Tanks seem to be the big bottle necks in all the mmos I have played. This might be becasue of raiding ratios for tanks in games like wow where so few were needed that everyone had to fill a different role but even in other games tanks seem to be the most rare.
So will my group need a real tank? What if the bottleneck is say healers? Will my group need a healer or can I make it work without one? Keep in mind I'm not talking about Particular boss fights or anything but I'm wondering if I can meet up with a group at a spider infested cave and progress into that cave without a key role?
Not that I'm anyone but on the next live stream I would like to request you throw together a rather odd combination of a group and show us how that does or does not work.
I've played games where class roles were interchangeable, where they tried to break away from the tank/healer/dps trinity and free players from population bottlenecks. The problem with this approach is twofold - first, it led towards cookie cutter character builds with a huge lack of diversity between class choices. Everyone you ran into had the same skills and abilities, with almost no variation. And secondly, as if that wasn't boring enough - it severely limited the options designers had for making content challenging or compelling - or indeed, for making content require groups at all.
I get the frustration that comes with needing a tank and not having one. It's the same frustration that comes with needing a healer and not having one. Or needing two more dps to make that raid happen and they're just not available. I've been in all those situations.
I don't think the answer is to remove the need for specialization. I think the answer is to ensure that every class and role is fun in its own right so that there are always plenty of players of that type to go around. It will never be perfect, but the alternative is far, far worse in my opinion.
I dont think you will NEED a tank class to do things, but you will NEED another class to fill that role and mitigate / control damage and agro... We used to do Lower Guk etc with charms and a pet as a tank and just have the group (dps) fight acordingly to the agro, because we also had good crowd control and strong enough heals we didnt notice a tank missing... Any time we were missing a tank in an open zone we fear kited our way to victory... Fear kiting is a way to play the game and not need a healer.. so there are ways and means for every class role to be filled by another class who primarily belongs in a different role.
You need players who can think outside the box and see when someone is struggling or in trouble but u believe that through emergent gameplay groups will be best with their intended roles, but in absense of one or maybe even 2 of the key roles people will be able to make up for it by playing outside the normal box.
Aside from this i would say that if you just tried to use a rogue in the place of a warrior type attempting to tank and spank a mob i hope / assume the rogue will get schmooshed and the cleric (or other healer class) would likely use all / most of his mana to try and keep the rogue alive in the fight and then probably end up with heals agro anyways, assuming that same fight but with a real tank should only take a clerics 20 - 30% mana to keep alive (numbers made up with no real thought haha).
I loved using my class to fill an alternative role, even had my enchanter healing (with charmed cleric pets) at various stages in my EQ life... Pet only fired off a heal at 50% hp so a cleric was better but it worked and we cleared names etc in some decent dungeons.
I would hope you do need a tank. I think that games have adjusted with a culture of the need to be the most efficient and be the min/maxer gods. I remember in the old eq days healing my group as a necro! i remember pet tanking too! (Oh this is before pets were good tanks). I can even recal one group perhaps velious era when we had a ranger healing!. Sure the kills were god awefully slow, oh boy i mean if we were legitimately trying to level grind we would hang ourselves, but we were having FUN!
I hope that pantheon stays true to this, once classes can do everything like WoW and Rift, they lose their uniqueness, their importance. Maybe it would be an idea to create a different track for those finding it hard to get levels. Perhaps a long questline that gives you experience that doesnt require fighting overly strong foes, or perhaps tradeskilling quests that yield good experience (obviously youd need to balance this to make it effort to MAKE NOT BUY! the handin items, and yet make it worth the time to do, as an alternate to group grinding). You wouldnt want a repeat of DF/CB belts, bone chips, muffins etc where items can be purchased enmasse, you'd want something that is say no drop, and requires crafting.
Back on the path. Tanks should be required, but it would be good to enable tanks to perhaps solo to an extent, i remember leveling my warrior just before kunark or just after, i cant recall. i was able to solo and kept myself healed with bind wound. Slow but steady when no other options were present. I'm at Aussie and i played weird hours so i tended so solo a lot.
I would expect a true tank (War, Pal, DL) to be required for challenging content (fighting same-level or higher cons). For less challenging content (fighting all lower-level cons), I would expect a group of 6 to be able to get by just fine with a combination of CC, pet-tanking, charm-tanking, ranger-tanking (assuming you have a rezzer), and the like. This will make it so that true tanks (War, Pal, DL) are not essential to forming a group and doing a dungeon crawl, but still great to have if you want to go deeper into the dungeon or fight higher-conning mobs. So maybe you have a group of 5 people and you can't find a tank; that's fine, you may just need to avoid certain areas of a zone or you may simply be less efficient than if you had a tank; but that's fine, you can still select a challenge that is appropriate for your group composition, make progress, and have a good time.
