dynamic minion skill control

[Arionthe]

Current minion skill control scheme is static and adequate. But let's not let good enough be the enemy of great.

Dynamic minion skill control scheme:

When a similar minion is picked (2 or 3), one can choose the symbol to trigger the skill and the skill becomes a charged skill with 2-3 charges corresponding to the number of similar minions chosen.

For example: Eileen and white sisters.

I have always preferred the circle gesture for minion skill control.

Assume empty minion slots to start

The first Eileen slotted becomes the preferred gesture control (ie I would put Eileen in the circle/middle slot). Then if another white sister is picked, the gesture associated with that slot is grayed out and the preferred gesture control now has two charges. If I line up a third white sister, then the preferred gesture control has three charges while the third gesture is also grayed out.

Why is this important? Smooth mobile gameplay. only need to use the preferred gesture to trigger the skill. Also no need to keep track which minion's skill has finished CD. In the heat of the battle, anything that streamlines the process is a plus.

This will help mobile performance.

Oh yea, please take shockwave off GCD. Basically anything that needs to be spammed gets hurt a lot by GCD and especially on mobile where the cost of "errant" gesture input is so high. So a feature that was meant to close the mobile/pc gap ends up widening it. (GCD means very little to PC key spammers unless we start implementing negative consequences to too early spam. of course the howls of protest will be so great this will never see the light of the day).

[lmcelhiney]

...oops, if were punished for gesturing too early, I'd be taking 20 deaths per Boss battle. :-)
(I'd NEVER get to Level 300!)

[ShotDead]

TL;DR: Single Gesture for single minion skill, not the minion. If more than 1 minion of same skill, show skill as charges.

I'd like that

[Cyraph]

This would help a lot!
it is already difficult to draw an apple in the heat of a battle, the Z and M aren’t better.

[duckel]

supporting both ideas: minion skill grouping and penalty for pc key spamming. are you running around in constant shooting mode in counter strike? no, because constant fire in non-tactical and shouldnt be a gameplay strategy.

[Arionthe]

This suggestion is about improving mobile performance at high trials. There are two ways to measure performance. Let me define them this way:

The output performance:
This is easy to see, the damage you do, the mobs you can round up and grind to dust etc. Perhaps best examplified by the trial DPS number. This has to do with device performance, (iOS vs Android), platform (PC/mobile), build (cookie cutter/out of left field).

The Input performance:
This is tricky and ppl don't see it as clearly. This has to do with how easy it is to perform tasks in order to produce that output performance. This performance difference lies behind the yawning gap between PC and mobile.

Basically GCD was designed to bridge the gap between PC/mobile. It attacked the problem by focusing on the output performance. So PC can spam? thus instant cast several skills at the same time? Let's put a stop to that by implementing GCD. So no matter how much one spams, the skill will come out at most every 0.75sec. On the surface it seems to be doing that. But remember the road to ruin is paved with good intentions.

GCD has helped level some of that output performance. But it opened up an even bigger gap for that input performance.

This is the key point:
The cost to perform a skill cast on PC is nearly nil, a single key stroke. So what if GCD means I need to cast that skill 4-5 times for it to come out. The total cost of performing that task is 4-5x nil = still nil.

The cost to perform a skill cast on mobile is not nil. It's far from nil. In fact when factor in the need to monitor the skill cd on mobile vs never have to on PC, it's probably 20x + cost to perform a skill trigger on mobile compared to pc. Hence a failed cast on mobile is so painful. With GCD, especially with spammable skills with charges (shockwave, bh traps?, blinks), this has significantly pushed up the input cost. Hence dramatically widen the input performance gap between PC/mobile.

So on behalf of mobile mostly and mobile only players, I urge devs to reconsider GCD especially on those spammable skills with charges. We know certain skills aren't subjected to GCD like SB, BR, SS. Let's at least take SW off GCD. Adrian (Developer) Red (Developer) .

Btw for all the Buff skills, please consider offer a mobile version that doubles duration and cool down time. Also I consider charge a buff skill so I would like to see its duration and CD doubled as well as an option.

Thank you

[ScabbyNuisance]

So a feature that was meant to close the mobile/pc gap ends up widening it.

As a noobish, not very skillful mobile player, may I ask why the devs didn't simply apply the GCD exclusively to the PC version? Even if one could draw clear, unambiguous symbols as rapidly as a keypress can be repeated (which is, of course, impossible), it seems like there will always be some amount of processing overhead on mobile, as the software has to interpret each gesture. Also, inevitable random lags as the OS handles background tasks means that there can be gaps in the stream of coordinates coming from the touchscreen.

