Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I have no idea where you are going with these analogies. I don't need to see numbers, but I do want to see progress. Luckily they are at least going with segments. I can live with that, it's a nice enough compromise to protect against exploits and still gives basic information to the players.
I don't want to play an MMO from 2004 with a fresh coat of paint, I did all of that in 2004. I want to play a group based MMO that makes you work for what you get, rewards your time, and plays well. One that looks and plays like it was made in 2024.
I'm generally not interested in all the information barriers you guys want between yourselves and anyone else signing up to play this game. You want information hidden so that months or years of study are required in order to compete with you, and you are terrified that someone one might know when you are vulnerable to attack and act on it.
The reality is, when this game launches all of us are likely to die a lot. I'm about to get wrecked, you are about to get wrecked and you're going to be just fine.
Health bar for sure, or at least a coloured outline (Degraded from green - orange to red for full HP and low HP)
If no health bar, then it's better to hide damages too... What's the point of knowing your damage without knowing the ratio of health you take away from your opponent... Maybe you feel that you are destroying him but the guy has a huge amount of HP.
uhm you can see your party / group health bars and exact hp
now I get what you mean with fear of getting ganked. trust me, none of us is asking for no info for that reason. that never crossed my mind. in fact, I was thinking from the point of view of the attacking player. I'm going to hit someone and I don't know if that person is stronger than me or not, I'm going to risk it anyways. with healthbars and info, you remove that unknown, and therefore that risk. so I can argue that those who want health bars fear dying when they attack someone xD. just reversing your logic here T_T
anyways, its pretty easy to know when someone is vulnerable to an attack, you just have to look at them for a few seconds. don't need health bars for that. i also expect people to know when I'm vulnerable without seeing my hp.
there might be pros and cons for hp being displayed or not, but most of us want it or not based on personal preferences. and sure, the game is made in 2024, but it emulates old school games from 2004 :P so elements (or lack thereof) from those games are to be expected.
You can quite easily see if they are fit or knocking at death's door.
Video games are not able to provide us with all the info available from Primate/Human senses to evaluate the health of other beings. Why is why they typically do that via visual meters and numbers.
not always. lance Armstrong looked pretty fit when he was competing with cancer and had less than 40% chance of surviving. i get your analogy though, but my point is that when you see a complete stranger, you don't have a lot of info about them. you don't know if they are a black belt or a white belt at something. you don't know if they have a concealed weapon. you don't know if you will be able to knock them out with a punch or not, etc.
not really but ok.
And if you attack them, you will know right away if you did anything to them. That's what health bars simulate, the knowledge you definitely have when you fight someone.
I mean a real world analogy is a bit off, but even under that context you have basic info right away.
anyways, you can kill someone irl with 1 blow..but that's not the point. point is you don't have lots of info about a stranger, that's why they are a stranger.
you can always have feedback in the game that your attacks did something to your enemy..you know like hit, miss, damage, resisted, etc.
You're reaching man. I know you guys want the L2 experience entirely back, but you guys are going to have to give some stuff up and adapt.
Yes I definetly want info about what I'm doing. What I also want is info about my oponent, that is what we are talking about here, and it doesn't frighten me that he will have that same info about me.
By actually playing the game you get to know and learn how much HP approximately you will hit a target that is in a range of level 40-48, wearing a Plated Leather set, farming in an x location. Just by seeing a player you will be able to tell his approximate level, his defense or attack possibilities and how many Hurricane spells he would withstand from you if he would be an attack dummy and wouldn't heal himself. All information is in front of you. By finding a player hunting in a specific zone and farming a specific mob you will know what level is he/she without you asking him/her, by seeing his/her equipment you will tell how resilient or not to your attack he/she would be, damn even by seeing what armor/weapon is he/she wearing you will tell his/her class and you will know what magical defense passive skills or physical mitigation that player has. And by being level 48 and hitting someone in your level range for 1200 you will know that fck, if I hit him for 1200 with my specific weapon and skills then he/she is most probably left with less than half of HP and has no magical defense passives or magic resistance increasing items (like jewelry) equipped and if I troll a bit and hit one more spell then that player MIGHT drop dead and I will be PK. Because you will know what average HP that player has even before hitting him/her. I really want to farm in this farming spot (it's the best spot for me right now), but if I shoo him/her by killing him/her and become corrupt then bounty hunters will see me on the world map and even if I've taken the spot I won't for a long time here, because bounty hunters will come and hunt me down. So I COULD get this spot easily, but I don't know/I'm not sure if it's worth it - risk vs reward.
