So, something I've been thinking about recently:
Warhammer Online (now defunct) had a feature that I've never encountered in another MMO, despite how useful I found it to be...
The ability to designate both an Offensive Target (for attacks/debuffs/what have you) and a Defensive Target (Heals/buffs/etc) at the same time. Any spells or abilities would automatically route to their respective targets (defensive target defaulted to Self if you didn't have an ally targeted). This was particularly handy to have for their hybrid spellcaster/healer classes, freeing you from constantly having to alter targets depending on the spell you needed to cast.
Given how CoH archetypes were designed, that there were no "pure healers" and that even as support ATs you were still constantly throwing out enemy targeted abilities, it seems like that would have been a useful feature in COH, and thus in CoT.
Considering how far into development CoT is, would it be a realistic goal to add it to the table? What do other players think about the feature? Would you want it? Would it be too much hassle to add?
Since ease of play and versatility were hallmarks of CoH, I think you're right that this would have been great in CoH and would be great in CoT. This would really come in handy, especially for offensive characters with some healing ability.
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one click should cover all like in COH. My blaster could click on the party tank, and offensive attacks would auto-target whoever the tank is targeting. Likewise, the AI knew that healing would go to the tank, and not his target.
I never saw any confusion in COH
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So... perhaps give us the ability to choose between using a target of target system (how CoH worked) or a dual-target system (warhammer online).
One thing I think the COX people eventually learned by the time that game was defunct was that powers that dont do damage and only buff other players (possibly including the self) can more often than not be handled as untargeted PBAoE effects, possibly with a cap on the maximum number of possible friendlies it can help, without having to actually target anything, or while targeting an enemy.
For example, heals can usually be PBAoE auras. The "Transfusion" power that Kinetics had used to target an enemy then buff everyone in an aura radius around the enemy targeted when it hit, etc. Even Speed Boost was eventually changed from single-target to AoE because it was a pain to have to hit each friendly with it every time you wanted to reapply it.
So the only need for single-target buffs is for powers that have long recharge times and can only buff one friend at a time, which presumably means they're really powerful, or maybe are designed to rez a fallen player, etc. That's a pretty narrow set of powers, because most buffs can be designed to help the whole team without being overpowered, most of the the time, if you do the stacking rules well for multiple applications, etc. You could even do AoE rez without breaking the game, because how big does the area of effect even have to be? You might just get one friend in the area most of the time anyway, but making it a PBAoE aura just makes it easier to use than having to click on and target a friendly body, so why not just make it AoE for that reason?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Why can't we have both?
(in the below discussion I am going to use the word focus to mean who your offensive and defensive targets are. I think it will make the discussion clearer)
First, let me set the stage:
The primary weakness of the defensive target system used in Warhammer Online and The Secret World is that you can not target yourself when you have a defensive target specified. So you will need to set up a 'target self' keybind in case you needed to help yourself. Furthermore both WAR and TSW require you to click on your defensive target to make it your defensive target. After healing yourself in a thick battle, trying to find and click on your tank while she is surrounded by mobs is not easy to do.
I would not recommend we do it the same way as they did. Rather, I would recommend we use a key to toggle between 'set offensive focus' and 'set defensive focus' and use the full abilities of tab targeting and all its associated keybinds and macros for both offensive focus and defensive focus, instead of just for offensive as those two games did.
Here's where it really starts to work:
Every MMO out there is already smart enough to know that if you cast a defensive ability while an offensive target is selected, the defensive ability is cast upon yourself. Let's apply this logic to the offensive and defensive targets idea:
Offensive abilities cast upon friendlies target the their target and defensive abilities cast upon opponents target their target. If you cast an offensive ability on a focus who is also targeting a friendly, then it does not activate because there is no target for it. And if you cast a defensive ability on an opponent who is not targeting a friendly, the defensive ability activates upon yourself.
This way, if your offensive focus happens to be on a friendly player at the moment, offensive abilities target the target of your focus. Likewise, if your defensive focus happens to be on an opponent, defensive abilities automatically target the target of your focus by default. I think this adds immense flexibility without being confusing.
