Tanks, But No Tanks - Part I

One of the little things that's bugged me since I fiddled around in beta was the potential for all of the tank classes to become fairly solid offensive powerhouses while compromising relatively little of their "tankiness".

This may seem odd coming from Dark Age of Camelot, where heavy tanks soaked more damage and dealt more damage than light tanks and hybrids, but that game's design and balance (mostly with respect to the interrupt system and battlefield mobility) made this a bit of a different situation.

Early on, when gear was a little more sparse and itemization was filled with question marks, you could build a reasonably offensive tank, but the kit with which you could outfit yourself didn't really cater to that sort of build.

As time went on, however, gear improved, abilities were changed, and most of the melee dps classes received a bit of a "dial back" from their original power, either through actual adjustments or through adjustments to everyone else.

The two "perfect examples" of strong tanks in an offensive role nowadays are the Ironbreaker and the Chosen, though we can't forget that the Black Orc had its share of time in the sun (and may be making a bit of a comeback).

The Ironbreaker, via the Grudge system, assortment of utility abilities, ability to wield a great weapon (though this isn't a necessity), and ability to debuff for its damage is a highly capable damage dealer. The Chosen, via the aura system, assortment of utility abilities, ability to wield a great weapon, and ability to debuff for its own attacks, is also a highly capable damage dealer.

This normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, except that these two classes are often capable of reaching offensive potential in line with those classes who are designed to do melee dps, while retaining the ability to gear and spec defensively for PvE and PvP.

Part of the problem and reasoning behind this is that tanks really have no incentive to spec for a tanking role, because most players will simply ignore the tank and go after the more vulnerable targets (unlike mobs who have to deal with things like threat/hate). There is no reason for the average tank to play as a tank, so they don't play as a tank and instead spec for dps.

So, what's the fix? There are a few steps that I think would be necessary to give the ability to tanks to, well, tank, and some of them might require some heavy-handed pushing in the right direction. In my opinion, we need to:

A - Limit the number of tanks that can wield Great Weapons
A fundamental decision seems to have been made to give all tanks the option to wield a two-hander in addition to sword and board, presumably to give them the "you don't have to tank" option, like they gave healers a "you don't have to be a dedicated healer" option (ha).

The solution? Reduce the number of tanks that can wield Great Weapons. How much of a reduction? I'd be apt to drop this whole thing down to two tanks that wield Great Weapons -- Swordmasters, for obvious reasons, and Black Guards, for obvious reasons. You could make an argument for Black Orcs, but these would be my picks.

However, by the same token, these two classes should be allowed to wield only Great Weapons. Given that they are tanks, they probably need to be given some extra toys to allow them to "tank" with two-handed weapons (though as we all know, the Swordmaster is already there, and the Black Guard is pretty close).

Once we've limited ourselves to two tanks wielding Great Weapons, who will be our two offensive tanks, we can model them around the best designed offensive tank archetype in the game...

B - Model offensive tanks after the Black Guard, with some of the Swordmaster's defensive touches
I'm sure some of you are scratching your heads at this one, because the general consensus is that Ironbreakers Chosen the other guy's tanks are the "best offensive tank in the game". This is only true because these offensive tanks can put up huge numbers -- it does not mean they are the best designed.

So why is the Black Guard the best class to model ourselves after for an offensive tank?

First, the Black Guard has reasonable damage output thanks to the use of a Great Weapon (and access to Hastened Doom), and has the ability to pick up immunity to detaunts as well. That being said, the damage isn't high enough that the Black Guard will chew apart a decently equipped paper wearer in seconds, but it is high enough that the healer will need to worry about the offensive tank pushing in and their group will need to worry once the offensive tank is on the healer.

Second, the Black Guard has a solid assortment of harassment tools and ways to handicap/cripple the enemy without relying on huge damage (which is the melee dps' job) -- outgoing heal debuff, morale regen inhibition, an assortment of attribute debuffs (including Crimson Death to make them more susceptible to critical hits), a disorient, a pair of interrupts, AP cost increasers, etc.

Third, the Black Guard has reasonable durability when offensively spec'd as a result of other abilities and tactic choices -- if you supplement this with a few picks from the Swordmaster, they get a good option for PvE tanking and some added boosts in PvP.

