Dear Devs: A request re: threat mechanics discussion

[Ralmeth]

Currently Intimidate just makes you the target for 6 seconds, it doesn't modify threat very much. (There's a tiny amount of threat attached to the action.) I'd actually rather it actually put you on the top of the threat table instead (since this allows for recovering after the death of the tank, and means that the monster will stick to you for longer than six seconds if it's not being stolen away by others).

Oooh...this sounds really interesting. This would also be really helpful to grab hate aggro when you join the fight slightly late.

[sirgog]

Currently Intimidate just makes you the target for 6 seconds, it doesn't modify threat very much. (There's a tiny amount of threat attached to the action.) I'd actually rather it actually put you on the top of the threat table instead (since this allows for recovering after the death of the tank, and means that the monster will stick to you for longer than six seconds if it's not being stolen away by others).

What World of Warcraft does here with its taunts (IIRC) is that casting any taunt effect that hits (similar to a successful Intimidate roll) sets your threat to 130% of the highest threat anyone has against that particular boss. In DDO where threat does not decay this might not work as well (as Intimidating a raid boss that's at 50% would probably give you an unassailable threat lead for the rest of the encounter), but you might consider it.

Here's an idea (all of this assumes that 1 point of threat corresponds to 1 point of damage).

On a successful Intimidate, the boss immediately switches aggro to you, and your threat is set to equal to the highest threat, plus 50 times your Intimiate roll.

Example: You are tanking elite Horoth, and have 11200 threat when a DPS overtakes you with 12000 threat (silly DPS'ers that wear the Epic Claw set in the 'tanking' raids...). You Intim and roll 8+73=81, a success (IIRC the DC is 73). Your threat is set to 12000+(81*50)=16050.

On a failed Intimidate that fails by 10 or less, your threat is set to that of the highest aggro, minus 100 threat for each point by which you failed the roll (minimum 0 threat).

Example: You are tanking elite Horoth, and can't keep aggro at all. You have 6000 threat and that barbarian with a Devil's Ruin augmented epic Sword of Shadows and the Epic Claw set has 12000 threat. You intim, and roll 1 + 66 = 67, a failure by 6 (again I'm assuming 73 is the DC here). Your threat is set to 12000-600=11400.

On an Intimidate that fails by 11 or more, nothing happens.

[Junts]

What World of Warcraft does here with its taunts (IIRC) is that casting any taunt effect that hits (similar to a successful Intimidate roll) sets your threat to 130% of the highest threat anyone has against that particular boss. In DDO where threat does not decay this might not work as well (as Intimidating a raid boss that's at 50% would probably give you an unassailable threat lead for the rest of the encounter), but you might consider it.

Here's an idea (all of this assumes that 1 point of threat corresponds to 1 point of damage).

On a successful Intimidate, the boss immediately switches aggro to you, and your threat is set to equal to the highest threat, plus 50 times your Intimiate roll.

Example: You are tanking elite Horoth, and have 11200 threat when a DPS overtakes you with 12000 threat (silly DPS'ers that wear the Epic Claw set in the 'tanking' raids...). You Intim and roll 8+73=81, a success (IIRC the DC is 73). Your threat is set to 12000+(81*50)=16050.

On a failed Intimidate that fails by 10 or less, your threat is set to that of the highest aggro, minus 100 threat for each point by which you failed the roll (minimum 0 threat).

Example: You are tanking elite Horoth, and can't keep aggro at all. You have 6000 threat and that barbarian with a Devil's Ruin augmented epic Sword of Shadows and the Epic Claw set has 12000 threat. You intim, and roll 1 + 66 = 67, a failure by 6 (again I'm assuming 73 is the DC here). Your threat is set to 12000-600=11400.

On an Intimidate that fails by 11 or more, nothing happens.

WoW puts you to 130% becuase to pull aggro on WoW you must exceed the threat of the current target by a certain percentage (30% in melee, 10% ranged) before the monster will switch.

On DDO, having 3 more threat than the other guy will make the monster switch (which is why you can bounce bosses back and forth if you want to), so there's no nee dto exceed it by such a large threshold: the wow functionality is the same that eladrin proposes (eg, giving you threat equal to the highest person on the table, +1).

[QuantumFX]

Looks like I was wrong on that one (I was working from memory in that post). There's currently no minimum to threat reduction (so you could theoretically drop all the way to 0), but we'll likely adjust that and add a minimum threat multiplier in the pass I was talking about. The actual minimum value would be still to be determined.

So… this means you’re going to give diplomacy the ability to reduce aggro over time and bluff the ability to drop the user completely off the aggro radar?

[MalakRevan]

So, I might have missed this but how does WF brute fighting fit into the equation? I know it adds threat but does it stack along with the set bonus and incite bonus from DT and other sources?

[Osharan_Tregarth]

Arraetrikos is one of those. Your intimidate should keep his melee attacks on you, but some of his spells don't use the threat list.

Currently on live servers, there are some extremely irritating behavior with intimidating mobs. Mainly teleporting mobs, but others such as the DQ as well.

Specifically, if you hit the intimidate button immediately when the timer expires, you get ignored for the next six seconds until your timer resetts. Is there any fix in the works for this? Is it working as intended?

[Glenalth]

Currently on live servers, there are some extremely irritating behavior with intimidating mobs. Mainly teleporting mobs, but others such as the DQ as well.

Specifically, if you hit the intimidate button immediately when the timer expires, you get ignored for the next six seconds until your timer resetts. Is there any fix in the works for this? Is it working as intended?

