Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
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mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
I'm not sure what game you are playing but don't you still have to turn around and face your opponent to user your attack? You are forcing the user to do another action to perform their attack.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
I'm not sure what game you are playing but don't you still have to turn around and face your opponent to user your attack? You are forcing the user to do another action to perform their attack.
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
I'm not sure what game you are playing but don't you still have to turn around and face your opponent to user your attack? You are forcing the user to do another action to perform their attack.
DAoC, Aion, and Lineage 2 come to mind. I’m sure that there are others I can’t think of off the top of my head.
No one who has ever seriously played any wasd MMO utilizing a tab target system has ever "reached" for tab. it is depressable by the same finger above the A key. Tab targeting is also able to target enemies and friends occluded from vision, especially by large creatures. The amount of muscles need to maneuver the mouse to activate a soft lock, and one finger, usually pinky finger, pressing a key are not comparable in the least.
I'm not sure what game you are playing but don't you still have to turn around and face your opponent to user your attack? You are forcing the user to do another action to perform their attack.
Not only are their several example of games that don't care about your facing, some of which Atama brought up, there are even games that do care about facing, that let you attack without facing on certain abilities. WoW, and SWTOR to name a two.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I'm not sure what game you are playing but don't you still have to turn around and face your opponent to user your attack? You are forcing the user to do another action to perform their attack.
Not only are their several example of games that don't care about your facing, some of which Atama brought up, there are even games that do care about facing, that let you attack without facing on certain abilities. WoW, and SWTOR to name a two.
How did I miss SWTOR, that’s a great example. I played that game like a piano and could spam things quickly, and yes for many abilities you didn’t have to face the enemy.
I don’t hate soft lock or games where you target like an FPS. I’ve played plenty, like TERA and SWL that are fun, I still play SWL (I have a lifetime sub) and I think the game is improved since becoming more action-oriented. It’s just not objectively superior to play that way.
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
As long as I’m never required to click on enemies in order to cast an ability, then I’ll be fine. Soft locking is completely useable and makes far more sense than any obligate click-to-make-skills-useable system that typically plagues tab systems.
You never have to click on enemies in a tab system. You use the tab key.
(That’s why it’s called a tab system.)
If you want to “aim” in a tab system, you have to click the enemy. Tabbing just cycles you through in an incredibly unreliable way.
If I’m actually aiming, then the game should be smart enough to react to that aiming.
It depends. Sometimes you just hit the tab key to arbitrarily cycle between enemies. Sometimes it automatically targets the closest enemy. Sometimes you have different keys that can target different things; closest, enemy that last hit you, target of your target, etc.
I’ve played tab target games where I never click on enemies. It depends on how it’s designed. Done well, it’s actually less clunky than soft-targeting. (Not that a soft target is bad either, that can work well.)
But the idea that tab target=have to click on enemies is just wrong. Using that as a criticism of the system is basing your argument on misconceptions and ignorance.
No, I understand perfectly how tab systems work
they’re unintuitive and unresponsive to manual aiming. That’s the primary reason I found FFXIV combat unenjoyable.
These two statements together form an oxymoron.
Tab targeting systems almost always have more depth than most players realize - and I am only talking about the targeting aspect.
Most (good) games will have options to target the nearest and cycle through as standard actions, but then there is the option to only target mobs that are currently targeting you, mobs that are targrting others in your group/raid, mobs that have dealt damage to you, mobs that can heal, mobs that can stealth and mobs that can call others.
If you set this up in a way that makes sense to you as a player and that fits the role of your character, it is FAR more useful than manually targeting could ever be. Good players use the tab target system to prevent things going wrong - bad players think they are good because they click target mobs faster after things have gone wrong.
On the other hand, if you do nothing at all to set it up and leave it to where tab targets the nearest enemy and then continual presses target the next further away enemy, what you end up with if mobs are on the move is an unintuitive and unresponsive mess of a target system - but that is the fault of the player, not the game.
I'm not sure I completely get what the OP is asking, but I will be playing with a keyboard & mouse configuration. It was the hybrid option that confused me. Did he mean soft-target?
Action combat with a soft-target is becoming fairly common in MMOs. The only problem with soft-target is it's not very precise. Unless you are fairly close to your target, it might select the player/mob next to your target. DPS players probably will rarely experience this problem and love soft-target. Healers don't like soft-target as much as they don't like seeing their strong heal hitting the nearly full health DPS near a Tank at 30% health. How about, borrowing from what appears to be an upcoming trend, an AI-enhanced soft-target that would take context into its target process would be nice. It could somehow figure out the Tank would be the more likely target of the large heal and soft-lock the Tank instead.
