The Official Forums III: It goes on forever, now.

[Cairthenn]

A line that has to move dynamically in three dimensional space along an infinite array of predefined points. Just rename them.

For reference, I took it upon myself to do it for a Dynamis zone for SMNs, BSTs, and DRGs. This took about four minutes. In the time you spent arguing for this issue, you could have corrected it yourself. I'm not going to respond further, I've said about all I can.

[Karah]

A line that has to move dynamically in three dimensional space along an infinite array of predefined points. Just rename them.

They could do that as well, Kindred's Avatar (A, 1, 8, 12, m, e, etcetc) and do it legit, instead of me doing it manually, and replacing it every update.

It's not like I suddenly got a case of the mad, and all of a sudden wanted it changed. There's just never been an official forum on which to suggest it. I've wished mobs were distinguishable since day one, back in 03'. It just so happens there was a shitty scenario, and it would be worth the mention of a possible change since there is finally a medium in which to do so.

A

line that has to move dynamically in three dimensional space along an infinite array of predefined points. Just rename them.

And no one said it had to be that way, it can be just a line. it doesnt have to be three dimensional. it doesn't have to bend or fold like a flag in the wind. it just has to extend and shrink. It doesn't have to attach to the neck and move with the enemies head. it just has to touch the mob. the foot, the body, the neck, the torso, I don't care where.

Play final fantasy 12, they already have the line system in place, it would just need to be replicated onto 11.

[NynJa]

I still dont get wut happened? Even if shit got mixed up, u were still able to kill one smn?
And tieing it up to bsts or drgs is irrelevant since no one will kill their pets first since they despawn in dynamis when master is killed now.

[Karah]

I killed avatar B thinking it was avatar A and started to kill summoner A, and got astral flowed by avatar A thinking it was Avatar B.

Ifrit B -------------Ifrit A
Summoner A -----Summoner B
--------------me-----------------


Again, I can't be the only one annoyed by not being able to tell mobs apart.

[Darkmagi]

How often are you fighting 2 smns at once, and why didn't you kill both avatars first if this might have been an issue?

[Karah]

How often are you fighting 2 smns at once, and why didn't you kill both avatars first if this might have been an issue?

Admittedly it is rare, though this is probably the 10th time it happened? Just killing everything instead of avoiding certain mobs, as it was for exp, and trials instead of coins.

And the last time i did kill both avatars, killed 1 then 2 then turned to fight summoner 1 and summoner 2 resummoned and immediately astral flowed, for some ungodly reason.

There is a perfect example of this problem @ TE 4 in dynamis windurst, 2 summoners on top of it.

[Cairthenn]

Less intensive fix: a variant of the /assist command. This would function off of existing mechanics in the game's memory rather than trying to implement something entirely new.

It also wouldn't look out of place.

[Asymptotic]

Toggle -> Pet Tethers was a visual option thrown out, another possible solution would be a /targetleader (name pending) command. You can /assist an enemy to find out who it's targetting if it's otherwise not apparent (Proto-Ultima says hi), so the framework potentially already exists to implement a command which will change your target to your slept avatar's auto-assist. I suppose it depends on whether or not a specific pet's "master" is easily accessible to the targetting system.

I don't know if it's worth their time, but it does have current applications, has the potential for future strategic applications (content dependent).

[Asymptotic]

Less intensive fix: a variant of the /assist command. This would function off of existing mechanics in the game's memory rather than trying to implement something entirely new.

It also wouldn't look out of place.

YOU ARE NOT TAKING CREDIT FOR MY IDEA MISTER.

[Karah]

The tether was just a suggestion, a seemingly easy one. That's all. As i highly doubt they were going to rename mobs.

I understand it would look like shit. But we can at least agree that it should be possible to identify which pet belongs to which mob, yes?

Wasn't really necessary to carry on for 2 pages if you can agree. You may dislike my suggested option. If you can come up with a better suggestion, please add it to the officials if you can. Where it might have (some) effect.

