Have you ever noticed that single player RPGs all seem to include "tank" classes with enmity control tools now, when this was somehow never a necessary thing before World of Warcraft and FFXIV blew up?
>>4088513Sure, but define "necessary". Besides, its not like defensive gameplay never mattered.
>>4088513>nowEtrian had the Fortress class, Final Fantasy had the Cover ability since FF3, Phantasy Star had the party order determine aggro, Romancing SaGa gave each character in a formation a % chance of being targeted along with "tank" characters. The idea of aggro control has been in RPGs for over thirty years, and it would not surprise me if it was a thing in M&M or Wizardry.
>>4088578Tbh, there should be a nuance between "This game has a taunt ability, or a mechanic that makes the character more likely to ne targeted" and "This game has an aggro system".Xenoblade X doesn't not have aggro, but there is still taunts in it as a debuff. Compare with the trilogy, who have an actual aggro system you need to manage (or ignore if you are good enough)
>>4088605>This game has an aggro systemLike badboy in Europa Universalis
>>4088605>It's dynamic and I don't understand that word and that makes me angry and scared!
Because investing in defenses is wasted resources if you don’t actually get hit, and the meta becomes massive damage in round 1.
>>4089168That literally didn't answer OP's question tho.
>>4088513It used to drive me nuts that games didn't have aggro mechanics. Even as a kid playing BG1 I thought how stupid it was that monsters could just lol past my big tough warrior and fuck my casters up before they even cast a spell Aggro is a good mechanic for many reasons but mostly because it enables interesting positioning, setup, and timing mechanics that would be aggravating or impossible without it
>>4089934But if you frontload all your aggro mechanics on to one class, then it just becomes "ok every party needs a Tank and Healer" and detracts from more interesting setups
>>4089954>on to one class,Then have multiple classes. No one complains that every party needs damage dealers even though they are FAR more essential in every game I've seen with roles than any tank.
>>4088513>when this was somehow never a necessary thing before World of Warcraft and FFXIV blew up?Ah yes, I must have imagined all those wizardry games with front rows that give higher chances to be targeted, or really all of these>>4088578
>>4089954Crystal Project handles aggro in an interesting way, you generate it by dealing damage, healing who has the most threat, or by having missing health. In other words healers, AOE mages, and characters on the verge of death are top-priority targets.
>>4090255Yeah this is how every MMO on earth handles aggro
>>4090468lol
>>4090468Nah this is how MMOs handle aggro: "Tank gets catapulted to the very top of the shitlist for some reason and stays there"
>>4090511>for some reasonyeah, the taunt button
>>4090646The only time I ever had to manage aggro in an MMORPG was when the tank had a tanktrum and started pouting because I was pulling monsters to him, and had to do the rest of the instance with myself and two DPS.Was way more fun that way. I'd rather have three players than an asshole tank.
>>4089168ThisTank/bulk is a fake role in older games, ot games without aggro mechsnics since there's no way to ensure the armored character gets hit. This makes them useless compared to just going balls to the wall offense, and just killing the enemy faster. Healers are the only characters that want to be tanky at all, because they can actually do something about it if they're the last one left alive. Which leads to boring, puddle depth spam attack or best attack skill until credits roll gameplay.
>>4092004I am pretty sure tanking in older games was achieved by positioning.
>>4092020In your SRPG and CRPGs, sure, but most JRPGs lack any form of target influencing, besides maybe stats which further means the durable character isn't helping anyone since the enemy attacks whoever they deal more damage to. Final Fantasy 1 is one of the very few to have enemy target ratios determined by party position.I'll agree that literal aggro holding mechanics are a bit stupid and arbitrary, but the other end is tanks with All My Friends are Dead syndrome that never really contribute more than basically any other way to build a character.
>>4088578Might and Magic had some interesting twists, even as far back as 2 (which is 1986 iirc). It starts with the usual party order determining chance of being attacked, but a lot of monsters have preferences, like some monsters specifically target clerics, or elves, or women. So you'd have to adjust strategy depending on what kind of monster you face. MM7 starts with a war against an ocean of goblins, who hate Dwarves, so if you start the game with a Dwarven caster you're basically playing on Nightmare Mode.
