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Friendly Fire ... that isn't ...

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Redlynne
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Friendly Fire ... that isn't ...

One of the enduring problems in online games is the connection between "friendly" fire and griefing. As soon as you allow the former, the latter will show up faster than immediately.

Another one of the enduring complications of online gaming is ... you just can't count on having all that much "control" over what your own character is doing, let alone what other people around you are doing (or merely trying to do).

In a lot of cases, what online games do to compensate for this sort of thing is ... prevent any sort of "friendly" fire from even being possible (outside of Duels, naturally). City of Heroes followed this model, as have a number of other games. Any and all "friendlies" are, in effect ... transparent ... to anything you're doing. They don't block Lines of Sight. They aren't affected by areas/volumes of effect from anything you might do. The only thing you can do to "friendlies" is Buff them, and any Debuffing (including HP Debuffing, usually called "Damage") is only done to opponents.

So throw your grenades ... and let the game engine sort out who gets hurt (and who doesn't), because you can't ever hurt anyone playing for your "side" of the game, by default.

This sort of behavior in the game mechanics is, in a lot of ways, very much a convention of how MMORPGs simply have to operate if you want to minimize the potential for griefing of other Players. City of Heroes had it. Tabula Rasa had it. Star Trek Online has it. Indeed, just about any game that is PvE oriented has some sort of variation on this underlying principle. Thall Shalt Not Grief Others ... so no "friendly" fire of any kind is "allowed" by the game, even accidentally.

But then, we all know the old saying about grenades, right?

Once you pull the pin from Mr. Grenade, he is no longer your friend ...

=====

One of the "features" of City of Heroes was that the game ran on a Resolve First, Animate After basis, simply so that the programming of the day could have a hope of keeping up with what was supposed to be happening. It also made things easier in the sense that it kept all the Decision Making (and tracking) server-side, while leaving the job of Reporting what was going on to the Client to work out and display.

A consequence of this system was that use of Powers involved "up front" costs in Endurance and committed a PC to a specific animation, which, unless Interruptable, could not be aborted. This meant that for most Powers, there really wasn't anything akin to an Animation Cancellation functionality, either of a manual or automatic nature (short of Interrupt-ables).

The natural outcome of this confluence of game mechanical behaviors was as predictable as it was widespread ... Herd & Burn.

The natural mode of operation was to gather up a herd of opposition onto the aggro magnet and then just dump as much AoE into the pile as possible, knowing that nothing thrown in that direction would ever harm an ally or a "friendly" (whether PC or NPC). All of the harmful effects just automagically "Missed" any "friendlies" which in turn enabled the "slaughter them wholesale rather than retail" mentality (and reality) of optimal DPS throughput.

But that was the Cryptic Engine.

Now we've got Unreal Engine 4 ... which is a bit smarter and more powerful.

Before anyone leaps to the absurd notion that I'm advocating in FAVOR of allowing "friendly" fire (which never is all that "friendly") ... let me disabuse you of the notion in a hurry. I am quite firmly AGAINST permitting any sort of "friendly" fire from taking place in City of Titans. Can we all be clear on that point?

However ... that said ...

One thing that could be done with City of Titans is to reorder "when" certain game mechanics get sequenced from how they worked in City of Heroes. The simplest explanation of this is Animate First, Resolve After ... and is usually seen through the prism of handling Projectile Effects on either opponents or terrain features.

But if you're doing an Animate First, Resolve After system ... instead of a Resolve First, Animate After system ... then there are certain things that you can do which wouldn't "make sense" in the alternative system. Things such as Holding Your Fire or otherwise Aborting Your Attack in a way that only "penalizes" the Player in terms of Time Lost as opposed to Resources (ie. Endurance) Lost.

Specifically, I'm thinking in terms of allowing the Hit Boxes of both PCs and NPCs to act as OBSTRUCTIONS to Line of Sight calculations ... meaning that neither PCs nor NPCs can shoot "through" each other to reach (and affect) opponents on the other side of "traffic" in between. So Hit Boxes would both block for movement and for line of sight.

Additionally, I'm wondering what would happen if Volume of Effect Powers that are intended to harm opponents could not be used if a "friendly" NPC or PC was within the defined volume.

In other words, rather than bias things towards a "transparency to friendlies" model ... instead bias the underlying behavior towards a "DON'T shoot if you COULD hurt friendlies" model, which creates a different set of incentives. In other words, an Action Prevention method rather than a "game mech-magical prevention" method of dealing with this issue.

The way it would work in practice, I'm thinking, is that when attacking a Foe (either PC or NPC), BEFORE the Power animates there would be a Line of Sight check to the $Target. Powers that require a Line of Sight to the $Target ... go figure. Those that don't (such as Teleport Foe, for example) ... go figure again.

Volume of Effect Powers would increase the Line of Sight check to verify that ONLY Foes were within Line of Sight of the Volume of Effect. If the Volume of Effect can draw a Line of Sight to a "friendly" then the Power can't be used against that $Target or Location. And if a Power can't be used because of prevention of "friendly" fire, grey out its UI element to indicate that to the Player.

If the above disqualifications do not apply, then the Power can be used. On command, begin animation.

Near the end of the animation, in perhaps the last 0.2-0.4 seconds or so, do ANOTHER Line of Sight/no "friendlies" in the Volume of Effect check. If this check is FAILED, then play an animation of "aborting the attack" to fill the remaining time that the animation is supposed to used. If this check is PASSED, then play an alternate animation in the remaining time that shows the attack taking place ... AND ... when this animation is completed, THEN asses the price/cost in Endurance for actually MAKING the attack successfully.

In other words, consume resources at the END of the animation of a (successful) attack, rather than at the BEGINNING of an animation of an attack that might wind up needing to be prevented.

Now, I know what a lot of you are going to be thinking at this point ... which is mainly that if such a system is implemented, then a lot of Volume of Effect Powers are going to be rendered "useless" by the presence of an ally or "friendly" simply getting too close to the action ... which is where the aggro magnet tends to need to be. It would turn VoE Powers into something used situationally, rather than indiscriminately (like they were in City of Heroes).

There would be basically two ways around such problems.

The first would be through SMART PLAY and intelligent positioning. After all, so long as PCs and NPCs aren't trying to shoot/attack "through" each other, they can still "gang up on" a $Target pretty effectively.

The second solution would be to stipulate that certain archetypes simply "don't count" for the Action Prevention system and that they resort to the "transparent to harm" system that we all know and love (and remember). That way, you can have Tankers (or Brutes) that can provide the aforementioned Herd & Burn strategy. This would then be essentially a function of an Inherent Power of the archetype, allowing them to "get closer" and mix it up more with the opposition without having their "friends" worry about "friendly" fire (that isn't). The key point though would be that the "transparent to harm" functionality would effectively be what amounts to an Advantage that needs to be "taken" ... rather than being something that is universally assumed and built into the game mechanics at an extremely fundamental level.

Heck, I could easily see something like the "transparent to harm" functionality of "friendly" fire being something that is either an Inherent Power (for Tankers and Brutes) or something that is temporarily granted upon use of an sort of Taunt Power (ie. aggro magnet/control).

What I'm ultimately looking for is a way to accommodate BOTH sets of game mechanics within the same game, as ironic as that sounds. It would mean that Not All Groups Play The Same ... and that not all Teams are as ideally suited to exploit Herd & Burn tactics. It would mean that Volume of Effect could potentially become a situational thing, in which the "smart" play isn't to roll a grenade in under the feet of your "friends" ... but rather to start increasing situational awareness and choosing your engagement methods appropriately to the situation. If that means picking your shots to down your Foes one by one in sequence, rather than in parallel ... so be it.


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My first thought as I read

My first thought as I read this was that confused targets were capable of "friendly fire" and that it was used for PvP griefing in CoX. After having fully comprehended what was actually posted, I can't say I'm in favor of it for 2 reasons.

1. We are going for a spiritual successor here and for me, this doesn't fit

2. A higher learning curve won't help the game find an audience. (Strictly my opinion.)

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I can imagine any ranged-type

I can imagine any ranged-type simply giving up in disgust, since all of their powers are greyed-out all the time, because the Scrappers are hogging all of the targets. Or, between attack-initiation and attack-resolution someone dodged their hit-box into the Line-of-Sight-calculation, or the Enemy dipped behind something. Greyed-out, the player can't even say, "my attack will release the Moment I can effect my target!"

What I see in Resolve-First-Animate-After is conservation of the 'instantaneity' of the attack-decision. "I'm attacking... ... ... Now!" In 'reality' one would have started the attack animation and held the 'release' until the critical moment, but that's not exactly a fun thing to manage in an 'action' game, so we choose the attack moment and the game does the pretty animation that 'retroactively' releases the attack and result.

I honestly like a lot of your ideas, Redlynne, but sometimes it seems like you're making the game needlessly complex.

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I play many different support

I play many different support characters and very few front line characters. Scrapperlock mostly bores me. The system you're proposing Redlynne, would prevent just about any form of support beyond healing except in ideal situations with wide open LOS. This could be partly remedied with smaller NOHIT boxes, but only to a certain point. If the enemy NPCs are clustered at one end of a hallway with the tank between the support characters and the enemies, then the only support character who can contribute is the healer/buffer. If I am reading the Power Classifications chart correctly, CoT will not have a dedicated healer class, as a result, in any confined quarters combat you'll wind up with a tank (and maybe one melee DPS) doing all the fighting while the rest of the team sits back watching the pretty lights go off.

