Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Aggro control
For the rifleman: Make more use of ranged shot and placed shot, use the big attacks (critical shot, head shot, sniper shot) for an opening shot if need be, but hold off repeating them until the target is getting low on health. With the two base attacks, he'll still contribute heavy damage, and that final burst will be good at finishing off the target fast. With practice, he'll be able to determine at what point in the target's health he can start unloading without pulling aggro before its dead. This will also help with action management, a big issue for a rifle / BH.
For the carbineer / BH tank: Go nuts with leg shot and critical shot, and get a really low SAC carbine. Let up on attacks for a second and the rifleman will pull the target off. Consider getting enough medic / doc to get Bacta Infusion, and put that yourself, the heal over time will help build up your aggro.
I think an aggro buff or debuff would be a nice addition for SL.
Almightyrastus wrote:
Then what is the point of being a heavy damage dealing rifleman if you are not able to use your attacks properly? Something needs to be done to enable tanks to effectivly do the job they should be specialized in, tanking and holding agro away from the people laying in the heavy damage. I should be able to stand at the back laying in advanced sniper shots and head shots all through the fight and only have to worry about drawing agro if the tanks get incapped or killed
the point of the CU was to encourage diverse grouping. put even one melee guy in your group with the Taunt ability (or one Jedi with their taunting thing) and you shouldnt have to worry about pulling agro even with sniper or head shots. dont forget those CMs or Docs to keep your tank alive.
and pistoleers for crowd control
and smugglers for more crowd control
and SL's because they help everyone.
Almightyrastus wrote:
Then what is the point of being a heavy damage dealing rifleman if you are not able to use your attacks properly? Something needs to be done to enable tanks to effectivly do the job they should be specialized in, tanking and holding agro away from the people laying in the heavy damage. I should be able to stand at the back laying in advanced sniper shots and head shots all through the fight and only have to worry about drawing agro if the tanks get incapped or killed
Melee tanks have taunt to hold aggro with, does it work well when grouped with rifleman or healers is another discusion entirely and is more of a discussion of the person playing the tank.
If you will notice, the "tank" this group is using is a Carbineer / Bounty Hunter, so he doesn't have taunt. The entire group is ranged, so no one has taunt. In a situation like this, the rifleman must excersize caution because the "tank" doesn't have aggro control skills. Its not that aggro control isn't in the game, it is just not in this group. If the tank was a pikeman, I'd say cut loose on all your specials as much as your action can handle.
On those lines, should some of the ranged professions have a ranged taunt ability (Bounty Hunter, Pistoleer, and Carbineer come to mind)? I vote yes on that.
As a sidenote, i've seen melee tanks trying to control things via taunt... and i still can out-agro them as MSL/MCarb with a bit of medic along.
Volley Fire, Charge Shot, then alternating between Legshot and Rapid Fire or Charge Shot... voilá, only a rifleman can keep up with me, the melee people never have a chance, no matter how much they taunt. Only exception to the rule are Jedi, those normally can hold the beasts.
Thus i dare to say that the taunt is still too weak... and on the suggestion that the SL can do something to control agro, sure. Would be nice if you could mark a teammember to be "the tank" and he creates 20% more agro or so... Question is, how to do that? Options i would see are:
- Make it a "stat" which you apply once and stays there till the person leaves the team or the SL assigns another tank? In this case, you could bring up an "accept/decline" box so the tank can agree to actually be the tank. (After all, this effect canalso very well be considered a "curse" andplayers will not like to have it.)The disadvantages are that flexible tank-switching in combat is harder
- Make it a short time buff (45 or 60 seconds) which the SL can apply on one or more members of the team. Advantage would be that it's more flexible and still very easy to be used and griefing still would be hard. The disadvantage is that the SL would have to permanently care for it, can become quite annoying.
