Few questions about area affects, flail in particular

[Wintersdark]

Is it possible to have flail NOT hit your followers? Before the alignment changes, it was merely a nuisance, but now accidentally smacking your peri is a very, very bad thing if you need to stay good.

Currently, Flail hits only engaged mobs, unless you are unengaged in which case it hits every non-player in the room. The problem here is this includes followers - making Flail only useful for those who cannot, or do not, have followers and are grouped with the same. It's very, very easy to have a mob die before the command is processed - either due to lag, command-lag, the mob fleeing, a couple group members firewinding at once, or whatever else.

Being a Warrior Prime skill, it kinda hurts to lose use of it.

I don't mind the danger in accidentally engaging other enemies - that's just a danger inherent in using such an attack, but it shouldn't hit friendly creatures.

Is it at all possible to fix flail to at least not hit followers?

Failing all followers, at the very least not hit your OWN followers?

I understand this is also a problem for caster characters with area affect spells... such as poor Shyla having her Pit Fiend get all disgruntled with her

[Weasel]

nods, I've stormed my eudaemon a few times.. back when I was not perma-evil heh..

[Wintersdark]

[quote="Weasel":1czt1o45]nods, I've stormed my eudaemon a few times.. back when I was not perma-evil heh..[/quote:1czt1o45]

*nods* Back then, it wasn't such a big deal - I mean, accidentally kill your peri/eudaemon? Just summon another.

Now, if you accidentally kill your peri, you're between evil and neutral and cannot supp another. Not that that's necesarily a bad thing, but now your choice is either: Just don't use all those skills abilities, or don't use followers.

Seems a waste, really - A warrior prime gets just two things for being warrior prime, parry and flail. There's not much advantage otherwise, really (that I'm aware of, at any rate). Seems a shame to prevent them from using one of those simply because of a oddly coded targetting thing.

I mean, my character obviously has some control over the flail attack, as it doesn't hit other players... why can't she not hit her own followers?

[Yasik]

You know.. i even didnt read the whole post - there is no need in it imho, what can i tell you playing Wa-prime 5+ years here : forget about Flail even exists. This is the most useless skill ingame. Just forget about it. THERE IS -NO- FLAIL SKILL!
You can do much more useful things in that rounds instead of flailing.

[Wintersdark]

[quote="Yasik":3qpye94d]You know.. i even didnt read the whole post - there is no need in it imho, what can i tell you playing Wa-prime 5+ years here : forget about Flail even exists. This is the most useless skill ingame. Just forget about it. THERE IS -NO- FLAIL SKILL!
You can do much more useful things in that rounds instead of flailing.[/quote:3qpye94d]

See, this is why I'm posting it. Flail doesn't need to be useless, and it shouldn't be. Being a prime-only skill, it SHOULD be a worthwhile thing to do each round.

I mean, really, just fixing it to not hit followers would be fine....

Or, better yet, have it NOT engage unegaged mobs AT ALL - just hit engaged mobs, or unengaged mobs it is directly targeted at. That should be pretty simple, shouldn't it?

[Weasel]

Gotta agree, flail is bollocks. It's handy for initiating a fight with a hidden mob, but sheesh a flail can't even kill a morted fly half the time it's so ineffective and weak. Your point however Wintersdark is valid - eudaemons etc are followers, and a follower means part of a group, therefore they should not be getting hit. I can't help thinking this is just a little oversight by coders, but then again, why have they still not fixed it? ..Yasik 5+ years? err.. nah.

[kjartan]

Ok, the powers that be have discussed it and conclude that you are right about flail; we'll fix it so it doesn't hit mobs that are on the "player side". I can probably take care of this tonight. I will leave the other area spell issues to Isabo.

[firebrand]

hmmm never have been sure whether or not this actually works, but is flail currently targettable - i.e. flail target when there is a group of mobs you are fighting or there are several mobs in the room and you only want to flail one of them. if not, can it be made targettable?

[Wintersdark]

It is currently targettable, but targetting it just sets the "primary" target - the one that receives full damage as compared to the lesser damage other mobs take.

If unengaged, it hits everything - just that the targetted mob takes full damage.

I wish it would just hit the targetted mob in that case

Kj: Thanks, much appreciated

[kjartan]

In next crash or reboot, flail will hit only mobs that aren't following players (including you). There is still no single-target flail, that's not what flail is for.

[Shyla]

hmm kjartan while you are working on that is there a reason that area affect spells hit your supplicants?

Shyla

[kjartan]

The change I made with flail should also fix avalanche, twister, and sunbeam, which use the same method of determining targets. The other area spells I believe Isabo is going to work on so I shall leave them alone.

[Avatar]

kjartan:

[quote:2f5sz72d]There is still no single-target flail, that's not what flail is for.[/quote:2f5sz72d]

I can't connect, can someone post the Help file for flail? I was under the impression that it worked exactly as Wintersdark explained below.

I may have to play with flail again now that the targetting issue is fixed, thanks

[12345]

This is what's posted on the helps on the web site...

[quote="Game play helps":3dhf47n3]FLAIL

Usage: flail [<target>]
Level: 31 warrior prime

Flail is an area attack using the warrior's weapon. The warrior flails
his weapon about and attacks an entire group of enemies, with less
efficiency than if he focused his attacks on just one enemy. If a target
is given, flail does the warrior's full weapon damage to that target, and
half damage to all other enemies in the room. Note that a skill check is
made for each enemy, so the target MAY not be hit while other enemies MAY
be.[/quote:3dhf47n3]