Targeting difficulties and what could be done about them

[Jose Sarmento]

So, I think mostly everyone will agree with me that targeting in .49 is far from perfect.

Previously, we used to have the "I wanted to move but I attacked" issue. Now, presumably you decreased the sprites' "active area", and we have the "I wanted to attack but I moved" instead.

Seriously, in max view distance, the percentual area of the screen that gets interpreted as "attack" vs. visible (boss/elite) sprite size is kind of negligible, and too small to be functional. Warriors move instead of attacking, which stops LoH, which kills them. Mages move instead of attacking, which just kills them directly.

I do understand the difficulty in distinguishing the two situations - you click to MOVE close to a mob because you want to GTFO from another mob, vs. you click to ATTACK close to a mob because you want to kill it. Thus I think it's worth repeating an idea that I mentioned previously (in a non-dedicated thread), which is to interpret the single-line gesture (or mouse drag) as "forced move" (alternatively, you could use double-tap, but I actually think the single-line would be less prone to misinterpretation).

That would cover the GTFO situation, and allow you to just make the sprites' "active area" larger again, taking care of the other situation.

EDIT: also - and regardless - check the sprites' "active area" for consistency. It seems way easier to hit a small Lich, Ghost, or Skeleton Archer than to hit a massive Xenodon Giant or Gorlak.

[Jose Sarmento]

... another idea would be to include in the game's loop a monitor that computes the direction between player character and each mob (sign of difference between player / monster position coordinates), and "shifts" the sprite active area slightly in that direction (move center of sprite AA, or extend sprite AA in player's direction).

Basically, if I want to GTFO, I'm going to click "outside" of an enemy (relatively to my position). If I click on the "inner side" of an enemy, for sure I want to attack it. So if you shift the active area like that, and re-enlarge it back to what it was (?), it should allow for a better distinction between the two situations.