Will we be able to follow targets to stay with moving targets during combat, or will that be a challenge left to the player to solve? "Sticking to a target" has always been my preference. I'm getting too old for quick adjustments on the fly. (I'm looking at you CO and TERA!)
—
City of Heroes / City of Villains player until the end.
If you're talking about "tab targeting" where you stay locked on a single target until it's dead or you manually switch/click to another target then I'm pretty sure that's what we're going to have in CoT. This game will not be like a FPS where you have to keep your aiming reticle physically pointed at a target (as if you're having to aim a gun at it).
P.S. I'm not sure about TERA (never played it) but I was reasonably sure CO was tab-target oriented as well. Maybe I've misunderstood your basic question here. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If you're referring to pressing a key to auto-follow a target to, say, keep them in melee range, I don't recall if they've ever said.
However, since it was a nice feature in CoH, there's every reason to expect it to be included.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Yeah that might be what Drone Keeper was referring to. I don't believe I ever used the follow feature in CoH to follow an "enemy" target but I guess that was possible. I only ever used it to make things like Group Fly [i]actually[/i] work with "friendly" targets (long story omitted). Anyway since I never used it for "combat" purposes I didn't really guess that's what Drone Keeper might have been talking about.
Because CoH offered such a feature I'd assume that CoT would also have some kind of "follow" capability like that.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I was always wary of "follow" in case the foe runs away into some nonsense I don't wanna deal with :p Also, I feel more engaged with manual movement.
However, there definitely should be a follow function for any NPC.
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Not sure why you're looking at CO; I usually used that feature quite a bit with my melee characters to keep moving towards the target. Unless they've removed that feature since I last played...
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I wouldn't mind a Follow feature, but I wouldn't be heartbroken without it either.
TBH many people used that feature in CoH to set up buff bots to follow their main characters around. Just for the sake of "minimizing" the impact of farming the CoT Devs might decide that such a follow feature is a little too conducive to gold farming and decide against it just for that. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I've used Autofollow on both PC and NPCs. It's very useful, as long as you stay alert and ready to break-off if the target is about to troll you through the piranha tank. One of the few things I liked about WoW was the 'intelligent' following routine, which prevented you from getting hung up on bushes and corners and things.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I hope they do not include the follow-another-character feature. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is how conducive it is to "farmers." While I'm sure multi-boxing will be an approved playstyle, I don't think we need to encourage farmers to take advantage of it.
Other reasons include:
[list][*]Different travel powers take different paths, and could cause some characters to path into unintended areas.
[*]And while we're talking about pathing, it is the number one reason why pet classes are the hardest to incorpiorate and one of the primary reasons MWM said the Commander is not included on launch day. Pets are easier to path because if they get stuck, they can just get recalled or respawned on the chatacter. You can't do that with a player's character.
[*]Player characters should be encouraged to communicate with each other to discuss where to go and how to get there
[*]Player Characters should be encouraged to explore and enjoy the city as they move through it
[*]Players should take advantage of positive control of their character to become better/more talented/and more able to think critically about the various travel powers[/list]
Among others
[hr]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.
I'm not worried about farmers. Every account has to be paid for, so the game will survive. Every reward is only virtual, except for the reward of enjoying a good game, so farmers shouldn't be taking anything from us. Farmers will farm, regardless, so why deny ourselves a good feature, just because the Farmers might use it?
Be Well!
Fireheart
In terms of people following and 'multi-boxing' for farm purposes, I generally don't see much issue with it for PVE purposes. There are people in WoW with 5 accounts, where 4 characters follow the 'lead' and ability key presses activate abilities from all 5 characters. If someone wants to do that to beat Mythic+, I have no issues.
The issues I have mostly arise in PVP situations. A bot following you to not be flagged AFK and get pvp currency. A multiboxer wrecking havoc in uncoordinated pvp battlegrounds.
CoT won't have the same instanced small scale pvp, but will have the open world pvp phase.
I think a follow feature is fine when not exploited, so I'd propose 2 things. 1) Disable follow in the PVP phase. 2) A toggle option that disallows others to follow you for everywhere else. That way no one can just follow and feed off of you unless you expressly allow it.
