So Why is Threat Invisible?

[SithZigg]

There is nothing "invisible" about threat; in fact, it is just the opposite. Unlike DPS, or even healing, where you are always wondering if you are doing enough, threat is right out in the open. Are the mobs focused on me, yes or no? If no, do something abut it. You do not need a meter to tell you if you are able to get, and maintain, the mobs attention. Just watch your monitor.

 

Lazy players are lazy.

[wifeaggro]

Before I quit EQ2, they implimented a Threat meter as well. They're probably had theirs for a couple of years by this point.

 

Back in EQ2, I had x3 abilities which wiped my combat threat on the target mob and reset my Threat score to 1 pt below the person with the next highest threat. Thus if I had 90% Threat (with 100%+ meaning that I had pulled threat) and hit my threat wipe, the end results were very variable. If I was the only strong dps player present, then my 90% could easily be reset to 40% Threat. Yet if there were a bunch of strong dps players present, then the 1st wipe would only reset me to 85% Threat. This would force me to hit my other x2 Threat Wipes in a row. In the end, my Threat would start at 90% and would skip down to something like 90% > 85% > 75% > 30%. For this kind of situation, having the Threat meter available was invaluable since it give me proactive control which a Threat Loss mechanic that was completely subjective since it depended on the Threat levels of everyone present.

 

I'm not claiming that EQ2 is the most cutting edge MMO for setting a standard, but the concept of having a Threat Meter (which became part of EQ2's core UI choices) has become increasingly more common.

 

Threat management in EQ 2 was actually a major game mechanic. EQ2 had a much much more indepth combat mechaincs . It was a much more chalenging game, pulling and threat mechanics were actually an art form and was required knowledge for a groups success. SWTOR is a stripped down version of WOW. Taunt every six seconds and tab around and AOE. this game is marketed at new MMO players and younger gamers i would not even call it casual as casual veterans are fastly disenchanted as well unless they reroll or focus on the fluff game which is thin as well.

[oursacrifice]

I am the tank.

 

Is the enemy attacking me? Y/N

 

If Y, check next enemy.

 

If N, attack enemy until he attacks me.

 

How is this so hard to understand?

 

This is what bad tanks are made of.

[oursacrifice]

There is nothing "invisible" about threat; in fact, it is just the opposite. Unlike DPS, or even healing, where you are always wondering if you are doing enough, threat is right out in the open. Are the mobs focused on me, yes or no? If no, do something abut it. You do not need a meter to tell you if you are able to get, and maintain, the mobs attention. Just watch your monitor.

 

Lazy players are lazy.

 

Bad players will always be bad as well.

 

Terrible players will keyboard turn and mouse click your abilities all day long until something goes wrong and then fight to try and get the mob back.

 

A good tank will monitor threat levels on all targets and learn to adapt to situations before they become a problem. Good tanks watch those values and notice a particular mob slowly losing interest and realize they need to put more pressure on that particular one BEFORE it goes to someone else.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Notannos
rude

[Creedon]

Making threat level visible to me, truely isnt necessary as a tank. As many pointed out, if the NPC is attacking me, i know i have threat.. simple.

 

However, I would like to see a target-of-target be implimented as in some cases its hard to determine if one or several mobs surrounding you and your group truely are targetting you. This is in essence a "nice to have"...

 

Threat visibility i dont think is necessary for this MMO though, and DPS just needs to learn you dont mash keys just to mash them, but to be systematic so u dont pull aggro.

 

[EDIT]

 

I would also like to add i am Jugg-Tank, which most know that we are primarily single target tanking... And those that do use Juggs know that tanking HM is quite interesting as a healer can pull aggro from us before taunt CD is even up...

 

Jugg needs a definitive Threat Generation buff, and i hope that BW is all ove this... It can get quite frustrating in boss fights when you are barely able to maintain aggro as Soresu Form seems to be lacking its intended ability.. or it needs a buff.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Creedon

[SithZigg]

This is what bad tanks are made of.

 

Wrong, bad tanks are those that need to constantly look at flow charts, so they can know, "Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Uh-oh, it has been 5 seconds since I last checked, am I doing this right?" Once you know, you know.

[oursacrifice]

Threat visibility i dont think is necessary for this MMO though, and DPS just needs to learn you dont mash keys just to mash them, but to be systematic so u dont pull aggro.

 

This breads bad DPS.

