Lock-on added. 9/9 2011
These notes are highly interesting, and not because of that.
-Striker debuff fixed; the Striker has always had a health debuff, but previously it was not being applied correctly
o rly?
-Guardian's weight increased, making them harder to knock back
This explains Guardian knockback mechanics somewhat.
For those who are complaining:
"Should make fighting a lot easier for some players who rely on it in PvE"
^means they are allowed to play with the same skill level in Lockdown as they do in PvE
ie. "Lock-on" was meant to make Lockdown enjoyable for players of all skill levels.
Lockdown was not meant to be an intense competitive environment where players fight for prestige and fame. It's a way for players to have fun fighting other people instead of AI. Lockdown was not intended to be an environment for people, with nothing better to do in their spare time, to hone their skills in an unrealistic combat game.
That's just your way of interpreting what that means.
I say it means it's for people who use a controller or keyboard only.
"people who rely on it in PvE" to "people who use a controller or keyboard only" is a big leap in my opinion.
It implies only people who use controllers/keyboard use AT in PvE, which most likely isn't true.
"means they are allowed to play with the same skill level in Lockdown as they do in PvE" is almost an exact rephrasing of the sentence. They can play Lockdown the same way as they play PvE.
"ie. "Lock-on" was meant to make Lockdown enjoyable for players of all skill levels." is the next logical conclusion. Since anyone who can play PvE can play Lockdown, there is no skill requirement for Lockdown.
My claim is subjective, but I can provide strong logical connection between the evidence and my claim. Can you?
You know, the two ideas aren't exclusive of each other.
Let me reword that to "people who only use a controller or keyboard", because "people who use controller or keyboard only" can be twisted to mean something else.
That said...
@AT's implementation in SK overall:
- "Lock" features are common in console controller-based games (ex: a common convention in console FPS is to tap a left trigger button to twitch-aim directly at something).
- Early-on, team SK wanted controller compatibility (it was one of the bigger/more live discussions on the forum during beta period). AT could have been implemented to ease that.
@AT in lockdown:
The reasoning is "Should make fighting a lot easier for some players who rely on it in PVE". It's a skill-based reasoning directly because of the word "easier" and "rely". Because it probably wasn't expected that people would have to relearn the basics of their gameplay in order to play a minigame together with their friends. Also, the easier it is to jump into a game, the more people can get into it. "Easy to pick up, difficult to master" is the holy grail for game design (accessibility means more players, and mastery wall means players play longer), and that could have been part of a step towards that. I won't comment on how successful that was.
3 words towards the controller/keyboard only mentioning: Nope Nope Nope.
Both are entirely possible, at any skill level, without touching the enable auto-aim button.
Source: me.
Unfortunately, it's unrealistic from a game design standpoint to assume your general crop of players play at full potential. You can expect that there will be people who find things and take them to the extremes (exploiters, skilled players, etc), but you can't expect that of most of your playerbase.
You're an outlier.
I'm an outlier.
:(
I agree with Feyi. As a gamepad player with 2700 hours on the record, I consider myself to have mastered swordsmanship in PvE and it's impossible to pull off some of the most damaging moves if you use AT.
Of course, it's harder in LD but it's very possible. I would personally be completely unable to aim with keyboard controls and even less so without AT. If anything, it should remain for keyboard players.
My claim is subjective, but I can provide strong logical connection between the evidence and my claim. Can you?
The only thing separating players abilities to aim besides AT and skill is what device you use for aiming. I can with a high certainty say mouse is the most common device. And I know for sure that keyboard only is harder. I have not tested SK with a Controller yet, but I know I won't do as good as my precision with a mouse. This leaves keyboard only users, controller users to a shorter extent, and new players who have not played long enough to learn how to aim to be the ones who "should" use AT.
TL;DR
All experienced players using mouse are not meant to use AT.
Wait, wait... Their Illusion made a complaint about Auto Target that's... valid? My goodness. This thread became a whole lot more interesting.
I have fond memories of how ridiculous Striker was in the initial LD test. Dropping guardshield-shredding max charge VTs all over the map was so fun.
I don't think anyone even cared about AT back then.
Nick y u do dis?
Now that you're gone, take the lock-on with you. Please?