>>4088513Not besides Dragon Age, no.
>>4089934>Even as a kid playing BG1 I thought how stupid it was that monsters could just lol past my big tough warrior and fuck my casters up before they even cast a spellWhy wouldn't a big monster go after the biggest obvious threat lol.Anyways, this could have been largely resolved if BG1 one had a proper AoO mechanic to dissuade enemy AI from ignoring positioning.>Aggro is a good mechanic for many reasons but mostly because it enables interesting positioning, setup, and timing mechanics that would be aggravating or impossible without itYou don't need "aggro" for that.
>>4096909*BG1 had, rather
>>4090511>>4090791This is how Final Fantasy 11 handled aggro. Despite the existence of the warrior's taunt ability, the tank had to haul ass to keep the enemy focused on them. Black Mages and especially Dark Knights had to control when they spilled their spaghetti so the tank could pull aggro away from them after, or else the squishy Black Mage and the HP-as-resource using Dark Knight may die. Same with White Mages who had to be conservative with heals or else they would end up as targets, which is why slower goals like regen that didnt generate as much aggro were used. Add to that Thieves with various sneak attacks that manipulated aggro that you can could use to keep the foe on a tank or peel aggro away from mages in a pinch. It was all under the control of individual players as well, so it was very involved and also required lots of teamwork for an MMO. Understanding this made me realize that aggro mechanics where the tallest poppy gets targeted first make RPGs a lot more involved.
>>4096909>Why wouldn't a big monster go after the biggest obvious threat lol.you just gotta think these through, manthere's a large, muscle-guy in front of you with a knife, and 10 feet behind him is a guy with a gun. the gun is the biggest, most dangerous threat, so what stops you from dealing with him first? well, the big guy with the fucking knife! he's a huge distraction and a literal obstacle. and if he demands even more of your attention by taunting you or acting threateningly then you might even forget the other guy even existsand this all assumes you saw the gun the other guy was holding, or that you know what a gun is at all, because 80% of RPG encounters are against literal beasts and mindless monstersall RPG combat is an abstraction, and aggro is the cleanest, easiest way to handle this scenario. Don't let the fact that it came from a genre you hate (even though it didn't) detract from its merits>>4097792This was WoW as well, it lent a great tension to even trash pulls because using your best stuff too early meant the mob would peel away and fuck you up
>>4098516I've been playing on a Wrath of the Lich King server with player bots and its quite fun, though Im already getting burnt out. I think I lost my MMO-brain and I find the idea of them better than actually playing them. Even golden-age WoW with all the settings like EXP and reputation rates under my command isnt enough, though I like it quite a bit on paper. Blizzard really cared for making RPGs once, and this game must have been great in its heyday when others would play it more often. That said, I think aggro mechanics make even single player games better. If you have a party to control, being able to control who the enemy strikes while making the game dangerous or lethal can be a great idea.
>>4096909>You don't need "aggro" for that.No, but the problem with most other systems is that it quickly breaks down into casters being better at leveraging it. If it's CC and direct pathing blocking, mages usually do this better, with shit like summons, stuns, conjurable walls, ect. Aggro/taunts are generally the only way fighters can actually accomplish the role, short of just making them wizards, too. More expanded Zone of Control mechanics CAN do it, but there's always limits to it, because if that system is too robust, fighters begin struggling to actually hit eachother. The real answer is fighter tank fantasies just are not viable on a strategic level, fighters being DPS/DPR and being protected by casters makes more sense. But now the twink shanking a dragon in the ankles with butter knives feels shitty because he has no niche (he doesn't), and casters want to have their cake and fuck it too, so also want to be good dps on top of being the defensive and utility cores.
MMOs have aggro mechanics because of lag and low tickrate. Regular games don't have those limitations.
>>4089934You know what else enables interesting positioning, setup, and timing mechanics? Not being a shitter who just selects the whole party and sends into the middle of a horde of monsters without any spacing expecting enemies to target the hardest to kill target out of courtesy.
