Combat skills and abilities hitting wrong target

I was just in a battle that ended up extremely close for me, but it was unnecessarily so. It was so frustrating that I had to post this account and hope that something is being done to fix this.

I am a hybrid ranger/mage and was fighting a large timber wolf in North Brightbone Woods. I started by taking a few ranged shots... I hit the wolf with the first, but then a doe crossed between me and the wolf and that's when everything went screwy. All of my successive shots targeted the doe. A few seconds later, I'm face to face with the angry wolf and I continue shooting and my shots are still trying to hit the now dead doe (which is now about 10 feet away behind the wolf).

OK, I thought maybe if I were to get some distance and cast Root. Ok, the spell goes off fine, but wait... the wolf is still able to move. What's this?! My Root spell hit the DEAD DOE CORPSE! Ya, that will teach it to just lay there motionless! I took a couple of steps to the right so the doe was not directly ahead of me, but the wolf still was and cast Root again and AGAIN the DOE CORPSE was rooted! I then pointed my camera down so the targeting reticle was directly facing the wolf and continued to shoot/cast. About HALF of my abilities actually hit the wolf, and the rest continued to hit the dead doe. The only way I won that battle was turning around so the doe corpse was behind me and the wolf was in front of me. And even then I had a fraction of health left when I can usually take those wolves down without getting barely scratched.

Something has to change with this targeting system. I can also report other similar instances of abilities picking and choosing at random which target to attack (usually something distant) even though it is clear I want to attack what I am squarely aiming at in front of me. For instance, if I am fighting a skeleton footman and a skeleton archer, even if the skeleton footman is beating on my face, if I shoot or cast a ranged ability it always targets the archer in behind.

 

I was fighting a kobold warrior. face to face toe to toe. i got targeted by another mob off screen and i started shooting him though i wasnt facing him nor was he in my line of sight. i was nose to nose camera angel behind my head to a kobold warrior. and i started shooting off screen. ahh if that wasnt bad enough a 3rd kobold warrior targetted me and i started shooting him. the whole time i am clicking on the kobold in front of me whom i am facing who is beating the dog snuff out of me . and kills me. -1000 on targeting system.

 

FPS targeting system where was the reticle pointed was it directly on the one in front of you or over its shoulder. That is the major problem now with ranged. If oyu are not top down with things in close you are going to hit something elsewhere.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ng-combat-movement-systems.50008/#post-548909

 

Yup.. I know exactly what you mean... except I was keeping the reticle on my target as much as possible.

I also just had two more instances of the same thing happen. One was almost an exact repeat of the scenario I posted. I'm targeting a large timber wolf... doe is off to the extreme left, though closer to me than the wolf. I have the wolf in the reticle. Once I fire, my arrows veer to the extreme left and kill the doe. Once I actually hit the wolf once, it charges at me, at which time I back up and keep firing... except all of my shots are hitting the doe corpse. How do I know? None of my shots were even registering as misses on the wolf, its health stayed the same for practically the entire fight until I moved far enough away from the doe corpse.

The second instance happened to me almost exactly as it happened to Roper Docholiday. I was fighting a kobold fighter and was also avoiding being targeted by a kobold archer. My reticle was on the kobold fighter, the mob name and health bar were even displayed on screen in the corner next to mine as if I had actually locked him on target, but when I fired, my arrows were clearly aimed at and hitting the kobold archer to the far right and beyond my field of vision.

In hindsight, I wish I had recorded this because even after I read what I wrote, it almost sounds too incredible to be true.

 

Saw this repeatedly today. Two targets, one alive, one dead. Searing ray, 100% of the time, no matter what/where/why/how/facing/mode/anything, hits the dead target, 100% of the time. smh.

I also saw searing ray hit a target BEHIND me, instead of in front of me. I have no explanation for that one.

 

going through east reach gap. was targeting a wolf in front of me. shot it 2 or 3 times.
wolf starts moving twords me. never moved.
literally target the wolf stood there. no moving the camera or nothing.
3 shots into the wolf. 4th shot makes a hard right hand turn 90 degree turn mid flight and hits another wolf cause that wolf had targeted me last

 

I just encountered another scenario tonight that was along these similar lines and also completely frustrating.

I'm running through some mines or something.. can't remember which scene it was. This is where I met the kobolds I spoke about above. Anyway, I am in a tunnel that opens up into a larger cavern at the end. In that cavern, I see a kobold fighter. I start shooting at that kobold fighter. Suddenly a kobold archer comes from around the corner and joins the kobold fighter in chasing me. All the while I am running backwards and shooting. The kobold fighter is the one that is catching up to me fast, yet all of my shots are hitting the kobold archer. So I keep running backwards.

The next thing I notice is that I run past another kobold fighter who now joins in the chase. And then another kobold archer. So now I have 4 kobolds running after me... one of which is the first kobold fighter that I manage to almost have dead at this point. So I keep running backwards and shooting. I keep aiming at the kobold fighter that I've already worn down hoping to finally take him out so then I only have to deal with 3 others. But every shot I make starts going to a different target. First, it's one archer, then the other, then the second fighter, then back to an archer, then I back to the kobold I'm aiming at, etc. and this goes on and on until finally..... I've run too far, the weakened kobold gives up the chase and runs back to his spawn point.

Now, had there been a method to lock a target, my shots would have gone where I was aiming them and not where they suddenly decided to go based on where they felt they wanted to go and I could have dispatched the entire group of kobolds simply by being able to pick each of them off one at a time. The frustrating thing is, that one kobold fighter was practically dead but even with 10 HP remaining or whatever he had, he still hit me with his full might and no matter how much I was aiming, my shots would veer off and hit something else and not allow me to finally finish off the one enemy so that I may have slightly better odds at possibly winning/surviving.

 

Happens to me with Gust, I'll scoot dead bodies along the ground never hitting the live bear biting me.

Ive had arrows fly past my target (less than a meter away) do a buncha loops in the air and then come down and hit a different target way in the back, drawing him into my scrum.

Fixes, please!

 

I had multiple more instances of this happen last night, one in which I even died to a normally trivial creature because all of my arrows/casting, despite me aiming directly at the creature, were hitting a corpse of another creature some distance away behind the one I was fighting.

Very frustrating.

 

This is a known issue that will require further investigation, tweaking, and polish for our new targeting system. Thank you for reporting.

 

5/6/2016 9:59 PM

My targeting problem happened without anything getting in the way. I placed the reticle over an archer who was standing still within range, and my fire arrow hit a poor bunny off to the side. I immediately took a screenshot. You can see the red reticle straight ahead. You can't make him out very well, but an archer is under the reticle (you can see him labeled on the screen under the build number). The bunny corpse is off to the left of the tree. I know the archer was in range because after taking the screenshot I fired off another fire arrow and hit him.
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8) System RAM: 16324
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 GPU RAM: 3020
SotA.EarlyAccess.Win.64.414.Date.05.05.16
Area: Novia_R9_Forest02_01
Loc: (32.1, 10.5, 36.5)

 

Can we report the entire targeting system as a bug? The thing is just awful.

Doom's targeting works in doom because it's first-person. It doesn't work in a 3rd person game because the camera isn't necessarily where your really focused. If you want the god-awful thing, you need to turn the game into an FPS. That's the only place this belongs.

Frankly, I've been in game MUCH less this patch because of this... abysmal behavior. It makes me strongly question if buying into this was a mistake.