Well, since we've been dancing around this topic in the Knockback thread, I think it's time to split off that little tangent and tackle it head on instead. I'm just going to be blunt here...
City of Heroes had WAY overpowered AoE damage.
As RedLynne said: [b]In CoH Damage is KING, and AoE wears the CROWN.[/b]
And it's true, the herd and nuke tactic in City of Heroes was one of the most effective strategies in the game, only rivaled by the steamroller which also relied heavily on AoE damage. In fact, those two tactics were so strong that anything that didn't contribute to them was deemed weak at best. Main victims here would be Stalkers, being a heavily single target focused class and knockback that risked shooting enemies out of the AoE area.
I'd like the City of Titans devs to really look at this and make the deliberate choice. A lot of CoH came about by happy accident, it seems, and one of the results was making AoE damage king of the world. It doesn't have to happen like this in CoT. I mean, sure, AoE needs to pack a punch, but not SO much punch that it invalidates entire alternate playstyles. Herd and nuke should NOT be as dominant a tactic as it was in CoH.
Basically, it should not be as easy to defeat 12 enemies as it is to defeat 2.
As for what to do, one idea might be to make tougher foes have more AoE defense, in CoH terms. Sure, you can nuke the minions and underlings, but the lieutenants are still standing and the boss is looking really angry. but that's just one way to do it.
This is, however, a decision that has to be made early, and one that has to be made deliberately. Because the crazy AoE damage was also part of what made CoH be CoH. And if it's limited in a spiritual successor, what does that mean?
It's a difficult question, I think, but it's one that needs a deliberate answer. Not just another happy accident.
City of Heroes had Positional Defenses (Melee, Ranged, AoE) and Typed Defenses (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, Psionic, Toxic) ... but Resistances were Typed only, meaning there were no Positional Resistances. That in turn meant you couldn't make a Foe NPC have a Resistance to AoE Damage ... you could only give them a Defense to AoE Attacks. Defense, in this particular context when dealing with Minion, Lieutenant, Boss, Elite Boss, Archvillain/Hero, Giant Monster is particularly unsatisfying because Defense invokes the Random Number Generator creating [b]MISS[/b] results (which tend to be received "poorly" by Players). That makes additional AoE Defense a literal "hit or miss" proposition, which could potentially generate wild swings in survivability performance (and frustration levels in Players) over time.
Now ... doing something like an AoE Resistance Aura that reduces AoE Damage Taken in a PBAoE radius around Lieutenants, Bosses, etc. ... that might make for an interesting alternative, particularly if it was stackable, meaning that when enough Foe NPCs gather together (of appropriate rank), AoE Damage Attacks become commensurately less effective. This would then provide a necessary counterbalance to the Herd Then AoE standard tactic in [b]some[/b] situations, and would also increase the "value" of taking down the Lieutenants and Bosses in a herd of Foe NPCs first, so as to make mopping up the "crunchies" easier afterwards. Thus, depending on the mix [i]and the positioning[/i] of Foe NPCs, massed combat could (and would) become more fluid and dynamic, simply because different "formations" of Foe NPCs created different strengths and weaknesses in terms of the optimal means to attack and defeat them.
The flipside of doing this would be to make ALL AoE attacks weaker by default, regardless of the "leadership" mix of Foe NPCs being faced. This would be more of a global nerf than the above option, but also ultimately a "simpler" solution that would place less of a load on the game's servers and generate less lag (think Rikti Ship Raid level of Target Rich Environment).
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Redlynne, what was your original proposal again? I know I read some references to it in the Knockback thread and I would like to know more.
What would you guys think if a power had a "maximum potential damage" method like, say 700-900 or just a flat 800 +crit, etc...then all potential targets would take an even portion of that max damage.. so that
damage = max_damage / targets_affected;
If this was applied to all powers at the base, single targets would never be impacted unless they had some sort of "spread" secondary effect (radiation, perhaps), and AoE attacks could be balanced on the "it'll do this much max_damage regardless of how many targets hit"
Just my thoughts.
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I agree with you to a point but if you and I and Redlynne all stuck our hands in a fire we would not all get burned 1/3ed less, I understand its a game and all that but I say if there are 10 bad guys all 10take 1/2 damage as main target or if only area attack they take normal damage
Smoker6- Fire/Ice blaster-Protector
Avenger of Heroes- Broadsword/inv Scrapper- Protector
i think AoE damage should be very strong this is a super hero /villain game after all, if u weaken AoE attacks , because 4 people want to feel they are heard , what about the other people that thought AoE wasn't powerful enough , example i had rain of fire and freezing rain on my fire storm corruptor and i still had groups left and needed for more damage , so where others found AoE damage OP i felt it wasn't and needs to be strong , as not every toon will have AoE damage on their builds
I'd probably not want to see common enemy types with a PBAoE aura that affect all allies around them. CoH had a place like that. We called it Lag Hill. Something like that would probably make the poor server cry out in terror, then suddenly be silenced.
However, the idea of having positional resistance is kind of clever, really. Maybe a click power or just something self-only to avoid having overlapping ally affecting pulsing auras on common enemies. That's just a bad idea in general, because it scales really, really poorly. But a click power that shoots off every two minutes would probably be okay.
Fair enough. While the idea isn't perfect, I do know it's been used in many other games to balance ae/st attacks. on paper at least, it handles diminishing returns in favor of target caps, it allows for a defined singular number to balance, and would be easily maintained and expanded. In reality, you're right, we would and should all take more damage...from a game mechanics and balancing standpoint, is my any more difficult to implement and balance than red's resistance suggestion or the suggestion from the Knockback thread where aoe enhancements would have been on schedule B?
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
One other thought is to have your first attack be powerful or normal and have subsequent attacks do less and less damage say you have a 30 second window after first AoE where each AoE attack afterwards does less damage.
Smoker6- Fire/Ice blaster-Protector
Avenger of Heroes- Broadsword/inv Scrapper- Protector
aoe types had disadvantages that made up for their power. if you take away aoe damage to make scrappers feel better about themselves you have to give blasters defense to make up for it. a blasters defense was to kill all agro quick before you die. blasters took agro of every mob hit by that aoe unless they had a tank holding it or trollers holding the mobs. that was part of they synergy that made up coh teams. blasters couldnt take on +4 bosses and expect to live through it.
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I've seen such a system implemented in other games before, and found it ... unsatisfying. That's because you're basically "nerfing" the Power because it's hitting "too many Foes" which just makes the behavior weird. It's essentially a Max Targets Cap achieved through other means.
See, the problem is that you need to figure out an acceptable "gearing ratio" where once a sufficient number of Foe NPCs get caught in the AoE, you're actually doing more damage to them (added up) than you could with a single target attack. Mix in Activation Time, Recharge Time, Endurance Cost and other factors, and things could start looking pretty competitive for the AoE attacks in a hurry (especially if they had some kind of "control" effect in them, even if that was a "soft control" like a Knockdown). In most cases, the idea was that an AoE attack would be "less efficient" against a single Foe NPC because you'd be expending a lot more Endurance per Damage produced. Unfortunately, that assumption is only meaningful/operative if your attack chain results in a net negative Endurance Recovery over time when using AoE attacks ... which did not always prove to be the case (especially with Blue Skittles™ in the mix).
