I feel all of this brings us to the devs’s vision. Who should play the game and how should it be played?
If they want a game for a massive audience, autocast is a desirable feature. If they want a passionate niche audience, autocast can disappear. If they want an easy to play game, autocast must be a thing. If they want a game that requires a technical playstyle, then autocast should not be possible.
It’s really a matter of vision. How do they want their game to evolve, towards what kind of audience? There is no good or bad answer, the key is their vision.
And so the challenge for EHG is if they don’t want autocast in their game they need to do something to make people stick with it despite the lack of autocast or they need to accept that people might get bored/frustrated and not play. I’m not even trying to say their stance on autocast is right or wrong, just that they seem pretty set on it so far and that is going to affect how things are balanced whether we like it or not.
That sounds like a reasonable solution to me if they decide to allow autocast and I’ll be interested to see if EHG do something like this. I know they already have a node like this in at least 1 skill but it requires a few other nodes to get to so it’s a bit more of an investment.
Yeah this is where I am on it as well.
1 Like
I’ve already stated in one of my earlier posts that the devs can do whatever they want since it’s their game so this response is more general. I think discussions like this can be useful as they might start with a particular vision but their engagement with the community might also lead them to adjust certain views and make the consider questions or issues that might not have come up internally. Or maybe that’s just the idealised world in my head.
I still don’t understand why there is this view that it needs to be either or though. The reality is that the only people who care about how others play the game are likely to be the competitive types pushing for ladder. And that’s perfectly understandable. So make passives weaker so that the competitive types don’t feel they’re being disadvantaged by other players being able to compete with “less skill”. And everyone should be happy.
We’re already a niche gaming genre with some stiff competition both currently and on the near horizon. So I would think the best approach would be to accommodate as many players as possible without bending over backwards too much or diluting the overall offering. You want to push 5 buttons in a tight rotation that’s timed to the split second to maximize DPS? Go for it buddy. You want to sit back after a long day with your little sprog on your knee and hit as few keys as possible? Multi-task away mate! Just don’t expect to be an OP monster build.
It just feels like sometimes people get so focused on what they enjoy about the game that it feels a little exclusionary.
2 Likes
That really isn’t the point though. It’s more of a question if auto-casting is something that the developers want for their game and the answer is no. Yet it’s a workaround that still exists and players actively exploit the benefits of it which can delude the vision of the game developers want for their game.
1 Like
I think it’s also important to look at what skills typically get used with the “autocast” “feature”. There are certain commonalities.
-
They usually cost fairly little mana compared to total mana pool. They won’t drain your mana pool if you go afk for a coffee for a few minutes.
-
They have a duration that’s almost as long as their cooldown, or the same as. I don’t imagine you’d put an ability on autocast that has a 2 minute CD and a 10 second duration. But if it has a 15 second duration and a 15 second cooldown, refreshing it just seems like “busywork”, rather than engaging.
-
They usually have a functionality that doesn’t require interaction with it. You don’t put meteor or other aimed abilities on autocast. The abilities you would use it on are un-aimed and typically an “aoe around character”, like wandering spirits, abyssal echoes, etc. Therefore they’re not abilities that really require much thought, you just want them up at all times, or sometimes it’s even damaging to your character if they’re not at 100% uptime (like spirits), lowering your damage output.
Example: Sigils of Hope. People don’t put it on autocast. Why? It has a very high mana cost and very low to no cooldown, must shorter than its duration, so it is unnecessary and unproductive to just have it auto-cast.
Personally I think abilities like these are not particularly engaging or interesting, and so if they remain in the game, they should have an auto-cast option in the skill tree. I think if it wasn’t for the num-lock, most people would take it just for the QoL of it.
Point: Skills people usually use numlock on are not the “engaging” ones, or ones that require aiming or mana management, or specific timing (CD). They’re the “busywork” ones.
Edit: I should mention that I LIKE aura type abilities. I find them fun, and I hope that they do stay in the game and have an “autocast” feature added that is supported.
