Definitive description of Target window

[fsleeth]

I've searched the forums carefully, but I still can't find a definitive, up-to-date description of how the Target window works.

Most of the descriptions I've read don't say anything about the asterisks that now appear in what I *think* is the Force box. It's also not clear to me whether or not the bug that apparently was causing aggressive enemies to appear indifferent has been fixed.

Can someone please post a definitive, reliable, up-to-date description of this stuff? Thank you for your replies, but informed guesses and the like are simply not of any interest at all. If you are not certain, please do not reply with an answer (questions are certainly reasonable).

[xenofur]

colour shows difficulty, how they are sorted can be seen in the rightclick help, the level ranges noted there do not hold true anymore judging by the loot
colours are also dependant on the region(dyron=red, oasis=yellow)
stars subdivide the colours in five difficulty classes(1,2,3,4,5) and five boss classes (1,2,3,4,5 big stars)
targeting reticle shows relative difficulty when engaging solo, same colour ranges as above

edit: didn't know about multiple boss stars, thanks dandra

[dandra8]

The color indicates what region the monter is in, and the stars represent how difficult the particular mob is in relation to the region. Bold stars indicate boss mobs and the number of stars is it's difficulty that the boss mob is in relation to other boss mobs in the region. Hope this clears things up for you.

[borg9]

The color indicates what region the monter is in, and the stars represent how difficult the particular mob is in relation to the region. Bold stars indicate boss mobs and the number of stars is it's difficulty that the boss mob is in relation to other boss mobs in the region. Hope this clears things up for you.

I the roots I have seen two big star boss mobs

So I guess there maybe five big star boss mobs, wonders if acid 1 will resist on them

[aelvana]

I'd like to note that the colors of the box do NOT follow the scale in the in-game help. One star purple mobs are well under 250, not over it (we kill them in groups of like 4 of us, levels 100-150, 2500exp a kill).

[daleknd]

This is still pretty loose.

For example, in Oasis, vigilant igara and vigilant kizoar both get one yellow star. The kizoar hits almost 4 times as hard and is impossible for me to solo where the igara is routine to solo. A robust rendor gets the same single yellow star and is only about half as tough as the igara.

The color code on the target reticule is hard to judge by as well. The igara get a blue/green color while the rendor gets dark blue. Dark blue is definitely meant to indicate more difficult since the next harder igara (hungry igara) gets dark blue instead of blue/green.

Dalwin
humble forager of the Fyros

[bizango]

In SoR, MOBs don't have an easily defined level like you'd find in other games, just as PCs aren't as easily defined. The color & stars gauge can be used only as a guideline to what you can expect.

Edit to correct this which is what it was before the change. Disregard remainder of this paragraph: [Color indicates how difficult the target is among members of its own species. A bright green Yubo is not rated the same difficulty as a bright green Kipee. It only means they are the easiest of their respective species.]

Now, Color refers to a fixed reference difficulty level. Refer to the ingame help for ranges.

Edit to add qualifier "The remainder of this paragraph is as I remember seeing it in some patch notes somewhere - someone please confirm or correct this, Xenofur may have this more correct than I": Stars indicate a difficulty rating compared to other MOBs in the same region. A one star rating means it is among the easiest in the region, but cross a region boundary and one star means a different level of difficulty according to how difficult the region is as a whole. Your Sprightly Caprini might be four stars in one region, but only one star in the neighboring region, yet will retain the same color.

Boss mobs are similarly rated with stars for the region.

Drop quality is not necessarily related to MOB difficulty. A trend does exist where the more difficult MOBs tend to drop higher quality mats but there are plenty of exceptions to that trend.

Experience award is perhaps the best indicator of MOB difficulty rating (by then it is too late to avoid a bad fight). Rate the experience award against the highest skill level used. Equal ratings should be around 1000-1200 exps solo.

For example, in Oasis, vigilant igara and vigilant kizoar both get one yellow star. The kizoar hits almost 4 times as hard and is impossible for me to solo where the igara is routine to solo. A robust rendor gets the same single yellow star and is only about half as tough as the igara

Note that I have avoided using the word level for MOBs. Characters have skill levels and different abilities and along with equipment, characters all have different strengths and weaknesses. So do MOBs. Your one star igara is an entirely different critter than your one star kizoar. The difficulty algorithm awarded both of them one star - but you should not expect them to be equally difficult for YOU to kill. The matchup between you and any particular MOB relies on the contrasts between your and the MOBs strengths & weaknesses.

The lesson in all of this is to experiment on younger members of a species to find out if they are easy or hard for you to kill and stick with the species you have success with.

[zumwalt]

I don't know if you are going to find a "accurate" answer here.
And you most likely won't.

Reason why:

Smashing
Slashing
Bashing
Piercing

(did I forget any?)

The strength's vs weakness's of mobs and there special abilities.

A 1 star, blue ring, blue bar gingo
Weakness: Smashing / Bashing
Higher dodge/evade to Slashing
Ability: stun / slow
Attack Rate: fast
success hit rate: high
average damage 300

A 1 star, blue ring, blue bar Kipee
Weakness: Slashing
Higher dodge/evade to Smashing / Bashing
Ability: stamina drain / stun
Attack Rate: Slow / Medium
Success hit rate: medium / high
average damage 250

Then there is your abilities:
Do you have improved damage, accurate attack, dodge / parry modifiers, self healing stamina / health, the list goes on.

I ignore everything but the targeting ring itself, if the targeting ring is green / light blue / blue / dark blue, I have a chance of killing it solo.

Also know your arsenal, which weapon can hit which mob and do what damage, have all 4 on you, 1 slash, 1 bash, 1 smash, 1 piercing

They gave us a 'best guess' guage to use, thats all it is, you have to learn your own technique as to your skills and what you can handle.

That is why this game is unique, all characters are unique based on the players skill sellections.

Good luck if you want a solid answer as to exact information, because your not going to get it, there are to many variables to take into consideration.

[fsleeth]

Here's the conclusion I'm coming to...

Ryzom is a rich game in which players and mobs have many different characteristics, all of which contribute in potentially unpredictable ways to the "difficulty" of a combat encounter. Because of this, it's difficult to boil it all down to a single number or color or any other simple indicator. Thus, when trying to decide whether or not to attack a given mob, there is no substitute for previous experience with that sort of mob.

I can understand this, and I can understand why having such a rich set of attributes is desirable, interesting and fun.

Nevertheless, I still have a small "target" window on my HUD. In this window is a little colored box with some number of stars in it. So far, even among the very generous people who have taken the time to post in this thread, NO ONE seems to definitively understand (even approximately) how the game figures out what color and how many stars are supposed to appear in this box.

I'm forced to conclude that the ONLY people who could possibly answer this question, even in a simple way, would be the developers. I'll be submitting a bug request or knowledge base reqeuest or whatever is appropriate for this game.

If, through a bizarre stroke of luck, a developer happens to read this thread, PLEASE post the answer so all of us can know.

[xenofur]

thanks for your attitude, even though you did not even take the time to write that word to all the posters above, who tried to help YOU
all you did was show the following attitude: "you don't know jack-****"
well, i considered searching for the paragraph in the patch notes that described the exact changes, but i feel it would just be a complete waste of time now

p.s.: seeing as i simply reflected what i had read in said patch notes i wasn't just making informed guesses, so don't even try replying in that vein