Heads up display.

CyborWolfTK

As a former game designer, and gamer who loves playing support,

I have always been disappointed in the wack-a-mole paradigm in most MMO's

 

  Now I've been contemplating ever since the news about CU came out, weather to share my design to handle this part of a game.

 I guess I figure that I'm never going to finish my own game, so rather then waste the ideas I have

I'm going to share them. If any of them make into this or any other game, that would make all the work I did on it worth it.

 

  Okay here's my vision for Heads up Healing.

I want the players playing support to have their eyes in the game, instead of stuck to a box with bars in it.

My system will still have the old familiar box with bars, but it adds a smart Que system that's overlaid on the players screen.

 When a group mate gets damaged and their life is between 90-99% then they get a faint green highlight that glows around them.

60-89% it turns yellow. 40-59% orange. 10-39% red, 9-0% Grey, and finally black for dead.

<-----                                                                                                                   ----->

  When the party member is not on the players screen a arrow pops up with the same information pointing to what direction the player is in. Again the color code described above is applied to this arrow. The player could click that arrow, or the bar in the box, or get the player in view and click on the player.

 

Additionally, graphics for conditions would also be seen, such as a tiny black rat for disease, green drop particle effect for poison, red partial effect for bleed, a shut eye for blinded, a ear for deaf, a severed arm for mortal or cleaved condition(-25% hp) stars for stun, ZZZ for sleep, a pocket watch on a chain swinging back and forth for hypnotize, a leg with a spear through it for root, a cord around a foot for snare...so on and so forth ect ect ect.

 

  The arrows that pop up on the players screen would have these symbols imbedded in them when the target is off screen.

 The player could choose what size, and brightness these que would be through the options menu.

 

     I also added a system that would tell protection based support classes what kind of damage party member's or targeted player was taking.

  This was done through a self buff- My base healing class(that branched into 4 diffrent Main classes) had a low level version that would only tell very basic information, while the buffer/protection/mitigation main class got the advanced version. The jack of all trades main class got it too but only as an advanced skill.(to much to go into for right now).

  I used to play a solo cleric often in zerg surfing conditions, and learned to look at the game to see who needed help.
 

I called it "seeing eye healing" after the baseball term "seeing eye single". I had much more fun doing that at times then I did in group play, because i was never bound to that box with bars.

 

  Of course as time went on I learned how to do both, but I still always had more fun un-grouped healing/supporting then I did in a group, and that's why I came up with this system. I wanted to be able to group because I love the social aspect, But I wanted to enjoy the game the same way everyone else did, and still be able to take care

of my beloved group mates.

 

  I don't know if this system would fit CU, because frankly, I don't know how flashy Mark wants his game to be.

 

I don't think a system like this would impact Frame rates much at all, and if players don't like it, it could always be turned off via the option menu.

 

 Comments, Crits, suggestions welcomed.

 

Sorry about the large font, us older guys don't have great eyes anymore:P

 

Edited for clairty.

 

Tekkaman

I can tell you were a game designer and not a web designer or even an artistic designer.

 

That blob of text is not going to be read as much as you like simply because you are unaware of a simple thing called legibility.

 

Are you attempting to write to pre-schoolers?

 

I hope you realize that even in your apparent best attempt that your ability to consistently indent is as absent as your "older guy" vision. Believe it or not, you have the ability to increase the size of a standard typeface as well as bolding if you honestly have an issue with visibility.

 

In the event that you truly were unable to see your own text, I highly suggest using a text editor to type out your novel in an extremely large font ranging from 36px to over 9000px and then reducing the size once you paste it all here on the forums for others to read. That is, if they can read it.

 

Other than that, I believe that the majority of what you're asking for has been exhausted through many add-ons for games.

 

Your belief that players should play the game rather than the box is something I agree with 100% even to the extent of wanting HUDs removed, forcing players to monitor their allies on their own.

 

One issue with the proposed system is that depending on the resolution there may be too much UI present. This is often seen on many MMO based videos displaying PvE or PvP/RvR content.

 

Thank you for your randomly capitalized words and editing for clarity.

 

Your friend,

"Than"

Speely

I like it, though the status condition (disease, poison, etc) part doesn't sit well with me. If I am the one applying said status to an enemy, I would not want it to be easier for their healer to know that they are impaired. I want them to take the time to tell them (and thus hopefully not kill me.)

Now that I think of it, I kinda feel the same way about healing. Don't get me wrong: your idea is a good one. As a dps toon, however, I would not like the mechanic any more than a healer would like enemy casters having colored arrows pointing to the easiest kills in their party. RvR should not be easy or convenient. It should be difficult, at least imho. Read the field, know your enemy, learn your team, et al.

