Friendly Fire Toggle

[Lephys]

So you want fireballs to be more or less equally effective, regardless of the defenses of the foes targeting. And that's the opposite of dumbing down. Oh-kay.

Not at all. If you could point me to whatever made you believe that, I'll know better what not-to-say to mislead you to such a degree.

 

You won't be able to do it, even with pause. Because of differences in action and recovery times, you won't be able to get your desired shoves to fire at the same time. It would work in a turn-based game, or one that's turn-based under the hood so all turns run in the same rhythm, but not true real-time. Not even in the IE games where each toon has its own turn timer.

 

(Or, if you want to get technical about it, to coordinate your pushes you'd have to get your pushers in position, wait for all of their recovery timers to run out, pause, and issue commands. Only, by then the foes will have moved or done something different which means the situation won't be the same anymore. Can't be done in a RT game, with or without pause.)

That's not entirely true. Why would the foes have run off and done something else? They're not projectiles bouncing around the room. They're entities, with AI and targets and such. Your Warrior could feasibly just wait an extra second or two to kick/push a foe, while someone else could do the same. Especially if it's a foe that he's already fighting. Why would the enemy spontaneously switch targets just because you decided to not immediately act at the end of your recovery time? When the two of you were already fighting?

 

And your Wizard, who's going to be casting Fireball... he's probably not man-handling 3 melee combatants right now, or you'd have a different plan for him than "try to hit those other guys with a fireball right now, and ignore those people murdering you to death at the moment." So, he can just wait a few seconds to cast his fireball, if need be.

 

I realize that the situation isn't ALWAYS going to just allow you to easily do that. But... that's kind of the nature of tactical party-based combat, is it not? And what makes an intelligent move "intelligent." Given your circumstances, you produce an effective result, via party commands and planning.

 

My whole point is horrendously simple, and you're unnecessarily complicating it:

 

You should be able to use AoE spells effectively in situations other than "I specifically burnt multiple spells just to ensure the effectiveness of this AoE strike" and "the enemy just so happened to be already clustered, and they haven't spread out yet." Nowhere in there is the word "always" present, nor even the tiniest implication that somehow less effort should be involved in the process that results in an effective AoE spell usage.

 

How is "just debuff/immobilize them so that the spell hits them, because passive math" demanding of more effort than "actually utilize all your peeps in a given situation to produce a set of circumstances suitable for an effective AoE usage"?

 

I don't understand what's unclear about my thoughts on this matter.

[Azmodiuz]

^ What if you could "cast" spells without actually "releasing" them? You have your Wizard spend X seconds casting Fireball, but only when it's ready to throw do you actually throw it where you want. That could prove a useful design, regarding such things.

This would be new and original and be very fun. Like maybe they hold the spell until released, and do nothing else until told to.

[PrimeJunta]

You should be able to use AoE spells effectively in situations other than "I specifically burnt multiple spells just to ensure the effectiveness of this AoE strike" and "the enemy just so happened to be already clustered, and they haven't spread out yet." Nowhere in there is the word "always" present, nor even the tiniest implication that somehow less effort should be involved in the process that results in an effective AoE spell usage.

How is "just debuff/immobilize them so that the spell hits them, because passive math" demanding of more effort than "actually utilize all your peeps in a given situation to produce a set of circumstances suitable for an effective AoE usage"?

 

I don't understand what's unclear about my thoughts on this matter.

 

One of the relatively common ways I use AoE spells in the BB is to stabilize the mob with my front line, then circle my wizard to the side and blast with the cone or line-shaped ones. So it is not true that the only way to use them effectively as by locking them into place first.

 

There's nothing unclear about your thoughts either, Lephys. I understand you perfectly well. I simply disagree with you. I also think you're mischaracterizing the way AoE spells actually work in the BB.

[Gfted1]

Friendly fire toggle +1. Whoop whoop.

 

And healing magic / potions.

[Lephys]

There's nothing unclear about your thoughts either, Lephys. I understand you perfectly well. I simply disagree with you. I also think you're mischaracterizing the way AoE spells actually work in the BB.

There's the problem right there. You're assuming I'm characterizing the way AoE spells work in the BB. I am not. I'm simply commenting on the general design of AoE spells in this entire genre of games, as it pertains to useful "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" for PoE to follow.