 

A good DPS watches threat values and learns exactly what they can do before pulling from the tank. A good DPS will ride the tanks threat as close as the game mechanics allow.

 

Wrong, bad tanks are those that need to constantly look at flow charts, so they can know, "Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Uh-oh, it has been 5 seconds since I last checked, am I doing this right?" Once you know, you know.

 

Terrible players think this way. Bad players play the game several seconds behind good ones (ie you play RIGHT NOW where the good player was several seconds ahead of you and stopped something bad from happening). Bad player are reactionary, good players are preventative.

 

Good players watch all values in real time and know exactly what's going on during any point in the fight. Good players don't check to see if they're doing it right, good players check to make sure things are in order and as they should be.

Edited February 2, 2012 by oursacrifice

[pinkfreudHC]

When they put in DPS meters threat meters aren't really needed. Tank threat = tank DPS multiplied by a threat coefficient.

[LyriaFrost]

Bad players will always be bad as well.

 

Terrible players will keyboard turn and mouse click your abilities all day long until something goes wrong and then fight to try and get the mob back.

 

A good tank will monitor threat levels on all targets and learn to adapt to situations before they become a problem. Good tanks watch those values and notice a particular mob slowly losing interest and realize they need to put more pressure on that particular one BEFORE it goes to someone else.

 

Well, by that logic, a GOOD tank wouldn't NEED those threat meters, because they'd know how their abilities work, and know how the abilities of other classes work. Back when I used to tank in EQ, DAoC, CoH, etc, they didn't have such things. You were known as a good tank by virtue of being, well, a good tank, who knew your stuff.

 

Now? Now you can just run an addon (or it's part of the game) that shows you all the information that you used to have to LEARN, and lets you just poke buttons when the game prompts you to, by showing you a falling number.

 

So really, what you're describing as a "good tank" to me is more of a "lazy tank". They want the numbers in front of them so they don't have to really THINK about it. They can just go "oh look, mob #4's threat level to me is dropping, okay, click on it and hit my button, there, got it back".

 

Too many meters, mods, and other things takes the "art" out of playing a game well. It removes a lot of the actual SKILL, to me.

 

You keep saying "a good X watches the meters". Why does being TOLD when to push a button make them "good?" It doesn't make them "good" at it. It just teaches them to react to a specific number. There's no skill in it, just watching a number and mashing buttons until that number gets too high, then pushing a different button to make it go down again.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Notannos
rude quote

[CharagonIGN]

Twenty pages and nobody has been able to explain how a game that has to be balanced around the idea that you're going to grab aggro because there's no way to tell how close you are to the tank until its too late is going to be HARDER than a game balanced around the idea that you won't be pulling aggro because you have the tools to avoid doing so.

[ExarchCathedra]

What I don't like about having threat be just another number is that it really puts the last nail in the coffin of the illusion that you're fighting an opponent rather than a value in a row in a database. I like it when doing battle with the computer contains at least a bit of uncertainty and unpredictability, it makes for an encounter that feels a bit more dynamic than getting one set of numbers to the correct values and then waiting for your teammates to get another set of numbers to zero.

[SithZigg]

This breads bad DPS.

 

A good DPS watches threat values and learns exactly what they can do before pulling from the tank. A good DPS will ride the tanks threat as close as the game mechanics allow.

 

 

 

Terrible players think this way. Bad players play the game several seconds behind good ones (ie you play RIGHT NOW where the good player was several seconds ahead of you and stopped something bad from happening). Bad player are reactionary, good players are preventative.

 

Good players watch all values in real time and know exactly what's going on during any point in the fight. Good players don't check to see if they're doing it right, good players check to make sure things are in order and as they should be.

 

Ah, the tried and true "if you do not have this, you automatically suck" argument. Nice try, but fail.

[oursacrifice]

Well, by that logic, a GOOD tank wouldn't NEED those threat meters, because they'd know how their abilities work, and know how the abilities of other classes work. Back when I used to tank in EQ, DAoC, CoH, etc, they didn't have such things. You were known as a good tank by virtue of being, well, a good tank, who knew your stuff.

 

Now? Now you can just run an addon (or it's part of the game) that shows you all the information that you used to have to LEARN, and lets you just poke buttons when the game prompts you to, by showing you a falling number.

 

So really, what you're describing as a "good tank" to me is more of a "lazy tank". They want the numbers in front of them so they don't have to really THINK about it. They can just go "oh look, mob #4's threat level to me is dropping, okay, click on it and hit my button, there, got it back".

