Enmity Testing

[niwaar]

Sleep is very annoying as a CC because of the massive enmity it gives a sorc, and apprently looting a mob gives enmity too (this is most possibly the biggest load of horse i've heard yet).

Enmity/Threat in general are very ... lets just say fluid in Aion. As it has been said, many Elite mobs have partial or total threat wipes. While unconfirmed that this is based on damage taken I can safely say that my opinion is a resounding no.

The problem we have with testing Enmity in any real way is the fact that monster AI and targeting in particular are so wonky that it can be hard to tell what target a monster is actually on.

What I can tell you with certainty is that we have two types of abilities.

1: Spike Enmity Abilities
These are our provoke type abilities. Provoke, Inescapable Judgment, Provoking Severe Blow, Provoking Roar, Provoking Shield Counter and Incite Rage.

These abilities give you a one time spike enmity boost. In terms of FFXI, this is Provoke. An ability that gives a large chunk of enmity all at once. None of these work remotely like Warcraft's taunt, mocking blow or aoe taunt mechanics. These abilities give you a set "large" amount of instant enmity on your target.

In the case of PSC and PSB they give you a chunk of enmity along with the enmity given to you buy your damage. It is currently unknown (to me at least) if these are more along the lines of a multiplier or your damage (Damage x Multiplier = Cnmity) or a set enmity increase plus damage (Ability Enmity Bonus + Damage = Enmity). Although I would lean greatly towards the latter type of calculation.

2: Damage Abilities
This is where the rest of your threat comes from. The vast majority of your sustained threat will be from your combination moves. This may not be completely true below 35 but as other classes gain new abilities and better gear you will see your damage abilities mattering more to your overall ability to sustain threat.


The biggest problem with Enmity in Aion right now is healing enmity in general. While grinding or instancing in a group, using any form of CC will tend to create an enormous amount of threat on your healer. During the time it takes you to defeat a single target, your healer is producing threat on any CC'd target. It is normally possible to take fairly quick threat off your healer if you manage to defeat your first target efficiently. However, when your DPS is low, or your have 3 or more targets, the likelihood of your healer retaining threat for a prolonged period of time are greater.

As people have said, the mere act of body aggroing a monster produces a decent amount of threat. Having seen my ranger friend pull a group in order to kite off one or more monsters while we deal with a single, untouched monster and having said untouched monster decide at some point to run after a person who has done nothing but had "link aggro" on it begs several serious questions on enmity in general. The range at which ability use will produce enmity on a given monster and the amount of initial enmity.

All in all, we can argue all we want about enmity in Aion. The monster AI is far too sketchy at this point to adequately perform any tests with any substantive results. Until then, All I can say is that suggestions of using one Spike ability followed by a combo and then another spike ability are the most sound ways of retaining threat outside of outgearing and outdpsing your party members. I really do hope they fix the system soon however, it is quite annoying to have to Stigma for 3 separate Spike abilities just because my healer can not survive a Mortal Blow to the face from that third CC'd monster.

[burnation]

When I first started healing for Krall I treated it like FFXI, pretending the starter heal was Cure I and Raidant Heal as Cure II, which is spamming Cure I as much as possible and saving Cure II for the "oh shit" moments or when the tank had enough enmity built up. It seemed I was getting the same amount either way (read: my ass handed to me) I was doing it which was pretty annoying. God forbid if we ever got a link halfway through the fight, that's pretty much when I said we're done and start /aionbooging until we wipe.

Granted our tanks sucked balls but still. I'm curious to see if it's the same when I hit 25 and start doing TG.

Also I almost forgot the whole point of the post I was making, which was to ask if anyone knows if there is a significantly jacked up enmity range from cure tiers in Aion similar to FFXI.

[RKenshin]

Enmity/Threat in general are very ... lets just say fluid in Aion. As it has been said, many Elite mobs have partial or total threat wipes. While unconfirmed that this is based on damage taken I can safely say that my opinion is a resounding no.

The problem we have with testing Enmity in any real way is the fact that monster AI and targeting in particular are so wonky that it can be hard to tell what target a monster is actually on.