 

Specifying a certain way it should work is not the same thing as claiming it works nothing like that. So, no, I don't think you understood me "perfectly" well. Which is why I said so. That is not an insult. Just a matter-of-fact observation. I say that because text can take on almost any tone, depending on who's reading it, etc.

 

Since this is simply a discussion of friendly-fire, and not limited to spells, I'll bring up traps, as well. I think, if this isn't already in, manually-sprung traps would be awesome, too. Maybe you plant some kind of mine or net trap or what-have-you, but it doesn't simply go off when stepped upon. So that, when some foes happen to cluster up around that, you could trip it to maximize the effectiveness of the trap. This adds a second element to the effective use of traps, beyond mere placement.

 

I guess that's my point about AoE spells. There doesn't really seem to be a reason you shouldn't have some capability at your disposal to take advantage of the timing of spell releases/hits. As this has always been a troublesome thing in these games. "I want to hit 5 people with a fireball, but I can't very well predict exactly where they're going to step. But, by the time I see that they're grouping where I could effectively strike them, it'll take me too long to actually cast the spell." Thus, that's great that there are oodles of ways in which to hold foes in place while you get a casting off. But, there really should be some degree of opportunity for actually effectively casting an AoE spell on a bunch of foes without relying on something else forcing the spell to actually be greatly effective.

 

If that happens in the BB, then splendid. If not, then I posit that it should. Also, I'm more referring to the circle-target AoEs. Which could, effectively, strike up to 7+ foes with ease, but it's extremely difficult in almost any game to ever actually do that without A) hitting lots of friendlies, or B) using other spells/abilities every single to to actually facilitate the proper placement of the enemies at the time the spell is actually released.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Lephys

[PrimeJunta]

Huh. I think that's a big part of the fun of AoE spells.

[Lephys]

I guess that's where we disagree. Inherently having to do that isn't part of the fun, for me. Being able to do that? Very fun.

 

I always play the mage, in whatever even remotely has something resembling a mage. So, it gets a little dumb when game after game hands you a nuke, but requires you to encase all your friends in lead and/or forcibly hold all the enemies in stasis for a while at a distance just to get to use the nuke without leveling a nearby city and/or killing your whole party. I'd rather just not have a nuke. Now, status changing things, I'm fine with. "Oh no, my enemies can't see because of all this fog, but neither can my friendlies!". But with "I'm gonna blow up that 10x10 space," it seems a bit short-sighted to have to have everyone work together to summon Captain Planet just to get one person's ability to be feasible to use, ever.

 

It's not the end of the world. It's just observation.

[PrimeJunta]

But it's not like that in P:E at all!

[Lephys]

... "at all," you say? How so?

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I support friendly-fire for the same reason I like "Vancian" casting--it provides a structure that will enable developers to design potent and worthwhile spells. My criticism is that we got the gimping of Vancian caster per day and friendly-fire without the benefit of having potent spells. Factor in the difficulty of aiming with how fast opponents are and how rigid combat is..and you have little incentive to even bring a wizard along. The pressure towards missing/grazing coupled by ubiquitous DR & DT don't help either.

 

I offered some solutions to the friendly-fire problem in my thread, but they were entirely ignored. I ultimately recommend a talent progression that would modify the foe-only and all-target portions of the AoE, example:

1. Selective Spell Initiate: The outermost 1/3 radius of spells cast by the wizard causes reduced or no friendly fire.
2. Selective Spell Adept: The outermost 2/3 radius of spells cast by the wizard causes reduced or no friendly fire.
3. Selective Spell Mastery: The entire radius of any spell cast by the wizard causes reduced or no friendly fire.

This and anything remotely like this shall not happen for many deliberate reasons though.

[PrimeJunta]

... "at all," you say? How so?

 

You do not need to "encase all your friends in lead and/or forcibly hold all the enemies in stasis for a while at a distance" to effectively use AoE effects in the BB. Not. At. All.

 

The no-FF "green fringes" plus the way engagement stabilizes the battlefield means that neither your targets nor your party is scuttling around like ants. You can target them quite effectively without doing anything special about it. There's enough uncertainty to make it a little interesting, but not so much it feels you're out of control. 

 

AoE effects in the IE games were way less controllable. Especially as you couldn't see the AoE before actually shooting it off. I have to resort to all kinds of workarounds there to make them useful.

[Jarmo]

+1 for toggle.