If the imprecise nature of soft-target could be fixed it would be the better system. Till then, Tab-target will need to stay around in some fashion.
I think you'd have a better chance using an eye tracker and webcam to get the game to identify what you're looking at specifically, and combine that information with a soft lock.
Even then, the game might get confused (would be neat AF though!). I'd say the absolute easiest is to allow hard lock targeting for group members/ally targets and NOT for enemies (and don't allow hard targeting for enemies). Meaning you could hard target an ally while aiming at an enemy, clerics/support who also DPS might keep their hard target on a tank while actively trying to hurt enemies separately.
Thank you for completely agreeing with me. I don't want the game deciding where something goes. Soft targeting is expecting the game to help you play. Hehe, wouldn't that be considered pay to win?
So are you just a troll or what? Soft targeting is expecting the game to be smart enough to work off what is most likely intended by the player.
Tab is the epitome of the game holding your hand.
yeee he's clearly trolling...I don't want to think otherwise. Never minding that and focusing on the topic, as I said before by quoting what Steven has said, we will have the option to tie the reticle to the mouse movement. Now, if we had that 'action stance' + using the tab key to select a target, that'd be beyond moronic and clunky tbh.
You want to have traditional MMORPG camera and spam your tab key to select targets like in a game from decades ago? Go for it. There will be the option. The game after all tries to attract some traditional MMORPGers (who imo are the biggest obstacle for the genre to move forward) as well.
I'd suggest picking mostly AoEs instead of reticle based action abilities for your action bar. (for your other 25% of abilities)
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
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HumblePuffinMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
yeee he's clearly trolling...I don't want to think otherwise. Never minding that and focusing on the topic, as I said before by quoting what Steven has said, we will have the option to tie the reticle to the mouse movement. Now, if we had that 'action stance' + using the tab key to select a target, that'd be beyond moronic and clunky tbh.
Revelation had a soft/hard lock action/tab combat rolled into their action combat control scheme and it wasn’t really bad by any means.
I didn’t heal with it but I know a lot of people that did with great success. Made it so you could just aim everything if you wanted but if people/mobs were stacked up you were able to tab to specific targets so your heals or targeted damaging abilities would hit who you wanted.
That game was a giant slew of disappointments, but the combat was pretty fun.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Yes. I missed where the decimal point was. Oh wow.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Yes. I missed where the decimal point was. Oh wow.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
You have a poor grasp of how combat functions if you think the enemy is somehow invisible before I decide to attack it. I’m not reacting to a spontaneously appearing mob, I turn to pop off a quick hit to the enemy behind me when I see it charging an attack, then turn back to my primary target in one fluid motion. That’s a straightforward and easy thing to do, and altogether it might take a quarter of a second after noticing it to turn, attack, and turn back.
Go throw your temper tantrum elsewhere.
If you wanted a discussion, then you wouldn’t be complete ignoring the fact that I gave comparable speed to a tab click. And whether you acknowledge it or not, it’ll take more time to tab target for the same process I just described than it takes for action combat.
For every target swap, tab will always have an extra button to press.
I like the old school click and move from Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. The new hybrid system will take a bit to get used to. So far I am absolutely terrible at the battle royal.
I like the old school click and move from Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. The new hybrid system will take a bit to get used to. So far I am absolutely terrible at the battle royal.
If you like that, then you should a few videos about Lost Ark from TheLazyPeon. It looks amazing and has nice gameplay, but is sadly restricted to russia and asia. (TLP has a tutorial on how to play it no matter where you are)
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NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I like the old school click and move from Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. The new hybrid system will take a bit to get used to. So far I am absolutely terrible at the battle royal.
If you like that, then you should a few videos about Lost Ark from TheLazyPeon. It looks amazing and has nice gameplay, but is sadly restricted to russia and asia. (TLP has a tutorial on how to play it no matter where you are)
Fractured is another game that is based no clicking that looks good
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Yes. I missed where the decimal point was. Oh wow.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
You have a poor grasp of how combat functions if you think the enemy is somehow invisible before I decide to attack it. I’m not reacting to a spontaneously appearing mob, I turn to pop off a quick hit to the enemy behind me when I see it charging an attack, then turn back to my primary target in one fluid motion. That’s a straightforward and easy thing to do, and altogether it might take a quarter of a second after noticing it to turn, attack, and turn back.
Go throw your temper tantrum elsewhere.
If you wanted a discussion, then you wouldn’t be complete ignoring the fact that I gave comparable speed to a tab click. And whether you acknowledge it or not, it’ll take more time to tab target for the same process I just described than it takes for action combat.
