Alright first off I noticed a few good ideas, somethings I think might be able to be used in City of Titans with some modification.
First is from Final Fantasy 14 ARR. They have a tab target system with a full tray of abilities. At the same time they also have some attacks you can dodge and avoid damage. So it's a combo of a twitch system and the Tab/target system we are used to. An example of this is here note they hide behind stones behind objects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt1APesQzGA
Another Idea is something a Player addon adds to World of Warcraft that I think could be a nice addition to City of Titans. That is a heads up display style UI. The example of that is here. http://kotaku.com/player-adds-holograms-to-world-of-warcraft-1685730210
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
I don't think addons are the way to go unless they can be dev supported (not likely) and they start becoming a "If you don't have this addon you suck" thing, which players shouldn't have to go looking outside of what the game offers to enjoy the game.
It's not the addon it's the idea of the UI that the addon provides.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
well to an extent, Peacebringers/Warshades/MAsterminds needed keybind files to get the *most* out of them. So to an extent those keybinds could be viewed as "addons" for that.
However, saying that... the first one is how I feel that combat would work in CoT. However, no matter how it was put across, it almost felt that most of the player base felt that it was "too twitch like".
The 2nd idea though is more of how information *COULD* be presented as standard.
Now whilst some people are not always keen on the ideas of add ons for fear of them becoming "must have" to do X content, remember that Addons only do what the developers ALLOW the addon developers to do.
Could there be unseen advantages possibly? Indeed... but nothing beyond what a good AutoHotKey script can do (and trust me, if it can automate combat in Wildstar for Zybak[1], then it should be able to cope with CoT).
[1] This is the rumour flying around that he was banned for automating combat via AutoHotKey.
Hehehe. :D
Sounds like something i would do if CoT doesnt make it easy to train my Pets AI in later issues down the line. ;)
Now you see, this is where I would draw the line. I am a firm believer of "one press one action". So although I use a Razor Tartarus/Logitech G13 and a gaming multi button mouse, all that those buttons do is *one* action per press.
I wouldn't do the "press one button get a rotation out"... UNLESS that button I pressed was linked to an *ingame* macro.
ie if I could click a button ingame on my action bar and it did something, then I have no problem setting it up so that I click a button on my mouse to click that same button.
I would however draw the line at clicking my mouse button, which would then *go through* the actions that the macro would be doing (ie activation each ability in the tree, or whatever it is that the macro was setup to do).
Hell, I am not against the use of keybind files to do it either; they are a tool that the game provides itself anyway (even if they were a dark art for some people to get their heads around).
But that is something that would need to be looked at in terms of an enforcement policy. Would the developers *allow* the use of something like AutoHotKey to pass through several commands to the game with just one keypress, or would they go with the "one key press, one action" that most other developers allow (which would then give those people who DO use gaming keyboards/gamepads/mice at least a valid reason to have them... even if they cannot use the *FULL* capabilities of the device, they can at least use them).
Hehe, short of there being a way to discern a Virtual Key Press from a Physical Key Press, i dont know! :/
Unless there was a Key Logger type of physical device than a MMO Required you to purchase and it would read the keys/mouse only like that... but i know some genius would try to hack that device. ;) Plus, theres always new types of input devices that crop up that didnt have support.
Ehhhh... thats a pain to deal with. :P
If anything, just have an analytical routine log the key presses, mouse clicks etc,,, and after about a minutes worth of data, check to see if theres a repeating pattern. If there is.... BOTS Be WARNED! *starts singing* "Ban A Bot, Ban A Bot, Uhhh Yea Yea... BAN A BOT!" ;)
At least this will get rid of 96% of the n00bly made Bots. :D
Izzy, that kind of competitive pressure only ensures the production of more "evolved" bots.
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