Guild Wars 2

Whenever I am in a big battle, I am tortured by the hundreds of thousands different sound effects AND more importantly, the huge mess that happens in the combat – the too many effects of all skills and that the enemy can not bet set to be with health bars above them, so you see their names like the others (see attachment).
How are we supposed to play like this???

For me “C” automatically targets the closest enemy. Can switch enemies with tab. Don’t have problems playing or targeting.

The problem is not with the targeting, but that you can’t see it, wheteer its moving or casting something there is absolutely no way to see it

shrug this screenshot is WvW… Have you tried playing that outside the zerg?

I agree with the OP. I think the targeting in this game is probably the worst out of any MMO Ive ever played. Its terrible and annoying.

I think this problem is three fold.
1. Not that I necessarily want to reduce the number of particle effects flying around the target, but there needs to be an outline of your targeted mob that is layed on top of the particles flying around, so no matter how much spell effect is happening, you’ll always see the outline of your target. This may be in place already but needs to be enhanced way more.

2. Whenever you click anywhere on the screen, you lose your target. So while youre trying to move around avoiding bad floor, trying to get into melee position on the target, or moving back into correct position after a using a position moving ability like heartseeker or death blossom, you need to re-target. Losing your target because you clicked somewhere on the screen is terri-bad. Ive seen a lot of threads, and Ive created at least one(maybe two) suggestion threads in the suggestion forums to allow us to enable an option ‘Lock Target’. We would only lose our target if the target dies, goes invisible, or we press Escape. This way we do not need to constantly re-target. This is a MUST.

3. Tab targeting just stinks in this game. I hit my Next Target button, and it does NOTHING half of the time. This needs a re-work. Sure, use your shortcut for targeting when someone lays out a target, but that still leads us to issue #1.

Targeting is abysmal in this game. I think I remember reading Jon Peters saying this is being addressed. I hope they make drastic improvements.

@forum mods: this thread might be better off in the suggestion forums?

cesmode I agree with the way you put it

If in group, they can call target and pressing T will target the called target.

If not, I can clearly see where the mobs are by their names in your screenie, tab targetting would be no challenge in that situation.

IKR
especially when its bosses with a visual que that one shots you.

Im like kittenIT WHATS WITH THESE PARTICLE SPAM! I CANT SEE HIM!

Jestunhi.7429:

If in group, they can call target and pressing T will target the called target.

If not, I can clearly see where the mobs are by their names in your screenie, tab targetting would be no challenge in that situation.

The point hes trying to bring up is that the mobs are completely covered in particle effects making it hard to distinguish where they exactly are.

And in some cases nearly impossible to see them doing their visual cue unless you’re standing right up infront of them

@jetsunhi: I think you’re fibbing just a little. Look at that screenshot. Where the mob should be is a white blur. You cant see tha targeted mob at all.

Pressing T for the called target is glorious for ranged, not so much for melee. If I cannot see my target and I press my Called Target shortcut, I still need to get into melee range to hit the mob! 9/10 times I am guessing where he might be. Its like driving up hill looking into the sun…Im guessing and hoping that a car isnt swirving into my lane and going to hit me. Well, Im GUESSING where the mob is and hoping that I:
1. get into melee range
2. do not have my back facing him because otherwise I will do nothing…

Targeting in the game is a big problem. Ive been saying this since BWE#1. I even posted on the forums about this pointing out issues with targeting. I hoped it would be fixed for launch, since targeting is the groundwork for the cornerstone of the game(combat).

As I said, I can see where they are by the names.

The red text, not the green text of allies.

I can also see the red arrow above the name which shows which of the enemies is targeted, so if I were melee I would know which mob to run up to.

Holding CTRL will display all enemy nameplates. Then you can click on the one you want. Personally, I usually just tab thru targets till I hit the one I want if it’s too busy in the scrum.