Ship of Heroes revamps targeting brackets and tab-targeting ahead of next test (original) (raw)

Heroic Games is continuing to forge ahead with its development of Ship of Heroes following the game’s most recent demo test at SteamFest. Its latest dev blog focuses on a bit of feedback apparently gleaned during that test: People didn’t like the game’s targeting, so the devs are doing something about it.

“For one thing, the old targeting bracket, which was an easy-to-miss circle around your target’s feet has now been replaced with a much more visible vertical bracket,” the studio says. “It’s also color-coded: red for enemies, yellow for vendors, and green for your own character and your team, so it’s easy to tell if you’re buffing yourself or not.”

“The bracket moves to the next target when you press tab, defeat an enemy, or click on a new target. Each move of the bracket activates checks to ensure that the target is in line of sight (LoS) and is not deceased. And abilities that are aimed at a location or fixed area instead of centering on an enemy will still show up on the ground. Another new feature is that if you are not in combat and an enemy runs up and attacks you, that enemy will automatically be targeted for your counterattack.”

The team has also tweaked what the tab in tab-targeting actually does, taking into account status, distance, threat, and recency.

As we previously noted, Heroic is aiming for another demo later in the holiday season. Launch is now is expected in 2024, though a few weeks ago, the studio’s official website leaked a public mock-up page with a pricing plan that unsettled the MMO community. Heroic denied that the leak showed the game’s intended pricing scheme and bizarrely claimed its website had been hacked (though it declined to answer any questions about the purported hack).