So in a lot of cases, AoE Damage in CoH was operating on a roughly 3:1 gearing ratio (re: 3 Minions = 1 Hero standard), where if you hit 3 targets with the AoE attack, you'd be producing somewhere in the neighborhood of the amount of damage you'd produce hitting those same targets with single target attacks. Needless to say, AoE efficiency at converting Endurance into Damage only improved from there ... which is why people liked playing in Team-8 so as to (literally) get the most Bang for their Buck invested into AoE attack Powers.
My personal preference for an AoE Effects System (understanding that Damage would merely be *one* of the possible Effect Types) would be overlapping stages of Effects that reduce with Range. This could either be accomplished by use of a formula, or by use of a lookup table, depending on the needs of code optimization. In its simplest form for a Target AoE (like, say, [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Blaster_Ranged.Assault_Rifle.M30_Grenade]M30 Grenade[/url] for Assault Rifle) would be to have the following:
[list][*]Auto Hit, Auto Damage Radius
[*]High Accuracy, High Damage Radius (larger than above)
[*]Medium Accuracy, Medium Damage Radius (larger than above)
[*]Low Accuracy, Low Damage Radius (larger than above)[/list]
You know ... like this:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Target_logo.svg/90px-Target_logo.svg.png[/img]
The result is a sort of "radial decay curve" (or if using a lookup table, stair step) where how far a Foe NPC is from the center of the AoE ... matters. Furthermore, depending on the type of attack, the radial ratios used need not be done in a linear 1:2:3:4 pattern for the various radii of effects, but could be things like 10:11:13:16 ... or whatever is desired for particular Powers (1 by 4 by 9?).
Doing an overlapping rings of Effect(s) like I'm describing here would allow for a very wide variety of AoE "effectiveness" shapes to be produced, is something that could equally be applied to Cone Powers (just add limiter of Arc and make the Caster the vertex point of the angle) as well as PBAoE Powers. And as anyone who played an Aggro Magnet can tell you, just because you're got a "Dogpile On Da Wabbit" herding situation going, that doesn't mean that every Foe NPC you've got on you is going to be within Melee Range. That means that you can design (PB)AoE Powers where [b]proximity matters[/b] in ways that it really didn't in City of Heroes, and that "overslotting Accuracy" might not necessarily be a Dumb Idea™ depending on how you used the Power (even though do so might "cost" Damage potential in a spreadsheet analysis that ignores gameplay factors).
The actual resolution of To Hit and Effects would be a little bit more complicated than I'm describing here, but this should be enough for you to grasp the generic outlines of the idea.
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That sounds awesome.
It applies well to both circular and cone aoe powers since then the only difference would be the angle of degree (360 vs 45 vs 90, etc). It even makes it worthwhile to go past the acc cap (something I hate managing/wasting in WoW's current reforge system, even if it is going away in the 6.0 expansion) How would this affect ranges? Please correct me because I am going off vague memory on this... slotting range boosts into a cone aoe would actually improve the area affected because of how the code expanded that distance, but targetted aoes simply improved the range of where the center would explode from. Would this be something automatically balanced by the fact that cones usually hit fewer potential targets, or worthwhile to improve the "radius" range as well? I personally always wanted some way to expand the radial output of my aoes, but that was my opinion of how my fireball should explode further if I enhanced it as such.
Sorry tangent.
How would you define the radial effectiveness curvature? Possibly cliff-like with a hard range that's enhanceable, slope-like to prompt log/exp increasing dropoff of effect, or something else? Would the blast radius enhanceable or predefined for target and pb aoes?
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We're basically talking about kill speed, correct? If I have my single target character jump into a group of six mobs then, ideally, that character should be able to defeat that group about as quickly as my AoE character (all things being as equal as they can be). 'course the only time this really irritated me was on teams, when I'd be lucky to get one or two hits in on a few mobs, with my dark melee scrapper, before they were all dead. Admittedly, on teams with upward of three or four people throwing AoE at the mobs I don't think there is much that can be done to make single target characters feel more useful.[color=red]*[/color]
Obviously it'll likely still be neater, and more efficient, to have someone gather up a whole bunch of mobs so that four or five others can cut them down with AoE.
So, yeah. My brain is complaining of low blood sugar so I probably shouldn't be posting anything. Which is precisely what I wouldn't be doing if I were smart.
[color=red]*[/color] Other than taking the focus away from facing dozens of enemies all the time to also facing fewer, tougher opponents.
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I wonder whether the mass-lag problem could be addressed by making these types of abilities, not PBAoE auras, but PBAoE click buffs. I know that it was possible, if you left one standing long enough, for the Rikti Radiation Specialist (if I'm remembering the right name) to pass out Accelerated Metabolism multiple times (particularly useful if you Confused them so that they buffed [b]you[/b]), so having mobs with a click buff on autofire isn't unreasonable. Set up the mob AI to hit the buff when they aggro, then have it on autofire (with the buff duration set at the recharge time to prevent overlaps, and the recharge unbuffable). That way, you only have [b]one[/b] check when the mobs apply the buff to see who gets it, rather than having to do a "which mobs are in the aura" check every clock cycle.
We make every pretense of competency around here.
If I said, "however the Devs want it to" ... would you be disappointed?
That's how City of Heroes did it, yes. Once I figured out an optimal frankenslotting to get Range Enhancement into my Cone attacks I was able to increase the reach of my Cone attacks by approximately +50%, which essentially DOUBLED the amount of area they could affect in terms of square feet. Target AoEs only allowed Range Enhancement to affect distance to target point, not affect the radius of the AoE.
/em shrug
Depends. I always slotted Frost on my Ice/Ice/Arctic Tanker to increase the Range so that it had a reach of 15-16 ft instead of just 10 ft. That let me "hop" attack with it where I'd jump straight up (no Combat Jumping) and use that to reorient the Cone to point DOWN rather than SIDEWAYS, allowing me to use the attack as a "poor man's PBAoE" on everything around me on the ground, rather than using it as a "pie slice" of only one side of the battle raging all around me. The extra range let me jump higher (effectively), increasing the "base" of the cone on the ground, letting me hit more targets simultaneously (because higher jump equaled wider radius on the ground thanks to longer cone), making Frost a lot more efficient at converting Endurance into Damage against multiple targets.
Likewise, enhancing Heavy Burst on my Huntsman meant that the radius on its cone was nearly the same as the range of my single shot attacks (the difference was like about 5 feet or less) so I didn't have to move in too close in order to use my cone attack and at the longest range the cone was much "wider" at its furthest extent (in absolute terms) allowing me to hold more area "at risk" and damage more Foes simultaneously. I found Range Enhancements in Cone Powers to be extremely effective, whether they were long range cones or short range cones.
Variable. As I already specified, if you do it RIGHT, the drop off can be almost anything you want it to be.
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I prefered the power of AoE's in CoX by far compared to the very low power of AoE's in champions online. That game's AoE's were so weak sometimes you were better using ST attacks and ignoring AoEs, or they were ludicrously pricey to use. Many "Ultimate" powers were in fact hopelessly weak due to being "balanced cause they had a higher target cap so we had to tone the damage down to nearly useless levels", since AoE's did pretty much half or a third of similarly energy-priced single target attacks yet cost way more.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I do like the notion of giving certain key enemies (in [i]some but not all[/i] factions of enemies) an AoE buff that boosts AoE resistance. Kinda like an inverse nemesis lieutenant - make them a "kill this first, then AoE down everything". (And, of course, for variety there should be groups where - like the Nemesis - you want to clear out the little guys first. Variety is good.)