Might be an issue with the "fix" for the timer cooldown bug. It doesn't seem to be just intimidate either, I've been getting it when casting multiple resist energies or the same spell over and over since then.

[AylinIsAwesome]

If using Intimidate puts you to the top of the threat list, I think it should be slightly higher than just +1. This is because you lose attacks hitting intimidate, at which point the other character could easily pull aggro off. If you needed to use Intimidate in the first place, then you probably couldn't out-threat them to begin with, so having the threat from Intimidate give you say...105% of the person currently at the top, that should help the tank hold aggro a bit longer before needing to use Intimidate again.

[Eladrin]

If using Intimidate puts you to the top of the threat list, I think it should be slightly higher than just +1. This is because you lose attacks hitting intimidate, at which point the other character could easily pull aggro off. If you needed to use Intimidate in the first place, then you probably couldn't out-threat them to begin with, so having the threat from Intimidate give you say...105% of the person currently at the top, that should help the tank hold aggro a bit longer before needing to use Intimidate again.

It would need to give you a buffer of more than +1, likely based on your intimidate score.

[grodon9999]

When will we see intim affecting the amount of hate generated? Update 9? 10? 45?

[maddmatt70]

When will we see intim affecting the amount of hate generated? Update 9? 10? 45?

When they give the playerbase a free skill respec..

[Wraithkin]

They stack additively. 20% + 10% = 130% threat generation. Exactly identical effects don't stack with themselves in DDO. I'd have to check to see how all of the items are set up - I think that we've set most of them up as unique effects.

I think that we currently have it set so threat reducers can't bring you below 50%, but I'll have to check.

Do only threat generation bonuses stack or do threat reducers also stack additively since I've read previously it is multiplicative for threat reduction? Inquiring minds want to know!

[herdisleah]

I'm kind of concerned about the intimidate rumors flying around. I've got a bard that I built with intimidate in mind, yes, as a tank. I tank things on my bard. She's got a good charisma and a great Intim score, but her dps and her hate is kinda....pitiful. Really it is. I'm somewhat concerned that she wouldn't be able to maintain aggro - for that matter, any tank that uses sword and board and shieldblocks doesn't really deal any damage....

[AylinIsAwesome]

It would need to give you a buffer of more than +1, likely based on your intimidate score.

Now that I know for sure you're still monitoring the thread, can you comment on how the Brute Fighting and Subtle Backstabbing stack with items and enhancements like Divine Righteousness?

Do items stack with enhancements by addition or multiplication, and how does Brute Fighting stack with those?

Thanks.

[lugoman]

Actually, I distinctly remember evidence that some mobs agroed on healer types before others.

Of course I have nothing but anecdotal evidence for this, so it really would be amazing if we could get a dev to comment on the specific mechanics of certain threat situations.

More anecdotal evidence: the hardest time I ever had hate tanking suuly was while being healed by a melee'ing fvs. The fvs had decent dps but their dps alone shouldnt have grabbed the agro he did.

[lugoman]

Looks like I was wrong on that one (I was working from memory in that post). There's currently no minimum to threat reduction (so you could theoretically drop all the way to 0), but we'll likely adjust that and add a minimum threat multiplier in the pass I was talking about. The actual minimum value would be still to be determined.

Please set the minimum to a negative number so some classes can generate love. There is too much hate in the world.

[spyderwolf]

will the intimidate effectmaking you the target still last as long as the cooldown timer still? or will you hav to attack after intiming to gain any benefit from using the skill? some builds were built around intiming and shieldblocking, havign intim give them extra hate doesnt really help them and if you make it only a hate thing or if the cooldown and the duration of the way the intim works now( giving you aggro no matter what)then it kinda breaks their toon.

[karl_k0ch]

Please set the minimum to a negative number so some classes can generate love. There is too much hate in the world.

So when my Drow rogue hits that Bugbear with with her dagger, she generates... love? Naughty bugbear, naughty bugbear!

[zealous]

will the intimidate effectmaking you the target still last as long as the cooldown timer still? or will you hav to attack after intiming to gain any benefit from using the skill? some builds were built around intiming and shieldblocking, havign intim give them extra hate doesnt really help them and if you make it only a hate thing or if the cooldown and the duration of the way the intim works now( giving you aggro no matter what)then it kinda breaks their toon.

While putting a weight on the block key and spamming the intim button every 6s might be quite effective in a few select situations, I wouldn't call it challenging and fun gameplay.

One option would ofc be to make "shield absorbed damage" add a large amount of hate which could allow said builds to continue functioning in the same way.

A better option would imo be moving the mobs attack hooks back to the end of the animations, it would likely lead to more involving and fun combat.

[Kasen_Darksword]

And we also don't know how consistent aggro mechanics are supposed to be from creature to creature. Maybe trolls have one aggro rule if their CR is even and another if it's odd! It could be anything going on under there, and players have no ability to report bugs because they have only guesses as to what the desired behavior should be. For example, Intimidate tanking kinda broke recently; was that intentional?

Two interesting aggro complexities I've noticed:
1. When I'm near an orc that's aggroed to someone else, the monster will start hitting me if I press shift. If I'm not pressing shift it wanders around.
2. I was shooting an ogre with arrows from a ledge and was the only one doing damage. A hireling cleric walked by, and the ogre started clubbing him.

I dont know why people keep saying intimitanking is broke or isnt working. I dont have any problems keeping agro with intimidate. People say that the boss ignores intimidate but thats not entirely true. The only time I noticed anything is if you keep mashing your intim before its ready, then it may fire and not work. This is probably because the timer wasnt really reset yet even though the icon was back. I have never mashed my button to use intim so maybe thats why the problem rarely ever happened.