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Has anything been said or would anyone be willing to say if there will be aggro and aoe caps? I would really love to see the "good ole days" return where we can taunt as many as we wanted and hit everyone that is in range of our powers.
I know that this would lead to easy power leveling but it would eventually get to that point sooner or later.
I figured AoE caps was due to keep the game play balance. But me personally, I always believed that If i just erupted in a blaze of fire and sent out a wave of deadly radioactive heat, then it should hurt all the enemies around me. Not just 5 of those people. o.o That to me doesn't make sense. I only see AoE caps in MMOs. If they are in my cone, or arch, or area, then they should get hit.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Hmm...
I liked the Cap.. made it possible for other scrappers to Hit Stuff thats still standing.
But thats only a concern when there are more players on team. Its a pain only when you are Soloing, or Hunting for 50 or so baddies on your own. If the game was smart enough to know the situation you're in, then i dont mind removing the Cap. :)
Or at least using some sort of Scaling after the Cap... less damage
I wouldn't mind the scaling of less damage if more enemies. I'd be okay with that. But just a straight out hard limit of say 5. I just always thought that was silly.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Part of that can also be for performance issues. I am not saying that was the case for some of the caps in CoX, but it can sometimes be to keep stuff more "predictable" or less spikey.
I remember being on the test server doing an ITF when they were testing out some performance tweaks.
Lets just say that we managed to drag the *whole* of lag hill down to a crawl... Lag hill had been fine for the whole mission, but having 3 or 4 Ion Judgements going off at the same time, made us suddenly hit a not just a low frame rate, but also *severe* lag.
We only hit about 40 mobs all in one go with them.....
Indeed, I remember setting off a nova pre cap in Infernal's room when I thought we was about to wipe due to the sheer number of demons in the room, I think everybodies PC locked up solid for 3 or 5 seconds, then when the dust cleared nothing remained, I even got Infernal with it :)
Caused a pop up that said sommat like "too many graphical effects" - what the hell are you doing!?!?!
cue smug blaster
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7817/Artificial-Intelligence.html
According to Posi, the AoE and Aggro caps were because we whined when they tried to take away our easy-mode farming. So, which would you rather? Caps, or smarter enemies? I'm not saying what MWM is going to do with CoT's AoE and Aggro, but this is something to think about.
I enjoyed that article, and I do believe that smarter enemies would be nice, although I also believe that some players *wont* like the smarter mobs, that will run away from you, and force you to chase them down, just because you hacked apart their best friends...
Agreed, and the reasons he gave for why he liked that idea (It encourages team play/smarter play with regards to CC) are certainly valid. But, you can't please everyone. MWM is going to have to decide if they want to please us old Fire Tankers, or if they want to progress.
Hmm.. Smarter mobs?
Didnt Leutenats run away when their health was dropping... and we would chase them.. Right into a Big Ol' Mod of his buddies? :)
Didnt Blasters yell "Ohh Shit.. I did too much Dmg.. Enemy is coming After me NOW.. Stupid Tank.. TAUNT!" ;)
Didnt Lord Recluse Detect which Pilon (whatever it was called) was taking damage and Rush to it to defend it?
AI wasnt THAT frikking bad. And anyways. Normal content cant have VERY Smart enemies, because casual players only have 2 to 3 hours of play time. They will Die, Rez, Die , Rez, Die Rez.. and after 3 hours.. FINALY Defeat Frostfire! ;) Lets make the Smarter AI enemies for Tougher player... Difficulty Setting?
Curse you Frostfire!!!!! >.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
I can certainly understand one aspect of the frustration of suddenly facing smarter enemies, especially with the example Miller used in that article. An attack that is an immobile DoT patch would also need to be changed if the enemy behavior changes, otherwise it becomes nearly useless. If the game play and powers are designed around a relatively dumb AI one can't go and make it smarter and then call it a day.
To stay with the example of enemies that run away, it may be realistic but it isn't fun for everyone. Such actions are unlikely to be an inconvenience to a character with ranged attacks (although there often seemed to be the one annoying guy who managed to get out of range with just a sliver of health left). Conversely, when playing a melee character in CoH, I often felt that I had to kill every enemy in a group now-now-now or the fight would turn into a game of cat and mouse (and some of those guys ran a long damned ways).
On the subject of AoE caps, I feel that it's a question of balance in the larger scheme of things. If an AoE oriented character could potentially defeat dozens of enemies at once (and I suspect most players would not want to spend 15 minutes doing so) the single target oriented characters would need to be able to shine just as much in another arena. That tends to lead to the kind of divergence that makes one or the other mandatory depending on the situation.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Yeah, the "good ol' days" of one tanker aggroing everything and one blaster finishing it off were only "good" if you were the tanker, and only "meh" if you were the blaster. For everybody else, it was "this is stupid."
Fixing it, with target caps and particularly aggro caps, led to a game that held most people's interest and got better and better right up until sunset.
So that's the stark choice we're faced with: a game that wrecks your video card and leaves most players thinking "this is stupid," or one of the best games any of us ever played.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Well i wouldnt mind if they removed the aggro cap from some powers, especially some tank ability's since they have to take aggro.
Offcours AoE powers should be twinked than so they do less damage (keeping power balance in check against power lvling)
I am SO not a tech. But remember that our techs, unlike the 'good old days' techs, got to play in a Certain Other Home before designing their game! :)
Lessons have been learned.
Our intent is for you to be able to feel powerful, taking on a lot of enemies at once. But at the same time, we don't want one set of builds or strategies to dominate gameplay. Expect to be surprised and have to create new tactics or improvise fairly often; we don't want you asleep at the keyboard. At the same time, you won't be white-knuckling it through most batles.
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IANAL, IMHO, WYSIWYG, YMMV, IIRC, AFAIK, ETC
[color=#ff0000]Composition Assistant Director, Composition Team[/color]
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Oh good. I had to re-read that, because at first I thought it just said "You won't be white-knuckling it through battles." Personally, I loooooooooved those fights. I once had to "tank" Reichsman on my Sonic/Energy blaster because I had Force of Nature, and the two Defenders in my group did not. That was intense. Especially when we won!
I love the battles we had in Perez Park in the center. We'd have a full group and be running around just getting into fights and beating up the mobs and find ourselves in tight scenarios. fun times.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
I'm a Gemini so my 'SQUIRREL!' quotient is fairly high. If you can deliver on a game that won't put me to sleep using the same powers over and over, I'll consider overtime to up my contribution. Really looking forward to what you guys are cooking up!
