is there going to be mods and addons in this game? :\

[craptacular]

sorry if this has been posted before <:S

I was just wondering because, well, I really REALLY don't don't want these things put into the game. I mean i am mostly a PvP player, but going to a PvE raid once in a while is a nice experience every now and again.

But it is, imo, ruined by these stupid 'CTraid' things and 'atlas' bars or whatever the hell everyone is using now...

Sure, you don't HAVE to get them, but a lot of raid guilds in world of warcraft (played it 2 and a half years i think) demanded you to get them, and it wasn't quick, easy or fun trying to find one that didn't use them (at least, a raid guild that could actually progress), so if you wanted to be part of a good raid, you'd usually have to be a part of this whole unskillful, cheap addon process.

In my personal experience, I had joined one of my first first raid guilds with my level 60 warlock who had just recently joined endgame and had no epic gear pieces as of yet. and i had to join some guild that required CTraid. i was told to download it from the guilds forum, but the link i was given just didn't work, plain and simple. told the raid this but they didn't have the time (or decency) to bother helping me so the raid went ahead. I was allowed to be there and everything went really well without the addon. even managed to rank quite highly on a damage meter, that someone posted, and an EPIC CASTER ROBE dropped from the boss. i rolled a 99. A NINETY NINE, it would have been my first epic, a really good one, but i wasn;t allowed it because I didn't have CTraid. that pissed me off

but there is less selfish reasons for my hatred of addons obviously, and im sure some people agree. they just RUIN the experience! we should be able to decide how much dps to unload onto a boss without aggroing it and have that extra tactical thrill, not have some stupid aggro meter automatically tell us when we should stop doing stuff.

THEY RUIN THE ATMOSPHERE OF AN MMO :| hold us back from having EPIC FANTASY ADVENTURES..

well thats the end of my rant..

again, sorry if this has been posted before or mythic have already confirmed their opinions on addons and i didn;t see, or if i worded this whole posted like an ignorant noob :D

im just running out of things to talk about :\

[Axxar]

Yes, there will be UI mods. There's a forum here dedicated to them as well.

[Moniker]

Every game is moddable. You name it, someone can or has modded it. I guarantee it.

[K2K]

but there is less selfish reasons for my hatred of addons obviously, and im sure some people agree. they just RUIN the experience! we should be able to decide how much dps to unload onto a boss without aggroing it and have that extra tactical thrill, not have some stupid aggro meter automatically tell us when we should stop doing stuff.

On the contrary, I feel AddOns as enhancing the (i.e. my) raiding experience.
Also, you have to consider the amount of variables coming into account when talking about dps and threat.
First, tanks are very different - there are those who can barely get over their auto-attack threat and others who can out out insane amounts of threat. Don't ask why, I have no idea, but some players just can't get a smooth threat-generation.
But, at that's where it gets really interesting, there's no way for you to tell how much threat your tanks actually produces. Is his rotation on point? Is it 0.5 seconds behind? Does he crit very often, does he miss very often? Maybe there's a really bad streak of the mob avoiding the tank's attacks and vice versa, so he just generated about 0 threat over 10 seconds, instead of 20k.
Sure, encounters can be designed in a way to not force players to get all out. But if they are, and they'll most likely be in one way or the other - even if it's just the old 'a dead mob doesn't do damage, so healers don't have to heal anymore' - and that's the point where at the very least threat-meters are neccessary.
Other AddOns give vital information about the status of your group while in combat - it can be very important to see in a second how many are dead, where peoples' mana is etc.

Damagemeters can also be very useful, if used the right way, i.e. to analyze someone's performance. Why is that particular nuker 10% behind the other nuker of the same class, same specc and same items?

Lastly, I'm all for visual mods allowing people to re-arrange their action bars etc.

[Utakata]

I agree with the OP to an extent. There are certain mods that should not be allowed based on how much they automate gameplay. I'm all for being able to customize my UI, and I liked DamageMeters but as far as things like Decursive and other things, I'm going to have to go with the OP on this one. Part of the fun is learning to be able to decurse people or learn how much aggro you can pull or whatever it is you'd rather have modded. I am ANTI-AUTOMATION. Yes there's helpful widgets but NOT TO THE POINT OF AUTOMATION PLEASE.

Oh and there's a forum for this (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=71), and a topic basically on this same thing (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31280).

[Axxar]

Agree with Utakata.

[Utakata]

Furthermore, if you take it from a standpoint of a PvP game, some possible mods could get ridiculous. In WoW, at least you were fighting mobs so it wasn't as big of a deal to have things that aided you like aggro meters or whatever, although I still disprove of them. However, in PvP if, say, zealots have an addon that automatically casts their "steal buff" or whatever every time an enemy buffs themselves, that's an unfair advantage, and more or less the same mechanic as decursive. Or an addon that automatically does anything really. We've then crossed the line of skill vs how good your addons are. It's kind of like going to a chess tournament and having some PDA or something tell you what pieces to move.

[K2K]

[...] I'm all for being able to customize my UI, and I liked DamageMeters but as far as things like Decursive and other things, I'm going to have to go with the OP on this one. Part of the fun is learning to be able to decurse people or learn how much aggro you can pull or whatever it is you'd rather have modded.

Granted, Decursive went a little bit over the top.
A mod simply stopping the player's action to conserve mana or stopping a damage-cast to not pull aggro - yes, that's over the top.
Yet, when it comes to simply being able to view how much threat one produces in comparison to the tank etc.. I've explained why I find such mods vital. :)

[Ekove]

I'm all with addons for PvE. For example there's no way to know if you over-aggro without a threat meter because you don't know how much aggro the rest of the team making, now unless there's an indirect indication that requires the player to master, it's pretty much all guess work.

What I'm against is PvP addons because many of them simple give a player an advantage over another *cough debuffer cough*.

[mikeblack]

but i wasn;t allowed it because I didn't have CTraid. that pissed me off

It sounds like they used a really weak excuse to keep you from getting gear on your first run (which is standard practice.)

[SonicBorg]

although i have always used modUI's in mmo games, i would actually prefer to see it all be vanilla, that way it puts everyone on equal grounds, and its not about who has the best mods giving them the advantage that do best. Rather see skill and team work over mods which answer everything for you.

But if modUI is going to be a big help, i'm not stupid enough to ignore it.

[Utakata]

there's no way to know if you over-aggro without a threat meter because you don't know how much aggro the rest of the team making.

Whole-heartedly disagree. You don't need a meter telling you that you are over-aggroing. That takes an element of skill out of the game, and it diminishes the barrier between a skilled player and a noob who can use nifty mods.

In the real world, this makes sense to help people with things that they may not specialize in, ie. calculators help people make simple calculations to match the people who are math genius'. However, this is a virtual world, and it's about skill not about who has the most fancy widgets. For me, it takes out part of the fun when you add in things that tell the player what to do.

*ping* your cooldown is finished, is fine.
You did 5,000 damage on that boss, your friend did 7,000, is fine.
You want to move your skill bars or change your UI theme? That's fine.
Want the game to tell you when to do certain actions, or do it for you automatically? Not fine (IMO).

When I played FFXI nobody had mods and part of the BLM's job was to not over-aggro, and that was part of the fun of playing a BLM... you had to pay attention to what your allies were doing and if you got aggro you needed to slow down.

When you have tools to do it for you, it becomes more like putting 5+5 in a calculator. You could just DO IT, but because of your incapabilities and/or laziness, you'd rather just use your calculator.

[K2K]

Whole-heartedly disagree. You don't need a meter telling you that you are over-aggroing. That takes an element of skill out of the game, and it diminishes the barrier between a skilled player and a noob who can use nifty mods.

Whole-heartedly disagree. ;)
Yes, a meter is vital to know where you are compared to your tank in case your group wants to actually kill harder bosses.
As I've said before, a tank's personal threat generation can be completely different than another one's. Also, there might be periods with a nuker or melee doing usual damage while the tank does sub-par damage and maybe doesn't land one or two of the more important threat-skills.
Now, you, as a nuker, just fire another bolt at the boss. It crits. Well, one crit isn't spectacular, so you keep firing. Another crit. Just as you consider taking a break for some seconds, the mob turns to you and starts to crush your raid - not your fault, an attack can always crit and you had just aborted your next cast, and had the tank not missed his threat-styles, nothing would have happened.
Had you had installed a threat-meter, you would've noticed the tank's threat not going up and had aborted the second cast instead of letting it through. As long as you're skilled enough to take a look at the numbers presented to you and the numbers of your casts in a matter of seconds.
There's just no way for you to tell how well your tank's threat generation is going.


In the real world, this makes sense to help people with things that they may not specialize in, ie. calculators help people make simple calculations to match the people who are math genius'. However, this is a virtual world, and it's about skill not about who has the most fancy widgets. For me, it takes out part of the fun when you add in things that tell the player what to do.
It doesn't tell you what to do. You might as well just keep casting while the mob's coming you for.


*ping* your cooldown is finished, is fine.
You did 5,000 damage on that boss, your friend did 7,000, is fine.
You want to move your skill bars or change your UI theme? That's fine.
Want the game to tell you when to do certain actions, or do it for you automatically? Not fine (IMO).
Totally agreed. Automated actions by mods are not okay, imo.
Yet, the skill I'm talking about is to dish out the highest possible amounts of damage, surfing right beneath the threat-cap yet not pulling aggro. Everyone can cast two spells and then wait 10 seconds - they'll never pull aggro and yes, the mob will die after a given time.
It's just that in a typical raid, there's these damage dealers on top of the damage meters and never pulling aggro and some damage dealers wo barely exceed a tank's damage in constant fear of pulling aggro, even though they're not even close to - just because they can't correctly interpret a threat-meter. These rend to be the ones stating that damage- and threat-meters are useless and merely means for e-peen comparison.