Here are some examples:
1. You are a tank. You set your defensive focus on yourself and set your focus toggle to 'set offensive focus'. Then when you get into battle you tab target the opponent mobs. This would play the same as every traditional system with which we are familiar. But lets say your tank has a 'guard' ability that absorbs damage done to a friendly target. During battle, your tank makes the enemy boss her defensive focus. Being good at keeping aggro, this ensures that it is nearly identical to having herself as the defensive focus. But when the boss does one of its 'pick a random character and target it for a little while' routine, the tank casts 'guard' as soon at the boss shifts focus from the tank. BAM, the guard is applied to whichever friendly the boss is attacking. And when the boss gets back to attacking the tank, she can cast her shield spell on herself again without changing ever having changed her defensive focus.
2. You are a healer. You set your offensive focus on the tank and set your focus toggle to 'set defensive focus'. WHAT? you ask. That's backwards to how it should be right? Wrong. Any time you cast an offensive ability it will assist your tank and you ensure you don't accidentally get aggro from something on the other side of the room. When you get into battle, you select the highest DPS opponent and set your focus on it. Remember that your focus toggle is on 'set defensive focus' so whenever you cast a defensive spell upon that oponent, it will target that opponent's target. If your tank is doing her job, that opponent's target will be your tank. But if it decides to attack you or that Ranger of yours who wandered too close to it, you are covered, your heals go to the one being targeted by all that DPS.
3. You are a damage dealer. You set offensive focus on the tank and set your focus toggle to either 'set defense focus' or 'set offense focus'. Setting your offensive focus on the tank ensures you only attack what is already being taunted by her. Going into battle without a defensive focus selected means that all your defensive abilities target yourself. Choosing whether to have your set focus toggle on either offensive or defensive depends on the nature of any defensive abilities you have. If you have support type defensive abilities, then you may want to have it toggled to 'set defense focus' so that you can cast your support abilities on your friends. But if your defensive abilities are primarily self-centered you will want your set focus toggle to be on 'set offense focus' so you can change offensive targets to protect your healers and other support folks from adds.
4. You are a crowd controller. Honestly this would all depend on the nature of your support powers. So I'll leave how you would do this up to your imagination.
In all of the above examples i refer to setting the focus toggle to either offense or defense. Because it is a toggle you can change it on the fly between 'set offense focus' and 'set defense focus' but the whole point of the OP's idea is not having to toggle between two different targets depending on the nature of the ability you want to use. So, for arguments sake I assumed that the player would not want to toggle back and forth between setting offense and setting defensive focus. Being able to toggle back and forth does increase the flexibility and usefulness of this system, however; so it would be a benefit.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
That caused a little bit of controversy if I recall - not everyone wanted the Speed Boost buff. Though I LOVED the AoE bubbles for my FF defender - saved me a lot of time during missions - allowing me to blast more.
Or they have a combination of effects (like O2 Boost - heal + mez protection/cancellation), or otherwise be very situational. Depends on how the individual power fits in with the set as a whole.
Going by Interdictors post, I see no reason O2 Boost had to be a targeted power, or one that targeted a specific friend in any case. They could have made it an AoE where you select an area (like targeting Teleport) or a PBAoE, or an aura that follows you and hits a radius around you, like Steamy Mist, for that matter. You just have to adjust the power levels of what it does and how good it is when applied to multiple targets. Or, like I said, if it only can hit one target because the effects are THAT good, give it along recharge time. That way, when it's recharged, you want to make the most of it when you can and hit a specific friendly with it every so often, not try to spam it on everyone every 30 seconds. Even if all it does is break mez effects and do some helaing, you can make it a AoE and then cap the number of targets it can hit within that ares, closest to the center of the AoE getting first priority.
If your friendly buff power has a short recharge time and can be applied to multiple friends, the design of the power ought to be AoE with no target required, just an area that it hits.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
How is that different from when your targets target is not you? Don't really remember WO but in TSW I readily admit that the automatic distance-based detarget might be a bit too long.
This could be easily be "fixed" by having it "default cast" on you if it can't cast on your defensive target for any reason, like LoS or distance. Heck you can even use the "default cast" in a target-of-target system, though I would suggest to make it an explicit option.
And that is easily rectified by using group window and/or key-binds. I also don't see how the two systems are that much different in this regard since there are many situations where you have to manually re-target for defensive purposes since target-of-target will not always have the target you need.
