STAR TREK 2d20
  1. #1

    Targeting Confusion

    Not sure if this is a bug or confusing UI, and I haven't tested it outside 2E, so it might be present in Core RPG too. I did test with a fresh campaign and no extensions enabled though.

    As some background, I've been using Fantasy Grounds for over a year and sometimes things just don't target what I think they will. Until today I never tried to sit down and figure out what was going wrong, because it was always happening in the heat of the moment mid-game.

    What appears to be the case is that who you're targeting WITH seems dependent on whether you're clicking on a map token or clicking on a CT entry when doing the targeting.

    Example in the GIF below.

    Confusion who I'm targeting with

    1. I have 4 combatants. It's Tester Guy's turn, and I've got him active both as the selected entry in the CT as well as the selected token. As I control-click on each token on the map, you can see that he targets them (arrows draw, and the CT entries show them targeted).

    2. Now I control-click on each CT entry and one-by-one untarget those three creatures. Working as expected!

    3. Now, on the map, I select the bugbear. In the CT, however, Tester Man is still selected.

    4. I control-click on the three tokens that aren't the bugbear. You can see that the bugbear targets each of those other three actors, and the targeting lines draw appropriately.

    5. I control-click on the three actors that aren't the bugbear in the CT. Instead of doing the targeting with the bugbear, it's doing the targeting with Tester Man. So instead of untargeting the bugbear's 3 targets, similar to how it worked for Tester Man in Step 2 above, what I'm actually doing is targeting those three actors with Tester Man.

    6. (Not shown in gif). If I select the Bugbear in the CT (simple left-click) and make him the selected CT entry (just to be clear, didn't make it his turn though) and control-click on the other CT entries, now it does the untargeting with with the bugbear. End result is now he's got no one targeted but Tester Man has himself, the Aboleth, and the Ankheg targeted.



    The confusion here to me is that who you're targeting WITH depends on which control you're doing the targeting on. I guess I'd expect them to stay in sync. If that was the only problem, I'd probably get it through my head to treat those as totally separate controls, except there are other bits of weirdness... the graphic effect on the map of the crosshairs for who is targeted gets really confusing when you start mixing who you're doing the targeting with.


    Confusion about what the crosshairs mean

    1. I've cleared all target's from above. It's Test Guy's turn and he's also selected in the CT. He targets the Aboleth via control-click on it's map token.
    2. Without touching the CT or changing turns, I click the Bugbear map token and control-click on the Ankheg to make the bugbear target the Ankheg. Note that you still see crosshairs over the Aboleth that Test Guy targeted (but no line from it to Test Guy), and see a line from the Bugbear to the Ankheg. At this point, it's very hard to tell who is targeting what.
    3. Select the "Test Guy" token again. You now see a line drawn from Test Guy to his target the Aboleth, but you also see crosshairs (with no line) over the Ankheg, which the bugbear (but not Test Guy) has targeted.
    4. Hit the "next turn" button. Now the crosshairs over the Aboleth disappear, and all you're seeing is crosshairs over the Ankheg (with a line) because that's the bugbear's target. If you cycle turn back to Test Guy, it will only show his target. So basically there's something going wrong with the crosshair display if you do the targeting when it's not your turn, but it "corrects" once you change turns.



    Disappearing crosshairs

    Bonus: If you want to make it extra confusing, in step 2 above, have the bugbear target and then untarget the aboleth. Now there will be no crosshair over it, and when you select Test Guy in step 3, you'll see a line drawn to the Aboleth, but no target crosshair over it. Basically, the crosshairs are getting out of sync.



    I'm also seeing some other weird cases sometimes but am having trouble nailing down steps to reproduce. Will post if I figure it out.

    No idea what this is like on the player side of things, although I do hear a lot of "I swear I had that guy targeted!" comments come from them a lot.


    TLDR for people who aren't Celestian: If you want to avoid mistargeting, making sure you always click on the guy you want to target with on the CT before targeting via CT or always clicking on their map token before targeting via map token will help the most (but not entirely remove confusion).
    Last edited by Sterno; April 26th, 2021 at 14:52.

  2. #2
    Had targeting confusion myself - also gave Moon a 100% duplicatable test case. Just adding in here so there is a link to both targeting issues in one place.
    Last edited by SilentRuin; April 26th, 2021 at 15:08.
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  3. #3
    The crosshair is a 2E feature. They are set via the API onTargetUpdate. Based on your description and examples it sounds like the root of the problem isn't the 2e ruleset but a core/system.

