Guild Wars 2

Ever since the September Patch, targeting “Nearest Enemy” almost exclusively targets something offscreen. (More often than not, a non-enemy). I have become proficient at immediately TABBING to the next enemy every time in order to select the guy in front of me.

“Nearest Enemy” should be RED, never yellow. (This has never been the case in GW2 unfortunately). It used to select targets in our field of view for the most part. Now, as I already mentioned, it practically never selects a target I can see on my screen. That is the most important thing I want restored to the way it was.

And the people here are right – TAB is very finicky. It does not start close and work its way further out. Very often it will select targets OUT OF RANGE before one a lot closer.

Summary: Restore “Nearest Enemy” targeting so that is selects mostly enemies on our screen instead of off screen. (This just gets us back to where we were before the September Patch. If you want to see me smile, go the extra mile and take yellow targets (neutrals) out of the “Nearest Enemy” and “Next Enemy” rotation. Neutrals are not enemies).

Hamfast.8719:

Ever since the September Patch, targeting “Nearest Enemy” almost exclusively targets something offscreen. (More often than not, a non-enemy). I have become proficient at immediately TABBING to the next enemy every time in order to select the guy in front of me.

“Nearest Enemy” should be RED, never yellow. (This has never been the case in GW2 unfortunately). It used to select targets in our field of view for the most part. Now, as I already mentioned, it practically never selects a target I can see on my screen. That is the most important thing I want restored to the way it was.

And the people here are right – TAB is very finicky. It does not start close and work its way further out. Very often it will select targets OUT OF RANGE before one a lot closer.

Summary: Restore “Nearest Enemy” targeting so that is selects mostly enemies on our screen instead of off screen. (This just gets us back to where we were before the September Patch. If you want to see me smile, go the extra mile and take yellow targets (neutrals) out of the “Nearest Enemy” and “Next Enemy” rotation. Neutrals are not enemies).

I completely disagree.

I don’t think the way your camera is rotated should have ANYTHING to do with how the targeting system works.

There are hundreds of examples of why its annoying to not be able to target the closest enemy just because it is off screen or not directly in your field of view, especially in PvP.

The “Target Nearest Enemy” function is not a “Target the enemy that’s in front of me” button.

This was changed because hundreds and hundreds of people complained about the way you want the targeting system to work. Now that it has been changed, a small handful are complaining about how it works asking for a revert.

You would be fighting something, and just because of the way your camera was rotated, you would target something way off in the distance.

They, for all intensive purposes, completely fixed this issue with the patch.

Crying about not being able to target the enemy you want because it is not the one closest to you is a l2p issue. You can select creatures easily enough in pve with the mouse.

Play PvP for a week and you would never support the absurd notion of wanting the “target nearest enemy” button to target what’s directly in front of you… because you will be targeting things you don’t want to attack at that moment 90% of the time.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I don’t think the way your camera is rotated should have ANYTHING to do with how the targeting system works.

While the terminology “Target Nearest Enemy” might logically imply it should just target literally the nearest target, it isn’t a sensible default application in a significant portion of actual play. Common sense dictates that in the vast majority of cases you’re going to want to target something you can actually see. Targeting things you can’t see doesn’t make sense, anyway, and worse is targeting things you may or may not be able to actually see but to which you have no line of sight and hence CANNOT HIT ANYWAY. The game can easily determine line of sight almost instantly when I actualy do attack, so it should be able to apply the same functionality to this targeting option rather than lazy “as the crow flies” methodology which can—and often does—cause far more problems than not.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

There are hundreds of examples of why its annoying to not be able to target the closest enemy just because it is off screen or not directly in your field of view, especially in PvP.

Hundreds, eh? I doubt you could describe even 5 distinct cases. But it’s irrelevant anyway. The issue is that players have no control over how this targeting system works which is egregiously silly since targeting is one of the absolute most basic needs for what is essentially a combat-centric game. Why can I—me—the player—not decide FOR MYSELF that I don’t want my targeting system to include yellow mobs, or non-threatening inanimate objects, or things I can’t actually attack/reach due to lack of LoS? Hey, if you want to jump around at random, possibly ramming into walls, or attacking boxes with reckless abandon, I say go right ahead, but the devs don’t seem at all willing to give US the option to pick and choose how WE manage this aspect of the game.

And if they don’t, I will continue to scream obsceneties at them (in the comfort of my own home, where they—probably—can’t hear them) whenever I inadvertently leap backwards into a wall in a vain attempt to attack a wandering pig rather than the Veteran Risen that’s a nanometer farther away, but directly in front of me and actively slamming me with attacks. If you want to try and rationalize that scenario as better functionality than the way it was before (where what you could see was all you’d potentially target), be my guest. I’m sure it would be exceedingly amusing.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The “Target Nearest Enemy” function is not a “Target the enemy that’s in front of me” button.

