Auras

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Daemonjax escribió:

Counter (and counter-counter) arguments :P

I guess that makes this a counter-counter-counter argument* :P

*actually it's more of a nitpick, but whatever :P

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Daemonjax escribió:

That's just stupid. Aura gems would then work differently than other gems in a fundamental way.

No it won't. The issue with auras lasting after you remove the gem is that it's unintuitive, not that it's fundamentally different from other skills. In fact making them cancel when you remove the gem would make them fundamentally different.
The gem gives you the ability to cast a spell. You cast the spell and that puts an aura on you. If you take out the gem, you lose what it gave you, which is the ability to cast the spell, not the effects of it.

In exactly the same way, the Fireball gem gives you the ability to cast a spell. You cast that spell and it creates a fireball. When you remove them gem, you lose the ability to cast the spell, but the fireball doesn't disappear out of the air.

Same with minions. You lose the ability to raise them, it doesn't retroactively un-raise the ones you did when you had that ability (there is some disagreement in the office on whether this should change - personally I don't think it makes sense to un-raise minions when you lose the ability to raise more).


Note that this doesn't mean we won't change how this behaviour works - as I said, it is unintuitive to most people. I'm just pointing out that the reason they work this way is because that's how all skills currently work, and leaving that would not make them fundamentally different to other skills - changing it would (but is probably still for the best). We just haven't done the work required to make them different from other skills in this way yet, so they work like all other skills.

Here are some questions I thought I'd ask to encourage discussion about this situation, and other similar situations in the game. I'm not trying to push a particular agenda here, I'm genuinely interested to seem how people respond when asked about the details of similar situations, and whether that changes how they see the aura case.
I totally agree it seems unintuitive that the aura stays on. But in some very similar situations, I'd find the opposite behaviour unintuitive. I'm very interested in both why that is, and how much my intuitions match other people's.

1) Do people think the aura should cancel only when you remove the gem (so you could change 'q' to and aura, cast it, then change it back, provided you keep the gem equipped), or also when you change the skill binding away from that skill (meaning if you want to swap which keys you're using for two skills and one of them is an aura you have on, the order you do that matters)? I've seen both suggested.

2) Do people think summoned minions should unsummon when you remove the minion gem? Just like auras, they're a spell you cast that then has a permanent (or at least semi-permanent) affect.
2a) Is your answer any different for permanent minions (zombies) compared to non-permanent minions (skeletons)?
2b) Same question, but totems (which do have an inbuilt duration, but it's quite long).
2c) Same question again, but this time for traps/mines (which do have an inbuilt duration, but it's likewise quite long).
2d) What if there was a (purely hypothetical) solo minion that reserved some of your mana while it was out, and you'd cast the spell again to desummon that minion and recover the mana? Would the answer be different then?

3) Do people think the same logic should apply to curses - If I remove my curse gem (or unassign it's key, depending on answer to 1), should things I've cursed loose the curse? Does the answer to this change if I've taken Hex Master and have permanent curses? Why or why not?
3a) If not, what is different about casting an aura that lasts beyond when you take out them gem compared to casting a permanent curse that does the same - why does this situation seem different? Does the fact one affects you make the difference?

4) Towards the extreme other end of the spectrum: if you take out the fireball gem, should the fireball in the air disappear, of keep going? Why is this different? Is it just because the fireball won't last long anyway?

5) Molten shell is a non-permanent buff you cast on yourself. Should it disappear before it's time after having been successfully cast if you remove the gem? If yes, is that just because it's already temporary? If no, does this match your answer to 4? Why or why not?

6) If you use a skill to give you charges (frenzy, power siphon, enduring cry, etc), and then take out the gem for that skill, should you lose the charges?

7) If you puncture an enemy, or use some other skill that puts a debuff on them, and then remove that gem, should the debuff be removed?
7a) If you use explosive arrow on a monster and then remove that gem, should it still explode when the charge duration runs out? How does this interact with the answer to 7 (i.e. is the charge removed when you take out the gem, and if so does it explode then, or is it left on, and either explodes or whiffs later)?

8) If you start an attack skill (say heavy strike) and then remove the gem before the skill hits, should that cancel the attack? Keep in mind that if chilled and under temporal chains, and with a low attack speed, that attack could take several seconds, and if you removed the gem because you were, for example, swapping in a different hat with lots of cold resistance but fewer gem slots, you will benefit from the resistance immediately.

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anubite escribió:

I think my "intuition" is warped. My expectation is, that for persistent effects that have an effective duration of "-1" - like an aura - it should be cancelled when the ability to cast that skill again is removed.

That's how other games do it. So my intuition is that it should no longer refresh. When you remove the gem, the aura should expire shortly after, as by intuition - auras are states that must be maintained.

That's how I would personally program an aura. Every frame (or every X seconds), the player refreshes the effect of the aura on himself and nearby allies. If the aura cannot be cast to refresh the aura, then the aura dissipates.

I am very confident you're wrong about that being how you'd program an aura, were you actually give the task of making them work in the game engine :) It would make auras unplayable if the character was actually constantly recasting them. It might be how you'd set out intending to program them, but this is an idea which sounds nice in words but really isn't actually sensible mechanically.

But I do think you've probably got something in your idea of the aura being "maintained". I think the reason a lot of people intuit this interaction with auras the way you do is because they see the aura as thematically, if not mechanically) taking some constant effort to maintain -(supported by the constant use of some of your mana, in the form of reservation), and once that assumption is made, it makes sense to think that said constant effort requires the gem which allows you to cast the aura in the first place.
In D&D (4E, because that's what I'm most familiar with) terms, it would be like an action that takes a standard action to use, but only a minor to sustain - you have to actively stop and cast the aura initially, but maintaining it takes less effort, so you're still able to run around and attack while doing so, but are still putting in some effort.

Technically, there's nothing to stop us from saying that mana reservation skills should have that thematic aspect, and to fit with it should require the gem to be constantly equipped. (Although that would take time and work to implement, should we do so). But currently this hasn't happened, and I personally hadn't made such an assumption about the thematic workings of auras, so now I feel I have more of an idea why people intuit things this way. Thank you.

My suspicion is that we will change auras to work the way most people intuit them - I believe it's already been planned to happen, but no works be done yet on working out how to do it, let alone implementing it. While my intuitions were fine with auras persisting after you lose the gem, I would have no problem with that changing, because I know it's more intuitive that way to many (probably most) people, and I can see that there's a clear way of looking at the skill that fits with that functionality.
I personally hope we don't change any of the skills that don't use mana reservation to remove their effects when the gem is removed - it's been suggested for minions (I believe primarily for balance reasons, and I was amazed anyone would try to make that happen because it seemed so completely against how the skill felt (at least to me) like it should work.

But I'm still interested to see how other people's intuitions lead them to view the situations I outlined.

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wiggin escribió:

I always felt is exactly how Havoc described it. I don't even use this aura exploit because I always thought it was a flaw that was going to be fixed very soon.

I was really surprised when I read Mark's responses. Why would a game designer want such a weird unintuitive mechanic in his own game?

I haven't stated I want it in the game, all I've done is point out that different people have different ideas about what truly is "intuitive" in this situation. Intuition is not objective. The most intuitive understanding to me is that auras aren't different from other skills - removing the gem removes your ability to cast them, but nothing more.
I've already stated I'm aware some people intuit things differently, and that I'm fine with the aura behaviour changing, but the "mana reservation = constant upkeep" idea is not how everyone intuits the situation, and I posted those questions both find out how people's intuitions apply to similar situations and to get people to think more about them. I think the responses so far have been quite enlightening.