Considering that there is no aoe taunt, taunt is broken, and people are frequently swarmed by mobs, changing the block area would be a very very foolish idea.

grimsfield wrote: »

Considering that there is no aoe taunt, taunt is broken, and people are frequently swarmed by mobs, changing the block area would be a very very foolish idea.

What happens if it was possible to only affect PvP and not PvE?

short answer- i hate it, but i think i understand it.

360 degree block sucks, its terrible. i have been tanking for 14 years and i have never seen anything more silly on a tank. however, in other games you had block, parry, evade/dodge and that why you have 360 block. block and parry were number-genereated actions for frontal damage mitigation/avoidance and dodge was 360 degree damage mitigation/avoidance (some games had partial block/parry/evade/dodge making it more of a part of damage mitigation than just an evasion). without these elements (to my knowledge), you simply have damage absorbtion which block here does. i think that is their intent, that you absorb damage instead of avoiding it. the block mechanics is an immersion breaking mini-game for tanking that requires player skill to apply it appropriately. though i still "position" the mobs its more out of habit (i sometimes put the mobs rear to the group even when i am soloing lol). i will still do this for the frontal damage mobs do, to protect the group from excessive damage, but block might be better suited 360 for now, to allow for survivability to "set the mobs in place" at the beginning of the pull. i don't just block to stop the damage, or to take advantage of the stun for bonus damage, i also use it as a weak form of crowd control.

deepseamk20b14_ESO wrote: »

The point would be that the game is centered around aiming, not tab targeting facing whatever direction you want and spamming a skill. The positional advantage is pretty clear actually. Think about the dude who just walks into a group of people holding block and spamming AoE? Should that guy really be able to block 10 people when 9 of them are behind him? That's not skill, it's broken game mechanics. I don't do it as good as a DK, but even as an NB I can just walk in sap essence, and hold block. That's kind of dumb. It would be much cooler to have to actually move around more and face different directions when seeing what enemy skills are incoming. or back into a wall, sure you'd block the people in front of you but you would be stuck. It creates more strategy and more complex/skilled game play.

It makes no difference if I hit someone from the back or front. Explain to me why it should matter if blocking is unidirectional since there is no collision for players in this game? To make it meaningful they would have to have some way to prevent people from stacking behind someone. Otherwise you're just crippling the blocker for no reason. I suspect that's the reason they made blocking 360° in the first place.

I'd love for directions mechanics to be in game:

Players take -10% damage from frontal attacks because of combat awareness, but take an additional 20% damage if they're flanked.

Attacks made at the shield hand have a chance to be auto blocked.

Blocking is directional in a cone.

Dagger attacks deal bonus damage to the back of their target.

Head shots deal more damage, as well as melee attacks that hit the heads hitbox.

I even wish ZOS was capable of making pvp have full collision detection without having lag.


But since none of that extra stuff will happen, making a change that only penalizes a player for blocking is a bad direction - imo.

BBSooner wrote: »

I'd love for directions mechanics to be in game:

Players take -10% damage from frontal attacks because of combat awareness, but take an additional 20% damage if they're flanked.

Attacks made at the shield hand have a chance to be auto blocked.

Blocking is directional in a cone.

Dagger attacks deal bonus damage to the back of their target.

Head shots deal more damage, as well as melee attacks that hit the heads hitbox.

I even wish ZOS was capable of making pvp have full collision detection without having lag.


But since none of that extra stuff will happen, making a change that only penalizes a player for blocking is a bad direction - imo.

I couldn't agree more.
Maybe just add friendly fire to the list.

Blocking should only stay 360 degrees because my opponent can walk right through me.

Otherwise, I'd love more realistic block mechanics!

grimsfield wrote: »

Considering that there is no aoe taunt, taunt is broken, and people are frequently swarmed by mobs, changing the block area would be a very very foolish idea.

This.

I'm having a horrible time getting the one taunt I have to work. I wouldn't say it's completely broken but the unrealistic radius of protection offered by the shield block makes an already difficult role viable. Viable, not dominant.

Perhaps if I were a better player I'd feel differently. Thing is my preference is pick up groups, usually folks trying to work an Undaunted Pledge, who deserve achievable goals on the Silver Level at least if they are smart and committed. I don't see that happening as often with a change like this.

AlexDougherty wrote: »

Considering the game doesn't know exactly where you are, which we know because we get damage even when we move out of red circles/cone/paths, I can't support any reduction in the range they defend.