People complain that the BG is a bad tank because it doesn't put out huge damage numbers, but out of all six tank classes the BG is really the only one I fear (well, maybe Chosen because of all the debuff-for-my-own-damage-type garbage). Fortunately for me, most of the people playing them mash Monstrous Rending into Murderous Wrath.

So where does this put the other four tanks? If we're taking the offensive focus away from the other four tanks, they really need to be given a focus on group utility and buff/debuff action to make them worthwhile to group and worth trying to kill (where their tanking ability can really shine). While two of the tanks have a decent assortment of both features, two of them really excel in this department...

C - Model the defensive tanks after Ironbreakers and Knights of the Blazing Sun
Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, nerf Order, Mystic hates Destruction.

But let's face it. The Oath Friend system is a great system for supporting groupmates with buffs and debuffs. The Grudge mechanic is a good way to represent hulking up when someone lays some beatdown on your paper wearing buddy (or tries to kill you after you're enough of a pest. The Knight's auras offer a far better assortment of buffing/debuffing than the Chosen's (and don't have that "debuff your own damage for huge numbers" problem). Both classes have some great 'defense-minded' tactic selection.

Now, we don't want to shuffle the mechanics around drastically. Obviously, we can't really throw an Oath Friend-style buff over to the Black Orc (who shares stance dancing with the Swordmasters), but there are ways to accomplish the same goals.

Don't give the classes mirror abilities, but design their abilities with those same goals in mind: protect your groupmates, buff your allies, and debuff your enemies.

Which leads to the last point...

D - Add some defensive/support abilities that are worth using in PvP and that make you want to kill the defensive tank

Seriously. It's not rocket science.

Obviously, the one I'd love to implement is "player hatred" (akin to mob hatred), where if a tank builds up enough hate through hate builders/taunt, they can force a change of their target's offensive target. That being said, I don't see it happening.

So!

Things like Challenge (debuff damage, offset taunt, does not affect the tank) are a good idea of where to go. You want abilities that affect friendlies or enemies but are of little benefit to the tank itself (tanks have enough tank-boosting toys, and if they only have a defensive equipment option they'll be tough enough). The auras having buff/mirrored debuff effects are another good example of a solid ability even if they do affect the Knight.

Heal buffs. Defensive attribute buffs/offensive attribute debuffs. Cures. Root/snare breaks. Stagger breaks. Knockbacks. PBAoE/cone snares (why this is on mdps, I'll never know). Something like a high-valued channeled snare. A defensive target run speed buff (Black Orcs punting people friendlies forward into battle or back away from it = a win).

Design abilities that make these classes wanted in groups. It will make sitting in the back and protecting friendlies an option, but it also allows them to push in and support an mdps class offensively (or maybe even an offensive tank).



Overall, these are the sorts of changes that I feel would be necessary to get tanks "right" in Warhammer. Time permitting, the next parts in this series may involve me going through each tank class and "redesigning" them to fit my "vision" of tanks.

We'll see! ;)

The Third Faction Demand

Another issue that always seems to come up in the population concern debates is how the addition of a third faction, allowing for a realm dynamic similar to Mythic's previous entry, Dark Age of Camelot, would remedy plenty of population concerns.

There's one big problem, however -- without trying to figure out who it is, in which ways can you implement a third realm?

The 'best' remedy (to add a third realm with an identical function to the existing two in all respects) is perhaps the most complicated. All of the maps are built around two factions, and all of the lore revolves around two factions. Adding a third faction in with a similar scope to Order and Destruction likely requires a ton of redesign, and that probably falls outside the realm of possibility.

So, I'd like to present two alternatives for the third realm that you may not have considered.

Option One - Skaven!
Now I know that Skaven have been bounced around as a third faction before, but I think you've got two plausible options to implement them, though both run into roadblocks giving them RvR territory.

Giving them PvE territory is simple enough -- you can simply place their zones beneath existing zones, allowing you to add terrain without messing everything up, and simply give them good crossover points via tunnels akin to what the other two factions have.

If we follow this route, giving them RvR territory, however, is a different story. The pairing dynamic makes adding in a third faction a bit cumbersome, and even if we gave the Skaven underground 'keeps' or 'battlefield objectives' to defend, there really isn't an 'easy' to add 'capital city' element to this implementation.

The only other option, really, is to give them no terrain of their own, but to allow them to capture enemy keeps and objectives and essentially turn them into a 'griefing' faction -- which could be a very, very interesting implementation.