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I can see the argument for AoE caps, but did someone articulate a really good reason for aggro caps? Perhaps I should ask if there is a really good argument for capping the tank at 16 in an instanced mission where there are more than 16 enemies right in front of you? i understand the argument that one tank should not be able to aggro all of Perez Park at once...or 40 simultaneous mobs in an ITF. But I never liked that 16 was the magical number for a tank. It seemed to me that it would be better to link to the size of a mob in the mission, like 1.5 times mob size or something, with a minimum of 16.
Also, tanks should have more taunt range and cap level than other classifications, in my view. the specialization of the ATs is an advantage we want to retain.
Id like to see:
Diminishing returns. At 5 mobs all mobs take 100% damage... At 10 mobs all mobs are taking 50% damage...... At 40 mobs all mobs are taking 10% damage
So you can tag as many mobs as you can handle, but you cant sweep them all in 3 attacks.
I would like that tied to:
Smart AI: Some mobs try to run, some try to attack faster, some try to interrupt, some try to heal, some straight up die because they arnt very smart.
All of that in the same large groups. So if the group is say 8 spawns.. 2 will try to run, 2 will go bezerk, 2 will fight normal, and 2 will try to heal their team with consumables
Your character would find a natural balance of what it can handle.
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Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
I wouldn't mind smarter mobs that did something bright besides run across the map randomly for no reason. That wasn't smart AI that just made the gameplay slightly more annoying.
I think the mob behavior should match the descriptions. Like the Council wolves, supposed to be the berserkers that savagely go after their prey until it's dead or they are dead yet, I seen so many simple tuck tail and run away clear across the map sometimes simple from damageless agro. That aint smart, that's "What the hell?" to me.
When I fight enemy I want enemy that at least supposed to be a threat. If they are going to flee all the time, then why am I even bothering fighting them? The job is done, they ran away, mission complete.
Tactical retreat, I can see. But tell me this. Why is a zombie that is supposed to be brainless fleeing in fear when they are not supposed to have fear? If they flee at least make some attempt of it making a little bit of sense. Like they flee to the next mob (NOT ACROSS THE MAP and take their sweet time coming back on a kill all.) and if you don't follow, they come back or stay. Or if the fleeing mechanism is in place there should be one where they actually give up. They count as defeated but literally drop their weapons and leave the map for good assuming it makes sense. A werewolves or zombie doing that is just as silly as them simply fleeing. And it fleeing shouldn't be with every mob it should be very very very rare. A few games of cat and mouse is ok, interesting. After a while it gets monotonous and not very challenging at all, and after a while it's just gets down right boring.
"Ok people, here we are at the first group they would be tough if they fight but half of them will tuck tail and run and thus make this mission too easy. Rinse repeat. And block the door the pets we don't want to chase the main AV across the map again. If he pulls off his AOE we are in trouble but don't worry, he'll spend most of the fight running."
Why an agro cap?
Because no power should be unlimited and infinite. It would be like asking why can't my blaster one-shot Hami?
Unlimited agro cap led to the many mechanical exploits in CoH, like herding a whole map safely. Unlimited agro cap could enable a Tanker to herd an entire zone and then train them onto a pile of newbs.
That being said, there are possible ways to make agro control more interesting like increasing the foes' powers as the number of agro-controlled goes up so it's not very safe to herd a whole map (we're a large ineffectual horde?... K then, everyone let's go berserk and pop Rage!). Or ways to temporarily increase agro control so that the Tanker has to mind it rather than it be a mindless affair.
No promises here, just shooting off ideas...
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Tank aggroes whole map and leads em to where u are!? Bad Tank, BAD!
I also hated when people Teleported me 100 feet up in the Air and let me drop to the grond. Bad Team Mate, BAD! :(
I think that the point of the thread would be to keep the world we play in realistic. If you launch a fireball at an enemy, it makes sense if those around him get hit by it as well. It doesn't make sense for it to hit only a small amount. If a character is battling with a large group, it doesn't make sense for the 18th, 19th, 20th allies to completely ignore the hero who is pummeling his buddies as if nothing is happening.
AOE Caps and Aggro Caps seem to be answers to balance, but these were balance issues that existed already in game, and had to have a simple and cost-effective repair. The opportunity now is to have a way to find a way to maintain balance with these devices while still maintaining a sense of realism.
A diminishing returns seems viable for both systems to me. With AOE damage maybe a diminishing to-hit check or damage scalar as the number of targets rise in relation to the location of the target? Just an idea.... With herding, perhaps a diminishing aggro and taunt duration? In COH if you got to 17 targets, the 18th would immediately turn away and ignore you! Instead, we could say that up to 15 targets get a full taunt effect and will continue to attack the tank, but as the number of targets increase, the duration of this decreases. Therefore it is possible for a single tank to hold the attention of 25-30 targets, but it is very difficult to keep them from turning away and firing at your glass cannon friend. You will need to stomp, punch, kick, and taunt faster and harder to keep their attention, which makes sense and keeps a sense of real world battling.
Ok.. but not just shorter taunt duration. smaller tant effect. :)
So a diminishing return on taunt duration and magnitude? I feel that makes sense...
Sometimes game mechanics have to trump realism. I don't think a cap on AoE/Taunts is inherently a bad thing. I'm not saying it has to go that way, but game balance may require it.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I do say that there should be a matter of feeling powerful because you can take damage from a large group, so I hold nothing against holding aggro of a high number of enemies like 30 or 40, but we should avoid allowing a whole map.
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[color=#FF0000]Recording Engineer/Foley Artist[/color]
I do know it used to be fun to go to Perez and play tag with the Hydra in the lake. Trying to gather up all of them and see how long I could drag them around the lake before they managed to kill me. (Untyped/toxic damage was just so much fun for Inv tanks. :D) Stopped doing it with the caps, wasn't any fun with just 16 of them. :(
That the other thing about agro caps. I get the AOE cap for game mechanic balancing aspect. And realism, yeah only go so far as if wanting to get deep into realism, then most things would immediately die from a bullet shot or be burnt to crisp with even the simplest fire attack.
It looks silly to jump into a large mob, and half of them are just standing there looking around until you kill one and then one activates and so on.
But the way it was like that in COX kind of leads me to believe the agro cap was more to prevent those nutcases from griefing people than just didn't want players wiping out enemies like that. And COX had more than it's fair share of people that nothing better to do than grief others in ways the ignore button didn't stop. Like the teleport thing before they came with the prompt thing. Where you could teleport anyone without their permission. While good for easy transport from the friendly TP guy, there were many that used it for other means that isn't fun to the person on the receiving end.