Honestly, I'm not sure what you were trying to describe there among your examples but to me it looks like a convoluted combination between a dual-target system and and target-of-target system with no clear benefit over either. When I said "having both" I meant choosing between one of them, not both at the same time.
In a dual-targeting system the offensive target (or focus as you put it) is always an enemy and a defensive target is always an ally (or yourself). They do not re-target unless told so or if the target dies/goes out of range. If you can cast both offensive and defensive abilities on both targets and the "targets" can be applied to anyone then there is no point in calling them offensive or defensive. I'm interested in knowing what you thought the offensive and defensive part was referring to.
A target-of-target system will, as the name implies, cast abilities on your current targets target if they can't be cast on your target directly.
Typically, area effect heals in most games tend to not be as effective as single target heals. A well timed, high output single target heal can actually turn the tide of an encounter if the healed target is of high value for their role or next possible move. Both area effect and single target buff powers have their places.
The majority of duration-based buffs were changed from single target to area effect application was a quality of life improvement, particularly made useful for when the high end raids were designed. The old game tended to have a fairly fast pace for combat with players wanting to get to it already and waiting for each buff caster to apply all buffs "felt like forever". The issue of receiving an undesired buff could be resolved by allowing players to select buffs placed on their character and cancel them.
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I agree with Tannim222, and then there's also the problem of wanting to design powers that aren't all toggles for a given class, or for a given power set. But even if you envision O2 boost as being good and powerful enough to warrant making it a single target power, you could still make it operate like Teleport, mechanically, where you just drop it on a small area. Then, you could cap the number of affected targets at say 1, making the toon closest tot he center of the AoE the only target affected, but without ever requiring me, the caster, to have to actually select that toon out of a crowd, or off the team list. If you feel like selecting a friendly target off the team list is better, then you make it a targeted power.
Long story short, I like the CoX system. The game knows whether each thing you click on is a friend or foe or neither, and does the attack and buff routing accordingly. You never end up attacking a friendly or buffing an enemy, your attacks while targetting a friendly end up actually going to whatever enemy that friendly is targeting, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
In WAR and in TSW as in every other MMORPG I have played in the past decade, if you cast a defensive spell while you are targeting an offensive target, it defaults to cast upon yourself. But WAR and TSW also have a defensive target system that other games do not. When you have a defensive target selected, it will no longer default to yourself. You have to manually target yourself. Most people do this with a 'target self' keybind. The problem is that targeting keybinds only apply to your offensive target. So in order to target your defensive target again, you need to select it with your mouse.
If we want to use targeting keybinds on your defensive target, you need to set up separate keybinds specifically for defensive target. Otherwise, how else would your game know whether you want to change your offensive target or change your defensive target? In my opinion, it would be easiest to toggle between 'set offensive focus' and 'set defensive focus'. That way you would only ever need the same set of keybinds to determine what your target is, regardless of whether it is your offensive target or your defensive target.
I agree, and I think this was implied in my suggestion. Any time you can't cast on your defensive target, it automatically casts on yourself. Whether that's because you don't have a defensive target or it is currently unreachable.
I purposely left out using the group window as a means to select targets just to keep the discussion simpler. I agree that if I were the healer trying to target my tank, I would do so by clicking on his portrait in the group window. There are some who believe that is playing the UI and not the game and I don't want to get into that discussion.
I think you think I am arguing against target-of-target. In fact I am not. I believe we can still have target of target with what I proposed. I was proposing a way to have an offensive and defensive target as well as continuing to use target of target mechanics. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Imagine your offensive target is a Red Crosshairs and your defensive target is a Blue Crosshairs. Now imagine being able to set either your blue or your red crosshairs using the target of target system. I chose to do so with a toggle between the two. I suppose you could choose to do so with dedicated keybinds for red and dedicated keybinds for blue.
Again, maybe I wasn't clear. But I thought I was pretty clear when I said there was a way we could have both and then put forth a way to have both at the same time. When I say to "set offensive focus" I am talking about using the target of target mechanic for the offensive target. When I say to "set defensive focus" I am talking about using the target of target system on your defensive target.
The seeming complexity is really in the fact that you have two separate primary targets, depending on whether you are casting an offensive spell or a defensive spell. Your game will know, just like in WAR and in TSW that when you cast an offensive spell, it casts it upon your offenseive target and when you cast a defensive spell it casts it upon your defensive target. That's all there is to it. Not very complex at all.