For every target swap, tab will always have an extra button to press.
He didn't mention invisible enemy anywhere in the quoted post. I read it, twice.
You're also fabricating unmentioned details in the scenario you're claiming you can accomplish. Assuming an opponent behind you is one you've had time to recognize and plan a proper response using tactics rather than a snap reaction (which is what Atama was initially setting up as a scenario).
On top of that, you are still claiming super human reaction speeds. It takes "the average human" (in this particular case, pretty much all healthy humans. Reaction times are very... consistent) .25 seconds to react to visual stimulus. In the time it takes a normal human to perceive a threat, you are able to perceive, register, plan a response, and execute that response? You may be able to pull that off if you react to an audio stimulus, which drops almost a full .1s off your reaction time, but that's assuming you can achieve precision aiming based on audio alone.
Furthermore, your response requires coordination between left and right hand. That means communication between left and right hemispheres of your brain. Tab+Action can be performed with just the left hand, meaning zero communication and zero chance to miss or foul key press sequence. How does this work out? When you use two hands to type on the keyboard, you'll often have typos. That's because the two halves of your brain must constantly communicate with each other to coordinate your key press sequence. You'll notice that the typos almost always involve key press sequence issues when pushing a key with one hand, then the next key with the other in rapid succession. That means YOUR response requires the initial reaction, followed by moving the mouse, timing the action perfectly in motion, and resuming the spin to re-engage another target. Sounds all smooth criminal like, but that's a really REALLY tough claim to prove there chief.
You might think "Well I have buttons on my mouse set for action buttons! So I'm only using one hand and thus one hemisphere!" Nope. You'd have to have the left half of your brain specializing in both spatial awareness AND calculation, which is incredibly rare. If you were one of those rare cases, you would not be wasting your life arguing on a forum, you'd be making YouTube videos of sinking baskets from the bleachers like a boss. Meaning you're two hemispheres are still having to communicate just because you are adding the aim to your action sequence, while tab target completely eliminates that step all together.
Atama is absolutely correct, in the scenario he presented, tab target is much quicker than spin+aim+action.
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Yes. I missed where the decimal point was. Oh wow.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
You have a poor grasp of how combat functions if you think the enemy is somehow invisible before I decide to attack it. I’m not reacting to a spontaneously appearing mob, I turn to pop off a quick hit to the enemy behind me when I see it charging an attack, then turn back to my primary target in one fluid motion. That’s a straightforward and easy thing to do, and altogether it might take a quarter of a second after noticing it to turn, attack, and turn back.
Go throw your temper tantrum elsewhere.
If you wanted a discussion, then you wouldn’t be complete ignoring the fact that I gave comparable speed to a tab click. And whether you acknowledge it or not, it’ll take more time to tab target for the same process I just described than it takes for action combat.
For every target swap, tab will always have an extra button to press.
He didn't mention invisible enemy anywhere in the quoted post. I read it, twice.
You're also fabricating unmentioned details in the scenario you're claiming you can accomplish. Assuming an opponent behind you is one you've had time to recognize and plan a proper response using tactics rather than a snap reaction (which is what Atama was initially setting up as a scenario).
On top of that, you are still claiming super human reaction speeds. It takes "the average human" (in this particular case, pretty much all healthy humans. Reaction times are very... consistent) .25 seconds to react to visual stimulus. In the time it takes a normal human to perceive a threat, you are able to perceive, register, plan a response, and execute that response? You may be able to pull that off if you react to an audio stimulus, which drops almost a full .1s off your reaction time, but that's assuming you can achieve precision aiming based on audio alone.
Furthermore, your response requires coordination between left and right hand. That means communication between left and right hemispheres of your brain. Tab+Action can be performed with just the left hand, meaning zero communication and zero chance to miss or foul key press sequence. How does this work out? When you use two hands to type on the keyboard, you'll often have typos. That's because the two halves of your brain must constantly communicate with each other to coordinate your key press sequence. You'll notice that the typos almost always involve key press sequence issues when pushing a key with one hand, then the next key with the other in rapid succession. That means YOUR response requires the initial reaction, followed by moving the mouse, timing the action perfectly in motion, and resuming the spin to re-engage another target. Sounds all smooth criminal like, but that's a really REALLY tough claim to prove there chief.
