This is just an AWFUL nerf. It almost makes the game unplayable for me. It seems that they sneaked in a nerf regarding line of sight on spell casting that I am sure was intended to prevent exploiting. Unfortunately it doesn't work and makes playing a living Hell for me. The intent was to keep people from casting at mobs that are over a hill. The problem is their definition of a "hill". I can stand in melee range of a mob and try to cast and it says I cannot see the target. DUH! If it is close enough for me to hit, how can i not see it to cast on it?! Sheesh. The problem is that it considers any intervening elevation to be a "hill" even if that elevation is only an inch high so any seam in the ground is considered a hill and you cant cast. You have to be able to see the mobs toes or it wont let you cast. This is patently absurd. Basically it is equivalent to tripping over a yard line while running for a touchdown. I havent seen anything posted on this. Am I the only one who casts spells any more?

I agree whole heartedly, they screwed it up once again.

I guess the worst is when you are standing there practically eye to eye with the monster and "you cannot see your target from here". I think VI needs the eyeglasses... not me :/

Give examples in what zones / mobs....and even place in the zone. Thats how they get fixed.


I havent seen any worst problem than it was.



Tils

Any little bump between you and a mob can block LoS it seems just like dungeon LOS has allways been. The advantage to having LoS however is hopefully mobs respect it and might stop agro'ing through walls which is a problem in a lot of POP outdoor zones that are dungeon'ish. As Tils said report the locations but it's pretty much along zone walls that have bumpy hills that the problem is at it's worse currently.

I haven't experienced any problem either. How was it nerfed exactly? I was never able to cast without LoS before anyway. Unless they take into account the position of the target when the spell is cast?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Give examples in what zones / mobs....and even place in the zone. Thats how they get fixed.[/quote]

I'll give it a shot: I have been leveling up my necro recently, and I spent yesterday in Dulak's Harbor with my wife's druid trying to get luggald organs for my auspice spell. For those that are familiar with the camp, we were keeping the room with the luggald assassin clear. However, we were outkilling the spawn rate, so we started pulling from the hallway leading to the cave. There is a rise in the hallway that leads to that cave where a nightmare initiate spawns. You can see him clearly standing on the rise, all of him except for his feet. In order to pull him, however, we had to either run right up to him to aggro him or climb a wall in an awkward fashion and snare from there. We had never done this camp before, so it might have been that way pre-patch, but I think that's a decent example of what's going on.

For what it's worth, I remember this happening once before. There was a patch many months ago that seemed to do the same thing. My druid was in Dawnshroud killing hoppers, and if I couldn't clearly see the feet/base of a mob, I couldn't cast on it. It really makes it a pain to hunt in any zone that isn't as flat as an icerink, if that's what's going on again.

I certainly hope this is a bug and isn't a case of "working as intended."

Aldane Agond
Ayonae Ro

Well, to give an example ...
Prior to the last patch, whenever we were working up the sw tower of BoT, I could always harmony the giants in a room then back out of the room and cast 'burst of flame' (ceramic band) to pull. The one time we've done that tower since the patch, I had to stay inside each room to pull because line-of-sight is now required for burst of flame, ensnare, etc.

~Firemynd

I think it's a great patch/fix. It prevents mobs from aggroing you through walls and casting through hills and stuff. Bout time they did something about it!

I am sitting in the Plane of Storms at the moment... medding. I logged in and thought I would kill a frog or two to top off my AA level and find that even if you are staring a frog face to face, some places you get the message that you can't see your target and some places where they are half hidden by the topography, the root goes through. Seems to be a few spells but not all. Root is the most frustrating one because in the past, if I could SEE the mob I could root it. Now I have to be practically sitting on top of it... and they tend to bite.

I think VI's intentions were good... but the net effect is to frustrate the player even further. Don't we have enough frustrations to deal with just to have fun?

As far as the walls in PoP being an issue... just assume that there are no walls. As you found that Howling Stones had no real walls and you had to stay in the center of the hall to avoid trains... the same holds true with PoP. If you stick to that rule of thumb, you will be fine.

