I don’t use those kind of add-ons, actually. I just would rather not have to consider grabbing one when all it would be for is a readout of how far I am from my target that’s a little more responsive/accurate than ‘Is the bar red?’
And yes, I would hope it to be optional.
It strikes me that it would be really nice to, without having to use a third-party add-on, be able to tell how far away you are, in skill range units, from your target.
There’s at least a few skills with a range-increase trait that doesn’t change the range indicator’s range (or work properly with half of the skills, but that’s a bug, and reported as such), so this would help that, and in general it’d be pretty nice to be able to activate a range readout; it would certainly reduce the nebulous feeling of range as it stands.
They could have overcharges reset the firing cycle entirely, which would resolve this.
(Of course, that kind of change would be possibly an issue, due to potential ‘combo’ of normal attacks into overcharges, but that’s debatable.)
And, of course, yes, the delay does affect the condition removal – it affects the entire skill.
I don’t think this is a good idea. I never have. Not due to my dislike of kits, as this is one that I’d actually probably be perfectly fine with using, but to the precedent it would set of collapsing skillsets into Kits, the resultant lopsidedness of the skillsets putting even more emphasis on Kits, and I’m not sure if being able to have so many Turrets would be overpowered or not (especially having four turrets on one skill, thereby allowing two more skills to be chosen).
If they: Added another skillset to replace Turrets and added more non-Kit skills to avoid emphasizing Kits even more, I probably wouldn’t give a lump of lukewarm rat feces, though there’s less drastic ways to handle the issue of Turrets being lackluster and immobile. For example: Bugfixes, scaling, and a trait that lets them follow you.
Yes, I’d agree with all minions that’re capable of interrupting skills being able to trigger these runes. It makes sense.
No, I would not complain about my Turrets not casting Radiation Field.
They aren’t me, so it doesn’t make sense for them to trigger ‘if you get hit, this happens sometimes.’
This does not constitute hypocrisy because I can’t interrupt skills without using skills, whether the place the skill originates from is myself or an immobile bit that attacks on my command.
As I see it, Turrets are skills that do precisely that – attack on my command. They do not interrupt skills on anything but overcharges and detonations, and if they actually implemented an internal cooldown into the runeset, I doubt this conversation would be happening.
Besides which, this is, as far as I’m aware, a bug.
If it’s intended to be this way for balance reasons, the staff are welcome to say something, and until they do, I will maintain that it is a bug.
(edited by Anymras.5729)
Don’t worry, I know most of, if not all, of the Turret bugs. I made a list of them, even, which has been acknowledged several times by a staff member. Hopefully they’ll start having the bugs worked out soon.
Don’t think about what, fixing a bug?
If you’re trying to say ’Don’t make Engineer Turrets, or other player-activated skills that don’t currently trigger these things, well, trigger these things,’ then A ) say that and B ) make a case for how it isn’t a bug, or, failing that, how it could be unbalancing.
At the moment, the only reasons jumping out at me for it being unbalancing stem from the same things that have people predicting, demanding, or requesting nerfs to the runeset.
Mortar:
- Shots fired while controlling the Mortar have no effect if the Mortar is evacuated while the shot is in the air; presumably, this also extends to shots in midair when the Mortar is destroyed.
- Fields created by Mortar shots will only have an effect while the Mortar is controlled.
- Mortar Global Cooldown duration varies from 0.5 seconds to 1.3 seconds.
- Mortar will occasionally jam, allowing skills to be queued without execution; this appears to be prolonged by attempting to use skills while it is jammed, and triggered by the use of skills in rapid succession.
Let me make this clear: This is not a complaint thread.
This is a conveniently-placed compilation of bugs afflicting Turrets and the Mortar, so that Turret-users will know what non-balance issues there are, and hopefully prevent redundancy in bug reports.
All bugs on this list have been reported, and the list has been acknowledged several times.
Turrets:
- Engineer Turrets are ignoring large World Bosses (Fire Elemental, Claw of Jormag, Tequatl, the Shatterer, Jungle Wurm, etc); it appears that they don’t know they can target them.
