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Spontaneous Target Shifting

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited January 2011 in Controls and User Interface
I've started to have the following happen at an increased rate:

In the middle of combat (PvP and PvE/Ground or Space) and suddenly I'm targeting a different thing. I know what some of you are thinking: Jam Sensors. Nope. The ship/person I was shooting at does not fade from view, I do not see the sparkle effect on my ship. I'm not accidentally hitting TAB either. I'm just randomly selecting a new target.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Any insights?
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Yup, i thought it was a glitch. One moment i am targetting A and the next thing that happens is that i am firing on target B. It happens randomly btw......eg not all the time in a battle. :confused:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I've had this happen when calling down a security team. I end up targeting one of my bridge crew
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I get this too.
    Actually it's gotten better over time, on release I would sometimes be continually cycling targets for no reason.
    Krenn wrote: »
    I've had this happen when calling down a security team. I end up targeting one of my bridge crew

    That's a different issue, I believe Security Team counts as a buff, and STO has this stupid thing where you will buff your enemy target's friendly target instead of yourself.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    This is a pain when this happens. I will have a ship on the ropes and ready to go down then "bing" i am shooting at someone else. :mad:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    TrickSh0t wrote:
    I've started to have the following happen at an increased rate:

    In the middle of combat (PvP and PvE/Ground or Space) and suddenly I'm targeting a different thing. I know what some of you are thinking: Jam Sensors. Nope. The ship/person I was shooting at does not fade from view, I do not see the sparkle effect on my ship. I'm not accidentally hitting TAB either. I'm just randomly selecting a new target.

    Is anyone else experiencing this? Any insights?

    if its just enemies, you might want to check your control options to see if you have something along the lines of "target threatening enemies first" turned on. thats usually what makes you switch around. if its off then thats definitely a bug then.

    as for the security team healing an ally instead, an option named "assist target on attack" is the culprit for that one.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    i've had this since beta, i always just figured it was some npc ability that made you lose focus on your current target. whenever i press attack next it just auto locks on the closest enemy after that, it keeps me alert during combat.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    NinJarate wrote:
    if its just enemies, you might want to check your control options to see if you have something along the lines of "target threatening enemies first" turned on. thats usually what makes you switch around. if its off then thats definitely a bug then.

    Thank you for the suggestion. Nope that's not it, I'm afraid. Veteran Champions Online player here, so I'm pretty familiar with all the options settings for the engine.

    Here's a little update. I find this most delicious and finger lickin' good.This target "skip/reset" thing happens most reliably when I'm doing ground missions (and yes, I'm aware there are different options for each combat mode):

    1. Use expose weapon on target and achieve expose buff on said target
    2. Weapon swap to exploit weapon to take advantage of expose buff on the unlucky so-and-so
    3. Fire the secondary exploit attack.
    4. Ooopsies! The game has lost my target lock and selected a new target for me ... and it is NEVER the one I had lined up for the expose. Hahahahahahaha!

    Using a split beam weapon makes this less annoying ... but when I'm using my trusty sniper rifle ... d'oh!

    But I will admit to this, its happening far less often that it used to. However, it doesn't make me feel any better when it eventually does. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    In space this only happens to me when I'm targeting a teammate and trying to use a power on him. Then my target will often switch to an enemy for no reason, causing the power I clicked to either work on myself or not work at all.

    On the ground, I find that my target often just deselects itself for no apparent reason. And it's sometimes difficult to click on an enemy and convince the game that I really do want to target that particular enemy.

    But as others have said, these problems have become less and less frequent with each patch.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I hate when this happens.

    It doesnt happen to me THAT often any more, but a while ago EVERY TIME: i targertet an enemy, decloaced, pressed the space bar for fireing and my fracking ship targertet something completly diffrent, probably a Mine wich got my High yield then.

    I still dont know what that was, it doesnt happen any more, but, like I said, for some times it ALWAYS happened.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    I have experienced this in space combat mainly and I find that the TAB rarely works to target a new enemy. Is there an option to turn off the TAB functionality that I've missed?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    try turning of "mouse click" targeting, it used to happen to me, it seems my use of mouse flying and the use of mouse button 4 and 5 for weapons fire, meant that sometimes I was accidently coming off of mouse button 2 during my frantic mouse clicking and the UI would see button 1 for click targeting. If a ship fell under the intermittent mouse arrow as this happened, I'd lose my target.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    I don't know if it's related, but I often find I can't target incoming heavy torps. I have target closest set to T, but when I hit it, it targets a ship (often not even the closest). Other times, I can't target exposed enemies unless I cycle through all of them one at a time. Clicking sometimes doesn't work and is often difficult, especially in crowds (such as when you're surrounded by targs).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    Well good to know I'm not the only one with this...I always figured it was just some weirdness in the settings. I used to have it set to assist my target when I fire weapons, but if I were to target an enemy and try to fire, I would find myself targeting an ally of mine who was targeted by the enemy I initially tried to shoot at. I've since turned that option off, but every ones in a while I end up randomly switching targets, and it seems to happen in spurts. For example; it might happen 3-4 times inside one minute, and then not happen again for weeks, then it happens again 3-4 times inside a minute.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    also blind heals will change your targets as well in combat by targeting whomever just got your heal and then throwing your attacking back onto the nearest enemy.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    Roach wrote: »
    also blind heals will change your targets as well in combat by targeting whomever just got your heal and then throwing your attacking back onto the nearest enemy.

    You can fix that though by turning off the "auto assist on attack" thing in options. Think that is the name.

    For some reason, STO has a silly way of implementing assist. In most games, you target whatever you want and, when using a hostile move on a friendly target or a friendly move on a hostile target, it'll use that target's target. STO, for some silly reason, causes you to switch your target to the target's target, then use the move.

    It is poor implementation, one they didn't use in CoX. Not sure why they went this route, but, well, the sooner you turn off the auto-assist thing, the better.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    TheoFacer wrote:
    This is a pain when this happens. I will have a ship on the ropes and ready to go down then "bing" i am shooting at someone else. :mad:

    Same here...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    A new feature cryptic could be able to implement would be dual targeting where you can target up to 2 targets while only able to engage one. Sorta like the target and focus system mainly applied to wow or other mmorpg games you could have a combat target and a support target. This is believe would negate some issues of auto targeting and this feature would deffently help out some in PVP where misdirected heals happen the most especially if you want to keep attacking in an escort but you just saw your healing cruiser friend get snb and is about to die and you want to slap like sci-team on him or something so he could recover all the while not waisting your precious attack buffs as an EX. Or implement the option to turn off "auto casting" for target able abillities making you have to manually target with abilities like HE, ES, or any of the 3 "team" abilities. But the current fix would be to disable assist and/or auto fire.
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