Can We Get Rid of Aggro Cap?

[Snakebit]

10 hours ago, Haijinx said:

TBH I've been back since June.  I've never seen anyone yet take advantage of the current cap. 

 

Herding seems to be dead. 

 

 

I did a few runs of Creys herding back when. I had a fire fire blaster and with no aggro cap a blue and consume, it was kind of exhilarating to drop nuke an entire maps worth of spawns.

 

A couple of times. A few times I did it to clear permadebt but it sure fot old fast.

 

Then it turned into "wait here" every goddamn time you entered a mission.

 

It go to the point where I autoquit every team with or recruiting fire tanks, or as soon as someone said "herding". 

 

I think that under certain explicit circumstances having a central tank hold a position while an off tank or high survivability scrapper herds spawns back to the lead it makes for good tactical sense (death rooms), overall it's a drag on fun for everyone but the herder.

 

And I'm really glad its gone.

[Vayek2]

On 8/28/2019 at 9:19 PM, Redlynne said:

You're welcome to launch your own server(s) where that is true ...

Why is this asinine response repeated so often by so many people? This isn't actually contributing to the conversation, it just makes you look like a d-bag to everyone else.

[Vayek2]

On 8/29/2019 at 2:50 AM, Haijinx said:

TBH I've been back since June.  I've never seen anyone yet take advantage of the current cap. 

 

Herding seems to be dead. 

You haven't played with my group hahaha. We are constantly exceeding our aggro cap and the squishies on our teams suffer those consequences. And we can't even taunt that aggro off of our squishies in those instances, and they healers get stressed. So, now we try and juggle the taunts to share aggro cap and do a better job of keeping things off the squishies.

 

Hell, our kin now has built his corruptor with soft cap def so he worries less about getting mushed lol. I just off-taunt on my warshade to help out.

 

But yeah, we are CONSTANTLY exceeding our aggro caps on taskforces and such.

[Steampunkette]

So the reason you want the aggro cap lifted is because your group hasn't adapted to the aggro cap environment that existed for the majority of City of Heroes' lifetime?

 

Jeepers.

[PaxArcana]

29 minutes ago, Vayek2 said:

We are constantly exceeding our aggro cap

Stop trying to herd entire maps, then.

 

That is the exact behavior the aggro cap was intended to curtail.

[Vayek2]

1 minute ago, PaxArcana said:

Stop trying to herd entire maps, then.

 

That is the exact behavior the aggro cap was intended to curtail.

we aren't. a single task force at +4 x8 has rooms full of more than aggro cap for a single tank. That exceeds aggro cap, and still isnt trying to taunt the entire map

[justicebeliever]

13 minutes ago, Vayek2 said:

we aren't. a single task force at +4 x8 has rooms full of more than aggro cap for a single tank. That exceeds aggro cap, and still isnt trying to taunt the entire map

Maybe the room is full, but even on a 8 man team (or +8 if fewer than 8 on the team) a spawn won’t be larger than the aggro cap...Maybe slow down a little or mix in some pulling with the charging in?

 

There is a separate thread here on this topic...but the long and short, in the current world, the aggro cap is the same for all characters (regardless of AT), so changing it would mean trouble for non-tanky characters.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2019 by justicebeliever

[Vayek2]

1 minute ago, justicebeliever said:

Maybe the room is full, but even on a 8 man team (or +8 if fewer than 8 on the team) a spawn won’t be larger than the aggro cap...Maybe slow down a little or mix in some pulling with the charging in?

 

We do slow down. but outdoor maps like the second mission of the ITF after that first bridge. going slow makes absolutely no difference. There is easily twice the cap there. We handle it fine enough. but instance like that are what I was meaning. We aren't going to the far extreme of pulling the entire map, but we are still regularly exceeding the cap.

[Vayek2]

I get why they wont erase the aggro cap. I still am intrigued by the idea of getting rid of the cap, and adding a taunt/aggro range max to everything instead.

 

you cant pull the map if the max range is like 100m

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, Vayek2 said:

a single task force at +4 x8 has rooms full of [...]

Then don't try to herd the entire room at once.  Pull in what you can manage at once, and finish them = chew and swallow before taking the next bite.

 

59 minutes ago, Vayek2 said:

you cant pull the map if the max range is like 100m

... not all at once, no.  But Fire/Fire tanks used to race around entire maps, taunting everything, and drawing them all back to a single room.  While everyone else was required to stand by the mission door, and do nothing.

