Raise Argro Cap!

[SuperPlyx]

Always interesting when this get it's monthly suggestion. Reminds me of how differently we play this game.

[MTeague]

22 minutes ago, parabola said:

Ah, but that's a different problem entirely. Believe me I feel your pain. I was ranting about this the other day; people running off to engage a new pile of minions because they can't be bothered to stay and clear the bosses is the scourge of the modern game. Increasing the aggro cap likely wouldn't do much to combat this, the bosses would soon lose interest in the tank who has run off over there, and would turn their attention to the juicy squishy support types trying to tickle them to death.

And then people would be moaning that Defeat All mission has stray mobs left behind they have to go and get, what an operatic tragedy it is that they have to run around the map to find the mobs they couldn't be bothered to stay and kill before. 

 

Though I am somewhat salty after fighting with code that Is Bad And Should Feel Bad all day long. 

[AerialAssault]

40 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Oh, we can deal with them...but at a much slower pace and we end up getting left behind to run clean up. That is the issue with having an aggro/taunt limit that is so low the Tank can't even hold the aggro of everything that ends up getting aggroed by the team.

I think the issue is the Tank leaving stragglers behind, and not a games design flaw.

 

We'll just have to file this under "difference of opinion" because on a personal level, I don't mind picking off stragglers, unless the Tank is leaving behind big blobs of Bosses. I was never around for the map herding days but to me that sounds really dull, boring & not engaging at all. 

[krj12]

I wouldn't mind an moderate aggro cap increase for my solo farmers,  but I can live without it.  I definitely don't want a return to the days of the tank herding an entire map.

[Solarverse]

27 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

I think the issue is the Tank leaving stragglers behind, and not a games design flaw.

 

 

We can't fix players, but we can fix mechanics, heh.

27 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

 

We'll just have to file this under "difference of opinion" because on a personal level, I don't mind picking off stragglers, unless the Tank is leaving behind big blobs of Bosses.

 

We need a thumbs up button, heh. I would thumbs this up if we did.

27 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

I was never around for the map herding days but to me that sounds really dull, boring & not engaging at all. 

Trust me, it could get pretty intense, some of the most intense gaming I have ever done as any class in game since this game came out. The only more engaging and intense gaming I have done was PvP. The only time it was boring, was the "wait here" part and if the Tank was insanely good. But once the action got started, it was extremely intense.

[tidge]

While I miss the days of bringing islands of Rikti Monkeys to Portal Court, I am fine with the aggro cap as is. I will note that I am an 'active tanker', relying more on Taunts and changing targets than relying on Auras to control aggro.

 

I admit to have a personality flaw where I don't understand if a tank 'leaving bosses behind' to be cleaned up is a good thing or a bad thing. Generally I'm of the mind that for 90%+ of the content the DPS classes should be able to take care of the bosses. If a team doesn't have DPS, by all means a Tank should stay close to the team. Otherwise a Tank collecting a group of enemies for AoE (not a whole map, just a spawn) and holding aggro for that spawn seems like a better use of a Tank's time. Eventually a teammate is going to throw an AoE (attack, control) that will draw more attention than desired.

 

I will also admit I don't see why I'd want a game that had a different aggro cap for Tankers than for other ATs, unless the job of the tank is to be the panic button for other ATs that get in over their head.

[MTeague]

17 minutes ago, tidge said:

I admit to have a personality flaw where I don't understand if a tank 'leaving bosses behind' to be cleaned up is a good thing or a bad thing. Generally I'm of the mind that for 90%+ of the content the DPS classes should be able to take care of the bosses. If a team doesn't have DPS, by all means a Tank should stay close to the team. Otherwise a Tank collecting a group of enemies for AoE (not a whole map, just a spawn) and holding aggro for that spawn seems like a better use of a Tank's time. Eventually a teammate is going to throw an AoE (attack, control) that will draw more attention than desired.

When I play Tank my default is "Soak the Alpha strike and any successive strikes until things are a) good and pissed at me, AND b) starting to get very hurt.  Then, run off in search of the next pack, let DPS mop up the rest."  A few mobs will chase me and DPS will just shoot them in the back / stab them on the run as they follow.  That seems to be what most groups want from a tank these days.  Or at least, what most groups that I've found myself in, on Excelsior, have seemed to want. 