Get the game to track us first, before you start asking for directional blocking. Otherwise the game will just start killing us no matter how we block.

Edit~ I will keep making this comment, no matter how many new polls come up. If they make blocking directional before they start tracking us properly, the game WILL become unplayable.

If the game doesnt track you... how come you get discovered when you try to sneak up on someone from the front?

Attacking is active offense.
It is, thankfully, directional - meaning you have to aim at your opponent while executing attacks. This adds to combat mechanics in a way that benefit player movement, positioning and reaction.

Blocking is active defense.
Right now, it is omnidirectional, and does not need any other player interaction other than pressing (and keeping pressed) one button. No real awareness needed, you mitigate a large percentage of damage basically for free (I'm not talking about resources, I do hope that is clear).

Making blocking directional would not only make block-casting (which is, if you're being honest, a serious problem) less efficient, but also contribute towards player to player/AI interaction.
Giving positioning and movement more relevance, thus increasing potential options for the player to influence the outcome of a fight by actually responding to the enemies actions - which in turn increases immersion by making your actions more important.

Now if you go further into that topic, you will see that blocking obviously is not the only active defense players have at their disposal. Toggles, timed buffs/reflects all add to it - and all work the same. Press a single button from time to time, and negate (depending on build and class) a amount of damage or skills with MINIMAL effort, which I doubt was intended when designing this game.

If blocking now would actually need another component than keeping a single button pressed, such as actually aiming at the source of the damage you want to block, this would actually allow for it to become - for the lack of a better word - balanced.

For something to be balanced, there needs to be a counter to it.

The counter to active offense is:
range, movement/positioning, defensive skills such as barriers/shields/reflects,
blocking, etc.

The counter to blocking is:

• Handing your opponent a sweetroll, hoping he'll grab it and drop block for a few seconds.
• Throwing a goat at your opponent, hoping he'll catch it and drop block
• ...

I think you see where I'm going there.


What I'm not saying: make it directional NOW!
This has to be tested properly first, seeing that there is no player collision this could lead to other unexpected problems, negating the positive effects it would have on gameplay.
Now, there are games that had this exact problem and still managed to make combat fun. DaoC is one of them, for those that remember. I'm not saying that no collision was no issue there though.
Players running through and facing each other time and time again because the lack of collision is something we should strive to avoid.

Obviously, PVE content has to be tested aswell. The lack of proper taunts is still a problem and, in my eyes, the only reason - apart from collision - why directional block should not be introduced - yet.

But in the long run? Definitely.

45 degrees...360 is unrealistic and stupid when all ppl do is spam block in pvp.

Too much lag for direction mechanics.

There are so many things about combat in video games that are unrealistic, why narrow in on this one, if only to nerf tanks in general. If heavy armor actually were worth a damn maybe this might possibly be ok, however heavy armor is not remotely worthwhile. Worse still there is the issue that I agree with AlexDougherty with regard to the aoe/cone 'slushiness' of a lot of powers. Another issue is that there is no player collision either. While I would love an mmo to come up with a way to make the Phalanx formation actually useful via collision and shield walls, I don't think its ever going to happen.

There's realism problems of all kinds of other levels if you really want to complain. For starters, where are all the polearms and spears? Spears are amazingly deadly weapons of war that essentially every culture that has ever fought another culture has used. Halberds are fantastic for shield formations and messing with enemies across shield wall lines. The animations themselves aren't exactly realistic with regard to the way combat really looks. Most games overextend motions for the sake of excitement (like movies),and the reality is most of those moves are utter insanity in a real fight. Lets take the simple swords swipe motion as an example. Does anyone really think its a good idea to swing your swords so hard, that your back/shoulder is actually exposed to the enemy on every single swing? The reality is combat in warfare plays for keeps, and most of the time people did their best to avoid exposure to death. Sword techniques, spear techniques, and really most combat techniques involve subtle motions; just look at any fencer or kenjitsu/iaido stylist.

The position of the hands on a staff in staff combat is not really true to the warfare handling of a staff (which would be like a spear apart from when an enemy is bunched up close on you). This one is easy to let pass though, because wizards use the weapon, and there is really only one melee attack in the skill line.

Anyway, at the end of the day the animations of the game are just there to represent that a player is fighting more defensively when he's got his shield up. If realism is really bothering you, just imagine that the character is using footwork and is being more agile than the character is being portrayed graphically.