In CoX there was the ability to set another toon as you're "target pointer" such that your attacks would get directed at whatever that other person's target was at the time.
Is this something we want for CoT?
I kinda of think it makes the game more interesting to NOT have it, personally.
—
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
It is something we will use in the game.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I suppose if this is something you don't like to use you could always not use it. *shrugs*
I found it useful because it was occasionally hard to directly click on a target when there was a bunch of critters swarming around the Tank. If the Tank already has something targeted then I see this as an easy control mechanism to make my character "attack the same guy the Tank is pounding on". Just because I, the player, can't easily click the screen doesn't mean my character is actually having a hard time choosing a target for themselves.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I used this feature AS the Tank on occasion. I'd see the Blaster's Health drop a bit and figure he'd drawn Aggro. I'd click on him and throw a Taunt at whatever he was wailing on. Most of the time I'd get the bad guy's attention, sometimes not. People wondered how I'd know JUST when they needed the support and I'd just tell them I was psychic...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
lol
I think it was a very handy mechanic. It was especially nice for healers because you could attack through other players but also have a heal ready immediately when needed
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
+1.
As a Squishy, I used it to take the Tanks fun away from him/her as they are just about to Finish off the targeted foe, and i just use my big hitting power right before, and the Tank just sits there and starts to cry! >:D MUAHHHHAHAHHAHAHAAHA!
I'm Mean! >:]
Tanks really LOOOOOOVE Meeee! >:]
Being able to use Target Of My Target features are one of the most basic ways that Players can engage in Teamwork without needing to fight the UI in order to achieve similar results via mandatory Teamspeak chat.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Agreed.
Now how about Focus Targets as well? A little bit different from Target of Target, but still in the same vein....
Side note: Would you be able to see the buff/debuff list on those Unit Frames, or would it just be the basic health/end bars for them? Just asking for a general opinion on it.
I wouldn't mind if i target an Ally, and an additional reticle (or whatever is used to signify a selected target) is drawn also showing exactly which Foe or Ally they might be* targeting. ;)
There are two separate issues here:
1. The convenience of letting the leader (presumably the tank) pick everyone's targets so that the rest of us can just mash buttons.
2. The question of who ends up taking the aggro in that situation.
For 1, I would argue that "forced chat" strategizing makes the game more challenging and thus more interesting (perhaps it does require more chat typing, perhaps it is more frustrating when people ignore the plan or whatever, but it's still more challenging nonetheless). While it's true that the "target through the tank" mechanic is definitely more convenient and makes the game easier, making it easier ought not, in my opinion, be the ultimate goal of the designer in all cases. I mean, we could make chess a very different game if the bishop could move like a queen, and that would make bishops a lot better, but I don't think it adds anything to the game as an experience to do that. I think the limitations placed on the different pieces are part of what creates interesting and compelling game play, and ultimately fun. I personally feel that a good game would be one that rewards those people who CAN learn to stick to the plan and listen to direction and execute that stuff well, while maybe NOT being so rewarding to the people and groups that fall apart due to bad planning, lack of effective leadership, people not following the plan, poor execution, etc.
For 2, in an immersion sense, I'm personally against the idea of having a blaster target the badguy through the tank and then the tank ends up getting the blowback aggro from that. It makes no sense to me that a badguy would attack the TANK more when he can totally see the blaster shooting at him from over the tank's shoulder. I would think that a reasonably good AI would not behave like that. In any case, whether you're attacking through the tank or not, the blaster is still shooting the badguy, and the badguy knows it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
A tactical mechanic that simplifies choosing a target in combat is not exactly like "allowing the bishops in chess to move like the queen". When you put it in those terms it's almost like you're trying to imply that it's a sort of "cheat" that makes playing the game somehow easier than it should be. While the game could certainly exist without such a feature I'm not really sure what we would gain from having to be forced to live without it. I guess in the simplest terms I'm not really sure I agree with you that we'd necessarily experience more "fun" overall without it.
Again I know it sounds a bit trite but if you really don't like the idea of using this feature you could always play solo or in groups that agree not to rely on it. I don't see what we gain with the suggestion of the removal of an OPTIONAL feature like this. Ask yourself how does it hurt YOU if other people use this feature and what''s stopping YOU from not doing it if you think it makes things too button-mashy.