There have been certain zones that are worse than others, but it's been like that for quite awhile now. UP for example has always been bad with line of sight. Literally any bump in the ground will cause a target to be out of sight there. I haven't noticed anything having gotten worse recently though.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It prevents mobs from aggroing you through walls and casting through hills and stuff. Bout time they did something about it! [/quote]

It does? Can anyone verify that?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Quote:
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It prevents mobs from aggroing you through walls and casting through hills and stuff. Bout time they did something about it!
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It does? Can anyone verify that? It does? Can anyone verify that?[/quote]

It doesn't appear to have solved the problem. One of the guys in my WW group got aggroed yesterday by a mob that was obscured by the walls of the entrance tunnel and I noticed last night that caster mobs still seem to be able to cast around corners in Chardok.

We've been discussing this on the paladin board also:

pub148.ezboard.com/fpalad...8503.topic (http://pub148.ezboard.com/fpaladinsofnorrathgeneral.showMessage?topicID=1850 3.topic)

On almost completely flat ground this problem happens. For example, killing planarean larvae behind the big white building near the GY in PoV will result in a lot of "can't see your target" messages. There are times when the mob is RIGHT BESIDE ME and I can't cast a spell on it.

It's a very frustrating and stupid issue. The mobs, of course, still do not need to obey line of sight. There was a short time last summer (back when they really buffed up caster mobs with respect to their AI and spell selection) when they thought it would be fair to enforce the same rules for NPC's as they have for players. Players, naturally, used terrain to their advantage (exploiting vs. behaving tactically is a matter of perspective). I can't even remember if this change made it live, but whether it was live or on test, it lasted no more than a few days.

This has always been a problem indoors, but much less noticable due to the generally smooth terrain of dungeons (the floor, at least, tends to be flat even if it is sloped). Outdoor zones did not obey the line of sight because they are bumpy, but I guess they decided it wasnt' worth mentioning that that they were now going to enforce it.

It's almost ironic that now archery's line of sight issues outdoors are not as bad as spell casting's. IIRC, archery line of sight puts a globe around you and another around the target; if you can draw a straight line from the center of one globe to another without hitting an obstruction, then the target can be hit. For spell casting, it does indeed seem to be that you need to be able to see the very bottom of the NPC in order to hit it. (I know that archery still has issues with poofing arrows - just pointing out in this case that archery has a better method of DETERMINING line of site than does casting.)

Unbelievably annoying. This problem plagued me in Nadox and Chardok. It's pretty bad. As was said, you can be RIGHT ON TOP of a MoB and get the "You cannot see your target" msg. In Nadox, this was pulling luggalds to the bridge area. In chardok, it was the entire levi tunnel, all the way down. It made me take unneccessary risks in order to get my pulls, that's for certian. Including having to use my sotw as well as an exodus. Grrrrrr.

Ok the zone I am having the problem in is PoN. If you get on the hill to the south of the waterfall you will find out the problem reallly fast. Even being careful now I still get this message 10 - 20 times an hour. The problem is that it looks like they set the mobs visibility point on the z-axis to be his toes. If you cant see the toes, you cant cast. The worst cast of this is if you pull the spawn spot behind the tree to the ESE of the hill. There is an almost totally invisible seam about half way between there and teh hill. I get off Ensnare but when I try to cast the next spell I get the cannot see message.

Oh and by the way this of course is a bigger problem if you are not levitating. My Ranger literally cannot cast on anything unless he is on top of it when in wolf form. Also I assume the fact that both my Ranger and Druid are Halflings makes the problem worse also.

Another example: PoFire, a huge bird, up in the air, right in front of me. "you cannot see your target". Hah!

Also, it seems that the range for /target to work has been ner.. uhm.. changed. I practically had to stand on top of people to get them on target. Both /tar and /rt seemed much shorter than before.

I don't care to investigate the history of this, but a stealth nerf of this nature is total bull. I despise a nerf that can cause death and is not mentioned. In this case I hope they at least use the "excuse" that they have one or two really bad programmers on the payroll (or someone saying change this damn the consequences elsewhere).

Example:

PoFire Picnic Table. There is about a 1 foot incline running through one part of the room. If someone is kiting down on the "lower level", I can see the mob fine, from knees up, yet I can't cast on him.