I don't think it was the griefers so much as the fire tanks that would herd an entire outdoor map of 5th Column wolves then jump into a container and wait for them all to die, either from his fire or from a blaster with a nuke. I was never any good at that kind of thing, it wasn't fun for me. Playing with the Hydras was because they could do a lot of damage to me with their attacks. (Note that I never took them out of the lake area nor herded them into other players, that kind of play has never been fun for me.)
Oh yeah almost forgot about them fire tanks. They were everywhere until the agro cap came about then rarely seen any. Yeah, that dumpster thing seemed... interesting.
Well it's sad that it took the fun out of people that used those methods for harmless enjoyment. But good thing, it cut down on griefers especially with the other changes. Well I guess it took the fun out of it for griefers too. They couldn't grief people as easily with mob swarming, TP, drive by speed boost and the likes anymore.
I say to hell with the agro cap and let it fly.
But those that use it for other means such as griefing, they should be dealt with swiftly and not allow that type of behavior to persist at all. Meaning a robust reporting system probably will have to be made, one that works and one that get responses and investigation into the reported situation.
Ohhhh... Yea... When the Next Avengers Movie comes out, we might see Allot of NOVA's (pretty plz), IROM-MAN's and the like in CoT being created. I think we might want to make the reporting system a little bit more easier. We can have the Name of the hero being Infringed uppon bubble up in a dropdown combo list (text entry to search also) and have it tally somewhere the totals for each. Moderators can look at these and deal with the highest totals 1st. :)
yeah definitely for that purpose too. While one suit failed that don't mean the next one will and rather not see money having to be wasted on fighting off a lawsuit due to a few people wanting to make copyrighted toons when that money could go to development.
I honestly didn't see this in CoX but certainly in other games.. if you can herd up all the cats in the cattery level and asplode them.. what am I supposed to do until they respawn? Twiddle my thumbs?
And the issue remains that even if you were on my team, you're running round with all these cats and I've got nothing to do or even worse, my slow firing aoe keeps missing them.
So you definitely need caps.
It works the other way too, my semi-ok mid-level toon knows if they run long enough, stuff will eventually stop chasing them, stuff possibly won't kill them if they are lucky and they'll be able to make it across the map. It gets annoying having to fight *everything* all the time.
Taunt magnitude should be enhanceable and increase your threat level as bosses are less likely to be pulled than minions.
Different taunts : passive taunt is usually pbaoe whilst offensive taunt is conical.
Pulling GMs onto the piles of people looking for a PL. Some people thought this was hilarious, some thought it was terrible. Personally I think taking two problems, putting them in a room and letting them fight it out is incredibly entertaining.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I am not saying to throw the cap out, but to make it a "soft cap" instead of the CoH "hard cap" version. If the first twelve enemies received a full taunt duration and magnitude, then a single spawn would easily be handled by a single tanker. The problem I always had with the "hard cap" was that if an ambush showed up, and I could have handled the damage, it didn't matter because I was stuck with only 17 no matter what. If a system of diminishing returns applied to all targets exponentially after the twelfth enemy, a tanker "could" theoretically jump into this ambush and hold their attention as well. It would take far more effort to hold the attention of them however, because the taunt magnitude and duration would be so low by the time your reached 25, 30, or 40 targets. When that many enemies are around, the duration would only be for a second (enough time to fire an attack) and then they would probably turn back to fire on your allies until you attacked them again!
Im just wondering if the number of targets should scale up as your Security level goes up!? :P
I love this!
If can go BU + Footstomp into a bunch of Fire Elemental bad guys then I'm okay with them [the survivors I mean] immediately returning the favor with BU + Fireball.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
In another game...,
- ...called Dark Age of Camelot, did an outstanding job regarding how aggro was attained and retained - without some sort of Taunt skill/power. I know, most are probably thinking...'b-b-but, without TAUNT...how is a tank supposed to maintain aggro?'. Well, in DAoC...that was accomplished by the Warrior actually HITTING and HURTING the opponent. There were also attacks that, when they successfully hit, incurred more aggro than the damage they actually dealt...these attacks also reduced the warriors defenses.
- Combining those three elements - a warrior dropping his guard, hitting an enemy where he knew it would hurt worst, combined with some vocalized retort or exhortation made that kind of 'Taunt' the staple of what I thought, and still think, 'Taunts' should be. I did like the inclusion of 'Punch-voke' in City of Heroes, which was why almost none of my Brutes/Tanks ever acquired 'Taunt'...Hurl made a very effective 'Taunt' when you dash a concrete slab against a Boss's noggin shouting, 'Hey, Chuckles...-CATCH-!'. ^_^
- Should there be an 'aggro cap'?...I don't see why, because I don't think it's about how many the Tank cons into attacking him or her - it's about how many the Tank can keep their attention (...which, again, is one of the main reasons why I oppose the Taunt power...). Realistically speaking, even the dumbest pack of mobs is only going to be distracted so long before they comprehend that it's not the guy shouting at them that's causing the problems - it's the guy in the distance that's blasting them to pieces.
- Personally, if 'Taunt' -MUST- be included...I'd like to see it on a 60 second cooldown timer and those who are currently under the taunt effect gain resistances to further 'Taunt' effects establishing a condition where it's possible for a Tank to 'Taunt' large mobs, but he better hope the mobs put down fast enough before they get wise to the ruse and go after the squishes...or even better, maintain aggro because he or she hits like a freight train (...or have your attacks slotted for Taunt because you know how to hit...and make it hurt...). ^_^
- Taunting should be an active process, so toggles shouldn't Taunt...fear, slow, confuse, reduce accuracy...yes, depending upon the special effect, but there should be an active reason behind the Taunt. In short, Attack Powers should be able to be slotted for taunt...even PBAOE's and Cones, but they're not constant so it would require constant reapplication...and that would be sufficient enough reasoning to incur the Taunt effect (...you're actively -HITTING- them...).
basically.
taunt hide behind corner, mob gather, blaster do it's thing. taunt, hide behind corner, mob gather, blaster does it's thing. taunt, hide behind corner mob gather, blaster does it thing.
In a nutshell...*Zzzz...* :/
basically.
I would hazard a guess I played more tanks than anyone. Every powerset to 50 some 3+times no pls. I firmly support aggro caps. First it keep your team awake and paying attention. Second it takes a bit of skill to learn how to "massage" a mob and effectively manage alphas and aggro with a cap. Remove the cap=significantly lower the fun in tanking.
