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notears
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Personally I would like to

Personally I would like to see more of a mix between Tab targeting and Telegraph targeting, with telegraph targeting for AoE effects and Tab targeting for single targets effects. I think it would also be cooler for a system like that to have the Accuracy enhancement do different things for those two different types of attacks. For example the singe target accuracy enhancments would simply increase your chance to attack, while with AoE the time between the telegraph and the actual attack gets shorter, making it a little harder to move out of the way in time. Like I remember playing Wildstar and it felt like a very superheroic type of play right there, you where moving around and just blasting everyone around you!! But like I understand that we can't completely rip off that system, and I also understand that that system doesn't really do single target attacks very well. So for me the perfect targeting system would be city of heroes stylesingle target attack, tab mode and a wildstar style AoE mode.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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I can't believe I forgot

I can't believe I forgot about Tabula Rasa's system for Cover!
/em smack forehead

Okay, the way this Cover system worked for Tabula Rasa was that any time you attacked an Enemy Hit Box, the game would "on demand" do a quick multi-ray trace between your avatar and the Target's Hit Box using an overlay akin to this shaped to the Target's Hitbox at the time of the attack:

If the Target was tall and thin (such as a humanoid), then the overlay would be tall and thin. If the Target was low and wide (such as a quadruped), then the overlay would be low and wide.

The game would do a quick Line of Sight ray trace between a single point on your character and the 3x3 overlay on the Target's Hitbox to determine "how much" of the Line of Sight to your Target was clear and "how much" of it was blocked. The game engine didn't care WHICH parts of the overlay were blocked, it only reported out HOW MANY parts of the overlay were blocked. So what was happening was a quick and dirty check to see how much of a Target's Hitbox was obscured from Line of Sight when the attack was made. So 3 blocks out of 9 obscured had the same game mechanical effect(s) regardless of which arrangement of 3 blocks out of 9 those were. The game engine then used a very simple lookup table to determine how much Damage Reduction to apply to the attack based on how many blocks of the overlay did/did not have Line of Sight to the Target's Hitbox.

What this meant in practice was that TERRAIN MATTERED. You could partially "hide" behind objects (crates, fallen trees, rocks, wall corners, pillars, etc.) and depending on the relationship between you, the terrain, and your Target, the amount of damage throughput being dealt would change. And it worked both ways. Both Players AND the NPCs gained the benefits of Cover, which could best be thought of as a "situational bonus" of Damage Resistance that got computed "on the fly" while combat was happening.

This meant that it was a lot more dangerous to be caught in an open field with no Cover available than it was to be in a location where you could fight from (or with) Cover to help protect yourself. The challenge of playing Tabula Rasa though was that the NPC AI was "smart enough" to ALSO use Cover too! So depending on the terrain, you didn't just have Foe NPCs come bumrushing towards you like idiots. Sometimes, if Cover was available to them, they'd move to positions where the terrain would partially block their Hitboxes and provide them Cover against your attacks from your location.

The whole thing was a really simple "extra step" put into the combat engine which made the whole game feel a lot more tactical about optimum positioning to fight from. It meant that the world around you "mattered" in terms of WHERE you fought. It was also something that EVERYONE could take advantage of ... both PCs and NPCs ... and all it required was awareness of your situation and surroundings.

And then to top it all off, there were some Skills available (to the Sniper, specifically Target Painting) that would debuff the Damage Reduction offered by Cover so as to increase the amount of damage throughput done through Cover.

Use of such a system does "require" that the Hitboxes used for PCs and NPCs effectively "conform" (roughly) to the rectangular shape/size of their avatars so that the 3x3 overlay grid for ray tracing Line of Sight when attacked gets "placed" properly so as to not yield False Positive results and thus grant unwarranted levels of Cover protection.

Note that such a Cover system will result in a circumstance in which melee ranged attacks rarely (if ever) "suffer" from damage reduction due to Cover penalties, simply because it will be rare to have interposing terrain/obstacles/blockages between attacker and target at melee range distances. By contrast, ranged attackers will often need (or just simply want) to take Cover into account when it comes to choosing targets and deciding what position(s) to take in order to attack them. This situational discrepancy/bias/circumstance can then be used to create an advantage for an entire specific Archetype (I'm looking at you, Rangers) who can be given an alternative lookup table for Cover penalties so as to better represent their "marksmanship" or accuracy/precision to represent that Cover reduces their damage throughput LESS than it does for other Archetypes and thus giving them an advantage in ranged combat relative to other ranged archetypes.

Having a game mechanic that takes Cover into effect makes all the difference in the world between doing this ...

... and doing this ...

Note also that any kind of "Shield" based Powerset (whether it be a physical shield on an arm or Force Field styled bubbles) could ALSO offer a different lookup table for Cover effects, increasing the advantage gained from use of Cover ... up to and including granting Cover damage reduction "while in the clear" with 0 out of 9 boxes of the overlay being (actually) obscured from Line of Sight of the attacker.


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Empyrean
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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

Personally I would like to see more of a mix between Tab targeting and Telegraph targeting, with telegraph targeting for AoE effects and Tab targeting for single targets effects. I think it would also be cooler for a system like that to have the Accuracy enhancement do different things for those two different types of attacks. For example the singe target accuracy enhancments would simply increase your chance to attack, while with AoE the time between the telegraph and the actual attack gets shorter, making it a little harder to move out of the way in time. Like I remember playing Wildstar and it felt like a very superheroic type of play right there, you where moving around and just blasting everyone around you!! But like I understand that we can't completely rip off that system, and I also understand that that system doesn't really do single target attacks very well. So for me the perfect targeting system would be city of heroes stylesingle target attack, tab mode and a wildstar style AoE mode.

This is an enticing idea. Potentially very "best of both worlds". Still tab as the heart of the system with AOE bringing in a more actiony feel without causing latency or twitch problems.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

Redlynne
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A notion concerning inclusion

A notion concerning inclusion of a Cover mechanic in City of Titans occurred to me over the last day or so which I'd like to see if anyone else thinks has merit.

In most Tab Targeting systems, all that matters is there is Line of Sight to any part of the Target's Hitbox. With the Cover system used in Tabula Rasa, the degree of Line of Sight to the entirety of the Target's Hitbox was important. What used to be a boolean Y/N function turned into a scalar of 0-9 instead.

In the City of Heroes mez systems, all that mattered was exceeding a certain threshold for the mez to take effect. In City of Titans, we aren't going to be using a boolean Y/N function for mez, but instead using a scalar that inflicts degrees of impairment that can describe "partial mez" states and so on.

Am I the only one who thinks it might be interesting to not only use a "9 boxes of LoS" styled Cover system like was found in Tabula Rasa to not only adjust damage throughput to Target(s) but also mez throughput to Target(s) too? In essence, creating a system where Cover can (potentially) help protect against status effects by offering "extra resistance" depending on relative positioning of Attacker and Target (and all the obstacles in between them). I keep thinking there's an opportunity here to make the game more complex and interesting to play (and harder to master), and it would be a shame if we just passed it by if we didn't have to ...


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

A notion concerning inclusion of a Cover mechanic in City of Titans occurred to me over the last day or so which I'd like to see if anyone else thinks has merit.
In most Tab Targeting systems, all that matters is there is Line of Sight to any part of the Target's Hitbox. With the Cover system used in Tabula Rasa, the degree of Line of Sight to the entirety of the Target's Hitbox was important. What used to be a boolean Y/N function turned into a scalar of 0-9 instead.
In the City of Heroes mez systems, all that mattered was exceeding a certain threshold for the mez to take effect. In City of Titans, we aren't going to be using a boolean Y/N function for mez, but instead using a scalar that inflicts degrees of impairment that can describe "partial mez" states and so on.
Am I the only one who thinks it might be interesting to not only use a "9 boxes of LoS" styled Cover system like was found in Tabula Rasa to not only adjust damage throughput to Target(s) but also mez throughput to Target(s) too? In essence, creating a system where Cover can (potentially) help protect against status effects by offering "extra resistance" depending on relative positioning of Attacker and Target (and all the obstacles in between them). I keep thinking there's an opportunity here to make the game more complex and interesting to play (and harder to master), and it would be a shame if we just passed it by if we didn't have to ...

I think it might be interesting, but I also think it would be far too close to a twitch game if we implement it.

Since the amount of cover would be dependent upon what is between you and your target at the exact moment you trigger your attack, it is very likely that timing the attack, and timing your movements if you are on defense, would become one of the most important aspects of accuracy and damage mitigation. In other words, success and failure would depend more on the player's reflexes than on their character's abilities. I don't think that kind of action combat is part of the core design principles of this game.

I refuse to be like those other people in these forums who just like to poo-poo others creative ideas.(you know who you are) So I will suggest here how we could perhaps implement a way of providing cover without turning it into a reflex check. Here goes:

If you are familiar with SWTOR, there are classes that can use cover. That game's use of this is nothing short of brilliant, and is one of the truly groundbreaking things SWTOR has brought to MMORPG. Here's an example for anyone who isn't familiar:

So if you are one of those classes, the game will show you all the places you could take cover (but only when you have a target highlighted). It does so intelligently so that it looks near the center of the screen first, and chooses closer places first; and it only shows you places that will afford you cover against the enemy you have highlighted.
Then when you press your [get into cover] key, you will do a forward or side roll into the cover position. Its intuitive and pretty slick.

In SWTOR there is only one kind of cover. You're either in cover or you aren't. I suppose we could give it a gradient and indicate the degree by color, but I think just knowing that it is cover should be good enough.

That is great for single target ranged attacks. But what about melee attacks and AoE attacks?

Melee attacks should be easy, no cover allowed for melee attacks.

AoE's could be a bit more complicated.
I think we could make AoE's a bit more intelligent, giving them characteristics like

  • Radial (AoE effects radiate out from the center point, thereby allowing people within the AoE area to benefit from cover if it is between them and the center.) This would be especially appropriate for anything explosive like grenades or fireballs and anything giving a knockback effect to know which direction to toss them.
  • Spacial (all targets in the AoE are effected equally regardless of cover) This would be good for things like an area of icy winds, or a magma eruption from the ground.
  • Ballistic (AoE effects originate from the caster.) This would be applicable especially for cones such as spraying an area with fire breath or with a machine gun.
  • Rain (AoE effect originates above the target area, so people under cover get protection). So acid rain, or other falling effects would be affected. We would have to limit it to 10' high or something like that, so we can use those powers in interior areas and instances without the ceilings proving cover.

What would you say to this kind of compromise?


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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If anythjng, we will to use a

If anythjng, we will to use a far simpler cover mechanic to keep the skill floor sufficiently low. Or, at I should say,'if we use cover mechanics at all, we'll be starting very simply and iterate from there. But the goal will still be to maintain a sufficiently low skill floor.


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Empyrean
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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

If anythjng, we will to use a far simpler cover mechanic to keep the skill floor sufficiently low.