You might think "Well I have buttons on my mouse set for action buttons! So I'm only using one hand and thus one hemisphere!" Nope. You'd have to have the left half of your brain specializing in both spatial awareness AND calculation, which is incredibly rare. If you were one of those rare cases, you would not be wasting your life arguing on a forum, you'd be making YouTube videos of sinking baskets from the bleachers like a boss. Meaning you're two hemispheres are still having to communicate just because you are adding the aim to your action sequence, while tab target completely eliminates that step all together.
Atama is absolutely correct, in the scenario he presented, tab target is much quicker than spin+aim+action.
Your argument about brain communication is so funny, because all it does is prove you wrong.
The left side of your brain is the part that controls the right side of your body. That part you insist has to tell your right-brain what to tell your mouse hand, is actually directly in control of that action. So using your own theory of brain-communication being a bigger detriment to gameplay than extra button presses, tab is inherently slower because the left brain has to signal the right-brain which controls your left side, on top of requiring more button presses.
In a combat sequence of attacking then returning to your original target:
Action combat: plan, turn cam, action, turn cam.
All done with the left side of your brain using an MMO mouse.
Requires both sides of the brain communicate because your left hand is controlled by the right side of your brain. Add another step of brain communication if you use an MMO mouse for abilities. Add another step each time target selection is incorrect.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Yes. I missed where the decimal point was. Oh wow.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
You have a poor grasp of how combat functions if you think the enemy is somehow invisible before I decide to attack it. I’m not reacting to a spontaneously appearing mob, I turn to pop off a quick hit to the enemy behind me when I see it charging an attack, then turn back to my primary target in one fluid motion. That’s a straightforward and easy thing to do, and altogether it might take a quarter of a second after noticing it to turn, attack, and turn back.
Go throw your temper tantrum elsewhere.
If you wanted a discussion, then you wouldn’t be complete ignoring the fact that I gave comparable speed to a tab click. And whether you acknowledge it or not, it’ll take more time to tab target for the same process I just described than it takes for action combat.
For every target swap, tab will always have an extra button to press.
So you’re walking back your .05 second insanity? The .25 second estimate is still unrealistic but less so than your previous claim. If that was intended to be an exaggeration, okay, but it was idiotic to reinforce the statistic if it was hyperbole, as if that time was an essential part of your argument (to the extent that you mocked me for misreading the placement of a decimal point on my phone screen).
It’s not throwing a temper tantrum to shred your foolishness with facts. I’m sorry if that made you mad (but not that sorry).
Whether or not it is faster to turn, target, and click a key/button than to do the same thing with a tab key and then a key/button is going to vary from individual to individual. It’s going to depend more on comfort than anything else. And you’re splitting hairs about fractions of a second that don’t matter. I reiterate my original point; it’s a matter of taste and there is no objective “better” method.
Tab will always take more time to complete an identical action than a soft-target system, because you will always have at least one more button to press in the targeting process. That small bit of time can be the difference between a groupmate living or dying.
Factually incorrect. If someone is behind me I can press tab then my attack key faster than you can turn around, target, then press a key/click a button. Stop pretending like there’s some absolute advantage to one system over another.
You spend .05s to reach for tab, I take .05s to turn my camera and we both press an ability.
Tab is fine if aren’t capable of quick reflexes for some reason, but anyone with quick reflexes will just be hindered by the delays of having to tab to use an ability.
If it takes you a half second to reach for and tap a key then I’m not the one with poor reflexes.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Yes. I missed where the decimal point was. Oh wow.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
You have a poor grasp of how combat functions if you think the enemy is somehow invisible before I decide to attack it. I’m not reacting to a spontaneously appearing mob, I turn to pop off a quick hit to the enemy behind me when I see it charging an attack, then turn back to my primary target in one fluid motion. That’s a straightforward and easy thing to do, and altogether it might take a quarter of a second after noticing it to turn, attack, and turn back.
Go throw your temper tantrum elsewhere.
If you wanted a discussion, then you wouldn’t be complete ignoring the fact that I gave comparable speed to a tab click. And whether you acknowledge it or not, it’ll take more time to tab target for the same process I just described than it takes for action combat.
For every target swap, tab will always have an extra button to press.
So you’re walking back your .05 second insanity? The .25 second estimate is still unrealistic but less so than your previous claim. If that was intended to be an exaggeration, okay, but it was idiotic to reinforce the statistic if it was hyperbole, as if that time was an essential part of your argument (to the extent that you mocked me for misreading the placement of a decimal point on my phone screen).
It’s not throwing a temper tantrum to shred your foolishness with facts. I’m sorry if that made you mad (but not that sorry).
