City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Targeting Bug - Anyone even notice?

Decorum

By Decorum,
Posted on: 2010-06-15 14:21 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Master-Blade View Post
I'll take tanking for example. If a teammate is taking damage and you want to save him, you can often target your teammate and /assist them... but if they are attacking something at range and something else is attacking them in Melee, that wont work. This is where using NEXT becomes useful. It'll target the foe right in front of your teammate because it is the NEXT distance away from your current target. Then you can send out an attack or taunt to save the teammate. Same can be done in "protect object" missions when something is attacking the object, though this usually requires having the object itself in a custom target bind as well.. which I actually often use.

I realize this is not the exact circumstance you are talking about, but if they were to code something that makes NEXT check your current target for valid attacks first, then it may break any other uses of the code.
Nope it worked just as you described, I could target next off a player I was assisting and it worked off their location. I loved that about it as well and I have many tanks and characters that assist tanks in the past.


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Originally Posted by Master-Blade View Post
To get back to a direct situation, let's say I'm in a mob, and one of them starts to run. I'll throw my Nemesis Staff (or other ranged power) and usually kill them with it. What if more than one are running away? I might want to target NEXT to fire another power at that one. I don't want my target to reset on the mob surrounding me and have to cycle back through the entire mob if I am trying to finish off the other runner first.
That is another good example that I can understand but from my experience when I'm IN a mob its usually with a melee character. The last thing I want to be fighting is the stuff running away if theres something close. Not to mention the lacking ranged attacks. If I'm in melee range I want to fight whats closest all the time. Even if the health is low on the enemies because eventually they'll run right back to me. If all thats left is a bunch of runners then let em run and my old tab key would still cycle em. The only time I ever run into trouble is when I target next too far because I'm being nitpicky about what I want to attack, like a sorc. In which case I have to hit escape and tab tab tab to get the closest and cycle outward again.


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Originally Posted by Decorum View Post
I use that a lot on my rad. My debuff anchor dies and I want to start it somewhere else (as those close to me are likely already debuffed and half dead from combat anyway).
I did that differently altogether. I would mostly just cycle alot with tab or hand pick targets for Debuffs with my rads. I didn't spend much time repicking targets though since the recharge on the debuffs was usually a few seconds at least, I had plenty of time to find a new one. So I personally would not have a problem as described in that instance. But in rebuttal theres always the range of the next nearest target to the defeated target to think about. I would find it simpler to target the nearest target and cycle outwards then to target the next enemy from the one that died and have the chance that it be something to far to activate the power or have your choices limited on whats available past the defeated target. If my tab key were used, yes it would get the half dead ones nearby targeted, but it would also target everything near and far depending on the times you hit tab and give a better grasp of whats left and allow you to pick the most alive/beneficial targets. And since the powers recharge slow you would still have time to decide/activate when ready.

Pinnacle Heroes: Ilconke lvl 50 En/En Blast, Pane lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank, Kimil'Lee Draco lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller, Blackest Blackness lvl 38 DA/DM Tank, il lvl 35 PB

Pinnacle Villains: X lvl 50 Claw/Nin Stalker, Knumbskull lvl 42 Elec/Elec Brute, Metal Master lvl 35 Bot/Bub MM, X'ile lvl 32 Mind/Psi Dom

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
Nope it worked just as you described, I could target next off a player I was assisting and it worked off their location. I loved that about it as well and I have many tanks and characters that assist tanks in the past.
"Nope" what? Like you said, it works exactly as I described. target_enemy_next DOES target the next foe if you are targeting an ally. My points was.. if the code was changed, we know know if that behavior would remain. Large annoying bugs can occur from small changes.

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Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
That is another good example that I can understand but from my experience when I'm IN a mob its usually with a melee character. The last thing I want to be fighting is the stuff running away if theres something close. Not to mention the lacking ranged attacks. If I'm in melee range I want to fight whats closest all the time.
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I did that differently altogether.
That's kinda our point. Everybody is different. People run different characters that need might to target different ways. That's why we need different binds in different circumstances. Their functionality should never be combined or changed, or it'll ruin the methods for many of us that already use for their intended purposes.

Like I said above:
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If you kill a foe and want to target the NEAREST foe without changing the "next" functionality of TAB, just press another attack to auto-target NEAR, and then TAB to whatever NEXT target you want from there.

You'll only need 1 key for that, just like you wanted.

 

Posted

I said "Nope" in response to it possibly having glitches with the targeting. Firstly the way I was describing it works. It's worked for years. So bugs aren't an issue. Secondly, if there were bugs in the targeting, they would be tested and resolved if they should appear.

And you made mention of only having to hit one key to do as you described. But in fact you stated you would have to first hit target near or an attack, and then just use tab to select the target. That's 2 keys sir. Given any of my attacks are set to 1-10 keys which they are. I'd have to hit a number key or my set target near key, and then hit tab. Which is 2 keys. I don't see where you think I have any way of cycling targets the way I used to by hitting 1 key. Its 2.

