Reticle Feedback

I tried to consider the new combat reticle as if I was new to SOTA.

The reticle deserves marks for being intuitive with color changes. Otherwise, it didn't feel 'fun' out of the box. The reticle is too small and too sensitive to being on target. The reticle is also pretty mouse sensitive, causing me to fairly drastically adjust how I use the mouse. This makes it more difficult than necessary to understand what is going on in combat and to maintain a target in what otherwise should be a simple fight. Also not feeling good about the 'over the shoulder' approach of the reticle. It makes the game interface feel too ... asymmetric. The reticle feels a little too far to the right. Though I appreciate why it has to be there.

 

Thank you for the feedback. We are continuing to adjust the targeting reticle based on feedback to improve the experience overall. We will be implementing new reticle designs that make them more visible. Additionally, we're tweaking how the reticle behaves as a UI object in the game to make it more intuitive and less "twitchy". There are serious discussions about camera and reticle placement that involve obvious issues we've observed when we've placed it above the avatar's head with things like awkwardly overlapping with nameplates and not being friendly for melee combat. The over-the-shoulder style was a compromise. We're still working on a system that feels good for that.

Thank you again for the feedback, and we'll continue to work on this new system over time.

 

I have similar feelings about the new targeting reticle. In combat I noticed that the mouse seems less responsive. It may be my age but I use the mouse heavily when playing. I used to be able to select a target by a single right click on the target. Now I usually have to click at least twice. Being attacked from a different direction seems to change focus to another enemy whether I want to deal with that enemy or not at that time(If I am trying to finish a mage or archer I don't want to have to retarget them.). My melee weapons seem to work as they always have through facing is more important than it used to be, so it seems the reticle is mainly for distance attacks. It would be nice if I could call up or move the reticle by right clicking a target(when it turned red I would know I had the facing right and when I needed to change facing or distance when the color changed).

In combat I only have to press control once for the most part to get a cursor. When I am in town it seems that I have to press control much more often. If I have several tasks(training, purchases, banking, crafting) I usually have to press control for each NPC and crafting station. It makes non-combat mode more cumbersome to use. It would help for the cursor to be available automatically or through a game configuration setting in non-combat mode.

 

@Attenwood -Red is a poor color to see, please consider something brighter...

 

I really like the Dot Reticle

 

I hope this will become more configurable at some point.

I like the 353 dot reticule, except not when being chased by say a shedload of spiders, checking my glyphs while backpedaling and trying to single out the one with 3 hp left...for that that the dot is just a tad too small, getting often lost in the background. In less hectic situations the tiny dot is just fine.

Since it is possible to adjust the transparency from the video options, I'd suggest just making a slightly larger dot for the R29 live (the "default" state without any targeting). Those who might think it's too in-your-face, can adjust the transparency to compensate.

Spoiler: How I would really like my reticule

How would I really like my reticule to be? It would be a larger, semitransparent two-colored shape that would change its colors according to my health and focus states (would not necessarily need to be solid, for example a +/x shape with differently colored lines might do just fine, but a larger semitransparent solid would probably look nicer). Targeting something would then color the reticule outline/border. Also I would prefer to see the buff/debuff indicators somewhere close to the reticule. This would make it possible to hide the "business card" at the upper left corner.

 

I checked out the reticle in the last update last night. It seems to be a good compromise. The cursor mode worked fine. I was having a problem controlling my avatar in modal mode. I realized that pressing the right mouse button caused my avatar to move forward in modal mode. I don't remember this being documented anywhere but combat in modal mode became much less cumbersome after I practiced for awhile. It is still a different way of playing though.

 

I love the new targeting system... just wanted to get that out there.

Some things have to be fixed, like the delay in charging attacks and the overland map still having to hold down Right-Click, but overall... really nice! Good work Devs!