[Stromgarde]

My head hurts from reading all of that. However, as I have a small amount of experience in this area, I'll enlighten you. Each mob has certain centering points. Most spells are centered on the '0/0/0' point, however Flash and some other spells are centered on the head. So this means that there are common components to all mobs that should be usable as anchor points. This bring us to the second point, which is the actual tether. Can you name something similar to this which exists in the game right now? Because I can't. Things are vectored in certain directions, but they don't exist independently as a line between point A and point B which is why we don't have things such as arrows flying all the way to their target, instead we have a thing leaving point A and impacting at point B. In effect, lines of fixed length. In your diagram above where they were diagonal to one other, it would have helped in that particular case but what if they were further apart and parallel? It would be meaningless.

As was suggested by someone else above, I believe the simplest and most effective way of handling this would be to change the relevant NPC names using polutils, as this is only ever actually a problem in maybe 10 zones max where you have multiple summoners standing next to each other summoning the same avatars which then have the potential to astral flow.

[Asymptotic]

I posted to the OFs for you, can I have a cupcake?

[Karah]

It would have helped -greatly- had the right avatar been behind the correct summoner, or each had some identifying mark so they couldn't be mixed up.

I mean, how about that as a fix then, a fucking badge, or a symbol next to the name. Like a linkpearl for mobs. Summoner A has a green symbol, and HIS pet also as a corresponding green symbol.

There are maybe 40 mobs in a zone, there's idk... a fucking million colors? at least 40 of which are different. And if thats not enough you could make it 5 colors and use letters in conjunction.

And yes Asy you can haz cupcakes. You never coming back to our backwoods server Q.Q?

And again, its NOT just for avatars. Astral Flow is just the BIGGEST problem.

[Asymptotic]

I appear to be trapped in the treacherous Carboniferous swamps of Fenrir.

[Asymptotic]

The main issue I could see with the suggestion that Cairthenn stole from me and I posted is that it would probably identify the "Real" ADL from its clones; then again, by the time they would ever get around to implementing such a thing, I doubt it would matter.

[bechyni]

They could do that as well, Kindred's Avatar (A, 1, 8, 12, m, e, etcetc) and do it legit, instead of me doing it manually, and replacing it every update.

It's not like I suddenly got a case of the mad, and all of a sudden wanted it changed. There's just never been an official forum on which to suggest it. I've wished mobs were distinguishable since day one, back in 03'. It just so happens there was a shitty scenario, and it would be worth the mention of a possible change since there is finally a medium in which to do so.

I thought this was the new Karah, the one who just recently took over the account, who had never played before.

[Karah]

Naw, its the OG me. Check the post I put up in the why you quit thread, I changed it about a 45 days ago now.

I tried. Wanted to quit. -Still- want to quit. But everything else bores me to literal tears. And I'm (personally) to old to start a new MMO. So i'm here till I get bored enough to let tonez take over again. But how about you don't derail the thread with shit like that. And the continued posts afterword.

If you can't tell us apart, well you don't pay attention. Not that anyone really gives a shit either way who's playing.

[Kohan]

It would have helped -greatly- had the right avatar been behind the correct summoner, or each had some identifying mark so they couldn't be mixed up.

I mean, how about that as a fix then, a fucking badge, or a symbol next to the name. Like a linkpearl for mobs. Summoner A has a green symbol, and HIS pet also as a corresponding green symbol.

There are maybe 40 mobs in a zone, there's idk... a fucking million colors? at least 40 of which are different. And if thats not enough you could make it 5 colors and use letters in conjunction.

Several other people have essentially done this, and I attempted to steer you in the right direction with my original post, but after reading this, I thought I'd try to be a little more thorough.

To put it plainly: every single thing you've mentioned would take significantly more time than renaming the mobs with POLUtils. All of it. Your original ideas, these ones—everything.

From what I've read, you obviously can conceptualize and explain what your mind conjures up, but you aren't at all familiar with actually developing and distributing software. That's all right; not everyone needs to know how to do this. It's just like how a biologist can't build a rocket, even though they're a scientist, as aerospace engineering isn't their forte. To make a more related association, that's why video game development houses have both designers and programmers, and many varieties of each. In your mind, you're designing, but this has nothing to do with real world implementation and everything that's involved.