If there are server performance issues with a ticking aura, I'd suggest an alternative: a click buff that fades when the caster dies. You still need multiple checks, but a simple "Is caster alive?" check should be negligible for any reasonable pile of foes, especially compared to an AoE aura that has to do range checks with every enemy on the map.
That said, I'll also toss out an old saw here: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." It's maybe a bit of an overstatement, but I code for a living and there's certainly some truth to it; until you've got the game engine running and are looking at it with a (metaphorical) magnifying glass, you don't know what's actually going to cause performance problems.
Phoenix Rising Token Minidragon
I recall city of heroes often had some mobs that gave defenses, including against AoE, to allies. Often shielded enemies were like this. I'd confine it to some mob groups, as one of the means to make them unique or at least somewhat different than other mobs.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
You slow down the activation time of the aura ticks. So instead of the aura pulsing out its effects every 0.2 seconds with a 0.25 second duration (does not stack) causing lots and lots of server computation loading, you instead have the aura pulsing out its effects every 5 seconds with a 5.25 second duration (does not stack) ... or even every 10 seconds with a 10.25 second duration (does not stack) ... so as to raise the "intermittency" of the aura pulses without losing coverage of duration. Fast pulses of short duration are "more accurate" in terms of who is near who when, but slower pulses of longer duration can serve "just as well" so long as the timing and duration isn't too ridiculous.
C'mon people, there ARE ways to finesse these things.
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you could have other mob factions that put out an aoe debuff that cut armor by 50%(or to zero in some cases) this would even out the pain so to speak. a debuff like this only affecting aoe would make solo'ing hard for blaster types. by sharing it out melee dps has incentive to team.
I'm going to lay down a marker right now, which I figure everyone should want to get behind.
I do not want ANY NPC in City of Titans to be given a PBAoE Aura that cuts off the bottom half of the costume my avatar is wearing, let alone one that can negate the entire costume worn by my avatar. That's just overpowered.
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+1.
Also, we don't want to threaten our T rating ^_^
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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Not having played CoH, I'm not sure how many mobs are being talked about. I saw target caps (usually five) in CO, and thought they were silly, but possibly necessary.
It might be worth the devs' time to fiddle with the mobs Artificial Stupidity, especially on maps where there is a high enough mob population density to make herd & nuke worthwhile. If a melee mob can't reach the Designated Target because there's no room, perhaps he should go for the next highest source of agg. Ranged mobs should stop just inside of their own range, and spread out as much as they can. If herding can only get so many mobs into the Zone of Death, there will be less perceived reason to increase the gearing ratio to make single target attacks practical again.
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weapon of mass distraction
In City of Heroes, there were several powers with smaller caps, but the 'high-end' cap was 16 enemy. Tankers could hold Aggro on 16+1 with some effort.
Be Well!
Fireheart
if the whole purpose of this was melee dps not feeling properly engaged, they were supposed to be targeting silvers and golds.and mopping up minions after their targets were dead. I watched scrappers solo one side of a mission spawned for 8 while the other seven cleared their side. scrappers were intended for extended boss fights that would burn blasters alive.
An alternative method of curbing AoE dominance: let 'em be strong, but enforce [i]friendly fire[/i].
That would, I admit, be a BIG change from COH. But it's why we don't always use AoE in the "real world," and it's a major curb on the use of AoE powers in tabletop role-playing games. If your spam would take out allies, hostages, citizens, and furniture along with the Bad Men, you switch to single-target abilities. AoEs become situational.
It was always kind of weird and immersion-breaking anyway that the solution to the Bad Men holding hostages was "saturate the entire building in [b]nuclear fire![/b] The faction system will sort them all out."
Captain of Phoenix Rising
One word: [b]GRIEFER[/b]
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I am not a tech. That said, here are some uninformed and unsupported predictions:
- Dumpster diving will not be a thing.
- There will be some kind of aggro and target cap.
- AoEs will do significantly less damage than single target attacks (over the course of a battle), being purposed for reducing the number of minions one is facing rather than breaking a hard target.
I will be very surprised if any of those statements turns out to be untrue.
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Ah, good to hear. Honestly, all I wanted to know was that this issue had been discussed internally, since I wouldn't mind if AoEs were as strong as in CoH, as long as the rest of the game was built around that, but I'd prefer if AoEs were scaled back a bit.
It's not so much what one Fireball can do that was the issue. It's what happened when you had eight Fireballs detonate at the same time. Maybe Ball Lightning would be an attack to look at as the default template? About as much damage as Fireball, but as a DoT. A powerful AoE attack, but a not a frontloaded one.
As I hope I imparted in my previous post, I feel that a part of it is certainly adjusting AoE damage (i.e. don't make it easy for AoE damage to outstrip single target damage) but another part of it can be giving single target damage characters more chances to shine. Groups are always going to be a toss-up in this regard. As a single target melee scrapper I'm going to have a difficult time contributing much if I'm on a team with a handful of AoE damage characters, especially if most of the enemies are groups of a dozen or more mooks.[color=red]*[/color] Conversely, a single (or even several) AoE damage character is going to have a difficult time keeping up in a fight against a single EB or AV.
I think McNum's recommendation has merit and it was generally the case: AoE attacks were DoTs while single target attacks had their damage front loaded with a minor, if any, DoT element.
[color=red]*[/color] To be fair, the situation wouldn't really be terribly different on a team full of single target damage characters. Anyone who is a little slow off the mark could easily see most of the enemies dealt with by the time they can land an attack or two. Even when AoE is not unquestionably superior it is likely the perception will remain that it is better / more efficient (as well as the attraction of the relative ease of placing an AoE attack and watching the damage happen).
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Dumpster diving was really only practical when you could aggro an entire map. I remember a time back in 2005 when people were offering Skull and Hellion Kill Badge teams, where a team would go into Perez Park and someone with an aura that drew aggro would run around the streets on the edges of the map gathering up every spawn group along the way. I was hovering up in the air in the bottom right corner of the zone, and the herders had started up in the top left, so we had a couple of minutes to wait for them to get to us. When they came into sight, it was like seeing an OCEAN OF RATS pouring over every single available surface like this living wave tsunami charging towards us. It was a Flash Flood of mobs by the hundreds! It was just unreal to see [b]that many NPCs[/b] chasing after the herders such that they swamped the roadway, the sidewalks ... everything. It was as if they came boiling out of the alleyways to pour down the streets towards us.
Needless to say, the Aggro Cap "fixed" that particular behavior problem.
Best way to handle this is with what functionally amounts to a "leash" distance from spawn point, even if it isn't something hard coded in as "never beyond 200 meters" or whatever.
This is just one of those promises that will probably not pan out. If the gearing ratio between single target and AoE is too great, then people just stop using AoEs altogether and just defeat their opposition in series rather than in parallel.
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For those unfamiliar with CoH...
1. AoE target cap was 15 (or was it 16?)
2. AoE attacks were balanced around hitting 5 targets. This meant that if you hit only one target, your total damage was one fifth a similar ranking Single Target attack. If you hit 15 targets, you were putting out 3 times the total damage of a similar ranking ST attack.
Here's an example of a Dark Defender using weak AoE to devastate a max spawn (full screen for best viewing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcAsv1M45A
If I had single-targeted-attacked that group, then it would have taken 10 times as long to kill. Note the disadvantage of AoE attacks... large amounts of agro. Also note that if you have the tools to mitigate the agro (Dark's ability to floor their ToHit or temporarily group mez them), then the disadvantage goes away.