- Make it a medium or long time buff (15 to 30 minutes) which the SL can apply to one or more members of the team and can also remove again. Advantages would be very flexible use and still convenient application. The disadvantage of possible griefing exists but should be comparatively low, as it can only be appiled to members of the team.
In any case, it would be adviseable that this buff disapplears if the affected person leaves the team. This again would be very helpful to avoid griefing.
I don't know if the concept is sound in practical use, but that's the best i can come up with at the moment.
Message Edited by Sylow on 08-11-2005 04:08 PM
Thanks for the advice folks on how to control agro a bit in a ranged group. The RM is toning down the snipershots but i swear I can hear his teeth grinding over Team Speak 
And I like the way your all fleshing out the aggro control skill idea.
just a thought maybe the skill could designate a person to recive some of your aggro? Say just 5-10% of the aggro you generate is applied to the tank. That way VF desnt get you killed 
I'd say the 10 to 15 minute range would be nice for the Aggro Buff. I could see it working one of two ways:
- The targets aggro is increased a given percentage (say 20% from Sylow's example), or
- An aggro redistribution: a percentage of everyone else's aggro is applied to the target, say 5% as a rough figure. This option is more powerful the larger the group is: if it can be assumed everyone generates the same aggro, in a 5 man group the tank is now 20% more then normal, in an 8 man group his aggro is now 35% more.
I'd would also suggest that this buff can only be applied to one person at a time, if you apply it to a second person before the first expires, the first buff is removed.
Another buff idea is an Aggro Debuff, think of a situation when you have one person who really needs to live (maybe the Healer or a DE in the case of a DWB run), a good example would be the movie Saving Private Ryan. The entire orders were for that one person to live. Mechanically, it would be the opposite of the Aggro Buff: either the person generates less aggro or a percentage is redistributed to the rest of the group.
Aggro control is not new to MMORPGs. In my opinion, the games that have been most fun are games like SWG is now where it is a group effort to control aggro and work multiple MOBs effectively. Also, the "nukers" that manage their own aggro will get more respect from groups than the ones that spam high damage shots. They have to learn when and where to apply those shots. I would rather see a guy place some well-timed shots to take down a mob, than to wipe out the party by spamming shots that probably are not needed anyway.
I think Taunt needs to be increased a bit, but we have had good results with a TKM/Swordsman as the tank. TKs get a Taunt bonus and Sword gets an Area Taunt. Ifsomeone really wants to be a tank, I would suggest that combo.
Best crowd control, I think, is a Smuggler/Pistol combo. They have so many moves to stop and slow mobs. Concussion shot is awesome for those additional mobs, as long as your group recognizes when it is applied and does not attack them. When you see a mob peel out from the group towards someone, Stopping Shot will root them. If those haven't cycled back yet, snare them and tell the rifleman to run away from him. It's when you have more than one mob chasing someone that things get hairy.
Even the best tank is going to have trouble controlling more than one mob if others in the group do not help out.
Should SL get crowd control or aggro control? I'm not so sure. That is another profession's job and somewhat the individual's repsonsibility. I'm happy just providing additional defense so that rifleman lastsjust a little bit longer. Maybe the SLs job in this case is outside the game mechanics and is more about making sure everyone is keeping an eye on aggro, and finding out ways to help their group work on managing their own aggro, just like you have done. Understand the group dynamics and what their limitations are, so you can work on aggro and crowd control roles within the group. I always like to say things as if I am reminding people or checking our plan, because people do not like to be told how to play the game. I know I wouldn't like it.
Kinda why im thinking the skill should be on a long timer. Make it enough to fix one mistake but not two in the same encounter/mission. Someone pulls aggro when they shouldnt the SL fixes the problem then dresses down the player that tried to get the entire group killed.
This method I think might fit best with SL in the since its helping group memebrs learn to function as a squad
Another option would be a visable clue to the SL when a mob is about to change targets due to aggro. Then a sysmessage could prevent the problem before it happens. The combat window works for this but not that well since numbers and names are flying by so fast in a group of eight.