Target player health indicator?

Target player healthbars dont belong in an open world mmo specially in AoC which uses the flagging/PK system to facilitate open world progress and conflict of interest based PvP.

Knowing a target players health can lead to gameplay that's not fun for the defender. If a player battles mobs and an attacker notices his low HP he could lower it to the point where the mobs can deal the final blow and the attacker can claim the dropped items and the area.

This is why AoC went with health indicators. The current ones we saw on the latest stream were not good. They will be further worked on since we are still in development. But what is the aim of them?

I would argue that there is 0 usage for health indicators as well as health bars for target players.
Besides the fact that they are a visual clutter and offer (rightly) unclear target player survivability, a low health indicator makes a target the priority for nuking in organized PvP.

We dont need them. A basic nameplay with a "current target" icon to signify that this player is rdy to be hit by your abilities is all it takes in OWpvp.
You dont need to know more info. It's not a battleground, nor any other instanced PvP like in other mmos.

You either choose to fight an enemy in the open world for gains, or you compromise and move along. If you choose to fight you fight and you either touch the dirt or he does.

No health bars. Health indicators? What for? No health indicators.

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Comments

arkileo

This is one of those things that sounds super radical, but I do wonder how it would play out.

It would be cool if they turned them off just for a little while in A2 to see what it's like. It would radically change decision making and enhance the sense of risk.

Ludullu

arkileo wrote: »

This is one of those things that sounds super radical, but I do wonder how it would play out.

Nothing radical about it. It was that way in L2 and Steven played that, so he simply must've disliked that or maybe other devs told him they dislike that.

The decision making is simple - hit the target till it's dead.

Depraved

i also dont want any health indicators, maybe cuz i really enjoyed ro and l2 more than other games, so idk if I'm biased or not in this one.

id prefer no info on the target. no health, no level, no class, nothing maybe just the name.

Mag7spy

This is too hardcore a feature, best we get is the in-between with what they are currently doing. For most players (as you can see in some discussions around this) they can't function without some element of hand holding and it will scare too many people off, and make the game feel too hard for them.

Noaani

George_Black wrote: »

Target player healthbars dont belong in an open world mmo

An MMO being open world or not have literally no relavence at all in this discussion.

Open world refers to the world being non-linear, where players can go in which ever direction they wish at which ever time they wish.

WoW, ESO, BDO, EQ, EQ2, Rift, DDO, GW, GW2 etc are all open world MMORPG's. Showing health bars in those games is perfectly fine - they absolutely belong.

So, your opening statement of this thread is just incorrect.

As to your statement about the flagging system, since Archeage (also an open world game) has a similar system, and also shows health bars, I fail to see how you can say it doesn't belong.

It wasn't present in L2, and so people wanting Ashes to be L2 version 2 may not like it - but those people are the only ones.

Everyone else will expect it to be present in some form.

Diamaht

Yeah health bars for sure. I'm not a huge fan of segmented but it looks that's what we will get.

Not seeing any info is really not an option. Hiding basic information out of fear of ganks is insane.

Not sure what you are on about with all the "no place" talk. It's in every MMO place.

Solmyr

I'd like to see how things would play out if enemy health was indicated purely through animations and visuals. Something like a progressive blood splatter texture on their clothes, plus blending a limp, a hunched posture, and/or a labored breathing loop on top of the existing locomotion set (not slowing them down, just changing the way they move).

Chivalry 2 had something like this, and it was very easy to gauge someone's health just by looking at their animations, even in the middle of a huge battle. I suspect the same would be true in AoC.

Saabynator

Solmyr wrote: »

I'd like to see how things would play out if enemy health was indicated purely through animations and visuals. Something like a progressive blood splatter texture on their clothes, plus blending a limp, a hunched posture, and/or a labored breathing loop on top of the existing locomotion set (not slowing them down, just changing the way they move).

Chivalry 2 had something like this, and it was very easy to gauge someone's health just by looking at their animations, even in the middle of a huge battle. I suspect the same would be true in AoC.