- Engineer Turrets have oversized hitboxes; the following video demonstrates this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL-BWRKWkLY (thanks to Ambrecombe) - Engineer Turrets have an inaccurate rate of fire listed in the tooltip – or are malfunctioning and firing significantly slower than they should be, one or the other; pick one. Perhaps it’s an aftercast making it seem as though it’s inaccurate; nobody’s bothered to say anything, even to tell us it’s intended or to insist that the script looks fine.
Rifle Turret fires 10 shots in about 27.3 seconds; this gives it an effective fire rate of 2.73 seconds. Its listed fire rate is 2 seconds.
Flame Turret fires 10 shots in about 40.3 seconds; this gives it an effective fire rate of 4.03 seconds. Its listed fire rate is 3 seconds.
Rocket Turret fires 10 shots in about 50.3 seconds; this gives it an effective fire rate of 5.03 seconds. Its listed fire rate is 4 seconds.
Thumper Turret fires 10 shots in about 49.9 seconds; this gives it an effective fire rate of 4.99 seconds. Its listed fire rate is 3 seconds.
Healing Turret fires 10 times in about 54.5 seconds; this gives it a fire rate of 5.45 seconds, but it has no listed fire rate; memory and the pattern of this bug suggest that it’s supposed to be 3 seconds. - Rifle and Net Turret overcharges allege a +50% fire rate increase on their overcharge, but don’t deliver on it unless they’re overcharged immediately upon placement.
- Rifle Turret Overcharge, used immediately upon placement, grants the attack rate increase indefinitely.
- Net Turret Overcharge, used immediately upon placement, sometimes locks up the turret entirely.
- If using Deployable Turrets, activating the overcharge while the turret is in midair, before it touches the ground, doesn’t actually activate the overcharge – it starts the overcharge cooldown, but no overcharge occurs.
- The on-placement shot of Turrets is not downleveled.
- The on-placement shot of Turrets is also not affected by Rifled Turret Barrels.
- Healing Turret does not contribute to Condition Remover.
- Skill interruptions from Turret effects (Overcharges of Rocket, Thumper, and Net Turrets, as well as Accelerant-Packed Turrets knockback) do not contribute to Skill Interrupter.
- Net Turret does not contribute to Condition Applier.
- Rocket Turret Overcharge lasts for 4 seconds, not the listed 7.
- Thumper and Rocket Turret Overcharges deactivate the range-increase aspect of Rifled Turret Barrels; both the Overcharge and normal attacks after the Overcharge are at the untraited range.
- Rifled Turret Barrels does not affect any Turret Overcharges.
- Skill interruptions from Turret effects does not activate Runes of Perplexity.
- Deployable Turrets may be Detonated in midair without destroying the Turret, subsequently allowing a second Detonation upon landing. Healing Turret is unaffected.
When it’s something the player has to specifically input a command for, it should be treated as something the player has done, same as any direct interrupting skill.
This extends to every single class.
Don’t hope too hard – as it stands, precisely two bugs on this list have been addressed: Mortar’s supposed to now be affected by Elite Supplies, and Net Turret’s really supposed to have a 13-second firing cycle.
And this is supposed to be the fruits of a great start. Either the ‘great start’ involves breaking whatever encryption the original programmers (the Illuminati, perhaps?) put on the Turret code, or it’s that they’re even aware of Turrets again.
The Speedy Kits route is fairly common, but only particularly useful if you use Kits.
Agreed. I bumped the thread with a reconfirmation of the issue, as well, in case the devs thought that it had been resolved by their targeting change.
Just a reconfirmation in light of the new targeting system:
Turrets do not currently attack World Bosses.
The new targeting system did not act as an indirect fix.
I don’t know if there’s any kind of ETA on getting this fixed. Wish I did.
I keep a running tally of Turret bugs on the Game Bugs boards, and that thread’s been acknowledged several times by staff – I’ll be replicating the tally as a Turret Bug Reference Guide on these boards after the next patch.