When I played FFXI nobody had mods and part of the BLM's job was to not over-aggro, and that was part of the fun of playing a BLM... you had to pay attention to what your allies were doing and if you got aggro you needed to slow down.
If a game is designed so that the damagers can just take a 10 second break to not pull aggro and still kill the mob in reasonable time, it's all fine.
Yet, sometimes peak damage is neccessary.


Edit: I just had a thought spring up.
Maybe it'd be best to implement some sort of visual effect for all classes that becomes active once you reach a certain point in threat, e.g. 90% of the mob's current target.
This'd require the skill to see the visual effect and react appropriately, yet it'd not leave a player absolutely in the dark about threat.

[Constraint]

Whole-heartedly disagree. ;)
Yes, a meter is vital to know where you are compared to your tank in case your group wants to actually kill harder bosses.
As I've said before, a tank's personal threat generation can be completely different than another one's. Also, there might be periods with a nuker or melee doing usual damage while the tank does sub-par damage and maybe doesn't land one or two of the more important threat-skills.
Now, you, as a nuker, just fire another bolt at the boss. It crits. Well, one crit isn't spectacular, so you keep firing. Another crit. Just as you consider taking a break for some seconds, the mob turns to you and starts to crush your raid - not your fault, an attack can always crit and you had just aborted your next cast, and had the tank not missed his threat-styles, nothing would have happened.
Had you had installed a threat-meter, you would've noticed the tank's threat not going up and had aborted the second cast instead of letting it through. As long as you're skilled enough to take a look at the numbers presented to you and the numbers of your casts in a matter of seconds.
There's just no way for you to tell how well your tank's threat generation is going.



Hence his 'skill' comment. Not to mention the added communication which is necessary if threat meters aren't around. Every dps player worth his salt is very well aware of his/her limits, they'll notice the tell-tale signs of over-aggroing (too many crits in succession, etc), and they'll base their performance around this.

It's much more engaging than just glancing at a few numbers every few seconds, saying to yourself, 'Cool, room to increase dps a little..' etc, then resuming casting/whalloping. If there weren't threat meters, tanks would be forced to communicate with their party/raid members in regards to parried/dodged shield slams etc. More skill/good play that the threat meter removes.

[K2K]

Hence his 'skill' comment. Not to mention the added communication which is necessary if threat meters aren't around. Every dps player worth his salt is very well aware of his/her limits, they'll notice the tell-tale signs of over-aggroing (too many crits in succession, etc), and they'll base their performance around this.
It's not just '3 crits aggro dead wipe.' Every damage class is most likely capable of exceeding a tank's threat by simply damaging the mob without unusual amounts of crits.


It's much more engaging than just glancing at a few numbers every few seconds, saying to yourself, 'Cool, room to increase dps a little..' etc, then resuming casting/whalloping. If there weren't threat meters, tanks would be forced to communicate with their party/raid members in regards to parried/dodged shield slams etc. More skill/good play that the threat meter removes.
It's not 'room to increase dps', but rather 'no room to keep up dps so pause'.
Over the course of a fight of several minutes, I deem it nearly impossible to predict how much threat a tank has produced and how much you yourself have.
Also, depending upon what exactly a tank's rotation will consist of, I deem it nearly impossible to keep up a perfect rotation while analyzing the results of your attacks, keeping timers in mind, constantly watching the own HP, all while telling to your party every some seconds that your main attack has missed/critted/hit etc.
I've told my raid about unlucky streaks in the past. It's manageable, yes, but a high risk and imo, it just is another stress factor for the tank leading to a quicker burnout.

[Utakata]

Hence his 'skill' comment. Not to mention the added communication which is necessary if threat meters aren't around. Every dps player worth his salt is very well aware of his/her limits, they'll notice the tell-tale signs of over-aggroing (too many crits in succession, etc), and they'll base their performance around this.

It's much more engaging than just glancing at a few numbers every few seconds, saying to yourself, 'Cool, room to increase dps a little..' etc, then resuming casting/whalloping. If there weren't threat meters, tanks would be forced to communicate with their party/raid members in regards to parried/dodged shield slams etc. More skill/good play that the threat meter removes.

I agree with this.

You see it as just a meter that's helpful, which it is, but we see it as something that takes away from the game. If that option is available to us, we'll use it because it's more efficient, however; I think it takes a little away from both skill and immersion. I'd rather not be reading numbers, I'd rather be seeing explosions and a charging angry monster running at me and going "oh , better not cast that much next time" rather than seeing 990/1000, cast a spell, 1010/1000, monsters comes at me, okay next time I know that spell adds 20. No that's lame.

[Gunter]

Until WOW I never had a threat meter and we tanked and killed raid bosses just fine. Actually Unitil BC I never used a Threat meter in WoW. I have finished BWL and we had MC on farm for over a year and never used a threat meter.

Its nto needed for success. What its needed for is to remove the skill of the encounters so that its easy.

I played DAOC/SWG/FFXI/WoW

In WoW I was MT of our guild. The DPS had to learn my style and how to keep under. Thats skill. Threat meters are not skill.

Thank goodness this game is less about raiding and more about accomplishing goals.

[Utakata]

I deem it nearly impossible to predict how much threat a tank has produced and how much you yourself have.

That's great, that doesn't change the fact that it isn't impossible.

What about the several MMORPGs that were out before addons were even introduced? I'm assuming WoW was your first MMORPG? If not, how did you cope in games like EQ or FFXI? You HAD to measure "threat" or "hate" on a battle-by-battle basis, and that made it extremely awesome. DPS classes aren't very fun if you just stand there and press your skills over and over, the whole point is to learn the "hate" or "threat" system without being GIVEN it.

IMO, MMORPGs are going BACKWARDS. Initially, they were TT games or dice games or such all governed by numbers that you could predict, then the video game version of them was introduced, and all the numbers were "hidden" which made for a completely awesome experience. At this rate, we're going to have so many addons we might as well remove the game itself and just go back to numbers and dice.

But I suppose we won't get anywhere with eachother. Either Mythic allows it or they don't. We have different views and I can't change your mind.

Until WOW I never had a threat meter and we tanked and killed raid bosses just fine. Actually Unitil BC I never used a Threat meter in WoW. I have finished BWL and we had MC on farm for over a year and never used a threat meter.

Its nto needed for success. What its needed for is to remove the skill of the encounters so that its easy.

I played DAOC/SWG/FFXI/WoW

In WoW I was MT of our guild. The DPS had to learn my style and how to keep under. Thats skill. Threat meters are not skill.

Thank goodness this game is less about raiding and more about accomplishing goals.

This guy knows what's up.

[K2K]

But I suppose we won't get anywhere with eachother. Either Mythic allows it or they don't. We have different views and I can't change your mind.
I guess that's the way it is, yet it was an entertaining discussion about an interesting topic. :)

[Gunter]

From what we know publically about the modding actually quite little. They have mentioned that the API will be more lcoked down than in WoW. being a RvR oriented game makesthem have to be careful as programmers always try to do things to push the envelope....ie challenging programming problem not a propensity to cheat.

There will be alot less information presented to the client about opponent actions to prevent things like Enemy Cast Bars. I thin kMythic will take a 'rather too restrictive at start' than a 'OMG we have to tighten down the API thats an exploit' mode like in other LUA using games.

There will be mods and there will be exploits (lost of creative people out there). In the end its up to Mythic to make a rich modding environment without allowing exploitive mods (how everyou would discribe exploitive)


Discussions like this are GOOD for people to have. It lets people hash out anf even undderstand things they never really did. I learned alot in some of the other discussions on this typoe of topic.

[K2K]

Regarding PvP and unfair advantages:
Assuming there'll be at least visual mods, i.e. mods for unit frames and actions bars, I find it hard to decide whether these are ok in PvP or not.
After staring at a custom interface for a longer period of time, it can be refreshing to re-build it, re-arranging actions bars etc.
Yet, having actions bars centered on the screen could be an advantage over someone who has them at all sides.

Are these unfair advantages or just the freedom of designing one's own UI? :\

[Utakata]

Regarding PvP and unfair advantages:
Assuming there'll be at least visual mods, i.e. mods for unit frames and actions bars, I find it hard to decide whether these are ok in PvP or not.
After staring at a custom interface for a longer period of time, it can be refreshing to re-build it, re-arranging actions bars etc.
Yet, having actions bars centered on the screen could be an advantage over someone who has them at all sides.

Are these unfair advantages or just the freedom of designing one's own UI? :\

I'm going to say no. I always used the default UI for all my games and I HATE stuff on the center of my screen. In fact I think it's more of a disadvantage than an advantage. But opinions aside, a .01 second glance to one side of your screen to check the % of an HP bar or whatever is not any huge advantage. Compare that to a mod like decursive, where you'd have to check your entire raid's tiny debuff icons every second to make sure nobody's cursed (also have to memorize all the icons which are curses) and be able to target them and initiate the correct hotkey could take a long time to perfect, moving a part of the UI is nothing.

If you're referring to actual skills and pressing buttons to cast skills in the middle of the screen, I don't click to use spells anyway, I have them all memorized on 1-0 and alt+1-0 and ctrl+1-0. It's much more efficient IMO, and I'm probably still faster than any clicker. So no, I think I have an advantage by pressing buttons instead of clicking, so anything that makes clicking easier should be allowed.

[Aes]

TBH decursing in raids was a crappy mechanic to put up with. The skill in facing a boss who curses should have been that mages needed to wear more intellect gear instead of +damage or face going oom. They should have been given an AOE decurse tbh, or at least no random mass cursing.

As for finding out the tanks aggro, it's not that hard. The tanks threat generation was consistent with his damage because he always had full rage and pulled off his attacks with regularity. All you had to do after that was count revenge hits and factor in tank stuns and downtime. Boss after boss, week after week, it gets a lot easier than you think it is, it just becomes intuitive.