    Have you experimented in FGC?
    ---
    Fantasy Grounds AD&D Reference Bundle, AD&D Adventure Bundle 1, AD&D Adventure Bundle 2
    Documentation for AD&D 2E ruleset.
    Custom Maps (I2, S4, T1-4, Barrowmaze,Lost City of Barakus)
    Note: Please do not message me directly on this site, post in the forums or ping me in FG's discord.

  4. #4
    I haven't used FGC since September of last year and don't even have it installed right now. I do feel like the instances of "targeting confusion" increased when I switched to FGU though.

    Edit: Oh, you meant SilentRuin. Nevermind.

  5. #5
    Given that @SilentRuin's test case involves deleting a token from the map, it is unlikely that these two are related.

    @celestian, you'll probably need to step through what @Sterno posted in the first post, and see what any issues or confusion is.

    Regards,
    JPG

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Moon Wizard View Post
    Given that @SilentRuin's test case involves deleting a token from the map, it is unlikely that these two are related.

    @celestian, you'll probably need to step through what @Sterno posted in the first post, and see what any issues or confusion is.

    Regards,
    JPG
    I can't speak for him but I think a big part of the confusion is that you must select a primary and then select it's targets. I always assumed it based targeting on who had initiative at the moment. Clearly thats not the case from his first clip.

    I tested it in FGC and see the same thing. I also tested with Live 5e in FGC and it does the same.

    For me knowing this will be enough.

    Bonus: If you want to make it extra confusing, in step 2 above, have the bugbear target and then untarget the aboleth. Now there will be no crosshair over it, and when you select Test Guy in step 3, you'll see a line drawn to the Aboleth, but no target crosshair over it. Basically, the crosshairs are getting out of sync.
    Because of the way it's functioning, thats what happens. The API tells my function "no longer targeted" so removes the crosshair.
    ---
    Fantasy Grounds AD&D Reference Bundle, AD&D Adventure Bundle 1, AD&D Adventure Bundle 2
    Documentation for AD&D 2E ruleset.
    Custom Maps (I2, S4, T1-4, Barrowmaze,Lost City of Barakus)
    Note: Please do not message me directly on this site, post in the forums or ping me in FG's discord.

  7. #7
    I think my confusion came from the crosshair state being inconsistent in what it shows, as well as just not understanding that if you're targeting on the CT, it's for whoever you had selected in the CT, but if you do targeting on the map, it's for whoever you had selected on the map. I think I happen to mix it back and forth quite a lot (selecting the attacker CT but then clicking a target on the map, or vice versa), and most of the time it happens to work fine because usually you hit the "next turn" button and the CT and map token are both selected to the same thing.

    I think the problems and confusion were arising when mid-turn something would happen, like an enemy reacting to a player fleeing and getting a free swing on them, and I'd select the enemy token (while it was still the player's turn) and go to do an attack. If I did that all via the CT or all via the map, it would work out, but if I mixed the two, I'd sometimes end up changing the player's target instead of the monster's, crosshairs would sometimes make it seem like I was fine, and then after rolling the attack I'd be like "Wait a minute... why the hell am I targeting this other dude instead now?" And sometimes crosshairs would get in a state where you'd see a crosshair but weren't actually targeting anyone, or see no crosshair but were.

    It happened just infrequently enough that I was never really sure why suddenly my target was wrong. Now that I'm more aware of how this works, it will hopefully be less an of issue.

    I doubt I'm the only person who has been mystified by some of these targeting mishaps though.
    Last edited by Sterno; April 26th, 2021 at 18:04.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Sterno View Post
    I think my confusion came from the crosshair state being inconsistent in what it shows
    They are consistent in how the API reacts. You cannot have multiple crosshairs on a target. If you target with one, switch to another and target with it, the behavior will act accordingly.
    ---
    Fantasy Grounds AD&D Reference Bundle, AD&D Adventure Bundle 1, AD&D Adventure Bundle 2
    Documentation for AD&D 2E ruleset.
    Custom Maps (I2, S4, T1-4, Barrowmaze,Lost City of Barakus)
    Note: Please do not message me directly on this site, post in the forums or ping me in FG's discord.

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