How TOR solves the Tank/Healer/DPS disparity

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AI tank stands in the fire? He's useless, bring in a real person to tank. AI never stands in the fire? Only ever use AI, because it never screws up and is available 24/7.

I think this is the major problem really. Albeit, if they'd land the AI somewhere approx middle-ground (i.e. doesn't stand in daft fire, but doesn't perfom as well as a bleeding-edge real-live tank), it could be a usable "last ditch" - can't get ahold of a living, nose-breathing person to tank but don't want to risk having a legendary failure of a PUG-tank? Use the AI jig for at least adequate performance.

I don't see the discussed feature as a catch-all slices-dices-makes-your-coffee sort of TV Shop utility, but rather as a fallback solution. But like how people these days upon forming a guild group with, say, three dps and a healer just click the LFD button to find a tank, but instead of a queue time and the possibility of someone wrecking your run with horrendous performance and ignorance, you get a kind of middle-road solution that at least works.

Also do remember that the combat engine for SW:TOR is doubtfully going to be a carbon copy of WoW's, albeit it'll pro'lly implement a lot of similar features. E.g. the pacing and spikiness of damage could be different, aggro could work slightly more fluently, etc. etc. No one really knows yet.


While on the subject (and fearing I'll derail the thread), I've been idly following the jig about RIF-- err, the game people don't seem to want to mention on MMO-C; I'm mildly puzzled about its PvE content since you can technically have a Mage as your healer and/or a Cleric or even a Rogue as your tank, provided they picked up their correct gear and specs ("Souls"). Whether this is in fact optimal compared to the "dedicated" three-Soul healy (Cleric) or three-Soul tanky (Warrior) approach to the situation I've no clue, but then again I imagine that as a "crap, we really need a healer for this 5-man dungeon, but can't find a Cleric... You there, the Mage in the group, go Chloromancer to heal and I'll go Warlord to help with the debuffage, while you go so-and-so Souls" bla bla bla. Long story short, patchwork jobs. Doubtfully able to ace the final epic ultimate jazz, but at least capable of doing the funzies-content that isn't going to feed on your tears anyway. Plus, I guess you could overlap various "control/support" tertiary or even secondary Souls to lessen the damage taken or what not. *shrug*

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AI tank stands in the fire? He's useless, bring in a real person to tank. AI never stands in the fire? Only ever use AI, because it never screws up and is available 24/7.

How about .. AI tank stands in the fire unless the player he belongs to directs him to move out of it?

That seems ideal to me; have companions able to fulfil necessary trinity roles but require input from the player in order for them to do so effectively.

[dense]

While on the subject (and fearing I'll derail the thread), I've been idly following the jig about RIF-- err, the game people don't seem to want to mention on MMO-C; I'm mildly puzzled about its PvE content since you can technically have a Mage as your healer and/or a Cleric or even a Rogue as your tank, provided they picked up their correct gear and specs ("Souls"). Whether this is in fact optimal compared to the "dedicated" three-Soul healy (Cleric) or three-Soul tanky (Warrior) approach to the situation I've no clue, but then again I imagine that as a "crap, we really need a healer for this 5-man dungeon, but can't find a Cleric... You there, the Mage in the group, go Chloromancer to heal and I'll go Warlord to help with the debuffage, while you go so-and-so Souls" bla bla bla. Long story short, patchwork jobs. Doubtfully able to ace the final epic ultimate jazz, but at least capable of doing the funzies-content that isn't going to feed on your tears anyway. Plus, I guess you could overlap various "control/support" tertiary or even secondary Souls to lessen the damage taken or what not. *shrug*

i'm not sure if the ability to tank is the problem in wow. That's what blizz tried with DKs. They tried to give every DK-spec the ability to tank. What happened was that almost no DK wanted to tank. (although they would have been able to)

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i'm not sure if the ability to tank is the problem in wow. That's what blizz tried with DKs. They tried to give every DK-spec the ability to tank. What happened was that almost no DK wanted to tank. (although they would have been able to)

Very true, but WoW doesn't allow e.g. Priests, Shaman, Rogues or Hunters to tank (or Mages/Warlocks to heal). RIFT allows "Hunters" (found under the Rogue archetype), "Priests" and "Shaman" (Cleric archetype) as well as Rogues of all flavour to just "dualspec" (quadspec actually) into a tanky jig, so you at least have the bare fledgling of an ability to, say, tank despite playing a dps role. Of course this still brings the issue of people having to gather gear and know how to tank etc., but at least the option is there.

Not praising RIFT here - it might just end up as the most broken piece of whack since someone whacked a piece until it broke - but I like the brave attempt at muddling up the trinary of roles. Hell, I'll probably not even play RIFT, but I am eagerly following from the sidelines how the game succeeds in shoving some variety into MMORPGs, or just keeping good trends alive (Rifts are basically WAR's Public Quests). But I digress...


But to come back to the issue of "tank-capable classes who don't want to tank", you are right. People ultimately want what people want, and it seems to be staring at Recount while not worrying about assuming "command" of a group nor responsibility of its survival. *shrug* Deepsers gonna deeps, I guess.

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This isn't an entirely new concept, and it worked reasonable well in DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online). There you had hirelings, which could be most classes, with the absolute exclusion of rogues (rogues were the master trap disablers and it was about the only fun they had in a dungeon). They were relatively decent, as in the cleric hirelings would heal the person who needed it most, etc. You could give them basic commands which usually got the job done, such as move here, use this spell, attack this, stand here, follow me, but they still ended up wandering into traps sometimes, which at higher levels was generally an instant kill.

Either way, the concept isn't new, and it has worked before, however, I wouldn't implement it in WoW.