Not an engaging game, in my estimation.

One of the advantages of blind massed AoE attacks in a game like this is that it gives support characters an opportunity to contribute to every combat situation, even if their LOS is technically "blocked". Granted, this does lead to mindless "Aggro on the Tank, Dump AoE until they all die" gameplay, but I think this is better than "Aggro on the Tank, watch the pretty lights go off" gameplay.

Your suggestion, Redlynne, would not affect frontline melee characters, but it would definitely render non-healing support characters useless in any confined situation.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

The first would be through SMART PLAY and intelligent positioning. After all, so long as PCs and NPCs aren't trying to shoot/attack "through" each other, they can still "gang up on" a $Target pretty effectively.

I understand this is an attempt to add a new dimension of what I'd call "tactical realism" to MMO combat but as the others have said it ironically seems like the additional realism would actually only hurt/impede the overall gameplay experience. The extra "frustration" with having to worry about realistic LoS issues would probably annoy more people than fill them with a sense of satisfaction of having to play with a more real life tactical mindset.

One thing you might consider to salvage this idea is that instead of having this be a system that interferes with players' ability to coordinate offensively maybe something like this could be geared to be a tool that the game uses to help MOBs coordinate their defense against players. Maybe MOBs could adopt a more "circle the wagons" mentality by keeping the main boss of a group at the center surrounded by the minions and make it so that the presence of the minions actually interferes with the players' ability to directly target them (using you LoS concept). This would force players to actively thin out most of the protecting minions before they could even start touching the main bosses. This may provide a new level of challenge for players because as long as the main boss of a MOB can't be touched (because of his/her human meat shields) it gives the boss a chance to use their abilities against the players unmolested by mezzes or debuffs.

Basically by having the LoS concept only be able to help one MOB defender protect his buddy instead of one player interfering with another player you might have a workable idea here.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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First, I think some

First, I think some disclosure is necessary: None of Redlynne's characters were blasters. A couple Arachnos soldiers, a couple Kheldians, but no actual says-it-on-the-tin blasters. Just so you know where this is coming from.

Fireheart wrote:

I can imagine any ranged-type simply giving up in disgust, since all of their powers are greyed-out all the time, because the Scrappers are hogging all of the targets.

I guarantee this will happen, though I expect there may be one or two powers that aren't grayed all the time. The glass cannon will turn into the glass nerf gun. Remember that ranged-damage-primary power sets are going to get balanced based on their open-field performance (which is what you get when soloing), so this will have the effect of a heavy nerf to DPS, which will either need to be filled in by scrapper DPS or may well fail the mission due to lack of DPS.

Since the initial ranged DPS primary class is effectively a corruptor (i.e. support secondary), they'll be forced into that support role, as a primary, so long as tanks and melee types are camping the targets. Which is most of the fight.

Fireheart wrote:

Or, between attack-initiation and attack-resolution someone dodged their hit-box into the Line-of-Sight-calculation, or the Enemy dipped behind something. Greyed-out, the player can't even say, "my attack will release the Moment I can effect my target!"

This happened all the time in Tabula Rasa to my sniper. Ith ad a two-check line-of-sight mechanism with four seconds of charge-up between the checks; if either check fails, the shot is canceled (failed first check) or wasted (failed second check). There were many times I couldn't get a target to stay in the open for four seconds simply because they were patrolling an area and there were walls. Screw that noise. One of the biggest fixes they made was getting rid of it. (Come to think of it, I don't remember Red playing a sniper in TR.)

Fireheart wrote:

What I see in Resolve-First-Animate-After is conservation of the 'instantaneity' of the attack-decision. "I'm attacking... ... ... Now!" In 'reality' one would have started the attack animation and held the 'release' until the critical moment, but that's not exactly a fun thing to manage in an 'action' game, so we choose the attack moment and the game does the pretty animation that 'retroactively' releases the attack and result.

Resolve-First-Animate-After is also More Fun, and More Fun should win.

Fireheart wrote:

I honestly like a lot of your ideas, Redlynne, but sometimes it seems like you're making the game needlessly complex.

It's basically pushing the game toward a twitch FPS mechanic.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Greyhawk wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:

The system you're proposing Redlynne, would prevent just about any form of support beyond healing except in ideal situations with wide open LOS.

Uh ... that's something of an extremist statement. In my experience there was a pretty wide range of environments to engage in, and I'd expect the same in City of Titans. I'd expect everything from tight confines and narrow hallways to wide open spaces. It all depends on how Players arrange themselves within the available space ... and should they have to change their engagement style/tactics in response to the environment that they're fighting in.

I will readily grant that structuring things such that "all friendlies are transparent to what I'm doing" makes for a very simplistic and easy to play game. The flipside of that is that you wind up with a structure that encourages Lazy Gamer Syndrome in which the same combinations can be repeated endlessly without care or concern. Why? Because it doesn't matter who is where. There is no sense of "tactical" positioning, simply because there is no "obstructing" of any kind happening anywhere. The result is a Stand And Deliver style of play in which there's hardly ever any advantage to remaining mobile (let alone moving) while fighting.

Greyhawk wrote:

If the enemy NPCs are clustered at one end of a hallway with the tank between the support characters and the enemies, then the only support character who can contribute is the healer/buffer.

It's ironic that you would bring this situation up, because when I imagine the exact same situation my first notion (as an aggro magnet) is to jump OVER the opposition so as to put them between me and my team. That way, the Foes are all facing me and have their backs turned to my team who then proceed to unload into the Foes with everything they've got, unobstructed.

It's bad enough to get locked into 2 dimension thinking, but really ... 1 dimensional thinking? Straight lines only? At all times?

Granted, I can easily imagine that there would be close quarters environments where hopping over the Foes to get on the far side of them and draw attention might not be practical (blue caves, Council underground base tunnels, etc.) ... but those wouldn't be the stock 'n' standard situation. Heck, I'd consider such "low bridge" environmental limitations to be present less than 5% of the time (maybe even as low as 2%), making them an edge case limitation, rather than an always on sort of deal.

Greyhawk wrote:

in any confined quarters combat you'll wind up with a tank (and maybe one melee DPS) doing all the fighting while the rest of the team sits back watching the pretty lights go off.

Let's get really darn specific about what you're suggesting here.

You're talking about an environmental/terrain space that is 1 character wide and 1 character tall.
You're talking about "filling" that space with a single PC, who then obstructs any and all offensive actions by all other PCs, regardless of orientation or disposition of other Team members.

You're basically talking about "tunnel fighting" ... in effect.

And while I will certainly grant that the maps in City of Heroes offered a number of "choke points" in them (usually doorways or narrow tunnels), I am hard pressed to remember a single one that was so narrow and small as to prevent other avatars from being able to move past on either the sides or above around an obstructing ground pounder who was holding the choke point. I'm sure there were some places like that, but I wouldn't classify such locations as being "everywhere" at once ... even inside of 5th Column underground bases.

So COULD such circumstances occur? Sure.
WOULD such circumstances prevail at all times and in all cases? Hardly.
If such circumstances DID occur with a Line of Sight Block system like I'm proposing, what would be the solution? MOVE the battle. Even something as simple as retreating a few feet before "planting your flag" to begin the Stand and Stick routine could make a lot of difference to your supporters.

Even in City of Heroes, I figure that such choke point battles occurred somewhere around 1% of the time (and as a Tanker I did try to maximize those opportunities). In my experience, some 99% of combat took place in areas and volumes that offered plenty of maneuvering room ... even inside of big brown caves.

Greyhawk wrote:

Not an engaging game, in my estimation.

Given the way you've framed and described your objections ... I would agree with you ... if I assumed that Players were completely powerless to change and adapt (or worse, incapable of doing so). I mean, simple Optimization Theory for DPS throughput should make it plenty obvious that having a full Team delivering a beatdown is superior to allowing merely a fraction deliver a beatdown. Under such circumstances I'd either expect the Team to split up (because "we can do more damage that way") or for a conventional wisdom to take hold in which it is considered Bad Form™ by the community to do what you're objecting to here ... *deliberately* and actively obstructing Team members from usefully contributing. To be honest, I'd assume both ... and let the Path Of Least Resistance resolve the issue on an ad hoc basis.

Suffice it to say, I'd expect there to be a sort of "evolutionary pressure" in which the situation you're describing actually is DISCOURAGED as a result of social/peer pressure more than anything else.

Greyhawk wrote:

One of the advantages of blind massed AoE attacks in a game like this is that it gives support characters an opportunity to contribute to every combat situation, even if their LOS is technically "blocked". Granted, this does lead to mindless "Aggro on the Tank, Dump AoE until they all die" gameplay, but I think this is better than "Aggro on the Tank, watch the pretty lights go off" gameplay.

Allow me to point out that the scenario you painted is one in which I would argue that the aggro magnet is being ... discourteous ... to their Team, by blocking all Lines of Sight for their Team. Furthermore, I'd argue that perhaps easily 99% of those situations could be resolved by having the aggro magnet making a strategic retreat to a location more favorable to receiving incoming fire support from their Team. Heck, even a "fighting retreat" to a better location comes to mind as being a simple courtesy.