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I don't know how to do that without it looking and feeling stupid. The enemy just suddenly loses interest for no reason even though he's under attack? And if it's done the annoying way CoH did it in Atlas Park, he mysteriously heals and becomes invulnerable so you can't plink him to death from beyond his chain. It's like the game is saying "I don't like your perfectly valid tactic, so I'm gonna cheat."
I wonder if it would be practical to make the behavior complicated enough to make it feel like the mobs are using a tactic rather than the computer cheating to annoy the player. I expect it would need the server to track more variable than it's worth.
Inside 200 meters, the mob is easy to aggro. Once 200 meters is reached, he wants to disengage and flee. When the mob is in disengage mode, he will run home if he hasn't been attacked effectively for a couple seconds. Maybe that could be done just by making his aggro decay much faster when he's in that state. It might be useful if he was more resistant to taunt as well. He should also move quickly when in disengage mode, even if he's dropped aggro completely. He's fleeing, not just sauntering back to his spawn point.
Maybe the mob could prioritize range if they are forced to fight while in disengage mode and prefer to close otherwise. Although I'm worried that that would just be wasting a lot of CPU cycles to make the mobs use unfavorable tactics.
Once the mob gets close to his spawn point, his behavior resets. But not his health, that's just adversarial and stupid. I'd rather he not have to actually tag his spawn point to reset, just come within a radius, because tagging a specific spot feels too artificial. But I guess the griefing/annoyance factor of wandering mobs suddenly turning aggressive argues against taking the extra trouble to code a second radius.
All in all, I think an aggro cap like the one in CoH is preferable to bizarre mob behavior, unless the mob behavior can be made complex enough that it seems like the mob meant to do that.
DeathSheepFromHell already said what I was trying to say here.
a scrapper using single target only would be able to survive that group. a squishy with weaker aoe's would die quickly.
Not to mention applying that embarrassment debuff.
I think there were some instances where an individual AoE had a lower cap than most of the other AoE powers. But, over all, I think you are correct, 15 targets max.
I have absolutely no issues with the damage ratios CoH had between AoEs and ST powers The AoEs used more Endurance per usage, and did less damage per individual target. But, hit enough targets (drawing more aggro that most quishies would rather not draw) and the AoEs start dealing decent damage to the group as a whole. Individually, the damage still sucks, but it all adds up to make the AoEs a little more efficient at what they're supposed to do. However, the trade off is more endurance usage and more aggro acquired.
That's solo, of course. Teaming changes the whole dynamic of aggro acquisition and crowd control. Which, there won't really be a "magic wand" fix for.
From the thread you link, and even the Wooly One's comment itself (along with a comment near it) I put together the idea that there should be no caps, but damage should be spread among all targets within the radius.
For example, if you have a fireball that does a max of 250 points to one target and a maximum possible damage of 3,000 point total you can hit 12 targets for 250 HP each, but each additional target will drop the damage per target. So 15 targets would take 200 HP damage each, etc, etc, etc. If you only hit 5 targets with your fireball they'd still only take 250 damage each, for a total of 1,250 damage, wasting much of your fireball.
That seems inelegant...the idea that enemies would say "Let's clump together, we'll each take less damage from that bomb," is silly.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
I still like the idea of "friendly fire" That would be one good way to keep AoE in check. I can see using a "Fire ball blast" to get the targets attention, but if you had one of your Teammates in the AoE circle then he takes damage aswell, This would be good for Hostages as well, dont want to use Rain of Fire/ Fire breath/Fireball/Nuke cause this would hurt the verry person you were trying to save. This would also bring in the need for Healers,and Crowd control.
One other way to Keep AoE in check is to only give say 1 o 2 powers that do AoE per Archtype, say one around lvl 10 and one about 20. I know the hand to hand guys didnt like it by the time they got to the mob the AoE guys pretty much killed everyone.
Smoker6- Fire/Ice blaster-Protector
Avenger of Heroes- Broadsword/inv Scrapper- Protector
I do like friendly fire in a lot of games, since it is an interesting gameplay factor and it does bake in consequences as you describe. I don't think it is a great choice for a game that aims to be friendly to casual MMOers, though (unless, yadda yadda, it was a team difficulty option). If it wasn't a team option, they'd probably have to add some of the automated features you can find in games that allow friendly fire, like an autoban policy and a mechanism for folks to be able to "forgive" damage that was done to them.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
I tend to find friendly fire tending to be more of a problem then anything, because even if your good about it, your friends may be bad about it. Some cases they'll just jump in front as your firing an AoE off, getting hit in full, OR they'll just spammedy spam spam AoE's into your back just cause they are "hurting the enemey". Then they'll blame you even if you didn't rush in front as they were firing off. Its bad for team games.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
For those of us who remember [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet_%281985_video_game%29]Old School Multiplayer[/url] from 25+ years ago ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Sometimes that is part of the fun, though! I was playing l4d2 awhile back with two coworkers from my last place, and the son of one of them. The Dad's character announced that he had seen a grenade launcher and, like a flash, the guy's son is like "I'll take that" on voice and he zips over to grab it. Which tells me he must have seen his Dad use AoE damage before... and that he knew, as well as my other friend and I did, that we would all be down in short order if his Dad was wielding it. :)
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
This reminded me of a friend of mine, years ago describing a character in a PnP Champions campaign, who had a powered-armor suit that had Presence in the suit only usable against Presence attacks (i.e., defensive only) that had the special effect of overlaying all of the villans' faces with face paint and clown noses on his HUD and modulating their voices so it sounded as if they were breathing helium... Making it harder for them to overawe him by making them look and sound ridiculous.
IMO friendly fire damage would significantly hurt what made CoH work, making it a lot less team-friendly and slow down the fast-paced-action feel. My initial ideas would be to explore the following:
1. Provide a number of AoEs with smaller target caps, so that they remain just as viable in solo/small-team play without becoming overpowering in larger teams.
2. Balance AoEs against STs not just using endurance costs, but also activation time. IIRC initial CoH attack balance didn't look at activation times at all; the devs just figured it wasn't important and crafted attack activations around looking nice. I think fireball had DPA so good it was competitive in a ST attack chain. If an AoE is supposed to be balanced against a ST for 5 targets it seems reasonable to give it an activation time that is 5 times longer.
3. Provide targets of an AoE a short-duration AoE resistance buff. The idea here is that if 4 fireballs go off around you at the same time, it shouldn't necessarily be 4 times as damaging as a single fireball. What this does is encourage teams to stagger their AoEs over time to get the most damage out of them rather than nuking everything in the first second of the fight, in turn allowing minions to survive long enough to do something useful.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/compilation-information-city-titans](Unofficial) Compilation of Information on City of Titans[/url]
Friendly Fire would go so far away from tab targeting and the "confuse" mechanics that I grow to love so dearly. In concept it sounds fun, but I'm going to say "please no"
That's not to say that some powers (not the targetable kind) can't become environmental damage (A fire player sets a patch of ground on fire, Opens a casm of lava, leaves a pool of acid.. it burns everyone because the it is not an attack but rather a secondary environment effect)
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Yeah, in case I wasn't clear above, I also don't think it is a good fit for this game... I don't think it would be fun for a significant segment of the CoH population. Then again, I also hope, in other changes to balance AoE vs ST, we won't make a CoT equivalent of an AoE-heavy set (like the CoH fire attack set) less fun. That kind of question can get hashed out in alpha/beta, when we actually get to try it, though.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
Pretty much the ONLY way that I could accept any variant of a "friendly fire" mechanic for City of Titans would be if ... like City of Heroes there was a Max Targets Cap on AoE attacks, AND, that this AoE Cap would count Friendly/Allied within the Area of Effect [i]against that Max Targets Cap[/i] while simultaneously automatically "MISS"ing those Friendlies and Allies.
