Zoya manual aiming / shot strength

[You Kissed a Boy and Liked It]

I notice that Zoya seems to 'auto aim' at points / targets of interest instead of requiring the player to aim the arrows accurately at whatever the target might be. Is it possible to make her aim fully manually? She also cannot control the height of the shot -- could she be made to control the bow in all three dimensions -- X, Y and Z?

I think it removes a lot of the enjoyment of the arrow play if it's main function is controlled by the computer and it also serves to reveal the targets pertaining to puzzles, which obviously simplifies them. It may make the game harder for some if the aiming didn't 'lock on', but perhaps a manual scheme could be made optional for those who want to use it...?

Another thing I noticed is that Zoya cannot control the strength of her shots -- they're either limp if she shoots too early or they're straight if she keeps the bow taut. Would it be possible to allow for the bow to be drawn in gradations of strength, so the trajectory of the arrow could be controlled?

I guess what I'm saying is that she needs more overall control over her arrow shots to make the game mechanic feel fun and rewarding and the character feel more enjoyable to use.

[Tigersight]

(Haven't actually bought the game yet but seriously want to)
More on topic: it should be possible to cast a ray from the camera to the cursor's position onscreen and aim toward whatever the ray hits. Although, it would have the issue of your shot not hitting if the arrows curve, and probably looking weird if your arrows fly perfectly straight. (Again, haven't actually played yet. :( So I don't know how it works.)

They could get around that by having you fire at a higher angle so your shot hits after curving to get around that problem. I wouldn't know how do do it myself because I'm terrible at vector math, but as long as their programmer is better than me (low bar to pass >_< ), it wouldn't take too long to hook it up.

However, that also creates issues for aiming at anything that moves, unless you automatically factor in the movement of the object when shooting, which basically brings it back to near-auto aim as long as you actually clicked on whatever it is you're trying to shoot - except you'd still miss if whatever you click on accelerates. You'd get around that by having the arrows reorient and track in flight, but at that point, well, yeah.

Now that's I've actually gone down that whole line of thought, that whole thing is probably a really terrible idea.

One that is probably better, *if done well* would be having an invisible 'aiming plane' of some sort to cast a ray against to aim toward that position. The main problem with this, that would give me nightmares, would be trying to figure out at any given time, just how far away said invisible plane would be. Too close and your shots would go everywhere, too far and you'd always be shooting at the ground (assuming that the camera is tilted slightly overhead?)
To really work correctly, it would have to be about the same distance from the character as whatever it is you're trying to shoot, except there isn't any way to know what you're trying to shoot at at any given time. So they'd have to rely on a bunch of trickery and workarounds in figuring out what they think you're trying to shoot at, and as I said, if done well, it would feel great, but if that invisible aim spot ever slipped a little too far in either direction, your shot that you knew would land would suddenly fly a good deal off course, which would be jarring and make the game feel buggy.

Well in any case, there are issues with aiming things in 3d space, which tends to be why you get a camera view behind your character, so you can project where the shot will go by eye without the devs having to magic up crazy solutions to the problem.

Just my 2 cents, time to go back to trying to convince myself to buy this game. >_<

[You Kissed a Boy and Liked It]

When you're aiming correctly (or thereabouts), the interactable object already highlights / changes colour. I think this is enough of a 'crutch'. With the 'sticky aim', it's not only redundant to highlight the object as well as effectively shoot it for the players, but it removes any bow mechanics that such a weapon should entail -- trajectory, strength, range.

I know manual aiming might be haphazard, but that's why it should be an optional aiming mode for those who want it. That, and it's a puzzle game primarily; so it shouldn't impinge on gameplay too much if the player misses a few times before landing a shot.