While I can almost see your point regarding the idea that a "badguy would see the Blaster shooting at him" the problem is that the very notion of what makes a Tank a Tank is his/her super-human ability to hold aggro REGARDLESS of what's going on. The Tank's reality-bending "superpower" is to make the badguy pay more attention to him/her even above and beyond anything else going on that might make more logical sense at the moment.
Sure in the "real world" if one guy was yelling at you (the Tank) and another guy was shooting at you (the Blaster) odds are good that you'd pay more attention to the guy shooting at you. But for the purposes of the way this game works the Tank's "superpower" of aggro control actually makes you pay more attention to the Tank even if that otherwise defies common sense because in a world with "superpowers" things literally don't have to strictly "make sense" common or otherwise.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
For that to work there would need to be a marking system with an accompanying system of being able to target a specific mark.
"Pausing" between each enemy to chat about or even just call out the new target would make it unworkable in the long run.
Making everyone remember the kill order of a high number of targets, especially when many may be named the same, would make it unworkable in the long run.
I am all for having kill orders and strategies to make it all more efficient, but I don't want to have to have that for each and every encounter. I didn't really use ToT that much since in many cases the enemy just died too fast to make it worthwhile.
I have never seen a Target-of-Target system automatically transfer your threat to the ally you have targeted, all of them has had the threat act as if you had that enemy targeted directly. IME transferring your threat to another person has always been limited to specific short-term buff abilities, and those did not rely on ToT mechanics to do so.
On a more personal note, I feel that all themepark MMO's (and probably some others) that do direct targeting need either a ToT or a dual-target (having both an offensive and a defensive target at the same time) system.
This is how I would deal with the whole aggro thing: Treat all aggro generated as if you had targeted the NPC normally. No need to do anything special over it, it would just over complicate things.
If you would normally take aggro off another player just by attacking it normally, then even if you do "target the target" targeting, then you would still take aggro off that player.
KISS principle in play here[1].
[1] Please note: There might well be powers/abilities that break this general rule, but they should be few and far between. This is not an exclusive conclusive list, but as a general "we start from this position" it is probably the best route to go.
Some optional moves, in games, are just more efficient and as such they're the best option. I mean, if we all had the "option" of starting with an extra $100, for free, in Monopoly, who WOULDN'T opt for that? Saying "Look, if you think it makes the game too easy, FOR YOU, fine, don't take it." doesn't alleviate the problem of the game being too easy. A person designing a game should assume that the players will behave in such a way as to maximize efficiency and act in their own best interests in the vast majority of cases. Adding in any features that create shortcuts only makes the game easier for everyone, which in my opinion usually causes more people to get bored more easily, as they get to the endgame faster and then stop playing because they've figured the game out and are now ready to move on to something more interesting.
Make no mistake, if there's "target through the tank" in CoT, I'll use it as much as most people do, in all likelihood. If there isn't, the player base as a whole will have to come up with a way of dealing with that. All I'm saying is, if I were designing the game, I'd personally not include that feature so as to make players have to actively participate and cooperate, not just hand them an easy button for this particular thing. I mean really, we're in tab to target gaming, you can find a reasonable target if you take action to do so. Nobody has to give an exhaustive list of 100 targets by priority,. I don't want that in any case.