The flipside, of course, is that the Line of Sight issue would substantially (but not completely, granted) be a Two Way Street ... meaning if you can't shoot them, it's likely (although not guaranteed) that they can't shoot you either, which would limit the choice of available targets towards the aggro magnet, helping them "do their job" so to speak. It would also create the opportunity for "shield wall" style formation fighting tactics, even if the "wall" is a mere 2 characters standing side by side, creating a sheltered volume behind them, within which ENEMY attacks cannot be made (even if only temporarily).

And yes, I'm using the term "courtesy" in a very deliberate sense tying back into teamwork, with a heaping helping of "help me to help you" nuance underlying everything. The best teams were the ones that complimented each other, after all.

Greyhawk wrote:

Your suggestion, Redlynne, would not affect frontline melee characters

On the contrary, I'd expect it to shift the burden of responsibility that frontline melee characters must bear, making what they do (and where) a more complex equation than simply Stand And Stick until all Foes are wiped out. Bear in mind that I'm assuming the changes I'm proposing would be applied to PCs and NPCs equally, meaning that everyone plays under the same rules. So the very same "interference" patterns you're objecting to here could potentially foil/delay Foe NPCs just as much as they could Team PCs if the Players/AIs controlling those avatars play selfishly (or stupidly, take your pick).

Greyhawk wrote:

but it would definitely render non-healing support characters useless in any confined situation.

As you can see, I'm going to challenge the underpinnings of that notion. Why? Because as I said in my OP, one of the outgrowths of the changes I'd expect to see is INTELLIGENT GAMEPLAY emerging as the de-facto standard among Players. Granted there might be a learning curve, but that's true of any endeavor that requires people (or computers) to THINK.

So my assumption is that gameplay would adapt to optimize around the new set of rules. Even better yet, that adaptation would be *fluid* and largely dependent upon the environment and situations found from moment to moment. You wouldn't have a One Size Fits All solution to every single battle. WHAT you "do" and HOW you "do" it and WHEN (and WHERE!) would become variables, rather than remaining as constants, regardless of circumstances.

If part of your Team is rendered "ineffective by the circumstances" as you put it ... change the circumstances. Fight on different ground. MOVE THE BATTLE someplace else. Rearrange where everyone is. USE THE TERRAIN to your advantage (and to the detriment of the opposition). Fight in three dimensions, not just two (or worse, merely one). Flank your opponents whenever you can.

In other words, let the combat be more complex (and therefore more challenging to "master") than just parking and endlessly cycling your attack chain until you run out of $Targets.


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I'd be more inclined to

I'd be more inclined to design any "hit box obstructions" as being explicit powers of the "tank"-type characters. They're ways for those who are deliberately establishing themselves as meatshields to provide shelter to those they wish to protect.

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

I'd be more inclined to design any "hit box obstructions" as being explicit powers of the "tank"-type characters. They're ways for those who are deliberately establishing themselves as meatshields to provide shelter to those they wish to protect.

The general idea of using LoS obstruction more as a positive defensive technique (for PCs or NPCs) instead of an impediment to player offensive tactics actually falls in line with what I was suggesting in my earlier post on this thread. In other words don't introduce any kind of "friendly fire" or even "friendly interference" but instead allow for defensive abilities that can rely on "meatshield" type LoS relationships amongst allies. If Tinkerbell hides behind the Incredible Hulk there shouldn't be much that would be able to hurt her.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

Redlynne
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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

I'd be more inclined to design any "hit box obstructions" as being explicit powers of the "tank"-type characters. They're ways for those who are deliberately establishing themselves as meatshields to provide shelter to those they wish to protect.

Interesting notion ... so lets play with that idea a little and see where it leads.

Assume a baseline reversion to the "all friendlies are transparent" assumption we used in City of Heroes so as to revert to baseline.

Now set up some Protection Powers (I'm thinking Toggles here, specifically) as generating a "block opponent Line of Sight" Volume of Effect field (bubble?) around the character (both PC and NPC). Set things up such that this field can increase in radius with additional Protection Powers taken ... so if a Powerset contains 3 Protection Toggles then all three Toggles need to be running to achieve maximum obstruction to the Line of Sight of opponents.

That way, the blockage is One Way rather than Two Way. It inherently builds the necessary mechanics for a "shield wall" type of formation (even if using only one "brick" character). It also allows for variability in the size/radius/shape of the Line of Sight obstruction field such that it could be larger/smaller for different combinations of Powersets (the classic Scrapper vs Tanker divide on protection schemes of Primary vs Secondary).

Hmm ... sounds like that would offer a more streamlined and simplified route towards a "shelter zone" game mechanic, particularly with the One Way vs Two Way blockage in place.

Now, if such a "shelter zone" system could be rigged such that the Line of Sight obstruction field "intercepted" Volume of Effect attacks so as to provide a "shelter" space from blast radius and etc. we'd start getting towards something relatively complex where positioning matters.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Interesting notion ... so lets play with that idea a little and see where it leads.

In addition to "shield wall" toggle powers that could be PBAoE Tank oriented this idea could even apply to other things like "castable shields" where a player could plant a physical shield at a given point and for a specific duration that shield would act as an immobile object that would have defensive LoS obstructive properties. Basically I'm suggesting a modern superhero equivalent of a mantlet.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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it looks like people wants

it looks like people wants tanks with Bubbles. No one likes Defenders with Bubbles anymore? :(

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

it looks like people wants tanks with Bubbles. No one likes Defenders with Bubbles anymore? :(

What's being talked about here is not quite the same thing as "Bubbles" (and/or Force Fields). This is more about establishing a workable type of Line of Sight (LoS) defense that would be directional in nature. It wouldn't be enough to just randomly stand next to a Tank like this and get the benefit of some kind of defense bonus - it's more like having a Tank be able to literally stand directly in-between an enemy and ally and have that Tank impart a defensive advantage/cover to the ally for blocking the direct LoS between the two.

To be completely realistic this definition of a "Tank" (as in a player that could use his/her own body to physically shield allies from damage) is closer to the way real life tanks like this:

actually worked with infantry in most of the wars of the 20th century. Note the soldiers using the tank as cover in the second pic. It would be interesting to have that tactical capability translated into a MMO like CoT.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

it looks like people wants tanks with Bubbles. No one likes Defenders with Bubbles anymore? :(

Izzy ... that's a TERRIBLE misread on what we're discussing here. Appalling.

If you're talking about the Force Field and Sonic Resonance Powersets ... I fully expect those to be implemented for the City of Titans counterpart to Defenders, and for them to be fully welcomed by one and all (provided their visual FX do not induce seizures and/or migraines in Players).

Lothic wrote:

In addition to "shield wall" toggle powers that could be PBAoE Tank oriented this idea could even apply to other things like "castable shields" where a player could plant a physical shield at a given point and for a specific duration that shield would act as an immobile object that would have defensive LoS obstructive properties. Basically I'm suggesting a modern superhero equivalent of a mantlet.

Lothic is on the ball here with the mantlet formulation of the idea (go look at the link, it'll make a lot of things more obvious for this discussion).

The basic idea as proposed by Segev and supported by Lothic would be creating game mechanical support for aggro magnets to, in effect, "work" as either stationary (constructs) or mobile (characters) mantlets, in addition to their other abilities and functions. This game mechanical support could be done as a Point Blank Volume of Effect (PBVoE) around a character (PC or NPC), or as a property of a spawned construct. Best examples of the sort of spawned construct that I can think of currently come out of Star Trek Online, specifically the Engineer Ability, Cover Shield ...

... except that instead of being a two-way obstruction to Line of Sight (and movement), it would be only a one-way obstruction, allowing allies and friendlies to attack through it and move through it (but which opponents cannot). That way, you have a portable, deployable obstruction that you can shelter behind yet still attack through.

Now imagine what it would be like if you could use your aggro magnets in the exact same way. Keep the Tanker between yourself and your Foes and the Tanker will block Line of Sight from them to you ... but not from you to them. One-way obstruction. The safest place to be is "behind the aggro magnet" who is there to soak up all the attention (and incoming fire) so as to PREVENT "leakage" of incoming fire into the ranks behind the front line. Meanwhile, the "bubbles" of the Force Field Defender continues to aid and protect the the aggro magnet who is drawing all of the attention onto themselves.


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The notion of tanks providing

The notion of tanks providing positoonal protection is not going to be a standard. It will however be something of a basis for some of the Mastery powers. Its one method or type of tank-play the role can fulfill. For those thst lime that sort of play the option will sxist. For those thst don't, they can choose other Masteries that suilt their style.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Greyhawk wrote:
One of the advantages of blind massed AoE attacks in a game like this is that it gives support characters an opportunity to contribute to every combat situation, even if their LOS is technically "blocked". Granted, this does lead to mindless "Aggro on the Tank, Dump AoE until they all die" gameplay, but I think this is better than "Aggro on the Tank, watch the pretty lights go off" gameplay.
Allow me to point out that the scenario you painted is one in which I would argue that the aggro magnet is being ... discourteous ... to their Team, by blocking all Lines of Sight for their Team. Furthermore, I'd argue that perhaps easily 99% of those situations could be resolved by having the aggro magnet making a strategic retreat to a location more favorable to receiving incoming fire support from their Team. Heck, even a "fighting retreat" to a better location comes to mind as being a simple courtesy.

