Enough with rooting

[DrRocket]

I know that the game was build in such a way that in order to look flashy it would require flashy graphics, and as a result, it would naturally take time for the animation of anything to complete and thus you were rooted for far more than you should, but you looked cool and totally stupid while at it.

 

I think all of the buff button powers (tough, maneuvers, shielding, etc.) should be able to activate as you move, not force you to stop, pose in the middle of combat like some stupid clown, and then after all your opponents got free shots at you, you finally able to play. Most of the buff button powers does let you activate on the go, but not all, would be nice if all would, for example Ageless totally stops me at mid leap and drops me to the ground.

 

A suggestion for buttons, there should be an option for buff buttons to auto fire automatically without the need of pressing them.

 

Now lets talk about the rooting duration, shall we?

 

I view when activating a power, say an attack, there would be a prep, aim, shoot, see the shot, see the enemy get hit, see the enemy tumble or what not from the shot, for a total of 6 discrete events. At this time, we are stupidly standing still for all 6 events while the opponents are getting free shots at you, since their graphics are obviously very short.

 

The question is how we fix or at least alleviate this?

 

Obviously reprogramming all the graphics in the game is a no go, for vastly obvious reasons.

Maybe the rooting time of any graphic is halved, and leave graphics alone, despite that some incredibly stupidly long graphics may still be going on, and they would complete as you are moving, perhaps a rather cool effect?

 

Any ideas on how to mitigate this issue?

 

As always, please help make this an educational opportunity, and be comprehensive about your answers, so saying if you jump and fire it does not root, while possibly true, it is not a comprehensive solution and may be in fact be a coding exploit.

 

Regards

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, DrRocket said:

I think all of the buff button powers (tough, maneuvers, shielding, etc.) should be able to activate as you move, not force you to stop, pose in the middle of combat like some stupid clown, and then after all your opponents got free shots at you, you finally able to play.

Turn those on before the fighting starts and the enemies won't be getting free shots in.

 

1 hour ago, DrRocket said:

A suggestion for buttons, there should be an option for buff buttons to auto fire automatically without the need of pressing them.

CTRL+click puts a green ring on the power you want to autofire, and it autofires every time it times in unless you trigger something first.

 

1 hour ago, DrRocket said:

I view when activating a power, say an attack, there would be a prep, aim, shoot, see the shot, see the enemy get hit, see the enemy tumble or what not from the shot, for a total of 6 discrete events. At this time, we are stupidly standing still for all 6 events while the opponents are getting free shots at you, since their graphics are obviously very short.

First, your exaggeration is ridiculously over the top. Prepping and aiming are the same thing in this game. You don't see your character pull out their assault rifle, load up a magazine, load the magazine into the weapon, and then aim. You see your character draw their weapon and attack. Only the snipes have the very long animations that can be considered aiming for that matter. Also, the root time for the animations is how long it takes for your character to get through using the power. You are not being made to stand there and wait to see if you hit, then how your enemy reacts. Second, enemy attack animations take as long as player animations for the most part. Don't want your attacks to take longer than theirs? Then don't use the longer animation time attacks. All that will do is cost you the greater damage those attacks afford.

 

1 hour ago, DrRocket said:

As always, please help make this an educational opportunity, and be comprehensive about your answers,

I am seriously starting to question if you even play the game.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, DrRocket said:

Any ideas on how to mitigate this issue?

 

Plan ahead.

[OEM61]

15 hours ago, DrRocket said:

Now lets talk about the rooting duration, shall we?

 

I view when activating a power, say an attack, there would be a prep, aim, shoot, see the shot, see the enemy get hit, see the enemy tumble or what not from the shot, for a total of 6 discrete events. At this time, we are stupidly standing still for all 6 events while the opponents are getting free shots at you, since their graphics are obviously very short.

 

The question is how we fix or at least alleviate this?

I often shoot people that I have already KO'd.

