|
|
Post by Twilight Semner on Jan 4, 2014 17:05:02 GMT
Higher Ground has added some wonderful benefits to the Whirlwind Attack ability that help to alleviate some of the drawbacks to using what would otherwise be considered a "bugged" and "unusable" ability. Unfortunately, in my experience at least, Whirlwind Attack is still terribly underused, preventing tanks from being able to be of greater benefit to their team through the use of the special effects that have been added to it. So, in order to ameliorate it's standing and, hopefully, encourage its widespread use, I have a couple different possible suggestions.
The first idea is to add an "!opt ww" function that disables the AoE attack/animation portion of the activated ability (which I assume would prevent the bug from occurring), while still allowing the character to inflict the other benefits of Whirlwind Attack upon his enemies. I'm not certain if this is something that's possible to implement, but it seems like it would be a nice fix.
The second idea is to add an "!action ww self" function that makes the Whirlwind Attack attempt as a swift action, in the way that other feat-based attack abilities have been implemented. Now, due to the powerful nature of many of the abilities, none of which I believe currently have a limit, aside from the Monk Stunning Fist uses/day (and I assume Ki Damage uses/day for Weapon Masters), this option would probably need to include a timer that is greater than the usual 1/round for Whirlwind Attack. Maybe something along the lines of every 5 rounds, or even once per turn (the reason being that if it's a swift attack, the character could still attack normally, and the inherent penalty of only getting a single attack/round with whirlwind attack would be avoided).
Now some concerns here that immediately come to mind are that certain uses of Whirlwind Attack, particularly for Weapon Masters and Shadowdancers, don't so much have useful debuffs as they do add damage to the regular attack portion of the ability. I'm not sure if it's possible to implement the ability as a swift action in such a way that it is still able to perform a regular AoE attack, but it seems like something worth investigating.
Now from what I've read and tested (though not exhaustively) Whirlwind Attack is only supposed to bug, preventing the character from attack, when an attempt is made on exactly 3 enemies. That being said, it's rather difficult to try and judge in combat just how close the enemies are and determine exactly how many your attack is going to effect, so even with this knowledge (which may itself be somewhat unreliable) I think some kind of change, as I've suggested above might be incredibly helpful.
Thanks in advance for your consideration.
|
|
|
|
Post by KnightErrant on Jan 4, 2014 18:19:54 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Twilight Semner on Jan 4, 2014 18:27:51 GMT
Oh, I definitely understand that Whirlwind Attack itself is a very difficult fix (in fact I believe I read those same threads before). That's why what I was suggesting wasn't fixing the ability itself, but to add a new command requiring the Whirlwind Attack feat, with similar effects to original. I'm not sure if I made that clear in my original post. Basically the first thing I suggested would basically involve disabling Whirlwind Attack and making the feat do something similar but ultimately different. The second one was to make use of the simtools to essentially accomplish the same thing but as an !action command rather than by the feat.
|
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 4, 2014 23:34:01 GMT
Might be workable, as a fast-action type ability. Sort of in the vein of the new combat-style feats we're hoping to add for meleers to flesh out their PL options. I'm definitely open to the notion.
Funky
|
|
|
|
Post by Twilight Semner on Jan 5, 2014 23:40:59 GMT
First, thanks for the prompt reply, Funky. I'm glad to hear that it could be a possibility. I do have a couple of questions though, in regards to how it could potentially be implemented. Is it possible to have such a fast-action type ability still apply normal attack damage so that - in the case of weapon masters and shadowdancers - it isn't just a smaller amount of bonus damage that's being applied by the Whirlwind ability? Furthermore, how do you think something like this might look in game? Would it give a system message, like in the case of Disarm and others, where it shows a 1d20+(Max Attack Bonus) attempt vs. the Targets' AC to see if it lands (and then an additional DC if applicable, in the case of Monk Whirlwind Attack)?
In any case, I'm glad to see that this is something you're willing to consider. The changes you guys have made to Whirlwind Attack are great and would really give many meleers some much needed versatility and added usefulness to their party if they were actually able to use them. Thanks again. =)
|
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 6, 2014 0:46:49 GMT
Is it possible to have it apply normal attack damage? Sure, though it'd be an enormous amount of work to reverse engineer that, and I can't see how it'd be worth it. A simple damage amount would almost certainly be a better option.