True on all counts. It can indeed be argued that my opposition was based on a worse case scenario hypothetical. However, it has been my experience that players who prefer "aggro magnet" type characters are seldom high level tactical thinkers. There are always exceptions, but by and large their primary motivation is simply holding the attention of the enemy NPCs with little or no thought to how their time/place choices affect everyone else's gameplay. Even something as simple as jumping past a cluster of enemies thus placing the enemy group between themselves and the team would violate the principle logic structures most aggro magnet style players employ.

Is it possible to teach them a new style of gameplay?

Of course it is.

Is it likely to happen?

Not in my experience.

One of the reasons my ingame friends used to love teaming with my Robotics/Traps mastermind was the way I would always stop before a mass encounter and lay out a tactical approach. Some people (very few) would get offended and ignore my suggestions. PuGs, on the other hand, often went badly. I'd made some suggestions, then everyone would do things the way they've always done them. When going up against Carnival of Shadows or Circle of Thorns this inevitably led to the defeat of everyone on the team except me since as soon as things went south I could always throw a robot at the enemies and then retreat to a safer location. Then they would get angry because I wasn't in the hospital with the rest of them!

None of us know at this point how CoT maps will work out. In almost every game I have played, map makers loved tight, confined spaces. I think it traces back to the hundreds of maze runner or dungeon runner FPS games most developers played when they were young. Given that we know nothing at this point, I am quite comfortable assuming the worst case scenario.

I hope you're right and maps are open enough to allow multiple-step LOS calculations and three dimensional tactical deployment, but I am not optimistic.

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Another note on Line of Sight

Another note on Line of Sight systems, and possible projectile dodging - are all predicated that ranged attacks are required to use a projectile object being tracked. Our combat mechanics however, are agnostic toward ranged projectiles because of animation customization. A ranged attack need not require a projectile to be a ranged attack. While it is fair to saw there will be a prevalence of ranged animations for ranged attacks, it isn't necessary that there is always going to be a ranged projectile for every ranged attack.

Example, a ranged area attack can be a grenade, a straig-shot fire attack that explodes, or a sudden combustion that occurs based off the selected target. One has a curved arc to the thow, one has a straight line of sight, and one doesn't have any projectile at all.

If we used different tactical requirements for each type of animation, players could unknowingly, at the outset of character selection, have no idea that simply customizing an animation results in different types of game play. And that is not what animation customization is suppossed to do. Nor would it be good design to introduce variable elements of gameplay for the same type of power (set)

Part of any design process is adhering to any stated Design Goals. One of our design goals when it comes to combat mechanics is an effort to provide a similar style of play to (the old game) while providing improvements where things did not work (well), and elements that work with the system while providing newer ways of playing.

The suggestion that all attacks require some form of line of sight targeting, and including the issues of 'friendly fire that isn't' fall far aware from the design goal.


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Greyhawk wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:

Is it possible to teach them a new style of gameplay? Of course it is.
Is it likely to happen? Not in my experience.

I think I stand on reasonably firm ground when I say that there would most definitely be a Go Darwin Go Factor™ for those who insist on NOT LEARNING.

I know, I know ...
You can lead a man to water, but you cannot make him THINK.

However, since what I'm proposing here would DISadvantage unthinking gameplay and a lack of situational awareness, there would be the pressure of advantage(s) to be gained pushing people towards the direction of (and I quote myself) ... INTELLIGENT GAMEPLAY ... rather than just button mashing the same attack chains forever on macro.

Greyhawk wrote:

PuGs, on the other hand, often went badly. I'd made some suggestions, then everyone would do things the way they've always done them. When going up against Carnival of Shadows or Circle of Thorns this inevitably led to the defeat of everyone on the team except me since as soon as things went south I could always throw a robot at the enemies and then retreat to a safer location. Then they would get angry because I wasn't in the hospital with the rest of them!

Heh.
How dare YOU survive OUR stupidity! Don't you understand we're all supposed to faceplant together?!

The only decent response I've got to that is an old Empath/Cleric quote:

"I can heal a lot of things, but I can't heal STUPID."

Greyhawk wrote:

None of us know at this point how CoT maps will work out. In almost every game I have played, map makers loved tight, confined spaces.

Oh there is definitely a time and a place for tight, confined spaces so as to enforce a close quarters battle stance. The important thing to remember is that the time and place for that is called "rarely" instead of "always" when it comes to frequency. It's okay to have SOME tight, confined spaces on almost any map, but aside from a few specialized maps (blue caves, 5th Column underground bases, etc.) those features were typically few and far between. Likewise, there were some "narrow" tunnels in what I called the "Portal Module" of some of the Oranbega maps, but they weren't a standard feature of the ENTIRE map. Heck, even the blue caves and Council Bases had larger rooms and chambers in them (including the infamous "Wedding Cake" Module) that yielded some pretty large underground volumes.

My point being ... don't let SOME be conflated with ALL. I therefore feel confident that even if the "worst case scenario" as you put it were to occur, the Players wouldn't be "powerless" to do anything about it (such as retreating to a larger, more open volume).

Greyhawk wrote:

Even something as simple as jumping past a cluster of enemies thus placing the enemy group between themselves and the team would violate the principle logic structures most aggro magnet style players employ.

Path Of Least Intelligence my friend. If you (as a Developer) make it not only possible but preferable to devote as little attention and thought (and effort) to playing your game as possible, you're going to wind up with Lazy Gamer Syndrome in which situational awareness is an afterthought and all that matters is Herd & Burn (no brain cells required).

So although the "hop over 'em" strategy might not be intuitively obvious at first glance, I can guarantee you that any aggro magnet who is looking to optimize their contribution to their Team will LEARN the tactic and see its value once it has been demonstrated to them. At that point, it enters into the realm of Tribal Knowledge and would be something that gets talked about in How To Guides read by Players who want to improve their skill at PLAYING the game.

So I'm not just looking at the "in the moment" aspects of this ... I'm looking at the whole wibbley wobbly timey wimey ... thingummy ...


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Another note on Line of Sight systems, and possible projectile dodging - are all predicated that ranged attacks are required to use a projectile object being tracked. Our combat mechanics however, are agnostic toward ranged projectiles because of animation customization. A ranged attack need not require a projectile to be a ranged attack. While it is fair to saw there will be a prevalence of ranged animations for ranged attacks, it isn't necessary that there is always going to be a ranged projectile for every ranged attack.
Example, a ranged area attack can be a grenade, a straight-shot fire attack that explodes, or a sudden combustion that occurs based off the selected target. One has a curved arc to the throw, one has a straight line of sight, and one doesn't have any projectile at all.
If we used different tactical requirements for each type of animation, players could unknowingly, at the outset of character selection, have no idea that simply customizing an animation results in different types of game play. And that is not what animation customization is suppossed to do. Nor would it be good design to introduce variable elements of gameplay for the same type of power (set)
Part of any design process is adhering to any stated Design Goals. One of our design goals when it comes to combat mechanics is an effort to provide a similar style of play to (the old game) while providing improvements where things did not work (well), and elements that work with the system while providing newer ways of playing.
The suggestion that all attacks require some form of line of sight targeting, and including the issues of 'friendly fire that isn't' fall far aware from the design goal.

This response gives me a laugh ... because I'm not even "assuming" that ranged attacks will necessarily involve use of any sort of projectile based animation. Why? Because one of my characters I played on Virtue was ... Ms Givings ... a Mind/Kinetics Controller. You can go on down the list of Mind Control Powers and see a pretty solid uniformity of Line of Sight being required for attacks that made use of no projectiles.

Mesmerize
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Levitate
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Dominate
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Confuse
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Mass Hypnosis
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Telekinesis
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None
Note: Line of Sight was only required so as to be able to engage the Toggle, as the Toggle did not drop when Line of Sight was broken or lost, but rather only when the $Target was so far away as to be automatically "lost" to Perception (meaning it fell off the Tab Target rotation).

Total Domination
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Terrify
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

Mass Comedy Confusion
Target visibility: Line of Sight
Projectile: None

NONE of the Mind Control Powers made use of a projectile animation ... and yet all of them required the $Target be visible through Line of Sight. This meant that the Powers couldn't be used "through" terrain or around corners. It meant that obstacles that blocked Line of Sight also shielded/protected/prevented those Powers from being used upon anything behind those blocking obstacles, even with a Tab Lock.

In fact, Tannim222, if you look at City of Data and pay attention to the Target visibility: Line of Sight entry that is STANDARD on the datasheets for each Power (right above Notify Mobs at the bottom), I think you'll find that very nearly ALL of the Powers in City of Heroes involved Line of Sight checks on them. There were a FEW exceptions to the rule ... such as Recall Friend and Teleport Foe, for example ... but by and large, very nearly everything was a Line of Sight Power.

Even Dispersion Bubble for Force Fields had a Line of Sight requirement in order to affect allies ... meaning that it wouldn't work "through terrain" or around corners.