[ShardWarrior]

17 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

... not all at once, no.  But Fire/Fire tanks used to race around entire maps, taunting everything, and drawing them all back to a single room.  While everyone else was required to stand by the mission door, and do nothing.

While you're 100% correct that is what took place back in yesteryear, to be fair you certainly weren't required to do it.   The majority of teams I was on didn't do this - we actually enjoyed playing the content together and to be honest, even if we did do it, it got old for us real quick.  If I didn't feel like it and this was what a PUG wanted to do, I politely said "no thanks" and left the team.

[PaxArcana]

Oh sure, it wasn't required.

But far, far too many PUGs _did_ do it that way.  Especially the ones organized and led by a Fire Tank.

[ShardWarrior]

3 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

But far, far too many PUGs _did_ do it that way.  Especially the ones organized and led by a Fire Tank.

No argument there lol

[Vayek2]

why is everyone always going to place of worry about people exploiting things? No matter what happens, someone somewhere will ALWAYS find ways to exploit anything to their favor. So, it is actually pointless to make this the primary argument for not doing something. 

 

But, it doesn't really matter. aggro cap won't change, and the difficulty of the game likely won't be updated to any significant degree. Thanks everyone for teaching me about the aggro cap stuff. someone else mentioned the game server likely couldn't keep up with all the calculations of everyone pulling more aggro at once anyway. I mean, look at what happens during a hami raid or rikti mothership raid. Erasing aggro cap would lkely cause severe undue hardship on the servers.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, Vayek2 said:

we aren't. a single task force at +4 x8 has rooms full of more than aggro cap for a single tank. That exceeds aggro cap, and still isnt trying to taunt the entire map

 

To be honest, I think that you are making a great argument FOR aggro caps.

 

You see, there are several posts lamenting that at high level, Tanks and Controllers, who are specialized at defending the team, are not very useful. Partly because even the squishies can handle their own defenses solidly, and partly because a single Tank can hold aggro for enough mobs to reach the AoE target caps for most AoE powers. So is more than one Tank or more than one Controller at all useful for a team?

 

But when you get into situations where the team can aggro more mobs than one Tank can manage, then you start to see a need for multiple Tanks or more Controllers. IMO, this is a GOOD THING... at the high levels, damage and damage boosting (mostly through -Resist) are abilities that are so much more useful than team defense, that a feature of the game that rewards team defense ability is good. It gives defense-oriented ATs a useful role on the team.

[PaxArcana]

10 minutes ago, Vayek2 said:

why is everyone always going to place of worry about people exploiting things?

... because some of us witnessed map-herding exploits first-hand, back in the day ... behaviors that were the foundational reason why the aggro cap was instituted in the first place.

[Megajoule]

Like, we get it. You want your classic power fantasy. But the reason it was changed is that it was a lot less fun for everyone else on the team.

[Sailboat]

18 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Like, we get it. You want your classic power fantasy. But the reason it was changed is that it was a lot less fun for everyone else on the team.

Megajoule is correct.  Before the caps, every team was one Tanker, one AoE Blaster, who really only used his nuke, and whatever dead weight characters they deigned to allow to witness their glory.  Support, control, story, and adventure were all viewed as quaintly unnecessary.  Nobody else got to play except the Tank and the nuker.

 

Meanwhile of course the very idea that all of villaindom would crowd into a dumpster for easy disposal was ludicrous.  Mass herding was nothing more than a game mechanic, not a heroic adventure.

 

The aggro and target caps might not have been the only way to fix it, but they did fix it, allowing the game to consist of other people again.  Best thing that ever happened to the game, hands down.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 8/29/2019 at 10:31 AM, Megajoule said:

Good.

Better then good......ITS GREAT! Because seriously frell herding, frell tank and spank, frell corner pulling. All terribly boring ways to  play any game.

[MunkiLord]

When I'm playing I don't want a single tank or brute to hold all the aggro. I want some too, otherwise it's boring if there is no threat. I'd pay billions of influence for a taunt aura on my Blasters.

[Redlynne]

On 8/28/2019 at 10:19 PM, Redlynne said:

You're welcome to launch your own server(s) where that is true ...

 

11 hours ago, Vayek2 said:

Why is this asinine response repeated so often by so many people? This isn't actually contributing to the conversation, it just makes you look like a d-bag to everyone else.

Because YOU are trying to ruin OUR game to serve YOUR power trip/fantasy at OUR expense.