That would not be an issue if the game played out the way you describe.  It doesn't.  I can have a power waiting to go off as soon as the other finishes up and/or it comes off of cooldown.
I can fire a second blast while the first is still on the way to the target because I have finished all of the requirements of the previous action.  I am not forced to stand there, waiting for that first blast to hit and see the result before I can make a second attack.

Yeah, it takes a second to use aim, build up, etc., and in the middle of combat they can leave you a little vulnerable.  You know this, though, so assess the threat and use your judgement.  If you are hitting enough then you probably don't need aim, so don't activate it.  Do you think that damage boost from build up is worth the time to activate it?  That's a yes or no.  Make the call.  Maybe pop an accuracy and damage inspiration before the fight for a longer-lasting buff that might let you avoid the need of having to build up or aim during a fight.

And, as Rudra said, the enemy is subject to the same limitations.
 

[Ukase]

On 11/11/2024 at 10:56 AM, DrRocket said:

please help make this an educational opportunity

So, while I dislike the very thing you're talking about, use it to your advantage. (Edit: I don't dislike the idea of getting rid of rooting, I dislike the rooting - sorry everyone.)

The delay of inferno is hilarious when I'm 30 yds away by the time they blow up! There's a tactic used called jousting, best practiced in a lowby zone like Perez park where there are often groups of mobs, no taunting or fold space needed. Practice there. 

Make the delays work for you. 

And yeah, when talking about buffs and res or def toggles, there's not the same fun and joy in those delays, but why would you ever take your toggles off? 
And you can't have buffs auto fire because your endurance might give out. We're not all built the same. I like the spirit of the idea, but I don't think it would look like you think it would if it were implemented. 

Edited November 12 by Ukase
Clarification

[srmalloy]

10 minutes ago, Ukase said:

The delay of inferno is hilarious when I'm 30 yds away by the time they blow up! There's a tactic used called jousting, best practiced in a lowby zone like Perez park where there are often groups of mobs, no taunting or fold space needed. Practice there. 

Back on Live, before the Great Regen Nerf and the institution of movement suppression, I got the badge for the Sky Raider Sky Skiffs on my Katana/Regen Scrapper by going to Terra Volta, targeting a skiff, queueing up a big attack, and super leaping past the skiff. The attack wouldn't go off until he was almost on the ground again, and at the apex of his jump, he'd be zooming past the spawn too fast for the other mobs to react. Rinse, repeat.

[Laucianna]

Not sure why there is so much dislike for this suggestion? I would love to be able to move around as I attack rather then having to be rooted to a single spot until the animation is finished, would make the game feel even more fun for me personally! 💛

And if people want their animations to root them maybe we can have an option similar to no redraw? So people can play the way they like 😄

[biostem]

This isn't an FPS or real-time combat game.  In fact, it's practically turn-based.  You must look at CoH for what it is, and not try to turn it into something it isn't.  There have been issues/bugs/quirks/exploits over the years that did permit you to override the rooting of animations, and the results were... weird, to say the least.  Anyway, you'll learn how you can best chain attacks and prep for combat instead of getting locked into a power activation animation mid-battle...

[Super Atom]

It's a neat Idea, idk how much it would even change balance wise outside of PvP but i imagine not much. You'd still be locked to animation times. I'd love to see it tried just to see, could be fun even if it's just a silly thing that never makes it out of beta. Who knows, maybe many will prefer it after trying it.

 

maybe even an april fools event, just no rooting for the week 😛 

Edited November 12 by Super Atom

[biostem]

21 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

maybe many will prefer it after trying it.

Roll one of those insta-50 PvP characters, take whirlwind from the speed pool, and try out how many attacks now function differently, to get a taste of what this would be like...

Edited November 12 by biostem

[Super Atom]

19 minutes ago, biostem said:

Roll one of those insta-50 PvP characters, take whirlwind from the speed pool, and try out how many attacks now function differently, to get a taste of what this would be like...

