Cone attack targeting

[GamerRick]

Would it be possible to make ranged cone attacks work like nature affinity heal cone?  Right now you have to target some mob in the back and hope they are in range and don’t move. If not in range you have to adjust distance and by that time they have moved.  If they move mid-cast your cone follows them while they run off from the fight and you miss all the targets you intended to hit. Why can’t cone attacks just base their aim on the direction I am facing?  

Edited March 12, 2020 by GamerRick

[Replacement]

This is, indeed, in the game. As an example, Dominator Martial Assault works this way. There are times for both.

Consider: keeping an enemy in front of you targeted, then Combat Jumping over their heads to land on the far side, putting 2 other minions between you and the original target. With a Facing-based cone, you need to spin around first. With a target-based cone, you can fire it off while still looking the wrong way, not even landed yet, and you'll still pull off the attack correctly.

[SwitchFade]

Sorry, I have to no vote a wholesale change of cone mechanics.

 

Perhaps at some future time a power by power inspection of likely candidates may be in order, but absolutely not on cones as a whole.

[_NOPE_]

4 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Sorry, I have to no vote a wholesale change of cone mechanics.

 

Perhaps at some future time a power by power inspection of likely candidates may be in order, but absolutely not on cones as a whole.

[GamerRick]

28 minutes ago, Replacement said:

With a Facing-based cone, you need to spin around first. With a target-based cone, you can fire it off while still looking the wrong way, not even landed yet, and you'll still pull off the attack correctly

 

14 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Perhaps at some future time a power by power inspection of likely candidates may be in order, but absolutely not on cones as a whole.

Both make sense. 

[Sarrate]

2 hours ago, Replacement said:

This is, indeed, in the game. As an example, Dominator Martial Assault works this way. There are times for both.

Consider: keeping an enemy in front of you targeted, then Combat Jumping over their heads to land on the far side, putting 2 other minions between you and the original target. With a Facing-based cone, you need to spin around first. With a target-based cone, you can fire it off while still looking the wrong way, not even landed yet, and you'll still pull off the attack correctly.

Also, with a targeted cone, you can guarantee that you'll hit the target you select. If it was just fired in the direction you're facing and you misjudged the distance, the power would activate and your target would be out of range and not get hit.

[Replacement]

I do want to mention: target-less is so fantastic on Dominator. I so frequently finding myself needing a mez target that isn't necessarily my attack targets, so having the cone and pbaoe both wired up not to take my focus is quite the blessing.

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, Sarrate said:

Also, with a targeted cone, you can guarantee that you'll hit the target you select. If it was just fired in the direction you're facing and you misjudged the distance, the power would activate and your target would be out of range and not get hit.

This is a biggie.  Part of the reason I dropped Spinning Kick when HC nerfed it was because it was already pretty sketchy when it came to targeting, especially when it came to vertical differences.  If the cone ain't huge (which Spinning Kick is very much not) you'll likely hit nothing but air, with the "facing cone" powers.

[Call Me Awesome]

2 hours ago, Sarrate said:

Also, with a targeted cone, you can guarantee that you'll hit the target you select. If it was just fired in the direction you're facing and you misjudged the distance, the power would activate and your target would be out of range and not get hit.

I can see both sides of this question but for me this is probably the clincher.  In a perfect world we'd be able to select which way we want a cone to work but I don't think it's worth all the time it would likely take mucking around in the code.  Remember, our Dev team are all unpaid volunteers who have Real Jobs so they have limited time available.

[AgentForest]

On 3/12/2020 at 4:05 PM, Sarrate said:

Also, with a targeted cone, you can guarantee that you'll hit the target you select. If it was just fired in the direction you're facing and you misjudged the distance, the power would activate and your target would be out of range and not get hit.

I don't think the game engine has the tools to do this, but I wouldn't mind that if mousing over a power icon caused the effect radius/area to show up on-screen.  Again, it likely will never be a thing in City of Heroes, but games that make all cones work that way often make it very clear where they'll land, like MOBAs.

[Tugzug]

I love and hate the way cone targeting works in this game. On one hand, it makes it frustrating to set up an ideal cone if the mob is semi-scattered: your cone has the area to hit all of them but not the midpoint to make that happen. But on the other hand it adds positioning mechanics to the game, which I do enjoy.

 

Either way, melee cones should always require a target. Ranged cones, I suppose I'd be fine if they all worked like Nature's.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Tugzug
Damn autocorrect

[Chris24601]

16 hours ago, AgentForest said:

I don't think the game engine has the tools to do this, but I wouldn't mind that if mousing over a power icon caused the effect radius/area to show up on-screen.  Again, it likely will never be a thing in City of Heroes, but games that make all cones work that way often make it very clear where they'll land, like MOBAs.

It occurs to me that, just as Martial Combat’s Reaction Time Aura indicates how far it’s debuff aura extends, it might be possible to create a toggle (or set of toggles) that lays down a set of range circles (or, if the aura can be directional, an actual arc indicator).

 

The only issue is that, ideally, it should be visible only to the player and I’m not sure the system can do that.

 

Presuming that can be overcome though, dropping those in as a free utility powers on the P2W vendor, would be a way to provide players with range indicators without needing to completely overhaul the system.