We’re all thinking about tanking at the moment. Does the future contain tanks? And if it doesn’t, is there anything left beyond “lol we al jus DPS”?
Is the future of MMOs an endless hell of mid-60s just-post-Wrath instances with 5 auto-healing, overpowered Death Knights?
Not at all.
Tanking as a mechanic, as Ben Sanders said yesterday , evolved in response to the earliest MMOs’ very simple AI, and the problem of not having clothies die instantly. Buncha monsters? Guy in a dress? What’s to stop them attacking him?
Well, we could implement collision detection, but that’s Hard. Or we could just give another party member the ability to change the monsters’ AI so that they only attack him or her.
And so the tank was born.
But there are a lot of other solutions to the “why doesn’t the clothie die instantly?” question, taken from other computer games, pen-and-paper roleplaying, and even practical experience with real swords. Here are four visions of the future of tanking that doesn’t look a lot like our current “Oy! Ya momma smells like cheese!” model, and frankly, could be a lot cooler…
Shove past the plate
A Live-Action Roleplaying or r
e-enactment fight goes a lot like this: Two lines of fighters look at each other cautiously. There’s guys with swords and shields at the front, guys with two-handed swords or spears behind them, and either archers or, if you’re in a fantasy setting, guys in cloth with big books at the back. There might be the odd guy in the brush skulking around too, but unless you’re good at that role, it’s a fast path to a long lie-down.
And then… CHARGE! Or, more usually, cautious shuffle. There’s no way you’re getting to the guys at the back, because the guys at the front are physically in the way. And trying to close fast on anyone who’s supported by a pike or a two-hander is another good way to get a nice lie-down. Instead, you’ve got to rely on your own mages/archers to open up a breach (a well-timed Fear spell can do wonders), superior combat skills (if you can take one or two of the armour-clad people down you can break through the line and go crazy with an axe amongst the guys in light armour), or occasionally a crazed charge.
In computer games, of course, there are a bunch of well-known problems with enabling collision detection, mostly to do with douchebags blocking the door to the Auction House. But those are solvable problems – possibly solvable with a “shove past” mechanic – and once you enable physical blocking, you end up with a very interesting mechanic that can enable a lot of complex interactions.
Fighters desperately blocking doorways. Rogues taking the long, hidden route around to come up behind the enemy. Mages blasting the enemy back and opening a hole in the line for the fighters to charge through. Complex, interesting tactics.
Smart mobs mean smart PCs
“Right. I’ve scouted the next room, and we’re looking at half a dozen Orc barbarians – pretty dumb critters, they’ll just attack whatever’s nearest, so paladin, you stand at the front and keep them busy. We’ve got bigger problems, though – there’s a skirmisher there who’s going to try and circle round us, so our rogues need to be watching to counter that, and they’ve got a shaman in there with a big guy in armour who looks like a warlord. They’re going to attempt to take out the weakest member of our party, so – “
“Oh, god, not the dress again.”
“Yep, that’s right. Mage, grab a shield and a sword and try to look threatening. Warrior, get in the dress already and look like you’re casting something.”
There’s no threat in PvP, and yet plenty of people seem to enjoy it. So what would happen if we rewrote monster threat to incorporate varying levels of intelligence?
Well, for starters, we’d see a lot more variety in dungeons. No longer would it be the case that everything’s either going to run toward the closest thing or the thing that did the most damage. Instead, you’d have to learn how different monsters worked – dumb monsters would just attack the nearest thing, whilst smarter monsters might try to target weak enemies or healers, hit the highest damage dealers, mob single targets or charge forward to try and get through the lines. And players would have to use PvP-like tactics to counter them – stealth until the time is right, look like a class you’re not, protect and surround the weakest of your party, bait-and-switch the monsters with situations that look tempting but are dangerous.
From my point of view, that sounds pretty damn cool.
“You’re mine!”
The ogre stares at his opponents, confused – then a hole opens in the squishy humans’ group, and there’s a single human there, not wearing armour, with fire building up on its hands. He doesn’t notice the figure lurking in the shadows – instead, he growls a warcry, and charges at the weak, unarmoured creature.
He gets closer – closer – closer – and then the party’s rogue dives out of his hiding spot, slicing neatly at the ogre’s hamstrings as it charges past, ignoring him. It stumbles and falls – and the rest of the party dives upon the now-helpless creature. One down…
Dungeons And Dragons 4th Edition was heavily inspired by WoW, but didn’t want to take the “threat” mechanic across in its entirety. So the designers came up with what’s possibly its best mechanic – “Marking”.
Essentially, most melee classes have the ability to “mark” a target as theirs – focussing on it in combat. That means that they’re concentrating on it as their main opponent, and if it doesn’t concentrate on them, they can take advantage of that.
