Follow ... why am I going so slow?

warcanch

If I use a ground-based travel power to follow a target, the closer I get (from about energy builder range to in-your-face), the slower I move. With in-your-face range being super slow. Why is this necessary?

There are a few fights where this is a problem. The main one being the demon hound fight at Kigatilik.

If I'm a melee or tank, it is almost impossible to maintain decent melee range on the now super-jitterbuggy demon hounds. If, however, my speed remained at "fight-slowed" speed, then it would be easier to maintain proper distance. As a melee, I'd still have to try and change my angle to get out of the cone attack. But, the tank has a difficult time as it is trying to "control the fight". Charging up my Challenge attack or doing the interrupt are key elements to the fight. (I haven't tested using a flight power to tank or melee + follow)

Sure, I could just manually follow, which is what I and most people have to do any ways, but ... why? The "follow" is a proper mechanic for this. All it needs is to have the slow-down algorithm tweaked or removed.

Finally, I'm not saying it is impossible to tank the demon hounds. We do it every day. This is a QoL thing.​​

beezeeze

You slow down to walking speed the closer you get to the target you are following. I assumed this was to let you stay behind slow walking npcs during escort missions... which is one of the only times I use follow. I've also found it useful for keeping close to bosses in alert fights when I am using a melee character, I just use a lunge when my character gets close.

pantagruel01

I assume you slow to walking speed as you get close because the follow AI is too stupid to not overshoot if using higher movement speed.

spinnytop

pantagruel01 wrote: »

I assume you slow to walking speed as you get close because the follow AI is too stupid to not overshoot if using higher movement speed.

^ that. If it didn't slow you down the result would be you yo-yoing back and forth around the target npc. For an example, follow someone with a vehicle.

warcanch

Both examples can be fixed by simple tweaking of the algorithm. It doesn't have to be like the way it is. I don't think it is some bug they can't find and fix. It is something that has to be asked for, devs look it over, maybe make a change if they deem it worthy. I'm pretty sure it is as simple as that. Extreme example is the recent movement added to the demon hounds of Kigatilik.​​

pwestolemyname

Follow has always been like that, at least for as long as I can remember. It is ridiculous. A huge disadvantage for melee character for no real reason. Saying, "the programmers suck" is not a good excuse. Why does the stopping algorithm need to take so long? Just fix it so it works like it does when it is not on follow.

flyingfinn

Use likes of Ice Slide, you can zswoop past the target. And get yourself in the cutscenes some times....
And with Superspeed coming to a sudden stop, you'd probably mess up the timestream...

pantagruel01

warcanch wrote: »

Extreme example is the recent movement added to the demon hounds of Kigatilik.​​

Yes, that's what full speed follow looks like...

pantagruel01

pwestolemyname wrote: »

Follow has always been like that, at least for as long as I can remember. It is ridiculous. A huge disadvantage for melee character for no real reason.

My best guess is that follow was never intended to be useful in combat.

spinnytop

pantagruel01 wrote: »

My best guess is that follow was never intended to be useful in combat.

^
It's not like we have to depend on it, we have WASD for movement in combat, so follow never had to function well in combat.


As hilarious as it would look to have the dogs circling around the tank while the tank and any other melee following the dogs are circling around the dogs.

warcanch

At least then you would feel more confident about charging up a melee attack and have it land. Generally we don't mind as much about where we are standing as long as we hit what we meant to.​​

spinnytop

Every time since the dogs became twitchy I've never had an issue with them as the tank, not on my melee tank nor ( obviously ) on my ranged tank, since they come to me. On my melee dps I just deal with it and I don't bother fully charging anything unless I see an opening to do so ( honestly this makes the dogs more fun for me, but I actually like moving around in video games which seems to be rare here I guess ). Taps deal damage too and there's no melee attack in the game you have to charge ( except Elbow Slam but you shouldn't be using that at dogs anyway! ).

tl;dr - you don't need to be using follow in combat. however if you are going to, you could just lunge once you get close to close the "slow gap".


I'm not sure the devs would even want to "fix" the follow function in the way you're suggesting since I'm not sure they want us using follow in combat. Might be better to just make follow not work on hostile targets.

pantagruel01

spinnytop wrote: »

I'm not sure the devs would even want to "fix" the follow function in the way you're suggesting since I'm not sure they want us using follow in combat.

It doesn't work in PvP, certainly, and those are the targets most prone to behaving erratically in a way that prevents landing melee hits.

warcanch

In a game where my/their shot follows the target and where we/they can personally follow the target, I don't think I'm asking too much to simply adjust the closing speed algorithm of Follow.

When I use Follow in all other portions of the game, I'm not bibbity bobbity booping all around the target when I catch up. I get to a particular point of their facing and Follow maintains that. The only place, currently where the speed is a factor is the demon hound fight. You want to do it manually, fine. We all tend to do it that way already. However, as has been pointed out, Follow would help this fight in a number of ways. Tanks and melee can keep up with the demon hounds. Lazier way of doing it? Perhaps. Do I get fed up with the demon hounds bouncing around if i'm simple melee? Yer darn tootin'. And sure, they don't bounce ALL of the time.

And despite notions to the contrary, this is a simple fix. I don't have to know this code to know that the math equation is a simple fix. The rest of this code is fine as is.​​

spinnytop

warcanch wrote: »

In a game where my/their shot follows the target and where we/they can personally follow the target, I don't think I'm asking too much to simply adjust the closing speed algorithm of Follow.

Not sure how these things are related. I doubt the code for projectiles is in any way similar to the code for NPC pathing, and when NPCs use follow behavior they're doing it without travel powers making them move extra fast. I'm also pretty sure they use different code for their movement, since when I dance around them like a fairy on crack they don't really react like a player using follow does - they seem to get confused and stop and run in the wrong direction a lot.

warcanch wrote: »

And despite notions to the contrary, this is a simple fix. I don't have to know this code to know that the math equation is a simple fix. The rest of this code is fine as is.​​

Yes. I'm sure everyone who says this is 100% convinced that they are right when they say it.

pantagruel01

spinnytop wrote: »

Not sure how these things are related. I doubt the code for projectiles is in any way similar to the code for NPC pathing.

Pretty sure projectiles don't even have pathing, and the following is handled client-side.

jaazaniah1

This falls into the category of: would I prefer to see the devs spend time on this or on new content? Even if it could be done, I'd much rather the time be spent on content development.

warcanch

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

This falls into the category of: would I prefer to see the devs spend time on this or on new content? Even if it could be done, I'd much rather the time be spent on content development.

I'm not saying this issue should be top of the heap, but, no, i'd really like a reasonable time of concerted Dev effort of just squashing some bugs. I'm not naive to think that they're going to magically find a bunch and fix them during this "time". But, this game does have so many long standing and newer issues that I'd sure like to see a nice long list of bug fixes completed real soon.

I'm sure they knock out the ones they find as they come across them during the natural course of working on the code. And some are issues that "I see a problem here, but due to the nature of it, it would take quite a while to track down all branches, connections, interactivity, that .. we'll have to write it down as a possible something to work on .. later." So, I'd like to see them come out and say "We've got a list, we're going to take this next week (or 2) to see what we can fix." *Huzzahs from the crowd* And then, of course, "Are you going to fix ___?" come flooding in from the crowd, too.

Do I think this will ever happen? Yes. A small chance, to be sure, as "New stuff" tends to be the money maker. We love this game, warts and all, but would like some warts removed. Now, would be good. Later, well, ok. Never, oh, c'mon man!​​