Its a really cool idea. But probably very hard to do. Tons of models - different armors, races etc.

ArnasPanika

IF you are a developer and using the specific flagging system from a specific game, but taking just a fraction of that system then it definitely won't work. Yes AoC is on a huge hype and therefore a lot of WoW andies came and comes to check it out. But the flagging and pvp system is directly taken from Lineage 2 and if you have never played that game with that system in place then you have no idea what you say when you want visible health bars. Period.

Percimes

No health indicator on other players also mean no way to quickly know if someone not in your group / raid need a heal or timely rescue. Is this friendly neighbour overwhelmed and about to die or is he fine and your help unwanted meddling?

I know, I know, probably a weak argument for this crowd of fierce PVPers, but some of us still have reflexes for acts of heroism rather than what glints in other players' bags. (Oh nice pun)

ArnasPanika

Percimes wrote: »

No health indicator on other players also mean no way to quickly know if someone not in your group / raid need a heal or timely rescue. Is this friendly neighbour overwhelmed and about to die or is he fine and your help unwanted meddling?

I know, I know, probably a weak argument for this crowd of fierce PVPers, but some of us still have reflexes for acts of heroism rather than what glints in other players' bags. (Oh nice pun)

You are right, no way to know if anyone not from your group needs heal, but it's the other groups healer's job + in huge battles most of the time you don't concentrate on single target heals - you mainly use mass heals, aoe shields, party member's HP balancing skills and so on. If someone dies, you react fast and ress him/her and he's/she's back on feet. + in 500 people battles believe me you won't have time to look at birds on the castle wall or heal anyone apart from your group, most probably even people from your own group will die a lot even with your focused heals. This is not WoW, this is not Lineage2, but more Lineage 2 than WoW (especially pvp) or any other casual mmorpg.

Summpwner

@Saabynator it'd be completely unusable in a fight with more than 5 participants and would be identical to "no bars" but with extra textures and effects loaded and rendered.

Diamaht

People playing a video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening in that game as they perform actions. Otherwise it has a constant "what am I really doing here" vibe.

Not giving players feedback in a pvp setting for some silly "hardcore" notion is rediculous.

"Just push buttons until they fall down" is not an enjoyable interactive experience.

The singular greifing example you guys always use, is just a fall back excuse you guys use in order to get to play Lineage 3. There are surely other ways to prevent that one exploit without cheepening the experience of the enitre game.

Hardcore stubborness is a big factor in a lot of older mmos dying off.

ArnasPanika

Diamaht wrote: »

People playing a video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening in that game as they perform actions. Otherwise it has a constant "what am I really doing here" vibe.

Not giving players feedback in a pvp setting for some silly "hardcore" notion is rediculous.

"Just push buttons until they fall down" is not an enjoyable interactive experience.

The singular greifing example you guys always use, is just a fall back excuse you guys use in order to get to play Lineage 3. There are surely other ways to prevent that one exploit without cheepening the experience of the enitre game.

Hardcore stubborness is a big factor in a lot of older mmos dying off.

So firstly if you refer to Lineage 2 and somehow still think that people for 20 years play with a "what am I really doing here vibe" + saying that you know that "people playing video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening" when you simply say what YOU want then by definition you are not right and I have to disappoint you my friend. Of course, you are right in a context, especially if you played PVE game like WoW while other people were playing PvP games like Lineage2, because I really wouldn't take the health bars of your enemies in WoW - the game would not work. But just the same as AoC, which by the way takes the exact pvp flagging system from Lineage 2, wouldn't work with health bars. No, sorry, it would "work", but it would be trash. And people who don't want health bars don't want it because they played L2 or because they are hardcore as you said. They don't want health bars because they already tried the same system for over than 20 years which works perfectly without health bars and they know what they are getting into because they not only know how it works, but they know why it works. If I would have played WoW for 20 years and someone would come to me saying that there won't be health bars then my balls would drop too just as yours, because you never got to try to play for years in a specific system. It's not "cheapening" experience of the entire game, it's enriching it. It's not that having no health bars has one layer. It is much more deeper system which revolves around so many aspects of pvp and the world itself. And you got me right there, yes, I am a hardcore Lineage2 player and yes, sometimes my answers and posts will be purely emotional and not rational at all because I have such a connection to the game, but when talking about flagging system , pvp, pk, anything player versus players..oh man.. this would and will work and will reach it's potential only without health bars.