That said, I'm NOT designing the game and Tannim222 has said that "Target that guy's target" will be in there. He HAS NOT mentioned the effect this will have on aggro, to my knowledge. I think they've been fairly consistently saying that Taunt, as we knew it, won't work like it did in CoX, so the tanker might not just straight up grab the aggro so much as impose debuffs on enemies that target anyone else, etc thus causing the badguys to want to target him based on how the badguy AI ultimately deals with that.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Redlynne loved to do this to me to frustrate me. I'd just managed to pull something to my land mine flower garden and then it would just wander over to Red and we'd have to kill it the long (non-surge) way.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Yeah, mandatory Teamspeak always ticked me off. Besides how it's a PITA to me because hearing problems, it always seemed that the guys on Teamspeak would talk about everything but the actual game we were playing.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
In the ironic spirit of full disclosure I can say that I probably only used the "target that guy's target" feature of CoH maybe about 2% of the time I had the opportunity to take advantage of it. While I will grant you there were probably some people out there who used it (overused it?) practically all the time I can at least tell you I was not one of those people. Consequently I could not really care less if other people liked to use it constantly or not. *shrugs*
We all know CoH lasted 8.5 years and was shutdown by NCsoft for reasons that had nothing to do with the game becoming a ghost town. The implication that having a "target that guy's target" feature would directly led to people getting bored with CoT and causing it to fail solely because of that is a little overblown don't you think? I get that you, for some reason, don't like the feature. But it didn't destroy CoH so I doubt it'll destroy CoT either.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Oh, I agree that this one feature isn't going to cause the game to go empty in a short timespan all by itself. For what it's worth, I don't think it's a terrible feature, it's a rather minor feature really, I just don't think it adds as much as it takes away. For the sake of immersion (I know, I complain about immersion too much) it's not realistic that all 8 people in the team are going to instantly switch targets like that, with no communication among them. I'm not demanding people use team chat if they don't want to, but I would remove the "team telepathy" factor of having a "target that guy's target" built in. Maybe have that as a mind-reading like superpower even, just not as a thing everyone always get's. Depending on how smart/dumb the AI driving the mobs is, you might want to remove some of these sort of features to make the game a little more challenging, or at least to allow for that possibility.
I just feel like this game is, metaphorically, a bit of a rat maze, at the end of which is some bit of cheese for us to have (loots drops, level ups, whatever). We, as the future rat denizens of the maze, will generally want the maze to be shorter and easier to navigate in every conceivable way. If you remove too many of the maze walls and pitfalls though, the maze becomes a straight hallway with a not-trapped piece of cheese at the end, in plain sight, and even then some people will still post requests on the forum to make the maze hallway shorter because pushing TWO buttons to get the cheese is just too much work. That maze-to-hallway transformation is not the result of any ONE feature being added or removed, but the cumulative result of all of the features you have or don't have, in my opinion.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Target-selection of the targeted player character is more of a QoL feature that allows for ease of play. It is also complete optional so the desire to be "more difficult" is already there. The feature does not "take anything away" from the game it adds something to it, as already explained, a form of coordination without relying on voice or even text. It made playing with little kids very easy. It can also be useful in closed-off spaces where a large character is taking up a doorway.
Even so, there is something we may use the feature for in another way. It will require testing to make sure it works as intended and a viable method of application.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
If a team is fighting a single big archvillain it doesn't really take much overt "communication" to get everybody to coordinate their attacks on the obvious main target. More often than not the best tactics for any one single teammate to use at any given moment was so obvious in CoH that verbal/chat based commands were usually unnecessary and/or redundant.
I never saw the "target that guy's target" feature as some sort of immersion-breaking "team telepathy" thing that was happening in every single combat. To me it was just an alternate control mechanism that allowed me as the player a means to an end that I was going to do anyway. In Windows some people use the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V keys to "copy" and "paste" things while other people are more comfortable using the right mouse button pull down menu options to accomplish the same thing. I guess you could argue that doing it one way is "easier" than the other but ultimately that depends on the individual user's preferences. This same "multiple ways to do the same thing" concept is what we're talking about here. I could target a MOB directly or I could target that same MOB through the Tank. To me neither one of these methods is any more "right or wrong" than the other.
Bottomline I just don't see any tangible benefit of eliminating one method of targeting control in favor of forcing us to use another. Reducing options in general just doesn't seem to be what we should be striving for. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
In my mind, features which benefit all players on an individual level do not, necessarily benefit the game as a whole.
Taken to an admittedly ridiculous extreme, you COULD code up a power that all toons get, inherently, that instantly drops all mobs on the map , credits you with defeating them, and gives you their loot drops. Since that power would allow us as players to get more stuff faster, it would be looked at as beneficial from the player perspective, while simultaneously shortcutting the entire game and thus being incredibly detrimental to the game. There basically is no game anymore, if you have that power, there's just waiting for mobs to respawn so you can exterminated them and get more stuff.
I'm not arguing that "target friend's target" does that, per se, but I do think that the specific example that Tannim22 gave of the one player blocking a doorway is actually a situation where, call me old fashioned, the guy blocking the doorway ought to actually be in the way of his friends trying to shoot into the room. In fact, the blocker's BODY ought to end up taking those ranged attacks that hit it, even if it is friendly fire from behind. Thus, the guy blocking the door ought to know better than to block a door when there are ranged types on his team that would like to shoot into there.
