Aggro limit change request

[Solarverse]

Pre i6 (I think) the aggro limit was limitless. However, although not all were bothered by this, there were some players who felt this was causing serious issues due to Fire Tanks herding entire maps, pulling every NPC on that map to a small corner, and Burning the NPC's down. This was extreme. The Developers heard the cries of the vocal, and implemented a change that was equally extreme, just in the reverse of the original extreme.

 

The game went from one ridiculous to another ridiculous. On one end, whole maps were being herded and farmed (not much different than how players now farm AE missions today) to an extreme end, and now on the other hand, with the new aggro limitations in place, we get one group of NPCs fighting us, while the other group who stands right next to us, just stand there...oblivious to the fact that we are beating down their buddies.

 

Before the change was made, the NPC's had a certain realistic feel to them, because if they were within range of you, they were going to attack you, regardless of how many NPC's you have on you. The game had a bit more risk involved, you had to be smart to move out of the way of patrols, or not let the fight get too far away from a controlled location.

 

Now, you have NPCs literally standing 2 feet away from you, doing nothing, while you are smashing the socks off of their buddies and rumbling the building with a hail of powers.

 

My suggestion is that we increase the limit on aggro. We don't increase the limit to a point that we get back to the original extreme, but we increase the limit from 17 enemies, to 30. This allows a group to have the attention of 2 mobs (in case mob two gets aggroed) and a pathing mob. This also brings back that realism the game once had but has lost, without turning it to the ridiculous herding craze it once was.

[_NOPE_]

/JRanger

[Redlynne]

Downvoted.

AGAIN.

 

Because the message wasn't received the first time ...

[Super Homer]

Pre i6 (I think) the aggro limit was limitless. However, although not all were bothered by this, there were some players who felt this was causing serious issues due to Fire Tanks herding entire maps, pulling every NPC on that map to a small corner, and Burning the NPC's down.

 

You mean, other than the players and developers that didn't like that the servers were being crippled by this?

 

On one end, whole maps were being herded and farmed (not much different than how players now farm AE missions today)

 

And again, the people hosting the server are screaming about the resource hog!

 

My suggestion is that we increase the limit on aggro. We don't increase the limit to a point that we get back to the original extreme, but we increase the limit from 17 enemies, to 30. This allows a group to have the attention of 2 mobs (in case mob two gets aggroed) and a pathing mob. This also brings back that realism the game once had but has lost, without turning it to the ridiculous herding craze it once was.

 

Since you say "group", the agro cap does not apply to groups, but individual characters. 8 players can each have up to 17 mobs on them. That's 136 critters. 8 tanks or brutes should be able to pull 136 critters to a center location for everyone to go crazy on them.

 

And pets also count, if these were 8 MMs, in theory, we would be talking 6 pets + MM * 8 = 56 targets for the AI to focus on, so up to 952 critters (mind you, the pets will likely die fast.)

 

The change can be weird when a single player is trying to get the hate of many critters, and the 18th and 19th sit there doing nothing, but should there be any other viable target, those guys will just turn and attack them instead.

[Sniktch]

Pre i6 (I think) the aggro limit was limitless. However, although not all were bothered by this, there were some players who felt this was causing serious issues due to Fire Tanks herding entire maps, pulling every NPC on that map to a small corner, and Burning the NPC's down.

 

You mean, other than the players and developers that didn't like that the servers were being crippled by this?

 

On one end, whole maps were being herded and farmed (not much different than how players now farm AE missions today)

 

And again, the people hosting the server are screaming about the resource hog!

 

My suggestion is that we increase the limit on aggro. We don't increase the limit to a point that we get back to the original extreme, but we increase the limit from 17 enemies, to 30. This allows a group to have the attention of 2 mobs (in case mob two gets aggroed) and a pathing mob. This also brings back that realism the game once had but has lost, without turning it to the ridiculous herding craze it once was.

 

Since you say "group", the agro cap does not apply to groups, but individual characters. 8 players can each have up to 17 mobs on them. That's 136 critters. 8 tanks or brutes should be able to pull 136 critters to a center location for everyone to go crazy on them.

 

And pets also count, if these were 8 MMs, in theory, we would be talking 6 pets + MM * 8 = 56 targets for the AI to focus on, so up to 952 critters (mind you, the pets will likely die fast.)

 

The change can be weird when a single player is trying to get the hate of many critters, and the 18th and 19th sit there doing nothing, but should there be any other viable target, those guys will just turn and attack them instead.

