What should be done about the health bar?

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Comments

  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Also yes @Frozen, that info indeed was available through much hated clicking.
    This just feels like a QOL change for a comm. Do what you want with the field health bars, but keep for comm.
  • WobWob Join Date: 2005-04-08 Member: 47814Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    Hmm. I think the commander change is a good point. I hope he has to select the lifeform to be able to see the bars though. I don't think this info should be free at the point of line of sight.
  • ZavaroZavaro Tucson, Arizona Join Date: 2005-02-14 Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    I agree with @DC_Darkling, being forced to click on an alien is super rough in the chaos of a battle. I think having aliens being hit by bullets with a health bar for comm would help planning an engagement or pinch much, much better. I know @MajorTico was a huge advocate for this, and I think it'd be a really great addition to the current most thankless job in NS2.
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    @Wob I know you're concerned that the info is too readily available for the comm, then, but I think THAT might be a good thing, and a way to lessen the need of the health bars. I imagine that sweet overview has a DBZ power meter anyway
  • WobWob Join Date: 2005-04-08 Member: 47814Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    I liked that skill in a comm although it is more difficult than it should be because targeting aliens in this game as a comm seems bugged or broken (doesn't feel consistent and as easy as it should be).

    I think giving it for free is perhaps too easy, although god knows we need more comms in this game. Perhaps you could give that info without clicking but with a scan
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    Actually you bring up a good point. a god does know we need more comms in this game. Let's not make it more difficult to spawn them, let's make it more fun. It's still hard enough for them to point it out to players amidst yada yadas
  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    I like the idea about HP bars being visible for commanders only. At least it would still promote communication between comm and fieldplayers.
  • AdambeanAdambean Cardiff, South Wales Join Date: 2005-06-03 Member: 53038Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited May 2016
    I wrote why I feel this feature should be removed on the NS2 feedback website as it appeared that's where feedback was wanted. What I said is:
    I would like to request the removal the recently added enemy health bars feature, where a player can temporarily see the health of an enemy they are fighting. I am requesting this removal because it has grossly swayed the combat balance in the marine favour.

    Marines are much less intimidated by high alien life forms because they can clearly see if they are about to die, and will focus harder on destroying that life form even if it means their own death or losing a map location. While the focus is good, as pointed out by Happy Noodle the marine commander had to feed back to the marines that the life form is near death so they knew to focus on it. Whether or not the players listened to this feedback from the commander is not relevant. The commander wasn't always available in the area to provide that feedback too.

    I have taken out some decently ranked players on high life forms because of this, where as before they would have made an escape because I didn't know how hurt they were to an exact figure in real time. Instead I'd maybe go back a bit and weld a phase gate sooner to save a location we're holding on to, whereas now I know that one or two pistol shots could cost them a high life form. Having got the kill I'm thinking no way would I have taken out that player before, knowing full well that the other player is better at NS2 than I am.

    This means the experienced players of whom know their health is on perfect display to any marine fighting them are backing off from a fight much earlier than they would have. This is making high life forms, of which are pretty expensive, a much less useful investment. I'm seeing rookies able to push away decent fades and able to keep territory they would have otherwise lost.

    There is also a bug where the health bars do not disappear at the same time an alien enters cloak, for any valid reason. A marine can see a floating health bar knowing exactly where a cloaked alien is. I witnessed a player inform a play tester of this during a game of Caged on the Spark Crafter Collective server, so this issue is probably already known. Health bars should certainly be disappearing with cloak, and frankly even behind an opaque obstruction. (Why should the marines be given a "wall hack" type feature like this? We have scans to know where aliens are out of sight.)

    Please be assured this request is not a dig at the current development team. I appreciate that us NS2 players are lucky enough to have a great team of whom are trying out new ideas to try and improve game play and balance, and it's good to see such active involvement from a product old enough for most businesses to consider an "end of line" or "out of support". However from what I've experienced with a variety of players across the globe, including the thoughts and feelings I've heard from players, this feature doesn't appear to have improved balance and therefore I feel that we should concede on this occasion that it just hasn't worked out as well as intended.
  • remiremi remedy [blu.knight] Join Date: 2003-11-18 Member: 23112Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester
    Adambean wrote: »
    There is also a bug where the health bars do not disappear at the same time an alien enters cloak, for any valid reason. A marine can see a floating health bar knowing exactly where a cloaked alien is. I witnessed a player inform a play tester of this during a game of Caged on the Spark Crafter Collective server, so this issue is probably already known. Health bars should certainly be disappearing with cloak, and frankly even behind an opaque obstruction. (Why should the marines be given a "wall hack" type feature like this? We have scans to know where aliens are out of sight.)