 

Too many meters, mods, and other things takes the "art" out of playing a game well. It removes a lot of the actual SKILL, to me.

 

You wouldn't understand this logic if you studied it for a decade. "Knowing your abilities work" is an ignorant statement and there was not a single hint of that in my post. Good tanks monitor threat values on their targets. Good tanks prevent things from happening by monitoring those values. Good tanks don't spam "taunt" and "aoe taunt" while hitting their 1 aoe damage ability. Good tanks will monitor threat levels, and apply single target threat where it is needed based on what threat levels the DPS are putting on the various targets.

 

You don't "learn" **** in the system that is implemented in this game. You know why you don't learn? Because there is no metric to look at to teach you what happened.

 

There is a level of skill involved in using those meters that you clearly cannot understand because you think it's a simple matter of pushing a single button for "I WIN". World first raiding guilds use these values because they are critical in the success of maximizing your personal and raid performance on every fight that you encounter. Guessing is for simple minded people that don't have the stomach to deal with the full mechanics of the game. Those type of people continue to ride along the bottom of raid tiers because they don't understand the vital mechanics that are required to get the most out of whatever role you're performing.

 

It's the flood of terrible players that hit each new MMO on the market and make the developers think these tools aren't required. By the time they realize it was a bad call, it's too late and the game starts to drop in popularity.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Notannos

[DragonAgeOrgins]

Bad players will always be bad as well.

 

Terrible players will keyboard turn and mouse click your abilities all day long until something goes wrong and then fight to try and get the mob back.

 

A good tank will monitor threat levels on all targets and learn to adapt to situations before they become a problem. Good tanks watch those values and notice a particular mob slowly losing interest and realize they need to put more pressure on that particular one BEFORE it goes to someone else.

 

You really do take video games...WAY too seriously

Edited February 2, 2012 by Notannos

[oursacrifice]

Ah, the tried and true "if you do not have this, you automatically suck" argument. Nice try, but fail.

 

It's not an argument, it's a fact. In a game with meters and visual information - you CANNOT out-perform someone that uses and understands those meters.

 

All your empty guess work and "gut feelings" will never make up for the fact that the other player knows exactly how hard they can push at any given moment in the encounter.

 

You don't know until you're getting punched in the face.

 

Failure.

[Creedon]

This breads bad DPS.

 

A good DPS watches threat values and learns exactly what they can do before pulling from the tank. A good DPS will ride the tanks threat as close as the game mechanics allow.

 

 

 

Terrible players think this way. Bad players play the game several seconds behind good ones (ie you play RIGHT NOW where the good player was several seconds ahead of you and stopped something bad from happening). Bad player are reactionary, good players are preventative.

 

Good players watch all values in real time and know exactly what's going on during any point in the fight. Good players don't check to see if they're doing it right, good players check to make sure things are in order and as they should be.

 

As i would agree, but good DPS doesnt need a threat meter to know if he/she is going to pull aggro... just by seeing dmg output, you can anticipate when you are going to. Best case really is to ensure balance between the DPS and Tank clases. And IMO presently for Juggs, we are slightly below the curve on threat generation to manage DPS and Healer Threat creation.. just my opinion, obviously nothing to back it but experiences that i have seen.

[oursacrifice]

You really do take video games...WAY too seriously

 

YEP! I take games too seriously because I have a knowledge and understand of how important a role threat meters make in a raiding environment!

 

You forgot to add that I'm 29, live in my mom's basement, eat pizza all day, have no social life, never go outside and pay for games with my mom's credit card!

[LyriaFrost]

You wouldn't understand this logic if you studied it for a decade. "Knowing your abilities work" is an ignorant statement and there was not a single hint of that in my post. Good tanks monitor threat values on their targets. Good tanks prevent things from happening by monitoring those values. Good tanks don't spam "taunt" and "aoe taunt" while hitting their 1 aoe damage ability. Good tanks will monitor threat levels, and apply single target threat where it is needed based on what threat levels the DPS are putting on the various targets.

 

You don't "learn" **** in the system that is implemented in this game. You know why you don't learn? Because there is no metric to look at to teach you what happened.

 

There is a level of skill involved in using those meters that you clearly cannot understand because you think it's a simple matter of pushing a single button for "I WIN". World first raiding guilds use these values because they are critical in the success of maximizing your personal and raid performance on every fight that you encounter. Guessing is for simple minded people that don't have the stomach to deal with the full mechanics of the game. Those type of people continue to ride along the bottom of raid tiers because they don't understand the vital mechanics that are required to get the most out of whatever role you're performing.