And you make another great point of "if they change it, it could affect alot of people". The thing is somehow they did change something, for me. And, though I may not be a lot of people, I still think its something that should be looked into. And I also honestly believe a lot of people could find it very useful if given the chance to play with it. So why not I ask?

Bugs - nope, not for me in my past experiences.
Affecting play style - not if its only (re)added as an extra target type.

There's no provable downside except resources to find and fix/integrate back in my original target TAB key. I simply think something was changed with defeated targets that made them cycle normally as long as they are selected and I find that to be a bug which is hindering my game play.

Pinnacle Heroes: Ilconke lvl 50 En/En Blast, Pane lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank, Kimil'Lee Draco lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller, Blackest Blackness lvl 38 DA/DM Tank, il lvl 35 PB

Pinnacle Villains: X lvl 50 Claw/Nin Stalker, Knumbskull lvl 42 Elec/Elec Brute, Metal Master lvl 35 Bot/Bub MM, X'ile lvl 32 Mind/Psi Dom

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
I said "Nope" in response to it possibly having glitches with the targeting. Firstly the way I was describing it works. It's worked for years. So bugs aren't an issue. Secondly, if there were bugs in the targeting, they would be tested and resolved if they should appear.
But I was not referring to any current bug. I was referring to bugs that would appear if the code were to be changed to the way you want it to work. There is no way to answer that with any certainty if such a change does not even exist yet.

Just because it supposedly worked for you without any issues, doesn't mean it would work for everybody. Considering that's not how it was supposed to work all those years, it sounds like some bug that most of us never saw was actually fixed, rather than a function becoming broken. And because it happened that way for you, and not for the rest of us, is even more reason to believe that there would be internal conflicts with the way the commands work if it were to be changed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
And you made mention of only having to hit one key to do as you described. But in fact you stated you would have to first hit target near or an attack, and then just use tab to select the target. That's 2 keys sir. Given any of my attacks are set to 1-10 keys which they are. I'd have to hit a number key or my set target near key, and then hit tab. Which is 2 keys. I don't see where you think I have any way of cycling targets the way I used to by hitting 1 key. Its 2.
Power binds are standard. They are not extra targeting binds. I was referring to only needing target_enemy_next bound to TAB as default, and using your attacks for auto-targeting. That reduces the need to bind a second key dedicated to targeting. Since you stipulated that your reasoning is to attack your closest target, then it's logical to think you could simply use your attacks to achieve it without any extra binds.

If you want to split hairs about how easy or how many keypresses it might take you to perform a specific action, then every specific circumstance is going to yield a different answer depending on which foe you want to target, how many other targets there are for you to cycle through, and which power you want to use on the foe.

Besides, like I said.. I didn't mean it would only take 1 single key to achieve all your targeting. I meant that you'd only need 1 dedicated to it. The rest are already standard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
And you make another great point of "if they change it, it could affect alot of people". The thing is somehow they did change something, for me. And, though I may not be a lot of people, I still think its something that should be looked into. And I also honestly believe a lot of people could find it very useful if given the chance to play with it. So why not I ask?

Bugs - nope, not for me in my past experiences.
Affecting play style - not if its only (re)added as an extra target type.

There's no provable downside except resources to find and fix/integrate back in my original target TAB key. I simply think something was changed with defeated targets that made them cycle normally as long as they are selected and I find that to be a bug which is hindering my game play.
The problem is you are the only one that thinks that way. There are already an infinite number of possibilities when it comes to each person's personal bind preferences, and there are already commands and working mechanisms for targeting. All you have to do is utilize them.

Apparently something was actually broken for you in the past, and was recently fixed. This could be from any number of reasons either on their end or on yours. Trying to track down something that "fixed" an issue for a single person is not something I can get behind, especially when you suggest a change that would basically break the way the current system works.

Now, if you were to suggest that a brand new command should be added to specifically target a nearest foe while targeting a dead foe, then that's another story. I never said that the way you want it to work would never be useful.. only that it wouldn't be convenient to change the way existing commands work for people who already know the mechanics behind them and use them accordingly. A new command to do what you want wouldn't really be a bad idea in the scheme of things, but because it's not actually broken and there are already several workaround, I can't see it becoming any kind of priority.

In any case, any further discussion about adding such a new feature really belongs in the Suggestion forum instead.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Master-Blade View Post
In any case, any further discussion about adding such a new feature really belongs in the Suggestion forum instead.
At least we agree on that 8> Thanks for all your input. Its hard to agree with you on the rest but at least you have valid points on why you think that way. I only wish I could have shown you what it did and how easily I worked with it.

