QoL: Create a 2nd Control + Left click auto power

[Nezix]

I don't think this would disturb the balance of the game, but pretty much every player that takes Hasten (almost every player) puts it on auto-cast at least once the cooldown is shortened. Wouldn't it be great if we could use our auto-cast on something else too?

 

Solutions:

1. Make Hasten have a specific option / it's own version of auto-cast and let us use the regular one for w/e.

2. Simply make a 2nd kind of auto cast (? + Left click)

 

I haven't looked at the CoH code but #2 shouldn't be difficult. Find code for original, copy/paste, find all references to the first and add checks for the second, change bind, change color ring, write one line that handles if both autos are up, do A before B.

[PaxArcana]

/JRanger

 

That would violate the concept of actually playing the game.  We absolutely do not need more automation.

 

...

 

Also, no, not every player takes Hasten.  I haven't taken it on a single build yet - even the one that has Superspeed for travel.  (I got Combat Jumping instead.)

[Redlynne]

I haven't looked at the CoH code but #2 shouldn't be difficult.

 

[jack_nomind]

/JRanger

 

That would violate the concept of actually playing the game.  We absolutely do not need more automation.

 

...

 

Also, no, not every player takes Hasten.  I haven't taken it on a single build yet - even the one that has Superspeed for travel.  (I got Combat Jumping instead.)

 

Speaking as someone who does take Hasten, we absolutely do need more automation (even though clearly some players won't want to use it).  Having two or twenty powers on dumb auto won't make the game any more 'scriptable.'

[Impact]

This is at least the third or fourth time additional auto-cast powers have been independently suggested, including once by myself.  I love the idea, and I hope it's on the dev's radar.  My suggestion was level-gate one or two more auto-casts, but the OP's ideas are also good ones.

[Nezix]

/JRanger

 

That would violate the concept of actually playing the game.  We absolutely do not need more automation.

 

...

 

Also, no, not every player takes Hasten.  I haven't taken it on a single build yet - even the one that has Superspeed for travel.  (I got Combat Jumping instead.)

 

I didn't say everyone, just most people / characters, which I still think is true.

I can accomplish what I personally have in mind by creating some repeating macro which will be about 80% as effective so why deny it to everyone.

 

I haven't looked at the CoH code but #2 shouldn't be difficult.

 

 

Hehe, really though, should not be challenging assuming they have full client/server code base.

[PaxArcana]

Having two or twenty powers on dumb auto won't make the game any more 'scriptable.'

 

... a Pain/ Defender with every PBAoE on Auto, set to Follow another character, would essentially be "playable" while you're fifty miles away from the computer.  Instant healbot - no player needed.

 

Or, how about a Blaster, with their entire primary - ANY primary except EB - set to Auto, and then told to "follow" a low-damage Tanker? 

 

...

 

More autopowers would, absolutely would, make automating a character more possible, especially for dual-boxers.

[PaxArcana]

Hehe, really though, should not be challenging assuming they have full client/server code base.

 

Pray tell, have you heard of the Standard Code Rant...?  Because you're tripping over it just about as hard as is conceivably possible.

[Redlynne]

I haven't looked at the CoH code but #2 shouldn't be difficult.

 

 

Hehe, really though, should not be challenging assuming they have full client/server code base.

 

Just because something is easy to SAY in a forum(!) doesn't ipso facto mean it's easy to program(!) when dealing with spaghetti code this ancient (and poorly designed to begin with).

[Nezix]

Hehe, really though, should not be challenging assuming they have full client/server code base.

 

Pray tell, have you heard of the Standard Code Rant...?  Because you're tripping over it just about as hard as is conceivably possible.

 

I understand your point, however.

I am a programmer. I've worked in game development for almost 9 years. Given the quality the devs here have shown, I'm making what I think is a reasonable assumption that this would not be a difficult task.

[Pzn]

/JRanger

 

That would violate the concept of actually playing the game.  We absolutely do not need more automation.

 

...

 

Also, no, not every player takes Hasten.  I haven't taken it on a single build yet - even the one that has Superspeed for travel.  (I got Combat Jumping instead.)

Ok then 99% of players take hasten.  You're the odd one out.  I look at everyone's profile that I team with and I've only seen people not take hasten a couple times since the server went up.

 

The jranger stuff isn't funny and it's just immature rude behavior.

[PaxArcana]

I understand your point, however.

I am a programmer. I've worked in game development for almost 9 years.

 

And yet ...

