Disable SelectSelf with Mouse as Option

[Garfonso]

Hi,

My idea is:
An option (maybe just as setpref command) to not allow a mouse click in the game window to select the own character.

In detail: I don't need to select me character with my mouse. There is a select self command that is on F9 and I blindly press that, if I need to select my char (which only happens for buffs and heals anyway, so not very often). So it would be nice if it is possible to make an option that allows players to click through their character. So a mouse click in the game windows could NEVER select your character if that option is enabled.


The background for that suggestion and where it is needed in my opinion:
Short: Crafting as adult (maybe also ancient) dragon.

Long: I took some time off from Istaria (like two years or so, I think) and came back just recently. First I logged in with my belowed cat (Garfonso ) and saw what I was last doing: Crafting. I'm currently building on my plot... and I enjoyed it very much after all this time.
After a while I had a look what my Dragon was doing (Tapsy). It's there lvl 100 adventure, Adult, but Craft is only lvl ~35, Lairshaping not started although I owned an Lair all this time..

So I tried crafting as dragon... and I soon remembered why Tapsy is THAT low in crafting where my cat has most craft schools way beyond lvl 50 already... it's a pain crafting in dragon form*. It's really hard to select resource nodes...

I know that you can't make a command to select the closest ressource to prevent bots, right? And I don't want that. The biggest problem is that, even if I click WAY around my dragon on a resource node it really tends to select the dragon. In fact like 90% of my game window are covered by windows or by the dragon bounding box it seems.

That option I suggested would make crafting as a dragon much joyfuller, I'm sure. I really hope that this is possible and you consider this idea.

If that is not implemented, give poor Tapsy some hugs the next time you see here dancing around some Slate Nodes trying to gather from them. ^^

* Of course you can still be Khutit... but that's not really like it, is it? And it makes the harvesting organic stuff sound that my silk-gathering cat uses to make, which gives me nightmares.

[Thicklesip]

The usual "if it can be done with the tech we have" disclaimer applies but:

Yes. PLEASE.

[Chioxin]

Are you trying to say we dragons have big butts!? Huh!!! HUUHHHH!!!!!!

Uhhh... but I support this movement. Where do I sign?

A comment on "You can do it as Khutit." ... Really? No, that's not acceptable, because don't we get a debuff by being in Khutit form? That's silly.

[Thicklesip]

The "easiest" work-around is that you keep an easy hotkey to toggle between 1st and 3rd-person views (default Num Pad Enter, I believe) and get used to whacking it a lot.

I'd still rather have an option to only select myself via hotkey/clicking on my window, because I am so sick of the bug where my bounding box suddenly becomes MASSIVELY bigger than my character and lo and behold I can't click anything but myself while in 3rd person.

[Dracaena]

*scratches head* I sometimes think we play different games. My main is lv100 craft and lair shaper. Been at this for years and I seldom have trouble targeting myself when I wanted the node. I enjoy crafting, was lv100 craft long, long time before I was lv100 adventure.

I have two lairs, one completely done and the second is working on the grand hall with all machine rooms up and running. For wisps I use my select nearest hot key to target, I am a frequent user of the first person/3rd person toggle and zoom. But I do that for combat as well as crafting. I don't craft in khutite and I really don't understand the prejudice about dragons.

Signed,
The Ancient Dragon

PS @Chioxin They did away with the reduced stats in khutite some time back.

[Dhalin]

No offense to anyone, but the whole "it doesn't bother me so it must not be a problem" ... I see that a lot in this suggestions forum... I really wish people wouldn't use this argument to be honest.

Everyone has their own playstyle and I'll chip in here; I've selected myself plenty of times when trying to grab a node. To adapt, I try to select nodes from far away and THEN walk up to them, but it isn't always practical/possible to do so easily.

A "don't select yourself" could be very nice.

Also, in combat, there are times when I tried to manually select a mob when there's two and got myself too. That can be costly depending on what you're doing, and last I checked, fighting in khutit isn't an option because some attacks aren't even usable in khutit?

If the engine/technology allows, I say "go for it!"

It would be an option, and more options = better!

Everyone can choose to use or not to use it. It negatively affects no one.

[Chioxin]

PS @Chioxin They did away with the reduced stats in khutite some time back.

I'm such an ol' fuddy duddy... I approve though.

[LOVWYRM]

crafting in khuti here, cause
ancients breeding nodes like hens is kinda...undignified.

