Squad Leader Archive

Lately i got the hint that my suggested way of agro control here is in pretty good use in another MMORPG, usually known as WoW. It's hidden in the Paladin as "Seal of Fury" and "Blessing of Salvation". And despite we'd probably be called copycats, i still think the system wouldn't be completely bad...

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Another option would be a visable clue to the SL when a mob is about to change targets due to aggro. Then a sysmessage could prevent the problem before it happens. The combat window works for this but not that well since numbers and names are flying by so fast in a group of eight.

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The suggestion looks good on paper, but i see some issues in actal use. I have not the slightest idea how this could be displayed, a simple "agro meter" next to a players name doesn't work as players have different agro on creatures around. The message that a creature is about to switch target would be massive spam and i don't know if it would be of any use. You get a message, that a piket is about to switch target. Now, wich of the 15 pikets you are fighting is the one switching the target? Plain text messages, even when made as sysmessages, are not enough in this case. [And there are many people ignoring system messages, too, they're plenty already. ]

• You select a creature and the creature then gives you a box on the player it currently has maximum agro upon. (Similar to the players "fire through" functionality. If you currently select a fighting player, you have a grey box around the target he's attacking, now you would perhaps have a blue/green/whatever box around the player the target is attacking.) This would be rather simple to implement and to display, but when fighting mobs (not the rare occurance of fighting one single mighty beast, but the usual situation of fighting many smaller creatures) this kind of displaying the information is rather worthless... you would have to tab through all hostiles and at the same time have all teammembers on screen to make any use of it, this is not good in a situation where you have to react quickly.


• You select a creature and you get a text field under it, displaying the name of the person it agros upon. (Or even better, the first 5 people in it's agro list. This might not be utterly realistic, but could be very helpful at some times.) While still having the problem that it's not really helpful in a battle vs. many creatures, the info gained would have some more value. (Additionally, if there is a small "agro bar" next to each creatures name, you can see if it's close to turn on another target.)


• You select a player and get markings on all creatures who currently have agro on the person. If done well, this might be informative, but the spam on the screen can be massive. Alternatively the player could have a list of creatures attacking him under his name. For better useability, the creatures then should be selectable/targetable directly from the list.


• No matter which way you go, it would be helpful if each player would have a simple number on the team display, showing of how many creatures he's under attack. (And perhaps as a bonus, display the highest level of all creatures attacking him there, too.)

And to give the SL profession some edge, some or all of this information should only be displayed to Squad Leaders, perhaps part of it should even be bound to the MSL box. (Like, novice SL can easily see how many creatures attack a player, the MSL can also see the levels. )

Message Edited by Sylow on 08-17-2005 11:12 AM