I personally would be all for using things like telegraphed AOE and cover mechanics as long as:

1) they were on top of a basic core tab targeting system (which I think is a certainty at this point), and

2) they were simplified/slowed down/dumbed down, however you want to put it, so that they are not twitchy--which seems to be perfectly doable.

In those cases, I think these things could bring nice action feel without making the combat skill-based rather than tactical in nature as is generally desired (by me too).

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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If we absolutely had to have

If we absolutely had to have cover for some reason, I would want it to be as Tannim and Empyrean describe - but my preference would be for none at all, for two reasons: (1) it doesn't seem very superheroey to me to be hiding behind stuff in a fight and (2) it seems to me to be outside the bounds of the 'spirit' we're trying to recapture with this game.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

it doesn't seem very superheroey to me to be hiding behind stuff in a fight

Batman and Spider-man do it all the time. Gamers pulling mobs do it all the time.

But it does get to a core question: do you consider comics such as G. I. Joe to be a valid inclusion in the genre for this game? What about S.H.I.E.L.D.? City of Heroes quite obviously did, what with the Assault Rifle blaster primary, the Sky Raiders and Malta villain groups, and Indigo and Crimson as contacts.

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

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I LOVE where this thread has

I LOVE where this thread has gone. There's so many good posts by so many enthusiasts that I can't even call out a particular one. Certainly by #92 on it really starts to get good to me.

I second the desire to avoid twitch play style, but to the extent that hit boxes can be simplified and of tactical value I think it could be an awesome evolution of the game. I "hid" around a corner more than once with my controller and rooted a bunch of enemies by targeting the one closest to the corner. I actually depended on one or two not getting rooted so I could pull that off then iceblock the one that got through.

"THE TITANS ARE COMING! THE TITANS ARE COMING!"

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Cinnder wrote:
it doesn't seem very superheroey to me to be hiding behind stuff in a fight
Batman and Spider-man do it all the time. Gamers pulling mobs do it all the time.
But it does get to a core question: do you consider comics such as G. I. Joe to be a valid inclusion in the genre for this game? What about S.H.I.E.L.D.? City of Heroes quite obviously did, what with the Assault Rifle blaster primary, the Sky Raiders and Malta villain groups, and Indigo and Crimson as contacts.

It's a risk. Superhero comix and Superhero MMORPG's are two different things.

On one hand, purely tab targeting would satisfy the small core CoH playerbase. Which is important.

On the other hand, single target tab + simplified telegraphed AOE + simplified cover could, IF well done, satisfy BOTH the low-latency/twitch averse (which I am) small refugee core while avoiding the chant of "what is this, the 90's--dated at birth" from most gamers.

It's a risk, but, if done well, the reward is a game that is refreshingly fun and that will live and influence far into the future of the genre.

So, do you fee lucky, punk? Well? Do you?

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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It seems to me that there are

It seems to me that there are two extremes: extreme RP on one end, which basically reduces what would be a game into a story told by the player, and extreme competition on the other, which basically reduces what would be a fun RPG game into a full-contact Olympic sport complete with a game clock, out of bounds markers, tournaments for prizes, and a ranking system like the tennis players use.

The extreme RP end would allow people to make any character they want and tell the story of that character's exploits in a world completely controlled by the player (or writer rather) in such a way that we don't really get to interact with each other, or the game, at all. You'd just write our own story set in your own world and tell it to people. That's fun, but that's called "fan fiction" not "RPG gaming". So there has to be a common ground, a common set of powers and tools etc to make characters, even if that stifles someone's concept for their toon.

The extreme competition side would require everyone to have exactly the same powers, same gear, same body size and shape (because if that effects targeting or even just being seen from a distance, it can be an advantage to be smaller) for the sake of fairness. This turns what would be a nice RPG game into, basically, lacrosse or something. Everyone would have to wear their team colors to allow us to tell friend from foe, everyone would have to wear the regulation-approved helmet for safety, etc.

Somewhere between those extremes lies "RPG game", and different people enjoy different aspects of that which would tend to push CoT in one direction or another. I don't think we can all get exactly what we want, but I think a middle ground exists. I shouldn't be able to make a toon that has all of Superman's powers plus all of Martian Manhunter plus a Green Lantern ring that never runs out of charge, plus etc etc and I should be denied that on the basis of it being just way too powerful in a game that you play with or against other people. Similarly, I don't want to just play the same prefab character that everyone else plays like its a MOBA or something. I don't want to say "I'm really good at piloting Sub-Zero, but terrible at Scorpion", I want to make my own character and play THAT, even if it's sub-par in terms of overall power level compared to other toons I could have made. I'd like to be able to make my way through the game even with a sub-par powered toon and enjoy that toon in and of itself, for the fun and challenge of it. Does this mean not all builds/classes will be good in PVP? Yes, probably. That's fine, because A) you can still just fight PVP matches that are "bad pvp class versus also bad PVP class" matches, where it's like the JV teams playing each other for fairness, and B) people who want to be the uber in PVP can and will make the best possible toon for PVP regardless of what that is. Basically, the fact that not all builds are that good leads to the segregation of different toons into what are essentially weight classes for fairness and competitive balance. As long as there's no forced PVP then that works ok, I think. In that system, you could even still fight one totally out-classes toon against some really tough opponent just to see how it ends up working, etc.

I think the more "action-twitch" stuff you add in, the more "competitive" it tends to be, except then the advantage goes not to the build but to the person with the twitchiest twiches. If that's what you truly want, go play a MOBA. You don't get to be your own character, but you get fun and interesting combat. In any game where you get to decide what your powers are, then you have to live with some limitations, and I think the tab targeting is probably part of that.

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The problem I am seeing with

The problem I am seeing with the various cover approaches is the asthetic decoupling. Simply put, certain themes would bypass such cover, and would therefore give those players a distinct advantage. I would imagine the orbital laser cannon becoming super-popular should we integrate it. Or if they did not, it would now look very silly. "Why can't my laser cannon hit that guy?"

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

The problem I am seeing with the various cover approaches is the asthetic decoupling. Simply put, certain themes would bypass such cover, and would therefore give those players a distinct advantage. I would imagine the orbital laser cannon becoming super-popular should we integrate it. Or if they did not, it would now look very silly. "Why can't my laser cannon hit that guy?"

Word to your mother. Good point.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

"Why can't my laser cannon hit that guy?"

... "Because he's hiding behind a potted ficus, made of impervium?"

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

If we absolutely had to have cover for some reason, I would want it to be as Tannim and Empyrean describe - but my preference would be for none at all, for two reasons: (1) it doesn't seem very superheroey to me to be hiding behind stuff in a fight and (2) it seems to me to be outside the bounds of the 'spirit' we're trying to recapture with this game.

I agree with this. Cover mechanics can fit for a great deal of games and genres - but for me personally I just don't feel like it fits for a supers game. Particularly one that, like Cinnder said, is trying to recapture the feel of a previous game.

Another worry I have about a cover system is the possible diluting of buff/debuff powers, and the Guardian archetype as a whole. My favourite class was Defender in CoH, and I'd like to see Guardians be just as potent in this game.

Redlynne
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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

The problem I am seeing with the various cover approaches is the asthetic decoupling.

Pinky, are you Developing for the game I'm thinking you're Developing?

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Simply put, certain themes would bypass such cover, and would therefore give those players a distinct advantage.

Not so much ... themes ... really.

Think of it this way. In most games, there is a distinct bias towards melee combat. You know, the whole Guns don't kill people. SWORDS KILL PEOPLE! thing. We saw this in City of Heroes where Scrappers did more damage than Blasters, typically, because Scrappers were melee and Blasters were ranged. This is a difference that gets baked into the game mechanics right from the outset. Why? Because if you can do the same amount of damage at any range, but melee is limited to up close while ranged isn't, then that's advantage ranged with melee at a disadvantage. After all, why bother doing 100 Damage from 5 feet away when you can do 100 Damage from 50 feet away, right?

This is where a Cover system could come into play. Instead of "gimping" ranged offense simply in order to "balance" ranged with melee, so that melee "does more" by default to counterbalance the advantage of being able to do damage at a distance, instead the counterbalancing factor becomes melee is almost never affected by Cover while ranged often (but not always) is. This would mean that when targeting stuff "in the clear" you can dish out just as much damage as melee (typically) will, simply because your targets are getting no Cover bonus protection. At the same time, in order to get that same/similar performance in a cluttered environment with "lots" of Cover available, the ranged attacker will "want" to be mobile so as to take advantage of positioning that minimizes the amount of Cover available to their target(s) ... meaning that smart play and awareness of your environment (and your place within it) gets rewarded. It would also mean that your choice of Travel Powers could get very interesting indeed, since they could contribute to what Lines of Sight you can easily gain access to (think about it).

So instead of baking the "range penalty" into the game mechanics from the outset, you instead structure things such that Tactical Gameplay (relative positions, etc.) becomes an important variable for Players to take advantage of, and a skill for them to develop ... rather than just "planting the flag" and attacking until nothing is left to fight back (here) before moving on. So instead of being something that is a blanket damage penalty at all times, relative to melee offense, in a No Cover system ... instead there is a variable penalty to throughput in a Cover system which is not only situational but also something the Player can do something about by being aware of their surroundings and relative positioning.

This would make combat more dynamic, and possibly more interesting.

Doctor Tyche wrote:

I would imagine the orbital laser cannon becoming super-popular should we integrate it. Or if they did not, it would now look very silly. "Why can't my laser cannon hit that guy?"

Presumably any sort of "orbital laser cannon" Power would have a Power Emanation Point directly over/above the target and "shoot" straight down regardless of the Aesthetic Decoupling. At the game mechanical level, that would have to be how the Power gets defined. Basically ... this ...

I can see two ways of "interpreting" that kind of thing for a Cover system of game mechanics.

1. Instead of "sourcing" the attack from the caster, the "source" of the attack is coming from a location away from the caster (in this case, directly overhead of the Target). Use the Power Emanation Point located directly above the Target to determine Cover (if any), rather than a Line of Sight from the caster to the Target. You would use this interpretation for most Single Target attacks and some "rain" styled Volume of Effect styled attacks.

2. Ignore the "overhead shot" appearance of the attack and instead focus on the "blast radius" that the attack produces that deliver the attack's effects. Calculate any Cover effects based on Line of Sight from the center of the (radial) Volume of Effect, rather than a Line of Sight from the caster to the Target. You would use this interpretation for most Volume of Effect attacks, and are easiest to envision using the simple mental model of an exploding grenade.

There are other interpretations possible, of course, but those are going to be the two most basic and universal. Cone and Point Blank Volume of Effect attacks will obviously originate from the caster (or very near to them).