Option Two - So Long, Order!
The other option, and the one that seems the most plausible to me, though best suited to new servers, is the second option: Destruction wins Warhammer.

It's pretty simple to spin this into three factions: eventually, the combined forces of the Greenskins, the Dark Elves, and the Raven Host manage to overwhelm and essentially eliminate the forces of Order. All is good for evil. How do we turn this into three factions? Simple.

Malekith's control over the Greenskins is eliminated, either by choice or by treason (Warhammer lore buffs, spin some magic for me here). The Greenskins say let's start a Waaagh! (start a Nuclear Waaagh!), and the Raven Host continues their quest for conquest (or, hey, maybe Chaos Undivided can come into play and bring us more class options).

Voila -- three factions, each with their own pairing. The only difficulty becomes adding in new classes to flesh things out, though plenty of people on the official boards have done the groundwork for that.

Personally? I'd totally play on an all Destruction server.

Thoughts?

Kyera's Fortress Redesign

[This entry is mostly a repost/rewrite of something I originally posted on WHA, so if it seems familiar, that's why. I had been working on fleshing this out prior to the announcement of the removal of Fortresses from the game, but based on how the game has progressed without Fortresses, I think some sort of equivalent system needs to be re-incorporated into the game.]

One of the issues that's always been a bit of a sore point with the WAR community is Fortresses. There are a number of concerns, which I will lay out here in no particular order, that always seem to come up when the topic of discussion eventually works its way over to Fortresses:

• Fortress sieges are plagued by lag, making the siege largely unplayable.


• Melee classes, aside from shield tanks, are of limited value once the realm war works its way to a Fortress, particularly when compared to skirmish or scenario play.


• There aren't very many ways for a small (and strong) guild to contribute or 'shine' at a Fortress.


• Population disparity plays a significant role on a Fortress siege, despite the population 'caps' attempting to mitigate this.


• These same population caps prevent significant portions of the population from taking part in a siege, which is often reflect by the large masses of players waiting for freenown at the border of the Fortress or their warcamp.


• Despite being the last point of access before a city siege, the scale of a Fortress siege does not seem to be 'epic' enough, and there is a total lack of ebb and flow to the encounter.

Personally, I have always felt that Fortress sieges should be more exciting and more involving than simply throwing waves and waves of bodies at a mob that is nigh-impossible to kill with enemy players around, particularly when the very design of the encounter encourages players to simply turtle up with the Fortress Lord to stall out the timer.

My belief is that the Fortress siege should be something truly different than a keep take (aside from simply being 'harder'), something that would reflect the difficulty in pushing through an enemy line to take and siege a Fortress. I wanted to design an encounter that reflected various stages of the advance -- progressing to the Fortress, beating down the outer doors, establishing control of the courtyard, and breaking into and capturing the central keep.

The big sticking point for this is that you want to involve as many players as possible in this sort of affair, but as we've experienced with Fortresses sans population caps, the lag will be incredible and the fun will be absent. A straight-up implementation of this also means that any population disparity will not be addressed, and rather than making this a winnable encounter for both factions it'll simply become yet another timed speedbump to slow progression.

So what was the solution?

Instancing.

The Pitch
Now, I'm not talking the sort of 'mirrored instance' shenanigans that we see currently implemented in Altdorf and the Inevitable City. This leads to the Victory Point route of victory that seems to have problems in and of itself in these two cities.

I'm talking about providing staggered (or layered) instances that give you some ebb and flow. Instances that you need to progress through to advance, and retain control of to retain access to subsequent stages.

I would like to point you in the direction of this wonderful MS Paint mockup image of the sort of progression I'm visualizing, and I'll run through each stage to give you an explanation.

How Access Works
Access to these instances is fairly simple: the defending force can zone into any instance at any time, whereas the attacking force can only zone into an instance as long as their supply line is established. Players can traverse instances either from the Staging Area (via a UI that shows the supply lines and friendly player amounts in each instance), or by passing through a portal to the next area after capturing one.

You'll notice from the mock-up that lines connect elements of each Stage together -- these are the "supply lines" that are followed. From the Attacker Staging Area, the attackers can access either the West or East Milegate (which could equally work as 'North and South' for the elf pairing, but that's neither here nor there).