So if a Mastermind had all 6 of their Pets inside an AoE Attack with a Max Targets Cap of 10, then only 4 Enemy Targets could be hit by that AoE, maximum.
That's as far as I'd be willing to go with a Friendly Fire system in City of Titans with respect to AoE Attack Powers ... and even THAT is a rule structure that I find inherently unsatisfactory because of the perverse incentives it imposes in the presence of Friendly Melee Attackers which could have a decidedly adverse effect on Pet Classes, all things being equal. If all things AREN'T equal, such as giving Pet Classes an inherent boost to the Max Targets Cap of their Attack Powers, you wind up with a perverse set of reverse incentives, leading to AoE Attack heavy Petless Masterminds. Ultimately, this winds up being a tremendous kludge that doesn't really solve anything.
And that's as close as I'd want to get to any sort of Friendly Fire PENALTY ... and even then I do not support it.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Honestly... I dont know why we dont just Agree that:
- AoE does a Maximum amout of Damage.
- Allow the Player to Control the Radius of the AoE. lets try with: Small, Medium, and Large. all T Shirt sizes. ;)
[img]http://i.imgur.com/3ht5abw.png[/img]
So when the Player activates a Location based AoE, ex: Rain of Fire, if the player left clicks on the patch of ground and Holds the button down, the Radius Increases from Small, to Medium, to Large every second... (or less... depending on your AoE Settings)
And the same concept can be applied to AoE's that Player Location based, but the Circle around the Activating power changes from Red (Small), to Orangey (Medium), to Yellowish (Large).
- OR -
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZcMl8p9.png[/img]
use a Clockwise circle outline around the AoE power button. With the the Proper color to denote the appropriate radius as noted before.
So, if the Large radius is used... and the AoE hits 30 targets, no worries. The AoE can only do Maximum damage, so each Enemy is delth a proportional amout of damage.
And, if the Large AoE is used... and there are only 15 targets, .... the AoE hits the each enemy using the MAX AoE Damage, which is Capped. Yea, Yea... AoE Enemy damage Cap would prevent, say if only 5 Enemies were in the AoE radius, those 5 wouldnt be killed from one AoE, but would be treated as if it were 15 enemies... and only after 15 enemies... would the AoE damage start to falloff when divided up amongst all 15+ enemies in the AoE radius.
I would argue that the maximum damage for an AoE (even with one character) would need to be less than single target damage still.. And there lies a problem with your math.. splitting the damage equally among 30 people just doesn't "feel" right. I can agree that everyone in the AoE should be affected without limits (because I want AI that doesn't just sit in a bunch waiting to get rained on).
I think the baseline for AoE Damage however needs to have a minimum and a maximum. The variance of this min to max would be based on the number of effected enemies.
I know the game hasn't set out Baselines but I expect that they will as soon as they start powers creation process. The linked article has some great references for how to set systems baselines.. it also comes with a cautionary tale about how DANGEROUS it is to change those baselines because the rest of your system will fall out of balance. *Cough* Champions Online */cough*
If you want part two of the system designer's dev diary it can be found HERE
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I never had a problem with the "Miss" attacks, and I was generally at the top end of ACC/+TOHIT, to make it happen less often.
If the NPC is supposed to be agile or able to deflect attacks, then make it so!
My only hope is CoT doesn't limit concepts like CoH did. Oh hey, I can softcap defenses to everything and regen with WP, but the idea of using positional defense and regen was just terrible. :p
If I have a concept that deflects and regens, going by game mechanics WP was great, and while one could easily say "dodge" for typed defense, positional defense felt more dodge and basically I'd just like for players to actually be able to obtain what they're looking for in terms of defenses for their superhero/villain!
Obviously, I also think they should have to build for it using powers/whatever type of gear setup CoT uses, but I hope it's there. CoH almost had it, but fell just a little short on it.
I like Redlynne's idea frankly because it would be easy to tweak for balance. One power too OP? Make the radius a little smaller. Underpowered? Make the radius a tad bit bigger. Plus with the lion's share of the damage going in the middle, you know whether to target the Boss for max effect of the minion for more targets hit.
Tweakable is a good thing in my book
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I like Jumbo Shirps too! :D
- AoEs will do significantly less damage than single target attacks (over the course of a battle), being purposed for reducing the number of minions one is facing rather than breaking a hard target.
i still feel AoE's were too under powered and now everyone wants to make them even more under powered , to me this makes zero sense this is suppose to be a super hero/villain game so make it so we feel super
Or let it depend on the AOE? Never thought Fireball's AOE was to strong/weak.
that is one way to ensure aoe'ers dont get on teams. If you were on a team of 8 with 4 aoe blasters, they should be killing the minions fast. thats why they are there. making them weaker will ensure that they cannot solo and will not have a place on teams. your single target melee types should be killing lt's and bosses which the aoe types wont be taking down all that fast. what tank will want to team with a dps that is likely to do as much damage to them as it will to the enemy?
How is that any different from "That bomb can only hit 12 of us, but we can get 17 of us into the blast radius, so 5 of us won't take any damage at all"? Because that's what a hard cap is.
Clumping together to take less damage is the norm. The norm just happens to come in the form of a hard cap, currently. I'm recommending it change to different format is all.
Because 12 of them would DIE (or at least take full damage), instead of 17 being [i]less[/i] injured. A nitpick, I know, but a technical difference.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
How damage is spread among targets is TBD. It could be the stated damage to each target on one extreme, or a total amount divided evenly amongst the targets on the other extreme. For additional flavor, it could also be reduced by the distance from ground zero (which makes how clipping is handled rather important; there would be an implicit target cap because you could only fit so many things in the AoE's volume).
Your proposal is in between, and looks pretty good. Another possibility is some kind of non-zero-sum degradation (full damage to one, 2/3 damage to each of two, 1/2 (2/4) damage to each of three, etc. following 2/(N+1) ).
And IMHO, DSFH's main point was not a guarantee there would be no cap, but that it would be an absolute last resort, and that they'd prefer to balance AoE by other means first.
Masterminds had a mode (defensive/follow) wherein they used their pets to do exactly that. Worked pretty well.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Bodyguard Mode for Masterminds was a necessary kludge due to the fact that you had a collection of Minion grade Pets that were easier to fold than origami paper using AoE Attacks in a game filled with AoE Attacks. Without Bodyguard Mode, the very idea that Masterminds could operate in pretty much ANY kind of Aggro Magnet capacity was at best a cruel joke, and at worst a one way ticket to crippling levels of Debt previously only enjoyed by Blasters. Net result, a fragile squishy AT that divided its strengths up to a degree where it became uniquely vulnerable in ways that just put the entire AT at a severe disadvantage for survivability.
That said, Bodyguard Mode was more of a Damage Sharing game mechanic rather than anything else, and wasn't limited to just AoE. It was an attempt to boost Pet Survival on an AT which had been designed in a way as to be entirely too weak on survival power(s).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I didn't even take it as that. I just assumed it was personal preference.
There's another way to tweak the AoE damage numbers to be less overpowering with large groups and completely underwhelming with a few foes:
So, let's take, e.g., that for a certain class at a certain level, that a Single Target attack is supposed to do around 300 HP of damage. Now, what amount of damage should an AoE attack of that same class and level do?
