Aggro

Mashille · April 2015

Any chance on improving the aggro of enemies? Here are a couple of my points on why aggro should be improved

1. More observant enemies: Are all enemies blind? Because it sure seems like they are, they must have the worst eyes in the world or they are the most unobervant people I've ever seen.
2. Larger aggro and de-aggro areas, this links with the first point but also enemies should be able to see you from further away than just 6 meters in front of them. In addition the de-aggro areas, where enemies will just stop attacking you and run back to where they were. This can get quite annoying and confusing for new players and frustrating if you are kiting something and it just regains all it's health and runs away. This is especially important to increase for the Justice system Guards because it seems stupid that a guard that is chasing you down to kill you would just forget his duty and wander off for an Ice cream truck etc. I would love larger de-aggro boxes for enemies because it makes the things you are fighting seem much more alive, rather than just a thing that runs up to you, attacks then runs away again, this would also be good for immersion.

What do other think about this?

PKMN12 · April 2015

welcome to an MMO.

Mashille · April 2015

(Sigh) Yes... I'm not an ES person who does not play MMO's so don't assume I'm some person who doesn't understand these things. Many other MMO's have done this FAR better than ESO. The aggro range and de-aggro ranges and stupidly small. They need to be bigger because at the moment it is just ridiculous. Take a game such as GW2 you never have this kind of problem of enemies running away from you with full health because the aggro boxes are bigger. Also if I am fighting someone in a mine and his friend is 6 meters away I would EXPECT him to help his friend rather than just watching him die.

Valymer · April 2015

Aggro is absolutely idiotic in this game. You can attack a group of mobs with a group member standing dozens--sometimes hundreds--of meters away and invariably at least one of the mobs will immediately run after that person, even if they aren't attacking/healing anything.

That on top of the ludicrous rubber-banding back to spawn point.

idk · April 2015

And such is life in an MMO. Every MMO has this defined in their own way. This is the way ESI has it and it's not all the different than most I've seen.

Valymer · April 2015

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

And such is life in an MMO. Every MMO has this defined in their own way. This is the way ESI has it and it's not all the different than most I've seen.

It's completely different from the MMOs I've played. As are many things in this particular "MMO"

Rook_Master · April 2015

Can we get rid of rubberbanding so I can farm larger groups of mobs?

I want to bring back the EQ trains.

CHOOCHOO

Athas24 · April 2015

If there is any sort of agro table in this game outside of the durations of the 2 taunts available...it's extremely random or just based on damage output and vicinity to characters. It seems like when someone AOE's enemies hard, they agro to them, even if they've been taunted recently. The randomness of running to a player in a group 50+ meters away that's just standing there when a person goes to attack a group of mobs supports the theory of randomness in threat generation. It doesn't really make much sense to be sure. The best way I've seen tanking done is when a tank taunts, holds block, retaunts, holds block...rinse repeat. They don't even need damage.

Natjur · April 2015

Random Aggro tests (not using taunts)

(1) If in a group of 4 players and no player does anything, the mobs will go for the weakest\lowest level player
(This is why in packs of mobs, one will appear to run off and get a random player, its normally cause no one has attacked it and its going for the weakest player)
(2) Snares and roots cause tons of aggro, that's why Caltrops works so well.
(3) Damage and Heals seem to cause the same aggro but its the heals cast not the heals received, so over healing causes aggro

Eg Player one hits mob for 1000 damage, player two heals player 1 for 900, player 1 keeps aggro

But if player one hits mob for 1000 damage and only has lost 900 life, but player 2 heals for 10k (over healing by 9100) Player 2 now gets aggro and will keep it until player one does another 9001 damage.

NOTE : Healer aggro is only triggered by area heals that the NPC walks though, or heals to a player the mob is hitting. If you heal a player and the NPC is not attacking that player, the healer gets no healer aggro.

No idea how much aggro block and bash causes, too hard to test but taunt always wins. Unless the boss has a mechanic which drops taunt, taunt = 15 seconds of that mob on the tank, always.
(but a mob taunted 3 times within 15 seconds will become immune to taunt for 10 seconds, so do not over taunt the same mob)

So a tank with good block skills, the 2 taunts and Caltrops for large trash pulls, they should have all mobs on them.

Athas24 · April 2015

Natjur wrote: »

Random Aggro tests (not using taunts)

(1) If in a group of 4 players and no player does anything, the mobs will go for the weakest\lowest level player
(This is why in packs of mobs, one will appear to run off and get a random player, its normally cause no one has attacked it and its going for the weakest player)
(2) Snares and roots cause tons of aggro, that's why Caltrops works so well.
(3) Damage and Heals seem to cause the same aggro but its the heals cast not the heals received, so over healing causes aggro

Eg Player one hits mob for 1000 damage, player two heals player 1 for 900, player 1 keeps aggro

But if player one hits mob for 1000 damage and only has lost 900 life, but player 2 heals for 10k (over healing by 9100) Player 2 now gets aggro and will keep it until player one does another 9001 damage.