What's infuriating is the lack of acknowledgement of this problem. It's being discussed on multiple message boards (of course it would be given the number of class it affects).

Absor posted on our board to get details about a bug that keeps the "pop up" text from appearing over items when you press the ALT key (e.g., when shopping at a vendor). Yet still not a single comment about this one. While the other bug also deserved some attention, it's not one that might get you killed - this one is.

Doesn't this seem like a big enough change to MENTION in the patch message? Maybe this "snuck in" like the animation changes a few patches ago?

if it's not driving you nuts now..go into wolf form and try to kite a mob.

I think this topic should be stickied. Its a major issue that needs to be addressed by Absor/Sony. Its rather ridiculous in its current state, and if LOS is going to be changed any in outdoor zones then mobs need to obey the same exact rules too. Its rather silly that you can see the entire mob except for his feet and have it be OOR, or a giant bird flying in the air and have it "you can't see your target".

Line of sight wasn't the only thing that changed. Took my necro to BW, went to the giant fort. The giants do not warp out of the fort now when pulling them, you actually have to guide them out the front door. They just sit there running against the side walls of the fort, and you can still cast on them. The risk of using an exploit to kill them is huge now.

Mobs won't start casting on players out of LOS.

They will however finish casting on players who are out of LOS.

This was because it was very easy to dance a mob's casting.

Players get 2 sight checks -- one at the start and one at the end of the spell.

If you have ever pulled a caster where the zone has geometry, you should know this. You can't dodge a nuke being cast, but you can hide around a corner to make a mob come closer after the current spell is cast.

I discovered this problem in PoN as well only in a different area. The field between the zone in building and the cliff, where the gobos reside, is relatively flat but has many dips and tiny "mounds." I noticed that, not only can I not cast on the mob when it's feet are slightly hidden, I also can't cast on them if MY feet are in an indentation even though I can see the whole body (feet included) of the mob. This is very aggravating. Ironically, I can still cast on mobs that are hidden behind trees /boggle. Pretty bass-ackward IMO.

It sucks. Even if you can see the mob that is, for example, up/down a ramp or straddling a corner or standing in lower/higher elevation of flat land than you are and you clearly seem them in full or 3/4 view you can't target them. It's really stupid.

Plain and simple they changed it without advertising it or some old or faulty code was introduced last patch. And the mobs in certain zones still come at you through walls.

Nadox has been really bad with it's uneven terrain and cave tunnels. Veksar was the same and CD from what I heard. That is, zones with ramps, caves, tunnles etc. I did notice it in PoN as well but that has already been posted.

Edit: yes youre right Mendan, that's what I meant. You can target but can't cast. It's really bad when a charging, fully buffed animal after charm breaks can't be cast on.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It sucks. Even if you can see the mob that is, for example, up/down a ramp or straddling a corner or standing in lower/higher elevation of flat land than you are and you clearly seem them in full or 3/4 view you can't target them. It's really stupid. [/quote]

Actually, you CAN target them. But you get the "you cannot see your target" message if you try to cast on them. At least, that is what I have been running into. I am hoping this was (re-)introduced by mistake. It is just so wrong that I am practically on top of the mob, staring it in the face, but can't cast on it. :(

I've been having LoS problems in ToFS since the last patch. If I need velium I go up to the 5th floor and farm golems, and the first batch of six stand between some clear columns on either side of the entry hallway. They are totally out of range if even a small corner of the wall or columns blocks your view, you used to be able to cast on them by seeing through the columns. I can only imagine the problems that are cropping up in high level zones when inconveniences like this can kill you. :mad:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you have ever pulled a caster where the zone has geometry, you should know this. You can't dodge a nuke being cast, but you can hide around a corner to make a mob come closer after the current spell is cast.[/quote]
If you pull with a stun and then run to a spot that is out of the LoS of the mob, then this will force them to come to you without giving them a freebee cast.

Thank GOD others noticed this. I've been reporting this as a bug since the patch. Everyone in my guild thinks I'm insane. I solo in Nadox when I only have a few hours to play and I simply can NOT target mobs down the tunnels now. Forget even trying to charm pigs there now.

<strong>PLEASE</strong> lets get this to SOE's attention.