With no aggro cap we go back to one ego maniac tank with a pet h34lz0r telling everyone else to stay back and not spoil HIS fun.
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
I guess I'm sort of stuck in the middle on this one. I usually played a tanker (lvl 50 shield defense/fire tanker) and it was truly irritating how often I could get only a few of the pack with one taunt. I think a middle of the road approach might be the most realistic. Keep a cap of some sort, but make it a larger number. That way large groups will still always hit the cap (in missions anyway) and smaller groups/solo might not.
Even with the cap that ego maniac happened, just smaller groups. Instead of waiting for him to herd the map, it just waiting until he herd the agro cap he can get and then repeat process more. God forbid ya aggro more than than the cap because no one supposed to get agro but them, the ego maniac type tank. :P
But yeah the agro cap had it's up and downs. Suppose a player could adjust their own agro cap from base line and up? Kind of like a side feature of the difficulty slider and like the difficulty slider affects instanced missions. Although then, there might be possibility of people sending out "Looking for tank. Tank with max agro cap setting only" team forming messages.
Personally, I consider nearly all hard caps to be a sign of something broken or inelegant (unless they reflect an unfortunate limitation of the engine or something like that). That said, there are indeed game balance issues. One simple approach to a variety of the problems is to combine reducing returns on aggro management effectiveness with an actual "counter" to aggro -- call it the "I'm bored, I wanna go home" effect. The further you pull something from its 'natural area', the stronger it has to be aggroed on you to continue pursuit. Combine that with aggro decay over time, and you also have "if I keep running and don't die, eventually it will get fed up and leave me alone" (which is not the same as "I ducked behind a wall and it forgot about me").
And there may indeed be options that allow someone to adjust how their threat numbers are set up (at least to a limited extent). Though as with anything else, there are tradeoffs to be made there...
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[color=#ff0000]Developer Emeritus[/color]
and multipurpose sheep
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
THIS.
1000X THIS.
As a side note, one thing I've wanted to see was a more nuanced "chase people around corners" system. Say a mob is aggroed on a player who ducks behind a corner. In the games I've played, this either breaks aggro or the mob keeps aggro on you anyway and homes in on you like it can see through walls.
But what if the mob's "thinking" changes to "I will run up to the point I last saw my target, then continue chasing if I can see them, otherwise I'll stop and switch to "alerted" for a few seconds, looking around, and if nothing else shows itself I'll head back." If you could pull off more complexity, you could even have it guess where its prey headed and keep going that way. All modified by the "Oh screw it" effect DSFH describes above.
Because I'd totally love to be able lose a mob that's chasing me by ducking into a side office and hiding behind the fern.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Already ahead of you. [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/26786#comment-26786]LINK[/url]
Already ahead of you on this one too. [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/npc-ai-behaviors-and-scripting]LINK[/url]
Tannim222 has already commented once on this this notion in that thread, so you may be interested in reading what he had to say.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'd like to see if they could have cases where they keep the aggro on where they suppose you are, but don't know where you are. IOW, one thing that definitely makes stealth feel cool is when you get out of LoS of pursuers, find a spot to stealth/hide, and see the folks who were pursuing you catch up to you and then pass you by (as they continue their 'pursuit'). They'll give up their pursuit of 'you' later and return, but that mechanic of waiting for them to pass and doubling back before they return is pretty damn satisfying if you are being sneaky.
Another plus of having a reasonable deaggro process is that you can have the opportunity to have certain cases where you may be facing something where aggro is never given up on, and the unusualness of that will make that situation more interesting.
Some someones had mentioned the AI above, in connection with it being smart enough not to herded. I agree that that would not be considered fun, as a general setting, but I have often though that a range of more sensible NPC AI behaviors would make an interesting difficulty slider that you could let a team manipulate. I also think there should be certain enemy groups that just have a better sense of tactics, by default. People would know what they were getting into when they faced those groups, so they could avoid them if that that kind of fight would be a buzzkill.
ETA: thanks for those links, Red
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"
To be honest though, that didn't stop people from finding other ways to power level though, especially with AE, then they were able to use the aggro cap to their advantage by not taking too much damage, so you'd see a tank with an aura ticking down all of the enemies and get insane experience with little to no effort.
Due to this, I feel that even having an aggro cap could be a detriment. With CoX, I felt it really came to the point where it was a game of players trying to find ways to power level and the developers trying to prevent that.
Having played CoX from the beginning of its life to the end, I can't necessarily blame people for wanting to find some ways to level quickly, people were willing to go through a grindfest to avoid playing the same content that they've played 50 times before.
As a result, I feel that the solution isn't an aggro cap, but rather releasing more content and including the "Field Analysts" with the options of challenging yourself.
Because lets be honest, we play games because they're fun and make us feel good, tanking 40 enemies while your team's pounding on them, makes you feel like one successful tank.
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[color=#FF0000]Recording Engineer/Foley Artist[/color]
AE as it was implemented wasa farm/PL gift drop.
I'd really like to see that feature stick around though, I think it was a great way to unleash the creativity of the players. I'd also like to see top rated AE missions become actual scanner missions and arcs in the game though. That would be a great way to increase content and allow the dev team to focus on other changes such as power sets, endgame content, new classes, etc.
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[color=#FF0000]Recording Engineer/Foley Artist[/color]
In one of the old wolf farms -- the one on the 'northeastern Boomtown' map (I think it was 'Close the Dimensional Ruptures' from Unai Kemen), where the process was to have a /Dev Blaster planting Trip Mines in a shipping container while the Tanker aggro'd the map, if you were too close to the shipping container when the Blaster dove down to get close enough to the Trip Mines for them to go off, you'd get a pop-up window that said "Too many effects to render".
I respect the need for an aggro cap, but I would rather it be something variable and tied to a diminishing return. Example, a low level tank - while realistically unable to handle a large group of mobs, wouldn't be so "threat"ening as say a L 50 tank that just make her presence known to a large area. Make it something that can be boosted through a presence enhancement to hit more, tie the entire number into diminishing return, and the hard caps could be cleanly masked behind an actual agro system while still presenting a genuine risk that you can bite off more than you can chew.
I remember a similar one in Dreck's map to gather all the freaks in a container. I was on my kin def at the time, just got fulcrum shift... all those freaks came in, game lag, all mobs dead. I remember the tank said something like "oh I LIKE that power!"
