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Sticky Targeting - can we itch it swoff?
gurugeorge
Member Posts: 421 Arc User
80% of the time, on most of my toons, I like the sticky targeting system, I think it's very well implemented.
But for my Ceric trying to put Astral Seals on a bunch of incoming mobs, this has to be one of the most teeth-grittingly annoying things in the game. I invariably end up putting the Astral Seal on the same mob several times because the camera "pulls" me to the mob it thinks I want to be targeting.
Same with Healing Word - if there's a couple of melee guys and one of them needs more topping up than the other, the camera has a tendency to "pull" me to the guy who's health is just fine.
Is there any way of switching it off?
But for my Ceric trying to put Astral Seals on a bunch of incoming mobs, this has to be one of the most teeth-grittingly annoying things in the game. I invariably end up putting the Astral Seal on the same mob several times because the camera "pulls" me to the mob it thinks I want to be targeting.
Same with Healing Word - if there's a couple of melee guys and one of them needs more topping up than the other, the camera has a tendency to "pull" me to the guy who's health is just fine.
Is there any way of switching it off?
Post edited by gurugeorge on
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Good LORD, please!! What an acute observation.
I'm all for having the auto-targeting assist or whatever it is called made an option. This especially seriously effects melee powers that require a target to activate, can't even count the times I've activated Dazing Strike, and at just that moment some other enemy "breezes by" and for some reason the power decides to target that person instead of the one I am focusing... the result being the power simply wasted.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
IMO, having an OPTION is always good
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
I don't want to lock targets, I want to use my MOUSE to precisely target something and hit it, then quickly target something else and hit it.
Sticky targeting is basically for console controllers, because console controllers (whatever other virtues they have) don't give you very fine control of a cursor over the 2-d plane of the screen.
As a M/K player, as I said, I don't mind the system most of the time, it's actually convenient. Except in this sort of circumstance where the natural ability a mouse has to precisely target objects on the 2-d plane of the screen should be allowed.
By being able to turn sticky targeting off if you want to.
The weirdly intractable hysteresis on targetting has cost me more AP than any other feature. When faced with a massive crowd of Sharandar mobs, some of which are Powries prepareing to drain, I often want to scream. If I had proper free targetting, I could easily mow them all down with a Split Shot, but instead, the targetting cone locks onto a seemingly random mob- which drags my targetting cone all over the place while it slowly charges..
This makes me groan with frustration, as I have the firepower, I have the reflexes, I just sometimes point my bow at those little scumbags, pull the trigger to charge up, and then see my aim veer off randomly- knowing that if I let go, try to move to get clear of the offending targets, re-target and try to fire again that it will be too late.
ARGH. Hate it.
(Also, trying to explain it to less bright people, the response you get is "learn to aim better, works for me", which really necessitates biting your own tongue so as not to provoke an unprintable outburst
Target with mouse, when cursor is on target hold ctrl + cast
Target something else when cursor is on target hold ctrl + cast
What on earth are you talking about? How would that help the situation? I am using the mouse. I don't think you understand what the problem is.
The system is designed around console controllers, and it decides where your cursor is nearest, and when you fire off an ability - the camera shifts automatically and you hit what the system decides is the target you wanted to hit.
The system is designed for controllers primarily, because with a controller you don't have much ability to precisely "land" the cursor anywhere on the 2-d surface of the screen, so "sticky targeting" makes it easier for players with controllers. But with a mouse, this system is unnecessary, because with a mouse, you do have the ability to precisely "land" the cursor anywhere on the 2-d surface.
But Cryptic have made it so that a M/K user doesn't have the option to turn it off, it's fixed by default and there's no switch (apparently) to turn it off.
So in the situation I've described (Astral Sealing a bunch of incoming mobs who are close together from your perspective), being able to lock is irrelevant, because the the problem is where the cursor is "on" in the first place - where the cursor is "on" sometimes bears no relation to where you want to put it with the mouse, because the system "thinks" you wanted to target something else and sticky-targets to that instead of the place where you were originally pointing to with your cursor, where you wanted it to be.
With some kinds of toons and in many situations, it doesn't make much difference, and is in fact a bit helpful - lazy, but helpful. But when you want to have fine-tuned control and precisely target things (e.g. in the Astral Seal situation), it's completely counter-productive and irritating.
Screw it. By now they're in range anyway, so melee time.
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
Yeah, that's a kind of workaround. If you have a line of mobs incoming spread out in front of you like 1234, you can be sure of targeting 4 if you swing your mouse far to the right of 4. Same with targeting above. After all the point of sticky targeting is to have a "halo" area around the mob where if you click while the cursor is in that area, it will hit the mob (you can see the effect of this because your cursor is red in that "halo" area).
But really, it's quite ludicrous that there should have to be a workaround for this.
UNLESS of course it's tied in heavily with how the game works. I'm not a computer expert but I've read enough about games to know that realtime targeting in an MMO is extremely difficult. What might be happening is that with sticky targeting inbuilt, it's a bit like a hybrid between tab targeting and real realtime targeting (like in an FPS) in that the system gives itself a little time to calculate by having that wide "halo" around the target (within which a click anywhere will trigger the attack)? In which case those of us who don't like sticky targeting may be screwed, because it's tied in at a deep level with the way the game reckons when something is hit across the internetz.
I wonder if any devs looking in could confirm whether the situation is complicated like this, or it's just a simple switch that we could have the option of turning off?
Obviously it depends on playstyle and obviously one can work with it. The request is for a change that won't affect you if you're happy as is.
but instead of using tab to select a target it you use your mouse to hover over a target which "tabs" them. it gives the illusion of mouse targeting, but that's all it is, an illusion.
you're asking for a complete redesign of fundamental game mechanics. So I don't think it will happen, sorry.
So when I want to cas't RoA or any high range skill I want to target my enemy but not my party member that is on one hand near me in the moment when I push skill button and to make fail my skill.
From what I understand, it is incredibly hard to do real-time FPS-style shooting in an MMO. It's different from a multiplayer version of an FPS, too many people in one persistent world, too much stuff to keep track of. So in effect, Cryptic have done something that gives the clever illusion of it, and feels pretty much like it to the player (unless they're a twitch player who knows their onions), but is really just the traditional system heavily disguised. Having the mouse anywhere in the "halo" around a mob (you can see this if you have a single mob in the distance, there's an area around the mob where the cursor is red) in effect selects that mob, or at least prepares something in the system for that mob to be attacked. IOW, it wouldn't matter if you were being perfectly accurate in your mouse-targeting, it doesn't have any effect on you hitting the mob any more precisely than if you fire off your ability with the cursor at the edge of the "halo", way to the right of the mob, or above or below it.
But this has the somewhat depressing result that it's not just a simple on/off switch, it's built in.
Again, devs, anyone care to chime in? Come on guys, own up!