Yeah i’ve been running it for years now too.
I Agree it’s a hindrance in fights where the ability to choose ones target would be much more preferable, which led to me agreeing with the OP
“The OPTION to have an OPTIONAL targetting system can’t be a bad thing and opens up the enjoyment of play to more people.
It’s not like it takes anything away from those who prefer reticle.”,
I would still like the option - Regardless.
Ouch, that’s harsh !
I’m sorry but so far, I find the reticle targeting quite inaccurate (badly defined hitbox?), sometimes impractical. Even confusing, e.g. during the Superhel in Agartha, when using a range build, quite often when another player ran between Hel & me, the system highlighted that player name, and I’m all like “Hey, am I still hitting Hel ? Is that guy my defensive target now ?” Of course, I kept Hel as offensive target, an myself as defensive one (I don’t self F1 cause I know by default I am my defensive target), but the visual information I get from the screen -player’s highlited name- gets counterintuitive.
Reticle targeting was introduced as an option, and afaik not many people used it. Why did FC add it to the game ? To fulfill the community demand ? To copy what all others MMO were doing ? To add a targeting system that would be viable for gamepads and sell the game on consoles ?
I’ve read a few people who like the reticle system, BUT they would enjoy it more with a lock-on-target button, a bit like in Zelda Ocarina of Time on N64 (what a great game!). Imo, that lock is quite close to tab targeting, I could deal with that, even if it’s not as fast as tab targeting can be.
Maybe I am archaic and asking for prehistoric stuff, but old recipes have quite often proven their worth and solidity compared to modern solutions 
And I believe it wouldn’t be too hard on the dev team, cause unless they did the fatal error of deleting it, the code is probably present in the game sources (eck, I’ve seen my toon using the aegis change animation despite the aegis system not being available anymore, so bits of code are still here, just disabled)
\_o< quack! 
Which fights are you struggling to complete because of the reticle?
It can’t be necessary for certain fights and optional 
Yeah and the solution to that is “fix the reticle”.
I didn’t say I was struggling and I didn’t say it was necessary.
I would still like the option.
Tab target is the best for MMORPGs. But I still agree with you in it has no place in SWL, since it is not one. As Svella pointed out, even by their own terms it is now a shared world ARGP, and for those, ridicou… reticule target could be better.
(not to mention Funcom would never spend any resources on adding it back.
not to mention 2, it would be like band-aid on a ripped off limb, since even with tab target there’d still be the gear grind, the absence of Wheel, and such)
Krumpf, if you are in for some tab target fun, TSW is here and welcoming you back with open arms… You might say
Not really, more like the quarantine wall around Kaidan.
Living its everyday life, friends and family (former players) can visit any time, but from everyone else it’s guarded securely by shooters on the walls, in Funcom jackets
(but those seeking hard enough can Target some cracks on the wall, tho)
That for sure is one solution. But a costly one, cause it requires a dev to tweak the target detection algorithm on the Z axis , and/or the hitbox of everything that is “targetable”
Then it’s obviously not much of a hindrance, is it?
If you’re just going to make stuff up to support your argument you could at least make an effort to sound like you’re basing it on something other than “it would be convenient for me if this were true”. Aside from anything else, we know the code to determine what enemy is under a specific point on screen exists in the engine already because you could target enemies by clicking on them in TSW
It was the best way to handle targeting 20 years ago when MMOs were literally just MUDs nailed to a 3d engine, sure. PCs nowadays are more than capable of working out what you’re looking at without needing a workaround though.
Your opinion - not mine.
At the risk of repeating myself again . . Are you done?
Just adding one thing in case it didn’T come up. The reticle system is what I would call “sticky”.
Meaning once you have a target it tries to keep that one even if there is another target closer in the same direction.
If I had to guess it was implemented that way to make it easy on people with reflexes of a snail or the aim of an artillery piece with drunk gunnery crew.
Not diving into the reticle vs tab target but personally I think that “stickiness” could be lower and still do it’s job.
So we agree some unused code from TSW still remains in SWL, and you’re telling it wouldn’t be costly to re-enable it.
Yet I fail to understand why you seem so vehement against the idea of doing this for tab targeting to offer an alternative option to everyone.
I think that’s quite close to (if not exactly) the soft lock some people would like to see, and that would be a nice improvement for the reticle targeting, and I’d see this as a compromise between “pure” reticle and tab targeting.
Because adding bad features to the game is not a good use of dev time?
What would be a good use of dev time then ?
It’s not hard to find situations where tab targetting can do things reticle can’t; that’s any fight with more than 1 target on screen
If reticle had any sort of priority settings then maybe it’d be able to keep up… it doesn’t, it is not always possible to target the enemy you want to hit even when you’re staring at it.
I don’t need tho 270 degree window for hitting the enemy I’ve tab targetted that tsw had, yes that’s nice, but what I actually want is to be able to select the Lurker and hit the lurker when I’m standing in front of the Lurker. SWL currently does not provide that.