This bug, in fact, is the first one I have on the list.
They refused to do that before.
The targeting change, in fact, may have been intended as an indirect fix to this issue, but the screenshot of the Livestream announcing the change was taken just after any kind of insight may have been gleaned; that might just be me, though, as I was hoping it would resolve the problem.
Turrets can’t crit, don’t scale with Power, Precision or anything else that isn’t Condition, Boon or Healing-related, and probably would manage to deal less damage on crits and have scaling that zig-zagged, given their plethora of bugs.
Anet could just as well say ‘We just don’t do Turrets,’ as somebody in another thread remarked.
That would explain why the Rocket Turret seems to turn into a toggle-turret when overcharged outside its range. The Thumper Turret has a similar problem.
Engineer Turrets also still don’t target World Bosses, as far as I’m aware. Funny, that.
Charr do have four ears, I think. Two hear high-pitched sounds, and two hear low-pitched sounds. This is probably part of why they and Humans have only sort of started to get along.
The only thing supporting the theory that it’s a user-only heal is a minor bit of wording, while the only thing supporting the theory that it’s a close-range AoE heal is the animation.
They might be intending to slip Toxin onto skills, or add new skills to inflict Toxin. The last few patches have been sparse on details, and information from the staff about their plans is rare (and sometimes inaccurate), so they could be planning anything. They do call Toxin a condition in the bit you quoted, which seems to indicate that it would be cleansable with condition cleansers.
As for what Toxin is, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s essentially just a powerful Poison effect, or an AoE condition damaging players around the afflicted (especially if it’s PvE like Agony, as they seem to be trying to make things more difficult for zergs).
It has a similar animation to skills like Healing Spray and Regenerating Mist, going by the screenshot, both of which affect nearby players. They might only mention ‘a player,’ but the animation seems to indicate a close-range AoE heal.
I think the Antitoxin Spray skill is supposed to give AoE Toxin Removal to begin with. I’m curious what the toolbelt skill will be, though.
Fixing the bugs would be a good start. After that, scaling could possibly be considered.
I used it while testing a couple bugs. If it doesn’t lock as much as it used to, it does a kitten good job of seeming like it does – I could lock it up within three skill uses, and keep it locked for thirty-five iterations of Skill #1.
The moderation seems, at times, rather…well, spotty.
I’ve seen posts removed from General Discussion, then placed into Engineer when they were successfully appealed, I’ve seen posts no different from many on the Engineer boards moved to the Suggestions forum for no reason at all.
Recently, they even deleted my player-reference thread about Turret Bugs from the Engineer forum because I said I was considering uninstalling the game – apparently, this was grounds for claiming that the thread was created solely for the sake of complaining months after it had been created.
I appealed that, and was successful, but I’ve yet to see my thread restored.
Maybe they just lack oversight to make sure what they’re doing is what they should be doing. It certainly sounds like that’s what’s involved here.
Apparently, the Rocket Turret and Toolbelt changes were included in the German patchnotes.
That said, I don’t read German very well, and it’d be nice to see an English version.
Another Mortar bug added.
Shots fired while Controlling the Mortar created by Engineer Elite Skill Mortar have no effect if the Mortar is evacuated while the shot is in the air; presumably, this also extends to shots in midair when the Mortar is destroyed.
Meanwhile, if a Mortar shot creates a field (such as the Ice Shot’s Chill effect), the field will have no effect unless someone is controlling the Mortar, but it does not require control throughout; if the Mortar is evacuated while the shot is in the air, then reclaimed while the field is extant, it will apply its effect.
Mortar Global Cooldown is unpredictable, varying between .5 and 1.3 seconds, independent of skill choice; .5 and 1.3 were the extremes seen while using Skill #1.
I presume this is a bug, as it renders the skill even more unreliable.
Mortar, and its skills, do not receive any reduced recharge from Inventions Trait IX: Elite Supplies. Other benefits appear to be functional.