So saying that a projectile is required in order for Line of Sight to be relevant in City of Titans is ... foolish and shortsighted. Heck, I would even go so far as to assume that Visual Perception checks simply ought to be Line of Sight dependent (for what I would hope are obvious reasons). Appealing to animation customizations as a reason for why Line of Sight to $Target ought to be thought of as ... optional ... is about as, uh, Missing The Point as it gets.

My point is that whether or not an animation makes use of a projectile, a beam or a bunch of spontaneous pretty sparkles for no discernable reason MAKES NO DIFFERENCE as to whether or not, game mechanically, a Power either will (or at least, ought to) require a Line of Sight to either a $Target or a $Location in MOST cases. There will be exceptions, of course, but those exceptions will be RARE rather than being the rule.

As already mentioned, some Teleport Powers can be encoded so as to NOT require a Line of Sight to their $Target to affect, or even the destination $Location of where to deposit that $Target (allowing fancy camera angles to "put" $Targets around corners and on the other side of obstacles). Likewise, I can envision there being certain Perception Powers that dispense with the Line of Sight requirement so as to "perceive through walls" and other terrain and the like. Heck, even a(n enhanced) Hearing Power could be defined as allowing non-Line of Sight Perception within a specified radius, if you wanted to get fancy yet remain "normal" without resorting to things like mind reading or "life signs detector" technologies and the like.


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And yet, you've been

And yet, you've been consistant in suggestions that apply the use the LoS for targeting, volumetric attacks which can be avoided, and now even negating the possibility of attack based on friendly target positioning. Which is expressly oppossed to many of our design goals. The most basic of which I already stated. Sorry if you misunderstood what I meant by mentioning LoS and projectiles. I shouldn't have lumped them into the same sentence, but there have been suggestions about projectiles and positioning, which again, attacks will be agostic whether there is a projectile or not.

Further more such statements you made as in:

Quote:

Specifically, I'm thinking in terms of allowing the Hit Boxes of both PCs and NPCs to act as OBSTRUCTIONS to Line of Sight calculations ... [b[meaning that neither PCs nor NPCs can shoot "through" each other to reach (and affect) opponents[/b] on the other side of "traffic" in between. So Hit Boxes would both block for movement and for line of sight.

Additionally, I'm wondering what would happen if Volume of Effect Powers that are intended to harm opponents could not be used if a "friendly" NPC or PC was within the defined volume.

(emphasis mine) indicates that powers should not in effect be able to pass through other target's due to blocking the LoS...why because it assumes there is a projectile hence "shoot through". There is no "shooting through" when there is no projectile and no reason why a none-projectile-animating power ranged or not should be prevented from firing off on the selected target unless you're trying to simulate some form of 'realism' within the game. Something which is most likely an unneeded level of 'realism' for the type of gameplay this game intends to employ.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

In my experience there was a pretty wide range of environments to engage in, and I'd expect the same in City of Titans. I'd expect everything from tight confines and narrow hallways to wide open spaces.

Sure, but who wants to be effective half the time and reduced to yelling "You are opaque!" the other half?

Redlynne wrote:

It all depends on how Players arrange themselves within the available space ... and should they have to change their engagement style/tactics in response to the environment that they're fighting in.

Confined spaces dictate possible arrangements, and you're going to wind up with this exact problem happening in the narrow hallway cases.

Further, positions may be further constrained by the need to maintain certain ranges.

Which means that's me in the back there /em playcards

Redlynne wrote:

I will readily grant that structuring things such that "all friendlies are transparent to what I'm doing" makes for a very simplistic and easy to play game.

It also simplifies the NPC AI a great deal. A group of NPCs jockeying for position to shoot can be unreasonable nerfed by an AI that constantly sends several of them to the same positions. Herd navigation and fish schooling isn't easy code.

Redlynne wrote:

Greyhawk wrote:
If the enemy NPCs are clustered at one end of a hallway with the tank between the support characters and the enemies, then the only support character who can contribute is the healer/buffer.
It's ironic that you would bring this situation up, because when I imagine the exact same situation my first notion (as an aggro magnet) is to jump OVER the opposition so as to put them between me and my team.

Oh gratz, you just pulled aggro from the next mob spawn group down which we don't want to engage yet. Thank you Leroy.

Oh, I know! What if the devs compensate for this by spreading the groups very far apart? *snort*

And sucks if you're the Immobile Fortress type of tank. And good luck jumping a giant monster. And...

You're right back to forced tactics. "Do it this way or die."

And it forces the devs, too. All halls will need to be wide enough to park five cars side-by-side.

Redlynne wrote:

Granted, I can easily imagine that there would be close quarters environments where hopping over the Foes to get on the far side of them and draw attention might not be practical (blue caves, Council underground base tunnels, etc.) ... but those wouldn't be the stock 'n' standard situation.

Oh yay, statistically-based casual dismissal of someone's concerns. That's a sure-fire crowd pleaser.

Hallways are very common in indoor missions. In fact, I'd say approaching half of encounter situations. In my experience as a blaster, I very often did not see most of the real target because the melee folks were in the way.

Redlynne wrote:

Greyhawk wrote:
in any confined quarters combat you'll wind up with a tank (and maybe one melee DPS) doing all the fighting while the rest of the team sits back watching the pretty lights go off.
Let's get really darn specific about what you're suggesting here.
You're talking about an environmental/terrain space that is 1 character wide and 1 character tall.

Yes. Let's.

Hallway of width wH. Enemy E has a hit box of width wE. Tank T has a hit box of width wT, distance dT from the enemy. Ranged user is distance dR from the enemy.

Using the most generous algorithm, which can be quite processing intensive, we'll say that you can attack if any part of the enemy's hitbox is not blocked by the tank's. if wE = wT (i.e. they're about the same size), then the tank is basically casting a wT wide shadow behind itself, leaving wH - wT of width left to put yourself. If wH = 3 wT, that gives enough room for up to two two ranged guys to engage, and those ranged guys will block anyone behind them. If there's a melee guy up front, they'll probably block one of those sides. Two melee guys and us blasters are playing cards. Yes, this assumes that the blasters aren't all loaded with Hover powers. That third dimension only helps a little.

But that algorithm probably isn't realistic. More realistic is "line of sight is to the enemy's center mass". In this case the tank casts a 'shadow" that gets wider as you get farther from the enemy, and the rate at which it gets wider increases as dT decreases. (Shadow width is about wT * dR / dT, so for example if wH = 6 m, wT = 2 m, and dT = 3 m, then maximum dR = 9 m.)
Melee folks cast similar shadows.

Hopefully you can see that the fundamental problem is that this gets way out of hand for more than a couple team members.

Redlynne wrote:

Under such circumstances I'd either expect the Team to split up (because "we can do more damage that way") or for a conventional wisdom to take hold in which it is considered Bad Form™ by the community to do what you're objecting to here ... *deliberately* and actively obstructing Team members from usefully contributing. To be honest, I'd assume both ... and let the Path Of Least Resistance resolve the issue on an ad hoc basis.
Suffice it to say, I'd expect there to be a sort of "evolutionary pressure" in which the situation you're describing actually is DISCOURAGED as a result of social/peer pressure more than anything else.

You expect much.

You would be disappointed.

PUGs would be recipes for failure.

This is a game, not military training.

Redlynne wrote:

On the contrary, I'd expect it to shift the burden of responsibility that frontline melee characters must bear, making what they do (and where) a more complex equation than simply Stand And Stick until all Foes are wiped out.

Won't happen. Seriously, the percentage of the time you adapted your scrapper tactics to the simple facts of the knockback of my blaster attacks was about nil. You simply blamed me for not working around your PBAoE limits. And that's a much simpler situation to accommodate than this system you describe where everyone in the party will need to see the whole field of battle, especially tens of meters behind them.

Redlynne wrote:

As you can see, I'm going to challenge the underpinnings of that notion. Why? Because as I said in my OP, one of the outgrowths of the changes I'd expect to see is INTELLIGENT GAMEPLAY emerging as the de-facto standard among Players. Granted there might be a learning curve, but that's true of any endeavor that requires people (or computers) to THINK.

Read: if you're not Kirk and can figure out how to beat this Kobayashi Maru, just get used to being ineffective.

Redlynne wrote:

If part of your Team is rendered "ineffective by the circumstances" as you put it ... change the circumstances. Fight on different ground. MOVE THE BATTLE someplace else. Rearrange where everyone is. USE THE TERRAIN to your advantage (and to the detriment of the opposition). Fight in three dimensions, not just two (or worse, merely one). Flank your opponents whenever you can.

How many ways can you say the same thing? And how many times do we have to point out that this kind of mobility is often not an option, for whatever reason? Seriously, point defense/escort missions are notorious for placing huge restrictions on movement.

((Side note: devs, please give us the option of pistol-whipping the fool we're supposed to save so we can just carry them as cargo. Especially the ones that like to aggro everything on the map and die messily. Thank you.))

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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I'm all for updates to the

I'm all for updates to the system, but I wonder it's worth wondering/asking/thinking it's a good idea. People here seem to want it to be more like CoH than anything.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

(emphasis mine) indicates that powers should not in effect be able to pass through other target's due to blocking the LoS...why because it assumes there is a projectile hence "shoot through". There is no "shooting through" when there is no projectile and no reason why a none-projectile-animating power ranged or not should be prevented from firing off on the selected target unless you're trying to simulate some form of 'realism' within the game. Something which is most likely an unneeded level of 'realism' for the type of gameplay this game intends to employ.