Well, it had been for over a year and a half and it was fine outside of some wonkiness with it targeting things a mile away because they were in more perfect ‘directly ahead LoS’ than nearer targets. It was essentially fine and sensible; now it’s not just unpredictable but often directly problematic. I don’t have time during combat to stop and determine whether or not I can actually see/reach what’s just been targeted, much less determine if that target is actually not just a different one with the exact same name but behind a wall.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

This was changed because hundreds and hundreds of people complained about the way you want the targeting system to work. Now that it has been changed, a small handful are complaining about how it works asking for a revert.

Where do you get all these grandiose numbers? Hundreds and hundreds? Really? I didn’t see any complaining outside of the bug that caused things to be targeted that were miles away.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You would be fighting something, and just because of the way your camera was rotated, you would target something way off in the distance.

Yes, again, that was a problem that should have been RESOLVED, not obscured by a change that simply says, “I will target the nearest thing no matter what it is, no matter if it’s aggressive to me, no matter if I can see it, no matter if I can actually reach or affect it.” Had they fixed the actual bug this targeting mechanism would have been all but perfect, IMO. Now it’s just chaotic and unpredictable at best in all too many cases.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

They, for all intensive purposes, completely fixed this issue with the patch.

Above.

And…

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Crying about not being able to target the enemy you want because it is not the one closest to you is a l2p issue. You can select creatures easily enough in pve with the mouse.

Accurate mouse selection is nearly impossible in many situations, or have you even tried it amongst many players/mobs?

As an aside, characterizing dislike for this change as “crying” and saying adapting to this change is a “l2p” issue is nothing more than thinly veiled insults. It’s also hypocritical as anyone could just as accurately say the same thing about you not being able to adapt to the previous targeting method.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Play PvP for a week and you would never support the absurd notion of wanting the “target nearest enemy” button to target what’s directly in front of you… because you will be targeting things you don’t want to attack at that moment 90% of the time.

I don’t play PvP and neither do thousands of others. By saying this you’re basically admitting you’re in the same group as those you’ve denigrated as crying about a revert. You’re clearly, and entirely concerned about the targeting in PvP and don’t give a flip about anyone else’s issues. Take your blinders off and instead of trying to force your preferred idea down everyone’s throats, try advocating something useful like encouraging the devs to give EVERYONE—not just you or I—options so they can manage targeting the way THEY want to, not the way you or I want it. The two basic functionalities already exist, one just happens to be turned off. Simple filtering options as mentioned above are possible, and probably not even that diffictul to implement. Instead of screwing one half to satisfy the other, we need actual, useful options.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Target nearest enemy should do exactly that…..

Target the enemy closest to you.

I have not had any issues since they changed the way the system works.

It is wonderful.

Before they implemented changes, I would have kitten like this happen.

Can’t target the closest Ettin because he is “hiding” behind the tree.

Really? That was a problem for you?

Why not use mouse-targeting as you advocated elsewhere?

Rather weak example of an issue.

Now, if that were a Moa that was out of LoS behind a wall through which neither of you could reach/affect the other, THEN you have a viable example of an issue. One that just happens to exist now, thanks to this expertly crafted obfuscation (not fix) of an actual bug.

Kruhljak.2705:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The “Target Nearest Enemy” function is not a “Target the enemy that’s in front of me” button.

Well, it had been for over a year and a half and it was fine outside of some wonkiness with it targeting things a mile away because they were in more perfect ‘directly ahead LoS’ than nearer targets. It was essentially fine and sensible; now it’s not just unpredictable but often directly problematic. I don’t have time during combat to stop and determine whether or not I can actually see/reach what’s just been targeted, much less determine if that target is actually not just a different one with the exact same name but behind a wall.

Why don’t you have a look at all the threads on the forums discussing the targeting system over the past few years.

Sure…. some of them are complaining about auto targeting, and other vaugely related targeting issues….. but there is a common theme in many of the posts replying to these threads and that is: “The game targets things off in the distance instead of the enemy I am trying to fight, because of the way I have the camera rotated.”

And most of these threads were prior to the September patch.

There was a huge decline in complaints after the patch, and it is because it fixed many problems with the targeting system, including the problem of targeting random things (with the target nearest enemy key) because of the way you had your camera rotated.

Also, even though in today’s day and age, few people still play with auto targeting on….. One of the main reasons players don’t use auto targeting (aside from being able to use gap closers, leaps etc. to navigate terrain or retreat) is because the game would prioritize targets off in the distance due to the way the camera was rotated.

