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Health bar should be removed and here is why
Flanker
Member
Based on what we know at the moment, flagging & corruption system seems to be pretty decent. It is an enhanced version of Lineage 2 system with several reasonable adjustments made to significantly mitigate the risk of griefing. However, there is one more potential issue that needs to be addressed.
Currently, it is to possible to see the health bar of a player even if he is not a member of your group or raid, which can inadvertently aid griefers and turn healthy competition for bosses or locations into... ratting competition. For instance, a griefer could intentionally keep a player's HP low, while having little to no risk of killing that player. This tactic becomes particularly effective during moments when a party is engaged with a group of mobs; the griefer can focus on the tank or healer. This can still be achieved, even if only you can only see the segments on a health bar, especially with some practice.
If, however, players' health bars were only visible to their own party or raid members, this issue could be mitigated. This change would also open strategic possibilities like deliberately maintaining low HP to bait enemies. Upon being attacked and accidentally killed, a player could retaliate against their attacker who turns red without facing any penalties, potentially leading to the agressor dropping their gear upon defeat. In this scenario, both parties face a balanced mix of risk and reward, significantly reducing the likelihood of griefing.
In my opinion, this is the final adjustment needed to perfect the existing flagging and corruption system, making it truly balanced.
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UPDATE
a) Make HP bars of your guild members visible
b) (Maybe) Make HP bars of players from your alliance visible
Currently, it is to possible to see the health bar of a player even if he is not a member of your group or raid, which can inadvertently aid griefers and turn healthy competition for bosses or locations into... ratting competition. For instance, a griefer could intentionally keep a player's HP low, while having little to no risk of killing that player. This tactic becomes particularly effective during moments when a party is engaged with a group of mobs; the griefer can focus on the tank or healer. This can still be achieved, even if only you can only see the segments on a health bar, especially with some practice.
If, however, players' health bars were only visible to their own party or raid members, this issue could be mitigated. This change would also open strategic possibilities like deliberately maintaining low HP to bait enemies. Upon being attacked and accidentally killed, a player could retaliate against their attacker who turns red without facing any penalties, potentially leading to the agressor dropping their gear upon defeat. In this scenario, both parties face a balanced mix of risk and reward, significantly reducing the likelihood of griefing.
In my opinion, this is the final adjustment needed to perfect the existing flagging and corruption system, making it truly balanced.
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UPDATE
Still the best idea so far. In addition to that:Corrupted/Combatant player HP is visible, nonCombatant player HP isn't.
a) Make HP bars of your guild members visible
b) (Maybe) Make HP bars of players from your alliance visible
7
Comments
There's no reason to have it, outside of "oh, but the reaaaalismmmm!" Gameplay is way more important than realism, especially when it comes to an already highly debated topic of pvp/pk.
Edit: Oh and class icon I suppose.
The Idea from Ashes devs was already good with the 25% segments that should work good enough for pvp
Absolutely. I'm 99% sure that the issue I described will happen, because that's exactly what happened in some patches of Lineage 2.
It doesn't play any significant role in PvE as you can see the health of your allies anyway. Those 25% segments will not help. If devs leave it as it is, you and everyone else will have a chance to feel that soon enough.
Having a sence of how a battle is going is what makes it engaging. If you take away all information what are we doing other than button spamming?
We can't downgrade the game just to avoid a fringe griefing scenerio
You may call it whatever you prefer, like it or dislike it, but by no means it is "downgrading". I've played games with both visible and invisible health bars and the latter option makes much more sense in a game with open-world PvP if you look at this matter not from the position "I like it" or "I don't like it". It's not about mine, yours or anyone else's personal preferences. It is simply logical and makes sense.
we have known for a while that the hp wont be visible after the game releases. they also reminded us about 2 streams ago, during the caravan pvp showcase that you will only be able to see the hp of your party / guild , etc, not of your enemies or people who arent in your party, etc. they just havent coded it yet.
