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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
distance display directly on the target itself
Dramalama
Member, Alpha Two
Distance: There's a lack of a distance display directly on the target itself. This would significantly simplify gameplay for classes with a variety of skills.
6
Comments
Good call @Dramalama !
Yeah, we wouldn't want players to have useful information or anything.
That would be the worst.
Visual examples of a thing that doesn't exist?
Presumably he means from other games.
As much as I hate to reference anything from Star Trek Online, this is how they did it:
All it takes it a tiny little box in the corner of the creature's bar.
Excuse the crudity of the pic, but it's just something I threw together quickly:
Yes, because they'd like to know an example of what you're requesting so they can review if it should be added or not.
Archeage - the game Ashes is most influenced by - has this.
Additionally, Intrepid are full of industry veterans, many of whom have worked on games with this feature. Some probably implemented it in other games themselves.
They should not need us to show them something as basic as a distance to target indicator. It isn't as if style matters or anything, it is just a numer on a nameplate to indicate distance.
If Intrepid as a company need us to show them what that could look like, the game is in serious trouble.
You *may* be right, but that still exposes other issues.
If Vaknars job is, in part, to look over the forums for things to bring to the developers, then surely the person in that position needs a solid general understanding of the product. You can't accurately inform an industry veteran on something if you have no idea about it yourself.
Going from a person that knows what they are saying to a person that doesn't know the topic, the to an expert on the topic is simply nit a good communication path.
That said, Vakner does know at least a little bit about MMORPG's. He shouldn't need examples of a distance to target display.
Honestly, I do not see an angle in which asking for examples of this makes Intrepid look anything other than at least partially incompetent. Whether it is the individual employees, the company structure or the communication paths they need to follow, something there is really wrong.
Edit to add; to be clear, my assumption is that it is the communication paths, not Vaknar. The above post comes across as me saying he is incompetent, I think he is just trying to navigate the work environment he is in, and that environment is not conductive to good communication of simple ideas and suggestions.
And those are just a few potential visuals for this kind of mechanic that I could come up with right now. And the forum has likes, so if, say, some poster gives one of the examples above and several people like it - that's an indicator that this particular implementation is favorable. Were we to have several examples - we'd have more choices where to put our likes on.
And I know that you dislike using likes on the forums, but they are a CM tool for pretty much this exact purpose. And I think that your view on likes is a fairly big reason why you don't see this kind of CM interaction as a competent one.
I see this as the same as them asking "what kind of combat do you prefer. Give examples". Tab games all have different combat. Action ones do too. Hybrids as well. Those kinds of questions led us to the unrooted split body combat we have rn. If there ARE differences in representation of target distance out there, and Intrepid decide to implement that features - any examples given in this thread could be the basis of said implementation.
And yes, ideally Intrepid wouldn't need our input on any of this shit, because they shoulda had a singular vision and just follow that. But Steven decided to at least attempt to listen to the community and integrate their feedback into the development.
And as for the topic itself. Obviously the indicator itself has to be optional and customizable. And at least one option has to be on the cursor, cause we also have the action mode and I'd want the distance to be right on my crosshair.
Most of those would be horrible. The line would be messy, on the cursor would be impractical, on visible nameplates would add a massive amount of UI clutter.
This is a simple UI element that is in many MMORPG's in more or less the same form. It is in the same form because that is what works. If you deviate from that form, a form that should be known to anyone working for a company making an MMORPG.
In terms of how it should be implemented, consider the fact that wasd are the default movement keys for basically every MMORPG. there is little variation to this because this is what works, and how it should be.
Same with a distance indicator. There really is only one way to implement it.
I wouldn't expect Intrepid to come to the forums asking people what the default key for moving forward should be - the way that works is settled. Same thing here - there is only one way, it's settled. An MMORPG either has this, or doesn't have it.
As to added functionality - no, there really isn't any to add to it, even an option to turn it on or off shouldnt be needed (the number in question should be so small that it is in no way distracting). Even if there was scope for added functionality, get the basic functionality in place first, then ask about added stuff.
I don't disagree - I'm just pointing out how miniscule this number is on a display.
This is a random screenshot from Archeage thst I googled. You can see how small the distance display is - how insignificant it is in terms of UI space it takes up, how much of a non-event it is in terms of features.