Cones, arcs of Fury....and Regret

[Snarky]

Cones are arcs of effect aimed away from the character.  Why we need an anchor?  I am relatively good with cones.  Shifting targets still get me on a somewhat predictable regularity.  Why I need a target.  I face a direction....shoot a cone.  THIS IS NOT THAT COMPLICATED!

[srmalloy]

...then your target moves before you finish activating the power and isn't in the cone to be affected. CoH is not a twitch game; don't try to make it one.

[Rudra]

The biggest complaint I hear about the Vorpal Judgement power is that it is a cone with no targets set. You face in the direction of your targets and hit it. So players can and do miss with it because targets move or they inadvertently turn prior to firing or they... *sigh* ... forget to turn to face the targets prior to firing....

[Lazarillo]

7 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The biggest complaint I hear about the Vorpal Judgement power is that it is a cone with no targets set. You face in the direction of your targets and hit it. So players can and do miss with it because targets move or they inadvertently turn prior to firing or they... *sigh* ... forget to turn to face the targets prior to firing....

Honestly, I love Vorpal, but that's in no small part because the cone is frigging huge and you don't really have to worry about missing with it.  It's fun to use my "everything in front of me diesis under arrest" button.

 

That said, with the more narrow cones, it ends up being more of a wash.  Like the one in Martial Assault that won't hit any enemy slightly above or below you on a slope.

[BrandX]

24 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The biggest complaint I hear about the Vorpal Judgement power is that it is a cone with no targets set. You face in the direction of your targets and hit it. So players can and do miss with it because targets move or they inadvertently turn prior to firing or they... *sigh* ... forget to turn to face the targets prior to firing....

 

I didn't feel like I had this problem.  I did feel the problem was it was the same as all cones.  😛

[lemming]

39 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The biggest complaint I hear about the Vorpal Judgement power is that it is a cone with no targets set. You face in the direction of your targets and hit it. So players can and do miss with it because targets move or they inadvertently turn prior to firing or they... *sigh* ... forget to turn to face the targets prior to firing....

Yea, that happens often enough for me.

 

The cone I'm finding difficult to get right is the Cryonic.  (Mainly because I got used to Vorpol)

[Rudra]

59 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Honestly, I love Vorpal, but that's in no small part because the cone is frigging huge and you don't really have to worry about missing with it.  It's fun to use my "everything in front of me diesis under arrest" button.

 

That said, with the more narrow cones, it ends up being more of a wash.  Like the one in Martial Assault that won't hit any enemy slightly above or below you on a slope.

Don't get me wrong. I love the hell out of Vorpal. Most entertaining judgement to see and it doesn't require a target to use. It also has some seriously long reach with a wide cone. That doesn't change the fact I've watched players on trials use it and hit nothing because they were facing the wrong way. Or see players that have a mob targeted, hit an attack followed by Vorpal only for the targeted mob to not be in line with the others and so turn the character to the side and have the follow-up Vorpal miss everything. People make mistakes. And with some practice, or at least remembering that Vorpal isn't targeted but aimed, players do well with it. (Doesn't stop the complaints I still hear on occasion though.)

[TheZag]

Vorpal is my favorite since it doesnt require a target.  I would probably feel differently if the cone wasnt absolutely huge though.  Smaller sized cones would probably suffer a good amount if they didnt require a target.  At least we are guaranteed that 1 target will be inside the cone for it to fire.  I like to pick a target in the back of a spawn as i move into range with the cone qued up and have it fire from as far away as possible to get as many inside as i can.  That wouldnt be possible if they all no longer required a target.

 

[Luminara]

I'd like a targeting overlay, an actual representation of the cone's arc and length shown on the screen, before letting go of foe-targeting.  It wouldn't have to be flashy or impressive, just a triangle of lines showing where the cone would be.  Without that, it'd be more guesswork than I'd be willing to put into using cones, especially since they're not standardized in any way.

[A.I.D.A.]

On 1/15/2023 at 7:04 AM, srmalloy said:

...then your target moves before you finish activating the power and isn't in the cone to be affected. CoH is not a twitch game; don't try to make it one.

 

Most powers snapshot their targets when you start activating them, and so as long as you've hit the button before they move, targets who spread out still get hit even though they're foreverways across the room. This is not a problem, I'm convinced most of this playerbase just doesn't understand how the snapshotting works.

 

On 1/15/2023 at 11:26 AM, Rudra said:

The biggest complaint I hear about the Vorpal Judgement power is that it is a cone with no targets set. You face in the direction of your targets and hit it. So players can and do miss with it because targets move or they inadvertently turn prior to firing or they... *sigh* ... forget to turn to face the targets prior to firing....