Oh, really? Somehow I missed that part
If anything, he said that it'd be even worse and there'd be a way to see a more precise value, if you progress in some path.
we will not see precise values or a red bar going lower....
what we might see is the deterioration of name plates. i suppose the deterioration will happen at certain hp %, so lets say the biggest deterioration will happen at 30% hp.
30% of a warrior who decided to boost his health wont have the same flat value as the 30% of a mage who decided to go glass cannon or the 30% of a mage who didnt go glass cannon, so you could still go red unintentionally or waste an important ability, or fight when you should run for a bit, etc.
also, keeping someone low so the mobs kill them is a perfectly valid strategy ;3
This was relatively easily done in L2 if you knew class hp values, even w/o being able to see said hp values (or approximations), so I see no damn reason for having them in Ashes, other than to make the game more casual.
Oh, most definitely, I don't want that part changed. I simply want it to be a skillful thing that requires deep knowledge of the game, rather than simply a few pokes of your victim. Why make it easier for bad actors to be successful.
Doesn't make sence at all. Denying basic info just creates extreme haves and have nots. Do you want a scenerio where people need a spread sheet of lvls and likely hp values in order to shot call during an engagement?
Besides, games are an audio/visual fantasy. People want to see what the button they pushed did. Otherwise what's the point?
And lets be real, or logical as you put it. If people are not shown critical info, they get it elsewhere. Do you want third party apps that take the oppenents level, and possibly gear, to calculate likely hp values? Do you then want those apps to subtract the damage to target in order to give an estimate of current hp to enable good shot calling? Do you want those apps to basically become meta and mandatory as time goes on? That's the likely outcome over time, if we are being logical.
1. Nobody would use that kind of spreadsheets, after some time you will know the approximate amount of HP of certain classes.
2. You will see the amount of damage you dealt.
3. The point is to prevent a very simple way to grief enemy players and competitors.
4. Using third-party apps or tools is not allowed, will not be allowed and using them might lead to ban. The last paragraph is based on assumption that is not true.
P.S. If I could, I would ask anyone who thinks that it is a good idea to put their names on the list along with their promise not to complain about it ever, as it's only a matter of time when you have this kind of encounter.
Yup, seen that in Lineage, it's pretty easy. Personally, it's not in my interest to make a suggestion like this, as I'm a hardcore player and my daily online is probably higher than it is for ~98% of other players. And as long as it will 100% be a valid strategy, I would definitely use it in case of necessity. However, I don't want to see hundreds of casual players complaining about such cases and I prefer to have a healthy competition in game.
1. Of course they will. That meta always develops from lack of info in a competitive environment.
2. Good, thats important info.
3. No it's not. The point is to limit information to create a competitive advatage for you.
4. Correct, it is not allowed, nor should it be. And by limiting information to create a competitive advantage, you create the conditions under which it will happen. But don't worry, you've tasked Intrepid with endlessly policing that for you so you don't have to worry about that part. (Except if course when they don't keep up adequately with the endless arms race, then we get 700 YT videos about it.)
People entering the game or casually playing should not have artificial barriers to entry in reguards to pvp. They still have to learn builds, tactics, gear, abilities and all the other classes with all the cooldowns in order to compete at a high level.
Give them the info they need to get started and quickly enjoy it along with the rest of us, don't put up walls for your own advantage.
The "it shouldn't be casual" arguement can easily be flipped on its head. "Why do you require the devs to give you all these advantages?" works just as easily.
You said it yourself, casual players will still have to learn the game if they want to compete properly, so what exactly is the difference? Them not seeing hp values has no impact on their ability to win against someone who's already better at the game. Just as seeing hp has no impact as well, because you won't suddenly win purely because you see that your opponent is taking dmg.
Not seeing hp raises the skill ceiling, while not really changing the skill floor, because the floor starts at you flagging up on someone with whatever ability/attack you want. Let casuals be casuals and hardcore people be hardcore.
