SAO - Art of the Swtich

[Lycan 0]

Idea for implementing a "Switch Mechanic" into threads.

1.) Player must be in an established party of two or more.
2.) Only the player with the most hate and the monster's aggro may switch.
3.) Once switched, the switched in character assumes all the previous "Hate"
4.) The switched out player assumes the Hate of the other player minus 1.
5.) Both players initiating a switch may not attack on their turn, but may use "Guard" or "Parry" or a consumable (Switched out only) if they have it.
6.) Turn order is shuffled accordingly.
7.) Switching is only possible against one foe, and cannot adjust hate from other foes. (i.e. you fight two boars and have 4 hate from one and 1 hate from the other. You switch out the 4 hate from the one boar, but still have 1 hate from the other.)
8.) A switch can only occur once every other turn.

Here is an example:

Calrex, Lessa, and Lycan are in a party. They are fighting a King Boar. Lessa is currently tanking. For this example, we assume each attack is a normal hit. Green means they can switch if they desire. Here is the turn order.

Lycan: 1H
Calrex: 4H
Lessa: 5H
King Boar (Attacking Lessa)

Lessa is running low on HP and EN and needs to get out of there. She tells Lycan to switch. Immediately, hate is switched and the switched player moves up in the queue.

Lycan: 1H
Calrex: 4H
Lessa: 5H (Cannot Attack)
Lycan: 5H (Cannot Attack, but may prepare a Parry or Guard if they have it.)
King Boar (Attacking Lycan)
Lessa: 0H (Drinks Potion, No Hate)
Calrex: 5H
Lycan: 6H 
King Boar (Attacking Lycan)
Lessa: 2H
Calrex: 6H
Lycan: 7H
King Boar (Attacking Lycan)

Lycan is relatively new to the game and is getting pummeled. He need to get out and fast. Since they have had one full turn without any switching, they may switch again. Lycan is critically injured, and Lessa is in no shape to continue tanking. Lycan cries out to Calrex for a switch:

Lessa: 3H
Calrex: 7H
Lycan: 7H (Cannot Attack)
Calrex: 7H (Cannot Attack, but may prepare a Parry or Guard if they have it.)
King Boar (Attacking Calrex)
Lessa: 4H
Lycan: 7H (Drinks Potion, No Hate)
Calrex: 8H
King Boar (Attacking Calrex)

Before the king boar lands his hit this turn, Calrex strikes the final blow. King Boar is now dead and Calrex gets the final strike bonus!

 

Edited February 21, 2016 by Lycan

[Calrex 0]

I like this idea for sure XD. My idea for Switch was a method for out of combat energy healing, so i you have the Hate you can only recover the 1 Energy per round, but when you switch out you enter the "out of combat" state and can recover all your energy in three rounds.

[Lycan 0]

I thought about that, but also realized you would have to reset hate to 0. Since hate stacks indefinitely, that wouldn't be viable for long encounters, especially if you only have one tank and that tank needs to pull aggro again. They'd have to catch up or switch back in. With enough switches, you could dictate the flow of battle with one person always at high hate and the others at near zero. That takes away the fear factor of attacking and all the low hate players can just wail on the monster without fear of pulling too much hate.

With this method, you only lose one hate, which should help the tanking player stay off the radar for long enough to heal, swap gear, etc before getting back into the cycle. 

[Grave 0]

I think it should actually more be that the switching character has to use a defensive skill, or attack against a defensive skill, and the character switching IN has to attack. In the anime and the light novels, the one switching out always breaks the monster's guard or takes a blow, so that the character switching in can deal a blow while the monster's guard is down.

[Lycan 0]

My only concern there is effectively getting a double attack every other turn. With some of our higher DPS types, that could make quick work of the bosses, especially with the turn base factor. Were it more of a live action, then I would see that as more viable since an improperly timed or executed switch would only be suicide for those involved.

Since drinking a potion is a post action, switch should be one as well. If we just stick to the player switching out as a non-attack, I could see the switching in player landing an attack. It's still a double attack depending on the rotation, but less of a problem then letting the switching out character attack and immediately following up with another character placing an attack before the monster turn.

[Edit] And ideally, you can still do damage with the switch idea proposed above. You just need a player with the riposte mod on their parry.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Lycan

[Baldur 0]

Along with what Calrex was saying, my idea was to implement a hate attack. You make your hate equal to the hate of the highest hated player for a targetted mob. So you HAVE to attack AND hit in order to have more hate and allow the other player to get out. The chance of failure creates risk.

Then you just change the meditation power to one that regens energy while in combat. X amount per round. So then the player that is switched out (or in the case of a raid boss, the entire team) have a limited time to regen HP and Energy before they have to switch back in.

[Lycan 0]

That might work, but if you have a player with low hate take up the high hate of a drawn out battle, soon all the players are at that high hate for switching. Maybe if the attack lands, the switch is successful and the hate transfers. If it fails, the tank still keeps the hate and the failed switch loses a turn as if stunned?

[Baldur 0]

Well, normally you would only have tanks picking up hate, but if they or the entire party end up with high hate it doesn't really matter, just that someone has the highest, then it falls back to most damage as the secondary measure.

You can't make switching too safe, or there's no chance of failure, no risk, and it can easily be abused.

You could also easily make a mod, or a sword art that is a "taunt" attack.

When I played MMO's, having an off tank keep secondary hate was important, because bosses often "cleaved" which meant they had a second, free attack that would automatically target the second highest hate target. Hate was easy to generate when you were the primary target, but it was harder to keep a tank in the second hate spot because they couldn't keep up with DPS.

"Hate" and managing their HP, should be a mechanic tanks need to use. Imagine it being their version of damage. IMHO, an auto attack should generate 1 hate. A sword art attack should generate 2. And a crit should generate +1 hate. Every turn, whoever did the most damage should generate an additional +1 or +2 hate. This would mean Zel's idea of alphastriking the boss with his x27 dual blades sword style as the first move would be stupid, since it would immediately place him high enough on the hate train to be cleaved.