 

All of this.  Please note, excessive number of active AIs on max-efficiency AE farm maps is why AE now has a 50% XP rate - to severely de-incentivize one person using up a whole server core on their own.  The aggro cap wasn't just to slow down PLing, it had a mechanical purpose.

[Rylas]

Before the change was made, the NPC's had a certain realistic feel to them

 

People really need to tread carefully when talking about what's realistic in a game with super powers.

 

How realistic is it for a map's worth of enemies that keep trying to kill a tank that won't die while other players actively try to kill them? The whole concept of unquestionable aggro is completely unrealistic to begin with. Imagine having the stupidity to keep punching someone who you can't hurt while someone else is setting you on fire. Are you telling me you'd realistically keep punching away in futility?

[justicebeliever]

/JRanger

 

I don't understand - what does /JRanger mean?

[_NOPE_]

/JRanger

 

I don't understand - what does /JRanger mean?

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki//jranger

[Super Homer]

Imagine having the stupidity to keep punching someone who you can't hurt while someone else is setting you on fire. Are you telling me you'd realistically keep punching away in futility?

 

Cant stop imagining a bunch of people punching a burning building in an attempt to stop the fire...

[Solarverse]

Some of you took this very personally. I asked for a cap increase, not the old system back. And some of you took my post as an insult. That's on you, because I never intended it to be that way, in fact I even agreed that it was extreme. You folks need to relax and get off the high horse here. Your replies are borderline toxic. Toxic is not what this community is about and you most certainly do not represent this community with toxic replies. This community as a whole is a positive one. Coming at me the way some of you did was completely uncalled for. Relax, explain why you disagree, that si fine. However, let's tone down the attitude and stop taking this on a personal level. We all play the same game here. Some of us love it for different reasons, however, here we all are. Let's speak as though we are face to face and not as though we are behind computers. The disrespect here is showing. Let's not do this just because you disagree. That is not the type of community I wish to be a part of here. If I wanted that, I would go play WoW. Thank you.

[Solarverse]

/JRanger

 

And I am all too familiar with /JRanger, lol. That actually made me laugh because it brought back so many memories, thanks for that.  :D

[_NOPE_]

If you want more than a /JRanger, here you go:

 

Pre i6 (I think) the aggro limit was limitless. However, although not all were bothered by this, there were some players who felt this was causing serious issues due to Fire Tanks herding entire maps, pulling every NPC on that map to a small corner, and Burning the NPC's down. This was extreme. The Developers heard the cries of the vocal, and implemented a change that was equally extreme, just in the reverse of the original extreme.

 

The game went from one ridiculous to another ridiculous.

This is an opinion, and one that I do not share. I feel that the current aggro cap is the perfect level for "normal" gameplay. While Jack Emmert's "one hero = three minions" was wrong, I don't think that "one hero - 17 NPCs" is "extreme".

 

On one end, whole maps were being herded and farmed (not much different than how players now farm AE missions today) to an extreme end, and now on the other hand, with the new aggro limitations in place, we get one group of NPCs fighting us, while the other group who stands right next to us, just stand there...oblivious to the fact that we are beating down their buddies.

 

Before the change was made, the NPC's had a certain realistic feel to them, because if they were within range of you, they were going to attack you, regardless of how many NPC's you have on you. The game had a bit more risk involved, you had to be smart to move out of the way of patrols, or not let the fight get too far away from a controlled location.

 

Now, you have NPCs literally standing 2 feet away from you, doing nothing, while you are smashing the socks off of their buddies and rumbling the building with a hail of powers.

As someone else mentioned above, talking about realism... in THIS game... is a fruitless endeavor where people will argue to the end of time while never coming to a satisfactory conclusion, so I'm not going to even jump into THAT discussion.

 

My suggestion is that we increase the limit on aggro. We don't increase the limit to a point that we get back to the original extreme, but we increase the limit from 17 enemies, to 30. This allows a group to have the attention of 2 mobs (in case mob two gets aggroed) and a pathing mob. This also brings back that realism the game once had but has lost, without turning it to the ridiculous herding craze it once was.

And my suggestion is no, we don't need this. Because for "regular gameplay" (i.e. non-farming instances), I can perceive of no reason why you'd need to herd more than 17 enemies together at once. The "normal" game has a certain flow... attack a mob of grouped enemies, defeat them. Move onto the next one. This suggestion appears to me to only benefit herding for farming. And, since I'm not a farmer, I disagree with the need.