And while this may seem to give an advantage to "top down" or otherwise "indirect fire" attacks, that won't always be the case, since it ought to be possible to define a required "minimum headroom" be available for those type of attacks to be usable (i.e. enough to contain/show the animations in full without clipping into terrain/geometry). Point being that in "low ceiling" areas, the reduced headroom in effect acts like Cover for the Target. Out in wide open spaces, like the great outdoors, that isn't a problem, but getting under ledges or overhangs might effectively "block" such attacks from being usable (which, when you think about it, makes sense). For precedent, consider that in City of Heroes, during Rikti Invasions, the dropships could fire massive laser beam attacks at anyone out in the open but if you took shelter under geometry or terrain (including Bus Stops) you wouldn't/couldn't be targeted by "Jebus Beams From On High" trying to kill you. Same principle would apply here.

This would mean that direct fire versus indirect fire, in a ranged combat context, would each have their advantages and disadvantages, but in nearly all situations where you can't use one you ought to be using the other. This would then make ranged combat something where the Terrain you're fighting on (or in) MATTER as to which mix of attacks are optimal for that situation and circumstance ... rather than just having a Standard Attack Chain that you repeat endlessly, without variation, simply because a spreadsheet analysis says that's "best" for producing throughput onto Target(s).

By adding a Cover system, both positioning and movement begin to matter ... whereas without a Cover system, positioning and movement get reduced to a boolean check of Line of Sight? (Y/N) and Within Range? (Y/N) and after that, everything else is meaningless and can be safely discarded/ignored/dispensed with. The Cover system doesn't have to be all that complex, but it does need to apply some measure of influence over combat results so as to motivate Players to play "actively" rather than simply playing "lazily" due to game performance being all too easily predictable.

Does that make sense?


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Yes makes sense, but also

Yes makes sense, but also begins to move the game play even furtther away from what is intended.

Once introduced, cover mechanics require a different approach to map design, applying proper proportionate amounts of cover for characters of varying height. It also requires creating areas for line of sight angles of attack to minimize cover.

Whem movement and positioning become necessary in order maximize survival, while it is more active for play, it becomes a necessary component to ranged combat. This is fine for heavy pvp games where player skill is highly favored over character ability. We don't want to create too large a gap in player skill bu maintaining a sufficiently low skill floor for combat. In this case, character builds and group composition (in multiple player scenarios) are highly favored.

I'd much rather issues of performance be the result of poor player choice in power activation and not poor ability to actively use the advantage of cover, maximize opponent lack of cover, and appropriate power activation.

We are not looking to recreate a version of Tabula Rasa, but CoH with some improvements to mechanics while maintaining a similar feel to the game play. Many of professed their desire for less twitch reliant combat and have repeatedly expressed their desire to favor how their character performs rather than leaning heavily on their own skill in performing.

These concepts aren't bad things. They could lead to many interesting aspects of design even. But we have to keep within a certain design scope.

Eve introducing any form of cover mechanic is a move froward from CoH. And we are interested in testing it out. If it works well, we'll iterate looking for that delicate balance of ease of play and depth of mechanics.


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There were numerous times in

There were numerous times in CoH where in an office map that I vainly attempted to duck around the hallway corner from an incoming attack and wished fervently that it stopped the damage from being dealt to my face. Or that I could attack through walls at the risk of dealing less damage. I wouldn't mind a system being implemented that allowed these things to happen.

As someone who played melee in SWTOR (Sentinel because what's better than one lightsaber? Two lightsabers!), I wasn't a huge fan of their cover implementation. Mostly in that if the ranged class (Gunslinger/Bounty Hunter, right?) was in Cover, I couldn't Force Leap to him. I get it, balance reasons, but there's no conceptual reason why I couldn't jaunt across the room and wail on their face. Apparently the Force is utterly defeated by a mildly sturdy milk crate.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
"Why can't my laser cannon hit that guy?"
... "Because he's hiding behind a potted ficus, made of impervium?"
Be Well!
Fireheart

See also "I love being able to call in Orbital Strike on a target in caverns deep underground without collapsing the place in Star Trek Online."

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

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Forget caverns deep

Forget caverns deep underground ... I can call in an Orbital Strike in the lobby of the Star Fleet Academy building and not damage any part of the structure. I can also call in an Orbital Strike while on board space ships and not create an instant involuntary evacuation port for all the atmosphere and objects in the near vicinity. It's quite ridiculous, actually.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Once introduced, cover mechanics require a different approach to map design, applying proper proportionate amounts of cover for characters of varying height.

Trick question. Will avatars of different heights have Hitboxes of correspondingly different heights?

If no (and I'm presuming the answer is no) ... then this is a non-issue. The Cover overlay is determined by the size/shape of the Hitbox when "seen" from the emanation point of the Power, and if all (humanoid) PCs and/or NPCs use the same size of Hitbox then this becomes a non-issue since at the game mechanical level they're All The Same™ even if at the appearance/costume level they're All Different™.

If yes (and I'm still presuming the answer is no) ... then you've just handed Players the means to dictate the size of their Hitboxes based on the height of the Avatars, which is a whole OTHER can of worms that I'd recommend not get opened.

Tannim222 wrote:

It also requires creating areas for line of sight angles of attack to minimize cover.

It requires no such thing from the Environment Artist/Developer at all. Just design the environment however you want and leave it up to the Players to find Cover wherever they can ... assuming they even want to (since a lot of the time, they won't bother). There is no ... obligation ... on the part of the Environment to provide Cover ... kind of like how there isn't always a convenient "corner" everywhere you want one to be so as to do a Corner Pull via blocking Line of Sight. It's up to the Players to make intelligent decisions (or not) based on the situation they find themselves in and the resources at hand. That way, they can learn the differences of "needing" to fight both with and without Cover, based on where they choose to pick their battles (and why).

I can tell you from personal experience with playing Tabula Rasa that actually "playing the game to use Cover" was a relatively rare event, and not just because my "main" was a Spy (so basically a Scrapper/Stalker analog). There were plenty of times where even though I knew about the Cover mechanics, combat was just too fast paced/hectic for me to bother with seeking Cover to protect myself from incoming fire. A lot of the time, I'd just Crouch wherever I was at (for better Accuracy) and start shooting with my Rifle and essentially become "a pillbox out in the open" rather than diving for Cover somewhere. At other times, like Control Point Defense actions, I'd be using the structural defenses to obtain Cover to reduce the amount of damage I was taking while acting as a rifleman up on the parapets. It truly was situational.

Tannim222 wrote:

When movement and positioning become necessary in order maximize survival, while it is more active for play, it becomes a necessary component to ranged combat.

There is a distinct difference between "necessary" and "advantageous" ... with the former being mandatory and the latter being favorable but still optional. I'm a proponent of the latter, that Cover mechanics be favorable but still optional ... especially with an assumption of "it works both ways" such that both PCs and NPCs can take advantage of it (and the NPC AI is "smart" enough to seek it out and make use of it against the PCs). So I come down on the side of Cover being able to offer an "edge" to PCs and NPCs who use it, rather than insisting that its use is somehow "required" in order to be successful.

Tannim222 wrote:

We don't want to create too large a gap in player skill bu maintaining a sufficiently low skill floor for combat.

Set the skill floor too low and you've got a boring game that isn't that engaging to play and which can become monotonous to continue playing.

Tannim222 wrote:

I'd much rather issues of performance be the result of poor player choice in power activation and not poor ability to actively use the advantage of cover, maximize opponent lack of cover, and appropriate power activation.

Player choices BEFORE the battle versus Player choices DURING the battle. My perspective is that both have their place in influencing the outcome of the battle. The trick, as a designer, is to avoid lending too much weight to either one so as to prevent either one from having "veto power" over the other.

Tannim222 wrote:

We are not looking to recreate a version of Tabula Rasa

It may look like it at times that I'm advocating that, but I'm actually not. What I'm trying to do is expand the realm of the Possible ... and the only way to do that is to point at experiences of What Has Been Done Before and explain How Stuff Worked when it was done. If I don't do that, then I'm doing little more than saying "make it cool somehow!" without putting in the work needed to explain ways to achieve that. The trouble is, if you can't imagine it, you can't do anything with it, and if you can imagine it, you need to know how it can be "explained" to the computer to make it work.

Just because Tabula Rasa did certain things a particular way doesn't mean that City of Titans would have to duplicate them exactly (or should!). But if you're going to make an informed decision about whether an alternative might be profitable to pursue, you have to know what it entails and what it "does" (and the repercussions that flow from that) ... and the best way to explain that is to point to experience and show how it was done and what the results were. Otherwise, you're just making uninformed decisions based on inadequate information/sources.

For example ... Tabula Rasa used a 3x3 grid overlay to determine the Cover variable, and it was a quantity versus configuration parameter. I see no reason why City of Titans couldn't potentially simplify that into a 2x2 grid overlay onto Hitboxes if that made life easier at the programming level, thereby trading simplicity for realism. The alternative to that (of course) is the "default" 1x1 grid overlay onto Hitboxes for determining overly simplified Line of Sight. ^_~


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I believe what Tanim is

I believe what Tanim is trying to say is that it becomes necessary to make all objects in the game 'powers resistant'. That's an extra complexity needed, in order to grant cover. Moreover, it starts to imply a need for a materials scientist to decide whether that cardboard box can grant any cover from the magical mind-bullets of a given powerset.

The hit-boxes of all things might be the same size, or not. 'Visual cover' might still matter, in that you might not see that cluster of Clockworks, tinkering behind the cardboard box. Happily, they might not see You, either.

I would argue whether the realism introduced by greater complexity in combat is worth the effort necessary to incorporate it into the game. Tab targeting and no 'physical cover' mechanism means that hit-box size (for instance) is not a critical component to interaction and the Devs can focus on other aspects of the game.

I appreciate that this feature was cool in Tabula Rasa. City of Heroes managed to give us a great game without that feature.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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I said it before, but I'll

I said it before, but I'll say it again for emphasis...

IF we have ANY kind of cover mechanic AT ALL, it is a move forward from where CoH was.

One of the first rules of game design; start simple, play test, iterate.


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I don't think the cover

I don't think the cover mechanic is something that interests me for COT. Combat in COH was too fast, and as redlynne pointed out during speedy combat negated her need to find cover. So why put the effort into building a complex cover system if it is A) not in the spirit of the COH, by this I mean that it changes some of the core concepts of combat so drastically that it no longer bears much resemblance to COH. B) not something that is going to be used a lot.

Why find cover if you've got a bubbler?

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Tab targeting with any extra

Tab targeting with any extra flavor/flair you think you can fit in to make it more dynamic.

Other customization that would be nice is where you can target nearest, furthest and I can't remember if we had a boss option(I think you had to know the exact name so it was very limited). As mentioned previously, it would also be nice to have the ability to target least health(for friend or foe), most health, boss, lieutenant, minion as well. If it is only as good as CoH implementation then I'm fine with that.

Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.

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Hmm, I recall that it was

Hmm, I recall that it was possible, in the macro/keybind building language in CoH, to target a named class of opponent. Something like 'target nearest Sapper' or 'target Cyst'.

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Fireheart

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

I don't think the cover mechanic is something that interests me for COT. Combat in COH was too fast, and as redlynne pointed out during speedy combat negated her need to find cover. So why put the effort into building a complex cover system if it is A) not in the spirit of the COH, by this I mean that it changes some of the core concepts of combat so drastically that it no longer bears much resemblance to COH. B) not something that is going to be used a lot.
Why find cover if you've got a bubbler?