Casting an ability on mobile is often a compound action of not just triggering a spell, but also targeting, whereas the PC player has a cursor (mouse) for targeting, and a dedicated, spammable button for the desired action. For me personally, failed spell gestures are the greatest obstacle to progress I face in the game, as in the heat of battle, I will often accidentally start a symbol on part of the interface when targeting near the edge of the screen, or my hero will lurch about under the influence of autoattack, causing the symbol I'm drawing to go wonky and be misinterpreted.

While skeptical at first, I also find myself warming to your suggestion of longer cooldowns as a trade-off for buffs of longer duration. It seems like it could potentially make mobile a bit less frantic.

(BTW, in case it's not clear, I don't mean to downplay or denigrate the skills possessed by many top PC players, but the current situation between the two platforms seems patently unequal.)

[ShotDead]

As a noobish, not very skillful mobile player, may I ask why the devs didn't simply apply the GCD exclusively to the PC version?

Emulators. You play on PC and fool the app. The app thinks you are playing on Android.

[ScabbyNuisance]

Emulators. You play on PC and fool the app. The app thinks you are playing on Android.

Ah, that makes sense. On my old laptop, the emulators I've tried (nox, bluestacks) run like crap, with so much lag I guess I didn't imagine they would give any advantage over simply playing mobile. Maybe it's just time for an upgrade...

[duckel]

Emulators. You play on PC and fool the app. The app thinks you are playing on Android.

there must be a way for the game to recognize whether skills are input via signs or via keys. if i draw a sign, it recognizes the sign on mobile => give mobile buff. if i press the button it tells me to draw a sign. i guess the game should be able to distinguish the emulator key input from a drawn sign. then dont give mobile buff... problem solved

[ShotDead]

there must be a way for the game to recognize whether skills are input via signs or via keys. if i draw a sign, it recognizes the sign on mobile => give mobile buff. if i press the button it tells me to draw a sign. i guess the game should be able to distinguish the emulator key input from a drawn sign. then dont give mobile buff... problem solved

Too cumbersome from devs PoV plus I'm not sure how emulators actually work for this game cos clicking on the sign in android doesn't work. Emulator sure isn't sending a click as input.

[Wagstaffer]

I only use archers and their multishot is so useless I never even cast them. I do like think your idea is a very good one though.

[Shade Glow]

supporting both ideas: minion skill grouping and penalty for pc key spamming. are you running around in constant shooting mode in counter strike? no, because constant fire in non-tactical and shouldnt be a gameplay strategy.

As a PC only player, I would love it if there was a penalty for key spamming. It would be great if the game would crash when you press a key more than 3 times within a 10 second period. It would be even better if they could somehow make it so my PC bursts into flames at the same time.

[Shade Glow]

Btw for all the Buff skills, please consider offer a mobile version that doubles duration and cool down time. Also I consider charge a buff skill so I would like to see its duration and CD doubled as well as an option.

This could be bad for Arcanist Mage. The Arcanist build deals damage when a skill comes off cooldown. Timewarp is a buff skill, and it is a key part of the build. However, there are other buff skills that would be pretty overpowered if the effect duration was increased, such as Paradox: "Your hero becomes immune to control effects and does not receive damage for 2 seconds. Any damage that would be received while Paradox is active is converted into an absorb shield lasting for 12 seconds. While the shield holds, your hero deals 30% more damage." It wouldn't matter if you double the cooldown. It has 3 charges, and its cooldown gets reset when the Arcanist 6 piece set bonus is activated.

[Arionthe]

This could be bad for Arcanist Mage. The Arcanist build deals damage when a skill comes off cooldown. Timewarp is a buff skill, and it is a key part of the build. However, there are other buff skills that would be pretty overpowered if the effect duration was increased, such as Paradox: "Your hero becomes immune to control effects and does not receive damage for 2 seconds. Any damage that would be received while Paradox is active is converted into an absorb shield lasting for 12 seconds. While the shield holds, your hero deals 30% more damage." It wouldn't matter if you double the cooldown. It has 3 charges, and its cooldown gets reset when the Arcanist 6 piece set bonus is activated.

Indeed perhaps a blanket statement about doubling CD while doubling duration suffers from being a blanket statement. However there are plenty of buff skills that can benefit from the OPTION of having the CD and duration doubled. Basically those skills that don't suffer from the issues you described have two versions. The normal and the mobile friendly. One can choose either.