Ah, I see. This is a subtlety of nuance and interpretation.

I wasn't appealing to a WYSIWYG interpretation of what you were seeing happen on screen. I wasn't appealing to a sense of "because it LOOKS like this it ought to BEHAVE like this" in which the question of Projectile? (Y/N) could be considered relevant or decisive.

Instead, I was looking at things from a game mechanical point of view. I was thinking in terms of spreadsheets familiar to anyone who visits City of Data and notices that a standard feature on every Power description is whether or not a Line of Sight to the $Target (or Location) is necessary for the Power to even be used at all. I was thinking in terms of ... permission(s) ... as opposed to animations.

And because of that, I was working at the game mechanics and spreadsheet level of the design and programming process, rather than at the animation level. So just to clarify, in the formulation I was proposing, even "no projectile" animations like Mind Control had would be subject to Line of Sight "obstructions" from sources that weren't terrain geometry (such as PCs, NPCs and summoned constructs), which could be either mobile or immobile. The key point is that if you can create an obstruction to Line of Sight with something that isn't a permanent feature (such as terrain) then you've got a whole 'nother level of gameplay to explore and master.

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Sure, but who wants to be effective half the time and reduced to yelling "You are opaque!" the other half?

To which I respond with a quote from Bryce Lynch in the Max Headroom TV series:

There are no experimental failures. There's only more data.

As has been made abundantly clear already, a two-way opacity to Debuffing is NOT WANTED ... so the notion of one-way opacity is now being explored (thank you Segev and Lothic for making the suggestion). As is so often necessary in inventing, sometimes you need to start out with a really bad accident to figure out how to make things work properly, let alone successfully.

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

((Side note: devs, please give us the option of pistol-whipping the fool we're supposed to save so we can just carry them as cargo. Especially the ones that like to aggro everything on the map and die messily. Thank you.))

Oh great and mighty ${DEITY} of the answering machine ... PLEASE MAKE IT SO!

There is nothing that makes me more contemptuous of an NPC than their obvious and apparent DEATH WISH enacted by walking straight into aggro and cowering with an expectation that it's MY JOB to save them from their own stupidity. Lady Jane was absolutely *legendary* in her behavioral desire for suicide at all costs. In that respect, Lady Jane was even worse than Fusionette in my estimation.

Simply being allowed to issue PET COMMANDS to Escort Mission NPCs would be an incredible Quality of Life upgrade! Go there. STAY. Aggressive stance. Defensive stance. Passive stance. Attack my target. Incorporating such functionality into Escort NPCs would resolve issues with the stupidity of putting the NPC on /follow (guaranteeing to put them in the line of fire when the inevitable combat occurs), to say nothing about the "Death Wish" NPCs determined to get themselves AND YOU killed deader than dead by just blindly walking a predetermined path that hasn't been cleared yet with no way to tell them "Stop. Don't. Come back." ... and of course they don't.


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I used to use one of several

I used to use one of several 'stealth tricks', including the infamous "run through to someplace safe and die - then use an Awaken" to Bypass 'rescuing' Lady Jane. Then we could clear the whole map, or at least the path to the blinky. After which, rescuing Lady Jane was much less painful.

All because the lady had special ghost-detecting powers and the urge to use Pistols in melee-range. Let's all try to avoid this situation in the future.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Part of any design process is adhering to any stated Design Goals. One of our design goals when it comes to combat mechanics is an effort to provide a similar style of play to (the old game) while providing improvements where things did not work (well), and elements that work with the system while providing newer ways of playing.

I think we can all arguably agree that the CoH combat system worked well enough in general and that it's a good starting point for building CoT on. The idea of introducing LoS defense mechanics (based on the various shield wall/mantlet ideas that have been suggested here) represent the potential for both "providing improvements where things did not work well" and "providing newer ways of playing". Based on your own words it's something you ought to at least give a serious consideration to.

Now in one post you say that you're considering for allowing for something like this in the Mastery powers, but then turn around and talk about how projectile versus non-projectile damage doesn't fit in with your ideal "agnostic" vision about how damage is going to be thrown around.

Which is it? At least be consistent when you're going to either consider or not consider player suggestions for providing improvements to the game.

Tannim222 wrote:

There is no "shooting through" when there is no projectile and no reason why a none-projectile-animating power ranged or not should be prevented from firing off on the selected target unless you're trying to simulate some form of 'realism' within the game. Something which is most likely an unneeded level of 'realism' for the type of gameplay this game intends to employ.

It may be a level of realism that is currently beyond the plans and/or capabilities of the CoT Devs to produce. But that doesn't mean that it's "unneeded" or at the very least undesired by the playerbase. It likely wouldn't be impossible to be able to categorize types of damage as "projectile" versus "non-projectile" and apply LoS defenses accordingly. But if you're adamant about not accounting for that kind of thing (even though other MMO games like STO seem to have no problem with it) then so be it.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Ideally speaking, whether or

Ideally speaking, whether or not an animation involves a projectile or not ought to be completely immaterial to how a specific Power functions and operates at the game mechanical level. What I mean by that is that whether or not a Power makes used of a Projectile in its animation should have absolutely no bearing whatsoever at the game mechanical level on how a Power "works" under the hood. Only then can you have Powers function in a way that is (sufficiently) animation agnostic so as to make use of the system that City of Titans is promising when it comes to choosing animations for Powers.


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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
Part of any design process is adhering to any stated Design Goals. One of our design goals when it comes to combat mechanics is an effort to provide a similar style of play to (the old game) while providing improvements where things did not work (well), and elements that work with the system while providing newer ways of playing.

I think we can all arguably agree that the CoH combat system worked well enough in general and that it's a good starting point for building CoT on. The idea of introducing LoS defense mechanics (based on the various shield wall/mantlet ideas that have been suggested here) represent the potential for both "providing improvements where things did not work well" and "providing newer ways of playing". Based on your own words it's something you ought to at least give a serious consideration to.
Now in one post you say that you're considering for allowing for something like this in the Mastery powers, but then turn around and talk about how projectile versus non-projectile damage doesn't fit in with your ideal "agnostic" vision about how damage is going to be thrown around.
Which is it? At least be consistent when you're going to either consider or not consider player suggestions for providing improvements to the game.

Something like it is the key phrase. We aren't going to use the hit box collision for preventing line of sight protection against adversary attacks. We are going to use positioning and power effects to protect team mates. The distinction is becuase what happened when the front line protector is at minimum height and those behind it are at maximum height. The requirement of using the hit box by which there will be some variation due to character size changes means that we basically implement a requirement to make 'tanks' big or their not as effective. And for other reasons that are too involved to get into.

Suffice to say its not we are using this idea one way and not using it other ways. We aren't using the idea at all.

Lothic wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
There is no "shooting through" when there is no projectile and no reason why a none-projectile-animating power ranged or not should be prevented from firing off on the selected target unless you're trying to simulate some form of 'realism' within the game. Something which is most likely an unneeded level of 'realism' for the type of gameplay this game intends to employ.

It may be a level of realism that is currently beyond the plans and/or capabilities of the CoT Devs to produce. But that doesn't mean that it's "unneeded" or at the very least undesired by the playerbase. It likely wouldn't be impossible to be able to categorize types of damage as "projectile" versus "non-projectile" and apply LoS defenses accordingly. But if you're adamant about not accounting for that kind of thing (even though other MMO games like STO seem to have no problem with it) then so be it.

Redlynne addressed this quite well.

Redlynne wrote:

Ideally speaking, whether or not an animation involves a projectile or not ought to be completely immaterial to how a specific Power functions and operates at the game mechanical level. What I mean by that is that whether or not a Power makes used of a Projectile in its animation should have absolutely no bearing whatsoever at the game mechanical level on how a Power "works" under the hood. Only then can you have Powers function in a way that is (sufficiently) animation agnostic so as to make use of the system that City of Titans is promising when it comes to choosing animations for Powers.

And as to realism, one of the design our Game Play team has been given when designing combat mechanics is to avoid implementing "real life combat simulations" into the game. Mechanics much fall in line with other stated design goals. Anything outside of e design goals just won't fly. Trust me on this I've barked up that tree more than enough times.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

We aren't going to use the hit box collision for preventing line of sight protection against adversary attacks. We are going to use positioning and power effects to protect team mates. The distinction is becuase what happened when the front line protector is at minimum height and those behind it are at maximum height. The requirement of using the hit box by which there will be some variation due to character size changes means that we basically implement a requirement to make 'tanks' big or their not as effective. And for other reasons that are too involved to get into.

You've got two alternatives.

1. All hitboxes are created (and stay) equal by default, regardless of the animation of the avatar within it. This is the One Size Fits All solution and has the benefit of being inherently egalitarian. The benefits of this approach go beyond the narrow confines of the specific topic being discussed in this thread.

2. All hitboxes are designed and programmed such that *IF* they include a one-way obstruction to opponent Line of Sight only feature (ie. what this topic thread is now exclusively discussing), *THEN* that particular feature has a uniform minimum size which is NOT in any way, shape or form "tied" to the size of the avatar used to represent that pawn (specifically), but rather the maximum possible size that category of pawn could be (whether PC, NPC or summoned construct).