You probably remember when Cair said this: "A line that has to move dynamically in three dimensional space along an infinite array of predefined points."

Now, I'll try to give you an idea as to how complex that would be to do.

Besides the bare minimum implementation (e.g., programming a visible line that connects a PC or NPC to their pet mob), this would have to function with every possible variation the gamer can offer. It isn't literally "infinite," but it may as well be. Consider: you would need to test it with every player model, of every design and height variation, with every pet job. Not only that, but you'd need to ensure that this tether worked when those jobs were affected by every possible buff, debuff, job combination, armor combination, etc., that could ever be. This isn't eliminating the prior condition, mind you—all of these permutations would have to be taken into account for every single preceding variant offered simply by the character creation system.

On top of that, this would need to work with all of the old content—zones, enemies, etc., that likely haven't been touched in ages—that already exists. It would have to work with every mob that you can charm, each puppet that you can create, and all of the avatars. What if you tried to charm a charm-resistant mob, but your charm failed (as it should), yet a tether was created (and it shouldn't be) because that mob exists in the same class as charm-able ones, or because it shares a model with charm-able ones? These are very real bug possibilities, and honestly, I'm just getting started. What about zones? What about zones with special conditions (e.g., level caps)? What about cut scenes?

Of course, your main concern is enemy pet jobs, and not player pet jobs. However, I hope that the portrait I've painted gives you an idea of how very involved these things can get. We haven't even gotten into the nitty-gritty here, such as getting an idea to become more than a concept, being rewarded the necessary resources by production, and so on...

This will sound condescending, but it's simply true: renaming mobs is laughably simple in comparison. Every other change would require far more resources than would be smart to allocate at this time, if ever.

[Karah]

I see all your points, but you're missing the key points.
It doesn't have to be perfect. (any) method of connection would be nice. The tether was just the one that sprang to mind, as 12 already had it. it doesnt matter where the tether touches, it doesnt even have to touch, it can point... thats fine. a little arrow that says hey im this guys pet.

Or the linkpearl thing i mentioned. Each master/pet has a colored icon to identify them. that would make maybe an hour to change right? except it wouldnt be just for me, it'd be everyone.

And renaming the mobs in ultils, works for me sure, but i'm the only person in all of ffxi that would like to see pets identified... highly unlikely.

While it's not a priority, you can't say it wouldn't benefit at least a few other people. Just a convenience. What if new content comes out and ALL mobs are beastmasters with 3 pets? what if a new zone is filled with all summoners with pets out? again unlikely, but i bet your ass you'd ALL want them identified if that happened.

How about this example for the oldschool people (more than the new) how many THOUSAND times in an old exp party did the thf or ranger link. and the whole party goes WHICH ONE!!?? then the blm sleeps and 2 people hit the first mob and 2 people hit the second mob? now all hell breaks loose. Imagine if when you pulled that link names changed to lizard A and lizard B, the party would never fuck that up. Your B would sleep, you'd kill A and the party wouldn't break. many other games attach indicators to their enemies so they can be told apart. and the ones that don't or didnt need to, the battles were fixed position.

Also, the answer to every problem shouldn't always be third party third party. Don't get me wrong, my 100% legit days are LONG gone. But i'm not 100% third party either. I'm ok with some things and some I'm not. What I'm not ok with is everything needing to be solved with third party. We have a forum, we have obvious problems with the game. Shit needs fixin'. If they would fix all the things we have third party for. We wouldn't need the third party tools. Which is really what I'd prefer.

[Eurell]

I see what you're saying. I just don't see it as a problem. Kill both avatars and then kill the SMNs. If your (not you personally) gear isn't good enough that you can't kill a dynamis avatar and SMN quick enough to stop AF, thats the problem, not the game itself. And /assisst would solve your other example. Just a tiny bit of strategy is all it takes to get around any of these problems lol.