*signs up Garf`s suggestion*

[Steelclaw]

So, there's a longstanding open internal ticket on making click selection more intelligent. I guess this is a good time to revisit it. (mostly in an attempt to preempt the addition of yet another option )

There are two selection methods used by the client: poly-select and bbox-select. The former selects the object composed of the visible portion you click on. The latter selects the object contained within an invisible bounding box.

In many cases, you want to be able to click in the general vicinity of something and have it selected. Tiny resource nodes and necroflies come to mind as examples. In other cases, you want to only select the object your pointer is directly on top of. Currently, aside from some model-specific overrides, the client decides what to use based on distance. The closer the camera is to the object you want to select, the more likely it will use poly-select in favor of bbox-select. Thus, paradoxically, to make selecting those resource nodes easier, you need to zoom the camera in closer to your character.

The current selection logic will need some review, though, at a first pass at proposed changes, I'm thinking that disabling bbox-select for your character would be a good start. You could still click directly on it to select it using poly-select, but otherwise, no.

[Chioxin]

That sounds like possible happiness!!!

[Dhalin]

crafting in khuti here, cause
ancients breeding nodes like hens is kinda...undignified.

*signs up Garf`s suggestion*

LOL!

So I'm not the only player who thought that's what dragons look like while harvesting...

[Northwind]

The latter selects the object contained within an invisible bounding box.

Since we are at it, can something be done with tree selection?
As it is now, I cannot practically select anything near a tree due to sheer size of the tree selection box.

[Dhalin]

Since we are at it, can something be done with tree selection?
As it is now, I cannot practically select anything near a tree due to sheer size of the tree selection box.

Well, they did mention something about a re-visit to selection boxes etc.

Selection boxes are OK for things that are small... but not-so-good when you are dealing with BIG items.

Dragons, Trees, buildings, etc have proven this time and time again.

[Ahael]

Well, they did mention something about a re-visit to selection boxes etc.

Selection boxes are OK for things that are small... but not-so-good when you are dealing with BIG items.

Dragons, Trees, buildings, etc have proven this time and time again.

Actually, if my big huge dragon gets in the way of a node to select, I just back up to it. If the node is just next to my dragon's butt, I can select it easily.

On the other hand, if the node is in front of my dragon, it's much harder to select it. I usually end up selecting my dragon instead of the node, even if I am 100% sure I had put my mouse cursor precicely over the node.

So the correct procedure is:
A) spot a suitable node
B) land next to it
C) activate reverse gear and back up to it (remember to warn the bipeds... pedestrians by 'beep' 'beep' like trucks)
D) select the node
E) profit

[Northwind]

Indeed it works most of the time, if the node is under dragon's tail and there is no other interferences around it.

But lots and lots of selection issues happens for example:
north of heather in the oak forrest where sometimes it is basicaly imposible to select wisp residue due to huge tree selection boxes (same for oak forrest and glowing essence residue W-NW of Acul or in the Yew Forrest with shining essence residue)
Or for another example: selecting a silo if the plot owner planted a tree nearby.

The solution most of the time is to switch to khutit form - but it is an annoyance plus there are times when the switch bugs out and you end up having to relog.

I would rather have poly-select for BIG things that are obviously very easy to click-select and box-select for tiny stuff that you would have trouble to select by poly-select.

Or drop the box-selection at all...

[Garfonso]

So, there's a longstanding open internal ticket on making click selection more intelligent. I guess this is a good time to revisit it. (mostly in an attempt to preempt the addition of yet another option )

Good to hear you already knew about these issues... Don't you want to touch the options interface? I could also live with a setpref command...

Even with perfect selection, I still deem selecting the own character via mouse click a very rarely wanted feature... at least in my gameplay.

Good to have an explanation of the selection algorithm. In fact that perfectly explains why I have such big issues. I'm usually zoomed out as far as possible, to get a good overview. Especially as dragon... So I'll try to play a bit with the zoom the next time I try to select something close to my poor dragon.
As said before: I'd still consider disabling select self with mouse button a good idea, at least optionally for guys like me, because I don't see much sense in this function at all. But I'm ok, if selection is more precise close to my character.

[Steelclaw]

Good to hear you already knew about these issues... Don't you want to touch the options interface? I could also live with a setpref command...

Ideally, we can come up with something that just works intuitively. That way, the self-select behavior is invisible to those who don't use it and works as expected for those who do. (This is a lot easier than adding an option, making sure it's .def file dependencies are always met, and of course, arguing about what the default setting would be. )

[Mensar]

I just use setscale on myself whenever I gather. Sure I'm a tiny dragon, but so are ninjas!

[Northwind]

I'd wish you never mentioned setscale. This issue is worth of a real solution not a cheat-like workaround