    It actually should already disappear the moment aliens go behind cover. If you have instances where this is not happening please let me know and I will investigate.

    The cloak report is the same situation, playtesters tried this case and didn't see an issue, so if you have some more info about the situation in which this happens, it would be helpful.

    @Adambean
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited May 2016
    @remi seems to think that even if the majority of players here oppose healthbars COMPLETELY, then it still shouldn't be removed. It's quite possible that health-bars are going to stay in some way or form no matter what other people have to say about it.

    I'm seriously going nuts here.
  • AdambeanAdambean Cardiff, South Wales Join Date: 2005-06-03 Member: 53038Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    ^ Looks like the issue where bars were visible behind walls got fixed, need to look out more for the cloaking issue.
  • Scout255Scout255 Canada Join Date: 2015-01-24 Member: 201015Members, NS2 Map Tester
    I'm split between keep it and tweak it or flat out remove it. It seems based on the previous thread that any changes to it are highly unlikely though, which is very depressing. As we are not new players and this feature was targeted at new players our opinions appear to matter little to the dev team based on how our feedback has been received so far. Responses in this thread are further reinforcing this thought (I.e. implying bias and how the vote will be inaccurate, etc.)

    There were multiple posts recommending fixes, any of them would return a large amount of enjoyment to the game that was personally lost for me with this change. I sincerely hope that this is modified in a matter that serves its purpose but removes the clutter and tracking help.

    Till then I'll be playing doom.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Need an in game poll in general..
  • maD_maX_maD_maX_ Join Date: 2013-04-07 Member: 184678Members
    Remove it... if it must stay in game, make it a LOT less specific. Maybe simply have the health go from green->yellow->red... or light red->red-> dark red...
  • Deck_Deck_ Join Date: 2014-07-20 Member: 197526Members
    maD_maX_ wrote: »
    Remove it... if it must stay in game, make it a LOT less specific. Maybe simply have the health go from green->yellow->red... or light red->red-> dark red...

    You could have that part of the tutorial too, so the colors would be pretty easy to understand like aura. That is better, but why not just have it a hp indicator another place on your screen and/or without a bar so it doesn't make tracking easier.
  • alsteralster Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
    Remi you are a god of NS2, but even gods make mistakes. Remi - No I don't, I just tweak them.

    The bars were flawed from the very beginning. They show health from damage which is fine, but only at close range. When you shoot something from a distance no bar is shown making it seem like you are doing no damage. Even the old damage numbers were shown at any range. There is no consistency in how the health bars should work. It doesn't make knowing someone's health from far away so much an advantage that the bar should not be shown at all. A damaged player from far away can heal, switch position with his buddy, retreat, wait a bit, fake being an easy kill, etc..

    You wanted health bars to make shooting easier. That was your plan from the start, right? It could have been much easier to accomplish by buffing any bullet or projectile damage. You want to make biting easier? Buff the bite damage. You want to make targeting easier? Put a white pointer instead of the health bar. Call of Duty has aim assist, but don't do that. You want to know an enemies health? Put your target on the enemy and then it will show you his health for as long as the enemy is in the target.
  • MephillesMephilles Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    Everyone in here is saying healthbars go implemented to make aiming easier. Have you ever thought about this being a side effect only?

    I assume the original goal of those healthbars is just to provide more informations to the players that usually should be communicated like it is the case in competitive games.

    But an average pub player does not use the microphone and I myself for example play pubs with everyone one the server muted (80% of the times) so I can't get any informations by my team.
    You should not rely on randoms to communicate with each other so everyone knows all the onformations in game. So they get displayed instead which is the healthbar.

    Oh and btw games like dirty bomb and overwatch have them aswell.
  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    COD, BF and CS never needed HP bars to become massively popular amongst casual players. And never did NS1. A major aspect of this game is that it promotes teamwork and communication to be succesful. That's always been a selling point, a thing that sets it apart from the rest. And it's why this game is still alive, because of the core playerbase that can't find another game out there to scratch that itch. Adding things that actually decourage teamwork and communication, that's just gonna undermine it. So I find that a poor argument.
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    Zek wrote: »
    Oh and btw games like dirty bomb and overwatch have them aswell.

    That's what bothers me. I don't want to play dirty bomb or overwatch in ns2.
  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    106 votes. Not bad.
  • MephillesMephilles Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    Tbh I could imagine that it would work to remove the health bars and in exchange display the amount of health the enemy has who killed you like in CS:GO for example
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited May 2016
    Zek wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    @remi seems to think that even if the majority of players here oppose healthbars COMPLETELY, then it still shouldn't be removed. It's quite possible that health-bars are going to stay in some way or form no matter what other people have to say about it.