[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]
Yup. See that was a revolutionary feature. Mention "Players creating their own missions in an MMORPG" about 6 years ago replies have been "What is the point of playing an MMORPG then. Why not simply get a team and do the missions." "no devs I ntheir right mind would do something like that. That would create more problems than it's worth."
COX devs did it anyways and it may not been the first major MMO to do it, but since then I noticed in many games super hero and non super hero mmo, there are requests for similar features and some games are starting to have it in their game.
It's a good feature and of course it had it it's issues, but now, time to evolve it.
And being able to kite a couple stragglers to the tank, then fall back and [i]devastate[/i] the entire formation with Full Auto... That's when I thought, "Teaming and strategy rocks."
It's not the same when there's some arbitrary cap saying, "well, yeah, you can [i]try[/i] to go over your specified limit, but it won't matter."
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
No. This is an excuse. Nobody plays the SAME content in the SAME way 50 times and still subs. You'd go mad before that happened. I played hundreds of alts through CoV, CoH, CoX (with side switching, gold side, PvE and PvP for badging and content and merits and AE for tickets and fun) and if you don't want to play it.. don't. Go play something else. Either the game is fun for you or it's not.
What did 50 bring? End game content. Rly? What was that then? iTrials? Oh I really need a PL so I can farm iTrials? REALLY?
End game has its place, it is traditionally where you make the most money because mobs drop more, drop pricier gear/currency/where everyone traditionally heads for. CoX for me had sooooooo much content that I could spend weeks on different toons, different servers, with different people and not run the same stuff twice.
So equating aggro cap with PL'ing for me is not what playing is about. There should be an aggro cap, the times it felt stupid were in those PL AE missions where you'd ping 10 mobs and a further 40 would ignore you until you'd killed the first 10. Outside that.. it makes sense.
Jumping back to what AbJoe said.. if you want some kind of longevity, if you want someone to figure out what the strengths/weaknesses are for every tank - and not just your traditional tank, CoX had a tank class it's true but you could tank on a stormy- then you need to have limitations for people to explore and envelopes for people to push. CoT, if it's going to be CoH2 in all but name, has to add to the game not be some pre-ED snorefest or complaint that lack of content means you need to be level cap at all times.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I loved a game where a tank didnt have to have 1 or 2 healer attendants just to survive a few(12) mobs. swtor tanks are squishy by comparison.
There is one other area of the basic CoX "feel" where aggro caps play an important role.
Sacrifices.
Throughout the game there were places where you were forced to make a choice. Which epic/patron should I choose? Which powers from my pri/sec can I skip to make room for x? Which foe should I debuff? Which lt has to die first? Where should I drop my patch?
If you have an I Win Button, or if you can have every option with no penalties, you remove an entire level of interaction. The victory, however inevitable it might have been, becomes just a little bit less yours, because the outcome did not depend on your choice.
A tank, or really any control class, is all about choice. Which boss will I taunt? Will I save the blaster or the defender? Which of my teamates can survive without me for the 5-10 seconds I need to turn this tide? For other classes there are choices of personal survivability. For a tank, particularly with buffs in the mix, the choices are of teamate survivability.
Take away those choices by removing an aggro cap, and you take something away from the tank. Turning the tide in that epic battle for your team is no longer your win. It belongs to the binary totality of buffs and dps.
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Like oh, say... when the mob loses sight of you, it starts dropping your aggro rating. It *also* calculates a probability cone of where you might be *now*, based on what it knew about your movement speed. If the aggro meter says it is still aggroed on you and it understands a 'search' behavior, it will head in a direction that gives it the best chance (*based on what it knew*) to see you.
It is really a whole lot easier to hide from folks who are being distracted by your buddy hitting them in the back of the head and saying "lookitme! lookitme!" than from those who have nothing better to do than wander around looking for you... or who have been told that if someone gets into the base it is *their* skin on the line for it, and thus have a rather strong reason to try to find out. Of course, that may mean they are *less* interested in, say, triggering an alarm, because they'd still get in trouble...
What, you mean people might opt to avoid missions where they go up against groups that are known for staging vicious, effective ambushes once the attackers get 20 feet past the front door, and are smart enough to have cameras and a security room with a staff that isn't asleep?
... or at least might consider the wisdom in using something other than the front door as an entryway rather more than they would under normal circumstances.
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I like where this is going. I guess the cone comes from 1) stand at destination point X 2) look in direction Y and 3) apply standard "in front of me" aggro algorithm. Go on...
I usually play a sniper. If I don't have a buddy, that potted plant looks like a real good place to be. Or behind the desk. Or something.
If I get aggro while on a team, it's usually because I picked a really bad perch or things have gone horribly wrong. Again, office foliage is better than nothing.
ROFLMAO! "Who assaults a ninja stronghold through the front door?!"
Let's hear it for Evil Empires With Competent Staff!
Honestly, I'm not interested in facing The Same Damn Oversimplified Modified Homing Missile AI over and over again. Heck, if the AI were smarter, there'd be the possibility of some fancier powers than would otherwise be feasible. E.g. if the enemy can ambush you, powers (or whatever) that 1) detect ambushes, or 2) provide reflexive defense against ambushes would be quite useful.
Say, in a martial arts set you could have a toggle (that you could only turn on out of combat) that would give you a one-shot defense bonus, automatically select the attacker, and a chance at a counterattack, if ambushed? Similar things for psionic sets. Maybe some sonic power that sends out a PBAoE field of sound waves A similar power could be had for force fields, but with a PBAoE effect that lets it protect friendlies. So "Defender" isn't just "buffer/debuffer" any more, but can also be a scout.
Point being that none of that makes any sense with mostly passive opponents that stand there waiting to get beat up or lose track of you as soon as you round a corner or, worse, magically know where you are. (I really hated the CoX missions where newly spawned ambushes are auto-aggroed on the weakest party member. ITF next to last mission had lots of those. Maybe the tank gets their attention, or maybe the ambush spawns behind us where the squishies all hang out, and the tanks have already run way off ahead to find things to herd. Would be nice to have a shot at survival by hiding then...
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I've seen a real wealth of wonderful ideas regarding tanking in here. For now I just want to comment on the brief discussion I've assembled below.
Joe, given the two comments I quoted above you (and because like the Wooly One, I hate artificial caps) do you feel that the system outlined by Thunder-Puncher would still require the type of decision making you outline as Sacrifices? Especially if combined with the (unquoted) suggestion that an AoE does X damage per target, and if more than Y targets are hit it does X/2, etc? (My take on that type damage system would actually be an AoE does X damage with a single target cap of Z divided amongst Y targets, period.)
