Potentially serious problem involving skill/spell travel range after the latest patch

Since I noticed you guys really do pay attention to our feedback and work hard to improve the game, guess I'll pitch in and try to provide some of more.. constructive type. There is a discussion about this on the last few pages of .4 patch thread on 'Patch forum'. Thought it would be better to bring this here and include screenshots.

Patch introduced a mechanic requiring you to be within one screen away from a monster/barrel/vase kill in order to get full loot rightfully belonging to you.

Some spells/skills often travel way off screen and land killing blows/destroy barrels, something that is even more increased by having quality versions and by linking specific gems to them, like fork, chain, faster projectiles and similar.

On these screenshots, I linked 17% quality spark (51% increased projectile speed) with fork and placed them just next to the entrance of this.. prison dungeon? Check it out.

Use view image option



Just after spork totems cleared the area, I went to check the loot. Bottom-right part.



These doors are barred, otherwise sparks would continue trough them. Now I went back then headed top-right.



Due to forking property, sparks went all the way till the end of an adjacement corridor, destroying a stack of barrels placed there.


In these screenshots, my 17% quality spark is not linked to faster projectiles (adding 60% projectile speed), only fork. If it was, and remaining doors were not barred, sparks could possibly travel three screens away. That is a lot more then 13 tiles specified in the latest patch. Granted, killing power of spark greatly diminishes the more away from caster/totem, however they can still destroy barrels/vases and rob us of possible currency/maps/drops.

I could easily reproduce this with multiple other skills/spells, like lightning arrow, split arrow, fireball, ice spear, chained arc and many more I can't think of now.


Some questions concerning this:

- How is proximity calculated while playing solo, same as in parties?
- Effective distance when using totems, how is it calculated? From where the totem is placed, or where the player currently stands?
- Was this considered before latest changes were introduced into the game?

Just some of the questions raising concern about this issue.

I am a bit concerned no one is finding this a problem.. The possibility of loosing loot when your skills/spells travel off-screen/out of 13 tiles range is quite troubling, imo.

I use totems too, and I often run off to curse the next group of monsters or open chests. I haven't made any observations like yours but the potential to lose loot has been nagging at me in the back of my head since the patch, both solo and with a friend. I hope GGG finds a more sensible way to adress multiboxers and whatnot that doesn't involve penalizing players or forcing them into awkward behavior.

I guess the plus side of this is; when Temple map Piety does her infamous lightning ball of death one shot from 6 screens away... we don't incur a death penalty.

No? Well..that's a bit unfair.

"

Grimlocke_ wrote:

Some questions concerning this:

- How is proximity calculated while playing solo, same as in parties?
- Effective distance when using totems, how is it calculated? From where the totem is placed, or where the player currently stands?
- Was this considered before latest changes were introduced into the game?

Just some of the questions raising concern about this issue.

Chris Wilson replied:
Technically it counts the number of players around the owner of the totem. This is a bit weird so we should probably fix it up.

Thanks!
Chris


Got this answer from the official support, our hope is the fix comes next patch :))

P.S.:

the test you did works better in "the Docks" Area, as there are no doors and there are big long roads on the narrow side areas to test it out. I got 0 drops from mobs killed at distance (though it needs more beta test, i don't know if it's a x0 multiplier or if there is an hard cap down, like x0,xxx of your IIQ values)

"

Grimlocke_ wrote:

I am a bit concerned no one is finding this a problem.. The possibility of loosing loot when your skills/spells travel off-screen/out of 13 tiles range is quite troubling, imo.

It's a huge problem. We just don't know what else to say and just hope that GGG is paying attention and fixes this fairly serious issue.

Thinking more about this.

I really don't know why they couldn't just have the game assume there's always one player near whatever gets killed/broken open, and only count *additional* players if they're nearby (like, within a screen or so of each other).

Wouldn't this pretty much solve all the problems?

"

VideoGeemer wrote:

Thinking more about this.

I really don't know why they couldn't just have the game assume there's always one player near whatever gets killed/broken open, and only count *additional* players if they're nearby (like, within a screen or so of each other).

Wouldn't this pretty much solve all the problems?

i think that this side effect is just a bug, not intended feature.

I think it will be fixed very soon.

Combating multiboxers is perfectly fine, as long as it doesn't influence normal players on a larger scale. And well, it kinda is bringing up some concerns atm.

Guess we'll have to wait for the next large patch. Until then, either switch to short range spells/skills or pray too much loot doesn't just.. vanish.

If they wanted to combat multiboxers they should start with making it against the rules first.