Mortar will occasionally jam, and allow you to queue skills without it executing any of them. When it stops being jammed, it fires two #1 shots. The duration of jamming varies, and appears to be extended by continued use of skills while jammed; I tested up to 35 iterations of use of the #1 skill during jamming, and it fired two shots a few seconds after I stopped attempting to fire. It appears to be triggered by rapid use of skills, but it’s difficult to formulate a replication method beyond ‘Use Mortar skills in rapid succession.’ It can even be triggered by simply using Skill #1 repeatedly.
As the Mortar Elite is, currently, technically a part of the Turret class, I’ve also begun testing it for bugs.
So far, Mortar bugs are as follows:
- Mortar will occasionally jam, and allow you to queue skills without it executing any of them. When it stops being jammed, it fires two #1 shots. The duration of jamming varies; at one point in testing, it was about seven seconds. It appears to be triggered by rapid use of skills, but it’s difficult to formulate a replication method beyond ‘Use Mortar skills in rapid succession.’ It can even be triggered by simply using Skill #1 repeatedly.
- Mortar, and its skills, do not receive any reduced recharge from Elite Supplies. Other benefits appear to be functional.
- Mortar Global Cooldown is unpredictable, varying between .5 and 1.3 seconds, independent of skill choice; .5 and 1.3 were the extremes seen while using Skill #1.
Threads will be made for reference.
Elite Mortar Kit could also be handled with an ammunition counter, like the Charrzooka and Conjures.
I’ve seen a few ideas regarding improving the mortar.
Here are two that I particularly like, as I feel part of the issue is that it’s attempting to be two types of skill in one (hybrid classes are fine, hybrid skills tend to be lackluster):
1 ) Make it fully into an Elite Kit and allow it to be used on the move (similar to Charrzooka, probably)
2 ) Make it fully into an Elite Turret with the #1 skill being the Normal attack, the #5 skill into the Overcharge, and have it target the Engineer’s current target (kitten to this ‘last damaged’ tripe)
Then there’s also simply buffing it in a variety of ways (damage, velocity, range, durability) and bugfixing it properly (come to think of it, I need to bug_test_ it thoroughly, same as I have the rest of Turrets, which I believe it technically is; due to its little-used nature, I’ve not seen quite the plethora of issues reported – matter of fact, if anyone has any Mortar bugs to report for confirmation, corroboration and addition to the Turret bug list, drop me a PM so I can get to work on it).
If they would actually just give us buttons to press to designate targets, that would be pretty kitten nice.
It was, in fact, and this has never been in question. You’re the one who’s asking me to get out of a public conversation, though.
Refer to Criteria (Criterion? Hm.) 3 ( 3) Has the turret’s owner damaged an enemy in range of the turret at all?) and “If: 1a AND 1b are negative, skip directly to Criteria 3; if Criteria 3 is satisfied, Turrets attack the nearest target that satisfied the condition most recently.”
Edit:
1a) Unfortunately, there doesn’t currently exist a method of marking a target that could easily be appropriated for use by Turrets except for that one. If such a method did, it would be used.
1b) I suppose I didn’t mark in an ‘if 1b is positive, but the target cannot be attacked,’ consideration; it would skip to Criteria 3. Scrolling through targets would simply change what it targets, same as it changes what the user targets.
(edited by Anymras.5729)
Indeed. Perhaps you should ask them in private, then, if you would like the conversation to be private, instead of in a public thread, where it is very much public?
As for the bit that was edited in while I was typing this post: I actually covered that in a different post. The following is a direct quote, and is intended to address that oversight.
1a ) Has an enemy been marked as a target (Ctrl-T, if no other function exists for this) by the turret’s owner or someone in the turret’s owner’s party?
If: Criteria 1a is negative, then Criteria 1b is consulted.
1b ) Is an enemy targeted by the turret’s owner?
If: either 1a or 1b is positive, then 2 follows.
2 ) Has the turret’s owner damaged this enemy?