Indeed - like I said in my last post - I fear that a cover system will necessarily impact defense and buff powers, and thus affect Stalwarts, Guardians and all the classes that use those powers as secondaries.

Look at Champions Online as an example. Everyone effectively has "cover" in that game in the form of a block. Thus defenses and buffs are watered down, controls are pathetic and as a result the support role is reduced in importance.

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If there is no cover mechanic

If there is no cover mechanic, then I would assume that no *matter* how much of a mob I see, I will be able to attack him, even if all I can see is a small portion of their foot.

IE none of that "You cannot see the target" because the center of their target is hidden behind a chest high box

And yes, this happened to me in CoX

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

If there is no cover mechanic, then I would assume that no *matter* how much of a mob I see, I will be able to attack him, even if all I can see is a small portion of their foot.
IE none of that "You cannot see the target" because the center of their target is hidden behind a chest high box
And yes, this happened to me in CoX

This is what happens when the Line of Sight check works on a Point-to-Point basis, rather than on a Point-to-Area basis ... and if you're doing a Point-to-Area check, it really isn't all that difficult to calculate how much Area of the Hitbox is within Line of Sight (see: 3x3 Overlay discussion above). It then becomes a very simple thing to use a minimum threshold (must see 1 box of 9) to apply a boolean determinant of Line of Sight (Y/N)? or to use that numerical rather than configuration check to determine if there ought to be any throughput penalties applied due to partial/total obscurement of the Target from Line of Sight.

But if all you're doing is a Point-to-Point check for Line of Sight, then that's a case of premature optimization resulting in weird edge cases like Gangrel cites.


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This may be tangent to the

This may be tangent to the current discussion, but remember in CoX we had Telegraphed AoE's and Tab targeted attacks, right? Well, we also had different types of targeted attacks that either could or couldn't miss ("Accurate" attacks versus "no to-hit roll required" attacks I mean).

If we have telegraphed AoE in Cox, I would want the devs to have the ability to make those attacks "Accurate" in the sense that even some targets in the AoE could get missed. You could even do stuff like give all targets in that AoE equal miss chances having nothing to do with the target's defense (like Choking Cloud in CoX, which always hit 50% of targets, IIRC) and/or you could have AoE that just always hit the targets in the area, possibly up to a maximum number of targets, and/or you could have Telegraphed AoE that really do have to roll to hit each target in the area, either once or every time the AoE does damage.

I would also like it if the devs could make some powers "pointed in a direction" but not targeted, like you fire off a death ray and anything caught in the path of it takes damage (again, maybe there's a RNG chance that the target won't be affected, and maybe the death ray rolls to hit everything in it's path, etc). Essentially what I'm talking about above with AOE except the area is a very narrow "line" instead of a circle on the ground or a sphere etc.

Lastly, it might be good in a game with so much vertical travel to have volumes of effect as the usual default thing rather than areas. I remember in CoX when there was "Avoid the green stuff" effects, sometimes the green stuff was a 2-D area that ended up being drawn at like eye-level with the player such that you couldn't see it because you were looking at it edge-on.

This would give the ability to model a number of differet types of powers. For example, you might have a Fire Bomb that lands, explodes doing damage to the targets in the area, then catches SOME but not necessarily all of them on fire, at random, then the fire DoT might have a roll to hit for each pulse of damage until it misses and you put the fire out, or until you leave the AoE, or until the fire DoT runs to the maximum number of ticks of damage it can do to you.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Radiac, we are largely

Radiac, we are largely eliminiating cox-likemcombat with a bunch of effects using chance-to-occur. Most of our attack powers require a hit check, very, very few are auto-hit. One thing to keep in mind about auto-hit effects are that they are static in their result, they can't crit for example.

Volumetric effects are possible, for launch, we're sticking with cones and radial aoe.

We can create "beam" effects using narrow cones, but to make them just fire "anywhere" without a target wouldn't happen. Well, we could make it, but such a type of attack would be an outlier from any other type of attack. Everything else needs some form of destination, being a targeted ally, opponent, location, or self.


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Lastly, it might be good in a game with so much vertical travel to have volumes of effect as the usual default thing rather than areas. I remember in CoX when there was "Avoid the green stuff" effects, sometimes the green stuff was a 2-D area that ended up being drawn at like eye-level with the player such that you couldn't see it because you were looking at it edge-on.

I hope the developers put a lot of thought into this, Radiac.
Z-axis of effects could be a big deal when there are combatants that can hover.
.
.
.

And the next question after how we will implement z-axis into our AoEs and their telegraphs is: Will AoEs be cylinders or spheres?

in the above image, the gray shape is the shape we would normally see on the floor. The left version is the 'prism', the right version is the 'sphere' with the same horizontal and vertical coverage as the prism.

I can make an argument for both, but with aesthetic decoupling we should stick with one or the other.
Cylinders because it is easier for the player to 'see' who will be affected by it. Spheres because it is more realistic and is already in use by bubblers... or is it?. When I say cylinders in this argument I refer to a vertical prism with the cross sectional shape of the AoE, whatever that shape may be. Likewise when I say sphere, I am referring to a 3-dimensional shape who's cross section is consistent both vertically and horizontally. Thus you could make the same decision for wedge-shaped AoEs. The 'sphere' version of a wedge would be a 3d cone with the point at the caster, while the 'cylinder' version would be a triangle shaped prism, otherwise known as a slice of pie. ... mmm pie.

I may be getting into the weeds a little here, but it would be a rude awakening to think I was out of the area of an effect when I really wasn't, or vice versa.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Radiac, we are largely eliminiating cox-likemcombat with a bunch of effects using chance-to-occur. Most of our attack powers require a hit check, very, very few are auto-hit. One thing to keep in mind about auto-hit effects are that they are static in their result, they can't crit for example.

Does that imply that many of the attacks in CoH/V were auto-hit? I was under the impression otherwise, that many also required To Hit checks against an enemy target.

Additionally, I actually enjoyed the combat in CoH/V, so inferring that the combat isn't going to be similar (by "eliminating cox-like combat") for a game that's a spiritual successor strikes me as odd (yes, I realize that "spiritual successor" doesn't mean a copy or a clone). Also, due to a discussion in another thread about tab-targeting (which was "cox-like combat") as the preferred method by not only the playerbase but seemingly from the dev staff, the above comment is jarring.

Would it be possible to get further clarification, please?

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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Does that imply that many of the attacks in CoH/V were auto-hit? I was under the impression otherwise, that many also required To Hit checks against an enemy target.

There were enough that the Incarnate Interface slot made them brokenly powerful and the mechanics were adjusted for auto hit powers. I seriously could defeat spawns with caltrops and the Total Radial Conversion(T3) Reactive slotted, and that was without any other damage procs slotted in.

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There's a reason I've been

There's a reason I've been using the term Volume of Effect for a couple of years now instead of using the more common Area of Effect term, and it's for precisely this reason. Effects should be volumetric (meaning 3D) instead of planar (meaning 2D). If an effect is applied to a volume of space, rather than to an area of a plane, the terminology for it should be Volume of Effect (VoE) and the variation of Point Blank Volume of Effect (PBVoE) instead of the acronyms we all remember hearing/reading/typing for over a decade.

I am strongly in favor of having any telegraph shapes be volumetric in 3D over the option of having them be planar in 2D ... that way the player doesn't have to interpolate into 3D space or get close enough to the ground to make them visible (as an intercept with world geometry).


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

We can create "beam" effects using narrow cones

The big problem I have with this is that using narrow cones for column type effect-patterns will hardly ever hit those that stand just a little bit to the side in front and in melee range (or very close to you) since the full width of it will only be applied at max distance. Compare this to a proper column which has the full width at both "ends" of it.

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Was talking to Lin this

Was talking to Lin this morning and realized I ought to make a clarification about the whole 3x3 grid arrangement (which would be obvious to any programmer but not necessarily to anyone else). The first image I showed for the overlay idea was essentially this:

But the way it would work in practice at the programming level would honestly be more akin to this:

You just basically have a set of points to check in an array for Line of Sight. The way it works is still Point-to-Point, but because there's multiple target points to check (as opposed to only the One In The Center) you get a more discriminating "check" that tells you how "much" of the Line of Sight is blocked (0-9) rather than just a Y/N boolean response for a single point. That then lets you "fudge" your way to checking an area. Even if the results of that variable query/check aren't used for a Cover system, they make for a better Line of Sight check using a matrix of a 9 point check rather than just a single 1 point check while ignoring the configuration of which points are good/blocked and instead just returning an integer variable of 0-9 for how "much" of the Line of Sight is blocked. In other words, use quantity to ascertain the "quality" of the Line of Sight to Target ... which is something you can't get from a singular boolean Y/N check, since booleans don't "care" about the quality. Set a minimum threshold for how many Point-to-Point checks must simultaneously have a clear Line of Sight and you can THEN reduce down to a boolean Y/N result for whether or not you've got a "sufficiently good" Line of Sight to the Target.

Leave yourself the option (as a developer) to use different thresholds for different Powers ... meaning that some Powers require a "clearer" Line of Sight to the Target, with less obstruction/Cover permitted, than others ... and you have the makings of some interesting dynamics that can drive decision making about where YOU need to be, relative to your Target, in order to use THAT Power. That way, you can have low tier Powers have relatively low thresholds for Line of Sight (needs 1-2 "clear") while having the higher tier Powers (like "Nuke" Powers?) require relatively high thresholds for Line of Sight (needs 6+ "clear") to be usable or to have effects. That then gives you the option(s) as a Developer to introduce variations into Powersets that "speak" to the different mix of advantages and weaknesses that any particular Powerset has. It also makes it possible to introduce variables for different Archetypes to use the exact same Powersets "better or worse" than other Archetypes. For example, the Ranged Offense Primary has a reduced threshold (need 1 of 9 LoS to be "clear) versus the Ranged Offense Secondary (need 2 of 9 LoS to be "clear") versus the Ranged Offense Tertiary (need 3 of 9 LoS to be "clear") when checking the 3x3 matrix of Line of Sight. That then lends a qualitative advantage to choosing a specific Primary vs Secondary vs Tertiary, even if the effects are exactly the same across all three types.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Radiac, we are largely eliminiating cox-likemcombat with a bunch of effects using chance-to-occur. Most of our attack powers require a hit check, very, very few are auto-hit. One thing to keep in mind about auto-hit effects are that they are static in their result, they can't crit for example.

I too would like to get more clarification on how you envision CoT combat will be different from CoX. I get the feeling what you are mostly talking about is the math behind the rolls and not necessarily the feel or flow of combat?

Quote:

We can create "beam" effects using narrow cones, but to make them just fire "anywhere" without a target wouldn't happen. Well, we could make it, but such a type of attack would be an outlier from any other type of attack. Everything else needs some form of destination, being a targeted ally, opponent, location, or self.