 

Not sure I'd use it, but it wouldn't take anything away from the game, just another difficulty selection tick.

The game is definitely not going to be redesigned around the possibility of deselecting friendly fire,

so the gameplay with friendly fire on wouldn't change at all.

 

I've never quite understood gamers who are dead against having "easy" difficulty in game,

I kind of understand why they'd select "hard" or "insane", but not why they so much want to make the selection for everybody.

 

How is the enemy AI dealing with this BTW? Do they ever nuke their own?

Edited January 22, 2015 by Jarmo

[PrimeJunta]

I haven't seen enemies use any AoE spells.

 

Edit: No wait, I have, and they didn't nuke their own.

 

I'm all for more difficulty levels, but I think there are better ways to do that than changing the mechanics, e.g. removing friendly fire.

 

Edit edit: Consider chess. If you want an easy mode against a stronger opponent, your opponent gives you a handicap -- you get to remove one of their pieces before the start of the game. The rules are still the same. Removing FF would be more like, I dunno, letting your bishops move like queens. It wouldn't really be the same game anymore.

Edited January 22, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[aeonsim]

I haven't seen enemies use any AoE spells.

 

Edit: No wait, I have, and they didn't nuke their own.

 

I'm all for more difficulty levels, but I think there are better ways to do that than changing the mechanics, e.g. removing friendly fire.

 

Edit edit: Consider chess. If you want an easy mode against a stronger opponent, your opponent gives you a handicap -- you get to remove one of their pieces before the start of the game. The rules are still the same. Removing FF would be more like, I dunno, letting your bishops move like queens. It wouldn't really be the same game anymore.

 

I've also seen them use AoE spell and nuke there own team, the Adra beetle lightning attack/ability occasional wipes out a couple of less beetles if they're too close to your party when it casts it.

[Lephys]

You do not need to "encase all your friends in lead and/or forcibly hold all the enemies in stasis for a while at a distance" to effectively use AoE effects in the BB. Not. At. All.

 

The no-FF "green fringes" plus the way engagement stabilizes the battlefield means that neither your targets nor your party is scuttling around like ants. You can target them quite effectively without doing anything special about it. There's enough uncertainty to make it a little interesting, but not so much it feels you're out of control. 

 

AoE effects in the IE games were way less controllable. Especially as you couldn't see the AoE before actually shooting it off. I have to resort to all kinds of workarounds there to make them useful.

Ahh. Well, splendid, then.

 

I will say, however, that I still think some kind of prepped-spell/ability (anything with "cast time") mechanic would be great. If it takes you 4 seconds to cast a Fireball, then you'd still have to spend those 4-seconds, in combat, standing around casting Fireball. You could just release it later than that, if you wanted. And there could be some sort of indicator if a caster was holding a spell. I suppose it'd only be fair for enemy casters to do the same, but I'm not sure how tricky that'd be for the AI. Seems tricky, but I know almost nothing about AI coding.

 

On that note, another possibility (either in conjunction with that OR by itself) is to allow everyone to prepare 1 ability out-of-combat, so that it is instant-cast when combat starts. It would have to be chosen, though. So, you couldn't just prep an ambiguous spell, if you were a Wizard, start combat, then immediately get to cast the spell of your choosing. If you prepped a shield, then that'd be the only instant-cast spell at your disposal. If you prepped Fireball, then THAT would be it.

 

Of course, that would have to be taken into account when tuning cast times and general combat capabilities, etc. But, I think it'd be a nice compromise between the "you absolutely can't do anything outside of combat" setup, and the "just cast 97 spells before you enter combat" setup. I also think you should be able to start combat with an ability, but that's a different story, I suppose.

[Jarmo]

 

Edit edit: Consider chess. If you want an easy mode against a stronger opponent, your opponent gives you a handicap -- you get to remove one of their pieces before the start of the game. The rules are still the same. Removing FF would be more like, I dunno, letting your bishops move like queens. It wouldn't really be the same game anymore.

 

Exactly. I wouldn't normally play chess like that, but if someone wants to, I'm all for letting them.

If my nephew wanted to play me and wanted a handicap of his knights moving like queens, I'd allow it, might be a fun game in it's way.

[Luckmann]

Yes, but it wouldn't be chess.

[PrimeJunta]

My nephew (age 5) doesn't need handicaps to beat me.

 

That may also be because I kinda suck at chess.