Get rid of ALL Agro caps

[QuiJon]

So look, I get it. I was around for the days of herd the map and throw them in a dumpster and let the blasters nuke them and such. I remember why the agro caps were put in place. Ultimately a good tank or scrapper could herd up an entire map under cover of a few purples and other buffs and run back to a corner of the map where he could have a buff team waiting that either helped him kill the mob off (blaster nukes) or at least kept him alive while he did so (controller and defender buffs) However in most cases because we didn't have IOs or incarnates back then this still required some team assistance, but was considered game breaking in that it made things a bit to easy.

 

I feel like we have the opposite issue now. With IOs and Incarnates that same Tank or Scrapper, or now Brute, or hell even controller blaster in some cases, can take out a map single handedly on their own. They either kill fast enough or have enough resources available to them to survive long enough to out live a agro'd mob. For example, if I run ITF on my savage/wp brute the about only time I get even a threat of being in trouble is if there are multiple melee and we are close enough together that I might catch some kind of AOE damage off their mobs as well as my own. Essentially my own defenses can more then compensate for anything my personal agro cap can attract. Most of our powers have caps to them still. As with that character a lot of his power comes from regen but only so many enemies boost my regen. However if rather then being in a middle of a mob and having my agro cap be full so other close mobs were just standing there looking at me doing nothing they could also attack me, it now is again possible to be overwhelmed by enemies. 

 

The same could be true for defenses, sure we hit the soft cap, but if you watch you are still taking damage it is just not coming in fast enough to overwhelm your other powers. What if though while you fought you had attracted 2-3 times more enemies. Those additional attacks, even at soft cap means more damage coming through. More of a chance that your defenses will be over powered. There was a time I get why the caps were put in place. It was because with a functional competent group of teammates it made clearing a map to easy. However I feel like with IOs and incarnates now the opposite is true, having the agro cap has made clearing a map for +4/8 such a controlled experience that has made it to easy to do now solo.  I say lets drop the agro caps and see what happens. 

[SwitchFade]

Sorry, I vote hard no. But pie is tasty!

[ShardWarrior]

9 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

With IOs and Incarnates that same Tank or Scrapper, or now Brute, or hell even controller blaster in some cases, can take out a map single handedly on their own. They either kill fast enough or have enough resources available to them to survive long enough to out live a agro'd mob.

The suggested change does not solve this "problem."  It just makes the (same) outcome come quicker/more efficiently.

[Apparition]

IIRC, one of the developers posted a few months ago that the aggro cap is pretty much now hard coded into the game and removing it would break much of the game, if it's even possible at all.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Apparition

[NNDeepdish]

Just feels like another increase difficulty thread in the guise of aggro caps. Again, there are other servers out there that have had the aggro caps removed. I see no need to mess with homecoming.

Hard No.

[Klaleara]

As a squishy, I hate the aggro caps.  Even in normal content, I find myself fleeing across the map, trying not to die, because the tank literally can't even taunt them off me.

 

Aggro cap is one of the few things I currently VERY much dislike in CoX.

[AerialAssault]

It wouldn't achieve anything.

 

Like everything else in this game, people will find a way to overcome it. That's why iTrials have built in failure states or scripted One-Hit Kills, because otherwise someone, somewhere would be able to defeat it.

 

If anything, all it would do is trivialise content further, because you're forgetting that back in the days of unlocked aggro cap, there was no Incarnate system. Now there is, those tanks won't even need any support because Barrier resists almost as much as it defends, and at T4 it has virtually no downtime. 

 

No 'yes' or 'no' from me, just an 'eh'.

[Rathulfr]

Allow me to be the first to /jranger this.

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Leogunner]

29 minutes ago, Apparition said:

IIRC, one of the developers posted a few months ago that the aggro cap is pretty much now hard coded into the game and removing it would break much of the game, if it's even possible at all.

I recall very recently (maybe 1 or 2 weeks ago) the devs talking about the aggro cap. They said they could raise it or remove it but (and I'm somewhat paraphrasing here) they'd only do it if they could change the AI to stop clustering and instead run away and shoot if to many of their allies are close together and would turn and attack someone else...

 

...basically, they aren't going to do it unless they can make the AI not so dumb and manipulatable. 