NOTE : Healer aggro is only triggered by area heals that the NPC walks though, or heals to a player the mob is hitting. If you heal a player and the NPC is not attacking that player, the healer gets no healer aggro.

No idea how much aggro block and bash causes, too hard to test but taunt always wins. Unless the boss has a mechanic which drops taunt, taunt = 15 seconds of that mob on the tank, always.

So a tank with good block skills, the 2 taunts and Caltrops for large trash pulls, they should have all mobs on them.

This is actually really great information. I'm going to play around with it some. This also makes sense why Caltrops rocks in dungeons for tanks! The over healing concept too makes more sense why a healer might get targeted right quick. If they pop a heal before the tank takes too much damage, the excess is treated similarly to doing damage to the mob. Combine that with damage and a healer can draw agro fast!

Sandmanninja · May 2015

Great info!

I almost have enough rep to get the Caltrops. Can't wait now!
Just a HUGE stamina drain. Guess I'll pop 'em and keep a stam pot in my quick slot.

Thanks for the taunt/aggro info - very informatiove

Wifeaggro13 · May 2015

keybaud wrote: »

Any chance on improving the aggro of enemies? Here are a couple of my points on why aggro should be improved

1. More observant enemies: Are all enemies blind? Because it sure seems like they are, they must have the worst eyes in the world or they are the most unobervant people I've ever seen.
2. Larger aggro and de-aggro areas, this links with the first point but also enemies should be able to see you from further away than just 6 meters in front of them. In addition the de-aggro areas, where enemies will just stop attacking you and run back to where they were. This can get quite annoying and confusing for new players and frustrating if you are kiting something and it just regains all it's health and runs away. This is especially important to increase for the Justice system Guards because it seems stupid that a guard that is chasing you down to kill you would just forget his duty and wander off for an Ice cream truck etc. I would love larger de-aggro boxes for enemies because it makes the things you are fighting seem much more alive, rather than just a thing that runs up to you, attacks then runs away again, this would also be good for immersion.

What do other think about this?

There is no aggro management in this game is non existent there are no aggro tables. Taunts are hard 6 second events that wipe the minute you apply to another target. ESO is very rudimentary in this area. It's a large reason why 90% of the group content can be done with just 3 dps and a DPs/heal

Valymer · May 2015

Natjur wrote: »

Random Aggro tests (not using taunts)

(1) If in a group of 4 players and no player does anything, the mobs will go for the weakest\lowest level player
(This is why in packs of mobs, one will appear to run off and get a random player, its normally cause no one has attacked it and its going for the weakest player)
(2) Snares and roots cause tons of aggro, that's why Caltrops works so well.
(3) Damage and Heals seem to cause the same aggro but its the heals cast not the heals received, so over healing causes aggro

Eg Player one hits mob for 1000 damage, player two heals player 1 for 900, player 1 keeps aggro

But if player one hits mob for 1000 damage and only has lost 900 life, but player 2 heals for 10k (over healing by 9100) Player 2 now gets aggro and will keep it until player one does another 9001 damage.

NOTE : Healer aggro is only triggered by area heals that the NPC walks though, or heals to a player the mob is hitting. If you heal a player and the NPC is not attacking that player, the healer gets no healer aggro.

No idea how much aggro block and bash causes, too hard to test but taunt always wins. Unless the boss has a mechanic which drops taunt, taunt = 15 seconds of that mob on the tank, always.

So a tank with good block skills, the 2 taunts and Caltrops for large trash pulls, they should have all mobs on them.

Good information but it still doesn't make sense.

A mob shouldn't run off to attack a group member who is out of its line of sight. In fact it shouldn't even know that player is there.

And how does it work when all players are of the same level, as is usually the case at VR14? Again, randomness.

A lack of real threat tables makes for a guessing game. I guess some people like that kind of system (judging by the popularity of GW2, at least) but personally I think it dumbs down the game a lot.

Mashille · May 2015

Yeah. I think before ZOS goes on to PS4 release and then DLC's they need to 'fix' this and other problems like it.

Wintersage · May 2015

All good stuff.

But there's also a flipside.

For the love of all things holy, why am I being aggroed by little level 4 wolves? I mean, can't they see how uber I am? Don't they know I'll just turn and one-shot them? I'm just looking to harvest, or deliver, or sight-see....