 

It's the flood of terrible players that hit each new MMO on the market and make the developers think these tools aren't required. By the time they realize it was a bad call, it's too late and the game starts to drop in popularity.

 

Yeah, it's pointless to argue with you. You're too used to having training wheels on your bike, and without them you don't know what to do, and panic.

 

"Ohnoes, I don't have a meter to tell me every little thing! What do I do!?!?!"

 

I don't "guess" about what my abilities do. I know. You know how? I use them. A lot. I work with other people. I KNOW that Ability-X generates enough threat to overcome Ability-Y, Z and Q that the DPS are using. How do I know? I've played the game. I don't need a meter to show it to me.

 

But go ahead, keep telling yourself you're "better" than everyone else, because you have a spreadsheet in front of you, and need to have your little "meters" telling you everything about the game.

 

The fact that you suck without them is kind of telling, don't you think?

Edited February 2, 2012 by Notannos

[oursacrifice]

As i would agree, but good DPS doesnt need a threat meter to know if he/she is going to pull aggro... just by seeing dmg output, you can anticipate when you are going to. Best case really is to ensure balance between the DPS and Tank clases. And IMO presently for Juggs, we are slightly below the curve on threat generation to manage DPS and Healer Threat creation.. just my opinion, obviously nothing to back it but experiences that i have seen.

 

No you can't. There is no "anticipate" pulling threat because you do not know. So what if you crit a bunch. You don't know if the tank just crit as well. You don't know how the tank performed just 10 seconds earlier and what kind of potential lead he built before your RNG burst happened.

 

That's why the lack of information like this breads bad players. They say to themselves "OOPS, just crit better stop!" - that's poor gameplay.

[SlickDevlan]

You wouldn't understand this logic if you studied it for a decade. "Knowing your abilities work" is an ignorant statement and there was not a single hint of that in my post. Good tanks monitor threat values on their targets. Good tanks prevent things from happening by monitoring those values. Good tanks don't spam "taunt" and "aoe taunt" while hitting their 1 aoe damage ability. Good tanks will monitor threat levels, and apply single target threat where it is needed based on what threat levels the DPS are putting on the various targets.

 

You don't "learn" **** in the system that is implemented in this game. You know why you don't learn? Because there is no metric to look at to teach you what happened.

 

There is a level of skill involved in using those meters that you clearly cannot understand because you think it's a simple matter of pushing a single button for "I WIN". World first raiding guilds use these values because they are critical in the success of maximizing your personal and raid performance on every fight that you encounter. Guessing is for simple minded people that don't have the stomach to deal with the full mechanics of the game. Those type of people continue to ride along the bottom of raid tiers because they don't understand the vital mechanics that are required to get the most out of whatever role you're performing.

 

It's the flood of terrible players that hit each new MMO on the market and make the developers think these tools aren't required. By the time they realize it was a bad call, it's too late and the game starts to drop in popularity.

 

You seem to be of the mind that threat is not an issue. If it were, tanks would not be able to simply "monitor" it and react accordingly.

 

I haven't played all that many MMOs, but have played a few. Only one of them had a threat meter, and it was a 3rd party mod. Strangely, people were able to manage threat without one. But I guess that was just the dumb luck of "terrible players". What's even more entertaining about your self righteous rant is that you forget that the one game that had a threat meter present made it so the threat meter wasn't even necessary. You had to have an AFK tank or a wildly overgeared dps to even hope to pull threat. Why? Because threat management became an absolute joke with a threat meter...

Edited February 2, 2012 by Notannos

[lethal_ghost]

Im a tank and have no problems at all, what would i need a threat meter for. If it is not attacking me i need to get more threat on that mob. Simple taunt it hit what ever u feel is necessary as a tank.

 

A good DPS helps as well if he gets agro he wil know not to attack as much to let tank grab agro again. All so he will know not to open up with his highest rotation to let tank build some threat.

[Joonbeams]

This breads bad DPS.

 

A good DPS watches threat values and learns exactly what they can do before pulling from the tank. A good DPS will ride the tanks threat as close as the game mechanics allow.

 

Noob here, but one who can read, so my contribution will be just one of reading comprehension. The OP question is pretty simple, and it's shocking how many people don't get it. Let's try this:

 

1. There is a game mechanic called "threat" tracked by the game? True or false? If the answer if false, we're done here and OP's question makes no sense. If true, move to 2.

