"tank" is not a moba term. it's a military term

General Discussion
81

Lol dude you just made this entire post up.

The term “tank” has been a staple of tabletop RPG and strategy games decades before MOBAs were even thought of, and they have, over the years, manifested in dozens of game formats, enabled by a wide variety of mechanics. Though, even within MOBAs, “Tank” applies to a vast range of toons.

It was never any sort of stretch for Blizzard to call Tanks “Tanks.” Yes, they’re not like MOBA tanks, but they’re not MOBA tanks and never pretended to be.

Literally the only thing this has to do with the military is that some nerd in the 80s observed that AFVs and barbarians are both things that can take a lot of hits. Why on earth would you even imagine that Blizzard was referring to armored fighting vehicles and not… one of the most well established game design concepts there is.

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82

it’s not about that. it’s about what a tank in a universe of superheroes is. it makes no sense to go with low damage tanks. they are supposed to make plays in an almost anime style battle, as tbh all heroes are meant to play. tanks can’t soak all that attention from the enemy team, draw all that enemy fire, without something to back it up to require it.

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83

The only reason why other genre (tf2 heavy as well) of tanks can work was because how interactive they are if they can’t deal direct damage, while for singleplayer like CRPGs, tanks are played by the same player who controls the other chess pieces, it makes them okay to have low damage since it does not impact the player requirement of feedback because they have those from letting the tank set up and dps clean houses.

Overwatch’s tank is different, its played by a person, but they were also denied of the CC fest because everyone hated it (the supposedly alternative way to enjoy the game). And now the damage which is the last thing it can generate positive feedback when playing tank is removed is all the worst even if you were built as a braindead brick wall.

84

Tanks in WoW, a blizzard IP, refers to the ones taking the hits, not dishing the damage. Ignoring that and instead applying real world logic to a fantasy game is on you.

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85

Those terms existed in games like mmos long before mobas were even around. So no, they certainly are not pulled from moba.

Yes hero shooters are pretty much first person moba games other than laning, killing towers, jungling, killing pve mobs, buying upgrades with currency. So pretty much nothing the same other than having some similar roles to many other genres of games.

86

The way they work is similar to Mobas. That’s for tanks, supports and dps. So it’s reasonable to say that the term is pulled from the very genre it is derivative of.
But yeah, someone else has educated me about how far back the term goes.

87

No, tanks are the mmorpg paladins…
I’m talking about Everquest, don’t know if they existed before Everquest. In the end this was a thing before moba.

88

Final fantasy XI online is their first implement of tanks in the forms of “Blood tanks” and “Bleed tanks” which are the terms made up to describe how the company allowed players to tank differently with different classes, blood tanks being the main tank/paladin like tank and blink being the off tank form of tank (the brawler).

A lot of companies didnt directly say “you see this guys, this is named a tank”, but the term of tanking was not originated in gaming, it was implemented to describe characters/builds/classes that can soak damage or relieve pressure through forms of aggro, high sustain and (usually) slow and high damage, as well as close range domination generally.

Its why brawlers in mmorpgs are so tanky. They arent necessarily tanks, they often dont have means of taking aggro, but they have high sustain and high damage, just usually they are slower, easier to kite and dodge due them being close range and very heavy / buildup abilities, but they are such a threat at a close range that u have to respect it.

Think of the classic mmo brawler that used a broadsword or some of giant sword and does a long charge up large swing and smashes it on the ground in a small radius of damage, very classic move, very characteristic of tank.

Basically tanks exist very much before even the name of tanks being mentioned, playerbases have long since established their uses. Even in Pokemon, a game that literally has zero classes or names, is characteristic of tank usage (when ubers not allowed) in competitive, such as back in gen 4 competitive there was a common Blissey Baton Pass strat, and why Rain Team was so common and convenient because Water types had highest average HP in the game, while having high special attack (with rain dance further increasing dmg) + the mix of rain and abilities usually doubling the speed of a pokemon or healing them (Swift Swim in example).

Like I said, forms of tanks existed since almost always, Im not sure why people in Overwatch are so unfamiliar of it, I assume because most come from games like CoD which is rather braindead. Only in OW I see people trying to excuse why a tank shouldnt tank and its fps, despite ow being far more towards a MOBA and objective based than it is towards the fps games like Val and CoD. OW is almost a spit image of paladins in it’s concept, and paladins is by far more of a moba than it is an fps.

Oh and FYI, I dont support tanks being too tanky as a tank main, the mix of brawl and meatshield is good and why tanks like Monke are perfect IMO (not too offensive or too defensive, a perfect usage of mobility to cover for other lacks), but people here act as if Tank is anything new to the gaming world.

89

Hero Shooter isn’t a genre in the end, usually when a shooter has different classes that are named “characters” and they have their own different personalities, it’s called a hero shooter.
Overwatch IS a unique fps game with characters that some of them have abilities similar to moba games. You might as well call it a fps with moba elements…

90

OW is not just the most unique, but the way the hybrid is implemented (despite critical balance issues throughout the years and the content drought) is so perfectly done from it’s fundamentals, and its why people struggle to find a game that gives them the same itch.

There can be countless balance issues, whether too high sustain or too low sustain in the game leading to what people believe should now make this game an fps, but I guarantee u that if ow was anything like valorant, majority of u wouldnt play it nor stay here this long, and thats what will happen if ow2 does it.