In that example do you see how having rules that allow us to shoot through friendly toons and target their target, even when we cannot see that ultimate target due to other people in the way, etc, get's a little unrealistic and makes the game itself unrealistically easy? I mean not just in a QoL sense, but in a "Wait, you can do THAT?! such a tactic would be impossible." sense? Because if we're exdplaining it away using suspension of disbelief, then there ought to be some kind of superpowered basis for the suspension of disbelief (mental powers, x-ray vision, something) not just "everyone can do this because doing it is better than not doing it, so we felt people would want that, you're welcome."
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Sure, if we were making a reality combat simulator, the person blocking the doorway can get all the defeats and get all the benefits of defeating a each spawn too while everyone was stuck behind him twiddling their thumbs. Or better yet, utilize friendly fire because you know, realistically, shooting jets of flame and throwing grendates point blank can hurt anyone, even the person throwing the grenade.
Realize this is a game first and the goal is for players to have fun and provide methods for everyone to have fun as much as possible. The situation where someone is blocking a doorway can happen not because the person blocking the doorway isn't being mindful, but because the map geometry is of certain size, their character may be of certain size, and the spawn may be of certain size as to prevent being able to make headway effectively blocking others off from being able to appropriately select targets.
It is very flawed to think about what may or may not be possible in reality vs what may or may be possible to work as a video game mechanic. Such thinking in fact was leading one of our former gameplay designers to actually state that resistance should never be percentage based because that's not how armor works in the real word. It is a game mechanic first that is representative of how armor may reduce damage being done, but is also highly versatile in application for optimizing performance on the design end between small packets of damage to large bursts of damage.
The QoL feature here is that it provides an ease of play in certain situations, not that it "breaks reality",
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Very well said Tannim! As Lothic said, there aren't going to be a lot of people who use this feature constantly, but there will be certain situations where it makes more sense, as described by Tannim, would you rather sit behind someone in a door way twiddling your thumbs or have an option to help out?
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
That is when I tended to use it most, either that or when I was trying to focus fire something down, but tab selection (or even mouse selection) was hard due to the VERY large number of mobs around.
I understand the need for QoL features and that the game has to work like a game should work. There are lots of places where realism is not being adhered to for the sake of fun game play. I'm in favor of that.
I would argue that letting people target through the tank and shoot through a blocked doorway into a room full of people they can't even see is NOT an example of violating realism for the sake of more fun game play, but rather an example of violating realism in order to eliminate that particular part of the game and make it a turkey shoot, thus saving the players the inconvenience of having to play the game in such a way as to avoid or otherwise deal with this particular awkward situation when it arises.
The more of these little difficulties the game mechanics pre-solve for the players, the less there is to the game, at the end of the day. In a game where the guy blocking the doorway actually presents an obstacle to the friendlies trying to shoot into the room, you have to come up with a team strategy and then work together to overcome that tactical problem in some way. That ADDS game play to the game, as I see it. Building in a shortcut to avoid that interaction takes away game play. in this cas eI guess that's game play they want to avoid for the sake of something else, but it's a loss nonetheless, not an addition.
Like maybe you have the tank run in, aggro the room, then run out and pull the badguys into the hallway, with the blasters shooting them as they emerge from the room one at a time. This method requires people to know what the plan is, excecute it, and have toons capable of playing their role in the plan. The tanker has to be able to absorb the alpha strike they're going to get, the blasters have to take up good positions, etc. THAT, to me, is a better game than one that let's a guy stuff a doorway and then the blasters drop fireballs into the room immolating everyone, despite not having any kind of clear line of sight into the room.
When we team up and manage to empty out that particular room, we've successfully used team strategy to play the game. Simply giving people an obvious, and somewhat unrealistic "out" shortscuts that particular bit of game play and just hands players something.
Obviously, this whole argument is a discussion about where to draw the line, and we have different locations in mind for that line. I respect that and I'm fine with whatever line position the devs decide on, I'm just giving my point of view. For the record, I would draw the line at friendly fire damage. I don't think there necessarily needs to be hero-on-hero damage in PVE. I would rather just not have a clear shot at the target and thus not get to target that target in those situations. The devs seem to have other ideas about what needs to be in place for this, and I respect that.