Funky
|
|
|
|
Post by chirality on Jan 27, 2014 21:30:23 GMT
Implementing WWA with a swift action functionality (for the 2nd !opt) could be irritating since it would vie for attention with other swift actions such as KD and Disarm: It'd have to be quite good in order to consider sacrificing one of those 2 swift actions (among others; just those 2 come to mind as directly impacted for these classes) for the round in exchange for WWA. At any rate the classes "improved" WWA debuffs already are likely assumed to be attempting disarms and KD each round, such as WMs or Fighters (the latter already need their disarm/kd specials improved anyway to compete with the high natively-higher "DC" of the former).
(Obviously if the intent is to add it as a "free" "swift" action which does not compete with other 1/round actions then there's no issue--just wanted to clarify)
|
|
|
|
Post by Yojimbo on Jan 27, 2014 22:19:49 GMT
Even with competing with other better Swift Actions it would still get more use than its current state due to the fact the bug will break a toon until it relogs which has its own set of problems.
|
|
|
|
Post by chirality on Jan 27, 2014 23:18:22 GMT
Er, yes. Naturally. I was just saying it'd be nice if it got an improvement and became functionally useable but didn't also detract from the other few "fun stuff" that these tanks have as activatable abilities.  |
|
|
|
Post by hackenslay on Jan 28, 2014 10:58:59 GMT
If this is the case how hard would it be to script it to ignore the 3rd enemy if 3 would get hit? Or even not fire at all if 3 would get hit? It would still be a huge improvement over the current bug.
|
|
|
|
Post by Yojimbo on Jan 28, 2014 13:30:04 GMT
For me it only bugs when there are no enemies or at least when all potential enemies die as it goes off.
|
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 28, 2014 14:12:22 GMT
For me it only bugs when there are no enemies or at least when all potential enemies die as it goes off. This is correct. It's an issue that used to be a problem only in Windows. 1.69 resolved that issue, but created a variation of it for Linux-based servers like ours. Funky |
|
|
|
Post by Twilight Semner on Jan 28, 2014 18:05:43 GMT
Seems the simplest solution would be to just convert all of the servers to Windows..... I kid, I joke. But in all seriousness, when researching the Whirlwind Attack bug before posting the suggestion, I did come across this and assumed that the servers must have been Linux-based. I'm sure if I paid attention I probably would have known that before, but oh well. As far as the opting to use the fast-action WWA as opposed to Disarm or KD, I think considering the debuffs they incur, most tanks would probably want to approach a group of enemies, lead with their WWA ability and then proceed to Disarm/KD and bust them up. Right now we don't have the option at all so anything is better than nothing. |
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 28, 2014 18:21:34 GMT
Seems the simplest solution would be to just convert all of the servers to Windows..... I kid, I joke. But in all seriousness, when researching the Whirlwind Attack bug before posting the suggestion, I did come across this and assumed that the servers must have been Linux-based. I'm sure if I paid attention I probably would have known that before, but oh well. The fact that the servers are linux-based is how we can have all the cool custom haxxors we do. Some, but not all, of acaos' plugins have been ported from linux to windows. Can't you, though, if you already have at least one mob latching on to you? Or is the risk/reward ratio just too high, given instakills? Funky |
|
|
|
Post by Twilight Semner on Jan 28, 2014 20:25:42 GMT
I think, generally speaking, the bug only occurs if you are using Whirlwind Attack against exactly three enemies, from what I've read and tested. Though I have heard some talk about it possibly occurring when you're attacking no enemies. That being said, being careful can only get you so far, with the risk of a 4th enemy moving out of attack range, instakills or just poor character placement. I think the consensus is that risk is simply too high. If you'd like I can take my Zeny monk to the Hellgate arena and test it with a variety of different numbers of enemies a number of times to see just how often it occurs. I know recently I was attempting to use it on a lowbie fighter and was generally able to avoid the bug if I only used it against large numbers of enemies, but even then I occasionally encountered the bug and needed to relog. I can foresee three possible outcomes to that kind of testing: 1) the majority of players will ignore it and continue to decline from using Whirlwind Attack until there is some kind of fix; 2) some players might not fully understand how and when the bug occurs and find themselves misusing the ability, getting the bug, and risking some unnecessary character death/limbo/item loss etc.; 3) some players might begin cautious use of Whirlwind Attack to some benefit, but certainly without maximizing its ideal usefulness. Of the three, I think the first is probably the most likely by a large margin. But I would still be more than happy to test it if you'd like. And obviously I was joking about the Linux-Windows change. I kind of figured a lot of our nifty HG goodies were somehow tied to Linux. |
|