Diamaht

ArnasPanika wrote: »

Diamaht wrote: »

People playing a video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening in that game as they perform actions. Otherwise it has a constant "what am I really doing here" vibe.

Not giving players feedback in a pvp setting for some silly "hardcore" notion is rediculous.

"Just push buttons until they fall down" is not an enjoyable interactive experience.

The singular greifing example you guys always use, is just a fall back excuse you guys use in order to get to play Lineage 3. There are surely other ways to prevent that one exploit without cheepening the experience of the enitre game.

Hardcore stubborness is a big factor in a lot of older mmos dying off.

So firstly if you refer to Lineage 2 and somehow still think that people for 20 years play with a "what am I really doing here vibe" + saying that you know that "people playing video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening" when you simply say what YOU want then by definition you are not right and I have to disappoint you my friend. Of course, you are right in a context, especially if you played PVE game like WoW while other people were playing PvP games like Lineage2, because I really wouldn't take the health bars of your enemies in WoW - the game would not work. But just the same as AoC, which by the way takes the exact pvp flagging system from Lineage 2, wouldn't work with health bars. No, sorry, it would "work", but it would be trash. And people who don't want health bars don't want it because they played L2 or because they are hardcore as you said. They don't want health bars because they already tried the same system for over than 20 years which works perfectly without health bars and they know what they are getting into because they not only know how it works, but they know why it works. If I would have played WoW for 20 years and someone would come to me saying that there won't be health bars then my balls would drop too just as yours, because you never got to try to play for years in a specific system. It's not "cheapening" experience of the entire game, it's enriching it. It's not that having no health bars has one layer. It is much more deeper system which revolves around so many aspects of pvp and the world itself. And you got me right there, yes, I am a hardcore Lineage2 player and yes, sometimes my answers and posts will be purely emotional and not rational at all because I have such a connection to the game, but when talking about flagging system , pvp, pk, anything player versus players..oh man.. this would and will work and will reach it's potential only without health bars.

Right, so you want Lineage 3. I get it.

The question is, do you understand the argument against this type of thing?

Can you not see how this affects things from a standpoint of gameplay experience?

Can you not see how things like this gatekeep the game from a wider audience?

ArnasPanika

Diamaht wrote: »

ArnasPanika wrote: »

Diamaht wrote: »

People playing a video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening in that game as they perform actions. Otherwise it has a constant "what am I really doing here" vibe.

Not giving players feedback in a pvp setting for some silly "hardcore" notion is rediculous.

"Just push buttons until they fall down" is not an enjoyable interactive experience.

The singular greifing example you guys always use, is just a fall back excuse you guys use in order to get to play Lineage 3. There are surely other ways to prevent that one exploit without cheepening the experience of the enitre game.

Hardcore stubborness is a big factor in a lot of older mmos dying off.

So firstly if you refer to Lineage 2 and somehow still think that people for 20 years play with a "what am I really doing here vibe" + saying that you know that "people playing video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening" when you simply say what YOU want then by definition you are not right and I have to disappoint you my friend. Of course, you are right in a context, especially if you played PVE game like WoW while other people were playing PvP games like Lineage2, because I really wouldn't take the health bars of your enemies in WoW - the game would not work. But just the same as AoC, which by the way takes the exact pvp flagging system from Lineage 2, wouldn't work with health bars. No, sorry, it would "work", but it would be trash. And people who don't want health bars don't want it because they played L2 or because they are hardcore as you said. They don't want health bars because they already tried the same system for over than 20 years which works perfectly without health bars and they know what they are getting into because they not only know how it works, but they know why it works. If I would have played WoW for 20 years and someone would come to me saying that there won't be health bars then my balls would drop too just as yours, because you never got to try to play for years in a specific system. It's not "cheapening" experience of the entire game, it's enriching it. It's not that having no health bars has one layer. It is much more deeper system which revolves around so many aspects of pvp and the world itself. And you got me right there, yes, I am a hardcore Lineage2 player and yes, sometimes my answers and posts will be purely emotional and not rational at all because I have such a connection to the game, but when talking about flagging system , pvp, pk, anything player versus players..oh man.. this would and will work and will reach it's potential only without health bars.