OW succeeded because it’s FUNDAMENTALLY amazing and different. It succeeded so much because of that so that it literally stomped everything else in the market. Look how many games that tried to be hybrids couldnt reach anywhere near OW’s feet. We had Battleborn which just DIED with ow’s release, Paladins is seen as a cheap copy of ow despite being an earlier development and both released closely, Crucible was mad hyped and anyone is welcome to see how it’s activity tanked in a single month of release (shame, it looked promising).

Hero shooters arent bad, ow is just so many tiers above the rest that it monopolizes the market. With OW going more towards the FPS “tooty shooty getting f’d in the booty” route, it leaves a door open for competition that didnt exist before. Idk if Gundam Evolution will be the one, I for one dont really like mecha games (ironic because Im a dva main lol, only mech Ive ever liked) so it wasnt appealing for me, but there might be companies that will ride on OW’s abstain from staying a classic hero shooter and build one that will stomp it.

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91

Spot on for the most part. Design issue is how much of that gold-standard tankiness you want in your game. It’s unpopular and misunderstood. The skillset doesn’t transfer well to/from other games and markets. The 122 format I get. One main anchor, slow to get in hard to dislodge heavy ttk - 1 of those along the “archetype” you listed, I get. But the issue is how much of that kind of impact you’re willing to let creep, stack, and compile into your matches and ladder.

2 shield tanks in 222? nothanks. tanks that are just faster and more ttk ratio than 11mins queue dps? nothx. 2 bribed tanks in 222 because no1 wants that kind of pewpew? nothx. 1.5 tanks in 5v5 122? I can live with it. Means you need to force metas where mei or reaper (or even df) help assist the “tank presence”.

92

While this is 100% rational, it still put a smile on my face. Buff tanks by removing crouch from all heroes other than main tanks.

93

Theoretically and in your opinion… if the Tank role were to achieve, the purposed “gray area” of a perfect and or good balance between Tank-iness and DMG.

Do you think, ignoring OW2 for the moment… Tank synergies and these,

Would still be the case? :thinking:

Cause IMO Overwatch never really achieved that middle ground, and the last time the role was even close… was maybe? 2017 / early 18. Somewhere before or a little after Sigma was added.

94

For middle 80% of the ladder (where the content creators never live) tanking is fine. Because it’s a typically a mixture of 1 team-helper tank and 1 selfish tank (thicc dps bypass bribes etc) and same goes for other roles. So you get these hybrid comps of like 1 shield tank 1 main healer 1 carry dps and the rest are “learning”.

It’s the stacked affects that reduce match quality and make people perceive poor balance. Like in the old days you got warnings: “too many shields” “too many builders” “too many healers” etc. But since queues were insta and alts were never you had fun because you had options.

Tanks since 2018/19 have been power crept. They have the most impact towards directly converting the ultimate win conditions. Too much CC is unfun too much builder deployable unfun too much dive/mobility unfun too much spam unfun etc etc.

The entire 6v6 format centres around “presence here to win” whether that is on point or at some choke or some 5% use of the map to wipe the team. It benefits these lucky pokes into all-in ult scripts and that’s not really at all in touch with FPS gamers even ones seeking lower reaction time hybrid fps heroshooter with casual friends.

222 has made things big macro small micro which is nice in the world of tanks and healers, but it’s not futureproof. If OW2 5v5 goes as planned, you will have big micro small macro. The radar plot of tank ability and value won’t be all-in on the TTK ratio so I think the people who main the role and don’t mind solo-on-role will be expecting more of a heavy, hard to get in hard to dislodge own the melee/point/cart kind of duty. And that way you’ll get less stacking of cheesy ttk ratios and less people exploiting the offtank creep (high mobility thicc dps that just live off the land better and bypass queues and convert impact easier etc).

95

Usually enemy just calls air support(in military) to turn tanks into scrap. Overwatch equivalent of that is calling Pharmercy.

Typically tanks are durable, deadly, but slow. But it wouldn’t work in fast-paced game like Overwatch.

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96

I’d wanna say it’s more of a mix of Military terms and Shooter Games terms. I understand the logic of what ur thinking here, but what is in the military v.s. what’s in a Shooter game is different. Military Tanks is what u’ve described: Deadly, Durable, Cannon that can make mass-explosions if shot, Big, Bulky, Slow. Now, in OW, Tanks make and control the space, depending on the type of Tank u play. Main Tanks, like Winston and Rein, create the space, they make the space. Off Tanks, like D.va and WB, would take control of the space that is made. So yes, some Tanks r gonna b high-dmging and slow and would protect u seriously, v.s. some other Tanks which r not like that. D.va is high-dmging and very mobile, but doesn’t exactly care as much bout her team like how a Reinhardt or Orisa would. Rein is high-dmging and has a serious means of protecting his team, but is not that speedy compared to WB. Winston has the mobility and the serious means of protecting his team, but not the high dmg output like how Roadhog has. So, they r Tanks, they just r not in the Military-Tanks type of direction like ur thinking. Hopefully, that clears things up 4 u.

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97

yes, my point is that in the superhero universe it has to be military a lot more than people are thinking. like DVA is literally Korean army. How would any of these heroes work if they were absolutely helpless.

teams should work together to take down tanks. teams should also work together to help enable their tanks. and make sure they don’t get taken down. tanks should protect their team not just from the dps, but from the other tanks too. at least to keep them at bay, but also to help take them down if an opportunity presents itself through smarter usage of abilities, mechanics, and positioning.