Would it be possible to have movable Line and Cone AoEs like they have in Smite (if you're familiar with the game), only they do not fire/engage unless there is a targetable enemy in the area? Just asking because while I had no real issues with how CoX handled them, I've grown rather fond of the ability to specify exactly where the AoE lines up.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Does that imply that many of the attacks in CoH/V were auto-hit? I was under the impression otherwise, that many also required To Hit checks against an enemy target.
There were enough that the Incarnate Interface slot made them brokenly powerful and the mechanics were adjusted for auto hit powers. I seriously could defeat spawns with caltrops and the Total Radial Conversion(T3) Reactive slotted, and that was without any other damage procs slotted in.

Oh, I meant more in the context of the vanilla, non-Incarnate powers but you make a fair point.

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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
Radiac, we are largely eliminiating cox-likemcombat with a bunch of effects using chance-to-occur. Most of our attack powers require a hit check, very, very few are auto-hit. One thing to keep in mind about auto-hit effects are that they are static in their result, they can't crit for example.
Does that imply that many of the attacks in CoH/V were auto-hit? I was under the impression otherwise, that many also required To Hit checks against an enemy target.
Additionally, I actually enjoyed the combat in CoH/V, so inferring that the combat isn't going to be similar (by "eliminating cox-like combat") for a game that's a spiritual successor strikes me as odd (yes, I realize that "spiritual successor" doesn't mean a copy or a clone). Also, due to a discussion in another thread about tab-targeting (which was "cox-like combat") as the preferred method by not only the playerbase but seemingly from the dev staff, the above comment is jarring.
Would it be possible to get further clarification, please?

Interdictor wrote:

I too would like to get more clarification on how you envision CoT combat will be different from CoX. I get the feeling what you are mostly talking about is the math behind the rolls and not necessarily the feel or flow of combat?

Ok, there are two things to unpack here. First is auto-hit vs to-hit. Most powers in CoX were to-hit, with a few which were auto-hit. Auto-hit powers can't crit because no hit roll is checked. We intend to also have the majority of our powers require a hit check, with auto-hit being a rare exception.

The second thing to unpack is in CoX, many effects were binary. Either a control worked, or it didn't. Or many powers had a secondary (or more) effect with a chance to occur. We have many non-binary effects, if you hit with a control, even if the target isn't fully controlled, there are non-binary effects which still take place. Because of these non-binary effects, requiring a chance-to-occur check isn't as necessary.

Look at it this way, you have an attack that does health damage, and it can also say, stun. In CoX you might stun that target 1 our of 5 tries, and if the mag didn't surpass the protection, the stun did nothing, and the base attack still had a hit check. Meaning you could hit, and still not get the full "effect" of your power. In our system, with a similar attack, if your attack hits, even the stun portion will hit as well. However, if the target isn't fully stunned, your stun component will still affect the target in some way.

Interdictor wrote:

Quote:
We can create "beam" effects using narrow cones, but to make them just fire "anywhere" without a target wouldn't happen. Well, we could make it, but such a type of attack would be an outlier from any other type of attack. Everything else needs some form of destination, being a targeted ally, opponent, location, or self.
Would it be possible to have movable Line and Cone AoEs like they have in Smite (if you're familiar with the game), only they do not fire/engage unless there is a targetable enemy in the area? Just asking because while I had no real issues with how CoX handled them, I've grown rather fond of the ability to specify exactly where the AoE lines up.

No, such powers will require a target to trigger. Technically, we can make them, but we're typically going to require a target be it an opponent, self, ally, or location. But one of the things this thread originally was looking to see if there was interest (and apparently there is), is to allow for area-effect indications. That is, you will be able to (as an option) see the area covered by your area effect power. This will help you get that optimal angle.

blacke4dawn wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
We can create "beam" effects using narrow cones
The big problem I have with this is that using narrow cones for column type effect-patterns will hardly ever hit those that stand just a little bit to the side in front and in melee range (or very close to you) since the full width of it will only be applied at max distance. Compare this to a proper column which has the full width at both "ends" of it.

I understand the concern. Right now, if we were to make "beam" powers that can affect multiple targets in a line, this is how we would have to make them. Again, there could be an optional indicator over-lay to see where you beam is going to get that optimal line up. But, we also don't have plans for these beam-attacks (other than possible beam-looking attacks in appearance only), as a mechanic for launch. We can, if needed, build cylindrical area effects into our power designer system, later.

Who knows, by the time we get to building beam mechanics, it could (at least in theory here), be possible to select a target, start your beam attack, and then move with the beam going until the full animation time is used up allowing you to "sweep" around your target getting multiple targets in the sweep. Don't latch onto the idea, as I said, we aren't launching with any such attacks.


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The other point I was making

The other point I was making to Redlynne is that sometimes you need to have different hitboxes for targeting vs. collision detection. The "hitbox" for collision detection in CoH was a cylinder with a hemisphere on top, surrounding the extents of the character at a standstill. This hitbox is used to keep folks from clipping through each other, though animations can extend outside that and, well, sometimes you get interesting results.

For targeting, hitboxes can be smaller than the size of the player graphic. This is common in bullet-storm games, for example. There's a tradeoff to be made between complexity (having to ray trace a lot of paths and check for intersections with cover, every attack) and believability (his head's sticking up over the hedge but I can't shoot him?!).

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A problem I've had with

A problem I've had with ground-targeted AoEs is that it can be difficult to hit Flying opponents. In GW2, one can set AoEs to snap-to a selected opponent, making it easier to target a given opponent, but the 2d telegraphing graphic often disappears from view, under water, under lava, or into thin air, making it difficult to judge if you've got all of the targets you want in the area of effect.

Redlynne's argument for 3d telegraph graphics and VoE effects makes sense as a good counter to this problem, but I can just imagine the 'white out' (or whatever color) effect of a very large AoE's 3d graphic. And that could, still, not solve the non-flat-ground problem of targets in a 3d environment.

Perhaps if the 3d telegraph indicator for VoE powers were to 'highlight' all of the valid targets to be affected by a given placement?

Of course, that still doesn't address the very real problem of Range, in placing a clickable VoE in a non-planar targeting space. A mouse-pointer might indicate a line-of-sight for such a target, but not a range along that line, to designate a 3d point for the power to radiate from. It may be necessary to remove the precision placement aspect of pointer-targeted Area/Volume of Effect powers, in favor of tab-targeting or selection-targeting opponents.

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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
Radiac, we are largely eliminiating cox-likemcombat with a bunch of effects using chance-to-occur. Most of our attack powers require a hit check, very, very few are auto-hit. One thing to keep in mind about auto-hit effects are that they are static in their result, they can't crit for example.
Does that imply that many of the attacks in CoH/V were auto-hit? I was under the impression otherwise, that many also required To Hit checks against an enemy target.
Additionally, I actually enjoyed the combat in CoH/V, so inferring that the combat isn't going to be similar (by "eliminating cox-like combat") for a game that's a spiritual successor strikes me as odd (yes, I realize that "spiritual successor" doesn't mean a copy or a clone). Also, due to a discussion in another thread about tab-targeting (which was "cox-like combat") as the preferred method by not only the playerbase but seemingly from the dev staff, the above comment is jarring.
Would it be possible to get further clarification, please?

Many of Radiac's debuff anchored AoE powers, which did not do damage, only weakened the targets in various ways to soften them up for my attacks and those of others, were "no to-hit roll" powers. You just selected a target, cast "Lingering Radiation" on the target, and then the target immediately started emanating an AoE debuff effect that lowered badguy regen and some other stats. two or three of Rad's best debuffs were like that. It made it so that you could walk up to a mob, drop some debuffs on them, with full confidence that they woudn't miss anyone, then start doing damage to the largely nerfed mob. It was the only way Rad, as a Defender, could take out a whole mob of minions by himself in CoX, so I worry a litte about what playing a Defender-type toon will be like now.

As far as the sort of effects possible, let's not forget the devs may need to put in "laser beam security grid death ray" type stuff, not for US to use, but for maps to have pre-installed, etc. So I hope Tannim222 isn't suggesting that those types of effects which will be mostly not used for player attack powers would be totally not possible in the game, because you might want that as a static map feature etc on some maps. Than again, if that was on a map, you might be able to knockback badguys into it as well, which might be a thing, unless they;re impervious to it, I don't know.

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To Tannim222,

To Tannim222,
If I have an attack that is a very narrow cone with a long "length", presumably I will be able to "place" that as a "drop" using Teleghaphed AoE effects, right? Ultimately, if the placement of that really just requires me to mouse around until I get it to go away from me in the direction I want, then there is no need for a mob to target, per se, you're just placing it in the desired area, so that's sort of what I was referring to. Thats a tomato/toMAHto thing I guess.

Will the game pay any attention to the direction my toon is facing when I use powers? Like does it ever locate stuff on my 12 o'clock as a default or as the only option? It would seem like melee range AoE "very short range cone" type attacks would work like that, or maybe not, I don't know. GW2 uses the direction you're facing for various stuff. You can zoom the camera out until you're able to see the monster standing behind you, but you won't be able to target him until you turn your toon around to face such that he's in like your front 180 degree arc or some such.

Edit: And for the official record, put me down as "FOR" telegraphed AoE areas. I think those effects are a necessity for some things. If you don;t have them at all, you're going to need them, if you just wanted to keep them out of the hands of the players, I think even then that limits the powers too much in terms of what you can and can't do mechanically. Not that players would be underpowered, just that the devs wouldn't have the tools to put in as much variablility and as such some stuff either isn't possible or is really awkward. And again, I don;t THINK telegraphed AOE necessarily equates to "doesn;t miss anything in the AoE" in all cases, assuming that powers can be coded up to make "Accurate AoE" attacks possible.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

To Tannim222,
If I have an attack that is a very narrow cone with a long "length", presumably I will be able to "place" that as a "drop" using Teleghaphed AoE effects, right? Ultimately, if the placement of that really just requires me to mouse around until I get it to go away from me in the direction I want, then there is no need for a mob to target, per se, you're just placing it in the desired area, so that's sort of what I was referring to. Thats a tomato/toMAHto thing I guess.

There must always be a destination (a destination is a target) be it self, ally, opponent, or location. The description you're using seems like a location placement power, which we can do as well. But for eam attacks, most likely those will require an opponent target. For other thpe of effects, a location with a line showing the placement is possible too.

Radiac wrote:

Will the game pay any attention to the direction my toon is facing when I use powers? Like does it ever locate stuff on my 12 o'clock as a default or as the only option? It would seem like melee range AoE "very short range cone" type attacks would work like that, or maybe not, I don't know. GW2 uses the direction you're facing for various stuff. You can zoom the camera out until you're able to see the monster standing behind you, but you won't be able to target him until you turn your toon around to face such that he's in like your front 180 degree arc or some such.