I disagree that that is a good enough reason to not have the feature...not that you're saying that's a good enough reason...just my opinion. If someone wants to pay for 2 accounts because they like playing solo and have their secondary follow them with auto-heals or buffs on that won't hurt anyone else's enjoyment of the game. Of course, nearly everything can be used to grief in some way...so something would need to be done to keep this from getting in pvp and even on teams there should be a way to mitigate if its used to grief.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
To be clear you are right: I'm saying the potential to use the follow feature for farming is NOT a good enough reason to prevent it from being in CoT. I'm simply suggesting the MWM Devs might decide it is regardless of what we the players think. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Except that the follow feature [b]did exist[/b] in CoH for 8.5 years and apparently did not single-handedly destroy the game. There's that at least...
P.S. BTW it's the Commander (i.e. Mastermind) that's not being included on launch day. The Operator (i.e. Controller) will be in the game due to their pets being their "top tier" power that will be temporarily unusable due to the launch day level cap. Clever how that turned out. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
We are allowing multi-boxing. As for follow I'm advocating for it. It was pretty vital for my CoH scrapper. I usually played solo and definitely not multi-boxed.
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[color=#FF0000]Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.[/color]
IMO that is the right answer. The benefit of those people paying for multiple accounts out weighs whatever cons there might be...especially in the crucial first year or two of the game's life.
And really...I would be VERY surprised if CoT has any level of 'gold farming' that would have any noticeable impact on the game. I don't see CoT having a player base large enough to attract many of them. Was gold farming/spamming even in CoH?
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
CoH did have a lot of bloated prices at Wentworth's/Black Market from INF farmers/sellers, but there are ways to combat that without stripping the follow function from the game.
I'm afraid the answer is a clear yes. They even had to update a few reporting tools in response to the spam.
Ironically Dark Cleric might not have noticed it in CoH based on how well the CoH Devs responded to the problem. ;)
For what it's worth I wouldn't have even mentioned the idea of the potential farming abuse in relation to this follow feature if it wasn't "a thing" in CoH. Hopefully MWM will already have the anti-spam features in place based on the obvious "lessons learned" from CoH.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
What about an option to automatically follow targets after triggering a melee range power on a target? At least until the power finishes?
This is a behavior that could be toggled via settings (and even specified for each power individually).
Players seeking more action oriented gameplay might be at home with full freedom of movement and not mind being required to handle positioning and movement themselves, while players looking for a more relaxed and low key experience might really enjoy having the game move them into range if they press the "punch baddy" button instead of standing one foot outside range doing nothing.
It's been a while (obviously) but didn't CoH work on the premise that in order for a melee power to "work" you only had to be within range of the target the instant you pressed the button? For instance let's say you had a melee power that had a 0.5 second animation sequence. If you were in range and managed to successfully attack something your attack would still "complete" even if by the END of the 0.5 seconds your target had technically moved out of range. I guess what I'm asking here is whether there's even going to be a NEED for any kind of auto-follow functionality built into powers?
I'm not an "anti-follow" person here. I think I've made it clear a follow feature would be desirable in CoT. I'm just not sure we need to have melee powers with options for "automatic following". Following a specific target should be something you have to [b]manually establish[/b] as a combat tactic, not something that will basically let you do melee attacks on a sort of auto-pilot.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Multiboxing is a thing many of us want, so that type of following should make it in, definitely.
That is, pick a target and then activate the function.
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Lothic, yeah, I remember CoH working that way too. It definitely helped make CoH require less attention and reflexes and allow for relaxed gameplay. I've just seen plenty of posts around here about people being adamantly against requiring any sort of reflexes or aim so I figured going a little more in that direction (as an optional choice!) would be welcome.
It isn't just about relaxing or being distracted, a feature like that would be helpful in more chaotic environments.
As an example, of the many (many many) features I loved that CoX brought to the genre was target-of-target and smart targeting of abilities. You could target your team's tank and press an attack, and it would shoot the baddie the tank was beating up. You could target the boss and heal, and it would heal whoever the boss was beating on. Of course, this worked much better for ranged abilities! For it to work for melee, you had to already be standing in the right place. One of the main benefits of this kind of targeting is being able to pick out the right target in a crazy cluster of action.