[jack_nomind]

... a Pain/ Defender with every PBAoE on Auto, set to Follow another character, would essentially be "playable" while you're fifty miles away from the computer.  Instant healbot - no player needed.

 

Or, how about a Blaster, with their entire primary - ANY primary except EB - set to Auto, and then told to "follow" a low-damage Tanker? 

 

More autopowers would, absolutely would, make automating a character more possible, especially for dual-boxers.

 

so i understand that you are also not a dual boxer.  I haven't multiboxed on HC (so far?) but back on Live I regularly ran that game-breaking Defender you're so concerned about (mine was emp/sonic), and it had a much more restrictive CoC.

 

It's already possible to run an entire rotation on two keys, and to -- even without violating the unofficial 'characters must have players' rule, which isn't explicitly in the CoC -- simultaneously control two characters with WASD + QE + space.  It's already possible without using any kind of utility to have a passive buffbot or idle farm, although those might arguably violate that unofficial rule.

 

In either case (either we do rely on the CoC to deter automation, or we don't) adding more autopowers doesn't make a real impact on what's practical to do.  You said you don't use Hasten and it's clear you don't multibox; I don't think I understand where you're drawing your opinion from?

[Pzn]

I understand your point, however.

I am a programmer. I've worked in game development for almost 9 years.

 

And yet ...

Is it possible for you to be more arrogant and rude?

[PaxArcana]

Is it possible for you to be more arrogant and rude?

 

Absolutely.  See, that image isn't arrogance, nor rudeness.  It's an ongoing memetic reply that has been part of the City of Heroes/Villains community for fifteen years, now.  A meme that was created to sidestep the inevitable multi-page back-and-forth arguments (often strenuously vitriolic ones) that otherwise sprang up from anyone blithely saying "it'll be easy" WRT changes to the game's code.

 

One of the early lead developers once described CoX as "spaghetti code", it's that messy and incomprehensibly complex.  The program is _badly written_.  So one should never, ever, assume something will be easy.

[Pzn]

Wow it's like you can't turn it off.  You must be insufferable in real life.

[Jeuraud]

I am a programmer. I've worked in game development for almost 9 years. Given the quality the devs here have shown, I'm making what I think is a reasonable assumption that this would not be a difficult task.

 

 

I noticed you did not volunteer your services as a programmer... why not?

 

CoHH is no longer a professional product, but a hobbyist project. Something that needs to be driven home. Hells if I was a CoHH Dev, I would give you the code and say "Here, go for it."

 

Not saying I think your want would be a good idea, just that it would be entertaining to see you try. From what I've heard of the CoH program, it's spaghetti, with red sauce, and white sauce, and chicken, and hamburger, and mushrooms, and.

 

 

Note, a hobbyist project does not mean low quality. Hobbyist projects are often of higher quality in this day and age of wanting it now and cheap.

[PaxArcana]

Is it possible for you to be more arrogant and rude?

 

Wow it's like you can't turn it off.  You must be insufferable in real life.

 

Here, let me demonstrate:

 

Mirror, mirror, on the wall ... who's the guy who projects his faults on others, because they dare not to agree with what he wants?

 

...

 

See, that?  That's intentionally rude, with a little bit of arrogance thrown in.  Made special for you, because you annoy me.  Happy, now?  [/snark]

[Doctor Brainbottle]

Absolutely.  See, that image isn't arrogance, nor rudeness.  It's an ongoing memetic reply that has been part of the City of Heroes/Villains community for fifteen years, now.  A meme that was created to sidestep the inevitable multi-page back-and-forth arguments (often strenuously vitriolic ones) that otherwise sprang up from anyone blithely saying "it'll be easy" WRT changes to the game's code.

 

Wait, you really think the fact that you've been re-posting the same dismissive meme on the internet for fifteen years proves you... AREN'T arrogant and rude? And I can't say I'm impressed by how effectively posting this meme "sidesteps" arguments, when the very argument you are in right now was STARTED by it.

[PaxArcana]

I haven't been the only one posting it, friend.  Many many many players have been using it, throughout the entire life (both lives, now) of the CoX game, when confronted by people who not only innocently assume, but INSIST "X would be easy to do", without themselves having personally surveyed the entirety of the code for both Client and Server.

 

And if you think this is bad?  Back on Live, I witnessed ten-plus page argumetns, between a dozen or more people, with two or three holdouts repeatedly insisting "it would be easy".