You're referring to line-of-sightt (LoS). And it is something we're considering. As of this moment in prototype there is no LoS check. But there may be stuff that "breaks"'the rule, like certain super senses (a eadar or danger sense for example) might allow for such a rule breaker. Too soon to tell.


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Super senses.....ooh, I like

Super senses.....ooh, I like the sound of that.

(insert pithy comment here)

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

You're referring to line-of-sightt (LoS). And it is something we're considering. As of this moment in prototype there is no LoS check. But there may be stuff that "breaks"'the rule, like certain super senses (a eadar or danger sense for example) might allow for such a rule breaker. Too soon to tell.

I like this concept, but I wonder how it could play out.

I think it is pretty standard fare for tab-targeting MMOs that while you can target anything in your camera view, you can't actually fire off an attack at it unless your character is facing it. That's what I would propose here. Then once it is targeted, it shouldn't matter which direction your camera is facing to fire off an ability at the target, so long as your character is still facing it. (some games even have a gameplay/control toggle that automatically faces your character towards your current target and I would recommend we make that an option in CoT as well)

Where CoT can be like Emeril and kick it up a notch with some BAM! is when we consider super senses. With super senses that criteria shouldn't be limited to just targets viewable in the camera. It would have to be more than that. I would expect someone with supersenses would also get threat icons for all off-camera targets (that are detected by those same senses). These icons would show up on the edges of your screen in the direction they are from you, so that those targets behind your camera would be at the bottom and those out of sight to the left would be on the left side of your screen, etc. Those that are out of sight in the direction the camera is facing would be represented as icons on the screen in the approximate position of the target itself. Those above you would be at the top of the screen.

Kind of like this:

And you could even represent the proximity of the offscreen targets by the size of their icons or a numeric range indicator. Or just put them in as blips on the minimap. Friendlies would have a simple solid green outline around their icons, neutral NPC would have a dashed yellow outline around their icons and enemies would have a pulsing starry red outline around their icons. You could even go so far as to save the pulsing for the ones that are actually attacking or targeting you and leave the other enemy targets as just the red starry outline without any pulsing.

But just because I can hear someone sneaking up behind me doesn't mean I can shoot them accurately without actually seeing them. So supersenses would tell you there are targets outside your field of vision, but you would still need to move your camera to get them on screen before you can target them.

Okay... I'm not done yet. Let's kick it up a notch!

So lets say you augment some of your abilities to actually TARGET off-camera targets! Whoah! So now when you cycle through your targets, you can highlight those same icons that are off camera but represented along the periphery by your supersenses. And if you don't want to have to cycle through them, other targeting methods should still apply. Targeting nearest enemy, targeting enemies who are attacking your tank, targeting ally with the least health, or just plain clicking on the icon with your mousepointer, those would all apply to offscreen targets if you have both the supersenses to know where they are and the augmented ability to actually hit them.

Talk about horizontal progression! The more I think about it the more I like it.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I've asked MWM a couple times

I've asked MWM a couple times over the years whether we will have auto-turn-to-target as our old game did, and I've been told we will. Assuming that hasn't changed, I would hope it would work as it did in the old game, where you could target any mob you liked, but your character wouldn't turn towards it till you fired off an attack. If it works like the old game did, this also fits perfectly with what Tannim is saying about cones requiring a targeted enemy. The last thing I want to have to worry about in combat in CoT is manually changing my character's facing. To me, that would be a step backwards from the old game.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

I've asked MWM a couple times over the years whether we will have auto-turn-to-target as our old game did, and I've been told we will. Assuming that hasn't changed, I would hope it would work as it did in the old game, where you could target any mob you liked, but your character wouldn't turn towards it till you fired off an attack. If it works like the old game did, this also fits perfectly with what Tannim is saying about cones requiring a targeted enemy. The last thing I want to have to worry about in combat in CoT is manually changing my character's facing. To me, that would be a step backwards from the old game.

This would be my hope also. It was one of the conveniences of City that I really appreciated.

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Pyromantic wrote:
Pyromantic wrote:

Cinnder wrote:
I've asked MWM a couple times over the years whether we will have auto-turn-to-target as our old game did, and I've been told we will. Assuming that hasn't changed, I would hope it would work as it did in the old game, where you could target any mob you liked, but your character wouldn't turn towards it till you fired off an attack. If it works like the old game did, this also fits perfectly with what Tannim is saying about cones requiring a targeted enemy. The last thing I want to have to worry about in combat in CoT is manually changing my character's facing. To me, that would be a step backwards from the old game.
This would be my hope also. It was one of the conveniences of City that I really appreciated.

QFE. This is my expectation as well.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

I've asked MWM a couple times over the years whether we will have auto-turn-to-target as our old game did, and I've been told we will. Assuming that hasn't changed, I would hope it would work as it did in the old game, where you could target any mob you liked, but your character wouldn't turn towards it till you fired off an attack. If it works like the old game did, this also fits perfectly with what Tannim is saying about cones requiring a targeted enemy. The last thing I want to have to worry about in combat in CoT is manually changing my character's facing. To me, that would be a step backwards from the old game.

Yes. And it was something that, once you really learned how to use it, made the combat BOTH action-packed AND less twitchy at the same time.

Combined with good combat movement and physics, this feature led to some of the coolest looking action I've ever seen in a game.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

And it was something that, once you really learned how to use it, made the combat BOTH action-packed AND less twitchy at the same time.
Combined with good combat movement and physics, this feature led to some of the coolest looking action I've ever seen in a game.

Good point. It was cool how a simple sequence of activate power > next target > activate power > next target > activate power could result in your surrounded character attacking the enemy in front, spinning to 8 o'clock and bashing that baddie, then spinning to 3 and whacking that enemy. It's almost exactly what you see the Avengers doing in the battle against the Chitauri on multiple occasions.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

The last thing I want to have to worry about in combat in CoT is manually changing my character's facing. To me, that would be a step backwards from the old game.

And it's still standard in WoW, and extremely annoying when the enemy's position is being misreported to your machine - or is right on top of you because the collision boxes for PCs and NPCs are only for terrain, not other characters. And sometimes not even for the terrain for the NPCs... but I digress.

Cryptic kept the auto turn to target option when they made CO, and I thought it was the best thing since WoTC dumped THAC0 in D&D3E.

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

it was the best thing since WoTC dumped THAC0 in D&D3E.

I made a THAC0 reference at work the other week followed by complete and utter silence. The quiet was so profound that I literally heard myself growing older and extending the age gap between my co-workers and I. I made it funny by giving myself a grinning thumbs-up, followed by a 'ding' sound and stating, "Nerd cred plus one!" but on the inside I wept a single, glistening tear in slow motion. #OlderGamerIsOlder #KidsTheseDays #OldManCaneShake

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The second thing to unpack is in CoX, many effects were binary. Either a control worked, or it didn't. Or many powers had a secondary (or more) effect with a chance to occur. We have many non-binary effects, if you hit with a control, even if the target isn't fully controlled, there are non-binary effects which still take place. Because of these non-binary effects, requiring a chance-to-occur check isn't as necessary.
Look at it this way, you have an attack that does health damage, and it can also say, stun. In CoX you might stun that target 1 our of 5 tries, and if the mag didn't surpass the protection, the stun did nothing, and the base attack still had a hit check. Meaning you could hit, and still not get the full "effect" of your power. In our system, with a similar attack, if your attack hits, even the stun portion will hit as well. However, if the target isn't fully stunned, your stun component will still affect the target in some way.

Sounds like a Cumulative Affliction effect from M&M. Very good - I like that mechanic.

Quote:

No, such powers will require a target to trigger. Technically, we can make them, but we're typically going to require a target be it an opponent, self, ally, or location. But one of the things this thread originally was looking to see if there was interest (and apparently there is), is to allow for area-effect indications. That is, you will be able to (as an option) see the area covered by your area effect power. This will help you get that optimal angle.

Cool - yes such an indicator would help greatly.

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I know what THAC0 is but was

I know what THAC0 is but was unaware this was banished in 3rd Edition. How old and nerdy does that make me? *Glances surreptitiously at his original D&D white cardboard box on shelf*

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Thanks for the responses, and

Thanks for the responses, and I just want to reiterate a mantra I sort of have on these forums, (no not "In GW2...") which goes something like this:
The more limitations you build into the main rules, the more creative space you allow for powers, items, in-game unlocks, etc to shortcut or bypass those limits. So I'm all for having some pretty stringent LoS rules, then having various ways to overcome them, if that could be a thing.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

So I'm all for having some pretty stringent LoS rules, then having various ways to overcome them, if that could be a thing.

You mean, like an orbital cannon that strikes from above with a penetrating beam, so line of sight limitations can be bypassed? (said to underscore your point, not to be sarcastic :D)

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

I know what THAC0 is but was unaware this was banished in 3rd Edition. How old and nerdy does that make me? *Glances surreptitiously at his original D&D white cardboard box on shelf*

In a deep, dark gov't-issued bunker under the bone-bleached desert, with flickering florescent lighting and a constant drip-drip-drip down a distant, dusty hallway where herds of dust-bunnies roam the land, there's a tape reel databank flashing a strobing red light labelled 'Nerd Alert'...

3rd Edition killed off 2nd Edition AD&D and a lot of the negative value math that enough players weren't a fan of. "Why is -1 AC a good thing? The lower the number, the better? How does that make sense? How can negatives be good? They're literally called negatives."
2nd Ed. was my first D&D system, so it's near and dear to my heart, but I really liked 3rd (talk about abusable). Definitely more than 4th and (ugh) 4.5. Not sure I like 5th since I haven't had much time with it, but I hear Pathfinder is solid.

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Radiac wrote:
So I'm all for having some pretty stringent LoS rules, then having various ways to overcome them, if that could be a thing.
You mean, like an orbital cannon that strikes from above with a penetrating beam, so line of sight limitations can be bypassed? (said to underscore your point, not to be sarcastic :D)

To be honest, if you could have made Warburg nukes that only work in the outdoor areas, I think that would have an immersion-enhancer for that temp power. Then the other ones that work indoors, like the jello men, would have been comparatively better in some sense. That said, it makes like every map more complicated to design if you have to ask "can we use Warburg nukes here? If so, how does that affect the mission? Can we have a big bunched-together mob and have it be a real threat? Do we need to make it immune to the nukes for some reason?" etc.

That raises the question, can the maps have descriptors attached to them that might cause different powers to be suppressed or act differently such that your toon would, when loading the map, have to check what map you're on to see which powers are suppressed, instead of having to build in "suppresses the following powers: (list)" into each map? Indoor vs. outdoor comes to mind. Underwater vs dry land maybe. The incarnate trial maps used to suppress temp powers like nukes and jellomen, right? Would it be worth the overhead to give maps descriptive tags and then make the powers auto-suppress when on a map tagged as such?

