Auto Target suggestion

People don’t get the targeting on this game. I had to learn with my old Behemoth Zenits- if I targeted a bot in the extreme back on Carrier, I could potentially have 5 red bots interrupting it, each going their own way. The ability to rapidly target multiple people with different ranges is deeply dependent on this mechanic, and the people who are most voracious in their anger towards it swearing the code has been deliberately manipulated to cheat them out of kills (cough champion leaguers here cough) in favor of newer players simply don’t 「fluffernutter」ing grasp the two are interrelated. This game operates off a old theatrical concept called “Point of the Prince” where dead ahead of you is always the center of the screen- everything is projected proportional. The game presumes what is closest to you is what you want to engage the most (99% that’s correct), and the auto targeting will favor this. 「dookie」 too high falls in a visual/targeting dead zone, but your ability to see it will last longer than the ability for your bot to lock in on it- the auto aim essentially sees a smaller screen. You gotta keep the red you want in the invisible auto target box, and make sure that they are the closest to the center of your point of prince center- this is why you see Ao Ming flying weird sometimes when targeting one bot in a crowd- they often don’t realize it but they are trying to center the sucker and making everyone else stagger farther outside of the box, and the guy below is often interpreted as being the closest even though the most harmless and so they gotta fly in a weird pattern.

Most people don’t realize this is what a happening and so go playing for years, think they can aim, get a moderatorship here and high league status due to whaling or saving but don’t comprehend how they learned to shoot in the first place on a conscious level. They never studied it, it just came naturally to them.

The side effect of a lockdown will be disastrous for a lot of players, as we select range by centering where the point of the prince is, and have no independent vertical axis option for viewing in a 3D environment- people will instantly exploit this and just take cover corner shooting or outright hiding- jumping back and forth making quick gaming superstars here expend more ammunition than they are used to, and they will have to pull off two independent operations- turning the lock-on on, and then off.

In the Boydian OODA Loop of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act that is putting two full decision cycles into play- they will have to realize they can lock onto someone, breaking their unconscious immersion in the game, and then start from scratch observing and orienting and deciding if the opponent is reacting in a exploitable manner and trigger that lock-off function. A lot of really good players will be dead in that space of time trying to figure it out.

I’m not defending the system, just pointing out how it seems to work. People who think it is a easy fix don’t realize how 「fluffernutter」ed up up and dependent their own gameplay is on it not being “more logical”, and that the change would dramatically undermine their own gameplay in alot of cases. The dip「dookie」s- most honored and beloved dip「dookie」s beloved and esteemed by all- here who scream the loudest understand this the least. You would quite possibly have to change the whole system- and the result wouldn’t resemble the War Robots everyone got used to playing, it would be a different game with the same old skins. People would 「female dog」 and moan the league they used to be in is booting them lower and that they played for years- and claim it was such a simple change. It isn’t a simple change when factoring in rapid changes of perspective in melee fighting when you unconsciously got used to rapidly targeting three opponents in front of you with great precision and find suddenly you can’t and the game suddenly got more complicated and your reaction time is crap. Many will adapt, but many will feel the curve to relearning everything is too much. And those people are high league spenders.

onasander I think you misunderstand the OP. In War Robots you will be targeting a red and begin to fire and some fire will go at the target but a split second after beginning to fire your target changes and your fire is then going to the wrong red or a wall or stops because it’s too far away.

Also you mention that the targeting prioritizes what’s closest to the reticule and what’s nearest. I don’t find that to be the case. Often I flip through the targets and it’ll go all around, sometimes even multiple cycles before selecting what’s closest to my reticule. And distance? Nah, that makes no matter. I’ll have someone bum rushing me at 200m and can’t target them over the reds 600m away.

I have 600 M range I'm shooting at a bot that is 599 M away, it's one shot from being dead and a bot appears off to one side at 400 M, I'm not looking at it and the 「fluffernutter」ing targeting shifts to it because it's closer. Even though I cannot hit it because it's behind a wall and now my target escapes. Yes I have rage quit many times because of the targeting being a moron.

Or what if they just made it like Call of Duty Mobile, you only hit what your reticle is placed on, there's no need for auto-lock or manual lock, so you can fire continuously and move your shots from target to target but it never forcibly jumps your reticle to different targets. The excption for manual-lock would be when using homing weapons.

For many years the auto-targeting has been too loose, and mostly uncontrolled by the player. When there is a cluster of reds in the field of vision, it often will move without choice even if you don't move the reticle, and with no preference for what is closer or far away. You put your reticle on someone right in front of you and without your choice it jumps to a distant target behind them. This design complicates manual-lock in several ways, such as auto-lock jumping to a different target right when you tap manual-lock, or toggling through targets while manual locked will often skip the target you actually want, which many times just so happens to be the enemy your reticle is on right in front of you.

If they implemented your idea, it would be closer to Call of Duty, but I don't like that you'd have to release the fire button just to switch targets. That's why I feel the best solution is eliminating target-locks completely and just having your reticle decide who the target is. Imagine if a rifle sniper game implemented War Robots crappy targeting - just as you fire your reticle forcibly jumps to a target behind a wall off to the left. Nobody would play it. Guarantee people wouldn't play CoDm if it had War Robots targeting. F that!

The only thing I've found to minimize target-hop error when it is crucial to concentrate on one particular target is to make a habit of using manual-lock, and making sure to keep the target within the invisible lock-parameters. I know in the past in this discussion some people said their manual-lock would suddenly disengage even when they kept the lock-parameters, but I have never experienced target-hopping while using manual-lock unless my reticle or the target breached the lock-parameters. And I've found tightening the aim/chassis toggle reduces the likelihood of breaching.

Care to explain? What's with the trolling of champion league forum members?

I've looked over a bunch of his replies in various threads and there's a lot of great input. The unnecessary rudeness will be addressed.

Why is it so hard to fix the targeting system? 

The manual targeting on a trigger was great until like update 6.0. Then it got very stupid.

Before scrolling targets was a breeze, even in clusters. You might not be able to read who it is and I think they should fix that like making the one you locked on name turn green. But before it was sweet because if you aim at a spot and keep pressing the trigger, it would just scroll through the targets in your gun sights and stay locked until you or the red broke your lock or you switch to another target. Never really waste too many shots per match like that and it was good.

Now (since 6.0)when you pointing at a red right in front of you, he could be shooting you- if you target lock, your guns insta-lock on some random red no where near the battle- and you click click click click like mad until the lock scrolls thru every possible red that matters least before it gets to the red you want. Most often youre usually dead by then but hey. next bot, right? lol