What I can tell you with certainty is that we have two types of abilities.

1: Spike Enmity Abilities
These are our provoke type abilities. Provoke, Inescapable Judgment, Provoking Severe Blow, Provoking Roar, Provoking Shield Counter and Incite Rage.

These abilities give you a one time spike enmity boost. In terms of FFXI, this is Provoke. An ability that gives a large chunk of enmity all at once. None of these work remotely like Warcraft's taunt, mocking blow or aoe taunt mechanics. These abilities give you a set "large" amount of instant enmity on your target.

In the case of PSC and PSB they give you a chunk of enmity along with the enmity given to you buy your damage. It is currently unknown (to me at least) if these are more along the lines of a multiplier or your damage (Damage x Multiplier = Cnmity) or a set enmity increase plus damage (Ability Enmity Bonus + Damage = Enmity). Although I would lean greatly towards the latter type of calculation.

2: Damage Abilities
This is where the rest of your threat comes from. The vast majority of your sustained threat will be from your combination moves. This may not be completely true below 35 but as other classes gain new abilities and better gear you will see your damage abilities mattering more to your overall ability to sustain threat.


The biggest problem with Enmity in Aion right now is healing enmity in general. While grinding or instancing in a group, using any form of CC will tend to create an enormous amount of threat on your healer. During the time it takes you to defeat a single target, your healer is producing threat on any CC'd target. It is normally possible to take fairly quick threat off your healer if you manage to defeat your first target efficiently. However, when your DPS is low, or your have 3 or more targets, the likelihood of your healer retaining threat for a prolonged period of time are greater.

As people have said, the mere act of body aggroing a monster produces a decent amount of threat. Having seen my ranger friend pull a group in order to kite off one or more monsters while we deal with a single, untouched monster and having said untouched monster decide at some point to run after a person who has done nothing but had "link aggro" on it begs several serious questions on enmity in general. The range at which ability use will produce enmity on a given monster and the amount of initial enmity.

All in all, we can argue all we want about enmity in Aion. The monster AI is far too sketchy at this point to adequately perform any tests with any substantive results. Until then, All I can say is that suggestions of using one Spike ability followed by a combo and then another spike ability are the most sound ways of retaining threat outside of outgearing and outdpsing your party members. I really do hope they fix the system soon however, it is quite annoying to have to Stigma for 3 separate Spike abilities just because my healer can not survive a Mortal Blow to the face from that third CC'd monster.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, however in regards to that last line... I'm just about 99% certain that mortal blow is chosen for a random target, and has nothing to do with enmity. I've seen people that did nothing other than sit and rest MP during a fight get targeted by it, or people that were AFK.

Actually, quite a few of the special attacks various mobs have seem to do this.

Needless to say this game makes it incredibly frustrating as a tank... Between all the specials that reset/partial reset our enmity, moves that choose random targets regardless of enmity, an abundance of stuns/knockbacks/fears/silences that are too frequent and last too long (being unable to use any ability for 15s as a tank is silly), a nearly-required set of 3 enmity stigmas as you progress in higher levels of PvE, etc... It can be frustrating.

[Gamble1]

Sleep is very annoying as a CC because of the massive enmity it gives a sorc, and apprently looting a mob gives enmity too (this is most possibly the biggest load of horse i've heard yet).

My tank usually taunts the mob while it is sleeping as well as the non-slept ones. When we wake the sleeping one, I hardly ever have agro.

[Lurking Badger]

At what levels are you guys having trouble with hate? I am a level 37 chanter and I know that my cleric gf gets hate sometimes, but it doesnt seem that much more than ffxi levels. As she said: I get hate, but I can also take a few hits - in xi I'd be dead.

[niwaar]

I agree with pretty much everything you said, however in regards to that last line... I'm just about 99% certain that mortal blow is chosen for a random target, and has nothing to do with enmity. I've seen people that did nothing other than sit and rest MP during a fight get targeted by it, or people that were AFK.

Actually, quite a few of the special attacks various mobs have seem to do this.