To respond to Kiyori's question, if being given a more efficient solution to a particular problem is better than figuring out a way to deal with it yourself, then why not just build in a power that everyone get's that instantly defeats the whole room for you? The devs COULD do that, it's possible given the constraints of computer game programming to do it, so why not just have that? Isn't that a BETTER solution than just being able to target through the tank?
It's not a question of what I want as a player, because as a player I want as much power and as easy a time running through the game as possible. Players are greedy like that. As a designer, however, I think there are limits to what the players can be given before the game get's too easy and boring. In situation where we cannot target through the tank or shoot through him or her, I would not simply stand there twiddling my thumbs, would try to think up a way the empty the room and try to put it into action. I find THAT a more attractive an option than simply clicking on the tanker and mashing attack buttons until all the mobs I can't even get a good look at are down.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Wow, imagine how that feature would have been in CoX, Yikes! lol
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
From what I can see here you are not actually arguing against a Target-of-Target system but rather arguing for including other players and possibly even other enemies as obstacles when checking Line-of-Sight. That is something completely different from a ToT system. From what I have read here you seem to think that when using a ToT system all attacks "bounce" of your target to then hit the enemy, thus making you be able to shoot around corners.
If players did not count towards LoS and there were no ToT then the DPS could just do direct targeting instead and still be able to shoot through the tank in your scenario above, thus having or not having a proper ToT system would make no difference in your scenario up there since it is only the LoS (and distance) between the player making the actual attack and the enemy that counts. A ToT will only change it from an explicit enemy target to an implicit one but otherwise it will function exactly the same.
If players counted towards LoS then having a ToT system wouldn't "magically" make them be able to hit a target on the other side of the tank since the tank would still be a blockade for the attack.
I agree that this is all wrapped up in a larger set of game mechanics parameters that need to be fleshed out..
Player transparency or opaqueness for targeting purposes, ToT ability, and LoS needed for attacks are all inter-related issues that need to have individual decisions made, by the devs, in terms of what the rules are going to be.
Personally, I'd make everyone opaque, then make superpowers that let you ignore friendlies in LoS as a thing (again, maybe X-ray vision does this). I would also have no ToT as the basic rule, then allow people with a power like "Telepathy" to target through other toons. You could even make that work in such a way that the telepath could click on the badguy, then the telepath's heals hit whatever target the badguy is targeting, etc. I doubt I'd let anyone shoot through walls, but maybe have some types of structures that block LoS but aren't durable enough to block Line of Effect. Like a wall made of paper. You can't see through it, but you could shoot through it or even destroy it outright. So some destructible terrain and furniture I guess.
As a general rule I like making the basic game more restrictive and then making powers and so forth that alleviate that as opposed to just giving everyone easy solutions to those problems. If nothing else, that approach gives you the ability to roll out those improvements to QoL over time as desired.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Didn't we already have a thread that dealt with the issues of LoS attacks, player character collision detection on friendly fire, and how it can have a negative impact on general ease of game play, particularly for ranged attackers and area effect heavy builds?
Imagine you're a ranged attacker and your fellow team mate who you joined in a pug can, at will, continually maneuver in front of your blocking your LoS preventing you from attacking? How about when you aren't even on a team and it can happen? That's just one small example of how players can abuse this so-called "adding to the game" feature to cause problems for others.
The other issue is when players are not exactly well at coordinating efforts and can end up in situations where someone is blocking a doorway. I've been on tons of teams in multiple games where this has literally happened. Instead of having people screaming at their monitors and pounding away at the keyboard for the player to "MOVE!" they can simply click on the player and attack its targets.
The concept that removing target off the friendly target will encourage team coordination and strategy because it is somehow dumbing down gameplay on its own is an incorrect ascertion. We already know that having it included in a game does did not prevent any tactical play. As a dev you also can't expect that players will necessarily use the tactics you intend them to use. It is why basing encounters off a specific tactical play can lead to problems with players being unable to succceed until they discover the magic formula for success then it becomes more rote. The application of "enforced tactics" in that situation actually detracts from gameplay because there is only one route toward success.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
In other words - Options are key :)
Everyone transparent?? Would you prefer that always or just in mission? I don't know which one would break immersion more, being able to attack who your friend is, or your friend looking like a ghost...
