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Make charging passive in free attack mode

Discussion in 'Release 28 Feedback Forum' started by DaemienX, Apr 11, 2016.

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  1. Coconut

    Coconut Avatar

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    The basic problem is the OP wants a Charged attack to just charge up, without any interaction after hitting a button and when they feel like it firing it off.

    If you start it with one click OK - but - If it hits max you have 2 seconds to fire it off or it goes away.

    If all you want is a charged attack up and ready for whenever, :oops: then you are reaching for way to much than you should be able to do.

    You want to disable the act of "holding" down a button and replacing it with doing nothing is where you are reaching for to much.
     
  2. Gix

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    I used the term "quick attack" to different itself from "charged attack". What I mean is: if you click once, your dude swings. If clicking the mouse would automatically charge an attack, then in order to just "attack", I'd need to double-click: once to start the charge, another to cancel the charge.

    Requiring more clicks to do something so simple... which is to attack.

    I can't think of any game that doesn't do this: if you press a button, your character attacks.

    And that's fine, I TOTALLY understand the issue. However, the suggested "solution" is to make it completely ergonomically backwards for the rest of us. You want to change how the glyphs works? Great! Change that! Not something so fundamentally basic like a "click to attack" command!

    That's exactly what the OP is proposing... and I find it horrible beyond compare.
     
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  3. Noric

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    I can accept that being a requirement for an effective solution to this
     
  4. helm

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    OK thanks, now I think (hope) I understand better.

    The click-charge idea was actually an alternative modification to the proposal, given as a response to certain disagreements. Originally the proposal was/is basically this: you click once, your dude swings immediately. If you wait a little bit before clicking, for whatever reason, your dude swings immediately, but the swing is a bit stronger. And that's basically it. No double-clicking.

    So if I have understood you correctly, you have basically presented a strong counterargument to @Noric's modified proposal (presented in here). But the original proposal is precisely like you described: you click once, your dude swings.

    I have actually tested it in practice (because it's very easy to simulate), and it works extremely well and is intuitive to use. Just click-and-swing (or click-and-shoot in my case), quick and simple, all that differs is the level of charge, depending on the time invested. As it should be, in my opinion.
     
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  5. Noric

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    @helm the post you are replying to has @Gix already addressing the thing you are bringing up.
     
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  6. Noric

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    With the targeting changes, I'm not sure how much of this entire topic needs to be re-evaluated.
     
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  7. KuBaTRiZeS

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    To me, moving away from targeted combat towards aimed combat is a step in the right direction. With an aimed combat, this kind of free attack could be even more justified. Let's see how this sounds to you all.
    • As soon as you have an enemy as objective your free attack bar starts to charge.
    • If you LMB while having your enemy aimed you release an attack charged as if you were holding LMB since the enemy was in your aim.
    • If you release a glyph or your enemy moves away from your line of sight (you lose your aim) the charged attack is lost; you need to retake your aim to start charging again.
    • A skill could be placed in the Focus tree that increases the width of the line of sight.
    I think that with this landing a free attack becomes a more strategical element. We could even keep holding the LMB to keep the attack charged even after losing aim (player reaction) and, once it's fully charged it starts draining a bit of focus (walking around with a full stretched bow - two handed sword over your head sounds tiring :D)
     
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  8. Lord Dreamo

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    I didn't know you can fire off glyphs while charging. I might have to give manual attack mode another shot.

    Though it does seem silly that you can do essentially other attacks while charging your main one. Lol suspension of disbelief :p
     
  9. KuBaTRiZeS

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    Not sure if i understood you... just in case i'll clarify; you currently can fire glyphs while charging, but doing so interrupts the charging. So you cannot start charging - use two glyphs - release a full charged free attack.
     
  10. Lord Dreamo

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    Ooh ok. So you either have to choose between charging or using glyphs eh?
     
  11. KuBaTRiZeS

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    Exactly. What i do is to always charge my attack "just in case". That way if i doze off thinking if i should combine or attack, i'm building a more powerful attack in the meantime.
     
  12. Lord Dreamo

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    That's waaaay too much coordination for me. I'm lucky if I can remember to hit the auto attack key haha
     
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  13. helm

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    Actually, what @KuBaTRiZeS and I have been trying to get across is that the whole current charging implementation is totally devoid of (need of) coordination: there is no tactical or skill related element whatsoever in constantly pressing down a button. It might disturb actual gameplay slightly less than say a requirement of constantly keeping one's index finger stuck up one's nostril when in attack mode, but the actual gameplay skill related element is roughly similar. :p

    I'm doing a series of little tests to test the various claims and suggestions in this thread against actual data. Will post the results of the first tests shortly (about the effect of charging to attack frequency and responsiveness), later I'll post the results of actually playtesting the click-charge-click-attack suggestion and reset-after-a-while suggestions.
     
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  14. helm

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    Is there information somewhere about the exact changes that are to be expected?
     
  15. helm

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    I did some quick testing in order to have at least some actual data about the effect of passive charging to quick attack responsiveness and frequency.

    Passive charging used in here is "simulated" passive charging which is on practical player level indistinguishable from the passive charging proposed by the OP.
    Despite its simplicity, this is still a somewhat 'technical' explanation. If you do not care about those, just close this spoiler and move on.

    On OS level, mouse and key activity is seen as "events", for example pressing a key consists of a keyDown event followed by a keyUp event. Similarly, a mouse click consists of a mouseDown event followed by mouseUp. (There are also events related to mouse movement, but that's not relevant in this context.)