Controlling the West Milegate instance allows access to the Left Fort Door and Center Fort Door instances. Controlling the East Milegate instance allows access ot the Right Fort Door and Center Fort Door instances.

Controlling one of the doors allows access to the Courtyard. Controlling the Courtyard allows access to the Inner Keep.

Instance access would otherwise work similarly to what we see with the Land of the Dead -- if you control all previous instances in the supply line, you respawn at your spawn in the instance; if you lose control of any previous instance in the line, players are not ejected from the instance they are in, but respawn back in friendly territory (in this case, the Staging Area) if they release.

By enabling access in this way, we allow many, many players on the side with a population advantage to 'get involved', while providing plenty of options for an outnumbered side to hamper or prevent the capture -- if the attackers advance their 'best players' to the next stage, the defenders can sent their 'best players' to earlier instances to disrupt the supply lines.

Staging Areas
Since we're progressing to an instance system, the whole concept of the approach to the Fortress also needs to be addressed. The staging area in and of itself needs to be a place where Order forces sieging (or waiting to siege) the Fortress would wait and prepare. Essentially, a sort of field camp.

As far as I'm concerned, the simplest way to do this is to have players run towards the Fortress as they do now, eventually being funneled into a portal that takes them to the 'Staging Area' instance -- this will remove the mass of players looking to get involved in the Fort Siege from the zones, preventing lag for everyone else, and will also give the defending side the chance to stage an ORvR blockade.

Options for the portals are pretty straight forward -- the massive Dwarfen gates, something like the Dragon Gate or Phoenix Gate for the Elf pairing, and, well, I don't really know for Empire, we can figure that out later.

One other thing that I've also considered is having the Staging Area be subject to invasion (like the LotD instances), provided the defenders hold both milegate access points for a set amount of time.

Stage One - The Milegates
For those of you familiar with Dark Age of Camelot and its milegates, this is the sort of instance I'm picturing for the two Stage One instances.

Centered between two spawns after a short bit of open terrain is a gate (think something similar to Gates of Ekrund for general layout). Both spawns are equidistant from the gate. Atop the gate is a gatehouse, accessed from the walls, which are accessed by ramps on the defenders' side.

The objective for the attackers is to break down the gate itself, push through and up the ramps, and capture and secure the gatehouse (done via a control point). The objective for the defenders is to hold the gatehouse, or retake it if captured. Capture (or re-capture) of the objective grants a renown bonus, and possession grants a periodic award.

By having the battle focused on the gatehouse, we still offer a defensive position while encouraging people to fight on the wall, off the wall, or even hold the gate itself. This sort of instance would likely be best suited for anywhere from 12v12 to 24v24.

Stage Two - The Fortress Gates
Upon the capture of a milegate, the fight advances to two fortress gate instances. The objective of the attackers here is quite simply: break down the gate. I think this sort of encounter would be best suited to 18v18.

To capture the instance, the attackers will be required to break down one of the gates, advance to a point beyond the gate (likely between that gate and another 'portal' inner gate), and plant a standard to assert their presence. Doing so unlocks the next set in the pairing. This 'inner' part is not accessible aside from that one access point, giving the attackers a defensive position to establish themselves in once they do bust down the gate.

Beating down the door will be easy enough with sustained pressure, but NPCs will repair the door a very minor amount every so often. These repairs will stop once the door is beaten down and a standard is planted, but will resume when the standard is removed, or occur at an accelerated pace if no damage is being done to the door.

Since the only 'challenge' here is beating down the gate, the defenders will be encouraged to push the attackers off the door at every opportunity to allow the door's auto-repair to outpace damage done. This will encourage some sorties and vicious counter-attacks, as opposed to a turtle defence. The defenders should probably have some tunnels or something to allow for flanking options.

Holding the prior tier is also fairly critical here, as a lengthy loss of a milegate plus a wipe of the attackers often means the door will need to be completely beat down again.

Incentivize the defence by offering a notable reward for beating down the door and planting a standard, and periodic rewards for the attackers or defenders for holding the position.

Stage Three - The Courtyard
After capturing one or more Fortress gates, the fight moves into the Courtyard. This should probably be a larger instance (36v36 or 48v48). The attacking side has a choice of three points of entry, based on which gates have been knocked down.