That being said I do think that a threat status buff would be nice, especially for playing with people you've never met before because it is difficult to predict threat levels with unfamiliar players. It would have to be damage based not percentage though, for a long fight 10 percent or even 1 percent would be a huge number, maybe make it a fixed damage amount from taking aggro that is dependent on the mob's level.

After staring at a custom interface for a longer period of time, it can be refreshing to re-build it, re-arranging actions bars etc.
Yet, having actions bars centered on the screen could be an advantage over someone who has them at all sides.

Are these unfair advantages or just the freedom of designing one's own UI? :\

No, it absolutely isn't unfair, it's a part of the game. If you wanted to make the case that modding the UI layout was an unfair advantage then owning a macro keyboard or a seven button mouse is an unfair advantage.

I think you can best objectively draw the line on what is unfair by asking yourself if the mod will change the way the character acts from another players perspective. For example a UI layout change will not allow the player to do anything in combat that any other player can do. If the players mod gives the player information that is not reasonabluy accessible to the average player then it informs their actions and make decisions that other players couldn't as easily reach and gives them an unfair advantage. A script will carry out an action the instant a prerequisite is met and will never miss it or forget to do it, that is something that a player cannot do without a mod and is unfair.

[Malsangoroth]

Overall, I feel that having a game (interface) be moddable is a good thing. It allows people to customize it so that they can play the way they want in the most comfortable manner possible.

However, when a mod gives a player access to info that another player who is using the normal interface simply wouldn't have, or allows the mod user to perform abilities that are humanly impossible, that is cheating.

Now, for a PVE orientated game, I really wouldn't care how much an advantage another player had over me in killing mobs, mainly because I do not care about PVE. In the end, the mobs dies either way. But when you have players actively competing against each other, any sort of advantage that is not inherent to the game itself is unfair towards the person on the other end.

There is a fine line between setting up your keys/whatever to allow you to use them with greater ease, and cheating. I'm all for allowing people to make their play style easier, but if there is a huge difference between a mod player and a normal player, where the difference cannot be attributed to natural human error, then that mod should not be allowed.

[craptacular]

yeah, im open to some addons, particularly those damage and healling meters. in fact i'd call them a necessity :P

but when a really extreme addon comes along, particularly in pvp, like that thing in WoW where it showed exactly what your opponent was casting and their progress with the cast time, it really did feel a bit like cheating.

and then blizzard made it an actual part of their user interface activated through options so it didn't seem like cheating, but i still think it ruined things. i personally like being surprised by my opponents next move and being able to perform a quick counter move based on my skill and knowledge of both mine and the other player's class, if that makes sense :)

P.S: sorry for not realising that this sort of thing would be in the UI forum. i didnt ever think about what would actually be discussed in there. just like, the location of my morale bar and minimap and w/e

[Gunter]

yeah, im open to some addons, particularly those damage and healling meters. in fact i'd call them a necessity :P

but when a really extreme addon comes along, particularly in pvp, like that thing in WoW where it showed exactly what your opponent was casting and their progress with the cast time, it really did feel a bit like cheating.

and then blizzard made it an actual part of their user interface activated through options so it didn't seem like cheating, but i still think it ruined things. i personally like being surprised by my opponents next move and being able to perform a quick counter move based on my skill and knowledge of both mine and the other player's class, if that makes sense :)

P.S: sorry for not realising that this sort of thing would be in the UI forum. i didnt ever think about what would actually be discussed in there. just like, the location of my morale bar and minimap and w/e

I think damage and healing meters are less necissary in a Pvp game because you are not doing raid stuff where you have to optimise the damage for each boss. Its more fluid and spikey on your damage cause its in un predictable bursts. You only need it for yourself.

[Nerissa]

I'd rather be seeing explosions and a charging angry monster running at me and going "oh , better not cast that much next time" rather than seeing 990/1000, cast a spell, 1010/1000, monsters comes at me, okay next time I know that spell adds 20. No that's lame.

It depends on what raid model they use. If they use "If you're not a tank, you're dead, and probably half your damn party is going to get wiped out in quick succession before the tank can get a handle on things", then it would be highly stressful to say the least. If the tank has time to pick it back up before it becomes a total disaster, then it will be less stressful and more of a "lol oops" as you stated.


Essentially... how much can you screw your party over? That determines how stressful it can get.

[Nerissa]

I think damage and healing meters are less necissary in a Pvp game because you are not doing raid stuff where you have to optimise the damage for each boss. Its more fluid and spikey on your damage cause its in un predictable bursts. You only need it for yourself.

It's fun tracking.


Plus, world RvR lacks a 'Scoreboard', so a meter that tracks friendly and hostile targets can easily function as a makeshift Scoreboard for whatever open world fights you get into.



(And I will admit to a certain... fondness for tracking high crits. I like seeing just how damn high I can shove them)

[Utakata]

It depends on what raid model they use. If they use "If you're not a tank, you're dead, and probably half your damn party is going to get wiped out in quick succession before the tank can get a handle on things", then it would be highly stressful to say the least. If the tank has time to pick it back up before it becomes a total disaster, then it will be less stressful and more of a "lol oops" as you stated.


Essentially... how much can you screw your party over? That determines how stressful it can get.

I can agree with this. It depends on how they manage their aggro. In games I've played other than WoW, even the biggest bosses could have a DPS pull the hate and the tank could easily slap him and say HEY OVER HERE! It wasn't a disaster if a mob turned its head for a few minutes, and it was fun to say the least. A boss battle should be chaotic if you ask me.

But if that hate is causing you to wipe instantly, then yeah I can see that being a problem. Usually one class taking a hit won't wipe you though, at least on anything except the hardest boss in the game. And by then you should be well-versed enough in aggro management that you won't pull it.

[Gunter]

It depends on what raid model they use. If they use "If you're not a tank, you're dead, and probably half your damn party is going to get wiped out in quick succession before the tank can get a handle on things", then it would be highly stressful to say the least. If the tank has time to pick it back up before it becomes a total disaster, then it will be less stressful and more of a "lol oops" as you stated.


Essentially... how much can you screw your party over? That determines how stressful it can get.
Stress is there in a raid for sure. I was a tank. It was stressful. One person can really blow it for everyone. It was definitly like that in BWL or Ony(before she became trivial that is) in WoW. Less so in a raid style in DAOC. I hope that since most of the raid stuff is like an Ony fight not like a BWL run that they can balance the stress.

I just thing threat meters and other raid mods do not remove stress they just trivialize the fight and make it not fun for me.

[Loekii]

It depends on what raid model they use. If they use "If you're not a tank, you're dead, and probably half your damn party is going to get wiped out in quick succession before the tank can get a handle on things", then it would be highly stressful to say the least. If the tank has time to pick it back up before it becomes a total disaster, then it will be less stressful and more of a "lol oops" as you stated.


Essentially... how much can you screw your party over? That determines how stressful it can get.

I don't think a 'mod' should make that determination for you.

A good player doesn't wipe the group. A bad player does. Its player skill.

I think it should be player skill alone. The players should develop the skill of understanding their aggro, and what spells to use and not use, and when and when not, rather than having a Mod tell you all this.

In my opinion, having a mod make those decisions is basically starting to 'play the game for you'. It basically is saying 'hit this button in 3, 2, 1, NOW'.

[elmir]

Tbh, I cannot really see what the objection is to have a visual respresentation to threat/hate. If there are really good ways to see how a tank is kicking out TPS through normal graphix/UI, mods like threatmeters would be redundant. Sad thing is, it's never really that visible. :(

Also, stating that you like Damage Meters but hate Threat Meters is a sort of paradox. If you have to know your tank's potential for threat output (and we all know the better tanks kick out the most threat), how could you ever evaluate a new recruit via a damage meter if it's his first time playing with a certain tank?

Also, think of the amount of flak a noobie tank would take... If the devs would really want a less "elitist" aproach to their playerbase, I think a visual help to threat would be recommended as a standard option. The whole "you have to know exactly how to manage your threat blindly while still kicking out close to max DPS" is a bit of a contradiction to the devs statement that the game should be for everybody imo.

PS: I'm not trying to say you're an idiot if you don't like these sort of mods, I'm just trying to hint at the fact that it would lead to a rather hard gameplay for less experienced players if those options aren't available.

As for automated game-play addons, I agree that those shouldn't be allowed. Visual representations, fine -- Addons that interfere with the players own buttonimput, please no.

[wtnind]

As for automated game-play addons, I agree that those shouldn't be allowed. Visual representations, fine -- Addons that interfere with the players own buttonimput, please no.

Indeed webcams should be mandatory and a mythic employee should check each feed before letting you logon to ensure you dont have a G11 keyboard.

If you have a damage meter then multiplying the tanks taunting strike damage by 2 or whatever turns it into a threat meter. Oh wait nevermind we can just remove the multiplication operator. SCORE!

[Lupal]

Indeed webcams should be mandatory and a mythic employee should check each feed before letting you logon to ensure you dont have a G11 keyboard.

If you have a damage meter then multiplying the tanks taunting strike damage by 2 or whatever turns it into a threat meter. Oh wait nevermind we can just remove the multiplication operator. SCORE!

I like where you are going with the webcam idea, I think it would definitely balance out mod usage. Issue is I don't play with pants on.

As per the UI mod thread, have fancy skinning and moving bar mods, but have the devs program in what functionality they want the players to have, so it is equal accross the board. In a RVR game, it is important to not have balancing factors decided by player programming, only player skill.

You do bring up an interesting point about the G11 kb though, and you could make the argument against pc peripherals such as the Saitek Cyborg command unit as well. (which has a built in macro recorder). Only way to really balance the software vs those hardware pieces would be to have a built in macro recorder in the game too, to balance it fairly. (Which takes away some of the immersion in the game, agreed so.)