 

I've seen it before, when they added PvP in the first place. It was pretty funny' You can also /kind/ of do it right now with just super speed. but im not gonna go into how so homecoming doesn't fix it ;o

[Owl Girl]

jousting is the strat for working around awkward animation rooting imo. stay mobile, stay behind cover in between shots, stay alive ❤️

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Owl Girl said:

jousting is the strat for working around awkward animation rooting imo. stay mobile, stay behind cover in between shots, stay alive ❤️

Jousting is used even in games that don't root the character for animations, even if it isn't called "jousting" in those games. So I disagree about it being a workaround for rooting. It's a solid tactic to be on the move and attacking your target(s). Whether a flyby attack, moveby attack, or popping out from behind cover to fire before immediately popping back behind cover; keeping the enemy off guard and unable to effectively retaliate is the name of the game. Our characters in CoX are as mobile as we choose to make them. And mobility is a really great tool. (It just takes awareness of how rooting in the game works so that we can choose to fight in such a mobile manner. I have Blasters and Corruptors that others would think were at least part frog from all the hopping around the battlefield they do to maintain distance and not anchored to be hit back.)

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Owl Girl said:

jousting is the strat for working around awkward animation rooting imo. stay mobile, stay behind cover in between shots, stay alive ❤️

A big part of why jousting works also has to do with enemies typically having fewer ranged attacks, which also generally deal less damage than their melee ones, and since you need only be in range for a brief moment to activate a power, yet the game still takes your momentum into account, you can approach an enemy with a power queued up, have it go off, then be out of their melee range once the animation finishes...

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, Laucianna said:

Not sure why there is so much dislike for this suggestion?

 

Because the game wasn't designed to work that way, and unless every animation was reworked to function correctly without rooting, our characters wouldn't animate anything but movement, or they'd slide around idiotically, locked in power animations.  It'd be janky and pathetic, and we aren't playing to watch janky and pathetic, we're playing to watch glitz and glitter.

[Laucianna]

4 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Because the game wasn't designed to work that way, and unless every animation was reworked to function correctly without rooting, our characters wouldn't animate anything but movement, or they'd slide around idiotically, locked in power animations.  It'd be janky and pathetic, and we aren't playing to watch janky and pathetic, we're playing to watch glitz and glitter.

Surely there would be no harm in allowing an option like no Re-draw then? So people who would rather not be rooted (And I know quite a few) don't have to be, and others can keep the rooted for that more cemented animations 💛 To me it doesn't have to be a this or that, it could be a option the player decides 🙂

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Laucianna said:

7 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Because the game wasn't designed to work that way, and unless every animation was reworked to function correctly without rooting, our characters wouldn't animate anything but movement, or they'd slide around idiotically, locked in power animations.  It'd be janky and pathetic, and we aren't playing to watch janky and pathetic, we're playing to watch glitz and glitter.

Surely there would be no harm in allowing an option like no Re-draw then? So people who would rather not be rooted (And I know quite a few) don't have to be, and others can keep the rooted for that more cemented animations 💛 To me it doesn't have to be a this or that, it could be a option the player decides 🙂

Have you ever played Champions Online? In Champions Online, there are multiple enemies that move around when they are being animated doing something else. They slide around the room until they finish what they are doing. It is extremely jarring and immersion breaking. Even if an option for only those that were willing to deal with the jarring mismatch of activities were made available, others would still be subject to seeing City of Sliding Mismatched Animations. It isn't something that can be set up to only affect those that choose said option. And anyway, if players make use of how rooting works in the game, they can still be mobile even with rooting, just without the jarring disconnect in activity.

[Luminara]

3 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

Surely there would be no harm in allowing an option like no Re-draw then? So people who would rather not be rooted (And I know quite a few) don't have to be, and others can keep the rooted for that more cemented animations 💛 To me it doesn't have to be a this or that, it could be a option the player decides 🙂

 

Redraw doesn't root.