 

2. The "threat" value, acknowledged in 1, is not directly visible, correct? True or false (again, not talking about "indirectly" as in whether tank is drawing aggro or not)? Again, since no one here is denying that threat isn't visible directly, move on to 3.

 

3. Awareness of threat, at least indirectly, is important, correct? (I only throw this in to deal with the "it's not needed" crowd. This question technically isn't relevant to the OP). If true, move on to 4. If false, then, well, I don't know what to say to you.

 

4. Why isn't this value, acknowledged as being invisible in 2, not visible? THIS IS THE QUESTION. It's simple and straightforward.

 

"Because it's not needed" doesn't answer question 4 because we have already agreed in question 1 that the game actually tracks such a value. Plus, we've already agreed that awareness of threat is important (question 3), at least some indirect gauge. So we have an important value, that everyone agrees on, that we know is tracked but not shown (question 2). Question (No. 4) is, why? I cannot answer that, but it seems like an omission worth raising with BW - again, no one is talking about any INSTANT or VITAL fix. Just a suggestion.

 

Now, to the non-responsive, tangential "it's not needed" crowd (again, the crowd ducking the simple question), see the quote above. Makes perfect sense to me as a noob, so even the non-responsive, "it's not needed," answer seems wrong to someone who wants to be play well.

 

Tl;Dr - reread thread title.

[Typeslice]

Why do we have an invisible game mechanic? It's like not being able to see health or resource bars. What possible reason could there be for this?

 

Some bad answers I want to head off at the pass: "I can kinda sense where my threat is based on how hard I'm hitting things." Unless you're an robot, no you can't. You just can't. And even the robot would need to know all the threat values anyway, and we just don't have this information. You might have a vague notion of your threat, but this is the whole problem I'm on about. Why not just show us like heath or resources?

 

"See?! This is why they need to give us mods!" No, they just need to show us the values in game like every other value; health, resources, resolve, cooldowns... again, why is this one value singled out for invisibility?

 

I assume because it makes for a more organic, realistic experience.

[SlickDevlan]

Noob here, but one who can read, so my contribution will be just one of reading comprehension. The OP question is pretty simple, and it's shocking how many people don't get it. Let's try this:

 

1. There is a game mechanic called "threat" tracked by the game? True or false? If the answer if false, we're done here and OP's question makes no sense. If true, move to 2.

 

2. The "threat" value, acknowledged in 1, is not directly visible, correct? True or false (again, not talking about "indirectly" as in whether tank is drawing aggro or not)? Again, since no one here is denying that threat isn't visible directly, move on to 3.

 

3. Awareness of threat, at least indirectly, is important, correct? (I only throw this in to deal with the "it's not needed" crowd. This question technically isn't relevant to the OP). If true, move on to 4. If false, then, well, I don't know what to say to you.

 

4. Why isn't this value, acknowledged as being invisible in 2, not visible? THIS IS THE QUESTION. It's simple and straightforward.

 

"Because it's not needed" doesn't answer question 4 because we have already agreed in question 1 that the game actually tracks such a value. Plus, we've already agreed that awareness of threat is important (question 3), at least some indirect gauge. So we have an important value, that everyone agrees on, that we know is tracked but not shown (question 2). Question (No. 4) is, why? I cannot answer that, but it seems like an omission worth raising with BW - again, no one is talking about any INSTANT or VITAL fix. Just a suggestion.

 

Now, to the non-responsive, tangential "it's not needed" crowd (again, the crowd ducking the simple question), see the quote above. Makes perfect sense to me as a noob, so even the non-responsive, "it's not needed," answer seems wrong to someone who wants to be play well.

 

Tl;Dr - reread thread title.

 

I guess the only other answer available to people unable or unwilling to accept the hidden threat level paradigm is...

 

Tough s**t.

 

Now, you can accept that you cannot see threat or you can't. Either way, threat will remain hidden. At least for the time being. In the meantime, I would suggest learning what events cause threat to be pulled or maintained, depending on your job int he group. Its been done before and I bet even people like yourself who become confused easily can probably pull it off.

[terminova]

Why do we have an invisible game mechanic? It's like not being able to see health or resource bars. What possible reason could there be for this?

 

It isn't an invisible game mechanic. If you have the highest threat, it will be visibly attacking you. If someone else does, it will be attacking them. It is obvious.