 

That said, I've got zero problems changing how I handle things upon request / if the group seems struggling.  If the squishies are taking too much pain during mop-up, I'll stay longer.  If it's really bad, I'd even to the point where I wait for everything to be fully dead if I move on.  That's almost never needed, but my first job is "Meat Shield", not "Keep Pulling Moar!".

 

And of course some missions require much more aggro control than others.  A generic council mission is one thing.  "Defend The Midnight Mansion" is *quite* another thing entire.

[Solarverse]

24 minutes ago, tidge said:

While I miss the days of bringing islands of Rikti Monkeys to Portal Court, I am fine with the aggro cap as is. I will note that I am an 'active tanker', relying more on Taunts and changing targets than relying on Auras to control aggro.

 

I admit to have a personality flaw where I don't understand if a tank 'leaving bosses behind' to be cleaned up is a good thing or a bad thing. Generally I'm of the mind that for 90%+ of the content the DPS classes should be able to take care of the bosses. If a team doesn't have DPS, by all means a Tank should stay close to the team. Otherwise a Tank collecting a group of enemies for AoE (not a whole map, just a spawn) and holding aggro for that spawn seems like a better use of a Tank's time. Eventually a teammate is going to throw an AoE (attack, control) that will draw more attention than desired.

 

I will also admit I don't see why I'd want a game that had a different aggro cap for Tankers than for other ATs, unless the job of the tank is to be the panic button for other ATs that get in over their head.

I think the problem stems with DPS who try and beat the Tank to the next mob, or...DPS that are right up in the Tank's bum. Which typically leaves the support classes behind to do clean-up.

[Neogumbercules]

My opinions might not be healthy because I don't reeeeaaallly give a shit about trying to maintain some sorely outdated notion of balance in this game anymore (I just want weak stuff buffed up and useless abilities made useful and un-fun powers made more fun). That said, I think you could remove the aggro cap completely on this server and it would barely change the way people play this game.

 

Anyone who thinks tanks would be herding maps again to PL has never stepped foot in an AE farm. First off the target caps would still be a limiting factor and secondly the setup speed and convenience of running 125 is just so far and away better than any other possible form of farming.

 

Now if you told me it would severely damage server performance then I'm okay with leaving it as is. 

[Number Six]

5 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Just for Tanks though? What the Homecoming Devs told me in another thread that I had started a while back, that there is no way to raise the aggro cap for Tanks without raising the cap for all classes.

Not sure who you talked to but like a year ago when this came up I said that it's easy to do (if you want to do hardcoded hacks anyway), but that we didn't think it was a good idea for game balance and weren't planning to do it.

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

I think the problem stems with DPS who try and beat the Tank to the next mob, or...DPS that are right up in the Tank's bum. Which typically leaves the support classes behind to do clean-up.

I think the problem is entirely independent of AT, playstyle, or team role, and is just people needing to learn to play, that is, learning that the game plays better when the team sticks together in most cases.

[skoryy]

21 hours ago, Troo said:

An increasing number of odd '1 post' topics showing up lately.

 

Tomorrow is September 1st, isn't it?

[Solarverse]

35 minutes ago, Number Six said:

Not sure who you talked to but like a year ago when this came up I said that it's easy to do (if you want to do hardcoded hacks anyway), but that we didn't think it was a good idea for game balance and weren't planning to do it.

I read it here. Unless I read it the way I wanted to read it (which I do this a lot, so very well possible) it was stated in the way I remembered it. It just wasn't stated in a thread I created but rather one I had posted in.

 

 

[Troo]

I feel like you've all been trolled

 

[Edit]

'Trolled' shall hence forth be known as, KaPlow'd..

(in my brain at least)

The villain Kaplow is off contriving a scheme for victims #24

Edited September 1, 2020 by Troo

[Sakura Tenshi]

I'm a little on the fence myself, especially if we look at it from a difficulty standpoint.

