So Why is Threat Invisible?

[MasterKayote]

lol ... meters

[harpuax]

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

 

So why not just get rid of the UI all together. Then no one would have information about anything and it would be quite realistic.

[Typeslice]

So why not just get rid of the UI all together. Then no one would have information about anything and it would be quite realistic.

 

Sounds good.

[GellonSW]

A percentage of DPS need meters to tell them not to open with their highest DPS rotation. I'm sorry people are simply just not that bright.

[lethal_ghost]

lol ... meters

 

its correct, i think

[Joonbeams]

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.

 

But this doesn't answer the question. It's an interesting response for another topic, but doesn't address the simple OP question.

[wifeaggro]

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.

 

This hardly the case with this game. Ive MT'd everything its yawn mode.

[Aloro]

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.

 

Your idea of a good tank is one that makes efficient use of tools designed to reduce the amount of awareness needed.

 

My idea of a good tank is one that's aware of the situation and doesn't depend on a tool to tell him how to do his job.

 

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.

 

This is utter nonsense. People are completing content in this game, because they're able to figure out how the game works. If you're not clever enough to do so, don't blame the game, and don't blame the lack of tools designed to make it easier for you to pay little attention. Maybe try blaming yourself.

 

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".

 

Nonsense. There's less skill involved in using those meters than there is involved in NOT using those meters. I'm a lot more impressed by someone who plays the actual game than I am by someone who plays the addons. More on that below.

 

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.

 

They use those tools for one reason and one reason only: using those tools makes the game easier, leading to higher success rates. It'd be stupid to use them otherwise.

 

So let's be honest here; if we have two hypothetical players, who are both able to complete a given task (e.g. filling their role in a group while defeating a boss), but one of them is using a tool to make his job easier, which player is demonstrating more skill? Sure, you could argue (reasonably) that the player using the tool is being smart, and will have greater success overall... but you can't really argue (not convincingly anyhow) that using tools DESIGNED TO MAKE THINGS EASIER is an indication of superior skill.

 

It's actually the opposite.

 

Let's imagine there's a halftime show at a basketball game. A small trampoline is set up near the net. Two mascots come out in costume, with basketballs. One of them runs up to the trampoline, gets a massive amount of air, and dunks the ball easily with two hands. The other one runs up under his own power and barely manages to dunk the ball.

 

Who demonstrated more skill? The second one did.

 

Guessing is for simple minded people that don't have the stomach to deal with the full mechanics of the game.

 

Crutches are for people who can't walk on their own.

 

That's the problem with pithy reductionist statements like that; they can be very easily flipped around on you. The good news is, neither your pithy reductionist statement about guessing, nor my pithy reductionist response, are in any sense meaningful.

 

***

 

To the OP: a lot of good reasons have been given for why threat is invisible now in SWTOR, including immersion, challenge, and the way meters change gameplay and game design. Ultimately though, it seems most likely that Bioware is simply being selective about putting things into their game. So rather than asking, "why is this not in game" I believe they're asking, "why should this be in game, and why is it more important than these other things".

 

There are very obviously a LOT of features that could be added to SWTOR to improve it. Whether threat meters are even on the list of features the devs want to implement, I could not say. I suspect though that ultimately, threat is invisible because it would take time and money (designing, implementing, testing) to make it visible.

[Brad-]

It has probably already been stated in the 20 or so pages here that I am not going to read all of but, an indicator of skill for a DPS class is how far he/she can push it without pulling aggro from the tank. Aggro meters take away from that skill by making it rediculously easy. There should always be a little mystery in a game or else its all just math.

 

Exactly. Please don't dumb down the game.

 

Some of prefer to play without the training wheels.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Brad-

[GalacticKegger]

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.

VFR versus instrument flying. One you have to see where you're going - the other you don't. Both can be performed manually, but only instrument flying has an "autopilot." Edited February 2, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Waylandyr]

Simple answer, make it an option, so those who want it can turn it on, and those little people who think they're awesomesauce without it can toggle it off.

[harpuax]

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?

 

So why have a resource meter/bar?

 

Can I use a power? Y/N

 

If N, you are out of force, rage, ammo etc

 

If Y, you are not out of force, rage, ammo etc

 

same logic can be applied to health meter/bars and any other information the UI gives us about the game. If you don't like having information while you play that is fine, just turn off your monitor. Bam!, 0 information about anything!

[fanuvstarwars]

Having a threat meter always intrigued me...

 

If I can all of the sudden see that I am horrible at building aggro compared to the DPS...will I all the sudden start to "tank better"?