Advancing to the next stage is fairly simple -- control the courtyard, beat down the outer door of the Fortress, and push inside. Once the door is down, it stays down, making control point control crucial to this battle.

Control of the courtyard is one of those things I've been mulling over -- for example, how absolute should the control be -- but I think establishing three control points (a control point near the defender spawn, a control point near one of the attacker spawns, and a control point just outside the Fortress) and requiring the attackers to hold two to advance is a reasonable total.

Nordenwatch, anyone? :)

You can incentivize this by offering a reward for control point capture and retention, and an award for the attackers for beating down the door.

Stage Three - Side Instances
You may have noticed the red and blue boxes on the map that don't seem to be connected to anything at all. These are a connected but not really connected piece of the encounter.

Once Stage Three is unlocked, another pair of instances are unlocked that can be used to provide a boost to your faction in Stage Three and Stage Four of the Fortress siege. These instances should be geared for 6v6 (or 12v12), and have very simply objectives.

Each faction has an instance, and in that instance, has a control point that they must protect from the enemy instance. Controlling your control point provides a 10% boost to damage dealt and healing received, so you want to control yours and deny the enemy control of theirs.

As an example, the Dwarf/Greenskin pairing could involve the Dwarf instance fighting over control of a brewery, and the Greenskin instance fighting over a mill. Optionally, there could be a lone instance where both sides fight over one objective (like High Elves and Dark Elves fighting over an item of arcane power).

Stage Four - The Inner Keep
Let's keep it short and simple, since this is for all the marbles.

A 24v24 instance, where resolution is simple: the attackers need to get to the roof (mainly by purging the Lord room of the defenders), plant a standard, and successfully hold it for three minutes.

There are no NPCs presence in this instance -- purely player vs. player for victory.

Rewards
Players on the winning side located in scenarios and RvR lakes (including the Fortress instances and Staging Area) in any tier/pairing will receive the equivalent of a zone capture award. This way we encourage those not partaking in the Fortress to move on to other pairings to fight the good fight, and we reward lower level players for their contribution, however minute it may be.

Players located within any of the Fortress instances receive an additional crest reward.

Each Fortress instance offers a PQ lottery, which appropriate drops based on the number of players involved.

Conclusions
Overall, this should make the Fortress encounter a more dynamic and involved process, and keeps the Rs in RvR. Looking at the list of concerns raised previously, I feel this redesign addresses each in a meaningful way:

• Lag: Getting the players out of the pairing minimizes lag for other players; moving the fights into instances minimizes the lag for those involved in the Fortress.


• Melee Classes: By move the fight to scenarios and keeping the forces at reasonable sizes, melee classes can still meaningfully contribute at each level of the siege.


• Small/Strong Guild Opportunities: A small or strong guild can cut supply lines, take part in the faction specific Stage 3 instances, or take part in the final attack/defence for the glory of victory.


• Population Disparity: Instancing minimizes the impact of the population difference, and the supply line system allows the smaller faction to impede the advance by attacker earlier (and possibly weaker) instances.


• Player Participation: The huge number of player slots should allow everyone to contribute, and the lack of obligation to 'stay in the zone' paired with the obligation to 'stay in RvR' to earn rewards discourages warcamp AFKs and encourages participation in all pairings.


• Epic Scale/Ebb and Flow: Suffice it to say, this version should offer plenty of both, especially with the right presentation.

In short, this is a draft of what I put together for a potential Fortress redesign, and I would love to hear any and all feedback you can offer.

Introduction

Where Am I?
Welcome to Rules of Waaagh!, a blog where I will discuss the changes I would like to see implemented in Warhammer Online. Most commonly, I will be blogging about whatever the current gripe may be. Many of the changes I propose will be painted with broad brush strokes, so expect things like mechanic changes and archetype changes over class specific tweaks or number balancing.

Who Are You?
I am an avid gamer with a history of playing PvP MMOs (and MUDs) and an interest in seeing Warhammer Online stick around. I also have experience playing a lot of team game archetypes in a variety of FPS, most notably several years of semi-competitive CTF/TDM play in Unreal Tournament. revious MMO experience includes stints with EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and several years playing Dark Age of Camelot, where I held the position of Paladin Team Lead for about a year.

This, combined with my ego and e-narcissism, allows me to truly believe that I am right about everything.

Oh, and I'm also a pretty good forum agitator (trolling isn't what I do).