You want to fight what is closest to you 90% of the time….. and in that 10% of the time that there is a barracuda or something in the water below you that you actually don’t want to fight, you tab target to the next foe.

It is not hard.

Also, if you want to criticize my screen of the Ettin, the foe was completely untargetable (mouse clicks included) until I moved around the tree to get a better view of the foe, even though it was very clear he was standing there the entire time.

This is not the only location in the game where something like this has happened obviously.

The game world is populated with thousands of little obstacles littering the terrain, and it used to happen more often than not that you could not target a foe, simply because he was behind a bush, a rock, etc. and often times you would also lose target completely if you were mid battle and an obstruction found its way between you and your foe, simply because the game believed you could not see said foe and dropped the target on it.

Players defending a tower in WvW were completely untargetable by assaulting foes, due to this issue. It is no surprise that it was not intended game mechanics to not be able to target players which you can clearly see just because there was a lip on the tower, causing the game to think that the enemy is not in your field of view, and hence should never be able to be targeted.

These problems no longer exists in any form thanks to the September patch.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Crying about not being able to target the enemy you want because it is not the one closest to you is a l2p issue. You can select creatures easily enough in pve with the mouse.

Crying? Learn to play issue? What an arrogant little troll! If you look at my posting history you’ll see I’ve been more active than you for just as long. Perhaps I’m not the “natural” uber-player that you obviously are, but I’m certainly not an inexperienced noob. So take your belittling attitude someplace else.

If you re-read my post that you responded to, you’ll notice that I have already “learned to play” with the “nearest enemy” targeting change. I am regularly TABBING once or twice after selecting “nearest enemy” in order to select something other than the CART hiding off screen at a range of 1200 to my left. (I swear that thing follows me to every corner of Tyria). But this is an inefficient work-around that leaves me slow to respond to real threats as I work to avoid creating new unnecessary aggro.

Restore the old targeting, at the very least. Take YELLOW objects out of the equation. That CART may be my biggest annoyance, but it is not my enemy.

Here, BlackLeech… you use your mouse to select a target in this mess:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The “Target Nearest Enemy” function is not a “Target the enemy that’s in front of me” button.

Ok, fine.

Anet, please give us a “Targe Nearest Enemy” function that targets just about anything regardless of where it is just as long as it’s the ‘nearest’ thing to us (essentially what we have now).

And also please give us a “Target the Enemy that’s In Front of Me” function (essentially what we had pre-Sept patch), so when that enemy warrior is coming directly for me during a WvW zerg battle, I can EASILY hit my key bound “Target the Enemy that’s In Front of Me” button and knock him on his behind.

Anet, is that too much to ask? (You already have the code for both functions, just expose them to us in the interface so we can key bind both of them.)

It’s all about having “choices.”

Thank you!

Krypto.2069:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

The “Target Nearest Enemy” function is not a “Target the enemy that’s in front of me” button.

Ok, fine.

Anet, please give us a “Targe Nearest Enemy” function that targets just about anything regardless of where it is just as long as it’s the ‘nearest’ thing to us (essentially what we have now).

And also please give us a “Target the Enemy that’s In Front of Me” function (essentially what we had pre-Sept patch), so when that enemy warrior is coming directly for me during a WvW zerg battle, I can EASILY hit my key bound “Target the Enemy that’s In Front of Me” button and knock him on his behind.

Anet, is that too much to ask? (You already have the code for both functions, just expose them to us in the interface so we can key bind both of them.)

It’s all about having “choices.”

Thank you!

No, Krypto… thank you!

Well said.

(And it would still be nice if “enemy” meant “enemy”… not “cart”.)

Hamfast.8719:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Crying about not being able to target the enemy you want because it is not the one closest to you is a l2p issue. You can select creatures easily enough in pve with the mouse.

Crying? Learn to play issue? What an arrogant little troll! If you look at my posting history you’ll see I’ve been more active than you for just as long. Perhaps I’m not the “natural” uber-player that you obviously are, but I’m certainly not an inexperienced noob. So take your belittling attitude someplace else.

If you re-read my post that you responded to, you’ll notice that I have already “learned to play” with the “nearest enemy” targeting change. I am regularly TABBING once or twice after selecting “nearest enemy” in order to select something other than the CART hiding off screen at a range of 1200 to my left. (I swear that thing follows me to every corner of Tyria). But this is an inefficient work-around that leaves me slow to respond to real threats as I work to avoid creating new unnecessary aggro.

Restore the old targeting, at the very least. Take YELLOW objects out of the equation. That CART may be my biggest annoyance, but it is not my enemy.

Here, BlackLeech… you use your mouse to select a target in this mess:

No-one was targeting you specifically, I am addressing all of the players who have not been able to adapt to the change in the targeting system.

I’m happy you know how to play the game, congratulations.

