Tab targeting is remarkably bad

[NessaWyvern]

Targeting stuff is so gods dammed terrible in PvP, I play mostly healer due to the fact that I can mostly just use the party list.

[xJimmehx]

I too dislike the current targeting systems. I hate it so much that I spent hours fiddling with different mice/keyboards/controllers/gaming keypads
with the joystick(Razer Tartarus Chroma)/etc until i found the best setup i could.

I tried making the game more arpg-like with macros one time that targetted the closest enemy and activated my skills

Basically:

Heavy Swing
/targetstuffhere
/ac "Heavy Swing"

Skull Sunder
/targetstuffhere(I dont remember this macro command lol)
/ac "Skull Sunder"

I did something similar to this for every attack-type skill and it actually felt really really good. Almost perfect.

As soon as my warrior runs up and hits something like say for example, overpower, it automatically selects the target and overpowers them. It felt very hack-and-slash and helped me avoid targetting the traditional way. I also added a line in my overpower macro that said that if i was not in range, to use tomohawk instead. It was pretty damn great.

The only problem with this is that macros in xiv suck. Sometimes they are delayed horribly or dont even register if you lag a bit. Also the queuing of actions is really nice to have. I dont play like this any longer but if they fixed macros a bit i would do this for all melee jobs.

Timers in macros are only good for crafting. Almost never use it in combat and even using macros at all can be a massive problem sometimes in high end raids with hardcore statics.

The best control scheme ive found to make playing the game "comfortable" is the Razer Tartarus Chroma keypad and occasional macros for targetting a focus target/lasttarget/etc as well as using a mouse to target/rotate camera/navigate menues. Its a pain in the but to select things yourself. In fact it gives me hand strain. The problem is I can immediately click on anything i see. Compared to clicking tab multiple times until its finally selected. But mice in general are terrible for extended periods of use. Ive been looking for a replacement for a mouse for years. Though nothing beats a keypad. Controller is close but having to change pages to select skills in xiv is awful. On my keypad i have every skill set up on 3 different hotbars. I just used modifier keys like CTRL and ALT. Wow this ended up being a massive post. I guess im a little obsessed with finding a better setup. Im mean really, come on. there arent even any controllers that naturally fit into human hands. The natural posture of a rested human hand is something youd do when you gently chest pass a basketball in gym class.

[xJimmehx]

A bit off topic but i posted the above post without editing. Did they remove the 1000 character limit?

[Maxcrafter]

While I don't know this for sure, I'd bet my last gil that two things are true: 1) S.E. knows perfectly well how to make not just good, or excellent tab targeting - they can make it crazy good - i.e. fabulous targeting, and 2) The current level of such 'automated' assist is left as it is, which is to say, somewhat unpredictable, for the purpose of interfering with bot targeting. If any sort of automated targeting worked well, it would make the bot world crazy easy. So... S.E. had a choice, leave tab targeting in the "somewhat clumsy" category, and thereby introduce a level of bot exploit control, or turn it loose and watch the bot fun. Not a fun choice, because if we, the readers, were the S.E. engineering team we'd be some hurtin' puppies after looking at how it works now and not being able put the better stuff out there when we know we can.

Metaluna

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

sometimes i just click them with my mouse because its pretty much what you said just now.

the target just keep cycling all enemy except the one i want to be targeted lol

Yeah, I hate when I'm tanking and one enemy at the very end of my tab cycle is roaming off when I want to Shield Lob it.

[Galactimus]

If you have a macro mouse (Razer etc) I recommend using:

F11 Targeting (Right to Left) on button #1
TAB Targeting (Left to Right) on button #2


This gives you full control of targeting left or right really quickly with your thumb on the mouse.
(As well as other things like Shield Lob, Gap Closers, etc.)

[Krojack]

Yes, tab targeting is compete trash in this game.

From what I found on the web, in 1.0 it use to have an option where if you're in combat then it would only cycle though mobs you're in combat with. That seems to have been removed in 2.0. Seems pretty stupid to remove something like that.

Not in combat: tab should target the closest mob then cycle out from there.
In combat: tab should cycle though your enemy list from top to bottom.

[Ladon]

Yes, tab targeting is compete trash in this game.

From what I found on the web, in 1.0 it use to have an option where if you're in combat then it would only cycle though mobs you're in combat with. That seems to have been removed in 2.0. Seems pretty stupid to remove something like that.

Not in combat: tab should target the closest mob then cycle out from there.
In combat: tab should cycle though your enemy list from top to bottom.

This is absolutely still in the game as target filtering. You just have to use shift-tab for tab targeting to respect the filter settings as default tab ignores them.

[SamSmoot]

Tab targeting tends to cause problems in general. If we head to another game with tab targeting we'll usually see similar complaints The below thread is on the WoW forums discussing how tab targeting is really horrible.

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17614713003

WoW targeting is closest to furthest starting with closest if you had no target. There, I used this macro: Cleartarget, then Targetenemy on my mouse wheel button, which always picked the closest thing in front of me Then, TAB stepped outward. It's also restricted to a frontal cone, so it won't get stuff behind you.

Here, I just use cone target mode, but it keeps grabbing things off to the side unless I'm almost within aggro range of higher level mobs.

[hynaku]

For me always targets furthest enemy away and not closest one. Tab targeting really sucks