Adapt? Well, you too then 🤭 We want only the pvp side from L2 (because it's being taken directly from L2). We are adapting that there won't be gate keepers (teleporters) and it won't be possible to make a good fast zerg. We are adapting that wars and castle sieges will be instanced which is like the biggest mistake, but we say ah whatever, fine. We are adapting to the fact that there won't be Dion music starting to play when we enter the village.
Ok but why showing the damage and not the health bar ? I could develop exactly the same argument in case devs would want to show the health bar and not the damage instead.
But they are choosing to show damage and not the health bars, that's the only difference. I mean... I hope 😳
Don't tell me we will get castles sieges being in an open world! ?😮
That's why I was wondering why this choice, which was my question.
They are chosing to show health bars.
This has been the plan for years.
They are segmented health bars rather than percentage health bars - but the plan has been to have them for actual years.
The closest thing to a comment supporting what you are saying was when Intrepid said you can not see EXACT health values unless you are in a group, raid, guild or alliance with the character in question. The segmented health bars do not show exact values - which is why that comment was made.
This has always been the plan.
They may have some small objectives that are contained within an instance, but the bulk of node wars, guild wars, node sieges and castle sieges is all set to be open world.
oh wow, then in this case I am absolutely uneducated on this matter and I can go and be sad alone about the learnt truth.. 😔
No need. Be excited, you're getting open world, organized pvp back. All you lost were teleporters and bars.
Add to that Naval combat. It's gonna be great!
Well..yeah, I guess... I was just hoping, that's it. I mean, maybe not even hoping but confused when I saw HP indications on enemies in the last stream. Not showing your enemies HP was sometimes even the core of the whole flagging system, but if they want it like that then..you know what @diamat , you are right, they are going for another big mmo and wider audience, doesn't matter anymore. At least @Noaani said that castle sieges and most of the thins considering battles will be open world so at least that much of good news. Thanks guys for the discussion.
But if this is true universally and having HP bars is always better in mmorpg in any system then why other games developers intentionally did the opposite? Were they bad game developers? Were there no reasons why was it done like that? Or does it actually work and work even perfectly and might be even better than having HP bars (in a VERY specific flagging and a very politically driven open world system) and everything comes down to player preference and all of these discussions are based purely on our own gaming experience? Why I'm asking is because yes, I am L2 andy and will always be but at the same time I know that WoW (it's an example) is a great game too eventho they are very different, but at the same time I know that wow is a noncompetitive casual game without flagging system and castle sieges and all of the systems that eventually will be part of AoC and its philosophie. And if AoC decided themselves that they want this old school pvp system exactly from L2, but implementing just a part of that then yes, I will be concerned for sure.
Well, I partly agree. IF someone was limping or running bend over or something, you would be able to see dmg. But in generel, yea harder... Was that not the point though?
There are very few MMORPG's that have not shown player health to other players.
As to a reason why - not all game developers make the correct decisions every time.
Also, WoW is fairly competitive - it's just that the bulk of that competition isn't PvP related.
The problem I am seeing in this thread is the idea that being able to see player health was a part of L2's flagging system.
It wasn't.
If you wish to believe that it was, then just work on the notion that Ashes flagging system is more from Archeage than L2, as you could see player health in that game (you could see actual number of HP an opponent had).
"The problem I am seeing in this thread is the idea that being able to see player health was a part of L2's flagging system.
It wasn't." No one said that it was, that's why L2 andies like me want them gone from the game 😅
"There are very few MMORPG's that have not shown player health to other players.
As to a reason why - not all game developers make the correct decisions every time."
Maybe it wasn't about making correct decisions or not. How many games in the past or now uses flagging system like L2? I know only AoC so maybe it was intentional in the first place, because L2 really stood out of the crowd with it's systems.
Anyway, how is wow competitive? p.s sorry for not making replies with quotes, I am incompetent for that 😐
Not many at all.
This is because the aims of an MMORPG are generally at odds with the notion of open world PvP.
There is a very fine line that developers need to tread in order to make a game with PvP in a persistent world actually work and be fun. This is why most MMORPG's wanting PvP opt for something other than open PvP.
The race for world first kills is some of the most competitive play computer gaming in general has to offer outside of sponsered compititions. That isn't to say every player in the game participated in that competition - but the competition itself is real.
You absolutely could play WoW in a non-competitive manner, but you could play any game in a non-competitive manner.
You could do like font color changes (this runs into issues with corruption), but you could do that with like 4-5 tally marks with color changes near the name.
- Full HP - White, 5 tally marks
- Healthy - Green, 4 tally marks
- Wounded - Yellow, 3 tally marks
- Hurt - Orange, 2 tally marks
- Severely Injured - Red 1 tally mark.
Of course anything to do with color needs to have color-blindness options. I just think the size of the HP bar could be scaled down heavily especially for large-scale combat.
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