Also, your suggestion to have both functionalities programmed into the game has already been suggested in a few threads, and I like that idea.

…and finally, playing with your GUI turned off to take a screenshot of how annoying and blinding events are during zerg moments doesn’t really help your case here…..
Especially not an old screenshot from before the patch in question, where nobody can even see what you have targeted or if there is even a problem.
…but I guess that doesn’t matter to you since you are always using every excuse you can muster to post one of your useless screenshots.

I can imagine though, that if you were stacked on top of the champion mob or whatever that everyone was gathered around, you would have no issue “targeting the nearest enemy” using its current functionality, or using the tab target system (as you have already stated you have mastered).

Kruhljak.2705:

The issue is that players have no control over how this targeting system works which is egregiously silly since targeting is one of the absolute most basic needs for what is essentially a combat-centric game. Why can I—me—the player—not decide FOR MYSELF that I don’t want my targeting system to include yellow mobs, or non-threatening inanimate objects, or things I can’t actually attack/reach due to lack of LoS?

Options like that would be good. But wait.. with the new policy adopted with NPE… “choosing between which type of target you want the targeting system to pick up is too overwhelming for new players and could make them confused, we can’t implement such feature.” :P

A curious fact has happened: while exploring the skritt area on Silverwastes I followed a path that leads to a badge. I got very close to the badge and there wasn’t anything around me but walls and those planks and sticks used for accessing the badge. Then I tried to call target on the badge, to show it to a friend, and guess what happened? A pile of sand for those who guess it :P Yeah, it targeted a Dust Mite on the surface, a few meter above me and completely out of my field of view (even unreachable). :P

shadow.6174:

A curious fact has happened: while exploring the skritt area on Silverwastes I followed a path that leads to a badge. I got very close to the badge and there wasn’t anything around me but walls and those planks and sticks used for accessing the badge. Then I tried to call target on the badge, to show it to a friend, and guess what happened? A pile of sand for those who guess it :P Yeah, it targeted a Dust Mite on the surface, a few meter above me and completely out of my field of view (even unreachable). :P

Check out this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Nearest-Enemy-Is-Literally-Nearest-more

And yay, targeting keeps causing trouble… I can’t even count how many times it selects a enemy around 10 feet away while another is just by my side ready to attack me… or when I try to select a minor minion at my throat but the game insist to select the big boss a bit away (yup, it just happened at Tequatl where it targeted the boss when I tried to select a krait just at my side)

Anet, a moa is not my enemy. It will never be my enemy so please fix the broken targeting.

I posted elsewhere but will repeat here.

Ranger, Longbow. Im in Dostoev Sky Speaks. I am entering the tunnel that begins the path to the Gate for the vista up there. Pet is on Active.

In front of me are a Dredge Disaggregator (closest) then 2 Dredge Excavators.
I fire. Longbow hits furthest Excavator. Pet does a Bob’s Dog and runs UP the tunnel ROUND the corner to attack an Disaggregator that isn’t even in line of sight.

A wolf is also not my enemy in WvW, how come these invis chars have it so much easier with the broken targetting.

And here we go again…

Once upon a time a sylvari that was happily going to gather some artichokes on Orr, there was a Jungle Grub (yellow) close those nodes but before the sylvari could reach it, just a few steeps away, a Risen Preserver (red) came toward them quickly. Then quickly a skill was triggered, hoping the autotargeting would pick up the Risen about to chomp on their head. But guess what? A grub slime for those who guess it :P Yes, the autotargeting picked up the Grub.

Another case. After climbing up some rocks at Dry Top to reach a Lost Coin, I tried jokingly to target some mobs and even called a target on them. I hit Nearest Enemy and an Arid Devourer was picked up, but I looked around and I only could see skritts and a golem. I was like “wth is this devourer”, I even called target on it and couldn’t see it… then I hit an skill and its effect pointed me where the mob was, it turned out it was very up there above me in another rock, out of range and obstructed. The pic can tell more…

Well I think this pic says it all… (Note: it was just after killing a Mark Golem)

Well, it seems Nearest Target is messed up again: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Target-Nearest-Enemy-1

Although it seems it’s more closer to what it should be, it doesn’t make sense targeting things out of your view. However there are controversies I see.

This seems to have become a bit worse lately. I’ve actually failed to get ANY loot on several champs in the last week or so, due to the targeting not letting me tag the boss. This is on lvl 80 chars, really there is no way my level 80 ele cannot do enough damage to the fire ele or steam ogre or SB to get credit…it was just impossible to target them even once during the event, despite me frantically trying everything I could think of

I don’t know how to record my playing to show the disaster of randomness that results from my tabbing, I wish I could… it would probably be hilarious to watch actually lol