WHATS HAPPENED TO TARGETING?

So, Chess should start using the rule of Go and no one should complain about it because it just takes some time to learn it?

Just because people genuinely do not like a style of play does not mean their opinions can be dismissed as being cavemen unadaptable to change. That rude and dismissive attitude is neither helpful nor useful, not even when it is shared by certain devs. I have shooters for FPS style games. I liked quite a few things about the old system, and I have friends that are physically incapable of playing FPS style games and they were very excited about this one. That excitement is now gone.

I am aware there are going to be changes coming to this massively broken system, and am willing to wait as Chris requested until the end of R30. However, fixing bugs doesn't mean this is going to be an enjoyable system to those who don't like twitch based combat. Doubly so when the twitch based combat doesn't allow you to actually target what you want to. FPS allow you to shoot what you are aiming at. This system, based on how it is described, allows the computer to decide what to shoot at based on if it is in your target arc. Even implementing the "soft target" system that Chris is talking about doesn't resolve this issue.

I've been using all ranged spells (obviously not shooting for GM this wipe cycle). They all will randomly zoom off to target someone unexpectedly. It happens more often when there is a group of mobs together, but I've engaged people within range (i.e. they aren't melee yet as that seems to be ignored by most ranged spells) and had death, fire, ice, lightning, and earth all go about 30-130 degrees in the wrong direction and pull aggro towards me. I have yet to have it happen to sun though, so at least one school I have isn't doing it for me... yet.

Also, it wasn't wolves for me. I've been mainly fighting in Nightshade pass around the human and kobold NPCs.

 

Well the hair is right on the wolf and I am literally looking down. So its just me and the wolf with the red x on his head. I then hit my ranged spell thinking it will hit him and it just pulls a mob that can be 20 feet away lol.

 

Weird, not sure what I'm doing differently other then I've been aiming more around my targets feet. I haven't had that happen with earth or air yet that I've noticed. I'll try and mess around with them some more later tonight.

 

I've noticed it most recently happening when I coming from Xavara, the fire ele of can't hit because my adventurer level says no, back towards the bandit camp. In case that helps you duplicate what I'm experiencing. More shots towards the left hand path NPCs, but I have noticed it lots of other areas (that's just most common occurrence for me).

 

@guardianspif ---I feel your pain.

 

Most of the actual detailed feedback about targeting was spammed by floods of "i hate this, this isnt an FPS, i quit shroud" etc on the feedback forums and difficult to catch unless you watched the forum for large chunks of the day or caught them at the right time. After hundreds of forum posts about it sucking, i had to pick up a bow myself to see exactly why it sucked, because very few actually gave detail abotu why it sucked (very few in relation to how many post spams there were about "my game what have you done to my game").

Chris made several posts in a thread he stickied on the feedback forum taking in info about the targeting system, in an attempt to weed out the spam. And he was very active on it.

I hate how ranged combat and healing feels right now, but overall i like the intended direction they are going with this.

As for waiting till R30 for targeting fixes, that is due to the immense ammount of crashes the game is experiencing right now. They had intended to focus on polishign targeting hardcore for all the patches this release, and are still managign to get in what targeting adjsutments they can, but alot of unexpected time has been spent on trying to deal with the game performance problems that arose.

 

That's what made his response on the telethon all that more surprising. He read and participated, but... ? what?

As far as "blame the medium, not the message" after watching devs blame forums for 20 years, but not use things like Ideascale instead, my sympathy is zero. If the signal to noise isn't appropriate for the communication medium, there are time and tested solutions to ensure ONLY signal and almost no noise.

 

Actually, a good number of early comments were about how it was widely making people motion sick and it was physically impossible to target a specific target and was crashing on people. Yes, there were also a lot of "I hate this" posts without explaining why, but one of Chris's first response posts had to get moderated because of how he responded to those who were upset and unable to play (and even after moderation still felt dismissive of some of the genuine concerns). THAT triggered the even more massive wave of sky is falling responses that, although reflect displeasure, do absolutely nothing to help fix issues like you said.

