Shift attack should be a priority.

i made a thread about this on the beta feedback forum, and i too find it an extremly important feature.

the fact that your character needs to first stop running in order to atack is just plain out bad game mechanics,
i need to make sure i aim the mouse just behind my ranger and wait for it to walk there and only then can i start shooting the monster,
you cant fluently kite monsters whitout this feature,
it is a core feature in any Arpg and something you cant do whitout, and is probaly one of the biggest reason, if not the biggest (this is probaly the same reason you cant use skills while moving) of why this game's combat is clunky.

but i realize that it might be quite hard to implement, as such i would like to ask for perhaps a status update on how it is coming along, and whether we can expect it anytime soon.

ps: dont get me wrong, i freaking adore this game

"

dragonbite wrote:

i made a thread about this on the beta feedback forum, and i too find it an extremly important feature.

the fact that your character needs to first stop running in order to atack is just plain out bad game mechanics,
i need to make sure i aim the mouse just behind my ranger and wait for it to walk there and only then can i start shooting the monster,
you cant fluently kite monsters whitout this feature,
it is a core feature in any Arpg and something you cant do whitout, and is probaly one of the biggest reason, if not the biggest (this is probaly the same reason you cant use skills while moving) of why this game's combat is clunky.

but i realize that it might be quite hard to implement, as such i would like to ask for perhaps a status update on how it is coming along, and whether we can expect it anytime soon.

ps: dont get me wrong, i freaking adore this game

I actually found and bumped your thread yesterday with some comments before I made this thread. I wanted to start one in here because it has about twice as much activity as the feedback forum.

There also was a link a guy put in your thread directing to another thread about this issue from August of 2011 that had a response from GGG. Earlier in this thread I pasted the link.

Anyway, just wanted to let ya know I am gonna try to keep your thread alive in the feedback forum. If GGG could give us some concrete info on this I know I would appreciate it very much.

I cant stress enough how very important I feel this is. It is the type of issue that will turn people away from the game in droves, and I think a majority of those people would not bother to post on the forums.

I want this game to succeed very much, and will without a doubt up my financial assistance to them if they fix this. If it isn't fixed I am afraid I will simply fade away from playing. It is that important to me.

First world Problems, not everything needs to be in lazy mode to be fun :/

You guys saying "learn to adapt" and downplaying the importance of this feature are really narrow sighted.

You don't realize how convenient this feature is. Of course you don't "need it", as you've learned to play without it, but when you get the hang of it it's as comfortable as going from single-finger typing to full hand typography for the first time.

It's extremely comfortable to kite and aim with "interrupting" shift. What is more: The inclusion of this feature wouldn't damage your play style in any way, so why oppose this change if enough people consider it important?

Some of you guys have an obsession with defending the status quo that is sickening. It feels like you obtain some sort of pleasure from defending illusory "design decisions" by GGG, just for the sake of humiliating those who propose change, as if their opposition to a current feature must, by default, come from ignorance or incompetence.

For all those that says it isn't broken or just to learn to live with it. Most just won't. It's a gamebreaker for lots of players. They will not play the game and will not voice why they arn't.


There has been lots of threads about it and to my knowledge no word from the dev's.


Just to point out some of the faults of how directional attack via shift work now.

You do not stop when shift is pressed.

Since you don't stop you do not start mouse1 attacking in the direction of the pointer.

To make a true directional attack the pointer should ignore any target under it. As is now you can't in many cases use skill to optimise effect of an aoe skill.
I.e. placing a groundslam between mobs that are so close you happen to hit the hitbox of one of them. Attack will then be targeted straight on that target and missing the other. In other words making shift useless in that case.

Releasing shift should register regardless of other keys. As is now you really need to release mouse 1 after shift and repress it to start moving.
Optimally for maximum fluidity if mouse1 is pressed when shift is released the character should start moving.***

As release on shift is so slow to register now, use of shift makes you end up attack air way to much. In some cases when you take on a challenge the added time of standing still instead of backing up can be the difference between life and death.
Death by broken shift mechanic is king of cheesy death and would definitely put some players of the game.





Basically it needs a rework. Make it dumber so it ignore targets. ;) Make the shift stop the toon and change move to attack and so on even if you don't play the clicky style.



Oh and as a side note. All you hear on youtube form dev's is clickity clickity click. Playing that way this is way more less noticeable.


***
Just to clarify how counter-intuitive this shift release m1, repress m1 thing can be, I dug up a quote from an older post of mine.

"

* Clarification: to replicate just...
+shift
aim cursor
+mouse1 twice without moving cursor. Keep it pressed after second press. Start moving cursor to where you want to move character after attack.
-shift
^character keeps attacking.

But if you just press once and hold, that same press can be used to move after attackanimation is done. Making for an inconsistent, counter-intuitive functionality.

"

Mizak wrote:

The game is playable in its current form. Is it as good as it can be? NOT EVEN CLOSE. In your reply one can find the perfect explanation for why its bad in its current form. I will quote you with a little bit added to highlight.

"so you want to rather than let go of left click then (wait for your char. to stop moving) hit shift then left click, to just start holding shift (while holding left click) and it attacks"

Furthermore, in its current form for shift-attack to keep attacking, you have to make sure you hold shift, then make sure you are not highlighting a creature and hold left-click, because if you do it while a creature is highlighted it will stop attacking after that one dies.

The function is flat out just not good in its current form.

I like the combat overall, and I can play fine but I know for a fact it can be so so so much better if this worked properly.

You bring up a good point with shift that I find bothersome, having it stop attacking is annoying, its something that we can work around but at the same time would be extremely nice if it didn't do that.

The OP is correct. Fortunately, GGG have acknowledged that the fluidity of combat will be improved upon at some point.

"

sah wrote:

The OP is correct. Fortunately, GGG have acknowledged that the fluidity of combat will be improved upon at some point.

The only thing I've seen is some mentioning about tweaking animations so the downtime after attack and next action get less noticable, or something in those lines.
That has nothing to do with the function of shift though.

Not directly, no. On second thought, I wish they would acknowledge the Shift problem as well.

"

sah wrote:

Not directly, no. On second thought, I wish they would acknowledge the Shift problem as well.

problem is that you could by infering from this thread
( http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/35035 ) conclude that they...

ignore it

thinks it's a non-issue

or just think it works just fine as is


point being that that thread's OP raises a couple of points, including shift. And all the points get addressed except the #2 (shift).


Just a simple "we'll look into it" would probably do. Then atleast you would know that they read it and by testing it out must notice how broken it is.


My hopes is that it's a mishap. That they know it needs work and have had it planned for a long time but just hasn't come around to it yet.
I just wish they could get it done before OB cause it makes a really bad impression on new players.