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
Considering that MWM makes a separation between aesthetics and mechanics makes it so that having every power in the most restrictive "mechanics" by default, regardless of how you choose to represent it, will most likely make it so that too many people will see that as too restrictive from the start. Adding them later on may be too late for many of those people, especially if it's done as powers that you need to choose instead of the "standard" ones.
Just consider this, if I choose a power to be represented by a thrown object then why would I need to learn another power just to be able to throw it past another person, especially if it's a ground targeted one? I fully admit it would be needed if you want to hit a specific person.
Or how about this, my toon is a blind phychic/psionic and can see the world through this base ability. Why would I need to learn another power just to "see through" other people? Or even have to purchase a specific power to be able to act past LoS generated by other people for non-projectile abilities? Why wouldn't I have learned all of that before I took up the mantle of a super hero/villain?
This would most likely be alleviated by a traits system, that is a set of passives that you choose from upon character creation (and maybe later on) but I feel that would stray too far away from the spirit of CoX.
I just feel that too many people will look too negatively on having to buy such QoL improvements, regardless of how you buy them.
Personally, I think you trying to get the game mechanics too close to how reality functions here, regardless of if it's ours of the game worlds.
People who are looking at the game design from behind the curtain have a PoV on all of this that I will admit I don't have. So if my opinions represent a lack of knowledge about the inner workings of the game, I apologize. If people blocking doorways really is that big of a rage-quit inducer, maybe the ToT is a necessary thing, I admit I haven't done enough research on that to tell you one way or the other.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
As I said, I'd default it to "everyone blocks line of sight for everyone else" then make specific stuff the defeat that. Not sure how it would all work. Maybe you click a target and always look through other interposing obstacles to see that target, for example.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
What you have to start with is the type of game you desire to make and how you intend players to interact in the game. For a game with players cooperatively working together for a goal, where player characters can physically prevent the other player character from performing an action such as any combat engagement. Then you have to go and find ways to break that rule in order to make the rule work. Maybe the rule is the problem in the first place.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Which means that if you cannot see the target in the first place, you cannot attack said target. So if there is "super large person" standing in the way, how on earth are you going to be able to attack something that is more than likely going to be a valid target... just if the big oaf wasn't in the way.
But then again, if we did go your route, then it would mean that even friendly players who just so happened to *move* in front of you as you tried to attack a mob would end up preventing your attack, even if it was a valid ranged attack.
It would bring a whole new issue for attackers. Where they would have to find a clear shot, or be penalised, because you would be more likely to have a friendly target in the way. Not an inanimate object, but a friendly player. Infact, in a game which appears to have *larger* team numbers than most other MMOs, even if it just stuck with the CoX limit of 8 players a team, it would mean that just 4 melee characters could quite easily screw up how *ALL* the remaining ranged attackers could work... or infact prevent *other* melee characters on the team from being able to attack, because they would have to go through a friendly player... which would cause their attack to not be possible.
Yeah, twiddling thumbs time.
And whilst that makes sense in games which have friendly fire, where firing into combat at range, you could have just as much chance of hitting a team mate or an enemy, it doesn't make as much sense in a game which *doesn't* deal with friendly fire.
Side note: Pretty much every game that I have played that used the "target through another player" route, it used the *actual* attacker (ie me) to work out if I could indeed attack the mob with a ranged attack, and not the stats/attributes/Line of Sight of the character that I was targeting through.
If anything, "target that guy's target" plus "select target by name" were the only way you could reliably hit the Hamidon nucleus at the end of the raid. You can't have most of your DPS sitting idle because they can't select the right target.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I dont mean to sound selfish, but I Weallly Weally would like for a way to Target Every Foe thats targeting a particular Teammate.
Basically, as I'm playing a Healer, or a Tank, i want to know exactly WHEN and WHICH foes have switched their targeting from the TANK to a Squishy on my team. :<
Selfish part is:
- When I was playing TANK, I always got major compliments in controlling the mobs of foes, and Taunt was a big factor, using it almost every iteration chain. But THIS ONE TIME, I thought it was safe Not to use Taunt in an Iteration, and the Team Wiped! That One time has left a Scar on my Psyche. What I would like, is to get it down pat, no Guessing! ;)
Target of My Target was in many ways most useful on a "swing role" character who did both Target Buffing and Target Debuffing (which includes "HP Debuffing" via attacking). Just pick an Ally and all the Buffs go to them (and any Allies around them) while all the Debuffs go to whatever that Ally is targeting (and all the Foes around that target).