>>4089934I actually feel like positioning becomes much less important and interesting if you can just magically force enemies to attack your most durable characters regardless of your formation and the terrain.
>>4098516>ripped and muscular fighting man with a 1d4 knife>twink magic user casting a 3d6 Fireballeven with a +3 strength modifier for the fighter, the range of damage goes from 4-7 compared to the magic users damage ranging from a 3-18 it's pretty obvious which one is the actual threat
>>4102656>it's pretty obvious which one is the actual threatYou're metagaming from a position of omniscient perfect knowledge.One, characters are supposed to act with a level of tactical complexity appropriate to their intelligence score and knowledge.Two, you can't get to the "actual threat" without getting past the mooks in front of him who are going to stab the fuck out of you in the process.
>>4102725>You're metagaming from a position of omniscient perfect knowledge.cope, it's called "player skill" - an important component of old school d&d and classic adventure gaming like BG1 is based on.>Two, you can't get to the "actual threat" without getting past the mooks in front of him who are going to stab the fuck out of you in the process.then the fighters did their job without having a bitch baby aggro mechanic
>>4102730>cope, it's called "player skill" - an important component of old school d&d and classic adventure gamingOld DnD explicitly warned against metagaming to preserve the mystery of the game mechanics. Players were discouraged from reading the monster manual or the DMG to learn too much out-of-character knowledge.>The DUNGEON MASTER Guide is reserved for Dungeon Masters. Discourage players from reading this book and certainly don't let players consult it during the game, for two reasons.>First, as long as players don't know exactly what's in the DUNGEON MASTER Guide, they'll always wonder what you know that they don't know. It doesn't matter whether you have secret information; even if you don't, as long as the players think you do, their sense of mystery and uncertainty is maintained.>Second, this book does contain essential rules that are not discussed in the Player's Handbook. Some of these the player will quickly learn during play: special combat situations, the cost of hiring NPCs, etc. Others, however, cover more esoteric or mysterious situations: the nature of artifacts and other magical items, for example.-AD&D 2nd ed DMG, page 7The section "handling troublesome players" includes those who act on out-of-character knowledge:>continually attempt actions or activities their characters would have no knowledge of-AD&D 1st ed DMG, page 110>Each and every monster must be played as closely to its stated characteristics as possible. Clever ones should be played with cleverness, stupid ones with stupidity, ferocious ones with ferocity, cowardly ones with cowardice, and so on. In all cases, the DM is absolutely obligated to play the monster in question to the best of his or her ability according to the characteristics of the monster and the circumstances of the encounter.-AD&D 1st ed DMG, page 103Play your fucking sheet.
>>4102725>One, characters are supposed to act with a level of tactical complexity appropriate to their intelligence score and knowledge.Get your theater kid ass the fuck out of this video games board. Characters are supposed to survive and defeat the enemies and I as the player operating them am supposed to use my game knowledge the help them achieve it.If you can come up with "in-character" excuse to send your dudes to certain death but not to act smart then it's on you.>>4103151Even if we ignore the fact that you're bringing tabletop shit to vidiya discussion out of fucking nowhere like old DnD of all things is some kind of authority (LMAO), nothing is stopping me from having a great TTRPG session where player know the game and their knowledge is taken into account in the way encounters are put together. Mentally ill theaterniggers treat simple advice "do not spoil yourself the surprise :^)" like a dogma.But none of it fucking matter for video games where I'm going to learn the encounter after I fail it once and reload. What would your theaternigger ass do in that situation? Uninstall the game? Start new character that would act differently in that encounter? Or repeat the encounter the exact same way until dice land in your favor because adjusting your strategy is "metagaming"?
Once again, 4E solved it without aggro or threat.
>>4089934>>4096909Tank and DPS concepts are shit.Literally why monsters fight back, I just want to rule, hold my hand mom.Worst part is that it infects literature/movies etc due to influence of games.
>>4102725>Characters with combat experience are supposed to be oblivious to the realities of combatWeird take
>>4103151>Forever DMs are insisted upon by the rulesOops