[b]The CoH Way[/b]: If you're City of Heroes and the powers designer, Castle, you assume that the average number of targets an AoE hits is 5. And so, the AoE hits individuals for 60 HP each. This way, if there are 5 foes, then you do a total of 300 HP of damage. Problem with that, is if there is only one foe, you do just 60 HP and that makes the attack 80% less effective. If there are 10 foes, you do 600 HP of Damage, which is a 100% damage bonus. If you hit 15, the CoH cap, you do 900 HP and your attack now has a 200% damage bonus. That's a very wide range of effectiveness. It pushes you to herd. And for a single target, it's pretty useless in an attack chain.
[b]Hard Damage Amount Shared[/b]: An alternative system is to have a set amount of Damage that is shared by all targets hit. So, using the example above, you make it 300 HP. If you hit one foe, they get hit for 300 HP as if it were a single target attack. If there are five foes hit, they each take 60 Damage for a total of 300 HP Damage. If there are 15 foes, they each take 20. In this way, the power is balanced around one set point of damage. However, it doesn't reward clever use of tactics, like herding, for a bonus; nor does it balance the increased risk of extra agro if you do hit multiple targets.
[b]Cap the CoH Way[/b]: A way to avoid the huge bonuses of the CoH way is to add a hard cap to the amount of possible damage, at which point, the cap damage becomes shared, like the method above. Actually, this is the worst of both systems. You start out with poor Single Target Damage and then, depending on where you cap, you may not get any of the bonuses of tactically herding.
[b]Mix of Shared and Bonus[/b]: This final method figures out that damage based on a formula of a hard amount of damage shared by all targets plus a smaller bonus per target. So, using the example of above, you set the hard amount shared by all foes at, say, 200 HP and the bonus per foe at 20. If there's one foe, that's 220 HP... less than a similar Single Target Attack, but not worthless. At five foes, you do a total of 300 Damage (220 + 20*5) with each foe taking 60 damage, just like the old CoH way. At 10 foes, the total damage is 400 HP, a bonus for tactics, but only a 33% bonus, not 100%. At 15 foes, the damage is 500 HP, a 66% bonus, not 200%. Basically, it smooths out the extremes of the old CoH way.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
First is understanding that there should be a difference in AoE capability and Single Target capability. If AoEs can be reduced down to being effective single target attacks, this can pose issue in AoE focused sets combining AoEs with single target attacks to be effective single target damage dealers (or effective enough), yet still be excellent at large numbers. While single target will always remain single target unable to branch out in a way like AoE can reduce downward. In my opinion AoE focused sets should have single target attacks, to turn toward when large numbers have been reduced, but to turn AoEs into effective single target attacks may go too far.
That being said, cones and aoes should be designed with an ideal number of targets in mind when being designed. Knowing how many standard targets fit within the area of effect (be it cone width+range, or radius) helps us determine the ideal number of targets. If the the concern being that AoEs can become too powerful with a growing number of targets fitting within the AoE beyond this ideal target range, a curved reduction of damage per additional target can be used instead of a damage bonus.
What this can allow is stragetic use of cones and area of effect attacks in against large spawns. If you want to spread out as much damage as possible, target the center of the spawn (for a radius aoe), want to do the most damage possible against a large spawn? Target the edges. Instread of encouraging herding large spawns, this could encourage taking on smaller spawns, or even splitting of large spawns. Commanders can control a part of a spawn while a Stalwart holds attention of another part so aoes can be maximized. Having two Stalwarts on a team can give off-tanking further meaning if maximimizing AoEs is a desired tactic.
Needless to say, we have a lot of testing ahead of us as we explore options.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Hmm.. I was thinking of mentioning those other balancing tactics, but was afraid Single Target players would revolt! ;)
I thought that you were trying to stay from the holy trinity... and yet here you just did a typical "holy trinity" tactic.
Wasn't Redlynne talking about this matter and suggesting a damage curve based on Proximity? So all targets within a certain range of the epicenter take more damage than the targets further out, etc, until we reach the edge of the effect? That might solve the AoE damage issue.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Tank & Spank is a valid tactic. You get away from the trinity when the mitigation can be something other than healing.
Basically the trinity is formed when healing is over powered and de/buffing is under powered. The healer is the glue that holds the trinity together and promotes the forced teaming of the trinity model.
Once CoH had been proven to break the trinity, many ATs could fill the role of tank. At that point we could talk about the D3 tanking or whatever. Tanim is talking about Stalwarts tanking because that's the role they're designed for. We haven't actually had our hands on the game yet to determine what we can break. :D
This is correct. I in no way meant to imply an enforcement of the "trinity". However, when discussing spawn control and aoe damage, there several Classifications which may play well into these tactics. Stalwarts and Commanders for spawn control via two differing methods, and this is not all they are meant to do, just in part of what they can do. The other may be fulfilled by any number of combinations of power sets as area effect damage will most likely be represented in one form or another throughout many melee and ranged attack sets.
This isn't to insist on one particular tactic over another, or to state this is the way the game must be, or will be played. However, players utilizing these Classifications can be used with these tactics in mind in order to leverage area effect attacks in the manner I described. At no point did I imply that in order for a Stalwart to control the threat of a group would they absolutely require support to do so, and at no point did i imply the Stalwart wasn't also capable of utilizing selective targeting to maximize their own aoe capability. Even so, I apologize for the confusion I inadvertanly may have caused.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
That can certainly replicate the effects of a Targeted AoE or a Point Blank AoE, like a bomb blast. But it won't so accurately a patch effect like caltrops. Such a circular targeting certainly encourages 'tight herding' as folks try to push the foes into a corner. It also makes it harder to judge the value of the damage it does as you now have to factor in the average number of foes and their average distance from the epicenter.
It also won't address the near uselessness of a AoE power in an attack chain against a single target. This means the character will need a set of AoE powers for multiple foes and another set of attacks for single targets.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
That's a good point, ZM.
I'd be upset if my Freezing Rain, Rain of Fire, or Tar Patch didn't affect everything in the area.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I love you guys. :)
IMHO this is getting close to creating a false impression that sets have to be either single-power focused or AoE focused. Since you've got the capability to set the strengths and weaknesses of each power in a set, you really have a sliding scale, and a set with a heavier AoE focus could have some powers which are great single-target but drop off quickly with more targets (e.g. mass confusion) and other powers with little single-target effectiveness but which don't degrade nearly as much (e.g. burning patch).
That's really more of a practical upper limit on target count than an "ideal" target count. Personally, I wouldn't worry about hitting an ideal as much as using this as a practical upper limit to keep things from getting overpowered.
IMHO there really isn't a need to choose one model or the other as a global system, forcing it on everything. Give powers two damage numbers: a base number not altered by range and another that degrades with 1/[i]r[/i][sup]2[/sup]. Some powers (e.g. caltrops) could have all their points in the base stat, others (e.g. bomb) could have all their points in the other, while others (e.g. napalm) could mix them. This lets you adjust the powers to get whatever effect you want. (Or you could have a "degrades with range" flag on the individual damage components in a power, e.g. napalm bomb could have a high smashing damage (concussion) degrading with range plus a low burning DoT not degrading with range. Whatever works.)
