Spell facing errors and targeting issues in MotU

[Humperdink]

Howdy all,

Just started playing my sorcerer in MotU content a few days ago and I'm experiencing some targeting and facing error issues. I used to play first person shooters moderately and have been using mouse look, circle and side strafing, etc since I rolled up my sorc 6 years ago. I'm currently playing an Water Savant Enchantment specialist and two general issues seem to occur.

1) I like to throw debuffs and enchantment spells on the fly such as Crushing Despair quickly followed by Mass Suggestion or Mass Hold. I find with drow and skarrow I can get the debuff off and then they disappear and my second spell doesn't land. With debuffs and enchantment spells I tend to hard target with the Tab key. Or I'll dispel the Suggestion and attempt to follow up with a quick Hold or Otto's Irresistible, but the target disappears. It's kind of a pain. These are a few examples. What are others doing to overcome this? Is the only solution a really high Spot skill?

2) Occasionally facing errors occur when it's very clear and obvious I have line of sight on the target and a reasonable amount of distance. Being a Water savant, I'm cycling Niac's, Frost Lance, and Polar Ray so I once again tend to hard target with the Tab key. With Otiluke's Freezing Sphere I generally switch over to no targeting and just use mouse look, depends on how fast I'm cycling my spells and against what kind of bad guy. I think it's just a combination of server/client time differential (I'm at 90-100ms ping times), faster movement rates (bad guys are way faster and we are way slower than we used to be), and random wonkiness. Anybody else chime in here with tricks or tips they find work? I won't even get into Polar Rays randomly flying off into outer space, or minute differences in terrain altitude causing issues with rays. Is this just of the way of the world and most just live with it now? For perspective, I switched over from playing an Air Savant which mean all I used were AoEs and very occasionally my rays spells.

Thanks for reading.

[knockcocker]

Howdy all,

2) Occasionally facing errors occur when it's very clear and obvious I have line of sight on the target and a reasonable amount of distance. Being a Water savant, I'm cycling Niac's, Frost Lance, and Polar Ray so I once again tend to hard target with the Tab key. With Otiluke's Freezing Sphere I generally switch over to no targeting and just use mouse look, depends on how fast I'm cycling my spells and against what kind of bad guy. I think it's just a combination of server/client time differential (I'm at 90-100ms ping times), faster movement rates (bad guys are way faster and we are way slower than we used to be), and random wonkiness. Anybody else chime in here with tricks or tips they find work? I won't even get into Polar Rays randomly flying off into outer space, or minute differences in terrain altitude causing issues with rays. Is this just of the way of the world and most just live with it now? For perspective, I switched over from playing an Air Savant which mean all I used were AoEs and very occasionally my rays spells.

Thanks for reading.

Yes, there is an issue with spell facing calculations which increases with latency. As
Turbine don't have latency in their test environments they don't see this as a problem.

For me, this is the single most annoying thing about DDO. It drives me nuts.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=394980
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=359989

And acknowledged by dev here:
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=33

Nothing since then. They seem to be studiously avoiding commenting on this issue and
the issue with maximum caster levels.

[ferrite]

The movement code was recently updated to where pretty much every non-boss battle in the game now sucks.

The update was, every enemy in the game will now attempt to flank you to get that +2 to hit, casters included. Ive watched a kobold circle around a player, around and around and around for a minute or so, until it finally decides to hit something. Someone at Turbine must have thought they were being clever by doing this, but in fact they were just being stupid and killing the game, not to mention sporting some incredibly bad programming skills.

It is enough to make you want to quit playing the game more often than not. Enemies that jump 100 feet in the air and stand there with nothing under their feet, drow who manage to sneak back into hiding even after they've been detected (which btw is illegal for the hide skill, "If people are observing you, even casually, you can’t hide.") Tsk tsk Turbine..

As a sorceror, there are some things you can do.

The first is to spam flyby attack the moment you notice them disappear. This pulls them out of their illegal hiding places, and knocks them down too. Next is web. This is the best hold spell I've found for drow, and also pulls them out of hiding. Stand right in it since the hidden mob will invariably spawn right on top of you.

Here's an idea to replace suggestion: symbol of persuasion. Doesn't need targeting, and you can cast it between you and the mob, then target your despair spell. As they hide and approach, they'll run into the symbol and get charmed. Not the optimal solution, but may work in the interim.

As for the latency, facing and targeting issues, we just have to deal with it for now, but I've now taken to doing a lot of 'corner fighting' and casting, with my back to the corner of an object, since if I'm standing in a corner they can't be annoying by circling around me endlessly and screwing up my targeting. You might try that.

Hope that helps somewhat.

[AzB]

I noticed the issue in Vale the other night. The spiders just spin around you at high speed. You can't spin faster, so if you spin the same direction you'll never catch them to land a hit. If you spin the opposite direction, you have a nanosecond to target and land something as you pass each other spinning at mach 5. It's pretty silly. And there's no animation for the spiders sideways run, so they just skate. It's hard not to laugh so hard that you forget to fight back. Almost as ridiculous as held/paralyzed/turned to stone creatures running away, (or skating) healing themselves, or even casting attack spells on you.

[Seventoe]

If it wasn't for the latency/spell-facing issues, then the new mob movement would be fine. After all, they shouldn't stand still and wait to be blasted. They should try to do what they can to make themselves hard to target.

However, spell-targeting problems make it seem really cheaty. You cant spin with them because when you fire at the mob in front of you, the server thinks its too the side of you and it fails. Much like the climbing in Coal chamber, its a neat idea that is spoiled by the realities of client/server communication.

And I agree that it is very annoying when the drow you just hit disappear so you cant target them.

[Humperdink]

As a sorceror, there are some things you can do.

The first is to spam flyby attack the moment you notice them disappear. This pulls them out of their illegal hiding places, and knocks them down too. Next is web. This is the best hold spell I've found for drow, and also pulls them out of hiding. Stand right in it since the hidden mob will invariably spawn right on top of you.

Here's an idea to replace suggestion: symbol of persuasion. Doesn't need targeting, and you can cast it between you and the mob, then target your despair spell. As they hide and approach, they'll run into the symbol and get charmed. Not the optimal solution, but may work in the interim.

As for the latency, facing and targeting issues, we just have to deal with it for now, but I've now taken to doing a lot of 'corner fighting' and casting, with my back to the corner of an object, since if I'm standing in a corner they can't be annoying by circling around me endlessly and screwing up my targeting. You might try that.

Hope that helps somewhat.

Thanks all for the responses.

Ferrite, I assume you mean the Draconic Incarnation Tier 5 ability Flyby Attack? Not sure as I'm only level 21 and working on my Magister destiny. Good idea on Symbol of Persuasion. Two problems I have are- last I checked a few years ago it could not be dismissed like the other enchantment spells which can be a real pain, especially if I'm running with a group. Not sure if that changed. That and trying to fit it into my spell book. I already agonized over trying to fit debuffs, enchantment, and damage spells.

I continue to use web as well but it seems to still have the old problem where the target has to move (even if very slightly) for the spell to engage. Just last night I was testing on Drow casters out in the King's Forest. Caster was stationary, I hard targeted him, cast web, and moved to cause him to move. He skated right out of it to a new location, became stationary and started casting spells. I tried two more times with the same effect. So just gave him a Frost Lance and Polar Ray to the face and was done with it.