[Utakata]

@elmir

I must admit, the damage/threat meters point was a good one.

The difference to me is, a damage meter is measuring damage so it's interesting to see which class is doing more damage output, and stuff like that, and I don't think it aids gameplay in any way like a threat meter does.

A threat meters tells you when to stop doing damage or when to use more hate-reducing or hate-gaining abilities.

I guess damage meters could be used for that, in which case I would say disable damage meters as well.

It's interesting to see how good a player is doing, or to compare different classes, but not to the point where it's telling you, 'alright if you cast another spell the monster will turn at you'.

[Prester John]

IMO, if you think that threat meters (1) are useless and (2) detract from your enjoyment of the game, then don't use them. What I'm not seeing is why others shouldn't be able to use them? Because it makes the game easier? OK, so it does. What if I want an easier game? If you can play the game equally well without threat meters, then it's not as if I have an advantage over you. Rather, I've suited my game more to my preferred style and you've suited your game more to yours. How is that a bad thing?

[Lupal]

IMO, if you think that threat meters (1) are useless and (2) detract from your enjoyment of the game, then don't use them. What I'm not seeing is why others shouldn't be able to use them? Because it makes the game easier? OK, so it does. What if I want an easier game? If you can play the game equally well without threat meters, then it's not as if I have an advantage over you. Rather, I've suited my game more to my preferred style and you've suited your game more to yours. How is that a bad thing?

If a threat meter is deemed needed by the development team, then they should build one in at the outset of the launch, so everyone has equal access to it. In WoW you have to have a threat meter, they built all their encounters around threat, and blizzard is finally implementing their own.

The point is, if there is a required mechanic to play, it shouldn't be created by modders. It should be created by the dev team so everyone has equal access to it.

[Utakata]

IMO, if you think that threat meters (1) are useless and (2) detract from your enjoyment of the game, then don't use them. What I'm not seeing is why others shouldn't be able to use them? Because it makes the game easier? OK, so it does. What if I want an easier game? If you can play the game equally well without threat meters, then it's not as if I have an advantage over you. Rather, I've suited my game more to my preferred style and you've suited your game more to yours. How is that a bad thing?

One of the most flawed arguments in online debates. The dreaded "don't use it" argument.

I find it detracting from gameplay that other people are able to use it. If it was released, I would use it but I'd rather nobody had it. I argue this because it gives an advantage to those who use it, hands down. A human will never be able to judge exactly how much hate to draw to the exact spell, like a program can. Thus, I would basically be forced to use it (see the OP on why being forced is a bad thing). Not that I would hate every minute of it - I think it would be extremely useful, I just think it would detract from the amount of skill you yourself were able to contribute to the game. Skill would then be determined by what mods you use, rather than how good you are at managing aggro and playing your class in general. This is what I want to avoid, and it cannot be avoided by "not using it" because a person with good aggro-managing skills would never be picked for a spot in a guild over someone with a program.

[Prester John]

One of the most flawed arguments in online debates. The dreaded "don't use it" argument.

I find it detracting from gameplay that other people are able to use it. If it was released, I would use it but I'd rather nobody had it. I argue this because it gives an advantage to those who use it, hands down. A human will never be able to judge exactly how much hate to draw to the exact spell, like a program can. Thus, I would basically be forced to use it (see the OP on why being forced is a bad thing). Not that I would hate every minute of it - I think it would be extremely useful, I just think it would detract from the amount of skill you yourself were able to contribute to the game. Skill would then be determined by what mods you use, rather than how good you are at managing aggro and playing your class in general. This is what I want to avoid, and it cannot be avoided by "not using it".

But haven't you argued earlier that a threat meter confers no real benefits on the user?

Here we go: You don't need a meter telling you that you are over-aggroing.When you have tools to do it for you, it becomes more like putting 5+5 in a calculator. You could just DO IT, but because of your incapabilities and/or laziness, you'd rather just use your calculator.I always used the default UI for all my games and I HATE stuff on the center of my screen. In fact I think it's more of a disadvantage than an advantage.You're trying to have this argument both ways. You can't plausibly argue that threat meters are, at best, useless or, at worst, disadvantageous while simultaneously arguing that threat meters confer such a benefit to the user that you feel compelled to use them. Which is it?

[Lupal]

Here we go: You're trying to have this argument both ways. You can't plausibly argue that threat meters are, at best, useless or, at worst, disadvantageous while simultaneously arguing that threat meters confer such a benefit to the user that you feel compelled to use them. Which is it?

Threat meters are only useful in PVE anyway. While I know that is not directed at me (the above quote) my position is if the game needs a mechanic to be able to play properly (such as a threat meter) then put it in the game proper. Don't leave it up to modders to create.

Modders can then choose who to visually represent it, sure, but don't leave the coding up to them if it is a necessary function of the game.

[Utakata]

But haven't you argued earlier that a threat meter confers no real benefits on the user?

Here we go: You're trying to have this argument both ways. You can't plausibly argue that threat meters are, at best, useless or, at worst, disadvantageous while simultaneously arguing that threat meters confer such a benefit to the user that you feel compelled to use them. Which is it?

No you misinterpreted every single one of those quotations.

You don't need a meter telling you that you are over-aggroing.That was in response to "threat meters are necessary", meaning I said they are unnecessary, not that they aren't useful.

When you have tools to do it for you, it becomes more like putting 5+5 in a calculator. You could just DO IT, but because of your incapabilities and/or laziness, you'd rather just use your calculator.I'm arguing here that threat meters would help, like a calculator, but it would make gameplay too automated. It's as if math classes stopped teaching mental math and logic and just taught you how to use your calculator - you would stop understanding why and just understand that certain things happen.

I always used the default UI for all my games and I HATE stuff on the center of my screen. In fact I think it's more of a disadvantage than an advantage.You took this way out of context. I was responding to "Would you think it would be an unfair advantage to have a mod that put all your bars in the middle of the screen so you have less places to look and click", not anything about threat meters at all.

Summary: I think threat meters would give an unfair advantage to those who use it. It's helpful - but not necessary. I hate how games have evolved from numbers to visual effects and now back to numbers. Visual effects and just ignoring the numerical values is, in my opinion, more enjoyable than playing Calculator Algorithms Online. Don't get me wrong, I love math, and I love efficiency, but I like to unwind from that when I play a video game. Before you tell me I'm playing the wrong genre - remember that everyone plays games for different reasons. I still love TONS of aspects of MMORPGs, just that I think the numbers should be taken out and we should go back to boss battles like in Ultima Online, or EQ, or any other older game without an infinite supply of numerical efficiency mods.

[Prester John]

Threat meters are only useful in PVE anyway. While I know that is not directed at me (the above quote) my position is if the game needs a mechanic to be able to play properly (such as a threat meter) then put it in the game proper. Don't leave it up to modders to create.

Modders can then choose who to visually represent it, sure, but don't leave the coding up to them if it is a necessary function of the game.

In theory, I agree with you. In practice, I don't think it's possible for devs to think of everything, whereas an engaged playerbase is going to spend an inordinate amount of time picking over ever possibility.

But in theory, yes. Look, I'd love it if Mythic included some sort of built-in mechanic that let a player get an idea of where they stood threatwise without using a precise meter. One of the earlier posters in this thread mentioned some sort of visual cue that would give you an idea of where you stood threat-wise. That'd be great. Even something as simple as an emote like "the giant Chaos beast gurgles menacingly at %n" to let you know that you're riding close to the tank's limit would be preferable to a hard meter, IMO.

[Utakata]

In theory, I agree with you. In practice, I don't think it's possible for devs to think of everything, whereas an engaged playerbase is going to spend an inordinate amount of time picking over ever possibility.

But in theory, yes. Look, I'd love it if Mythic included some sort of built-in mechanic that let a player get an idea of where they stood threatwise without using a precise meter. One of the earlier posters in this thread mentioned some sort of visual cue that would give you an idea of where you stood threat-wise. That'd be great. Even something as simple as an emote like "the giant Chaos beast gurgles menacingly at %n" to let you know that you're riding close to the tank's limit would be preferable to a hard meter, IMO.

It's my opinion that the tank should just be constantly spamming hate-gaining abilities as if the monster is ALWAYS about to lose attention, and DPS and support classes should constantly be thinking that the monster is ALWAYS about to attack them.

You don't need any visual, except for a giant boss turning his head and charging right for you. Then the tank needs to spam more hate abilities, and the DPS needs to cool it down. Not that difficult.

[Lupal]

In theory, I agree with you. In practice, I don't think it's possible for devs to think of everything, whereas an engaged playerbase is going to spend an inordinate amount of time picking over ever possibility.

But in theory, yes. Look, I'd love it if Mythic included some sort of built-in mechanic that let a player get an idea of where they stood threatwise without using a precise meter. One of the earlier posters in this thread mentioned some sort of visual cue that would give you an idea of where you stood threat-wise. That'd be great. Even something as simple as an emote like "the giant Chaos beast gurgles menacingly at %n" to let you know that you're riding close to the tank's limit would be preferable to a hard meter, IMO.


I love that emote idea. It is way more immersing than watching bars or numbers go up =)

WoW is a perfect example of a game where devs have had to break mods, and also create in game mods mirroring the mods created by users.. I can't think of anything new that hasn't been covered by the WoW modding community that could be needed in an MMO. Blizz is even building in their own threat meter (But I like your idea way better =)

[Prester John]

No you misinterpreted every single one of those quotations.

Perhaps because they were open to multiple interpretations. If you don't want people misinterpreting your words, it pays to be more precise.

That was in response to "threat meters are necessary", meaning I said they are unnecessary, not that they aren't useful.

But then you write that they confer such a large benefit to the user that they become necessary. Here, I'll quote you again: A human will never be able to judge exactly how much hate to draw to the exact spell, like a program can. Thus, I would basically be forced to use it.