Whether or not it is faster to turn, target, and click a key/button than to do the same thing with a tab key and then a key/button is going to vary from individual to individual. It’s going to depend more on comfort than anything else. And you’re splitting hairs about fractions of a second that don’t matter. I reiterate my original point; it’s a matter of taste and there is no objective “better” method.
You're the one who latched onto a thrown out number when the whole entire point was to say both the act of turning the cam and reaching for tab take the same minuscule amount of time. But tab requires at least one an extra button press every time someone switches targets, which means it will obviously take longer for the one using tab targeting to adapt to a changing fight, by simple virtue of being required to press more keys to achieve the same result as another player who doesn't have to hard lock onto their target first.
by simple virtue of being required to press more keys to achieve the same result as another player who doesn't have to hard lock onto their target first.
Number of key presses is probably the stupids metric for deciding what is a better or worse game system I've ever seen.
By that logic, Die Hard (with Bruce Willis) is the best game out there, as it requires no key presses at all.
Soft targeting sucks for when there are multiple targets in the same area. Tab targeting is far superior in these situations, but ONLY if the player sets it up. Players that complain about tab targeting are players that have not set it up.
If there are not multiple targets in the area, the targeting system used makes no meaningful difference.
Based on that, tab targeting is better.
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CambiguousMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I'll stick my nose in your debate of these "0.5s of actions" since I find it intresting. I think that we all agree, we can all do it whether it is tab targeting or something else. If we are ready and expecting the ennemy, it should be quicker than normal, if not we will be obviously longer to react. Depending on the situation we are in, the time needed to react will change a lot.
I got no ideas how our brain functions while playing, but some years ago I was playing an FPS and an ennemy came into my sight, I made his brain explode with one bullet only by reflexes, realising it only half a second later. I know that all of you had the chance to experiment something like this, at least one time in your life.
So acting very quickly is realisable. The question it rises is : is it possible for us to react that quickly everytime ?
I think not, or the player needs to be trained especially for this kind of situation, training it until it's all muscle memories and your brain have nothing to do with it. Which means you either are some sort of superhuman or some machine. So it's only doable. I trained myself in some game to this kind of situation, I can't do it everytime and if I do it without expecting it, it was always slower than when I expect it.
Back to the main topic, to me the tab targetting is still the best because there is parameters to make it very easy to use and convenient like someone said above. On some MMO's you can even mark targets with numbers & set a shortcut to target the number you want to hit. As long as there is the right tools, in any situation given the tab-targetting make the fights more convenient (as long as the fighter is prepared and handle the tab-targeting properly).
The soft-targetting is nice when you don't have that sort of parameters, since the tab targeting alone would become a pain in the ass. But it could be completely useless depending on the class you play and the format of the fight, what if you do a large scale battle and you need to focus a very specific target. Good luck hitting the good one when there is more than 50 players in your screen that runs everywhere.
by simple virtue of being required to press more keys to achieve the same result as another player who doesn't have to hard lock onto their target first.
Number of key presses is probably the stupids metric for deciding what is a better or worse game system I've ever seen.
By that logic, Die Hard (with Bruce Willis) is the best game out there, as it requires no key presses at all.
Soft targeting sucks for when there are multiple targets in the same area. Tab targeting is far superior in these situations, but ONLY if the player sets it up. Players that complain about tab targeting are players that have not set it up.
If there are not multiple targets in the area, the targeting system used makes no meaningful difference.
Based on that, tab targeting is better.
Setting up tab targeting requires an unruly amount of keybinds. Target closest enemy, target target of my target, target farthest enemy, target closest ally, target farthest ally, target lowest health ally, target enemy targeting me, cycle closest -> farthest, cycle farthest -> closest, etc etc, there could be literally dozens, while a soft lock system lets you use your own eyes and brain to follow target selection and prioritize on your own.
Soft targeting is faster. It doesn’t mean you become completely unable to miss like tab does, which is why tab targeted abilities won’t be getting cc attached, but I’d argue nothing should guaranteed to hit outside of ally healing and buffs.
If you approach a large group of enemies all packed together, you should be using AoEs, not attempting to burst down one in the huddle with homing bullets. If there’s a priority add somewhere in there, you get to spend time clicking into the mob of adds to lock on them (because tabbing through sure won’t get you anywhere fast in an enemy huddle).
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Undead CanuckMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I will probably be called a troll again for just responding, but why don't we just wait until A1/A2 to figure out which is better? I am sure that they will be trying multiple scenerios and people will be able to adjust their gameplay to what they prefer.
If someone doesn't like action (which I assume includes soft targeting), go 75% tab. If someone doesn't like tab, go 75% action. Then you only have to ignore 25% of your abilities to play exactly how you want.
by simple virtue of being required to press more keys to achieve the same result as another player who doesn't have to hard lock onto their target first.
