Is the Marionette trick a glitch or a "feature"? | Forums

[Naeddyr]

As we know, AC:B has a lot of hidden content in the multiplayer: the whispers, undocumented powers that certain abilities have, etc.

This might be just an ***-covering strategy by the developers so that if we actually find any real game-changing glitches or the like, we'll just attribute them to the developers themselves (also, if there are several layers of non-glitch developer created tricks, there's less of an incentive to actively hunt game-breaking glitches).

Thus, there's one trick that I feel is one that feels genuinely like a glitch: the one where you can tell if a persona standing in a crowd is an NPC or PC by whether they immediately drop the animation they are doing when someone locks on to them.

A few reasons:

1) This is a nearly game-breaking trick that makes it impossible for anyone to hide in a morphed group, negating Morph, Blender, and naturally found clones. Come to think of it, it might work against disguise, too!
2) The way that the glitch manifests itself is not in any way polished, because instead of the persona doing a smooth animated transition from "animated" to "dead puppet on a string", what happens is that the animation stops immediately, and the NPC persona is morphed straight to a neutral hands-down position. This does not seem like a deliberate thing to happen.
3) With other "features", like the fact that the gun can be used to scare NPCs, or how you can use the decoy-try trick on a suspected PC, the effect is tied to a specific skill, and is logically dependent on that skill (the Decoy trick works because there is no other logical alternative: you can't decoy a PC. Well, you could possibly get around this trick by restricting the use of Decoy so that you can't use it on a group that contains your target... But that would just signal "your target is in this group", etc.). The lock-on glitch is available to everyone at all times, which means you can counter morph and blender at all times without any abilities geared to that, effectively for free.

What do you think? Is the lock-on trick a genuine glitch or something that is put in the game on purpose?
And should it be fixed?

Personally, I feel that it should be fixed. Otherwise you might as well give all the people reading the forums ESP.

[nightpriestess]

I have tried this trick myself and the fact that it doesn't work all the time, along with the things you have said, make me feel like it is a glitch. While it only works on stationary groups, I'd rather they patch it, the way the NPCs suddenly stop their animations obviously means that the developers did not intend to have this in the game IMO.

[EscoBlades]

It doesn't work all the time. So therefore, not 100% foolproof.

[KHRYS_24]

In my case, since I've read about it here and finally knew what it was, it works like a charm for me. Works best with some personas than others. Doesn't always work, but still.But If you're the one blending and someone is doing it to you, I think its still fair. Seeing that when most people do it to me, they're walking all obvious so i know that they're my pursuers and all that he/she gets is a smack to the face. The only time I think that it'll be a disadvantage notice I said "disadvantage" and not "cheap" cause its still fair way to use it) to me is if someone was on the roof and uses it, like what some do with TV. Other than that, I think its fine as it works wonders for me and when others do it to me, they stick out cause the're not focusing on how they're walking so i spot them out easily.

[Orobas88]

I've seen people say it works better on some personas than others...can anyone share which personas this doesn't work well on?

*readies notepad*

[Serephiel]

This does work wonders but the fact that I tend to stick out really badly while doing this disuades me from using it more often ><

@orobos I had a few matches with you last night and youre pretty amazing >< annoyed me with some of the kills you got on me =P

[Orobas88]

Originally posted by Serephiel:
This does work wonders but the fact that I tend to stick out really badly while doing this disuades me from using it more often ><

@orobos I had a few matches with you last night and youre pretty amazing >< annoyed me with some of the kills you got on me =P

Haha I remember you. I think we played three games together and you won the first two and I finally took the third. In one of the earlier games I got an aerial kill on you while you were grounded, and BOTH of us were disguised. I thought that was funny. I was really the courtesan and you were the thief (I think?) but that kill was doctor on engineer.

Regarding the original topic I'd be surprised if this was intentional and hope it'll be fixed since I love me some morph while defending.

[Serephiel]

Originally posted by Orobas88:I love me some morph while defending.

I can vouch for this >_> I believe you were morphed a lot in venice(moving groups though so i couldn't use this trick) >< That was incredibly frustrating XD (unless it was someone else...)

[Orobas88]

Haha oh it was probably me. If I get in first or close to it my game becomes a morph-stravaganza.

EDIT: I remember this game now. I was the hellequin and yeah I was morphing a lot, haha. I lost the lead right at the end because Pirate Monkee saw me use morph and iced me. It was a shame because I hit a good crowd with it, lots of NPCs but not in set groups so they were dispersing.

So the locking trick doesn't work on moving groups? That good to know.

[PkmnAssassin]

Originally posted by Naeddyr:
As we know, AC:B has a lot of hidden content in the multiplayer: the whispers, undocumented powers that certain abilities have, etc.

This might be just an ***-covering strategy by the developers so that if we actually find any real game-changing glitches or the like, we'll just attribute them to the developers themselves (also, if there are several layers of non-glitch developer created tricks, there's less of an incentive to actively hunt game-breaking glitches).

Thus, there's one trick that I feel is one that feels genuinely like a glitch: the one where you can tell if a persona standing in a crowd is an NPC or PC by whether they immediately drop the animation they are doing when someone locks on to them.

A few reasons:

1) This is a nearly game-breaking trick that makes it impossible for anyone to hide in a morphed group, negating Morph, Blender, and naturally found clones. Come to think of it, it might work against disguise, too!
2) The way that the glitch manifests itself is not in any way polished, because instead of the persona doing a smooth animated transition from "animated" to "dead puppet on a string", what happens is that the animation stops immediately, and the NPC persona is morphed straight to a neutral hands-down position. This does not seem like a deliberate thing to happen.
3) With other "features", like the fact that the gun can be used to scare NPCs, or how you can use the decoy-try trick on a suspected PC, the effect is tied to a specific skill, and is logically dependent on that skill (the Decoy trick works because there is no other logical alternative: you can't decoy a PC. Well, you could possibly get around this trick by restricting the use of Decoy so that you can't use it on a group that contains your target... But that would just signal "your target is in this group", etc.). The lock-on glitch is available to everyone at all times, which means you can counter morph and blender at all times without any abilities geared to that, effectively for free.

What do you think? Is the lock-on trick a genuine glitch or something that is put in the game on purpose?
And should it be fixed?

Personally, I feel that it should be fixed. Otherwise you might as well give all the people reading the forums ESP.

Maybe restricting the use of Decoy to only look-alike personas? That way, you can't target your pursuer/target. Also, there is no point in using Decoy on a persona not like you, 'cuz if your pursuer saw that persona change, he knows what's up.

I really hope some of the developers are reading this. Maybe some of the things you mentioned will be fixed in the new patch. We all know that MP games, steadily changes metagame over longer time, and balance issues are due to come once in a while!