Needless to say this game makes it incredibly frustrating as a tank... Between all the specials that reset/partial reset our enmity, moves that choose random targets regardless of enmity, an abundance of stuns/knockbacks/fears/silences that are too frequent and last too long (being unable to use any ability for 15s as a tank is silly), a nearly-required set of 3 enmity stigmas as you progress in higher levels of PvE, etc... It can be frustrating.

Actually, I have very rarely seen abilities randomly chosen to be on non "threatening" players. One thing you will find however, is that resting for MP actually produces a high amount of threat. The MP and Health gained from resting seems to count towards your threat. MP gained also causes enmity gain.

I would completely agree with you about the S/K/F/S that occur. These are highly annoying and limit enmity gain for such a significant portion of some encounters that it is extremely easy to lose threat on such occasions. Toss in the fact that the Stigma that gives you a "shield" against these ability with a 50% uptime is EXTREMELY rare and thusly EXTREMELY expensive does not help matters. You basically need to understand when and when not to use Steel Wall Defense to prevent these statuses from being applied (the worst of course being Redirect or Turn Away).

Back to enmity in general. All monsters do have an Enmity Drop (Shed as my new GM likes to call them). Generally speaking these are large damage abilities that have a drop component in them. A further example of this is found on the last boss in Aether Labs who sheds a large amount of enmity every 25%. Power Attack is the most commonly used, however there are others. Normally the shed from an ability such as Power Attack can be countered easily. However, on certain occasions or when a monster chooses to use Power Attack several times in a row, this drop in enmity can be extremely detrimental.

My tank usually taunts the mob while it is sleeping as well as the non-slept ones. When we wake the sleeping one, I hardly ever have agro.

This is the only way to make it so your healer or CC does not have threat over the long haul. However, the tab targeting system in the game leaves much to be desired as well as the auto attack functions. I am sure there is a better way to target and taunt, but this is still not as easy of a task as it may seem.

At what levels are you guys having trouble with hate? I am a level 37 chanter and I know that my cleric gf gets hate sometimes, but it doesn't seem that much more than ffxi levels. As she said: I get hate, but I can also take a few hits - in xi I'd be dead.

That is the real kicker. Clerics have an enormous about of survivability. Actually most classes do really. Threat can afford to be more fluid as long as its not a SM or Sorc taking threat, everyone has enough abilities to tank or kite for a short time. (Hell we killed Raging Kratar last night with a level 40 cleric tanking for the last 20% or so.) That being said, I never really saw huge threat issues until I hit 35ish. This is where some DPS classes really start to shine and we fail to get any real tanking chains. It would be really nice if our only "tanking chain" was not a reactionary move that hardly actually did what its supposed to and "stumbles" them.

[Meresgi]

Yeah resting during a fight does increase your enmity by a fuckton. I've pulled a few mobs off a tank while just resting. And these mobs had no aggro reset moves.

[Saxon]

This is the only way to make it so your healer or CC does not have threat over the long haul. However, the tab targeting system in the game leaves much to be desired as well as the auto attack functions. I am sure there is a better way to target and taunt, but this is still not as easy of a task as it may seem.

I've noticed, just getting hate on the CCed mob is enough, shit dies too quick to test it properly (been thinking if you're on the mobs hate list any action you do to any mob will increase hate on the CCed mob too) but 1 "voke" is usually enough and it ends up on me.

[MrSamuels]

Posting this from my Legions forum regarding some kind of threat randomness

Vast majority of western Aion players don't know that there's an additional system implemented in the game beside Aggro/Threat system.

It is called Hate-listing. It is hard to explain, because devs didn't really give any info to players about that sytem (beside its core description) or how it works.

Basically, every single monster has a special list which contains the top 30-40 players that monster thinks is the biggest 'threat' of him based on previous encounters.

If someone's on his list, it is more likely that the monster gets aggressive towards that specific player the next time he's around.

Beside the amount of aggro/threat players generated during previous encounters, every type of monster/boss has different things that would make them hate certain players more.