3) Has the turret’s owner damaged an enemy in range of the turret at all?
If:1a OR 1b is positive AND 2 is positive, Turret attacks enemy that satisfies both criteria. Criteria 1b does not get checked if 1a is positive, giving Criteria 1a priority.
If: 1a AND 1b are negative, skip directly to Criteria 3; if Criteria 3 is satisfied, Turrets attack the nearest target that satisfied the condition most recently.
If: None of the above are applicable, Turrets attack the nearest target.
If you’re reading this thread, obviously you should be aware of the first post, in which a suggestion for resolving the issue is presented.
Ambre: I’m reading what you’re saying as ‘Have them target the user’s target unless the user has no target, in which case they just shoot at the nearest target.’ Is that what you’re trying to say?
Coglin: The problem is that they don’t attack what you’re aiming at. They attack the last-damaged enemy.
What this means is: The enemy furthest from the center of an AoE (Explosive Shot, Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit), and the last enemy struck by a bouncing (Static Shot, Elixir F) or piercing (Hip Shot, Explosive Shot (w/Coated Bullets)) skill, will be the Turret’s target, not the Engineer’s target.
Does this really sound like what people (not me; I actually never took issue with the old targeting method (except when it tried to shoot through a wall)) were asking for when they asked for Turrets to target their target?
If so, are you one of Anet’s programming team? Because it sure seems like that’s what they heard when told to implement the current targeting.
Normal attacks from Turrets with Rifled Turret Barrels equipped have the improved range, though the range indicator is inaccurate.
Overcharged shots, however, don’t appear to be affected by RTB.
Thumper and Rocket turret have a different interaction than the others, wherein Thumper’s Overcharge will deactivate the range increase of RTB entirely, starting with the OC and ending when the turret is removed from the field, and Rocket Turret seems to toggle on and off with the use of its Overcharge when out of untraited range.
The problem with having them simply attack what the Engineer is targeting is the massive distances you can target from, and the potential for people to do things like leave a nest of turrets at a choke point, run off to max targeting distance, and then just pick a target as they enter range.
I think that’s what they were trying to avoid with ‘last damaged,’ anyway. Have to ask them to know for sure.
On my Game Bug forum thread, somebody said there were 4 or 5; 1 is what’s supposed to be there, 2 is what’s there for one second after placement (which is unaffected by downleveling and traits alike, and is the version that must be overcharged for the Rifle Turret’s overcharge to function…closer to properly), 3 is Deployable, and 4 is Supply Crate Turrets.
The theoretical 5 would be the unique version that Rocket Turret with Rifled Turret Barrels belonged to, where it’s between the stripping of Burning and the addition of more damage; essentially, it’s half-patched.
Pretty sure 4 is still more than necessary, and I’m pretty sure a bit of clever work could get it down to as few as 2, if Supply Crates really need to be a separate version, or 1, if they decided not to require that.
One way or another, Turrets are evidently bafflingly difficult to do anything with, code-wise.
It would require an aggro/threat generation method to be implemented, which could be more difficult than a series of true/false checks. I don’t know what kind of kittened the code is, of course, so I can’t say which would actually be easier; I’d say both warrant consideration.
That would involve more effort than I feel they’re willing to put in. Balancing is something I think should be left until everything is working close to properly, besides; we can’t tell how effective something could actually be until it’s doing almost exactly what it’s supposed to be doing.
Fixing/legitimizing the Fire Rate bugs, resolving the issues with Overcharges not functioning properly, these are the main things that I think need to be done before they start trying to rebalance turrets.
Besides, I didn’t make this thread to discuss balancing them. I made this thread to present an idea that could improve their targeting, nothing more.
Balancing them is an issue for other threads to discuss, and I’d like to leave it that way.
I liked them targeting whatever was nearest them, too, honestly, but they changed it, so we have to deal with it until such time as they change it back, give us a choice, or improve it to the point where it’s actually good.