I don't think the mobs had the power to determine who was the weakest link.
Altho I'd vote for that. Played apathetically? Built your character badly? Getting a PL? Here, have a large bunch of mobs all up in your grill. Muahahaha.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Yeah, I heard that a lot. I saw several instances to the contrary, though. Considering that specific ITF mission, where you had to find and destroy the crystals, and when you destroyed a crystal, a large ambush would spawn somewhere nearby and head over.
Several times, when I [i]wasn't the weakest character[/i], had cloaking device running, and hung back at the former location of the crystal, I saw the weak player (a defender, usually) get lost and take a different tunnel than the rest of the group. Normally, no big deal. But the ambush, which had yet to get line of sight on anybody, went down that same tunnel instead of the one the tanks were in.
The times I saw them head down the tunnel to the main group, the weakest player was in the main group. The times when I was the weak player, they'd charge into the room and attack me, even if I was all the way on the far side of the room from them, running the cloaking device, and the tank was trying to drag their aggro, I'd [i]still[/i] take the alpha. It got to where, if I saw Romans come around a corner, I'd try to cut line of sight, and not come back until I saw the tank or other team members taking hits.
Best I could tell from the 20+ times I noticed this in that mission over the years, it was picking people based on lowest max HP. And a lot of other missions [i]didn't[/i] have ambushes that worked that way; they had ambushes that headed for a [i]location.[/i]
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
See, that works for me. :) If I was running a PuG I probably would avoid them unless the team happened to be firing on all cylinders. On an team of players I know, however, we'd be a moth to their flame.
CoH had Malta, of course, and Malta had a backstory that justified them being tweaked to take down supers. Their game impact wasn't due to strategy so much as effect, though (very long mez, and end drain, if you were careless, etc.). I'd welcome a more tactically-badass enemy group provided it was possible for people who aren't looking for that to avoid them (as folks could avoid Malta in CoH).
Wisdom??? Are we going to have a WIS attribute in CoT? ;-)
Yeah, I just want to be careful to make a range of more sensible AI [em]available[/em], and not to make all the AI very sensible. IOW, I think part of the CoH experience was that it was fun for casual play, but also had ways it could be interesting for people looking for more complication. In CoH's case, that was largely a matter of mixing up strategies by employing interesting combinations of powers, along with some difficulty sliders that could make it more challenging, but didn't necessarily mean big changes to strategy. If CoT could keep that and add a slider for AI sensibility (which would require some different team strategies), that would be an awesome evolution.
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"
Aaaaaactually, I would like to have the NPCs have some more awareness of details about the player, but not for anything as practical as targeting... I was more hoping they could just use something they parsed from our costume parts or name as a basis for mocking individuals on the team. >_> I've never suggested it since I felt like making it work well enough to be useful might be too hard (though I doubt I could resist trying for it on the side if it was my job to make NPCs say things). It doesn't have to be perfect, of course, since part of the amusement would be if they were very unfair in the mocking (like if they referred to a rather dignified character as a "catboi" just because it was a male with cat ears).
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"
Not going to try to speak for AbJ, but thinking about this, I don't see how the two couldn't co-exist. There are still decisions to make as to which opponent you need to focus on RIGHT NOW to keep the (Defender/blaster/controller/whatever) on the team alive to help prevent a team wipe. In some ways, it's even BETTER with a non-hard-cap Aggro limit, because there isn't a stark yes/no decision to be made regarding who to taunt next, I'd think it would be much more nuanced as to what your next target needs to be.
I like it, BUT... that would make it very easy for Bullying to happen. You have to keep the focus away from singleing out a certain individual in a positive or negative way. Well, not Too Much! ;)
The perennial aggravation of going from [i]City of Heroes[/i], where my [i]Scrappers[/i] would eagerly jump into the middle of a spawn of three or four lieutenants and eight to ten minions and look at that as a fair fight (and with my Tankers, once I fixed a few with poorly-chosen builds, I could go AFK in the middle of such a group and survive), to SWTOR, where a character specced in the tank tree who is several levels above the mission level can be dropped easily by two or three Strong (i.e., lieutenant) mobs... SWTOR is firmly mired in the "3 minions = 1 hero" mindset that Jack Emmert built into CoH, and which Paragon Studios threw out once Cryptic was bought out.
Not to mention some of the cognitive disconnects about aspects of the game -- for example, my Trooper is an active member of the Republic military... but your gear is either bought off the GTN with your own funds, made by your companions from supplies that you gather or buy yourself, or scavenged off of the bodies of the people you kill, and any scavenged gear you can't use you sell to get more credts. The same goes for the Imperial Agent, and to a lesser degree the Jedi and Sith. I can see Bounty Hunters and Smugglers having to procure and repair all their own gear, but not for active members of the military or intelligence services; it just [i]feels[/i] wrong.
ah, sorry, when I said individuals on the team I was talking about the characters on that team, not the players. Then again, maybe you are saying that an enemy group mocking a character would be considered bullying of the player. I wouldn't agree (and I think it would be an odd concern in that they will be trying to beat up the character in various ways, as well), but if that is how the devs saw it, that would be their business.
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"
Well it can turn into bullying. Players see the enemy mob mocking a player, but of course people like to take things to the next level and too far, then it ends up becoming personally and bullying then of course they will see no harm in their behavior under the guise of "well the mob was doing it so it must be ok. The person is being too sensitive." Well until someone else flip it and touch on something they view as sensitive, then it's WW3.
While I think it could be a great idea, I think it will just be used as a another tool to dismiss the already problem of online bullying and verbal abuse (text abuse). Something that is hard to control as is and that would make it even harder to control after. Until some kid end up killing themselves because the team mates took a light ribbing from a mob and turned it into something a bit more heinous. Then of course, here comes the anti-game parade and anti-bullying crowd this time with more ammo against game makers for looking as if they encourage and give brownie points to online bullying. Too much trouble with a barely able to be controlled people playing games as is.
Well, as I said, I don't agree, but it isn't our call to make anyway, so I don't expect you need to actually convince me of anything.
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"
Of course.
TBH I used punchvoke and auras much more that taunt. But taunt has its place. I tended to team with very aggresive teams, the ability to target a player in the cross hairs and taut "through" him was a godsend.
I still think some kind of cap is in order. If not a tank could use whatever the new version of insp/buffs/temps ends up being then use a nice big aoe to lock aggro on the totality of every spawn confident that they would never look at the rest of the team. Frankly I don't want every spawn to act identically.