[Klaleara]

21 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I recall very recently (maybe 1 or 2 weeks ago) the devs talking about the aggro cap. They said they could raise it or remove it but (and I'm somewhat paraphrasing here) they'd only do it if they could change the AI to stop clustering and instead run away and shoot if to many of their allies are close together and would turn and attack someone else...

 

...basically, they aren't going to do it unless they can make the AI not so dumb and manipulatable. 

But...that's what they do now....so what would be the point? lol

 

I hate the aggro cap because tanks can't do what they are made to do, take aggro away from squishies, so they can do what they need to do.  Instead of running around with their heads chopped off.

 

Or the other option, make a build where you're a walking god and don't have to worry about damage anymore.

[QuiJon]

22 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I recall very recently (maybe 1 or 2 weeks ago) the devs talking about the aggro cap. They said they could raise it or remove it but (and I'm somewhat paraphrasing here) they'd only do it if they could change the AI to stop clustering and instead run away and shoot if to many of their allies are close together and would turn and attack someone else...

 

...basically, they aren't going to do it unless they can make the AI not so dumb and manipulatable. 

Well the thing there is I don't see how this makes a difference. I mean if an enemy runs into to attack melee or uses ranged attacks are still just attacks no matter what. The only difference is in the type of defense the powers work against. And if that alone is the issue then you are really taking about making sure enemies have a diverse attack palette more so then if they run into melee or stay ranged. A enemy shooting at me with a gun is still going against range defense even if he is in melee range. 

 

And over all I am not saying I want powers or the targeting caps changed at all. So even if the mobs all clustered on me playing solo, if my AOEs have a cap of 10 targets I am only hitting 10 targets no matter if I am surrounded by 15 enemies or 50.  However with 50 enemies attacking me, chances my defenses can be overcome go up dramatically. Look I just feel it is really kind of stupid that I can take a brute into a mob of 4 different spawns and only X number of them will attack me at a time. Which happens to seemingly not be able to overcome by defenses. As I kill each enemy off a new one will join into the attacks form the ones that had just been standing around me doing nothing beause I was agro capped, so I never really have enough enemies attacking me to threaten my defeat, even though they are all standing right there 20 feet away. It feels like a really bad Kung-Fu movie where all the enemies are surrounding a hero and the ones behind the guy wait for their turn in the choreography to attack instead of sucker punching the hero from  behind. And I feel like taking out the cap means that we just might have to stop and look into that next room again before just bursting through the door way knowing nothing is gonna take you out cause the game mechanics just outright prevent it from happening. 

[Sailboat]

47 minutes ago, Klaleara said:

As a squishy, I hate the aggro caps.  Even in normal content, I find myself fleeing across the map, trying not to die, because the tank literally can't even taunt them off me.

 

Aggro cap is one of the few things I currently VERY much dislike in CoX.

As a squishy, I very much love the aggro caps, which saved the game from being only about "One Tanker or Brute and, uh, I guess someone with Build Up."

[Klaleara]

Just now, Sailboat said:

As a squishy, I very much love the aggro caps, which saved the game from being only about "One Tanker or Brute and, uh, I guess someone with Build Up."

We on a disagreement there then.  I've got PLENTY to do as a MM.  But if we aggro 1 too many groups, I'm mostly just focusing on surviving, and not doing damage like I should be.

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

The suggested change does not solve this "problem."  It just makes the (same) outcome come quicker/more efficiently.

I feel it helps to. Part of the reason why this is capable of happening is because damage doesn't flow in fast enough to overcome the levels of mitigation with can obtain today. Think about it this way, a tanker with 90 percent resistance to a damage type runs into a room that has 50 enemies in it. But only 15 of those enemies attack him at any given time because of an agro cap. He is taking only 10 percent of that damage. However he runs into the same room and all 50 attack at once, he might still only take 10 percent of the damage, but it is from all 50 attacking at one time and in group, not from a managed capped set number of enemies. So in that case he would be taking 3x+ as much damage at a time. 

 

3 minutes ago, Sailboat said:

As a squishy, I very much love the aggro caps, which saved the game from being only about "One Tanker or Brute and, uh, I guess someone with Build Up."

Taking off the ability to simply agro a enemy into a fight is a lot different then being able to taunt them to a target. I am not saying to remove the targeting caps on powers like taunt or powers that punchvoke. I am simply asking that when we move into a area to fight that ALL the enemies in the area that are within perception range to notice the fight, respond to the battle. If anything this should cause any given fight on team to have more enemies that are engaged in battle but not taunted or punchvoked at any given time because enemies are not simply responding to a tank or a  aura to become engaged when their turn comes along. 