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Radiac wrote:
So I'm all for having some pretty stringent LoS rules, then having various ways to overcome them, if that could be a thing.
You mean, like an orbital cannon that strikes from above with a penetrating beam, so line of sight limitations can be bypassed? (said to underscore your point, not to be sarcastic :D)
To be honest, if you could have made Warburg nukes that only work in the outdoor areas, I think that would have an immersion-enhancer for that temp power. Then the other ones that work indoors, like the jello men, would have been comparatively better in some sense. That said, it makes like every map more complicated to design if you have to ask "can we use Warburg nukes here? If so, how does that affect the mission? Can we have a big bunched-together mob and have it be a real threat? Do we need to make it immune to the nukes for some reason?" etc.
That raises the question, can the maps have descriptors attached to them that might cause different powers to be suppressed or act differently such that your toon would, when loading the map, have to check what map you're on to see which powers are suppressed, instead of having to build in "suppresses the following powers: (list)" into each map? Indoor vs. outdoor comes to mind. Underwater vs dry land maybe. The incarnate trial maps used to suppress temp powers like nukes and jellomen, right? Would it be worth the overhead to give maps descriptive tags and then make the powers auto-suppress when on a map tagged as such?

Far too much work for the ROI to be worth it. Mainly, again is aesthetic decoupling, it demands you think of power design differently.


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

To be honest, if you could have made Warburg nukes that only work in the outdoor areas, I think that would have an immersion-enhancer for that temp power. Then the other ones that work indoors, like the jello men, would have been comparatively better in some sense. That said, it makes like every map more complicated to design if you have to ask "can we use Warburg nukes here? If so, how does that affect the mission? Can we have a big bunched-together mob and have it be a real threat? Do we need to make it immune to the nukes for some reason?" etc.
That raises the question, can the maps have descriptors attached to them that might cause different powers to be suppressed or act differently such that your toon would, when loading the map, have to check what map you're on to see which powers are suppressed, instead of having to build in "suppresses the following powers: (list)" into each map? Indoor vs. outdoor comes to mind. Underwater vs dry land maybe. The incarnate trial maps used to suppress temp powers like nukes and jellomen, right? Would it be worth the overhead to give maps descriptive tags and then make the powers auto-suppress when on a map tagged as such?

Hmmm... with aesthetic decoupling, one person's fiend from below could be another person's orbital strike, could be another person's mental landmine. But in the spirit of "I just poo-pooed your idea, but maybe it might work if we tried this:" The only way I could see the game making that work is if certain powers had specific origination points to them, no matter what their aesthetic.

For example an orbital strike originates off the screen from above. Therefore if we want to have an orbital stike in the game, then other aesthetic options might be:

  • brimstone boulder
  • moonshards from above
  • gravity lens
  • fat toad falls
  • when the bough breaks, and
  • frozen cloud collapse

such that all these attacks come from off-screen above.

The same thing could be done with attacks from below, attacks that fill up an area, and any other AoE effect such that Line of sight and cover rules would apply commonly across the aesthetic options for that ability.

[Edit: Looks like Tannim poo-pooed it while I was still writing. oh well...]


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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Redlynne's argument for 3d telegraph graphics and VoE effects makes sense as a good counter to this problem, but I can just imagine the 'white out' (or whatever color) effect of a very large AoE's 3d graphic.

Again, depends on how it's done. Is the lighting FX for telegraphing your VoE(s) something that is purely local to your game client, or does everyone else see it too? This could easily be a setting in UI Menus.

If the telegraph is purely local (because you've chosen that setting) and the colors you've chosen for those telegraphs are "terrible" ... whose fault is that again?
If the telegraphs are team only or "anyone's" global (because you've chosen that setting) and the colors that other people have selected for telegraphs are "terrible" ... whose fault is it that you're seeing all that visual noise again?

Tannim222 wrote:

There must always be a destination (a destination is a target) be it self, ally, opponent, or location.

Which is why having a Tab-Lock system is so flexible. If you don't have a Selected Target then attack the Location at the center of your Field of View. Keeps the UI really intuitive.


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Tannim222 said that the ROI

Tannim222 said that the ROI is not worth it for the "map descriptior" idea, and I accept that as the final answer, so that's that.

Going back to the theoretical discussion on that topic, the argument that one man's orbital strike is another woman's psy-blast, I would point out that I was never talking about suppressing normal player powers there, just the temp powers the game makes unlockable. In the case of the Warburg Nukes in CoX, they were ALL "death from above" missile strike type weapons, as designed by the devs, so you could have gotten away with "DOES NOT WORK INDOORS, FOR OBVIOUS REASONS" as a disclaimer written in the fine print in the rocket manual. And if you had wanted to make them unusable in different areas due to overhead obstacles (not just indoor maps, but the underground complex in Warburg itself with the spider mutants) then how would you do that?

In GW2 there are a number of unlockable upgrades you can do for your toon, many of which only give you an advantage in ONE zone. The Exalted Mastery perks you can unlock with Mastery Points only really matter in Auric Basin, where the Exalted Sages are running around trying to defend the Lost City of Tarir from their ancient enemies, the Mordrem. GW2's version of Warburg nukes is to unlock access to stuff like Exalted Pylons (things that summon a sage to fight with you for a short time) which only exist in Auric Basin, or unlock access to Exalted vendors, which only exist in Auric Basin, etc. This is one way of limiting the proliferation of power-ups, to make them applicable in a narrowly defined subset of the game. In GW2 this tends to make every zone it's own playground complete with different baddies to fight and different powerups to collect which basically only affect that one area, for the most part. I'm not sure how much I like that concept in a superhero game, where I feel like my own powers ought to be enough. On the other hand, the hero acquiring the magic do-dad to defeat the magical baddy is not uncommon either, as a thing.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Gangrel wrote:
If there is no cover mechanic, then I would assume that no *matter* how much of a mob I see, I will be able to attack him, even if all I can see is a small portion of their foot.
IE none of that "You cannot see the target" because the center of their target is hidden behind a chest high box
And yes, this happened to me in CoX
This is what happens when the Line of Sight check works on a Point-to-Point basis, rather than on a Point-to-Area basis ... and if you're doing a Point-to-Area check, it really isn't all that difficult to calculate how much Area of the Hitbox is within Line of Sight (see: 3x3 Overlay discussion above). It then becomes a very simple thing to use a minimum threshold (must see 1 box of 9) to apply a boolean determinant of Line of Sight (Y/N)? or to use that numerical rather than configuration check to determine if there ought to be any throughput penalties applied due to partial/total obscurement of the Target from Line of Sight.
But if all you're doing is a Point-to-Point check for Line of Sight, then that's a case of premature optimization resulting in weird edge cases like Gangrel cites.

Oh, the other thing that bugs me with some games...

From one camera angle, I am able to attack a mob, but if i turn the camera around (not the character) to an angle, then I am *unable* to attack said mob.... even though all that has changed is the camera Point Of View.....

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

From one camera angle, I am able to attack a mob, but if i turn the camera around (not the character) to an angle, then I am *unable* to attack said mob.... even though all that has changed is the camera Point Of View.....

Are those games MMOs? Because that sounds like they're relying on client data (painter's algorithm results) that an MMO in general shouldn't trust.

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Gangrel wrote:
From one camera angle, I am able to attack a mob, but if i turn the camera around (not the character) to an angle, then I am *unable* to attack said mob.... even though all that has changed is the camera Point Of View.....
Are those games MMOs? Because that sounds like they're relying on client data (painter's algorithm results) that an MMO in general shouldn't trust.

it's actually fairly common among shooters, and sometimes used by other games. Warframe is a good example, as it uses both types for different weapons

In first or third person shooters, there's two types of weapons that are usable by players; Projectile, and Hitscan. Projectile is what you'd expect - it fires out a physical projectile that can be stopped by barriers in the environment before attempting to strike the target. Bows, rockets, launched grenades, lobbed fireballs, that sort of thing. The big thing here is that they have travel time, and are capable of being stopped by obstructions in the environment.

The other type, Hitscan, is a completely different beast. Ostensibly they work the same (you aim and shoot, you might hit cover, you might hit the enemy) but they work differently from projectile shots in a few ways. The first is that they instantaneously hit the target - projectile weapons can feel fast enough to be instantaneous, but they aren't, not really. The second way is that Hitscan weapons hit where the reticle is targeted, not where the gun is aimed. This is extremely important, as it means that if your reticle is in the middle of the screen but your character is off to the side, you can have your face smashed against cover and still be capable of hitting your target, since the reticle is around the corner (even if you aren't), and it only scans what the reticle is looking at to determine what you hit.

These are largely only a concern in action combat games, shooters, and other games that have cover mechanics. In numbers based games such as CoH, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, and similar titles where there's no cover system, the difference between these shot types is largely moot, so long as you're not actively pulling mobs of enemies from around corners.

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I can believe that. But those

I can believe that. But those games generally don't demand a developer-controlled server and assume all clients are more or less untrustworthy, so they can offload those computations to the client for expedience and load reduction.

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I guess when it comes down to

I guess when it comes down to it, the real question is, what can MMM afford to do? Seems the most viable option would be tab targeting, which I'm perfectly fine with so long as the combat is more fluid than classic coh/cov, where you don't have to stop for 1-3 seconds to perform an animation. Having cast times on things is fine, it was just annoying to have to stop every single time, it's what put most people off from the game.

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I would like tab/click, or

I would like tab/click, or possibly a hybrid. I just hope the animations have weight to them. About to make a question post about that and what I mean.

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In this post, we talked about

In this post, we talked about the mechanics of combats but, what about how foes' strength is adjust with the players' powerfull ? Do their resistance or level are adjust regarding the craft enhancement of the the players ? Imagine a Boss in a mission which seems to be strong but the player has so a good enhancement on its powers that the boss is not more than a fly on the table ? :)


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TitansCity wrote:
TitansCity wrote:

In this post, we talked about the mechanics of combats but, what about how foes' strength is adjust with the players' powerfull ? Do their resistance or level are adjust regarding the craft enhancement of the the players ? Imagine a Boss in a mission which seems to be strong but the player has so a good enhancement on its powers that the boss is not more than a fly on the table ? :)

I don't think MWM should ever automatically adjust for slotted enhancements since then what would be the point to have them in the first place if it doesn't get easier the better quality enhancement you have? I think a better method would to expect a minim level of "power enhancement" the higher the character level is so that the gap between the expected level and max possible decreases over time, thus decreasing the potential for becoming "overpowered" in this regard.

The manual "difficulty adjustments" to level and min group size of enemies are good enough imo.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

I think a better method would to expect a minim level of "power enhancement" the higher the character level is so that the gap between the expected level and max possible decreases over time, thus decreasing the potential for becoming "overpowered" in this regard.

I didn't thought about this method. Indeed, it could prevent players from being overpowered. That was my fear ^^ Going to beat to easily a great and dangerous boss. No pain no gain as they said ^^ I hope retreiving this in the figths in CoT ^^ 5bosses mecanisms with mementum is also a nice idea to prevent plyares from having the same and same and same mecanism over the time)


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TitansCity wrote:
TitansCity wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:
I think a better method would to expect a minim level of "power enhancement" the higher the character level is so that the gap between the expected level and max possible decreases over time, thus decreasing the potential for becoming "overpowered" in this regard.

