Does intellect make expanded AoE party-friendly?

[thelee]

I'm getting a little confused about AoE targetting.

 

Obeservation A) I swear that when I am targetting a hostile wizard spell (like that daze spell or fireball) with "AoE" (not Friend/Foe AoE), party members who are in the "outer" circle aren't affected.

 

Observation B) But say when I'm targetting a friendly priest spell with "AoE" (not Friend/Foe AoE) (like the level 1 bonus DT spell), enemies who are in the "outer circle" are still being affected, when I would expect that only allies would be affected by the expanded radius, if Observation A is true.

 

So, it could be that expanded radius from Intellect on generic AoE spells only affects enemies (and doesn't care about whether the intent of spell is beneficial or hamrful).

 

It could also be the fact that party-friendly intellect-expanded AoE is just an illusion and what I'm actually seeing is some kind of radius rounding error where I *think* a party member is in the outer circle but actually isn't.

 

Does anyone who has spent more time with the new backer beta have any insights to share? The changelist is huge, but doesn't in particular address this.

Edited September 26, 2014 by thelee

[CatatonicMan]

So there are four different kinds of AoE that I've seen:

• AoE: Affects all targets in the inner circle, but only enemy targets within the outer circle. Who is being targeted doesn't seem to matter. I should note that some beneficial AoE spells also follow this logic. As you pointed out, the Priest spell 'Armor of Faith' (+4 DT) can affect the enemy, and, in fact, has a larger radius for enemy actors than friendly ones. Obviously this is not a desirable outcome.
• Hazard AoE: Affects an area of ground for a time. Anyone in or entering said area during the spell duration can be affected, though if/how they are affected presumably depends on the spell. This one has only one circle. 
• Friendly AoE: Affects all friendly targets within the outer circle.
• Foe AoE: Affects all enemy targets within the outer circle.

From this, we can say that the Friendly AoE and the Foe AoE seem to be working as they should. Hazard AoE is also probably working correctly, but the lack of indicators for exactly who is in the AoE radius is odd. It's true that it's not directly targeting them, but knowing what edge cases will be in the affected area is still important.

 

The plain AoE, on the other hand, is only really suitable for hostile/attack spells (e.g., Fireball). When applied to friendly/support spells, we get a weird inversion where it's easier to buff enemy actors than friendly ones. One solution would be to make all friendly/support AoE spells of the Friendly AoE variety, which has no problems. Another would be to create a Positive AoE type that only affects enemies that are in the inner circle (opposite from the way it is now).

 

I went ahead and posted this as a bug. Here's the thread for it.

Edited September 27, 2014 by CatatonicMan