Number of key presses is probably the stupids metric for deciding what is a better or worse game system I've ever seen.
By that logic, Die Hard (with Bruce Willis) is the best game out there, as it requires no key presses at all.
Soft targeting sucks for when there are multiple targets in the same area. Tab targeting is far superior in these situations, but ONLY if the player sets it up. Players that complain about tab targeting are players that have not set it up.
If there are not multiple targets in the area, the targeting system used makes no meaningful difference.
Based on that, tab targeting is better.
Setting up tab targeting requires an unruly amount of keybinds. Target closest enemy, target target of my target, target farthest enemy, target closest ally, target farthest ally, target lowest health ally, target enemy targeting me, cycle closest -> farthest, cycle farthest -> closest, etc etc, there could be literally dozens, while a soft lock system lets you use your own eyes and brain to follow target selection and prioritize on your own.
Not really.
No class really has a need to have more than three or four target options for the role they are performing.
A tank has no need to have a keybind to target the lowest health ally, as an example.
This is why game developers don't set these keybinds up, as every class will need a different setup, and that setup can often change based on the role you are performing at that time (an example would be that a tank will want different targeting keybinds while they are main tank to when they are off tank).
A player that knows what they are doing will have all of their targeting options set up with variations of tab and tilde keys (and Esc in some games that allow for it), along with alt, ctrl and shift modifiers, and they will have different profiles set up for different roles they are playing in the group or raid.
Comments
I'm not sure what game you are playing but don't you still have to turn around and face your opponent to user your attack? You are forcing the user to do another action to perform their attack.
Not only are their several example of games that don't care about your facing, some of which Atama brought up, there are even games that do care about facing, that let you attack without facing on certain abilities. WoW, and SWTOR to name a two.
I don’t hate soft lock or games where you target like an FPS. I’ve played plenty, like TERA and SWL that are fun, I still play SWL (I have a lifetime sub) and I think the game is improved since becoming more action-oriented. It’s just not objectively superior to play that way.
Please make sure you actually read and understand what you’re replying to
.05s =/= .5s
Tab targeting systems almost always have more depth than most players realize - and I am only talking about the targeting aspect.
Most (good) games will have options to target the nearest and cycle through as standard actions, but then there is the option to only target mobs that are currently targeting you, mobs that are targrting others in your group/raid, mobs that have dealt damage to you, mobs that can heal, mobs that can stealth and mobs that can call others.
If you set this up in a way that makes sense to you as a player and that fits the role of your character, it is FAR more useful than manually targeting could ever be. Good players use the tab target system to prevent things going wrong - bad players think they are good because they click target mobs faster after things have gone wrong.
On the other hand, if you do nothing at all to set it up and leave it to where tab targets the nearest enemy and then continual presses target the next further away enemy, what you end up with if mobs are on the move is an unintuitive and unresponsive mess of a target system - but that is the fault of the player, not the game.
I think you'd have a better chance using an eye tracker and webcam to get the game to identify what you're looking at specifically, and combine that information with a soft lock.
Even then, the game might get confused (would be neat AF though!). I'd say the absolute easiest is to allow hard lock targeting for group members/ally targets and NOT for enemies (and don't allow hard targeting for enemies). Meaning you could hard target an ally while aiming at an enemy, clerics/support who also DPS might keep their hard target on a tank while actively trying to hurt enemies separately.
yeee he's clearly trolling...I don't want to think otherwise. Never minding that and focusing on the topic, as I said before by quoting what Steven has said, we will have the option to tie the reticle to the mouse movement. Now, if we had that 'action stance' + using the tab key to select a target, that'd be beyond moronic and clunky tbh.
You want to have traditional MMORPG camera and spam your tab key to select targets like in a game from decades ago? Go for it. There will be the option. The game after all tries to attract some traditional MMORPGers (who imo are the biggest obstacle for the genre to move forward) as well.
I'd suggest picking mostly AoEs instead of reticle based action abilities for your action bar. (for your other 25% of abilities)
Then you’re absolutely full of crap.
You read .05s as half a second and you’re really trying to act like I’m the one being ridiculous?
Revelation had a soft/hard lock action/tab combat rolled into their action combat control scheme and it wasn’t really bad by any means.
I didn’t heal with it but I know a lot of people that did with great success. Made it so you could just aim everything if you wanted but if people/mobs were stacked up you were able to tab to specific targets so your heals or targeted damaging abilities would hit who you wanted.