Right, so you want Lineage 3. I get it.

The question is, do you understand the argument against this type of thing?

Can you not see how this affects things from a standpoint of gameplay experience?

Can you not see how things like this gatekeep the game from a wider audience?

I don't want Lineage 3 - Lineage 2 is perfectly fine as it is, but yes if someone who enjoyed L2 makes a game with it's pvp system then I am all arms.

I do understand the argument against this perfectly, just the same as I understand other arguments like "why is the open world pvp? let's make it only consensual pvp game", "why 80% of content is open world? let's make it all a bunch of instanced mini games", "why do you lose exp and might even drop your items when you die? let's make it that you don't lose anything when you die and there are no consequences to dying". Yes, I understand all these arguments, because after I played L2 for 15 years I came to see what was WoW during all those years and got to check out the Classic WoW and it's player base mentality. When in L2 you need 8 months of 6h per day constant grind to get to max level and WoW's player base calls vanilla wow hardcore because you needed /played 3 days to get to max level. Believe me, I understand the arguments perfectly.

Yes, I can see that "this affects things from a standpoint of gameplay experience" and I want "this to affect things from a standpoint of gameplay experience".

I absolutely see how "a thing like this gate keeps the game from a wider audience" and I am so proud of how it would be as you say. Most of the things in life and therefore games that licks arses to bring a wider audience are simply pop trash. I don't want this game to become as big as WoW did, Steven doesn't want this game to become as big as WoW did. It's unrealistic to produce a quality product with a soul that would reach "wide audience". Anything that is "wide audience" oriented gives me icks. 90% of that wide touristic audience will leave the game after 5th death when they will realise that they just lost progress of 2 hours grind, 90% of that wide touristic audience will leave the game after they will be ganked for 3 h straight because a stronger team will come to their farming spot. As a developer you should never look what is for "wider audience" or you will make changes in the game after every complaint in the forum after the game launches and your game will lose it's identity and you won't even know what game is it. Steven most probably has enough money to live 10 comfortable lifes - he doesn't care about making money or at least it's not why he'd doing this MMO. He doesn't care about "wider audience" and neither should you.

Diamaht

ArnasPanika wrote: »

Diamaht wrote: »

ArnasPanika wrote: »

Diamaht wrote: »

People playing a video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening in that game as they perform actions. Otherwise it has a constant "what am I really doing here" vibe.

Not giving players feedback in a pvp setting for some silly "hardcore" notion is rediculous.

"Just push buttons until they fall down" is not an enjoyable interactive experience.

The singular greifing example you guys always use, is just a fall back excuse you guys use in order to get to play Lineage 3. There are surely other ways to prevent that one exploit without cheepening the experience of the enitre game.

Hardcore stubborness is a big factor in a lot of older mmos dying off.

So firstly if you refer to Lineage 2 and somehow still think that people for 20 years play with a "what am I really doing here vibe" + saying that you know that "people playing video game want a clear visual representation of what is happening" when you simply say what YOU want then by definition you are not right and I have to disappoint you my friend. Of course, you are right in a context, especially if you played PVE game like WoW while other people were playing PvP games like Lineage2, because I really wouldn't take the health bars of your enemies in WoW - the game would not work. But just the same as AoC, which by the way takes the exact pvp flagging system from Lineage 2, wouldn't work with health bars. No, sorry, it would "work", but it would be trash. And people who don't want health bars don't want it because they played L2 or because they are hardcore as you said. They don't want health bars because they already tried the same system for over than 20 years which works perfectly without health bars and they know what they are getting into because they not only know how it works, but they know why it works. If I would have played WoW for 20 years and someone would come to me saying that there won't be health bars then my balls would drop too just as yours, because you never got to try to play for years in a specific system. It's not "cheapening" experience of the entire game, it's enriching it. It's not that having no health bars has one layer. It is much more deeper system which revolves around so many aspects of pvp and the world itself. And you got me right there, yes, I am a hardcore Lineage2 player and yes, sometimes my answers and posts will be purely emotional and not rational at all because I have such a connection to the game, but when talking about flagging system , pvp, pk, anything player versus players..oh man.. this would and will work and will reach it's potential only without health bars.