[Leogunner]

7 minutes ago, Sailboat said:

As a squishy, I very much love the aggro caps, which saved the game from being only about "One Tanker or Brute and, uh, I guess someone with Build Up."

This guy gets it. 

They don't want to raise the aggro cap because with runaway survivability, it just makes it that much easier for those that can withstand the aggro to keep it and removing the danger that such a situation should present for when whole team. 

 

Unless we can program the AI to send someone to your house to take your wife and kids hostage and threaten to kill them unless you toggle on Rest, the next best thing is making your squishies vulnerable if you over aggro. 

[Sailboat]

12 minutes ago, Klaleara said:

We on a disagreement there then.  I've got PLENTY to do as a MM.  But if we aggro 1 too many groups, I'm mostly just focusing on surviving, and not doing damage like I should be.

But  you wouldn't have plenty to do in the old days -- you would have been peremptorily ORDERED to stand in the corner and not interfere while the Tanker herded everything into a ball.  Everyone but the Tanker (and only one of those per team!) and one or perhaps two Blasters was treated as a barely-tolerated groupie, if not outright derided as useless.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Sailboat

[Klaleara]

Just now, Sailboat said:

But  you wouldn't have plenty to do in the old days -- you would have been peremptorily ORDERED to stand in the corner and not interfere while the Tanker herded everything into a ball.  Everyone but the Tanker (and only one of those per team!) and one or perhaps two Blasters was treated as a barely-tolerated groupie, if not outright derided as useless.

In a farm mission?  Sure.  That is still the case though lol.

 

In a regular mission team, no that wasn't the case, ever.  Unless you were stuck on some crap server that forced their way of thinking on you.  Maybe Infinity was a godsend, idk.

[Sailboat]

7 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Taking off the ability to simply agro a enemy into a fight is a lot different then being able to taunt them to a target. I am not saying to remove the targeting caps on powers like taunt or powers that punchvoke. I am simply asking that when we move into a area to fight that ALL the enemies in the area that are within perception range to notice the fight, respond to the battle. If anything this should cause any given fight on team to have more enemies that are engaged in battle but not taunted or punchvoked at any given time because enemies are not simply responding to a tank or a  aura to become engaged when their turn comes along. 

If I am understanding you correctly, I think you're talking about increasing enemy perception ranges, not the aggro cap, which as I understand it refers to the number of enemies any one player, such as the tank, can be attacked by and hold the attention of.  Maybe we're talking apples and oranges here?

[Sailboat]

1 minute ago, Klaleara said:

In a farm mission?  Sure.  That is still the case though lol.

 

In a regular mission team, no that wasn't the case, ever.  Unless you were stuck on some crap server that forced their way of thinking on you.  Maybe Infinity was a godsend, idk.

Yes it was, consistently.  The forums and global chat included a lot of people making fun of Defenders and Controllers as useless.  Across all servers.  Regular content.  Also, the unlimited aggro cap kind of made all content into farming.

[Klaleara]

1 minute ago, Sailboat said:

Yes it was, consistently.  The forums and global chat included a lot of people making fun of Defenders and Controllers as useless.  Across all servers.  Regular content.  Also, the unlimited aggro cap kind of made all content into farming.

Thats funny, cause I remember Fire Controllers being the gods of farming when they implemented the leashed enemies.

 

Also I wouldn't say across all servers, cause definitely not mine.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Klaleara

[ShardWarrior]

10 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Part of the reason why this is capable of happening is because damage doesn't flow in fast enough to overcome the levels of mitigation with can obtain today.

Increasing the aggro cap will not alleviate this.  I cannot speak for everyone, however my /SR scrapper I was running last night was not getting hit in any of the missions I was playing.  It would not matter if the aggro cap was 10 or 20 or 100.  She still would not be getting hit often enough to make a difference.   Any tanker worth their salt is going to have similar results. 

[Burnt Toast]

No thanks. This has been brought up numerous times and I have yet to see a legitimate reason to support such an idea. 

[NNDeepdish]

2 hours ago, NNDeepdish said:

Just feels like another increase difficulty thread in the guise of aggro caps. Again, there are other servers out there that have had the aggro caps removed. I see no need to mess with homecoming.

Hard No.

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[quixoteprog]

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[Haijinx]

/jranger