The smallest crutch I can think of is if instead of picking the farthest target I’m looking at, I could choose to prioritize the highest or lowest HP target. Or maybe only have it pick from ones I can attack. Having melee weapons means “enemy is not within range” when 5 enemies are up in my face but 1 has backed off to 6m
This seems like a deeply unserious question or are you actually trying to imply that the game is absolutely perfect and there’s not a single thing the devs could be adding or fixing?
Congratulations Sir, you’ve spotted my sarcasm 
Back to topic: Actually, we can use a key to cycle through friendly targets, so I think it’s reasonable to assume the necessary code for tab targeting still exists.
What about implementing an option to switch from friendly to hostile targets ? A bit like the option to allow/deny/ask for meet-up requests.
I just did a small test: using the reticle, friendly targets get highlighted when under ~10.6 meters, while the distance increases to ~25.4m when tabbing. Hostile target through the reticle are detected at ~27m (not 100%, the number is hard to read)
Also, during the “Message to Hell” side mission in KD; there are 3 crates you got to destroy. I used elemental skill to damage those, and it required 2 hits (thanks not to laugh at my dps output ). Thing is when the 2nd hit landed, my reticle was way off the target, like ~30° away. So, there could possibly already be some kind of “soft lock” but for static targets, OR I had my aim on the crate when I pressed the button, and moved the mouse away while the already queued ability fired, OR these crates got a rather large hitbox. More investigation will be done (if I don’t forget about it ^^ )
Sometimes, even with only 1 target that is not moving, in close range - less than 10 meters- just barely 1° off is enough for the reticle to lose aim. It feels like you can’t hit the broad side of a barn (I had to search for that expression - english is not my native language). To me, it’s like either the reticle algorithm is really not accurate, or the mob’s hitbox is awful (or maybe my hands are having uncontrollable tremors). Lucky for us, we’re not playing a FPS or a shmup 
Edit: the friendly target tabbing seems to be limited to a ~60° in the direction you’re facing (that’s an estimate)
Some testing has been done !
Here’s a video: an epic fight, me vs the training mannequins
I’m just using the basic AR ability, and oscillating from left to right. You may notice my reticle never goes red, and yet i keep hitting. The way it switches between the left & right targets is interesting, it’s sometimes clearly closer to the right one, but hits are landing on the left one.
Theory: there’s some kind of target soft lock, but its detection algorithm is not the best quality. When a FPS gets released on both PC & consoles, the console version often gets some kind of aimbot assistance, to counter the inaccuracy of gamepad controls (while a pc mouse can be more precise - depends on the player really); could such an help be implemented in SWL targeting system ?
Observing the behavior of reticle targeting, I don’t think asking for an optional tab targeting -which imo would be way more accurate- is unreasonable.
Side note 1: I’m using the AR for that test, cause the distance make it easier to show the error margin of the 60° (that’s my estimate) aim angle. But i believe it’s also true for closer targets
Side note 2: I do glance on the NM mannequin. Eons ago, I suggested to add the “Sir Glancelot” title, but I guess my idea never got selected 
Anyway, discuss, or try to reproduce that experiment and come with another theory
\_o< quack !
What are you trying to say? Targeting (Tab) system would be another option or not? Tests that are one-sided don’t help here. Don’t be afraid boy, you’ll keep your controller. We are talking about mouse and keyboard players with tab option like TSW, nothing more. I don’t think you’ll understand. However, I can try to explain it here without upsetting the other side.
See here
the problem is money
I can see preferring the reticle - I can’t see demanding that we don’t have tab targeting. The game is literally built on tab targeting, the combat system is still functionally tab targeted. The only reason they stuck with the reticle so hard was for the marketing ploy of “action combat”, which it wasn’t, and now that the game has been out for some time we can probably drop the pretenses and just put the tab targeting back in now.
Another epic fight: me vs a locust mound !
You can see despite being at quite close range, the detection algorithm can’t “see” that huge locust mound, weird thing is it’s highlighted. You may check I’m clicking the sword attack a lot, but there are no valid targets in range 
At ~12 seconds, a locust jumps in front of me, and gets killed. But the mound stays invisible.
The real fun part imo, is at ~40 seconds when, without turning or moving, I can kill one of the small locusts on my left, and yet I’m still unable to spot the mound.
Ok, I’ll admit I’m being a bit dishonest here. I could easily attack the mound by turning a little on the left. But my point is to show the limits of the reticle targeting detection algorithm, which doesn’t seem able to work outside a 60° angle facing the character (30° to the left, 30° to the right).
About the locust at 40 secs, it gets detected through another algorithm which makes the system “target last enemy who hit you” (iirc there was an option like that in tsw, gotta check if it’s still here in swl). But fact I could attack hit ruins my estimate angle of frontal vision, it’s closer to a 45-50° on the left (meaning past the 30° I theorized)
@The02 The problem isn’t really money, unless FC doesn’t have a dev in its team and need to hire one. More likely the problem is time, I suppose every guy in FC team got a (tight) schedule of stuff to do (I hope you guys aren’t in a permanent crunch). But well, time is money ^^
Remember folks, all I’m asking for is to bring back tab targeting as an option for all the MMO senile elders like me 
I’m not trying to remove the reticle targeting, many people enjoy it, good for them. But not all of us do