I didn't thought about this method. Indeed, it could prevent players from being overpowered. That was my fear ^^ Going to beat to easily a great and dangerous boss. No pain no gain as they said ^^ I hope retreiving this in the figths in CoT ^^ 5bosses mecanisms with mementum is also a nice idea to prevent plyares from having the same and same and same mecanism over the time)

Well, for one, if the player can even take a typical build and lower their difficulty, they can overcome a challenge easier. It is the same if a player has earned the ability to activate a power to suddenly make them more powerful, or if they were able to obtain the augments to improve their build.

Then, if a player has improved their character and decided they want a challenge, they can choose to increase their difficulty.

But this is the player's choice rather than the game making such decisions for them.


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TitansCity wrote:
TitansCity wrote:

what about how foes' strength is adjust with the players' powerfull ?

There have been a few threads about that back in 2014, and there's a thread from earlier this year, too.

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Thanks for that :)

Thanks for that :)


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Not sure if it's too late to

Not sure if it's too late to comment on this but personally I'd be fine with GW2 style combat where you mostly have a mix of tab targeting for single player powers and reticle targeting for AoEs. What is a mandatory feature for me is that you can move while casting unless the power specifically requires you to stay stationary because of channeling and some such. If the powers primarily root you I won't even consider playing the game as that's a dealbreaker for me. That style of combat belongs to ancient history. I also prefer reactionary combat where powers have clearly defined roles and logical attack chains such as:

Opener is a power that is unwieldy to use other than opening the combat. For CoH these would be largely stuns, immobilizes, sleeps, fears, confusions or holds with long recharges but could be similar to CoH Lightning rod which has a long cast time. I don't like the fact that in CoH you could permanently lock a large number of enemies. These should have only duration long enough to allow you to hit with extra attack or two or then reduce the enemy effectiveness (i.e. fear, confusion and immobilize all allowed partial attacks). Also skills that debuff enemy resists and defenses would be openers. I'd rather have these usable only once per combat.

Interrupts and counters are skills that you would use to interrupt enemy charge attacks or simply mitigate majority of the effect. They are like CO block but they could also include spike stuns. Just enough to make enemy waste their power. A counter could even have negative effects on the attacker such as hitting them with damage or stun effect if you succesfully block their attack. These are probably the tactical powers I like most and can be easily adjusted to combat speed.

Charged and channeled powers are nice for heavy attacks (i.e. nova) or powers that ramp up (i.e. fire breath). If charged power functions like in CO in that you can either tap or charge the power I don't think damage should ramp significantly. Instead of that charging should give versatility by adding secondary effects to the power making it more flexible. For channeled powers the power ramp up is more obvious with the interrupt potential being the downside. After all why use a channeled power if it doesn't give you more bang for the buck than using instant power. Note that I don't necessarily mean you have to hold the key to execute these powers but that while charging or channeling you can't use any other powers. However it would be nice if you could mod the power for channeling/charging effects that go beyond "shorter interrupt time" i.e. while charging nova you are pulsing DoT or even projecting burst of KB force.

Ablative barriers are also something I'd like to see in game whether they are AoE placed walls/bubbles or shells around player. I personally like much more the idea of wrapping someone in a force bubble that has HP and can be worn down by attacks instead of having a fixed duration. Same deal with ground placed force walls and bubbles. If not force then certainly walls of ice and such. Hell I sort of hope that mez effects have hp and can be broken by "attacking" it.

Fire and Forget is the standard fare of powers. These are your bread and butter attacks. However there's something I'm hoping that would greatly improve my combat experience which is allowing chaining powers behind a single key. For example in CoH I'd always run the flares, fire blast, blazes chain which ate three key slots from my keyboard meaning I had to make awkward alt+1 combinations so I could easily reach all powers without mouse. This played havoc on my hands and was a massive pain in the butt. Allowing me to chain those behind a single key would be a massive improvement. i.e tap once for flares, tap twice for fire blast, tap thrice for blazes (or more likely fireball).

All these adjust to various combat speeds but personally I prefer a bit faster combat than in CoH including faster enemy attacks. CoH recharges were abysmally long. Especially when it came to enemy attacks. Combine this with poor enemy AI and really the only attack enemies got off was their initial salvo - assuming they weren't dead by then. If enemies are expected to last less than 10 seconds then make sure they have sufficient attack chain to pull within that timeframe. If they are meant to last a minute make sure they are able to pull attacks within same timerframe as players so it doesn't feel like they spend most of the combat as glorified pinatas.

I also hate waiting basic attacks to recharge (i.e. the ones that form your chain). I don't need a button smashers where you have to hit the key dozen times a second but forcing a gap past 2-3s is damn long time to wait for powers and makes the combat feel jerky. Please make your basic attacks with animation length delay only!

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Northie wrote:
Northie wrote:

Fire and Forget is the standard fare of powers. These are your bread and butter attacks. However there's something I'm hoping that would greatly improve my combat experience which is allowing chaining powers behind a single key. For example in CoH I'd always run the flares, fire blast, blazes chain which ate three key slots from my keyboard meaning I had to make awkward alt+1 combinations so I could easily reach all powers without mouse. This played havoc on my hands and was a massive pain in the butt. Allowing me to chain those behind a single key would be a massive improvement. i.e tap once for flares, tap twice for fire blast, tap thrice for blazes (or more likely fireball).

Isn't this something that can be done with a macro? If you have three powers listed in a macro, the first power listed activates when you press it. Then if you press the macro again while the first power is in cooldown, the second power will activate, and if you press it a third time while the first two powers are in cooldown, the third power will activate. You just can't write a macro where more than one power activates with a single press of the button.

Is this how macros will work in CoT?

Northie wrote:

I also hate waiting basic attacks to recharge (i.e. the ones that form your chain). I don't need a button smashers where you have to hit the key dozen times a second but forcing a gap past 2-3s is damn long time to wait for powers and makes the combat feel jerky. Please make your basic attacks with animation length delay only!

Without enhancements, the basic swipe for a scrapper had a recharge of 3-4 seconds. I tend to agree with Northie that our basic attack should have almost no recharge delay, but the damage should be adjusted accordingly to keep the same damage per second.

I know that when we get more powers to activate at higher levels the long recharges became a non-issue, because there was either almost always another power to activate or our energy was drained. However, I tend to think that choosing not to use my basic attack should be a decision I make based upon the situation I am in rather than because it is in cooldown.


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One thing GW2 has that I don

One thing GW2 has that I don't think CoX had any of are triggered things like "Gain 3 Staccks of Might when you defeat an opponent" and "Recover stamina when you switch to this weapon in combat" and "50% chance to pop a lightning bolt when you score a crit" etc. I'd like that.

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We can use a defeated enemy

We can use a defeated enemy and crits to trigger effects. Weapon switching, not so much as that is an aesthetic for us.

Our basic attacks, that is, basic melee and ranged attakcs are the starter powers every gets.

Even if you had no other attacks at level 1, you won't be waiting long to use your basic attack powers. Set powers is where you begin yo see cool down time coming into play, depending on the set's speed. I've intentionally added effects to the early powers to make them worthwhile even at later levels, if the player chooses. It should also be noted that many of these early powers offer higher damage-per-activation which makes them useful if you build for an effecient attack chain.

We can make barriers with their own hit points like walls or bubbles. We can also make barriers that partially take damage sharing it with the protected target.

We are not doing charged or channeled powers. The rapid-button fire was deemed too twitchy and has not supported by our mechanics - particularly Momentum. And press-and-hold effects can't work with our power activation system.

We do have a version of an effect that can allow a player to "charge up" a power that doesn't rely on wither of the above methods.

We don't have active block mechanics, nor as I said, charge powers where specific interrupt effects are needed.

We will have contriol effects which can be used as openers as well as other powers like lunge-attacks either to a target or location, as well as target-pull attacks.


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We can use a defeated enemy

We can use a defeated enemy and crits to trigger effects. Weapon switching, not so much as that is an aesthetic for us.

Our basic attacks, that is, basic melee and ranged attakcs are the starter powers every gets.

Even if you had no other attacks at level 1, you won't be waiting long to use your basic attack powers. Set powers is where you begin yo see cool down time coming into play, depending on the set's speed. I've intentionally added effects to the early powers to make them worthwhile even at later levels, if the player chooses. It should also be noted that many of these early powers offer higher damage-per-activation which makes them useful if you build for an effecient attack chain.

We can make barriers with their own hit points like walls or bubbles. We can also make barriers that partially take damage sharing it with the protected target.

We are not doing charged or channeled powers. The rapid-button fire was deemed too twitchy and has not supported by our mechanics - particularly Momentum. And press-and-hold effects can't work with our power activation system.

We do have a version of an effect that can allow a player to "charge up" a power that doesn't rely on either of the above methods.

We don't have active block mechanics, nor as I said, charge powers where specific interrupt effects are needed.

We will have contriol effects which can be used as openers as well as other powers like lunge-attacks either to a target or location, as well as target-pull attacks.


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All that is so good it's

All that is so good it's worth reading more than once! :-)

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Agreed, those sound like

Agreed, those sound like pleasing combat mechanics to me.

whiteperegrine
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I would prefer tab targeting.

I would prefer tab targeting...plus keeping it simple allows for a larger player base as the "skill" required is kept to a minimum. additionally it keeps the game viable for those with physical limitations. once you start trying to up the ante regarding how combat works you start carving out potential players for various reasons. if the game "looks" dynamic and the story is good people will play it as coh demonstrated quite well, imo.

Doctor Tyche
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whiteperegrine wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

I would prefer tab targeting...plus keeping it simple allows for a larger player base as the "skill" required is kept to a minimum. additionally it keeps the game viable for those with physical limitations. once you start trying to up the ante regarding how combat works you start carving out potential players for various reasons. if the game "looks" dynamic and the story is good people will play it as coh demonstrated quite well, imo.

You can see the results of this discussion in the twitch video from earlier this month.

Technical Director

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Empyrean
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whiteperegrine wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

if the game "looks" dynamic and the story is good people will play it as coh demonstrated quite well, imo.

Agreed. If the combat animations look and feel dynamic and actiony, combat doesn't need to be twitchy to be fun and exciting.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

Trenggiling
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I will be happy as long as we

I will be happy as long as we have basic attacks tied to the left mouse button, that can be used even when you don't have a target.

Am I the only one who thinks humans are freaky looking?

Cobalt Azurean
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Trenggiling wrote:
Trenggiling wrote:

I will be happy as long as we have basic attacks tied to the left mouse button, that can be used even when you don't have a target.

I, on the other hand, prefer to have the option to map my attacks to whatever keys/mouse buttons that I want.

Brand X
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Trenggiling wrote:
Trenggiling wrote:

I will be happy as long as we have basic attacks tied to the left mouse button, that can be used even when you don't have a target.

We didn't have that in CoH, so is that going to be one of the ideas to put into CoT?

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