Still, the idea is cool for PvE and generally clever

Speely

Also, I had no trouble reading your post at all, despite the larger text. Even a little bit. Ever.

CyborWolfTK

Originally posted by Tekkaman

I can tell you were a game designer and not a web designer or even an artistic designer.

 

That blob of text is not going to be read as much as you like simply because you are unaware of a simple thing called legibility.

 

Are you attempting to write to pre-schoolers?

 

I hope you realize that even in your apparent best attempt that your ability to consistently indent is as absent as your "older guy" vision. Believe it or not, you have the ability to increase the size of a standard typeface as well as bolding if you honestly have an issue with visibility.

 

In the event that you truly were unable to see your own text, I highly suggest using a text editor to type out your novel in an extremely large font ranging from 36px to over 9000px and then reducing the size once you paste it all here on the forums for others to read. That is, if they can read it.

 

Other than that, I believe that the majority of what you're asking for has been exhausted through many add-ons for games.

 

Your belief that players should play the game rather than the box is something I agree with 100% even to the extent of wanting HUDs removed, forcing players to monitor their allies on their own.

 

One issue with the proposed system is that depending on the resolution there may be too much UI present. This is often seen on many MMO based videos displaying PvE or PvP/RvR content.

 

Thank you for your randomly capitalized words and editing for clarity.

 

Your friend,

"Than"

   Thanks,

     I don't like wearing glasses because I get head aches, and I cannot wear contacts.

I wrote it in a email editor, and it did not convert over to this forum format very well.

 

After working on it for 15 minutes, and seeing how I'm doing it for free, I did not feel it had to be gramaticly perfect, nor did I care what age my readers are. I like cosmic Sans font, i did it for ME.

 

    As I said in the post, the system could be turned off or decreased in size to suit the player.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CyborWolfTK

Originally posted by PerfArt
I like it, though the status condition (disease, poison, etc) part doesn't sit well with me. If I am the one applying said status to an enemy, I would not want it to be easier for their healer to know that they are impaired. I want them to take the time to tell them (and thus hopefully not kill me.)

Now that I think of it, I kinda feel the same way about healing. Don't get me wrong: your idea is a good one. As a dps toon, however, I would not like the mechanic any more than a healer would like enemy casters having colored arrows pointing to the easiest kills in their party. RvR should not be easy or convenient. It should be difficult, at least imho. Read the field, know your enemy, learn your team, et al.

Still, the idea is cool for PvE and generally clever

 

  Just to clairfy,

  The system  would not be visable to you as an enemy.  Just the normal graphic effects, what ever those would be.

I too would not want to make it too easy for healers/support, I just want to get their noeses out of that box and into the action.

 

  

 

 

meddyck

I could actually see outlining damaged party members being valuable to healing.

I'm unsure with the arrows whether your intent is that healers would need to actually face and click a party member's avatar to select them rather than clicking them in the group window or pressing a group member selection hotkey. I wouldn't like that since in a crowded fight it is hard to select a particular person in a crowd.

As for negative effect icons, I like DAOC's way of color coding names in the group window better. Icons even for effects on yourself are difficult to see and interpret quickly. But showing a group member's name green when poisoned, brown when diseased, purple when blinded, etc. is easy to pick up.

Ice-Queen

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Originally posted by meddyck I could actually see outlining damaged party members being valuable to healing. I'm unsure with the arrows whether your intent is that healers would need to actually face and click a party member's avatar to select them rather than clicking them in the group window or pressing a group member selection hotkey. I wouldn't like that since in a crowded fight it is hard to select a particular person in a crowd. As for negative effect icons, I like DAOC's way of color coding names in the group window better. Icons even for effects on yourself are difficult to see and interpret quickly. But showing a group member's name green when poisoned, brown when diseased, purple when blinded, etc. is easy to pick up.

---

 

I agree, I like color coding in the group window best. It's less cluttered that way. The way the OP suggests would make me want an option to turn it off in huge battles.

MightyPit

I like the idea of a healers helper without box-clicking in the way the op describes it. It should be configurable, so that the player can decide when to use it und which healing targets are effected (group / battlegroup / all)

But to be honest, if there is no strong interface for effective healing, there will be custom addons very quickly, and if this is not possible, there will be quickly complains about it.

Stiler

I'm a minimalist when it comes to the HUD in games, I like to see as little of it as possible and moreso have the actual game take up more space.

So this idea sounds great from a healers perspective to me.