Honestly, I've never been a fan of attack chains. Chains were made to be broken. So if something messes up a player's "attack chain", well, tough cookies. Adapt already.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
/em facepalm
Want a 10 ft radius Target AoE for Caltrops using my method? Here's how you program the radii:
10:0:0:0
So basically the "maximum damage" radius is all encompassing, and the "partial damage" type results have a radius of zero (in effect, turning them off). Note that this formulation would be NO DIFFERENT from how AoEs of all types worked in City of Heroes. For some reason, people keep thinking that having systems which are fully backwards compatible is a Bad Thing™ and therefore Must Not Be Done.
Once you get past this first misimpression, Zombie Man's follow up statement that such as system cannot be made functional against a single target immediately becomes ludicrous on its face ... kind of like saying that water can't make anything wet.
Clearly, Zombie Man needs to [i]EAT MORE BWAINS[/i] ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Proximity-based damage, depending on the actual mechanics of the damage, get complicated. For example, if you have a device that is an omnidirectional claymore mine -- it goes off and 'shoots' projectiles in all directions -- then if you stick the device in a corner, the projectiles that hit the walls damage the walls, and the projectiles that fly out from the corner are unaffected; basically you're getting 1/4 of the area because of blocking walls. If you have a device that is an explosive charge, damaging targets with the blast wave, and you stick the device in a corner, the blast waves that hit the walls are going to reflect off the wall and amplify the effect of the blast wave traveling out from the corridor; you get increased damage from the amplified blast wave and an increased 'range' on the limits of the blast.
At some point, if you're not going for a painfully-precise simulation of real-world effects, you need to decide what abstractions you're going to make in the interests of playability; what you'll get may not reflect real-world effects, but as long as the differences are applied [i]consistently[/i], then players will know what to expect from an AoE.
So we need different rules or parameters to model different types of effects? Do we need to program our AoE powers to sense walls, or other things that might reflect/reinforce the AoE? And AoE is not just about Damage. Does a 'Force Bubble' re-shape itself due to entering a hallway?
How complex do we want our model for AoE behavior to be, in pursuit of 'realism'?
That said, I see good points in both arguments. Some AoEs should probably generate an effect that is focused on the Targeted NPC or PC (or the one Nearest the epicenter) until it reaches some limit and then cascades outwards to affect others. Other AoEs properly affect every target in the area, equally. And other sorts of AoEs should use the 'blast pattern' effect of diminishing over distance.
What would be nice is to be able to apply a fairly simple equation to each of these types of effects. 'Inverse Square', for instance, would probably be the most tightly focused equation, seen in magnetism and gravity. A 'straight line' equation would be appropriate for 'patches', where the effect would be applied to everything in the area.
It might be clever to have a powers designer that let the Devs choose a damage-curve, a radius, and a base damage applied to some point on that curve, then calculate/simulate what that meant for the full area of the effect. Fiddle with the numbers a bit, and it should be easy to create a balance, or adjust it. It might even be clever to be able to layer two or three damage/effect curves, to produce more complex behavior in a power.
Additionally, borrowing from a discussion on KB, it might be nifty to have a 'modifier' key. Hold down the key when you launch the attack and the effect gets modified based on whatever is preset in the Preferences (or by the Devs). In this instance, chording the 'modifier' and the power-activation key, could cause an AoE to 'focus', or 'spread'.
In the case of 'spread', a player could choose to lessen the effectiveness of a power, but expand the area that it affects. In the case of 'focus', a player could choose to have this activation of their power act as a small-radius mini-nuke. That would give the player a greater sense of customization and active participation in the game, but they would not be 'required' to make use of the feature.
I think the Best reason for using 'math' to describe the effects of AoEs, is that they will be easy to calculate, easy to manipulate, and not too hard to understand.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I can get *fully* behind this.
No. Do it clever enough and you can use one system for multiple purposes. That's why I set up my design example to do exactly that in as simple a manner as possible and run it on a Lookup Table basis.
No. Doing this would require additional work at the environmental level. I have no knowledge of how the Unreal Engine would handle something like this, but I suspect that even trying to do this kind of thing would just be begging for trouble.
Why should it need to? Simply letting it clip through the bounding walls works just fine as an end user experience is concerned. Include a Line of Sight limiter on how the game mechanics work and you're all set. Again, no need to go begging for unnecessary work. There's going to be plenty to do as is.
Not very. This is yet another place where [b]K.I.S.S.[/b] design principles bring a virtue all of its own. Besides, complexity tends to breed edge cases that demand excessive QA time. Bare minimum, explaining how AoEs "work" to a new Player should not require a [b]WALL OF TEXT™ CRITS YOU!!![/b] explanation in order to achieve understanding.
Depends on what the resource management techs have to say in the matter. My inclination is to assume use of a Lookup Table for sheer simplicity and speed, driven by the effects of each Power's data specifics, thereby allowing the system to be "flexible enough" to behave in a desired manner.
Definitely put me down in the One Size Need Not Fit All category, as far as this goes. Hence why I proposed the system that I did, where the sheer dynamics of combat situations will go a long way towards making AoEs somewhat variable in terms of the effectiveness of their "throughput" onto a group of targets, if for no other reason than the relative positioning of those targets within the AoE. It gives the Player SOME control over where the greatest "throughput" will occur, meaning that skill can make a difference, without turning AoEs into some kind of "fire and forget" system where the only parameter you need to worry about is covering the most area ... as opposed to choosing the "best" area.
I'm going to be a bit ... heretical ... here, and once again raise the possibility of using a Charge mechanic, where the Player effectively gets to control how much casting time gets spent (1, 2, 3 or 4 seconds) and that the longer the casting time spent, the larger the area of effect. So if you do quick 1 second (or less) Charge on an AoE, using my system you'd only get the smallest radius of the maximal effect, but no additional "rings" of area. Between 1-2 seconds of Charge duration spent, you get +1 ring of extra effect. Between 2-3 seconds of Charge duration, you get +2 rings of extra effect. And between 3-4 seconds of Charge duration you get +3 rings of extra effect. This would a structure where use of a Lookup Table for these kinds of things would make the most sense, as opposed to just relying on a pure math formula calculated on the fly. It gives you a "stair step" performance profile in terms of time spent animating the use of the power and the "reach" of its effects in terms of area. If the maximum Charge time limit is reached on the server (determined by timestamp on packets), then confirmation from the client is not required to activate the Power at maximum AoE settings.
All else being equal, I heartily agree that "math" makes for the best foundation. However, I suspect that Lookup Tables of simple multipliers may be sufficiently "adequate" to the task of creating gameplay that rewards situational awareness and Player Skill, even when fighting in the City of Statues.
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Kill the Heretic!!!
Um, not really. *grin*
Still, having experienced 'Charge' and 'Maintain' in CO, I prefer the straight-ahead 'clickiness' of CoH. I don't want to... waste (relatively) my time charging or maintaining, when I can click an attack/effect and then move on to clicking another.
Freezing Rain! Rain of Fire! Fireball!! then stand back and watch the glorious chaos, while blasting anything that tries to escape... That was Fun!
I admit, some of the powers in CO were fairly nifty but I was locked-down for as long as I held the maintain and could not launch another attack while it was running. Same for Charge, and usually, even a max-charged power would not do as much damage (comparatively) as a long-recharge attack in CoH. At least, that's how it seems to me.
I prefer the freedom to layer several AoEs at once.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Charge mechanics simply have a variable casting/animation time before the attack is released.
Channeled mechanics work more like a DoT that continues manifesting as long as the attack is maintained. Arcane Missiles in WoW would be an example of this.
