oOStaticOo wrote:

I can tell you now that if that is the case, people will immediately gang up on the Leadership Aura'd NPC and annihilate them as fast as possible, much like people did with the Healers in Cimerora. Not saying it's a bad idea, just that it might not be as effective as you'd hope it to be.

How "effective" this idea is in actual practice is a debate about Combat Tactics. As I said, the structure doesn't have to be built to operate in one direction only (top down) and could be structured to work in a variety of ways (including bottom up). Furthermore, you don't have to reuse the exact same structure for each and every single Foe NPC grouping. Circle of Thorns could draw aura power from Minions to fuel Lieutenants and Bosses, while Malta would have aura power flowing in both directions and the Devouring Earth could have Bosses and Lieutenants fueling their Minions ... for example. Rikti could have a "leadership structure" that is radically different from The Lost (even though The Lost are in the process of becoming Rikti-fied). And so on and so forth.

The key point is that this sort of thing would build VARIETY into the behavior sets of what Foe NPCs are [i]capable of doing[/i], thereby adding that extra dimension to decided how to peel the onion and what is most needing of a quick beatdown.

Also note that another variable that can be brought into play is the Radius on the Leadership Auras that I'm proposing. So a Fake Nemesis could perhaps have a "huge" volume of effect, while a Freakshow Tank might only have a very small radius ... and so on. Point being that not every Foe NPC group will exhibit the same [i]leadership behaviors[/i] as each other, and it can become an additional point of variation for Players to take into account and be aware of.

Or they could just steamroller everything and continue to not be all that concerned. Who can say?

AlienMafia wrote:

CoH had NPCs with leadership powers. Nemesis has it too. Vengeance came from the lietunents. Quite a few NPCs had them.

And yet the very first statement of my Original Post was that I wasn't talking about Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics, Vengeance or Victory Rush. I even provided a [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Leadership]link[/url] spelling out exactly what I WASN'T talking about.

The Powers found in the City of Heroes Leadership Pool were a part of the "basic use" Powers that those NPCs had available to them. Their availability was not [b]conditional[/b] based on the relative positioning of other Foe NPCs of their faction. There weren't any "if within 20 yards of NPC {insert type} then permit {insert Power} to be available for use" logic or clauses in play.

There were a few Foe NPCs that would Buff other Foe NPCs, but there weren't any "conditionals" based on proximity (ie. auras). They could "cast" to affect others, but they didn't "gain new stuff" simply by virtue of being in close proximity to others.

Plexius wrote:

At first blush, I really like this idea. This could make every enemy group and every spawn a unique challenge. Players who know their enemy could change tactics to gain an advantage. In practice, I suspect that most players would still do what they do regardless of enemy behavior, but a big enough threat might cause a lot of players to wise up. This also makes herding much more dangerous which can add value to multiple tanks on a team (to split mobs) and possibly foster more engaging gameplay versus mindlessly steamrolling everything.

In other words, emergent behaviors in spawn groups due to composition of Ranks could in turn produce emergent behaviors [i]in Players[/i] in response to those spawn groups. In a sense this really is nothing "new" per se. Against Malta, the primary targets were the Sappers, everything else was secondary. Against Devouring Earth, it was the Emanators that the Lieutenants would drop (particularly Quartz if playing a Defense based protection set). And so on. I'm just trying to tweak the possible combinations required for such Powers to come into play ... that way Players can feel like they have [i]the opportunity[/i] to influence how battles play themselves out, even if they don't always avail themselves of those opportunities.

And although multi-Tanking wasn't exactly something I explicitly had in mind, it is something that makes perfect sense, should this proposal wind up in the toolbox for City of Titans. Indeed, I would personally consider it something of a goldilocks point challenge to tune things to a point where a single Tank can find themselves in trouble, but a pair of Tanks can divide the aggro load in such a way as to be able to "soak" individually what would be too much for either of them solo.

Plexius wrote:

However, this could become too intense such that the wrong move causes a team wipe. I like tactics, but I wouldn't want to spend most of my time deliberating. Overdoing it has the potential to slow down combat and make the game unfriendly to newcomers and to players who simply can't grasp the complexity of every situation. There would need to be a balance between strategy and action that keeps encounters somewhere far between the extremes of City of Zergfests and City of Chess.

That's primarily just a matter of TUNING so that you don't wind up with overpowered nonsense that no one can get through. And depending on what Powers and Effects are enabled by Leadership Auras, there's all kinds of possibilities. Could be anything as simple as Global Accuracy Bonuses to getting whole new Powers (up to and including Toggle type Powers such as Maneuvers, Assault and/or Tactics). Perhaps Lieutenants only have access to Vengeance while in the presence of a Boss ... that sort of thing. Heck, even the "cockroach" Powers of the Freakshow could have been programmed in this way, such that being in the presence of different Ranks of Freakshow gave other Freakshow access to Rez Powers of various sorts (ie. not all the same).

And who wouldn't lave loved to make [b]MINUTES OF GLORY[/b] only conditionally accessible on Paragon Protectors, rather than letting it be a native birthright? And that's not even delving into the realm of Tier 9 "Nuke" Powers and other bits of fun.

Plexius wrote:

I'd also like to add an idea: vengeance. Not quite like the leadership power, but for instance, imagine that a lieutenant could gain a buff or access to a more powerful attack after X number of nearby allies are defeated. Like, maybe some brawler that normally just throws punches becomes enraged after 3 of their comrades bite the dust, and they suddenly gain mez resistance and start dealing knockback, for example. Just thinking out loud here.

You're essentially angling for [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu]Conservation of Ninjitsu[/url]. But yes, the principle could be applied, by having Defeated Foes "cast" an Aura Effect upon Defeat, and that when the surviving Foes of that Group are standing in a dense enough overlapping group of those Auras, the surviving Foes "unlock" a retribution Power of some sort or another. That way the requirement isn't merely limited to ENDurance and Recharge, but also upon battlefield circumstances and conditions.