One could argue that having situations where players can't understand what is going on is a design problem in itself, and sure, that is a good point, but kind of another discussion.
It isn't the most important feature. It is more of a quality of life and polish thing that only some players would care about. It would be simple enough if a follow feature is already done though.
I honestly assumed this would be in the game since devs already talked about having a soft lock targeting option based on experience with other games that let you lock on targets. Many combat focused games with target locking automatically move the player character in range, aid the player in facing the locked target so they can circle around it, change directional movement input to be focused relative to that target, or do other things to assist the player in reaching that ultimate goal of "drive me over there so I can punch that guy".
And now I can only think of this:
https://imgur.com/gallery/PzlsQC3
Edit: the more I think about this, the more I think it would be really fun to take it a step further and allow full on "action game lock on" as an option so that players could circle around baddies and move out of area effects. Or perhaps not, if the game doesn't have a lot of block and dodge type options available to the player. That might be better suited to a more action focused game. I'd love to play that game too. I remember MWM talking about having ideas for that sort of thing and saying that it was something they'd love to do as a different game. Here's hoping they knock CoT out of the park and have the option to pursue all those neat ideas too.
Yeah I have no problem with all the manual targetting options CoH provided (i.e. clicking a friendly Tank to target his/her target). I just get a little "iffy" about features that would [i]automatically[/i] move me around a combat zone.
Again I have absolutely no problem with a follow feature that would require you to manually (tactically) set yourself to follow a specific target. But when you start allowing the game move you forward/around automagically I could see where it might actually "drag" you to spots you'd rather not move to and getting killed because of it.
I guess I'm just saying you'd really have to be mindful of what you're doing if you let the game move you around instead of you being in full control 100% control of your physical position.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Regardless of what "tools" are in the game farmers will find the most efficient way to utilize them. I'm getting the feeling that MWM will rather use "loot per hour" to "control" them rather than the exact "tools", and I think that is a better way to do it than going for specific "tools" since farmers will take advantage of almost everything the game has to offer.
Don't really see this as a reason to not have auto-follow. if the one followed doesn't take the followers travel power into consideration then it's a user error, not a "tool error".
What says that auto-follow has to get the follower to exact same place as the followed? Most I've experienced would just drop auto-follow once the distance became too long between follower and followed. Don't see this as an argument against auto-follow since, again, it's primarily user error.
IME from the old CoH with the map marker, compass, and the occasional "anyone got TP?" there wasn't much (if any at all) discussion on where to go, and certainly not on how to get there. At most I saw the occasional "anyone know the way" and someone took the lead with some following, regardless of if auto or manual. Though maybe I just didn't play on those kinds of maps where actual discussion was needed. However, still don't see how this would be an argument against auto-follow in general.
How is this even relevant to encouraging exploration since those who don't want to explore won't magically start doing it if they can't put on auto-follow. If you mean they will have someone else "towing" them around to get badges and such then it's much more likely they will just use map overlays or websites with the relevant info to get to the "needed" parts directly without any real exploration.
How would auto-follow prevent or significantly reduce that?
It's sounds almost like you think that just because auto-follow exists the majority of players will have it on for the majority of the time they play. That is just not my experience when playing MMO's with that feature even if we only take the time when in a group into account.
I'd use follow on my characters primarily for 2 reasons. First to quickly find and get to a teammate I saw in trouble judging from the team UI turning all ugly red/yellow:). Target them off the team list then hit follow particularly on my scrappers to get there without trying to see what was going on through all the foes and effects. And likewise to help keep track of a mobile foe often again because all the fx making it hard to keep them in sight.
I learned caution when as a neophyte I put the team leader on follow for a Hollows mission (back in i4) and they jumped a rock outcrop and I ... followed him over into Grendel's Gulch on my level 6 claws/SR. I don't think I actually reached the ground alive (it happened very quickly) but got picked off mid-jump by a boulder from one of the much higher level baddies living down there. O.o goodness that was 15 years ago or so.
I hope there will be a good "Follow" feature in CoT. It's not something I used often in CoH, but I was certainly glad it existed. I mostly solo'd, and in that capacity, I would use "Follow" in several different ways.