These two mechanics are similar but not the same.
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This is how I view it
Charge up Skill: Charge Up, Charge Up, Charge Up - Effect (size dictated by upper limit and how long you charge up for)
Channel: Effect - Effect - Effect (size dictated by how long the effect lasts before it ends, either hits the "cap" in terms of time/damage/healing done or damage received by caster/caster moves.... depends on skill).
You can even *combine* the two as well (charge up then channel)
Just a few comments:
The effect of walls blocking AoEs (i.e. walls protect you from them) is easy. Check if the line from blast to target goes through a wall and you're done.
The effect of walls reflecting AoEs and thus channeling their power (much like how a gun barrel channels most of the explosive pressure from the powder to propel the bullet) is, at a first glance, a ray-tracing algorithm, which is a heck of a lot more work than the intersection check above (it would need to check intersections, multiple times, for each ray). Maybe someday, but that's server compute power that could be handling other things instead.
There might be a way to keep a force bubble from drawing its way through an obstacle, but that's client-side eye candy and nothing more. The effects of a force bubble are computed the same way as any other PBAoE.
Equations vs. lookup tables is strictly an implementation decision, and so long as you're not starting with a lookup table full of arbitrarily chosen values, it's straightforward to convert one to the other. We can simply assume the developers will choose the best option. Given the implementation of modern databases, there's no way to predict which version will be faster (database developers have every incentive to make table lookups [i]really[/i] fast). This is why I prefer to work in terms of equations for design purposes: you keep this flexibility as long as you want or need it.
Inverse square isn't just electromagnetism; it's also for sound and anything else where a given amount of energy expands in a spherical pattern. It's derived from the equation for surface area. If spreading is cylindrical (hard ceiling and floor, no walls), it's 1/[i]r[/i]. Given the fact that most AoEs don't fill a room, inverse square should be close enough.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I agree, however, as Zombie Man pointed out, not all AoE powers fit that model. Sometimes you want your AoE to have a more gradual curve. Sometimes you want your effect to be evenly spread through the whole area.
Be Well!
Fireheart
And if you implement the superposition of the two, then you defer this choice until you're defining specific powers. At which point you can do one, the other, or a combination of both.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I suppose I was the minority here in that I used AoEs as little as possible. Nova and Black Hole were the only two I really abused, and that was when I was getting ganged up by mooks (Rare occurrence for me. Supposed I preferred NOT to ever have those situations happen.). Explosive Blast was only ever a combat starter.. unless a bunch had crowded up against another player.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
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Whereas on my Fire/Emp controller, I ended up using AOE's quite a bit
There really wasn't much in the way of 1 AOE takes out entire groups other than nukes. :p
So having to use two AOEs then have some left over was pretty standard. Why herd and AOE was popular was because AOE attacks while cost heavy (generally) did ST worth of damage. So you could wipe out all the minions and be done.
Even with a SS/SH Brute, you'd have enemies left standing after a Shield Charge and Footstomp.
Naaaaw. Outside of my Dual Pistol builds, I generally lacked AOE OMGNESS! My most used character was DB/WP Scrapper, I had a cone attack and a 1-2 slotted PBAOE. :p My Staff/WP Stalker was about the same.
I was on ST focused teams, it really wasn't that bad. And generally didn't feel much slower, as the a lot of the heard and burn mentality had the aoers standing around as someone went about gathering a large group of enemies. Running group to group didn't even become popular until later in the game.
Snipped this part.If this is the goal then AoE should be primarily ground targeted for all type that are not anchored. It's extremely difficult to target specific enemy in middle of a spawn. Especially once they start running around.
As for AoE vs single target. I belong to a camp who says a bit of both.
Ideally I'd split powers into following categories:
Single target only
Single target with splash AoE
True AoE
Single target powers affect a single foe no matter what.
Single target with splash damage could be something like fire blast which hits the primary target for full damage but also a small number of targets around primary target for splash damage. Ideally for me this would be part of power chain so cor example only third hit from the power does the splash damage. I also think most melee attacks should "cleave" which is to say that they are in fact cones that affect primary target and up to two foes next to it. This would make melee more useful without necessarily making it significantly more damaging than ranged.
True AoE is meant for gunning down large number of foes. For instant circular burst type attacks there should be optimal number of targets which always take maximum damage. Beyond that the damage gets reduced for each additional target. For continuous AoEs the damage can come in bursts or distributed as a weaker DoT. Cones could do damage the closer foes are to cone starting point.
I also think we should make room for more interesting and random AoEs such as AoEs that spawn smaller AoEs within a larger zone.
[b]Power samples[/b]
Fire Blast: hit a single target for moderate fire damage and set target and up to 5 surrounding foes on fire for X seconds
Fireball: hit up to 16 targets for moderate fire damage dealing increased damage up to 5 foes near center
Rain of Fire: create a fiery rain that sets all targets entering or within area on fire for x seconds
Cluster Bomb: launch a cluster bomb which pellets up to 5 targets and foes adjacent to them with shrapnel
Claw Swipe: strike single foe for moderate slashing damage; third hit strikes also up to 2 adjacent foes
Wide Slash: strike target foe and up to 2 adjacent foes for high damage
Stone Spike: spike erupts from ground inflicting high damage and immobilizing a single target; up to 5 adjacent foes are knocked down
Earthquake: tectonic waves knock down up to 16 targets within area of effect
Eruption: ground shakes and then erupts with multiple fountains of lava. Any single foe struck by fountain suffer fire damage and is launched into air. Eruption continues spawning fountains within the affected area for duration of the power.
SO, I have admittedly skimmed..... but this sort of ties into Red's suggestion about attack-type resistance (melee/ranged/aoe/etc) vs/in addition to damage type resistance....
Couldn't it be a simple matter of making higher "ranked" enemies be significantly more resistant to AOE attacks/effects then lower ranked ones?
that way, as is the usual (imo) intent of attack types, that AOE is used to cull the herd, while single target attacks are used to drop bosses?
in an "RP" sense, badder enemies have better toughness/awareness and can protect themselves (dodge, block, whatever) against your area attacks better then the blockhead foot soldiers...
With a change as simple as this, both AOE and Single Target could be functionally as "powerful" as feels right, without stepping on each other's toes.
Ideally, no one would have attack-type resistance to single target melee attacks, enemies would have minor scaling attack-type resistance to single target ranged attacks, moderate scaling to melee aoe attacks (PbAOE) and strong scaling to ranged AOE attacks and "nova" attacks.
AOE then becomes a minion-clearing role mixed with, essentially, tick damage thereafter, while single target, and particularly melee damage is a powerful tool against higher ranked enemies...
....sorry in advance if someone already suggested this, but if anyone has, I'll throw my two cents in with them... this seems like the most elegant solution to the problem..
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The problem that I run into, with :positional damage resistance" is, how do you explain that the NPC foe can resist the fire damage from my fire ball easier than the fire damage from my fire bolt or the fire/fire tank's fire melee attacks? That is the main reason that I don't think there was a resistance to the positional damage and just type damage resistance.
Positional Resists never made sense to me. Maybe an AOE Resist for Super Reflexes as a sort of, able to escape all the damage. But then defense can cover that just as easy. You're either hit or you dodged it.
One thing to look into is what TERA did (if memory serves) is Damage got weaker in the farther out the AOE...so 5ft radius got all the damage, with 10ft out less, 15ft out even less until you hit the edge of the AOE.
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