 

And as far as "toxicity", I'd say that calling the developers' decisions "extreme" and "unrealistic" feels toxic to me, and made me react with an immediate negative knee-jerk reaction, since I respect and admire all of the developers, past, present, and future, of this game.

[Solarverse]

If you want more than a /JRanger, here you go:

 

No, your /JRanger was an exception, at least it was funny, lol.

 

This is an opinion, and one that I do not share. I feel that the current aggro cap is the perfect level for "normal" gameplay. While Jack Emmert's "one hero = three minions" was wrong, I don't think that "one hero - 17 NPCs" is "extreme".

 

Trust me, I intend anything I write to only be as opinion unless I am speaking of facts. My opinion, although shared by many people I randomly speak to, is still just that, an opinion. How many share my opinion is unknown. I do not know if my opinion is justifiable or not, I leave that to the developers. And you made me cringe with the name Jack Emmert...that is a name we shall never speak of again.  ;)

 

 

 

As someone else mentioned above, talking about realism... in THIS game... is a fruitless endeavor where people will argue to the end of time while never coming to a satisfactory conclusion, so I'm not going to even jump into THAT discussion.

 

I agree. I was speaking more from personal perspective. It just feels wrong seeing enemies just stand there, oblivious to the fact that my team and I are destroying their pals, not even reacting to it at all. That was my only complain during live about the aggro change. It just feels wrong and doesn't make sense even on a fantasy make believe level.

 

 

And my suggestion is no, we don't need this. Because for "regular gameplay" (i.e. non-farming instances), I can perceive of no reason why you'd need to herd more than 17 enemies together at once. The "normal" game has a certain flow... attack a mob of grouped enemies, defeat them. Move onto the next one. This suggestion appears to me to only benefit herding for farming. And, since I'm not a farmer, I disagree with the need.

 

I am also not a farmer. In fact, you will never see any of my characters in an AE farm. I despise power leveling of any kind. Remember when they increased the ignore list on live, and shortly after increasing the max ignore list, they brought the game down for a hot fix? That was because I discovered a bug (even got the rare bug finder badge for this) that crashes any map you are on when ignoring a player once your ignore list is full again. I reported it to Positron and they brought down the servers and implemented a hot fix. I was under agreement to not disclose my bug find until after the server was brought back on line with the hot fix in place. The reason why I tell you this, is because I filled up my ignore list in a single day due to ignore anyone I seen begging to be power leveled in Broadcast in PI. So my reasons here for an aggro cap is very anti-herding and more about doing away with mobs just standing around when they should be fighting.

 

I did not mind that others farmed, that was on them. I did not mind that others power leveled...I just hated seeing players beg in broadcast. That is what bothered me. Trust me, my global is @Solarverse, and you can take to the bank that you will never see any of my characters power leveling or offer power leveling.

 

And as far as "toxicity", I'd say that calling the developers' decisions "extreme" and "unrealistic" feels toxic to me, and made me react with an immediate negative knee-jerk reaction, since I respect and admire all of the developers, past, present, and future, of this game.

 

To me, the change was extreme. It was not an attempt to be toxic, it was simply my opinion that the change was extreme. It was extreme watching Fire Tanks herd entire maps, and it is extreme seeing NPCs oblivious to your presence. It seems to me that there should be a happy medium. At least in my opinion. Also, I wouldn't *think* that a change such as this would be game breaking, since it still implies an aggro limit. One that would be useless for farming, but productive to game play...at least in the way I view it.

 

Thanks for touching base with me on this, very appreciated.

[Rylas]

Relax, explain why you disagree, that si fine. However, let's tone down the attitude and stop taking this on a personal level. We all play the same game here

 

I'm not sure if you thought my response wasn't being an explanation or not (certainly wasn't meant to be toxic), so I'll try expanding it further. In terms of being realistic, the current aggro cap seems about as much as one can hope for without becoming more unrealistic. Tanks and Brutes (and well funded Scrappers) are just too durable, even with 17 people trying to kill them. Why would so many foes keep trying to kill one unkillable person while other heroes/villains are doing way more to kill said foes?

 

But we're also talking about a game, so perhaps I should add a game focused reason as well. While I can't speak to developer intent with any real authority, I would consider it safe to say that they probably don't think anyone should be sitting around with zero challenge in the role their AT is meant for. Raising the aggro cap would make the tanking job way too easy. And that, in turn, makes other people's jobs unchallenged.