[DrRocket]

There were some rather condescending replies, to be expected, some folks have to appear to be smarter than others to make up for their personal shortfalls... But take for example Kuji-In Rin, I do engage it before combat(obviously I planned ahead), but it wears out at times before combat is over, so in the middle of it, I have no choice to click it and go retard or allow to fall prey to the spam holds been used in the game. So I would wish, frankly, once you  engage Kuji-In Rin it should remain active until the combat is over. I can watch a Bruce Lee movie and he would do a focus move before jumping in, but never saw him stop in the middle of fight and re-focus, I do not have an issue losing a turn re-focusing (even it strikes me as totally stupid) but you take the long "idiotic" animation for it giving all your opponents several rounds of attacks on you.  This is a sample of the issue I am after seeking relief from, and yes make the game more dynamic.  I don't quite buy the assertion that this game was designed as a turn play game, if a developer sees this posting, maybe they could provide expert opinion as opposed to accept player hear say opinions which may be right or totally wrong.

 

regards

[macskull]

On 11/12/2024 at 6:03 PM, Luminara said:

 

Because the game wasn't designed to work that way, and unless every animation was reworked to function correctly without rooting, our characters wouldn't animate anything but movement, or they'd slide around idiotically, locked in power animations.  It'd be janky and pathetic, and we aren't playing to watch janky and pathetic, we're playing to watch glitz and glitter.

But this is exactly what they did when they removed rooting from almost every non-enemy-affecting click power a few years ago. They decided the jank was fine, or we wouldn't have got that change.

 

EDIT: It seems like OP is either confused by which powers do and do not cause rooting (since several of the examples they gave are powers that do not root you), or it's actually the existence of activation times they are complaining about. Activation times aren't a huge issue on their own, but long activation times that also root you in place are way more problematic.

Edited November 20 by macskull
Accidentally a word

[Rudra]

30 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

But take for example Kuji-In Rin, I do engage it before combat(obviously I planned ahead), but it wears out at times before combat is over, so in the middle of it, I have no choice to click it and go retard or allow to fall prey to the spam holds been used in the game. So I would wish, frankly, once you  engage Kuji-In Rin it should remain active until the combat is over. I can watch a Bruce Lee movie and he would do a focus move before jumping in, but never saw him stop in the middle of fight and re-focus, I do not have an issue losing a turn re-focusing (even it strikes me as totally stupid) but you take the long "idiotic" animation for it giving all your opponents several rounds of attacks on you.

Kuji-In Rin takes a whole 1.83 seconds to cast. There is no enemy in the game that is going to be attacking you for "several rounds" while you re-activate it. They can get 1 attack off if it is a fast attack, and that's it. Your presentation is still heavily biased into excessive exaggeration. And if you take out the enemy mezzer first, then you don't even need to re-activate Kuji-In Rin during that fight anyway. (Edit: And it lasts for 2 minutes. You can easily get its recharge under that. So keep an eye on its icon and renew it before any new fights.)

 

Edited November 20 by Rudra

[Luminara]

8 minutes ago, macskull said:

But this is exactly what they did when they removed rooting from almost every non-enemy-affecting click power a few years ago. They decided the jank was fine, or we wouldn't have got that change.

 

Self-affecting powers with no enemy-affecting component, the majority of which we're typically reactivating while on the move, and they still have activation times (both to allow the graphical effects to play out and to prevent them from being exploitable in combat).

 

Janky is spewing projectiles from your torso because the movement animation isn't being overridden, or sliding around in an attack stance because the attack animation isn't being overridden.  Being able to move while your damage mitigation toggles are activating ain't that.

[macskull]

15 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Janky is spewing projectiles from your torso because the movement animation isn't being overridden, or sliding around in an attack stance because the attack animation isn't being overridden

...which, again, is exactly what happens when you use an ally-affecting buff while moving. Hell, even some toggles work that way now - the VFX show up but the animation itself doesn't play at all if you're moving.

Edited November 20 by macskull