I'm arguing here that threat meters would help, like a calculator, but it would make gameplay too automated. It's as if math classes stopped teaching mental math and logic and just taught you how to use your calculator - you would stop understanding why and just understand that certain things happen.

Too automated in your opinion. You still haven't articulated a cogent reason why this automation disadvantages you.

You took this way out of context. I was responding to "Would you think it would be an unfair advantage to have a mod that put all your bars in the middle of the screen so you have less places to look and click", not anything about threat meters at all.

Threat meters are not part of the default UI in any game of which I'm aware. If you're using threat meters, then you're not using the default UI.

Look, I'm not trying to play gotcha with you or turn this into a pissing contest. I'm genuinely trying to understand how threat meters can be simultaneously necessary and un-. At the moment, I don't understand how threat meters detract from your gameplay, and I'm trying to get your POV in order to better understand your arguments. I may never agree with you, but I'm trying to get it.

[Utakata]

I'm trying to make it clear as best I can.

So, I think they are a necessity when they are available, but they are unnecessary and shouldn't be available. This is because I find greater enjoyment not running a game by numbers. I'd rather have a situation go like this:

Utakata casts fireball.
Utakata casts fireball.
Utakata casts fireball.
Monster hits Utakata for 9,001 damage.
Utakata: Damn I should slow down next time

Rather than:

900/1000 possible threat
940/1000 possible threat
980/1000 possible threat
Utakata: I'm maxed man if I cast another spell I go over the aggro threshold, gotta wait a bit

Just my opinion. The latter sounds too much like we're in some efficiency club instead of a video game club. It's my personal opinion that the former is more fun, chaotic, random, and enjoyable. I don't want to run by the numbers, I want to run by the visuals and the consequences. Furthermore, ANYONE can run by the numbers, but not everyone can run by logic and experience. If you played for 1 minute or if you played for 10 years, if threat meters are available the 10 year has 0 advantage and gains no skill over that time period. I think having threat meters is more appealing to people who enjoy vertical advancement, advancing your character with better gear and more levels. Not having it is appealing to players who enjoy horizontal advancement, advancing your character based on physical experience - knowing what spells to use when, being able to beat someone with the same exact character as you and the same gear and everything just with your own skill. The first type are more prone to play classical RPGs, while the latter are more prone to play first person shooters. I play both, but prefer the action of first-person shooters and that everyone is on an equal level when they compete.

EDIT: I think it's kind of like Gunbound. A newb vs a veteran - the veteran knows how the wind works and how far the shots go with individual power amounts, but he might still miss from time to time, whereas a newb doesn't know this stuff, and will miss quite often. If the newb got an aimbot, it would tell him the exact angle and power to hit the enemy, and skill would now not be a factor. I think having threat meter is kind of like having an aimbot, even an inexperienced player could out-do an extremely skilled player.

That's why I think they shouldn't be available.

Now, if they WERE available, it's quite obvious they would be necessary. I could have a good idea of how many spells I can cast before drawing aggro, but it will never be exact like a threat meter could tell me. It's necessary because a person with a threat meter will always be able to do the most possible damage and never draw aggro, whereas without one you will either always do less damage, or always draw aggro when you try to match your mod-using counterparts.

That's why I think it's necessary if it's available.

[elmir]

Alright, I see what you are getting at... BUT:

If you are going to have to guess your own threat this intuïtively (as I'm guessing that's what it boils down too), I think the devs may have to cut back severely on the "challenge" of raiding as it's known in say WoW...

I cannot help but think this will turn out in a very elitist like aproach to PvE (the only situation where hate/threat really matters), which may contradict what has been said by the developers over and over again: We don't want to make a game aimed at the top 10% of all players. Newer players will screw up over and over again as DPS classes with this sort of trial and error threat management.

So in order to not make this game too elitist with DPS dieing (a lot), they would have too:

- Make tank threat so ridiculously high that any tank worth his salt will never be outagro'ed by DPS, so the slower threatbuilders still have a spot in PvE.
- Remove any frontal cone attacks from bosses, as whole raid wipes will happen if one person screws up the agro, resulting in a frustrating PvE experience for most ppl involved. This includes tarring and feathering off the poor noob that agro'ed (most of the time).
- The elimination of any critical RDPS in most encounters to allow carefull DPS useage.
- Make threat a very stationary, boring, none spike prone thing.

Now they don't have to do all these things, but one or two of those measures may need to be taken in order to make PvE somewhat enjoyable and less threat mechanic oriëntated. That doesn't sound like a very fun tanking experience to me, nor a very fun and challenging PvE experience altogether.

I have always played a tank as my main in WoW (feral druid). I must say, even with all the fancy mods in that game, PuG tanking is still a dreadfull experience. There will always be the DPS horny AoE spammer or that caster who only has half a second left on his castbar for his huuughe pyroblast when you finally make contact with the mob...

My point is, if you make threat mechanics too intuitive, you are going to end up with a very elitist game. So I'm hoping they'll add an ingame threatmeter/emote warning, whatever to avoid it.

[Utakata]

I've always felt that the WoW raid bosses were extremely gimmicky. If your only experience with bosses is a WoW raid boss, I can see where you're coming from. Personally I come from an older generation of boss battles that were just regular monsters with above average stats and maybe one or two unique skills that would throw you off-balance. None of this simon-says/red light-green light crap like they put in WoW. That's my view on that. Bosses should never be too gimmicky, give them some cool attacks but not to the level that WoW did it.

Example:

Every 45 seconds boss closes its eyes to prepare for an attack and everyone needs to form a ring bounded by the circles of radius 25m and 30m, as anyone outside the ring takes 20,000 damage.

Or

Every 2 minutes the boss does an attack that removes 20 buffs from a player, if the player has less than 20 buffs the player dies.

It's all extremely stupid and stuff like that makes mods and stuff necessary and ruins the fun of the game. An encounter should be difficult but not like, impossible the first time around.

[elmir]

Gimmicky-ness aside, I'm only refering to something very, very standard like threat mechanics here. ;)

I believe somebody said something about not having these visual threatmeters would force the tanks to start communicating to his party/raid if things aren't exactly looking good in the threat department. This means either typing, using a macro to give a warning to your partymembers or... the thing I hate most, voicecoms. This is me going /rant now:

Sure, my only MMO experience so far has been WoW. The bosses are indeed very gimmicky (especially in the higher end raids like black temple for those that know it). In fact, they are so gimmicky that most people claim they are impossible without voicecoms in your raids. Nonsence imo, we are doing very well in the highest T6 instances and our guild (of which I'm an officer), prides itself in the fact that we have killed nearly all bosses in game without the use of voicecom. This takes most immersion in the game away (at least, that's our opinion).

Why? Because instead of one guy screaming things over voicecom, we expect our raiders to be able to mutli-task and use the addons, timers, meters and whatnot to make sure they see the fight through to the end. That in it's own right, can be considered a "skill"...

If you don't allow some visual aid addons, they will probably be replaced by guy barking orders via voicecom. If you ask me, that's infinatly worse then having to check a meter every now and then. :p

And there is no stopping voicecom use as a developer. Programs like TS/ventrillo/skype/... are available next to the game. If you think addons are bad, what about the use of these programs to get an "unfair" advantage over your opponent? Heck, they give you and edge in RvR situations as well...

Guess it'll boil down to how complicated (or gimmicky) the encounters in WAR will be.

Appart from that, I love mods. Especially the ones for UI actionbar customisation. I hope there will also be mods that allow artwork to be included, just because I'll love the visual appeal of the game more.

[Utakata]

My argument for that is, voicecoms don't change gameplay.

Voicecom is just a more efficient way of typing - voice is the same thing as typing, I should say, just faster.

Whereas judging your own threat vs having your threat told to you is a different concept entirely.

I think the difference is this:

Voicecom vs typing is similar to texting on your phone vs typing on a keyboard.

Threat meters vs judging your own threat is similar to doing mental math vs using a calculator.

Texting on your phone is slower, but all the same actions are available between texting and having a keyboard.

Using mental math *can* be slower, but if you don't know an equation you're out of luck, whereas with a calculator even things you don't know can be answered with the help of its functionality. So mental math does not have all the same actions and accessibility as a calculator.

Thus, threat meters can't really be compared to voicecom, because voicecom doesn't affect your gameplay or what you know about the game. Having a threat meter could be the difference between you casting the right amount of spells, and over-aggroing.

I don't think they can be compared as similar "unfair advantages".

Our views are so polar opposite it's amazing. I love voicecom and don't see why you wouldn't use it if available.

Look at the games you played as a kid, if you had friends come over and play them, did you sit there and type to eachother? No, you talked about it.

I wonder how humans came to have such vastly different views on these things.

[Pangscar]

I'm trying to make it clear as best I can.

So, I think they are a necessity when they are available, but they are unnecessary and shouldn't be available. This is because I find greater enjoyment not running a game by numbers. I'd rather have a situation go like this:

Utakata casts fireball.
Utakata casts fireball.
Utakata casts fireball.
Monster hits Utakata for 9,001 damage.
Utakata: Damn I should slow down next time

Rather than:

900/1000 possible threat
940/1000 possible threat
980/1000 possible threat
Utakata: I'm maxed man if I cast another spell I go over the aggro threshold, gotta wait a bit




Except that in your example you missed the part where you pulling agro causes the raid to wipe costing your guild mates repair money and time, while you GUESS what your agro is. Sorry but guessing what your agro level is, is not skill. Using a threat meter allows the DPS to maximize their output making for a more efficient raid. Sure you could guess your way through it but you will be no where near as efficient and useful as thoughs that do use the meters.

So until game devs make encounters that don't involve a threat mechanic and needing tanks to hold mobs, using threat meters will be the best way to maximize your results. and yeah yeah its suppose to be about fun not fine tuning a scripted encounter but guess what, its not fun dying repeatedly cause some scrub DPSr is guessing what his aggro level is either.