Added aggro-vation.

Fix aggro at high levels, for sure. That's basic party mechanics. But add in aggro level ranges to mobs so they aren't attacking ridiculously higher-level targets. It's suicide.

We know better. They should, too.

Valymer · May 2015

Wintersage wrote: »

All good stuff.

But there's also a flipside.

For the love of all things holy, why am I being aggroed by little level 4 wolves? I mean, can't they see how uber I am? Don't they know I'll just turn and one-shot them? I'm just looking to harvest, or deliver, or sight-see....

Added aggro-vation.

Fix aggro at high levels, for sure. That's basic party mechanics. But add in aggro level ranges to mobs so they aren't attacking ridiculously higher-level targets. It's suicide.

We know better. They should, too.

Yes, I agree 100%. I remember in EQ if you far surpassed a mob's level, it's aggro range shrunk to an extremely small size (like the size of the mob itself). If you stood right on top of it, it would eventually attack you, but otherwise you could just run right by them.

But I do remember some mobs would actually attack you no matter what, it was just a characteristic they had. Undead was like that, for instance.

Anyway this game is more about globbing everything up and AOEing, rather than selecting targets. So I guess in the vast majority of situations aggro doesn't even matter. But like I said it does take a layer of skill out of the game.

Dagoth_Rac · May 2015

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

There is no aggro management in this game is non existent there are no aggro tables. Taunts are hard 6 second events that wipe the minute you apply to another target. ESO is very rudimentary in this area. It's a large reason why 90% of the group content can be done with just 3 dps and a DPs/heal

Huh? Taunts last 15 seconds and persist even when you taunt multiple enemies. If you retaunt an already taunted target too quickly, it can make that target immune to taunt. But certainly taunting another target does not wipe the taunt on other targets.

daemonios · May 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

There is no aggro management in this game is non existent there are no aggro tables. Taunts are hard 6 second events that wipe the minute you apply to another target. ESO is very rudimentary in this area. It's a large reason why 90% of the group content can be done with just 3 dps and a DPs/heal

Huh? Taunts last 15 seconds and persist even when you taunt multiple enemies. If you retaunt an already taunted target too quickly, it can make that target immune to taunt. But certainly taunting another target does not wipe the taunt on other targets.

^ This. The original post is clueless at best. Taunts do NOT wipe, you can spam taunts on a whole pack of mobs and you get them all to aggro you. As a tank, I try to taunt even the trash so that the rest of the team can focus on melting them all fast.

bloodenragedb14_ESO · May 2015

aggro on sorc pets is very odd. When you sic your summons on something, they invaribly go straight for the twilight. Yes, i know its because it attacks first, but id really like it if the twilight would wait for the clanfear or familiar before attacking.

Mashille · May 2015

All the same, I think that this should be a Priority for ZOS at the moment because comparing it to other MMO's that handle this sort of thing so much better. You can tell that it is a major problem because it is very noticeable and memorable and known to everyone. It shouldn't be this known issue to everyone but it happens so often to everyone and it is a real shame that it hasn't been done as well as some other MMO's have done it such as GW 2. I desperately hope they try to fix/change how aggro is gone about normally. Simply increasing the size of aggro and de-aggro boxes of enemies would be a massive improvement because enemies just randomly run away from you and it feels 'Amateur' at the moment.

Jakhajay · May 2015

So this probably why when I'm tanking, I'll shield charge the beefiest guy, try to stab him with ransack, only to have the entire group (including the guy I charged at) single out the healer (never the dps) and pummel them mercilessly into the ground in less than a second, and then my ransack hits...

I need to pvp more for caltrops aggro...

BuggeX · May 2015

daemonios wrote: »

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

There is no aggro management in this game is non existent there are no aggro tables. Taunts are hard 6 second events that wipe the minute you apply to another target. ESO is very rudimentary in this area. It's a large reason why 90% of the group content can be done with just 3 dps and a DPs/heal

Huh? Taunts last 15 seconds and persist even when you taunt multiple enemies. If you retaunt an already taunted target too quickly, it can make that target immune to taunt. But certainly taunting another target does not wipe the taunt on other targets.

^ This. The original post is clueless at best. Taunts do NOT wipe, you can spam taunts on a whole pack of mobs and you get them all to aggro you. As a tank, I try to taunt even the trash so that the rest of the team can focus on melting them all fast.

Taunt wipes if u taunt a mob in 15sec more than 3 times. Mob get immun and goes 15sec berserk.

Dagoth_Rac · May 2015

Jakhajay wrote: »

So this probably why when I'm tanking, I'll shield charge the beefiest guy, try to stab him with ransack, only to have the entire group (including the guy I charged at) single out the healer (never the dps) and pummel them mercilessly into the ground in less than a second, and then my ransack hits...