 

One one hand, a removed aggro cap would mean a tank (or any other AT for that matter) must be more mindful of their pulls as the lack of an aggro cap means it's now possible to be overwhelmed ever beyond what their defenses and support might be able to manage, forcing them to stop and think about how they want to deal with a clustered mob in a room with crappy mob spacing. (Like Tech lab death halls)

 

On the otherhand, an aggro cap also serves as a difficulty aspect because it means the beefier teammates need to be a bit more mindful about how much they can hold the attention of the mobs they get (especially brutes and scrappers for their lower AoE caps) or else the aggro is going to spill over the teammates who might not be able to handle the inevitable overflow of a super big pull.

[Bionic_Flea]

I think increasing the aggro cap a bit would be OK.  Maybe even desirable.  Eliminating the aggro cap is a bad idea.

 

[SwitchFade]

On 8/30/2020 at 7:51 PM, Kaplow23 said:

It's pretty easy to spot that not a lot of people play tanks anymore. With the argro cap being so small it gives access to Scrappers and Brutes to tank as well. Something needs to be done so Tanks are useful again!

No.

[aethereal]

For people saying that the aggro cap should be higher but not eliminated, what are the beneficial effects that you expect to see from this?

 

Like, let's say aggro cap is 30 instead of 17.  What does that get us?  In terms of first-order effects, not your expectations about the changes of behavior of teams (that is, not about whether people would or would not start to herd).

 

Farming is easier.

 

It becomes possible to get yourself in more trouble while soloing if you accidentally aggro multiple spawns.

 

It becomes less possible to get yourself in trouble while grouping if you accidentally aggro multiple spawns.

 

People I guess feel mildly better about the in-world plausibility of NPC mob actions.

 

Is there something else that people expect to happen?

[Solarverse]

@aethereal I was on a Hess team the other day on +3, I can assure if the aggro limit were increased, there would have been some team wipes instead of the occasional death. I miss team wipes.  😞

[aethereal]

5 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

@aethereal I was on a Hess team the other day on +3, I can assure if the aggro limit were increased, there would have been some team wipes instead of the occasional death. I miss team wipes.  😞

Why do you think that?  You had a situation where 17 people were attacking your tank/brute and 13 people were attacking less durable characters, and that led to an occasional death, but you think that 30 people attacking the tank would have led to a wipe?  What is the mechanism that you imagine would cause this?

[siolfir]

Relevant posts:

 

 

It wasn't a year ago (which matters if you were looking for it), but otherwise matches what @Number Six said earlier in the thread.

 

Of particular note is @Captain Powerhouse stating that if it was immediately available he wouldn't use it and that if the cap was changed on a per-AT basis, the aggro cap for anyone not a Tanker would go down, rather than anyone getting an increase above the current limit. This one's a pretty cut-and-dried "hell no" by the devs.

[Number Six]

2 minutes ago, siolfir said:

It wasn't a year ago (which matters if you were looking for it), but otherwise matches what @Number Six said earlier in the thread.

Wow, it sure feels like it. The 2020 time dilation field is in full effect.

[Nerio72]

18 minutes ago, Number Six said:

Wow, it sure feels like it. The 2020 time dilation field is in full effect.

This year has been the longest decade ever.

[MTeague]

[Haijinx]

3 hours ago, Solarverse said:

@aethereal I was on a Hess team the other day on +3, I can assure if the aggro limit were increased, there would have been some team wipes instead of the occasional death. I miss team wipes.  😞

Why would there be a wipe with a larger cap?  

 

In my line of thinking the fact Tankers can hold so many Mobs in aggro is one way where COH is too safe.  

 

I'd like the mob to decide to go for an easy target every now and then.

 

=====

Id like Tankers to be able to PULL 50 Mobs.  Preferably not on purpose.   But only Hold Aggro on like 17  ...   

 

THEN there would be wipes.

 

=====

I'd like the mobs that are in LOS standing 50 meters away not just to stand there while you are beating up all their friends.  

 

I'd like mobs to be able to hear/call buddies from a reasonable distance. 

 

I'd like them to set up huge ambushes when you get off the elevator.  "Sam called and Some idiots are coming up!  Get ready boys ..." 

 

I'd like 4 person teams to require at least one Tanker/Brute/Controller or Dominator to handle Aggro   

I'd like 8 person teams to need TWO of the above plus at least 2 support (secondaries ok)