Guild Wars 2

I absolutely detest the new targeting system and would like to suggest an option for players to choose which targeting system they prefer.

I used to utilize the targeting system as a fantastic way of controlling my distance from a foe and my own mobility, and the new targeting system has made it extremely difficult to switch targets when there are “more important” targets around. This issue has made a combat system that I once loved far more frustrating than anything else.

I understand that Champion farmers are more concerned with ignoring other mobs and dps’ing the Champion down as soon as possible with their auto-attack, and prefer this option so they can get their hit in; but for those of us who enjoy the more fluid targeting option when applying our combat skill to multiple targets, an option to choose the old targeting system would be much preferred.

Targeting closest is far better than prioritizing mobs based on their ‘rank’ (for lack of better term), in my opinion, and I know others who feel the same. In PvP and WvW, I have found it even less consistent. Is it possible we can have the targeting option so that players can choose which suits their combat style best?

I would like to say that I’m often doing champ trains and getting tabbed into the wrong target. The Troll in Queensdale is a big problem. Sometimes I’ll click the ground twice on accident and end up deselecting my target or selecting a friendly. When I start tabbing (as it is near impossible to target the troll in that cluster) I usually go through about four grubs before I get the Troll again.

So I suppose I don’t understand what you’re talking about, as I’ve seen no change in the targeting system at all.

I completely agree with Voonith! The new targeting system has really hurt my gameplay in pve. When you find yourself within range of a boss but want to kill the adds first, for example, you will always find yourself targeting the boss if you press the “nearest enemy” button (even though your intended target is closer).

It would be really helpful if there was an option to prioritize target instead of placing that ability in the “nearest target.”

“Nearest enemy” should be nearest enemy.

If you want nearest boss or strongest boss, then that’s something different. They need different controls.

I do support the idea of excluding yellow “neutral” creatures when cycling through “enemies”. They aren’t enemies. They’re just added aggro. Enough yellows get aggroed by AoE already. The only time I consider attacking neutrals intentionally is when I am downed and want to find something easy to kill. However I can see new players or low level characters wanting to keep neutrals in the list of targets cycled through, so that should be an OPTION.

The GW1 targeting was spot-on. I rarely found myself attacking the wrong guy. Whatever they did there should be carried over here.

Possible solutions:

Add a check box for “Target cycling includes neutral creatures” (on by default).

Add a keybind for “Target Strongest Enemy”.

Those are some great suggestions, Hamfast.

Here’s an example of the situation we are experiencing, Leeroy:

I am attacking Legendary Skeletal Lich and he spawns additional mobs. In the old targeting system, I would be able to use my TAB key to “target nearest enemy” and this would target the Skeleton closest to me so that I can kill it before it reaches melee range and begins attacking me. In this new system, no matter how often I attempt to use my TAB key to target nearest enemy, my target remains locked on the Legendary Skeletal Lich. Therefore, I am required to left-click my mouse cursor on each individual additional mob that I would like to attack. This left-click targeting is an unsatisfactory option because it more often than not selects allies or nothing rather than the mob I would like to target.

Like Seifer Gin states, this new option has extremely hurt my gameplay.

That exact scenario almost killed me today. I was in a Champion fight and a couple minions peeled off to melee me. As an Elementalist, I want to avoid hand-to-hand combat as much as possible. Every time I hit “Closest Enemy”, it stayed on the Champion across the room rather than switch to the guys tickling my belly with their sword points. I found myself frantically trying to mouse-click target select.

And tabbing “Next Enemy” sure seems to be selecting yellow non-enemies in favor of red real enemies.

(Even if, as I suggested, they implement a “Target Strongest Enemy”, I still usually prefer to take out the Vets before dealing with the Champs. This new targeting scenario is zerg-oriented and should maybe be reserved for Commanders to call their targets.)

This needs a HOTFIX right away. It is central to the whole game. Nearest means nearest.

I just wish that I couldn’t select players and NPCs by clicking on them. This far too often causes me to lose focus on the enemy I’m fighting when there are a lot of players around.

I’m afraid you might be missing some hotkeys here. TAB was and is a “cycle target” key, it’s not a “target nearest” key. You can assign “target nearest” to TAB if you prefer that, although if I understand it right, it’s bugged right now.I also suggest hotkeying “call target” and “target called target” to some more practical hotkeys, but hey.

The way they intend the new “cycle target” system to be, as far as I am aware, is to make life easier for everyone facing champions and players with spawns in pvp. “Cycle target” would pick a target close to you and then start cycling through in what seemed like almost random order. Now it picks the highest ranked mob or player and cycles through to the lowest. This is practical due to the nature of some classes that use single targeting, and also to avoid targeting yellow mobs. The new system also targets players in pvp instead of mesmer clones or necro/ranger pets. This helps players that find it hard to target the correct player in pvp and should help making certain fights more balanced (and others imbalanced, they probably need to see how mesmers and rangers/necros fare on this).

In thread with Ohoni though, I feel the targeting system is still lacking in certain aspects like ability to click npcs during battle and double clicking ground to untarget during battle. I often use mouse and keyboard to navigate a battlefield and end up untargeting or accidentally targeting an npc which is really frustrating. I am happy they fixed it so we don’t have to cycle through to the higher ranked mobs as this is usually what a player wants to attack in a fight. (Although I get the point of wanting to target mobs some times, but for that you DO have the target nearest hotkey, this hotkey seems to be bugged now however).

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Chobiko. Indeed, I have switched my hotkeys around and don’t recall what’s default anymore. Yes, my TAB is Target Nearest. My cycle key I’d different.

Evan, thank you so much for your reply! I’m extremely pleased to know this issue will be addressed. Even though Target Nearest didn’t work properly before, I found it worked better than it does now and I look forward to it being restored (or improved!).

I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who was incredibly frustrated by this change.