I would also expect these questions to arise constantly during testing, when we try out various group compositions like 2cler/4enc, or 1mnk/2wiz/2enc/1cler, or 6summ (ha). The number of different 6-person group compositions with 12 classes is 12nCr6 = 924. It will take a while for the player base to experiment with those potential combinations and for the devs to tune classes accordingly. Whatever comes out of that process, I doubt every group is going to need a War/Pal/DL for every situation, even some of the challenging situations.
I agree with the others, that the specific roles are important, even if it means difficulty in putting together that "Optimal" group.
Moreso, I hope the devs design the game that there is no "optimal" group for every situation, that each encounter will have it's own set of challenges that is doable, but yet more challenging with different group makeups.
In EQ1, as a Paladin, I sometimes was off-tank, I was sometimes CC (With taunts, stuns and roots), and at times I was healer. I was not as efficient as a class dedicated to such roles, but I was good enough to allow the group to enjoy the night of adventuring. It also made for some fun and interesting encounters.
I am betting there will be ways for unconventional groups to get along. We could do some fun stuff in EQ without a tank.
I used to run a fear kite group with some guildies. Worked fine.
In EQ you can grab a couple wizards and enchanters and stun lock/nuke entire zones at once... Velks Lab spiders for one. Thats fun. No tank required.
I'm sure there will be some tactics like this developed along the way.
zendrel said:Tanks seem to be the big bottle necks in all the mmos I have played. This might be becasue of raiding ratios for tanks in games like wow where so few were needed that everyone had to fill a different role but even in other games tanks seem to be the most rare.
So will my group need a real tank? What if the bottleneck is say healers? Will my group need a healer or can I make it work without one? Keep in mind I'm not talking about Particular boss fights or anything but I'm wondering if I can meet up with a group at a spider infested cave and progress into that cave without a key role?
Not that I'm anyone but on the next live stream I would like to request you throw together a rather odd combination of a group and show us how that does or does not work.
Class interdependency. Yes. Of course you need a tank. As you need CC, support, DPS, heals, etc.
kellindil said:I am betting there will be ways for unconventional groups to get along. We could do some fun stuff in EQ without a tank.
I used to run a fear kite group with some guildies. Worked fine.
In EQ you can grab a couple wizards and enchanters and stun lock/nuke entire zones at once... Velks Lab spiders for one. Thats fun. No tank required.
I'm sure there will be some tactics like this developed along the way.
I adored that about EQ. Get 3 wizards and 3 monks in a group and see what crazy crap you can pull off.
You have some flexibility. Yes, going with the quaternity is probably easiest overall, but it's not like WoW where the game determines exactly what comp you need and will not complete the group finder until you have 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS (or whatever the case may be). In Pantheon, there isn't only one viable group composition for any given content. You can at least try anything you want. Your strategies just may have to adapt to compensate for what you lack. And that might be very slow and difficult, depending on the situation. (Especially if you are missing an entire important role.) But probably not technically impossible. You'd just have to be really careful and creative.
Check out this clip:
00:47:20 - Group compositions
bigdogchris said:If the game is designed where you do not need a well balanced group, I would lose interest.
Balanced group (of decent players) will result in smooth pulls, well sustained mana / stamina pools and as a result and fast & constant xp and with smart players in those roles... safety.
A non balanced full group will still yield decent xp and the ability to progress, but most fights will probably need a fair bit of downtime at the end because of depleted mana, stamina, and needing to take time between next mob to be able to ensure safe pulls and avoid wipes. And in a dungeon you will probably spend most of your time being paranoid about re pops instead of eagerly waiting them :p
Lots of great insight! For me personally I am looking more at the leveling content of the game and that was my initial appeal to pantheon. In a raid or very difficult area I completely expect to have to have some real meat on the bones of the guy getting healed. However, one thing I enjoyed about everquest was going out into an open world area, holding down a camp, and leveling up with a group of guys I could sit there and chat with while we wait for our ranger or monk or whoever to pull. It was a great way of meeting people, lots of fun, and actually a better way to level than soloing.
I'm ok with some content, even a lot of content, requiring primary roles but I just want to be able to do perhaps lesser content that still requires a group that could be at least a messy build. A lot of MMOs have turned into the sit and wait game and I'm not a fan. I hate the idea of sitting around doing very little hoping I can get a tank or healer for my little leveling group. It would be nice to just say, "well until we get a tank to go into the cave lets take a camp of spiders along the river."