 

Sometimes, even in the face of actual developers directly saying "no, no it wouldn't."

 

Regardless, I'm not going to keep pounding at this.

 

(a) this is a bad idea that isn't worth any further energy on my part;

 

(b) assuming this, or any other idea, would be easy to implement is the height of folly, and the only people who refuse to accept that are fools;

 

© this is a really bad idea that isn't worth any further energy on my part.

 

Good night.

[srmalloy]

One of the early lead developers once described CoX as "spaghetti code", it's that messy and incomprehensibly complex.  The program is _badly written_.  So one should never, ever, assume something will be easy.

 

And the thing is, he's right. Adding a second autofire power -- or any number of autofire powers -- is a fairly simple thing. IF the code to manage autopowers was implemented rationally, with the intention of having more than one autopower sometime in the future. I can think of easily four different ways that it could be done. And I'm absolutely certain that none of these was used in the CoH server code, and if we were to go digging, we'd find it buried somewhere in the loop that updates countdowns for status effects or something, because that was where the devs could find a code loop that executed with the right frequency to catch the autopowers becoming fireable and set them off. And there's no way to shoehorn a second autopower in, because they used a random integer field they had lying around in the character data structure to record which power was tagged for autofire, and there isn't any space there to put a second field, so you'd have to arbitrarily pick an unused field somewhere else in the data structure, which means you now have two arbitrarily-chosen data fields that have to be maintained whenever something with autofire powers changes, with no explanation why.

 

(with close to forty years of work experience as a programmer, I have some insight into how spaghetti code gets that way. And we don't want to make it worse just to add a feature that will increase the bottability of the game.)

[Nezix]

I am a programmer. I've worked in game development for almost 9 years. Given the quality the devs here have shown, I'm making what I think is a reasonable assumption that this would not be a difficult task.

 

 

I noticed you did not volunteer your services as a programmer... why not?

 

CoHH is no longer a professional product, but a hobbyist project. Something that needs to be driven home. Hells if I was a CoHH Dev, I would give you the code and say "Here, go for it."

 

Not saying I think your want would be a good idea, just that it would be entertaining to see you try. From what I've heard of the CoH program, it's spaghetti, with red sauce, and white sauce, and chicken, and hamburger, and mushrooms, and.

 

 

Note, a hobbyist project does not mean low quality. Hobbyist projects are often of higher quality in this day and age of wanting it now and cheap.

 

Oh boy this thread exploded while I was away today, though your question is perfectly fine. I have worked on other freeshard MMOs in the past, and in those instances the developers were incredibly secretive with their code. It was a very different game and situation, and these are not the same people, but I don't want a second job, which is what the last experience was for me. Though to be honest even when I first posted this thread I was genuinely curious how long it would take if I tried to do implement this w/o any context.

 

One of the early lead developers once described CoX as "spaghetti code", it's that messy and incomprehensibly complex.  The program is _badly written_.  So one should never, ever, assume something will be easy.

 

And the thing is, he's right. Adding a second autofire power -- or any number of autofire powers -- is a fairly simple thing. IF the code to manage autopowers was implemented rationally, with the intention of having more than one autopower sometime in the future. I can think of easily four different ways that it could be done. And I'm absolutely certain that none of these was used in the CoH server code, and if we were to go digging, we'd find it buried somewhere in the loop that updates countdowns for status effects or something, because that was where the devs could find a code loop that executed with the right frequency to catch the autopowers becoming fireable and set them off. And there's no way to shoehorn a second autopower in, because they used a random integer field they had lying around in the character data structure to record which power was tagged for autofire, and there isn't any space there to put a second field, so you'd have to arbitrarily pick an unused field somewhere else in the data structure, which means you now have two arbitrarily-chosen data fields that have to be maintained whenever something with autofire powers changes, with no explanation why.

 

(with close to forty years of work experience as a programmer, I have some insight into how spaghetti code gets that way. And we don't want to make it worse just to add a feature that will increase the bottability of the game.)

 

One of the worse case scenarios that I can think of is if the "feature" is named something stupid that overlaps all over the rest of the code, and thus makes it difficult to search for and find all the side instances of it tucked away in random places.

[Warlawk]

I know the code is a mess and it's likely far more complicated than it seems it should be.

 

That said, I would LOVE to see more autofire powers available. Hell, limit them to self only and it would be fine by me! With the addition of 100% uptime incarnate destiny clickies and things like SD/SR mez protection being clickie it would be really great to have more available.