Hopefully my answers to your questions by this point have addressed this. But in case they have not, here it goes.
I never said you could cast a defensive spell at your offensive target, and I never said you could cast an offense spell upon your defensive target.
What I have proposed is that if you cast an offensive spell upon a friendly target, it will instead assist your friendly target by being cast upon your friendly target's target. I have also proposed that if you cast a defensive spell upon an unfriendly target, the defensive spell will be cast upon its target (if that target is friendly), or upon yourself if there is no friendly target. That's all I've added. Pretty simple and intuitive I think.
I hope this clears up your confusion.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Of course, this ignores the fact that many/most Scrappers and Brutes have zero interest in who the Tanker is fighting. They just want to cut out a target for themselves and Shred it, not be some namby-pamby 'support' fighter. *grin*
I think it's a pretty good targeting scheme, but it may be too complicated to use.
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Lol. I suppose it would only be as complicated as you wanted it to be. The examples I chose were examples of how to take the most advantage out of being able to target both your defensive focus as well as your offensive focus. I suspect that most people will play the traditional way and not even have a defensive focus.
So while keeping track of a second target that is used just for your defensive spells might be confusing at first, it will probably become second nature after a while like it was in WAR and is in TSW.
And by the way, I only came up with this idea as a brainstorm that would make the OP's suggestion work without the inherent drawbacks of the way it was implemented in WAR and TSW.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
How many key-bind do you usually have for offensive targets? For me it's almost exclusively just tab to cycle through them. For defensive targets though there is also tab-cycling, though in most cases ctrl-tab, and one for each group member.
For me that would most likely be easier to remember, and probably be somewhat faster, than having to remember if it's set to offensive or defensive focus.
No no, it sounded much more like you were against a dual-targeting system.
Not sure it would need two different key-binds since one can easily use an implied target system, that is if your targets target is friendly then it changes the defensive target and if it's unfriendly it changes the offensive target.
But this is the main problem, it sounds like you want the possibility of having both an explicit defensive target and an implicit defensive one by using your offensive target's target at the same time. So, if you have an explicit defensive target and having set "offensive focus" then which target would it use when casting a defensive ability on your offensive target?
I'm that is not what you really want but you have added in things that will only over complicate the system, and not bring any actual improvements.
In dual-target mode both targets would have to be explicitly set, with exceptions for automatic self-cast.
In target-of-target mode the "other one" would be automatically handled and set to your target's target when appropriate.
It sounds like you now understand it fully.
From your responses, I am now understanding why you had trouble understanding what I proposed. I used very specific language when I say offensive target and defensive target. I do so because either could be friendly or unfriendly.
It looks like what you are proposing is that depending on whether your target is friendly or unfriendly would determine whether or not it was an offensive target or a defensive target. Do I understand you correctly?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Interesting insights.
I can think of two methods games I've played have used with regard to the issue of keybinding defensive targets:
Hitting the F-keys targets the corresponding teammate(F1 is typically self, and individual Team UIs place yourself at the top).
ALT (or CTRL) to self-cast (This is assuming CoT even allows self targeting, has it been stated one way or another?)
That was my understanding all along.
To me it looked like you were using the terms offensive and defensive interchangeably with each other, thus rendering them meaningless and confusing. Without an identifiable definition it is quite hard to have a level conversation.
Out of curiosity, what are your definitions of offensive and defensive target, since I can't see them in your previous posts? What is the distinction between them?
Yes.
Every time dual-target systems have been explained to me it has been said that one can only directly cast offensive abilities on an "offensive target" (enemies), and only defensive abilities on a "defensive target" (friendlies). That is what makes them offensive and defensive respectively.
In a target-of-target system you don't use the labeling of offensive and defensive, you only have "target". If anything you have direct target (your target) and indirect target (target of target) labeling.
My definitions of offensive target and defensive target are the same definitions used by the OP and by WAR and TSM. An offensive target is the target the game uses for offensive spells. The defensive target is the target the game uses for support type spells. It doesn't need to get any more complicated than that.
Both the games I mention, and many others, are smart enough to cast an assist on your target's target when you cast an offensive spell upon a friendly target. I was capitalizing on that level of smarts.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.