That game was a giant slew of disappointments, but the combat was pretty fun.
You on the other hand have the delusion that in 1/20th of a second you can spin around, target an enemy, and activate an attack. You either have absolutely no idea how fast that is or you’re trolling, either way you pulled it out of your ass.
For the sake of context, a really good frame rate for an MMO is 80 fps. That is extremely good. You’re saying that you can spin around and attack in the time it takes for a game to render 4 frames of animation.
Or get a stopwatch and time .05 seconds. Which is extremely difficult to do. Hell, on my phone I can’t even tap fast enough on one finger to start and stop a stopwatch in that time. The best I can get is .1 second. And you claim you have superhuman speed and can spin around and attack an enemy almost as fast as a computer can render it.
Again, you are completely full of it. I thought you were talking about a half a second because that’s physically possible. Now it is clear you have no idea what you’re saying, and any shred of credibility you want to claim is gone. Try not to make up completely insane and impossible claims next time you want to present an argument.
You have a poor grasp of how combat functions if you think the enemy is somehow invisible before I decide to attack it. I’m not reacting to a spontaneously appearing mob, I turn to pop off a quick hit to the enemy behind me when I see it charging an attack, then turn back to my primary target in one fluid motion. That’s a straightforward and easy thing to do, and altogether it might take a quarter of a second after noticing it to turn, attack, and turn back.
Go throw your temper tantrum elsewhere.
If you wanted a discussion, then you wouldn’t be complete ignoring the fact that I gave comparable speed to a tab click. And whether you acknowledge it or not, it’ll take more time to tab target for the same process I just described than it takes for action combat.
For every target swap, tab will always have an extra button to press.
If you like that, then you should a few videos about Lost Ark from TheLazyPeon. It looks amazing and has nice gameplay, but is sadly restricted to russia and asia. (TLP has a tutorial on how to play it no matter where you are)
Fractured is another game that is based no clicking that looks good
He didn't mention invisible enemy anywhere in the quoted post. I read it, twice.
You're also fabricating unmentioned details in the scenario you're claiming you can accomplish. Assuming an opponent behind you is one you've had time to recognize and plan a proper response using tactics rather than a snap reaction (which is what Atama was initially setting up as a scenario).
On top of that, you are still claiming super human reaction speeds. It takes "the average human" (in this particular case, pretty much all healthy humans. Reaction times are very... consistent) .25 seconds to react to visual stimulus. In the time it takes a normal human to perceive a threat, you are able to perceive, register, plan a response, and execute that response? You may be able to pull that off if you react to an audio stimulus, which drops almost a full .1s off your reaction time, but that's assuming you can achieve precision aiming based on audio alone.
Furthermore, your response requires coordination between left and right hand. That means communication between left and right hemispheres of your brain. Tab+Action can be performed with just the left hand, meaning zero communication and zero chance to miss or foul key press sequence. How does this work out? When you use two hands to type on the keyboard, you'll often have typos. That's because the two halves of your brain must constantly communicate with each other to coordinate your key press sequence. You'll notice that the typos almost always involve key press sequence issues when pushing a key with one hand, then the next key with the other in rapid succession. That means YOUR response requires the initial reaction, followed by moving the mouse, timing the action perfectly in motion, and resuming the spin to re-engage another target. Sounds all smooth criminal like, but that's a really REALLY tough claim to prove there chief.
You might think "Well I have buttons on my mouse set for action buttons! So I'm only using one hand and thus one hemisphere!" Nope. You'd have to have the left half of your brain specializing in both spatial awareness AND calculation, which is incredibly rare. If you were one of those rare cases, you would not be wasting your life arguing on a forum, you'd be making YouTube videos of sinking baskets from the bleachers like a boss. Meaning you're two hemispheres are still having to communicate just because you are adding the aim to your action sequence, while tab target completely eliminates that step all together.
Atama is absolutely correct, in the scenario he presented, tab target is much quicker than spin+aim+action.
Your argument about brain communication is so funny, because all it does is prove you wrong.
The left side of your brain is the part that controls the right side of your body. That part you insist has to tell your right-brain what to tell your mouse hand, is actually directly in control of that action. So using your own theory of brain-communication being a bigger detriment to gameplay than extra button presses, tab is inherently slower because the left brain has to signal the right-brain which controls your left side, on top of requiring more button presses.
In a combat sequence of attacking then returning to your original target:
Action combat: plan, turn cam, action, turn cam.
All done with the left side of your brain using an MMO mouse.
Meanwhile, tab: plan, brain communicates, tab select, action, tab select.