Provided that monster attacks them, it won’t be under any penalties – but if it attempts to change its focus and attack someone else, various Bad Things happen to it, from taking a bunch of Holy damage from the Paladin’s ability, to being stunned and unable to move if they’re trying to avoid a Warrior.I rather like this approach – it’s probably the most similar idea of the ones I’m suggesting here to the existing tank idea, but it makes a whole lot more sense. You’re not insulting a monster into attacking someone else – instead, you’re engaging them and taking advantage of any distraction. It also enables a lot of interesting tactical situations, from the horde of monsters (which ones do you mark?) to the creatures that will cheerfully take the damage if they manage to maneuver to attack your clothies.
The Merlin Effect
It’s 2016, and you’re playing a WoW SuperHeroic Dungeon. You’ve got a full party. One Shaman healer, a rogue, Druid and Death Knight DPS, and your tank, or as they’re known now, “controller” – the mage.
Combat starts, and the DPS charge in and start doing what they do best – spamming AOE damage abilities and, if the healer’s lucky, getting out of the fire. Three of the monsters, meanwhile, spot the guys in cloth at the back and charge toward them, cheerfully ignoring the Death Knight hacking away at their backsides. Strangely, the clothies don’t look too worried.
The mage spins around, and wind howls across the map. The creatures charging toward her are suddenly picked up and flung violently back to where they started charging. The rogue’s getting beaten down by the huge ogre he’s fighting – another spell goes off, and a blast of fire temporarily blinds the creature, allowing the rogue to get behind him and neatly fillet the ogre’s intestines.
Someone’s Done It Wrong, and a pile of adds come charging in from the back toward the party – the mage spins again, and a wall of stone tears away from the ground and blocks their path…
The other great idea from D&D 4th Edition is that of the “controller” class – a class that doesn’t do much damage, or healing, but simply messes with the battlefield and the opponents’ movement. Blasts of wind that knock opponents back or down, walls of elemental earth or fire, illusions that fake opponents into attacking where the party isn’t, the whole nine yards.
We’ve already got these abilities in the game to some extent – Warlocks, for example, can often solo two or three elites by creative use of Fear spells, and Druids and Mages can both root monsters in place. What if, rather than having a “tank” class, there was a class or several classes who had far, far more of these abilities? A tank would be pretty much unnecessary – with a skilled controller in your party, the monsters are only ever going to get in range of the people who you want them to be in range of.
Of the four ideas, this one’s probably my favourite. It’s a really interesting and different way to look at a mage, druid or shaman class – it feels powerful and interesting, and would certainly give the control freaks like me who like being in charge of the battlefield something to do. It allows the monsters to be as smart or as stupid as the game designers want, and unlike a tank class, it’s something that the monsters can have too – an enemy Controller would make for a really interesting fight.
Plus, we’d get the chance to see the mobs dodge out of the way of our fire for a change.
What do you think? Any oideas for the future of tanking? Do any of these visions grab you, or can you think of something even cooler?
Images from http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/249140-Who-s-going-to-Icon-2010, http://elementz1.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=45474536, http://www.dalakora.com/?page_id=120, and http://www.cpvipers.co.uk/larp.php
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
These are good examples for how a MMORPG should be played. Of course, this doesn’t work with LFG random heroics
And even if it did work with LFD, or developers were willing to give up the ‘random people have fun and never see each other again gameplay’, even then, the real challenge would be in the detail. To polish something like this until there are no bugs, the collision works 100% relaiable and the entire thing looks smooth. .. That’s something that costs a hell of a lot of money – and development time.
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Last time I played D&D (which was some time ago now), I loved the Stoneskin spell.
Some fantasy has sorcerors who are ‘perfect of body and mind’, and they can use their magic to enchance their body, to become the perfect fighter.
It’s quite reasonable to have a game where just because one is wearing cloth, doesnt mean you dont get to be hard.
I’m still waiting for a computer wargame substantially based on the D&D 4th edition; I read through the rule books, but didnt find anyone to play it with. It has some nice ideas for the tactical combat.
Hmm, second comment time.
One of the issues I have with world of warcraft all stems from threat.
Because of threat, and the lack of collision detection, we have tanks.
And then we have crazy overpowered bosses, who are only beatable because of their immense stupidity of only attacking the tank guy who keeps insulting them in some special way.
And because of that, these bosses can only be beaten in raids, and throughout the plot of the single player questing, will mysteriously spare you every encounter.
And the overall result, is that one doesnt get to play a hero. Any of the bosses could squish you in moments, except they play by these silly ‘threat’ rules, and only attack people who can take it.
I LOVE the idea of a controller class directing combat in this way! Makes far more sense than the current tank/threat model, and sounds wicked cool besides.