His later posts and many of the other posts he's done since then have explained what he was thinking and how he sees this going and are super helpful, especially the combat focus during the telethon. Some of us invested in this game specifically because it wasn't FPS style game play, and that change after such a long time causes us to feel burned by the devs. There has also been a major backlash against those who have physical issues with being able to play the current style or feeling unhappy that such a major change was done with no warning, doubly so with the change coming so close to final wipe and minimizing the time people have to decide to jump ship or stick with it and hope it improves.

Timing should have been better, heads up from the devs should have happened sooner, players should have given better more concise feedback (always a headache trying to get that here), dev response to initial feedback should have been better and checked/tested by devs PRIOR to it happening on a live fundraising event. Lots of things went wrong with the way this was handled that should have been done better and almost 100% of it could have been prevented or mitigated by earlier communication and active in house play testing.

 

in defense of this, I dont remember how often it was spoke of or where but i do recall dev mentionings of a possible move to reticle targeting roughly a year ago. So while i wasnt sure when it was gonna happen, it wasnt too much of a suprise when it did, altho it wasnt talked about alot between then and now that i remember.

I jsut got soem magic arrow spells and used them agaisnt some scorpions and it feels better than the archery i tried out a few days ago. Its cool beign able to free-fire the spells off intot he air for no reason too

 

As a mage the free-fire is agonizingly annoying when you are burning cool downs waiting to cast it at the person currently beating on you. 8^p

And a possible move to reticle targeting does not equate definite move nor does it equate removing the current combat design entirely. But I honestly never heard them make mention of it in any of the dev hang outs or deep dives that Chris did that I read through. If you can find it I'd love to see what the intention was back then.

 

The fact that there was noise was useful input in itself, its jsut harder to get to details when the noise progresses. People who are displeased are often more persistant in stating thier feelignjs than people who are satisfied and calm. Its apparently one of the hurdles of trying to work with the customers.

I but i understand the frustrations from both the players and the developers who are frustrated about this, and i jsut wanted to keep it in view that they are likely working on the relentless crashes as a priority which woudl defnately slow down the new targeting system testing.

 

im not sure where i heardd it but i havent met anyone else who remembers it yet, so i honestly dont know. i just remember being very excited about it, then the free-attack was added later on. So i assume it was roughly a year ago

 

That in and of itself helps bring it back to my lack of communication concern. To not be able to pinpoint it or have others remember it either shows that it wasn't sufficiently brought to light. I'm also curious if the free attack design is what they were referencing/thinking of or if it was the current design. I know they have stated this was a design style they wanted supposedly from the beginning, but then why on earth weren't they mentioning and actively pursuing from the beginning. I do appreciate the rough time frame though. I'll start hitting some of those when I get home from work and see if I can find the references.

 

Wow funny thing, I just tried out the new ranged targeting system and I LOVE it. Go figure.

 

While true, despite how you may personally feel about it, it doesn't mean that the new system is objectively bad either.

The fact that a lot of nay-sayers are comparing it to an FPS suggests to me that they haven't really taken the time to really understand what actually happens in an FPS. There's no twitch action in SotA, the pacing is nowhere near as high-octane nor is there any precision required and missing your shot doesn't get you near-instant dead.

"Don't fix what ain't broke", sure... but what people seem to fail to realize is that it doesn't need to be broken for people to notice that you're using the wrong tools for the wrong reasons. The old system was serviceable, nothing more.

What difference would that have made? People posting angrily about it earlier?

 

Looking forward to R30

 

Objectively, it is bad. Subjectively, it is bad. Currently, it is bad. But, the devs are working on fixing some of the worst issues so I'll give them some time. 8^p

Missing my shot while a ranged mage draws in aggro from random enemies and locations and leaves me near-instant dead unless I'm in zones that are low enough that I get no exp for fighting them. I know that's not what you are referring to. Currently, it isn't the level of twitch action that most competitive FPS have. That doesn't mean that it isn't going to head that direction. When combat allows dodging of attacks and cover and they actually fix the abysmal targeting system, the game is going to feel/be more twitchy. I agree the current heat seeking attacks aren't conducive to most FPS twitch games, but they keep promising they are going to be fixing that. They have been promising us for a long time that they are going to give us cover and dodgeable attacks. Combine that eventual promise with the targeting system they are going for and it will become much more FPS like. I do not understand why people can only see current implementation and not the long term potential of this.

