A possible solution to the turn to shoot issue.

[FluffNStuff]

I was looking at this from a programmers view and I think I have come up with the cause of the jerkiness. When moving, the code runs a ensure you are moving forward command and when shooting the code runs a turn to shoot command. If the mob is in front of you and your are heading toward it, this works out fine as both the turn to shoot does not affect the movement command. The issue comes when you shooting an enemy and you move past them which causes a conflict of these two commands. When a shot happens, the attack command forces the character to face the enemy. The movement command can not process unless the character is pointing the right direction so it tries to turn it around to move. The fighting of these two commands every .5 seconds is what's causing the jerkiness.
So, my solution is to disable the turn to MOVE check when an enemy is actively engaged. This would let the turn to shoot command work and the character could keep moving, albeit backwards or sideways. If the player had full axis control as they do on console or computer games, this is how they would strafe and shoot.

[bmc85uk]

And then have it so that strafing/moving backwards is slower than running forwards?

[FluffNStuff]

And then have it so that strafing/moving backwards is slower than running forwards?

Two possible conditions for slow down. The easiest and most fluid would be a reduction in speed while actively targeting. The other more complicated would be a comparison when actively targeting of the current player orientation compared to the expected player orientation for normal movement. If this could be done efficiently without causing delays in the movement command then it could work.

[bmc85uk]

I see what you mean, it'd work, I think it's an overly complicated way of doing it though.

Personally, I hate the turn to shoot, anything that makes this game more jerky is a no go IMO. For me the most logical solution would be something I've commented on already; it's covered in the overhaul thread linked in my signature.

3.3. Stun/’Rubber-banding’.

The way that certain attacks in PvE will stop movement, giving the illusion of ‘Rubber-banding’ is something I find very annoying, to me it feels like the game is broken or my connection is bad. When I first started playing, I originally thought this was down to connection problems.

While I can see that it may have been implemented as a means to stop kiting, I feel that there are already sufficient measures in place, coupled with over-zealous knockback and running ranged enemies this gets very annoying. It’s a common occurrence that attack skills will miss, potentially knocking enemies in undesired directions as a direct result of being suddenly ‘teleported’ a few steps back. Mage enemies are possibly the worst for this behaviour, as fireballs have this effect on a player (even when the actual attack misses).

I don’t know any other MMO that has this problem, although for most other MMOs’ run speed is changeable by use of potions/skills/spells/mounts. If this were removed, enemies could be given abilities of their class types to allow them to halt running/kiting players in their tracks through conventional methods; however they should not use these too often. Enemy run-speed should be slightly increased to compensate for pathing issues, just enough to keep up with a player so that knockback would still be useful. There is nothing more irritating than a computer controlled character cheating to compensate.

Removal of this may cause problems with the current PvE mechanics; however there are more conventional and less irritating ways to achieve the same end result.

Kiting low levels should be unaffected as low level enemies shouldn't be able to land attacks or root/snare/stun on much higher characters except for very rare occasions.