    I'm seriously going nuts here.

    To be blunt, game development is not a democracy. Regardless of the topic, you can't determine what's best for the game based on a forum poll. Not only are the forums an inaccurate representation of all demographics of the community (new players in particular), but the people most likely to be browsing the forums and reading a thread like this are the ones that have a bone to pick with a recent patch.

    I do agree with you on that, but that was just me expressing my frustration because they are largely ignoring the veterans (which, believe it or not, is a critical part of the community). It's annoying that @remi is only replying to comments that support it and consistently refuses to discuss the major flaws in the system.
  • RedSwordRedSword Join Date: 2006-12-07 Member: 58947Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    Remove it, but keep for commander (apparently they have it :o ?)
  • HeatSurgeHeatSurge Some Guy Join Date: 2012-09-15 Member: 159438Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited May 2016
    This won't get much traction, but I'd also like the damage numbers to be removed ;-) . Just the little red hit indicator left.
  • RysskRyssk Join Date: 2012-12-18 Member: 175441Members
    I dont see the efficency with the thread tbh, cause it wont be removed ever. It's just the way NS2 works these days :)
  • WakeWake Join Date: 2003-03-05 Member: 14351Members, Constellation
    No thanks.

    Plus: How to make april's fool now as a comm having some marines pursuit a pretended low health Onos while it's full up and have 2 backup gorges around the corner ?

    Moreover, aren't medical files strictly private ? Prepare to get sued by of Onoses's next of a kin for being responsible for murder, possibly genocide !

  • _mod_mod New Zealand Join Date: 2013-11-01 Member: 188922Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I'm in the removal camp but I can see why people would want it and I think I have a slightly different take on how it could be tweaked.
    This is partially because I don't think it will be removed no matter what we say. So at least we can add our choice of sauce to this patch sandwich that we all have to eat now.
    _mod wrote:
    Yojimbo wrote:
    _mod wrote:
    I don't really like it. A lot of people seem to be saying it's just mostly a veteran issue. But that works as a double blow for smaller communities like Aus.
    Aus has been a dying community for years now (though we still have a pool of regulars to fill up our one server). But the general gist is that vets tend to mix with newbs a lot more than other servers.
    Adding health bars does help new players But at the same time does make it stupidly easy for vets to priorities soft targets. Adding the potential of re life forming faster really doesn't help solve the initial problem of being focus fired from disciplined vets once they all know exactly how much health you have (which was always a strategy but it's being compounded with the introduction of much clearer visual information to share). At the co-ordinated level I think this weakens the game for many of us because it does make it much harder to mind game other players when all they need to do is tag us once and know exactly how healthy we are.
    I think Fleas is right as well in saying that in many cases the true benefit of aura is knowing how healthy marines are. Which is a benefit the team has to invest in.
    So possibly you could tie this 'marine aura' into the observatory either as a small upgrade like grenades or a benefit of having one built. The less compromising part of me wants it simply removed.
    However I wonder if voices like mine or others in places like the Aus community really matter. It's already shown we're on the out. This change is for some other newer, potential new member. Not for the vets who have mostly enjoyed the standard format of this game for the last few years and are now wondering if it's worth staying.
    Of course other vets may not feel this way. But this is my observation of what seems to be the mood shared by other people I play with.

    Add server toggable pls.

    I would be kinda fine with that. It wouldn't change the pub server we all play in because our low numbers means we have to be especially new player friendly (at least in server settings). But it'd be a start. At least the occasional pug we have won't be hampered by it.

    My take away for tweaking is that since I'm sure it will be a core part of the game, can we tie this upgrade to marines to the tech tree? If it was part of the observatory or tied to a low cost upgrade (5-10 tres like hand grenades) from the observatory it would be a part of the game in the early or mid stages of the match and aliens would have the option of engaging the obs and destroying it to nullify the strength of the ability for at least a short time.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    @Wake if the onos is in visual range then the comm could click it and read its health anyway.
    Right now is just easier, its a QoL change.

    Interfaces should be easy to use, not artificially hard to use. In the perspective of the comm and information nothing has changed. It was already possible.
    I did often.
  • sotanahtsotanaht Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
    edited May 2016
    @Wake if the onos is in visual range then the comm could click it and read its health anyway.
    Right now is just easier, its a QoL change.

    Interfaces should be easy to use, not artificially hard to use. In the perspective of the comm and information nothing has changed. It was already possible.
    I did often.

    If the skulk is in visual range, the marine can just click it and shoot it. Now is easier, it's a QoL change
    --an argument for aimbots.

    The change diminishes the skill, strategy, and communication involved. Rather than the team having to work together to make use of the information they all get it effortlessly in their own private little bubble.
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