Ummm, that 2016 WoW Controller? That’s the ‘City of Heroes’ Archetype of the same name that been in there since launch
We started out as soloable only by masochists but able to almost completely trivialise teamplay (after they’d shaken the initial bugs out) by turning each and every spawn of mobs into a bunch statues or having them all fight each other, or our decoys and ignore the team. They had to put in a special anti-controller mechanic known as the ‘purple triangles of doom’ just to give dungeon end bosses a chance — a mechanic that’s problematic for the Dominator archetype who get the same control powers us controllers, but trade our buffing and/or enemy nerfing powers for attacks (in ‘City of’ that’s a very bad trade). Then they nerfed the duration of all our AoE control powers by 50%, doubled the cooldown time, and capped the number of targets at 16, at the same time as nerfing Tanker defense. In compensation we got an mechanic that which made us soloable by non-masochists. That was just before they nerfed power enhancements for everybody so you could only get a mere 100ish% boost rather 200ish%.
That got everybody nerfed down to the point where most characters on most archetypes at level 32+ would only be doing their solo missions on either the highest or second highest difficulty level at the time, rather than leveling by herding an entire map into a dumpster and pressing the ‘I win’ button causing the server to error out.
Of course they’ve put in additonal difficulty levels since then.
Oh, and there’s a reason most people skip fighting the Tsoo, with there teleporting, ally healing, accuracy nerfing, push your character around with s hurricane wind, Sorcerers; and love to hate the Knives of Artemis with there Caltrops,and the and the Circle’s Earth Casters with their Quicksand (and they had to nerf those so multiple quicksand patches didn’t stack) and Malta Sapper’s with their endurance drain.
And the standard spawn my Scrapper is mostly likely to be owned by is that one with two Carnival Master Illusionists hiding inside.
My Earth/Radiation/Fire Controller is still my first level 50, and still my funnest character to play.Hell of a lot of fun, rather challenging to fight unless you’re another controller, and hell of a pain to balance, even when the balance point is ‘Superhero’ rather than the weaklings you tend to get in fantasy games.
Not really a straight Tanker subsitute tho’ as we can’t generally take an Alpha Strike, although some of our pets can depending on the circumstances.
I would like to see a barbarian class. The only thing they have are tanking specs. for the most part. Have it a hero class. They have a spec that is more aoe tanking, a spec for single target tanking and a spec for kinds crappy dps so they can solo I guess. They don’t need armor or use it (well for looks only). Their rating can be based off of the weapons they have. Something that one takes care of the lack of tanks and make it different. Maybe something like improvised weapons like tables, chairs, rocks, adds that come out, like swinging a trog like a rag doll around or “disarming” a boss and whacking him with his own arm. What hasn’t fixed the random queues is the “special reward” granted at the end of tanking an instance. It gave us really crappy tanks and now we are back to the 40 minute + queue times unless you are tanking.
That or buff the hell out of DK tanking. At least on my server you don’t see that many in play anymore. Mainly because they aren’t “special” any more after all the nerfs. Hell with heirloom gear I can get a toon to 70 in no time and not much longer to 85. Why not have the next hero class be unlocked after so many achievement points instead of level and make it a special class…. yeah how do you avoid nerfing it to oblivian or making it too OP. Yeah yeah the ever major problem still OP is why its is special.
The field commander or controller is a great concept too however I see implementing it into combat might be difficult but it would be nice to be able to control player placement better when they don’t seem to catch a clue that stuff on the ground it typically a bad thing to be standing in.
In any case to change the threat model now while not impossible would basically make it a completely different type of game.
The controllers remind me of wizards from RO, I would really say this idea was applied in a couple of games and works – if not well, then not really worse than tanks. The tanks are a kind of controller too, after all, although a special kind that only works in PvE. (I’m not sure whether that’s a disadvantage or an advantage.)
However, I am not sure how well would they work. Despite all the shortcomings from story point of view, I think tanking is not a problem per se. Instead, the problem is the existence of high responsibility and low responsibility roles which will always lead to lack of players in the former. (There are two reasons, first most players want to relax while playing and high responsibility is not good for that, second is that people avoid doing things if they know that other people get a bigger award for the same work or same award for lesser work.) So solutions like DXMage’s will not help – after all, there is already a hero class that was brought to combat the lack of tanks in WoW (DKs) but it didn’t help much.
Another problem I can see is the asymmetry of PvE encounters. While both sides in PvP consist of a group of relatively weak characters, a PvE boss is strong – but alone. The advantage of tanks is that they enable the boss to be controlled but not in an overpowered fashion (which is why often CCs don’t work on bosses in MMOs) as they need other characters to support them in their efforts in controlling the boss. The physical method would work well but marking or CC will simply be overpowered. But maybe this just means that instead of tanks the games should seek to eliminate bosses.