My suggestion is a fix to their system, where a turret will attack the last target damaged by the owner (so, the furthest enemy from the center of an AoE attack, the last enemy tagged by Static Shot’s bounce, or the last enemy in Hip Shot’s damage line).
Being able to designate targets for them would be ideal, but it’s less likely than getting them to just improve their own system to do what they’ve said they wanted it to do without allowing someone to be a safe, unassailable distance away.
It doesn’t seem like it would be incredibly difficult to implement, but their Turret code must be Lovecraftian, for all their difficulties with it.
I mean, logically, I’d think that all they’d have to do in order to implement that is to set up another criteria for the targeting system, but I have no idea what kind of mess they’re trying to sort, really. Using the same system as in the original post, I’d think the following set of criteria would work as the basis for a designated Turret Targeting System (which would also address an oversight I just noticed wherein ground-targeted AoEs like the Grenade Kit don’t necessarily result in targeting anything):
1a ) Has an enemy been marked as a target (Ctrl-T, if no other function exists for this) by the turret’s owner or someone in the turret’s owner’s party?
If: Criteria 1a is negative, then Criteria 1b is consulted.
1b ) Is an enemy targeted by the turret’s owner?
If: either 1a or 1b is positive, then 2 follows.
2 ) Has the turret’s owner damaged this enemy?
3) Has the turret’s owner damaged an enemy in range of the turret at all?
If:1a OR 1b is positive AND 2 is positive, Turret attacks enemy that satisfies both criteria. Criteria 1b does not get checked if 1a is positive, giving Criteria 1a priority.
If: 1a AND 1b are negative, skip directly to Criteria 3; if Criteria 3 is satisfied, Turrets attack the nearest target that satisfied the condition most recently.
If: None of the above are applicable, Turrets attack the nearest target.
Further testing of the Rifled Turret Barrels range issue has led me to think it’s related to the Rifled Turret Barrels-Overcharge Range issue, wherein RTB does not improve the range of Overcharges. Rocket Turret, in particular, seemed to toggle off and on when I used Overcharges, while Rifle Turret simply chose not to fire until the overcharge was worn off.
Last-Damaged Target was…I want to say it was a good idea, but I’m not sure how nobody thought to ask how AoEs, etcetera would work with it.
As it stands, I’ve had people think of the new targeting method as a bug, and that’s…well, it almost qualifies, honestly.
I can see the merits in it, though – by having it be the ‘last damaged target,’ you prevent somebody from targeting, and being able to destroy an enemy, from a massive distance (try targeting a practice dummy in Fort Marriner from the greatest distance you can, and you’ll understand why ‘enemy is targeted by owner’ by itself would be a bit much). It just doesn’t work well in conjunction with AoEs and bouncing attacks.
So, here’s my suggestion for fixing this issue:
Instead of Last-Damaged Target, have Turret AI check for two conditions, and target the enemy that satisfies both criteria:
1 ) Is an enemy targeted by the turret’s owner?
2 ) Has the turret’s owner damaged this enemy?
By using these two criteria, you improve the precision of the turret’s targeting while also preventing AoEs from throwing the targeting off, while still preserving the damage requirement.
Thoughts?
The rocket thing is known – apparently, the version of Rocket Turret with Rifled Turret Barrels enabled has the damage numbers of the version that didn’t receive a direct damage buff.
I’m going to test the damage issue right now, though. Testing an issue with the range anyway.
It appears to be a story of ’Don’t trust the tooltips.’
Results of testing as pertain to the damage bug:
Rifle Turret:
W/RTB: 547 on both Overcharge and normal attacks.
W/O RTB: 476 on both Overcharge and normal attacks.
Rocket Turret: As mentioned, the Rocket Turret is actually an incorrect version, according to the staff.
W/RTB: 951 on normal shots, 1825 on overcharge
W/O RTB: 1428 on normal shots, 1587 on overcharge
Thumper:
W/RTB: 730 on normal shots, 1095 on Overcharge
W/O RTB: 635 on normal shots, 952 on Overcharge
(edited by Anymras.5729)