Most of the time I played, I had more than one account, and I would occasionally use a toon from a secondary account for some of those unavoidable "click two glowies at once missions," when I didn't want to have to recruit somebody to team up for 30 seconds. It was way easier to deal with that if I could just set the spare character on "follow", until I got them in position.
Every once in a great while, it was useful in team situations. If memory serves, I used it with my bubble defender pretty regularly to find teammates in the middle of a mad scramble, or if the party got split into two groups temporarily. Target them and Follow, and click the bubble refresh... the power would activate as soon as I re-established line of sight. Not a critical thing, but handy.
Then there were some NPCs that would just go insane, and pretty much the only way to stay with them, or track them down again was to Follow them. Fusionette was like that, if memory serves, and there were others. "Lady Jane?"... I may have her name wrong "Lady Grey?" I remember she was brutally hard to keep alive unless you followed her, or did some other voodoo like sneaking past her at the entrance to the mission, and clearing the whole map first, then rescuing her.
As for farming, I don't think it matters much. People will farm if they feel like it, and use whatever tools are available. I don't think Follow is likely to be a game-breaking feature in that sense.
I did some farming of purples in CoH from time to time, and I never multi-boxed to do it. Even with Follow, I figured dealing with that second character was simply more trouble than it was worth. And since you could crank up the difficulty to give yourself optimum mob numbers and levels anyway, for whatever you were trying to farm, a second character wasn't really much benefit. A good farming character simply didn't need a heal-bot.
Honestly I can't think of any good reason not to include an auto follow feature. It can be invaluable in getting the laundry folded during a long commute... Seriously, if a players travel method doesn't support following the other players travel method well that's a risk they take. I know I made more than a couple quick trips to get something and found myself dead from auto-follow running me into something that I couldn't get through intact.
I'm not sure that it wasn't possible to relocate (respawn/recall) a player character from one place to another. As I recall there was a command line feature to get "unstuck" when a player couldn't seem to move from some sort of map trap. So I don't see why such a feature couldn't be automated for following another player if the distance between was greater than some arbitrary distance (end of a zone/whatever.) However, I can see this being a bad idea as an exploit to avoid some areas you know you won't get through alive. Still for two "flyers" I see no reason why a nook or cranny on a building should be a reason to keep such a feature from being used. It's not like you would normally just stay flying into a corner of some sort while traveling across a city block. I don't know how hard it would be to manage all the possible exploits but I just don't see them being offensive enough to not have the feature. Someone gets stuck in a pocket trying to auto-follow, well that's a risk of the mechanism. If I know up front I'm okay with this.
And if it breaks immersion for a player well just don't use the feature. Personally, I didn't use the feature for the first couple years it was available. I wanted to experience the whole environment but after I had seen most of the maps nearly entirely I started using it more often. I imagine most players will be like-minded in this respect. Regardless, I don't see a good reason to hold a player back from playing the way they want so long as it doesn't grief other players.
Frankly, more than anything this is a QOL feature. It's just handy from time to time when you're in a pinch in RL while playing. At least, for me that was it's real value. Long live auto-follow!
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
@Blacke4dawn, I think your understanding of follow is completely different than my understanding of follow. I am assuming that "follow" takes over the movement of your character so you can AFK while your character follows and does go to the exact location (or adjacent to at least) of the followed character. I think this difference in our understanding addresses most of your play-by-play of my post.
As far as using "follow" to merely mark another character and point to it on your minimap? Yeah, I'm all for that functionality.
[hr]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.
Auto-follow was a very useful tool for my Tankers, as I would charge the enemy spawn, jump over their heads and Follow. This dropped me right into the mix and generally turned the crowd to face me, instead of the team traveling behind my Tanker. Also, with tab-target, auto-follow, and auto-attack, I could get in the face of every mob in the spawn, so as to provoke the snot out of all of them and keep them focussed on the Tanker. That kept them Off the 'squishies'.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Not, that is what I mean when I say auto-follow. Or rather a non-intelligent version of it in that that it doesn't actively jump over nor goes around obstacles. It tries to make a straight line towards the target regardless of if running, flying, swimming, or what ever else "travel mode" the character is currently in. If a player would need (and I mean really need, not just make it more efficient) to strafe/turn and/or jump to continue moving then the auto-follow would get stuck and after some time disengage due to distance to target.