The solution to letting you do that without ruining OUR game is for you to ... /em drum roll please ... launch your own servers where you can do what you want.

No one is stopping you but you from launching your own server where there's no aggro cap and you can herd entire maps.

 

There's a reason why the aggro cap was put in place.

You don't agree with that reason (or even want to lend it credence).

Fine.

Go set up your own server(s) where you can have your way.

You'll still be allowed to play here, and post here ... but we'll still have the aggro cap in place because WE KNOW what happens without it.  We were THERE.  We SAW.

 

I for one remember seeing people herding ALL OF PEREZ PARK.

Your team would be waiting in one corner of the map ... and then suddenly you would see in the distance this SEA OF HUMANITY come POURING over every available bit of landscape ... hundreds (if not thousands!) of aggroed mobs, all chasing after the one aggro magnet, pulling them all the way across the map.  It looked like a storm surge (of inhumanity) cresting over every available bit of terrain.

It was INSANE.

It was STUPID.

 

And the ultimate expression of it was someone with a Fire Aura diving into a dumpster so a conga line of aggro could pour in and DIE SUICIDE IN A FIRE.

 

This is not up for debate.

There is no discussion to be had on this point.

 

It happened.

And if you take away the aggro cap, it will happen again.

You don't even need 20/20 hindsight to figure that one out.

 

So ... if you're determined to cling to your power trip/fantasy, there's an easy way to achieve your goal.

Launch your own server(s) and make it happen.

 

If you're unwilling to do that ... that's on YOU ... not on US.

 

Have a nice day. 😀

 

 

 

 

Oh and ... in case that wasn't clear enough for you ...

/jranger

[Captain Powerhouse]

Personally, the only reason I can see for an increased aggro cap (or removal) is increased challenge, but in this game, that rarely works in practice. It would be kinda interesting, though, if there was no aggro cap, but anyone that happens to have the aggro of more than 17 foes starts to take extra damage more often. Basically, the defense, elusiveness, and resist caps of anyone will start to gradually go down as soon as they go over 17 foes.

 

Now THAT would make things interesting and challenging. It's a shame we cant go back in time and implement such a thing instead of the aggro cap.

[Steampunkette]

6 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Personally, the only reason I can see for an increased aggro cap (or removal) is increased challenge, but in this game, that rarely works in practice. It would be kinda interesting, though, if there was no aggro cap, but anyone that happens to have the aggro of more than 17 foes starts to take extra damage more often. Basically, the defense, elusiveness, and resist caps of anyone will start to gradually go down as soon as they go over 17 foes.

 

Now THAT would make things interesting and challenging. It's a shame we cant go back in time and implement such a thing instead of the aggro cap.

"Mobbed Debuff"

Every enemy that swings at a player adds 1 stack of the "Mobbed" Debuff. This power does not stack from the same source, but can stack from multiple sources. Each stack adds an equal quantity of +Res and -Res, +Def and -Def, +Elusivity and -Elusivity, all of which are unresistable and ignore all buffs and debuffs. The Buff portion stacks up to 17 times, the Debuff portion has no maximum stacking. The Debuff is hidden from the player's bar, but shows in Real Numbers.

 

You now have an implementation for your idea. Characters get +X-X to all their mitigation which stacks 17 times, and as soon as the 18th character lands a hit they only get the -X and start taking on penalties. Make the debuff last 10 seconds with each attack refreshing all stacks whether it hits or not.

 

Then you just have to decide how many enemies you want players to be able to 'safely' aggro at a time (Able to keep their mitigation at a reasonable degree) and modify the values accordingly. Don't want players herding more than 30? Throw a 1% unresistable Defense Debuff and a 2% unresistable Res Debuff for every NPC over 17. At 30 that's -13% defense and -26% resistance (Enough to push a tank lower than Squishycap for Resistance if they were capped to begin with)

 

Actually you may need to split this into 2 powers. The Mobbed Buff and the Mobbed Debuff. Same basic principle, though, with the Mobbed Buff only stacking 17 times while the Debuff stacks infinitely and all mobs applying both every time they swing, hit or miss.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Steampunkette

[GM Sijin]

I heard you were looking for a challenge. Try soloing that ITF at +4x8 with this setup. Hint: You can't. These settings would destroy most PuGs even in easier arcs at +4.

 

 

(And yes I know the ask is to bring the challenge up to the level of the player power not the other way around, I'm just feeling snarkastic.)

[GM Miss]

I used to herd the majority of Creys back in the day - it was insane.