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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
I really want to like Action Combat, but...
Palmskee
Member, Alpha Two
It sucks. I really want to like it because I am not a fan of tab targeting, but it just feels bad. I plan on continuing to use only action combat mode because its a system I want to see function well considering its my preferred playstyle, so I will continue doing so & will provide further feedback the more I play. But man is it painful & I often find myself going into tab target mode briefly to alleviate some of the below issues.
Issues
1. TARGETING
If you're attacking an enemy, and another enemy crosses your screen, it is highly likely that your "soft lock" target changes to this new enemy and you start attacking them instead.
Example: As a Mage, if I auto attacked and tried kiting an enemy, even if I kept aiming at that enemy, I would end up pulling other mobs because my reticle just so happened to briefly be closer to the new enemy when they popped up on my screen while kiting.
2. SELF HEAL (Bard Specifically)
Bard has that one ability that is either a heal or you throw a tomato. I hate this skill: If you want to use it to heal yourself, you have to either turn away from the enemy (and potentially target a new enemy) or you look to the ground (and still, potentially target a new enemy). So I learned the best way to heal myself is to get out of action combat mode, get to tab target mode, clear my target, then I can heal myself. If I tried to hotkey "Target Self", that wouldn't fix the issue either. Targeting myself in Action Combat mode did not make a difference.
3. HEALING OTHERS (Bard Specifically)
The other problem I had is I would try to aim towards other players to throw a heal their way, but I would either heal myself instead of them OR I would attack some enemy that's off screen somewhere.
4. BLOCKING
I tried out the Tank for a bit (but not as much) and it seemed like action combat worked fairly well, but my issue was still the "soft lock" target problem where I would be actively aiming at one enemy but then the soft lock target jolts to the new target when I am not trying to aim at them.
Next weekend I plan on testing tank specifically & I want to test it further and see how the blocking works if I am fighting 2 enemies at once. I think what could be a problem here is because of the weird hover aim of action mode, you might try to block the attack of one enemy to only miss the block because the reticle was acting dumb.
4. SUGGESTION
a. Get rid of this odd floaty aim assist that y'all have built into action combat mode. It causes more harm than good; I can understand that maybe you wanted to go that route because MMO gamers are often bad at aiming and could use some assistance, but that's what tab targeting is for. Let it be true free aim. If you miss your target, well you suck. Go to aim labs or something & get good, or use tab target.
b. Maybe separate the bard ability that has different effects depending on the target? Or fix the Action Combat mode so if you're in action combat & you select the hotkey to target yourself, that it changes the effect of the spell (heals you instead of attacking some nearby enemy). I remember at one point I accidentally hit the PVP lock button (I think it was default ALT + F?) & I had PVP mode enabled. I kept instinctively aiming at other players I saw were at low health to try and help them out, to only kill them because I threw a tomato at them XD
Overall I think action combat could become enjoyable to use, but for now it's much more reliable to use tab target mode to make sure I am selecting the correct targets, which sucks because I like the feel of action combat more.
Issues
1. TARGETING
If you're attacking an enemy, and another enemy crosses your screen, it is highly likely that your "soft lock" target changes to this new enemy and you start attacking them instead.
Example: As a Mage, if I auto attacked and tried kiting an enemy, even if I kept aiming at that enemy, I would end up pulling other mobs because my reticle just so happened to briefly be closer to the new enemy when they popped up on my screen while kiting.
2. SELF HEAL (Bard Specifically)
Bard has that one ability that is either a heal or you throw a tomato. I hate this skill: If you want to use it to heal yourself, you have to either turn away from the enemy (and potentially target a new enemy) or you look to the ground (and still, potentially target a new enemy). So I learned the best way to heal myself is to get out of action combat mode, get to tab target mode, clear my target, then I can heal myself. If I tried to hotkey "Target Self", that wouldn't fix the issue either. Targeting myself in Action Combat mode did not make a difference.
3. HEALING OTHERS (Bard Specifically)
The other problem I had is I would try to aim towards other players to throw a heal their way, but I would either heal myself instead of them OR I would attack some enemy that's off screen somewhere.
4. BLOCKING
I tried out the Tank for a bit (but not as much) and it seemed like action combat worked fairly well, but my issue was still the "soft lock" target problem where I would be actively aiming at one enemy but then the soft lock target jolts to the new target when I am not trying to aim at them.
Next weekend I plan on testing tank specifically & I want to test it further and see how the blocking works if I am fighting 2 enemies at once. I think what could be a problem here is because of the weird hover aim of action mode, you might try to block the attack of one enemy to only miss the block because the reticle was acting dumb.
4. SUGGESTION
a. Get rid of this odd floaty aim assist that y'all have built into action combat mode. It causes more harm than good; I can understand that maybe you wanted to go that route because MMO gamers are often bad at aiming and could use some assistance, but that's what tab targeting is for. Let it be true free aim. If you miss your target, well you suck. Go to aim labs or something & get good, or use tab target.
b. Maybe separate the bard ability that has different effects depending on the target? Or fix the Action Combat mode so if you're in action combat & you select the hotkey to target yourself, that it changes the effect of the spell (heals you instead of attacking some nearby enemy). I remember at one point I accidentally hit the PVP lock button (I think it was default ALT + F?) & I had PVP mode enabled. I kept instinctively aiming at other players I saw were at low health to try and help them out, to only kill them because I threw a tomato at them XD
Overall I think action combat could become enjoyable to use, but for now it's much more reliable to use tab target mode to make sure I am selecting the correct targets, which sucks because I like the feel of action combat more.
6
Comments
Does this happen if you've hit 'Q' to lock a target? (Did you know you could do it?)
F-keys should absolutely override action combat soft target. I thought that was the point of action targetting being hybrid.
I agree with your suggestions.
use F1-F8 to target party members also if you use "Q" you hard lock on enemies so your skills wont hit others
discord.gg/lod
Target should only change if you press "Tab" or your current target dies and with the next press on any "damage skill or auto" you hit the next thing. I agree with this one as I also had this experience.