    Individual keyboard and mouse events can easily be generated by programs, for example for testing or ergonomic purposes.

    Now, charging as it is currently implemented, requires holding down the key or button that is associated with 'Attack'. This is modifiable in game control settings, and by default it is tied to the 1st mouse button. Releasing the button/key triggers the attack. These activites - charging and attacking - correspond directly to the mouseDown and mouseUp (or keyDown and keyUp) events.


    Therefore passive charging is quite trivial to simulate, by simply sending a 'keyDown' or 'mouseDown' event corresponding to the chosen 'Attack' binding (so much for claimed "fundamental" changes to the game mechanics...). When the player wants to attack, (s)he simply clicks the attack button, which sends a mouseDown event followed by mouseUp--> resulting in immediate triggering of the attack.

    It is worth noting that it does not matter how many consecutive mouseDown (or keyDown) events one sends - it is like trying to press a button that is already pressed down.

    It could therefore be presumed that the the only difference between "quick attack" and "charged attack" is the time between the first mouseDown event (starts charging) and the mouseUp event (triggers attack). Triggering of the attack (by the mouseUp event) is always immediate. This is what I want to verify by these tests.

    Test 1 - counting the number of shots within a fixed timeframe
    I performed the testing by attacking a gustball with my bow, as many times as possible within a timeframe of two minutes (120 seconds), basically clicking the 'Attack' mouse button as fast as I could. After that I counted the number of shots (both hits and misses).
    1. The first round was done in "normal" free attack mode.
    2. The second round was done with simulated passive charging activated (blindly restarting the charging every 0.3 seconds should it break for any reason).
    Test results:
    • 1st round (normal free attack): 94 shots in 120 seconds.
    • 2nd round (w/passive charging): 94 shots in 120 seconds.
    Conclusion: Charging has no effect to to the frequency of the attacks.


    Test 2 - subjective responsiveness of attack, with and without passive charging
    I know of no reliable ways for a normal player to objectively measure responsiveness, so I resorted to subjective testing. I did 50 testing rounds against a gustball, each round lasting 15 seconds (total time 12½ minutes). I covered the avatar and the charging bar, so that I could not tell if it was "charging" or not (but could see enough of the attack animation to know when it attacks). Each 15s round was randomly set to A) either charge passively or B) not charge. I could attack freely at will at any time, to check attack responsiveness. After each round a bell would sound, and I would try to guess which mode it had been on for the last 15 seconds.

    Test result: 28 wrong guesses, 22 correct guesses, in other words not distinguishable from pure chance (50%). In fact, during the entire testing I did not have the faintest idea about the mode which it was on, my answers were pure blind guesses. Attack responsiveness felt exactly the same all the way through the entire test.

    Conclusion: Charging has no effect to the responsiveness of the attack.


    Overall conclusion: Charging has no positive or negative effect to either the responsiveness or the frequency of the attacks. When the attack button is clicked, the attack is always immediate (excluding, of course, the standard cooldown time). A quick attack can therefore be performed at any time regardless of charging status.
     
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  16. helm

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    Losing the charged attack by losing the line of sight (for example - by simply turning around?) sounds potentially confusing, instead of strategic (but impossible to tell without actually testing in a real situation).

    Draining of focus after a while would probably mean that the charging could not be a passive thing, at all?

    I think an extremely important element has been largely overlooked in here: What is "charging" actually? Is it magic? (at least for melee, probably not) Is it some kind of tiring posture? (then how could one explain the gradual progression) Is it some kind of mental concentration? (perhaps) Is it some kind of physical tension? (perhaps) Is it recovery from previous action, including restoring ATP to the muscles? (perhaps)

    My own current interpretation of charging is that it's a combination of mental concentration, physical tension and physical+mental recovery from previous actions. Ever chopped large chunks of wood with a big badass axe? There is an element of "charging" definitely involved, that includes all these elements. Various sports containing elements of explosive performance (e.g. tennis, ski jumping. swim jumping, fencing, boxing) all involve an element of "charging", but that is usually an act of relaxation, preparation, concentration, alertness, recovery. Watch that tennis player preparing for his 1st serve, and his actions after hitting the ball - that's "charging" right there (and when there isn't time to charge, that usually leads to losing the point). There might be an element of conscious effort, but mostly it just "happens". No need to stick a finger anywhere.

    I think this kind of intention is seen in the current charging animations: We do NOT see an archer pre-stretching a bow, or a swordsman lifting his weapon to unnatural heights. We see, well, charging :)
     
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  17. Lord Dreamo

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    Thank you for pointing out the lack of any charging animations. Considering our weapons appear out of thin air I suppose magic might be the best answer for what charging actually is :D
     
  18. KuBaTRiZeS

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    I won't take animations as a reference because of all the placeholders... i could equally argue that when zoning, my character is taking a huge dump (white eyes and all that) and it make sense since we're using TP!

    Just joking don't take me seriously please xD My expectations is that while charging we're actually preparing a more powerful physical hit and i hope animations change to reflect that, but that's just speculation.

    Sorry helm i'm not currently in a place where i can address your posts properly. I prefer to read them carefully and answer you when i get home and i can give that my undivided attention :D This was just something i wanted to point out before the discussion carries on.

    EDIT: dat free attack
    [​IMG]
     
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  19. helm

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    It's clearly the classic Western (neo)colonialist mindset at work: we came, we conquered, we dumped, we left.
     
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  20. DaemienX

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    I always imagined it like a golf swing: Full charge is a drive AA - putt. Drive takes longer but conveys more energy than a putt.
     
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