Either way, you're still looking at having a "level playing field" at the game mechanical level, regardless of what the animations and/or avatar look like on screen. If the maximum height of a PC or (non-giant) NPC is the proverbial "10 feet/3 meters tall" ... then either all of the hitboxes need to be 10 feet/3 meters tall, regardless of the size of the avatar occupying them ... OR ... if making use of the one-way obstruction to Line of Sight formulation, then the minimum size of the (separate) "obstruction field" hitbox begins at 10 feet/3 meters tall and can be increased from there or is simply a 5 foot/1.5 meter radius spherical "bubble" that the avatar "walks on the bottom of" (like a hamster ball) regardless of the avatar's height inside the field.

Fortunately, there would be absolutely no need whatsoever for any art assets to be added/designed for this functionality, since it would be completely invisible and transparent on screen. The one-way obstruction to opponents feature would be a purely mathematical function handled "invisibly" by the game mechanics in the Line of Sight calculations (which, incidentally, are REQUIRED for anything not allowed to work indiscriminately through any and all terrain, which just so happens to be almost every Power in the game by default).

Tannim222 wrote:

Suffice to say its not we are using this idea one way and not using it other ways. We aren't using the idea at all.

I'm having a very hard time reading this comment as being anything other than a "sit down and shut up" with an undertone of "go away now."

If there is an alternative interpretation, please enlighten.

Tannim222 wrote:

And as to realism, one of the design our Game Play team has been given when designing combat mechanics is to avoid implementing "real life combat simulations" into the game. Mechanics must fall in line with other stated design goals. Anything outside of the design goals just won't fly. Trust me on this I've barked up that tree more than enough times.

When you feel like sharing these design goals so that we can all work from the same assumptions and understandings ... please do. Last I heard, everything was merely (barely?) set in (wet) mud, not in stone, and still subject to revisions and changes. Is this not the suggestions to the Devs forum? Have the game mechanics system designs already been "frozen" and we never got told?

Or to put it another way ... if you want people like me to "color within the lines" with my ideas, it helps to tell people like me where the "lines" actually ARE, let alone whether they can still be "moved" or not to accommodate new thinking and new ideas.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

You've got two alternatives.
1. All hitboxes are created (and stay) equal by default, regardless of the animation of the avatar within it. This is the One Size Fits All solution and has the benefit of being inherently egalitarian. The benefits of this approach go beyond the narrow confines of the specific topic being discussed in this thread.

2. All hitboxes are designed and programmed such that *IF* they include a one-way obstruction to opponent Line of Sight only feature

The third is option to not use the hit box to cause obstruction of line of sight. regardless of hitbox size. And there are more reasons for why this is as I already indicated.

Redlynne wrote:

When you feel like sharing these design goals so that we can all work from the same assumptions and understandings ... please do. Last I heard, everything was merely (barely?) set in (wet) mud, not in stone, and still subject to revisions and changes. Is this not the suggestions to the Devs forum? Have the game mechanics system designs already been "frozen" and we never got told?
Or to put it another way ... if you want people like me to "color within the lines" with my ideas, it helps to tell people like me where the "lines" actually ARE, let alone whether they can still be "moved" or not to accommodate new thinking and new ideas.

I'm not going to go and list out every single design goal, provide reasoning for every decision, but I'll boil it down to a couple of things:

Under the hood the game systems may be different but the general game play should look and feel like that old game.

The game must be playable for a 5 year told to the 80 year old grandpa, to the 80 year old grandpa with the 5 year old in his lap.

PvP (in all forms) will never be forced (always optional).

No twitch mechanics.

And just to give you an idea of how far that last one goes, that Stalwart mastery I reference almost never happened because "positional tanking is too twitch related" and that's almost a direct quite from someone higher up than me. It took a couple of people detailing how it is going to be implemented and while yes, it will involve positioning and require some new thinking from (that old game), it is optional and not a base line requirement of game play. Hence it uses power effects and indicators for allies as well as the user to help provide easy of play.

As far as suggestions go, please keep posting them. Keep in mind those general guidelines. Game play wrapped up our conceptual pre-production phase a while back. We have a couple of simulators for game play and mechanics and we are now in coding for prototyping gameplay.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

As far as suggestions go, please keep posting them. Keep in mind those general guidelines. Game play wrapped up our conceptual pre-production phase a while back. We have a couple of simulators for game play and mechanics and we are now in coding for prototyping gameplay.

So, new ideas an new twists on old ideas are encouraged. However, at a basic level, the core mechanics of 'how the game works' have been established in pre-production. Making radical changes, at this point, means Not Actually Completing the previously established gameplay programming.

If the Devs argue against submitted ideas, it may not be an indication that the idea is Bad, but simply that they don't want to go back and re-design the game Again.

Some ideas may find ways of seeping into the game, without forcing changes to the underlying design, but there are no guarantees. Some ideas may be close cousins to ideas the Devs already had, discussed ad nauseam, and finally been forced to discard, due to previously established decisions. Some ideas might even be dearly desired features by some Devs, and they're still sore about having those ideas cast out, due to game-design constraints, but they're trying to mourn in silence.

And Tannim and Segev and Dr. Tyche are forced to try to explain these things, gently.

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Some thoughts:

Some thoughts:

1. If one of the tank class's possible options involves the "Tanker-as-goalie" option of making them "opaque" to incoming attacks...
A) Does that mean they block all attacks through their body, or just unfriendly fire?
B) Will there be attacks that do not need LoS to operate, such that I can just wiggle my fingers at a target and they catch fire or get TKed up into the air, and if so how would the opaque tank affect that?
C) Could there be "plunging fie" attacks, like grenade launchers or mortars that go AROUND the obstructing tank and drop an AoE on thew target from a blast radius centers behind them?

2. Playtesting will likely be needed for this, but I would like to ask: do we need to try to ensure that this option isn't SO good that it becomes more or less mandatory on the level of "HEALER HEAL!" etc?

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Radiac, we won't be utilizing

Radiac, we won't be utilizing the hitbox in such a manner to create opageness for opponent LoS attack prevention.

We do have a Mastery that uses positional awareness to provide protection to allies, but it uses power effects and won't be a catch all, nothing gets through result.


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*grabs popcorn*

*grabs popcorn*

Well, until we get our hands on the game, all we *can* do is throw suggestions out there....

I mean, we on the outside have no idea at all really as to the state of play of how stuff works in the game...

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

No twitch mechanics.

I personally define "twitch mechanics" as being anything that presumes a reaction speed from the Player of 1 second or less in order to alter the outcome reliably. For me, "twitch" is all about the fine art of timing, and of doing things as rapidly as possible.

I do not consider CHESS styled gameplay or mechanics to be "twitchy" as far as mobility and obstructions are concerned, based on relative positioning of friends and opponents.

In short, it sounds to me like your team is being a bit TOO zealous, to the point of premature optimization/specialization, in an attempt to breed any and all hints or whiffs of "twitch" out of anything and everything.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

I personally define "twitch mechanics" as being anything that presumes a reaction speed from the Player of 1 second or less in order to alter the outcome reliably. For me, "twitch" is all about the fine art of timing, and of doing things as rapidly as possible.

{paraphrase

I can't define 'twitch', but I know it when I see it.

{/paraphrase

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Hell, you could consider

Hell, you could consider "twitch" gameplay to even extend to "get out of the red stuff that will kill you in 5 seconds from NOW".....

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WIth regards to the specific

WIth regards to the specific mastery, the concern was quick and constant repositioning could be utilized to sufficiently minimize or negate risk toward others, making the gameplay of this particular mastery come off as very 'twitchy'. The design was made in such a way that while positioning of the user and allies is a factor, it is not with regard to the hit box specifically blocking or preventing attacks but utilization of power effects along with ease of player participation in the positioning (with proper notifications).

Red circles of doom was another contention, even back when they were introduced in the old game. There were many comments on the forums and complaints when players encountered them in the game. Those who complained had a difficult time grasping that they red circles of doom were a player-decision based obstacle rather than a power-mitigating effect (as in your character's powers are what protect you vs. your actions protecting you). The timing issue is a critical one in that instead of quick / constant motion defining success or failure in action, there was what was considered to be (by the devs and some reasonable players) sufficient time provided via multiple queues in order for the player to move. However, it should also be noted that certain encounters ended up favoring ranged play styles more than melee, particular the tankers of that old game (Mother Mayhem in particular). Piont in fact, one of the tanking strategies required flight and taunt to keep the AV busy on the tanker while ranged attackers kept up the dps.

Be that as it may, sufficient notification and time to move not requiring reflexive action has been deemed "okay, if used carefully, not constantly" and should be introduced incrementally as part of the regular game play as to not be thrust upon the player base as a "new tactic" in the late game.


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The "pools of death" thing

The "pools of death" thing/complaint can be somewhat understandable when you're talking about max radius vs movement speed equating to a minimum time required to reach Minimum Safe Distance and then factor in the awareness/response delay of recognizing "oh yeah, time to move" when playing a game that had NEVER contained such mechanics previously. The net result was a decidedly "foreign" formulation of the Right Way to Play that had no precedent anywhere else in the game, and which only existed in extremely specialized End Boss battles. This meant that no one had developed the necessary awareness/alertness/reflexes to recognize and respond to the threat prior to encountering it in the highest stakes way possible.