Some examples of things that could generate hate:
- specific type of armor
- specific type of class
- specifictype of skills used against him (ranged, elemental, etc)
- level range
etc.

So in Aion, mobs are even more unique by having their own hate-list. Players need to know their enemy better, they need to know what things a given monster dislike and hates more and groups have to plan their stategy accordingly.

Korean wiki has a short article about this Hate-listing, but I wrote down pretty much everything that's in it, the rest is up to the players of Aion, they're the one who need to figure things out and share these infos among each other.

Also with this. If you are in a place like Kaiden Headquarters, and are fighting a Priest/warrior mob, we noticed that the Warrior type mob will get pissed and try and kill whoever killed his healer.

Also at 46, when you go to the Indratu places, assuming you have Balaur speach done, you will notice mobs say things like "i will target the most annoying" "i will target the weakest etc" and they will randomly change target to their choice, i don't know how it is determined yet, but this games threat system isn't like any other i have played.

Oh and the level 45 advanced Stigma for Templars Called Prayer of Victory, generates massive amounts of threats (talking like keeping 4 mobs on templar for the whole fight) just thought i'd put that in there for the groups that run no CC like me.

[Koga]

Now that is quite unique. I haven't had a chance to really test hate very much but it makes sense on how some mobs just want me dead while others could give a shit.

[Saxon]

Some examples of things that could generate hate:
- specific type of armor
- specific type of class
- specifictype of skills used against him (ranged, elemental, etc)
- level range
etc.

Purely speculation, but would having dyed armor possibly have an effect on hate?
Or better gear than others ie. More Green/Golds?

[Syntex]

Purely speculation, but would having dyed armor possibly have an effect on hate?
Or better gear than others ie. More Green/Golds?

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

[arus2001]

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

While unlikely, I wouldn't rule it out entirely. Conceptually speaking, bulls like going after red. Hidden stats like some kind of cumulative rarity (white = 1 point, green = 2, etc.) could also be present and maybe serve as enmity multipliers for some moves or move choices. Probably better to get a stronger grasp on basic mechanics before we start looking into subtle variations, though.

[Syntex]

While unlikely, I wouldn't rule it out entirely. Conceptually speaking, bulls like going after red. Hidden stats like some kind of cumulative rarity (white = 1 point, green = 2, etc.) could also be present and maybe serve as enmity multipliers for some moves or move choices. Probably better to get a stronger grasp on basic mechanics before we start looking into subtle variations, though.

Why don't we test if having even number of vowels in your name gives you additional enmity?

Its just absurd and if you want to test it be my guest but even considering something like that without some hard evidence or even something to compare it to in another game is just dumb.

[arus2001]

As is, Aion's already shown plenty of variations in mob behavior compared to most things in FFXI. Not saying it IS there, but I won't say it isn't... or stupid... or whatever.

[MrSamuels]

Everything i put in my post is what is in the game as the additional Hate-listing system, if it didn't mention color of armor, vowels, black characters, white characters, small, fat you name it then it is not in the additional hate listing system

[Purrrfect]

Enmity=AV
lol

[arus2001]

Enmity=AV
lol

Heh, suppose so. And while Sam's info shed some light on some factors, it also came with the disclaimer that the devs didn't unveil everything or at least didn't describe it exceptionally well.

[Saxon]

Everything i put in my post is what is in the game as the additional Hate-listing system, if it didn't mention color of armor, vowels, black characters, white characters, small, fat you name it then it is not in the additional hate listing system

Oh well, it was a stupid suggestion and it took a long time for enmity to be worked out on FFXI. But it was on the list under "specific types of armor", unless you care to explain in detail exactly how each armor affects hate. I was trying to keep an open mind and make suggestions.

[Syntex]

Oh well, it was a stupid suggestion and it took a long time for enmity to be worked out on FFXI. But it was on the list under "specific types of armor", unless you care to explain in detail exactly how each armor affects hate. I was trying to keep an open mind and make suggestions.

Probably referring to the set items that say "-30% enmity" or "+30% enmity" as part of a set bonus ranger gets the first one, tanks get the latter.

Nothing to do with colors.