 

Seems like you could skip a step and tank well from the get go.

 

To answer the OP question...I can't think of a reason 'not' to have this info visible.

Edited February 2, 2012 by fanuvstarwars

[SlickDevlan]

So why have a resource meter/bar?

 

Can I use a power? Y/N

 

If N, you are out of force, rage, ammo etc

 

If Y, you are not out of force, rage, ammo etc

 

same logic can be applied to health meter/bars and any other information the UI gives us about the game. If you don't like having information while you play that is fine, just turn off your monitor. Bam!, 0 information about anything!

 

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps they simply don't want you to see it? Otherwise known as "you don't need to see it".

 

It makes one wonder how so many people were able to clear so much content in so many other games without a threat meter. Some people are acting as if the lack of one makes them completely unable to play much less manage their threat, which is laughably incorrect.

[SlickDevlan]

Having a threat meter always intrigued me...

 

If I can all of the sudden see that I am horrible at building aggro compared to the DPS...will I all the sudden start to "tank better"?

 

Seems like you could skip a step and tank well from the get go.

 

To answer the OP question...I can't think of a reason 'not' to have this info visible.

 

Because it makes the threat mechanic irrelevant...

[Sabarok]

There are many invisible game mechanics, especially with hostiles. There is their armour, weapons, skills, loot table, AI tactics, and aggro range are all invisible to players. We also can't see other game mechanics like the success rate on RE, stealth effectiveness, the critical chance on crew missions, the combat damage & accuracy formula, the affection on conversation choices & gifts before they're made/used.

 

The mere fact that something is invisible isn't enough to judge that it should be visible. Also, the mere fact that something else is visible isn't enough to justify making something else visible. These positions mean that everything else listed that's invisible should also be visible, such as highlighting on the ground the precise aggro range on mobs.

 

I've never played an MMO that showed threat. Managing threat while it's invisible is considered part of the challenge of raiding. When the threat is visible, there is no longer a challenge to managing aggro. The contradiction is players want challenging raids, but at an achievable level of difficulty. What to show and what to hide is part of the balancing act of configuring the challenge of raids. If health bars were invisible, the raids would be balanced to reflect that level of challenge.

 

What this means is that if threat is made visible, the difficulty of the mobs will need to be increased to continue giving players challenge through an alternative means. This is because with threat bars, players can maximize their DPS which causes bosses to go down faster. To compensate, bosses are given more health. The end result is raids which aren't made any easier with threat bars, but have been made harder. Without maximizing DPS, bosses can become too tough to beat. Players who have learned how to maximize their DPS are rewarded with the status quo, while players who can't are punished with tougher fights.

 

By having bosses optimized towards raid groups without threat meters to maximize their DPS, the bosses are geared towards a more average player. Players who have learned to maximize their DPS and manage the invisible threat are rewarded with faster & easier fights. Players who can't get the status quo.

 

Players who ask for threat meters because they make things easier are only thinking of the short term on existing bosses. If there are threat meters, new bosses will be designed with threat meters in mind, and you'll be right back where you started, except with tougher bosses that aren't any easier to kill.

 

TL;DR: Threat isn't the only thing invisible. That's not enough of a reason. Raids are balanced & designed around players not having threat meters, and as such, they aren't required.

[Zatoni]

It's invisible because the binary nature of threat (I have enough to be the primary target of X/I don't have enough to be the primary target of X) means stripping out another level of obfuscation in PvE content by making it visible. And in a trinity game, hitting a "sweet spot" of obfuscation is a way to draw out the life of content.

 

A typical, successful PvE encounter breaks down to a few different areas in a game like this one.

 

Itemization - Do we have enough damage, healing, and mitigation in terms of raw numbers to do more damage to the enemy than the enemy does to us (minus our healing), and the ability to deal it fast enough to finish the fight before the "end point"?

 

Execution - Is everyone doing their PvE dance correctly? Is the tank holding aggro on the boss, the healer healing and removing debuffs, and the DPS dealing damage, while dodging or succeeding at whatever additional hoops a given boss requires?

 

Luck - Did the healer get stunned by an add on top of the acid rain ability that they needed to dodge? Did the boss get a string of lucky crits? Did the DPS lag when he needed to move away from the group and blow everyone up?