You could fix it by making the AI smarter, but remember that the big pull for many was the ability to be extremely casual or sked up lowbies and still have fun. Make the game significantly more difficult/tactical and it becomes that much less casual friendly.
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Indeed. My policy on my main was "Mastermind Stealth == leave no witnesses". But being a */Traps, my approach would have been to walk *five* feet in the front door and start setting a defensive position. Then summon stun drones out in front of the enemies, to take the alpha and pull them into the "fun zone" I set up. Of course, if they were smart, we'd end up sitting their waiting on each other -- but that's what AoE nukes are for. :)
Sure. It's called "up time". As in "not-lying-down time"...
That which should be stupid should be stupid in the right ways to serve (or occasionally lampshade) the relevant genre tropes. Also, WOW proved a long time ago that players really *hate* going up against AI that is written to be as effective as possible. It may not have all the creativity of a human, but it generally has levels of both reaction time (low) and situational awareness (high) that counteract that. And if they wanted to do that they'd be playing PvP in the first place.
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Actually, I'd vote strongly against it except in very specific cases and small doses. The weakest link on the team is *already* generally struggling. Unless the opponents are intended to really be pretty vicious, going after them (especially sending entire gangs after them) is just piling on and making it less fun.
It worked in the ITF because there were reasons it made sense as a behavior, and because it *was* unusual. Which meant that people generally noticed it and rapidly learned to bring along either a secondary tank or a */Traps.
Also: it is quite fun to watch an entire multiple-large-spawn group of ambushers run face-first into a trap field that you've had a couple of minutes to set up (while others were beating on the crystal). The only thing I can remember that was more profoundly satisfying in that regard was watching Ghost Widow spawn in the glaringly obvious place, five feet from the glowie. Where I'd just stacked about ten mines. Lost 2/3 of her HP before I could even see it, the other 1/3 didn't take long between the alpha strike of the pets and the other traps.
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[color=#ff0000]Developer Emeritus[/color]
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about the AI, the same thing happened in TR, where in beta the mobs would be more active looking for cover and trying to flank you.
However, it not only made the *starting* area's a lot harder, it also had a knock on effect on the servers (as in the more mobs it was having to track, the higher the load it had). So in the end, they dumbed it down for a better playing experience.
Not to say that there were not annoying mobs out there *shakes fist at Linkers* One of the few mobs out there that could make you suicide yourself....
"Probability cone" is a term from a slightly different field. It can be summed up pretty well by "I last saw my target , ago, moving . Based on that, what is the set of locations they could *possibly* be at now, assuming the could have changed direction or speed at any point, or even multiple times?"
The name comes from the fact that if you're using it to predict the path of something already moving, and account for acceleration (rather than instant changes of velocity), the spread of the pattern is roughly cone-shaped,. Even more so if you weight the *chances* of them being at some given point.
Wouldn't it be nice if the chances of a mob knowing where that snipe came from depended on whether they were facing in a way to see the line of the attack? Or rather, knowing the location with an accuracy based on that plus how well hidden the sniper was...
/me mutters something about Peregrine snipers hiding in buildings with almost-invisibly-thin lasers that could one-shot certain toons... and often, due to timing, didn't even fire until the toon was past them.
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[color=#ff0000]Developer Emeritus[/color]
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I liked CoX's caps when I played it, 10 targets for spherical AoEs, 16 for cones, roughly, was actually very balanced for me. Honestly on the contrast playing CO, I don't like how most powers are limited in the number of targets they can hit.
But i think those hit by a blast, i'd say we could throw other factors in, like if someone is between a badguy and the blast that is also a bad guy, the badguy behind the other badguy wouldn't take as much damage as the person who was inbetween him and the blast. Position of the mobs themselves would matter a bit for AoEs rather than just how clumped they were.
Some AoEs in fact I didn't see why they'd hit EVERYTHING in the cone, like fire breath, I thought "couldn't the guys in the front take even more when they were in point blank with me?".
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.
Server load is normally the reason. Because it would have to calculate it for *every* mob that is going to be caught.
You can cut it down by doing a "hits front target only", but as soon as you start going for the "Might hit or not hit the one behind, and carry on down the cone", it can add up quite fast.
Infact, I remember on the test server causing *severe* lag by having several players fire off their (i think its Ionic judgement) all at the same time, and then getting SEVERE lag.
This was after they had already fixed the lag for general combat, but apparently several arcing/bouncing effects going from mob to mob to mob was *not* a good thing.
FYI, I think the forum garbled your post #76 above.
Oh, a [i]motion prediction[/i] probability cone as opposed to field-of-vision cone. Got it. Though, strictly speaking, if characters move in CoT like they do in everything else, where they can all instantly stop and turn in place and go full speed again, it's unlikely to actually resemble a cone like it would for, say, a missile or ship.
As opposed to the aggro system they had in Tabula Rasa (one of my biggest gripes with that game) where if anyone in the team aggroed a spawn group, all members of that spawn group would aggro all members of the team (dividing up the targets, of course)?
Because I just loved being 98 meters away from a target, with it barely at the edge of draw distance, lining up a snipe, and then my teammate Red Line (a laser-sword-wielding spy) would pop up amongst them, backstab one, and instantly half of them would start running [i]toward me[/i], firing when in range at 60 meters, even though I had done nothing at all and even had stealth armor on.
And when I demonstrated this to the devs, they said "working as intended"?
Hell yeah, I like what you're selling, DSFH.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
that kind of ai is worse than pvp. an ai doesnt get so busy with task 1 that he misses task 2. an ai does both actions and doesnt have reaction speed or wife agro
That kind of ai can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
:)
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"
So going back to what [gamecode] can realistically achieve.. if you take [playerexpectation] as a minimum and code your game around that, you are going to end up with cones and taunt and threat level definitions. Everything else needs to be discarded.
You are a tank. The tank. You may not be a tank class, maybe you are a storm defender or you know what.. maybe you are a radiation based blaster.. either way you are the tank. In your mind, on your team. The mob does not know this yet, their reaction will be based on your next move.
You step forward, they notice you, peripherally, you taunt them. They are all like..." hey you, wtf, dude, you calling my girlfriend an alcoholic drink?" or something, who knows what they think really, right? Right.
So you step up, they confront, and then .... well then the next thing happens. Maybe it's some lightning, maybe it's some radiation, maybe they just pile on top of you like third graders and then maybe you go all hulk on their ass or maybe your team goes all "pew pew" and "kablam" and "hahahaha I just floored your +tohit" or something.
