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

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

[img]http://mathforum.org/alejandre/magic.square/3x3grid.gif[/img]

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

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

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

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

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

And then to top it all off, there were some Skills available (to the Sniper, specifically [url=http://tabularasa.wikia.com/wiki/Target_Painting]Target Painting[/url]) that would debuff the Damage Reduction offered by Cover so as to increase the amount of damage throughput done [i]through[/i] Cover.

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

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

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

[img]http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000A.P7oGYpS_k/s/860/860/Firing-Line.jpg[/img]

... and doing this ...

[img]http://14544-presscdn-0-64.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-12.06.57-PM.jpg[/img]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor Tyche wrote:

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

Word to your mother. Good point.

Cinnder wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fireheart wrote:

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

We are not looking to recreate a version of Tabula Rasa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grimfox wrote:

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

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

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

Gangrel wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

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

Would it be possible to get further clarification, please?

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

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

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

[img]http://mathforum.org/alejandre/magic.square/3x3grid.gif[/img]

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

[img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f2/39/7a/f2397a8da487d6e5f73d510ec47ec7d7.jpg[/img]

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

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

syntaxerror37 wrote:

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

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

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

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

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

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

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

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

Radiac wrote:

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

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

Radiac wrote:

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

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

Where CoT can be like Emeril and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvazQUYG1kE]kick it up a notch with some BAM![/url] is when we consider super senses. With super senses that criteria shouldn't be limited to just targets viewable in the camera. It would have to be more than that. I would expect someone with supersenses would also get threat icons for all off-camera targets (that are detected by those same senses). These icons would show up on the edges of your screen in the direction they are from you, so that those targets behind your camera would be at the bottom and those out of sight to the left would be on the left side of your screen, etc. Those that are out of sight in the direction the camera is facing would be represented as icons on the screen in the approximate position of the target itself. Those above you would be at the top of the screen.

Kind of like this:
[youtube]gAQpR1GN0Os[/youtube]

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

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

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

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

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

Cinnder wrote:

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

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

Cinnder wrote:

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

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

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

Cinnder wrote:

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

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

Quote:

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

Cool - yes such an indicator would help greatly.

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

Cinnder wrote:

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

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

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

Radiac wrote:

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

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

Fireheart wrote:

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

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

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

Tannim222 wrote:

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

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

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

blacke4dawn wrote:

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

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

TitansCity wrote:

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

There [url=/forum/spawn-size-scaling-forumla-team-play]have been[/url] a [url=/forum/difficulty-level-and-ai-suggestions]few threads[/url] about that [url=/forum/difficulty-work-hard-what-you-want]back in 2014[/url], and there's [url=/forum/difficulty-settings]a thread from earlier this year[/url], too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trenggiling wrote:

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

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