Let’s talk about tanks. When you go on the scoreboard, do you see the damage ISIC has absorbed with his shield and wards? Do you see Boldurs shield counting? Do you see Montana’s massive damage reduction being factored in? They said they’re changing score, but is that the root of the problem?
Tanks are not rewarded for tanking the same way an assassin or wave clear is. To a lesser extent, the same is true of supports. Unless I’m pocket Mikoing a Shayne or Galilea on a killing spree, I’m not getting exp for my kills. I’m focusing efforts on those who are running back with 0 health trying not to die. Am I rewarded for standing there healing him with exp? No. All I get is a number at the end that no one will care about because of the lack of assists.
This is something that’s hard to get right, and I have no real way of going about it, but I feel like it’s frustrating, and it’s the cause of this game having high powered tanks and supports. They shouldn’t be able to nearly out damage attackers. Why should I heal when I can just get an assist by attacking? It even get a kill and get even more exp? Why protect the wave clear? I can just kill them myself and get the exp, but protecting them just leaves me a level behind.
As I said, I have no way to fix this problem, and I’m not requesting a solution. Just wondering what all of your thoughts are on the matter. ISIC is the biggest example of this problem. They had to nerf his damage. He’s a tank. Unfortunately, that’s a byproduct of the fact that tanks are needing to attack to function. Same for supports.
(Sorry for those who struggle with more text wally posts.)
Finally (though to be fair I can still get kills plenty as ISIC, Whowever still needs wards buff and SLIGHTLY health buff) someone to set it straight about tanks being the reason called tanks absorb and take the hits for the team
Not going to happen as long as kills are more important than the objective.
I’ve won quite a few incursion matches that the enemy team had my team beat in kills…so I don’t know if kills are more important
Kills don’t win you the game. They help, but they’re not your win condition. Destroying the sentry/escorting minions is**. As such, the idea that kills are more important than the objective is a misconception.
Your score (kills/assists) is nothing more than a tie breaker, though too many people think it’s the defining feature of winning a match (and thus get pissy when they lose with a higher score but lower sentry health). I “blame” traditional FPS and people coming from there not realizing how much of a MOBA BB is.
As for the topic itself: I do agree that a tank that actually tanks (instead of playing like a durable assassin * cough * Boldur * cough *) is greatly underappreciated by the game’s mechanics (as are healers/supports). But it’s a hard thing to make rewarding mechanically. Increasing the assist window would increase the overall experience gain in a match and still leave you behind in levels. Including ‘damage blocked’ or ‘healing done’ in score might sound fine in theory, but at what rate would that be without breaking the game or making it useless? Not to mention it feels contrived as ■■■■ and can easily be cheesed to get some quick score (aggro thrall, pocket Miko and you’re set).
The inane obsession with K/D/A will always remain because it’s an easy way to boast. It’s easier to simply throw out ‘Im a beast cuz 16/2/6’ than explaining how you baiting 2 heroes away from the central fight by hopping around with low health and good use of shield so the team had a numbers advantage that netted them the sentry on the back of a teamfight that initially started out bad for you. Not to mention the bodyblocks, the aggro management etc.
**I know I skipped capture here. That’s on purpose.
Most interestingly, after you die, it can list someone as a martyr for taking some damage before you died. I think this was a feature that was going to be fully implemented, but then dropped early on, as it’s random, you’re never told when you’re the martyr, and you don’t get exp or titles or challenges.
They’re going to fix score at some point, but there’s no word on how far along they are on doing that. I’m hoping at the very least that Thralls are included in it because the end screen shows none of that work.
We’ll stop focusing kills when they stop glorifying kills.
As a side note, I think this would help mitigate some of the saltiness people have about being taunted.
My main point is that tanks get absolutely nothing for doing their job. Supports get some depending on if they heal the nearly dead or the ones that are about to get kills, but it’s the same problem. The glorification of kills is its own irritant, but there’s also a related issue in that assassins and wave clear are given exp and titles for doing their job, while tanks and some supports aren’t. There’s no title for soaking up 100000 damage with a secondary shield, or with damage reduction. There’s no challenge for healing 3000000 health. These are things they don’t keep track of. The glorification of kills isn’t the problem, it’s the ignorance of everything else that is.
What does it mean by martyr, also ISIC is all about taking your kneecaps
IDK, I think it’s when someone takes damage for you to try to prevent your defeat, but it’s not fleshed out or explained. @joekgbx and @Jythri, a little clarification on how martyrdom works? And yes (I’d love a skin of Dragõn with cybernetic knees).
Lol cybernetic legs and regular arms
Confirm sir. We were getting annihilated as far as kills go and still won with constantly hammering the sentries.
I definitely agree with this. You can win games fine without needing the most kills.
That said, I don’t know if that’s the main problem brought up in the first post.
The problem I’m reading is that while assassins & waveclear characters get XP for doing their jobs, Tanks & Supports are often stuck micromanaging, trying to balance between farming minions & protecting their waveclearer. Or in the case of the support, it’s trying to decide if I should rush in to save the Rath with 20% of his health left or if I have time to toss some AoE/heals to our OM so I get some assist XP when he wipes the minion lane. It raises the skill cap of these characters by a lot, for no tangible reward. I think a lot of class-based FPS/MOBAs have an inherent issue in that Tanks & Supports aren’t as fun, flashy, dynamic or as directly gamechanging when mastered like offensive characters are, hence why no one plays Medic in TF2. Especially when people who play aggressive characters are being rewarded with boatloads of XP and titles like ‘Worthy of Song’ because they picked El Dragón and pressed the ‘F’ key.
It’s definitely a rough topic, and while I don’t mind the score issue so much, the XP problem really hurts a lot of characters, forcing them to rotate off of their role or mindlessly farm buildables to avoid falling behind because they were busy doing what their character is meant to do.
you still get an assist by healing someone who is attacking. So if that’s the point, you don’t need to stop healing to earn XP. That’s why you have healers with no kills and something like 20 assists + finish as lvl 10. I think what you might be getting at is how fast it is for some to level versus others.
Well, it’s mostly about tanks, but to a lesser degree it’s about the healers who save those running back to base with no health, not just tagging someone with nearly full health about to get the kill.
It’s exactly this, tanks aren’t rewarded for tanking the same way every other class is for doing their job. And supports to a much lesser degree.
Wait… How does one KILL the focus on KILLS, when you want us to KILL it? I’m confused…