Largely useless on Melee types, but very handy for "battlefield management" types ... of which "h34l0r" was one variety but by no means the only sort advantaged by this. The Kinetics powerset, for example, tended to be unfairly advantaged via use of Target of My Target support. I could give other examples, but I figure I've made my point that Controllers, Dominators, Defenders and Masterminds would have gotten the most mileage out of this feature.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
You still seem to think that player-LoS opacity and ToT are somehow linked, which they are not in their basic form. Therefore a ToT-system will not be able to make people "fire" past/through an obstacle, regardless of if it's a wall or another player.
The only way a ToT system would "affect" player-LoS opacity would be if the attacks "bounced" via your target to your ToT, which in my opinion would be a very bad thing and luckily I have never seen in a game.
Aww, don't you want to see the fabled curving bullet?
[img]http://www.theanyaworld.com/fox.wanted.2008/top.jpg[/img]
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
To be fair, that only happens when the target is moving and you have already launched your attack and the system had already been decided that the attack was a "hit". Another version is the "ever chasing fireball",where you "outrun" the projectile (or appear to) and then *BOOM* it got you square in the back of the head.
That wouldn't be so much a curving bullet but rather a ricochet off of your teammate.
That would require a means of selecting multiple targets at once. That leads to a rather large can of worms I doubt anyone wants to open.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Instead of targeting them it might be easier to make it when you click on your teammate a symbol or something appears on the foes. Or just that they "look" targeted but it's just a red rectangle around them that only means that those are the foe's that are targeting that particular player. And if you were to attack you simply attack whatever foe the other player is currently attacking
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
That's a really good idea. A different-colored aura or halo or tint or something. Then you could have a new keybind for "next/previous target within target set" to switch from targeting the friendly to targeting the ones highlighted.
That works.
This kind of dovetails with the mod thread, too, in that something like this could be implemented as a mod, and could also do things like show a list of who is aggroed on your friend, and you could click on the names in the list to target them.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
In other words ... [i]frequently[/i] ...
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Indeed. Also, there could be a level of taunt indicator rating. So if there was a symbol, say a number, there could be a 1-5 above there head, with 5 being the most taunted/aggro. And then you could have a keybind that would attack the character that had the most/or least taunt on them.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
I fear that something like this would be more 'playing the numbers', or 'playing the symbols', or 'playing the colors' and Not 'playing the game.
Be Well!
Fireheart
For Wildstar, there are a couple of "threat meter" addons, that some players use when raiding. I *personally* don't hold much stock in them. I just pay attention to the "target of target" feature, so when the mob is targetting me... I can see it and then take the appropriate action.
Personal preference, YMMV. Of course, this all depends if CoT has an API that actually *relays* this information in the first place. They might decide NOT to show aggro levels at all via an API.
How is it not playing the game? It's still the same game engine, the same mobs, the same scenarios, the same teammates, etc.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Difference between "flying the gauges" and the proverbial "flying by the seat of your pants" sort of distinction. One is measured while the other is felt.
Perhaps this an opportunity for improved iconography. My first thought is the stock 'n' standard hitbox we see on target selection. Typical thing to do is to "bracket" the target at the corners and then leave the sides of the rectangle vacant (to reduce obscurement).
Tweak that iconography in a subtle way. Rather than having square corners at all times, the "sharpness" of the corners on the (target lock) hitbox you see on your Target (or on the Target of your Target) reflects your ranking on that Foe's Threat Table.
Square/90 degree angled corners = you are Designated Victim™
Rounded corners = you are low on the Things To Maim™ list
Just rig the UI to gradiate through the possible range of sharpness on the corners of the (target lock) hitbox you see around your Target so as to cue to Player to recognize where they "rank" on the target locked Foe's Threat Table. Max Team Size is 8 ... so you'd only need a lookup table of 8 possible "roundings" of the hitbox corners to provide adequate information for Team settings.
Help your Tank help you. Manage your own Threat generation.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I never used the ToT function in CoX. At least, I don't recall ever using it. I knew it was there, but I never found it convenient. I just set Tab for "Nearest enemy" and Ctrl+Tab to "Next enemy" and wore the keys out tabbing through the available targets.
But that's just me.
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