Please fix Grinder Targeting

[Chaos]

I've updated the post because I realize I was ranting a bit but my blood really boils when I try to grind something and end up grinding the entire building which wastes the resources, not to mention causes random items to just hang in the air. Let's not talk about how difficult it was to reach a tablet that was out of reach of jumping.

[Kaligula]

Back from holidays, sorry for my late response. @Chaos: sorry, I didn't want to troll and if I had known, that the sarcastic laser sentence would offend you so much, I would have used a longer explanation. What I was worried about: given the current animation so far, common players (not me, not you, not the devs or any other coder, just common people) could get irritated, if it's not the object the grinder touches, that vanishes, but the object they are staring at. How does it look like to these players, how does it feel for them? I just wanted to state what players might think of, if they get in touch with this tool behavior.

In your response, you said, that additional animations could counteract this. I totally agree, and this would be the best and awesome solution. An algorythm determines a matchíng animation that circumvents the obstructing objects. The player can see, how the grinder fulfills a maneuver to reach the desired object. Wonderful!
but:
- additional animations
- new algorythem to fetch a matching animation
- another new algorythm to switch from the active animation to a second one, if the player changes the targeted object
- Q&A has more jobs to do/create to test the new stuff

While this is an awesome solution, I think this is a lot of work to do.

Back to the problem definition: the players expectation does not match the grinders action. The key problem is the mismatch.
Okay, we can change the tools behavior, so that the tool's action matches the players expectation. But is this the one and only solution to this certain problem? really?
I don't think so:

a different possibility:
when the targeted object by players line of sight doesn't match the tools's one: do nothing but show an error message in the HUD: "target is obstructed, please try from different position/angle"

How would this option look like for the player:
player grabs grinder, walks to bunch ob objects, wants to grind one of them, nothing happens but the error message occurs. The player retries from a different position, perhaps mutliple times, until the correct obejct got grinded (or the player gets frustrated and gives up).
So:
no unexpected objects disappear, no resources lost
Player might get frustrated if a working position can't be found
Most important: player gets feedback, why the action doesn't work and what to do now
any side effect to realism: no: if I try to use a real grinder and something is in the way (that I cannot remove) I try from a different position or angle. So no new animation in the game needed so far.

estimated work for the devs:
find the expected target and compare to the grinder target: if not matching: show error message instead of activating the tool
Q&A: test if the message gets shown and the grinder keeps deactivated

That's not as awesome as the first solution but the problem, that unexpected objects disappear and resources get lost, is fixed. The player gets feedback and hint what went wrong. The estimated work for the devs is low, as a bugfix.

Other solution:
show the grinders target name on screen (just like it already does on player-generated objects).

How would this option look like for the player:
player grabs grinder, walks to bunch ob objects, wants to grind e.g. a monitor that stands on a table. The screen shows 'table', not 'monitor'. The player retries from a different position, perhaps mutliple times, until the 'monitor' is displayed and now grinds the monitor (or the player gets frustrated and gives up).
So:
no unexpected objects disappear, no resources lost (unless the player cannot read)
Player might get frustrated if a working position can't be found
Most important: player gets feedback what would get grinded, before pushing the button
any side effect to realism: no: if I try to use a real grinder and it bunches into something in the way (that I cannot remove) I try from a different position or angle. So no new animation in the game needed.

estimated work for the devs:
I don't know: the code already exists for player generated objects. The devs alone know, why it's deactivated for scrap.
Q&A: test if the object name of the grinders target is shown

Has its downside, too: it's still possible, that an object is such hard to target, so that it seems to nearly be impossible. The estimated work for the devs depends on the question, why it is deactivated at all.

Summary:
it depends on how likely it might happen, that the grinder touches an object while the line of sight targets a different one, using the current animation.
If it's less likely so you can ignore it:
use the first solution, without new animations. Cross fingers, that no player complains that the grinder blade touches one object (because of the animation), but a different object disappears (that one in line of sight)....
in the other case:
as a bugfix, I would go for the third option.

In long term, the first solution with new animations is best: but that's not a bugfix, that's an epic. (perhaps, that's the reason why it takes so long?) I really would love to see it some day.

[Chaos]

Welcome back! And I apologize myself if I seemed offended. I was a bit annoyed for sure because I've been a game developer myself for many years and have been the lead programmer for several projects, not really worth mentioning here however.

The disconnect I think, and the issue the Developers really should look at resolving, is the fact that there is an interaction between the player and an object they're looking at, despite there being a tool in play. This is from the simple act of putting the targeting circle in the center of the screen over an object, which then shows the durability of the object.

Because what you're targeting and what you're actually hitting, regardless of the mechanic in play, can be different there's a disconnect which leads players into accidentally grinding or destroying targets they didn't intend to, and because this has the additional consequence of costing materials that could have been salvaged it becomes more than an annoyance, especially early game on the hardest difficulty where every little resource matters in a race to establish a means to survive.

The simplest solution would be, as mentioned, to simply make the target the player is pointing at and thus getting the information on, be the actual target even if the grinder doesn't exactly line up. From my perspective, the grinder never lines up as it is because it's not hitting the intended target.

As an added bonus, this allows for much better precision on targeting objects and I think players would receive that much better than the current issue where sometimes you struggle to grind an object and keep hitting the wall spamming you with messages. Additional pop up messages wouldn't be welcomed either.

I also would like to point out that a lot of Gamers, especially those interested in games like this and are used to first person perspectives, are already expecting the targeting to function in a similar manner as most of the other games. Whenever you have a targeting circle on the screen, it's assumed that the feedback from pointing/targeting something is accurate with either what you're shooting at if you had a gun, or what you're grinding in this case. The same is true for welding, or any other activity.

A similar example to my point - when you target the door on a vehicle in a storm to get in, like the truck, you'd expect the door to open since that's what it shows you pointing at. But what if that didn't happen, because your hand is what actually interacts, and the animation doesn't have it going towards the target and thus doesn't actually open the door. Imagine the frustration.

I do admit you offer some compelling strategies as well and again I apologize if I came off in the wrong way. I wouldn't mind discussing additional options though it would be awesome if the Developers were watching the thread as well since this kind of discussion could be useful.

In the end, my only concern honestly is user experience > realism. Games like Stationeers does a good job balancing this themselves. What you target is what you interact with and that's the expected behavior. Because the players cant affect or even predict the exact animation movement, it's expected that the animation is merely visual and the target is in fact what you're trying to interact with.