To reiterate and/or add onto what I said before:
Farmers: Someone still has to be active and "leading", and in most cases it's much more efficient for them if all are active.
Travel path/mode: It's not always good to "protect" a player from their own stupidity/laziness.
Pathing: As far as I know we aren't talking about an AI powered auto-follow, just a regular dumb one.
Communication: Hardly saw any during my time in CoH so seriously doubt it will be that big a problem.
Exploration: Datamining sites will have a much bigger impact on this than auto-follow will.
Proficiency(?): Seriously doubt the vast majority will use auto-follow to such a degree that they won't be able to use it beyond the "basics".
Why don't you try and explain in greater detail why you think auto-follow will actually have that big an impact on the areas you have outlined that it makes it better to not include it in the first place. I just don't see the concerns you are seeing.
Thinking about it more what it begins to sounds like that you might be thinking about is auto-pathing, and not auto-follow. That is going from point A to point B using one or more intermediary waypoints, that is not what we are talking about.
I'm not sure there's a difference. Especially if two different characters have two different travel powers. Auto-follow is just auto-pathing to a moving target.
At the more local level, that is to say movement without travel powers at standard forward movement speed, it is not nearly as much of an issue. Although we still have obstacles to contend with and mobs to aggro. Like I said, pathing with pets is and has always been the biggest challenge associated with their inclusion. But I don't want this to be about technical challenges since I have always tried to maintain that these forums should be about expressing what we want to see in the game and how we can realize those desires rather than poo-pooing someone's idea because it might be hard to do.
To that end, I support people stating they want auto-follow mode in this game, and they can state the reasons why they want it. I don't want it. I don't think the benefits of it are worth what I consider to be the drawbacks of it. I dislike games with auto-pathing and this is just another example of it. I feel that positive control of a player's character at all times should be maintained. The only exemption from that would be when it is lore appropriate for a player to lose control of their character like when they are stunned or sleeped or feared.
There may actually be a business case for incorporating auto-follow. MWM will be supporting multi-boxing, so they would be foolish not to enable tools to support that potential cash cow.
All other reasons I have seen put forth for wanting auto-follow are to promote convenience at the expense of player interaction. I think that is one cut in a death of a million little cuts. No single design decision can be pointed at to say this is the decision that made players lose interest in the game. But when all the decisions are taken together and the game has so many convenience features that players no longer interact with each other or the environment, each did contribute a share to that end.
I feel this is one of those decisions that would contribute to that. So please don't inflate my concerns or accuse me of stating it will have a "big impact." I never said that. But I did try to lay forth some impacts that I think it will have nonetheless.
[hr]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.
I still haven't seen anyone here make a good case against the basic argument of "CoH had it so why not CoT?"
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
+ 1. Did the same. Would like the feature.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Would not having auto-follow make ineffective the technique Superjump + lunge-to-target + ninja-darkness-power-aesthetic = Ninja SAM?
It would be a poorer game, I think, without Redlynne's (or was it Lin Chiao Feng's?) Ninja SAM.
(Edit: Definitely Lin Chiao Feng's. But it was Redlynne who described it so well [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/39404#comment-39404]here[/url])
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Auto-follow was invaluable when having my 5 year old on my lap playing with some real life friends.
He had a hard time keeping up using mouse and keyboard and watching the screen. Showed him auto-follow a couple of times and he made regular use of it.
It is a very helpful feature for able-gaming proving an option to follow a target, friendly or otherwise.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I think you misunderstand Huck, auto-follow did 0 path finding. It just aimed at the target and went forward. It didn't find it's way around walls or obstacles.
It seems as if there are several different understandings of what auto-follow means in this discussion.
I have put forth some points on what I would not like, and why.
Some people want to talk about what CoX had, but for those of us who never used it, your explanations are less than adequate to describe what it was. Moreover describing whether that feature or a different version of it should be in CoX
[hr]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.
My suggestion: when you press a melee attack, you get a free short-dash to the enemy that you're aiming or targeting or closer one (priorities decided by player may be better, but not essential if studied well by dev already).