 

These things all interact with each other, and ultimately boil down to variations on the main theme of a holy trinity game, the Tank 'n Spank. The thing is, in games like this one, there is a pretty hard upper limit on what constitutes "fun" for the Execution and Luck parts. No one wants to lose a fight with some regularity because of something outside of their control. Most people don't want to learn an extremely complicated dance for every boss fight, (but make no mistake that most boss fights have a "solution" that is typically very specific and designed with that solution in mind.) Furthermore, successfully completing content in a gear progression trinity MMO improves your itemization, which in turn lets you get sloppier on the execution and less concerned about bad luck as you progress (this is typically what it means to have content on farm.)

 

There are few situations where you can drastically change the basic components of the dance, because otherwise the whole trinity model begins to break down, and because it is especially specific in terms of how it should be completed and can be trivialized by completing it, there is an upper limit on replay value.

 

Because of all of these reasons, the value of a fight drastically falls off after it's first completed by a group. There usually isn't a great deal of ways to change one's approach or improve upon the "accepted" model, and even then, very soon you'll outgear the fight and it won't matter anyway.

 

Thus, a prime way to extend the life of a fight and maintain some sense of tension is by hiding information that allows you to complete it. Because the mechanical execution is usually pretty straightforward (and people write walkthroughs), and people don't like losing to luck, they have to keep something "unknown" to maintain that tension.

 

"Threat" is something fairly unique to the tank-heal-DPS style games (who "tanks" in a sidescrolling beat 'em up, or an FPS that doesn't have trinity style classes like TF2?), and because other games do allow you to see resources like health and resources, it's not really reasonable to expect them to be obfuscated (even though TOR tries by hiding the combat log). Threat is what makes a tank a tank. Being hard to kill but unable to pull aggro makes you a lump, and doing a ton of damage as a squishy while pulling aggro makes you dead. Losing control of threat is one of the few things that is widely acceptable as a viable source of failure in a fight, and actually one of the only things that scales up with gear in a static boss fight.

 

So, not that I agree with it, but all of that is why threat is hidden. Because it props up the illusion in a trinity MMO that you're interacting with different people who have consequences on each other, rather than managing your specific set of bars while you play an elaborate game of DDR on your keyboard.

[Brad-]

Why do people want things to be made so ridiculously easy? Why do they want to be spoonfed everything?

 

 

Perhaps it is time to take off the training wheels and see what you can accomplish on your own! Take the time to learn the skill of threat manangement.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Brad-

[fanuvstarwars]

Because it makes the threat mechanic irrelevant...

 

How so? The same numbers exist whether or not visible to the client.

[SlickDevlan]

Why do people want things to be made so ridiculously easy? Why do they want to be spoonfed everything? Take the time to learn the skill of threat manangement.

 

 

Perhaps it is time to take off the training wheels and see what you can accomplish on your own?

 

It would seem that many here are completely unable to determine threat by actually playing and paying attention. They NEED to have it written down, preferably with a giant warning flash of red... Its sad really.

[harpuax]

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps they simply don't want you to see it? Otherwise known as "you don't need to see it".

 

It makes one wonder how so many people were able to clear so much content in so many other games without a threat meter. Some people are acting as if the lack of one makes them completely unable to play much less manage their threat, which is laughably incorrect.

 

And neither does having a resource bar. Most could have cleared the same content without one or those either. People got by for a very long time without cell phones, but I bet most wouldn't just toss theirs in the garbage. Sure life would go on, but would it be better?

[darkehawke]

i dont see an invisible meter for threat being an issue.

 

i see far more pressing issues that the game needs to address however.

 

the levelling process should be used to get to know how well your class builds threat and to determmine the pace of damage you can use without nicking aggro from a tank.

[Axcys]

Man, does anyone remember what it was like before wow spoiled the crap out of everyone? Even in the BWL days in that game there was a threat ceiling with the drakes and everyone just had to be good enough at their job to do it properly. DPS had to watch their numbers and KNOW when they were bursting too hard and tanks had to count off their wing buffets. Every raider had to be comfortable with their tank and know their limits or their own.

 

Man back in the day when people actually had to be decent at a game to get anywhere.... you had to test threat mechanics yourself to quantify them. It's like physics with differential equations vs high school physics. In one they hand you the equations and you plug in the numbers and don't give it a second thought. In the other they make you go get the equations yourself. So put on your big boy pants, go test threat mechanics yourself, don't raid with baddies, and stop crying about everything thats not made easy for you. I swear, its like mmo's these days are a preschool playground.

[Blotter]

"So Why is Threat Invisible? "

 

So you can't see it.

[Fragany]

This makes tanking in swtor fun, it's more of a challenge.

Not like WoW with all those add-ons you required.