Ethical QuestionFollow

If you could make "Target Nearest NPC" work more reliably, would it be ethical to fix it on your local machine?

The fix will get undone with every patch, but it's a simple fix.

What if you could code a "Target Next Nearest NPC" button? Would that be okay? It's depressing returning to EQ's crappy targetting after playing other MMORPG's. If I could make it less crappy, should I?

I am an enchanter, and I'm getting sick of turning off all of the graphic options just so I can click on targets faster. I haven't seen the new spell effects yet, but I hear they're nice.

Just Joe

Ethicality is in the eye of SOE. If they ban your account, you can argue wether or not your actions were ethical until your blue in the face and it wont make a lick of difference to them. Bottom line is if you like your account, don't run third party programs that modify gameplay.

Hehe... Um... sbs? You are aware that you can simply put this in a hotkey, right?

/assist tankname

That way, you don't have to worry about a possible targeting delay. Also, if the tank is too far away to target (which could be why your macro wasn't working properly) the assist wont happen either.


As to "fixing" targeting, I'm not sure what you could do, ethically or otherwise to fix this by changing just stuff on your client. If you're capturing zoneinfo on the stream and writing your own code to allow you to see and target stuff without using your UI, you're pretty much in violation of the EULA. The difficulty of targeting in a crowd is kinda part of the game. It forces you to develop skill, instead of just clicking buttons to do everything for you.

I'd just focus on getting better at using the tools in the UI. They are sufficient to play the game.

Hmmm... Well, I've never looked at the code. I'm also not a programmer by trade. However, I'm curious how changing a jne (jump next, right?) into a noop (do nothing? "no op") would allow you to target something that you can't target now, without breaking something else. Is that part of the left click function? Are you simply disabling the ability to target anything but an NPC? Inquiring minds want to know...

There's already a "target nearest NPC" in the game. It's F8 IIRC. Course, it targets the nearest NPC that's in front of you, but that's probably good enough (why would you want to target something behind you?).

In case you're curious, F9 targets the nearest PC in front of you. So, you've already got some tools to work with within the current UI.

What's missing is a "toggle through all nearby targets" function, which does exist on some other games. That's what I assumed you were talking about. I've just never had a problem or need to do that though. I'm assuming that would require a heck of a lot more work then just changing a single line.


Heh. If you really want to hack the client, knock yourself out. However, I don't think SOE's going to make much of a distinction between just making a cleaner targeting system, and using hacks to increase your move speed, or HP regen rate, or any of a number of other hacks that folks get banned for. You take your own risk doing it, and honestly I don't see much point in it. The game is the way it is. As long as everyone's playing the same game with the same rules, it's "fair". I'm betting a skilled player using a default client will still play the game better then a novice using a hacked client. He'll proabably have more fun and get more satisfaction out of it as well. But hey. You do whatever you want...

Here is my well thought out position and response.

Play the game with the standard tools that SOE provide. This puts every one in the game on the same level "playing field" (sic).

If one player has a mod that by definition gives an advantage over another palyer who does not have it - that is called cheating. And the one thing that has made EQ such an enduring and enjoyable game is that there is a minimal amount of cheating and the ability to cheat.

EQ is based on the principle that all reward is gained at the cost of effort and risk, this is what keeps the vast majority of us playing. The knowlege that we all have to put in approximately the same level of effort and face the same amount of risk is a large part of what makes the community of EQ work.

If you introduce cheats that give one person an advantage over another you have started down the road to the destruction of what makes EQ the special thing that it is.

You do not need to look far to find examples of where the attempts to keep cheats out of the game have failed and destroyed games that may have once rivalled EQ. Tribes, springs to mind.

Log parsers and information sites (hardly cheat sites ) are available freely to everyone.

Parsing tells you nothing, unless you have already put in the effort and faced the risks to create your logs in the first place, a completely spurios argument.

Info sites are nothing more than a means of communication, the info stored on these sites is discovered and recorded by players, playing the game in the normal way. The could post the info on the ingame message boards, they could spam it across all servers with shouts, it is simply more convenient and community oriented to place the info where every one who has an interest can read at their leisure. Nothing at all like modifying the game code to give yourself an advantage.

