Less aggressive/no target lock option for controller

Target lock is very useful and comfy when using a controller but when using skills like

  • Forcewave
  • Flames of Ignaffar

it’s a little bit too aggressive and doesn’t allow you to cast Forcewave in-between two monsters to hit them both in a triangle situation which is not the case for mouse. You need to hit one after the other. You can play around it obviously by walking/using movement skills so that the monsters are in line which is an enjoyable mini-game on its own. And I still prefer controller to mouse because it’s implemented very well despite this minor personal issue.

It also makes those channeling/spamming skills rapidly change direction, not fluent, not following your analog properly.

Just wanted to toss it here but I don’t know the proper solution since target lock is global to all skills/independent and aggressive target lock is useful for spells that need target. Besides it would be probably a lot of work to change appropriately mainly because cursor position coordinates are 2-dimensional whereas the rotation of character is 1-dimensional (doesn’t include two very different situations when you are close or far from the monsters). And you cannot target free space behind the 2 monsters to aim between them and not target lock on any of them like you can with cursor.

Binding Stationary Attack to a controller button to get a sort of “free-aim” effect is a workaround I’ve been experimenting with for some skills. I’m still not sure how much I like it, but it is an option that doesn’t require you to micromanage monster positions.

Edit: “free-aim” is inaccurate. see my next post.

It doesn’t work for me. Despite being stuck in place with “Hold position” I still cannot cast the wave in-between dummies. Target lock changes the angle from the center of 1 dummy to the 2nd discretely.

Huh. I haven’t been experimenting with forcewave specifically. I’ll be back with an edit of this post after a quick test.

Edit:
So my earlier comment was inaccurate. Stationary Attack is, unfortunately, not a true free-aim. If you have a target highlighted, there doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid the snap-to-target attacking/casting behavior. I suspect that Stationary Attack felt a bit like free aim to me because it’s a markedly different way of moving away from a current target than simple character movement.

That being said, implementing a fully free-aim version of what Stationary Attack is (i.e. pivot in place and ignore enemy targets for attack/cast placement) seems like an easy half-measure* to put in place. I think any auto-target that allows you to hit enemies off-center is going to be much harder to implement, considering that hitbox sizes and shapes vary between attacks/casts. Toggling target on and off also seems easy but maybe less preferable to Stationary Attack free-aim since to avoid your aim drifting from character movement, you’d need one more button for Stationary Attack (though maybe both target toggle and Stationary Attack free-aim could be options since they each seem easy to do).

*I say half-measure because this only deals with direction, not depth/distance (which you might want for something like sigil of consumption), but even having directional control+default cast depth here would be awesome.

Edit 2:
+1 for any option to change controller targeting behavior as outlined in OP, especially on the fly

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