Pinnacle Heroes: Ilconke lvl 50 En/En Blast, Pane lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank, Kimil'Lee Draco lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller, Blackest Blackness lvl 38 DA/DM Tank, il lvl 35 PB

Pinnacle Villains: X lvl 50 Claw/Nin Stalker, Knumbskull lvl 42 Elec/Elec Brute, Metal Master lvl 35 Bot/Bub MM, X'ile lvl 32 Mind/Psi Dom

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
At least we agree on that 8> Thanks for all your input. Its hard to agree with you on the rest but at least you have valid points on why you think that way. I only wish I could have shown you what it did and how easily I worked with it.
While you've debated the finer points of how targeting *should* function, you've missed the overall point of the debate. I don't know if you really had a bug specific to your machine, or what, and it really doesn't matter. You are essentially saying that you are inconvenienced by this 'change', and that the game should be changed again to function the way you want. So everyone else who plays this game should re-learn how to use the targeting controls *your* way. Whether your method is intrinsically 'better' is beside the point.

It boils down to: ME > Everyone else.

Now if everyone else was experiencing the same thing, it'd be a whole different situation. But then in that case, there would be a dozen different threads on this same topic.

Bottom line is, even if your way were 10x better than the WAI current way, I doubt seriously that it'd get changed. Such a change would annoy a lot of players. Me? Enh, I'd probably think "WTF did they do that? Oh well..." and move on. But then I'm easy.

 

Posted

I don't know that I meant "should work" in the sense that you explained it and I'm sorry it sounded that way. I must have used it before not knowing that everyone else didn't have a TAB key like mine. Obviously I was mistaken and said so later on in the posting somewhere. Even as recently as my last post. I can only percieve the world around me and therefore am forced to be self-centered until I effect others in which case I learned differently and adjusted based on reactions and facts. I'm not going to say I don't want the game to play the same way it did before. But I am also not going to say it would hurt. If everyone hasn't tried something that doesn't make it bad, try it and then say it's bad is all I ask. It probably won't happen but you shouldn't get mad at me for wanting the game to work how I found it most simple. Others might find the same to be true and by saying I'm self serving when the whole time I thought this is how everyone played (hence the title) and then thought that others might enjoy it as well and asked for just that.

Either way its a bug or a bug fix which altered gameplay and was not in any patch notes so I posted it and hope it gets fixed the way it was so others can continue to target like they used to and I can target like I used to and maybe in the future I can get 1 other person to enjoy it. Until then I am self serving. Honestly I never even said once that this should be fixed in a manner that would change everyone's TAB key, just that I would appreciate if mine were fixed since it seems to be a 0 in the 1's place small error that never effected anyone in the first place. Heck it even took me almost 2 pages just to explain exactly how it worked originally its such a foreign design.

Pinnacle Heroes: Ilconke lvl 50 En/En Blast, Pane lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank, Kimil'Lee Draco lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller, Blackest Blackness lvl 38 DA/DM Tank, il lvl 35 PB

Pinnacle Villains: X lvl 50 Claw/Nin Stalker, Knumbskull lvl 42 Elec/Elec Brute, Metal Master lvl 35 Bot/Bub MM, X'ile lvl 32 Mind/Psi Dom

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
I'm not going to say I don't want the game to play the same way it did before. But I am also not going to say it would hurt. If everyone hasn't tried something that doesn't make it bad, try it and then say it's bad is all I ask.
I never said that adding such a feature would be a bad thing. I just said that the existing commands shouldn't be changed. There are separate commands for a reason, and they each work just fine. If you want a new command that acts as a combination of both, I'd support your cause and gladly give it a try.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
Heck it even took me almost 2 pages just to explain exactly how it worked originally its such a foreign design.
I understood you from the beginning. All I was saying was that it is working as designed and some people were getting the commands confused in their explanations.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
It probably won't happen but you shouldn't get mad at me for wanting the game to work how I found it most simple.
Oh, I'm not mad. Just your previous posts seem defensive, and I thought you might benefit from hearing as simply as possible how others would interpret your posts, so that you could understand why you're getting 'piled on'. It's easy to take these discussions personally, but I try hard not to. Not always successfully, mind.

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Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
Others might find the same to be true and by saying I'm self serving when the whole time I thought this is how everyone played (hence the title) and then thought that others might enjoy it as well and asked for just that.
Others might indeed prefer 'your' targeting, but I'd be willing to bet that a large majority are used to the 'standard' targeting and would be inconvenienced by any change.

Allowing the system to be flexible enough to work the way you remember it, while still defaulting to the 'standard' behavior would be perfectly fine, *if* it could be done without introducing more bugs and without impacting other fixes and deadlines imposed on the devs.

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Originally Posted by ilconke View Post
Either way its a bug or a bug fix which altered gameplay and was not in any patch notes ...
Personally, I'm still unconvinced that it was any kind of intentional 'fix'. I don't pretend to know how your version of the game could function differently from everyone else's version. But whatever was causing that discrepancy might not have been in the game software at all, or could have been a result of the way your machine was interpreting some function call that was revised to fix something completely different. Finding the real cause might not be a simple matter, or might not even be possible given the staff's manpower.

Anyway, it's unfortunate that something has changed in the way the game functions for you that you perceive as negative. It's also unfortunate that getting it changed back is probably a 'slim and none' proposition at best. I'd suggest rereading the thread to get the 'best ideas' that might allow you to get back as close as possible to your previous function, and make that work for you.