Casting Spells/Skill without Targeting

[Tyrael]

I am unsure if this has been presented yet, but what are your opinions on the matter of casting spells or skills without having to target? I love the idea, especially if Assasin calsses can go invisible.

In Archlord, you had to target someone to cast an AOE spell, and that sucked if the person you were fighting went invisible on you. To balanece it out in PvP, I feel AOEs and other spells should be allowed to be cast without having to target another player. You simply click on the ground, and initiate the spell. Then if it hits the invisible person, it would show.

Any thoughts?

[Fayeth]

Thats what they did in WoW You could cast AoE type spells without a target, but thats it. Single target nuke spells and abilities required a target. If it work like that then that'd be ok. It was nice to be able to hit a rank 1 AoE spell to try to find someone that was hiding. or in a group all bunched up together.

[Chaos_Theory]

I like the targetting system of CoX. If the power was an AoE you click the area you wanted to be effected by the power. If something was a single target or single target aoe then you would be auto targeted to the closet thing which I like if I cant find a target in a sea of mobs or if I am lagging. As for AoE's affecting invisable people is a definate yes. The person is invsible to the eye not too attacks. This idea should your for target aoe's and aoe debuffs. If the person was phased out as in not in this space then they should not be affected by aoes of any kind.

[Tyrael]

I totally agree with both of you. AOEs should allow you to designate an area, while singular attack spells/skills should be targeted only.

I should have made that a little clearer. Thank you oh Aion Trolls for your input.

[Mark]

Voted "yes" because I'd like to spam attack skills while not actually hitting anything, just to look cool.

[Cynthe]

Definately yes, I think targeting should be as a helper, but should not be enforced, especially in the situations mentioned.

[seamushunter]

aoe should be non targeting but single person attck spells should be targeted

[Shacti]

I like the WoW system, it has 3 kinds of AoEs:

1. pbAoE - Point Blance Area of Effect meaning that the spell erupts around your character, like Arcane explosion (for those who played WoW).

2. "Normal" AoE - After clicking the spell, you get a green circle which you can place anywhere in range of your character, and then the AoE will hit everything in that circle.

3. SoC-style AoE - You target an enemy player/mob and then the AoE strikes anything close to that player/mob aswell as the player/mob.

[shiningfang]

hii guyzz...well i agree with Tyrael..AOE skills should be non target ......

[Marchosias]

I like the system WoW uses, which Shacti described pretty well. The point blank and green circle AoEs could be cast without a target, but obviously the targetted AoEs needed a target. As for the stealthers I think there should be certain limitations. I played a rogue as my main for about 3 years in WoW, and I can say that there are certain things which need to be there and others which shouldn't.

It really is necessary for damaging AoE spells to be able to take stealthers out of stleath, otherwise they're almost always going to get the first hit, which presumably puts them at a huge advantage. Now, I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to get the first, just that there should be certain measures that each class can take that help them avoid it if they know a stealther is coming... otherwise they might as well just sit down and take it once they see them stealth.

However, there are a couple things that definitely shouldn't take them out of stealth. A big problem in WoW was that casters would spam rank 1 AoEs to conserve mana while trying to take a caster out of stealth. Now, since it's rank 1 it would do almost no damage, but it would prevent that potentially devestating first hit. This is a bit ridiculous and makes life a pain in the *** for any stealther, more so than it should be. Also, AoE debuffs should not take you out of stealth. In WoW warriors have shouts that debuff everyone in the surrounding area. Considered an AoE, they take rogues out of stealth. Barring the fact that plate wearers in most games already have an advantage against stealthers, I don't think anything except damage should remove stealth for the sake of balancing.

I'm sorry for using WoW as the basis of my judgement again, but it's the easiest game for me to draw examples from given my experience with it.

[Necrosis]

It's nice to not have a target when casting a PBAE, infact it sucks when it's otherwise because targeting and casting does not guarantee a hit, but games do that because it makes botting with macros that much easier such as leaving yourself afk spamming AOE in a spawn somewhere.

[Gaspard]

But where do you click when you're flying?

[Tyrael]

Originally Posted by Gaspard

But where do you click when you're flying?

You bring up an interesting point.

Perhaps instead of a target area, they will make a target orb?

Wow, now I am really scratching my head...

[Rex Hansen]

First person shooter perspective on that one...I wouldn't want to use a AoE in the air anyway...

[TwilightAngel]

Originally Posted by Gaspard

But where do you click when you're flying?

erm.......if you didnt see NcSoft said only serten skills can be used when you fly