Requires both sides of the brain communicate because your left hand is controlled by the right side of your brain. Add another step of brain communication if you use an MMO mouse for abilities. Add another step each time target selection is incorrect.
It’s not throwing a temper tantrum to shred your foolishness with facts. I’m sorry if that made you mad (but not that sorry).
Whether or not it is faster to turn, target, and click a key/button than to do the same thing with a tab key and then a key/button is going to vary from individual to individual. It’s going to depend more on comfort than anything else. And you’re splitting hairs about fractions of a second that don’t matter. I reiterate my original point; it’s a matter of taste and there is no objective “better” method.
You're the one who latched onto a thrown out number when the whole entire point was to say both the act of turning the cam and reaching for tab take the same minuscule amount of time. But tab requires at least one an extra button press every time someone switches targets, which means it will obviously take longer for the one using tab targeting to adapt to a changing fight, by simple virtue of being required to press more keys to achieve the same result as another player who doesn't have to hard lock onto their target first.
By that logic, Die Hard (with Bruce Willis) is the best game out there, as it requires no key presses at all.
Soft targeting sucks for when there are multiple targets in the same area. Tab targeting is far superior in these situations, but ONLY if the player sets it up. Players that complain about tab targeting are players that have not set it up.
If there are not multiple targets in the area, the targeting system used makes no meaningful difference.
Based on that, tab targeting is better.
Someone you otter know.
I'll stick my nose in your debate of these "0.5s of actions" since I find it intresting. I think that we all agree, we can all do it whether it is tab targeting or something else. If we are ready and expecting the ennemy, it should be quicker than normal, if not we will be obviously longer to react. Depending on the situation we are in, the time needed to react will change a lot.
I got no ideas how our brain functions while playing, but some years ago I was playing an FPS and an ennemy came into my sight, I made his brain explode with one bullet only by reflexes, realising it only half a second later. I know that all of you had the chance to experiment something like this, at least one time in your life.
So acting very quickly is realisable. The question it rises is : is it possible for us to react that quickly everytime ?
I think not, or the player needs to be trained especially for this kind of situation, training it until it's all muscle memories and your brain have nothing to do with it. Which means you either are some sort of superhuman or some machine. So it's only doable. I trained myself in some game to this kind of situation, I can't do it everytime and if I do it without expecting it, it was always slower than when I expect it.
Back to the main topic, to me the tab targetting is still the best because there is parameters to make it very easy to use and convenient like someone said above. On some MMO's you can even mark targets with numbers & set a shortcut to target the number you want to hit. As long as there is the right tools, in any situation given the tab-targetting make the fights more convenient (as long as the fighter is prepared and handle the tab-targeting properly).
The soft-targetting is nice when you don't have that sort of parameters, since the tab targeting alone would become a pain in the ass. But it could be completely useless depending on the class you play and the format of the fight, what if you do a large scale battle and you need to focus a very specific target. Good luck hitting the good one when there is more than 50 players in your screen that runs everywhere.
Setting up tab targeting requires an unruly amount of keybinds. Target closest enemy, target target of my target, target farthest enemy, target closest ally, target farthest ally, target lowest health ally, target enemy targeting me, cycle closest -> farthest, cycle farthest -> closest, etc etc, there could be literally dozens, while a soft lock system lets you use your own eyes and brain to follow target selection and prioritize on your own.
Soft targeting is faster. It doesn’t mean you become completely unable to miss like tab does, which is why tab targeted abilities won’t be getting cc attached, but I’d argue nothing should guaranteed to hit outside of ally healing and buffs.
If you approach a large group of enemies all packed together, you should be using AoEs, not attempting to burst down one in the huddle with homing bullets. If there’s a priority add somewhere in there, you get to spend time clicking into the mob of adds to lock on them (because tabbing through sure won’t get you anywhere fast in an enemy huddle).
If someone doesn't like action (which I assume includes soft targeting), go 75% tab. If someone doesn't like tab, go 75% action. Then you only have to ignore 25% of your abilities to play exactly how you want.
No class really has a need to have more than three or four target options for the role they are performing.
A tank has no need to have a keybind to target the lowest health ally, as an example.
This is why game developers don't set these keybinds up, as every class will need a different setup, and that setup can often change based on the role you are performing at that time (an example would be that a tank will want different targeting keybinds while they are main tank to when they are off tank).
A player that knows what they are doing will have all of their targeting options set up with variations of tab and tilde keys (and Esc in some games that allow for it), along with alt, ctrl and shift modifiers, and they will have different profiles set up for different roles they are playing in the group or raid.