This is the best way to handle melee combat with both target based games and action games (therefore it should be perfect for CoT which is a middle ground).
Not just 1 dash skill you need to wait 30 seconds for (if the player also gets one it's good because a dash skill goes further and with a flashier animation and with increased damage or stun/slow effects etc., but shouldn't be essential or your char is unplayable because of the melee side) but each single melee attack in the game should have a very short dash, very very short, just so that if you're not exactly attached to the enemy you will get to it.
This is not like CoH (I already pressed the button therefore you're hit, wherever you go), but similar and different, I'd say an upgrade with no negative effects and better visual (since the enemy doesn't get the damage far away from you, but you move automatically and visually to the enemy).
Also that remains in total control of the player, you won't move to any location if you don't want to, since you can avoid pressing a melee attack aiming at an enemy that's not completely attached to you if you want to stand still in a precise spot, plus I remind the player just needs a VERY SHORT dash, just to avoid the "oh the enemy seems close but I can't hit him", it makes the combat just more fluid that little "position-error-saving" and more relaxing (less clunky).
NOTE: this is not an "auto-follow" either, no walking to the opponent for several meters, which is still too slow and/or too clunky and gives the feeling that the player lost control for some seconds. This is an istant short dash, possibly with a "half-second legs animation" attached which transforms into the animation of the attack you're doing (we saw City of Titans handles animation-changes perfectly fine in some previous devs-post).
My melee characters used this (the Jackie Chan keybind):
[code]/keybind ` "targetenemynear$$follow"[/code]
My ranged characters used this:
[code]/keybind ` "targetenemynear"[/code]
Worked beautifully.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Ok Huck, to be clear,
When I personally refer to auto-follow, I refer to the identical features in both City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. The only difference between the two is CoH allowed the following of npcs, while WoW only allows the following on players outside pvp instances.
Specifically, it made you face a target and move towards it if not already within x feet. It did not path around objects or care what travel powers were in use. If the follow target got too far away (due to speed differences or getting stuck on a wall/object) it canceled.
Use 1) Makes melee a lot easier to play for inexperienced or mechanically weak players. Select target, hit follow, start using melee moves. If the target moves, such as by another player's knock back, your character adjusts. This helps the young, it helps those with accessibility issues, it helps those who loose visual track of things easily with a ton of power effects everywhere.
Use 2) When playing in a group, things happen. Maybe on the way to the next mission someone needs to use the bathroom, or mid mission their kid starts crying. Thanks to follow, they keep up. The guy getting the drink doesn't force the whole group to wait, the guy who's kid started crying isn't left behind.
Use 3) I'm not a fan, but multi-boxing is a valid argument in a PVE environment. Others can make a better case for it.
Caveats:
1) Players can use it to leach, but there are ways to curb this. Kick the player, or have an option to disallow yourself as a follow target.
2) It can be used in currency farming which can help lead to currency selling, there are ways to combat this without stripping a useful feature.
I don't expect you to agree, but I hope I have at least explained both what CoH had, and some uses for inclusion in CoT.
It doesn't really matter if you personally never used CoH's version of follow or not.
My principle argument is as follows: If CoT's version of the Follow Feature is implemented to be equivalent to CoH's version of the Follow Feature then it's likely things will be fine based on the evidence that CoH existed with that given version of the feature for 8.5 years without being single-handedly destroyed by it. This argument doesn't rely on anyone's subjective "personal experience" with using Follow in CoH - it's a simple matter of historical fact.
MWM should make the Follow Feature in CoT work the same way as it did in CoH, period. As with any game feature it had some "cons" (i.e. potential use for farming bots) but the "pros" always far out weighed them. Again the proof is in the fact that the feature existed in CoH and was [b]never nerfed/limited[/b] in any way.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Don’t try to fix what ain’t broke.
Thanks for that excellent answer and you made some good points.