Regardles... actual game mechanics need to come in to play and fast rewinding back to CoX, that involved taunt, tohit checks, threat levels and aggro caps.
I think the spiritual successor either has to have those if we agree that those helped define CoX archetypes and game play or it has to define what is going to happen instead in CoX2 and we need to consider those proposals.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Well the thought came from how shotguns behave in first person shooters. Sure, you can hit more then one guy with them, but never a cone of them. Instead, the guy in front of your cone took the most damage, and if any pellets didn't hit him, they'd hit the person behind. Flamethrowers sometimes act that way to, slightly, doing more to the front person rather than an even-distribution damage.
Thing is, it often bothers me how mmorpgs treat shotguns like a "cone Aoe attack that does less damage than a standard bullet gun to one guy", rather than a devastating heavy weapon that brutally injures/destroys anything in close enough range to recieve all/most of the pellets.
As for AoE's being chaotic, I don't mind that much either. It's physics, chaotic aoes are fun :).
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.
As someone who's main was a blaster, I would have preferred if my cone effects had diminishing returns instead of hard caps.
In conjunction with @LaughingAlex's thoughts on shotguns, I wouldn't mind at all if there was a diminishing returns on damage based on range and/or cover (from other targets), rather than number of targets, for something like a shotgun or an energy/fire/ice cone blast.
On the other hand, an electrical "cone" blast could work more like a chain attack, where the closest enemies take the most damage, and each target in the cone further away takes the appropriate level of reduced damage per target, rather than range.
Another power-specific option could be a cone from someone with psychic or sonic powers, which probably should have less of a drop off for range and no drop for cover from other targets (maybe balanced by a lower base damage, but higher base secondary effect)
Obviously, these mechanics would work with AoE and PBAoE too ... yet all of this is presuming the system will be able to handle this kind of complexity. It would be cool to see in action.
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It's because they're simplifying the math. To determine if something is in a cone AoE, first you determine range:
x[sub]0[/sub] * x[sub]1[/sub] + y[sub]0[/sub] * y[sub]1[/sub] + z[sub]0[/sub] * z[sub]1[/sub] <= r[sub]MAX[/sub][sup]2[/sup]
and if the target is in range you see if it's in the cone:
i[sub]0[/sub] * i[sub]1[/sub] + j[sub]0[/sub] * j[sub]1[/sub] + k[sub]0[/sub] * k[sub]1[/sub] >= cos(A)
where x, y, and z are position components, i, j, k are unit vector direction components, and A is the angle between the center line of the cone and its surface. Note that it's just multiplies and adds (cos(A) is constant for the power and thus precomputed), easy stuff for a modern computer.
Whereas the math to generate N rays and determine what they intersect with is a bit more work. Plenty doable for something involving a few players, problematic for thousands at once. Not saying it can't be done; it's just a lot more work.
As for shotguns specifically, it depends on the shot loaded. Slugs punch big holes in things, buckshot would do mostly damage to a person, while birdshot or squirrelshot mostly knockdown and actually less than a pistol. (Over here in the US, we're famous for one of our former national leaders shooting a friend in the face with a shotgun, and the friend not only surviving but taking the blame.)
[b]EDIT:[/b] Realized I screwed up the math. Serves me right for working from memory and not writing a test case.
Range should have been this:
r[sup]2[/sup] = (x[sub]1[/sub] - x[sub]0[/sub])[sup]2[/sup] + (y[sub]1[/sub] - y[sub]0[/sub])[sup]2[/sup] + (z[sub]1[/sub] - z[sub]0[/sub])[sup]2[/sup] <= r[sub]MAX[/sub][sup]2[/sup]
and cone should have been this (for a cone that faces in the player's facing):
i[sub]0[/sub] * (x[sub]1[/sub] - x[sub]0[/sub]) + j[sub]0[/sub] * (y[sub]1[/sub] - y[sub]0[/sub]) + k[sub]0[/sub] * (z[sub]1[/sub] - z[sub]0[/sub]) >= sqrt(r[sup]2[/sup]) * cos(A)
For a cone aimed at the selected target, replace the i, j, and k terms with the unit vector pointing at the target.
There might be a way to get rid of the sqrt() in the last part, but it escapes me at the moment. Some of the terms in these equations are likely used in other places, so you don't have to recompute them. There's probably a way to do this with 4x4 matrices as well. Anyway, all of this stuff is the kind of thing that CUDA and OpenCL were born for.
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I'm with you AbJ about limits but I don't like hard caps. Every mob/faction shouldn't act identically. CoH showed me how the back story of a baddie impacted the type and amount of damage they dealt and received, along with (to some extent) how easily they aggro'd as a group "herdability" if you will.
Why not raise the bar with the spiritual successor? Why not have a faction's susceptibility to being taunted vary, by a direct punchvoke or taunt and by being near to or in sight of a cohort that got taunted? Punchvoke aggro could be affected by a slider keyed to damage type or loosely related to each baddie's defense/resist stats so that damage types they were more vulnerable to would have a higher punchvoke aggro rating. Have the minimum mag slide up the further from spawn point they traveled so that the further they got the more difficult it would be to keep their attention and the more likely it would be that stragglers would peel off as you went. This would avoid a hard cap and reward more skillful aggro management while still preventing a tank from herding a zone, or even a map.
What about damage? Another issue with tankers in particular was some damage auras, and powers like burn became an "I Win" button. Instead of a hard cap, why not continue with a sliding scale so that the larger the number of opponents hit with a power are, the less damage is done. It doesn't have to be a 1/1 ratio, but letting it scale down would add to the time it took to kill off a herd due to less damage done per minion. As the damage received per second scales up compared with damage dealt scaling down, practical caps will emerge. Having multiple scales would make tanking a much more dynamic endeavor the further a player wants to push the envelope.
All of this without needing a hard cap that jars the immersion experience. Each faction would behave differently to the same taunt or aggro source. Situationally anyone could feel super, given the right attack against the right opponents, and wimpy if it goes wrong.
___________
Mmm Red Snapper, mighty tasty!
I won't pretend to be a math guru. I'm mainly concerned with feel. If feel can be maintained with a modified mechanic, fine. While the ATs are not perfectly mirrored from what I can tell, quite a number of former CoX players will be trying to play a tank. The feel of managing the bulk of aggro and impacting team performance (short of being an I win button) need to be maintained.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
*shrugs* soft caps and hard caps... I can live with both (ie full damage up to 5 targets, beyond that, it starts diminishing as it gets spread out too thin....
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