Closest thing you got to the "puddles of doom" was Caltrops, and that was hardly a threat to survival, so most Players either ignored or avoided Caltrops with relative ease (Knives of Artemis notwithstanding).

In practice, the "puddles of doom" actually wound up resulting in a Melee Go Home type of gameplay, in which it simply wasn't possible to (consistently) be in a location that was "permitted" to continuously emit DPS. Ranged attacks were fine, of course. That's why whenever I took Redlynne (MA/SR Scrapper) on an Apex TF and had to fight Battle Maiden at the end, I just gave up attempting to do anything useful with my melee attacks (ie. my entire Primary plus a Pool) and resorted to just cycling a single Sniper attack as my attack "chain" against Battle Maiden. BORING!

The Mother Mayhem formulation though was just ... maximum annoying. It was a "jump through these hoops" (while they're ON FIRE!) structure that was gratuitously malicious.


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kiss aoe's good bye using the

kiss aoe's good bye using the volumetric system....well, other than as an opening attack...assuming you can get a the shot off before the tanks and scrappers engage the targets.

while the intent is nice for a realism standpoint...I am firmly against what Redlynne is proposing. your effectively killing ranged classes, especially those geared towards AOE based attacks.

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whiteperegrine wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

kiss aoe's good bye using the volumetric system....well, other than as an opening attack...assuming you can get a the shot off before the tanks and scrappers engage the targets.
while the intent is nice for a realism standpoint...I am firmly against what Redlynne is proposing. your effectively killing ranged classes, especially those geared towards AOE based attacks.

I agree - this doesn't sound like a good idea. MAYBE used in a very limited fashion for specific powers or abilities, but having a ranged character not be able to shoot simply because the melee attackers on the team bum-rush the boss would be kind of fun-killing.

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Except that ... ever since

Except that ... ever since Post 10 ... the two-way obstruction idea got discarded. I believe that has been mentioned repeatedly at this point. Is the fourth time the charm?


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If there are going to be any

If there are going to be any type of red circles of doom, or "Avoid the green stuff in the Anti-Matter TF" type effects, please make the actual green stuff or whatever it is 3D enough that it can be seen from any POV. People in the Malaise Trial were like "don't Fly, it makes the circles of doom set up in mid air where nobody can see them because they're only 2D".

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

If there are going to be any type of red circles of doom, or "Avoid the green stuff in the Anti-Matter TF" type effects, please make the actual green stuff or whatever it is 3D enough that it can be seen from any POV. People in the Malaise Trial were like "don't Fly, it makes the circles of doom set up in mid air where nobody can see them because they're only 2D".

You also need a solution to the "it's laggy, the damage occurs before the red circle, or hits you when you've moved way outside it" problems NW has on occasions.

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That's a good point, but it

That's a good point, but it may be difficult to manage in a resolve-first then-animate set-up, like we're expecting. It's an advantage for PCs, to ensure that the attacks land when expected, but it can be a problem, too, when NPC attacks land before the PC is alerted.

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Which leads to attacks have

Which leads to attacks have to be signaled so far in advance that they become very easy to dodge. Which leads to the question of why they exist. Frankly, in my opinion, anything that can do damage or other harmful effects to a player character should be subject to whatever powers the character has. Be it a laser pistol or a giant doom laser from above. If I'm near invincible to energy damage, I will just let it hit me. Sure, the doom laser might sting, but it shouldn't be an instant KO to someone specced to take doom lasers to the face.

Now, having an enemy create obstacles as part of their powers. Puddles of lava/acid, caltrops, mini turrets and so on is fine. They appear and they they're static. The turrets can even be defeated. But those big "Move or DIE!" fields just felt wrong. No other attacks required manual dodging. Why did these? Someone with a silly high dodge rate should be able to stand where a doom laser hits and have it miss. Because superpowers. It doesn't always have to make sense, just be awesome.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

That's a good point, but it may be difficult to manage in a resolve-first then-animate set-up, like we're expecting.

+1 No Realtime Dodging for us Near Sighted players. 0.o O.0 @.* >.<

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As a near sighted player, I

As a near sighted player, I can say, that's what glasses/contacts are for :p

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

As a near sighted player, I can say, that's what glasses/contacts are for :p

And this is how a legally blind player deals with WoW.

Sometimes you just have to accept that you (as a developer) cannot cope for *everything* that people throw at you in terms of their ability to cope/play games...

Side note: Here is a player completing Vanquish in inder 2 hours with just one hand. He *cannot* use a controller like you or I do.

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

Brand X wrote:
As a near sighted player, I can say, that's what glasses/contacts are for :p

And this is how a legally blind player deals with WoW.
Sometimes you just have to accept that you (as a developer) cannot cope for *everything* that people throw at you in terms of their ability to cope/play games...
Side note: Here is a player completing Vanquish in inder 2 hours with just one hand. He *cannot* use a controller like you or I do.

Blind in one eye, almost no vision in the other, and my first thought was "Why is he playing with his graphics turned up." :p

My next thought was, minority player. Yay! Mods made for the legally blind! Let players make those, let the game devs make what can be used by more players.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

The "pools of death" thing/complaint can be somewhat understandable when you're talking about max radius vs movement speed equating to a minimum time required to reach Minimum Safe Distance and then factor in the awareness/response delay of recognizing "oh yeah, time to move" when playing a game that had NEVER contained such mechanics previously. The net result was a decidedly "foreign" formulation of the Right Way to Play that had no precedent anywhere else in the game, and which only existed in extremely specialized End Boss battles. This meant that no one had developed the necessary awareness/alertness/reflexes to recognize and respond to the threat prior to encountering it in the highest stakes way possible.
Closest thing you got to the "puddles of doom" was Caltrops, and that was hardly a threat to survival, so most Players either ignored or avoided Caltrops with relative ease (Knives of Artemis notwithstanding).
In practice, the "puddles of doom" actually wound up resulting in a Melee Go Home type of gameplay, in which it simply wasn't possible to (consistently) be in a location that was "permitted" to continuously emit DPS. Ranged attacks were fine, of course. That's why whenever I took Redlynne (MA/SR Scrapper) on an Apex TF and had to fight Battle Maiden at the end, I just gave up attempting to do anything useful with my melee attacks (ie. my entire Primary plus a Pool) and resorted to just cycling a single Sniper attack as my attack "chain" against Battle Maiden. BORING!
The Mother Mayhem formulation though was just ... maximum annoying. It was a "jump through these hoops" (while they're ON FIRE!) structure that was gratuitously malicious.

TBH I loved the extra-hard yard trash (i.e. not special boss encounters) specialty attacks that made certain factional encounters hard. The caltrops/knives thing, or the endurance sapper gun, or the original Paragon Protector (a claws/end scrapper) before it got nerfed, presumably because it was "too hard", or the Ring or Dark Ring mistresses.

My MM had little difficulty with the sapper because who cares if they sapped my pets...or me for that matter. My attacks were from distributed, endurance-independent sources. But the Knives were much harder. Meanwhile the sapper trashed even my regen scrapper.

I always looked forward to these tough encounters as part of missions or street patrolling.

__________________

The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.

Nadira
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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

it looks like people wants tanks with Bubbles. No one likes Defenders with Bubbles anymore? :(

I loved bubble defenders.
They were hard to play, but they were fantastic to play with.

(p.s. I just loved dark defenders more :) ))

Follies
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I always wanted a tanker

I always wanted a tanker/buffer type character and from what I've read it seems that this may be an option in this game.....love this thought =)

I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.

Comicsluvr
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Well I'm sorry I missed out

Well I'm sorry I missed out on what appears to have been a lively discussion. Damn Real Life for intruding...

A few comments completely out of order:

1) I LOVE the idea of being able to control NPCs with regard to the bodyguard missions. Everyone hates them because they suck. So how about we make them suck less?

2) While I think Red's idea is a good one (and I ran LOTS of Blasters...), it appears that the game is too far along to implement. Personally, I would have advocated for some version of the OP as a form of 'Elite Difficulty' or something where players could opt-in if they so chose.

To the dissenters: Yes, sometimes we suggest things that make fun tasks more difficult. Fun that is difficult is called Challenge. It's the reason we don't all turn the Diff slider to minimum when we play. Now imagine the perfect world: Players can use the same 'herd and burn' tactics and all is right with the world. OR they could try to improve their tactics and play style in return for some added benefit. I'll use simple comic book examples:

Stone is blocking the doorway so Flame, standing behind him, can't use straight-line attacks very well. However he CAN use any sort of non-cone AoE that he wants because he can see the floor past Stone to toss the power. Sure, Stone might get caught in the blast but he's STONE and doesn't care. On the flip side, Flame doesn't have to worry about straight-line attacks coming at him either because Stone is in the way. However there is still the possibility that one of the bad guys might pull the same trick and lob a grenade between Stone's feet. It's a tradeoff and there will always be pros and cons.

However as I said I think the system is far enough along that there is no way to implement such a system. Also, I'm not a programmer but I believe the more detailed method might wind up overtaxing the AI or the system. Keeping track of what 20+ MOBS are doing is bad enough when they're dumb. Making them smart would complicate things a LOT IMHO.

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...