Controller Targeting

Been using controllers for a minute now since it's easier on my hands, which is one of the reasons POE1 was rough for me; the interface with controllers can be a bit of a mess. While a lot (and I mean a lot) has improved for controllers in POE2, some aspects are still difficult to navigate. With that being said, some feedback below:

1) The first noticeable confusion that comes up in terms of targeting enemies with a controller is when there are many enemies on the screen. When playing witch the targeting would switch quickly between what seemed to be every possible enemy. This wouldn't matter too much if there weren't skills that combo'd on each other when cast on the same enemy. I was trying for a chaos dot build, but the targeting might have the first ability go on a ranged attacker and the second on the enemy rushing me, which effectively nullifies that compounding effect and heavily impacts the ability to do mass damage.

2) This, however, is not the case for the ranger. When playing the ranger I experienced a different issue: the ranger not switching targets. I might start attacking one enemy, but let's say that enemy stayed in the back some. While other enemies are rushing, biting, and damaging my character she'd continue to aim at that one enemy in the back that wasn't the immediate threat. The only decent way to reset this is to stop firing, run in the opposite direction, turn around directly towards the forward-most target, and cast the ability. I'm using a similar response for the witch, although it only 50/50 works on that class.

3) For both, issues in boss fights are a bit rough atm. If the boss summons adds than more often than not the targeting will remain on the boss instead of the adds, which makes it difficult to clear out adds. Similar to previously-stated points I could have 10 adds stomping me into the dirt but my character would rather focus on a boss she can't see in the fog or a boss on the other side of the arena.

4) Lastly, directional targeting for abilities can be inaccurate or outright ignored depending on the circumstance. When using the ability to raise corpses from the dead I would often attempt to use the R stick to try and raise corpses in a specific area, but the controller input would either A) completely ignore the input and aim towards the nearest enemy (default I think), or B) be extremely picky about direction, with the spell missing 5 corpses by like a cm and instead raising nothing.

Solutions: I'm no game designer, but there might be a few options to help with targeting on controllers:

1) The first would be to create filters. Maybe the targeting system works just fine for most folks and the default is 10/10 for the majority of controller players (I don't know your life, do your thing). But since there are already filter options for loot, it would be right up GGG's alley to create a filter system for controller targeting.
-Prioritize = most health/closest/most in group
-Exceptions = boss fights/rares/special encounters
-Combo sets = something about if using two abilities be sure they target the same creature
-something something something (idk, the filter folks could probably fill this out better)

2) Maybe modifying some of the defaults? If the default changed from the boss to adds during boss fights it would resolve boss-specific issues. Or if the targeting changed from first-hit to closest atm it could help with ranger issues. Although, there would still need to be some kind of specific exception for combo skills. And if the default for directional changed to match above filters with more intuitive use for things like raising corpses (target most corpses in a direction for example) or auto-direction targeting close to the direction you're aiming while locking onto enemies it could work.

Overall the continued improvements to controllers are very much appreciated, just need some tweaking to make using them completely viable.

Agreed that there are problems with auto-targeting. There is a skill that you can slot in that allows you to toggle between dynamic targeting i.e. auto targeting and manually locking onto a single target. Ideally, we should also have a switch in the input tab of the options menu that allows us to globally toggle assisted targeting. Toggling the system completely off would give the player absolute control over where they aim and what they shoot at rather than having the game dynamically decide for them in a tense combat encounter that they really should be targeting this small monster over here vs the boss or what have you.

As someone who is coming from the action game world into this game, the controls themselves are super comfy and feel very good to come to grips with but forced assisted targeting is not how this should work imo. We very much need to be able to disable this if desired.

i know people like to shit on Diablo 4. But Blizzard 99% nails controller support. In every way possible. from targeting to inventory and other menu screens.

that said, for inventory/menu screens I always prefer to jump to the keyboard/mouse when on pc. I know GGG has said they intend to make that work but it needs to be very high priority. (but controller support still needs to be way better so that console users have a better experience)

auto-targeting is so much better in d4. it's not perfect of course. game has to do its best to target something. But poe just fails at it too often. Please GGG, go play d4 more with a controller. get a solid feel for how good it is (as well as when it isn't). You have to at least match d4 here.

When I try to hit frozen enemy or frost bomb with cold snap I have no problem with m&k, don't even need to be too accurate and can explode offscreen, but with controller (with or without "dual stick" feature) I must be extremely close to target to achieve ~60% accuracy. When enemy is more than 1/3 screen away from character (frost bomb1/4) more than half of spells is cast to the ether. I miss "alt behavior" button from poe 1...

For targeting enemies prioritizing seems right - when fighting boss/rare just hard lock to them, but when trash/adds are in the way use rstick to choose closest target to clean room.

bumping post, agree that there are some nuances in using controller targeting

I agree the targeting in fights is off.

For me the main problem are that when you get high prio skills like frost bomb or wall of ice on single targets consistently as soon as there are adds these always go off on unimportant targets not prioritizing the strongest enemy in the room aka the boss. Curses have the same behavior

That makes bossfights with adds kinda frustrating bc you waste a lot of mana on unimportant enemies or even miss outright with some of your most important support skills.

Came here to bump this bit of feedback. The controller feels pretty good overall but the priority on targeting feels off a good bit of the time.

Something I've noticed regarding targeting, very apparent with Crossbow skills that pierce, not sure if it happens with other weapons, is you will aim toward the ground if the enemy you're targeting is right next to you. Making your pierce shots fly right into the ground instead of through the pack. Try it with some Frag ammo's, you'll see.

Fix: Disable that animation so your character doesn't aim at the ground.

Suggestions

Free Aim: Per skill option that ignores targeting. Holding button will rapid fire skill in direction held.

Secondary option for Free Aim; Sight: Hold button to aim with sightline, release to fire.

+1

Targeting, especially when dealing with multiple groups or large bundles of enemies, can feel very awkward and often leads to missing shots or hitting the wrong thing.

The held targeting option is nice in theory, but the current sensitivity and the way it immediately snaps back to center if you release the stick make it difficult to use as well. Maybe add some additional input options for this, like a sensitivity slider for the mode and a toggle for if it snaps back to center or not?

Agree 100% I use Dark Effigy totem and placing it in a stressful fight with a controller is not great but I have a few solutions:

Simply an option to turn AUTO AIM off might fix this.
When i want to place the Totem behind me but the game thinks i want to spawn it on the mob. This half of my screen? no you aren't looking there. mobs are over here.

The large circle area to place the spell needs to STAY CENTERED on the player character, and be screen wide.

Then the timing needs to be tweaked so the spell is cast where the reticule WAS like 200ms ago when the button is released

this would alleviate the jank from the analog returning to center too fast.

Hope this helps. 10/10 game otherwise.