I need to pvp more for caltrops aggro...

You should being using ranged taunt at the beginning of fight, and quickly taunting all the most dangerous enemies (generally, bosses and melee mobs). Save melee taunt for after the mobs are already taunted and focused on you and you need to refresh the taunt. Always start with taunt. Shield charging means you will aggro the entire group before anything is taunted!

Natjur · May 2015

Valymer wrote: »

Natjur wrote: »

Random Aggro tests (not using taunts)

(1) If in a group of 4 players and no player does anything, the mobs will go for the weakest\lowest level player
(This is why in packs of mobs, one will appear to run off and get a random player, its normally cause no one has attacked it and its going for the weakest player)
(2) Snares and roots cause tons of aggro, that's why Caltrops works so well.
(3) Damage and Heals seem to cause the same aggro but its the heals cast not the heals received, so over healing causes aggro

Eg Player one hits mob for 1000 damage, player two heals player 1 for 900, player 1 keeps aggro

But if player one hits mob for 1000 damage and only has lost 900 life, but player 2 heals for 10k (over healing by 9100) Player 2 now gets aggro and will keep it until player one does another 9001 damage.

NOTE : Healer aggro is only triggered by area heals that the NPC walks though, or heals to a player the mob is hitting. If you heal a player and the NPC is not attacking that player, the healer gets no healer aggro.

No idea how much aggro block and bash causes, too hard to test but taunt always wins. Unless the boss has a mechanic which drops taunt, taunt = 15 seconds of that mob on the tank, always.

So a tank with good block skills, the 2 taunts and Caltrops for large trash pulls, they should have all mobs on them.

Good information but it still doesn't make sense.

A mob shouldn't run off to attack a group member who is out of its line of sight. In fact it shouldn't even know that player is there.

And how does it work when all players are of the same level, as is usually the case at VR14? Again, randomness.

A lack of real threat tables makes for a guessing game. I guess some people like that kind of system (judging by the popularity of GW2, at least) but personally I think it dumbs down the game a lot.

If a mob sees ONE player in a group, it knows the location of ALL players in that group. Even if they are out of line of sight.
Had a V1 a the start of the zone and the three of us V14 were clearing it and mobs would always go running off to the V1 even tho he was half the zone away. Its not a GOOD design, but it the way it works.

If all players are the same level, it goes for the lowest HP player.

Valymer · May 2015

Natjur wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

Natjur wrote: »

Random Aggro tests (not using taunts)

(1) If in a group of 4 players and no player does anything, the mobs will go for the weakest\lowest level player
(This is why in packs of mobs, one will appear to run off and get a random player, its normally cause no one has attacked it and its going for the weakest player)
(2) Snares and roots cause tons of aggro, that's why Caltrops works so well.
(3) Damage and Heals seem to cause the same aggro but its the heals cast not the heals received, so over healing causes aggro

Eg Player one hits mob for 1000 damage, player two heals player 1 for 900, player 1 keeps aggro

But if player one hits mob for 1000 damage and only has lost 900 life, but player 2 heals for 10k (over healing by 9100) Player 2 now gets aggro and will keep it until player one does another 9001 damage.

NOTE : Healer aggro is only triggered by area heals that the NPC walks though, or heals to a player the mob is hitting. If you heal a player and the NPC is not attacking that player, the healer gets no healer aggro.

No idea how much aggro block and bash causes, too hard to test but taunt always wins. Unless the boss has a mechanic which drops taunt, taunt = 15 seconds of that mob on the tank, always.

So a tank with good block skills, the 2 taunts and Caltrops for large trash pulls, they should have all mobs on them.

Good information but it still doesn't make sense.

A mob shouldn't run off to attack a group member who is out of its line of sight. In fact it shouldn't even know that player is there.

And how does it work when all players are of the same level, as is usually the case at VR14? Again, randomness.

A lack of real threat tables makes for a guessing game. I guess some people like that kind of system (judging by the popularity of GW2, at least) but personally I think it dumbs down the game a lot.

If a mob sees ONE player in a group, it knows the location of ALL players in that group. Even if they are out of line of sight.
Had a V1 a the start of the zone and the three of us V14 were clearing it and mobs would always go running off to the V1 even tho he was half the zone away. Its not a GOOD design, but it the way it works.

If all players are the same level, it goes for the lowest HP player.

Yeah, as you said, it isn't a good or realistic design.

Mashille · May 2015

You're right, they need to add or change SOMETHING to make it less noticeable in the game because you shouldn't be experiencing these Monsters running away from you for NO good reason. ZOS plz do something.