Right, so you want Lineage 3. I get it.

The question is, do you understand the argument against this type of thing?

Can you not see how this affects things from a standpoint of gameplay experience?

Can you not see how things like this gatekeep the game from a wider audience?

I don't want Lineage 3 - Lineage 2 is perfectly fine as it is, but yes if someone who enjoyed L2 makes a game with it's pvp system then I am all arms.

I do understand the argument against this perfectly, just the same as I understand other arguments like "why is the open world pvp? let's make it only consensual pvp game", "why 80% of content is open world? let's make it all a bunch of instanced mini games", "why do you lose exp and might even drop your items when you die? let's make it that you don't lose anything when you die and there are no consequences to dying". Yes, I understand all these arguments, because after I played L2 for 15 years I came to see what was WoW during all those years and got to check out the Classic WoW and it's player base mentality. When in L2 you need 8 months of 6h per day constant grind to get to max level and WoW's player base calls vanilla wow hardcore because you needed /played 3 days to get to max level. Believe me, I understand the arguments perfectly.

Yes, I can see that "this affects things from a standpoint of gameplay experience" and I want "this to affect things from a standpoint of gameplay experience".

I absolutely see how "a thing like this gate keeps the game from a wider audience" and I am so proud of how it would be as you say. Most of the things in life and therefore games that licks arses to bring a wider audience are simply pop trash. I don't want this game to become as big as WoW did, Steven doesn't want this game to become as big as WoW did. It's unrealistic to produce a quality product with a soul that would reach "wide audience". Anything that is "wide audience" oriented gives me icks. 90% of that wide touristic audience will leave the game after 5th death when they will realise that they just lost progress of 2 hours grind, 90% of that wide touristic audience will leave the game after they will be ganked for 3 h straight because a stronger team will come to their farming spot. As a developer you should never look what is for "wider audience" or you will make changes in the game after every complaint in the forum after the game launches and your game will lose it's identity and you won't even know what game is it. Steven most probably has enough money to live 10 comfortable lifes - he doesn't care about making money or at least it's not why he'd doing this MMO. He doesn't care about "wider audience" and neither should you.

You are too slanted in your arguements. No one is talking about WoW, but if you can generalize other people's specific arguements into the mmo culture war using WoW as the straw man, then all the better.

I want to play an enjoyable video game, not hop into your culture war.

Dygz

Might not need Health Bars if it's an MMO PvP game.
If it's an MMO RPG - Health Bars are needed.

Diamaht

Dygz wrote: »

Might not need Health Bars if it's an MMO PvP game.
If it's an MMO RPG - Health Bars are needed.

Explain the difference. They serve the same important function is both use cases. It's literally the same thing.

Dygz

As GeorgeBlack and NiKr stated - in na MMO PvP game...
GeorgeBlack: If you choose to fight you fight and you either touch the dirt or he does.
NiKr: The decision making is simple - hit the target till it's dead.

An MMO RPG should be designed such that players have tools that allow them to analyze the battle and strategize and synergize tactics with their group mates. And should reflect enough of the real world that players are using some representation of their senses to evaluate the Health of their targets.

MMO PvP can have less focus on immersion and story. It can mostly be focused on combat and killing.
An MMO RPG is going to have a great deal of focus on world/story immersion and... should, ideally, also offer opportunities for battles to end before a target dies.

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