[Nerissa]

My argument for that is, voicecoms don't change gameplay.

Voicecom is just a more efficient way of typing - voice is the same thing as typing, I should say, just faster.



It's a fairly large change actually. Most notably, you cannot use your keybinds while typing.

You can only drive your character with a mouse while typing.

Since you cannot use your binds and you have to use the mouse to move your toon... hellooooo clickerland!

[Utakata]

Except that in your example you missed the part where you pulling agro causes the raid to wipe costing your guild mates repair money and time, while you GUESS what your agro is. Sorry but guessing what your agro level is, is not skill. Using a threat meter allows the DPS to maximize their output making for a more efficient raid. Sure you could guess your way through it but you will be no where near as efficient and useful as thoughs that do use the meters.

So until game devs make encounters that don't involve a threat mechanic and needing tanks to hold mobs, using threat meters will be the best way to maximize your results. and yeah yeah its suppose to be about fun not fine tuning a scripted encounter but guess what, its not fun dying repeatedly cause some scrub DPSr is guessing what his aggro level is either.

Guessing what your aggro level IS skill, otherwise you wouldn't have called someone failing to control their aggro a "scrub". A person good at controlling their aggro would never over-aggro. This is learned through the earlier levels of gameplay, not once you reach raid content. So you might wipe on like a level 5 moth, and then you realize you shouldn't over-aggro. Then you accidentally start over-aggroing again around level 20 and slowly tune your inner "aggro-meter" so that you can involuntarily tell if you are about to over-aggro. This worked perfectly fine in FFXI, we even did bosses like Serket (pre-chains of promathia and all the expansion content), without any sort of mod. I was a DPS class (RNG/NIN) and could control my aggro, and it was especially awesome to do skillchains while holding your aggro below the threshold. I really enjoyed it, and they did bosses in such a fashion that over-aggroing didn't wipe the entire raid. WoW was an exception, the way they did raiding has revolutionized the way people view aggro and mod play, and frankly I don't like it. I liked the classical solution to make bosses less gimmicky and determine your worth by how well you could manage aggro.

It's a fairly large change actually. Most notably, you cannot use your keybinds while typing.

You can only drive your character with a mouse while typing.

Since you cannot use your binds and you have to use the mouse to move your toon... hellooooo clickerland!

Compared to threat meter vs no threat meter, I think it's a much smaller difference in gameplay. When do you even talk during a fight? Threat meters are on the entire fight and consistently change your actions. There's 3 paths of action, under-aggro, perfect aggro, and over aggro. Threat meters ALWAYS allow you to perfect aggro. Voice comm doesn't do much as far as automate gameplay. It helps you communicate faster like "heal me" or something, but it still requires interaction.

I know I can't convince you to realize threat meters are bad. It's my opinion that they are. They ruin gameplay for me and make it less fun. I know you don't agree with me.

[gothum]

I just hope they don't impliment the ability to see what the other player is casting or enable someone to see another players specializations!

[gothum]

I know I can't convince you to realize threat meters are bad. It's my opinion that they are. They ruin gameplay for me and make it less fun. I know you don't agree with me.

You know what? It's all subjective.

I agree. When you have certain tools available to you that enable you to anticipate whats coming next, you kind of take the fun out of it. Part of the thrill of the PvE experience is not knowing if your going to succeed or fail while doing what you must to win. To some people, it's the challenge itself that makes the experience fun and not the mindless activity of monitoring tools. The direct result of these add ons enables farming. Much like you would farm for gold which, IMO, is loathsome.

In fact, now that I think about it a little more, you always hear guilds in Warcraft saying things like, "we have such and such instance on farm.", which, in fact, in no way resembles the guilds overall skill. It just means that they have other instances on "farm". So much so that they have enough REQUIRED GEAR for enough of their members to be able to put the next instance on "farm".

[Gunter]

many guilds make things like threat meters mandatory...therefor to many people necessary to get in the raid.

They are not needed in an objective way meaning that you can do the encoounters without them.

I donot like that things like threat meters make encounters more trivial and less of a challenge and for me quite boring...all I have to do is spam and look at my meter. i like having to pay attention to the fight and I think the devs should make challenging content that you HAVE to pay attention to.

You know what? It's all subjective.

I agree. When you have certain tools available to you that enable you to anticipate whats coming next, you kind of take the fun out of it. Part of the thrill of the PvE experience is not knowing if your going to succeed or fail while doing what you must to win. To some people, it's the challenge itself that makes the experience fun and not the mindless activity of monitoring tools. The direct result of these add ons enables farming. Much like you would farm for gold which, IMO, is loathsome.

In fact, now that I think about it a little more, you always hear guilds in Warcraft saying things like, "we have such and such instance on farm.", which, in fact, in no way resembles the guilds overall skill. It just means that they have other instances on "farm". So much so that they have enough REQUIRED GEAR for enough of their members to be able to put the next instance on "farm".

So true. I hate farming and the raid game got old fast as soon as MC was on farm. Or as soon as all but Nef in BWL was on farm.

[Sykishi]

Any mod that dose anything other than changing the way something looks is simply a crutch that players use.Players that dont use the crutch have alot more skill than player that do, on the account that there able to play like big boys with what the game gives you to play with.

Call me crazy but i think that games come with whats needed to play them,and if theres somethig that is needed they will add it via patch/update.

[Loekii]

@elmir

I must admit, the damage/threat meters point was a good one.

The difference to me is, a damage meter is measuring damage so it's interesting to see which class is doing more damage output, and stuff like that, and I don't think it aids gameplay in any way like a threat meter does.

A threat meters tells you when to stop doing damage or when to use more hate-reducing or hate-gaining abilities.

I guess damage meters could be used for that, in which case I would say disable damage meters as well.

It's interesting to see how good a player is doing, or to compare different classes, but not to the point where it's telling you, 'alright if you cast another spell the monster will turn at you'.

Its the difference between having a simple speedometer, and having a shifting meter to maximize speed and a brake meter telling you how much braking is optimal for the turn...

Another example is how at a Vegas BlackJack table, you can 'count cards' in your head, but you cannot bring a computer to count cards for you, or even let you enter the math.



Counting Cards = Mentally Calculating Threat
Calculator = Threat Meter

[elmir]

Another example is how at a Vegas BlackJack table, you can 'count cards' in your head, but you cannot bring a computer to count cards for you, or even let you enter the math.



Counting Cards = Mentally Calculating Threat
Calculator = Threat Meter



True! But in Vegas, they don't expect you to be able to clean the tables at all, whereas in an MMO, they kinda do... ;)

[Utakata]

Its the difference between having a simple speedometer, and having a shifting meter to maximize speed and a brake meter telling you how much braking is optimal for the turn...

Another example is how at a Vegas BlackJack table, you can 'count cards' in your head, but you cannot bring a computer to count cards for you, or even let you enter the math.



Counting Cards = Mentally Calculating Threat
Calculator = Threat Meter



Pretty much my point exactly. They consider using a calculator to count cards to be cheating, much the same as I think a threat meter is cheating. But that's just me.

[ZeppelinJ0]

I'm also a huge anti-threatmeter advocate, it seems that MMOs are now going the way of handing every bit of information to the player out of fear that they'll lose subscriptions.

Part of the fun of doing encounters, especially as a DPS, is that little devil on your shoulder saying "come on put out more damage!!!" while the angel is saying "maybe you should slow down you might piss it off." Threat meters just further throws this game in to easy-mode and makes it closer to that one game we all came from and don't want to play again.

[Loekii]

Pretty much my point exactly. They consider using a calculator to count cards to be cheating, much the same as I think a threat meter is cheating. But that's just me.

Add me to your list. I think it is a form of cheating as well.

[Nerissa]

Pretty much my point exactly. They consider using a calculator to count cards to be cheating, much the same as I think a threat meter is cheating. But that's just me.

They consider ANY form of counting cards cheating (yes, even just using your own memory without any indicators). Casinos don't like it when people can make relatively informed decisions, because people that do keep track of that stuff tend to win more and lose less, which is bad for the casino.

[elmir]

Part of the fun of doing encounters, especially as a DPS, is that little devil on your shoulder saying "come on put out more damage!!!" while the angel is saying "maybe you should slow down you might piss it off." Threat meters just further throws this game in to easy-mode and makes it closer to that one game we all came from and don't want to play again.

Well... In that one game we all came from and don't want to play again, I was (and still sometimes am) Tank leader. You may want to consider one point: unless damage intake is predominantly determined by defensive cycle abilities instead of passive stats like dodge, parry, block,... the ONLY way to determine wether or not you're a good tank, is threatoutput. (though it's assumption on my part that the defensive cycle of abilities is not the most important one...)

If there is no way to ever show that value (sustained TPS, high peak TPS,...), that sadly also would take away some of the "tanking pride" for players.

*high pitched scream* Would somebody please think of the tank's e-peen! ;)

[Utakata]

Well... In that one game we all came from and don't want to play again, I was (and still sometimes am) Tank leader. You may want to consider one point: unless damage intake is predominantly determined by defensive cycle abilities instead of passive stats like dodge, parry, block,... the ONLY way to determine wether or not you're a good tank, is threatoutput. (though it's assumption on my part that the defensive cycle of abilities is not the most important one...)

If there is no way to ever show that value (sustained TPS, high peak TPS,...), that sadly also would take away some of the "tanking pride" for players.

*high pitched scream* Would somebody please think of the tank's e-peen! ;)

Yeah. It's called... DPS can give higher outputs without drawing aggro "Wow you're a good tank" or DPS cast one spell every 10 seconds "Wow this tank sucks".

You DON'T NEED a threat meter.

