counter or minimize the taunt effect, I am good with it. I don't think there was in EQ2 and that's what made it feel pretty cheap.
itvar said:One of my least favorite mechanics from EQ2. But looks like I am in the minority.
Agreed. It was a bit of immersion I've appreciated over the years in EverQuest 2. Being taunted away from the NPC's priest or wizard to focus on the tank momentarily, preventing us from burning down his heals and dps swiftly, was annoying but appropriate. Having NPC's cast fear/mez/control on you or your friends gave mages and priests something to stay on their toes with even in solo and group content.
If I was playing a tank and I couldn't change my targets for a long duration I'd probably be infuriated. Might have to do it as some type of stun ability.
Thankfully I don't play tanks.
Another modified way of looking at NPC Taunt (and by extension PVP taunt - to be discussed later if pvp ever becomes a thing): it would give the taunted player a debuff that would mitigate their damage by X% UNLESS they are specfically attacking the NPC that issued the taunt for X sec.
This allows the player to choose their action instead of a target change being forced. So, if your Enchanter is trying to CC they can do so, or a healer to keep healing their target instead of artificially being forced to target something.
Practically (which rarely mean anything in game terms) if you are across the room mocking and jeering at me, I can choose to pay attention to you and punch in your teeth, or I can ignore you and do something else, but you will have effected me.
Keep in mind that players can have things like AE taunt functions, so your tank getting taunted off of things is not necessarily terrible.
I'd recommend looking into EQ2 to really get a feel for how the mechanic works. I'll try to outline it as best I can below.
NPC Taunt 1: Switches your current offensive target to the caster of the taunt, but immediately allows you to switch targets back to the original offensive target.
NPC Taunt 2: Switches your current offensive target to the caster of the taunt, does not allow you to switch targets for the duration.
NPC Taunt 3: A variation of 1 that is a long term debuff and will repeatedly tick. For instance, switching your target to the caster of the taunt every 6 seconds for 36 seconds.
Keep in mind, however, that these are curable in most cases. I have no idea how Pantheon's combat system will work with regards to curing.
In EQ2, curing is a very fast paced activity for healers with a variety of tools to do so. You have group cures, single target cures, cures attached to combat abilities, etc. If curing is instead much slower paced and honestly hardly ever used, like it was in EQ, then this wouldn't really be appropriate. You also need a group UI that can display the information, allow for click to cure, etc. for this to actually be a functional system. The mechanic itself dictates a slightly faster, more reaction based form of combat.
I hope that curing is an integral aspect of the healer/support jobs. I could see enchanters/bards getting cures that affect charm/mez/stun, druids the normal poison/disease and then roots and snares, shamans curses, poison, and disease. Clerics probably mez, poison, disease.