In fact, your response has caused me to view my own points from a different perspective. I have to ask myself if my preferences for a particular playstyle would be limiting the options available to players who prefer different playstyles. I am all for giving players the option to play the way they want to play, so long as we aren't giving a mechanical advantage to a certain playstyle or control methodology that forces all players to use it to just keep up. In this case, using the auto-follow function on an opponent in combat might be such a mechanical advantage. I can see how it would be useful, but it certainly seems like a crutch for someone who just doesn't want to move a character manually. But is that a mechanical advantage, or enough of a mechanical advantage to force players to use it to remain competitive? Not sure. Does it enable people to play who do not have the manual dexterity to use the movement keys and simultaneously press the attack button combinations? Definitely. So, I think you've convinced me that the benefits to people who depend on auto-follow to be able to play on par with everyone else outweighs the potential for lazy players to rely on it to further withdraw from the experience.
On the other hand, if the game ends up being designed that because auto-follow exists, the game designers use more complicated key combinations that would require so much manual dexterity as to require auto-follow, then that could impact the entire game. For example, we already know that the difference between causing knock back and knock up will depend on the player using an activation key.
So we've already got a system that requires two key presses to activate a single attack. Would this be too complicated for so many people as to require them to use auto-follow whether they wanted to or not? I guess only time will tell.
I think one restriction would be needed if CoT were to use auto-follow target in combat:
[indent]Follow should be discontinued whenever a follower loses track of the target. By this, I mean if the target performs some sort of action that removes them from being targeted. It makes sense to me that if you can't target something, you can't follow it. This could be anything from the follower being sleeped or confused, to the target using some perception-affecting ability which causes them to be lost. (invisibility and stealth powers, for example). Having said this, however; I feel that party members should always be followable, regardless of actions taken.
You already mentioned that distance between follower and target can also break it, and that makes sense.[/indent]
Edit: P.S. Saying that just because CoX had something is a poor reason to say that CoT should have it, too. The game should be viewed as holistic system. Even though CoT is being designed to be the spiritual successor to CoX, there are going to be enough differences between the games that adopting single features 'just because' may not work well with the integrated whole. It would be far more constructive to say what it was about CoH's functions that are worthy of reproducing and why.
[hr]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.
Two things...
1) If people used and liked a feature in CoH, it’s reasonable for them to expect to have it in CoT. The burden is on explaining why it was omitted, not why it should be included.
2) Pointing out that it existed unchanged for many years and wasn’t a problem is the best counter for any concerns about problems it might cause.
Nice try. Should we also question whether CoT should have capes or not? I mean after all the only reason CoT will likely offer capes as costume items is because CoH did that too.
As Atama alluded to I'd rather rely on the best historical evidence we have at the moment. CoH's Follow feature worked perfectly well for 8.5 years without change and/or nerfage. There's absolutely no reason to suspect CoT will be so "fundamentally different" from CoH in terms of character movement to justify your abstractly negative concern here. Frankly I think you're just being alarmist to keep your side of this discussion going.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
To be fair, it’s a good point that just because something was in CoH, that doesn’t mean it *MUST* be in CoT. But I’ll reiterate that there should be a good reason for it. You certainly don’t want a modern game that’s considered lacking in comparison to its predecessor.
In this case that "logic" is just being used as a strawman to support an unsupportable position.
Obviously a feature shouldn't be in CoT [b][i]just because[/i][/b] it was in CoH. But seriously let's not let that fine-sounding notion blind us to something that's as universally useful and fundamental as this feature in question. Like you say we don't need CoT taking steps backwards in terms of basic functionality.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
So long as we get the (*ahem*) following options for keybinding ...
[code]Follow
Follow On
Follow Off[/code]
... we'd have the toggle flip on/off as well as the "turn on only" and the "turn off only" options to write into macros. That way, if you've got a "punter" of a knockback power, you can write a keybind/macro for it that will automatically disable Follow when using that power so as to prevent "automatic" charging over the cliff edge when you shove your target off a high place.
After that, it's just a matter of letting [b][s]idiots[/s][/b] Players figure things out for themselves how they want to use the tools.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Have macros been confirmed? I really, really hope they're in the game, since I did some fun things with them in CoH, and would sorely miss them if they didn't make it into CoT.
~ DariusWolfe
Errant, TNT, Vibrant and Fluxion on Liberty
Confirmed, we intend to work macros into the game.
[color=red]PR Team, Forum Moderator, Live Response Team[/color]
Thank you!!!
Spurn all ye kindle.