Those targeting lines in Final Fantasy XII

[Jouten]

I tried doing a search on this but searching for "XII" can only bring up so much.

Anyway, I think it'd be a pretty cool idea that since we're going for the auto-attack route that we'd have that little feature from Final Fantasy XII. My thought on how it should act would be pretty much exactly the same as it was in the game, but of course make it visible to only party members so we don't see random streaks flying around everywhere when venturing out. It'd help with managing battle plans and can show who's doing what right and who needs some more guidance in combat. Like blue lines will arc over to a target if you lock onto them, green lines towards party members for heals, red lines to see if the monster is targeting you. This can help guide who needs to be closer to healers, if the tank needs to quickly use their skills once they see an enemies red line target somebody who isn't themselves *even though we will be getting that enmity icon, this would help make it obvious for tanks that they aren't targeted anymore*, and will help guide the whole party for focus on a single mob and not accidentally target the wrong one which has happened a LOT of times.

What do you guys think?

[SydeBeheln]

I always thought this was a good idea as well. However, I can only imagine how irritating those lines would be after several hours of end-game related content. Just the thought of having those lines in something like abyssea, or dynamis are horrific. None the less, the idea was a solid one for that of FF12, and I can imagine one day, within an MMO, the feature could be used in a much more compressed version.

[Jouten]

Well there should also be an ability to toggle it off. I was talking about it to a few of my friends and what you stated popped up. It would get terribly annoying, but it would really help especially for the PS3 release, at least I BELIEVE it should. It could totally backfire but I can't think of a way it could.

[SydeBeheln]

Yea, like I said, a more compressed version is something I would rather see. Maybe just the first line to indicate who attacked first. Something along those lines.

[Jouten]

Or it could be completely tailored to a person's preference. Say for instance you want certain actions to create lines to have certain hues of color or turn certain ones completely off. I could see how it could give an advantage to other players, but it's in the game for everybody to use for themselves. So say buffing spells I could see be purple hues if you wanted, red to be npc aggressive actions, green healing, blue attacking, yellow are skills, etc, but let the players themselves decide what they want.

[dudeguy006]

The more we can make it like 12 the better, I would love to see some sort of gambit options, I don't like the whole battle regimine thing though.

[yoshikwalla]

In a party of 8 people, targeting lines would be hell to look at. Also, there's no need for it. You can target an enemy and lock on. The party leader/tank can mark an enemy for the other people to target and lock onto. I'd much rather use marking as a planning tool than lines sprawling around the screen because honestly, it's a bit distracting in larger parties.

[Jouten]

I can understand why it'd look horrible, but that game is going auto-attack so I don't really think you'd see them as frantically flying all over the place as you'd think. It only happens when the character or NPC changes their targets then after that it disappears. Plus it's a tad pain in the butt hitting that emote icon, enemy signs, and specifically hitting the "attack" sign on an enemy. The PS3 would have a horrible time trying to do that.

[yoshikwalla]

I support monster-side targeting lines - it would make it easier to know what monster aggros who, especially for a tank trying to keep enmity. However, I'd much rather the developers streamline the Enemy Sign system. Players would know what to look for and the tank would have an easier time.

[Jouten]

Oh yeah, if they could make the Enemy Sign system better then I wouldn't stress the whole line arching notification.