 

With a 17 aggro cap, I can't just sit on my haunches and ignore what my team mates are doing or what's happening to them. I can't have just one strategy for when the fecal matter hits the rotating blades. Do I let the controller handle some of the mob control while I keep a wayward group off the squishies? Do I need to start crowd hopping to buy team members some time, while the healers/buffers mend them up before jumping back? Do I egotistically play god and make some tough calls and decide who's gonna die so others can live? The current limit provides a strong challenge for large group tanking. What's a hero without a challenge?

[Super Homer]

I'm not sure if my reply also is considered to be classified toxic; if so this TLDR will also be considered toxic; but like I said:

 

The 17 cap is per player. An 8 man team actually has an aggro cap of 136 enemies.

[Solarverse]

 

I'm not sure if you thought my response wasn't being an explanation or not (certainly wasn't meant to be toxic), so I'll try expanding it further. In terms of being realistic, the current aggro cap seems about as much as one can hope for without becoming more unrealistic. Tanks and Brutes (and well funded Scrappers) are just too durable, even with 17 people trying to kill them. Why would so many foes keep trying to kill one unkillable person while other heroes/villains are doing way more to kill said foes?

 

I always considered taunt a mind control thing...after all, they do have an animation that pops around their heads when you taunt.  ;)

 

In all seriousness, one thing I ahve always given credit to with this game, is that this game actually made taunt work. Other game, taunt is always flawed and never sems to work properly, or you need to build enough damage to make the taunt noticeable.  This game did it right, they made Tanks just the way they were supposed to be. Low Damage, High Resistance/Defense and a very good method of holding aggro.

 

Also, we as players do the same thing. We fight hard to kill what we perceive to be the highest threat, IE Ruin Mages who has a crazy OP Force Bubble. So in this way of thinking, it makes sense why they would focus on the Tank.

 

But we're also talking about a game, so perhaps I should add a game focused reason as well. While I can't speak to developer intent with any real authority, I would consider it safe to say that they probably don't think anyone should be sitting around with zero challenge in the role their AT is meant for. Raising the aggro cap would make the tanking job way too easy. And that, in turn, makes other people's jobs unchallenged.

 

 

With a 17 aggro cap, I can't just sit on my haunches and ignore what my team mates are doing or what's happening to them. I can't have just one strategy for when the fecal matter hits the rotating blades. Do I let the controller handle some of the mob control while I keep a wayward group off the squishies? Do I need to start crowd hopping to buy team members some time, while the healers/buffers mend them up before jumping back? Do I egotistically play god and make some tough calls and decide who's gonna die so others can live? The current limit provides a strong challenge for large group tanking. What's a hero without a challenge?

 

 

Most of what you said here I can agree with this. However, you could also say raising the aggro cap could have potential consequences for the team...as in team wipes.

 

I'm not hell bent on this request by any means. To me, it would just make better sense then NPC's standing around, right next to you, and looking clueless that you are even there. I can live with it, obviously, I am still playing the game, haha. It would however be a nice change though.

 

One thing you have to keep in mind when posting requests for change...nobody likes it. People dislike change. I remember when people came to the forums to request an aggro cap, people hammered on them and rip and roared because they felt as if it was fine as is. It seems any change request comes with a risk of being shut down. I don't mind being shut down, because most of my requests that I will make will either A: Be something almost everyone agrees with or B: Be a bit controversial. Either way, I am going to love this game...and am just glad we ALL have it back. I'm glad to be back. Feels good! Regardless if this request is warmly met or not.  ;)

 

 

[Primantis]

 

 

Also, we as players do the same thing. We fight hard to kill what we perceive to be the highest threat, IE Ruin Mages who has a crazy OP Force Bubble. So in this way of thinking, it makes sense why they would focus on the Tank.

 

 

 

I like to think of it as an "intimidation factor". Your typical tank would be large and imposing. Someone you'd want to attack because he is in your face, and hard to ignore. The wizard character next to him looks small, meager and easily ignorable. So they go after the big hulking tank. Little do they know the wizard is the one who packs the punch! While the tank just takes the beating and laughs.

 

Granted this is usually not the case in game. As tiny petite schoolgirls can be the tank, but I like to think that's the 'mechanics' behind MMO tanks as a whole. They're big, they're loud, they're shouting "yo momma jokes", and the enemies want them ded.

 

 

--

 

Edit- Word around the playground is aggro caps actually increase server load. Due to constant "Can I attack yet" queries being issued from mobs when you aggro more than 17 at once. No idea if this is true though.