Idea: make taunting and damaging auras not affect non-aggroed enemies

[temnix]

...Why am I posting it here and not in the Suggestions forum? Because that place is where doom reigns. It is an idea ghetto cum death camp, organized to keep all those bright creative sorts who think they have something to contribute to the game bashing their heads on invisible walls. Of course, Homecoming doesn't care about player suggestions here either, but somebody may stumble across this thread, whereas Suggestions is the forum they have been specifically ordered not to read. That is the only explanation why they... well, why they haven't fixed the typos right in the character generation. For more of what they haven't done, feel the nose on my face.

 

So what is my idea? I have been and still am irked by having to switch off and on aura-type powers that taunt, debuff or do damage just to walk by some enemies. It's a real chore. Whether the enemies are grey already and you simply don't want to fight them, and even cities are full of them, or you are using stealth, it is such a drag to keep those auras now on, now off, especially with the tray buttons not being particularly responsive to the mouse. They take some pushing, as everyone knows. Plus it is impossible to make a macro for activating/deactivating more than one power. The result is tedious, sometimes unsuccessful clicking just to move from point A to point B unmolested.

 

Many if not most power sets have one or two of these auras that are essential. Regeneration, for example, is not viable without its regeneration-increasing aura, which also happens to taunt. What a gift to players! Imagine if I'm not a Tanker? On the other hand, imagine if I am a Tanker? There should be some solution that makes these auras controllable, because somebody who is gushing fire in every direction or jibing in a circle would still, I think, have sufficient control over where he sends his stuff.

 

My original proposal, now buried with the galleons of the Spanish Main in the benthic silts of Suggestions, was to keep the auras from affecting grays. I was thinking about taunting powers then. But that's not a perfect solution for a few reasons. A much better thought is to let the auras only taunt, debuff and damage enemies who have already been aggroed, be that by seeing the character or by an attack. This would keep Stealth in place, prevent unfair situations where the player rushes into a group and fries them with a few ticks before they go "Uh-wha?" as well as make Tankers in particular play an active, conscious role on teams, living up to their promise as enemy magnets.

 

Let them move their big fat butts. If they want to draw all the mobs to themselves, let them first run in and make an attack or run in, expose themselves and be noticed, at which point their auras will start taunting, hurting, drawing bits of extra regeneration and damage resistance for themselves per enemy and so on with the rest of what auras do. The rest of the team should hang back for a moment and watch the Tanker start putting it on before they join in. That will increase the clarity of situations, reward Tankers with respect and make fights more dramatic instead of just hectic, "my auras first," brawls.

 

Repel should also be included.

[Neiska]

Managing a toggle is too much work? You should try numberpad masterminds!

[Maelwys]

Why not just visit a START vendor and pick up the "Only Affect Self" toggle power...?

[Rudra]

51 minutes ago, temnix said:

There should be some solution that makes these auras controllable,

Amazingly, there already is! And you even mentioned it in your post. Turning off the toggles when you want to be sneaky. And you can even pick and choose what toggles you want on or off!

[Psyonico]

There is only a very small subset of characters that have more than 1 aura power.  For those, and for those that have an aura power that also provides benefit to the caster (Energy Aura's taunt provides mez protection, for example) pick up the free "Only Affect Self" power from START.

 

If taunt auras don't taunt enemies that have already been aggroed then they're practically useless.  One of their main jobs is to grab aggro from unaggroed mobs.

 

I also LOL'd that you said this was posted outside of suggestions intentionally and the thread got moved to Suggestions.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, temnix said:

One: never let it slip from your mind that the majority of people are idiots. Two: Hey! Hey! Hey! BIM's on the way!

Self fulfilling prophecy? And yea, the reason the last time you brought this up is that there's a simple solution to your problem.

[Snarky]

Post too long. Title idea sucks. Damaging aura is how some players taunt

[Ghost]

So you want to walk past enemies, with auras on that are designed to damage/disrupt enemies…and have them not do damage/disrupt???

 

Sigh

[arcane]

So my taunt auras would no longer be useful for grabbing aggro. Pass.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I found this worth reading for a couple of reasons.

 

15 hours ago, temnix said:

...Why am I posting it here and not in the Suggestions forum? Because that place is where doom reigns. It is an idea ghetto cum death camp, organized to keep all those bright creative sorts who think they have something to contribute to the game bashing their heads on invisible walls. Of course, Homecoming doesn't care about player suggestions here either, but somebody may stumble across this thread, whereas Suggestions is the forum they have been specifically ordered not to read. That is the only explanation why they... well, why they haven't fixed the typos right in the character generation. For more of what they haven't done, feel the nose on my face.

 

I cannot disagree with you here, and the irony of the curators moving it to Suggestions within a few hours is sharp.  This subforum is generally a morass, and seems almost always to lead to more conflicts among players.  What it does not ever have is any dev input -- not one lick or it.  This will soon lead to a Suggestion forum post of mine that will probably be ignored and will almost certainly lead to more conflicts among players.

 

15 hours ago, temnix said:

My original proposal, now buried with the galleons of the Spanish Main in the benthic silts of Suggestions, was to keep the auras from affecting grays. I was thinking about taunting powers then. But that's not a perfect solution for a few reasons. A much better thought is to let the auras only taunt, debuff and damage enemies who have already been aggroed, be that by seeing the character or by an attack. This would keep Stealth in place, prevent unfair situations where the player rushes into a group and fries them with a few ticks before they go "Uh-wha?" as well as make Tankers in particular play an active, conscious role on teams, living up to their promise as enemy magnets.

 

And here I like to ask myself "why?" you made the suggestion and "how?" it might be implemented.  Your suggestions seem to make sense to me on the surface to an extent, and I don't see it as you asking/begging "Give me more than what I already have".  If you have a character without stealth and with no aggro powers active and walk past a purple, it will attack and kill you, but that same character can stand in a pack of greys and tell jokes with the bat-flipping Hellions for hours.  Why shouldn't some of your powers not affect them if they are coded to completely ignore you?  They are not giving you any rewards in terms of inf or xp.  I can see blowback from people who want to get easy defeat badges, and maybe that's reason enough to say no.

 

And then I like to ask myself "why?" we are where we are.  When CoH sunset, and this game was played and evolved for seven years before re-emerging, one of the things that has been consistent is that the developers like MORE (and especially more for tankers).  Aggro cap?  Screw that noise, let's change powers so that it's easier to attract/distract enemies, do more damage to higher numbers of enemies, make gathering them together and defeating them quicker and easier, presumably to get more shiny rewards more quickly.  And frankly a very vocal part of the player base likes it exactly like that and would painfully kill every pet you've ever had just because you suggest otherwise.  I don't see anything getting instituted that will *reduce* any sort of aggro, even against greys.  Would it be better for the overall game either way?  I don't really see a compelling argument one way or another.

 

 

[Uun]

This mechanic already exists for blaster sustain powers that include debuff/damage auras. Dynamo, Mud Bath, Cauterizing Aura, Frigid Protection and Reaction Time all suppress while stealthed. (A stealth IO alone is insufficient. Stealth radius needs to be at least 36 feet). That said, I'm against extending this mechanic to melee taunt/damage/debuff auras. Self awareness is part of playing the game. If you want to be sneaky, you need to learn to turn off your auras. And it doesn't just apply to armor sets. I can't count the number of times I've been attacked because I forgot to turn off Hot Feet or Venomous Gas or Time's Juncture.

[tidge]

FWIW, some badges/contact unlocks/accolades are often accomplished by fighting 'con grey' enemies in (relatively) open world low level zones.