Taunt Changes Heading to Test Server

From Rashere, Lead Designer, on April 27, 2006:

I've mentioned this in the past, but have now made the taunt changes in code. They'll be going to test soon and I wanted to let everyone know what changes are being made. The changes are mostly relevant at high levels, where taunt was really a problem, and consist of the following:

Above level 60, taunt will use your taunt skill now instead of being a hard coded success rate. Before these changes, your taunt skill was irrelevant if you were above level 60 and taunting something that was also above level 60. The chance to taunt is roughly the same if you are max skill as it was before the change.

To go along with this, Paladin and Shadowknight now have the same taunt caps as Warriors. Previously, since the taunt chance was hard coded, they were taunting the same anyway so this ensures that the 3 tank classes keep that equality.

The chance to taunt an NPC higher level than yourself dropped off at double the rate if you were above level 60 than if you were below level 60 making it very hard to taunt creature higher level than yourself if you were above level 60. I've removed this check so the drop off happens at the same rate at all levels now instead. This will improve taunt success rates against yellow and some red con NPCs at high levels.

The mininimum chance to successfully taunt an NPC has been increased.

You now gain a bonus to your chance to taunt an NPC that is lower level than yourself with that bonus growing as the level difference increases.

Rashere

Oh, one additional note I probably should have included in the original message.

Changing taunt is what I refer to as a "scary change". It's one of those systems that by itself doesn't do a whole lot, but affects a ton of other aspects of combat. Changes to systems like this have a rippling affect on balance throughout the game and no matter how many tests we run, we just won't see the full impact until its being used on a large scale. The changes I've outlined are what we are anticipating will work best, but I'm expecting we'll be making tweaks over the coming months as we see how it really plays out in true game conditions. When this hits test, I encourage people to log on and try it out as much as they can.

Rashere

Full thread is here.