One way of ensuring that tanks are needed is if VR can prevent fights from turning into burn-fests, where high damage bypasses fight mechanics and the need for tanking. This probably requires leveling to reward survivability/sustainability/utility more than sheer damage. Most MMOs I've played, once you reach a certain level you're one-shotting lower-level enemies solo, whereas I'd honestly prefer it if higher level would simply mean you'd have an easier time fighting them, but not so much that you're face-rolling content.
Another possibility is diverse tanking options. At a certain point in ESO you could tank most content as a sorcerer relying on pets or magic shields, or as a nightblade using dodge, evasion and movement, or as a templar using AC buffs and self-heals. Later changes to the game greatly reduced the ability to tank as a non-standard class, as well as eliminated the need for a tank at all for much of the content. I would like to see the ability to tank based not only on eating up damage (whether using armour or magic shields) but also on *avoiding* damage (e.g. by CC'ing, dodging, kiting). That said, tanking should require you to build your character for that role, so if you want to tank you shouldn't be able to also deal massive damage.
daemonios said:One way of ensuring that tanks are needed is if VR can prevent fights from turning into burn-fests, where high damage bypasses fight mechanics and the need for tanking. This probably requires leveling to reward survivability/sustainability/utility more than sheer damage. Most MMOs I've played, once you reach a certain level you're one-shotting lower-level enemies solo, whereas I'd honestly prefer it if higher level would simply mean you'd have an easier time fighting them, but not so much that you're face-rolling content.
It looks like they are going to balance based on the need of a tank for the most part, thankfully. In the May stream you can see the healer having a full-time job just trying the keep the tanks head above the water (and the wizard mob that one-shot a group member), so I'd imagine a rag-tag band of whatever classes would have an extremely difficult time unless they ran double healer.
I'd much prefer that they keep things challenging throughout the entire leveling process which I imagine means they have to balance it based on a balanced group make-up (Tank/Heal/DPS/CC) because if any old thrown together group can accomplish dungeon dives with relative ease then a balanced group will be a snooze.
In the clip I linked above, I think it's important to note that the group technically has all four roles of the quaternity covered, but does not necessarily have the "ideal" class for the CC role. A prime example of a CC class would of course be the enchanter. But since they don't have an enchanter, they have a rogue kind of "filling in" for that role. It's pretty challenging for them, but they make it work. I think this sort of thing will be very common in Pantheon. Yes, each class has a pretty clearly defined role, but they also have some abilities that cross over. For example, the Monk could be considered an off-tank, so in the absence of a Warrior, Paladin, or Dire Lord, you could have a Monk fill in for that role. It won't be ideal, but it'll work. Especially if the monk is well equipped with situational gear. The point is you have lots of options, and of course some are better than others. But ultimately, you'll probably have to have at least one person focusing on each role to some degree to be successful. Even if it's just someone with a Root spell acting as your crowd control. Again, if you can be successful with a group of 3 wizards and 3 shamans, then you have every right to practice that and more power to you. But I expect if you can't find a primary class for a particular role, you'll always be able to find someone with some ability that will suffice.
If you don't need a tank for group contrent, then it stands to reason you don't need a healer, or someone to CC either. At that point, why even have classes? Just play GW2 and spam attacks groups of mobs to the group with impunity.
I agree with the OP though that the issue with tanks is that tank:raid ratio tended to be a lot lower than te tank:group ratio. This caused raids to be full of tanks posing as poor DPSers. Since they did poor DPS, they were left out of raids. Since they were left out of raids, they tended to migrate to other classes. Over time, that lead to a shortage of tanks in the group game.
The solution is to give tanks something they can contribute to raids even if they aren't tanking. For example, the Warrior can swithc to DPS mode by giving up defense in favor of offense. The Direlord can give up defense in order to provide debuffs that stack with other Direlords. The Paladin can...go to hell. Just kidding!
It will be important for the devs to come up with secondary roles for some classes, and tanks and CC classes are usually the main classes in need of that (CC tends to be rarely used in raid settings).
bigdogchris said:If the game is designed where you do not need a well balanced group, I would lose interest.
To echo what a few players have said already theres going to be a huge difference between how smooth a "well balanced" group is, vs a rag-tag group of adventurers.
If EQ is any indication, you will want to have a well balanced group for efficiencies sake... if thats not your concern, then just throw some people together and have fun.
I believe the most important aspects to make classes work out are to assure classes can take on at least 2 roles and the freedom to hybrid those roles as well as the freedom to adjust/switch these roles out in the field. WoW & GW2 are commonly used as reference materials as they tend to be polar opposites and have been for many years, however they both share one of the banes of MMORPG evolution, cookie-cutter syndrom.
--WoW did away with hybriding because it became too much of a hassel to balance and players generally gravitated to set 'cookie cutter' specs for raiding, WoW has always had a poor divide between PvE and PvP balance, hybriding made certain classes terrors in PvP leading to nerfs affecting PvE. Recently WoW has simplified their stat usage to quantities less than Vanilla had, but values that made their previous stat shrinking pointless.