 

That's the very reason why I _like_ Vorpal Judgment. It's a lot more convenient to just point my character in a direction to aim a cone, than it is to try to A.) click-target something, or B.) tab through a list of 8 guys I'm fighting and 16 guys I'm not.

 

OP's got my support on this suggestion, for sure! Make all cones work like Vorpal Judgment.

 

Side-benefit? It means we could hit them to play their animations during action or combat RP.

Edited January 16, 2023 by Aida LaCanthe

[megaericzero]

19 hours ago, Aida LaCanthe said:

Make all cones work like Vorpal Judgment.

Gonna be "that guy" - as an option, yes?

 

I prefer my character turning themself to face the target. It lets me queue up a cone on a target while the power before it is still animating on a different target.

 

Also, imagine trying to aim Piercing Shots if all cones acted like Vorpal.

Edited January 17, 2023 by megaericzero
clarify ambiguity on last statement

[A.I.D.A.]

On 1/17/2023 at 12:01 PM, megaericzero said:

as an option, yes?

 

Don't see why not. As it stands, anything that makes melee cones less shitty picks for more people is probably good. They kinda suffer from the shape without very wide arcs as-is.

 

Better yet, give me a variable option per-power -- I would love for the vast majority of my cones to fire in the character's current facing direction, but extremely narrow cones like Dual Pistols' Piercing Shot needs to fire at a target, at least in my preferred control scheme, as it's conceptually treated as a single-target attack with a chance to get one or two more if positioning is exceptional.

 

Could be best implemented as a pair of /commands, honestly, for macro use, say, for example

• /powexec_conetarget "Power Name" : activates named power aimed at your target (and targeting a valid target if auto-targeting options are enabled and you have no target)
• /powexec_coneforward "Power Name" : activates named power without a target, in the direction of the character's facing

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Aida LaCanthe

[Saiyajinzoningen]

On 1/23/2023 at 4:55 AM, Aida LaCanthe said:

 

Don't see why not. As it stands, anything that makes melee cones less shitty picks for more people is probably good. They kinda suffer from the shape without very wide arcs as-is.

 

Better yet, give me a variable option per-power -- I would love for the vast majority of my cones to fire in the character's current facing direction, but extremely narrow cones like Dual Pistols' Piercing Shot needs to fire at a target, at least in my preferred control scheme, as it's conceptually treated as a single-target attack with a chance to get one or two more if positioning is exceptional.

 

Could be best implemented as a pair of /commands, honestly, for macro use, say, for example

• /powexec_conetarget "Power Name" : activates named power aimed at your target (and targeting a valid target if auto-targeting options are enabled and you have no target)
• /powexec_coneforward "Power Name" : activates named power without a target, in the direction of the character's facing

 

 

omg variable option per power? the ability to choose if the power is single target, aoe, or cone with various animations/damage/cast times/ per choice? Stop spying on my dreams!

[A.I.D.A.]

11 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

omg variable option per power? the ability to choose if the power is single target, aoe, or cone with various animations/damage/cast times/ per choice? Stop spying on my dreams!

 

Eh? No, just the ability to choose whether a power that's already a cone works like:
 

A.) Vorpal Judgment style: cone fires the way the character is facing, does not require a target to activate

or

B.) All Other Cones In the Game Style: needs a target to activate, fires in the direction of the targeted enemy

 

Not to select powers' arcs and radii or absence thereof, that would be ridiculous, and break the damage formula in every conceivable way.

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Aida LaCanthe

[carroto]

On 1/15/2023 at 8:04 AM, srmalloy said:

...then your target moves before you finish activating the power and isn't in the cone to be affected.

 

People with reliable, consistent, and fast internet connections may not know what the game experience is like for those without such a connection.  "The mob was right in front of me!  How could I have missed?"

 

The only advantage I can see from a game mechanics perspective to not needing a target for a cone is that sometimes there isn't a mob dead-center in the back to target with it.  Not needing a target would mean that I could align the cone exactly how I want.  The downside is that I would lose the ability to be sure I gauged my cone size correctly by targeting a mob in the back.  Maybe a wash.

 

For melee cones though it's a lot easier to misjudge, and mobs are constantly shifting around in melee range to try to get closer, so queuing up such an attack would probably mean not-infrequent misses.  The only melee cone that doesn't require a target I'm aware of is the one in Dominator Martial Assault.  Pre-HC it used to get bonus damage, which I'm guessing was intentional to compensate for the higher chance of missing.  It requires more skill, so playing it well pays off.  However HC devs decided it was unbalanced so they "fixed" it.