[elmir]

Yeah. It's called... DPS can give higher outputs without drawing aggro "Wow you're a good tank" or DPS cast one spell every 10 seconds "Wow this tank sucks".

You DON'T NEED a threat meter.

And that is about as black and white as you can see it from a DPS point of view. :)

Where is the max DPSer for certain fight X patting tank john on the back after the boss is down saying: "Damnit John, I was nuking all I got and I was still 40% under your threat!"

That's about the nicest thing John can hear from his fellow teammates instead of the otherwise only negative comment: "whoops, DPS was threatcapped there..."

EDIT: if you read into this, this is not a claim for a NEED for a threatmeter, but if you are a dedicated tank, this is about as close as you'll ever get to what a DPS meter "feels" like for the DPSers in your guild/group/raid.

[Gunter]

EDIT: if you read into this, this is not a claim for a NEED for a threatmeter, but if you are a dedicated tank, this is about as close as you'll ever get to what a DPS meter "feels" like for the DPSers in your guild/group/raid.


I can understand that though do I have to know how far they were under? If they were 40% under then they were nto DPSing enough ;) It shoudbe just under and that can be done through experince as well as through a Threat Meter. I prefer experience because it means the dpser is skilled enough to tell when they are spikeing a bit.

[Loekii]

I can understand that though do I have to know how far they were under? If they were 40% under then they were nto DPSing enough ;) It shoudbe just under and that can be done through experince as well as through a Threat Meter. I prefer experience because it means the dpser is skilled enough to tell when they are spikeing a bit.

I agree.

A good player knows how to manage their threat without having a meter. That is part of being a good DPSer.

Meters take that part of the gameplay away from the players (the calculation and estimating of threat, balanced with effect).

Threat meters are just a big step closer to simply having the computer select which ability to use and when (simple have the action buttons light up tell you to click this one, now).

[Utakata]

I don't know. Maybe it's just need but I don't find those sort of things rewarding. As a DPS I don't need people telling me "Wow you did 20% more DPS than the other guy", I personally gain satisfaction by just collectively downing the boss. I can tell who's not doing as well and who's doing awesome just by visuals.

Again, that's just my opinion. A much larger percentage of the community has started to "enjoy" these meters and stuff compared to MMOs 5 or 10 years ago.

[Loekii]

I personally dislike 'meter play' (when people judge how someone is performing based upon the meter results -- instead of the overall effect and contribution).

I have quit dungeon groups because of how group leaders have treated other players that were performing well, but were not hitting the GL's idea of acceptable metering.

Overall I see meter play as handicapping people, by letting the player skill wither away, and be replaced at meter watching.

I have a job. I don't put up with someone micromanage how I spend my free time as well.

[Pogo]

I personally dislike 'meter play' (when people judge how someone is performing based upon the meter results -- instead of the overall effect and contribution).

I have quit dungeon groups because of how group leaders have treated other players that were performing well, but were not hitting the GL's idea of acceptable metering.

Overall I see meter play as handicapping people, by letting the player skill wither away, and be replaced at meter watching.

I have a job. I don't put up with someone micromanage how I spend my free time as well.


I couldn't put it better my self, meters can be sometimes a good tool, but are often over abused and puts people up on pedastal. The best players I ever played with could pick up multiple roles on the whim of asking those are the ones I look up to.

[Teki]

Agree with Utakata.


ditto, skinning the UI is okay in my book though.

[Pangscar]

I agree.

A good player knows how to manage their threat without having a meter. That is part of being a good DPSer.

Being a good DPSer means staying below the MT threat level while maintaining a high level of damage output. Doesn't matter in the least if you can see what your exact threat is or not you still have to use the right combination of spells. I would MUCH rather have DPSers in my group/raid who use meters than those who don't and just guess and hope they don't pull aggro.


Meters take that part of the gameplay away from the players (the calculation and estimating of threat, balanced with effect).

So then tell my how exactly you calculate and estimate your current level of threat compared to the MTs current level of threat all while maintaining a high level of damage output during a raid without a meter? I'd love to hear this one, and no saying "well a good DPSers just nows" isn't good enough. The only thing it takes away is the guess work, so if guessing and hoping is your style of gameplay then go ahead keep on not using meters.


Threat meters are just a big step closer to simply having the computer select which ability to use and when (simple have the action buttons light up tell you to click this one, now).

Now your getting into exaggerations to help your case. Look, these meters are simply tools. You can choose not to use them at all, but just know that those who do use them will be better and more efficient at their class then you will be.

[Utakata]

Being a good DPSer means staying below the MT threat level while maintaining a high level of damage output. Doesn't matter in the least if you can see what your exact threat is or not you still have to use the right combination of spells. I would MUCH rather have DPSers in my group/raid who use meters than those who don't and just guess and hope they don't pull aggro.

So then tell my how exactly you calculate and estimate your current level of threat compared to the MTs current level of threat all while maintaining a high level of damage output during a raid without a meter? I'd love to hear this one, and no saying "well a good DPSers just nows" isn't good enough. The only thing it takes away is the guess work, so if guessing and hoping is your style of gameplay then go ahead keep on not using meters.


The problem with your argument is that you're doing it from the perspective that meters are available and exist. Before any sort of meter existed, how do you think people managed their aggro? Did you even play any MMORPGs in big boss battles before meters were developed?

We're not talking using meters vs not using meters, we're talking meters existing vs meters not existing.

[Gunter]

I couldn't put it better my self, meters can be sometimes a good tool, but are often over abused and puts people up on pedastal. The best players I ever played with could pick up multiple roles on the whim of asking those are the ones I look up to.


Agreed. Its not really the meter itself but the attitude of so many people that come to think the meter is all important I play to have fun not to be managed.

As another recenty said...I have a job already.

[Pangscar]

The problem with your argument is that you're doing it from the perspective that meters are available and exist. Before any sort of meter existed, how do you think people managed their aggro? Did you even play any MMORPGs in big boss battles before meters were developed?

We're not talking using meters vs not using meters, we're talking meters existing vs meters not existing.

No, I know exactly where my argument is coming from and what I am responding to. Sorry you don't get to make up some false rules about the topic because my opinion differs from your. This topic is or started about mods, threat meters being one of those, try to keep up ok?

Answer and reply to my post as is or not at all.

[Utakata]

No, I know exactly where my argument is coming from and what I am responding to. Sorry you don't get to make up some false rules about the topic because my opinion differs from your. This topic is or started about mods, threat meters being one of those, try to keep up ok?

Answer and reply to my post as is or not at all.

I responded to your argument. You're arguing that using mods is more efficient which it is, but in MY opinion, it automates gameplay and shouldn't be implemented in the first place. If that means making bosses slightly easier, be my guest, but I don't want threat meters.

Throughout this topic there have been analogies to what the anti-mod community thinks. We think of threat meters as nothing more than cheating. Nothing more than an aimbot, so-to-speak. "But it's more efficient", hell yes an aimbot is more efficient, does that make it fun and fair?

Not in my opinion.

[Pangscar]

I responded to your argument. You're arguing that using mods is more efficient which it is, but in MY opinion, it automates gameplay and shouldn't be implemented in the first place. If that means making bosses slightly easier, be my guest, but I don't want threat meters.

Throughout this topic there have been analogies to what the anti-mod community thinks. We think of threat meters as nothing more than cheating. Nothing more than an aimbot, so-to-speak. "But it's more efficient", hell yes an aimbot is more efficient, does that make it fun and fair?

Not in my opinion.


eh, yeah I've read this thread, no need to regurgitate it thanks. You can think its cheating all you want but the people who make these games and the majority who play them don't think so. So guess who I put my trust into knowing better? Yeah thats right the people who's job it is to make games. Also pretty much every analogy fails like most do. Anyways, I doubt the poster I quoted(or anyone for that mater) will actually respond to the questions I posed or actually knows how to answer them. Most of the arguments are based on anecdotal and exaggerated experience.

[Gunter]

Being a good DPSer means staying below the MT threat level while maintaining a high level of damage output. Doesn't matter in the least if you can see what your exact threat is or not you still have to use the right combination of spells. I would MUCH rather have DPSers in my group/raid who use meters than those who don't and just guess and hope they don't pull aggro.



So then tell my how exactly you calculate and estimate your current level of threat compared to the MTs current level of threat all while maintaining a high level of damage output during a raid without a meter? I'd love to hear this one, and no saying "well a good DPSers just nows" isn't good enough. The only thing it takes away is the guess work, so if guessing and hoping is your style of gameplay then go ahead keep on not using meters.



Now your getting into exaggerations to help your case. Look, these meters are simply tools. You can choose not to use them at all, but just know that those who do use them will be better and more efficient at their class then you will be.


I tanked in many games and until WoW there were no threat meters. Raiding in WoW is a joke and very easy. You are told everything and when to do anything on a raid because of mods that make it so they you do not have ot pay attention to anyting but a meter or an alert. In a 40 man raid only about 10-15 needed to know what was going on the rest just followed.

I would rather have someone that KNEW thier class inside and out so that when something went wrong they would know how to respond. Meter watching does not help there, its a detriment. Meters make players lazy. They watch TV and thier meter on a raid. That takes much of the enjoyment out fo ME to have that kind of lazy in a raid.

You calculate by exerience and getting a feel of the game no need for exacts its experience and skill...just like how the people that made the meters did to figure out how much threat tere was for each action. There is no client notification of threat in WoW or there was not when I played. Skill over meters. One is learned one is just given lowering the bar for what isneeded in an encounter. Many of these encounters were challenging till moders made a mod that took any need for skill out of it. I am glad my guild did not use meters till the end of th guidl. We got through MC and BWL without it.