I personally am not in the "don't fix what ain't broke" group. That old system was seriously flawed and had major issues. There shouldn't be any debate about that. I would rather they had fixed what was broken then throwing the baby out with the bathwater and giving us something that is a significant turnoff to many long term backers.

As for earlier heads up, those of us who were getting people to invest, or investing themselves, in the game BECAUSE of the more casual combat design would have known not to waste our time in funding the game. Major changes to any system should be communicated as soon as possible as it can mitigate major flare ups. Knee jerk reactions of I hate it wouldn't have been nearly as prevalent because they could have addressed player concerns about what they don't like about that design choice and wouldn't have rushed out a completely broken system. Right before final wipe isn't the time to do it. If we were still in original pre-alpha part of the alpha-beta-launch release cycle I'd have no issue with it happening now because there would be time for those who don't like it to test it out after it gets properly finished. If they still didn't like it, then get out and minimal hard feelings. Final wipe in a few months makes for a much more narrow window and much less of a chance for a completed and properly functional system.

I understand that there are many people who like this and I am genuinely happy that the game design is burning my friends' play style to cater to yours. It isn't possible for them to please everyone and I respect that. I just wish it had been an intentional design choice from day 1 so I would not have invested as much money as I have, knowing that those I wanted to play this with would be turned off because of the combat design. I am not planning on leaving personally because of the good community of people here, but I would much rather a dinky Steam sale pledge instead. Having lots, crafting tables, and tools for each of my friends to use and specialize in is most likely no longer needed.

TLDR version:
I'm happy you like the changes and genuinely glad for you that the game is going in a direction you enjoy. It is off putting to some of us and trying to convince us our opinion is wrong is not going to happen. Respect the different point of view, accept it, or ignore it, because you can't change it.

 

I'll try to make an approach on how I feel it.
We have basically 2 ways to play: FPS and 3rd person.

1. With FPS it's almost an IRL view, thus natural. You're pretty much centered on the character's head which is equivalent to what a person would see on the street.
With this new system it rocks ! It is a perfect reactivity to human sight (ie as in all FPS games !)

2. With the third person, the center of gravity is above the character. However judicious choice from devs because if it'll be too high it would be unable to focus closely, and too low it would give us what we got on TESO (horrible for distant sights). And this new system works !
By the way we are in an MMO, and most of people will play in the 3rd person, except some particular melee char. (mainly).
3rd person is perfect to see everything that is happening around. In my opinion this is the only way to play an MMO.

The problem is that most of the time we must move the crosshair in all directions trying to follow ALL the targets regardless it's a far or a close one.

It's a 90% of the time gameplay focused on the crosshair to get ALL the LOS and non LOS targets -> that's the main pb !

Moreover when you're fighting mobs in front of you it constantly switch randomly between the targets. Sometime because I'm kitting too ! But it's impossible to focus the right target ! (I'll not talk about the video above even if smtime I got the same pb of long range random targetting).
Endly if I'm fighting a single target and a 2nd one have to come in fight it automatically switches on the last one even if my crosshair stay on the main target !

Conclusion:
This new system is not so bad. I can play with it.
But I do prefer by far a perfect reactive natural tab or mouse click.
Moreover immersion is thereby strehgthened !

Imao it'd be nice to have the choice to use this one or the "old" one (if it's possible).

 

The current implementation is broken. The devs know that, and are working on it. It is, however, broken in a very entertaining way. I love how when I attempt to body slam a bandit in front of me I occasionally find myself body slamming a dead rabbit off to the side. Also hilarious is what happens when I try to use fire arrow or Obsidian arrow, and instead of hitting the target in front of me it pulls in another mob from a completely different direction. Now that's excitement, especially when you are low on health!

 

Well I wouldn't have pledged, that's for sure. Not if I knew this was the direction combat was going to take.