What Does "Target" Mean?

[Jonathan Baron]

I've been doing things manually since I returned to UO a couple of months back after a ten year absence - familiar tale I know.

I'm using the contemporary client rather than the outdated one.

I can grasp some of its functionality but to use the more advanced features, such as Honor Macros, or most any kind of combat macro, it all begins with understanding what people mean when they use the word, Target.

Sounds like a dumb question. Well, if it's not been branded into your brain it's the most obtuse concept of the interface.

I can bring up a spinning golden wheel, encircling creatures. I can cycle this spinning wheel from nearest creature to more distant ones.

What have I done? Have I....Cursored them? It certainly has the feel of a cursory appraisal more than it feels like an action, per se. Have I targeted them? What, exactly, have I done?

If I double click on a bad guy I get two things. I get the spinning wheel surrounding the bandit, plus a red health bar at roughly the same level as the spinning wheel.

Has this action turned the bandit from cursored to targetted?

Why do some bandits magically appear with both the spinning wheel and the "it's on!" red bar of combat both switched on? I've done nothing yet there they are, all ready for battle.

If the parameters for this sort of auto-militancy are bad guy + distance, why in blazes do I sometimes, after killing a member of a pressed in against me mob, have to select the next guy and initiate the red bar of combat and sometimes it too happens automatically?

Without understanding these basic concepts any sort of advanced targeting macro is simply impossible. Wait for Next? Next what? Next guy who's hula hoop had dropped around his feet, or next guy with the combat red bar appearing inside his hulu hoop?

Target last. I'm a tamer. Target last what? If a target is the spinning hulu hoop + red bar, you won't be doing much successful taming. My targets for taming have spinning hulu hoops alone. I plead for love and eternal servitude from the creature the spinning hoop is spinning around, not the previous thing it was spinning around.

I know you've got all this in your heads. I've not seen it written down anywhere but I know you must know.

Tell me....please....I beg of you...I plead with you....What does target mean?

Thank you. I'll take a pill now.

Jonathan

 

[Llewen]

An Introduction to Targetting​

It's a perfectly legitimate question. First off, I'd recommend you change the mouse wheel targetting option to hostiles. *sigh* I suppose I'd better look it up and give you specifics...

- Bring up your Main Menu (I hit ESC to do this)
- Click on User Settings
- Click on the Input tab
- At the very top in the Mouse section change Scroll Wheel Up to "Target Next Enemy" and Scroll Wheel Down to "Target Last Enemy". Now you can fool around with the other options, but I find that the most useful.
- Click on Okay at the bottom to close the menu

Now, when there are hostile beings within range, if you move your mouse wheel up or down, your target will shift between any and all hostile targets available, if you have followed my advice that is. Now when you see the golden circle around a being, that is your "current target", and you have "aquired a target". These are military and gaming terms.

Now when you aquire a target, somewhere on your screen you should see a big health bar representing the being that is your present target. You can move this health bar around anywhere that suits you, but it is a very useful thing, so put it somewhere you will be able to see it easily.

Now the nice thing about "acquiring a target" is you can use anything which has as it's targetting option "Current Target" on it, assuming it is a legal action. For example, let's say you have a spell icon in a hot bar, or in a macro, you can right click on that icon and choose target, and you will see a small menu of targetting options. If you choose "Current" as your targetting option whenever you cast that spell it will automatically target your current target, with no delays.

This can be very useful, but also dangerous. Because it is easy to have a current target and not realize it, or be targetting the wrong being, and you may accidentally cast a nasty spell on them, which can be a bad thing. If you have no target and you cast a spell with "Current" as it's targeting option, you will get a cursor. Sometimes you will want to clear your current target so that when you cast a spell with "Current" as it's targetting option, you will get the cursor. This is useful because it can let you "precast" or prepare a spell before hand. To clear your target simple hit the ESC key.

 

[Llewen]

One thing you might also want to check out is Lucis Interface. It gives you a long list of all the possible targets within range, and you can click on them to "acquire a target". It is absolutely one of my favourite things about his mod. Now I had thought this was also available in the default UI ("user interface") however I was unable to figure out how to activate it, so someone else might be able to help you with that.

But Lucis Interface, and the Copper Enhanced and Stone UI mods also have many very useful features that you might want to check out.