If they take away health bars for enemies
People will find a way to 3rd party it or an addon or even overlay til they get that essential data
Giving them an advantage over players who don’t have it
I think this whole health bar thing is silly, even though it is confirmed by Steve that it will be in quarters I still think the means isn’t justified, what, to stop a few people grieving? Happened in other mmos we just dealt with it? Call your guildies, call your friends to come help if you can’t handle it instead of trying to make it a watered down PvP game
Regardless, quarterly health bars i can take, however just fully having it with zero intel and instead as a “guessing game” is just bad
There is no way you are read the dmg being done to player from all sources with this magic add on that won't be allowed in the game. Not to mention you cant see what all sources are doing to a target player... Not to mention you don't know their build / hp on top of it that will add other factors.
Whatever magic add on you are looking for is not going to be a thing so its not a viable argument.
But if you want to keep going with it you can explain how a add on will read information from other mobs and players, protections, without any data to feed into it.
Its not a guessing game go based on instinct and reading the the situation. You might be wrong, you might be right but the goal in the end is the same to kill them. Don't hold back or deal with the consequences of over committing too many cds.
Of course its different. Learning classes, abilities etc is information they have. They just need to learn it. Hiding HP is impossible to know because the game, in this instance doesn't tell you. It's a permanent barrier to entry.
Either you are willing to participate in pvp where the game hides info or you are not. Many won't, or they will do it less often. So you have reduced the overall amount of pvp that takes place ever. And since this is hard baked into the game, its a permanent change. For no good reason other than to make the game safer for individuals.
We can't on the one hand ask for widespread open world pvp, while on the other hand implement barriers to discouraged that very thing.
what? not true, if the HP from players is server side you cant make 3rd party tools to see it, the same way you cant make an addon to just see how much gold I have in my bank lol thats not how addons work
It's the least of the issues with this idea, but yes they will find a way. Assuming the software engineers on the internet "will never figure it out" is not a good strategy. And remember AI will be even better by the time this game comes out.
The bigger issue is: Do we want to encourage widespread pvp or do we want to discourage widespread pvp?
Edit: Hell, off the top of my head, if your lvl, class and gear can all be obtained you are most of the way there. Guess we need to hide all that too.
However, point still stands
Everything written in previous thread about this exact point of removing health bars entirely is just so a few people don’t get griefs
There was no other point that was said that could justify not having an enemy health bar for PvP in this game
Still don’t agree, you could use a major cooldown when the enemies one tap due to having zero information, so at least with the quarters (which i will once again reiterate) are confirmed you can plan for the next enemy instead of wasting cool downs, and can see if they are healing up or not etc which again is vital information for versing other players
You are getting into hacker territory.
Again, L2 didn't have hp values and it was one of the pvpest games out there, because people simply fought back. And the better you knew the game - the higher your pvp skill would be.
Not knowing enemy hp has no impact on your ability to keep hitting that enemy until either of you fall to the ground.
In other words, everyone who wants visible hp simply has a skill issue and wants the game to help them resolve it.
Oh please...lets take the reverse of that. Every one who needs their hp hidden is either too scrub or too afraid to participate in a stand up fight. Those types of generalizations go both ways, and go nowhere.
You are suggesting hiding info which will reduce open world pvp and I'm suggesting we add info to encourage it.
It has an impact on what percentage of the population will participate in any given scenerio. The percentage of the population that won't follow all the steps you outline is the percentage of pvp reduction you've applied to the game for no reasonable benefit.
If I hit a dude for 100 and he hits me for 1k - it's gonna be obvious that he's stronger. If I'm the "scissors" to my enemy's "paper" hp won't matter much because I'm already at an advantage (same the other way around).
Also, it takes someone flagging up to even know what their impact on the target's hp would even be, so in your supposition pvp is already happening even before either side knows their target's hp, so how exactly would that knowledge have any impact on the amount of pvp in the game?
And if you meant that visible hp would increase the amount of pvps ending in some particular way, I'd imagine that the dmg numbers would have a much bigger influence on those particular outcomes, unless the game is so damn imbalanced that person A is doing 1k dmg to person B who has 20k hp, while B only does 100 dmg to A who has 1k hp. But I dearly hope we don't have shit like that.