As to the specific targeting mod you are sugesting;

I play a druid, cleric and enchanter, all of whom I'm sure you would agree, spend much of every battle constantly swapping from one target to another, both NPC and PC.

I also run both my computers with clip plane and graphics on full, I like to enjoy the picture. And yes, the new spell graphics are fantastic.

I never have targeting problems ever. Yes frame rate does drop once in a while, no probs just hit page down for a moment or two. Yes sometimes the second mob in the train is superimposed on the MA's mob and hard to click.

But I have never found a situation where sensible use of the F keys, my target and assist hot buttons, coupled with getting off my butt and moving around a bit, did not let me target the mob/PC I wanted. It is just one of the skills you learn as you get better at the game.

Hmmm... Yeah. I kinda see it this way:

If you're changing something so that you can target NPCs that you couldn't not possibly target without making that change (like allowing targeting through walls for example), then that's a cheat, pure and simple. You aren't "cleaning up" a "crappy" targeting system. You're allowing your character to effectively look through walls (a cheat by any definition).

If you're just trying to make it easier to target a specific mob in a crowd (you can see them all, but it's hard to get the one you want), then you're just building a crutch for yourself instead of learning how to play the game. Yeah. Targeting a single NPC out of a crowd is one of the more difficult tasks in the game. However, that's also what makes it challenging. When you get good at it (which you really can with practice), people appreciate your skills, you get invited back to groups more often, and you're satisfaction with the game increases. I'm still quite confident that someone who's just learned the skill of targetting specific mobs in a crowd will still be able to do so more quickly and more accurately then someone using a toggle-through kind of system.

I just don't think you're doing yourself or anyone else any favors by doing this. It's still cheating. Why not just play the game? If you can't hack the game the way it is, then maybe you should go play something else. I mean, I'm sure that lots of people would like to play baseball with tricked out bats so they can hit homeruns more often, but there's a reason that's illegal. I suppose the shape of a football isn't the best for a bouncing ball, but that's what makes the game difficult (and special teams exciting). Going through life trying to change things to make them easier, when the whole point is *overcoming* challenges, just seems like a waste of time. You will never get a sense of "winning" if you do that. Victory is always going to feel hollow if you changed the rules to make it easier for you.


Again though, that's just my opinion.

I'll start by saying I've scrapped the idea of releasing a tool set, so noone has to worry about me upsetting the delicate balance that is EQ. My responses are therefore academic and not intended to get a bunch of cheerleaders to agree with me or to flame anyone with an opinion that does not match my own.

Gbaji, I was using the "Target Nearest NPC" to make this hack/fix, so I definately know about it. As an enchanter, I use it quite often. However, target nearest npc relies on checking a line of site for obstructions. Some of the things you see whilst you are skipping across Norrath are terrain objects and others are artifact objects. Trees and rocks are most often artifact objects, as are pc's. These do not affect your line of sight. Terrain is the zone geometry on which all the artifacts are stamped. Doors are artifacts, and walls are terrain. That's why you can cast spells through a closed door and not through a wall.

I am simply modifying one tiny aspect of it. Target nearest npc draws a line between the viewpoint of the PC and a point on the NPC. This point is often at the feet of the NPC, so if they are standing on a tiny ledge or uneven ground, it often obstructs the view. Then a function is called to see if there are obstructions. The return value is checked, and if there was an obstruction, execution jumps to the next target to evaluate. If you noop the jump (jump if not equal - jne), then the first target evaluated always gets targetted.

It's a bit brute force, but it works well.



That argument is much more damning of spoiler sites and powerleveling than it is of making "Target Nearest NPC" work better.

The impact of this hack/fix is smaller than the impact of downloading maps from eqatlas, reading a spoiler on allakhazam, downloading a streamlined ui, or having a nice computer. Also, if Sony's endorsement makes things right or wrong, then Spoiler sites were wrong when EQ released and they are right now. I'd rather trust the opinions of my peers as to whether something feels like a valuable addition to the game or a cheat.