[Utakata]

eh, yeah I've read this thread, no need to regurgitate it thanks. You can think its cheating all you want but the people who make these games and the majority who play them don't think so. So guess who I put my trust into knowing better? Yeah thats right the people who's job it is to make games. Also pretty much every analogy fails like most do. Anyways, I doubt the poster I quoted(or anyone for that mater) will actually respond to the questions I posed or actually knows how to answer them. Most of the arguments are based on anecdotal and exaggerated experience.

So you think all developers automatically think threat meters are a good idea because Blizzard allowed it? And what statistics do you have on people who think threat meters is or isn't cheating? None, so don't make up false statistics or reasoning. Besides, the MAJORITY of people in this thread are against it.

I think YOUR argument is based on exaggerated experience. Like, World of Warcraft. WoW raiding did something that no other game did, all these red-light green-light / simon-says raid boss encounters. No other game had or required threat meters because one wrong move didn't cause you to waste 4 hours of your life. The way WoW implemented raids and boss encounters was absolutely ridiculous, and should not be used as the standard for deciding whether or not threat meters are a good thing.

You just need to experience a game where the boss encounters were less ridiculous and there WERE no addons to help you with threat meters.

[Beaver]

Here's a suggestion...

When you are fighting in a war, are you going to be totally quiet or are you going to be yelling and talking the whole time?

Simply have the NPC in question taunt with text the people within 10 or 5% of top aggro? Then you can watch who the NPC hates and make sure he is always yelling about your stinky dwarf tank etc.?

Just my 2 cents.

[Utakata]

Here's a suggestion...

When you are fighting in a war, are you going to be totally quiet or are you going to be yelling and talking the whole time?

Simply have the NPC in question taunt with text the people within 10 or 5% of top aggro? Then you can watch who the NPC hates and make sure he is always yelling about your stinky dwarf tank etc.?

Just my 2 cents.

I don't like this idea because not all mobs can speak your language. If we were only fighting our own race or races than can understand you, then it could work. I honestly don't want to be fighting the bloodthirster like "ROAR Utakata YOU MAKE ME ANGRY", or whatever. lol.

[Beaver]

I was thinking more along the lines of "I'm going to rip your toes off one by one Beaver"

And anything that doesn't speak your language, like beasts etc., you shouldn't HAVE a way of telling who they are angry at, and frankly, they should only be angry at whatever's closest.

[Pangscar]

So you think all developers automatically think threat meters are a good idea because Blizzard allowed it? And what statistics do you have on people who think threat meters is or isn't cheating? None, so don't make up false statistics or reasoning. Besides, the MAJORITY of people in this thread are against it.

I think YOUR argument is based on exaggerated experience. Like, World of Warcraft. WoW raiding did something that no other game did, all these red-light green-light / simon-says raid boss encounters. No other game had or required threat meters because one wrong move didn't cause you to waste 4 hours of your life. The way WoW implemented raids and boss encounters was absolutely ridiculous, and should not be used as the standard for deciding whether or not threat meters are a good thing.

You just need to experience a game where the boss encounters were less ridiculous and there WERE no addons to help you with threat meters.


No, mine is based on how it actually works right NOW. Seeing as how I still play WoW and raid with my guild 5 nights a week, I know exactly how it all works and why mods like threat meters are a requirement to be successful. Like it or not thats how it is. I would also argue that past encounters in WoW pre-TBC and in other games were not as complex as the ones currently in WoW. If you were ever in a raid for Vashj, Kael'thas, Archimonde and Illidan to name a few you would know this. While they are not super complex they are quite more than the old tired tank and spanks of the past. So while in past games and old content in WoW sure you could get away with not using threat meters but the fact is for better or worse that is not true in the least with the current state of the encounters.

Anyways most of this argument is moot right out of the box just by what type of game WAR will be. The PvE encounters should be complex for sure but they won't garner as much interest in WAR as the main part of the game is RvR.

[Gunter]

No, mine is based on how it actually works right NOW. Seeing as how I still play WoW and raid with my guild 5 nights a week, I know exactly how it all works and why mods like threat meters are a requirement to be successful. Like it or not thats how it is. I would also argue that past encounters in WoW pre-TBC and in other games were not as complex as the ones currently in WoW. If you were ever in a raid for Vashj, Kael'thas, Archimonde and Illidan to name a few you would know this. While they are not super complex they are quite more than the old tired tank and spanks of the past. So while in past games and old content in WoW sure you could get away with not using threat meters but the fact is for better or worse that is not true in the least with the current state of the encounters.

Anyways most of this argument is moot right out of the box just by what type of game WAR will be. The PvE encounters should be complex for sure but they won't garner as much interest in WAR as the main part of the game is RvR.

The biggest non RvR PvE encounter is for 6 people. One group. The exceptions are few and the biggest exception noted is the "king" fights after City Capture.

The biggest reason you HAVE to have things like threat m,eters is that they were used so much in the past the later fights had to be insane to make them challenging at all. So NOW you need them. It one of the big reasons I left. It was mod-craft not warcraft if I can coin a stupd pun. I like skill not mods. I am glad that WAR will be more restrictive on mods than WoW. Mods helped ruin the game in my honest opinion.

[Njor]

Agree with much of what have been said here.
Threat meters, and more or less any addon that allows you to do something, or get any crucial information, that other players can't shouldn't be used.
And if for instance, the majority feel a casting bar is needed (and it's not implented), they could, instead of making their own, simply ask mythic to develop one. It's called feedback.

Addons that gives you acces to any information and possibilities that others don't have just sucks.
I mean, you play to have fun, to go on amazing adventures, fighting dragons inside massive dungeons and so on. Today, wow reminds me more of finding my way with a gps In 200 meters turn right / in 2 seconds, move away from boss. I would hate to see that happen for WAR too.
I want to be able to make a difference by thinking and acting fast, not by sticking a 100% to whatever my addons tells me.
Besides, guilds will start requiring you to use those addons if they exist, so don't tell me I can just choose 'not to use them'.
Furthermore they're not required to make bosses doable.
Bosses will always be balanced according to the tools the players have. If bosses are too easy, or too hard, players will loose interrest and stop playing.

[Utakata]

No, mine is based on how it actually works right NOW. Seeing as how I still play WoW and raid with my guild 5 nights a week, I know exactly how it all works and why mods like threat meters are a requirement to be successful. Like it or not thats how it is. I would also argue that past encounters in WoW pre-TBC and in other games were not as complex as the ones currently in WoW. If you were ever in a raid for Vashj, Kael'thas, Archimonde and Illidan to name a few you would know this. While they are not super complex they are quite more than the old tired tank and spanks of the past. So while in past games and old content in WoW sure you could get away with not using threat meters but the fact is for better or worse that is not true in the least with the current state of the encounters.

Anyways most of this argument is moot right out of the box just by what type of game WAR will be. The PvE encounters should be complex for sure but they won't garner as much interest in WAR as the main part of the game is RvR.

This argument definitely isn't moot because of the king encounter. Even people who only PvP will eventually want to get this guy down. I don't want the king to be super gimmicky like WoW's raid bosses. Obviously he has to be hard, and they can give him some diverse attacks, but WoW raids are far too static and depend too much on EXACT positions and exact DPS/threat amounts. Drawing aggro should not wipe your entire raid. The kind should not have abilities that are static and gimmicky.

For example, here is a satire on BT raid bosses:

Soontobetuned Cockblock Lord
10,000,000 HP
8 minute enrage
immune to taunt

abilities:
lolcrush: passive - allows Cockblock Lord to crush your tank ignoring all types of mitigation. cannot be dodged or parried.
roflaoe: 30s cooldown - will create a double barrier around a random player. anyone inside or outside both barriers will recieve 10000 damage after 2 seconds. players within the two barriers will recieve 5000 damage. inner barrier is at 40 yards from the targetted person, and outer barrier at 41 yards.
pwnageswing: 10s cooldown - Cockblock Lord will enchant his melee attacks with a random element and begin attacking with elemental damage instead of physical.
hardon: at 40% Cockblock Lord will begin to fight with his , allowing him to hit additional people in melee range, or squirting on any ranged caster.

after clearning Soontobetuned, you can loot a dungeon key from him and proceed to either Dice Roller the Blind, or Farmalot the Resist Checker.

Dice Roller the Blind
5,000,000 HP
no enrage timer
tauntable

abilities:
Blind Throw: 5s - Dice Roller will blindly throw his two glaives in two random directions. anyone hit by either of the glaives will die. this also resets his agro.
The Salad: 5s - players will randomly receive a buff called "Tossed" that will allow them to attack/cast 50% faster. has a high chance of targetting Dice Roller himself.
Soul Gaze: 30s - Dice Roller will revert your attack type, all damaging skills will heal him, and all healing abilities will damage allies. the tooltip for this ability is hidden.
Petrifying Vision: 1m - Dice Roller will turn a raid member into stone for the rest of the fight.
Luck of the Draw: used at 20% - has a chance to wipe the entire raid.

Dice Roller may or may not drop a dungeon key.

Farmalot the Resist Checker
Farmalot has five forms corresponding to the five schools of magic: fire, frost, arcane, shadow, nature
7,500,000 HP
15 minute enrage
non tauntable

abilities:
Chromatic Blast: 2m - Farmalot will emit five waves of elemental magic. Each pulse will be a different school of magic and the damage dealt equal to 20% of the player's health. No resists in at least one school will result in death.
Pulsing Essence: aura, 50 yard radius - Farmalot will emit an aura dealing 2000 damage every 2 seconds of whichever form he is in.
Chromatic Shift: 2m - Farmalot will change forms resetting all agro and picking a new elemental form.
The Great Sink: 1m - 20 beneficial buffs will be removed from players, players with under 20 buffs will die.That's the kind of stuff I don't want to see, because it's that kind of stuff that makes mods more necessary. Obviously those aren't real abilities but it's not much of a stretch from what WoW actually does. I hate all the "jumping through hoops" crap. It's a poor way to try and make an action game out of an MMO.