--GW2 has been simplified greatly as well since it released, while it discarded the 'Trinity' system, it suffocated the 'choice' it appears to have on the surface, while GW2 has no real notable end-game compared to its MMORPG bretherine, to participate in the more challenging content certain specs are literally requiered.
--I'm going to mention RIFT here for sake of coverage, RIFT still has their same skill system, aside from their shift to P2W after becoming F2P, hybriding is still 'there', however developers have adjusted those trees to an extent to make hybriding worse than specing into full healing and acting as a DPS in that spec. Rift suffered from the same issues WoW did, the lack of skill sepparation for PvE and PvP resulting in strict cookie-cutter builds.
All that said, this is going to continue to be a challenge for devs, which is why I am sure they have been keeping abilities and skill specifics on the vague side, I have little doubt they are doing much in the way of experimenting to find a good balance while perserving their vision. I love hybriding as I have always liked to be as versatile as possible, filling that 'jack of all trades master of none' role to the extreme and having the knowledge and insight to adapt to the situation when needed. From what I have seen from gameplay videos and read/heard of their vision, being able to shift a classes skillset with little downtime to adjust to zone changes or even having players join or leave the group, so they don't become paralized if RL happens. -- Content will undoubtidly help shape classes a bit more into a stable form, however leaving plenty of room for changes on both ends of content and classes makes this project a colossus, I believe VR can pull it off give the sheer passion I have witnessed on all sides.
EndGamerZ said:--WoW did away with hybriding because it became too much of a hassel to balance and players generally gravitated to set 'cookie cutter' specs for raiding, WoW has always had a poor divide between PvE and PvP balance, hybriding made certain classes terrors in PvP leading to nerfs affecting PvE. Recently WoW has simplified their stat usage to quantities less than Vanilla had, but values that made their previous stat shrinking pointless.
I cut out alot of your post just because i hate big quotes... but i think nowadays games are to scared to say. "we are a pve game with pvp implements".
as WoW has shown us, it is near impossible to balance PVP and PVE together.
I feel EQ did a good job of "being a pve game" but still including pvp aspects in it.
Porygon said:EndGamerZ said:--WoW did away with hybriding because it became too much of a hassel to balance and players generally gravitated to set 'cookie cutter' specs for raiding, WoW has always had a poor divide between PvE and PvP balance, hybriding made certain classes terrors in PvP leading to nerfs affecting PvE. Recently WoW has simplified their stat usage to quantities less than Vanilla had, but values that made their previous stat shrinking pointless.
I cut out alot of your post just because i hate big quotes... but i think nowadays games are to scared to say. "we are a pve game with pvp implements".
as WoW has shown us, it is near impossible to balance PVP and PVE together.
I feel EQ did a good job of "being a pve game" but still including pvp aspects in it.
Apologies, I have a habbit of putting information chunks that attempt to explain/support my comments in an attempt to reduce back and forth in threads as it tends to reduce the chance of accidental trolling. -- I agree EQ did that well, why it felt like a step backwards with WoW, FF XIV for a modern example did not impliment PvP until after the first expansion even in a limited form. -- Its very true that any announcements have to be handled carefully, while customers may not be happy with vague responses, a response period is much more appreciated over 'radio silence' which VR has done an excellent job to satisfy.
EndGamerZ said:Porygon said:EndGamerZ said:--WoW did away with hybriding because it became too much of a hassel to balance and players generally gravitated to set 'cookie cutter' specs for raiding, WoW has always had a poor divide between PvE and PvP balance, hybriding made certain classes terrors in PvP leading to nerfs affecting PvE. Recently WoW has simplified their stat usage to quantities less than Vanilla had, but values that made their previous stat shrinking pointless.
I cut out alot of your post just because i hate big quotes... but i think nowadays games are to scared to say. "we are a pve game with pvp implements".
as WoW has shown us, it is near impossible to balance PVP and PVE together.
I feel EQ did a good job of "being a pve game" but still including pvp aspects in it.
Apologies, I have a habbit of putting information chunks that attempt to explain/support my comments in an attempt to reduce back and forth in threads as it tends to reduce the chance of accidental trolling. -- I agree EQ did that well, why it felt like a step backwards with WoW, FF XIV for a modern example did not impliment PvP until after the first expansion even in a limited form. -- Its very true that any announcements have to be handled carefully, while customers may not be happy with vague responses, a response period is much more appreciated over 'radio silence' which VR has done an excellent job to satisfy.
Its not you, its me.
I think VR has come out and said a few times that they are focused on PVE at the moment. And if they see a large interest in PVE after launch they might dabble in that.