5 Likes
I thought the discussion had become a little broader than that from the prior posts. i.e. whether that decision is inclusive or not and what it means in broader terms for the game’s potential.
I won’t belabour the point though. 
I don’t think it’s boring. In fact, in the case of how Holy Aura works I think it’s very strategic in a very different way from on/off skills. In it’s ‘inactive’ state it’s a mild buff and then you have to decide when to harness the full power since it doesn’t last very long and you can’t ever make it “permanent” like werebear form or other things like that. I also don’t think that having a few of these skills peppered around the numerous others is a bad thing. I definitely agree it shouldn’t become auraboards or anything like that but a few? I don’t think that’s a problem.
And I’m going to bet you really hate the idea of a retaliation build. 
I don’t hate it because of that actually (and I mainly play Paladins so I get a LOT of Sigil use :D). I’m a bit peeved that the INSTANT cast node (not auto cast) is so far out on the outlier of the tree. I honestly don’t think it would bother me to cast it ‘often’ if it didn’t completely disrupt my moving around and attacking.
I don’t think that’ll be the case. If you just hold down the keys for Devouring Orb & Anomaly, it’ll work just fine.
2 Likes
Because I was on a mac and numlock is a pain in the ass, this is essentially what I did for the entirety of playing D3. It’s also what I do now when I do one of the Acolyte builds that has Wandering Souls or something. Or how I use Lunge on my Paladins.
Think in it’s passive state holy aura is pretty overturned lol. I would rather it be something that at least has some mana degen per point spent in the tree to maintain buffs. It’s a pretty massive global buff with no real downsides. I will be curious about what the devs do in the future with this ability when group play is on the table.
But yah I don’t spam click to buff it on cd so it’s not as big as a problem as other abilities so I grip about it less in that regard.
That completely avoids the point I was making. The point is that some skills are hot garbage if not constantly cast. Numlock is just a good way to help prevent knuckle pain from constantly holding down 2 to 3 buttons. People would just tape the buttons down at that point.
The skills themselves need to be changed in some way. I really like devouring orb. It’s a skill that needs cast ASAP when off CD. Rather than just making knuckle pain. Why not change the skill. Leave the functionality the way it is, but either add an autocast, or something else. Make it a toggle that puts on the max number of orbs and drains mana over time. Maybe they just need to rework the Dark Moon chain. Keep the orbit part, but change how its cast and paid for.
As Deliya said above, their functionality isn’t interactive to begin with.
1 Like
If I can’t use numlock to cast wandering spirits or to cast wolves and howl, then I’ll just use a keyboard macro. Some skills are just made to cast when available, not when I have time to see if they’re available or not.
Which the devs also don’t like…
1 Like
Cant wait to see devs try and enforce no numlock when the most popular build creator advises they use it on every build
Well, we all speculated on what we though they’d do with the Loot Filter and, personally, my mind was blown. So I’m willing to bet they’ll come up with something that’s interesting to do with the skills that makes numlock irrelevant. (e.g. I don’t think they’ll try to police numlock, I think they’ll adapt the skills so it will be unnecessary to use.)
Loot filter is mandatory feature now in aRPG and Path of Exiles can play any sound I want when any item I want drops and make any color/style of highlighting I want so I guess im spoiled but the filter in LE is extremely basic - in PoE when a specific valuable item drops for me the Final Fantasy 7 win theme plays for example
Also if you play on a controller you cant even use numlock to autocast as when you do, your character is locked to the floor and you cant move or act using the controller - so there isnt even level playing field here currently
And just think, all this while it’s still in beta? Can you imagine how good it’s going to be when the game is as old as Poe or ff7?
I’m confident. I’ve seen their track record so far. The way they listen to feed back. Engage us with questions. I think they’ll have a great “answer” to the num lock issue.
1 Like
What was the first iteration of PoE’s loot filter like?
Just don’t. You know people will always compare year old stuff with beta content ;).