Someone in another thread advised me to make a new thread about this idea so here it is. This is all PVE related by the way and will not change PVP in any way. First of I'm going start with explaining what I mean with "raw damage in". With "raw damage in" I mean the damage a player takes before it is reduced by factors like defense, shields and other methods of damage absorption (think earth powerset for example). This would be the damage a player would take if this player had none of those things. When you are playing you never see these numbers, all you see is the reduced numbers in red above you after getting hit or on the scoreboard. The numbers you see I'm going to refer to as "effective damage in" and are just called "damage in" on the scoreboard in game right now. Now why would this be useful for us to be on the scoreboard? Well the main reason for me would be to show people what a tank actually does for a group and for the tanks to be able to get an accurate display of their performance. Right now only fire tanks tend to end up with somewhat high "effective damage in" numbers but that's not ever nearly how much "raw damage" they take. Earth tanks and ice tanks reduce these numbers far more with their abilities to absorb damage and they end up with rather low "effective damage in". Directing incoming damage away from other group members is a tank's PRIMARY task but right now it's hard to see how well you perform when doing so. To add to that, it will also show how well tanks are at taking damage compared to other roles as there will be massive differences between the "raw/effective damage in" ratios for tanks compared to other roles. I have been thinking about this idea for quite a while but I'm sure others have thought of it before as well (pointing at those tank players that wander around here sometimes, they'll know). Recently the respect people have for tanks has dropped to a really sad level if you ask me. Every time I hear something like "You dont need a tank for that!" I think to myself, you have no idea what an asset a tank can be to your group. Yeah I see you there pointing fingers at some bad tanks ruining some experiences for you in the past perhaps but how are they going to get better if they cant even properly measure their performance? Sure you can do things without tanks but I will even go as far daring to say there is a good chance you will actually end up going trough the content slower without a tank than you would have with a tank, there are many reasons for why I believe so but I'll leave that for some other times. I play all roles but I always LOVE to have a tank in my groups and that's because I know what they are capable of. This is where I'm going to end it for now. Basicly the idea is to have "raw damage in" as a score added to the scoreboard in PVE instances.
These numbers are already present and used somewhere, just never displayed or added up to a total. All the damage you take is derived from these numbers. If that would be a problem to these machines then I am extremely disappointed in modern technology.
I do understand there is a massive difference of damage in. However, people will clearly see how well a tank does in the raid. Infact, the tank is the ONLY person that should not have anything impressive on the scoreboard. You should see 8 people on the scorecard, 7 of them having an impressive value on the scorecard somewhere. The one that looks like the limp noodle on every stat will almost always be your tank. Purposes of your tank is to direct NPC's toward them, positioning, self survival, and managing CC effects. When I say managing CC effects, that means BOTH the CC effects you use and those NPC's use. Immunities tanks can pass to other players can be very useful However, none of this shows up on the scorecard. Essentially, a tank should simply look at how much he dies and how much damage the other 7 people take. Adjusting how damage in works would not help. Infact, it is more helpful this way, the reason being that "damage in" value corresponds to how much the healers need to heal. If you did change this, and an ice tank incurred 4000 damage in, but because of shields and mitigation, he only took 1000 of it, if that occurs enough times, you'll find issues where a tank could have taken 400k damage in, but healers combined could have only healed for 200k combined. Looks a little funny, yeah?
My idea is not to replace the current "effective damage in" but to add this "raw damage in" to the scoreboard as a separate stat. I never state anything about replacing it, instead I state being able to compare them to each other. There are no losses to this other than Moxinine above here saying it's a waste for no good reason.
whenever i tank prime on my ice character, my damage in is usually on par or only slightly higher than those in my team, which in turn makes it look like they tanked it for me through another player's eyes; even sometimes my own. i'm glad that there are players that are aware of the damage in situation, and it would really make me understand if i am contributing to the team effectively if i could see raw damage in thumbs up from me
It's really unlikely that including this on the scoreboard would cause much overhead on any modern machine. I'd also like to see control effects removed, control effects prevented, control effects applied, and amounts absorbed and shielded, as well.