I've been wanting Next and Previous target buttons ever since I played some of EQ's competitors, but implementing that requires a LOT more work than making target nearest npc function correctly. I wouldn't do it if I was the only beneficiary of the work. My motivation is not to gain an unfair advantage, but to make a game I love even better. With that said, Good night, and [Insert Preferred Diety Here] bless.

Joe... Just Joe

Shame Yantis didn't come here 4 years ago and ask so nicely

No, he sent that ****** TheEQman to do it instead. One of the happiest meoments of my posting career was the day I finally jacked that bastards account and permanently retired it. No regrets over that one at all.

Hey Joe,
Though I don't support hacking like what happened to Diablo/D2, I do support what you were working on in a much lesser scale. I run EQ on a hardly inferior machine, with VERY little lag except in The Bazaar. I play an Enchanter and a Druid most of the time, and targeting is a HUGE issue for me. The standard F buttons only work right if I use the Target PC button. The Target Nearest NPC button almost ALWAYS targets a mob that's behind the one directly in front of me. This is ESPECIALLY true of smaller model characters (you can claim that my character doesn't see them because I'm looking over their heads, but I play a halfling druid, and it doesn't work with him, either). I would like to make a mod similar to this to correct my issues, and then bring it straight to Sony. Whether I got a job from them would be moot, but I'd like to see this issue fixed. From everyone else's posts, it seems that I am alone on this issue, although it does occur on my ex-fiancee's computer as well. Because of this issue, I refuse to pull mobs for my groups in fear that I will pull ALOT more than I planned because it targeted the wrong mob. This issue started about a year ago, A litte after the new Luclin UI came out, because it worked fine before then. If anyone has a less severe fix to this problem, please let me know. This issue bugs the Hell outta me.

Utilizing the logs by parsing, or sharing information about mob spawns, drops, quests, etc., is not the same as editing data files to improve your chances compared to other players. As an enchanter, I fully understand the trouble of targeting, but people have been doing it for years and years without modifying anything -- there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to. Of course we're inconvenienced by it, but it doesn't take long playing a chanter before you figure this out, and if it's just not going to work for you, you're not losing anything by starting over with another character which can simply assist. Fact remains, F8 is unreliable at best for targeting mobs, and should not be your only way of doing crowd control. There are several other ways of doing it, and none of them require cheating.

But I'm not going to tell you how to play, I just know that I don't need it nor want it.

LOL -- Don't feel too bad. I was talking a friend last night when he invited me into his group. I asked why he invited me (he was on a lvl 20 alt and I was on a lvl 63) and he said "So I don't have to type your name when I respond"
"Umm... Try hitting 'R', n00b"
"I know about that! But then I'd send your tells to my other friend."
"Ok.. try hitting "R" and then Tab, you damn eBay."
...pause...
"OMFG WTF?!?!!?"

The things we learn...

Lesson learned. Here is why I cannot distribute something like this.

I could make Target Nearest NPC work exactly as the designers of the features intended. As a dev, I can say with a good deal of conviction that this is an implementation flaw and not a feature design flaw. Another possible explanation for the strange way the code executes could be that the check was meant to move server side at some point, where CPU cannot be wasted on anything. The check, as implemented, is very cpu friendly from a server perspective. This check has never moved to the server, however, so it may just be an outdated dogma. In either case, I could make target nearest NPC work as designed. It would not let people look through walls or see the other side of doors in LDoN (Though people use 3rd person cameras to do that anyhow).

The major issue lies in the fact that the community perceives this as a cheat, or at the very least a violation of the EULA. If a significant portion of the community sees it this way, then they would be at a disadvantage if I released a tool. My intent is not to introduce new inequities in the game, and this tool would definately discriminate against purists.

I am won over by your charisma and grace, and have scrapped all four of my mod projects. I haven't wasted too much time on them, so it's really not a big deal.

Anyhow, I love the game, and I don't want to ruin or diminish it for anyone. I've become very good at targetting, and I will continue to make do with my 3 cameras, wild strafing, and liberal use of Target Nearest NPC, Toggle Target, and /assist Maintank.

I do hope, however, that some ambitious Sony dev sees a thread like this and fixes targetting in his/her spare time.

Later,
Joe... Just Joe